Australia news live: sending troops to Ukraine for new coalition of the willing ‘not under consideration’, Labor says​on March 3, 2025 at 3:00 am

Alfred forecast to move towards Queensland coast in next 24 hours

David Crisafulli said Tropical Cyclone Alfred, in the next 24 hours, will begin moving towards the Queensland coast between K’gari island and the border with NSW.

He outlined three phases of the weather event: big surf and erosion, damaging winds, and finally, “the complexity that comes with that flooding.”

All three of those present a challenge and, therefore, we are asking people to stay connected throughout this process.

The premier said the early stages of the waves and erosion were occurring currently, with waves north of 4m expected off the coast of Brisbane today.

The Queensland premier, David Crisafulli, has been providing an update about Tropical Cyclone Alfred from Brisbane.

He said all the modelling indicated the likelihood of a cyclone crossing at the Queensland coast had increased.

My message to Queenslanders today is please be prepared. We are putting all the preparations in place and we are asking Queenslanders to do the same … We are dealing with a very heavily populated part of the state, a state that hasn’t seen a cyclone for many, many years – in fact, many decades.

He said Alfred was currently 450km east of Brisbane. It had recently gone back down to a category 1 system but was expected to re-intensify to category 2.

The latest on Tropical Cyclone Alfred

For almost two weeks, Tropical Cyclone Alfred has ambled about the Coral Sea. Early yesterday the cyclone passed below the Tropic of Capricorn, way off-track for the typical path a cyclone might take to the north Queensland coast.

Forecasters predict Alfred will continue to linger, moving slowly south until tomorrow, then take an erratic sharp turn back towards the heavily-populated south-east Queensland coast.

You can read all the latest detail on this below:

Tyrrell calls for longer opening times at urgent care clinics before new ones open

Independent Tasmanian senator Tammy Tyrrell wants to see the opening hours of existing Medicare urgent care clinics expanded before new ones are opened.

In a post to X, she noted that new clinics had been announced for Burnie, Kingston and Sorell and said she wasn’t against them but wanted the existing clinics to be open for the promised hours first:

Labor went to 2022 election promising UCC’s open from 8am-10pm. No [Tasmanian] UCC’s are open these hours and only one is close (Launnie). Devonport UCC is only open from 1pm/2pm each day!

Labor told me in 2023 [that Devonport hours] would be expanded. They haven’t. Labor says workforce shortages are an issue in extending hours. So how will they staff a new UCC in Burnie if they can’t find the doctors to open [Devonport] UCC full time? …

UCC’s are a good idea, but the operating hours are a broken promise from Labor. This should be fixed before opening new UCC’s.

Yesterday, Labor vowed to open an extra 50 bulk-billing urgent care clinics by mid-2026 if it secures a second term at the upcoming election.

The federal government is not considering sending troops to Ukraine to support a “coalition of the willing” peacekeeping force as suggested by British prime minister Keir Starmer.

As we brought you a little earlier, Peter Dutton said he didn’t see the need for Australian troops to join any such future mission. We’ve just got a statement back from an Albanese government spokesperson, giving a similar response when we asked for Labor’s response to Starmer’s proposal:

Australia has been unwavering in our support for Ukraine. We have long called for Russia to end its illegal, immoral war. And we have long supported Ukraine’s war effort, including through the provision of equipment and training of Ukrainian forces.

We will consider the details of any proposal, but the deployment of Australian troops to support peacekeeping forces in Ukraine is not under consideration at this time.

Stock market lifts after fall

The Australian share market has started the week with a modest rebound, AAP reports, after February wiped most of the year’s gains so far.

The benchmark ASX 200 was around 0.34% higher by midday on Monday, as the broader All Ordinaries climbed 0.26%. Here’s IG Markets analyst Tony Sycamore:

With reporting season now in the rear-view mirror, the main drivers of the ASX200 in the months ahead will be developments around US tariffs and trade policy and the rapidly approaching federal election.

