Category Archives: Australia news

Penny Wong says she believes Israeli soldiers sexually assaulted and abused Australian women after Gaza flotilla

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Foreign affairs minister says her position is to ‘always believe women’ when sexual assault allegations are made

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, says she believes the Australian women who have alleged they were sexually assaulted and beaten by Israeli soldiers after being detained as part of a humanitarian flotilla attempting to bring aid to Gaza.

Appearing at Senate estimates, Wong said the treatment of the Australian women was “unacceptable”, and the allegations they had subsequently made were “distressing”.

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Australian woman linked to Islamic State lived with teenage slave who was repeatedly raped, court told

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Allegations made in Melbourne magistrates court on Thursday as Zeinab Ahmad, 31, applied for bail, a month after she was charged with slavery offences

A woman accused of marrying Islamic State fighters allegedly lived with a teenage slave who was repeatedly assaulted and raped by the woman’s father.

The allegations were detailed in Melbourne magistrates court on Thursday as Zeinab Ahmad, 31, applied for bail, a month after she was charged with slavery offences.

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Labor’s NDIS overhaul faces delay as Coalition and Greens consider teaming up to slow bill’s passage

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Government hopes to rush NDIS and tax changes through parliament but opposition and crossbench push for more scrutiny

The Greens want Labor to halt its plans to rush NDIS cuts through the Senate later this month, urging a longer inquiry process as the government seeks the minor party’s support for its contentious tax and housing changes.

It opens the possibility of the Greens and Coalition teaming up in parliament to support extending separate Senate inquiries into both the changes to the national disability insurance scheme and tax proposals, thereby delaying Labor’s hopes of passing those bills before the end of June.

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NSW motorists who use medicinal cannabis may soon be able to drive without fear of major penalty

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Premier Chris Minns says changes would balance road safety and a more practical approach for medicinal cannabis users

Motorists who use medicinal cannabis may soon be able to drive on New South Wales roads without fear of a severe penalty as the Minns government announces long-awaited reforms.

The government announced on Thursday it would introduce legislation which would see drivers with a medicinal cannabis prescription no longer face a three-month licence suspension or fine for having the THC component of cannabis in their system.

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Anti-abortion activists are trying to limit access in NSW – and they are just getting started

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Obstetricians and gynaecologists say anti sex-selective abortions bill ‘predicated on misinformation’ and ‘underlying aim is to restrict access to abortion’

The man who wants to ban “sex-selective abortions” is the first person who will tell you it won’t work.

New South Wales Libertarian party MLC John Ruddick has introduced legislation that would see health practitioners sent to prison or fined thousands if they carry out a termination because of the sex of a foetus.

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El Niño expected to develop in coming months, bringing hotter and drier weather to eastern Australia

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BoM and other agencies expect transition to the first El Niño since spring 2023 sometime during winter

Australia should prepare for an imminent El Niño, with the Bureau of Meteorology and other agencies forecasting that the weather phenomenon is likely to develop in the coming months.

“The models are really aligning now,” Felicity Gamble, a senior BoM climatologist, said. “We are expecting a transition to El Niño sometime during winter.”

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Sydney academic used AI to write SMH opinion piece urging students to avoid using tech to ‘cut corners’

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Sydney Morning Herald removes piece by Cath Ellis, despite Western Sydney University saying her use of AI was ‘appropriate’

A top Sydney academic used AI to write an opinion piece that urged students to “do the work” and not cut corners by using such technology, with the Sydney Morning Herald removing the “unacceptable” piece from its website.

Western Sydney University’s pro vice-chancellor for quality and integrity, Prof Cath Ellis, had an opinion piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald last month, in response to an article from the academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert.

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Female dolphins remember who is aggressive when choosing a mating partner, research shows

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Researchers observed unavailable female dolphins – those that were older, or with calves – did not show the same avoidant behaviour

Female dolphins identify males by their unique calls and keep track of their past behaviour, choosing to avoid the most aggressive males during mating season, new research suggests.

Bottlenose dolphin society is complex, and male and female dolphins often know each other for decades, said Prof Stephanie King, an expert in animal behaviour at the University of Bristol.

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Barnaby Joyce rallies anti-abortion activists ahead of tight NSW vote

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Sydney crowd told to target National MPs as upper house prepares to vote on a bill outlawing sex-selective terminations

One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce has joined pro-life campaigners to pile pressure on Nationals MPs to vote to criminalise some abortions ahead of a tight vote in New South Wales.

Anti-abortion activists have threatened to campaign for One Nation against major parties to force new limits on terminating pregnancies on the back of its polling surge.

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Federal government paid $3.8m in personal protection for then CFMEU administrator

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Senate committee also hears Murray Watt needed personal security after sending the union into administration

The federal government has paid millions of dollars in personal protection for the administrators of the CFMEU, and had to organise security for minister Murray Watt after he introduced the legislation that placed the union into administration, it has been revealed.

Under questioning from Liberal senator Jane Hume in the Senate committee on education and employment legislation, it was revealed that the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) has paid millions of dollars to keep the administrators safe.

