Australia news live: BHP loses Brazil dam collapse case; man charged with hate speech over NSW parliament rally

Mining company cannot appeal against liability for 2015 dam collapse in Brazil. Follow today’s news live Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Pat Conroy , the minister for the defence industry, said reports that there may be some sort of an agreement between the US and Iran over the strait of Hormuz would be “welcome”, but warned things have changed rapidly as the conflict has dragged on. Conroy spoke to RN Breakfast this morning, saying: Any move towards that is welcome. Obviously, things change rapidly in that conflict, so we’re not providing a running commentary, but we certainly have been calling consistently for de-escalation. And we’ve been very clear that we think the United States’ stated objectives have been met, and that’s justification for de-escalation.

It’s certainly a very challenging situation and there’s been a lot different phases in it. I said quite early on in this discussion that it’s very difficult to secure the strait of Hormuz militarily. And that’s one of the reasons why countries have been engaging in diplomatic outreach and discussions about how, post-conflict, we can assure freedom of navigation through the Strait. It’s why I spent last week in north Asia, in Japan, Korea and China, and in the weeks before that with the prime minister in south-east Asia, in Singapore and Malaysia and Brunei, and these are countries that export to us. And one of the things we want to do is continue to work with our partners to secure supply. Continue reading...