Australia news: Liberals see off One Nation challenge; US fast-tracks arms deals for Middle East allies

We’re bringing our live blog to a close for the day, thank you for joining us.

Here’s a recap of the day’s headlines.

• A decision on whether to extend the three-month cut to the fuel excise tax will come after the federal budget. The cut was introduced at the start of April, with petrol and diesel costs slashed by 26.3 cents a litre in response to soaring prices caused by the US-led war on Iran.
• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has flagged $1.8 billion for Medicare urgent care clinics in the upcoming federal budget.
• The accused killer of Kumanjayi Little Baby, 47-year-old Jefferson Lewis, has been charged with murder. Lewis was flown to Darwin for his own protection following his arrest, and has since been released from hospital into police custody.
• The Liberal Party claimed victory in the Nepean byelection in Victoria on Saturday night, but the results suggest a complicated road ahead to November’s statewide poll.
• Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce has flagged he could run as a One Nation candidate in his current lower house seat of New England at the next election, rather than on the party’s Senate ticket as has been expected.
• US President Donald Trump is reviewing a new Iranian proposal to end the war. According to Iranian semi-official outlets, Iran has sent a 14-point proposal via Pakistan in response to the US’s 9-point proposal. Trump already rejected a previous proposal this week.
• Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed at least seven people and wounded others on Saturday while the Israeli military demolished parts of a Catholic convent in a border village, officials said. Israel and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group have kept up their attacks despite a ceasefire in place since April 17.
• Queensland Premier David Crisafulli announced a plan to open up six parcels of land at the state’s major ports for fuel storage facilities, with the potential for new refineries to be built by the companies that operate them.
• And King Charles has visited the Caribbean nation of Bermuda, after concluding his four-day tour of the US.

We will be back tomorrow morning to continue our rolling news coverage.

Somali pirates hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Yemen on Saturday, diverting it towards Somalia’s waters, according to officials.

The New York Times is reporting it is the latest in a spate of ship abductions around the Horn of Africa in recent weeks, with the UK Maritime Trade Operations centre increasing threat level around Somalia’s coast as “substantial”.

The effective closure of global oil traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil passed through before the war, has increased fuel prices and forced countries to find workarounds.

An official in Somalia’s semiautonomous Puntland region – who spoke on the condition of anonymity – said some Yeminis were also suspected in the attack and that the government was investigating whether they had ties to armed groups, including the Houthi militia.

At least three vessels have been hijacked by Somali pirates off the country’s coast since April. Yemen’s coast guard said the tanker, the Togo-flagged Eureka, experienced an armed robbery, with the ship being directed through Yemen’s Gulf of Aden.

Data from VesselFinder, a maritime tracking database, shows that the Eureka last docked in the United Arab Emirates, but its latest location and condition of the crew were unclear.

When Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan was asked this morning about the Nepean byelection, in which One Nation received almost 25 per cent of first preference votes, she said she wasn’t concerned.

Allan congratulated Anthony Marsh for retaining the safe Liberal seat, which takes in beachside Melbourne suburbs including Flinders, Portsea and Sorrento, but said while the Liberals were focused on One Nation, she was focused on providing cost-of-living support.

One Nation’s candidate, Darren Hercus, sat in second place on 24.69 per cent of the primary vote, in the first test of One Nation’s rising popularity in Victoria. Election analysts called the election for Marsh by 8pm on Saturday night.

“The Liberal leader and the Liberal party, all they’ve been focused on is One Nation, and what the results of Nepean tell Victorians very clearly is that the Liberal Party can’t govern without One Nation,” Allan said.

“They’re going to rely on preference deals to have the support of One Nation. Victorians can’t afford that.”

Taiwan has a right to engage with the world and no country can stop that, President Lai Ching-te told Eswatini’s king after he arrived for a surprise trip that Taipei says Beijing tried to stop, as China condemned him as a “rat”.

China views democratically governed Taiwan as part of its territory with no right to state-to-state ties, a position Taiwan’s government strongly disputes. Beijing has demanded countries stop any engagements with the island.

Last month, Taiwan said China had forced three Indian Ocean countries to retract permission for Lai’s aircraft to overfly to the small, landlocked southern African kingdom of Eswatini (previously Swaziland) for the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession. It is one of only 12 countries with formal ties with Taipei.

Late Saturday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said Lai had “skulked” his way to Eswatini.

“Lai Ching-te’s despicable conduct — like a rat scurrying across the street — will inevitably be met with ridicule by the international community,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

Taiwan’s China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council dismissed the comments as “boring in the extreme.”

Reuters