Category Archives: Australia news

Australia news live: Dfat issues Middle East travel advice; Nationals concerned after fire ants spotted near Murray Darling Basin

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Reports of explosions in Iranian city of Isfahan prompt sell-off of stocks in Australia – and in other markets such as Japan. Follow the day’s news live

The NSW police commissioner, Karen Webb, is speaking to the media after a 16-year-old was charged with a “terrorist act” for allegedly stabbing a bishop on Monday and is expected to appear at a bedside hearing today.

She said members of the joint counter-terrorism team interviewed the alleged offender at a medical facility last night, and he was subsequently charged with a commonwealth offence for terrorism and refused bail.

We expect he will be attending a bedside court hearing today to determine bail. This relates to the stabbing of the Bishop [Mar Mari Emmanuel, who] we allege on Monday night [was] stabbed up to six times.

We also allege that the boy had travelled for 90 minutes to attend that location from his home address.

We’ve got a crisis of male violence in Australia. We know that it’s a scourge in our society, we know it must end and I think it’s really clear women can’t be expected to solve violence against women although it is time for men to step up.

I don’t think debating definitions is the way to go … We need to act, we need to educate ourselves, men need to step up, we need to talk to our sons, to our colleagues, to our friends. We need to work together to a solution. And I think going down some kind of almost a wrong path to say let’s redefine – it’s not about definitions. This is about action. We need to shift the way in which we think about this …

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Teenager dies after suspected crocodile attack in the Torres Strait

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Body of 16-year-old boy discovered with injuries ‘consistent with a crocodile attack’ as wildlife officers search for animal

A teenager has died after a suspected crocodile attack off an island in the Torres Strait, police have confirmed.

Thursday Island water police launched a search and rescue operation near Saibai Island after receiving reports at about 4am on Thursday that a 16-year-old boy was missing.

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Teenager accused of Sydney church stabbing has history of behaviour consistent with mental illness, court hears

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Police have charged 16-year-old boy with terrorism offence over stabbing of bishop at church in Sydney suburb of Wakeley

A teenage boy facing a possible life term in prison for terrorism over the stabbing of a bishop has shown behaviour consistent with mental illness or intellectual disability, his lawyer has said.

The 16-year-old is accused of travelling 90 minutes from his home to attack Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel during a livestreamed sermon at Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, Sydney, on Monday night.

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After an absence of 71 years, the green-tinged Devil Comet returns to Australian skies

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While 12P/Pons-Brooks may not be as famous as Halley’s, its appearance close to Jupiter is causing great excitement for stargazers

The green, horned “Devil comet” is now visible in Australian skies, offering a once-in-lifetime chance to see a unique celestial body.

The comet – real name 12P/Pons-Brooks – was nicknamed the Devil comet because eruptions from its nucleus can make it look like it has two horns. More recently, Star Wars fans have nicknamed it the Millennium Falcon.

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Sydney church stabbing: police charge 16-year-old boy with terrorism offence

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Bishop was injured in alleged attack in Wakeley with the teenager expected to appear at a bedside court hearing on Friday

Police have charged a 16-year-old boy alleged to have stabbed a bishop and priest at a western Sydney church with a terrorism offence.

The teenager was due to face a hospital bedside hearing of the Parramatta children’s court on Friday. He is still recovering from surgery after his finger was severed during the alleged attack on Monday night.

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High-ranking Queensland police officers under scrutiny over offensive social media activity

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Exclusive: Ethical standards command launches internal review as Guardian Australia unearths Facebook posts dating back years

Queensland police’s ethical standards command is conducting a review after high-ranking members of the service appeared to publicly share and comment on lewd social media posts over a number of years, including one about a sexual assault.

From 2017 to 2022, Det Supt Benjamin Fadian publicly tagged a number of officers in dozens of Facebook posts about subjects including pornography, masturbation and dildos.

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Seven CEO James Warburton departs network

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Media executive’s exit comes as broadcaster faces a number of controversies

James Warburton, the chief executive and managing director of Seven West Media, left the company on Thursday, amid a tumultuous period for the broadcaster.

