Former Australian minister for foreign affairs Julie Bishop is to retire at the next election, she said yesterday, joining a wave of lawmakers leaving a government that faces defeat in the poll, which is due by May.
The departure of one of Australia’s most popular and high-profile female lawmakers follows four government legislators either retiring or defecting from the ruling center-right coalition, which is in a minority and trailing in polls.
Two other female members of the Australian Liberal Party have also left amid claims of disunity, bullying and intimidation, although Bishop praised the government in her retirement speech.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“It is my view that the Liberal-National coalition will win the next election, because it is focusing on the things that matter to the Australian people,” Bishop told parliament, listing policy achievements from the economy to security.
“And on that basis, I have reconsidered my position... I will not recontest the seat of Curtin at the next election,” she added.
Bishop has represented Curtin, Western Australia, since 1998. She was foreign minister from September 2013 to August last year and deputy leader of the Liberal Party, which governs in coalition with the Australian National Party.
The timing of Bishop’s departure heaps pressure on a government that is lagging in opinion polls — although the gap has narrowed of late — and battling a perception that it is out of touch, especially with female voters.
“Bishop will take a large number of votes with her,” said Haydon Manning, a politics professor at Flinders University in South Australia. “There will be people who would have voted for Bishop, no matter what. Those will now be open to the opposition Labor Party.”
Last month, Australian Minister for Women Kelly O’Dwyer said that she would retire, after backbencher Julia Banks quit the party late last year to sit as an independent, protesting against its treatment of women, and policies on energy and climate change.
Bishop, who resigned from both her posts after a backbench revolt in August last year forced then-Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull from power, was defeated in a party vote to replace him, with then-Australian treasurer Scott Morrison succeeding Turnbull instead.
Morrison and Turnbull both praised Bishop.
“You have been our finest foreign minister — eloquent, elegant and always courageous advancing our national interest in these challenging times,” Turnbull said in a message on Twitter.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS