Articles and notes about Australia.
Four Quad ministers in Atlanta recorded grave concern about economic coercion, arbitrary export restrictions and non-market policies that generate overcapacity, and left the country those words describe unnamed. In the same city on the same weekend, the G20 ended without a common declaration and without an official photograph, because European officials refused to stand beside Sergei Lavrov.
The United States suspended consular services in Brazil citing “security concerns” without describing the risk, and Australia closed its embassy soon after. Brazil’s Federal Police executed two searches and found nothing that confirmed the plan; the content of the threat surfaced in reporting on the intelligence that issued it.
F-35 fighter jet parts sent from Australia to the United States for repair ended up in Hong Kong, with a radar-absorbent canopy inside the shipment. A 2023 audit had already flagged more than 1 million missing spare parts across the programme in five years.
The public inquiry into the $368 billion nuclear submarine agreement called AUKUS the worst, riskiest and most costly defense decision ever made by an Australian government, recommending its immediate termination and the suspension of plans for new bases, and said Australia risks being dragged into military conflict with China, estimating an additional $180 billion to deal with the nuclear waste.
Shell agreed to sell its 16.67% stake in Australia's North West Shelf project to subsidiaries of XRG, the international arm of Abu Dhabi's state oil company (ADNOC), for $1.45 billion, according to Reuters, in text published by MarketScreener. The deal is expected to close in 2027 and includes an additional milestone-linked contingent payment on top of the base consideration. It is XRG's first investment in Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG); the project has 14.3 million tonnes a year of liquefaction capacity.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) raised its key interest rate from 4.6% to 4.85%, its fifth hike this year, to try to regain control of surging inflation, which reached 4.3% in the year to September.
Heavily armed police officers have started patrolling Sydney's streets with assault rifles, part of heightened security measures following last year's deadly shooting at Bondi Beach. 15 people, including a 10-year-old girl, were killed in December when two gunmen opened fire on an event marking the Jewish festival of Hanukkah at the beach. The rifle patrols are an Australian first.
The foreign ministers of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) announced plans to provide more than $85 million in technical and financial support to improve access to trusted artificial intelligence across the Indo-Pacific, according to the joint statement from the Atlanta meeting. The text also records a US commitment of $10 million to develop facilities in India and in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries to recover critical minerals from waste, according to The Times of India. India’s external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, said the Quad must safeguard freedom of choice and secure supply chains and tackle non-market practices, without naming any country, and called for a “more contemporary” agenda for the group, with a practical approach.
Quad foreign ministers expressed “grave concerns” over economic coercion, including through arbitrary export restrictions and non-market policies and practices that result in overcapacity and disrupt global supply chains in critical industries, in the joint statement issued after Saturday’s meeting in Atlanta, according to Reuters. The text also emphasized the “absolute necessity to protect and preserve navigational rights and freedoms in the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait”.
The traditional family photo that opens the G20 foreign ministers' meeting was canceled in the United States after Australia, the UK and several countries refused to appear beside Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, The Guardian reported. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pulled the plug after European delegations, the UK and Australia made it known they would boycott or walk out of the ceremonial snapshot. European diplomats refused to stand for an official photo with Lavrov, leading the American hosts to cancel the planned picture, the BBC reported.
Australia’s Defense Ministry has approached Washington about cost and delivery timelines for the US Marine Corps’ Medium Range Intercept Capability, which uses the SkyHunter, a US-built version of the Iron Dome’s Tamir interceptor, according to the Jerusalem Post. A tender issued in mid-October wants a “proven” off-the-shelf system selected by the end of next year, followed by a live firing during Exercise Talisman Sabre by 2029.
Australian SAS officers knew that soldiers under their command were using “throwdowns” — planting weapons on dead Afghan civilians to portray them as combatants — and did nothing to stop the unlawful practice, according to a previously unpublished military report cited by The Guardian. The executive summary of a 2021 investigation into the “cultural context” of the special operations command by the inspector general of the Australian Defence Force, posted online this week, is scathing about the “breakdown of command” and the erosion of military discipline. An earlier Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force (IGADF) report, the Brereton Inquiry, made public in 2020, found credible information that Australian special forces personnel murdered 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners.
Australia returned two stone sculptures to China that had been abroad for more than 30 years, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. The statues, showing the heads of a military official and a civil servant, had been given to the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra by a private collector and date back to the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127). China's National Cultural Heritage Administration received the heads on Wednesday, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
Australian independent MP Helen Haines, 65, had both her legs amputated after what authorities say was a deliberate attack outside her electorate office in Wangaratta, north-east of Melbourne, on Monday, the BBC reported. Her condition has improved from critical to serious but stable. Nugent, arrested moments after he allegedly drove his Toyota LandCruiser into the MP, faces three charges — dangerous driving causing serious injury, intentionally causing serious injury, and causing harm to a Commonwealth public official.
