Key events
Good morning, and happy Wednesday. Nick Visser here to take over the blog. Let’s jump in.
Trump hints at Albanese meeting ‘very soon’
Donald Trump has indicated he is set to meet prime minister Anthony Albanese in the coming weeks.
“Your leader is coming over to see me very soon,” the US president told an Australian reporter while speaking to journalists as he left the White House for a visit to the United Kingdom.
Trump did not mention when he would meet 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 Trump was considered a possibility.
Read our full report:
Nappy pants have been stripped from supermarket shelves after a serious pest was found inside a haul of imported products, Australian Associated Press reports.
Khapra beetle larvae were discovered inside Little One’s Ultra Dry Nappy Pants – Walker Size 5 (42pk) earlier in September, a federal agriculture department alert states.
The products were sold nationally by Woolworths and imported through a third company.
No other sizes or products from the same brand are believed to be impacted.
Anyone who bought the nappy pants has been told to seal the nappy pants in a bag to prevent the pest spreading and contact biosecurity authorities immediately.
Anyone who comes across the insects another way has been urged to raise the alarm.
A Woolworths spokesperson said as soon as they were made aware a customer raised the alarm the company removed the product from sale, quarantined it and launched an investigation with importer Ontex.
Adam Morton
Boosting energy efficiency and electrification in homes, businesses, and at major industrial sites could deliver a fifth of the emissions cut needed to reach a 75% emissions reduction target by 2035, according to a new analysis.
The report by the Energy Efficiency Council, using modelling by the Climateworks Centre, has been released as cabinet decides on its 2035 emissions reduction target, expected to be announced late this week.
It found measures including doubling the number of heat pumps installed in homes each year, upgrading thousands of inefficient industrial motors and pumps with more advanced technology, and replacing diesel-power equipment on farms and mines could cut annual pollution by 44m tonnes a year.
The council’s chief executive, Luke Menzel, said making these sorts of improvements were “some of the most cost-effective and fastest actions we can take to cut emissions and reduce the impact of climate change”.
No matter what number the government picks for our 2035 target, if Australia is serious about reaching net zero by 2050 we must up the pace of appliance upgrades, building retrofits and industrial electrification now and not wait until the 2040s.
The best time to get stuck in to this was probably 10 or 15 years ago, The second best time is now.
Net zero target a “distraction”, says new Liberal shadow minister
Luca Ittimani
Another member of the Liberals’ shadow ministry has defended the party’s internal debate over climate action and rejected net zero targets as a “distraction”.
Simon Kennedy, who Sussan Ley promoted to serve as a shadow assistant minister on Sunday, said Ley would welcome the party’s debate over whether to walk away from committing to reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
He told the ABC’s 7.30:
We’re having the debate the Labor Party should be having. … What [Ley] would welcome is Andrew [Hastie] and our party having a robust debate that Labor should be having on how do we actually reduce emissions and reduce energy [prices].”
A Liberal frontbencher, Andrew Hastie, this week said he would quit the shadow ministry if the party re-adopted the climate target, with colleague Jonno Duniam, suggesting more Liberals could follow suit.
Kennedy, the MP for Scott Morrison’s former seat of Cook, denied the debate was destabilising Ley’s leadership. He said he supported a net zero target but claimed it was “not a policy it’s a distraction” that Labor was using to divert attention from the fact emissions weren’t going down and energy prices were going up.
[Labor] are playing this politics about 2050 because they will do anything to avoid the disaster that’s hitting Australian industry.
The Liberals’ internal debate has come to a head in the same week the government released a landmark climate risk assessment, which Kennedy dismissed as “an alarmist report”.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer bringing you the top stories this morning and then my colleague Nick Visser will take the reins.
Donald Trump has indicated he is set to meet Anthony Albanese in the coming weeks. Responding to a question from an Australian ABC reporter at the White House as he left for the UK, Trump said Albanese was coming to see him “very soon”. More coming up.
As the opposition leader prepares to deliver a major speech on the economy, another member of Sussan Ley’s shadow ministry has defended the Coalition’s internal debate over climate action and rejected net zero targets as a “distraction”. More shortly.
