/qresearch/ -  Q Research

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China hits back at Australia’s protest after PLA jet releases flares close to RAAF aircraft over South China Sea

The spokesperson said Chinese naval and air forces were deployed to ‘track, monitor, take countermeasures and warn off the aircraft’.

Demi Huang and Bryce Luff - 21 Oct 2025

China has hit back after Australia’s diplomatic protest over a Chinese fighter jet releasing flares close to an Australian military plane over the South China Sea.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) accused Australia of “illegally intruding” into its airspace in a statement issued on Monday.

“On October 19, an Australian P-8A military aircraft illegally intruded the airspace over China’s Xisha Islands without the approval of the Chinese government,” said Senior Colonel Li Jianjian from the PLA’s Southern Theatre Command.

He said Chinese naval and air forces were deployed to “track, monitor, take countermeasures and warn off the aircraft” in accordance with laws and regulations.

“The Australian move seriously violated China’s sovereignty and could have easily triggered maritime and aerial accidents,” Li said.

“We sternly warn the Australian side to immediately stop such provocative moves. The theatre forces remain on high alert at all times and will resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security, and regional peace and stability.”

The response came after Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said on Monday that Australia had lodged a diplomatic protest with Beijing, describing the encounter as “unsafe and unprofessional.”

Marles said the Australian P-8 surveillance plane was conducting a routine patrol over the South China Sea when a PLA Su-35 fighter jet released flares, two of them “very close” to the Australian plane.

“No damage was done, but it was dangerous,” Marles told 7NEWS.

“The majority of Australia’s trade goes through the South China Sea, so it is profoundly important that the rules operate in this area.

“Having reviewed this incident very carefully, we’ve deemed it to be both unsafe and unprofessional.

“We will continue to operate our defence force in a manner which asserts the rules-based order in the South China Sea and in international waters and international airspace.”

In a statement, Defence said it expects all countries, including China, to “operate their militaries in a safe and professional manner”.

“For decades, the ADF has undertaken maritime surveillance activities in the region and does so in accordance with international law, exercising the right to freedom of navigation and overflight in international waters and airspace,” the statement said.

“All maritime claims must be consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.”

It follows a similar interaction in February, when a J-16 fighter dropped flares above and in front of a P-8A Poseidon as it conducted patrols over the same region.

Beijing said at the time it was acting to stop a “deliberate intrusion” into the airspace of China’s Xisha Islands without permission, “infringing” on its sovereignty and “endangering” national security.

“China’s measures to expel them are legitimate, legal, professional and restrained,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said.

Also in February, three Chinese warships circumnavigated Australia in a show of force the likes of which Australia has never seen from Beijing’s military.

https://7news.com.au/news/china-hits-back-at-australias-protest-after-pla-jet-releases-flares-close-to-raaf-aircraft-over-south-china-sea–c-20418239

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‘Here for the long term’: US seeks to entrench presence in Australia under AUKUS

Matthew Knott - October 23, 2025

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Australian officials are preparing for the United States to seek ongoing use of the nation’s biggest naval base as part of the Pentagon’s secretive review into the AUKUS pact – a move that would help project American power across the Indo-Pacific as it prepares for a possible conflict with China.

US Navy Secretary John Phelan attracted attention during a White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday by saying that the US wanted to clear up areas of “ambiguity” in the original AUKUS plan.

Trump expressed strong support for AUKUS and the plan to sell at least three nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, but some changes are expected following a review led by senior Pentagon official Elbridge Colby, which is due by the end of the year.

Official language about the original AUKUS plan has been vague, leaving open the possibility the regular US and UK visits could wind down when Australia acquires its own nuclear-powered submarines from the early 2030s.

Senior Australian officials said they were unsure exactly what ambiguities Phelan was referring to but believed one likely possibility was entrenching the presence of up to four US nuclear-powered submarines at HMAS Stirling, near Perth, from 2027.

The location, which serves as the home base for most of Australia’s frigates and submarines, is strategically significant for the US given it is closer to important Asian countries than the US Pacific fleet headquarters in Hawaii and expands its ability to compete with China for influence in the Indian Ocean.

Up to 1000 American troops and their families are set to be posted to Perth to support the project, known as Submarine Rotational Force West (SRF-West), making it the second-largest US military footprint in Australia following Darwin.

During the White House meeting, Phelan said the rotational force was “very important to our ability to project power in the Indo-Pacific”, highlighting its importance to American military planning.

Speaking to reporters before departing Washington D.C, Albanese said he was aware of some changes the US was seeking to make to AUKUS but would not pre-empt any announcements.

“What we do is we work things through in an orderly way,” he said.

The government was delighted by Trump’s enthusiastic comments about AUKUS and believed it would be able to work with any recommendations made by the Colby review.

Former senior defence official Mike Pezzullo said he believed bedding down the US Navy’s presence in Western Australia was one of the most likely ambiguities that Phelan had in mind.

“Our government tends to emphasise that Force West is about building up our own submarine capability, but when the Americans talk about it, they are explicit that it’s about power projection,” said Pezzullo, a former head of the Home Affairs Department who authored the 2009 defence white paper.

“They have long coveted the idea of an operating location like this and they are not going to want to give it up.”

Pezzullo said the US could also be seeking to establish more certainty about Australia’s operational role in possible conflict scenarios and may consider partnering with Australia and the UK on a trilateral next-generation submarine.

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Plans to develop a new nuclear-powered submarine known as SSN-AUKUS, scheduled to enter service in the late 2030s, are so far limited to the UK and Australia.

China has long been unhappy with the AUKUS arrangement. A spokesman for its foreign ministry, Guo Jiakun, said on Tuesday that: “We oppose bloc confrontation and anything that increases the risk of nuclear proliferation and exacerbates arms race.”

The Australian Submarine Agency’s fact sheet on Submarine Rotational Force West emphasises that it will not be a military base for US or UK navies.

“Australia has a longstanding bipartisan policy of no foreign bases on Australian soil,” the agency states. “Activities under SRF-West are consistent with this policy.”

The agency states that the project will “help Australia build the necessary operational capabilities and skills to be ‘sovereign ready’ so we can safely and securely own, operate, maintain and regulate a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines from the early 2030s”.

While such language could create the impression the project is for the short term, naval expert Jennifer Parker said this was extremely unlikely.

“The US sees SRF-W as one of the most significant benefits of AUKUS,” said Parker, an adjunct fellow in naval studies at UNSW.

“It’s hard to see them viewing it as a short-term arrangement – they will want to be there for the long term.”

The Greens have opposed the AUKUS plan, including Submarine Rotational Force West, arguing the pact is “about projecting force in the South China Sea and tying us to the war-making ambitions of the US and UK” rather than defending Australia.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/here-for-the-long-term-us-seeks-to-entrench-presence-in-australia-under-aukus-20251023-p5n4rg.html

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Defence orders brutal budget cuts as AUKUS and frigate costs soar

BEN PACKHAM - 22 October 2025

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Defence is being ordered to delay projects, slash maintenance costs and cut workforce spending in a severe austerity drive, as the ­soaring costs of nuclear sub­marines and new shipbuilding programs undermine the nation’s readiness for conflict.

Days after Donald Trump declared “full steam ahead” for the AUKUS pact, the Australian can reveal the Chief of the Air Force, Stephen Chappell, has initiated ­reviews of capability and sustainment costs as part of a service-wide push to “mitigate overspending” and “address budget challenges”.

In a separate edict, Chief of the Defence Force David Johnston has capped the number of days ADF reservists can work at 150 a year, down from 200.

The directives come despite the Albanese government’s claim to be making “the biggest peacetime increase in Australia’s defence spending” on record, and warnings by Defence officials of a heightened risk of conflict in the next five years.

In his meeting with Anthony Albanese in Washington this week, the US President provided a ringing endorsement of the AUKUS pact and gave the Prime Minister a pass on lifting defence spending from its current 2 per cent of GDP to the 3.5 per cent he had demanded of other allies.

“I’d always like more, but they have to do what they have to do. You can only do so much,” Mr Trump said.

The presidential reprieve comes amid defence industry warnings that new weapons and equipment procurements are being slowed or cancelled as the government focuses on a small number of big-ticket capabilities including the $368bn AUKUS submarine program.

Air Marshal Chappell said in a recent directive to personnel, obtained by The Australian, that a review of “capability priorities” would be undertaken to guide air force investments and “ensure in-year affordability”. “This may include project delays, scope reductions and divestments,” Air Marshal Chappell said.

A second review would examine “sustainment priorities”, with the service chief flagging cuts to aircraft flying hours through ­“reduction in rates of effort”. He said a “reduction in operational platforms/systems” was also under consideration.

“Air force must continue to ­implement measures to optimise ways of working, reduce cost and ensure every dollar spent focuses on delivering air force’s contribution to the integrated, focused force,” Air Marshal Chappell said.

At the same time, new figures provided to the Senate have put the cost of the navy’s troubled Hunter-class frigates at $5.9bn per ship – about four times the cost of one of the US’s workhorse Arleigh Burke destroyers. When design work and other program costs are included, the price of each vessel rises to an astonishing $9bn.

AUKUS costs are also ballooning, with the May budget revealing the submarine program will consume more than $3.3bn of taxpayers’ funds this financial year – nearly a decade before the first of Australia’s promised Virginia-class boats is due to enter service.

The Albanese government has pledged to increase the defence budget by $5.7bn over the next four years, and $57bn over the decade. The figure will be bolstered by a promised $12bn towards upgrades to Western Australia’s Henderson shipbuilding precinct.

But defence spending will rise by just $770m in 2025-26 and $730m the following year, according to the budget papers, requiring belt-tightening across the force.

Former defence official Marcus Hellyer, a longtime defence budget analyst, said it was curious to see the government claiming record defence spending when it was “talking about parking air planes”.

Dr Hellyer said that despite the government’s long-term funding promises, it was still sticking closely to the funding line set by the former Coalition government.

“We’re four years into the Albanese government’s tenure and all of the real, meaningful increases to the defence budget that they talk about are still out in the future,” he said. “To say there are record increases to the defence budget I think is not completely accurate.

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Certainly there are not record increases to the defence budget in terms of percentage of GDP, which is still hovering around 2 per cent. We haven’t broken out of that kind of rut that the budget has been in for about seven years now.”

Dr Hellyer said the cost-cutting drive was the ­“opportunity cost to the ramping up of the SSN (submersible ship nuclear) program”. “This is forcing defence to ­assess its priorities and unfortunately what seems to be happening is that existing capabilities are being sacrificed to pay for these future capabilities,” he said.

Australian Industry and ­Defence Network chief executive Mike Johnson said the government needed to boost defence ­spending urgently to ensure the country maintained a sovereign and self-sufficient defence industry. “The stark reality for many small and medium enterprises in the defence sector is that despite increases in defence spending, much of this has gone either to AUKUS or the Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordinance program, leaving traditional areas of Defence underfunded,” Mr Johnson said. “This has seen orders slow down or work cancelled.”

Comment was sought from ­Defence Minister Richard Marles but was not available by deadline.

Acting opposition defence spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said that with the nation facing its worst strategic environment since World War II, “the last thing Australia can afford is for Labor to be grounding aircraft, shelving capability and slashing reserve days”.

“Experts continue to warn that Labor’s underfunding of defence risks leaving Australia with a paper defence force, which lacks the capability, people and readiness to respond when it matters,” Senator Cash said.

“This is now a desperate situation that demands immediate ­action. We don’t have the defence spending required to even support the government’s own Defence Strategic Review. Australia must lift its defence spending to meet the realities of the threat environment we face and to ensure our Defence Force is ready, capable and properly funded.”

Greens defence spokesman David Shoebridge said the newly disclosed cost of the Hunter-class frigates was “scandalous” and “clearly hides a lot of the real ­expense”. “These frigates, if they ever get to water, will be some of the most expensive warships on the planet,” he said. “Other countries are manufacturing far bigger and better-equipped ships for a fraction of the price.”

The order to cut sustainment costs comes four months after the Auditor-General savaged Defence for its management of the Canberra-class landing helicopter docks.

He said poor maintenance had left the vessels riddled with defects that had caused instances of “critical failure”, and placed long-term availability and reliability at risk.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute warned after this year’s May budget that the government’s focus on AUKUS and other future capabilities, together with its “business as usual” defence budget, risked leaving the ADF “ill-prepared for current threats”.

