Deputy Labor leader RichardMarlesMP has rejected calls for Australia to “walk away” from the World Health Organisation, telling Sky News the decision for the US to suspend funding is “regrettable”.
Deputy Labor leader Richard Marles has rejected calls for Australia to “walk away” from the World Health Organisation, telling Sky News the decision for the US to suspend funding is “regrettable”. US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced he would be pulling his government’s funding from the WHO, following through on his threat to pull away from the UN body over accusations it mishandled the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr Marles conceded “there’s a conversation” to be had about the health body’s reform but insisted Australia should not “abandon” it completely. "We should be raising whatever issues we have from inside the organisation. We should not be abandoning the World Health Organisation,” he said. "With everything that's going on at the moment, the idea that we would be walking away from the globe's multilateral response to health issues, I think makes no sense at all.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
PM says easing of virus lockdown 'many weeks' offPrime Minister Scott Morrison says Australia is "many weeks away" from lifting coronavirus restrictions.
Read more »
Qantas, Virgin Australia to finalise funding package with govt | Sky News AustraliaQantas and Virgin Australia are close to signing off on a multi-million dollar funding package with the government to help the airlines maintain operations and keep flight fairs affordable.\n\nThe funding comes on top of a $1 billion package the government has already committed to, to keep the aviation industry afloat during the coronavirus crisis.
Read more »
Geographic isolation could see Australia beam its sport 'all around the world' | Sky News AustraliaAustralian football codes could be 'beamed out to the rest of the world' if sporting authorities found ways to safely restart their season, according to former Liberal MP Fiona Scott.\n\nThe NRL has announced it is planning to resume its season on May 28, but federal Sports minister Richard Colbeck said that plan was 'optimistic.'\n\nAnnastacia Palaszczuk said the three Queensland teams will not be exempt from quarantine measures, meaning they would need to be interstate-based for them to complete the season.\n\nThe AFL has no return date while the rugby union team, the NSW Waratahs, are on the verge of standing down their players without play as the code grapples with the coronavirus restrictions.\n\nMs Scott told Sky News Australia 'advantageous geography' means our sporting codes could return to the field sooner than their international counterparts.\n\n'We have so many isolated communities that we could house rugby league teams or rugby union teams or soccer or AFL,' she said.\n\n'For instance, throw a team out on Hamilton Island, put one on Rottnest Island, there's a whole range of things we could do there to facilitate our sport re-opening.\n\n'Having our sport opening through some of these things and the media platforms we have, we could beam our codes to the world, that would be phenomenal.'\n\nImage: Getty
Read more »
Australia needs to ‘rethink importing workers’ to do unpopular jobs | Sky News AustraliaSky News host Peta Credlin says on the back of the coronavirus crisis Australia must have real economic growth “not treasury’s somewhat fake growth, pump primed by increasing immigration”.\n\nAustralia has had an unprecedented 29-year period of economic growth, but “when you look at it, in GDP per capita terms” Australia has experienced “three recessions for individuals”.\n\nMs Credlin said following the health and economic crises, it is clear Australia needs to be “a more self-reliant country in the future,” which does not only mean increasing Australian manufacturing.\n\n“It should also lead to a rethink, about importing people to do the jobs that Australians think, are beneath them”.\n\nReal economic growth is not “just importing more people, which to my mind is just a lazy route to growth” which Department of Treasury bureaucrats use “to bamboozle compliant politicians”.\n\n“What I regard as real economic growth, is when we grow more food, when we make more that the world wants to buy, when we invent new products, devise new services, value-add, and come up with better processes”.\n\nImage: News Corp Australia
Read more »
Australia to experience 'its worst recession in history' | Sky News AustraliaSky News host Peta Credlin says Australia may experience “it’s worst recession in history” due to the coronavirus pandemic. \n\nThe Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced any relaxation of social distancing measures will likely be many weeks away despite reports indicating a reduction in new coronavirus cases. \n\nHowever, these positive reports regarding virus control have coincided with a Treasury release forecasting unemployment to rise to 10 per cent.\n\nMs Credlin said while a 10 percent unemployment rate is “terrible” news, it is far better than predictions released prior to the JobKeeper program. \n\n'There’s been an inordinate amount of money spent to get us to the position of 10 percent unemployment,' she told Sky News host Peter Gleeson. \n\n“Labor left $96 billion dollars of debt which took John Howard 10 years to pay off” and the current government has outlaid 300 billion in a couple of weeks. \n\nThe economic consequences are “going to be much deeper than people understand and much darker because our economy is so different,' she said. \n\n“We are not a manufacturing nation anymore and we don’t have cheap energy”. \n\n\nImage: Associated Press
Read more »