标签： Oceania

A high-profile internal conflict rocking Australia’s top workplace adjudication body, the Fair Work Commission (FWC), has drawn federal government attention, with Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth declining to close the door on official intervention as she reviews new complaints surrounding a 2021 homophobic slur incident.

The controversy dates back to 2021, when FWC Commissioner Jennifer Hunt was recorded using a homophobic slur during an official work function. Then-FWC President Ian Ross subsequently issued formal counselling to Hunt over the comment, after multiple members of staff present raised formal objections to the language. Hunt has since confirmed the incident took place in comments to *The Australian*, but has pushed back against claims the comment was intended to cause harm. She has further alleged that internal details of her counselling and the incident were intentionally leaked as part of a coordinated campaign to damage her professional reputation, tying the leak directly to a long-running personal dispute with FWC Vice-President Ingrid Asbury.

The conflict escalated when Asbury formally lodged a complaint with Minister Rishworth, calling for Hunt to be suspended or removed from her position as commissioner. The two parties reached a procedural settlement this week, following an independent inquiry led by retired Federal Court Judge Alan Robertson. In a joint public statement released this week, Hunt accepted Robertson’s findings, which dismissed all of her complaints against Asbury and current FWC President Adam Hatcher. As part of the settlement, Hunt agreed to withdraw her formal request for the full public release of the inquiry report and to remove a related public post calling for release that she had shared on her professional LinkedIn account.

Speaking to Sky News about the ongoing internal dispute, Rishworth acknowledged the FWC’s status as a critically important Australian institution, noting that public trust in the tribunal is non-negotiable. Rishworth referenced a previous independent inquiry she commissioned into earlier allegations related to the incident, which returned no formal actionable findings, requiring no further government action at that time. She confirmed that new allegations and formal complaints have now been brought forward, and that her office is currently seeking formal guidance from her department on how to proceed.

When pressed on whether she would consider removing any FWC leadership or commissioner from their post over the incident, Rishworth repeatedly stated she would not pre-empt outcomes before receiving official departmental advice, stopping short of ruling out any potential intervention. Asked directly whether any senior officials would face termination over the controversy, Rishworth declined to comment, saying only that “it’s very important that I get the right advice” and that the FWC must retain public respect across the country, while refusing to be drawn into specific details of the ongoing conflict.

As debate over the future of the trilateral AUKUS security pact intensifies, a senior Australian Greens lawmaker has publicly cast doubt on official narratives surrounding the perceived military threat from China, while pushing back against Canberra’s deepening alignment with Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy. The controversial submarine component of the agreement has come under fresh pressure this week, following the revelation that the United States will supply Australia with three second-hand Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines, a departure from earlier plans that included one newly built vessel alongside two used models.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge, a longstanding vocal critic of AUKUS, used a Sunday interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to call for a pragmatic, balanced approach to China that rejects what he frames as an unnecessary march toward a confrontational foreign policy aligned exclusively with U.S. interests. Acknowledging Beijing’s military expansion in the South China Sea, Shoebridge argued that aligning fully with Washington’s regional agenda represents one of the riskiest possible responses to the rise of China as a major regional power.

“Our region is actively pursuing a balanced approach to China, and Australia should follow that lead instead of walking down a warpath with Washington,” Shoebridge said. “We can maintain a complex, functional relationship with China without letting that entire relationship be dictated by Washington’s priorities.”

When pressed on widespread claims that China could pose a threat to the critical trade sea lanes that Australia relies on for economic survival, Shoebridge questioned the logical basis of that fear. While he acknowledged that any major military power can deploy its forces to advance its national interests, he pointed out that blocking Australian sea lanes would directly damage China’s own economy, which depends on steady inflows of critical raw materials from Australia. “Why would China shut down the shipping routes that deliver essential resources to its own factories and markets?” he asked.

Shoebridge did concede that a direct military conflict between the United States and China would put global trade, regional stability, and the entire world economy at severe risk, noting that sea lanes would be vulnerable in that scenario. But he argued that AUKUS, far from insulating Australia from that risk, makes Australia more likely to be drawn into a great power conflict that is not in the nation’s interest.

On Australia’s broader defense needs, Shoebridge agreed that the country must retain the ability to defend its territorial waters, airspace, and continental borders, as well as its surrounding maritime approaches. But he rejected the idea that Australia, with its mid-sized economy, should take on a global policing role for international sea lanes. When asked about the necessity of submarines for Australian defense, he described crewed submarines as just one possible option, arguing that Australia should instead pursue a mixed fleet of both manned and unmanned maritime defense platforms, including autonomous systems like the Ghost Shark underwater drone.

The high cost and inherent vulnerability of large crewed nuclear submarines remain open to debate even within mainstream defense circles, Shoebridge added, describing nuclear-powered submarines as “a disaster on pretty much every front.” “Why are we inviting ourselves into a U.S. war with China?” he asked, declining to outline a full alternative defense procurement plan, noting that detailed portfolio planning falls outside his role as a crossbench senator.

Shoebridge’s critique is part of a growing wave of dissent over AUKUS that has spread even into the ruling Australian Labor Party. This week, former Labor cabinet minister Peter Garrett called for a full public inquiry into the decade-long agreement, while serving Labor backbencher and former minister Ed Husic publicly joined calls for a full rethink of the pact.

Longstanding questions continue to hover over the agreement beyond the revised submarine delivery plan. Analysts and critics have raised repeated concerns about shipbuilding capacity constraints in both the U.S. and the U.K., as well as uncertainty over whether Washington will ultimately follow through on submarine deliveries amid shifting regional threat perceptions. Additional questions have been raised about Australia’s ability to maintain full sovereign control over the nuclear-powered vessels, particularly in the event that the U.S. chooses to go to war with China.

