Australia news LIVE: Hanson cooks dinner for Joyce in her office after Senate suspension for burqa stunt; Major Australian super fund investigating Russian Blood Oil links

Good morning and welcome to our national news live blog for Tuesday, November 25. My name is Emily Kaine, and I’ll be helming our coverage for the first part of today. Here’s what is making headlines this morning.

• Today marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Since the commemoration of this day last year, 74 women have been killed by domestic and family violence in Australia.
• One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has prompted widespread outrage after wearing a burqa into the Senate yesterday – the second time the senator has pulled the stunt in her political career. There was uproar in the Senate in the moments after Hanson entered the chamber. Hanson was ordered to remove the item and leave the chamber or face suspension, and the Senate voted overwhelmingly to have her removed. She was suspended for the rest of the day. Hours later, Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce dined with Hanson in her office as speculation continues that he will formally announce his defection to One Nation.

• One of the nation’s biggest superannuation funds is urgently investigating whether it is profiting from the Russian oil trade, as the Albanese government faces growing calls for Australia to do more to help Ukraine as the war against Vladimir Putin’s invading forces reaches a critical stage. It comes after this masthead revealed last week, as part of its Blood Oil series, that an estimated 1 million tonnes of Russian oil have been offloaded over the past two years at a shipping terminal in Malaysia co-owned by a company in the portfolio of an investment vehicle controlled by a consortium of Australian industry super funds.

• The Bureau of Meteorology must prove it is delivering value for money to taxpayers, Environment Minister Murray Watt has declared, as the agency responds to fallout from the revelation that the cost of its website upgrade ballooned from $4 million to $96 million. The new BoM’s website has been widely criticised for being difficult to navigate and for the changes to its radar map that made place names difficult to read.

• In world news, a federal judge has dismissed the criminal cases against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney-General Letitia James, concluding that the prosecutor who brought the charges at US President Donald Trump’s urging was illegally appointed by the Justice Department. The ruling throws out two cases Trump had publicly called for as he pressured department leaders to move against high-profile figures who had criticised him.

Stay with us as we continue to bring you rolling news updates from Australia and beyond throughout the day.

Pauline Hanson’s wearing of a burqa on the floor of the Senate should not serve as a distraction from the actions of MPs, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has said.

“Australians expect us to be focused on fixing their problems which is why my team and I remain relentlessly focused on pushing the government on affordable energy. Will not let Senator Hanson’s actions distract us from fighting for Australians who are being hit hard by the cost of living crisis,” Ley said in a statement.

Senator Pauline Hanson moves to the other side of the Senate chamber during a vote. Members of the Greens and crossbench were furious with the stunt.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

“This kind of stunt weakens Senator Hanson’s case and cheapens our parliament. Her actions do not reflect the sort of parliament Australians elected us to convene, nor the political system we should all be seeking to build,” the Liberal leader said.

Hanson entered the chamber in a burqa yesterday afternoon after failing to move a motion to have the garment banned. She was suspended by the Senate, unable to enter the chamber for the rest of the day.

“This is a reminder of how brittle One Nation’s politics are, they must resort to reheating desperate stunts. Australians deserve better and we will remain focused on fighting for them and holding the government to account,” Ley said.

On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the federal government has announced a 40 per cent boost to funding for the national domestic violence crisis line to meet the surge in calls, Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek said.

“We set up 1800RESPECT in 2010 and it received 11,000 calls that year. In the last financial year, it received 342,000 contacts. So it’s not just calls now, it’s video chats and SMS as well, and online counselling, and of course, the need has grown really exponentially.

“Today we’re announcing a 40 per cent funding increase to make sure that we can keep up with that demand. We know that most calls are answered within 20 seconds, well over 90 per cent of calls are answered within 20 seconds. That’s a great achievement, but as those numbers grow, we need to keep up with demand, and that’s why we’re increasing the funding,” Plibersek told the ABC this morning.

A woman was killed every four days in Australia in 2024.Credit: Marija Ercegovac

The government is also working to amend social security law, she said, “so that it can’t be weaponised against victims of domestic violence by perpetrators”.

“We’ve seen, for example, in the past, perpetrators using banking systems transferring one cent at a time so that they can send an abusive or threatening message to their ex partner. We’ve had to work with banks, for example, to make sure that bank systems aren’t being used to continue to abuse and frighten victims of domestic violence.”

An alarming number of Australian women have been killed in recent years by domestic and family violence, and the number of victims keeps rising. Find out more about their lives.