The May budget said defence’s annual spending would rise to nearly $59bn this financial year, or about 2.04 per cent of GDP, rising to a forecast $61.8bn the following year, or about 2.06 per cent of GDP. Just 32 per cent of the budget has been allocated to acquiring new weapons and equipment – well under the 42 per cent target Labor wants to hit by the end of the decade.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/defence-orders-brutal-budget-cuts-as-aukus-and-frigate-costs-soar/news-story/33908df98017b654da85ac6c6627d984

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Solomon Islands ‘anti-Beijing warrior’ Daniel Suidani dies

STEPHEN RICE - October 21, 2025

Australia has lost one of its most influential friends in the Pacific with the death of outspoken Solomon Islands leader Daniel Suidani, a strident anti-Beijing warrior and a powerful voice against the rise of China in the region.

The former premier of Malaita, Solomon Islands’ largest province, rose to international prominence when he banned Chinese companies from entering the province, putting him in open conflict with the pro-Beijing central government of Solomon Islands.

Suidani died in hospital in Honiara on Tuesday, his death announced by his friend and former political adviser Celsus Talifu.

Although the cause of death has not been revealed, Suidani had been diagnosed in 2021 with a suspected brain lesion, for which he had received treatment in Taiwan - a move the Solomon Islands government described at the time as “unauthorised”.

Suidani had been a fierce critic of his country’s diplomatic switch from Taiwan to China in 2019

The former school teacher believed the values of the Chinese Communist Party were irreconcilable with those of Solomon Islands and corrosive of democracy – a heretical stance that led to his dismissal from office in February 2023 for refusing to accept the country’s “one China” policy.

In elections last year the popular Suidani was swept back into the Assembly and in March this year, the High Court declared his earlier disqualification illegal. He was still fighting what were widely viewed as trumped up charges of inciting riots.

The defiant Suidani was determined to become Premier again, telling The Australian three weeks ago that he planned to file a no-confidence motion in the provincial government, declaring: “I still have the support of the people in the province.”

Suidani was appalled that Chinese police in Malaita had been allowed to introduce the “Fengqiao Experience”, a so-called “community policing” system that requires citizens to keep tabs on each other and enables Chinese officials to fingerprint the population.

Suidani told The Australian he would throw out the dob-in-a-neighbour system if he regained power in the province.

“You cannot just come into our community like an intruder and start doing things without saying why you are coming,” he said. “We should not change the Melanesian culture we use to live because we still own this place.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/solomon-islands-antibeijing-warrior-daniel-suidani-dies/news-story/285e809171fbb1c5e40e7f44c40274ad

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Brittany Higgins abandons Linda Reynolds defamation appeal

STEPHEN RICE - October 21, 2025

Brittany Higgins has dropped her appeal against the court judgment that she defamed former Liberal minister Linda Reynolds, abandoning her attempt to ward off a $340,000 damages award and legal costs that could reach $2m.

Ms Higgins filed the appeal in the West Australian Supreme Court a month ago, on the last day she was legally able to do so and, coincidentally, the same day she accepted service of the bankruptcy notice Ms Reynolds had been ­attempting to serve on her.

Ms Higgins lodged a notice of discontinuance with the court on Tuesday.

The appeal had threatened to delay the bankruptcy proceedings, and any hope Ms Reynolds had that she might quickly recover any of the damages or massive costs she has incurred.

West Australian Supreme Court judge Paul Tottle in August found Ms Higgins had defamed Ms Reynolds through a series of social media posts, awarding the one-time defence minister $340,000 in damages and ­interest.

Justice Tottle also ordered Ms Higgins to pay 80 per cent of Ms Reynolds’ legal costs.

He found Ms Higgins had made “objectively untrue and misleading statements” when she first went public with her allegations that Ms Reynolds had engaged in a cover-up of her alleged rape.

The former senator filed bankruptcy proceedings against Ms Higgins in a bid to gain access to a “protective trust” that holds whatever remains of the $2.4m her former staffer received in her compensation payout from the Albanese government.

Ms Higgins has incurred hefty legal expenses of her own in defending the defamation claim, while the French home she purchased after the payout was sold at a loss just over a year later. Her wedding to partner David Sharaz is estimated to have cost six figures, and the pair have made a number of overseas trips while also renting an apartment on the Gold Coast.

Mr Sharaz has also been hit with bankruptcy proceedings after the WA Supreme Court ordered him to pay the former senator $92,000 in damages plus legal costs estimated at as much as $500,000.

The award came despite Mr Sharaz’s attempt to bow out of the proceedings, saying he could not afford to pay legal costs.

Ms Reynolds was forced to file an application for the substituted service of a bankruptcy notice after being unable to personally serve the bankruptcy notice on Mr Sharaz.

“Mr Sharaz, Ms Higgins and their associates have long adopted a strategy of driving up my legal costs so this conduct comes as no surprise to me,” Ms Reynolds said. “Despite these tactics, I remain resolute in seeing this through to the end.”

A bankruptcy declaration could open a path for Ms Reynolds to secure a portion of Mr Sharaz’s future earnings.

Mr Sharaz works alongside Ms Higgins as a director of Sydney public relations firm Third Hemisphere. The couple announced the birth of their first child in March.

Justice Tottle made damning findings about Ms Higgins’ claim that there had been a political cover-up of the rape allegations, noting it was a vital part of Ms Higgins’ story but that it had not occurred.

Justice Tottle ruled that Ms Higgins should pay 80 per cent of Ms Reynolds’ bills and that an early settlement offer – tabled four days before the trial was scheduled to begin – could not be considered reasonable.

The offer included a “mutual statement of regret” that would have led to Ms Reynolds acknowledging Ms Higgins believed she was not given appropriate support after being allegedly raped in Parliament House.

Justice Tottle found the mutual statement “fell short of an apology by a substantial margin”.

“The plaintiff’s characterisation of it as a statement to the effect the parties have agreed to disagree is accurate,” he wrote.

“As appears to have been the defendant’s intention, the mutual statement would have conveyed the defendant maintained the truth of the defamatory statements made by her.”

While total legal costs incurred by Ms Reynolds in bringing the defamation action are unknown, she said publicly in the wake of last month’s win that she had spent “millions” on the matter and had mortgaged her house to pay legal bills.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/brittany-higgins-abandons-linda-reynolds-defamation-appeal/news-story/4e16a729c4ecc11fd3249c42778835b2

Forced adoption redress scheme to offer compensation for impacted Tasmanians

Madeleine Rojahn - 23 October 2025

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Tasmanian mothers who were subjected to historical forced adoption practices will be able to seek compensation under a redress scheme, the state government has announced.

As many as 250,000 forced adoptions have taken place across Australia since the 1950s, with several state and federal inquiries having highlighted the trauma suffered under the practice.

In 1969, Tasmanian mother Robyn Cohen gave birth at the age of 18.

She said she was denied a chance to cradle or kiss her baby before they were put up for adoption without her consent, a move that laid the ground for years of major trauma and depression.

Ms Cohen said while the scheme "will go one step in my journey towards healing", she was concerned extensive consultation would delay it.

"I'm 75, many [of the] other women are older than I am," she said.

"One of our members has kidney cancer, another has died. I'm afraid that more of us will die before this happens if it's extended consultation.

"I will never get what I want, because no money will compensate me for the fact I have no memories of my baby.

"No amount of compensation will give me back my baby."

The announcement will make Tasmania the second Australian state or territory behind Victoria to announce a redress scheme, with the initiative being a recommendation from a national 2012 Senate inquiry.

The inquiry heard women's experiences ranged from being drugged and physically shackled to beds while giving birth, to social workers failing to advise mothers of government payments that could have supported them to keep their child.

In making the announcement on Thursday, Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff said the adoptions "caused significant pain and suffering for so many women".

"To the mothers who were affected by these practices all those decades ago, we are immensely sorry," Mr Rockliff said.

"Our government is committed to ensuring affected mothers have access to financial assistance and support.

"The establishment of a redress scheme will ensure that they do not need to go through adversarial court processes to do so."

From apology to redress scheme

Following the Senate inquiry, then-Tasmanian premier Lara Giddings offered an apology in 2012 to the families impacted by the historical practice.

Since that time, there have been calls to introduce compensation for impacted people.

Earlier this year, a woman known by the pseudonym OL became the first person impacted by forced adoptions to reach a settlement with the state.

In the 1970s, OL was 18 years old and unmarried when she gave birth in southern Tasmania and had her baby taken from her.

Her case was heard in the Supreme Court of Tasmania.

OL was one of a cohort of 18 women represented by lawyer Angela Sdrinis.

Ms Sdrinis said while she was "pleased the government had come to the table", for her clients who were unwell or elderly, the announcement had come too late.

"The trauma they've suffered has impacted on them physically and mentally and justice delayed is justice denied," she said.

Ms Sdrinis said she would advocate for a timely rollout of the scheme.

"The government needs to move very swiftly," she said.

"The scheme needs to be fair and to appropriately recognise the lifelong suffering of our clients.

"We need finality. These women need to draw a line in the sand and move on as best they can once their suffering has been acknowledged."

Ms Sdrinis said Victoria's $30,000 one-off payment offered under its redress scheme was "absolutely woefully inadequate".

"If you want to compare it to the national redress scheme for child sexual abuse survivors, that's $150,000. Various schemes for compensation, such as the stolen generation, are significantly more," she said.

"I think the government should be looking at the upper range of what a redress scheme can pay rather than that very low range we have in Victoria."

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Scheme open to mothers only

Attorney-General Guy Barnett said redress offered "a more trauma-informed pathway", avoiding adversarial court processes.

"As well as offering a more trauma-informed avenue than civil litigation, the scheme will also offer affected mothers access to ongoing counselling support," Mr Barnett said.

He said the government would consult widely in developing the scheme, but at this stage the financial support would only apply to affected mothers.

"It's unlikely to be fully established until next year, but there will be transitional arrangements put in place," Mr Barnett said.

"Transitional payments [will be] made to those affected and who may be in circumstances where they cannot wait for the full scheme to be established.

"The redress scheme is not going to be limited to a particular number. The terms of conditions will be consulted on in the coming weeks and months."

Speaking on ABC Radio Hobart, a caller named Adam told Mornings host David Rielly he had been separated from his mother as a child because she was "young and single".

"She unfortunately died in 2019. I have two brothers and I've never met them, and I think of them a lot," he said.

"[Forced adoption] has consequences medically, genetically and there are many people who have been affected."

He said it was remiss of the government that only mothers were eligible for the scheme.

"I've given up on the Tasmanian government," he said.

MP shares her story

Tasmania's Children's Minister, Jo Palmer, said it was important to "acknowledge that every person involved in an adoption has a different circumstance, and a different story".

Ms Palmer was born to an unmarried teenage mother in New Zealand in the 1970s. She said there was much she did not know about her birth story, including the circumstances around her own adoption and whether or not it had been forced.

"But there are a few things I do know," Ms Palmer said.

"One of which is as a 19-year-old, my birth mother, in the later parts of her pregnancy, and when she was actually giving birth to me, was very alone with no family and no support around her at all."

She said she had been adopted by "amazing parents" and had built a life she loved.

"But I have always known there was this person who, in my mind, will always be a 19-year-old … who found herself in a time where society felt that unmarried young mothers were to be treated a certain way."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-23/tasmania-forced-adoptions-redress-scheme/105923474

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The 2024 royal commission into defence suicides found that despite widespread underreporting, almost 800 sexual assaults allegations had been recorded in the ADF over the previous five years. It found half of female permanent serving members who responded to a survey reported experiencing unacceptable behaviour in the previous 12 months.

Former ADF member Jane Inglis, who spoke out at the royal commission, said she was angry at the lack of change since the commission’s findings and hoped more women will now be able to come forward through the legal action.

Inglis said she reported an incident to military police in which she allegedly had to get her dog to help chase a naked man from her bed, only to have to work with him on a weekly basis afterwards.

“There’s a lot of people that fear that this [reporting an assault] is going to have an implication on other serving members, on the family, on their careers, and historically, that’s exactly what has happened,” she said.

“Culturally what happens is often it is a person that has made the report that is ostracised or punished, and the person that has had the report against them is free to go about their normal life.”

A Defence spokesperson said the department was aware proceedings related to allegations of sexual violence and misconduct had been issued in the Federal Court.

“All Defence personnel have a right to be respected and deserve to have a positive workplace experience in the ADF. There is no place for sexual violence or misconduct in Defence,” they said.

“Defence acknowledges there is work to be done and that is why the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide which relate to sexual violence are being implemented as a priority.”

The Defence spokesperson said the ADF was developing a comprehensive sexual misconduct prevention strategy, following on from the implementation a range of actions aligned to 2022 Respect@Work legislation aimed at preventing sexual violence, and the introduction of Stop Sexual Harassment Directions (SSHD) for ADF personnel.

