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Energy minister dismisses Malaysia’s warning on fuel imports

Chris Bowen has dismissed warnings Malaysia could cut its supply of petrol to Australia, saying the south-east Asian government had not threatened any Australian imports of fuel.

Australian imports billions of dollars of oil and petrol from Malaysia each year. A Malaysian embassy spokesman has told the the Australian Financial Review the country would prioritise its own needs before considering demand from overseas.

Bowen, the energy minister, said there was no threat to Australia’s fuel supply from Malaysia. He told ABC Radio National:

double quotation markIt’s a very broad statement by the Malaysian government, just a general sort of statement there. It wasn’t a particular announcement that they were taking any particular action.

Malaysia produces refines a lot more fuel than Malaysia or Malaysians would need at any given time. We continue to talk to all our partners across Asia at various levels.

The Malaysian government has taken no action to threaten the supply of fuel to Australia and all the ships that we’d expected to arrive have arrived. But we continue to engage them.

Sarah Basford Canales

Greens call for windfall tax as surging gas prices give exporters ‘free ride’

The Greens are urging the federal government to slap a 25% levy on gas exporters as early as next week to raise billions of dollars in revenue to capture windfall profits as global energy prices soar amid the war in the Middle East.

The minor party’s leader, Larissa Waters, wrote to Anthony Albanese yesterday offering to pass a new bill in the Senate over the next fortnight as parliament returns.

On Wednesday night, Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gas field, which it shares with Qatar, in a move expected to significantly raise gas prices. US president Donald Trump has also claimed the US would “massively blow up” the gas field if Tehran strikes Qatar in a retaliatory attack.

Waters wrote:

double quotation markEven if the war ended tomorrow, the restoration of these production facilities will take months to years. While this supply shock will hit consumers and businesses right around the world, it will produce a deep and sustained financial windfall to Australian LNG exporters.

The Greens claim a 25% tax on gas exported from Australia would have generated $17bn in annual revenue based on pre-war numbers.

Waters added:

double quotation markThis $17bn in revenue could easily be dedicated to urgent cost of living relief, such as free public transport for the duration of the fuel crisis. Millions of Australians are doing it tough, and these rich corporations should not get a free ride while people are going backwards.

Ben Smee

‘Eerie feeling’ as water shut off and electricity to be lost in far north Queensland

Far north residents in the path of Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle say they have taken shelter as winds begin to swirl in the remote Cape York Communities.

Sara Watkins, the owner of Coen Mechanical and the Little Bush Pantry in the township of Coen – population about 330 – say they moved to a more secure brick building when the winds picked up about 4am, local time.

double quotation markThe wind has really started to pick up, you can hear a couple of things moving around outside.

Watkins said there had been an eerie feeling in the town waiting for the storm. Now all they can do is watch as the cyclone arrives.

double quotation mark
Until the wind started it was so still. It was raining but it was really still. That’s not like Coen, when it rains it pours and the wind moves about.

In Coen there are a lot of old properties that have been through cyclones in the past, they are standing but they’re not cyclone rated by any means.

Water services have been turned off but locals in Coen say they still have power. That will likely be shut off as well in the coming hours.

A tracking map shows the expected path of Tropical Cyclone Narelle. Photograph: The Guardian

Ben Smee

Waves of near-record heights smash Cairns coastline

One of the challenges posed by Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle is the lack of weather monitoring infrastructure in remote parts of Cape York.

The only weather radar in the cape is at Weipa – on the western end – and that radar is starting to show rainfall and winds from Narelle.

BoM senior forecaster Kristy Johnston told ABC Radio Far North that wind monitoring in the cape was “quite sparse” and that most of the observations about Narelle had been made by satellite.

The nearest wave monitoring station is in Cairns, more than 600km from the northern cape, where Narelle will cross later this morning.

Waves of more than 4m were recorded in Cairns. That is unusually high – comfortably within the top 10 highest ever recorded.

Property damage, power outages expected from Tropical Cyclone Narelle

Tropical Cyclone Narelle has been moving towards Australia “very swiftly overnight” and will cross the coast “in the next hour or so”, BoM senior meteorologist Angus Hines says.

The system is still on track to bring widespread damaging or destructive winds and heavy rainfall with possible flooding across the Cape York Peninsula, Hines has told ABC TV.

While the system has been downgraded from Category five to category four, it will still bring wind gusts over 200 km/h and even as high as 250 km/h, Hines says:

double quotation markWinds of that speed are pretty hard to imagine if you haven’t experienced them before. They are just so, so strong, capable of uprooting really large trees or completely stripping them of their branches …

It can also cause extensive damage to properties in the path of those very strong wind gusts as well as power outages.

The cyclone is expected to take 12 to 18 hours to cross the Cape York peninsula and move into the Gulf of Carpentaria, Hines said. It will likely strengthen and intensify back to a severe tropical cyclone by the time it arrives on the eastern side of the Top End of the Northern Territory on Saturday night.

