Category Archives: Australia news

Tasmania fires destroy huge swath of wilderness and could ‘burn for weeks’

Posted on by

Around 90,000 hectares of remote country in the state’s north-west have been razed after fires sparked by lightning strikes

Fires that have razed 90,000 hectares of remote Tasmanian wilderness, including world-heritage listed areas and parts of the famous Overland walking track, could burn for weeks as firefighters battle to contain blazes in remote terrain.

By late on Friday, more than 20 fires – which were sparked by dry lightning strikes on 3 February – had a combined perimeter of about 1,200km in the state’s north-west.

Continue reading...

Trump’s reciprocal tariff threat brings fears for Australian trade

Posted on by

Economist argues GST is not protectionist and should not attract any new levy from the US but concern remains for steel industry

US president Donald Trump has threatened “reciprocal tariffs” on US trade partners in retaliation for some domestic taxes, such as value-added taxes, sparking concerns Australia could be targeted.

But economists have argued Australia’s value-added tax – the goods and services tax, which is applied to imported and domestically sourced goods and services identically – is not protectionist, and so could escape retaliation from the US.

Continue reading...

Premature speculation keeps parliament hot under the collar but Albanese quiet on election date

Posted on by

Spectre of unconfirmed date looms over past fortnight as PM’s political theatre only fuels anticipation

Was that really the last week of parliament before the election? Every person in Canberra, from senior cabinet ministers to junior staffers, has a different theory.

MPs are acting as if they’re about to hit the election trail, with some giving farewell speeches. “See you in a few months if I don’t lose my seat”, one MP told me on Thursday night.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Labor gifts duck hunters longer shooting season in Victoria and ups daily kill limit

Posted on by

Allan government announces extended 2025 duck hunting season with hunters allowed to bag nine ducks a day

Wetland bird hunters in Victoria will have a longer duck shooting season and can take home more birds under new rules.

The Victorian duck hunting season will begin on 19 March and run for 83 days until 9 June, up from 56 days in 2024.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

News Corp comparing ABC to Netflix subscription ‘unbalanced and agenda-driven’, broadcaster chair says

Posted on by

In strongly worded statement, Kim Williams says allegations in Murdoch-owned tabloids ‘do not stand up to scrutiny’

A claim in News Corp publications across the country that the public broadcaster costs taxpayers more than a Netflix subscription is an “inaccurate, unbalanced and agenda-driven attack on the ABC”, the ABC chair, Kim Williams, says.

On The Daily Telegraph’s front page, an inside page and an editorial on Friday, the Murdoch tabloid alleged the ABC “costs Australia’s 11.5m households $105 each a year, compared to $96 for an annual Netflix subscription” and “failed to reach 10.6m Australians”.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Australia news live: ‘we have got your back’, Albanese tells steel workers amid speculation over Trump tariffs

Posted on by

Australia prime minister says Trump giving ‘great consideration’ for an exemption. Follow the latest news headlines live

Dutton calls for more details on interaction between Australia and China in South China Sea

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has also weighed in on that interaction between Australian and Chinese aircraft in the South China Sea on Tuesday.

And then Richard Marles did a press conference to provide details. So we haven’t had a briefing on it as yet, but on what the deputy prime minister says it is deeply concerning because it puts that safety at risk, the safety of our personnel. And that is not something that Australia can tolerate.

[It] needs to be transparent in terms of what’s happened, and I just don’t think we’ve seen all of the detail yet from Richard Marles.

Continue reading...

Hundreds of Sydney trains cancelled as negotiation between NSW government and rail workers come to a halt

Posted on by

Unions chief says ‘no one can predict the level of disruption that this is going to cause’

Sydney commuters have been warned to avoid non-urgent rail travel on Friday amid delays and hundreds of service cancellations, as a pay negotiations between the train unions and state government grinds to a halt.

The state transport minister, John Graham, said the network was in the midst of a major disruption. “We’ve had more than 350 services cancelled this morning and that is having a big impact across the network,” he told Sydney radio 2GB on Friday.