* If you are a current or former ADF member or a relative in need of support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, or Open Arms on 1800 011 046.

https://www.lifeline.org.au/

https://www.openarms.gov.au/

https://www.theage.com.au/national/servicewomen-launch-legal-action-against-defence-force-over-sexual-assault-discrimination-20251024-p5n518.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DlPOaY8nMM

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‘I was Epstein’s perfect victim’: the life of Virginia Giuffre in her own words

Finished shortly before her death, Virginia Giuffre’s memoir Nobody’s Girl traces her abuse by Epstein and Maxwell, and alleged encounters with Prince Andrew

Josie Ensor - October 20 2025

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In her telling of a now-infamous night in London with Prince Andrew, what was ingrained in Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s memory was her outfit: a pink sleeveless crop top and a pair of sparkly jeans.

Ghislaine Maxwell had wanted Giuffre in a demure dress, something more appropriate for dinner with the Queen’s second son. But like any other teenage girl, Giuffre wanted to dress like the pop stars of the day.

“I idolised Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, and the outfit was something I imagined the two of them might wear,” she wrote in her posthumous memoir, Nobody’s Girl, released on Tuesday. “I told Maxwell it felt more like me.”

A photograph taken of Giuffre in her pink top and jeans — the then duke, aged 41, clutching at her bare midriff — would eventually lead to Andrew’s downfall and one of the biggest royal scandals in modern history.

While Giuffre may only have been 17 years old, Andrew was the latest in a long line of men accused of sexually abusing her. He has always denied the allegations and claimed the picture was fabricated.

The story of Giuffre has been told and retold in the pages of newspapers and in the dockets filed in civil lawsuits, but the book offers the first full account of her life in her own words.

Giuffre warns early on that it will be a difficult read. “I know this is a lot to take in. The violence. The bad decisions. The self harm,” she writes. “But please, don’t stop reading.”

Reflecting on the title of the 400-page biography, she explains that she had been “everyone’s girl” and yet “nobody’s girl”. Giuffre consequently chose Nobody’s Girl as the title of the book, a melancholic reference to French author Hector Malot’s novel of the same name about an orphan adopted by a rich grandfather figure.

Page after page tells of the alleged abuse and betrayal that culminated in Giuffre taking her own life in April, shortly after the manuscript was completed.

Giuffre’s early life

Giuffre grew up in the down-at-heel town of Loxahatchee, Florida, as the middle child and only daughter of mother Lynn and father Sky Roberts. While her early childhood — marked by a poverty that verged on neglect — had been far from idyllic, it was fairly ordinary.

That was until she claimed her father Sky Roberts started abusing her, an allegation Roberts strenuously denies in a statement published in the book where he claims he “only tried to give my children a good life”. Roberts did not respond to additional requests for comment from The Times.

In her preteen and early teenage years Giuffre had come to see her value only in what her body could offer, having casual sex with any boy who so much as asked.

She recalls lying in her bed one night and thinking of a quote from one of her favourite children’s books, Charlotte’s Web. A lamb tells Wilbur that pigs mean “less than nothing” to her. Wilbur is outraged and argues there is no such thing. Giuffre says she “tried to remember a time when I’d been more than nothing”.

Writing in her book, she says the early abuse she suffered made her the “perfect victim” for Jeffrey Epstein.

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Recruited by Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago

Home life had become so intolerable that Giuffre would run away frequently. Aged 13 and living on the street, she fell into the clutches of Ron Eppinger, a local paedophile in his mid-sixties.

For six months he held her “prisoner” and sent her to be raped by his various acquaintances. In a deposition given this July, Maxwell named Eppinger. She described him as Giuffre’s “pimp from when she was 14… or 15”.

Eppinger was imprisoned for smuggling immigrants into the US for the purpose of prostitution, and Giuffre was rescued by an FBI swat team.

Recalling being a high-school dropout living in a trailer in her parents’ back yard, Giuffre writes: “I thought I had nowhere to go but up… What happened next, then, seemed like a gift.”

In the summer of 2000, her father — then a maintenance man at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club & Spa in Palm Beach — got her a job there as a $9-an-hour locker-room attendant.

Roberts introduced Giuffre to Trump in his office. The two men were “not friends exactly” but had been close enough that Giuffre says there were pictures of them posing together. Trump “couldn’t have been friendlier”, she writes.

A week later, while reading a book about massage, in walked a woman in her thirties with smart, manicured nails and a clipped British accent, who promptly introduced herself. Maxwell asked if Giuffre would be interested in earning money on the side, massaging her friend — “a wealthy man” and longtime member of Mar-a-Lago.

That same evening, the book alleges her dad drove her (she was still 16 and without a licence) to Epstein’s house — a palatial pink-wash mansion at the end of a dead-end road.

The Epstein years

Maxwell greeted Giuffre and led her to a room where Epstein was waiting, naked and prone. Giuffre recalled her first impression of Epstein’s bushy eyebrows and Cheshire cat grin. He peppered her with intimate questions, like whether she had a boyfriend or took birth control.

She was taken aback by the grandeur of the home; its many butlers, gardeners, chefs and servants. Epstein’s mansion in Palm Beach was just 16 miles from Loxahatchee but the vast economic divide made it seem much further, she writes. “You need to learn how rich people do things,” she thought to herself as she rubbed Epstein’s thighs.

Maxwell then allegedly took off her own clothes before unzipping Giuffre’s skirt and pulling her white Mar-a-Lago-branded polo shirt over her head. Maxwell instructed her to straddle Epstein while pinching his nipples before he forced himself on her.

Giuffre had done a “great job”, Maxwell is said to have told her as she handed her $200 and invited her to come back the next day.

“So begins the period of my life that has been dissected and analysed more than any other,” Giuffre writes.

She started by massaging only Epstein whom, she was told, had a biological need to climax three times a day. She had to be available at all hours of the day and night to “service” the financier.

Epstein shared with Giuffre what he insisted were “scientific” justifications for his errant behaviour. What he was doing was not wrong, he told her, because he would only have sex with girls who had started menstruating as they were ‘of age’.”

She alleges Epstein threatened to hurt her younger brother if she ever told anyone of her life with him. Her obedience and total loyalty were rewarded. She started getting invited to attend glamorous events with Epstein and Maxwell: Naomi Campbell’s 31st birthday party on a yacht in St Tropez, dinner with the former president Bill Clinton. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Campbell or Clinton.

Epstein had succeeded in convincing Giuffre that he was protecting her from a mediocre life that she did not deserve. “I felt strangely indebted to him.”

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‘Prince Andrew abused me three times’

Giuffre rose to become the “Number One” among the women and girls who attended to Epstein. She was flown around the world on his private jet — nicknamed the Lolita Express for its regular young female passengers — and offered up to his influential and powerful friends like a “platter of fruit”.

She has alleged that she was abused by Andrew three times — at Maxwell’s home in London, at Epstein’s in Manhattan and during an “orgy” with other underage-looking girls on a private island in the Caribbean — aged just 17. “You are to do for him what you do for Jeffrey,” Maxwell instructed Giuffre.

The duke has always denied the allegations. He agreed to a multi-million-dollar settlement with Giuffre in 2022 with no admission of liability.

“It is truly impossible to communicate in words just how many men there were,” she writes. Some of them, like Andrew, were well-known enough that they did not need an introduction, others she would only be able to identify years later when presented with photographs by journalists and FBI officers.

Many of them are anonymised in the book by its publishers for legal reasons; one dubbed “Billionaire No 1”, another “Billionaire No 2”, a man who apparently owned a chain of hotels.

She had preserved their faces in an “air-tight vault in my head”, she writes, one that was waiting to be unlocked.

Giuffre had wished to expose every one of her abusers, but worried there would be dire consequences for her and her family.

Why I went public — and inspired other victims to do the same

Swathes of the American public have in recent months been demanding that the Trump administration release Epstein’s so-called client list after the government closed its investigation into one of the worst sex-trafficking rings in history. While in all likelihood there is no such neat compilation of names, the Rolodex of men Giuffre was ordered to please during her 25 months with Epstein is a good place to start.

Giuffre claims Epstein suggested at one point — after she suffered a miscarriage — that she bear a child for him and Maxwell. Epstein, she noted, never liked to wear a condom with any of his victims. It crossed a line for Giuffre, who decided she needed to get out.

She begged Epstein to send her to receive formal training as a masseuse in Thailand, one of his early promises. She used it as her chance to escape.

Aged 19, she met a mixed martial arts instructor named Robert Giuffre while out in Chiang Mai. They married within ten days and moved to Robert’s hometown in Australia. She informed Epstein over the phone that she would not be returning. He brusquely wished her well but reminded her of the need for discretion.

Seven years — and three children — later, Giuffre came forward with allegations of abuse by Epstein in a lawsuit she filed under the pseudonym Jane Doe in 2009, prompted by the birth of her first daughter. “Having a daughter changed me, awakening something fierce down deep inside,” she writes.

It would be several more years before she would come out publicly, however, first against Epstein and Maxwell and then against Andrew. She was tracked down in Australia and interviewed by the Mail on Sunday, which paid her $160,000 for her story. It pre-dated the MeToo era, coming at a time when accusers of rich and powerful men were viewed largely with suspicion. Giuffre was pilloried in the press, labelled a liar and a money-grabber.

It only worked to strengthen her resolve. From the age of 13 she had been the type of girl who would “walk a mile for a fistfight”, one who “liked confronting bullies”.

She enlisted the help of the powerhouse lawyer Sigrid “Siggy” McCawley, who sued Andrew and negotiated millions of dollars in a confidential settlement. She inspired dozens of other Epstein victims to do the same, becoming the nucleus of a group of “Survivor Sisters” fighting to bring alleged wrongdoers to account.

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Her final years

As this was playing out in America, tensions grew at home. Giuffre claimed her husband had grown uncomfortable with the publicity her case was attracting.

She largely writes lovingly of her husband, a man who “rescued her from Epstein and Maxwell’s clutches”, but her family have alleged since Giuffre’s death that the marriage was more complicated.

The Times, which was given access to her diaries and texts, reported in July that Giuffre claimed she was assaulted by her husband during their 22-year marriage. They became estranged in 2024 and Robert was granted custody of their children which, her family say, devastated her.

Robert Giuffre’s counsel said they were unable to comment on specific allegations of abuse due to live proceedings in the family court of Western Australia.

Giuffre’s family expressed objections to Robert’s characterisation in the book and requested certain passages be edited to reflect the alleged “abuse” she suffered during her marriage. The book’s publisher, Alfred A Knopf and the family, agreed to a foreword with a note from Wallace, co-author of the book, explaining that there were “all kinds of reasons that a woman who had been domestically abused might choose to stay silent”.

Victims of child abuse are as much as 15 times more likely to be victims of abuse later in life, the foreword notes.

And as is common with victims, recovery is not often a linear process. The years of abuse continued to haunt Giuffre. She struggled with eating disorders, self-harm and attempted suicide at least twice (on one occasion swallowing 240 pills before being treated with Narcan in hospital).

Giuffre ultimately took her own life at the family’s ranch in rural Perth, in April this year aged 41.

One of her last expressed wishes was that her memoir be released. “It is my heartfelt wish that this work be published, regardless of circumstances at the time,” she wrote in an email foreshadowing her suicide three weeks later. “It is imperative that the truth is understood and that the issues surrounding this topic (of sex trafficking) be addressed, both for the sake of awareness and for justice.”

https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/virginia-giuffre-book-memoir-nobodys-girl-mw2f3cmr8

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After Giuffre flees them, Epstein and Maxwell track her down in Australia, making veiled threats as the financier becomes a person of interest to authorities. Thanks to a forgiving arrangement with prosecutors, Epstein receives reduced charges, a short prison sentence and generous work release terms. Therapy, meanwhile, helps Giuffre start to confront the trauma that had never been fully purged from her tortured past.

It’s only against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement and with renewed public interest in Giuffre’s story that a real reckoning can take place. Giuffre successfully sues Maxwell for defamation, a clever legal tactic that later incriminates Maxwell at her own criminal trial. Thanks also to an explosive exposé in The Miami Herald, prosecutors finally arrest Epstein in July 2019. A month later the financier died by suicide in a US jail in 2019.

As the criminal justice system catches up with other assailants, Giuffre begins to become undone from the toll that repeating her abuse takes: “every retelling of my stories of abuse hit me hard … ate away at me”. Health complications (including a broken neck) compound her physical torment, while “thoughts of self-annihilation” become part of her daily mental warfare.

Thoughts of her own children are never far from Giuffre’s mind throughout Nobody’s Girl. It was the birth of her daughter that empowered Giuffre to finally challenge Epstein and reach beyond her trauma to a greater purpose, despite the many real threats that doing so would pose.

Giuffre finishes by adding that there are still other powerful men to name as her abusers. She decides against outing any more of them to safeguard her family’s future welfare: “My most important role is that of a mother.” Even so, she doesn’t believe the Epstein case can be closed yet: “Where are those videotapes the FBI confiscated from Epstein’s houses?” Through this project, Giuffre exorcises many demons that besieged her during her brief life. Trauma still lingers, a valve difficult to close, but her resilience and courage to advocate for other survivors helps to blunt that pain. It’s all the more tragic that the activist is no longer alive to see the impact this memoir will undoubtedly have on many others.

