SA Liberals stand by candidate who said homosexuality opens up ‘demonic realms’

Carston Woodhouse, running for Wright in Adelaide’s north, also claimed gender transitioning is an ‘illusion’

The South Australian Liberal party is standing by an election candidate who said same-sex marriage is not real, homosexuality can open up “demonic realms” and gender transitioning is an “illusion”.

Carston Woodhouse is running for the seat of Wright in Adelaide’s north in the state’s upcoming elections, with early voting beginning on Saturday.

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Rapper Lil’ Kim to headline Melbourne’s 2026 Rising festival

‘Trailblazer’ rapper returns to Australia for first time in 15 years, with body horror performer and dance biennale also on lineup

The pioneering female rapper Lil’ Kim, the vomit-inducing performance artist Florentina Holzinger, and the first ever Australian Dance Biennale are among the lineup for the 2026 Rising festival, which is staged around Melbourne each winter.

Lil’ Kim, who last played in Australia in 2011, will perform at Melbourne’s Festival Hall to celebrate her landmark multiplatinum records Hard Core – which turns 30 this year – and The Notorious KIM.

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Cathay Pacific offers £20,000 Sydney-London flight amid disruption in Gulf

Hong Kong-based airline has business-class return listed at A$39,577, as travellers seek routes avoiding Middle East

The Hong Kong-based airline Cathay Pacific is selling seats from Sydney to London for more than £20,000 in April, as passengers search for scarce long-haul flights without changing in the Middle East.

The tickets, listed at A$39,577 in business class for returns departing in mid-April, far outstrip the usual fares charged even in the first-class cabin.

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Qantas hikes international air fares citing volatile oil prices from war in Middle East

Airline reports spike in ticket sales to Europe in March, as passengers with carriers affected by flight chaos rebook

Qantas has announced it is increasing the price of its international air fares amid oil price volatility caused by the war in the Middle East, while the airline also reported higher-than-normal ticket sales for flights to Europe.

While the company hedges against change in jet fuel prices, it was not fully covered for the spike seen in the wake of surging oil prices, a spokesperson said on Tuesday.

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Three Australians jailed for more than a decade over Melbourne man’s shooting death in Bali

Sentences of 16 and 12 years handed down over 2025 death of 32-year-old Zivan Radmanovic

A court on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali has sentenced three Australian citizens over the fatal shooting of a fellow Australian national, after they claimed to have been paid by a man they will not identify.

Mevlut Coskun, Paea I Middlemore Tupou and Darcy Jenson were convicted of the shooting death of Zivan Radmanovic, a 32-year-old from Melbourne.

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Alleged Bondi terror attack gunman Naveed Akram seeks order suppressing identities of family members

Lawyer for 24-year-old asks for identifying details of mother and siblings to be kept secret for their ‘mental and physical safety’

Family members of the alleged Bondi attacker have been granted an interim order suppressing their names and home and work addresses to protect their mental and physical safety.

The public defender Richard Wilson SC made the application for a permanent suppression order for Naveed Akram’s mother, brother and sister at Downing Centre local court on Monday.

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Ex-Liberal MP Rory Amon found not guilty of most charges after being accused of raping 13-year-old boy in Sydney

Amon had testified he held an honest and reasonable belief that the teen was over the age of 16

A former state Liberal MP may face a second child abuse trial after a jury cleared him of some but not all charges related to a 13-year-old boy.

Rory Amon was found not guilty of four counts of child rape, two counts of attempted child rape and two counts of indecent assault of a child on Monday after three days of deliberations.

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Three teenagers charged with murder after man stabbed while trying to intervene in Melbourne train station fight

Police arrest 16-year-old, 17-year-old and 18-year-old over ‘savage’ attack on 22-year-old man

Three teenagers have been charged with murder after a man who tried to intervene and help a 14-year-old schoolboy was killed in a “savage” stabbing attack.

Emergency crews were called to the Mernda train station in Melbourne’s north-east on Friday evening after reports of a fight among teenagers.

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Jamie Dunn, radio personality and Agro puppeteer, dies aged 76

Presenter who entertained children with his sharp-witted, furry puppet Agro Vation, remembered for his brash and unapologetic humour

Jamie Dunn, a veteran radio personality who unleashed the puppet Agro on Australia, entertaining children and adults alike for decades, has died aged 76.

Dunn, who was once Australia’s longest-serving breakfast radio host, died on Saturday.

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At Perth’s CPAC conference, Liberal party faithful speak of ‘the lost Australians’ – with no sign of One Nation

Andrew Hastie, Basil Zempilas and Warren Mundine were among the guests at the conservative convention, which focused on immigration and housing

The rightwing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) made its foray into Western Australia on Friday evening, with no sign of One Nation on a stage dominated by Liberal politicians.

The event, dubbed Reset the West, was a rallying call for conservatives to work together, but what emerged was a Liberal party attempt to rebuild the centre-right with itself at its core.

