标签： Oceania

Australia’s upcoming federal election landscape has been upended by freshly released polling data from research firm Roy Morgan, which positions right-wing populist party One Nation as the primary opposition to incumbent Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party, pushing the traditional center-right major opposition Coalition into third place. The data, published in mid-2024, paints a startling new picture of voter sentiment, breaking the long-standing two-party duopoly that has dominated Australian federal politics for decades. According to the poll, primary vote support for the ruling Australian Labor Party (ALP) currently stands at 27.5%, enough to deliver a parliamentary majority if an election were held today regardless of whether the ALP faced One Nation or the Coalition as its main competitor for power. One Nation, the nationalist party led by Pauline Hanson, recorded a primary support rating of 24% – a 1.5 percentage point drop from the previous survey, but still enough to place it well ahead of the Liberal Party, the largest member of the Coalition. The Liberal Party saw a 1.5 percentage point rise in support to reach 20%, while its traditional rural coalition partner, the Nationals, held steady at 3.5% aggregate support. Combined, the two Coalition parties sit at just 23.5% primary support, half a point behind One Nation. Beyond voter intention, the polling also tracks a notable dip in public confidence in the federal government, with the overall confidence index falling 1.5 points to 67.5 out of 100. A majority of Australian voters – 59.5%, up 1.5 points from the last poll – now believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, a reading that signals broad underlying voter dissatisfaction with the current political trajectory. The survey also highlighted stark divides in confidence across party bases. Unsurprisingly, ALP supporters recorded the highest confidence rating, at 137.5, far above the baseline 100 mark. Greens supporters came next with a confidence rating of 70, down 16.5 points from the previous survey, followed by Coalition supporters at 50 – up 7.5 points. One Nation supporters, who are among the most dissatisfied with the current government, recorded a confidence rating of just 6.5, a seven-point drop from the last poll. Based on the data, Roy Morgan’s analysis concludes that the next federal election will now be framed as a head-to-head contest between the ALP and One Nation, rather than the long-running ALP-Coalition battle that has defined Australian federal elections for over a century. The research firm acknowledged the fragmented nature of modern Australian politics, noting that multiple three-way and four-way contests will play out across different electorates, with battles also occurring between the ALP and the Coalition, One Nation and the Coalition, and all major parties facing challenges from the Greens, centrist Teal Independents, and smaller regional parties including Katter’s Australian Party (KAP). The shake-up in voter polling comes amid concurrent political controversy for One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, who this week banned three major Australian news outlets – The Guardian, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and The Age – from a public event scheduled for Monday, where the party is set to unveil eight candidates for the upcoming Victorian state election this November. The move has drawn criticism from media freedom advocates, who argue that excluding major independent outlets from public political events undermines transparency in the lead-up to state polling. This realignment in voter support marks a significant shift in Australian politics, reflecting growing voter dissatisfaction with the traditional major parties and the rising influence of right-wing populist messaging ahead of the next federal election, which is scheduled to be held by mid-2025.

Nearly three and a half years after a military coup ousted Myanmar’s democratically elected government, the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has held her first publicly confirmed meeting with an international official, according to the country’s presidency. On Monday morning, Arnaud de Baecque, the ICRC’s Resident Representative to Myanmar, held a face-to-face encounter with the 81-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the office confirmed.

The junta-led administration released multiple images alongside the announcement: one captures Suu Kyi shaking hands with a figure that matches de Baecque’s description, while two other images show Suu Kyi cutting a birthday cake inscribed with the message “Happy Birthday Aunty Suu.” While AFP could not independently certify the images’ authenticity, artificial intelligence analysis found no evidence of digital manipulation, and no prior versions of the photos had been circulated online before Monday’s announcement. The AFP has reached out to the International Committee of the Red Cross for further comment on the meeting.

The February 2021 military coup ended Suu Kyi’s five-year tenure as Myanmar’s state counsellor, after her National League for Democracy won a landslide re-election victory. The junta immediately detained Suu Kyi on a sprawling set of criminal charges that international human rights organizations universally dismiss as politically fabricated, designed to remove her from public life and dismantle her widely popular party. The post-coup uprising against military rule has devolved into an ongoing civil conflict that has killed more than 100,000 people, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).

Earlier this year, the junta oversaw a widely boycotted and restricted general election that consolidated its control over the civilian government. In April, former junta chief Min Aung Hlaing was sworn in as the country’s new civilian president, and shortly after the inauguration, he announced he would commute the remainder of Suu Kyi’s combined 27-year prison sentence and transfer her from prison to private house detention in the capital Naypyidaw. To date, junta authorities have refused to disclose the exact location of her detention or confirm how much of her sentence remains in effect.

