Two More Repatriation Flights Leave the Middle East as Australia Braces for Escalating Conflict

One flight is already in the air from the United Arab Emirates, carrying hundreds of Australians toward Sydney. A second is due to leave Dubai for Melbourne later this afternoon. A third, an Etihad Airways service between Abu Dhabi and Sydney, has been delayed. That is the state of the repatriation effort as of Thursday, as the conflict involving Iran continues to disrupt travel across the region.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong put the scale of the problem in numbers. About 115,000 Australians are in the Middle East, she said, and around 24,000 of them are in the United Arab Emirates. The flights now leaving carry hundreds each, which gives some measure of how much remains to be done.

Wong says she has spoken with her Emirati and Israeli counterparts, among others, to look for more ways to help Australians who are stuck. Her message was cautious. The government will keep examining every option available, she said, engaging partners and taking action to support efforts to keep Australians safe. She added that she regrets the conflict is likely to get worse before it gets better.

The disruption reaches well beyond evacuees. Formula One depends heavily on international travel, which leaves it exposed to the chaos the Iran conflict is causing. Even so, Australian Grand Prix chief executive Travis Auld says everyone has made it to Melbourne for the season-opening race this weekend, and organisers say the event is ready to go.

Elsewhere in the news, UK police have arrested three men on suspicion of helping to spy for China. One of them is reportedly the husband of a serving Labour MP. The arrests were made under the National Security Act passed in 2023, which is meant to let prosecutors bring spying suspects to trial in a wider set of circumstances. Security minister Dan Jarvis said there would be severe consequences if it is proven that Chinese authorities tried to interfere in the UK's sovereign affairs.

In Canberra, the Greens are urging the federal government to work with the broader community to improve how Freedom of Information laws operate. Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has withdrawn the bill in the Senate, after the government had argued the current laws were open to abuse by AI bots, criminals and foreign actors. Greens Senator David Shoebridge says the system's problems are the government's own making and accuses it of excessive secrecy. He doesn't doubt a million bureaucrat hours were spent on FOI last year, he said, because Labor has staff spending endless hours blacking out documents and finding reasons to refuse them.

Canada's prime minister, during his visit, signed Australia up to a global alliance of critical minerals producers and urged closer cooperation on a range of fronts. Between them, the two countries produce about a third of the world's lithium and uranium and about 40 per cent of its iron ore. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rejected suggestions the alliance conflicts with his Future Made in Australia policy, introduced in 2024, which will invest 22.7 billion dollars over ten years. Working with Canada, he said, strengthens it, affecting supply, price and value-adding, and building the national resilience that helps avoid economic dependency.

In Adelaide's northern suburbs, South Australian Police are investigating the death of a nine-month-old boy. Officers were called to a house in Elizabeth Downs on Wednesday night and found him unresponsive. Paramedics could not revive him, and a report will be prepared for the coroner.

For the Middle East, the thing to watch is whether more evacuation capacity materialises, given that Wong herself expects conditions to deteriorate.