Tag: InternationalNews

{Suicide attacker killed and two officers wounded in blast near the US consulate in Jeddah, Saudi interior ministry says.}

A suspected suicide bomber has died after blowing himself up near the US consulate in Saudi Arabia’s city of Jeddah, the interior ministry has said.

Security officers early on Monday became suspicious of a man near the parking lot of Dr Suleiman Faqeeh Hospital, which is directly across from the US diplomatic mission.

When they moved in to investigate, “he blew himself up with a suicide belt inside the hospital parking”, the ministry said, adding that two security officers were lightly wounded.

The attack happened at around 215am (23:15 GMT) on July 4, the day when Americans celebrate their independence.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

An investigation was ongoing, and some people were being questioned for their suspected links to the attack, security sources told Al Jazeera.

In a statement, the US consulate said there were no casualties or injuries among its staff, adding that it and the US embassy were in contact with Saudi authorities investigating the incident.

The US State Department also said it was aware of the explosion in Jeddah and it was working with Saudi authorities to collect more information.

In 2004, five people stormed the US consulate in Jeddah with bombs and guns, killing four Saudi security personnel outside and five local staff within.

Three of the attackers were killed in the assault and two were captured.

{Anger grows as Baghdad residents accuse Iraqi government of failing to protect them after ISIL attack kills over 200.}

Anger is growing in Baghdad over the government’s failure to protect civilians, after a devastating bombing in a crowded commercial area in the Iraqi capital killed more than 200 people, including many children.

The powerful explosion early on Sunday came near the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when the streets were filled with young people and families out after sunset.

The death toll from the blast in Karada, a predominantly Shia neighbourhood in central Baghdad, rose to over 200 on Monday morning, as the bodies of more victims were pulled from the rubble.

Hundreds were wounded when a lorry packed with explosives blew up in a busy shopping street filled with people after they had broken their fast.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulated by its supporters online.

The group, which has claimed numerous deadly bombings in mainly Shia areas of Baghdad, alleged that a suicide bomber targeted a crowd of Shia Muslims.

Many of the victims were women and children who were inside a multi-storey shopping and amusement mall. Dozens burned to death or suffocated, a police officer said.

There were fears the death toll could rise even further.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi condemned the bombing and declared three days of mourning across the country after visiting the scene of the attack.

Video footage posted online showed people jeering and throwing objects at his convoy.

Later on Sunday, protesters marched from Karada to Abadi’s house.

Many Iraqis blame their political leadership for lapses in security in Baghdad that have allowed large amounts of explosives to make their way past multiple checkpoints and into neighbourhoods packed with civilians.

“All the politicians in Iraq are responisble for these blasts, including Abadi,” a woman in Karada told local media.

“We can’t enjoy the Eid; if it isn’t ISIL, it’s al-Qaeda, and if it isn’t the two, it’s the filthy corrupt politics in this country.

“We are being targeted while they are sitting safe and sound in their palaces. They are the ones who are allowing ISIL to come here and murder people.”

Iraqi politician Mowaffak Baqer al-Rubaie said ISIL was “resorting to classic, traditional terrorist acts” in response to losing territory in Iraq [Reuters]
Jan Kubis, the UN envoy for Iraq, said the attack was an attempt by ISIL to avenge losses on the battlefield.

“This is a cowardly and heinous act of unparalleled proportions, to target peaceful civilians in the closing days of the holy month of Ramadan,” Kubis said in a statement.

In a separate blast also on Sunday morning, at least five people were killed in a popular market in the mainly Shia neighbourhood of al-Shaab.

There were conflicting reports on the cause of the explosion.

Some sources said it was a bombing, while the interior ministry said it was caused by an accidental fire.

The Karada bombing was the deadliest in the country this year and came after Iraqi forces late last month dislodged ISIL fighters from Fallujah, the armed group’s stronghold just west of the capital that had served as a launch pad for such attacks.

Despite a string of territorial gains by Iraq’s ground forces against ISIL, the group has repeatedly shown it remains capable of launching attacks in Iraqi territory far from the frontlines.

ISIL still controls Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul.

