Climate protesters have dumped a pile of cow manure outside the Melbourne electorate office of Labor MP Peter Khalil.
About 30 protesters were seen outside Mr Khalil’s office in the inner-northern suburb of Coburg on Wednesday morning, with the group shovelling the manure back into their truck following the demonstration.
While Mr Khalil’s seat of Wills is relatively safe with a 8.2 per cent margin, the Greens are expected to target it at the next federal election.
Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam has been preselected to stand for the seat.
In November last year, Mr Khalil was one of seven Labor MPs who were hit by pro-Palestinian protesters, who placed fake corpses wrapped in cloth outside their offices.
‘No choice’: Farmers vow war over sheep ban
A coalition of furious sheep industry groups say they will ‘hit the pavement’ to campaign against the Albanese government an over plans to ban live sheep exports by May 2028.
The legislation, which included a $107m transition package, passed the Senate late on Monday night, despite calls from Nationals Leader David Littleproud for senators to vote against it.
Keep the Sheep campaigners announced on Tuesday a vocal and highly-visible national campaign to try to overturn the pending laws. The group had met with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday afternoon.
“We’ve got 63,000 signatures on our petition, thousands of volunteers that want to hit the pavement this week,” Hedland Export Depot owner Paul Brow told reporters at Parliament House.
“We’ve activated them, as we keep saying to our campaign: ‘Our farming community can no longer afford to be optimists, we need to be activists.’”
Australian Livestock Exporters Council chief executive Mark Harbey-Sutton feared the industry would be devastated by the bill.
“At the end of the day, we didn’t want it to come to this. We sought reason. We wanted evidence to be put forward but now we simply have no choice,” he said.
“This is a government that is attacking our sector and our livelihoods.
“We have no choice but to take it to their constituencies and explain this is a government that does not support Australian agriculture.”
Agriculture Minister Murray Watt disagreed and said it gave the industry certainty around its future. He also confirmed the government would not extend the laws to ban live cattle exports.
“The industry knows, once and for all, the date that it will be phased out, but also importantly, it’s the beginning of hundreds of new jobs in Western Australia through more onshore processing,” he said.
Albo a no-show for NATO meeting
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not be attending the NATO meeting in Washington next, with Deputy PM and Defence Minister Richard Marles attending instead.
The opposition has criticised the decision. Mr Albanese has attended the past two summits.
“Unless Anthony Albanese has a very, very good reason not to be attending the NATO summit, then this is, frankly, a dereliction of duty by the Prime Minister,” opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham told Sky News.
“The number one responsibility of a government is the national security of the nation.”
Australia is not a member of the security alliance, but has been invited several times.
Mr Albanese was invited again this year alongside counterparts from Japan, South Korea and New Zealand to marking 75 years of the alliance.
Government ministers have defended the decision, saying it made sense for the Defence Minister to attend a defence summit.
More to come