The prominent media executive was due to step down before the end of the financial year, according to executive changes first announced late last year.

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First person charged over Wakeley riot after Sydney church stabbing attack granted bail

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Dani Mansour, 19, charged after allegedly filming himself damaging two police vehicles amid anger over stabbing of bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel

The first person arrested and charged for taking part in the Wakeley riots was granted bail after appearing at Blacktown local court on Thursday. .

Dani Mansour, 19, was charged with riot, affray and destroying or damaging property as part of the mob that allegedly attacked police in Wakeley on Monday night. The incident took place in the aftermath of the stabbing of bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church.

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Sydney church stabbing: social media pages ‘infamous’ for spreading misinformation taken down

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Premier Chris Minns is alarmed at the ‘wildfire’ of rumour and graphic content online after Wakeley and Bondi stabbings

Social media pages “infamous” for spreading misinformation have been taken down after the Wakeley church stabbing attack, the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, said on Thursday, while expressing alarm at the “wildfire” of rumour and graphic content still proliferating on tech platforms.

On Monday night YouTube was live broadcasting Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel’s service at the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church. After the stabbing occurred, video clips spread through WhatsApp groups before police had arrived on scene.

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First Nations boy, 10, dies in apparent suicide while in state care in Western Australia

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Advocates say the boy took his own life, leaving his family ‘devastated’ and triggering a coronial inquest

A 10-year-old First Nations boy has died in an apparent suicide in state care in Western Australia, advocates for the family say.

Advocates for the family say the boy, who cannot be named, took his own life on Friday night, leaving his family “devastated” and triggering a coronial inquiry.

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A bipartisan committee set out to end Queensland’s politicisation of youth crime. It failed spectacularly

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Disappointment and frustration as parliamentary inquiry into youth justice reform ‘degenerates into a squabble’

Queensland’s only independent state MP, Sandy Bolton, had high hopes last October when she was made chair of a parliamentary committee tasked with coming up with solutions on youth crime.

It was the first parliamentary committee to be independently chaired in more than two decades, and Bolton hoped it would stymie the politicisation of the issue by taking “a collaborative and bipartisan approach” that would lead to “constructive solutions”.

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Australia needs a plan for war to ‘focus the national mind’, Michael Pezzullo says

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Former secretary of the home affairs department recommends preparation of a ‘war book’ to allocate roles in the event of conflict

Australia needs a comprehensive national plan for war – a “war book” – to coordinate civil and military roles and “focus the national mind” on the possibility of future conflict, the former secretary of the home affairs department Mike Pezzullo has said.

In a speech to an invitation-only security seminar last week, Pezzullo said Australian leaders needed to resurrect a practice adopted in the 1930s and prepare “a war book” which clearly allocated roles and responsibilities in the event of a conflict.

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Australia plans for a ‘less certain’ future in Asia — one where the US may not remain the dominant force

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The US talks of Aukus as ‘binding’ the allies for decades to come, but Richard Marles says Australia must become more ‘self-reliant’

Australia’s defence overhaul has accelerated some projects and cut others and has already prompted a plea from China to abandon a “cold war mentality”.

But as the dust settles on a plan to increase overall military spending, the Albanese government has also sent some significant signals on how it sees the future of the Indo-Pacific region – and these aren’t exactly how Australia’s top security ally, the US, might see things.

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Seven boss departs – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

Marles continues breakfast rounds to discuss defence spending

The defence minister, Richard Marles, has been making the rounds this morning and has also spoken to ABC RN about yesterday’s defence announcement.

The reason why we make the observation that an invasion of Australia is a very unlikely scenario, no matter what happens, is because any adversary that wished to do us harm could do so much to us before ever setting foot on Australian soil – and disrupting those specific sea lines of communication, which I’ve described, would obviously achieve that. That that is where the risk of coercion lies, as one example.

And in order to protect ourselves in respect of that, we do need the ability to [project], because if you think about it, … the geography of our national security when seen through those lands is not the coastline of our continent. It in fact, lies much further afield.

