Australia news LIVE: Coalition calls for social media ban by year’s end; Remembrance Day commemorated

Remembrance Day commemorations are under way around the country ahead of the customary minute of silence observed at 11am on November 11.

Sydney’s service at the Martin Place Cenotaph and Melbourne’s at the Shrine of Remembrance both started at 10.30am.

The Australian War Memorial’s service, attended by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Governor-General Samantha Mostyn, began at 10.40am. The ABC is broadcasting the national service live, watch it here.

Australian gold miner Resolute has confirmed the company’s boss, along with two other executives, are being held by authorities in the military-ruled African state of Mali.

Resolute said in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange its chief executive Terence Holohan and two other employees are being held in the Economic and Financial Centre of Bamako by authorities.

The executives are being detained in Mali by government officials, but are safe and are receiving support on the ground from the UK and international embassies and consulates, the company said.

“The executives were in Bamako to hold discussions with the mining and tax authorities regarding general activities related to Resolute’s in-country business practices, and to progress open claims made against Resolute, which the company maintains are unsubstantiated,” it said.

The company said it is in regular communication with the three executives.

“Resolute’s priority remains the safety and well being of its employees.”

“The employees are being treated well … [and] the company is continuing to work with the government on a resolution and will provide further updates on the situation as appropriate,” Resolute said.

Mali’s constitutional democracy was overthrown in 2012 after a military coup. Another coup d’état in 2021 installed vice president Assimi Goïta, who is the country’s current ruler.

Gold-focused Resolute owns the Syama Gold Mine, a large-scale underground mine that it controls through a local subsidiary Société des Mines de Syama S.A. with an 80 interest. The other 20 per cent is held by the government of Mali.

The company also mines in eastern Senegal where it owns the open pit Mako Gold Mine.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned the Australian economy will not be immune from the fallout of a trade war between the United States and China if incoming president Donald Trump follows through on plans to impose sweeping tariffs on imports from America’s biggest economic competitor.

Chalmers, however, has moved to calm fears that a second Trump term will cause catastrophic damage to the national economy, revealing Treasury modelling has shown the president-elect’s promised trade policies would probably have only a mild economic impact on Australia in the short term.

Chalmers will use an address on Monday to say that the Albanese government was “well placed and well prepared” for a Trump victory.

“Like any diligent country, Australia was ready for either outcome,” he will tell the Australian Institute of International Affairs.

Read more about the modelling Chalmers received on the economic impact of a Trump administration here.

Ambitious targets for reducing carbon emissions can’t be ignored, Australia’s climate change minister says, ahead of the UN’s climate summit.

World leaders and experts are coming together for the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan, which gets under way on Monday.

The timing of the summit comes just days after incoming US President Donald Trump signalled he would pull America out of the Paris Agreement climate targets.

Climate Minister Chris Bowen, who will be representing Australia at the two-week summit, said the country was punching above its weight on the world stage in reducing emissions.

But he said countries around the world needed to aspire to higher targets.

“Maintaining momentum and maintaining high ambition at COP cannot be taken for granted. A COP with a less than ideal outcome is not a good thing,” he said.

“We will be arguing for strong language on ambition, with the Duabi consensus as the absolute baseline. The signals we send are important, as a government and as an industry.”

The Dubai consensus was the agreement signed on to by leaders at the previous COP summit in the United Arab Emirates, which called for a transition away from fossil fuels to allow for net-zero emissions by 2050 to be reached.

Australia has also signalled it would look to host the COP31 summit in 2026, with a decision expected to be made at this year’s event. South Australia’s government has launched its intention to host the summit.

AAP

Politicians are sharing their commemoration messages for Remembrance Day, ahead of planned services across the county.

In a statement, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrote that on Remembrance Day, “We remember every name. Every face. Every future lost and every future changed forever.”

“We think of every Australian who has answered the call through the decades. We think of everywhere they have gone across the world to confront the unimaginable as it became reality.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said Australia remembers the fallen “so we don’t forget who we are”.

