‘If Australians vote no, I don’t believe it would be appropriate to then go and legislate anyway,’ prime minister says a week out from vote
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, says the government won’t try to legislate a voice to parliament if the no vote wins next weekend’s referendum on enshrining the body in the constitution.
Albanese on Sunday was asked on ABC TV: “If it’s a no vote, you walk away from the voice altogether?”
Continue reading...Gold Coast man, 45, reportedly had hot water thrown in his face by fellow prisoner on Friday and was taken to hospital for assessment
A man accused of being one of Australia’s worst paedophiles has been hospitalised after he was attacked inside a high-security Brisbane jail by a fellow prisoner.
Queensland police are investigating the alleged assault of Ashley Paul Griffith inside Wolston Correctional Centre on Friday. Griffith reportedly had scalding water thrown in his face and was taken to hospital suffering burns.
Continue reading...Australian Medical Association and Uluru Dialogue say patients and medical staff could be disenfranchised after AEC continues Covid-era policy
Australia’s peak medical body and a key group backing the Indigenous voice to parliament have raised concerns patients and medical staff may be disenfranchised in the referendum, after a pandemic-era decision not to send mobile voting teams into hospitals was made permanent.
During the 2022 federal election, the Australian Electoral Commission decided it was not appropriate to send polling officials into hospitals, given the risk of Covid infection and transmission, and the AEC has confirmed the policy is still in place for the referendum.
Continue reading...Man dies outside shopping centre in Melbourne’s north and another taken to hospital with serious injuries
A man has been shot dead outside a shopping centre in Melbourne’s north in what police believe was a targeted attack.
Emergency workers arrived at Craigieburn Central shopping centre on Windrock Avenue just before 3pm on Saturday after reports of several shots fired.
Continue reading...PM says he won’t take lectures from Tony Abbott and John Howard after pair claim voice wouldn’t help central Australia
Anthony Albanese has cast his vote for an Indigenous voice to parliament and said Australians have “nothing to fear from voting yes, but everything to gain”.
After visiting an early voting centre in Marrickville with his son Nathan by his side, the prime minister also hit back at Tony Abbott and John Howard, who on Saturday claimed the voice would not improve outcomes for Indigenous people in central Australia.
Continue reading...Emergency services were called to the scene on Cabbage Tree Road in Bayview in the early hours of Saturday morning
A 16-year-old boy has died and five others are injured after a P-plate crash on Sydney’s northern beaches.
Emergency services arrived at the scene on Cabbage Tree Road in Bayview shortly after 12.20am on Saturday.
Continue reading...An Australian take on how the emu won the 1932 battle premieres this month, before shooting on the UK comedian’s film has begun
A troupe of Australian comedians appears to have gazumped John Cleese to bring the bizarre story of the great emu war to the big screen.
In 1932, soldiers armed with machine guns were deployed in Western Australia to battle huge flocks of the giant native birds. Their annual migration from the arid interior to the coast had increasingly met the rapidly expanding wheat belt, to the delight of the emus and the horror of the farmers.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: Papua New Guinea official accuses Australia of abandoning 70 men but government maintains it has no responsibility for them
Refugees exiled to Papua New Guinea a decade ago will be sent back to Australia if the Australian government fails to continue funding PNG’s humanitarian program, Port Moresby’s most senior migration official has warned.
PNG’s chief migration officer, Stanis Hulahau, said the refugees had been abandoned by Australia and the PNG businesses that had been housing and caring for the men were owed tens of millions of dollars.
Continue reading...From a bungled tax announcement to muddled performances from ministers, the best laid plans for a smooth handover quickly went awry
There’s no doubt that when Daniel Andrews resigned as Victoria’s premier he had planned a perfect handover for his successor, Jacinta Allan.
Over several years, he grew their socialist left faction to greatly outnumber the right, meaning Allan would be able to fend off any possible challenge for the leadership.
Continue reading...David Pocock and Barbara Pocock are the latest in a string of independent and minor party politicians to renounce the ‘Canberra bonus’ in the name of integrity
A number of MPs and senators are handing back their access to Qantas’ prestigious chairman’s lounge in the name of integrity after a series of sagas that have painted the domestic carrier in negative light.
It comes as the airline has come under fire in recent months over its influence in federal government and a recent high court ruling finding it had illegally sacked workers during the pandemic.
Continue reading...Yorta Yorta man says voice referendum skit written by Jenna Owen and Victoria Zerbst has now been viewed more than 5m times
The rapper and Yorta Yorta man Briggs says he was aiming to “debunk the comments section” with his viral video on the voice to parliament referendum, adding it has struck a chord because Australians respond well to humour.
The skit, which Briggs said had been viewed more than 5m times, was written by Freudian Nip’s Jenna Owen and Victoria Zerbst and directed by Australian film-maker Nash Edgerton. It was not created or funded by the official yes campaign.
Continue reading...Telegram post says group would target department after Australia announced it would send Slinger anti-drone technology to Ukraine
The department responsible for Australia’s cybersecurity, national security and immigration has confirmed it was hit with a distributed denial-of-service attack on Thursday night that took its website offline for five hours, after a pro-Russia hacker group said it would target the site over Australia’s support for Ukraine.
