Cyclone Narelle barrels along the West Australian coast

0:00ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music, and more. Good morning. Welcome to AM. It's Friday, the 27th of March. I'm Melissa Clark in Canberra, coming to you from Nutterwall Country and acknowledging other custodians. Severe tropical cyclone Narell is threatening towns and cities along Western Australia's north and Midwest this morning. As the Category 4 storm moves south, a large swath of WA's coastline is experiencing destructive winds and tourists have been told to leave. Schools have been closed, mine workers sent home and locals have sandbagged their properties. After bringing destruction to Queensland and the Northern Territory earlier this week, the storm has regained strength and is expected to make landfall near Shark Bay. Isabelle Masali reports. Eddie Smith hasn't wasted a moment ahead of tropical cyclone Narell's unwelcome arrival. I'm digging and trying to pull some damaged sheets off the shed and replace them.

1:04That's what's happening right now. Oh, so remove anything that could go flying. Yeah, and replace them with something that won't go flying. He's the president of the Shire of Canavan, about 900 kilometres north of Perth. He believes his community has had a good chance to prepare, but on his mango farm, there isn't much he can do for the trees. They're going to bite there. The brunt of it comes, unfortunately. The banana grows are a sign. Tomorrow grows everybody. If it's as bad as what they're predicting, everybody's going to be impacted well. All the growers will definitely be impacted. And that impact is expected along WA's coastline, as the system moves from the Pilber mining hub where it's disrupted operations and south through tourism hotspots causing destruction into the weekend. Just about every town between here and Perth's going to feel the effects of it one way or another. So it's certainly making its mark his cyclone the real. James Ashley from the Bureau of Meteorology has warned it'll bring heavy rainfall, flash flooding, storm surges and significant impacts from wind.

2:08He adds it's a larger than normal system. The storm force, those destructive winds are also occurring a further away from the centre than would normally be the case for a tropical cyclone. So I just want to urge people even though the track may look like it's the system will move won't directly cross your location. Significantly damaging winds will extend a fairway from the centre. Another uncommon feature of this cyclone is its journey across the country. It's had a severe impact on the Queensland coast, a severe impact on the top end of the Northern Territory and now we're expecting a severe impact along the west coast of WA. So that's quite unusual. I think it's only happened once before category three or above tropical cyclones to impact three separate states and territories since we've had decent records over the last 60 years. The last time some of these communities saw whether this extreme was in 2021. That's when tropical cyclones erosion crossed the coast as a category three,

3:09devastating the towns of Calbury and Northampton which aren't used to cyclones. I'm feeling very anxious. My partner luckily is keeping the call so he's making me feel a bit more relaxed but I've just got deja vu all over again. That's Amy Guthrie who's Calbury accommodation business took a significant hit back then. This cyclone will be the first test for the rebuilt billers that are meant to be more resilient. It took us a few years to go through insurance to finally get it fixed and now it's all back up and running. Now we're going to be hit with this cyclone or rel. So we have done the best that we can, putting furniture at the front furniture away and just letting the guests know that we've done all that we can. And that's hopefully it's not as bad as it was last time but they've chosen to stay. So I just hope everything's everything will go all right. Calbury, business owner, Amy Guthrie ending that report by Isabelle Missali.

4:10US president Donald Trump says America will be Iran's worst nightmare if it doesn't agree to a peace plan to end the war. But Iran has responded to Washington's 15 point ceasefire plan saying it's one sided and unfair. The president has also taken another swipe at Australia over what he says is a lack of support in the war. Our correspondent Alison Horn is in Jerusalem. Ali, how has Iran responded to the US about this 15 point plan that was put forward? Well, it hasn't shut the door on the possibility of future talks as such, but it has taken a pretty critical view of this plan, which I think was to be expected. This is the 15 point plan that America has put forward as its proposal to end the war. It included demands that Iran dismantle its nuclear program, reduce its ballistic missile arsenal, hand over enriched uranium, stop funding militant groups like Hezbollah and importantly reopen the state of Hormuz. Now this plan has been communicated to Iran via

5:14Pakistani mediators. And Iran says it's now responded back. It's called the plan unfair. It says it only works for American and Israeli interests. And it said it lacks the minimum requirements for success. So Iran in its response has reiterated its own demands for the war to end, including it wants all fighting to stop, including attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon. It wants America to pay reparations for wartime damage. And crucially, it wants to be recognized as having sovereignty over the strait of Hormuz. So you can see there are some pretty big chasms between those two demands. Things neither side would agree to. That's not that unusual. It's likely that these points could be watered down during any potential negotiations. But just getting those two parties together could be the major obstacle. Iran continues to maintain. It's not negotiating with America. Donald Trump continues to say Iran is desperate to make a deal.