Iraqi politician Mowaffak Baqer al-Rubaie said ISIL was “resorting to classic, traditional terrorist acts” in response to losing territory in Iraq.

“They are so desperate to boost the morale of their fighters, many of whom are leaving the group daily. I think attacks like this will increase,” he told Al Jazeera.

Rubaie added, however, that ISIL would eventually fail in its mission of deepening sectarian tensions between Shia and Sunni communities.

{Two-year local truce breaks down after intense air strikes kill at least 43 civilians, including children, in Jayrud.}

At least 43 civilians have been killed in intense Syrian government air strikes on a town in the suburbs of Damascus, a day after the reported execution of a Syrian air force pilot, a monitoring group has said.

Saturday’s overnight shelling on Jayrud, 60km northeast of the Syrian capital Damascus, killed at least five women and children, as well as two medical staff.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said scores of people were also wounded in the strikes, as well as shelling from army posts in the area.

“There were intense air strikes and multiple targets were hit – residential areas, a medical centre, that is according to activists on the ground,” Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish side of the Syria-Turkey border, said.

Khodr said the attacks appeared to be in retaliation for the killing of a Syrian government air force pilot whose warplane had crashed in the area on Friday.

“The pilot managed to eject himself. He was captured but subsequently killed and after his death, the Syrian army promised retaliation and that is exactly what happened.”

A rebel spokesman also said the strikes seemed to be in revenge for the pilot’s killing.

“The strikes against civilians are in retaliation against the execution of the pilot by Nusra Front,” Said Seif al Qalamoni from the Free Syrian Army’s Shahid Ahmad Abdo brigade, which operates in Jayrud alongside the al-Nusra Front and other groups, told Reuters news agency.

Anti-regime groups in Jayrud include Jaish al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham and al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front.

In a statement, the military had pledged that the killing of its pilot would “not go unpunished”.

The Observatory said the raids marked the first bombardment of Jayrud in at least two years.

“Prominent figures in Jayrud have had a local truce with the regime for at least two years, and neither fired on each other,” Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told the AFP news agency.

The truce had made Jayrud a sanctuary for thousands of civilians fleeing heavy battles nearby.

“The town is heavily populated. Many internally displaced people live there because it was secure due to the truce,” said Al Jazeera’s Khodr.

Ahrar al-Sham said in an online statement on Saturday it was attacking nearby government positions “in response to warplanes shelling Jayrud”.

Separately, two women and a child were killed on Saturday in regime shelling of the eastern rebel-held Sayf al-Dawla neighbourhood of Aleppo, north of Syria, the Observatory said.

It added that the toll in a Friday attack on the crowded market in the Tariq al-Bab district had risen to 17, including five children.

{Hebron remains on lock down as Israeli forces comb the area for assailants connected to an alleged shooting attack.}

Israeli forces have shot and injured two Palestinians in the village of Dura amid a continued army blockade on the Hebron area of the southern occupied West Bank.

“All of the villages south of Hebron have been closed off,” Issa Amro, director of the Hebron-based Youth Against Settlements activist group, told Al Jazeera by telephone on Saturday night.

“We’ve been under siege for two days now.”

Amro said all entrances to Hebron – the most populous Palestinian city in the West Bank – had been closed except for one, which leads to Road 60, a major north-south highway.

“[Soldiers] have placed a checkpoint at the entrance. They are stopping every car,” he said.

The entrances of several nearby villages were closed off by the Israeli army as extensive searches of the area continue.

The crackdown comes following two deadly days, during which two Palestinians and two Israelis were killed.

“Last night they were doing house-to-house searches in al-Thahiriyah, al-Fawwar camp, al-Samu, Dura and Hebron city,” Amro added. “Today in Hebron there were clashes early in the morning, around 4 or 5 am.”

Israeli forces locked down the Hebron area on Friday after an Israeli family from the Otniel settlement in Hebron was allegedly targeted by unknown gunmen, killing one man and injuring three others.

As of Saturday night, Israeli troops were still combing the area in search of suspects.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, an Israeli army spokesperson said the shootings in Dura took place “during routine [army] activity in the area” and that troops were “still searching for the assailants” connected to Friday’s shooting attack.