“The reason why evil didn’t prevail – why tyranny didn’t crush freedom – is because everyday Australians chose to serve and sacrifice for a greater good,” he wrote in a statement

“May our memory of them hold us to the mark.”

“On this day 106 years ago, the guns fell silent on the Western Front,” Defence Minister Richard Marles and Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh said in a joint statement on Monday.

“In the years since, Remembrance Day has become a day where we turn our minds to all of those who have served our nation – in war, conflict and peacekeeping operations – and the 103,000 Australians who have fallen.”

A national service will take place at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, where Governor-General Sam Mostyn will deliver a commemorative address. Services will also be held at the Martin Place Cenotaph in Sydney and the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne.

After the commemoration, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will make an announcement about a military honour.

Teenage news broadcaster Leo Puglisi says the government’s plan to ban social media for children under 16 won’t work because tech-savvy kids will find a way around it.

Puglisi told ABC’s RN Breakfast that kids who use social media a lot will know how to get around the ban.

“I know my little brother, who’s 14, who would be impacted by this ban, he’d be able to get past it,” Puglisi said.

“So [teens] just don’t think it’s realistic at all. To be honest, neither do I.”

Puglisi, whose website 6 News relies heavily on social media and is run by a group of teens, says he’s concerned lawmakers haven’t properly consulted the young people impacted by the ban.

“There hasn’t been much listening about this,” he said.

“It’s really concerning that people who didn’t grow up with [social media] are making the rules and defining it for those who use it for really important things.”

He also shared his concern for more vulnerable kids who rely on social media for connection.

“There’s a lot of people who you fear might lose connection, and there are also, on a serious note, some really vulnerable kids out there who use social media to find communities to make themselves feel safe. They may be in a marginalised situation,” Puglisi said.

“I’d really hate to see what would happen if that’s suddenly taken away from them. That’s something that needs to be accounted for here.”

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody says it’s still too early to know if cultural change is taking place in Parliament House after the inaugural annual report of the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service revealed 30 reports of serious wrongdoing in its first nine months of operation.

Cody told ABC’s RN Breakfast that she wasn’t surprised by the number of incidents reported, given the work done by her predecessor Kate Jenkins in the Set the Standard report.

“I’d also note that this includes a potential for historic complaints, so this is complaints that go back a number of years,” Cody said.

“So we won’t know whether this is a typical year until we’ve got next year’s data because it includes sexual harassment, which we know is pervasive within Australian workplaces. We know that one in three workers have experienced sexual harassment over the last five years.”

As for how Australians could be sure that parliament’s workplace culture was changing, Cody said that the report didn’t provide for that specifically, but that the existence of the service provides “clear indicators to all members of parliament of what is the expected behaviour”.

“They’re engaging in training and professional development for all employees … that is a part of culture change, which takes time, but it is the beginnings of these are the correct and legal ways to behave in a workplace.”

The Australian government is “very confident” in the future of the AUKUS agreement after the re-election of Donald Trump, says Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy.

Conroy told ABC’s RN Breakfast that the two reasons he was confident were that the agreement is in the strategic interest of all three countries and that there is strong bipartisan support for the proposal in the United States.

“I was in Washington last December, and I sat in the gallery of the US Senate to watch the vote for the three key AUKUS pieces of legislation, and it received an 80 per cent yes vote in an evenly divided Senate and a 75 per cent yes vote in a Republican-dominated House of Representatives,” Conroy said.

“For anything to get that level of bipartisanship is fairly remarkable, and it demonstrates strong support in the United States for AUKUS, which is about making all three countries safer.”

He also dismissed calls from Labor elders, including former NSW premier Bob Carr, to use Trump’s election as an opportunity to reconsider the AUKUS agreement.

“I respect their opinions, and they’re entitled to [say] that,” he said.

“I would say that the will of the party was clearly expressed at the national conference, a very strong majority supported AUKUS, and we’re continuing on that course. It’s in the national interest.

“AUKUS will survive changes of government across all three countries. We’ve already had two changes of government in three countries.”