For months, Suu Kyi’s family and the international community have called for independent verification that she remains alive. Her son, British national Kim Aris, has repeatedly pushed for independent access to confirm her welfare following the transfer to house arrest. This meeting marks the first time a third-party international representative has been allowed to see Suu Kyi publicly since the coup.

A senior veteran politician from Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, called the confirmation of her survival a small relief. “We are happy to see her photo like this if it’s really her meeting with the ICRC. We can know now that she’s alive,” the politician said, adding: “However, Aunty should be released immediately as she’s being detained unlawfully.”

Since the 2021 coup, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has suspended Myanmar’s junta leadership from participation in the bloc’s high-level summits, over the military’s failure to implement a peace and reconciliation roadmap agreed with the bloc. In recent months, however, neighboring Thailand has led a diplomatic push to readmit Myanmar back into ASEAN’s regional framework, both through bilateral engagement and bloc-level initiatives.

Min Aung Hlaing has already undertaken official visits to China, India, and ASEAN member Laos since taking office as president, and he is scheduled to make a high-profile official trip to Thailand later this week. Independent Myanmar analysts and regional policy researchers say the timing of the ICRC meeting, coming just days before the Thailand trip, is no coincidence.

“It’s the old military game plan to use Suu Kyi as a bargaining chip,” independent Myanmar analyst David Mathieson told AFP. He noted that multiple ASEAN member states have long demanded public proof of Suu Kyi’s status as a condition for normalizing diplomatic relations with the junta. “As a gesture to the international community, it’s the wildcard Min Aung Hlaing was holding close to his chest,” Mathieson added.

Morgan Michaels, a researcher focused on Myanmar at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the junta stands to gain significant diplomatic ground by allowing international access to Suu Kyi. “Releasing her in particular would go a long way to facilitating Myanmar’s re-invitation at the political level,” Michaels said. Even with this latest gesture, Suu Kyi’s continued detention remains a major sticking point for the international community: ASEAN has repeatedly called for its own special envoy to be granted access to meet Suu Kyi, a request the junta has rejected repeatedly to date.

A weeks-long standoff that threatened to derail the confirmation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general has been resolved, after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Sunday he had struck a deal with skeptical Senate lawmakers and formally signed an order terminating the widely contested $1.8 billion anti-weaponization compensation fund.

Blanche’s announcement comes on the heels of the Senate Judiciary Committee delaying a procedural vote to advance his nomination last week, a move that followed mounting opposition from two key Republican senators: John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. The pair had publicly pledged to block Blanche’s confirmation until the Trump administration fully walked back its plan for the fund, which was created to compensate individuals who claim they were targeted by politically motivated prosecutions.

In a public post on X shared Sunday, Blanche laid out the outcome of weeks of negotiations with committee leaders and rank-and-file senators. “My team and I have met with committee members and Senators over the past several weeks and addressed any concerns or outstanding questions,” Blanche wrote. “We have enjoyed good faith discussions, and as a result issue the following order and update with regard to the May IRS settlement.”

Attached to Blanche’s post was a signed executive order that formally invalidates the previous May 18, 2026 order that established the Anti-Weaponization Fund. “The Attorney General’s May 18, 2026 Order establishing the Anti-Weaponization Fund… is rescinded and shall have no force or effect,” the order reads. “This Order establishes, beyond any doubt, that there is no Fund.”

The controversial fund grew out of an extraordinary legal settlement between Trump and his own administration over the unauthorized disclosure of Trump’s personal tax records several years ago. As part of the original terms, the agreement granted sweeping protection from future tax audits and government legal claims to Trump, his immediate family, and his affiliated business entities. From the moment the fund was unveiled, critics across the political spectrum raised sharp objections, arguing it lacked a clear foundation in U.S. law, included almost no provisions for public oversight, and could be exploited to provide payouts and legal protection to Trump loyalists — even including defendants convicted of crimes connected to the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.

While Blanche had previously offered verbal assurances that the fund would not move forward, Cornyn and Tillis refused to accept informal commitments. The pair insisted on a binding written order that ruled out any future revival of the fund and included specific language to narrow the scope of the broad tax protections granted to Trump and his associates in the original settlement. As of Sunday evening, neither senator had issued a public response to Blanche’s announcement.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is now scheduled to hold its long-delayed vote on Blanche’s nomination on Tuesday. The impasse had grown so tense in recent days that Trump suggested Thursday he could temporarily pull Blanche’s nomination — the former personal lawyer to the president — and re-nominate him after Cornyn and Tillis leave their Senate seats at the end of January, when new members of Congress are sworn in.

A fierce public debate has erupted over the Albanese government’s newly unveiled revisions to Australia’s landmark media bargaining framework, with the ruling Labor party claiming the changes will force large global technology firms to pay far more for repurposing Australian news content — while leading domestic media executives warn the revisions will eviscerate the core purpose of the original scheme designed to make tech platforms compensate local journalism.

