Australia is being urged to take action against Israel after its war in Gaza was branded an act of genocide against Palestinians.

Leaders from 20 major aid agencies have decried an unprecedented humanitarian situation in Gaza, where Israel is throttling aid and supplies as the official death toll tallied by the local health ministry nears 65,000.

A United Nations inquiry has found that statements made by certain Israeli ministers established an intent to commit genocide.

It cited the targeting of civilians, blocking access to food and water and killings in “far larger numbers compared to previous conflicts”, after a two-year investigation.

Israel denies it’s committing genocide, causing starvation or deliberately targeting civilians.

International law expert Don Rothwell said Australia had an obligation to use all means available to prevent genocide in the strip. 

“So the answer for Australia as a party to the Genocide Convention is Yes,” he told AAP when asked if the nation had any responsibilities following the report’s release.

This includes ending the transfer of arms or other items, including fuel that Israel could use in military operations.

Save the Children Australia international programs director Francis Woods said the organisation needed to distribute nutritional supplements to staff to prevent their children from starving.

Hundreds of people have died from starvation and malnutrition.

Ms Woods, who has worked in the field for two decades across South Sudan, Kenya, Haiti, Yemen and Libya, said she had “never witnessed anything like what is happening in Gaza”.

The UN inquiry findings on Israel “validates what humanitarian workers have been documenting for months”.

“What is happening in Gaza goes far beyond the devastation of war,” she said.

“When your own humanitarian workers are themselves facing starvation while trying to help others, it tells you everything about the totality of this siege. 

“This isn’t collateral damage from conflict, this is a deliberately engineered humanitarian catastrophe.”

Ms Woods said while Australia had “rightly spoken out against these atrocities”, it needed to act in the wake of the report and use all diplomatic tools, including economic and legal measures.

Following the report, Foreign Minister Penny Wong again condemned Israel’s denial of aid and the killing of civilians seeking food and water.

In language similar to that used by Australian ministers ahead of the report, Senator Wong said “the Netanyahu government is more isolated than ever”.

“Australia and the international community have been clear, long before this report, that the situation in Gaza had gone beyond the world’s worst fears,” she said in a statement.

“Israel will be judged by the International Court of Justice on its compliance with the Genocide Convention.

“We reiterate our demand on the Netanyahu Government to reach a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, and to stop undermining a two-state solution.”

The foreign minister reiterated Australia’s unequivocal condemnation of the designated terror group Hamas and called for the release of the remaining hostages it took during its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, when 1200 people were killed.

Australia hasn’t sanctioned Israel, despite calls from humanitarian organisations, but has sanctioned extremist ministers and violent settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories.

It also voted on September 12 for the peaceful creation of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution at the UN – a motion which was passed 142 to 10 – with Israel and the United States opposed.

The International Court of Justice has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes, including using starvation as a weapon of war.

Israel has rejected the warrants.

Donald Trump has confirmed he will meet face-to-face with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the coming days, after the US president berated an Australian reporter.

“Your leader is coming over to see me very soon,” Mr Trump told ABC reporter John Lyons while speaking to journalists at the White House before leaving for the United Kingdom.

Mr Trump did not mention when or where he would meet Mr Albanese, and the federal government has yet to confirm the meeting.

The president’s comments came after he objected to questions from Mr Lyons about whether it was appropriate for a US president to be “engaged in so much business activity” while in office. 

Mr Trump said his children “are running the business”.

“In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now,” the president added.

“And they want to get along with me. 

“You know, your leader is coming over to see me very soon. 

“I’m going to tell him about you. 

“You set a very bad tone.”

Mr Lyons, the ABC’s Americas Editor and an award-winning journalist, defended his line of questioning.

“Our job as journalists is to ask questions that the average person would be interested in,” he told ABC television.

“And I think the average person in Australia would be interested in ‘how is a president becoming so wealthy in office’.

“We asked them politely, respectfully. They were not shouted. They were not abusive.”

A social media account linked to the White House said Mr Trump had smacked “down a rude foreign Fake News loser”.

Federal MPs from across the political divide defended the ABC, saying journalists had the right to ask difficult questions.

“Donald Trump got asked some of those tough questions and it’s something that we see every day in the Australian media,” minister Clare O’Neil told Seven’s Sunrise program on Wednesday.

“The journalists are there to try to keep politicians accountable and they’re entitled to ask difficult questions.”

Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie agreed, adding that it was “the scoop of the year for the ABC” because it was able to confirm that a meeting was forthcoming.

“There’s nothing wrong with journalists asking tough questions,” she said.