The spokesperson said that more than a hundred Palestinians “were rioting” in Dura when Israeli forces first responded with warning shots and riot dispersal means, including rubber-coated steel bullets.

Amro, the activist, said the two were shot with live ammunition as they tried to prevent Israeli army jeeps from entering the village.

Settlement threats

More than 530,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements – considered illegal under international law – across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem.

After a Palestinian teen killed a 13-year-old Israeli girl in the Kiryat Arba settlement near Hebron on Thursday night, several Israeli politicians pledged to build more settlements across the occupied Palestinian territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Friday approved the construction of 42 new housing units in Kiyrat Arba.

On the outskirts of the West Bank’s largest city, the settlement is home to a thousands of Israeli settlers who live under heavy army guard.

Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett, a member of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party, said Israel would “build in Sarona and Kiryat Arba, in Jaffa and Jerusalem, in Itamar and Beersheba,” referring to areas in the West Bank and present-day Israel.

Yehuda Glick, a far-right Israeli politician, called for Israel to annex the West Bank and Jewish-Israelis to increase their excursions into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site for Muslims.

Early Saturday morning, Israeli forces bombed four sites across the besieged Gaza Strip after Palestinian fighters fired a rocket into the southern Israeli city of Sderot. No casualties were reported.

{PM Sheikha Hasina implores fighters to “stop killing in the name of religion” after 20 foreigners were slain at a cafe.}

Bangladesh has begun observing two days of national mourning after 20 hostages were slaughtered at a restaurant packed with foreigners in a major escalation of a campaign of attacks by armed groups.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina decreed the mourning period, which began on Sunday, as she vowed to drag Bangladesh back from the brink, warning of a concerted bid to turn one of the world’s most populous nations into a failed state.

Amid mass condemnation of the Dhaka killings, victims of which included 18 foreigners, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS) said it had targeted a gathering of “citizens of crusader states” on Friday night at a Western-style cafe.
As well as the 20 hostages whose bodies were found amid pools of blood after commandos stormed the cafe to end the siege, two policemen were killed in the deadly attack in a high security area.

Six gunmen were killed by the commandos in the final stages of the siege at the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe, but one of the attackers was taken alive and was being interrogated by Bangladeshi intelligence.

Security officials said most of the victims were slaughtered with sharpened machete-style weapons.

Despite ISIL’s claim, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told the AFP news agency that the fighters have “no connections with the Islamic State”.

“They are members of the Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh,” Khan said, referring to a group which has been banned in Bangladesh for more than a decade.

Hasina’s government has previously blamed a string of deadly attacks against religious minorities and foreigners on domestic opponents, but the latest attack – despite the government’s denial – will heighten fears that ISIL’s reach is spreading.

“Islam is a religion of peace. Stop killing in the name of the religion,” Hasina said in a televised address to the nation.

“Please stop tarnishing our noble religion … I implore you to come back to the rightful path and uphold the pride of Islam.”

The 68-year-old prime minister said that the people behind the attacks were trying to ruin Bangladesh, a mainly Muslim nation of 160 million people.

“By holding innocent civilians hostage at gunpoint, they want to turn our nation into a failed state,” she said.

Flags were being flown at half-mast in government offices and at other sites across the country while funerals of the two Bangladeshi victims were expected to be held.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon was among those who expressed outrage, stressing “the need to intensify regional and international efforts to prevent and combat terrorism”.

‘Nefarious terrorism’

There was agony in Italy whose government confirmed that nine of its nationals had been killed.

“The terrorists want to rip away the daily fabric of our lives,” said Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

“Our duty is to reply with even greater force, by affirming our values, the values of freedom of which we are proud, and which are stronger than hatred or terror.”

Seven Japanese nationals – five men and two women – were also killed in the attack and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he felt “profound anger that so many innocent people have lost their lives in the cruel and nefarious terrorism”.

One Japanese citizen remains in a critical condition in hospital.

Al Jazeera’s Wayne Hay, reporting from Tokyo, said: “There is no mention yet from the Japanese government of Islamic State; they are not using that term yet.”