Unveiled on Monday, the revised package amends both the Media Bargaining Incentive and the News Journalism Payment Scheme, marking the second iteration of the policy following a draft proposal released this past April. The most eye-catching adjustment on paper is an increase to the financial penalty for tech and social media giants that refuse to strike voluntary compensation deals with Australian news outlets, raising the levy rate from 2.25% to 2.5%. But the reform narrows the revenue base the levy applies to: instead of being calculated against a company’s total Australian revenue, the penalty will only be charged on digital advertising revenue that can be specifically linked to Australia. Industry analysts broadly agree this base narrowing will result in lower overall penalty amounts for non-compliant firms, undermining the incentive to negotiate.

Michael Miller, executive chairman of News Corp Australia, one of the country’s largest media conglomerates, issued a scathing rebuke of the changes, arguing they “gut the incentive” for tech platforms to negotiate fair compensation agreements at a moment when existing rules need to be strengthened, not weakened. “On an already uneven playing field, getting this wrong won’t just hurt Australian media. It will erode the quality and independence of news every Australian relies on,” Miller said, adding that major tech firms must not be allowed to continue avoiding their regulatory obligations, and that Australia needs full revenue transparency backed by strict, uncompromising penalties for platforms that break local media laws.

Matt Stanton, chief executive of Nine Entertainment, another leading domestic media group, echoed the criticism, noting that foreign-owned tech giants already exercise outsized influence over how Australian audiences access news content from outlets like Nine. “Independent journalism plays a fundamental role in democracy, holding governments, institutions and businesses to account. In this rapidly changing world this is more important than ever,” Stanton said, adding that the last-minute substantive changes to the scheme demand far closer parliamentary scrutiny to ensure the policy retains its core goal: forcing platforms to negotiate fairly for the journalism they profit from.

Sally Eagle, chief executive of Are Media, added her voice to the concerns, stressing that the levy must deliver on its founding purpose of pushing major digital platforms to the negotiation table. She called on the Australian parliament, which is set to vote on the final legislation in the coming months, to ensure the final draft is transparent and free of loopholes that would allow platforms to dodge their responsibility to strike long-term sustainable deals with local media.

Tim Duggan, chair of the Digital Publishers Alliance, described the revised reforms as “a pretty mixed bag”, noting that the biggest problem is that the total potential penalty pool has been reduced too dramatically to drive compliance. “I struggle to see how it will incentivise the outcome desired by the government once the platforms start using accounting trickery to minimise their obligations,” Duggan said.

The revised framework comes after major Australian media outlets including the ABC, Australian Community Media, Network 10, and The Guardian previously praised the April draft as a critical step forward for protecting local journalism. In a joint statement earlier this year that included Miller and Stanton, the groups urged all Australian parliamentarians to back measures that safeguard Australian journalism and its vital democratic role for all citizens.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino defended the reforms, arguing that tech platforms will still end up paying “substantially more” if they refuse to negotiate commercial deals with local media firms. “Under the previous arrangements that we inherited under the News Media Bargaining Code, big tech platforms could walk away without any consequences,” Mulino said. “Now, they will end up paying substantially more than if they enter into commercial agreements. There is a substantial financial incentive on big tech platforms to enter into agreements.”

The opposition Liberal-National Coalition has also blasted the reforms, with communications spokesperson Sarah Henderson — a former journalist — arguing Labor has failed to deliver on the original News Media Bargaining Code first introduced by the former Coalition government, which was fiercely opposed by major tech firms including Meta, the parent company of Facebook that shut down its Facebook News tab in Australia in 2021. “Labor’s dithering and delay on a promised replacement scheme has left tech giants unaccountable for their use of Australian copyrighted news content, while newsrooms and regional newspapers face uncertainty about their future,” Henderson said, adding that “it’s clear Labor is more concerned about giving the tech giants a free kick than distributing monies fairly to Australian news organisations. Not only will Labor’s scheme mean less money for Australian journalism, the government is now doing even less to encourage commercial deals with big tech which is extremely disappointing.”

The Coalition did welcome minor adjustments to the scheme, including the elimination of a carve-out for professional networking platforms, which means services like LinkedIn will now be required to comply with the payment rules. But Shadow Assistant Treasurer Kevin Hogan warned the scheme will only work if digital platforms report their Australian revenue accurately. Additional changes introduced by Labor include raising the minimum number of deals a tech platform must strike with local media outlets to avoid penalties from four to six, grandfathering existing valid deals from previous bargaining rounds, and mandating a full independent review of the scheme after three years of implementation. Major tech companies that already pushed back against Labor’s initial draft proposal earlier this year are widely expected to oppose the revised measures as well.