标签： Oceania

Australia’s political landscape is facing growing turbulence as Pauline Hanson’s right-wing populist One Nation party surges in recent polling, and high-profile independent Senator David Pocock is refusing to rule out a cross-party shift as like-minded centrist and progressive independents explore forming a unified political bloc to counter the far-right party’s growth.

A former professional Super Rugby player for the ACT Brumbies, Pocock entered federal parliament as an independent senator for the Australian Capital Territory in 2022, quickly emerging as one of the upper house’s most vocal crossbench figures. In recent months, he has led high-profile advocacy for two key policy priorities: implementing a 25 percent tax on gas exports and pressuring the ruling Labor government to deliver long-delayed gambling regulation reform.

In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Pocock addressed growing speculation about independents organizing into a formal registered party to challenge the dominance of Australia’s major parties and respond to One Nation’s rising poll numbers. He framed the question of independent coordination as a critical priority for Australia’s current political climate, asking: “As an independent, how do you be part of changing our country for the better?”

“For me, at the moment, that is serving people in the ACT, engaging on each issue, bringing solutions, using whatever power I have in the Senate to actually work on behalf of the people that have sent me there,” Pocock said. “As to what that looks like in the future, who knows. I think we’re in a real time of flux politically, and there’s people actually looking for candidates who are going to come to Canberra and actually put them first, put them ahead of vested interests.”

When asked about ongoing discussions between independents about launching a new party, Pocock confirmed that informal talks are a constant occurrence in the current political environment, noting he is always open to conversations about the future direction of Australian governance. For now, he said he remains fully committed to his current Senate role, which he says offers ample opportunity to deliver for constituents and advance policy change.

Pressed repeatedly on whether he would consider leaving the Senate to run for a seat in the House of Representatives, Australia’s lower house of parliament, Pocock declined to close the door on a future shift. “I don’t know why you’d rule something out,” he said, adding: “But, certainly at the moment, I’m committed to doing what I’m doing, and my hope is that there’ll be really great candidates” running for office across the country as independents.

Pocock pushed back against the modern political focus on charismatic personalities and rhetorical flair, arguing that effective governance relies on consistent, grounded work that prioritizes public good. That, he said, is exactly what community-backed independent candidates have already proven they can deliver once in office.

Addressing One Nation’s unexpected surge, new polling released Saturday suggests the party could win as many as 59 federal parliamentary seats if an election were held tomorrow. Pocock argued that the party’s rise is a symptom of a larger failure among Australia’s established major parties, who he says have refused to tackle pressing national challenges in good faith.

He listed a range of long-term policy failures that have eroded public trust in major parties: no coherent long-term plan for immigration and population growth, no actionable strategy to address the ongoing national housing and homelessness crisis, and a constant focus on short-term three-year election cycles rather than planning for Australia’s needs over the next 10 to 20 years.

“No wonder we’re lurching from crisis to crisis,” Pocock said. “What I’ve seen is major parties who aren’t willing to engage in that, in that debate.”

Australia’s Albanese government’s proposed capital gains tax (CGT) reforms have landed a senior cabinet minister in the hot seat, as he faced intense public questioning over his personal financial arrangements while defending the policy. Speaking in a televised interview on Sky News on Sunday, Cabinet Secretary and Assistant Technology Minister Andrew Charlton pushed back against critics, arguing the changes to Australia’s capital gains tax framework will create a fairer system and boost long-term economic growth.

Under the current system, Australian taxpayers are eligible for a 50 percent discount on capital gains for assets held over 12 months. Labor’s reform proposal would adjust this discount to be pegged to inflation, extending the new rule across all asset classes including residential property, publicly traded shares and startup business ventures.

Charlton has rejected widespread claims that the new framework would push Australia’s burgeoning startup sector to relocate overseas in search of more competitive tax treatments. He argued that comparisons between Australia’s proposed new system and international capital gains tax regimes are misleading, noting that the new Australian model taxes only real gains adjusted for inflation, while many other nations tax nominal gains without adjusting for rising prices. “In many cases, our regime will be more generous to assets that have experienced high inflation over a long holding period, a benefit that does not exist in other countries’ systems,” he explained.

The minister framed the reforms as a targeted adjustment that discourages unproductive short-term housing speculation while creating more even taxation across all asset groups. “Some people will pay less under the new system, and others will pay more,” he said. “But overall, the entire system becomes fairer because every investor is taxed evenly on the actual gains they earn, rather than artificial gains driven by inflation. We are not incentivizing the short-term speculation that the old, overly generous CGT framework encouraged.”

Pressed on how the reforms would have impacted his own sale of a private startup he founded earlier in his career, Charlton acknowledged he has held a diverse portfolio of assets over his professional life. “I have built and sold my own business, and I have owned property like many Australians,” he said. “Some of the assets I have held would be treated more generously under the new CGT framework, and others less so. Even with that personal impact, I can say this is a fairer system overall – I would lose out on some sales, gain on others, but the system as a whole is much more equitable.”

