The Australian prime minister has warned that Russia will bear a heavy share of responsibility for the loss of a Malaysia Airlines plane carrying 28 Australians “if as now seems certain it’s been brought down by a Russian-supplied surface-to-air missile”.



Tony Abbott used the strong language as he convened a meeting of the national security cabinet committee after flight MH17 was shot down in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, killing all 298 people on board.

Australia would summon the Russian ambassador to seek a categorical assurance that the Russian government would fully co-operate with a thorough investigation, Abbott said, as “it seems” the plane was shot down by Russian-backed rebels.

“This is no light thing; this is not something that can just be dismissed as a tragic accident when you have Russian proxies using Russian-supplied equipment to do terrible things – if in fact this is what turns out to have been the case. At the moment all we can say is the indications are this way,” Abbott told Melbourne radio station 3AW.

Nine of the victims are believed to be from Queensland, nine more from Victoria, seven from Western Australia, one from NSW and one from the ACT.

On Friday afternoon the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said 28 Australians had died, not 27 as previously reported.

Abbott said people around the world should be “filled with revulsion” at the loss of innocent lives and he offered his deepest condolences for families and friends of those aboard the plane. “Australians stick together in tough times; but it is a grim day for the world,” he said.

The Australian government is pressing for “a full, independent, international inquiry and investigation” into the circumstances and has not ruled out cancelling an invitation for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to the G20 summit in Brisbane scheduled for November.

The foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, said there was “very strong speculation” the Boeing 777 had been shot down and this would be an “unspeakable crime”, but she added: “We can't yet point the finger of blame until there's been a full investigation.”

The plane from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur came down close to the village of Grabovo in eastern Ukraine, which is part of the area controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

Bishop said the government’s thoughts and prayers were with family and friends.

By 9am AEST about 170 people had called the consular emergency centre of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

“I understand this was a flight connecting to Australia,” Bishop said. “It was Amsterdam, Kuala Lumpur, Perth and that there are a number of Australians on that flight. I also understand that a number of people who were travelling to Melbourne for the 2014 Aids conference commencing this weekend were also on board,” she said.

Bishop said Australia was seeking to send consular staff from Warsaw to the rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine, but would require access.

Responding to reports Russian separatists had taken the black box flight recorder, Bishop said she urged them to cooperate with an investigation into the crash and “if they have taken the black box that must be returned to authorities immediately”.

The incident underlined the urgent need to de-escalate the tensions and the situation in eastern Ukraine, Bishop said.

Political leaders opened parliament on Friday with offers of sympathy to friends and family of the victims.

Abbott told parliament the government owed it to the families of the dead to find out exactly what had happened and who was responsible, as it looked “less like an accident than a crime” and the perpetrators “must be brought to justice”.

“I can inform the house that as quickly as possible Australia will be working at the United Nations security council for a binding resolution calling for a full and impartial investigation with full access to the site, with full access to the debris, with full access to the black box and with full access to all individuals who might be in a position to shed light on this terrible event,” Abbott said.

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, told parliament the “tyrannical, wild act” was a “violation of the rules of civilisation”.

“There are at least 27 Australians who have been murdered,” Shorten said.

“The missile that brought down MH17 and the missiles that have claimed numerous other Ukrainian aircraft could not possibly be made by the people who've possibly fired them. These separatist terrorists are obtaining these instruments of murder from elsewhere.”

In an offer of bipartisan support, Shorten said the opposition understood the complexity of the decisions the prime minister would have to make and would cooperate. He said this might include actions involving the G20 and Labor would work with the government in taking a “measured approach”.

The Greens deputy leader, Adam Bandt, added his voice to the parliamentary speeches, saying thousands of lives would be “touched by this tragedy and it’s a reminder that any one of us in this parliament or this country could have been on that plane”.

Flight MH17 was flying over Ukrainian airspace, 1,000 feet above a no-fly zone when it is believed to have been shot down by a surface-to-air missile.

Ukraine’s government and Russian separatists have blamed each other for the crash.

“This was not an 'incident', this was not a 'catastrophe', this was a terrorist act," said the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko.

Putin laid the blame for the crash at Ukraine's door. “There is no doubt that the nation over whose airspace this happened bears responsibility for the terrible tragedy,” he said.

Abbott was asked whether Australia would rescind an invitation to Putin to attend the G20 summit it was hosting in November. “I don’t want to pre-empt what happens down the track,” he said.

The flight departed Amsterdam at 12.15pm local time, and was due to arrive in Kuala Lumpur at 6.10am local time.

The route had been declared safe by aviation authorities, and the aircraft did not make a distress call, Malaysia Airlines said.

• The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has established hotlines for anyone who believes a relative may have been on board.

From Australia: 1300 555 135

From overseas: +61 2 6261 3305

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