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Tag: Scott Morrison

  • Australia’s treasurer will visit China this week in the latest sign that bilateral ties are mending

    Australia’s treasurer will visit China this week in the latest sign that bilateral ties are mending

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    MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Treasurer Jim Chalmers will this week become the first Australian government minister in that key economic role to visit China in seven years, in the latest sign that strained bilateral relations are mending.

    Chalmers flies to Beijing on Thursday for a two-day visit. The last Australian treasurer to visit China was Scott Morrison in 2017.

    Morrison rose to become prime minister a year later and bilateral relations further soured under his rule until his conservative government was replaced by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor Party after the 2022 general election.

    Chalmers said Wednesday that the main purpose of his visit was to co-chair the Australia-China Strategic Economic Dialogue on Thursday with Zheng Shanjie, chair of China’s National Development and Reform Commission.

    Discussions will focus on growing trade and investment with China and opportunities for Australian and Chinese businesses to cooperate, government documents say.

    “This is another really important step towards stabilizing our economic relationship with China,” Chalmers told reporters in Brisbane.

    “It will be part of the Albanese government‘s methodical and coordinated efforts to reestablish dialogue with China, Australia’s largest trading partner,” Chalmers added.

    The dialogue was last held in 2017.

    The bilateral relationship plumbed new depths in 2020 after the Morrison government called for an independent investigation into the origins of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    China imposed a series of official and unofficial bans in 2020 on Australian products, including coal, cotton, wine, barley, beef, lobsters and wood that cost Australian exporters up to 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year.

    Most of those trade obstacles have been removed since the conservative government was ousted after nine years in office.

    In November, Albanese became the first Australian prime minister to visit China in seven years. In June, Li Qiang became the first Chinese premier to visit Australia in seven years.

    But Australia remains wary of China as a trading partner despite improving relations and is keen forge closer economic ties to the world’s most populous nation, India.

    Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal met with his Australian counterpart Don Farrell in Australia on Wednesday to discuss progress on a new bilateral free trade deal that furthers a 2022 pact.

    “As a testimony of the importance that the Australia relationship is to India, we are looking at significantly upscaling our partnerships in trade, investment, tourism and technology and therefore one of the first announcements I’d like to make is that we shall shortly be setting up in Sydney an office covering all these four areas,” Goyal told reporters in Farrell’s hometown of Adelaide.

    Australia has had a free trade agreement with China since 2015.

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  • Prosecutor drops Australian Parliament House rape charge

    Prosecutor drops Australian Parliament House rape charge

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    CANBERRA, Australia — A prosecutor said Friday he had dropped a rape charge against a former government adviser because of the life-threatening trauma a trial would cause the woman allegedly assaulted in a Parliament House office.

    Former government staffer Brittany Higgins alleges a more senior colleague, Bruce Lehrmann, 27, raped her in a minister’s office after a might of heavy drinking in March 2019.

    The Associated Press does not usually identify alleged victims of sexual assault, but Higgins has chosen to identify herself in the media.

    Director of Public Prosecutions Shane Drumgold said he dropped the case based on medical evidence that a trial could cost Higgins’ life.

    “I’ve recently received compelling evidence from two independent medical experts that the ongoing trauma associated with this prosecution presents a significant and unacceptable risk to the life of the complainant,” Drumgold told reporters.

    Higgins was in a hospital receiving the care and support she needed, her friend Emma Webster said in a statement to Australian Broadcasting Corp. While the decision to drop the case was disappointing, Higgins’ heath came first, the statement said.

    Drumgold said there was a “reasonable prospect” that a trial would end in a conviction.

    “In light of the compelling independent medical opinion and balancing all factors, I’ve made the difficult decision that it is no longer in the public interest to pursue a prosecution at the risk of a complainant’s life,” he said.

    Lehrmann’s lawyers did not immediately comment.

    Lehrmann had pleaded not guilty to a charge of sexual intercourse without consent and his trial in the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court ended without a verdict in October.

    A judge discharged the jury while they were deliberating their verdict after a juror had been found to be researching academic publications on sexual assault, which amounted to juror misbehavior. The jury was supposed to reach its verdict solely on the evidence presented during the 12-day trial.

    Lehrmann was to be retried in February 2023. He faced a potential 12-year prison sentence if convicted.

    Complainants in sexual assault cases in the Australian Capital Territory are entitled to testify remotely via video rather than face their alleged assailants in court, but Higgins chose to attend court in person to testify.

    Lehrmann did not give evidence, but claimed through his lawyers that he had no sexual contact with Higgins.

    A book deal Higgins had signed was offered as a motivation for her to lie about being raped.

    After the mistrial in October, Higgins gave a press conference in which she attacked the justice system.

