As it happened: Netanyahu compares Palestine recognition to appeasing Hitler in Australian interview; AI, tariffs, removing red tape among Chalmers’ 10 priorities

Good evening, and thank you for reading our national news live blog. We’ll be back tomorrow with more live coverage. Here’s a look at this afternoon’s key stories:

• Health and Disability Minister Mark Butler has moved to assure parents their kids won’t be kicked off the NDIS and slapped down complaints from state premiers as concern brews about the government’s ability to deliver a new disability system for children within two years.
• Treasurer Jim Chalmers has revealed plans to slap EV drivers with road-user charges within months and to revamp environmental protection laws to accelerate the development of houses, mines and renewable energy projects, as he declared the tax system defective.
• A surge workforce backed by the state and federal government could take over childcare centres that fail quality and safety standards, as Victoria commits to go it alone to trial CCTV in centres if necessary.

Netanyahu claimed his goal was to “free Gaza”, and that he was close to achieving it.

“My goal is not to occupy Gaza, it’s to free Gaza,” he said. “Free Israel and others from Hamas terrorism. Give Gaza and Israel a different future, and I think we’re close to doing it.”

Netanyahu’s government called up 60,000 reserve troops earlier today to prepare to execute a plan to take over Gaza City – a move which has been decried by international leaders.

His statement included the caveat that his goal could not be achieved without removing Hamas, but did not say when he would be convinced the terror group was no longer a threat.

“It’ll have to, of course, mean getting the last strongholds of Hamas, they shouldn’t be there. Everybody understands that. Get rid of the crocodile.”

Netanyahu has labelled the burning of a Melbourne synagogue last year as part of a “tsunami of antisemitism” and said pro-Palestinian protesters in Sydney or Melbourne should be “counteracted”.

“If you don’t stop [attacks such as on the synagogue] when they’re small, they get bigger and bigger and bigger, and ultimately, they consume your society,” he said.

Netanyahu said protesters on the streets calling for a ceasefire should be opposed.

“They should be defied by the leaders. And yet we see – not in America, I’m happy to say, because President Trump is standing strong – but in Europe, one country after another succumbing to them, condemning Israel that is fighting these monsters and is doing its best to avoid civilian casualties.”

More than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since October 7, 2023.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has likened recognition of a Palestinian state to appeasing Hitler in the 1930s.

“It’s appeasement, pure and simple,” he told Sky News.

“They gave [territory] to Hitler. And what did he do? Immediately started World War II, the worst war in the history of humanity.”

Earlier this week, Benjamin Netanyahu personally attacked Anthony Albanese, writing on his X account: “History will remember Albanese for what he is: a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews.”

Ahead of the full interview airing, a snippet showed Netanyahu saying Albanese’s record was “forever tarnished” by his plan to recognise Palestinian statehood at the UN in September.

Now the full interview has been broadcast on Sky News.

Netanyahu does not personally attack Albanese during the interview with the vehemence of his post on X, talking more about the leaders of western democracies appeasing Hamas, and his determination to continue the fight.

“When Prime Minister Albanese and the leaders of France and Britain and others, when they say, all of them, ‘give them the Palestinian state’, they actually mean [they are] voting terror. And they’re saying, ‘it doesn’t matter what horrors you people do. It doesn’t matter that you say that you’ll go not only after Israel, but after the United States. Death to Israel, America, death to the west!’”

Netanyahu added: “Last time I looked, Australia was part of the West.”

Unions and Australian tech giants have agreed to work on a model to compensate musicians, authors and possibly media outlets for the content used to feed artificial intelligence tools.

The in-principle undertaking, discussed at the government’s economic roundtable, seemed impossible a fortnight ago when a debate blew up over the prospect of large language models, such as ChatGPT, learning from articles, songs and art without compensating creators.

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