NSW pushes for per capita GST model after worst distribution yet

Penry Buckley

The NSW government will call for the the distribution of GST according to overall population share when it lodges its submission to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into 2018 goods and service tax reforms today.

NSW, Australia’s most populous state, emerged as the main loser from this year’s GST carve-up, its share shrinking from 86 to 82 cents for every dollar its residents pay, the lowest since the tax was introduced in 2000. By contrast, Western Australia received an extra $5.5 billion, thanks to the 2018 sweetheart deal struck with then-treasurer Scott Morrison.

Under the deal, WA is guaranteed to receive no less than 0.75 cents back from every dollar it pays.

The NSW government says a per capita distribution would see it receive an additional $3.2 billion next financial year. As a compromise, it has also suggested reverting to the pre-2018 model, but with the federal government funding a guarantee no state received less than 50 cents for every dollar it pays in GST.

The state treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, says:

double quotation markThe whole of the federation would be better off if we allocated the GST by population share, with the Federal Government using their balance sheet to prop up the smaller jurisdictions.

That is what we are arguing for. But we are also presenting a compromise proposal to push for change.

Ben Smee

Tropical Cyclone Narelle to make landfall in ‘next hour or two’: BoM

BoM meteorologist Kristy Johnston is giving an update on Tropical Cyclone Narelle to ABC Radio Far North.

She says the system is expected to make landfall between Lockhart River and Coen “in the next hour or two”.

double quotation mark“We do know that cyclones do have a bit of a habit of their movement being interfered with by the coast and sometimes they stall … I’m not sure that this is going to happen here, it’s got quite a good western trajectory.

Narelle has been downgraded to a category four but Johnston puts that in context: the sustained winds from the system are 195km/h and the threshold for a category-five system is 200km/h.

double quotation markIt is expected to maintain its intensity as it moves inland, as [a] category four [system] as it moves past Coen, [and is] still expected to be a category two or three as it’s moving over the peninsula.

Johnston says locals should expect the strongest winds to last six to 12 hours.

Iranian footballers ‘have been taken hostage by Australia’, Tehran official says

Adeshola Ore

Iran’s foreign affairs ministry has suggested the country’s two remaining footballers who sought asylum in Australia are being forced to remain in the country.

Five of the seven members of Iran’s women’s soccer team who claimed asylum in Australia last week later changed their mind and have returned to the country.

Australia’s Iranian diaspora has raised concerns that the country’s regime may have pressured some players to return home.

Speaking to the ABC’s 7.30 program, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, was asked if the two remaining players were being kept in the country against their will. He replied: “I guess so.”

Baghaei reiterated claims that the women were taken “hostage” in Australia:

double quotation markThey didn’t seek asylum. They were forced to. They were coerced to. They didn’t do it voluntarily.

Baghaei said he was “quoting their coach” in making the claims.

double quotation markThey were invited to go to a room under the pretence of clarifying the doping or something like that. And then they put the paper beside them…. you can be given asylum.

Luca Ittimani

Hello, I’ll be taking you through today’s breaking news. Thanks to Martin Farrer for opening our live blog.

Fuel taskforce will prioritise regional areas, says minister

Adeshola Ore

The resources minister, Madeleine King, says a new fuel taskforce will prioritise regional areas as petrol and diesel flows from the nation’s stockpile.

Yesterday the Albanese government appointed Anthea Harris, the former chief of the energy regulator, to head a national fuel supply taskforce.

Speaking to the ABC’s 7.30, King said the taskforce would ensure the released fuel reached service stations that had run out of supply “as soon as possible”:

double quotation markThere is a priority that fuel does go to regional areas and the places where it is needed.

They have to come out of the storage tanks, as you can imagine. There has to be arrangements and we are doing work that would ordinarily take weeks. It’s being done in days to ensure it does get to those petrol stations.

Ben Smee

Tropical Cyclone Narelle on track to hit Queensland coast as category-four storm

Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle is on track to make landfall in Cape York this morning, likely as a “high end” category-four storm.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s latest update suggests the system – which had been tracking as a category-five tropical cyclone – has weakened slightly overnight but remains a significant danger to a number of communities in Queensland’s north.

Sustained winds of 195km/h – with wind gusts up to 270km/h – have been recorded.

Emergency warnings have been issued for the Lockhart River, Port Stewart and Coen.

Narelle is expected to make landfall between 7am and 10am, Queensland time (8am and 11am AEDT). Tracking maps show the cyclone heading directly towards the small town of Coen.

It remains about 110km from the community and is moving about 21kmh.

Cyclones typically weaken when they reach landfall but the intensity of Narelle means it could remain destructive as it crosses Cape York and eventually reaches communities in the western cape.

Authorities are warning of combined threats – strong winds, heavy rain, flooding from already-swollen river systems and a storm surge as the cyclone arrives in conjunction with a high tide.