We’re looking at a substantial increase on what’s already in the Online Safety Act. So not only a large amount – so for example, a $3m fine for an offence and ongoing fines, but a percentage of turnover as well.

We know that the revenues of some of these online platforms exceed those of some nations and so it needs to be a meaningful and substantial penalty system that’s put in place.

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Labor’s deportation bill could affect 375 children born in Australia, advocates warn

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Greens senator David Shoebridge says hundreds of children face ‘real threat’ of being separated from parents or sent overseas to ‘unknown future’

Asylum seeker advocates have warned 375 Australian-born children could face orders to cooperate with their removal from the country under Labor’s deportation bill – because they’ve had protection claims denied under the controversial fast-track method.

The home affairs department has revealed that as at 31 December 375 people born in Australia who are fast-track applicants had been refused temporary protection or a safe haven enterprise visa.

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How Justice Michael Lee untangled the Higgins-Lehrmann ‘omnishambles’

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It was a masterclass in dispassionate legal dissection with lessons for future defamation and sexual assault prosecutions, and for media practice

In determining that Bruce Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins, federal court justice Michael Lee took a giant knot of allegations, with all its loops and loose ends, and meticulously and painstakingly unpicked it.

That he did it with such acerbic clarity makes an already unusual judgment only more so.

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Tasmanian devil analysis challenges study suggesting facial tumour disease decline

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Cambridge scientists critique research that concluded the disease is no longer a threat to the species’ survival

Cambridge researchers have challenged a previous study which had concluded a facial cancer that devastated the Tasmanian devil population was on the decline.

Devil facial tumour disease, a fatal cancer spread through biting and sharing of food, first emerged in the 1980s. The spread of DFTD led to the species being listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2008.

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Nimbys v Yimbys: the affluent inner Melbourne suburbs that aren’t pulling their weight on housing

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Exclusive: Housing advocacy group says amenity-rich eastern suburbs must be rezoned to accommodate thousands of new homes

They’re close to the city, public transport, schools and parks – and Melbourne’s leafy eastern suburbs should be shouldering the burden when it comes to new housing, according to a new report.

The report, by housing advocacy group Yimby Melbourne and published on Thursday, recommends introducing enforceable housing targets for the 19 local governments in inner Melbourne, as well as an overhaul of restrictive zoning rules.

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Australia rises to second in world budget management rankings, IMF data shows

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Treasurer and finance minister hail ‘remarkable achievement’ as monitor finds balance to be behind only Canada among G20 countries

Australia’s overall budget balance is the second strongest among G20 nations, behind only Canada, according to the International Monetary Fund’s latest fiscal monitor.

The IMF’s half-yearly update, released on Wednesday night, found Australia’s overall budget balance came in at -0.9% of gross domestic product in 2023, with only Canada’s budget position (-0.6%) faring better.

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Australia news live: Marles says Labor ‘utterly committed’ to Brereton response but can’t say when work will be completed

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Follow today’s news live

Unemployment ‘might take up a little bit’ when new numbers released later this week

Q: Given the economic conditions we’re seeing, what should households with mortgages expect?

[Inflation] won’t necessarily continue to come off in a perfectly straight line, but [it] is a fraction of what it was a couple of years ago when we came to office. That’s a good thing.

So we’ve got a whole bunch of things going for us in Australia, but enough to concern us as well about the global conditions about the way that people are still under considerable cost of living pressure.

The way that I would describe it to your listeners is we’ve got inflation lingering in parts of the world, we’ve got growth slowing in China and elsewhere, we’ve got tensions rising in the Middle East and the war in Europe. We’ve got supply chains which are straining and we’ve got a global economy which is fragmenting and transforming and so all of these factors are really important to us as we finalise the government’s third budget.

These are going to be these global conditions are going to be a really big influence on our budget, so the trip to DC which will be a pretty quick and make the most of it but it’s a good opportunity to take the temperature of the global economy.

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