Australia news LIVE: Sydney man found dead after Turkey earthquake disaster; Alan Tudge quits politics
Key posts
- Dutton says he’ll campaign in Melbourne byelection
- Liberals have ‘no choice’ but to preselect a woman in Aston: pollster
- Death toll of Turkey, Syria earthquake rises past 20,000
- Spotlight on Dutton as Tudge resigns
- This morning’s headlines at a glance
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Dutton says he’ll campaign in Melbourne byelection
Staying with this issue, and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has appeared on Nine’s Today show to declare he’ll campaign in Melbourne for the upcoming byelection.
“Yeah, of course,” the Liberal leader said when asked if he plans to press the flesh in suburbs such as Bayswater, Boronia and Ferntree Gully. “There’s no question.”
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. Credit:Rhett Wyman
The opposition leader then went to say the following:
Byelections … are always difficult. And there are different issues, lots of local issues. The government has ripped money out of road projects in Aston. They have, you know, I think, abandoned the area for a long period of time. Alan [Tudge] is a popular local member and that always brings a vote with it that won’t be present in the byelection. We will preselect a great candidate and that process has already started.
But you will be seeing lots of us down in Aston and we regularly get to Melbourne, I have lots of friends down there, so I always enjoy travelling down there.
Liberals have ‘no choice’ but to preselect a woman in Aston: pollster
Returning to federal politics, and Liberal strategist-turned-pollster Tony Barry was on Radio National a few moments ago talking about Alan Tudge’s retirement and the upcoming byelection in his seat of Aston.
He said the Liberals ought to preselect a woman for the seat – which lies along Melbourne’s eastern fringe – if it’s serious about rebuilding after last year’s election:
We had a federal election review in the Liberal Party that handed out its findings in December. And I think recommendation 28 was about a 50 per cent female target. So I think it’s not great if the Liberal Party then goes and preselects a bloke. So, you know, it’s like going to your doctor being diagnosed with diabetes and then, on the way home, you pick up a Mars bar and a milkshake. So I think from that perspective, the party has no choice but to preselect a woman. It would send a terrible message if we went down the path of picking a male.
Death toll of Turkey, Syria earthquake rises past 20,000
The Turkey-Syria earthquake death toll has climbed beyond 20,000 on the fourth day of rescue efforts, surpassing the more than 17,000 killed in 1999 when a similarly powerful quake hit north-west Turkey.
The death toll in Turkey rose to 17,134, the emergency management agency said.
In Syria, already devastated by nearly 12 years of civil war, more than 3200 people have died, according to the government and a rescue service in the rebel-held north-west.
The despair of survivors has been laced with occasional moments of hope when workers rescued people trapped under rubble.
A two-year-old boy was rescued on Thursday from the rubble of a building that collapsed in the southern city of Antakya, Turkish time, 79 hours after the massive earthquake struck the area.
Further details are available via our world desk.
Reuters
Spotlight on Dutton as Tudge resigns
Peter Dutton is facing the first major test of his political leadership with a byelection looming in the Liberal-held Melbourne seat of Aston, after former cabinet minister Alan Tudge quit politics.
Tudge has endured several political scandals in recent years including over his affair with former staffer Rachelle Miller, the allocation of funding for commuter car parks and the robo-debt scheme, which is the subject of a royal commission where he faced difficult questioning last week.
Tudge announced his resignation – effective from next week – less than a year after the 2022 election, when his two-party preferred margin was slashed from 10.1 per cent to 2.8 per cent.
His resignation immediately triggered discussion that former treasurer Josh Frydenberg could attempt to resurrect his political career, but that was ruled out by Victorian Liberal Party president Greg Mirabella.
Read the full story here.
This morning’s headlines at a glance
Good morning and thanks for your company.
It’s Friday, February 10. I’m Broede Carmody and I’ll be anchoring our live coverage for the first half of the day.
Here’s what you need to know before we get started:
- Seventy-two Australian search-and-rescue specialists will fly out of Sydney this morning. More than 20,000 people are now confirmed dead in Turkey and Syria after this week’s earthquake.
- Beijing says it opposes Australia “discriminating” against Chinese companies. It comes after the Albanese government confirmed it would remove Chinese-made surveillance cameras from the Australian War Memorial and federal departments over fears of possible espionage.
- And there will soon be a federal byelection in the seat of Aston, in Melbourne’s outer east. That’s because federal Liberal MP Alan Tudge announced his retirement yesterday.
- Speaking of the Liberals, deputy leader Sussan Ley will be interviewed on Radio National later this morning. Stay tuned.
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