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Linda Reynolds repays nearly $9,000 after partner billed taxpayers to visit son in Melbourne

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Former Liberal senator initially labelled ruling by parliamentary expenses authority ‘patently ridiculous’, saying visits were necessary

Former Liberal senator Linda Reynolds has paid back nearly $8,800 in parliamentary expenses after her partner claimed family reunion allowances to visit his son in Melbourne while en route to meet her in Canberra.

Reynolds accepted the ruling of the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (IPEA) but initially disputed their ruling, saying her partner’s visits to his son – her stepson – were necessary after “high profile (and false) 2021 workplace allegations made against me”, seemingly a reference to her long-running court dispute with former staffer Brittany Higgins.

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Yes Australia’s house prices may fall – but the decades of unchecked property price growth were the true policy failure

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Instead of relying on tax-enhanced speculation, investors must now look at established properties based on actual profitability – leaving space for first home buyers

For decades, Australia’s property market has been defined by relentless price rises, reinforcing the old adage that real estate investment is “as safe as houses”.

There’s now a wrinkle in that wisdom.

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Australia’s 178 billionaires are $25.7bn richer than last year as 3.7 million live in poverty

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Oxfam finds the 20 richest Australians now hold more wealth than the bottom 3 million households

The wealth of Australia’s billionaires increased by $25.67bn in the past year, equivalent to almost $50,000 a minute, according to new Oxfam Australia analysis of the 2026 Australian Financial Review Rich List.

The anti-poverty organisation said the total wealth of Australian billionaires in 2026 has reached more than $686bn, while Acoss figures show 3,706,000 people live in poverty, including 757,000 children under 15 years.

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‘Imminent threat’: charges laid against 13-year-old who allegedly planned attack on Queensland school

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Alleged threat on regional school north of Brisbane was ‘quite well advanced’, state counter-terrorism police say

Queensland counter-terrorism police have charged a 13-year-old with planning an attack on a regional school north of Brisbane.

The teenager was arrested last Thursday after allegedly making threats at a business in Maryborough, armed with a knife.

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Queensland police shoot pet dog after running it over as distressed residents watch on

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Graphic videos on social media appear to show upset onlookers after police accidentally ran over animal in Mount Isa street

Confronting footage has emerged of police shooting dead a pet dog as it lay prone in the middle of a street in front of screaming onlookers, after they accidentally ran over the animal in an outback mining city.

The graphic videos, posted to social media on Sunday afternoon, appear to show one resident in distress and being led away wailing and pulling at her hair in distress as a shot rings out.

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Capital city home prices fall across Australia as experts predict slump could last a year and cut values by 10%

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Buyers abandon auctions and Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra median house prices end May lower than they were at the end of 2025

Home prices in Australia’s capital cities have begun to fall, with experts predicting the decline could last at least a year and wipe as much as 10% from values.

The median capital city home price fell in May, the first decline since January 2025, as high interest rates and inflation stretched buyer budgets, Cotality reported on Monday. Auction success hit a new low for the year.

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English Green party leader Zack Polanski tells Australian colleagues to ‘connect with anger’ to counter rightwing populism

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Australian Greens should ‘take on’ Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, Polanski tells Victorian conference, just as he took on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK

Zack Polanski, the leader of the Green party of England and Wales, has told his counterparts in Australia that they need to start “connecting with people’s anger” and learn from the “storytelling power” of populist rightwing politics.

Speaking via video link at the Victorian Greens campaign conference on Saturday night, Zack Polanski said the party in Australia needed to start “taking on” Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, just as his own party had taken on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

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Government declines to protect Indigenous sacred site to be bulldozed for Brisbane Olympic stadium

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Environment minister Murray Watt decides against emergency declaration to halt construction but does not rule out ‘longer term protections’

The federal government has decided against an 11th-hour intervention to halt construction of an Olympic stadium and aquatic centre in the heart of Brisbane, in a park that traditional owners say is a First Nations sacred site.

The environment minister, Murray Watt, issued a statement on Sunday afternoon to say he had considered applications made under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act for him to stop construction in Victoria Park.

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Thousands without power in Perth as destructive storms hit WA

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Wind gusts up to 125km/h forecast to hit city as residents urged to stay away from windows

Intense storms are lashing the western coast of Australia with an unusually deep low pressure system packing powerful winds and heavy rain.

The extreme weather eventbrought wind gusts of up to 125 km/h to Perth and communities along Western Australia’s coast on Sunday afternoon.

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Australia to buy only secondhand nuclear subs from US in major Aukus switch – as it happened

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Extra negative gearing limits could hurt market and family budgets, Labor says

Clare O’Neil has rejected calls from the Greens and others to put further limits on negative gearing access, saying the government should not interrupt “immediate arrangements”.

There’s people in the debate who want to see the government go further. I really understand that but I just think we need to step back.

Negative gearing is a very immediate impact on a household and family budget and it’s not something that governments, when they’re making tax changes, should do, to interrupt people’s immediate arrangements.

We need to land this. We’ll do that in the appropriate time given the need … This is not a political timeline. It is a policy timeline … It’s important this gets resolved speedily and that’s what the government is working towards.

I think there’s a range of things that are on the table in those conversations and I won’t speak about them in detail …

The government wants to get the right outcome here and we are not going to be driven by the politics of the moment. It’s really important we reach the right landing point for this and I think I have spoken in previous interviews this week about some of the issues we see.

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