Penny Wong warns against ‘miscalculation and accident’ in Indian Ocean after Red Sea shipping disruptions

Australian foreign minister says diplomacy alone will not prevent potential future conflicts in the region

Penny Wong has told her Indian and Sri Lankan counterparts of the need for transparency and reassurance to guard against “miscalculation and accident” in the Indian Ocean, warning of the potential of “costly consequences” in the wake of trade disruptions in the Red Sea.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have continued their drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea – a key global trade route. The US and UK militaries have retaliated with airstrikes on key locations within the Arabian Peninsula country, with support from Australia.

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Flinders Street incident: man shot and injured by protective services officer

A man allegedly attacked people with broken glass before he was shot once by PSO working with police at the scene in Melbourne

A protective services officer has opened fire on a man who confronted them with broken glass after reportedly trying to rob people on a tram in the centre of Melbourne.

Police say the officers were responding to an incident on the Princes Street Bridge just after 5.30pm on Friday when they were approached by the man.

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Ben Roberts-Smith defamation appeal: news companies argue ex-SAS corporal’s case ‘fundamentally flawed’

Roberts-Smith, 45, is seeking to overturn June defamation trial judgment that found he engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan

News companies defending a defamation appeal launched by Ben Roberts-Smith over reports he engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan have told a court the ex-SAS corporal’s case is “fundamentally flawed”.

The appeal by Roberts-Smith, 45, seeks to overturn his June defamation loss against Nine newspapers and the Canberra Times over 2018 reports on war crimes during the Victoria Cross-recipient’s Afghanistan deployments.

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‘Deadly serious’: Australian regulators criticise PwC refusal to hand over report into tax leaks

Consultancy’s global executive says report suggests there’s no evidence confidential information was used for commercial gain

PwC has faced furious rebuke from politicians, the country’s tax office and a regulator for repeatedly refusing to share a report it used to argue that a damaging tax leaks scandal was isolated to Australia.

The report, by law firm Linklaters, was cited by PwC’s global executive to assure regulators there was no evidence that confidential details about multinational tax laws received by the firm’s international partners were used for commercial gain.

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Advocates call for national ban on spit hoods after NSW becomes second state to outlaw their use

Legislation banning the use of the devices, which have been linked to deaths in custody, passes in NSW with cross-party support

Advocates are calling for a nationwide ban on spit hoods – which have been linked to deaths in custody – after New South Wales became the second state to outlaw the use of the restraint devices.

The Ban Spit Hoods Coalition, which works to end the use of the fabric device which is placed over people’s heads in custodial settings, said spit hoods were an unacceptable threat to human life and dignity and that all states and territories should follow the lead of NSW and South Australia, with the latter state the first to ban its use in 2021.

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Venice Biennale 2024: Australian pavilion to explore colonisation, incarceration and First Nations resilience

Australian artist Archie Moore will draw from his personal history – and databases including Guardian Australia’s Deaths Inside – to create a ‘site for quiet reflection’

Queensland-based artist Archie Moore has unveiled his intention for Australia’s national pavilion at the Venice Biennale in April: to transform it into an examination of the impact of colonisation and incarceration on the country’s First Peoples and a celebration of their resilience.

Moore is only the second First Nations artist to make a solo presentation in the 25-year history of Venice’s Australian pavilion, following Tracey Moffatt in 2017. While key details of the exhibition were still being kept under wraps at the press briefing on Thursday, Moore said in a statement that his exhibition – titled kith and kin – would be a “site for quiet reflection and remembrance”. It will draw on his Kamilaroi, Bigambul, British and Scottish heritage and present his family story as a distillation of Australia’s 254-year colonial history.

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Two-thirds polled in Dunkley back the stage-three tax cut changes despite cost-of-living attack ads

Byelection poll puts Labor ahead by a nose as rightwing campaign on Anthony Albanese’s ‘broken promises’ ramps up

Voters in Dunkley have backed Labor’s tax cut package by more than two-to-one, despite the party facing a barrage of negative cost of living ads from Advance Australia.

According to a uComms poll for the leftwing thinktank the Australia Institute, Labor has its nose in front in the byelection seat 52% to 48% – although that result is within the poll’s 3.9% margin of error.

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Woolworths, Coles and Aldi to roll out soft plastics collection bins in 12 Melbourne stores

Supermarkets will ask customers to recycle scrunchable plastic food packaging for first time since REDcycle ended

Woolworths, Coles and Aldi will roll out soft plastics collection bins in 12 Melbourne stores, giving customers a place to recycle their scrunchable food packaging for the first time since the demise of REDcycle.

A spokesperson for the Soft Plastics Taskforce – made up of the three supermarkets and chaired by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water – said the trial, which begins this week, is possible because of new soft plastic recycling facilities that began operating last week.

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We don’t have all the facts on UNRWA allegations, Penny Wong admits

Minister says she didn’t have all the evidence about alleged UN staff links to 7 October attacks before she paused funding

Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, has said she did not have all the evidence about serious allegations regarding a key United Nations agency delivering aid to Gaza before she decided to halt funding.

Australia, the US and the UK were among more than 10 donors to suspend funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) after the Israeli government alleged that as many as 12 staff members were involved in the 7 October attacks.

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Right to disconnect bill passes Senate but needs urgent fix to remove criminal penalties for employers

Labor will be forced to introduce special legislation after Coalition prevented last-minute amendments to fix the issue

Labor’s closing loopholes bill has passed the Senate with a Greens amendment creating a new right for employees to disconnect from work emails and calls.

But the final votes were thrown into confusion by the discovery that the bill inadvertently allowed criminal penalties for breach of a stop order by the Fair Work Commission. Labor sought leave to amend this, but was denied by the Coalition.