Nobody’s Girl makes it known that “Virginia Roberts Giuffre” should no longer designate an Epstein victim, but a vocal survivor of sexual abuse who finally reclaimed her name.

If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline (13 11 14), the Suicide Call Back Service (1300 659 467), Beyond Blue (1300 22 4636) and Kids Helpline (1800 55 1800).

https://www.1800respect.org.au/

https://www.lifeline.org.au/

https://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au/

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/

https://www.kidshelpline.com.au/

https://www.theage.com.au/culture/books/virginia-giuffre-s-devastating-memoir-reveals-a-lifetime-of-abuse-20251020-p5n3sn.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHAcsCVbHyA

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Nobody’s Girl review: Should you read Virginia Giuffre’s memoir?

I have lost count of the number of people – most of them women – who want an answer to this question.

CAROLINE OVERINGTON - October 21, 2025

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Should I read it?

I have lost count of the number of people – most of them women – who want an answer to this question.

They have seen all the reporting around Nobody’s Girl, by the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, and they have mixed feelings about whether they should buy a copy.

Some are thinking: oh, do I really want to read a memoir of abuse? I’m sure it’s sad and worthy, etc etc, but I need an escape!

Others may be thinking: OK, but haven’t we heard all this before? Prince Andrew is a grub, and Jeffrey Epstein was a sex-obsessed monster, and the people that hung around them, hoping for free trips on the private jets, and the so-called “glamour” of having a trapped and broken girl massage their feet by the pool?

They are repulsive, obviously.

Some reluctant readers will themselves be survivors of sexual abuse, because the hard truth is that many women don’t get through life without being made to do something of a sexual nature that they do not want to do. Most survivors – let’s retire “victim” shall we? – try to shrug it off, because the cost (financially, socially, professionally) of doing anything else is far too high.

Others battle for the rest of their lives, trying to find a place where they can feel secure and happy.

Some, like Virginia, won’t make it. And that’s one of things that frankly makes this book difficult to read, because you keep thinking to yourself oh, but it’s OK, it’s OK, she got through it, she survived.

She didn’t.

She’s dead.

So, should you read it?

Look, I’m going to make the case for yes, emphatically yes.

I’m also going to reveal what the book says about Donald Trump, since everyone seems to have missed that, at least in the reporting to date.

Nobody’s Girl is an immensely valuable resource, for it helps us understand what it means to live in the world, as a survivor.

Virginia Giuffre was a child growing up in the small town of Loxahatchee when she was assaulted by a grown-up.

It triggered confusion and feelings of shame.

She explains what a counsellor told her, years later: “When children are abused, they start to believe that love and violation go together.”

“I don’t enjoy repeating this story,” she says. “It hurts to relive what was done to me. My body was used in ways that did enormous damage to me. But the worst things weren’t physical, but psychological.”

She was manipulated into behaviours that “ate away at me, eroding my ability to defend myself … I was groomed to be complicit in my own devastation.”

That is a brilliant summation: she became complicit in her own destruction, as people grappling with shame so often do (it can take the form of drug and alcohol abuse, and other maladaptive coping strategies, such as lying, cheating, and entering into terrible relationships, in the hope of being “saved” and so on.)

Virginia says many survivors are criticised for returning to the scene of the abuse (in her case, Epstein’s mansion, where she was a regular guest from the age of 16).

“How can you complain about being abused,” she writes, “when you could so easily have stayed away?”

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She said Epstein (like most pedophiles and abusers) was “good at spotting girls whose wounds made them vulnerable to him. Several of us had been molested as children … we were the girls no one cared about, and he pretended to care”.

He threw “what looked like a lifeline to drowning girls, girls who had nothing, girls who wished to be and do better”.

He told her: “You’re a keeper.”

“How long had I hoped to hear those words?” she writes. “To believe that I was worth keeping?

“It’s taken me a long time to understand that they (Epstein and his co-star in this macabre carnival, Ghislaine Maxwell) solidified their power over me by offering me a new sort of family.

“The first time we ate a meal together, for example, they were appalled by my table manners. Epstein told me how to hold a knife and fork, the way civilised people do.

“I’d been trained to accept what affection, if any, I could get.”

The rational brain can know that what happened to her in that mansion, and on those creepy yachts and planes and on Epstein’s island, was not her fault.

The emotional brain still feels shame.

There is a great deal in the book about the way the world works: monstrously rich people at the top, the rest of us unaware of the cavalier nature of their abuse at the bottom.

Some of these people, we vote for, and some we cheer for. We attend their shows, and buy their books, and put them into office.

It’s grotesque.

Virginia Giuffre tried to save herself at the age of 20 by latching with wild haste onto an Australian, Robert Giuffre, who became her husband 10 days after they met in Thailand, where she was doing a massage course.

They would stay married for more than 20 years, and they’d have three children together.

She fell apart when the marriage did, and ultimately took her own life.

She names many of the people who took advantage of her, which brings me to the reference to Trump on page 222. It doesn’t fit the narrative:

“Epstein had been shunned by at least one powerful person,” Giuffre writes. “Donald Trump ended Epstein’s membership at Mar-a-Lago and banned him from visiting in 2007, after Epstein hit on the teenage daughter of another member.”

That was before Epstein had entered into his plea deal, and before anyone knew he was a convicted sex offender.

By 2011, everyone knew, yet he was photographed with Prince Andrew in Central Park; others known to have attended his parties, or travelled on the vile “Lolita Express” to the island where broken girls stood waiting include Bill Gates, Bill Clinton; the comedian Chelsea Handler; and the director Woody Allen (of course).

Do you need to know more about these people, and their world?

I’d say we all do.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/culture/books/nobodys-girl-review-should-you-read-virginia-giuffres-memoir/news-story/0d1c41a5ecbb1b7e13ddd9989b4158e1

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Nobody’s Girl by Virginia Roberts Giuffre review – a devastating exposé of power, corruption and abuse

Giuffre’s posthumously published memoir lays bare the life-wrecking impact of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes – but it is also the story of how a young woman becomes a hero

Emma Brockes - 20 Oct 2025

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There is a strand running through Nobody’s Girl – a memoir by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who died by suicide in April this year – in which the activist and survivor of Jeffrey Epstein grapples with something more insidious than abuse. “I know it is a lot to take in,” she writes after a gruelling early passage detailing how she was sexually abused as a child. “But please don’t stop reading.” After recounting the first time Epstein allegedly forced her to have sex with one of his billionaire friends, she writes, “I need a breather. I bet you do too.”

Throughout the book, Giuffre beguiles, apologises and cheerfully breaks the fourth wall in an effort to soften the distaste she assumes her story will trigger. Make no mistake: this is a book about power, corruption, industrial-scale sex abuse and the way in which institutions sided with the perpetrator over his victims. Epstein hanged himself in prison while awaiting trial in 2019 and Ghislaine Maxwell, his co-conspirator, is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, outcomes largely enabled by Giuffre’s testimony. But it is also a book about how a young woman becomes a hero. And yet here she is, having to charm us out of shrinking from her in horror.

Of course, these assumptions of hers aren’t wrong. Giuffre, who was 41 when she died and whose deft, smart book is co-written with the journalist Amy Wallace, knows that to be a victim of sexual violence is to be at best pitied, at worst reviled. (Sample headline from the Daily News: “Jeffrey Epstein Accuser Was Not a Sex Slave, but a Money-Hungry Sex Kitten, Her Former Friends Say.”) I approached Nobody’s Girl with two questions. First, does it give any insight into the so-called Epstein list, the catalogue of prominent men to whom Giuffre and others were trafficked? The closest we get to a fresh allegation is Giuffre’s description of one of the scores of men Epstein forced her to have sex with as a “politician” and “former minister”, who choked and beat her almost unconscious, but who, she writes, is too powerful to name. (When she told Epstein how violent the man had been, he said coldly: “You’ll get that sometimes.”)

Second, does the book make life harder for Ghislaine Maxwell, currently in a low security prison in Texas and sucking up to President Trump to have her sentence reduced? (Her latest appeal was rejected earlier this month.) On this score, Giuffre’s account must shunt the possibility of reprieve further out of reach. It was Maxwell – or “G Max” as she insisted the girls call her – who spotted Giuffre working as a 16-year-old locker-room assistant at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, and brought her to Epstein’s house to be “interviewed” as a possible masseuse. Giuffre was forced to have sex with Epstein that day and both then and in subsequent assaults, Maxwell participated. “Maxwell began lashing out at me during our threesomes,” writes Giuffre. “If I complained, she hurt me more.”

This brings me to a third question: given its punishing nature, why read this book? I’ve heard more than one person say they “don’t have the stomach” for it – not phrasing any victim needs to hear – but while the book is relentlessly, shockingly hard, it is also a clear-eyed and necessary account of how sex offenders operate. Giuffre’s greatest fear – that being raped and trafficked puts her beyond empathetic reach of most people – is not, in fact, what happens. Narrative does what deposition can’t by taking us into the room with her. The book breathes life into Giuffre’s legal status as a victim, showing us a girl like any we know, like us, and enlivening the reality of those who are trafficked while being “free” to walk away.

Abused since the age of six, by the time she met Epstein, Giuffre writes: “I had been sexualized against my will and had survived by acquiescing. I was a pleaser, even when pleasing others cost me dearly. For 10 years, men had cloaked their abuse of me in a fake mantle of ‘love’. Epstein and Maxwell knew just how to tap into that same crooked vein.”

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Giuffre’s recollections of Prince Andrew, meanwhile, a man with whom she was allegedly forced to have sex three times – once in the context of an orgy on Epstein’s island – present him in an even more buffoonish and grotesque light. “We disrobed and got in the tub, but we didn’t stay there long because the prince was eager to get to the bed … In my memory, the whole thing lasted less than half an hour.” Prince Andrew denies Giuffre’s allegations that he had sex with her, that she had been trafficked to him by Epstein or that he had ever met her. But so much focus has been put on the prince that after reading this book, it wasn’t him I thought about most; it was the casual visitors to Epstein’s New York mansion, the illustrious men and occasional woman whom Giuffre says she encountered at dinners there.

In respect of these people I’d like to ask: who the fuck did they think the 17-year-old at the table was? What did they think she was doing there? Only Melinda Gates, who met Epstein once and cited him as a factor in the breakdown of her marriage to Bill Gates, sensed what apparently none of these people could put their finger on. Giuffre quotes from a statement made by Gates after her meeting with Epstein: “I regretted it the second I walked in the door. He was abhorrent. He was evil personified.” It was an insight that evidently escaped geniuses like the MIT professors Epstein continued to advise long after he’d become a convicted sex offender.

Giuffre was rightly proud of holding Epstein and Maxwell to account. And yet for any survivor of sexual violence, the cost of recovery – let alone of confronting her abusers in front of the world – can be impossibly steep. At the beginning of the book, Amy Wallace shares details of Giuffre’s fraught final months, including multiple health problems and alleged domestic violence at the hands of Robert Giuffre, her Australian husband. (Robert Giuffre’s lawyer has declined to comment on the allegations, citing ongoing court proceedings.) On 1 April, Giuffre wrote to Wallace: “It is my heartfelt wish that this work be published, regardless of my circumstances at the time.” Three weeks later, she was found dead on her remote Australian farm, leaving behind three children. In a lawsuit Giuffre brought against Epstein in 2009, her lawyers stated the injuries she suffered as a result of his abuse included “a loss of the capacity to enjoy life”, and were of a magnitude that made them “permanent in nature”. The same might be said for this important, courageous, tragically posthumous book.

• In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie - In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org - In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

https://www.samaritans.org/

https://988lifeline.org/

https://www.lifeline.org.au/

http://www.befrienders.org/

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/oct/20/nobodys-girl-by-virginia-roberts-giuffre-review-a-devastating-expose-of-power-corruption-and-abuse

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The tragic life of Virginia Giuffre, victim of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell

Aaron Patrick - 20 OCT 2025

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Choosing the saddest moment in Virginia Giuffre’s life is tough.

Was it the father who traded her prepubescent body to a friend?

The “prime minister” who raped her so violently he left her bleeding? Or the bitter end of the relationship with the only man who dedicated his life to fixing hers?

Virginia Giuffre, who died by her own hand six months ago, acknowledges the abuse catalogued in her posthumous memoir, Nobody’s Girl, constitutes a “trauma reel.”

Published on Tuesday, the book is an insiders account of one of the great abuse-of-power scandals of the 21st century. As one of the financier Jeffrey Epstein’s central victims, Giuffre was presented as a gift to the rich and powerful.