    “I chose to speak up. Speak up against rape, speak up against injustice, to speak up and share my experiences with others. I told the truth no matter how uncomfortable or unflattering to the court,” a tearful Higgins told reporters outside court.

    “Today’s outcome does not change that truth. But I did speak up, I never fully understood how asymmetrical (the) criminal justice system (is), but I do now,” she added.

    She recounted how she was questioned for days in the witness box and forced to surrender her telephones, messages, photos and data to Lehrmann’s lawyers. Lehrmann exercised his right not to give evidence.

    “My life has been publicly scrutinized, open for the world to see. His was not,” Higgins said.

    Drumgold on Friday praised her bravery.

    “During the investigation and trial, as a sexual assault complainant Ms. Higgins has faced a level of personal attack that I’ve not seen in over 20 years of doing this work,” Drumgold said.

    “She’s done so with bravery, grace and dignity and it is my hope that this will now stop and Ms. Higgins will be allowed to heal,” he added.

    Higgins has become a household name in Australia since she went to the media last year with her accusations that the former government had treated her rape allegation, when she was 24, as a political problem and failed to adequately support her.

    The case sparked nationwide protests as an example of a toxic work culture in Australian politics that is criticized as hostile toward women.

    She quit her government job in January 2021 and then made a statement to police about the then-two-year-old alleged rape.

    Then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison responded in February 2021 by apologizing to Higgins in Parliament for the “terrible things” that she had endured in the building.

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  • Australia to prevent repeat of former leader’s power grab

    Australia to prevent repeat of former leader’s power grab

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    CANBERRA, Australia — An inquiry into a former Australian prime minister secretly appointing himself to multiple ministries recommended Friday that all such appointments be made public in future to preserve trust in government.

    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would recommend his Cabinet accept all of the retired judge ’s recommendations at a meeting next week.

    Albanese ordered the inquiry in August after revelations that his predecessor Prime Minister Scott Morrison had taken the unprecedented steps of appointing himself to five ministerial roles between March 2020 and May 2021, usually without the knowledge of the existing minister.

    The extraordinary power grab came to light after Morrison’s conservative coalition was voted out of office in May after nine years in power.

    Albanese blamed a culture of secrecy within the former government for its leader’s extraordinary accumulation of personal power.

    “We’re shining sunlight on a shadow government that preferred to operate in darkness, a government that operated in a cult of secrecy and a culture of coverup which arrogantly dismissed scrutiny from the Parliament and the public as a mere inconvenience,” Albanese told reporters.

    Retired High Court Justice Virginia Bell in her inquiry recommended laws be created to require public notices of ministerial appointments be published as well as the divisions of ministerial responsibilities.

    Morrison cooperated with the inquiry through is lawyers but did not personally give evidence.

    Opposition leader Peter Dutton has previously said his and Morrison’s Liberal Party would support legislation that would prevent a repeat of such a secret accumulation of power.

    Morrison, who is now an opposition lawmaker, maintains that he gave himself the portfolios of health, finance, treasury, resources and home affairs as an emergency measure made necessary by the coronavirus pandemic.

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  • Australia drops recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

    Australia drops recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

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    CANBERRA, Australia — Australia has reversed a previous government’s recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the foreign minister said Tuesday.

    The center-left Labor Party government Cabinet agreed to again recognize Tel Aviv as the capital and reaffirmed that Jerusalem’s status must be resolved in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.

    Australia remained committed to a two-party solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, and “we will not support an approach that undermines this prospect,” Wong said.

    Former conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison formally recognized West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2018, although the Australian embassy remained in Tel Aviv.

    The change followed then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to shift the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. President Joe Biden has kept the embassy in Jerusalem as the U.S. steps back from its once-intense mediation between the Israelis and Palestinians, who have not held substantive peace talks in more than a decade.

    Wong described Morrison’s move as out of step internationally and a “cynical play” to win a byelection in a Sydney locale with a large Jewish population.

    Morrison’s Liberal Party ran Jewish candidate Dave Sharma who was defeated in the byelection but won the seat in the next general election.

    Morrison’s government was elected out of office in May after nine years in power.

    Nasser Mashni, vice president of the human rights group Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, thanked the government for “differentiating itself from the dangerous political posturing of the previous government.”

    “This reversal brings Australia back into the international consensus — Australia must not pre-empt the final status of Jerusalem,” Mashni said in a statement.

    “Israel asserts that the entire city is exclusively theirs, denying Palestinian connection to their ancient spiritual, cultural and economic capital,” Mashni added.

    Opposition foreign affairs spokesperson Simon Birmingham did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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    Follow AP’s coverage of the Asia-Pacific region at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

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