标签： Oceania

In a confirmation that has sparked immediate diplomatic friction between Poland, Hungary and the United States, Poland’s fugitive former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who is facing multiple serious criminal charges in his home country, has confirmed he has left Hungary for the U.S. following Hungary’s recent change in government.

In an interview Sunday with Polish right-wing media outlet Republika, Ziobro openly acknowledged his new location, saying, “I am in the United States. I arrived yesterday, and this is my third time traveling around the country.” The confirmation came after multiple Polish media outlets first reported his presence in the U.S. over the weekend, with liberal broadcaster TVN24 even publishing a photograph of the former minister taken by a fellow traveler at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Ziobro, a towering figure in Poland’s conservative politics who led the ultra-conservative Sovereign Poland party and served as justice minister and attorney general from 2015 to 2023 as a key coalition partner to the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, has been a wanted man in Poland since the fall of the PiS government. He is best known as the architect of the controversial judicial reforms that triggered years of tense standoffs between Warsaw and the European Union over the rule of law.

Last year, Ziobro fled Poland for neighboring Hungary, where he was granted asylum by the right-wing government of Viktor Orban, a longstanding ideological ally. The charges he faces in Poland include abuse of power, leading an organized criminal enterprise, and diverting public funds earmarked for crime victims to purchase Israeli-made Pegasus spyware, which was allegedly used to illegally surveil political opponents. If convicted on all counts, he could face up to 25 years in prison. He has repeatedly denied all allegations, framing the prosecution as a political witch hunt targeting conservative opposition by Poland’s current centrist government.

Ziobro’s sudden exit from Hungary comes just weeks after Orban’s Fidesz party lost parliamentary elections, ending the former prime minister’s 12-year grip on power. Hungary’s new prime minister, Peter Magyar, who was formally sworn into office on Saturday, has made a clear break from Orban’s policy of shielding Ziobro. Shortly after his election victory in April, Magyar declared that “Hungary will no longer be a dumping ground for internationally wanted criminals,” explicitly naming Ziobro and his former deputy Marcin Romanowski — who is accused of embezzling nearly €40 million ($47 million) — as examples of figures who would no longer receive safe haven.

A key unanswered question remains: how was Ziobro able to travel to the U.S. when Polish authorities had already revoked all of his official travel documents, including his Polish passport and diplomatic passport. Polish local news outlet Onet has reported that Ziobro obtained a U.S. journalist visa tied to his new role at Republika. Shortly after the reports emerged, Republika confirmed it had hired the former minister to serve as its U.S.-based political commentator.

Poland’s current justice minister Waldemar Zurek has already made clear that Warsaw will not drop its pursuit of Ziobro. In a post on social media platform X, Zurek announced that Poland “will reach out to the USA and Hungary with questions regarding the legal basis that enabled Zbigniew Ziobro to… enter the United States despite lacking valid documents.” He added, “We will not cease our efforts to ensure that he and Mr. Marcin Romanowski are held accountable before the Polish justice system.” Speaking to Polsat broadcaster earlier, Zurek confirmed that once Ziobro’s location is officially verified, Poland will submit a formal extradition request to the U.S. government.

For his part, Ziobro has said he is prepared to fight any extradition attempt in U.S. courts. “I am ready to appear before any court, and an American independent court is certainly an independent court,” he told Republika. “If they want to initiate extradition proceedings, by all means,” he added, noting that extradition cases in U.S. courts are “a demanding procedure.”

Ahead of Tuesday’s highly anticipated federal budget, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has faced intense backlash and publicly defended his government’s decision to walk back a key pre-election pledge, confirming plans to revise rules around negative gearing and capital gains tax (CGT).

Albanese argued that the shift in policy is rooted in the growing, unaddressed crisis of intergenerational inequality that has only become more entrenched since Labor won the 2022 federal election. In an interview with ABC Radio National, the Prime Minister framed the policy reversal as a necessary response to ongoing housing affordability struggles that have shut a generation of young Australians out of home ownership.

“Last year was a year of delivery on our core election commitments, but that was never the limit of our ambition,” Albanese told reporters. He drew a parallel to the government’s unexpected fuel excise cut introduced in response to market volatility triggered by the Middle East conflict, noting that policy adjustments are sometimes required to match shifting national circumstances.