The abuse continued after Giuffre escaped aged 19.

Prince Andrew, the most prominent man accused by Giuffre of using her for sex, asked a police bodyguard to investigate the young woman, who he told a senior palace official had a criminal record in the US, the Daily Mail reported overnight.

In Nobody’s Girl Giuffre describes how, as a teenager, she believed Epstein cared for the girls he shared around for sex.

She changed her mind when a man described as a “well-known prime minister” choked and beat her in a room on Epstein’s private Caribbean island. Afterwards, Giuffre begged Epstein for protection.

He coldly told her the abuse was part of her job.

Prince Andrew

That moment was the start of the end. Epstein and his friend, lover and business partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, asked Giuffre to act as a surrogate mother for them.

The payment for renting her womb would include money, accommodation and 24-hour professional childcare — but no legal rights to the child, who she feared would become another sexual victim.

Giuffre was a teenager, but smart enough to work out how to escape. On a trip to Thailand to study massage techniques for Epstein, she met Australian Robert Giuffre, and married him 10 days later.

After giving birth to a daughter in 2010, Giuffre decided she wanted to hold Epstein and his powerful circle of sex abusers to account, including Prince Andrew, whose famous photo with her and Maxwell made it harder for the royal to convince the world her allegations he abused her three times were untrue.

Prince Andrew has steadfastly insisted on his innocence. If King Charles believes him, the monarch isn’t providing much support.

On Friday, after consultations with the palace, the 65-year-old prince surrendered one of his most valuable assets: the title of Duke of York.

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History of abuse

In her book, Giuffre responds to criticism she and other young women willingly participated in Epstein’s sex-ring.

After all, they were not held in chains. They could leave Mar-a-Lago and his island, Little Saint James, at any time.

Giuffre explains that part of Epstein’s evil skill was identifying and manipulating vulnerable girls. Giuffre was already a rape veteran by the time she came under Giuffre and Maxwell’s control.

Her father sexually molested her, and allowed a family friend to do the same when she was between 7 and 11, Giuffre writes. Her co-writer, freelance journalist Amy Wallace, corroborated Giuffre’s account with six confidantes.

The father “strenuously” denied the abuse but the family friend spent 14 months in jail for abusing another child, according to The New York Times.

“How can you complain about being abused, some have asked, when you could so easily have stayed away?” she writes.

“But that stance discounts what many of us had been through before we encountered Epstein, as well as how good he was at spotting girls whose wounds made them vulnerable.

“Several of us had been molested or raped as children; many of us were poor or even homeless. We were girls who no one cared about, and Epstein pretended to care. A master manipulator, he threw what looked like a lifeline to girls who were drowning. If they wanted to be dancers, he offered dance lessons. If they aspired to be actors, he said he’d help them get roles. And then, he did his worst to them.”

Consequences

Giuffre helped change the world. An era of sexual entitlement ended.

The powerful men and institutions shamed by their association with Epstein include Barclays Bank, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Harvard University, former US President Bill Clinton, former Vice-President Al Gore, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, actor Kevin Spacey, lawyer Alan Dershowitz and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Donald Trump, an early friend of Epstein’s, is still managing the fall out. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence.

There was no happy ending. Unable to bear the weigh of her life, Giuffre took her life at the Western Australia property she bought with compensation from lawsuits against banks that helped Epstein’s business after he was accused of sexual abuse against children in 2006.

Written over four years, Nobody’s Girl’s original text portrayed Giuffre’s husband as her saviour. The couple’s marriage broke down in the months before her death, though, and Robert had taken out a legal order restricting her access to their three children.

Three weeks before her suicide, People magazine reported she was an alleged victim of domestic violence.

The magazine reported that her brother Sky Roberts and his wife Amanda were allegedly concerned she could die at the hands of her estranged partner, who denied the allegation

He was not charged, even though Giuffre made a police complaint at the time, according to People.

As the book neared publication, family members became concerned the manuscript presented the marriage too positively. They convinced publisher Knopf to include a foreword that referred to the bitter end of the relationship.

Powerless and pretty, the teenage Giuffre was exploited by men who had everything she didn’t.

As an adult, Giuffre was no longer a victim. The strength of her story made her far more powerful, morally, than anyone who abused her.

https://thenightly.com.au/world/the-tragic-life-of-virginia-giuffre-victim-of-jeffrey-epstein-and-ghislaine-maxwell-c-20406682

https://apnews.com/article/e452c64b20004192bcb50188861d8241

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>>23745027

>>23745089

>>23745422

‘Tell us everything you saw, Andrew, for Virginia’s sake’

Amy Wallace, who co-wrote Virginia Giuffre’s memoir, Nobody’s Girl, urges Prince Andrew to reveal any information he has, regardless of his involvement

Katie Gatens - October 19 2025

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As a ghostwriter of celebrity memoirs, Amy Wallace is used to putting herself in the background, channelling her subjects’ deepest thoughts and memories. Being invisible.

This is how it was meant to be with her latest project, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, by Virginia Roberts Giuffre — the most prominent victim of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking ring.

A 17-year-old Giuffre was recruited as a masseuse by Maxwell while working at Mar-a-Lago in Florida in mid-2000. Over two years Giuffre claims she was forced to have sex with Epstein, a wealthy financier, and his business associates, including, on three occasions, with Prince Andrew. The prince has denied these allegations and settled, without admission of liability, a civil claim brought against him by Giuffre in 2022 for an undisclosed sum.

In becoming one of the first victims to publicly speak out against Epstein, Giuffre was heralded as a prominent advocate for survivors of sexual abuse.

Then, in April this year, she took her own life.

The posthumous memoir, released this week, would turn out to be Giuffre’s final words. Now Wallace, 63, has been thrown into the spotlight in her place.

Wallace is from California but appears via Zoom from a hotel room in New York City. Today, in a beige scarf and jumper with straight ice-white hair, she has back-to-back interviews and TV appearances to promote the book. This, she says, is not her wheelhouse.

“I wish that [Giuffre] was here talking to you right now — that’s how these things usually work, but her story is important,” says Wallace. “I’m glad to be able to talk about it, as hard as it is, because somebody needs to.”

In response to the news that Andrew had given up his royal titles on Friday, Wallace says: “I can’t speak for Virginia, and I wish she were here to speak for herself. But having worked alongside her for four years, I can say that it was her fervent wish that all the men she was trafficked to be brought to justice.

“While Prince Andrew’s relinquishing of his Duke of York title may appear symbolic, it is a step in the right direction. There is no question that it was Virginia’s strength and bravery that were the catalysts that brought about Prince Andrew’s fall from grace. The world should credit her and her powerful memoir for that accomplishment.”

Wallace worked with Giuffre for four years. She travelled to Paris to meet Giuffre for the first time. They went to New York, a place, Wallace says, that for Giuffre “had a lot of ghosts”.

Wallace also travelled to Australia twice, spending about a month living in the family home in Western Australia that Giuffre shared with her husband, Robbie, and three children, Alex, Tyler and Ellie.

“I was eating every meal with them,” says Wallace. “We went to her daughter’s volleyball game, we took walks. We were just kind of living. I was a fly on the wall. We went grocery shopping, we got our nails done with her daughter.”

Wallace shows a ring on her finger Giuffre that bought her in a thrift store. “She was constantly wanting to buy me things, which I wouldn’t let her do, but I let her buy me this for 50 cents,” she says. “I’ve been wearing it during the interviews, because I want her with me.”

Wallace is keen to emphasise that Giuffre’s memoir is not “a tell-all” or “a tawdry sex book” but something that Giuffre wanted to write in order to help survivors of abuse as well as allowing her to move on to the next chapter of her life: “The irony being, she had to repeat it one more time, for me.”

As well as chronicling Giuffre (née Roberts)’s life in Epstein’s inner circle, the book is a harrowing account of her allegations of a lifetime of sexual abuse, including by her father and her father’s friend. In the book Wallace writes that Giuffre’s father “strenuously” denied the allegations of abuse.

Wallace says that it was hard to hear her story: “It was like a repository of horrors.”

(continued)

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Wallace says Giuffre was “definitely wary of trusting women” — including her, initially — due to her betrayal by Maxwell.

The book alleges “that she [Maxwell] was fully involved in the sexual abuse. She was not just a madam or a receptionist. She was hurting the girls. She was having sex with the girls”, Wallace says. She adds that Giuffre’s family is campaigning to prevent Maxwell from getting a presidential pardon.

“Virginia said to me more than once, obviously Epstein is a monster, but Ghislaine is the true evil.

“She played on her own gender to lure them into the trap. And then once they were in, there was no escaping from it. There’s a special place in hell for Ghislaine.”

Wallace was first introduced to Giuffre on Zoom in April 2021. Giuffre was meeting other ghostwriters too, but Wallace says she probably picked her because “this story was so complex”.

“She was making allegations, as she had for years, against a lot of rich and powerful people. We couldn’t make a mistake,” she says. Wallace describes cross-referencing Giuffre’s account with binders of public records, legal files, flight logs and celebrity photos that she compiled.

Despite the meticulous research, Wallace says, “there are a lot of trolls out there still saying that she’s a liar. How much of that was orchestrated by powerful individuals in the UK, I, of course, can’t know for sure.”

In her memoir, Giuffre details her alleged encounters with Prince Andrew, who Giuffre alleges had sex with her three times. Prince Andrew has denied all the allegations.

Wallace says she believed that despite Giuffre’s settlement with Andrew in 2022, which came with a one-year gag order before Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, Giuffre wanted Andrew to answer for his alleged crimes and provide information that would assist with the prosecutions of rapists and sex traffickers.

Wallace says: “On the Prince Andrew front, yes, she settled with him. Separate and apart from whatever he did or didn’t do, he was in those houses. He has information about other things that were going on. So yes, he could step forward if he were a different person and he could say, ‘I feel terrible about this, and I want to say, these women are telling the truth, and here’s what I saw.’ I don’t hold out hope that that’s going to happen, but certainly he could do that. And it would be of benefit, not just to Virginia, but to society at large. The other men who have not been called out, yes, she wanted those people prosecuted.”

The prince maintained contact with Epstein after his conviction for sex offences in 2008, serving 13 months in prison. Andrew stayed at his house in New York in December 2010. In an email on February 28, 2011 the prince wrote to Epstein: “We are in this together” after a photo was published with Andrew’s arm around Giuffre. He signed off asking him to “stay in close touch”.

In the book Giuffre details the sexual encounters she claims she had with Andrew and describes his “entitlement”.

“She says he thought it was his birthright to have sex with her, a 17-year-old who he knew was 17 who he’d never met before,” Wallace says. “This was somebody being served up to him. And he was perfectly happy with that.”

Wallace says Giuffre thought that a prince would act more honourably. “She’s been told by the world that a royal person is an honourable celebrity,” says Wallace. “Then it evolves very quickly into Ghislaine and Jeffrey telling her to service him. There’s heartbreak there. She wants to live in a world where a prince is a wonderful human being. And she doesn’t.”

Giuffre alleges that intervention from the palace goes back as far as 2015 — two years before the MeToo scandal gained worldwide attention — when an interview with the American news network ABC was axed, allegedly after pressure from the royal family.

Wallace says that she and Giuffre did not speculate specifically on how the book would be received by the royal family, but said: “We wanted everybody who had done wrong to be called out in whatever way she could.”

(continued)

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In August 2019 Epstein was found hanged in his cell while awaiting trial.

In 2020 Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors.

Maxwell’s prosecutors said at the time that Andrew had “sought to falsely portray himself to the public as eager and willing to co-operate”, while repeatedly declining requests to speak to police, leading a judge to comment that lawyers for the prince were playing “a game of hide and seek behind palace walls”.

There has been mounting pressure for President Trump to release the “Epstein files”, which hold the names of the financier’s associates. “The American public are outraged that the message is, if you’re wealthy and powerful you don’t have to live by any rules,” Wallace says.

She argued that the government should release the list of names, which survivors have already repeated to the authorities. “[The FBI] have the names. The impetus shouldn’t be on this book or Virginia or me to name any more names.”

Wallace says that Giuffre “was a Trump fan” and wanted him to be elected president “because she knew him personally”. As part of his presidential campaign he vowed to release the files. Wallace says Giuffre would be “devastated” by the subsequent “foot-dragging and [Trump] calling it a ‘democratic hoax’”.

Wallace wrote a preface to the book after Giuffre’s death, detailing the final months of her life, in which she was estranged from her husband of 22 years, Robbie. Wallace was the first person she called when she alleged Robbie had been physically abusive in January 2025. Robbie took out a restraining order against his wife and a court order restricted access to their three children. His lawyer has said that he was unable to comment due to live proceedings in the family court in Western Australia.

In March, Giuffre was involved in a car accident and posted on Instagram from hospital that she had kidney failure and just days to live.

