Category Archives: Australia news

Australian primary students score best ever result in global maths and science test, despite pandemic disruption

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Timss report finds year 4 students ranked equal fifth internationally out of 58 countries, up from ninth in 2019

Australian primary school students have recorded their best ever results in an international maths and science assessment, curbing concerns about lockdowns disrupting learning.

The 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss), released by the Australian Council for Educational Research (Acer) late on Wednesday, analysed the skills of year 4 and 8 students.

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Easey Street double murder and rape accused faces Melbourne court nearly 50 years after alleged attack

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Perry Kouroumblis was extradited from Italy and charged over the 1977 deaths of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett

An accused double murderer has faced a Melbourne court close to five decades after police allege he stabbed two women to death in a frenzied attack.

Perry Kouroumblis, 65, appeared bleary-eyed as he sat in the dock of the Melbourne magistrates court on Wednesday after arriving on Australian soil on Tuesday night.

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Australian Music prize: 80-year-old Kankawa Nagarra wins over Nick Cave and Amyl and the Sniffers

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Walmatjarri elder and blues musician wins $50,000 prize for Wirlmarni, saying she hopes it will bring pride to her community in Wangkatjungka

The Walmatjarri elder and blues musician Kankawa Nagarra has won the $50,000 Australian Music prize (AMP) for her debut album Wirlmarni, seeing off competition from Nick Cave, the Dirty Three and Amyl and the Sniffers.

Inspired by the UK’s Mercury prize, the AMP focuses “entirely on artistic merit” and aims to “financially reward and increase exposure” for Australian musicians who release the best album in a calendar year.

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Donna Nelson, who claims she was love scam victim, jailed for smuggling drugs into Japan

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Donna Nelson sentenced to six years in prison after court finds her guilty of bringing methamphetamine into country

The jailing of an Australian woman in Japan is “really distressing” for her family, the federal government has acknowledged as it committed to doing all it could to help her.

The Australian federal health minister, Mark Butler, made the promise a day after Donna Nelson was sentenced to six years for smuggling methamphetamine into Tokyo in January 2023, despite her claims she had been the victim of an online romance scam.

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Labor declines to review three coal proposals for potential climate impact – as it happened

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This blog is now closed

More on the new Malaysia-based maritime institute:

The government is contributing $1.78m over four years to support the institute, which will train regional government officials on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, broader maritime law and ocean governance, awareness of maritime domains and environmental protection.

We don’t want to see any unilateral changes to the status quo across the Taiwan straits, and our focus is on doing everything we can in terms of exercising our international voice around promoting stability and peace in and around the Taiwan straits, in and around Taiwan.

Rules and norms are vital for our shared maritime region and the countries of our region make an ongoing contribution to maintaining and promoting them.

The institute will deliver training to officials from across the region on complex maritime legal and policy topics. It will nurture leaders and help further our collective contribution to a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.

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Australia splits with US to back UN resolution demanding end to Israel occupation of Palestinian territories

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Vote marks a change to the nation’s official stance held for more than two decades

Australia has split with the US and voted with 156 other countries at the UN to demand the end of Israel’s “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible”.

The vote marks Australia’s return to the position for the first time in more than two decades.

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Humbled pie thieves ditch Yorkshire chef’s food-laden van in Middlesbrough

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Tommy Banks says £25,000 of stock, which included 2,500 pies bearing his name, was ‘not really very saleable’

A van that which was stolen containing 2,500 pies has been found abandoned, although inquiries are continuing into the fate of its contents.

The Michelin-starred chef Tommy Banks had appealed to thieves to “do the right thing” and give the van’s contents, which also included custard and gravy, to people in need.

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More than 90% of people caught with small amounts of illicit drugs criminalised in NSW despite diversion reforms

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Exclusive: Police used discretion to divert just 6.9% of people caught with personal use quantities of drugs from criminal justice system, data shows

A New South Wales government program that gives police discretion to divert people found with small quantities of illicit drugs away from the courts has only been extended to 6.9% of people caught, including just 2.6% of those who are Indigenous.

The major reform by the Minns government came into effect in February this year and was flagged by the attorney general, Michael Daley, as a way to treat drug use as a health issue rather than a criminal one. Yet data obtained from NSW police under freedom of information shows the vast majority of those caught with illegal drugs continue to be criminalised.

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Nuclear energy debate draws stark gender split in Australia ahead of next year’s election

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Survey finds 25 percentage point gender gap across all age brackets on whether nuclear power would be positive for the country, with majority of men saying it would

New data points to a stark gender split in attitudes towards nuclear energy, with women much more likely to say they don’t support it or think the risks are too great.

Research company DemosAu surveyed 6,000 people on behalf of the Australian Conservation Foundation and found 26% of women thought nuclear energy would be good for Australia, compared with 51% of men.

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Pro-brumby activists racially vilified head of Indigenous group, Victorian tribunal finds

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Exclusive: Yorta Yorta woman targeted in campaign by Barmah Brumby Preservation Group that included posters with racist slogans, Vcat finds

A pro-brumby activist organisation racially vilified the then head of an Indigenous group in Victoria through posters and social media posts showing her face and racist slogans, the state’s civil and administrative tribunal has found.

The Barmah Brumby Preservation Group displayed public posters showing the face of Monica Morgan, a Yorta Yorta woman, and racist slogans. Morgan argued at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (Vcat) the posters, along with social media posts and comments between 2020 and 2023, incited hatred of her and Yorta Yorta people on the basis of race.

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Confidence in federal Labor at Morrison 2022 election loss levels, poll shows

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ANU study finds Albanese ‘significantly’ more favourable as PM than Dutton and more women undecided on voting intention than men

Just 38% of Australian voters have confidence in the federal government, a level approaching the lows before Scott Morrison was voted out of office in May 2022.

That is one of the key results of an Australian National University study, which nevertheless found the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, had “significantly higher” favourability than Peter Dutton leading into the 2025 election.

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Some of Australia’s largest disability service providers failing to meet quality standards

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First report card on 88 providers in government program finds seven needing improvement and five failing on effectiveness

A handful of major employment service providers have failed to adequately support Australians with disabilities in the job market as the federal government hands down its first public report card on the industry.

Of the 88 providers assessed on the disability employment services program in July, 92% were meeting quality expectations while 90% exceeded or met effectiveness expectations.

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Australia news live: Allan defends Victoria after it’s named worst state for business; Burke to meet Indonesian minister over Bali Nine

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The Victorian premier has defended the state’s business credentials saying there’s key data missing from the Business Council of Australia’s report. Follow today’s news headlines live

Weather check shows mixed conditions forecast across Australian cities

It’s a mixed, if warm, bag in capital cities today, with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting storms in Melbourne, sunny skies in Brisbane and Adelaide and showers across all other major cities.

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Woolworths takes $50m hit as strike leads to empty shelves

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The supermarket giant filed an urgent application with the Fair Work Commission to end industrial action blocking distribution centres

Australia’s biggest supermarket chain, Woolworths, says it has lost $50m in grocery sales since the start of industrial action that has disrupted the flow of goods into some of its stores.

More than 1,500 Woolworths warehouse workers have been on strike since 21 November, seeking better pay and safety on the job. Industrial action has affected up to five distribution centres, impacting supplies in some stores in Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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