Category Archives: Australia news

Labor targets student and some worker visas in overhaul of Australia’s temporary migration program

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Government says temporary migration system is ‘broken’ and changes to student and skilled worker visas are needed to address exploitation

The Albanese government will lift the bar for international students and some workers to get a visa and as it seeks to overhaul what it says is Australia’s “broken” temporary migration program.

A new 10-year temporary migration strategy to be released on Monday will include moves to crack down on the use of student visas as a “back door” entry for employers looking to import low-skilled workers, while the government will also create new visas targeting highly skilled workers, particularly those in growth industries. It comes with the government flagging that overseas migration has peaked and is set to fall in the next 12 months.

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Annastacia Palaszczuk’s anointed successor, Steven Miles, likely to face challenge, say Queensland Labor MPs

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While deputy premier is considered the frontrunner, suggestions his two rivals may team up would make vote ‘incredibly close’

Senior Queensland Labor figures say they expect a contested ballot for the party leadership, despite attempts to rally support behind the deputy premier, Steven Miles, to avoid a messy contest to succeed Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Miles declared his intention to run for the Labor leadership on Sunday, just hours after Palaszczuk announced she would retire from politics and endorsed him as her successor.

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Steven Miles confirms run for Queensland Labor leader – as it happened

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Palaszczuk reveals she changed her mind in recent weeks

It was only a couple of months ago that Annastacia Palaszczuk insisted she would lead the Labor party to next year’s state election.

I feel refreshed, I feel energised and I’m absolutely determined to lead the party and this government to the next election. I just want to make that very clear to everybody.

In 2015 Annastacia promised good, decent government for the people of Queensland. That’s exactly what she’s delivered for the last nine years. Congratulations on your premiership. You are one of the true Qld Labor greats

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Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk retires from politics

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Labor leader says state is ‘in good shape’ and ‘now is the time for me to leave’ following months of speculation about her future

The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has announced her retirement from politics, saying she had “given my all” and “now is the time for me to leave”.

Palaszczuk made the announcement at a press conference on Sunday following months of speculation about her future.

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Record-breaking heatwave eases as two months’ worth of rain soaks parts of South Australia

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Southerly buster sweeps up the NSW coast bringing thunderstorms and dropping temperatures by up to 10C

Parts of South Australia have received more than two months of rainfall in under 24 hours, as a record-breaking heatwave begins to ease across most of New South Wales.

SA’s state emergency service has warned of potential localised flooding with the heaviest rainfall expected on the Eyre Peninsula, the west coast, and the north-west pastoral districts.

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Foreign investors who snap up Australian homes to face higher taxes

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Fees for foreign investors who leave properties vacant will double and taxes will triple for those who buy existing houses

Foreign investors in Australia will face higher fees and steeper penalties for buying existing homes and leaving them empty as the government aims to address housing affordability.

The federal government on Sunday announced new rules tripling taxes for foreigners who buy existing houses in Australia and a doubling in fees for those who leave dwellings vacant.

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Two peopQueensland police investigating alleged domestic violence stabbing murder at Kallangur

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Woman found in critical condition north of Brisbane later died at scene while 32-year-old man died in hospital following injuries sustained in nearby house fire

Police say they are investigating the alleged domestic violence killing of a Brisbane woman who was stabbed and later collapsed in front of a neighbour’s home.

About 7pm, emergency services were called to a street in Kallangur, north of Brisbane, where the woman – understood to be a New Zealand national and a mother of young children – was found in a critical condition. She died at the scene soon afterwards.

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Bill Shorten says it would have ‘helped’ if high court released reasons for indefinite detention ruling earlier

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High court demolished indefinite detention system and ‘within one month the Albanese government’s resolved it’, Labor minister says

Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten said it would have been “helpful” if the high court had given its reasons for ruling indefinite detention was unconstitutional at the same time it handed down its decision.

The Albanese government has spent the last month weathering criticism it was too slow to react to the high court’s decision, which overturned a 20-year precedent allowing the government to indefinitely detain refugees and migrants it could not deport.

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Heatwave, fire, flood and cyclone: Sydney temperatures peak at 43C amid wild weather across Australia

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As NSW sweltered in heatwave conditions, Cyclone Jasper bore down on Queensland and Adelaide expected close to 50mm of rain

Temperatures in New South Wales soared above 43C on Saturday and bushfires burned across the state, as Cyclone Jasper loomed off the coast of Queensland.

The temperature at Sydney airport and Badgerys Creek reached 43C at 1pm, while the mercury at Sydney Olympic Park peaked at 42.5C at 3pm and Penrith was sitting on 42.9C at 4pm.

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Anthony Albanese announces plan to reduce immigration levels following Covid influx

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Overhaul follows once-in-a-generation review which found immigration system ‘badly broken’

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has flagged a major plan to return immigration to what he believes is a sustainable level after a post-Covid influx.

Immigration will be scaled back to what are considered sustainable levels hand-in-hand with a crackdown on abuses of Australia’s intake of overseas students.

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Two people charged after abducting two-year-old boy from Coffs Harbour

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Toddler later found almost 300km away in Tenterfield after police issued an amber alert

Two people, a woman and a man, have been charged with the alleged abduction of a toddler on the far north coast of New South Wales.