Wallace says the boundary between her and Giuffre “was absolutely difficult” towards the end of her life. “This was a woman who had opened up her life to me, who I had come to love. And she was alone a lot of the time with herself and I didn’t want her to feel that way.”

Wallace, used to probing interviewees in order for them to access difficult memories, says she did not have that issue with Giuffre: “She was willing to serve up things without me prompting, but I am not a trained therapist.” Towards the end of her life, says Wallace, this was taking a toll on Giuffre’s mental health.

In an email to Wallace and her publicist on April 1, Giuffre wrote that if she died, she wanted the book published. Later that month, she took her own life.

Tragically, the book’s ending is optimistic, with Giuffre imagining running a therapeutic horse farm (she was a huge animal lover) and continuing her charity Speak Out, Act, Reclaim (Soar) for survivors of sex trafficking.

Aside from her work with victims of sexual abuse, Wallace says, Giuffre’s legacy is a more humble one. “The most impressive thing she did was that she built a life beyond her trauma — even though it wasn’t perfect all the time.”

Prince Andrew did not respond to a request for comment.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/royal-family/article/jeffrey-epstein-victims-prince-andrew-accusations-giuffre-hdf8wzt3c

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>>23745422

‘He watched me beg for my life. Even in Australia, I couldn’t escape Epstein and my abusers’

In this extract from her memoir, Virginia Giuffre writes that even after taking refuge in Australia, she could not escape Jeffrey Epstein and her abusers.

Virginia Roberts Giuffre - October 24, 2025

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When I picture myself during my first few days in Australia, I have to laugh. I am standing behind the stove in my in-laws’ kitchen, learning how to make coffee the Italian way, one strong cup at a time. I pour water into a tiny silver percolator, then spoon finely ground coffee into the sieve-like reservoir through which hot water will soon flow.

It’s a cozy scene, except for what I’m wearing: a skimpy undershirt and Daisy Duke cut-off shorts with my thong underwear protruding from the waistband. To see me, you might think I’m trying to show off my body, but that isn’t right. While in Jeffrey Epstein’s employ, I’d been encouraged to wear clothes that made me look even younger than I was. Now, no longer Epstein’s captive, I was a wife – a grown woman. But I still felt – and dressed – like a teenage girl. I didn’t have the slightest idea how an adult version of me should look.

When I moved into Frank and Nina’s house, that was just the beginning of what I didn’t know. I had never loaded a dishwasher, for example, or scrambled an egg or separated laundry into darks and lights. I’d never opened a bank account or filed income taxes or made a good cup of coffee – the list went on and on. Sometimes the weight of my ignorance overwhelmed me. What is adulthood, I wondered, and will I ever master it? What is it to be a wife? It would take time for me to figure out the answers.

Our first weekend in Australia, Robbie took me camping in Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, with a group of his friends. The place is one of the country’s major wine regions, but we had so little money that Robbie decreed we were there to rough it and enjoy the natural beauty, not to sip Shiraz. I was good with that until I saw where we were sleeping: a ramshackle shed. That weekend was quite an introduction to my new country. Yes, we saw a few Aboriginal cave paintings, but the weather was freezing and the only kangaroo we spotted appeared to have been dead for months.

A few days after our return, I fell terribly ill with some sort of flu. When I spiked a fever, Robbie was at work – he’d gotten a construction job. I felt awful: clammy and hot. I didn’t want to be a pain in anyone’s ass, and – especially since I’d just learned the Aussie phrase “having a whinge” (complaining for no reason) – I was determined to be stoic. But when Robbie’s dad discovered how sick I was, he swung into action, whipping up his special zuppa di lenticchie, or lentil soup.

I was too weak to get out of bed, but Frank propped me up on my pillows and then sat beside me, feeding me spoonfuls until I was full.

Later, as I passed in and out of a sweaty, delirious sleep, he returned every few minutes to cool my forehead with a damp cloth. When my fever broke, Frank brought me coffee that was creamy from the raw egg he’d stirred into it.

He didn’t say much, just as Robbie had warned that he wouldn’t, but in those first weeks that I was in Sydney, Frank gave me more nurturing than I ever got from my own father.

(continued)

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In early 2003, Robbie and I moved into our first apartment in Parramatta, but I was still kicking an expensive habit – Xanax – that I used to help blot out my trauma. Back in Laos, I’d dumped most of my supply in a toilet because I feared that being apprehended with drugs might get us thrown in jail. But I still had a small stash, and it was running out. Not that I admitted this to Robbie. While I’d been honest with my husband about the range of damaging experiences I’d endured, I think he expected that the further away I got from those incidents, the better I’d feel. Instead, the opposite seemed to be happening.

Memories I’d tamped down for years were now coming up, unbidden, in vivid detail. Disturbing images would pop into my head during the day – the black leather, studded collar Epstein had choked me with; the greedy, cruel look on the minister’s face as he watched me beg for my life.

I was haunted by nightmares – my abusers looming over me, about to pounce, and me unable to get away. Nevertheless, I was not yet willing to acknowledge how much pain I was in or how much I’d relied on antianxiety meds in the past.

One day Robbie came home from work and found me sitting on the floor in the corner of our apartment, surrounded by blood and broken glass. I had been cutting myself – not trying to kill myself, but instead using the clarity of inflicting my own pain to quiet my raging demons. When Nina arrived, she swooped in like a bosomy angel, kicking the shards of glass away and taking me into her arms. She must’ve held me for an hour, rocking me, telling me it would be all right. Then she took me to the bathtub, stripped off my clothes, and tenderly washed me as if I were her own child. Once again Robbie’s parents were giving me what I’d been missing since I was a tiny girl.

One day I walked by the living room as my mother-in-law was watching television. There, on the screen, was an actress who’d once been one of Epstein’s victims, like me. Now there she was on Nina’s TV. “How do you know her?” Nina asked, seeing my stunned face. I didn’t know what to say, so I turned and left the room.

Then, in March 2003, Vanity Fair magazine published a lengthy profile titled “The Talented Mr Epstein”. I don’t remember exactly when I first read it, but I do recall being shocked by its gushing tone: Epstein was described as “good-looking”, “charming”, “very generous”, and “like a king in his own world”; his Manhattan townhouse was like “someone’s private Xanadu”.

There was a reference to Epstein’s love of women (“mostly young”) and a description of his “complicated past” – a reference to some of his questionable financial dealings. But the article said many people had commented that “there is something innocent, almost child-like about” him. “Oh, is that what you call it?” I asked out loud. “Innocent?!” Then I threw the magazine across the room.

If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Lifeline (13 11 14), the Suicide Call Back Service (1300 659 467), Beyond Blue (1300 22 4636) and Kids Helpline (1800 55 1800).

https://www.1800respect.org.au/

https://www.lifeline.org.au/

https://www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au/

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/

https://www.kidshelpline.com.au/

https://www.theage.com.au/culture/books/he-watched-me-beg-for-my-life-even-in-australia-i-couldn-t-escape-epstein-and-my-abusers-20251021-p5n480.html

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>>23745027

>>23745089

>>23745422

>>23767831

Q Post #4923

Oct 21 2020 20:55:05 (EST)

https://twitter.com/VRSVirginia/status/1319071346282778624

Dearest Virginia -

We stand with you.

Now and always.

Find peace through prayer.

Never give up the good fight.

God bless you.

Q

https://qanon.pub/#4923

https://qanon.pub/#4568

—

Q Post #1001

Apr 3 2018 20:11:01 (EST)

Where do roads lead?

Each prince is associated with a cardinal direction: north, south, east and west.

Sacrifice.

Collect.

[Classified]-1

[Classified]-2

Tunnels.

Table 29.

D-Room H

D-Room R

D-Room C

Pure EVIL.

'Conspiracy'

Q

https://qanon.pub/#1001

>Pure EVIL.

>'Conspiracy'

>>23752081

Anthony Albanese heads to Malaysia and South Korea for major summits

SARAH ISON - 25 October 2025

Anthony Albanese will travel to Malaysia and South Korea for a series of high level summits with dozens of other world leaders, declaring the meetings are taking place at “a critical time” in the region.

As major leaders from across the globe, including Donald Trump, head for Kuala Lumpur to attend Association of Southeast Asian Nations before going to South Korea for meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Prime Minister said the trip represented a key opportunity for Australia.

“One in four Australian jobs rely on trade and we will be focused on continuing to grow our key economic and trade relationships during ASEAN and APEC,” he said, ahead of his departure.

“Australia is working with regional leaders, including through ASEAN, the East Asia Summit and APEC to support economic growth, security, and stability in the region.”

One of the most highly anticipated elements of the week will be a meeting between Mr Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping in Gyeongju, South Korea, scheduled for Thursday.

Issues including China’s desire to “reunify” Taiwan with the mainland by 2027 – and potentially pull other countries into regional conflict – are due to be discussed among leaders.

Aside from attending multilateral events, Mr Albanese will also have one-on-one meetings with leaders also attending the summits, but has not confirmed another meeting with Mr Trump after his White House visit this week.

The focus of the international meetings will be advocating for “a peaceful, stable and prosperous region” as well as advancing Australia’s growing trade and investment interests.

“Strengthening economic collaboration with our global partners at APEC maximises opportunities for Australian business and workers, reducing trade barriers and enlivening competition,” Mr Albanese said.

“These forums come at a critical time. I look forward to engaging with our partners on trade, security and global challenges.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/anthony-albanese-heads-to-malaysia-and-south-korea-for-major-summits/news-story/0b38890109886d31fe18764d249fc923

>>23752081

>>23755125

>>23759574

Donald Trump’s AUKUS nod echoed as new sub welcomed

JOE KELLY - 26 October 2025

Australia and the US’s deepening defence ties will help the superpower build up its submarine industrial base and create hundreds of US jobs, one of Anthony Albanese’s biggest supporters in congress has said at the christening ceremony of the USS Utah.

The Utah, the 28th submarine in the Virginia-class program, was christened at 10am on Saturday local time at the General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyards in Groton, Connecticut, with the company’s president, Mark Rayha, welcoming attendees to the “submarine capital of the world”.

Sketching out the complexity of the submarine building endeavour, he said it was like “bringing a grand piano into your house through an upstairs window, rigging it through the house without any apparatus that was there to begin with, bringing it down and installing it in your basement without a scratch to the piano or any walls or any floors in the house. It’s amazing.”

The Democratic congressman representing Connecticut’s 2nd district, which includes Groton, Joe Courtney, is the party’s ranking member of the house seapower subcommittee. He said the christening of the USS Utah came when the US congress’s “demand signal for new submarines is at an all-time high”.

“In addition to modernising the US submarine force, our closest allies – Australia and the United Kingdom – are locking arms with us as never before, to strengthen and expand undersea supremacy to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he said.

Mr Courtney, the co-chair of the Friends of Australia caucus, said the USS Utah would be the “28th Virginia-class submarine in the fleet, and there are now 15 more under contract or construction, as well as three Columbia ballistic subs”.

He says he is also optimistic that the US can lift its submarine production rate, with it aiming to meet the target of producing the required 2.33 Virginia-class submarines a year. This is the rate needed to replace the boats sold to Australia.

Mr Courtney has noted that later this year, the future USS Massachusetts and USS Idaho would be commissioned into the US submarine force while, in 2026, the USS Arkansas and the USS Utah were expected to be delivered.

More than $10bn has already been directed to the US submarine industrial base since 2018, with Mr Courtney saying the seapower subcommittee would continue to make the case for continued investment.

Mr Courtney used his speech to make clear that Donald Trump’s endorsement of the AUKUS agreement in his White House meeting with Anthony Albanese last week was a key moment.

“The welcome announcement this past Monday by the Trump administration that the four-year-old AUKUS security agreement will continue ‘full steam ahead’ validates the billions congress invested to grow our submarine industrial base over the last six years, including long overdue wage improvement funding passed last December,” he said.

US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan said the Virginia-class submarine was the US “undersea fleet’s multi-mission workhorse”.

“It hunts and defeats enemy submarines and surface ships, projects power ashore, conducts ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) in the world’s most contested waters, and enables long-range precision strikes,” he said.

He said submarines were critical to deterring war, upholding the rules-based order and keeping sea lanes open while making clear that boosting the submarine industrial base was a key priority of the Trump administration.

“We are asking more of the industrial base because the world is asking more of the US,” he said. “Meeting that demand is how we preserve the peace.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/donald-trumps-aukus-nod-echoed-as-new-sub-welcomed/news-story/f032e12c02a9d47df75d4938f13de08e

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>>23748303

Eddie McGuire urges Melbourne to follow Los Angeles’ path on safety revival

ANTHONY GALLOWAY - 26 October 2025

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Eddie McGuire says Melbourne may need a Los Angeles-style crackdown on crime to encourage people back into the city ­centre.

