Media companies, including Guardian Australia, oppose the man’s application to avoid being named under new Queensland laws
Lawyers for a high-profile man accused of rape have been reprimanded by a Queensland judge for failing to promptly submit their application for a judicial review to keep their client’s name secret.
The man’s identity will remain protected following a decision in Brisbane’s supreme court on Tuesday to extend an interim non-publication order.
Continue reading...Freedom of information figures also show 25 girls were strip-searched in the past financial year compared to just seven in 2021-22
The number of Indigenous people strip-searched by New South Wales police jumped 35% over the past 12 months with 11 of those searched aged under 18, including a 12-year-old.
NSW police data released under the state’s Gipa laws revealed 340 First Nations Australians were strip-searched in the 2022-23 financial year, up from 253 the year before.
Continue reading...Officers believe Iain Hogg was killed in northern NSW in 2002 before his stolen car was linked to another death in Queensland three days later
A man is being questioned by police after a million dollar reward was announced to help solve two linked cold-case homicides.
NSW police raided a property in Murwillumbah in the state’s north on Tuesday as part of their investigation into the 2002 deaths of Iain Stewart Hogg and Frederick Rosson.
Continue reading...Buses had been scheduled to take Palestinian Australians from Ramallah in West Bank to Jordan but they did not go ahead
Palestinian Australians in the West Bank who fear a surge in violence have raised concerns over the Australian government’s efforts to help them escape the region, after rescue buses to Jordan were cancelled.
With no airport in the West Bank, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) had scheduled buses to take Australian citizens from the Palestinian city of Ramallah over the border into Jordan, due to concerns about the ability of these dual nationals to access flights out of Israel’s Ben Gurion airport.
Continue reading...RFS commissioner says death due to Willi Willi fire a ‘tragic reminder of how deadly some of these fires are’
A man has died and multiple homes are feared lost in a bushfire near Kempsey in New South Wales as firefighters work to contain the Willi Willi fire that has burned through more than 11,000 hectares.
NSW police confirmed on Tuesday morning that a man had died on a rural property 30km west of Kempsey.
Continue reading...The 2018 Australian of the year was recognised for her work on super-fast technology in the field of atomic electronics
The quantum physicist and 2018 Australian of the year, Prof Michelle Simmons, has been awarded the top honour at the prime minister’s prizes for science.
Simmons, of the University of New South Wales, was recognised on Monday night for her work in creating the field of atomic electronics.
Continue reading...Council officers who attended the scene were shaken by what they encountered after a man, 66, was pronounced dead at an Allens Rivulet property on Sunday
A police investigation is under way after a pet dog killed its owner and left another in a serious condition at a rural property in southern Tasmania.
Neighbours raised the alarm after hearing cries for help at 10.40pm on Sunday.
Continue reading...Police wish to speak to man shown throwing flare as they consider application for upcoming march in support of Palestine
Footage of a man shouting and throwing a flare on the steps of the Sydney Opera House last week has been released by the New South Wales police as they consider allowing another pro-Palestinian march for later in the week.
Protest organisers have applied for a permit to hold a march on Saturday 21 October after holding a “largely peaceful” static event with about 6,000 people in Hyde Park on Sunday.
Continue reading...Prime minister says ‘issues that we sought to address have not gone away’ and that ‘no one is arguing for the status quo’
Anthony Albanese has recommitted to Makarrata – coming together after conflict – but deflected questions about the way forward for reconciliation, citing Indigenous leaders’ wish for a week of silence to grieve the referendum result.
As parliament resumed on Monday, Albanese said he respected the decision not to enshrine an Indigenous voice in the constitution, but added that the principles of “listening to people and getting better outcomes” on which the referendum was based will “continue to guide” him.
Continue reading...PM says Hamas should be condemned for committing ‘mass murder on a horrific scale’ while Greens warn of ‘looming humanitarian crisis’
The Australian parliament has united to condemn “all forms of hate speech” including antisemitism and Islamophobia, with the prime minister declaring that the country must not succumb to the “forces of division”.
As the death toll mounted in Israel and Gaza and concerns grew about spillover tensions in Australia, Anthony Albanese said Hamas should be unequivocally condemned for committing “mass murder on a horrific scale”.