6:19And both sides have warned that they are planning to escalate their attacks. So the idea of a cease fire really seems a long way off at this point in time. And Donald Trump's spoken again as well. And Australia's got to mention about its approach to the war too. Take me through it. Yes. So the president in this press conference has made a fresh barb at NATO and the United Kingdom in particular. He attacked the quality of the UK's aircraft carriers in a mocking tone, calling them toys compared with US warplanes. He accused NATO of doing absolutely nothing. Those were his words to assist America in resolving or helping out in this war. And he also singled out Australia after he was asked about the UK leader, Kia Stama. This is what Donald Trump had to say. Maybe in particular that country, you know, we were the longest bond, the longest ally. Australia too. Australia was not great. It was a little surprised by Australia.

7:20So Donald Trump also told reporters he doesn't need anyone else. And that Tehran better sign a deal or else America will become Iran's worst nightmare. Alison Horne in Jerusalem there. Now the war between the US and Israel and Iran poses serious challenges to Australia and how to deal with military conflict involving allies and the far-reaching economic consequences. David Kilcolon is professor of war studies at the University of New South Wales in Canberra. He's previously served both the Australian and US governments as a soldier, a diplomat and an intelligence analyst. He's co-hosting a forum today on security and sovereignty with former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for UNSW. Professor, thanks for joining A.M. this morning. Thanks for having me. Based on what we know so far, what's your assessment of how severe the impact of this war is going to be on the global economy? Can you give us a sense of scale? So this is the largest disruption to the global oil supply ever, even larger than the 1970s oil shocks.

8:25And it also involves a disruption to things like fertilizer, helium, sulfuric acid, which is essential for mineral extraction for things like copper and so on. So it's a really significant economic disruption. Of course, we're also talking about many tens of thousands of people injured and hundreds to thousands killed. We're also seeing the conflict expand from the immediate vicinity of Iran to Lebanon possibly soon, the Red Sea, a variety of other places. So it's a really significant military crisis, largely self-inflicted by the United States and Israel against our threat, which is real, but which is of longstanding. So I think it's probably one of the more serious global crises in our lifetimes. So looking at it from an Australian perspective, I mean, how much ability do our national leaders have to limit that impact on Australia, whether it's in military and defense terms or whether it's in economic terms, how much can Australia

9:30insulate itself from those impacts? We can't insulate ourselves from the global system. One of the things that many of us recognise that do this for a living is that Australia cannot be secure or prosperous in an insecure region or an unstable global order. And historically, that's led Australians to really focus on contributing to global security through things like the troops we sent to the war on terrorism or the forces we sent to Europe during the World Wars, increasingly though, the kind of just in time really tightly integrated supply chains and logistics that we've grown up with are becoming a global vulnerability. So focusing on self-reliance and resilience and the ability to maintain agency is a really important element of what we need to be doing. So there does seem to be a level of political consensus about the need for more sovereign capability, but can you take me through what that means to you? Where does the priority lie for Australia and looking at being

10:30more independent and self-sufficient? So a lot of the discussion, and I support a lot of the things that people have said in the debate, a lot of the discussion is focused on military hardware, but that's only if you like the middle of the pyramid. At the bottom there are things like supply chains, energy resilience, stockpiles of critical assets. In the middle there's things like industrial base, workforce development, resilience of our transport and water systems, all the stuff that if you like that home affairs typically looks after. Only when you get above that in the pyramid you get to things like submarines and tanks and plants, and I think there's a lot of debate around how many of which type of which military platform should we have, but if you don't have a solid national base on which to grow all of that then you don't really have a resilient nation. So a lot of what we need to be focusing on I think is actually not military hardware, it's the stuff that enables that to work. The sorts of things you're describing there though,

11:31they come at a cost. They do. And that politically can be very difficult, it can be a hard case to make. Do you think there's enough of a robust national conversation about this at the moment? Not at all, and that's actually the point of the sovereignty and security forum that we're co-hosting today. We're talking about that the need to start a national conversation that's based on an agreed set of objective facts rather than people making up their own facts in the discussion. So the role of the University of New South Wales here is not necessarily to pick a aside in that debate, it's just to make sure that everyone that's engaging in it has access to a reliable set of data that they can talk about. David Kilcolon, thank you very much for speaking to AM this morning. Thanks for having me. And David Kilcolon is Professor of War Studies at the UNSW. Pressure is increasing on the federal government to help critical industries with rising fuel costs. Today, representatives from meals on wheels will travel to Canberra to seek support for

12:36its vehicles to stay on the road. Meanwhile, panic buying has spread to the construction sector as all of the Gordon reports. More than 10 million meals are delivered to vulnerable Australians each year by volunteers giving their time to meals on wheels. Their fuel costs are reimbursed, but those costs have searched in recent weeks, leading to a sobering warning. This could rise to the level where we actually can't deliver the meals. Paul Sadler is the charity's chair. He's in Canberra today to ask the federal government for help. To consider giving us priority fuel access and to support us with the costs of offering enhanced voluntary reimbursements. New figures from insurance company NRMA show a letter of unleaded fuel, now costs on average $2.56, and it's a staggering $3.14 per liter for diesel. Under pressure, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has convened a meeting of national cabinet for Monday.

