Australia news live update: Bandt open to backing Labor’s 2030 emissions target; Bob Carr calls for Assange’s release

Julian Assange’s wife says she is ‘extremely worried’

Julian Assange’s wife and human rights lawyer, Stella Moris, says she is “extremely worried” about what will happen to Assange next, while noting there has been a “shift” in sentiment towards the WikiLeaks founder.

Moris was on RN Breakfast earlier, and says she has also welcomed reports Australia are in discussion with the United States on Assange, and that she intends to appeal against Britain’s decision to approve his extradition to the US to face criminal charges:

I’m feeling definitely there’s a shift.

It feels like we’ve been running a marathon for a long time. And you know, that’s hard – mentally, physically. But now it feels like we have many people running alongside us, and we might see the finish line.

Stella Moris, Julian Assange’s wife, speaks during a press conference on 17 June in London. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

Updated at 19.24 EDT

Victoria reports 5,661 new Covid cases and no deaths

Victoria is reporting 5,661 new Covid cases and no deaths overnight:

NSW records five Covid deaths and 6,076 new cases

NSW has recorded 6,076 new Covid cases and five deaths:

Updated at 19.04 EDT

Adam Bandt criticises Labor’s ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ approach to climate

Greens Leader Adam Bandt is urging the government to allow a “conversation” on its climate targets, saying it has so far approached the issue with a “take it or leave it” attitude.

Bandt was on ABC News Breakfast this morning, and while he kept the door open to supporting Labor’s updated 2030 emissions reduction target of 43%, he said he wanted more discussion on the topic:

At the moment, the government’s approach is it’s my way or the highway, and the government’s been very clear that they’re not going to consider amendments there.

They’re adopting it on a take it or leave it approach, and I think that kind of hairy-chested approach from the government is what the people have just rejected, and they don’t want these kinds of ultimatums being put to parliament on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

Now, that is not a sensible approach to something as critical as climate.

Pressed on if the Greens would take a more aggressive approach and block the legislation, Bandt said he’ll wait to see the legislation:

Well, we’ll say we’ll see what’s in the legislation. We’ll sit down and have a look at the legislation.

All I can say at the moment is that we will approach this in a spirit of good faith. We know we need climate action, we’re prepared to have discussions with the government with the aim of reaching agreement.

But it takes two to tango and at the moment the government is simply saying they don’t want to talk.

Australian Greens leader Adam Bandt. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

Updated at 19.03 EDT

Andrew Leigh wants to lift gag on charities

The assistant minister for charities, Andrew Leigh, has declared that charities are free to speak out on a range of issues, and promised that gag clauses will either be removed or not enforced.

In an interview with the Canberra Times, Leigh said he wanted to put trust back into government, and to liberate them, adding that the previous Coalition government had wanted charities “seen and not heard”:

The Liberals wanted charities to be seen and not heard. To serve in soup kitchens, but not to talk about poverty. To plant trees, but not to talk about climate change. To help out legal clients, but not to talk about law reform.

That approach to charitable advocacy is in stark contrast with the Albanese government’s approach.

We will not enforce gag clauses in social services agreements where they exist, and we’ll get rid of gag clauses in future social service agreements. So we want charities’ voices to be heard.

In a change of pace, Leigh said he was very excited to be in the role, adding he did not think any charities minister had “ever wanted the portfolio as much as I do”.

He reiterated the Labor election promise of doubling Australian philanthropy by 2030, and that a key early strategy is to lift the “unnecessary” paperwork charities need to trawl through:

Charities shouldn’t be muzzled and charities shouldn’t be wasting their time filling out unnecessary forms.

We can also work more collaboratively with charities to try and figure out how to raise their productivity.

This is a massive sector. It’s over a tenth of employment. Nearly a tenth of GDP. There’s three million volunteers in Australia. So even a modest improvement in the productivity of charities has a huge benefit right across the sector.

The assistant minister for charities, Andrew Leigh. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated at 18.45 EDT

Tanya Plibersek says Labor didn’t cause energy crisis

Environment minister Tanya Plibersek has dismissed claims the energy crisis is Labor’s fault, saying it would be impossible for this situation to emerge in only four weeks.

Plibersek was on Sunrise this morning, and placed the blame for the crisis on “Barnaby and his mob” (in reference to former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce), and criticised the Coalition for failing to implement just one of its 22 seperate energy policies:

What nonsense. Anybody who believes this is a problem that emerged in the last four weeks is fooling themselves.