The interview also turned to Charlton’s personal use of a discretionary trust, an arrangement that has drawn criticism from opponents who argue it is a common tax workaround. Charlton flatly denied that his trust was established for tax minimization purposes. He explained that setting up a trust alongside a new proprietary limited company is an extremely standard step for Australian entrepreneurs following their accountant’s advice. “The primary purpose of a trust in this context is asset protection, not tax reduction,” he said. “This is exactly what many small business owners across the country do when they launch a new venture, and that was my reason for setting it up.”

Charlton did acknowledge that trusts are sometimes used to reduce tax liabilities, saying “that is precisely why these reforms are needed” while adding that trusts hold a legitimate role in Australian business structure for asset protection purposes. He confirmed all details of his financial dealings are already disclosed on the official government register of ministerial interests.

The Albanese government has faced growing pressure from the business community over the potential impact of CGT reforms on the startup and small business sectors, and recently committed to ongoing consultation with industry stakeholders as part of the latest federal budget. It has also faced criticism over potential impacts of the reforms on trust structures, and the government has not ruled out introducing additional tax exemptions for certain trust arrangements. Responding to questions after Charlton’s interview, opposition housing shadow spokesperson Andrew Bragg disclosed he has never held a personal trust.

On a Saturday evening when U.S. President Donald Trump was inside the White House negotiating a diplomatic agreement with Iran, a shooting incident near the executive residence triggered a massive emergency response from law enforcement and security agencies, sending the complex into immediate lockdown.

Within minutes of reports of gunfire, heavily armed police and security forces converged on the site, establishing cordons to block public and media access to the downtown Washington area. National Guard troops deployed to the perimeter prevented an Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporter from entering the secured zone, as multiple federal agencies coordinated their response to the threat.

FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed via social media platform X that the bureau was on site assisting the U.S. Secret Service, which leads security operations for the White House. Fox News anchor Bret Baier, citing an anonymous senior administration official, shared key details of the incident: an unidentified gunman approached the White House’s west perimeter and fired three shots. Secret Service agents returned fire, striking the attacker, while an unrelated bystander was hit by gunfire during the exchange. Crucially, the official confirmed the gunman never managed to breach the White House’s layered security perimeter.

Witnesses on the ground described scenes of chaos and panic as the shooting unfolded. Canadian tourist Reid Adrian, who was visiting the area, told AFP that the group heard what they initially mistook for 20 to 25 fireworks, only to realize the sounds were gunshots, prompting a mass rush of evacuating civilians. Reporters working on the White House North Lawn at the time received urgent orders to run for shelter, and all gathered in the locked-down press briefing room.

ABC News correspondent Selina Wang was recording a social media update when the gunfire began. Her on-location recording captured the sound of shots as she dove for cover, and she later posted on X that the gunfire sounded like dozens of separate shots. As of initial reporting, a U.S. Secret Service spokesperson told AFP via text that the agency was still actively collecting details and confirming facts about the incident, with no immediate update on the conditions of the gunman and the injured bystander.

This latest shooting near President Trump marks the fourth alleged assassination attempt against the 79-year-old commander-in-chief in less than a year. The string of threats began in April 2024, when an armed individual tried to force his way through a security checkpoint at a Washington hotel where Trump was speaking at a media gala. That attacker never reached the former candidate or other event attendees.

In July 2024, a far more severe attack unfolded during a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A shooter opened fire on the crowd, killing one attendee and striking Trump in the ear with a bullet, leaving him with a minor wound. Just a few months after that rally attack, law enforcement arrested another armed man on a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump was playing a round of golf.

Following Saturday’s incident, House Republicans released a statement on X confirming that President Trump was unharmed. “Thank God President Trump is safe,” the statement read. “Endless gratitude to the Secret Service for their immediate, heroic response. Political violence has to stop.”

Fresh voter polling has painted a seismic shift in Australia’s political landscape, projecting a historic surge for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party and near-total collapse for the Liberal-National Coalition if a federal election were held today. A senior Liberal figure has publicly slammed his own party’s decades of ideological drift and economic policy missteps as the root cause of the projected catastrophe.

The joint survey, conducted by the Redbridge Group and Accent Research, outlines a worst-case scenario for Australia’s two traditional major parties. The poll forecasts that the Coalition would be completely wiped out of parliamentary representation across four key states: Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania. center-left Labor would hold onto a razor-thin 76-seat majority, while One Nation would capture up to 59 seats — a result that would upend nearly a century of two-party politics in Australia.

