Category Archives: Australia news

Gambling reform advocates dismayed as Albanese government defers action on national regulator

Posted on by

Tim Costello says ‘I never thought I would see in my lifetime John Howard to the left of Anthony Albanese on an issue’

Gambling reform advocates have blasted the Albanese government for ruling out a national gambling regulator and pushing ahead with a partial TV ad ban only.

The social services minister, Amanda Rishworth, said on Sunday that the recommendation for a national regulator “would involve states and territories handing over their powers to the commonwealth”, confirming that “at this point, that is not in the discussions”.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Childcare worker alleged to be one of Australia’s worst paedophiles pleads guilty to 307 charges

Posted on by

Ashley Paul Griffith, 46, convicted of crimes against dozens of children at childcare centres in Brisbane and Italy between 2007 and 2022

Former childcare worker Ashley Paul Griffith has confessed to committing 307 sexual offences against dozens of children under his care in Brisbane and Italy between 2007 and 2022.

Griffith, 46, from the Gold Coast, pleaded guilty to all charges at an arraignment at the Queensland district court on Monday morning.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. The crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault, family or domestic violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit www.1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000. International helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org.

Continue reading...

Linda Reynolds failed to offer a ‘basic human response’ after Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations, court told

Posted on by

Higgins’ lawyer also tells defamation trial Reynolds was an unreliable witness and harassed Higgins by leaking documents

Linda Reynolds’ engaged in a “campaign of harassment” against her former staffer, Brittany Higgins, and had a “dogged focus” on the “wrong target”, a court has heard.

And Reynolds failed to offer a “basic human response” by following up with Higgins about her welfare after a meeting they had about her rape allegation, Higgins’ lawyer, Rachael Young SC, said.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

‘Less money for health and education’: Albanese slams Coalition threat to cut GST unless states build housing

Posted on by

The opposition is yet to announce a policy that would create more housing supply, while the Greens put Airbnb in their sights

The Greens and the Coalition are opening up new fronts in the battle over housing policy, as the government continues to struggle to get its agenda through the Senate.

The shadow assistant spokesperson for home ownership, Andrew Bragg, opened the door for a future Coalition government to withhold funding to states and local governments unless house building was accelerated.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

About 600 homes damaged, 35,000 without power in Victoria amid wild weather

Posted on by

The south-east of the country is taking a battering and there is more to come as a ‘very strong cold front’ moves through on Sunday

Emergency services have warned Victorians to expect more destructive winds as a powerful cold front heads towards Melbourne, while Tasmanian residents and businesses along the Derwent River prepared to evacuate on Sunday, as wild weather batters the south-east of the country.

Victoria’s emergency management commissioner, Rick Nugent, said severe weather had already damaged more than 600 homes and left 35,000 without power, and would continue into the early hours of Monday morning.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Victorian taxpayers would pay for Scotland’s $220m Commonwealth Games under new proposal

Posted on by

Commonwealth Games Scotland says it could host sporting event for a fraction of the Victorian government’s $6bn estimation

Victorian taxpayers could foot the bill for Scotland to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games using compensation money from dumping the event.

In July last year, the state government announced it would no longer host the 2026 Games, which were set to be held in regional cities, after former premier Daniel Andrews claimed forecast expenses had nearly doubled to at least $6bn.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Dutton’s nuclear reactor in Collie would have a 10th of the output of renewables, Chris Bowen says – as it happened

Posted on by

The energy minister has been taking every opportunity to undermine the Coalition’s ‘plan’ on nuclear energy. This blog is now closed

Bragg defends NSW Liberal chief’s position after council elections debacle

Finally, Bragg has also defended Liberal party’s NSW president, Don Harwin, staying in his role after the “catastrophic failure” of the division to nominate candidates for local government elections.

I’m more interested in looking at the core competency of the division rather than getting into personality debates.

I don’t see any case for Don to go. I think he’s done a good job as president. I don’t think that having an election for president now inside the New South Wales division would be in the interests of the party, and at the end of the day, people love talking about these things, but the core competencies are on display – you’ve got candidates in the field and you’re raising money.

It’s been my view for a long time that gender identity and sexual orientation are reasonable questions to ask in a modern society. I think the fact the PM has tied himself in knots on this issue shows a great weakness in his own leadership.

Continue reading...

Questions on gender and sex variations ‘too complex’ for census, social services minister Amanda Rishworth says

Posted on by

It’s the third explanation government ministers have given since last Sunday, while Coalition senator Andrew Bragg says questions are ‘reasonable’

The social services minister has offered up the latest explanation for why proposed questions on gender and sex variations were dumped from the next census, claiming they were too complicated.

In an interview with Sky News on Sunday, Amanda Rishworth gave a new reason for why new questions had been ditched from the census planning, saying the government had been shown “questions that were very complex in the census”.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Closing arguments expected to be heard on Monday in Reynolds v Higgins defamation trial

Posted on by

Linda Reynolds has argued that social media posts by former staffer contained mistruths that damaged her reputation – which Brittany Higgins denies

Closing arguments in a defamation case brought against Brittany Higgins by her former boss the Liberal senator Linda Reynolds are expected to be heard on Monday.

Reynolds is suing Higgins over social media posts made after the former political staffer alleged she had been raped by her colleague Bruce Lehrmann in the then defence minister’s office in Parliament House.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Dangerous play: how online gaming purchases led an Australian youth into a secret gambling addiction

Posted on by

Matthew’s* father had no idea his son was even gambling, let alone deep in debt, until he got a terrifying phone call

Vincent* didn’t know his 20-year-old son Matthew* was gambling until he took a phone call from him as he stood on a cliff’s edge after racking up thousands of dollars of debt.