This is what happens when you have parties in power who, for a decade, spent more time fighting each other than solving the problem.

Tanya Plibersek. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Updated at 18.36 EDT

Police charge members of Blockade Australia

Five men and two women aged between 20 and 35 have been charged with various offences including affray, damaging property, and assaulting, intimidating and obstructing police this morning.

All seven people were refused bail and will appear in Penrith local court today.

It comes after police conducted a raid yesterday at a property in the Colo Valley, where a group of around 40 people from Blockade Australia were gathered.

According to the group’s defence lawyers, protesters initially noticed strangers on the property and demanded they identify themselves.

Police will allege in court that officers were surrounded by a group of people and the tyres of an unmarked police vehicle were damaged, rendering it undriveable.

Police say officers attached to Hawkesbury Police Area Command responded to the incident as well as neighbouring commands and specialist resources including PolAir, the Dog Unit, the Public Order and Riot Squad, Police Rescue, Raptor Squad and Operations Support Group.

You can read more on the raid at the story from Christopher Knaus linked below:

Updated at 18.34 EDT

Bob Carr says Australia should demand release of Assange

Former NSW premier and foreign affairs minister Bob Carr has called on the Labor government to intervene in the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Carr has written in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning, and says prime minister Anthony Albanese should persuade United States president Joe Biden to release Assange, in the same way former president Barack Obama pardoned Chelsea Manning, who released classified information to WikiLeaks while she was a US Army intelligence analyst.

Manning, the American who slipped the material to Assange, goes free while the Australian who published it faces extradition, trial in Virginia and the rest of his life in cruel confinement in a high-security prison, likely on the plains of Oklahoma.

In the context of Australia’s role as an ally – the heft we deliver for the US empire – a decision to let Assange walk free rates about five minutes of President Biden’s Oval Office attention.

Yet as it sinks lower on the list of democracies published by Freedom House, the battered American republic can teach the world a thing or two about its First Amendment right to freedom of expression.

Its claim to be a nation of laws is stronger if Assange, this dissident publisher, has the threat of extradition lifted. If he were sentenced to die in jail, The New York Times and Washington Post would suffer a precedent against them anytime they might want to expose bad wars and the atrocities that follow in their wake.

A protester demonstrates against Julian Assange’s extradition to the US in central London on 18 June. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Updated at 18.12 EDT

Richard Marles says he wants to close submarine ‘capability gap’

So we begin our daily series of politicians in the media with defence minister Richard Marles, who tells the Daily Telegraph his government will prioritise the purchase of nuclear-powered submarines able to hit the water the fastest.

He said he wants to close the 20-year “capability gap” between when new submarines were first promised by the Coalition, and the expected delivery of a nuclear-powered fleet in the 2040s.

He also said he wanted more military collaboration with the United States, India and Japan:

We really need to be doing everything we can in terms of the timing of the next generation of submarines to close that gap as much as possible.

We’re looking at having that capability delivered as soon as possible.

The former government … was all about developing its bark and did nothing in respect of the nation’s bite.

We are pretty well the opposite of that … we’re all about making sure we develop that bite.

Broadly our defence force is about Australia being taken seriously in the world.

It’s right to be where we are now, much more focused on our region, but we need to be thinking about all of those elements in the way we conceive what the defence force is for.

Defence minister Richard Marles. Photograph: Danial Hakim/AP

Updated at 17.56 EDT

Good morning

Good morning, Mostafa Rachwani coming to you live from chilly Sydney, and I will be taking you through the day’s news.

We begin with the energy crisis, after the Energy Security Board released a high-level design paper that could allow coal and gas-fired power plants to be paid to stay in business, and allow states to pick technologies suited to their carbon-cutting ambitions.

It comes as energy continues to dominate discussions after a week of near misses and requests for people to reduce their energy consumption at night.

A report from the Australian Industry Energy Transitions Initiative has outlined how Australia’s industrial economy could slash their greenhouse gas emissions by more than 80% and become centres for multibillion-dollar investments in renewable energy. The report says the decarbonisation transition could be possible with a range of known technologies, and would bring a jobs bonanza.

It’s budget week in NSW, and we can expect more spending and more announcements today, with the government already declaring it will invest $38m to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles by building more charging sites.

There is still much going on, so let’s dive in.