Australia news live: supporting Ukraine ‘an issue of doing what is right’ but also in national interests, Albanese says

David McBride has received a standing ovation from supporters in the public gallery as he entered a courtroom seeking to overturn his conviction or reduce his sentence for leaking documents used by journalists to expose war crimes.

McBride, a former military lawyer, was sentenced to five years and eight months’ imprisonment last year for handing classified documents to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Those documents were used by the ABC for an exposé on war crimes allegedly committed by Australian troops in Afghanistan.

McBride is now appealing both his conviction and sentence in the ACT court of appeal. Flanked by correctional officers, McBride entered the courtroom to widespread applause and vocal support from a packed public gallery.

He grinned at his supporters and motioned for calm.

Ben Doherty

ADF issues update on movement of Chinese ships

The Australian defence force has issued an update on the movement of the Chinese naval flotilla sailing off Australia.

The three ships – possibly unaccompanied by an undetected nuclear submarine – sailed down Australia’s east coast over the past fortnight, and conducted live fire drills in the Tasman Sea.

The ADF has updated this morning:

People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) Task Group 107, comprised of the Jiangkai-class frigate Hengyang, the Renhai-class Cruiser Zunyi, and the Fuchi-class replenishment vessel Weishanhu, is operating 305 nautical miles (approx. 550 kilometres) Southeast of Perth.

Defence continues to monitor the Task Group while it remains in the vicinity of Australia’s maritime approaches.

Last week, China’s ambassador Xiao Qian said China didn’t even need to “think” about apologising over the way it notified Australia about its live-fire naval drills:

Wrapping up his address before a cabinet meeting in Canberra, the prime minister said Australia is continuing to monitor the Chinese ships moving around international waters surrounding Australia. Anthony Albanese said:

HMAS Stuart and HMAS Warramunga … will continue to monitor what is going on there. It stands in stark contrast with what happened prior to 2022 when there [was] a surveillance ship off the Western Australian coast that had no monitoring …

We’ll continue to respond in appropriate way and will continue to monitor there. I have every faith in our Australian Defence Force to make sure they get that done.

Anthony Albanese also spoke to the media in Canberra just a moment ago.

The PM touted the government’s Medicare pledge, before moving to Tropical Cyclone Alfred. He said he had spoken with Queensland premier David Crisafulli.

[It] is a very real threat in south-east Queensland. We hope of course for the best outcome possible, but we will stand with Queenslanders at this difficult time and we will continue to provide support …

Moving to Ukraine, Albanese said support for the nation is “an issue of doing what is right but also what is in Australia’s national interests”.

The brave people of Ukraine led so extraordinarily by President Zelenskyy are fighting not just for their national sovereignty and for their democracy, they are fighting for the international rule of law. And it is an easy choice that Australia has made – it’s a bipartisan position that Australia has had – we have contributed $1.5bbn of support, $1.3bn of which is military support.

Josh Butler

Dutton due to front press in an hour

We’re expecting a press conference from the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, in Queensland in about an hour’s time.

It will be his first media appearance since Friday, so we’ll expect him to get some questions on the astonishing argument between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House, and the situation in Ukraine.

Dutton spent much of last week fending off questions about his stock market and property investments, and denying he’d done anything wrong. It will be interesting to see whether he faces further questions about his portfolios.

The Coalition announced over the weekend that it would spend $3bn to buy 28 new fighter jets for the Australian military, if elected at the coming election.

That poll could be called as soon as this weekend, so we may be in the final throes of this faux election campaign – before the real action begins, potentially as early as next Monday.

Lisa Cox

No timeframe for delivery of NSW koala park

The NSW environment minister Penny Sharpe has refused to give a timeline for when the government will meet its commitment to deliver a great koala national park in the state’s north.

The Minns government has been under pressure to declare the boundaries for the promised park after scientific assessments were completed last year.

Asked at an estimates hearing when the government would announce its decision about the boundaries for the park, Sharpe would only say “soon” and would not elaborate on whether that meant within the next month or within the next six. Sharpe said:

Of course, it will be soon, but I’m not putting a time frame on it because we’ve got issues that we’re working through.

The Greens environment spokesperson Sue Higginson said her office was taking calls every day from members of the public concerned about the amount of time it was taking the government to declare the park. She said communities that were witnessing ongoing logging in native forests within its potential boundaries were particularly anxious.

Sharpe said the process of making a decision was not a simple one. But she said “no one should underestimate the commitment” the government had to getting the park done.

And yes, it’s taking longer than people like but we need to do it properly. It’s not as simple – people just wanted me to say, this is what we’re doing…we’re going to close the industry, and that’s it. It’s all over. That’s not how good government works.

Star shares suspended again as pressure mounts

Jonathan Barrett

The embattled casino operator Star Entertainment is one of eight listed companies to have trading in their shares suspended this morning, after failing to lodge financial accounts last week.

Star, which operates casinos in Brisbane, Sydney and the Gold Coast, has been on the brink of collapse for weeks amid declining revenues, licensing headaches and major operational disruptions.

It told shareholders on Friday it was exploring “possible liquidity solutions” required to stay afloat. Its shares briefly traded on Friday after the update, closing down 15% to 11c.

Publicly-traded companies must lodge periodic financial reports to the ASX or risk having share trading suspended. They can also eventually be removed from the stock exchange.

Star, which was unable to lodge accounts because of concerns over its ability to remain solvent, is expected to enter into administration unless it can find a last-minute cash injection.

The other suspended companies tend to be very small, and rarely trade.

The NSW emergency services minister, Jihad Dib, is speaking to the media about Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

As we flagged earlier, the tropical cyclone is expected to cross anywhere from Bundaberg in Queensland to northern NSW on Thursday as a category 2 system, bringing up to 600mm of rain a day.

Dib said emergency services were “preparing for a nasty set of weather in the upcoming week” and were doing all they could to be “as best prepared as [they] can be”:

It’s not lost on me that the area of NSW where it will hit, potentially, will be the northern part of NSW and as we know, the Northern Rivers area suffered its own major flooding and quite a difficult situation three years ago. But we will do everything we can in working with that community in making sure our communities are well prepared, well protected and can respond to whatever comes our way. It’s really important all members of public prepare for the event.