Australia news as it happened: Joe Biden to host PM for official US visit; Coalition pushes nuclear energy plan

A dingo fitted with a tracking collar has bitten a woman on K’gari in the latest in a string of attacks on the Queensland island.

The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service is investigating two incidents on Thursday on K’gari, previously known as Fraser island, involving two collared dingoes.

One dingo lunged at a woman and was scared off by another member of the group, but within minutes began stalking a second woman on the island’s eastern side, approaching her from behind.

The victim fell as she turned and was bitten on the thigh. Rangers rushed to her aid before the woman declined further treatment.

The attacks are the latest in a string of dangerous encounters on K’gari, formerly known as Fraser Island. A dingo was euthanised last month after separate attacks on a female jogger and a six-year-old girl.

Read more from Felicity Caldwell here.

Global insurer QBE has warned that Australia and New Zealand have become riskier countries in the eyes of reinsurers, which help insurance companies manage risk, after a recent run of costly natural disasters.

Reinsurers play a vital role in the market by allowing consumer-facing insurance companies to offload some of their risk, which limits the financial hit from a major event such as a natural disaster. Recently, however, the cost of reinsurance has increased significantly, and this is feeding into higher premiums.

At QBE’s half-year results on Thursday, chief executive Andrew Horton said reinsurers had in recent times judged this part of the world be riskier – a trend that has also been raised by domestic-focused insurance companies.

Australia’s insurance sector has been recovering from a run of disasters, and the east-coast floods of early 2022 were the most expensive insurance event in the nation’s history, surpassing the previous record held by a 1999 Sydney hail storm.

Read the full story from Clancy Yeates here.

In case you missed it, reclusive mining heiress Angela Bennett could be forced to explain her absence in a multibillion-dollar mining royalties battle with mining magnate Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting in the West Australian Supreme Court.

Hancock Prospecting’s lawyer Noel Hutley, SC, requested an explanation for Bennett’s absence on Thursday after producing a flurry of documents he claimed rendered Wright Prospecting’s claim to a stake in the royalties flowing out of Hancock’s Hope Downs iron ore mine “hopeless”.

For 13 years, the descendants of Peter Wright have insisted that under a 1980s partnership deal, they gained an interest in the Hope Downs asset the mining pioneer discovered alongside school friend-turned-business partner Lang Hancock.

But Hutley said memorandums exchanged between several high-ranking Wright Prospecting senior executives, Peter’s son Michael Wright, and daughter Angela Bennett in 1989 indicated they knew they had no interest in it.

Read the full story from Jesinta Burton in the WA Supreme Court here.

China has lifted its ban on group tourism to Australia that was imposed during the pandemic in a move that is expected to give a major boost to local tourism.

China’s Culture and Tourism Ministry made the announcement on Thursday, also lifting the ban on group tours to Japan, South Korea, the United States, Germany and Britain.

The news was welcomed by China’s outbound travel operators, which have struggled since 2020 with more than three years of pandemic-induced border closures before China finally dropped COVID-19 curbs late last year.

“It’s a milestone for the full resumption of the outbound travel, and will also strongly push the resumption of international flights,” said Zhou Weihong, deputy general manager at Spring Tour, the travel arm of Shanghai-based Spring Group told Reuters.

It is the third list released of destinations for outbound group tourism following approvals in January and March this year. The first batch included 20 countries such as Thailand, Russia, Cuba and Argentina, while the second included 40 countries, among them Nepal, France, Portugal, Brazil.

Tourism Minister Don Farrell said this was “another positive step towards the stabilisation of our relationship with China”.

He said before the pandemic, China was the largest and most valuable inbound traveller market.

“Australia remains a premium tourism destination for Chinese travellers, and we are looking forward to welcoming back group tours,” he said in a statement.

With Reuters

Labor was successful in bringing a vote on the Coalition’s disallowance motion to block 60-day scripts.

It was settled in the government’s favour, 33 to 28, meaning the policy will take effect on September 1 before there can be further challenges.

As we explained below: yes, the government brought a motion to block its own policy.

It did so to stop the motion sitting on the senate agenda, where the Coalition could raise it again on the next sitting day.

Opposition Senator Anne Ruston – who first raised the disallowance and has urged the government to delay the 60-day start date so it can negotiate more with pharmacies – said the government had pulled a stunt.

“What we have just seen is quite extraordinary. We’ve had the government move a disallowance motion on their own policy,” she said. “We’ve just seen the most breathtaking doubling down on their own arrogance.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the situation, which has gone back-and-forth since yesterday afternoon, as a “farce” in question time.

In a continuation of the chaos that has consumed parliament today over 60-day prescription reforms, the policy is now back in the senate.

This time, Labor is seeking to bring forward the Coalition’s disallowance motion (which would block the policy) itself.

This would force a vote on whether to block the policy, in which Labor has the numbers to succeed, and stop the Coalition from bringing the disallowance debate back when parliament resumes in September.

Coalition Senator Simon Birmingham asks whether this means that “a Labor senator is now moving a motion to disallow the government’s own policy?”

To which the answer is yes.

He says it is “quite an extraordinary and a preposterous situation”.

The United States Embassy in Australia has issued a statement after the White House that President Joe Biden will host Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for an official visit in October.

“The visit will underscore the deep and enduring Alliance between the United States and Australia and the two nations’ shared commitment to supporting an open, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” the statement read.