Continue reading...

Khaled Sabsabi dropped as Australia’s representative to Venice Biennale

Posted on by

Amid political pressure, Creative Australia says deselecting the Lebanese-born artist will avoid ‘divisive debate’

Khaled Sabsabi, the western Sydney artist who fled Lebanon’s civil war as a child, has been dropped from representing Australia at the 61st Venice Biennale – just five days after being selected to do so.

Sabsabi selection for the 2026 showcase had caused controversy due to some of the artist’s previous works, including a 2007 depiction of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated last year, and a 2006 video rendering of the 9/11 attacks called Thank You Very Much. Shortly after the announcement, Sabsabi admitted to being shocked at being chosen, telling the Guardian: “I felt that, in this time and in this space, this wouldn’t happen because of who I am.”

Continue reading...

Referendum needed for Dutton’s call to toughen citizenship-stripping laws, expert says

Posted on by

Constitutional law expert Helen Irving says such a change appears to be a distraction from serious nature of anti-Israeli comments from NSW nurses

Peter Dutton’s proposal to toughen citizenship-stripping laws in response to comments made by two New South Wales nurses would probably require a referendum, a constitutional lawyer says.

Both major party leaders have been accused of a “bidding war” on who can look tougher on the issue, with Abul Rizvi, a former senior immigration official, urging politicians not to throw more petrol on the fire amid social tensions.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

NSW Labor accused of trying to ‘redesign’ a mental health system with no psychiatrists

Posted on by

Patient care compromised by closing beds and shifting workload to less qualified staff, motion claims

The New South Wales Labor government is seeking to “redesign” the state’s mental health system without psychiatrists, despite the risks to patient care, its political rivals claim.

In a NSW legislative council meeting on Wednesday, the shadow assistant minister Susan Carter and the Greens’ health spokesperson, Dr Amanda Cohn, lambasted the Minns government’s handling of psychiatrists’ mass resignations, with Carter accusing the responsible ministers of having “sought to redesign our mental health system to work without specialist psychiatrists”.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

‘Going to be a big one’: category five Tropical Cyclone Zelia and 320km/h winds headed for Western Australia coast

Posted on by

‘Top of the scale’ winds strong enough to take out complete houses, destroy power lines and cause widespread damage and disruption

Schools, ports and roads have been closed as northern Australia braces for a tropical cyclone that has developed into a destructive category five system bringing ferocious wind gusts up to 320km/h.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Zelia has rapidly intensified since developing off the Western Australian coast and is forecast to be at its most dangerous and powerful when it hits land.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Group was ‘drunk, rowdy’ before WA teenager Cassius Turvey allegedly murdered, court hears

Posted on by

Witness tells trial the group accused of murdering WA boy was ‘a little bit drunk’ and armed themselves with weapons before the incident

An Indigenous teenager’s alleged killers were drunk, rowdy and packing weapons, a witness has said, before admitting he lied under oath at a murder trial.

Cassius Turvey, a 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy, died in hospital 10 days after prosecutors say he was chased down, knocked to the ground and “deliberately struck to the head with a metal pole” in Perth’s eastern suburbs on 13 October 2022.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Influencer to provide unedited video of nurses’ anti-Israeli threats as pair prevented from practising in Australia

Posted on by

Mark Butler says pair have had their nurses’ registrations suspended following their ‘sickening comments’

New South Wales police have spoken to an Israeli influencer who they say has agreed to provide investigators with an unedited version of a video chat in which two Bankstown hospital nurses allegedly threatened Israeli patients.

The video attracted widespread political condemnation after it was published by the Israeli content creator Max Veifer and led to the male nurse issuing an apology. The video depicted an edited online conversation Veifer had with the two staff members on a video chat platform similar to Chatroulette.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Belle Gibson: Victorian authorities ‘won’t let up’ on pursuit of cancer con artist’s unpaid $410,000 fine

Posted on by

Speaking after Netflix released Apple Cider Vinegar, Jacinta Allan says consumer watchdog is ‘constantly’ working to recover fine imposed in 2017

The Victorian premier says the state’s consumer watchdog is “constantly” pursuing cancer conwoman Belle Gibson and “won’t let up” until she pays the fine she was ordered to pay more than seven years ago.