Since the last election, Albanese said, little progress has been made to fix the systemic barriers facing young aspiring homeowners. “Another year has passed, and too many young people are still missing out at property auctions, still renting and paying off someone else’s mortgage, and many are already close to giving up on ever owning their own home,” he said. The Prime Minister added that housing has been a top priority for his government since taking office in 2022, and the upcoming budget will deploy every available policy lever to expand access to home ownership. While the upcoming changes will roll back existing CGT concessions, Albanese emphasized the budget remains centered on delivering cost-of-living relief for working Australians, and the government will always be transparent about any shifts in policy position, motivated by what delivers the best long-term outcome for the nation.

In the lead-up to the budget, the government has already unveiled a suite of housing-focused measures, including additional funding to boost new housing supply and accelerate construction timelines for new developments. But opposition figures have slammed the policy shift as a broken promise and a cynical cash grab.

Liberal Senator Jane Hume criticized the turnaround, pointing out that just 12 months ago, Labor repeatedly ruled out any changes to negative gearing and CGT in this parliamentary term. Even 18 months ago, she noted, Treasurer Jim Chalmers publicly stated there was no evidence that changing these tax policies would have any positive impact on housing supply.

“Labor said life would be better under an Albanese government: you’d have more money in your pocket, electricity prices would fall, housing would become more affordable. All of that has been a lie,” Hume told the ABC. She argued that if Chalmers cannot demonstrate how the tax changes will actually increase housing supply, the move is nothing more than a government revenue grab at the expense of Australian taxpayers, driven by what she claimed was a collapsing federal budget position.

All eyes now turn to Tuesday, when Chalmers will officially hand down the 2024 federal budget and detail the full scope of the planned tax changes and housing measures.

Australia’s right-wing populist party One Nation has made an unprecedented breakthrough in national politics, securing its first ever lower house parliamentary seat in a landslide by-election upset that has immediately paved the way for an aggressive expansion into key Sydney battlegrounds ahead of the 2028 federal election.

On Saturday, One Nation candidate David Farley claimed victory in the rural New South Wales seat of Farrer, ending 77 consecutive years of unbroken control over the electorate by the conservative Liberal-National Coalition. The win marks a historic milestone for the party, which was founded by Pauline Hanson in 1997 and had never before won a seat in Australia’s lower house.

The expansion plan was revealed by Barnaby Joyce, the former Nationals leader who defected to One Nation last November. Speaking on Seven Network’s *Sunrise* program on Monday, Joyce doubled down on remarks he made on election night, confirming that the party is actively scouting potential candidates to contest Labor-held seats across Western Sydney, a densely populated urban region that has long been a progressive stronghold. When pressed, Joyce did not rule out targeting the seat of McMahon, currently held by federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen, which covers the major working-class suburbs of Blacktown, Penrith, Cumberland and Fairfield.

“We are very much focused on the western suburbs of Sydney. I was talking to people on the ground from the region just last night,” Joyce told reporters. “To be quite frank, I think we’re talking to potential candidates. People are very enthusiastic. They know we have huge potential as a movement, and they want to be part of that, not part of this empty, performative butterfly chasing exercise that passes for politics today.” Joyce declined to share specific details about the candidates under consideration, but noted they are mostly first- and second-generation Australian residents, reflecting the demographic makeup of the region.

The stunning by-election result has sparked finger-pointing across the political spectrum, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese blaming the Coalition’s own strategic missteps for One Nation’s victory. Albanese argued that the fractured conservative bloc had effectively legitimized One Nation over recent years, first by adopting watered-down versions of the party’s populist policy platform, then by directing candidate preferences to One Nation during the by-election.

“I think the Liberal Party and National Party made a big mistake legitimising One Nation … and then following that up by giving them preferences, they were saying effectively that it was OK to vote for One Nation rather than the traditional conservative party,” Albanese told ABC Radio National.

The Prime Minister also cited multiple internal rifts within the Coalition as key factors in the upset. The conservative alliance split twice in 2025: first in May, then again the following January, leaving deep divisions among long-time conservative voters. Albanese added that the unceremonious ousting of former Liberal leader Sussan Ley, who had held the Farrer seat for 25 years, also fueled voter anger. Ley was removed from the leadership without even being given the opportunity to deliver a single budget reply, and the leadership challenge was controversially held on the same day as the funeral of a former Liberal colleague, a move Albanese said left a “legacy of betrayal” among Farrer voters.

Beyond internal conservative chaos, Albanese acknowledged that deep-seated economic anxiety also drove the result. “Quite clearly, there’s a lot of people under financial pressure who feel like the system isn’t working for them,” he said. “And that’s a message for all political parties in the system.”