Asked if she could confirm the meeting, Ms O’Neil said “it’s certainly what’s been intended and we’ve got two incredibly busy people here”.

But Liberal senator and former ABC journalist Sarah Henderson said the national broadcaster needed to explain itself.

“At a time when trade, defence and national security are such crucial issues in our relationship with our closest ally, it would be helpful if the ABC could explain this line of questioning,” she said on X.

“Australians should expect the highest standards of our publicly funded national broadcaster.”

The prime minister is preparing to travel to New York in the coming days for the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, where a face-to-face with Mr Trump on the sidelines is a possibility.

Mr Trump praised Mr Albanese as a “good man” after the two leaders held their fourth one-on-one phone call earlier in September.

The prime minister described his call with Mr Trump as “really warm”.

A face-to-face meeting between the two leaders had been planned on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada in June but was cancelled after Mr Trump returned to the US early to deal with the Iran-Israel conflict.

The UN’s “high-level week” starts in New York on Monday.

President Donald Trump says a deal has been agreed between the United States and China to keep TikTok operating in the US, with three sources familiar with the matter saying the deal is similar to one discussed earlier this year.

The agreement requires TikTok’s US assets to be transferred to local owners from China’s ByteDance, potentially resolving a saga that has lingered for nearly a year.

A deal for the popular social media app, which counts 170 million US users, would represent a breakthrough in months-long talks between the two biggest economies as they seek to defuse a wide-ranging trade war that has unnerved global markets.

“We have a deal on TikTok … We have a group of very big companies that want to buy it,” Trump said at a White House briefing, without providing further details.

Li Chenggang, China’s international trade representative, told reporters the US and China have reached “basic framework consensus” to co-operatively resolve TikTok-related issues, reduce investment barriers and promote related economic and trade co-operation.

The announcement comes a day before a September 17 deadline to sell or shut down the short video app.

Later in the day the White House extended that deadline until December 16.

The White House declined to provide any further details on the agreement with China.

The United States entity will have a US-dominated board, the Wall Street Journal reported, with one member designated by the US government.

The basics of the new deal, also similar to April, include that ByteDance will keep the single largest ownership stake at 19.9 per cent, just under the law’s 20 per cent threshold, two of the sources said.

While the broad terms are expected to remain the same, the sources did say they do not know what the final deal would exactly look like given the potential for last-minute changes.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Tuesday the commercial terms of the deal had, in essence, been done since about March with just a few details left to be ironed out.

“This deal wouldn’t be done without proper safeguards for US national security,” Bessent said.

“It seems as though we were also able to meet the Chinese interest.”

CNBC reported on Tuesday that the deal is expected to be closed within the next 30 to 45 days, and that the agreement will include existing investors in TikTok’s China-based parent ByteDance and new investors.

A deal for TikTok, which had been in the works in the spring, was put on hold after China indicated it would not approve it following Trump’s announcements of tariffs on Chinese goods.

The United States has said that TikTok’s ownership by ByteDance makes it beholden to the Chinese government.

But the company has said US officials have misstated its ties to China, arguing its content recommendation engine and user data are stored in the US on cloud servers operated by Oracle while content moderation decisions that affect US users are also made in the country.

A framework agreement was reached by officials from both countries on Monday.

A final confirmation on the deal is expected on Friday in a call between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

with AP

More than $1 billion will be pumped into producing low-emission fuels in a bid by the federal government to help heavy industries across the nation curb their carbon pollution.

The spending promise comes as a former defence chief warns runaway climate change could cause a millions-strong influx of regional climate refugees into Australia  as areas become unliveable.

Labor is preparing to unveil its 2035 emissions-reduction target, a key milestone on the way to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, within days.

In the lead up to that announcement, the government has promised a $1.1 billion funding boost low-carbon fuel production such as renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel.

The exact design of the 10-year Cleaner Fuels Program is still being worked out, but it will likely involve grants to help companies make their processes more efficient.

Australia imports about 90 per cent of its liquid fuels.

The changes would help key industries reduce their carbon emissions, while also protecting the nation’s fuel supply, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said.

“Making cleaner fuels here, from Australian feedstocks, creates the path for emissions reduction in sectors that are hardest to clean up, like plane travel and construction machines,” he said.

As the 2035 target is set to be unveiled, former Australian Defence Force chief Chris Barrie called for urgent action to reduce climate pollution.

The retired admiral suggested escalating flooding and storms could render parts of Southeast Asia almost unliveable.

“There are two existential threats to human beings on the planet. One is nuclear war and one is climate change,” he told AAP.

Mr Barrie said as many as 80 million people from Bangladesh alone could seek shelter in Australia from increasingly severe natural disasters, suggesting young families with children would be the most likely to flee their home countries.