An amber alert was issued late on Friday after a 61-year-old woman was allegedly injured outside an office in Coffs Harbour, and the two-year-old boy taken away by the man.

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Sixth former immigration detainee arrested in Melbourne for allegedly breaking curfew

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Government scrambles to respond to last month’s high court ruling which led to the release of at least 148 detainees

A sixth former immigration detainee has been arrested in Melbourne after being released due to last month’s high court ruling.

A 36-year-old Eritrean-born man was arrested after allegedly failing to comply with a curfew, the Australian federal police said in a statement on Friday night.

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Sydney bakes in 43C temperatures and heatwave conditions; southerly change expected from 6pm – as it happened

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‘Climate change a threat to people’s health as well as to our environment,’ Albanese says amid heatwave

Speaking at a press conference in Sydney, prime minister Anthony Albanese said the current heatwave is “a reminder that there just might be something in this climate change stuff”.

We have experienced 2023 as the hottest year on record. We continue to break these records, and that’s why my government’s determined to act on climate change.

Today, with the high heat levels, I do say that it’s a time to ensure that we look after each other and stay safe.

We need to have our migration levels brought to a sustainable level and we will be releasing details of that this week.

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The defamation trial gripping Australia: Bruce Lehrmann, Brittany Higgins and the witnesses so far

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An allegation of rape, fiercely denied, in a ministerial office is being interrogated by weeks of testimony and cross-examination in a defamation trial brought by the accused

It has become one of Australia’s most convoluted and damaging political sagas, polarising the public.

An allegation of rape, fiercely denied, in a ministerial office in Parliament House has been discussed in news reports, interviews, speeches, and reams of commentary. It was examined in an aborted criminal trial, covered in four separate inquiries and now the first of several related civil cases is again calling witnesses and poring over evidence.

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Chris Bowen backs ‘a big step forward’ on phasing out fossil fuels at Cop28

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Australia’s climate minister flags difficulties around any final wording but hails ‘important symbol’ as talks intensify in Dubai

Chris Bowen has indicated Australia may be willing to back a global commitment at the Cop28 climate summit to phase out fossil fuels.

The Australian climate change minister has also flagged that position may be unlikely to be adopted at the meeting in the United Arab Emirates unless it was attached to the word “unabated” – a controversial and undefined term usually taken to mean fossil fuels can continue if they are cutting their pollution through the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS).

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Transurban hits back at claim it is ‘hiding in the shadows’ amid commuter anger over Sydney’s $3.9bn Rozelle interchange

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Exclusive: Private tolling giant defends itself against Inner West mayor’s accusation it is ‘staying stubbornly silent’ as road users vent frustration

Private tolling behemoth Transurban has spoken out amid community anger over the bungled opening of Sydney’s $3.9bn Rozelle interchange as it finds itself in a stoush with the Inner West council mayor over who should fix the mess.

Transurban used its first public comments since the “spaghetti junction” opened on 19 November to defend its conduct in the wake of widespread commuter frustration, particularly among people who live on the Balmain peninsula.

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Australian government spent $52m more on welfare calculator after finding a more effective alternative

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Services Australia paid Infosys almost $200m over four years before technology was written off as a failure

The federal government spent $52m on a failing welfare calculator even after being told there was a more accurate, simple and reliable option available.

In all, Services Australia paid $191m over four years to the multinational company Infosys for a calculator that processed only 784 aged care claims before being written off as a failure in late July.

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Australia’s freedom of information system ‘dysfunctional and broken’, inquiry finds

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Senate panel’s Labor members disagree with report, saying opposition-led probe failed to acknowledge Coalition’s ‘longstanding attempts to weaken’ FoI laws

Australia’s freedom of information regime has become “dysfunctional and broken” after years of funding and resourcing neglect and chronic backlogs caused in part by a pro-secrecy culture within the bureaucracy, a Senate committee has found.

The recent resignation of the freedom of information commissioner, who was less than 12 months into a five-year term, has also been described as a “symptom” of the troubles faced by the system designed to make federal government processes transparent.

The watchdog has been facing increasing scrutiny in recent years as a result of an ever-growing backlog of requests to review FoI decisions, hampered by bureaucratic and legislative roadblocks.

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Australia news live: Daniel Andrews fires up over ‘Dictator Dan’ moniker; festival-goers warned about heatwave conditions

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Former Victorian premier gives first interview after resignation, saying ‘the haters hate and the rest vote Labor’. Follow the day’s news live

James Ashby to stand for One Nation in Queensland seat

James Ashby, the chief of staff to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, will stand for the party in the seat of Keppel at next year’s Queensland state election, AAP reports.

The Nationals are dead in Queensland’s parliament while the Liberals are lurching further left in their attempts to secure inner-Brisbane seats.

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Melbourne’s Anna Schwartz gallery drops artist Mike Parr after political piece on Israel-Gaza war

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Gallery owner, who has represented Parr for 36 years, says she was sickened by ‘hate graffiti’ in the work, but denies censoring it and has kept it on display

The Melbourne gallery owner Anna Schwartz has dropped the provocative performance artist Mike Parr after a 36-year relationship, after a piece commenting on Israel’s military action in Gaza.

Schwartz sent Parr a two-sentence email on Sunday, the day after he installed the third part of his exhibition Sunset Claws, informing him she would no longer represent him.

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