While the city remains electric at night and during major events, Mr McGuire said weekday activity in the city centre had lagged since Covid lockdowns reshaped working habits, while the recent crime wave and protests were discouraging people from going into the CBD during the day.

The former Collingwood president and Channel Nine chief executive said crime was a problem in every big city around the world but Melbourne needed to “not let standards diminish”.

“I don’t think you have to be an urban planning genius to come up with the fact that if you make it safer to get there, and easier to get in and out and you don’t feel like you’re going to get robbed on the train leaving the place – it makes it easier,” Mr McGuire told The Australian.

“If people are feeling comfortable and confident in their city and their safety, it makes a huge difference.”

Melbourne’s CBD has been repeatedly disrupted by protests and an uptick in violent crimes. Demonstrators have occupied city streets most Sundays for the past two years. Last weekend, hundreds of police officers were deployed to separate a March for Australia rally from an “anti-­racism” counter-protest, during which rocks and bottles were thrown, injuring two officers.

Meanwhile, worker activity in the CBD has flatlined at about 52 per cent of pre-pandemic levels for more than two years, compared with Sydney’s steady climb to around 75 per cent by early 2025, according to research by data firm Propella AI.

Mr McGuire, who sits on the board of Visit Victoria, said public safety and city revitalisation were intertwined.

He pointed to the example of Los Angeles, which started to get on top of its crime problem over the past two years after a significant boost to police resources and large-scale operations targeting organised retail crime.

“Los Angeles went through this two years ago,” Mr McGuire said.

“They said: ‘Right, OK, what do we need to do?’ And the first answer was: ‘We’ve got to make the place safe’… And as a result, it’s had the knock-on effect of people suddenly coming back there again.

“I think the key thing is, we know what the issue is. Now we have to address it.”

The latest Crime Statistics Agency’s annual data for the year to June 30 revealed criminal incidents in Victoria jumped 18.3 per cent, the highest since records began in 2004. The Allan government has responded with two tranches of bail reform, a ban on machetes, new laws to crack down on violent protesters and a restructure of Victoria Police to get more officers on the streets.

Premier Jacinta Allan on Sunday said her government’s changes were making a difference, but conceded more actions may be needed to respond to a new pattern of “violent, brazen ­offending”.

While the youth crime wave and weekly protests are separate issues, many fear the combination has created a perfect storm for community safety concerns.

Restaurateur Chris Lucas has called for a temporary ban on protests in the CBD, saying the city was “not safe” and weekly demonstrations were damaging business and tourism.

Mr McGuire said he was wary of blanket bans but conceded the city could not keep tolerating weekend stand-offs.

“The only people who listen to bans are law-abiding citizens,” he said. “We want people to be able to protest, but when it gets to what’s happening at the moment where it’s not a protest as such, it’s a weekly sport to go and shut down the city (it’s too much),” he said.

“And you really feel for people who’ve invested in these areas and can’t get people in. Chris Lucas says he can’t get staff in … it’s hard.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that the protesting on the weekend doesn’t encourage anyone to really want to go to the city.”

(continued)

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Mr McGuire said the night-time economy of Melbourne, particularly around major events like the recent AFL finals, was “belting”, but the Covid lockdown had left a lingering effect on the city.

“It’s interesting – in the night time, you go in there, the restaurants are full, and it’s happening,” he said.

“What’s happening is … every week, if it’s shut because there’s a protest march, it obviously discourages people going in.

“I listen to people like Chris Lucas, I know the lord mayor is working hard on it. Visit Victoria, which I’m a board member of, we’re constantly working on the major events strategies.”

Committee for Melbourne chief executive Scott Veenker said Melbourne’s CBD had come a long way since the depths of the pandemic but the recovery was still uneven.

“Office occupancy and foot traffic haven’t bounced back to where they were before Covid, and that flows straight through to retail, hospitality, tourism and the overall buzz of the city,” he said.

“Safety and amenity are a big part of this conversation.

“High-profile incidents, regular protests and perceptions of increased anti-social behaviour all influence how people feel about coming into the city.

“Businesses want their staff, customers and visitors to feel safe and comfortable – and that takes clear, visible action from government and law enforcement.”

Along with lower city foot traffic, confidence in the Victorian government among property leaders has fallen to an all-time low, according to a survey by the Property Council.

While three other states recorded positive sentiment towards their state governments, Victoria recorded the lowest score in the country at -66.8 points.

The most pressing concern in the survey of 935 respondents – conducted between August and September – remained property taxes and charges, as well as expectations for economic growth.

Property Council Victoria executive director Cath Evans said Melbourne’s slower recovery reflected the lasting impact of being “the world’s most locked-down city”, and now was not the time for Ms Allan to proceed with her proposal to implement a broad right to work from home for at least two days a week.

She said the government’s windfall gains tax, global investor and absentee owner surcharges and the proposed congestion levy were also making it harder for businesses to invest and do business in Melbourne.

“Sydney’s rebound shows what’s possible when policy settings actively support CBD revitalisation,” Ms Evans said.

“Safety and perception of safety both matter and it’s critical that Melbourne is seen as a safe place to work, live and play.

“We’ve seen a rise in retail crime across the city, and while Victoria Police does an exceptional job, greater state investment is needed to increase visible presence and resourcing.”

Opposition Leader Brad Battin on Sunday said the Allan government’s changes did not go far enough. He said a tougher stance on bail and more resources for police were needed.

“We must have a state where people feel safe, because it will bring businesses back, improve the economy and let people get on with their lives,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/eddie-mcguire-urges-melbourne-to-follow-los-angeles-path-on-safety-revival/news-story/bae78bc004f8dcb0f913ab993bc147b2

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The Coalition initially responded to the Trump-Rudd incident by calling for Rudd to be sacked as ambassador. But Opposition Leader Sussan Ley softened her rhetoric the following day, saying Rudd was the PM’s choice and had “a big job” to do.

Rudd has also won praise from across the political spectrum for his relentless work in Washington, especially in the US Congress.

Liberal frontbencher Jane Hume said calls for Rudd to be sent home were “churlish”, while former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott said Rudd had done “a good job for Australia”.

Albanese also praised Rudd extensively in Washington this week. He told a gathering of members of Congress: “If there’s a harder working ambassador on [Capitol Hill] then please let me know because Kevin works his guts out, and he seems to know everything.”

A focal point of Trump’s Asia trip will be his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Asked on board Air Force One whether he would change US policy of strategic ambiguity about Taiwan, Trump said he did not want to talk about that subject.

“I think China wants to have 10 great years, and they can. Or they can have some bad years,” he said.

Asked about his comments during the Albanese meeting that he did not think China would try to take over Taiwan, Trump said: “I hope they won’t. We’ll have to see. That would be very dangerous for them to do.”

https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/i-don-t-forget-trump-casts-doubt-on-rudd-forgiveness-20251025-p5n58p.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSYuTfasHFQ

>>23706825

>>23730627

>>23745186

>>23745208

>>23745222

Email reveals Epstein used Andrew as fixer to lure Australian PM's daughter to mansion

'CAROLINE GRAHAM - 26 October 2025

Convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein asked Prince Andrew to arrange a dinner with the attractive daughter of the former Australian prime minister, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

In an email dated February 16, 2011 – part of The Epstein Files currently being reviewed by the US Congress – Epstein wrote to Andrew saying: 'Would you ask Katherine Keating if she would like to come for dinner with Woody Allen next week in New York?' to which the prince replied: 'Will do.'

Two days later, on the eve of Andrew's 51st birthday, Epstein wrote: 'What will you do tomorrow? Sorry I cannot be there as you get older.'

Andrew responded: 'Having a very quiet day. But a dinner party in the evening. On the Keating case.'

Socialite Ms Keating, who was 29 at the time, is the daughter of Paul Keating, the Australian PM from 1991 to 1996 who was dubbed 'The Lizard of Oz' in 1992 when he placed his arm around Queen Elizabeth.

Ms Keating confirmed Andrew 'fixed' her 2011 dinner with Epstein.

Addressing her links to Epstein for the first time she told the MoS: 'I did attend a February dinner at Andrew's invitation – a large social event.'

The brunette was famously photographed waving goodbye to Andrew two months earlier when he stayed at Epstein's New York mansion and the financier hosted another dinner.

Ms Keating, now 44, said: 'It was a large social event. A sizable chunk of NY society was there, including [American broadcasters] Barbara Walters, Charlie Rose and Katie Couric.

'At the time, I had only lived in NY about ten weeks, and was happy to accept the odd social invitation.'

It is not suggested that Ms Keating engaged in, or had any knowledge of, any improper or illegal conduct by Epstein or any of his associates.

Andrew told Emily Maitlis during his infamous Newsnight interview that he had visited Epstein in New York to break off contact.

The pair were pictured in Central Park together during that visit.

The MoS recently revealed that, despite those claims Andrew continued to keep in touch with Epstein, promising to 'play some more soon' in one 2011 email.

It is not known how Ms Keating came into Andrew's orbit.

Some reports have suggested she was friends with Andrew's friend and Epstein's 'madam' Ghislaine Maxwell, currently serving 20 years for sex trafficking.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/royals/article-15227281/Email-Epstein-used-Andrew-lure-Australian-PM-daughter-mansion.html

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>>23571695

Mossad names mastermind of Australian antisemitic attacks

Matthew Knott - October 27, 2025

Israeli spy agency Mossad has named the Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander it says was behind attacks on Jewish sites in Sydney and Melbourne, as well as other violent incidents in other countries.

In a rare statement, the secretive foreign intelligence service identified Sardar Amar, a senior commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, as the official who ordered the 2024 arson attacks on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne and Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in Sydney.

The Albanese government expelled Iran’s ambassador to Australia and decided to list the IRGC as a terrorist organisation after domestic spy agency ASIO revealed it believed Iran was behind the attacks.

The legislation to allow the government to list government entities like the IRGC as terrorist organisations is set to be introduced into Parliament on Tuesday.

In a statement uploaded to its website, Mossad said: “Under Amar’s command, a significant mechanism was established to promote attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets both in Israel and abroad.

“This mechanism is directly responsible for the attempted attacks exposed in Greece, Australia, and Germany in the past year alone, and its numerous failures led to the wave of arrests and its exposure.”

The Mossad statement continued: “For years, the Iranian regime has viewed terrorism as a tool to exact a price from Israel by harming innocent people worldwide, without paying military, diplomatic, or economic costs.

“Under this logic, the terrorist bodies operate while maintaining plausible deniability and a separation between the violent activity and Iran … The Mossad, together with its partners in Israel and around the world, will act decisively to thwart terrorist threats from Iran and its proxies, and to protect the citizens of Israel and Jewish communities around the globe.”

The agency said co-operation with international partners “thwarted dozens of attack tracks, saving many lives”.

The Mossad reportedly provided information that helped ASIO with its inquiries into the firebombings, but the vast majority of the investigation was conducted by ASIO investigators.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said: “Iran’s behaviour was disgraceful. That’s why we expelled the ambassador and are introducing legislation which would create the power to list organisations connected to a government as a terrorist organisation.

“Our government makes decisions on the basis of intelligence assessments by our agencies.”

The agency has also linked Ammar to attacks on an Israeli-owned hotel and a synagogue in central Athens in July 2024, while in July 2025, Danish police also arrested a man suspected of gathering information on Jewish properties in Berlin “presumably in preparation for further intelligence activities in Germany, possibly including terrorist attacks on Jewish targets”.

At the time, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the attacks in Sydney and Melbourne as “extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil”.

“They were attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community,” he said. “It is totally unacceptable.”

ASIO director-general Mike Burgess said that the revolutionary guard had used “a complex web of proxies” to hide its involvement in antisemitic attacks on Australian soil.

He said he did not believe Iran was responsible for all antisemitic attacks in Australia, but it might be responsible for more than the two that had been announced.

“Iran and its proxies literally and figuratively lit the matches and fanned the flames,” he said.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/mossad-ids-mastermind-of-australian-antisemitic-attacks-20251027-p5n5h7.html

https://www.9news.com.au/world/iran-australia-sardar-amar-israel-benjamin-netanyahu/97399c0b-24da-4610-bf6a-84360867772b

https://www.gov.il/en/pages/spoke-mossad261025

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>>23642016

>>23646815

>>23680241

>>23713223

Palestinian Authority calls for Australian troops to help secure Gaza peace

Matthew Knott - October 26, 2025

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The Palestinian Authority has called for Australia to play a significant role in an international stabilisation force in Gaza, including sending peacekeeping troops to help establish law and order in the ravaged enclave.