Our correspondent added that officials had expressed their regret at the killings, especially because the Japanese nationals were “trying to help the country” – many of those killed had been working on an aid project to help ease traffic congestion.

US officials said one American citizen was among those killed and the government in New Delhi confirmed that a 19-year-old Indian who was studying at the University of California, Berkeley, had died.

Witnesses recounted how a massive gunfight erupted on Saturday morning as more than 100 commandos launched the rescue operation, nearly 11 hours after the siege began the night before.

Thirteen hostages were rescued in total, some of whom were taken to a military hospital.

The father of one of the survivors was told by his son how the hostage-takers separated the locals from foreigners.

The attack, by far the deadliest in a recent wave of killings, was carried out in the upmarket Gulshan neighbourhood which is home to the country’s elite and many embassies.

Last month authorities launched a crackdown on local fighters, arresting more than 11,000 people but critics allege the arrests were arbitrary or designed to silence political opponents.

{Car bomb and IED blasts in Iraqi capital kill over 80 people in areas packed with families after fast-breaking time.}

More than 80 people, including many children, were killed and hundreds wounded in bombings on two crowded commercial areas in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, hospital and police sources have said.

The powerful explosions early on Sunday came near the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan when the streets were filled with young people and families out after sunset.

The vast majority of the casualties came in the the first attack, as a truck packed with explosives blew up in the Karada district in central Baghdad, a predominantly Shia neigbourhood.

Sources told Al Jazeera at least 79 people were killed and 132 wounded in the attack which targeted a busy shopping area.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the attack in the Karada district in an online statement, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a US-based monitoring service.

Many of the victims were children, officials said, and there were fears the death toll could rise as more bodies could be lying under the rubble of devastated buildings.

In a separate blast, an improvised explosive device went off in a popular market in the mainly Shia neighbourhood of al-Shaab. Reports said at least at least five people were killed in that attack, and 16 were wounded.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the second bombing.

The overall death toll from the two explosions was initially reported much lower, at 23, and there were conflicting reports about the exact number of people killed.

The bombings were the deadliest in the country since Iraqi forces late last month dislodged ISIL fighters from Fallujah, the armed group’s stronghold just west of the capital that had served as a launch pad for such attacks

Despite a string of territorial gains by Iraq’s ground forces against ISIL, the group has repeatedly shown it remains capable of launching attacks in Iraqi territory far from the frontlines.

ISIL still controls Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul.

{Pentagon says ISIL’s deputy war minister and another military leader were killed in group’s Iraqi stronghold on June 25.}

A US-led coalition air strike in northern Iraq killed two senior figures from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) late last month, including a commander considered to be the group’s deputy minister of war, the Pentagon has said.

The June 25 air strike near Mosul, ISIL’s stronghold in Iraq, killed Basim Muhammad Ahmad Sultan al-Bajari, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.

According to the Pentagon, Bajari had overseen ISIL’s capture of Mosul in 2014.

The other ISIL member killed in the raid was Hatim Talib al-Hamduni, a military leader in Mosul, Cook added.

“Their deaths, along with strikes against other ISIL leaders in the past month, have critically degraded ISIL’s leadership experience in Mosul and removed two of their most senior military members in northern Iraq,” Cook said.

In June, Iraq’s military claimed victory in a US-backed offensive against ISIL fighters in the city of Fallujah, west of the capital Baghdad, after a month-long operation.

After Fallujah’s recapture, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Iraqi forces would now set their sights on Mosul, Iraq’s second-biggest city and ISIL’s last remaining major hub in the country.

Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington, DC, said the US-led coalition air strikes were part a strategy to make it easier fo the Iraqi army to launch an offensive against ISIL fighters in Mosul.

She added, however, that such an operation was not imminent.

“Even though US officials say they have momentum on their side, the strikes that killed these two ISIL leaders does not mean that the offensive to retake Mosul is about to launch.

“If anything, analysts say it may not happen before 2017 because there is a lot of other territory inside Iraq and neighbouring Syria which the US and local fighters would like to reclaim before they go after the big prizes of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.”