“It’s a guess… (but) shouldn’t we be thinking it’s a possibility?” he said.

After the release of the government’s landmark National Climate Risk Assessment, which forecasts catastrophic consequences for Australia if temperatures are allowed to continue rising, Mr Barrie said the nation was unprepared for the realities of a warming Earth.

The comments follow revelations government officials have been working on Australia’s next critical emissions-reduction target for well over a year, and have honed in on a single figure, not a percentage range as previously suspected.

Under questioning at a Senate inquiry, Treasury bureaucrats wouldn’t say what the government’s 2035 climate target will be, but did admit they had been asked to model a single figure because it was easier than analysing a range.

Early advice from the Climate Change Authority suggested cutting greenhouse gas emissions by between 65 and 75 per cent would be an achievable goal.

Australia is ready to sign a landmark defence pact with Papua New Guinea if its cabinet can raise a quorum, with ministers dispersed to their electorates to celebrate 50 years of independence.

The two nations promise to have each other’s backs under the Pukpuk Treaty, named after the pidgin word for crocodile.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in Port Moresby this week for the golden jubilee celebrations and hopes to finalise and sign the new pact on Wednesday.

He told reporters on Tuesday the PNG cabinet met on Monday night to give final approval but didn’t have a quorum because some ministers were back in their constituencies for independence celebrations.

But he expected his counterpart James Marape to sort it out quickly by ushering the process through his cabinet virtually.

In Canberra, the pact won support from Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.

“The new treaty being finalised by Papua New Guinea and Australia will bring a transformation of our mutual partnership – providing the basis of deeper ties for the next fifty years,” she said.

The treaty will lead to close integration of the two nations’ defence forces and trigger mutual support obligations if either country comes under attack.

Mr Albanese said the idea that PNG would be attacked and Australia would sit back and watch is “something that wouldn’t happen” given their history and close ties.

Mr Marape has said he had “a moral obligation to build my military to a level that I can have the capacity to defend Papua New Guinea, every child”.

The landmark agreement will enable PNG nationals to serve in Australia’s defence force with the same pay as other members and start a pathway to citizenship.

PNG Defence Minister Billy Joseph on Monday said the deal was a “mutual defence treaty” that would have the nations working together to defend each other’s territories.

It is likely the deal will be seen with a more cynical eye across the Pacific, with many nations not well disposed to the militarisation of the region.

Mr Albanese’s deal-making in the Pacific has been a central tenet of his government’s foreign policy, including a landmark climate pact with Tuvalu and a migrant-dumping agreement with Nauru.

He is also pursuing a security treaty with Fiji, one of just three Pacific nations to have a defence force, along with PNG and Tonga.

In recent years, Australia has struggled to carve out security pacts with two other Melanesian nations – the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu – which hold warmer ties with China.

The Greens have also raised concerns over the Pukpuk Treaty, including the degree of integration between the two forces.

“What, for example, would Australia’s role be if there is a return to conflict in Bougainville?” defence spokesman David Shoebridge asked.

“Does it mean they follow us into a US war, or is it about military bases?

“Absorbing PNG’s military into the Australian Defence Force is a very questionable way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of independence.”

As a gift to mark their golden jubilee, Australia will help PNG build a new ministerial wing at its parliament.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley will argue reliance on Australia’s welfare system has “swung too far toward dependency,” indicating the coalition will seek to scale back benefits.

The push for welfare savings is at the centre of Ms Ley’s first major economic speech, which she will deliver in Melbourne on Wednesday.

The opposition leader sidesteps the issue dividing her caucus, climate policy, in favour of an attack on Labor’s increased government spending.

At the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, Ms Ley will say the right balance will need to be restored between what citizens provide for themselves and what taxpayers provide through a safety net.

“Unfortunately, in the past few years, the pendulum has swung too far toward dependency,” she will say.

“It has become almost taboo in politics to suggest that not everyone is entitled to every government benefit.”

Ms Ley argues that Labor is locking the nation into “permanent” dependency on government, sending debt soaring to $1.2 trillion and leaving future generations to foot the bill.

In its first term, Labor produced two budget surpluses before a $42 billion deficit in March this year, just prior to the election.

Fuelled by increased spending, including in health and disability services, there is no return to surplus in the forward estimates.

In Melbourne, the opposition leader will warn if government spending remains at pandemic or emergency levels during normal periods, Australia will inevitably lose its AAA credit rating.

She will say government spending this year will reach 27 per cent of gross domestic product, the highest level outside of recession since 1986 and up from 24 per cent since Labor came to office.

