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CANBERRA, Australia (AP) -- Australia's prime minister says his government will soon introduce a system for banning foreign "hate preachers" from entering the country. Prime Minister Tony Abbott also told Sydney Radio 2GB on Wednesday that he will attempt to outlaw the radical Islamic group Hizb-ut-Tahrir under proposed tougher counterterror laws. Abbott says he is angry and frustrated that under existing counterterror laws his government cannot outlaw Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which is banned by several other countries. But under amendments before the Parliament, groups that promote terrorism would be banned. The current prohibition only applies to groups that engage in terrorism. Abbott...

SYDNEY (AP) — Australia's government repealed a much-maligned carbon tax on the nation's worst greenhouse gas polluters on Thursday, ending years of contention over a measure that became political poison for the lawmakers who imposed it. The Senate voted 39 to 32 to axe the 24.15 Australian dollar ($22.60) tax per metric ton of carbon dioxide that was introduced by the center-left Labor government in July 2012. Conservative lawmakers burst into applause as the final tally was announced. Prime Minister Tony Abbott's conservative coalition government rose to power last year on the promise of getting rid of the tax, assuring...

Prime Minister Tony Abbott reintroduced legislation to the Australian Parliament on Monday that would repeal a carbon tax that the nation’s worst greenhouse gas polluters have to pay. The opposition center-left Labor Party and minor Greens party used their Senate majority in March to block the bills that would remove the 24.15 Australian dollar ($22.79) tax per metric ton of carbon dioxide that was introduced by a Labor government in July 2012. The bills were defeated 33 votes to 29. …

THE United States will be able to build permanent military facilities on Australian soil and expand to locations across the country under a deal struck between Tony Abbott and Barack Obama. The deal — which initially covers up to 2500 US forces rotating through Darwin but can be expanded — will allow the US to bring warships, planes and troops in Australia. New bases can be set up across the country and the number of troops increased without limit over 25 years under the deal, senior US officials confirmed. ..... "The United States has paid a very high price to...

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is seeking an alliance among "like-minded" nations to thwart efforts to introduce carbon pricing and American President Barack Obama's move to push climate change through global forums like G20.

Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott is seeking out “like-minded” countries to form an alliance to thwart climate policies being pushed by President Obama and other world leaders.

THE Australian War Memorial has abandoned a proposal to remove the words "known unto God" from the Tomb of the Australian Unknown Soldier after the personal intervention of Tony Abbott. The memorial's governing council decided at its meeting in August to replace two inscriptions on the tomb at the Canberra memorial with words from a speech by Paul Keating. The memorial's director, former Liberal Party leader Brendan Nelson, announced the changes in an unscripted National Press Club speech six weeks ago on a day when attention was focused on the swearing in of the new government. It was several days...

A provincial Australian parliament will debate legislation that would create same-sex marriage despite the federal government threatening a court challenge. The Australian Capital Territory parliament will on Tuesday begin debating the bill that would create Australia’s only law allowing gay couples to marry. It is not clear when the legislation will be voted on. … Australian federal law was amended in 2004 to specify that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. Prime Minister Tony Abbott opposes gay marriage and his coalition has thwarted federal bills that would have allowed legal recognition of same-sex relationships. …

Ronald Brownstein argues that Republicans need to win over a larger share of nonwhite voters if they are to remain competitive in future presidential elections. Brownstein suggests “comprehensive immigration reform” as the kind of policy Republicans need to make gains among nonwhites. The victory of Tony Abbott in Australia indicates that Republicans can grow their party without obeying the wishes of liberal journalists. Republicans don’t need to move left on immigration or abortion. Republicans need to shift their focus from high-earners to the middle-class and people who are struggling to join the middle-class. Brownstein argues that winning over the “missing...

It simply isn’t fashionable these days for any self-importantly “forward-thinking” democratic bureaucracy to be without some sort of designated climate change agency or committee to come up with exciting new ways the country can divert its revenues and resources toward so-called green projects. (“Forward thinking” got the quotation-marks treatment because it is truly miraculous how often these usually progressive-leaning governments love to think ahead on climate change, but not so much on debts and deficits.)Earlier this month, however — amid higher taxes, a slowing economy, and a wildly unpopular tax on carbon emissions — the Australian national election yielded a...