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Outback Wrangler star Matt Wright faces fresh charges over fatal Northern Territory helicopter crash

NT WorkSafe has charged the celebrity croc-wrangler and his aviation company Helibrook with ‘reckless conduct for operating unsafe aircraft’

Outback Wrangler star Matt Wright and his aviation company have been hit with a slew of new charges over a fatal chopper crash that killed his co-star.

Chris Wilson plunged to his death in a remote area of the Northern Territory in February 2022 while attached to a helicopter owned by Wright and being flown by pilot Sebastian Robinson.

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Australia politics live: PNG PM James Marape praises legacy of Gough Whitlam in historic address to parliament

Marape hails Whitlam for ‘hearing the cries of the founding fathers of Papua New Guinea for our own self-determination’. Follow the day’s news live

David Littleproud continued:

But there needs to be greater architectural reform, which is also what Professor Fels articulated, which is what the Nationals have said. When there’s too much market concentration, you have too much power.

And all we’re saying is that whether it is in the supermarket [or farm gate], we want fair prices from the farm gate to the supermarket gate.

I think that he demonstrated the need and reinforced what the Nationals have been calling for, when there’s evidence, clear evidence around price gouging.

We saw that with meat prices where farm grade prices dropped by 60% or 70% in June. Yet, the checkout price only dropped by 18%. They put pressure all the way down through the supply chain. And what Allan Fels has said in his inquiry is that we need to have more ACCC price investigations, where there’s clear evidence. And that’s what we were calling for and the government ignored that. And I think shoppers have paid too much.

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Council debate on ‘cancel culture’ erupts over future of St Kilda’s vandalised Captain Cook statue

The council narrowly voted against a community consultation on the ‘location and context’ of the explorer’s Port Phillip memorial

A Melbourne council has narrowly voted against asking local residents whether it should restore or permanently remove a Captain Cook statue that was sawn off at the ankles just before Australia Day.

There was heated debate at a Port Phillip council meeting on Wednesday night over a motion to consult the community on the statue’s future, before it was voted down five votes to four. Some councillors were reprimanded and a member of the packed public gallery was asked to leave after several interjections.

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Search continues for Ballarat woman Samantha Murphy, missing for five days

Fifty-one-year-old was last seen leaving her home in Victoria early on Sunday morning to go for a run

Emergency crews continue to search for the missing Ballarat woman Samantha Murphy, who disappeared five days ago after going for a run.

The 51-year-old was last seen leaving her Eureka Street home at Ballarat East about 7am on Sunday.

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Principals join teachers’ union push for Albanese government to lift public school funding offer

Exclusive: Letter to prime minister demands federal government pay at least a quarter of public school funding cost

School principals have joined the teachers’ union in demanding the Albanese government boost its offer to co-fund the gap in public school funding with states.

The Australian Education Union, leaders of all major principals’ organisations and the Australian Council of State School Organisations have written to the prime minister demanding the federal government pay at least a quarter of the cost of fair public school funding.

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Australian Human Rights Commission staff say organisation’s position on Israel-Gaza war is inadequate

Open letter urges commission to take stronger action over Israeli actions in Palestine as organisation says focus is on issues within Australia

The Australian Human Rights Commission is facing pressure from staff over what they claim is an inadequate response to Israel’s war in Gaza.

Staff across eight of the commission’s teams – at least 24 of the 122 staff employed – wrote to the commission’s president, Rosalind Croucher, last week. The letter expressed “frustration at the commission’s failure to fulfil its mandate as an accredited national human rights institution in regard to Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank”.

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‘It’s almost like having the Olympics again’: Sydney’s lunar new year celebrations grow bigger every year

The festivities’ popularity isn’t lost on older migrants from Asia, who arrived in a country very different from today’s Australia

Simon Chan has watched Sydney’s lunar new year celebrations grow over the past two decades, from the small-scale events of the early 90s to what are today thought to be the largest outside Asia.

“Its almost like having a World Cup or the Olympics again, obviously on a smaller scale but the feeling is similar,” says Chan, the president of the Chinese Australian Forum, adding: “We see thousands and thousands of people descend on these events, its massive here.”

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Senators reject Greens bill to insert climate trigger into environmental laws

Committee says safeguard mechanism will help cut emissions and ban on projects emitting more than 100,000 tonnes of CO2 not needed

A Senate committee has recommended the parliament vote down a bill that would insert a climate trigger into Australia’s national environmental laws.

The bill, introduced by the Greens, would for the first time require the environment minister to consider the climate impact of a major development during the assessment process under Australia’s environmental laws.

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Watchdog lambasts Australian Border Force and home affairs deportation procedures

Ombudsman’s scathing report finds agencies have ‘little acknowledgement’ of impact of detention on detainees’ health

The Australian government has failed to set up an appropriate process to deport people held in immigration detention, a scathing report by the independent watchdog has found.

The commonwealth ombudsman found the Australian Border Force and home affairs department’s processes do not contain “timeframes for steps” towards deportation “or otherwise adequately reflect the significant impact of any delay upon a person’s liberty”.

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Fiery debate as Labor accused of ‘trying to walk both sides of street’ on Israel-Gaza conflict

Greens say Israel’s actions ‘a slaughter’ and Labor says other parties trying to ‘divide our community’

The Australian government has demanded that Israel comply with orders issued by the International Court of Justice, but rebuffed the Greens’ calls to describe the war in Gaza as “a slaughter”.

In a fiery debate in parliament on Wednesday, the Greens said the government’s claim to be playing a constructive role was “a sick joke”, while the Coalition accused Labor of “trying to walk both sides of the street”.

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