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Key events
Should Anthony Albanese accept the invitation to visit Beijing if China hasn’t lifted its trade sanctions?
Richard Marles:
What we’re trying to do with China and really, this is the whole of this conversation – it is complex, and it is difficult.
If people want to try and make something which is very complex and difficult, more simple, it just isn’t.
What we are trying to do is to stabilise the relationship. And as I say, we will work with China where we can we will disagree with them where we must that that’s that is the philosophy that we are taking to stabilise I think it’s a bit it is more stabilised and it was a year ago it dramatically so, but it’s not stabilised in the complete vision you have for where you want it.
Richard Marles gave a speech overnight where he said Australia ‘must confront the inconvenient truths about China’.
What did he mean by that?
Well, the point I was really making is that the China is a is a very complex country, and our relationship with China is obviously correspondingly complex.
And it’s not a relationship which can be defined with simplistic platitudes.
I think if you wind the clock back a year or more, you know we had a debate in this country, which which was pretty simplistic and didn’t take into account all the nuance of what is a very complex situation. and we need to embrace all of that, you know, we really need to look at the entire picture.
I mean, China is a huge opportunity for our country and remains such being our largest trading partner. The that facts has been at the heart of our economic growth over a number of decades.
But should Australia raise its concerns?
Richard Marles:
Well, I mean, we have a very deep and open relationship with India, but I’m not about to go into all of those elements.
Now. I’m sure that there will be a full conversation that that both Prime Ministers have tomorrow, but we want to emphasise that India is a democracy.
It we it’s it’s a country with whom we share values and we do want to see a much bigger growth in the way in which we engage with each other and cut both a military level and in terms of our trade.
Marles avoids question of whether PM will bring up India’s treatment of Muslims and other minorities with Modi
Will Anthony Albanese address the treatment of Muslims and other minorities with Modi, as Joe Biden plans to do when the pair meet later in the year?
Marles:
I’m not about to go into all that will be spoken about in when the prime minister, our prime minister, meets Prime Minister Modi tomorrow.
I think the fundamental point that we want to make is that is that we do have a strategic alignment based on a sense of shared values. I mean, ultimately, we are both democracies.
And that very much underpins the way in which we see the world and why we have an interest in building the relationship.
Marles confident of shared alignment with India despite silence on Russia
India has not condemned Russia. Is Richard Marles confident India is strategically aligned with Australia?
Marles:
We are confident that India is strategically aligned with Australia and India is a democracy with whom we share values. So that’s that’s the fundamental principle, and we share an interest in having a free and open Indo-Pacific.
India and Australia share ‘greater strategic alignment … than we really have at any point’: Marles
The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, is speaking to ABC radio RN Breakfast about Narendra Modi’s visit. The Indian prime minister arrived at about 8pm last night. He and Anthony Albanese will attend a community event in Sydney tonight, with a bilateral meeting planned for tomorrow morning.
Marles:
I think we have a greater strategic alignment with India today than we really have at any point in both of our country’s histories, and it really does afford the opportunity to take the relationship to the next level, as Prime Minister Modi has said …
This is a real opportunity for us, because this year India becomes the largest country in the world by population. It is a growing, massive economy. There are great opportunities for us.
And in a security sense, we do both share values and share strategic alignment; we have a real investment together in the rules of the international trade, the global rules based order; we share an ocean, we want to see open trade occurring in all of that. And so we really do have a joint interest in cooperating.
For those who missed it last night, Stan Grant signed off from public life for some time, having received ongoing racial abuse for doing his job:
Snowy Hydro expects to restart stuck tunnel borer within weeks
Peter Hannam
Snowy Hydro’s tunnel borer, which has been stuck since 12 December just 70 metres into its work, should resume operations soon, Dennis Barnes, Snowy’s chief, told senate estimates on Monday night.
Dubbed “Florence”, the 211 metre-long machine hit soft rock soon after it began the 17km-long tunnel that will be a key part of the giant Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme.
Work has been delayed while crews strengthened the rock around a sink hole that opened up in front of the borer and reached the surface. A separate plant to treat slurry rather than hard rock has had to be built sooner than expected, and should be commissioned by the end of May. Barnes said:
Then we should be able to push forward with Florence slightly thereafter.
After that, the borer will take “in the order of three years” to finish the tunnel.
Barnes said earlier this month that Snowy 2.0 could be delayed by as long as two more years. That could take the commercial start date to 2029 or later, compared with an original target of July 2025.
Barnes said the impacts of the delays and additional costs, and remedial efforts to speed up work, will be tallied later this year.
The official costs – excluding transmission lines to link the plant to the main grid – are already estimated to be $5.9bn and critics expect them to exceed $10bn (assuming there aren’t other major challenges).
Good morning
Amy Remeikis
Welcome to day two of the parliament sitting – and estimates – as the house continues to be dominated by the referendum legislation debate. Liberal MP Julian Leeser is still looking for support to remove ‘executive government’ from the question, but the government has shown no indications it believes any shift is necessary.
There were more than 70 speakers on the list yesterday – although not too many Coalition MPs. One Liberal MP who did make a splash was Bridget Archer who directly countered claims made by her party leader, Peter Dutton who said the voice would divide Australia by racial lines.
No, the voice won’t have veto power or act as a third chamber … To claim otherwise is a deliberate and harmful misrepresentation of the facts, and I’m disappointed to have seen this wilfully perpetuated by some.
Nor does the argument that this referendum is dividing the country by race make sense.
Anthony Albanese has a busy day – he will be in parliament in Canberra for most of the day, but is then headed to Sydney for a 6pm community event with Narendra Modi in what is the Indian prime minister’s first visit to Australia since 2014.
Landed in Sydney to a warm welcome by the Indian community. Looking forward to various programmes over the next two days. pic.twitter.com/gE8obDI5eD
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 22, 2023
There are also party room meetings, more budget debate and of course, estimates where the Coalition senators are doing their best to drum up a couple of headlines.
We will bring you all the news as it happens with me, Amy Remeikis, on the blog. Paul Karp, Daniel Hurst and Josh Butler are keeping the Canberra office buzzing with all you need to know, while the rest of the Guardian brains trust will bring you news from outside Capital Hill.
It is at least a two-coffee morning.
Ready?
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