Category Archives: Australia news

NSW to help renters avoid added app fees and make it easier to keep a pet

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Landlords will have to offer convenient ways to avoid extra charges when paying the rent

New South Wales renters will no longer be made to pay extra fees when they pay the rent and will have greater rights to keep a pet in a suite of reforms to be announced on Monday.

The state government plans to introduce legislation to modernise the state’s rental regulation into parliament in October.

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Why News Corp’s realestate.com.au can put fees ‘up and up and up’, according to ex-CEO

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Simon Baker says REA Group’s property portal is viewed ‘jealously’ by others around the world because the home-sellers pay the bills

A former chief executive of the News Corp-controlled realestate.com.au says the company views real estate agents as its “outsourced sales force”, outlining how home sellers have been targeted with ever-rising advertising costs.

Simon Baker, who was chief executive of REA Group from 2001 to 2008 and now works as a consultant in the property tech industry, says the “vendor-paid” advertising market operating in Australian real estate is rare globally.

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Brother of man arrested over 1977 Easey Street cold case says he is ‘100% sure’ of his innocence

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Perry Kouroumblis, 65, was arrested at Rome airport and held for the alleged murders of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett

The brother of a man accused of the 1977 Easey Street killings in Melbourne says he is “100% sure” that there has been a mistake and his brother is innocent of the double murder.

Perry Kouroumblis, 65, was arrested at Rome airport on Thursday Australian time and held for the murders of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett. Police plan to apply to Italy for extradition for the man to face charges in Australia.

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China ‘testing us’ in Pacific, Biden tells Quad leaders – as it happened

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Mark Butler is asked whether a ban on vapes is having the effect he intended. The minister says the government has already “seized 5m vapes at the border”, on top of the 1 July retail ban:

We’ve taken the approach in the first few months to try to get businesses to surrender their vapes, and many have done that to the TGA. We’ve been conducting inspections in conjunction with state authorities to hundreds of premises to inform them of the new laws and warn them of the consequences in the longer term, but we have to switch to a far more assertive approach.

As I said, my starting position is that … if we can give more families the joy of having children, that’s a great place to start, but we will work through these recommendations carefully, as I imagine your viewers would expect me to.

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Coalition’s nuclear power plan is ‘economic insanity’, Jim Chalmers says on eve of major Dutton speech

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‘It will cost more, it will push prices up, it will take longer,’ treasurer says of opposition leader’s ‘fantasy’

Coalition plans to build seven nuclear power plants are “economic insanity”, Jim Chalmers has said, in the lead-up to a speech by Peter Dutton that is expected to provide new details of the policy.

The federal opposition has outlined plans to build seven nuclear reactors across five states, should it win the next election, with the first to be built by 2035 to 2037 at the earliest.

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‘Astounding’ lack of menopause education for Australia’s medical students must be remedied, Mark Butler says

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Federal health minister also calls for prosecution of shopkeepers caught illegally selling vapes

The federal health minister, Mark Butler, says he is “astounded” that medical students can spend as little as one hour learning about menopause and has signalled that the government is likely to take action after a damning parliamentary inquiry.

On Sunday Butler told the ABC’s Insiders that several inquiries had told a “shameful story” about women’s treatment in Australia’s health system, saying there was more to do after Labor’s “modest investments” in women’s health.

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Australian demand for overdose drug naloxone more than doubles after spike in synthetic opioid deaths

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Take Home Naloxone program, which allows access without a prescription, sees rise in use after multiple reports of people who unknowingly used laced drugs and died

Demand for a life-saving opioid overdose drug has doubled in one year as a “whole new cohort” of stimulant and hallucinogenic users, fearful of taking lethally laced narcotics, have rushed to get the medication.

Prior to a recent spike in overdose deaths, regular users of illicit opioids were the predominant users of naloxone, which can rapidly reverse an overdose.

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Albanese urged to ditch Howard-era native forest logging exemptions

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Exclusive: independent MPs and Lidia Thorpe tell PM that environment law reforms under negotiation must remove exemptions for native forest logging

Independent MPs and a crossbench senator are trying to increase the pressure on the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to remove Howard-era exemptions that allow native forest logging to operate outside national environment laws.

The government has been negotiating over reforms to the laws in the Senate, where the Greens and crossbenchers David Pocock and Lidia Thorpe have been pushing for an end to the exemptions for logging covered by regional forest agreements.

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One in 20 Australian adults found to have suffered reproductive coercion and abuse

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Australian Study of Health and Relationships finds 3.9% of women aged 16-69 had experienced contraceptive interference and 4.9% forced abortion

One in 20 Australian adults have experienced reproductive coercion and abuse.

That is among the findings of the Australian Study of Health and Relationships (ASHR), released this week, the first time researchers in Australia have estimated the national prevalence of behaviour used to control a person’s reproductive autonomy.

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Bushfire risk on Sydney’s northern beaches downgraded

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NSW Rural Fire Service said 80-hectare fire was now under a ‘watch and act’ warning

A fire in Sydney’s northern beaches that firefighters had warned was threatening lives has been downgraded after conditions eased.

The NSW Rural Fire Service had earlier on Saturday warned people in the Cromer Heights area near Oxford Falls Road that their lives were at risk and that they should immediately seek shelter.

