Protesters pepper-sprayed by police in Sydney after Hannah Thomas addresses crowd
Nick Visser
Police just used pepper spray on the gathered crowd, prompting people to run from a squad of mounted officers. Some people are coughing and wiping their eyes in the grass, while others have reconvened.
The pepper spray was used as some in the crowd attempted to break through metal barricades. More police vehicles are arriving, adding to the dozens of officers already here.
Before the police used pepper spray, Hannah Thomas, the former Greens candidate who was seriously injured during a protest in June, briefly spoke to the rally crowd.
Thomas, who has undergone multiple rounds of surgery, told Guardian Australia it was still triggering being back at an action that was heavily policed. But she said the defence expo warranted the protest.
“That event is fucked.”
Protesters and NSW police clash during an attempted blockade by the Palestine Action Group at the weapons expo at the ICC Sydney. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAPShare
Updated at 17.14 EST
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Nick Visser
10 arrested during Sydney protests over defence expo
10 people have now been arrested at this morning’s protests in Sydney’s Tumbalong Park.
NSW police said its operation remains ongoing, with a smaller group of protesters still demonstrating near the ICC against the weapons expo. Police said on social media:
The safety and security of delegates at the venue and the wider community is paramount. Anyone who breaches the peace will be arrested.
Police will continue to have a presence at the assemblies and will work with protestors to ensure there is minimal impact to the community.
UPDATE: 10 people have now been arrested, and the police operation remains ongoing.
The safety and security of delegates at the venue and the wider community is paramount.
Anyone who breaches the peace will be arrested.
Police will continue to have a presence at the assemblies… https://t.co/hwdz82SxFD
— NSW Police Force (@nswpolice) November 3, 2025
ShareCait Kelly
Legal service warns security services changes will impact Aboriginal women misidentified as perpetrators
Staying on the security services amendment, senator David Pocock is expected to try and split the changes into a separate bill that can be sent to an inquiry today.
Wirringa Baiya Aboriginal Women’s Legal Centre CEO and Bundjalung woman Christine Robinson has also put out a statement saying:
Wirringa Baiya has concerns about the proposed amendments, and the way that these are being pushed through the parliament without adequate scrutiny.
As a service that works with Aboriginal women who are often misidentified as perpetrators, we see the many possible unintended consequences of this proposed amendment.”
The 2024 Senate Inquiry into Missing and Murdered First Nations Women and Children found misidentification of women as perpetrators puts First Nations women at risk.
Robinson said:
We urge the government to remove this amendment from the bill and go through the appropriate pathway to allow necessary scrutiny and input from stakeholders.
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Updated at 18.03 EST
Cait Kelly
Critics urge government to scrap plan to allow police and ministers to cancel welfare payment
A growing group of civil society organisations representing welfare recipients, First Nations people, survivors of family violence, disabled people and legal experts are calling on the government to scrap a proposed amendment that will allow police and federal government ministers to cancel someone’s welfare payment.
The person must be accused of a serious crime and on the run from law enforcement.
Karly Warner, chair of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (Natsils), said:
The Government is trying to pass legislation that would allow police to cancel Centrelink payments for people who have not been found guilty of any offence.
This is an unprecedented attack on fairness and due process which will shake public confidence in our legal system. Under this legislation, people’s benefits could be stripped away simply because they are unaware police have issued a warrant for their arrest, and without any opportunity to access legal help.
The proposed amendments will inevitably have a greater impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who are grossly overrepresented at every stage of the criminal process. Cutting off people’s Centrelink payments will not only impact those individuals, but put their children and families, too many of whom already live below the poverty line – at risk of homelessness and child removals.
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Updated at 17.56 EST
Joyce keeping ‘cards close to his chest’ on fully returning to Nationals
As the Liberals and Nationals try to find a pathway to energy harmony, Barnaby Joyce – who is still not sitting in party room meetings – says he’s keeping his cards “close to his chest” on whether he’ll fully return to his party.
While “vastly happier” with the Nats current position of scrapping net zero, as previously reported, he’s not happy about the number of renewables that will continue being built in the regions.
Speaking to Sky News, he says:
On the backbench, you don’t have many cards, and when you [have] the few cards you do have, you keep them very close to your chest, because I think people would have given net zero no chance of having an effect on the agenda. Egotistical statement, I think I have.
Joyce says he respects leader Sussan Ley and regards her a “political friend”. On whether the Coalition can or should be split, he says, “that’s not as easy as you think”.
Barnaby Joyce. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAPShare
Updated at 17.53 EST
‘The Liberal party is not National party lite’, says Liberal MP
Shadow cabinet minister, and moderate, Tim Wilson says his party should stand its ground and develop its own energy policy separately, after the Nats came out of the gate early over the weekend.
