Live: Hastie calls for 'third way' beyond multiculturalism and monoculturalism

Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie says the debate about monoculturalism and multiculturalism is "woke" and that Australia needs a "third way".

Follow all the updates in our live blog.

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Thu 9 Jul 2026 at 7:22am

Thu 9 Jul 2026 at 7:22am

Rishworth and Bragg clash on Telstra outage

By Joshua Boscaini

Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth and Liberal senator Andrew Bragg have clashed on Channel Nine over the Telstra outage.

Liberal frontbencher Andrew Bragg says the country is on the "highway to hell" that telecommunications outages have become the "new normal" under the current government.

He says the government has a "socialist style approach" which he says doesn't incentivise competition and innovation.

"It happened last year, it's happened this year, it's happened every year under you guys. Every year there's these problems now," Bragg says.

Rishworth says it's a "ridiculous thing to say" and that the obligation to ensure reliable connectivity lies with Telstra.

She says Telstra is a private company and needs to explain itself. The minister has questioned whether Bragg is arguing for less oversight.

"To somehow suggest that it's not their obligation and their responsibility to fix is quite frankly letting them off the hook," Rishworth says.

Thu 9 Jul 2026 at 7:08am

Thu 9 Jul 2026 at 7:08am

Good morning 👋

By Joshua Boscaini

Hello and welcome to our federal politics live blog! Thanks for joining us early on this chilly Canberra morning.

I'm Josh Boscaini joining you live from Parliament House, here and ready to bring you all of today's federal politics news.

India's PM Narendra Modi has touched down in Australia and will meet Anthony Albanese at the Australia–India Annual Leaders' Summit.

We'll bring you more on that when it happens and any further political reaction from yesterday's Telstra outage.

Let's launch this blog!! 🚀🚀