Continue reading...The city-country divide was stark, but zeroing in on booth level paints a more complex picture
Australian voters in the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum were starkly divided, with people in rural areas rejecting the proposal while those in inner cities backing the advisory body.
But digging deeper into the voting booths themselves exposes other patterns.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Coalition accuses Labor of hypocrisy and says delay in rewarding farmers to protect nature is a ‘disgrace’
The New South Wales government has quietly cut dozens of environmental roles, including Indigenous officers, and delayed a plan to reward farmers to protect nature – moves described by critics as “hypocritical” and a “significant backward step”.
The cuts were revealed in a “change management plan”, obtained by Guardian Australia, and affect about 28 existing staff and 38 roles in total. They follow last month’s budget, the first by the Minns Labor government since its election in March.
Continue reading...Prospect of appeals causes disquiet among police, with one harassment victim fearing some union members ‘will now be supporting our abusers’
The Queensland police service is facing further potential challenges to bungled internal discipline cases, despite the state government changing the law to validate the “unlawful” process used to sanction hundreds of officers.
The QPS was this year forced to rescind punishments, including several sackings and demotions, for about 300 officers, after a court ruled the process used for internal discipline was invalid.
Continue reading...Albanese government plans to let dust settle after Saturday’s loss with focus potentially shifting to state-based voice and treaty processes
Federal cabinet is meeting to discuss the Albanese government’s next steps to address Indigenous disadvantage, with senior government figures favouring an interim listening mechanism to provide advice directly to the prime minister.
After the resounding defeat of the voice to parliament on Saturday night, Guardian Australia understands the government will consider on Monday options including appointing a new short-term policy advisory group reporting to the prime minister.
Continue reading...South-west Sydney MP says ‘a lot of people felt disfranchised’ as Hunter MP Dan Repacholi says voters were ‘more keen to hear about cost of living’
The Yes23 campaign to enshrine an Indigenous voice in the constitution “ignored” outer urban areas and was an “echo chamber of elites talking to elites”, the Labor MP Mike Freelander has said.
Freelander, the member for Macarthur in south-west Sydney, is one of several Labor MPs “very disappointed” but not surprised by the yes side’s poor showing outside inner-city areas.
Continue reading...Polling catchments where Indigenous Australians form more than 50% of the population voted on average 63% in favour of the voice
Regions with a high proportion of Indigenous Australians overwhelmingly voted yes in the referendum – including the community where prominent no campaigner Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s family is from.
The yes vote in polling catchments where Indigenous Australians formed more than 50% of the population was, on average, 63% in favour of enshrining an Indigenous voice to parliament, according to political analyst Simon Jackman, who estimated the proportion of Indigenous Australians at each polling area based on data from the 2022 election.
Continue reading...Shadow Indigenous Australians minister says ‘there’s a lot of manipulation’ in remote communities
The shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, has questioned the impartiality of the Australian Electoral Commission’s delivery of remote polling.
Price also suggested people handing out how-to-vote cards “overpower vulnerable Aboriginal communities”, seeking to counter the fact many Indigenous communities had voted yes to a voice to parliament.
Continue reading...Richard Marles said defence flights had ‘greater flexibility’ and could be arranged, after civilian repatriation flights were cancelled
The Australian government is investigating using military aircraft to evacuate hundreds of its citizens wanting to leave Israel.
The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, said on Sunday there were around 10,000 Australians in Israel with the number of those who had registered for evacuation numbering in the “high hundreds”.
Continue reading...While electorate-level results play no part in the overall Indigenous voice referendum outcome, polling data reveals interesting demographic trends
The voice to parliament referendum has been defeated, with a majority of people and every state voting against the proposal.
While electorate-by-electorate results play no part in a referendum, the results can reveal interesting geographic trends. On Saturday, the eastern suburbs and inner west in Sydney recorded a majority yes vote, compared with a majority no vote in the western suburbs.
Continue reading...Government’s closing loopholes bill yet to include superannuation theft, estimated to cost workers $5bn a year
The independent senator David Pocock has joined a push by the Greens and unions to criminalise the intentional non-payment of superannuation, after the measure was omitted from Labor’s industrial relations bill.
The Albanese government’s legislation has proposed to criminalise wage theft but not super theft, which is estimated to cost workers up to $5bn a year, and Pocock said if the government is “serious about closing loopholes then the intentional non-payment of super should also be criminalised”.
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