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Man arrested in Italy nearly 50 years after two Melbourne women found dead in their home

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Victoria police seeking an extradition order for the 65-year-old over the 1977 deaths known as the Easey Street murders

A man has been arrested in Italy over the 1977 murders of two women, Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett, who were found dead in their Melbourne home on Easey Street, Collingwood.

A 65-year-old man, a Greek-Australian dual citizen, was arrested at a Rome airport on Thursday evening, Australian eastern time.

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‘Stop doing dumb stuff,’ economist warns as housing affordability in Australia slips

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Saul Eslake says decades of ‘bad policies’ have inflated demand as report finds about 20% of households effectively ‘locked out’ of the market

Housing affordability has deteriorated over the past year to reach its worst level since records began in 1995. First home buyers now rely on wealthy families or high-income jobs to enter the market, according to the latest housing affordability report from PropTrack.

Driven by high mortgage rates and increasing home prices, affordability further deteriorated this financial year to the point where a median-income household earning about $112,000 could afford just 14% of homes sold – the smallest share since records began. This share has declined from 43% in just three years.

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Mineral Resources and Woodside donated to WA Labor while it mulled gas policy changes

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A ban on exporting offshore gas was lifted in WA this week, and the Greens say two of the ‘biggest winners’ were the massive resources companies

Western Australian gas companies Mineral Resources and Woodside gave more than $20,000 to WA Labor while it was considering changes to its domestic gas policy that allowed more gas to be exported from the state.

On Thursday the state government lifted a ban on onshore gas being exported, allowing 20% to go overseas until 2031, in a change the premier, Roger Cook, said would boost the state’s gas industry.

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Green Day in Sydney for $500 – is dynamic pricing reserving live music for the rich?

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Ticketmaster and Ticketek claim demand-driven prices mitigate the problem of scalping, when tickets are bought – often by AI bots – and resold at inflated prices

Dynamic ticket pricing helps combat ticket scalpers, the company behind $500 Green Day tickets claims – but music industry insiders and consumer groups dispute that, with some concerned the controversial practice skews live events to the rich.

Dynamic pricing – when the cost of products rise and fall according to demand – is well established in Australia, from Uber’s surge prices to utilities and airline fares.

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Woman allegedly raped by high-profile Sydney man hoped they would be together, court hears

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The man, who cannot be named, has pleaded not guilty to 12 charges, including six counts of rape

A woman who alleges she was raped by a high-profile Sydney man has denied she is “completely making the incident up”, a court has heard.

Under cross-examination by David Scully SC, the woman was also asked about her feelings for the man, and about her statement to police that she thought she and the man were going to “be together” and that she “had an obsession with him”.

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Greens MP to tour Sydney Jewish Museum and donate funds after offensive ‘tentacles’ trope

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Exclusive: Jenny Leong, who apologised after referencing antisemitic cartoon, was subject of human rights commission complaint

New South Wales Greens MP Jenny Leong will visit the Sydney Jewish Museum and has donated $4,000 after a complaint was lodged with the Australian Human Rights Commission over comments she made about Jewish lobby groups last year.

Leong apologised and said she did not intend to reference an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as an octopus after footage emerged of comments she made at a Palestine Justice Movement forum in Sydney in December 2023.

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ABS warned Albanese government that excluding LGBTQ+ questions risked the success of census

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Australian Bureau of Statistics also told MP Andrew Leigh not including questions on sexual orientation and gender would do ‘damage’

The Albanese government was warned that excluding questions on sexual orientation and gender identity from the census could increase feelings of exclusion in the LGBTQ+ community and even risk the success of the data collection exercise, newly released documents reveal.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics raised concerns in ministerial submissions about strong public criticism to scrapping the proposed questions, potential “damage” to relationships with LGBTQ+ expert groups advising on the census and limitations in the quality of data the census collects.

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NSW nurses and midwives announce strike – as it happened

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Australia’s ‘sex report card’ released

The latest Australian Study of Health and Relationships was revealed at a conference in Sydney this week held by the International Union Against Sexually Transmitted Infections.

Rent assistance went up by $25 and … average rents have gone up by more than $100. What might look like a big percentage increase is, frankly, fuck all, and that’s one of the reasons that this is so upsetting.

When CRA is indexed, the amount of rent that you have to pay before you get any rent assistance increases. So the proportion of your rent, where you qualify for it, reduces if you aren’t receiving the maximum payment.

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Man fights for life after allegedly being shot twice in rural NSW home invasion

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Police say victim, 46, was at home in Hillston, near Griffith, when he was shot in the abdomen by an intruder on Friday morning

A man is fighting for life in hospital after allegedly being shot twice in the abdomen when a group of intruders entered his home in a small town in rural New South Wales.

Police alleged the 46-year-old man was inside a home in Burns Street in Hillston, about 100km north-west of Griffith in the state’s Riverina region, when three people – one armed with a gun – came inside the house about 2.30am Friday.

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Rod Sims says ‘worth considering’ whether realestate.com.au engaged in anti-competitive practices as Greens blast ‘rigged’ system

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Greens say the price hikes arising from REA Group’s dominance underscore need for new price-gouging laws

Rod Sims, the former chair of Australia’s competition law enforcer, says he believes the regulator should consider investigating the behaviour of the market’s leading real estate property portal, realestate.com.au, for potential anti-competitive behaviour.

The Greens have also hit out at what they say is an alleged “outrageous abuse of market power”, saying the price hikes arising from REA Group’s dominance underscored the need for new price-gouging laws.

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