The hopelessly politicised Climate Commission, the function of which was apparently to spin government propaganda as “science”, is to be abolished, along with a raft of other pointless climate organisations.

In the wake of a crushing defeat last week for the climate alarmism-promoting Australian Labor Party, which imposed the deeply unpopular and expensive “carbon tax” credited by analysts for the conservative coalition’s victory, authorities in Australia are preparing to dismantle and consolidate the myriad global-warming schemes spawned under the previous government. However, while legislation is already being drafted, major hurdles remain before the tax on CO2 can be scrapped, sparking an outcry among businesses, state governments, and especially Australian voters, who voted overwhelmingly in favor of the new coalition and its pledge to kill the costly economic burden. According to...

Well done to Australia's new Prime-Minister-Elect, the conservative Tony Abbott. He pledged, as his two top priorities, to stop the tide of asylum seekers to the country and to scrap the highly unpopular tax on carbon emissions. Both very admirable intentions. Cutting CO2 does nothing for the environment but a lot for the economy: it destroys it. The environmentalist movement is fundamentally socio-communist. It has proclaimed itself the only saviour of the earth, but the reality is that one does not need to agree with its pseudo-scientific, highly ideological theories or belong to it to care about the environment. Being...

HE's the one time student priest who quit in frustration with the church, an outspoken opponent of gay marriage whose lesbian sister wants him to change his views, an ambitious political hardhead who quietly spends a week a year helping in remote indigenous communities. Australia's 28th prime minister may be a man of contradictions, but one certainty is that Tony Abbott has worked towards his new position for much of his adult life. Mr Abbott was born in London in 1957 to Dick and Fay Abbott, moving to Sydney in 1960 through an assisted migration scheme. Raised in an observant...

A SENATE-bound candidate who picked up fewer than 12,000 votes admits he is shocked by his meteoric rise that has sparked moves to overhaul the Senate. Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party hopeful Ricky Muir has admitted making jokes about September 11 and posing for online videos while throwing kangaroo droppings but refuses to discuss mainstream policies. ..... A parliamentary inquiry into the election will be called by the Abbott Government to specifically look at making sure Senate voting rules reflect the ``honest wishes'' of voters after Saturday's election threw up candidates who could be elected with as little as 0.2 per...

Today’s edition of the Australian contains a brilliant analysis by the paper’s main political correspondents, Dennis Shanahan and Sid Maher, on how the campaigning strategy used by the Liberal party won Australia’s federal election for (now Prime Minister) Tony Abbott. It has all the marks of authoritative inside briefing. That Abbott’s campaign was brilliant is not disputed by either Labour or the media. There’s a reasonable argument that the implosion of Labour’s campaign helped Abbott to a larger victory than he might otherwise have gained. But it is common currency that by the time the election was announced, Abbott was...

<p>Tony Abbott is the Liberal Party leader, but everything’s upside-down in Australia, so actually he is the conservative (“classic liberal,” i.e., free market) and his victory over the Labour Party was attributed both to his own disciplined campaign and the internal divisions that have riven Labour.</p>

HE's the one time student priest who quit in frustration with the church, an outspoken opponent of gay marriage whose lesbian sister wants him to change his views, an ambitious political hardhead who quietly spends a week a year helping in remote indigenous communities. Australia's 28th prime minister may be a man of contradictions, but one certainty is that Tony Abbott has worked towards his new position for much of his adult life. .....

**SNIP** The Liberal leader is a climate change denier. Dr Salinger says having someone who denies the science in charge is terrible news for small Pacific nations facing being inundated by rising sea levels. "Australia is the world's highest emitter of greenhouse gases, per person, in the world. "That's really bad news." Dr Salinger says unfortunately this will now mean New Zealand's government will drag the chain even more on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.