NSW will use a scheme designed to subsidise the development of renewable energy generation to build new gas power plants as early as next year, a decision that puts the country’s largest state at odds with the Albanese government’s reluctance to underwrite new gas generation.

The commitment to use the state’s renewable scheme to roll out backup gas power, which is expected to be announced by NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe on Tuesday, comes as other senior figures in the Minns government implicitly criticise increasing federal spending, warning it is “saddling working families with higher interest rates they cannot pay”.

Matthew Knot: A split has emerged in the Greens over providing military aid to Ukraine, with senator Sarah Hanson-Young breaking ranks to support arming the Ukrainian army to defend itself against Russian aggression.

New party leader David Shoebridge held a frank and at times tense meeting with leaders from the Ukrainian-Australian community on Friday to clarify the Greens’ position after he shocked them by explicitly opposing military assistance to Ukraine in an interview with this masthead.

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said she supported providing military aid to Ukraine.GLENN CAMPBELL

Foreign Minister Penny Wong accused Shoebridge of “lining up with One Nation and President Putin” by opposing military aid to Ukraine in a fiery exchange in the Senate on Tuesday.

While Shoebridge insisted the party’s position has been “clear from day one”, parliamentary records show the Greens backed a Senate motion supporting military aid to Ukraine after Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in 2022.

Shoebridge has noted that the party’s positions can be amended at the will of its members, offering hope to Ukrainian supporters that the policy could be changed.

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Hanson-Young, who lost the leadership contest to Shoebridge earlier this month, said she supported giving Ukraine military aid if necessary to protect its sovereignty.

“If that’s the support that people need in order to defend themselves from the invasion of Russia, I think Australians need to support that,” she told the ABC’s 7.30.

“We always come from a position of wanting to de-escalate military violence ... we want to see humanitarian support, we want to see diplomatic support, but of course you can’t allow people to be left fending for themselves.”

Hanson-Young said she had raised the issue directly with Shoebridge.

“I’ve had a discussion with David about this, I think he would have put it differently if he was asked that question again,” she said.

Shoebridge told this masthead after winning the leadership: “The Greens have been clear from day one that we’re a party of peace and non-violence, and we don’t support military aid to the Ukraine.”

He said the party would support providing military aid to Ukraine if it were backed by a United Nations Security Council resolution, but critics have noted Russia would inevitably use its veto power to block any such move.

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He was contacted on Tuesday following Hanson-Young’s comments.

The position came as a surprise to many Greens members and supporters, as well as Ukrainian-Australian leaders, who were taken aback by the firm opposition to military aid.

Then Greens whip Janet Rice spoke in support of a March 2022 Senate motion noting that Australia “continues to provide humanitarian assistance to help meet the urgent needs of the Ukrainian people along with military assistance to support Ukraine in defending itself against Russia’s unjust actions”.

“We affirm our support for the right of the people of Ukraine to sovereignty and territorial integrity, and we support the measures that are outlined in this Senate motion,” Rice told the Senate.

The Greens did not say they opposed providing military support in their comments to a 2024 Senate report on Australian support for Ukraine.

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Coalition defence spokesman James Paterson said there was “nothing progressive about outsourcing our defence and foreign policy to Vladimir Putin”.

“David Shoebridge needs to stop ‘greensplaining’ to Ukrainians about what they need to defend themselves against Russia,” he said.

“He should listen to them, and his own colleague Sarah Hanson-Young, and back military aid which they have clearly and repeatedly said they desperately need.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has thanked Australia for providing over $1.6 billion in military assistance since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, including the transfer of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and ammunition.

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The Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations said, following their meeting with Shoebridge, that they had “a frank and constructive exchange about the Greens’ policy, its impact on the Ukrainian community, and how Australia can best support Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion”.

“We urge Senator Shoebridge and the Greens to reconsider their opposition to military aid and ensure Ukraine receives all the practical support it needs to survive and win its fight for freedom,” the federation said in a social media post.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Australia had no interest in buying diesel from Russia after US President Donald Trump agreed to buy more 800,000 tonnes of Russian diesel by November in a deal slammed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “gift to Putin”.