“We are essentially running a peacetime economy on emergency fiscal settings,” she says.

“That is obviously not sustainable.”

The opposition leader will say Australia must have a fair social safety net and as a “compassionate nation” those who fall on hard times and the vulnerable will always be supported.

“But true compassion is sustainable compassion,” she will say.

“A welfare system that attempts to be all things to all people will eventually collapse under its own weight, and that outcome would hurt the most vulnerable most of all.

“If we want to keep the safety net strong, we have to ensure it is financially sustainable and targeted to genuine need.”

The speech comes as Ms Ley tackles a coalition divided over climate policy as members debate whether to back the government’s emissions reduction target, expected to be revealed on Thursday.

Opposition home affairs spokesman Andrew Hastie, who has confirmed his own leadership ambitions, has threatened to quit the coalition frontbench if it remains committed to net zero emissions by 2050.

The coalition is conducting a wide-ranging review into the coalition’s disastrous defeat at the federal election in May, including its energy policy.

The National party is also reviewing its position on net zero, with a number of senior MPs – led by Barnaby Joyce – declaring their opposition.

Cabinet and shadow cabinet ministers are bound by solidarity and must adhere to the party line or be forced to give up their positions.

Last week, Ms Ley sacked Jacinta Nampijinpa Price from the her shadow ministry for another breach of party rules: failing to support her leadership.

US President Donald Trump has indicated he is set to meet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

“Your leader is coming over to see me very soon,” Mr Trump told an Australian reporter while speaking to journalists as he left the White House for a visit to the United Kingdom.

Mr Trump did not mention when he would meet Mr Albanese.

The Australian prime minister is preparing to travel to New York in coming days for the United Nations General Assembly, where a meeting on the sidelines with Mr Trump was considered a possibility.

Mr Trump praised Mr Albanese as a “good man” after the two leaders held their fourth one-on-one phone call earlier in September.

The prime minister described his call with Mr Trump as “really warm”.

A face-to-face meeting between the two leaders had been planned on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada in June but was cancelled after Mr Trump returned to the US early to deal with the Iran-Israel conflict.

The UNGA “high-level week” starts in New York on September 22.

A heated dispute has broken out over Australia’s next key climate target after revelations the federal government might have been working on the figure for at least a year.

Treasury has been modelling the economic impacts of plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, which are widely expected to be unveiled this week.

The department has been working on the target since “early last year,” officials told a Senate inquiry on Tuesday, meaning work was under way well before the federal election in May.

Greens leader Larissa Waters said it was an “explosive revelation”.

The department’s admission made “a mockery of the process of actually looking at the climate science and determining the risks”, she told reporters in Canberra.

Treasury revealed it was asked to model a single figure for Australia’s climate target, not a range, as previously suspected.

“The modelling that we have done has a point estimate for 2035,” senior official Alex Heath told the hearing.

“That’s a function of the model that we have, and the difficulty of dealing with ranges.”

Dr Heath said she knew the figure the government had asked Treasury to model, but declined to share it, taking the question on notice.

It wasn’t immediately apparent when the department began modelling the exact 2035 target and officials also took further questions about the timing on notice, meaning they will respond in writing at a later date.

In March, AAP revealed Energy Minister Chris Bowen had received cabinet documents about what Australia’s climate target should be in February 2024. 

A cabinet brief was created in April that year, and presentations for the senior ministry were formulated in December and January 2025.

Government officials also told the inquiry they hadn’t briefed the prime minister on the findings of the landmark National Climate Risk Assessment, a sobering report which warned of dramatic consequences if runaway global warming weren’t stopped quickly.

Anthony Albanese’s staff and broader department were briefed on the document.

The report, released on Monday, lays out how climate change will affect Australian communities, ecosystems and the economy under three different scenarios of warming.

A sharp increase in deaths because of heatwaves was among the most concerning findings of the risk assessment.

The cost of disaster recovery payments could also rise by $40 billion a year as climate hazards compound.

Broad-based ecosystem changes can be expected as well, with about half the native plant species found in any location anticipated to be different at 3C of warming.

In addition, as many as 1.5 million people could be impacted by coastal extremes, such as flooding and cyclones, by 2050.

Australia is being counted on to use its influence as a close US ally to urge Washington to do more in the Indo-Pacific region and acknowledge it as the “cauldron of the future”.

Kurt Campbell, a former US deputy secretary of state, said he believed Anthony Albanese would make an appeal to Donald Trump to continue a “strong partnership” with Australia in the Pacific.

The prime minister is yet to lock in a first face-to-face meeting with the US president as he prepares to travel to New York in coming days for the UN General Assembly.