{All of the dead were foreign, army says, most “brutally hacked to death” at popular restaurant in upscale neighbourhood.}

Twenty foreign hostages were killed at a cafe in the Bangladeshi capital, the army said, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group that ended after a 10-hour siege when commandos stormed the building.

“Most [of] them had been brutally hacked to death with sharp weapons,” army spokesman Brigadier General Nayeem Ashfaq Chowdhury told reporters on Saturday.

Military officials said all of those killed were foreign, and that the dead included Japanese and Italian nationals.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina earlier said 13 hostages had been rescued. Hasina said six gunmen had also been killed and one captured in the early morning operation at the Holey Artisan cafe in Dhaka.

The rescued included two Sri Lankans and a Japanese citizen who was wounded, Lt. Col Tuhin Mohammad Masud said, adding there were casualties among the other hostages. Japan confirmed that one of its citizens had been rescued and said seven were still unaccounted for.

“We have gunned down at least six terrorists and the main building is cleared,” Masud told The Associated Press news agency.

Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury, reporting from Dhaka, said the cafe was located in one of the most heavily-policed parts of the capital, home to several embassies and popular with foreigners.

“In order to get in here you have to pass through a lot of police checkpoints. It’s a highly cordoned-off area,” Chowdhury said.

“So there’s going to be a serious question raised: How did they manage to get in there with arms and ammunition, possibly even bombs and hand grenades?”

{{‘Dead foreigners’}}

The crisis began at about 9pm local time, police said, when a group of gunmen burst into the cafe, which is popular with foreigners, young people, and middle class Bangladeshis.

During the siege, ISIL posted photos of what it said were dead foreigners in the cafe, where police believed the gunmen were holed up armed with assault rifles and grenades.

Gowher Rizvi, an adviser to Prime Minister Hasina, told the Reuters news agency that security forces had initially tried to negotiate a way out of the crisis.

Italian and Indian nationals were also among the hostages, said a duty officer at the control room of Rapid Action Battalion, Bangladesh’s elite anti-crime unit. Italy’s ambassador to Bangladesh, Mario Palma, told Italian state TV seven Italians were among the hostages.

“It is a suicide attack. They want to carry out a powerful and bloody operation and there is no room for negotiation,” Palma said.

Violence has spiked in Bangladesh in the last 18 months with a spate of attacks, often using machetes, against individuals including liberals, gays, foreigners and members of religious minorities.

ISIL, which is also known as ISIS, and al-Qaeda claimed many of those killings but the government denied their involvement and instead pointed the finger at local groups.

“The Bangladesh government continues to deny that ISIL could have any connection or presence in Bangladesh, so if ISIL wants to make a statement that ‘we are in Bangladesh and are with influence and impact’ then this is probably their perfect opportunity,” Talha Ahmed, a commentator on Bangladeshi affairs, told Al Jazeera.

{{A hail of bullets}}

Earlier on Friday, a Hindu priest was hacked to death at a temple in Jhinaidah district, 300km southwest of Dhaka.

Rizvi said the hostage crisis began when local security guards in the diplomatic enclave noticed several gunmen outside a medical centre.

When the guards approached, the gunmen ran into the restaurant, which was packed with people waiting for tables, he said.

An employee who escaped told local television about 20 customers were in the restaurant at the time, most of them foreigners. The restaurant has a seating capacity of about 25 people.

Some 15 to 20 staff were working there at the time, the employee said.

A police officer at the scene said that when security forces tried to enter the premises at the beginning of the siege they were met with a hail of bullets and grenades.

Television footage showed a number of police being quickly led away from the site by police with blood spattered on their faces and clothes.

{Over 15.5m people cast ballots in mandatory vote pitting conservative ruling coalition against centre-left Labor Party.}

Polls have closed in Australia’s most populous states, with the outcome between conservative leader Malcolm Turnbull and Labor challenger Bill Shorten too close to call.

Voting stations on Saturday in the crucial states of Queensland and New South Wales shut at 6pm (08:00 GMT), along with Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, with those on the west coast set to close two hours later.