13:38State and territory leaders will push for greater transparency on what the federal government's plan is should the situation worsen. With disruptions to global commerce enduring, some in the business community are taking action to protect their interests. We've stockpiled all the pipe that we'll need for the next 12 months. Gold Coast Man, Peter Deluca runs a plumbing business. And that's, you know, over half a million dollar decision that we've had to make and spend now rather than over the next 12 months. Some people would hear this and they say, well, what you've done is panic buying, what would you say to that? Well, look at our, I can, I can understand per possibly people saying that, but the reality is it's an existential issue for us. If we was, we've got contractual obligations, and if we were to not meet those, we would be out of business and gone. With the price of PVC piping on the rise, it's a risk. The business owner is prepared to take. We've seen pricing crises already over the last two weeks of around 20% and we've also received advice, forward advice from our suppliers of another 30% in the next two weeks. Costs are also increasing on large scale civil

14:44construction sites where diesel fuel is critical. Nickel is proud is the head of the peak body representing the sector and is warning of major cost blowouts. Diesel is roughly about 7.5 to 7.75% of our total cost of a billion dollar project, for example. We're looking roughly at the adjusted price of being about $46 million that's been added to that project. It's an issue he wants on the federal government's agenda before National Cabinet. We need to make sure that the costs are being recovered, that we know roughly what those costs that we need to get back if we're going to make those projects viable, keep those businesses afloat. He's hopeful the federal government will be able to meet the expanded cost of some projects, but the private sector, we're still to get to get that. We know it's going to be a challenge there. Nickel is proud from the Civil Contractors Federation Australia, ending that report by Oliver Gordon, Steph Boris and Claire Armstrong. Many parents in Australia are closely watching a landmark court ruling against Google and Metta in the United States to see if it leads to changes here. A 20-year-old woman

15:47brought the case against the two tech giants, arguing the platforms YouTube and Instagram were addictive and contributed to her mental health problems. A California jury has ordered Google and Metta to pay her millions of dollars in damages. Social media experts say the American case underlines the need for Australia to introduce a new duty of care law for the sector. David Sparks reports. The ruling against Metta and Google may have happened in California, but it's reverberating around the world. Sydney Mann, Brian Hancock, has two sons under 16 and they're still using social media despite the ban on kids their age. He's hopeful the jury's decision will lead to change here. And I think this is a good thing because the tech giants are really not going to voluntarily give up their future money making and having kids addicted. But if they find that there's legal means that they have to sit to or get fined, that may stop them. Do you hope that the ruling in

16:48America might also change the way those companies do things in Australia? Yes, but I doubt whether they would lose in Australia unless the Australian government actually pushes that in unless some things occur in Australia to make them do that. The case in California involved a 20-year-old woman who said she'd become addicted to Google's YouTube and Metta's Instagram when she was a child. She argued it exacerbated her mental health problems. The jury found the companies knew their platforms designs were dangerous or likely to be dangerous for a minor. It awarded the woman $3 million US dollars in damages and recommended a further $3 million in punitive damages. Metta spokesperson Ashley Nicole Davis spoke afterwards. We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal. Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app. This case could influence thousands of other lawsuits in the US. And if that happens, it might cause change in other countries. Lisa Given is a professor of information sciences

17:48at RMIT University. She says there's still no guarantee Google and Metta will change their algorithms, especially since they're considering appealing. And it's unclear whether this ruling will influence things here. In Australia, we've been talking a lot about content. We're often really focused on what this does is actually demonstrate that it's more than just content we need to be concerned about. We also need to be thinking about the algorithms, you know, the issue of safety by design and the apparent lack of safety within that kind of design approach to these kinds of platforms. In a separate case in the US this week, a new Mexico court find Metta $375 million US dollars for enabling child sexual exploitation, including on Facebook Messenger. That court is considering ordering changes to Metta's platforms. Professor Given says these developments overseas bring into sharper focus the Australian government's plan to legislate a duty of care on digital tech companies. In terms of things like the digital duty of care legislation, that's already been

18:49in place in the EU and the United Kingdom. We're a little bit behind on that one. And so perhaps with, you know, the public awareness around this case that may pave the way for government to really push throughout legislation this coming year. In a written statement the Minister for Communications Annika Wells says Australia has led the world with its social media minimum age laws and it's working to introduce digital duty of care laws. Green Senator Sarah Hanson Young says her party will introduce its own duty of care legislation because the government is taking too long. David Sparks and that's AM for today. Thanks for your company. I'm Melissa Clark. Hi, it's Sam Hawley here, host of the ABC News Daily podcast. Donald Trump is in the midst of a messy war with Iran, but at the same time his sights are set on Cuba. Today Lillian Guerra, professor of Cuban history at the University of Florida on Trump's next move.

19:54Look for the ABC News Daily podcast on ABC Listen.