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Canadian PM Mark Carney says former prince Andrew should be removed from royal line of succession

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s ‘deplorable’ alleged actions warrant his removal from the royal line of succession, Carney says

The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, has said Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor should be removed from the royal line of succession for alleged actions he described as “deplorable”.

Speaking to reporters in Tokyo, Carney said the actions that have caused the former prince to be stripped of his royal titles “necessitate” his removal from the line of succession.

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Ex-Liberal MP says the party must introduce gender quotas to start winning elections

Jenny Ware says party is ‘at crisis point’ and cannot be competitive at election time unless it selects candidates who better reflect the makeup of Australia

The former Liberal MP Jenny Ware says her party must implement gender quotas for candidates for office, warning the opposition “cannot get back into government” without putting forward candidates who are more reflective of the broader community.

Ware, who lost her seat of Hughes at the 2025 election, said it was “deeply embarrassing” that the Liberal party executive had not released its own review of the electoral wipeout, and which was then tabled in parliament by Anthony Albanese this week.

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Jillian Segal’s office hand-picked candidate to assess controversial university antisemitism report card

Greg Craven, a former vice-chancellor of Australian Catholic University, chosen after no other bids made for the tender

Australia’s antisemitism envoy hand-picked Greg Craven to lead her controversial university report card process after receiving no response from five firms approached during an open tender process.

Documents released under freedom of information laws showed Jillian Segal’s office initially approached three independent consulting firms and two law firms to potentially conduct the assessment of Australian universities and how well they were dealing with antisemitism on campus, but all of them declined to bid on the tender.

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Jackie O says she ‘did not quit or resign’ from hit radio show after on-air bust with Kyle Sandilands

Statement by breakfast co-host about ‘speculation and misinformation’ appears to contradict comments made by the network

Jackie ‘O’ Henderson has broken her silence to say she did “not quit or resign” from the Kyle and Jackie O Show, and she is “deeply saddened” the hit breakfast radio show may come to an end.

“I am deeply saddened by the events of the past week and the possibility of the show ending,” she said. “This has come as a shock to me, as it has to everyone else.”

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NSW police admit to making ‘very unfortunate’ wrong claim after officer shot man dead

Inquest into fatal shooting of Steve Pampalian told statement by assistant commissioner he was ‘known to police’ was incorrect

A man shot dead by a NSW police officer after he ran at him with two knives was not known to police, a coroner says, despite a “very unfortunate” claim to the contrary made by the assistant commissioner of the force immediately after the incident.

Steve Pampalian, 41, was shot three times by a police officer in the driveway of his home on a quiet suburban street in Sydney’s North Willoughby on 25 May 2023 after he had a psychotic episode.

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Homeless people camping in Queensland park ‘not treated as humans’ during council evictions, court finds

Moreton Bay council’s clearing of tent city breached human rights, supreme court rules

Homeless people living in tents in a park were “not treated as humans” while being evicted by a Queensland council, with the supreme court ruling it an unlawful breach of human rights.

A group of residents who had been living in a park off Goodfellows Road, Kallangur, challenged eviction notices issued against them by the City of Moreton Bay last year.

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NSW’s top prosecutor scores legal win in bias claim against senior judge

Recusal application against district court judge Penelope Wass yet to be determined amid row with DPP

New South Wales’ top prosecutor has been given the green light to continue her fight to get a senior judge removed from a historical sexual offences trial on the grounds of apprehended bias.

The ruling from the NSW supreme court is the latest development in a long-running row between the director of public prosecutions, Sally Dowling SC, and district court judge Penelope Wass. The dispute went before the NSW court of appeal last week.

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Australia news live: luxury car tax change could seal EU trade deal; far north Queensland braces for severe weather

Jim Chalmers hints concession on threshold for imports could finally lead to an agreement. Follow the latest updates live

Two flights from Dubai land in Sydney and Melbourne

A second commercial flight landed in Sydney last night from Dubai and the first made its way to Melbourne from the Middle Eastern hub.

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She helped design Australia’s aged care assessment tool – but now Lynda Henderson is too scared to use it

Exclusive: Member of working group behind questionnaire had no idea it would eventually be underpinned by ‘ridiculously simplistic’ algorithm

One of the people involved in the development of the federal government’s controversial aged care assistance tool says she’s now too scared to use it, saying she never wanted needs to be determined by algorithm.

As fellow advocates warned people’s care and funding needs were being underestimated, Lynda Henderson – who sat on the expert advisory group to develop the Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) – said the assessment questions were aimed to assist those making clinical judgments.

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Penny Wong refuses to say if any Australian crew onboard US submarine that sank Iranian warship

More than 50 Australian sailors and officers serving across US attack submarine fleet as part of preparations for Aukus

The Australian government has refused to disclose whether Australian sailors or officers were onboard the US attack submarine which torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, killing at least 87 people.

More than 50 Australian sailors and officers are serving across the US attack submarine fleet, a training regimen that is part of preparations for Australia to command its own nuclear-powered submarines under the Aukus deal.

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