In the Guardian’s reporting on firearm thefts today, we have another reminder of why the National Firearms Register is so important.

As Police Federation President Alex Caruana said:

If [a gun is] stolen in Queensland and used in a crime in WA it can take days to figure out where it came from, but if it was all in a national database, we would be able to see immediately that it was stolen and trafficked across.”

Australia Institute research has been highlighting the need for a National Firearms Register for years, noting that there are now more licenced firearms in Australia than before the Port Arthur massacre.

You can sign our petition calling for greater urgency in establishing the register here.

Sussan Ley was on the Nine Network today, where after her party conflated the Palestinian protests with what happened on the weekend, she called on the government to “lead”.

…This sickness has to be removed. We need to de-radicalise, de-escalate, work together as a society to tackle something that I’m seeing as a troubling trend, an escalation in political violence.

Q:Well, it’s exactly that, isn’t it, though, Sussan? It’s escalating, right? I mean, this is a man, this grub, who decries migration, then allegedly attacks a site sacred to First Australians. So the irony is clear. He also himself is from New Zealand, so he must think of himself as what, a good migrant or something? I mean, what is going on where these people think they’re more superior?

Ley:

What is going on? And I never delve into their agenda or even repeat their lines because they’re sick and they’re un-Australian. But what worries me is this escalation and this hatred and this intimidation, and we can’t have it.

So, I’ve called on the Prime Minister this week in the Parliament to step up, to lead. I know he’s made some sensible statements, but I think governments need to do more. I think we need to act as a society, as I said, to work harder to radicalise, to de-escalate, to tackle this. We can’t be bystanders.

Annnnnd the bells are ringing. The Wednesday session is about to get under way.

Let’s see how this senate fight goes over the aged care bill, shall we?

After the weekend marches, Sussan Ley’s team thought it was a good idea to celebrate national flag day:

Today Australians come together to mark Australian National Flag Day, honouring the symbol that unites our nation and reflects the spirit of our people.

There is plenty that can divide us. But one thing brings us together – our flag.

It belongs to all of us, and it speaks to the story we share as Australians.

Our flag has flown in times of triumph and in times of trial.

It was carried with pride by the diggers who gave their lives for our freedom and draped their coffins when we brought them home.

It is raised at schools and community gatherings across the country as a reminder of our shared values. And it is embraced by our newest citizens on the day they join our national story.

The Australian flag represents courage, sacrifice and service.

It stands as the emblem of our way of life, a nation built on community, on fairness, and on the belief that every person deserves to feel safe, valued, and at home here.

It carries the strength of generations who chose this country, worked hard, and came together around shared values of tolerance, opportunity, and reward for effort.

As we reflect on our past, we honour those who served beneath the flag, defending not only a nation but the ideals of democracy and freedom.

And as we look to the future, our flag endures as a commitment to unity and to the common good.

In every corner of our nation – from the smallest rural town to our largest cities, from classrooms to council chambers – the Australian flag is a source of pride and belonging.

It is a constant reminder that, whatever our differences, we are bound by a shared history, a shared future, and a shared identity.

On this Australian National Flag Day, let us honour our flag as the enduring emblem of our nation – a symbol of unity, courage, and hope for generations to come.

Happy Australian National Flag Day.

Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne has released this statement:

Labor’s aged care target is doomed without a major increase in investment, a former advisor to the Aged Care Royal Commission has warned, leaving potentially hundreds of thousands of older people without the basic care they need.

Wait times for a “medium priority” recipient of a home care package is 9-12 months from assessment, including at the highest “Level 4” category of care. The Government has set a target to get wait times down to 3 months by 1 July 2027.

But expert evidence given at a Greens-led Senate inquiry into aged care has said that there is “no possibility” of reaching that target based on current government policy. (Submission from Prof Kathy Eager, pg4 question 5)

On the same day that Labor plans to hit their home care target in 2027, Labor is due to shut down the Commonwealth Home Support Program (CHSP), which currently supports over 800,000 older people with their everyday needs.

Responses received yesterday from the Department of Health and Ageing to Greens’ questions at the inquiry suggested the government has not modelled the impact of the closure of the Commonwealth Home Support Program, which currently supports over 800,000 people. Rather than answer yes or no to a factual question on whether modelling existed, the Department refused to answer. [see Response to Questions on notice, Q7] Ending the Commonwealth Home Support Program would place enormous pressure on Support at Home and is a key reason why wait time targets will be out of reach.

The Greens have called on the government to not only bring forward the rollout of home care packages – as the Senate is urging – but to also dramatically increase funding for home care packages and extend the CHSP. This is the only way Labor has any chance of getting the waitlist under control and meeting their target.

The warning comes as Labor is widely expected to lose its first substantive vote in the Senate today, when the Greens, Coalition and crossbenchers join forces to compel Labor to bring forward the stalled rollout of home care packages through amendments to Labor’s aged care bill. (A procedural motion passed yesterday means the bill and amendments must be considered by the Senate today, before it will then move to the House.)