Speaking to Sky News a little earlier, Wilson said there is a pathway for the Coalition to be united on energy policy, but it has to “lead on the conversation” and not be “defined by the terms of our opponents”.
The Liberal Party will develop its own policy, the liberal party is not National party lite. We will make our own decisions about our own policy, and we will stand up for what we believe in for conversations around energy and climate change.
Sussan [Ley] did an excellent job in May of this year when the National party sought to split off, and rather than simply chasing them, she stood her ground, because she knows that once she loses moral authority, you can’t get it back. You need to stand up as the leader of the party, for the Liberal Party.
Shadow cabinet minister Tim Wilson. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAPShare
Updated at 17.33 EST
Andrew Messenger
Queensland teachers to strike after knocking back pay offer from state government
Queensland teachers have voted to take strike action in the next three weeks, after knocking back a pay offer from the state government last Friday.
Queensland Teachers Union delegates voted for the escalation at a state council meeting on Saturday, after union members overwhelmingly voted down a state government 8% pay offer last week.
“No specific date has been determined, further meetings of QTU Executive are expected before any formal announcement will be made,” QTU president Cresta Richardson said.
The QTU encourages the government and the Premier to end the negotiation by offering a package that addresses the QTU’s claims, and our members see value in.
Meanwhile, state government employees members of the building trades group of unions are set to walk off the job at 10am today. Members of the Electrical Trades Union, Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, the Plumbing and Pipe Trades Employees Union and CFMEU are demanding a 35-hour working week, which they say would put them in line with white-colour public servants.
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Updated at 17.17 EST
Liberals and Nationals should stay together but ‘not at any cost,’ Bragg says
Like an old married couple, the Coalition has gone through plenty of “marriage counselling” sessions, Andrew Bragg says.
Jumping back into that interview on ABC News Breakfast, the shadow cabinet minister says that the Liberals do need to come up with their own separate policy, after the Nationals came out with the anti net zero stance over the weekend.
Bragg says he’s a supporter of the Coalition staying together and he doesn’t “believe that the fragmentation of the centre-right is in Australia’s interests,” but that also doesn’t come at any cost.
We’ve been married for a long time. There have been times where there have been marriage counselling sessions and I think before the next session, we certainly need to have our own position.
There’s a reason you have divorce laws, I guess. But we would be much better served to stay with the Nationals, because we have given Australia good government over this last 80 years. So that would be my strong preference, but it’s not at any cost.
Bragg is also aware of the other existential threat to the Liberal party – young people.
He says there’s an expectation with the growing number of millennials and gen Zs on the voting roles, to show “that we actually believe that [climate change] is a real risk to our future, and that we have a credible policy to address it”.
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Updated at 17.02 EST
Penry Buckley
NSW premier: ‘I’m not responsible for the invitations’ to defence expo
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, has defended the state government’s sponsorship of the Indo Pacific International Maritime Exposition, the focus of an attempted blockade by human rights protesters in Darling Harbour this morning.
Speaking on ABC Radio Sydney earlier, the premier said the maritime sector was a “massive part” of the NSW economy, contributing 40% of defence industry jobs in the state, which he said would remain important as regions including the Hunter move away from coal extraction.
Minns denied having seen calls from NSW Labor MPs Cameron Murphy and Anthony D’Adam for Israeli weapons companies to be removed from the conference, as reported by the Guardian, but characterised the MPs as “frequent critics” of the government.
Asked if he was comfortable with the attendance of Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems, and the state-owned company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, he said:
I’m not responsible for the invitations. That’s not me running away from … who’s invited to this particular summit.
I have got little to no exposure or decision making in relation to Australia’s relationship with foreign countries and foreign arms manufacturers in relation to where it’s used. That’s the Commonwealth government’s responsibility, it’s not mine … We want to see the industry grow. I’ve got a responsibility to see ten of thousands of people move into new industries in the decades ahead.
NSW premier Chris Minns. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAPShare
Updated at 16.47 EST
We have some more pictures of the protest outside the ICC in Sydney.
Police have been using pepper spray on demonstrators.
A protester washes his eyes out after being pepper sprayed by NSW police. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAPAnother protester washes his eyes out after being pepper sprayed by police during an attempted blockade at a weapons expo at the ICC Sydney. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAPPolice arresting a protester. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAPA protester holding a ‘Free Palestine’ sign during the Tuesday morning protest. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAPProtesters holding ‘Stop Arming’ placards outside the weapons expo in Sydney. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAPShare
Updated at 16.44 EST
Protesters pepper-sprayed by police in Sydney after Hannah Thomas addresses crowd
Nick Visser
Police just used pepper spray on the gathered crowd, prompting people to run from a squad of mounted officers. Some people are coughing and wiping their eyes in the grass, while others have reconvened.
