Category Archives: Australia news

Australian father calls out Spotify for allegedly playing Sportsbet ads during Frozen and Bluey songs

Posted on by

Man says gambling ads ‘potentially damaging’ for his children who regularly listen to Disney and the Wiggles on his account on music streaming app

The Australian gambling agency Sportsbet has paused advertising with the music streaming company Spotify, after its content was allegedly played between children’s songs.

The pause comes after Guardian Australia reported on a complaint by a father who alleged the “potentially damaging” ads were inserted between Disney songs.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Grill’d was able to pay Arda $3 less than minimum wage. Unions want this youth ‘loophole’ abolished

Posted on by

Advocates argue it’s time for young people’s wages to rise but business groups claim paying more will push some companies into insolvency

Arda Konstantine could vote, drink and drive a car. But as they were 19 years old, their employer, Grill’d, was legally able to pay them just $16.50 an hour – $3.38 less than the hourly national minimum for their age.

If Konstantine worked at the fast food chain’s airport store, their rate bumped up an extra $2. While employed at Grill’d, Konstantine never got weekend or public holiday rates.

Continue reading...

Guardian Essential poll: election warning signs for Labor as voters flunk government on housing costs and wages

Posted on by

But survey finds strong support for under-16s social media ban, despite concerns about how to enforce it

Voters have given the Albanese government an F on containing housing costs and surprisingly little credit for increasing wages in two troubling signs for Labor heading into a cost-of-living election.

Those are the results of the latest Guardian Essential poll of 1,123 voters, which found strong support for social media regulation, including two-thirds in favour of the under-16 age ban.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Ad campaign comparing Peter Dutton to Donald Trump sees Climate 200’s donations surge by $380,000

Posted on by

Organisation asked supporters if they ‘want to feel different on our election night’ in an ad with half of Trump’s face and half of Dutton’s

Climate 200 has reported a surge in first-time donors in November off the back of a donation-matching campaign comparing the Coalition and Peter Dutton to the politics of Donald Trump.

The funding aggregator claims to have raised $377,000 from 3,900 donations including 1,373 people who donated to it for the first time, the biggest wave of first-time supporters since it was launched in 2021.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Lidia Thorpe apologises to Pauline Hanson after mistakenly describing her as ‘convicted’ racist

Posted on by

Independent senator clarifies she was mistaken about civil finding of racial discrimination against One Nation leader

Senator Lidia Thorpe has apologised to Pauline Hanson for describing her as a “convicted” racist, clarifying she was mistaken about a civil finding of racial discrimination.

Last week Hanson threatened to sue Thorpe for defamation after Thorpe described the One Nation leader as a “convicted racist” in an interview with Channel Nine’s Today.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Australia weather: after hottest spring on record, a very warm and humid start to summer forecast

Posted on by

BoM says rainfall to bring brief respite from temperatures in 30s for parts of Victoria, NSW, Tasmania and Queensland

Australia recorded its hottest spring on record with mean temperatures more than 2C above the long-term average.

It comes as large parts of the country awaited maximum temperatures of between 4C and 8C above average on the second day of summer, with heat and humidity set to continue throughout the week.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and NSW could experience blackouts from too much solar power, Aemo warns

Posted on by

Aemo says it does not want to ‘directly control people’s rooftop solar’ but it may be necessary to reduce or cut off power gleaned from the sun

The power grid in eastern Australia could experience “outage conditions” as soon as next spring unless states speed up actions to cope with surplus generation from solar panels on sunny days, the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) has warned.

In a report released on Monday, Aemo called for an “emergency backstop” mechanism to ensure grid stability when households and other solar photovoltaic (PV) owners export excess electricity.

Continue reading...

Renters’ personal details allegedly stolen in Melbourne real estate agency burglary

Posted on by

Documents taken during break-in at Nelson Alexander agency in Northcote in October, police allege, and investigation under way

The personal information of a number of renters in Melbourne has been allegedly stolen from a Northcote real estate agency during a break-in, raising concerns about potential identity theft.

The ABC has reported that five boxes of documents, containing former renter information including names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and potentially ID documents, were allegedly stolen during a break-in at the Nelson Alexander agency in Northcote in October.

Continue reading...

Tribute to love, resilience and song: Indigenous musical legends Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter immortalised in bronze

Posted on by

The pair bonded as teenagers after chance meeting at Salvation Army drop-in centre while they were sleeping rough on Adelaide’s streets

Their songs have been the soundtrack to countless marches for justice, family gatherings and community barbecues. Now, Aboriginal music legends Uncle Archie Roach and Aunty Ruby Hunter have been immortalised in bronze.

The permanent tribute to the acclaimed musical couple was unveiled at Atherton Gardens on Saturday in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy, with family and friends travelling from across the country to mark the occasion.

Continue reading...

No deal between Woolworths and warehouse workers – as it happened

Posted on by

This blog is now closed

Man dies after balcony fall during police operation

A man is dead after falling from a balcony during negotiations in a Queensland police operation.

I’m proud to announce today that I’m going to join the Libertarian party.

I believe in small government. I believe in the entrepreneurial ability of Australians. Get government out of the way, get government out of their hands. That’s what the Libertarian party stands for. Unfortunately, the Liberal party that I used to be a member of appears to have abandoned all those values.

I was there working on a contract basis for a small period of time. But look, I think the future in this country as a conservative party, to the right of the Liberal party, is with the libertarian.