Responding to the survey’s findings, Liberal opposition housing spokesperson Senator Andrew Bragg did not mince words in his criticism of his own party. Speaking to Sky News’ Sunday Agenda program, Bragg argued that the Liberal Party has steadily abandoned its ideological distinctiveness on economic policy, growing indistinguishable from the Labor Party to the point of becoming what he called a “uni-party” with the incumbent government on core fiscal issues.

Bragg argued that the party’s failure to differentiate itself from Labor on tax policy, industrial relations, superannuation, and federal budget management over the past 10 years has left voters with no clear reason to support the Coalition, resulting in a widespread voter backlash that the new polling captures. “That’s my main takeaway, that we’ve had too much similarity with the Labor Party,” Bragg said. “We should have done more on tax, more on industrial relations, more on super, more on budget stuff … we’ve just been too similar to Labor over a long period, and we’re being punished. The chickens are coming home to roost.”

The senator warned that the Liberal Party faces political oblivion if it does not immediately course-correct and draw sharp contrasts with Labor on policy, pointing to emerging work on addressing bracket creep as a first step in the right direction. He added that Australian voters are hungry for substantive economic change, and that it is still not too late for the party to reset its agenda and win back disaffected voters.

Outlining his policy priorities, Bragg said he supports increasing the capital gains tax discount, rather than reducing it or rolling it back to the previous 50 per cent rate, arguing that adjustments to capital gains tax can be structured to incentivize greater private investment across the Australian economy. When pressed to identify which government programs he would cut to offset the cost of his proposed tax cuts, Bragg called out what he described as government “boondoggles” including the National Reconstruction Fund and the Housing Australia Future Fund as programs the Coalition could scale back or eliminate, noting that while the Coalition would continue to support the National Disability Insurance Scheme, other wasteful spending programs are fair game for cuts. “People are too afraid to say what they would cut,” he said, adding that the party needs to be clear about its policy trade-offs.

Reacting to the same polling data, Labor’s Assistant Technology Minister Andrew Charlton acknowledged that the rise of One Nation in voter surveys is impossible to ignore, framing the far-right party’s growing support as part of a global populist trend. However, Charlton argued that One Nation has excelled at exploiting voter grievances but failed to deliver substantive policy solutions that benefit working Australian families.

Charlton criticized One Nation’s voting record, noting that the party has repeatedly opposed policies that support ordinary workers, including the Same Job Same Pay legislation, wage increase measures, and cost of living relief. “Every opportunity they get … they vote against things that will benefit Australian families and workers,” Charlton said. “One Nation, every single time they face a choice between battlers and billionaires, they choose the billionaires.”

When asked if Labor risks losing significant seats to One Nation ahead of the next federal election, Charlton said the outcome remains uncertain, but that Labor’s best strategy is to continue delivering tangible policy solutions to address the daily economic challenges facing Australian households, pointing to the recent federal budget as evidence of that approach.

The polling shift comes as One Nation continues to build its electoral presence: earlier this month, the party seated only its second ever lower house federal MP, its first elected outright on a One Nation party ticket, and Pauline Hanson recently unveiled a new gas policy during a campaign visit to South Australia.

On a Saturday evening in downtown Washington D.C., a sudden report of gunshots near the White House triggered a massive emergency response from law enforcement and national security agencies, sending the complex into lockdown as sitting U.S. President Donald Trump conducted high-stakes negotiations with Iranian officials inside the compound.

Witnesses and on-site journalists described scenes of chaos immediately after the shots rang out. Reid Adrian, a Canadian tourist visiting the iconic area, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that his group heard what initially sounded like fireworks, but quickly realized the noise was live gunfire. “We heard probably 20 to 25 what sounded like fireworks, but they’re gunshots, and then everyone started running,” Adrian recounted.

Multiple journalists working on the White House North Lawn at the time of the incident confirmed the chaos via social media platform X. ABC News correspondent Selina Wang, who was filming a social media update when the gunfire began, captured the audio of the repeated shots while diving for cover. “It sounded like dozens of gunshots,” Wang wrote in a post following the incident.

Within minutes of the first reports, uniformed and plainclothes police officers and Secret Service agents swarmed the perimeter of the White House, establishing tight cordons to block public and media access to the area. National Guard troops deployed to the site intercepted an AFP reporter and barred entry to the locked-down downtown zone. Federal law enforcement leadership confirmed their agencies joined the response shortly after: FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X that the bureau was on-site providing support to the United States Secret Service, which holds primary responsibility for protecting the sitting president and securing White House grounds.

A spokesperson for the Secret Service told AFP in an initial text statement that the agency was still in the process of collecting details, verifying witness accounts, and securing the area, with no immediate update on potential suspects or casualties. The incident comes against a backdrop of heightened security for Trump, 79, who has already survived three separate reported assassination attempts. The most recent prior attempt took place on April 25, when an armed suspect breached a security checkpoint near a ballroom where Trump was attending a media gala.