Gibson, who is the now the subject of a new Netflix series, Apple Cider Vinegar, was in 2017 ordered by the federal court to pay a $410,000 fine plus $30,000 in legal costs for misleading and deceptive conduct, after she falsely claimed to have been diagnosed with brain cancer and cured through alternative therapies and nutrition.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Australia condemns ‘unsafe’ airspace encounter and rejects Chinese allegations RAAF plane ‘deliberately intruded’

Posted on by

Australian defence department says it is monitoring three Chinese ships in the Coral Sea

Australia has rejected Chinese allegations an Australian airforce plane “deliberately intruded into China’s airspace” and undermined its national security, saying the actions of a Chinese navy fighter pilot who released flares near the Australian aircraft were “wrong … and very very dangerous”.

Australia’s defence department accused the Chinese navy of an “unsafe and unprofessional” incident by allegedly dropping flares dangerously close to an Australian patrol flight on what it described as routine operations in the South China Sea on Tuesday.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Bacteria transferred during intercourse could help identify sexual assault perpetrators, scientists say

Posted on by

Genital microbiome or ‘sexome’ leaves specific signature even when barrier protection is used, which could be traced in absence of DNA material

Bacteria transferred between people during sexual intercourse could be used in forensic testing to help identify sexual assault perpetrators, an Australian study suggests.

Genital bacteria, similar to the microorganisms that make up the gut microbiome, vary between individuals. They are transferred to sexual partners during intercourse and leave specific signatures that can subsequently be detected, researchers found.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

‘Like finding gold’: plains-wanderers spotted in Melbourne’s west for first time in 30 years with help of AI

Posted on by

Critically endangered bird detected after analysis of tens of thousands of hours of song meter recordings

Critically endangered plains-wanderers have been found living in Melbourne’s west for the first time in more than 30 years.

Notoriously elusive and difficult to spot, the rare birds were detected on two pockets of remnant grassland by Zoos Victoria, with the help of AI.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Proposed ban on protest outside places of worship could prevent town hall rallies, Sydney mayor warns

Posted on by

Clover Moore says police would have power to block peaceful demonstrations and warns against eroding civil rights

Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Sydney’s mayor has warned that new laws proposed by the New South Wales government would give police powers to block peaceful protests at town hall – a regular site for demonstrations in the city.

The laws, introduced to parliament on Tuesday and carrying a maximum of two years in prison, are the first tranche of a suite of measures aimed at stemming antisemitism after a series of arson attacks and graffiti on synagogues and in Sydney’s suburban streets in recent months.

Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Continue reading...

Share of wealth held by Australia’s poorest falls by almost 30% since 2004 – report

Posted on by

Study by Monash University recommends spending increase to fix inequalities in housing, health and education

The wealth held by Australia’s bottom 40% has declined by almost a third in two decades while 3.3m live below the poverty line, a damning report into Australia’s track record on quality of life shows.

Monash University’s third Transforming Australia report, released Thursday, shows progress on more than half of the 80 indicators has stalled or is in freefall, painting a deteriorating picture of the country’s social, economic and environmental wellbeing.

Continue reading...

Gang violence sparked by ‘love triangle’ led to Cassius Turvey killing, court told

Posted on by

Four adults accused of murdering the 15-year-old in Perth after becoming involved in a dispute between two teenage boys over a girl

The girl at the centre of the “love triangle” that allegedly led to the death of Cassius Turvey in a Perth suburb has taken the stand at his murder trial.

The 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy died in hospital 10 days after he was “caught, knocked to the ground and deliberately struck to the head with a metal pole” in Perth’s eastern suburbs on October 13, 2022.

Continue reading...