News live: Australia invited to join Trump’s ‘board for peace’; federal parliament returns to debate hate speech and gun control laws

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Staying on Marles, the deputy PM says he “welcomes” the invitation from Donald Trump for Australia to join the ‘board of peace’.

But over whether Australia will join that board, Marles remains a little more coy.

We welcome the invitation as we do all the efforts of the Trump Administration to bring about peace in the Middle East. We need to see an end to the conflict there for humanitarian assistance to flow and for that part part of the world to be rebuilt. In terms of the specific request, we will talk that through with America to understand what this means and what is involved.

They are the sovereign powers. That is who Australia recognises. That is the fundamental issue here. In terms of tariffs, we don’t support tariffs and we have been consistent in our position with the United States about opposing tariffs. We won’t get into a running commentary about the relationship between the United States and Europe.

What we wanted to do was to put in place the entirety of the report combating antisemitism that was done by Jillian Segal. We wanted anti-vilification laws put through the parliament. The Liberal party at that point said they supported it. The Jewish community want us to do it but when we get to the crunch, the Liberal party have gone missing.

This is not politicking between Labor and Liberal, this is politicking within the Liberal party. They have to get over their division and bring bipartisanship to our nation.

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Source: www.theguardian.com

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