A cross-country tax policy debate has emerged following sharp comments from New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who labeled a potential domestic capital gains tax (CGT) a “wrecking ball tax” that his administration would never implement during a bilateral meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The remarks, delivered at an annual leadership gathering in Noosa on Saturday, have rippled into Australian domestic politics, prompting a swift response from senior Australian Labor officials.

During his comments, Luxon framed the CGT discussion as a decade-long contentious issue in New Zealand, noting that his country is currently navigating a post-shock economic recovery. Against that backdrop, he argued that introducing a new capital gains tax would inflict severe damage on New Zealand’s expanding economy. The New Zealand leader stopped short of weighing in on the Albanese government’s planned CGT reforms — which include cutting the existing CGT discount — acknowledging the deep structural differences between the two nations’ tax systems and broader economies.

On Sunday, Australian Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth pushed back on attempts to draw parallels between Luxon’s comments and Australia’s ongoing CGT reform debate, emphasizing that the two countries operate fundamentally distinct tax frameworks. “Capital gains tax has existed in our country, as we’ve been discussing, for a very long time. There’s been changes along the way, and we are looking at capital gains and changing that to rebalance it and make it fairer,” Rishworth told Sky News. She rejected framing Luxon’s remarks as a veiled critique of Australian policy, noting that the bilateral meeting between the two prime ministers was warm and reinforced the close, cooperative relationship between Australia and its nearest neighbor. “I don’t think you can compare apples with oranges when we’re talking about different tax systems and different countries,” she added.

The exchange has escalated domestic tensions around the Albanese government’s proposed CGT and negative gearing changes, which have already drawn fierce opposition from the center-right Coalition. Speaking after Rishworth’s comments, shadow treasurer Tim Wilson accused Luxon of implicitly criticizing Australian reform plans, arguing that the prime minister’s remarks amounted to an attack on Australia’s future prosperity that the Albanese government had failed to push back against. The Coalition has already pledged to block the reform package in the Australian Senate, where the minority Labor government needs crossbench support to pass legislation, and has promised to fully repeal the changes if it wins the 2028 federal election.

Australia’s political landscape has erupted in fresh criticism of One Nation after internal contradictions and public confusion gutted the right-wing populist party’s controversial new housing policy, which targets foreign-owned property across the country. Two key figures from both the ruling Labor Party and opposition Liberal-National Coalition have united in condemnation, calling the proposal unworkable and highlighting the deep disarray within One Nations’s policy drafting process.

Amanda Rishworth, Australia’s Employment Minister and senior Labor Party MP, laid out the governing party’s criticism in an interview with Sky News on Sunday. She argued that One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s flagship proposal — which would require foreign owners of Australian residential property to sell their holdings within a fixed period, or face government repossession — is fundamentally unworkable, and even One Nation’s own parliamentary representatives cannot answer basic questions about how the policy would operate.

The policy’s rollout last week was plagued by immediate confusion. Senior crossbencher Barnaby Joyce initially told reporters the mandate would extend to permanent residents of Australia holding property, only to reverse his position just hours later, clarifying that permanent residents would be exempt from the forced sale rule. Rishworth pointed to this back-and-forth as proof that One Nation lacks the discipline to craft viable policy, even on a high-priority issue like housing affordability.

“If One Nation wants to be taken seriously as a political force, they’ve got to put in the work to develop coherent, actionable policy,” Rishworth said. “They correctly identify that housing affordability is a major problem for Australian people, but their proposed solution is total chaos. They keep pulling half-baked ideas together on the fly that simply will never work. That’s the core issue with One Nation: I understand why voters disillusioned with the major parties are looking for alternatives, but they don’t actually have real, workable solutions to the problems they highlight.”

Rishworth acknowledged widespread voter discontent with the center-right Liberal Party that has driven disaffected supporters to One Nation, noting “pretty clear signs” of a shift, but declined to weigh in on the internal rivalry between the two parties. “On most key issues, the two are really just two sides of the same coin,” she added. She also called out One Nation for failing to release costing analysis for the housing policy and other signature proposals, saying the party has offered only excuses for the omission.

For the opposition, Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson also labeled One Nation’s proposal shocking during his own Sky News appearance. Wilson argued that forcing law-abiding property owners — many of whom pay taxes and contribute to local Australian economies — to sell their homes and leave the country is a disturbing overreach that exposes One Nation’s true governing priorities.

“It’s quite shocking that One Nation’s core agenda here is simply to evict people from their homes and expel them from the country,” Wilson said. “These are people acting in full compliance with Australian law, they’re local property owners contributing to our communities. This says something really distressing about what their objectives would be if they held government power. It’s a remarkably aggressive approach to people who are already here paying their taxes.”

Wilson, however, defended the Coalition’s own controversial migration policy that would bar permanent residents from accessing the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and other federal welfare programs, even though many permanent residents pay federal income and other taxes. He drew a clear distinction between the Coalition’s policy and One Nation’s proposal, noting that the Coalition’s welfare changes would be grandfathered for existing residents and would not include forced home sales or expulsion.

“Our focus is on ensuring that people who come to Australia commit to the country and contribute to it,” Wilson explained. “We don’t believe it’s in the best interest of anyone — existing Australians or new migrants — for people to actively seek out welfare immediately upon arrival. This is a very different approach from what One Nation is proposing.”

Confusion around One Nation’s policy persisted into the weekend, when One Nation Senator Sean Bell failed to clarify key outstanding details during a Sydney radio interview on 2GB. When pressed on whether the government would actually repossess properties if owners failed to sell within Hanson’s proposed two-year window, Bell evaded the question, only stating that it is “perfectly reasonable” to prioritize home ownership for Australian citizens. Interview host Mark Levy cut the conversation short after Bell failed to provide clear answers, saying the party needed to get its own story straight first.