Mr Albanese will seek to reaffirm support for the AUKUS security partnership with the US and UK, under which Australia has been promised at least three Virginia-class submarines in the early 2030s.

Jitters remain over the nuclear-submarine deal as the Pentagon undertakes a review of AUKUS due to concerns over shortages of the US boats.

Addressing the National Press Club in Canberra on Tuesday, Dr Campbell said there was a view the “lion’s share” of the 21st century’s history would be written in the Indo-Pacific.

“The honest truth is that I’m counting on Australia to make exactly these arguments, that the United States has to do more, has to devote more of its time and attention, and recognise that this is the cauldron of the future,” he said.

“No country – I’ve witnessed it myself – punches so far above its weight in Washington than Australia.”

As Australia remains on track to sign a new defence treaty with Papua New Guinea amid regional concerns of Chinese expansion, Dr Campbell said he expected the competition to continue.

“I do not believe that China’s pattern of engagement or practices among the Pacific Islands in any way will halt or diminish,” he said.

“It is incumbent on the United States to work in closer partnership with Australia, with New Zealand, with Japan, with other countries in Europe who are committed to maintaining a Pacific that is at peace.”

He said the group of countries needed to address central issues that define daily life in the region such as climate change, societal resilience and illegal fishing.

The Asia Group chair also said Australia could play a critical role in helping “bridge some of the gaps” that emerged during the recent unravelling of the relationship between India and the US.

The Trump administration slapped punitive tariffs of 50 per cent on Indian goods, including a 25 per cent penalty for New Delhi’s refusal to stop buying Russian oil as the war in Ukraine drags on.

High in the mountains of Victoria’s vast Alps, the ongoing impact of Desmond Freeman’s alleged shooting of two police officers looms large.

For heartbroken and weary locals, it’s been three very long weeks since conspiracy theorist and experienced bushman Freeman allegedly launched a deadly ambush on police.

Freeman is accused of fatally shooting Neal Thompson and Vadim de Waart-Hottart at Porepunkah before fleeing into the bush.

The tragedy has left the idyllic region, 300 kilometres northeast of Melbourne, deserted by its typical tourists. 

Government grants to support businesses hit by the search for Freeman, 56, are worth a fraction of revenues lost to travel restrictions and tourist fears, operators say. 

A number of businesses on its main street remain closed despite Victoria Police easing severe travel restrictions.

Many locals were fatigued from media attention and declined to be interviewed, but said they were grateful for news of $5000 grants from the Victorian government for impacted businesses.

In nearby Bright, Cherry Walk Cafe owner Leanne Boyd was likewise happy for the support, but said the grant would only amount to just over a tenth of lost revenue.

“Up until August 26 we were really busy, very busy,” she told AAP.

“We were actually having probably the best winter we’ve had for maybe six years.”

Bright is usually a tourist hub and a last stop for many snow seekers en route to Mount Hotham and Falls Creek snow resorts.

“The other problem is it’s going to take another two weeks for people to actually come back so then we’re into five or six weeks with no real income,” Ms Boyd said.

“It starts to hurt a lot.”

Over the weekend, police conducted the largest tactical operation in Australia’s history. It included emergency services volunteers and specialist tactical members from all states and New Zealand, who combed rugged tracks, caves and mineshafts but were unable to find Freeman.

Mount Buffalo National Park remains closed to the public and there is still a $1 million reward for information leading to Freeman’s arrest. 

Police Minister Anthony Carbines spoke with Chief Commissioner Mike Bush on Monday and reaffirmed the force had licence to deploy any resource to bring a “significantly dangerous and armed offender to justice”.

“We’ve been very clear to the chief that anything he needs, he will have,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

The minister said the force was effectively managing the potential for fatigue among officers on the ground, but the task hadn’t been helped by the need for extra police at recent protests in Melbourne’s CBD.

“There’s no doubt this is hard work,” Mr Carbines said.

Opposition Leader Brad Battin said the search for Freeman must go on to give past and present officers “closure”.

“The community needs to know that the police are safe,” the former policeman said.

“An attack on Victoria Police is an attack on every single member of the community.”

The state Liberal leader backed the government’s $5000 grants but said the money would “barely touch the edges” for some businesses, including one that he said had lost more than $30,000.

Home searches by the Special Operations Command were causing tension among locals, a resident who asked not to be named told AAP.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Russell Barrett confirmed on Sunday hundreds of properties had been searched, “with and without warrant”. 

“We’re incredibly conscious of the impact the operation has on local community, and we talk to them about that all the time,” Mr Barrett told reporters.

“We’re trying to find that balance, and it’s a really difficult balance to find.” 

The search for Freeman continues.