US president Donald Trump’s planned 25% tariffs for Mexico and Canada and a 10% tariff on Chinese goods are set to kick in tomorrow, but US markets on Friday were buoyed by in-line inflation figures.

Trump also sent cryptocurrencies higher, after he reaffirmed his support for a US strategic reserve for digital currencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana and Cardano.

Bitcoin surged more than 10% on the news.

A Perth-bound plane has made an emergency landing in Sydney shortly after take-off due to a technical issue.

Smoke was seen in the cockpit of Qantas flight QF643 shortly after takeoff, with the captain requesting a priority landing. The smoke did not enter the cabin.

The aircraft was met by emergency services and landed normally, before being taxied back to the gate.

A Qantas spokesperson said the aircraft “landed safely after the appropriate procedures were conducted”.

We understand this would have been an unsettling experience for customers and apologise for the inconvenience. Our engineers will be checking the aircraft today and we will be conducting an investigation into what caused the issue.

Taking a final question, Peter Dutton accused Anthony Albanese of “lacking in the ability to stand up for our country”. The opposition leader told reporters:

What he has tried to do is suggest that when the Coalition was last in government that warships turned up into Sydney Harbour unannounced – that is a complete lie. The fact is the Chinese notified the then-government in April that year, and there was planning in relation to the ships turning up into Sydney.

This prime minister had no idea about the presence, he didn’t know what to do, he had to rely on the Virgin pilot and other sources to inform them about the training exercise that was taking place. I think the prime minister has demonstrated to Australians that he is completely out of his depth.

No one knows ‘what threats will come our way over next century’ – Dutton

Peter Dutton stressed the importance of “functioning relationships with allies”, and told reporters:

Ultimately Australia is an island nation [with] 27 million people effectively in the middle of nowhere, and we need to make sure we have strong defences and we need to make sure we have functioning relationships with allies – like the US – because nobody can really predict what will happen, what threats will come our way over the next century.

On the Australia-US relationship, Peter Dutton said the US was an “incredibly important ally for us” and that “historical relationships are important”.

Whatever happens in the future, Australia is best served by strong relationships with the US and the UK with our other Five Eyes partners and allies, including Japan and India.

Dutton said “tough decisions” needed to be made, and “sometimes that means standing up to your friends and the traditional allies because our views have diverged”.

In relation to Ukraine, the Australian view at the moment is different to the US, and my job as prime minister will be to lobby the president of the United States to reconsider his position in relation to Ukraine because I think it is in all of our collective best interest if we are able to provide support to Ukraine

Asked about the explosive clash between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Peter Dutton described it as “disappointing”.

He told reporters he was “disappointed by the scenes at the White House” and that Zelenskyy required support.

People have got short memories and is not that long ago since the second world war, and when the prime minister says we live in the most precarious period since then, he is right.

And what we know is that bullies do not respect weakness, and we will stand up with like-minded countries in support of peace in Europe and make sure that Russia can feel the pressure of having to settle a deal quickly so that Ukraine and her people can get on with a normal life as quickly as possible.

Dutton says Trump has made it clear Europe needs to ‘step up’ on Ukraine

Peter Dutton has been speaking to reporters in Queensland, where the opposition leader said he would receive a briefing on Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

Taking questions, he is asked about Ukraine – specifically, Australia should send troops?

Dutton said the “short answer is no”, but “we should continue our support for Ukraine”.

Everyone wants peace – across the world, but in Europe – and we want Putin to retreat from Ukraine and to stop the attacks.

He described President Zelenskyy as a “modern-day hero” and “war hero” who deserves support.

I think one thing that we have seen out of the current debate is an escalation in the minds of many European nations about the threat that is obvious – [that] the European nations, particularly the bigger nations, can’t continue to rely for financial support or military support from the United States. They need to chip in themselves, and I think President Trump has made this clear … the US has an incredibly important role to play in the world, but it can’t be everywhere at once, and it’s important for Europe to step up. It seems that’s what’s happening at the moment.