Continue reading...

Victoria clubs give more money to themselves in guise of ‘community benefits’ for tax breaks

Posted on by

Latest disclosures include clubs who claim millions spent on their own golf and racecourses as donations to broader community

Poker machine venues in Victoria have significantly increased the amount of gambling revenue they are spending on themselves, while justifying it as a “community benefit” to get a tax cut.

Victoria’s community benefit scheme provides a tax cut to clubs that reinvest 8.33% of gambling revenue back into the community. But these clubs are able to list upgrades to their own golf courses, renovations and operating costs – which help keep gambling rooms open – as community benefits.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Two people dead in Mornington Peninsula shooting as police search for man who fled scene

Posted on by

Victoria police say man and woman died with gunshot wounds after reports of altercation at Rye home about 4am

Victoria police are searching for a man after a woman and a man were shot dead on the state’s Mornington Peninsula.

Police were called to an altercation between a group of people at an address on Parson Street in Rye shortly after 4am on Monday. Police arrived to find a man and woman with gunshot wounds.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Michael Rowland to leave ABC News Breakfast after ‘15 years of 3am starts’

Posted on by

The 55-year-old is the program’s longest serving male co-host, and hinted in September that he was ‘looking forward to something less intense’

After 15 years of waking up at 3am to host ABC News Breakfast, Michael Rowland is calling it quits.

The co-host of the public broadcaster’s breakfast offering has told viewers his final show will be on 13 December, followed by a long break.

Sign up to get Guardian Australia’s weekly media diary as a free newsletter

Continue reading...

Cruise ships urged to ‘clean up their act’ amid concerns toxic effluent being dumped on Great Barrier Reef

Posted on by

Environmentalists say marine park waste regulations need updating to limit grey water and exhaust chemicals as passenger cruise numbers rise

Environmentalists and tourism operators on the Great Barrier Reef say authorities must enforce stricter pollution standards on cruise liners visiting the world heritage area amid growth in passenger cruise numbers and concern that ships are dumping toxins into the water.

The Whitsunday Conservation Council says the definition of “waste” used to prevent marine discharge on the reef – which dates back to the 1970s – does not restrict discharge from sulphur “scrubbers” that have become commonplace in the shipping industry.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Predatory rent-to-buy operators barred from Centrepay debit system in sweeping Albanese government reforms

Posted on by

Exclusive: ‘High-risk services’ will be removed, including companies providing consumer leases and household goods

The federal government will boot predatory rent-to-buy operators off its Centrepay debit system as part of sweeping reforms designed to stop the financial abuse of vulnerable Australians.

The reforms, set to be announced Monday, follow a Guardian Australian investigation that revealed shocking failures in the Centrepay system and helped trigger an urgent government review.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

‘Women are suffering unnecessarily’: Australians to get subsidised endometriosis treatment

Posted on by

Without a subsidy, patients could pay $750 a year to treat the condition which has no cure and can last decades

More than one million Australians living with endometriosis will have access to a treatment subsidised by the federal government for the first time in three decades.

The health minister, Mark Butler, announced on Sunday that a daily tablet will be listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Australia charts hottest spring on record for mean temperatures – as it happened

Posted on by

This blog is now closed.

The health minister, Mark Butler, is holding a press conference in Adelaide to announce the endometriosis drug Visanne will be added to the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. It’s the first listing of an endo treatment in three decades.

This is a condition that impacts more than 1 million women – one in seven women and teenage girls – and for too long, too many women have been made to suffer in silence.

[They’ve] been told by many healthcare professionals, it has to be said, that this is “normal”. That it is a normal part of period pain or many other explanations for debilitating, crippling pain.

This is all about providing cheaper medicines and cutting-edge treatment to Australian patients generally, but [particularly] in the area of endometriosis, which has attracted such inadequate support for hundreds of thousands of Australian women.

This listing is beyond time.

The major contributor to the record has been the minimum temperatures, which averaged 17.2ºC over the spring season for the site, and were elevated by cloud cover, precipitation, and most notably, humidity.

Continue reading...

Australia restricting number of domestic workers foreign diplomats can bring into the country, UN official says

Posted on by

Information campaign directed at diplomatic missions expected after court cases highlighted ‘slave-like’ working conditions for domestic workers


The Australian government has restricted foreign diplomats bringing domestic workers into the country, a UN anti-slavery expert has reported, after two recent federal court cases exposed systemic exploitation a judge described as “slave-like working conditions”.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Man charged with murdering his parents after bodies found at Sydney shop

Posted on by

Allan Chiem, 31, will remain in custody after allegedly murdering his father, 69, and mother, 68

A 31-year-old man has been charged with allegedly murdering his parents at their shop in western Sydney.

Allan Chiem appeared in Parramatta local court on Sunday morning after he was arrested just after midnight at a home in Canley Heights in the city’s west and charged with two counts of domestic violence murder.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Anthony Albanese insists environment laws still on agenda despite killing deal with Greens

Posted on by

PM overruled negotiations between environment minister and the Greens after speaking with WA premier last week

Anthony Albanese insists Labor’s plans to establish a national environmental watchdog are still on the table after he quashed a deal with the Greens in parliament’s final sitting week.

Last-minute negotiations between the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, and the Greens senator, Sarah Hanson-Young, were overruled by the prime minister on Tuesday after he spoke with the Western Australian premier, Roger Cook.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...