Australian independent MP Helen Haines, 65, underwent surgery overnight, has lost a leg and remains in critical condition in a Melbourne hospital, according to Australian media outlets. Eyewitnesses said the man accused of the attack made a U-turn before ramming her twice near her electorate office. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said the alleged targeting appeared to be an “isolated incident” and that there were no known further threats associated with the attack.
Australian police are investigating a suspected car attack that left independent lawmaker Helen Haines in critical condition, DW reported. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp., according to NPR: “This wasn’t an accident. There was a deliberate act, it would appear. We don’t know what the motivation is.” Police said they found and seized a knife inside the Toyota.
Russia condemned the crime of the FlyDubai co-pilot, according to the Foreign Ministry, in a statement cited by TASS. Australian authorities launched a probe into the Omani co-pilot’s time in Australia after he was detained over an alleged attempt to seize an Israel-bound aircraft and crash it, according to AP, in a text republished by the San Bernardino Sun. The pilot is in custody in the United Arab Emirates after the alleged attempt to take control of the plane.
Australian authorities are investigating the links between the country and a Flydubai co-pilot who attempted to take control of a plane travelling to Israel, the BBC reported. The co-pilot is alleged to have attacked the captain with a crash axe during the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv before passengers managed to overpower him. Sources cited by ABC say he was issued a student visa in 2014 and studied in Australia between 2015 and 2017.
Australia’s ambassador to Brazil, Sophie Davies, said the Australian embassy would also close on Friday, citing the US alert, and advised Australians to avoid US diplomatic facilities. The US embassy said in a statement on Thursday that it would suspend consular services starting on Friday and advised American citizens seeking assistance not to visit its embassy, consulates or other diplomatic facilities. Police said the operation followed cooperation with foreign intelligence agencies and that investigators had found no evidence corroborating the initially reported threat, nor identified any suspects linked to criminal organizations.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese denied on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, that his government’s digital duty of care law amounts to state control, saying its purpose is to give people “back control over what they received on their devices,” after the US administration warned the proposal risked becoming “viewpoint-based censorship” and asked for American platforms to be exempt, according to The Guardian. Albanese, who told the UN General Assembly that sovereignty “must have a digital dimension,” is meeting President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the assembly. In Australia, NetChoice, whose members include Meta, TikTok, X, Reddit, Snapchat, Twitch and YouTube, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have applied to join the High Court challenge in which Reddit is contesting the law banning social media accounts for under-16s, in force since December 2025, according to Politico. Platforms have removed or suspended 1 million accounts because of the Australian law, and the government has yet to file its formal defence in the case.
Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles confirmed on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, that F-35 fighter jet parts shipped from the country to the United States for repair were diverted to Hong Kong, and said Canberra is assisting an investigation by the United States and Lockheed Martin, the programme’s prime contractor, per ABC News. Politico reported the cargo included a cockpit canopy with radar-absorbent material that reduces the jet’s signature on enemy radar. Marles described the material as not sensitive, according to AFP. No one has said why the shipment was diverted or who holds the parts today.
The United States and Australia are investigating how components of F-35 fighter jets shipped from Australia to the United States for repair ended up diverted to Hong Kong as they crossed the Pacific, with some of the material still unaccounted for. The F-35 Joint Program Office at the US Department of Defense said it was “aware of a shipment issue of unserviceable F-35 Lightning II components” and that it was working with US authorities and industry partners “to retrieve these components, investigate the incident, and place safeguards to avoid a future occurrence,” according to the South China Morning Post and Defense News. The case surfaced in a Politico report on September 19, 2026; the shipment included a cockpit canopy, which carries a thin radar-absorbent layer, and the components were carried by a third-party company hired by Lockheed Martin, which manages the programme’s international spare-parts pool. On September 22, 2026, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles confirmed that Canberra is helping with the investigation: “We are examining very much everything that has occurred at the Australian end,” he said, according to ABC News. Marles played down the episode: “my understanding is that there is a sense of comfort, that we’re not talking about sensitive equipment here, or sensitive parts.” The US House Armed Services Committee is aware of the case and has received several briefings on it, committee spokesperson Heather Vaughan told Bloomberg. There is no public evidence that China obtained or inspected the material, and the Department of Defense has not said what exactly went missing. Australia operates 72 F-35s and has no facility able to repair the canopies. Hong Kong’s government said it does not comment on individual cases.