TRANSCRIPT
Opposition leader Peter Dutton has pledged to strengthen Australia's relationship with Israel if he wins the federal election.
The Opposition leader has told the Lowy Institute he would also cut all Australian funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, known as UNRWA, which is the largest aid provider to the Gaza Strip.
"If I become Prime Minister, one of my first orders of business will be to call Prime Minister Netanyahu to help rebuild the relationship that Labor has trashed. Israel will be able to count on our support in the United Nations. And again, UNRWA has employed terrorists from Hamas and the organisation will no longer receive a dollar of funding from a government that I lead."
Israel has long accused UNRWA of being a wing of the Palestinian group Hamas, claiming 1,200 of its staff are affiliated with militants.
After a lengthy investigation, UNRWA stood down nine of their 30,000 staff but were unable to corroborate evidence suggesting these employees were involved in the October 7 attacks on Israel.
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Australia's unemployment rate has held steady, despite a surprise fall in job numbers.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics says the rate has remained at 4.1 per cent in February, despite around 53,000 jobs being lost from the economy over the month and consensus predictions for a rise in employment of 30,000.
It says the rate has remained the same because the number of unemployed people fell by 11,000, with the participation rate falling 0.4 per cent to 66.8 per cent.
Employment Minister Murray Watt says the data is in line with their predictions.
"There's no doubt that today's figures show a slight softening in the labour market. So, over the last 10 months alone we've seen 320,000 new jobs created. We have seen that figure go backwards slightly in the figures revealed for February. The A-B-S has said today that most of the jobs lost or people no longer working are older people who've chosen to retire but this is consistent with the forecast we've released."
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Migration agents are highlighting a lack of regulation in Australia's early childcare sector, claiming high demand has led to new workers often being under-skilled.
Recent investigations by the A-B-C into the childcare sector revealed thousands of centres may fail national benchmarks and have never been assessed by regulators.
In December last year, Australia added 70 occupations, including childcare, to the 4-8-2 visa scheme, which allows migrants to gain temporary or permanent residence in Australia.
The A-B-C alleges as many as one third of international childcare applications may not be genuine.
Jamie Lingham, Chief Executive of Absolute Immigration, thinks this number may be an exaggeration... but says a divide between highly skilled and inexperienced workers plagues the industry.
"Whether it's one in three, I think that's a pretty big number, to say a third of the industry is gaming the system. I know though, there is a genuine skill shortage in this area and I think that with changes to the 482 [[visa]] program last year, it made it a lot easier and lowered the bar on a work experience requirement for all occupations."
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A new report coinciding with National Close the Gap Day has delivered a series of recommendations to implement Indigenous-led solutions across state and commonwealth governments.
It comes after data published by the Productivity Commission last week identified only five of the government's 19 Closing the Gap targets are on track to be met by 2031.
The latest report from the independent Close the Gap group, made up of 53 Indigenous and non-Indigenous health, N-G-Os, and human rights organisations, calls for structural change across First Nations health, education, youth justice and truth telling.
The Lowitja Institute, who helped prepare the report says government progress towards implementing priority reforms has been inconsistent, disjointed and slow.
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A United States jury has determined Greenpeace must pay more than $660 million in damages for defamation in connection with protests against a company's oil pipeline's construction in North Dakota.
The ruling follows a lawsuit brought by Dallas-based Energy Transfer, who had accused the environmental group of a range of offences including defamation and trespassing.
Greenpeace had led protests with Indigenous activists and environmentalists between April 2016 to February 2017 against a pipeline being built adjacent to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.
But despite the hefty damages, Greenpeace's senior legal adviser Deepa Padmanabha says the group's work is never going to stop.
"What we saw these last three weeks was Energy Transfer's blatant disregards for the voices of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. We should all be concerned about these attacks on our First Amendment in lawsuits like this that really threaten our rights to peaceful protest and free speech and Greenpeace will continue to fight to protect these fundamental rights."
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In football,
Defender Aziz Behich says the mentality of his Socceroos squad will be the number one factor in tonight's key World Cup qualifier against Indonesia in Sydney.
The top two teams in Australia's group get automatic spots in next year's World Cup.
Australia is in second place behind runaway leaders Japan, but just one point ahead of the other four teams in the group, with four games to go.
Australia could only manage a nil-all draw with Indonesia when the teams met in Jakarta last September.
Behich says his team has to be focused on themselves, rather than worrying about the Indonesians.
"We've just got to focus on ourselves. And we know what we are capable of- as a team and as a group. So, of course, we analyse the opponent. But it's moreso how we approach the game mentally."