The Palestinian Authority’s deputy foreign minister, Omar Awadallah, said it was vital for the international community to move quickly to establish a United Nations-endorsed peacekeeping force to ensure the fragile ceasefire did not collapse and that Israeli troops withdraw from almost all of the Gaza Strip.

US President Donald Trump would deserve a Nobel Peace Prize if he was able to secure a long-term peace in Gaza after two years of ferocious Israeli bombardments, he added.

“I think Australia can help in so many aspects, including by sending forces, by sending experts, by supporting the training of Palestinian security personnel,” Awadallah told this masthead from the de facto Palestinian capital of Ramallah.

“We believe that we need to see principled countries like Australia [involved in a stabilisation force] because we don’t want any kind of a trusteeship or new kind of occupation for the Palestinian territory.”

An Australian presence would help convince Palestinians that the stabilisation force is “really coming to stabilise the situation, not to have another kind of occupation” in Gaza, he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government would consider ways Australia could contribute to an international stabilisation force in Gaza.

The government said last week it would send an Australian Defence Force liaison officer to the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Centre in Israel to help contribute to efforts to stabilise the region.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was contacted for comment.

The Palestinian Authority – which represents Palestine in international forums such as the UN and governs parts of the West Bank – is dominated by the secular-nationalist Fatah party.

Fatah is a more moderate rival to the listed terror group Hamas, which took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 and launched the shock October 7 attacks on Israel that killed an estimated 1200 people.

Speaking during a visit to Israel at the weekend, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that “a lot of countries” had offered to be part of an international security force for Gaza and that it would come into effect “as soon as it possibly can”.

The United Nations has previously deployed peacekeepers to try to maintain ceasefires between Israel and Lebanon and Israel and Syria, but not in the West Bank or Gaza since 1967, the year Israel took control of the territories.

Asked about post-war governance in Gaza, Awadallah said: “There is no role for Hamas. They accepted Trump’s plan, and that makes clear they have nothing to do with governance and security in Gaza.”

He said the Palestinian Authority had committed to hold elections next year in what would be the first such poll in more than two decades.

“We want your support, we want your help,” Awadallah said, requesting Australian assistance for the electoral process.

However, he added that it was crucial for Palestinians living in East Jerusalem to be able to participate in the democratic process for the elections to be legitimate.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem its undivided capital, complicating efforts to hold Palestinian elections in the holy city.

(continued)

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The Albanese government has said that it will take practical steps to reflect its recognition of Palestinian statehood – such as the opening of an embassy in Ramallah – when the Palestinian Authority meets key milestones, such as the holding of elections.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has also said that Australia plans to work with Indonesia on education reform in Palestine.

Awadallah said Palestinian authorities were committed to developing a “new, modern education system … but that does not mean that we need to change our narrative, our story about the historic facts”.

Israel has accused the Palestinian Authority’s school curriculum of glorifying terrorism and encouraging the hatred of Israel. The European Parliament passed a resolution earlier this year accusing Palestinian Authority textbooks of promoting antisemitism and inciting violence.

“The incitement that we are facing here in Palestine is the Israeli occupation itself,” Awadallah said.

He said Australia’s decision to recognise Palestinian statehood at the United Nations last month was received with “great importance” in Palestine, and that it “touched not only the minds but the hearts of the Palestinian people”.

He urged Australians to continue protesting for Palestinian self-determination and demanding government action even if the ceasefire in Gaza held.

“The war on Gaza may now be silent in a way or another, but the war on the Palestinian people did not finish yet,” he said.

“The aggression on the Palestinian people did not finish yet. The occupation of the Palestinian territory did not end yet. We need to keep pushing until the end of the Israeli occupation.”

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/palestinian-authority-calls-for-australian-troops-to-help-secure-gaza-peace-20251024-p5n527.html

>>23771419

Japan’s ‘Iron Lady’ Sanae Takaichi urges closer ties with Australia to counter China

SARAH ISON and BEN PACKHAM - 26 October 2025

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Anthony Albanese and Japan’s new “Iron Lady”, Sanae Takaichi, have discussed the strategic threat posed by China in their first meeting on Sunday night, with the new Japanese Prime Minister saying the nations should “spearhead efforts” to create free and open Indo-Pacific.

In a bilateral meeting that began with Ms Takaichi rushing towards Mr Albanese and declaring she was “very sorry” for running late, Japan’s first female leader made clear her intention to see Canberra and Tokyo increase their strategic cooperation in the region.

“We would like to promote strategic cooperation with Australia, in addition to the existing Quad collaboration,” the China hawk said.

Her comments come as the Quad – which includes India, Japan, Australia and the US – has come under a cloud since Donald Trump took office.

Mr Albanese landed in Kuala Lumpur for the annual ASEAN summit hours after ­Mr Trump touched down in the Malaysian capital ahead of a showdown between the US president and Xi Jinping over their escalating trade war.

Mr Albanese will meet a raft of regional leaders this week in ­Malaysia and at his next stop, South Korea, which is hosting this year’s APEC summit and Mr Trump’s meeting with Mr Xi on Thursday.

Ms Takaichi is set to become one of Mr Albanese’s most important strategic partners, with the new leader of Australia’s “quasi ally” pushing to elevate the Quad security dialogue, and putting a “free and open Indo-­Pacific” at the top of her international agenda.

“I … hope that our two countries can spearhead efforts so that we can push a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Ms Takaichi told Mr Albanese on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit.

“Japan and Australia both have the will and capacity to realise these aspirations.”

After congratulating Ms Takaichi for winning office earlier this week, Mr Albanese said both countries stood for “freedom in the Pacific and in our region”.

“Our recent decision to purchase the Mogami frigates just takes that defence and security relationship to another level,” he said.

Japan’s former ambassador to Australia, Shingo Yamagami, said ahead of the bilateral meeting that Ms Takaichi would highlight the country’s experience as a “frontline state” in “having dealt with Beijing’s strategic challenges”.

“Australia has been ­enjoying, relatively speaking, the luxury of long distance. But we have been living in the tyranny of proximity,” he said.

“So I think Takaichi’s views on China could be very, very eye-opening for Anthony Albanese.”

Mr Yamagami, a former Japanese national security chief who has been informally advising Ms Takaichi, predicted Australia-Japan ties would become even closer in the coming years, with closer intelligence sharing on the agenda.

“There is a lot Australia can offer in helping Japan improve its intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities,” he said.

Mr Xi is yet to publicly congratulate Ms Takaichi since her confirmation as Prime Minister last week, amid warnings she intends to ramp up Japan’s defence spending and deepen ties with the US.

Ms Takaichi said she would be discussing how to advance “peace and prosperity” in the region in her meetings with counterparts, including Mr Albanese.

“I intend to use this opportunity to deepen mutual trust with leaders of ASEAN and to achieve significant results,” she said before departing for Malaysia.

Mr Albanese will use the ASEAN summit to unveil more than $250m in funding for initiatives aimed at attracting more investment from a region that is forecast to become, collectively, the fourth biggest global economy by 2040.

China’s role in Southeast Asia will feature heavily at the ASEAN and APEC summits.

Beijing’s firing of flares at an Australian surveillance aircraft flying over the South China Sea last week will be a key behind-the-scenes talking point for Mr Albanese, while China’s critical minerals dispute is being closely watched by the world amid fears of a global economic shock. Ms Takaichi will meet with Mr Trump later in the week in Tokyo, but is not expected to meet with Mr Xi.

China’s rare-earths export controls are set to be the focus of the Trump-Xi meeting, with the US having signed a $US8.5bn ($13bn) critical minerals deal with Australia last week to overcome China’s dominance of the sector.

US officials met with their Chinese counterparts ahead of Mr Trump’s arrival in Malaysia to discuss the export controls and Washington’s tariffs on Beijing. It is understood that no meetings between Mr Albanese and Mr Trump or Mr Xi have been formally locked in, with Mr Albanese having met with both leaders in recent times.

(continued)

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While in Malaysia, Mr Albanese will attend the ASEAN Indo-Pacific Forum, the East Asia summit and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership leaders’ forum. Despite not formally being part of ASEAN, Australia became the first dialogue partner of the international grouping in 1974.

In a speech to the ASEAN Indo-Pacific Forum due on Monday morning local time, Mr Albanese will unveil a $175m funding injection for the IFM Investors’ Asia-Pacific Debt Fund – an investment manager owned by Australia’s industry superannuation funds. “Our investment will open the door to Southeast Asian markets for 15 Australian super funds – paving the way for these funds to deepen their engagement across the region,” he will say.

The move follows Labor’s launch of its Southeast Asia Economic Strategy in 2023, which established “investment deal teams” in every Australian embassy in the region aimed at enticing foreign investment and winning export contracts.

The author of the report, the former Macquarie Group chief executive and Special Envoy to Southeast Asia, Nicholas Moore, was accompanying Mr Albanese to Kuala Lumpur. Mr Moore urged Australian companies to invest more into Southeast Asia, which boasts a consumer market 10 times bigger than Australia’s. “I encourage more investors to seize the opportunity this dynamic region presents and utilise the support on offer,” he said.

Mr Albanese will also announce a US$50m ($76m) investment into Australian infrastructure company Plenary, which will create a platform aimed at supporting infrastructure projects in Indonesia, The Philippines and elsewhere.

“In the best traditions of ASEAN, we gather here to seek new ways of deepening our co-operation, to our mutual benefit,” he will say on Monday.

“Recognising that the best way to enhance the security and resilience of our economies, is not to turn inwards, it is to look outwards.”

Concern over nations “turning inwards” has increased since Mr Trump took office in January and made clear he would be taking an “America-first” approach to foreign and economic policy.

Despite being slapped with a 10 per cent export tariff by the US, the Albanese government maintains that no nation received a lower tariff rate under Mr Trump’s sweeping sanctions.

In his speech to the Indo-Pacific Forum, Mr Albanese will call Australia a “pro-trading nation” with an “outward looking economy”.

“The government I lead wants Australia to take the next step. To move beyond a mindset which says we are on the ‘doorstep’ of Southeast Asia and its extraordinary economic transformation to an approach that gets us in on the ground floor,” he will say.

“Not hovering on the threshold, waiting for an invitation. Not just neighbours or observers – but participants and partners.”

During the summits and bilateral meetings, Mr Albanese is expected to discuss Australia’s growing two-way trade with Southeast Asia, which grew by $6bn in 2024 to reach $195bn.

Mr Albanese said on the weekend that the ASEAN and APEC summits were taking place at “a critical time” for Australia and its like-minded partners.

It follows Defence Minister Richard Marles in June declaring Australia would inevitably be drawn into a US-China conflict with the continent “more relevant to great power contest now than it’s ever been before”.

After meeting Mr Albanese in Washington, Mr Trump made rare comments about Taiwan, which Mr Xi has said he wants to reunify with the Chinese mainland by 2026.

“China doesn’t want to do that,” he said at the time.

“I don’t see that at all with President Xi. I think we’re going to get along very well as it pertains to Taiwan and others.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/japans-lady-iron-sanae-takaichi-gives-anthony-albanese-a-china-eyeopener/news-story/d49881d7af002f65f6ddf2d32018d580

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Albanese met with Takaichi on Sunday, where the pair reaffirmed their commitment to the Quad grouping, which comprises Australia, Japan, India and the US, and their strategic co-operation in the region.

“I also hope that our two countries can spearhead efforts so that we can push a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Takaichi told Albanese on the sidelines of the summit.

“Japan and Australia both have the will and capacity to realise these aspirations.”

Trump will meet Takaichi in Japan on Tuesday before heading to the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation meeting in Gyeongju, South Korea, where his expected to meet with Xi for the first time during the American president’s second term on Thursday. Albanese is also heading to South Korea later in the week for APEC.

China’s latest sweeping export controls on rare earths and magnets are expected to be a key topic of discussion at the Trump-Xi meeting, along with tariffs, fentanyl trafficking co-operation, other export controls and Taiwan.

Earlier this month, a fragile trade truce between the US and China blew up again after the US moved to cut off technology exports to Chinese-owned subsidiaries of blacklisted companies. Beijing hit back with its far-reaching rare earths crackdown, leading Trump to threaten to impose an additional 100 per cent tariff on Chinese goods.

The two countries’ top trade negotiators appeared to broker a pathway for de-escalation on Sunday after two days of talks on the ASEAN sidelines, paving the way for Trump and Xi to sign a deal when they meet in South Korea on Thursday.

In a series of interviews with American TV networks following the talks, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he believed China would delay its rare earths restrictions “for a year while they re-examine it”, while the US would drop its latest tariff threat.

“I would expect that the threat of the 100 per cent [tariff] has gone away, as has the threat of the immediate imposition of the Chinese initiating a worldwide export control regime,” Bessent said.

https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/albanese-raises-jet-flare-incident-with-chinese-premier-very-directly-20251027-p5n5m0.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEeyE3-dD54