Matthew was crying and revealed a gambling problem which had begun years earlier with online gaming, causing increasing debt. Matthew had opened up to another family member earlier that evening, who made him feel more ashamed, calling him an idiot.

Continue reading...

More August temperature records expected to fall amid warm weather and winds across east coast

Posted on by

Unseasonably strong winds and record-breaking warm weather has been forecast to continue through the weekend


Winter has ended in Australia with weather records broken across the country – with expectations of August temperature records being broken on the final day of the month.

Amid wild winds in the country’s south, a warm run of weather was expected to continue through the weekend in central and southern Queensland, along with north-eastern New South Wales. Brisbane is expected to see multiple days of over 30C.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Albanese says ABS, not government, will determine scope of census question on sexuality

Posted on by

Prime minister defends government’s backflip on census and says single question on sexuality will not limit scope of data

Anthony Albanese says the nature and scope of question on sexuality in the next census will be a matter for the Australian Bureau of Statistics, not the government.

After a week in which his government was heavily criticised for excluding proposed new questions on sexual orientation and gender identity, the prime minister reneged and said the 2026 census would include “one question about sexuality, sexual preference”.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Alarm as Australia records ‘gobsmacking’ hot August temperatures

Posted on by

Heat building up in country’s centre and driving south-east is causing ‘really unusual’ heatwave that is breaking winter records

Australia’s winter runs from June to August, but swathes of the country have felt like summer the past week with temperatures topping 40C and records tumbling.

“It doesn’t matter how you slice and dice it,” said Dr Linden Ashcroft, a climate scientist at the University of Melbourne. “The temperature records have been gobsmacking.”

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Vision Australia pressed to appoint a blind CEO and open field externally

Posted on by

Founding chair Graeme Innes launches petition and accuses service provider of hypocrisy over recruitment for top job

Vision Australia is under pressure to appoint its first vision-impaired chief executive from the wider community, after the organisation announced it would limit its search to internal expressions of interest.

The national service provider’s founding chair, former disability discrimination commissioner Graeme Innes, launched a public petition on Monday after he and 33 other representatives of the blind and vision-impaired community wrote to Vision Australia’s board to urge it to prioritise the appointment of a blind chief executive.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Brendan Nelson suggested censoring chapters in Australia’s official history of Timor-Leste operations, Dfat head claimed

Posted on by

Exclusive: Documents released under freedom of information show Nelson, the director of the War Memorial in 2019, subsequently opposed cutting the chapters, and they appeared in the published work

The former director of the Australian War Memorial, Brendan Nelson, offered in 2019 to censor nine chapters from the official history of Australia’s operations in Timor-Leste and seal them for 30 years, according to a claim made in correspondence from the then head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat).

But within weeks Nelson decided to actively oppose the move, the documents released under freedom of information laws suggest, and the chapters were included when the volume was eventually published.

Continue reading...

Builders and the Fair Work Commission are delaying CFMEU members’ pay deals, union leader says

Posted on by

Electrical Trades Union secretary says it’s ‘appalling’ that agreements struck before the CFMEU was placed into administration ‘aren’t getting through’ the FWC

Blue-collar unions have taken aim at builders and the Fair Work Commission for delays approving pay deals struck before allegations of criminal misconduct and bikie links resulted in the construction union being placed into administration.

Troy Gray, the Electrical Trades Union Victorian secretary, said it was “appalling” that administrators have removed three union-appointed directors from the board of industry super fund Cbus and that enterprise agreements “aren’t getting through” the FWC.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Last-minute Taiwan drama and a policing plan: five things we learned at the Pacific Islands Forum

Posted on by

China’s representative demanded the scrapping of language about Taiwan in the final communique; Pacific countries will get a new multinational police unit

Pacific leaders gathered in Tonga this week to discuss the most pressing issues in the region. The group backed a Pacific-wide police training and rapid-response plan championed by Australia, and also reached agreement with France to allow a fact-finding mission to travel to New Caledonia to investigate the recent unrest. But the final day of the talks on Friday was overshadowed by a dispute over language about Taiwan.

Here are the key takeaways from the Pacific Islands Forum (Pif) summit, the region’s most important annual political gathering, bringing together Australia, New Zealand and 16 Pacific island countries or territories.

Continue reading...

Labor will have itself to blame if it loses western Sydney over Gaza issue, says Muslim Vote convener

Posted on by

Wesam Charkawi says Albanese’s party has ‘created this movement through their decisions’ as pro-Palestine communities feel Labor has failed them

A new Muslim political movement backing independent candidates says Labor will have itself to blame if Peter Dutton wins the next election, and that people should not assume the candidates they support will preference Labor.

Sheikh Wesam Charkawi, one of the conveners behind the Muslim Vote movement, said the group would be aiming to support “at least five candidates” in New South Wales and Victoria.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

Continue reading...

Emissions from Australian coal-fired power stations rise as wind and hydro dip

Posted on by

More electricity demand and lower than usual generation from two renewable sources raises questions about climate targets

Greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s ageing coal-fired power plants rose slightly in the first half of the year, reversing years of declining pollution from the power section and raising questions about the country’s ability to meet its climate targets.

An increase in electricity consumption across the country and lower than usual wind and hydro output led to an increase in coal generation. It pushed up emissions from the electricity grid between January and June.

Continue reading...

Gina Rinehart’s personal message to NGA about her portrait revealed in FOI documents

Posted on by

Billionaire wrote to the National Gallery weeks before furore erupted, after a ‘concerned friend’ had told her about the now infamous painting

Gina Rinehart wrote to the National Gallery of Australia a month before the furore erupted about a portrait of her in the gallery, saying a “concerned friend” had brought it to her attention.

The email, released to Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws, was sent on behalf of Rinehart to Nick Mitzevich, the director of the NGA and Ryan Stokes, the chair of the gallery, on 15 April.

Continue reading...