The pepper spray was used as some in the crowd attempted to break through metal barricades. More police vehicles are arriving, adding to the dozens of officers already here.
Before the police used pepper spray, Hannah Thomas, the former Greens candidate who was seriously injured during a protest in June, briefly spoke to the rally crowd.
Thomas, who has undergone multiple rounds of surgery, told Guardian Australia it was still triggering being back at an action that was heavily policed. But she said the defence expo warranted the protest.
“That event is fucked.”
Protesters and NSW police clash during an attempted blockade by the Palestine Action Group at the weapons expo at the ICC Sydney. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAPShare
Updated at 17.14 EST
Dropping net zero would make Australia a ‘pariah state’, Bragg says
One of the Liberal party’s most staunch net zero supporters, Andrew Bragg, says Australia can’t walk away from the Paris agreement and a commitment to reduce emissions.
But, and there’s a big but here, that doesn’t mean net zero has to be reached by 2050.
Speaking to ABC News Breakfast, Bragg says – as he did yesterday – that the Paris agreement states that net zero has to be achieved in the second half of this century.
(However, we would add here, that the advice from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on what is needed to achieve the Paris goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C is net zero by 2050).
Virtually every country has committed to net zero emissions. We would be a pariah state.
The Paris Agreement is the red line here. I mean, you’ve got to be in the Paris Agreement. Because if you weren’t, you would be in a group of countries like Iran and Libya and maybe two or three others … And the Paris Agreement requires you to get to net zero in this century. I think that that would be an important objective for Australia to maintain
Shadow housing minister Andrew Bragg. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAPShare
Updated at 16.28 EST
No rate cuts from RBA today
Patrick Commins
The Reserve Bank’s monetary policy board won’t be announcing a rate cut at 2:30pm today, after figures last week showed inflation came in hotter than expected in the September quarter.
After three cuts this year, the RBA’s cash rate sits at 3.6%.
With the outcome preordained , there will be a lot of focus on the RBA’s latest set of economic forecasts, released in the latest Statement on Monetary Policy, and the governor’s press conference at 3:30pm.
Unemployment is also on the rise, and Michele Bullock will need to explain how the central bank is navigating the last mile to bring inflation definitively back under control without pushing the jobless rate much higher.
Economists have largely pushed out forecasts for a rate cut to early next year, or predicted that the central bank may be done cutting rates.
That will be bad news for indebted homeowners, but may help take some of the steam out of the already unaffordable housing market, where prices are accelerating.
Financial markets, for now at least, are still pricing in some chance of a rate cut over the coming year.
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Updated at 16.08 EST
Four arrested as protestors converge on Sydney defence expo
Nick Visser
A few hundred protesters are gathered at Sydney’s Tumbalong Park, where police have cordoned them into a fenced-in area across from the International Convention Centre. The protest was initially meant to be a blockade, but dozens of uniformed officers and mounted units have surrounded the ICC to prevent any major disruption.
Josh Lees, an organiser for Palestine Action Group, said police were aggressive when protesters began to gather near Sydney’s IMAX theatre, using pepper spray and pushing the group towards the cordoned area. He said multiple people were arrested. It’s unclear if anyone has been charged.
NSW police said four people have been arrested, adding in a statement:
Police will have a presence at the assemblies and will work with protestors to ensure there are no breaches of the peace and there is minimal impact to the community.”
Chants of “shame”, “long live Gaza” and “hands off the West Bank” rang through the crowd.
Lees said it was a nice turnout for an early Tuesday morning, but added:
It’s good, but we need more.
NSW police are seen as protesters hold placards during an attempted blockade by the Palestine Action Group at a weapons expo at the ICC Sydney. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAPProtesters outside the ICC Sydney on Tuesday morning. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAPShare
Updated at 16.16 EST
McIntosh believes there is enough goodwill between the two parties to form a unified position on energy policy.
Staying on RN Breakfast, McIntosh says there’s a “long history of being able to work with the Nats”.
I think our relationship is strong enough for us to come to settle on a position as long as we’re listening to our communities … So if we continue on a sensible path where we are stripping away any other agendas besides trying to do the best for Australians, I think we’ll end [up] there.
McIntosh adds that the Liberal party’s review – led by Dan Tehan – has been “a good one” and will save the party from an internal “uproar”.
On the issue of Sussan Ley’s leadership, McIntosh says the media are “making more of that issue than what we’re feeling internally”, but admits the party does need to get its act together.
Everyone’s had a chance to speak. It’s not like we’ve waited for one party room, there’s going to be an uproar, and no one really knows each other’s positions.
But I think Australians do want us to sort out our issues quite quickly. They’re disappointed in us, probably could use stronger words than even disappointed and want us to get our act together. So let’s start focusing on those policies that make a difference.
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Updated at 16.01 EST