Early exit polls showed Turnbull and Shorten in a dead heat.

The hotly contested general election, in which some 15.6 million people were expected to cast their ballots in a compulsory vote across Australia, capped off an extraordinarily volatile period in the country’s politics.

Australian political parties can change their leaders under certain conditions and have done so in recent years with unprecedented frequency – a sign of the country’s recent political instability.

“It seemed that Turnball had a pretty healthy lead going into the campaign,” Al Jazeera’s Andrew Thomas, reporting from a polling station in Sydney, said. Since then, however, polls have tightened, Thomas added.

If Shorten was elected, he would “become Australia’s fifth prime minister in just over three years,” Thomas said.

The ongoing political turmoil, coupled with the global uncertainty brought about by Britain’s recent vote to leave the EU, prompted Turnbull, the prime minister, to urge voters to stick with the status quo.

“In an uncertain world, Labor offers only greater uncertainty,” Turnbull warned in one of his final pitches to voters this week. “They have nothing to say about jobs, growth or our economic future.”

Labor, meanwhile, sought throughout the eight-week campaign to cast Turnbull’s Liberal Party as deeply divided, with Shorten saying: “You cannot have stability without unity”.

Peter Hartcher, political editor at the Sydney Herald, told Al Jazeera: “It’s more likely that Turnball will hang onto power with a much reduced majority.

“The country is having a great deal of trouble putting its trust in either of the parties. The incumbent government is portraying it as a question of, almost entirely, economics.”

{{‘It’s embarassing’}}

Selling stability is a tough job for either party, both of which have been marred by infighting in recent years.

Shorten played a key role in ousting two of the Labor Party’s own prime ministers in the space of three years, and Turnbull himself ousted Tony Abbott as prime minister in an internal party showdown less than a year ago. Up until 2007, conservative John Howard served as prime minister for nearly 12 years.

Many voters seemed weary of the constant change.

Morag McCrone, who voted for Labor in Sydney, acknowledged her choice could lead to yet another new prime minister, but could not bring herself to vote for Turnbull’s party.

“Internationally, it’s embarrassing,” McCrone told the Associated Press news agency. “It’s a bit like ancient Rome at times, really.”

Sydney resident Beau Reid, who also voted for Labor, agreed.

“I’m getting a little bit sick of it,” Reid said. “Not to say that John Howard was a great prime minister, but it was good to have someone who was at the helm for a period that wasn’t two [or] three years.”

Though the race is tight, polls suggest that Labor will not be able to gain the 21 seats it needs to form a majority government in the 150-seat House of Representatives – Labor currently holds 55 seats, the conservative coalition has 90, while minor parties and independents have five.

Results published by market researcher Newspoll in The Australian newspaper on Saturday showed the coalition leading by 50.5 percent to Labor’s 49.5 percent. The poll was based on interviews with 4,135 people conducted between Tuesday and Friday, and has a 3 percentage point margin of error.

Opinion polls have also suggested the public’s frustration with Labor and the coalition may prompt an unusually high number of votes for minor parties, such as the Greens.

That raises the prospect that neither Labor, nor the coalition, will end up with enough seats to win an outright majority, resulting in a hung parliament.

{{Economic growth debate}}

The government has focused much of its campaign on a promise to generate jobs and economic growth through tax cuts to big businesses.

Australians to vote in tight election race

Economic growth is a key issue for many Australians, who have seen thousands of jobs vanish from the country’s once-booming resources sector amid China’s industrial slowdown.

Labor has said it will keep the higher tax rates and use the revenue to better fund schools and hospitals.

Same-sex marriage has also emerged as a campaign issue.

Turnbull, who personally supports gay marriage despite his party’s opposition to it, has promised to hold a national poll known as a plebiscite this year that will ask voters whether the nation should allow same-sex marriage.

But governments are not bound by the results of plebiscites, and some conservative politicians have said they will vote down a gay marriage bill – even if most Australians supported marriage equality.

Labor, which dubbed the plebiscite a waste of taxpayers’ money, promises that the first legislation the party will introduce to parliament will be a bill legalising same-sex marriage.