The assistant minister to the prime minister, Patrick Gorman, will deliver a special statement to the house this morning on hate symbols.

This follows the weekend marches, where neo-Nazis were given a platform to speak.

US President Donald Trump says he will send National Guard troops to fight crime in Chicago, which would mark an extraordinary effort to militarise the nation’s third-largest city and set up a legal battle with local officials who have vowed to fight such a move.

Trump’s comments come just hours after a federal judge blocked Trump’s administration from using the military to fight crime in California.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said he had learned that the Trump administration has “gathered ICE agents and military vehicles, and that there are more ICE agents that are on the way” and called his actions “dangerous and un-American”.

Since taking office, Trump has attempted to broaden the role of the military on US soil, which critics say is a dangerous expansion of executive authority that could spark tensions between the military and ordinary citizens.

“We’re going in. I didn’t say when, but we’re going in,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

Trump at one point said he would “love to have” Pritzker call and request troops, but “we’re going to do it anyway”.

“We have the right to do it,” Trump said, adding that the federal intervention would extend to Baltimore as well.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said over the weekend that Chicago police won’t collaborate with any National Guard troops or federal agents if Trump deploys them.

Pritzker on Tuesday said that the administration was staging Texas National Guard for deployment in Illinois, along with federal agents from ICE, Customs and Border Control, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.

Pritzker, a Democrat whose name has also been floated as a possible 2028 presidential candidate, said in the coming days, Chicago could expect to see similar scenes as those that have played out in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, where military personnel have already been deployed.

Trump has been threatening to expand his federal crackdown on Democratic-led US cities to Chicago, casting the use of presidential power as an urgent effort to tackle crime even as city officials cite declines in homicides, gun violence and burglaries.

Trump is almost certain to face legal challenges if he uses a provision known as Section 12406 to send National Guard troops from Republican-led states into Democratic strongholds.

Some Republican governors have sent hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington at Trump’s request. 

The president has depicted the capital as being in the grip of a crime wave, although official data shows crime is down in the city.

Chicago has long had high levels of gun violence but crime, including homicide, has declined in the last year.

How time flies!

Three years ago, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was riding his bamboo bike around the Presidential palace gardens in Jakarta with President Joko Widodo. What a lovely picture they made, and how symbolic of the shadow-play relationship between Australia and Indonesia.

Last May, after his impressive electoral win, Albanese was back, this time to shake hands with President Prabowo – all to remind everyone how important Indonesia is to Australia (even though he was actually on his way to Rome to shake hands with the Pope and get his rosary beads blessed).

If Indonesia really mattered, Albanese would be back on his bike right now, given that a stable and prosperous Indonesia is probably Australia’s number one security concern, followed pretty closely by stability in PNG. AUKUS is totally irrelevant in either regard.

In Jakarta, a heavy-duty para-military riot police vehicle ran down and killed a young ojek (a form of motorised becak or trishaw) driver, prompting the torching of buildings and incineration of official vehicles. The homes of the internationally respected Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati and other MPs were looted. The provincial administration building in Makassar was fire-bombed, killing at least three people. Elsewhere in Indonesia, at least twenty people have died.

We’d be beside ourselves if this were happening in New Zealand.

But in Indonesia’s case, none of this matters enough for a Ministerial statement, a MPI or even a few questions in the Parliament. No condolence motions, no expressions of concern. The Opposition is as inert as the government. For all our protestations about the importance of South East Asia, Indonesia just does not matter.

But the travel warning for Bali has been cranked up a notch, just in case the trouble spreads east. Given that President Prabowo has revoked the Parliamentarians’ over-generous housing allowance that initiated the riots, and that a sullen pause to the violent protests is in place, DFAT can now shut the stable door.

It’s a weird state of affairs when Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister can make a magical mystery tour to Washington to achieve not much while our massive neighbour starts tearing itself apart, totally unremarked by our Parliament.

With aged care and housing likely to be hot topics today, it’s worth remembering that an obvious response to these problems continues to languish in obscurity in Australia.

Homeshare programs match up older people who have spare room with appropriate people looking for housing. The matches are made by professional social workers and monitored over time to ensure things are running smoothly and safely.

It’s such an obvious idea – match up lonely people who have big, empty houses in prime locations with (usually) younger people needing an affordable place to live near work/study.

Why isn’t it everywhere? It’s very popular. The economics of it are obvious and politicians love to talk about it – here’s Labor’s Ged Carney on our webinar, Lib Ken Wyatt hosted us in Parliament.

Part of the problem is lack of ongoing funding and political support. Also, Homeshare is, as the name suggests, all about sharing. It isn’t about buying and selling a service.

That means it doesn’t fit in well with privatised care systems like the NDIS and Australia’s current aged care system.

There are plenty of ways this could be fixed if Australia’s leaders are serious about an obvious solution to aged care and housing issues.