The group posted on Telegram on Thursday night that it was targeting the home affairs department with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack after Australia announced this week that Slinger technology aimed at combating drones would be sent to Ukraine in the push back against the Russian invasion.
Continue reading...Betr chairman says he is grateful for media company’s ‘initial and ongoing support’ but that it is no longer an investor
News Corp has sold its shares in gambling startup Betr less than a year after its launch and having received a record $210,000 fine from regulators in April.
Betr was established with a reported $70m backing from News Corp, the former BetEasy chief executive Matthew Tripp’s TGW and the Las Vegas firm Tekkorp, with the intention of utilising News Corp’s media assets to promote the company.
Continue reading...Anthony Pratt, a member of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, allegedly shared submarine details with former Australian PMs and journalists, according to media reports
Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about US nuclear submarines with an Australian billionaire, Anthony Pratt, three months after leaving office, according to a new report.
Citing a source with knowledge of the Australian’s account to investigators for the special counsel Jack Smith, US news outlet ABC News reported an “excited” Trump allegedly discussed “the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads [US submarines] routinely carry, and exactly how close they supposedly can get to a Russian submarine without being detected”.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed
More than 70 constitutional and public law teachers have signed a letter saying the voice to parliament “is not constitutionally risky” in a bid to clarify “misunderstandings and misconceptions” among Australian voters.
Here is an excerpt from the letter:
In law school, we teach our students techniques to assess competing legal opinions, which include looking at the evidence that the author is using to support their opinion, and the author’s experience working in the specialised field. This skill is important, for instance, in assessing the stated concern of the No Case that the proposed amendment is constitutionally ‘risky’ and, in particular, that it might lead to dysfunction and delays in government.
Certainly, it is impossible to predict exactly what the High Court might say in the future; this is the case for all constitutional and legal provisions. But we know that the vast majority of expert legal opinion agrees that this amendment is not constitutionally risky. These views are supported by careful argument, drawing on precedent (that is, previously decided cases) and a deep understanding of the Court’s approach to constitutional interpretation. These experts also agree that the proposed Voice provision is consistent with the Australian constitutional system.
We did have a disturbing incident this morning where our crews had to respond to a water rescue in the Bairnsdale area, where two males entered the water in a car and subsequently got carried away, or the vehicle got carried away. They had to be rescued from the roof of their vehicle.
… It is a salient reminder never [to] enter flood waters, always choose an alternative route.
Continue reading...Civil society groups call on broadcaster not to comply with order they say is an ‘alarming overreach’ and ‘undermines press freedom’
Civil society groups have accused Western Australia police of undermining press freedom by demanding the ABC hand over Four Corners footage of climate protesters, and urged the broadcaster to protect its journalists’ sources.
In response to the police demand the ABC’s managing director, David Anderson, has said the broadcaster would never reveal its sources, but he did not rule out handing over the vision.
Continue reading...‘Historic injustices’ suffered by Indigenous people warrant a voice to parliament, open letter signed by more than 350 says
The “historic injustices” suffered by Indigenous Australians warrant a voice to parliament, according to hundreds of historians, with a new public campaign calling on voters to consider the nation’s colonial past when casting their ballot.
Historians from universities, libraries and museums are asking Australians to consider how people in the future will look back on this moment, saying the referendum campaign will be a “turning point” for the fabric of the nation.
Continue reading...… to be announced at 12.30pm AEDT. Follow our live blog from 11.30am for the red carpet, emotional speeches and all the reaction
The campaigns are over. The votes are in. The scrutineers are in the tally room.
The winner of the 2023 Guardian/BirdLife Australian bird of the year will be announced at 12.30pm AEDT on this website, after voters culled a field of 50 down to 10 for the final day of voting on Thursday.
Find all our bird of the year content
Guardian Australia has produced a glorious A3 poster of Australian birds that can be downloaded here as a high-resolution jpeg or pdf to be printed out. (The pdf is a large file so may take a while to load.)
Continue reading...Sex determination of sea turtles is temperature dependent, with the proportion of female hatchlings increasing when nests are warmer
Similar numbers of female and male green and hawksbill turtles are hatching in the Coral Sea’s Conflict Islands, new research suggests, despite global heating increasingly leading to “extreme feminisation” of sea turtles.
Sea turtles are particularly susceptible to the effects of global heating because their sex determination is temperature dependent, with the proportion of female hatchlings increasing when nests are warmer.
Continue reading...Exclusive: federal government coordinated letters to the women and Qatari officials when they formally rejected the request for extra routes
The coordinated timing of two key letters sent by the federal government about its decision to block extra flights for Qatar Airways, released under freedom of information, raise fresh questions about the role an incident at Doha airport played in the rejection.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) was consulted over a letter that the transport minister, Catherine King, was preparing to send to five Australian women suing Qatar Airways, telling them the airline’s push for more flights had been rejected, FoI documents reveal.
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