Federal politics live: Trump and Albanese speak at welcome reception in New York

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong has met with her Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly for the first high-level talks since Australia cut diplomatic ties.

Last month, Wong and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expelled Iran’s ambassador from Canberra and shut Australia’s embassy in Tehran after credible intelligence emerged linking the Iranian Revolutionary Guard with antisemitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne.

Wong told triple j’s Hack that today’s meeting was an opportunity for her to square up to her counterpart and explain why Australia took such drastic action.

“We hadn’t had any discussions directly at my level until now, and I thought we needed to do that,” she said.

“I explained to the foreign minister of Iran that a line was crossed, that what happened was unacceptable, and that the government acted to protect its sovereign interests.”

But Wong denied that the meeting was a thawing of relations and that diplomatic relations weren’t restarting anytime soon.

“There would be a lot of trust-building to be required before we would consider any change in position.”

You can listen to the full interview with Penny Wong at 5:30pm on triple j or anytime via the ABC Listen and triple j apps.

This isn’t the first time Donald Trump has voiced misinformation about climate change and renewable energy, but it was nevertheless an extraordinary rant that will no doubt invigorate a few climate deniers.

In a nutshell, Trump called climate change a hoax, said that renewable energy doesn’t really work and is a scam, and that coal is beautiful.

“I have a little standing order in the White House. Never use the word coal, only use the words clean, beautiful coal. Sounds much better, doesn’t it?”

I won’t bore you with a fact check of the laundry list of falsehoods spouted by the US president; we are well past the era of debating whether climate change is real. The impacts of a warming world are already being felt, and last week’s national climate risk assessment paints a grim picture of how it will continue to worsen.

But Trump’s attacks on clean energy seem to be playing straight into the hands of the fossil fuel industry and those wanting to slow the transition to net zero.

It comes at a critical time for global climate diplomacy as the UN General Assembly gears up for its climate day tomorrow, when leaders will present their latest targets for emissions reductions.

Some of the US Congress’s most pro-AUKUS members are hailing some new figures that they say highlight the pact’s early success.

While AUKUS’s standout feature is a plan to arm Australia with nuclear submarines, it also involves the sharing of sensitive military technologies between the US, the UK and Australia.

To facilitate that, a “licence-free” system was introduced a year ago to cut red tape around transferring those technologies between the three countries.

Since then, 900 export permits from Australia to the US and UK have been generated, according to the US Congressional Friends of Australia Caucus.

That’s facilitated more than $US85 million ($129 million) in exports from Australia to the US.

In a joint statement, Democrat Joe Courtney and Republican Michael McCaul — the co-chairs of the Friends of Australia Caucus — said:

“The historic decision by Congress in December 2023 to reform our nation’s defence export control laws to accelerate a transfer of technology among the three AUKUS nations is showing impressive results.

“…Moving forward, this momentum is going to continue to snowball to the benefit of all three nations.”

Their decision to release a celebratory statement shows the bipartisan push to protect AUKUS remains active, as the Pentagon reviews the pact and Anthony Albanese prepares to meet Donald Trump next month.

Members of both parties here, particularly those on national security and foreign affairs committees, have been issuing statements talking up the benefits of AUKUS since the review was revealed in June.

Nationals senator Matt Canavan says lining up a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been the “longest courtship in history”.

“It’s certainly been the most painful one,” he told Channel Nine.

“I mean, I don’t understand why it’s taken this long.”

As we’ve been posting about this morning, the leaders will meet for the first time on October 20 in Washington.

While other politicians have sought to put some blame on Ambassador Kevin Rudd for the lengthy lead-up time, Canavan says the former PM is not at fault.

“I don’t blame Kevin, though; clearly the prime minister has been avoiding this first date,” he said.

Health Minister Mark Butler is seeking to reassure the more than 200,000 pregnant Australians that paracetamol is safe for use after claims by US President Donald Trump. 

The Trump administration linked the drug to autism in children — a claim that has been broadly condemned as “baseless” and causing unnecessary fear.

Butler ordered Australia’s medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, to urgently assess the claims and if there was “any reason to review our advice”.

There wasn’t.

“The advice of our regulator is that Panadol, which is our equivalent of Tylenol or paracetamol, is safe for pregnant women to use, not to overuse, but to use,” he told Nine.

“Particularly in the case of fever, because we know untreated fever can be particularly dangerous for pregnant woman and for her fetus as well.

“The TGA reaffirmed the advice that’s been long-standing that Panadol is a safe drug to take for pregnant women, particularly in the case of fever.”

Butler says he doesn’t want pregnant women, or anyone who has been pregnant, to feel unsure about what to do or feel guilty for taking a safe treatment.

Health Minister Mark Butler says he’s not sure “what the fuss was” about whether Anthony Albanese would secure a face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump. 

The White House confirmed the prime minister will meet with the US president next month in Washington, DC.

Speaking with Nine, Butler said he was glad the meeting would take place away from the “hustle and bustle” of the United Nations General Assembly.

“I think it’s pretty clear what Australia’s interests are in terms of our relationship with our most significant ally. Obviously, there’s a lot on the agenda in the defence and security space, particularly the AUKUS review.

“But there’s a lot in relation to trade as well. We’ve secured the best tariff arrangements going with the US right now, which is, you know, if anything, going to be of some benefit to some of our industries, competing with other countries that are facing much higher tariffs than Australia.”

Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, says Australia made a “very serious mistake” in joining with France and others in recognising a Palestinian state this week.

“There are a number of countries that have decided to jump on this wagon. I just don’t know what they expect they’re going to get from this other than more turmoil,” he told ABC’s Radio National Breakfast. 

“We feel that the government of Australia has made a very serious mistake.

“We think they’ve gone along with some of the European nations without understanding the implications.”

Huckabee says it has led to US-Australia relations reaching a “point of stress,” but he was sure the two nations would “continue to work together on the things with which we agree”.

“I think it’s possible for nations to disagree on some things and agree on others and still maintain a relationship,” he says.

“That’s not to say that there is not very, very strong disappointment, and perhaps the word disgust would be a more appropriate term for how the US feels toward what we thought are our friends.”

The diplomat added he hoped the US could do a “better job” of convincing Australia in the future “their actions toward a Palestinian state have been very counterproductive”.

WhatsApp, Roblox, Reddit and Discord are among an expanded list of platforms which may be covered by the teen social media ban, the ABC can reveal.

The federal government had previously said Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter/X, and YouTube would be covered by the law, adding that unspecified “others” would likely join them in having to ban under-16s from holding accounts.

But a longer list is now starting to come into focus, with the eSafety commissioner writing to 16 companies so far, advising them the teen social media ban might apply to their platforms.

The list includes all the well-known candidates, but also some unexpected names.

They’ve all been asked to use eSafety’s “self-assessment” tool to determine if their service falls under the new laws.

If companies believe their platform should be exempt from the ban when it comes into effect in December, they have been told to make their case in writing and provide evidence as to why.

A stand-off between Australia and Türkiye over the right to host a global climate summit next year is no closer to a resolution.

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen met with his Turkish counterpart, Murat Kurum, on Monday to discuss the possibility of a deal.

But speaking with reporters this morning, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he wasn’t sure they’d depart New York with a resolution.

“We don’t know. That’s the truth. We’re working through,  but it requires consensus. It’s not something — I’m confident if there was a vote that we would have majority support,” he said.

The government went to the past two elections with the promise of hosting the event, known as the 31st Conference of the Parties, or COP 31, in partnership with the Pacific.

Bowen said the support for Australia to host the summit was “overwhelming”.

“Out of the 28 members of our group, at least 23 support our bid,” he told reporters.

“But the COP process does work on consensus. That’s why I’ve had good and positive conversations with Türkiye, and when there’s more to say, we’ll say more.”

A meeting between Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump was agreed to “some time ago”, the prime minister says.

“We had another chat about it on the phone, and we’ll have a meeting in Washington DC on October 20,” Albanese says.

It’ll be the prime minister’s third trip to the United States this year.

Albanese said Trump’s meeting agenda for this week was “understandably focused on peace in the Middle East”.

“There’s a meeting with the Middle East countries, Saudis etc, but also Indonesia and some of the … Muslim majority countries.

“That is obviously leading into the meeting that will be held later this week with Prime Minister Netanyahu.”

Albanese will attend a world leaders forum hosted by Trump later this morning.

So is he concerned about receiving a dressing down from Trump when they eventually meet next month?

“We have a good relationship. We’ve had respectful calls. Australia and the United States are great partners. I expect it to be very constructive,” Albanese says.

US President Donald Trump used a speech at the United Nations to describe climate change as a “con job” that would cause nations to fail.

Anthony Albanese declined to weigh in on Trump’s speech when asked, saying the US president was entitled to have his own views.

“My job is to represent Australia’s national interest. President Trump gave a speech. He’s entitled to give a speech and to put his views,” he says.

“I don’t think that they are any views that he hasn’t said before.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Energy Minister Chris Bowen held an event at the Macquarie Group’s US headquarters this morning, as the pair attempt to sell Australia’s natural resources to the world.

The government has repeatedly emphasised the role private investment will play in Australia’s progress towards net zero.

Albanese this morning announced he’ll host a Future Made in Australia summit in November.

“This is one of the things that came out of the economic roundtable that [Treasurer] Jim Chalmers hosted, just a month ago. Future Made in Australia agenda aims to maximise the opportunities as we move towards net zero,” he says.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will meet US President Donald Trump in Washington next month, the White House has told the ABC.

A White House official confirmed that the two leaders will meet on October 20.

This would involve a stand-alone trip by the prime minister to Washington, rather than a meeting on the sidelines of another international gathering in what is known as “summit season” — the months at the end of the year dominated on the global stage by a series of international summits.

Confirmation of the meeting comes after months of questions about the fact that there has not been a meeting between the two leaders since Trump’s return to the White House in January.

They were scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Canada in June.

But Trump cut short his time there in order to return to the US capital amid intensifying hostilities between Israel and Iran.

The prime minister’s office had been briefing journalists before  Albanese left Australia that they didn’t expect a meeting in New York during the current UN General Assembly, but they were confident a later meeting would take place.

Hello, and welcome to our federal politics live blog! I’m Courtney Gould and I’ll be guiding you through the morning.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is still in New York, where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly.

Overnight, we had confirmation Albanese will meet with US President Donald Trump. Just not this week, though. More on that shortly.

It’s Wednesday and I’m wearing pink, so what can go wrong? Let’s get blogging.