As Victorians start to lock in to the choice before them at next month’s state election, the political contest is being fought overwhelmingly on the Coalition’s preferred ground, with the economy, financial management and crime the dominant issues on voters’ minds.

The latest Resolve Political Monitor conducted for this masthead shows that Premier Ben Carroll’s personal popularity has taken a 9-point dive to minus 11, suggesting voters have weighed up Labor’s newest leader and aren’t convinced by what they see.

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson, by contrast, has established herself as one of Australia’s most popular political leaders, with her already strong personal likeability climbing 4 percentage points to 23.

Voting intentions are little changed since last month’s Resolve poll, with Labor stuck on primary support of 25 per cent, the Coalition unmoved on 28 and One Nation steady on 23 per cent.

While these numbers, if replicated on November 28, would almost certainly deliver a change of government, it is less clear whether the Coalition would be able to form a majority government without the help of One Nation or another minor party.

The only significant movers in this latest poll are the Victorian Greens, who for the first time in three years are showing signs of electoral growth with a 3-point boost to their primary support.

This has come at the expense of independents, who attracted support from only 4 per cent of the 1000 respondents surveyed. If replicated on election day, this could deliver stronger preference flows to Labor in some seats. Early polling in Victoria opens in just over six weeks.

Resolve founder Jim Reed said one of the key findings of the survey was that people were now paying closer attention.

“Fewer and fewer voters are telling us they are uncommitted each month, and the number of people undecided on their preferred leader is also dropping, which is evidence that they are starting to pay attention and lock in,” he said.

“Victorians were willing to give Carroll a fair go, but after a few months they are increasingly unconvinced. His net likeability and preferred premier metrics are both down. And Wilson is benefiting from that.”

The most encouraging news for the Coalition from this survey, other than the level of personal support for Wilson, is that its areas of perceived relative strength – economic and financial management, and crime and policing – are at the top of voters’ priority lists.

When asked what their highest priority issue was for deciding how to vote, 33 per cent of respondents nominated the state’s economy and finances, while 24 per cent said crime and policing. The second-highest priority – the traditional Labor strength of hospitals and health services – was nominated by 12 per cent of respondents.

When asked to nominate things that will most influence their vote from a list of more specific issues and policy announcements, 27 per cent chose government spending and debt, while 21 per cent went for youth crime.m

Greens voters nominated artificial intelligence and data centres as their biggest vote-shaping concern.
The survey was conducted between October 6 and October 10, in the aftermath of One Nation’s Victorian policy and campaign launch, which featured a grab bag of uncosted promises.

The boldest policy announcement of the week was Jess Wilson’s $1.27 billion promise to halve the elective surgery waiting list by booking 25,000 additional patients into private hospitals to have surgery on the public tab.

This masthead on Monday revealed the policy involved bringing forward $1.1 billion of borrowed money earmarked for future capital investment over the next decade to cover the cost of the urgent surgeries. Previously unpublished budget figures show the opposition’s accounting would create an $880 million shortfall in its election costings.

Carroll leapt on the revelation on Monday, telling 3AW, “The opposition leader says she knows everything and can do both treasury and leader. That has now seen a billion-dollar budget black hole in her costings on health.”
Wilson defended the credibility of her costings by saying she would not be “lectured by the Labor Party on economic mismanagement in this state”.

“Budgets don’t just look at one policy in isolation. They don’t just look at the spend of one policy in isolation. They look at policies – that’s both savings and expenditure – in aggregate over those four years, taking into account the net debt position, looking at the forecast, and of course, the operating position in the state,” Wilson said.

She repeated her goal of returning the state’s finances to cash surplus by 2032 if elected in November, and said it was only at this point – when the state is raising more in revenue than it spends on operating expenses and capital investments – that reducing net debt becomes possible.

Great now our Islamic “centres” are contributing to violence globally as well, not just here at home.

How do we reverse this problem in Australia? We’re a small population we can control things better than other countries. It’s still a small percentage of the country, it hasn’t become out of control as yet.

ASIO is going to have to soak up how much more taxpayer money to try and get on top of this thing? We probably have to double their personnel and budget.

Australia’s inflation among the worst and unemployment rising: IMF