Category Archives: Australia news

Victoria to outlaw strangulation and consider making animal cruelty a domestic violence offence

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Government says research suggests survivors of strangulation are more likely to be seriously injured or murdered by the same partner

Victoria will make non-fatal strangulation a stand-alone offence and consider including cruelty to animals under the state’s family violence laws.

Describing the act as the “reddest of red flags”, the attorney general, Jaclyn Symes, on Wednesday announced the crimes amendment (non-fatal strangulation) bill would be introduced to parliament.

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Sydney venue moves $26m in pokies profits to NRL club as ‘community development and support’

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Canterbury leagues club has given millions to the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs since 2014-15

One of Australia’s biggest poker machine venues has shifted more than $26m in gambling profits over eight years to its parent company – an NRL club – while claiming the payments as a community benefit for a tax cut.

In New South Wales, clubs that donate a percentage of gambling profits to community causes receive a tax concession under a scheme called ClubsGrants, which is under review by the state government after years of sustained criticism.

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Australia must urgently adapt to extreme weather or face soaring premiums, insurers warn

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Exclusive: Assistant treasurer says insurers warned government ‘you’ve got five years’ to reduce vulnerability to climate crisis

Global insurers say Australia is running out of time to reduce its vulnerability to the climate crisis and faces higher premiums for households and businesses.

“They said, ‘you’ve got five years basically’,” said the federal assistant treasurer, Stephen Jones, who led a delegation last month to insurance centres in London and Munich.

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‘Like being buried alive’: Australian journalist Cheng Lei on life in a Chinese prison

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Reporter reveals she was arrested for breaking a news embargo, and talks about how she survived months in solitary confinement

Australian journalist Cheng Lei spent almost three years in China’s prison system for breaking an embargo by a few minutes, she has revealed in her first interview after returning home to Melbourne last week.

Cheng, 48, was working as a business reporter for China’s state-run English-language TV station CGTN when she was arrested on 13 August 2020.

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Australia politics live: Albanese accuses Ley of lack of respect for Indigenous voice campaigners in fiery question time

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Albanese highlights ‘concerning’ Coalition voice rhetoric as Dutton targets PM over treaty and truth telling. Follow the day’s news live

‘We’re holding a thorough consultation process,’ Jacinta Allan says

Under the proposal, a government minister will appoint commissioners, though the Greens-chaired integrity and oversight committee will have the power to veto candidates.

A new parliamentary ethics committee

Improvements to mechanisms relating to public interest disclosures about MPs

Updates to the MP code of conduct

We’re holding a thorough consultation process to ensure we achieve the highest standards of conduct and integrity of MPs in all aspects of their work for Victorians.

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High-profile man accused of Toowoomba rape takes fight to maintain anonymity to supreme court

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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.

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NSW police strip-searches of Indigenous people rose 35% in past 12 months and included 11 children, data reveals

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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.

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Police issue $1 million reward to solve two linked cold-case murders, then raid NSW property on same day

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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.

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Australian citizens in Palestine raise fears about Dfat efforts as rescue buses cancelled

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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.

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Man dies and homes feared lost in bushfire near Kempsey as almost 80 fires burn across NSW

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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.

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Quantum physicist Michelle Simmons awarded PM’s top science prize over computing work

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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.

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Man killed and woman seriously injured in dog attack in Tasmanian home

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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.

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NSW police release footage of man throwing flare outside Sydney Opera House as part of rally investigation

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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.

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Albanese deflects questions over Indigenous reconciliation as Coalition blames him for ‘divisive’ campaign

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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.

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Australian parliament unites to condemn hate speech including antisemitism and Islamophobia

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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”.

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Indigenous voice referendum: how each polling booth voted across Australia

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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.

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NSW government axes dozens of environmental roles in ‘backward step’

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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.

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Queensland Police Union willing to challenge officer misconduct rulings after ‘unmitigated debacle’

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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.

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Cabinet to consider interim listening mechanism after resounding no vote on voice

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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.

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‘Echo chamber of elites’: outer urban areas ignored by yes campaign, Labor MP Mike Freelander say

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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.

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