Category Archives: Australia news

Queensland government criticised over ‘absurd’ decision to appoint former police officer to Legal Aid board

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Barrister who represented Indigenous Palm Island community says appointing Darren Robinson to the Legal Aid board is a ‘slap in the face to the family of Mulrunji Doomadgee’

A barrister who acted for Mulrunji Doomadgee’s family says it is “unacceptable” for a former police officer criticised for his conduct in investigating the 2004 death in custody to serve on the Queensland’s Legal Aid board.

Andrew Boe represented Doomadgee’s family and the Palm Island community council at an aborted coronial inquest in 2005 and then in subsequent inquests in 2006 and 2010.

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ABC journalists to strike for first time in 20 years with widespread news disruption expected

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Union says below‑inflation pay rises and insecure work threaten the future of Australia’s public‑interest journalism

ABC journalists will walk off the job on Wednesday for the first time in 20 years, triggering severe disruption to the public broadcaster’s news services for 24 hours.

The protected industrial action involves staff in the journalists’ Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and the non-journalists’ Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), which represents staff in technology and control systems.

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Hundreds of petrol stations across Australia run out of fuel as Albanese inks supply deal with Singapore

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Energy minister, Chris Bowen, says ‘we’re a long way’ from further action like fuel rationing despite shortages

Hundreds of service stations across Australia have run out of fuel, with the federal government inking a deal with Singapore, one of the country’s biggest sources of refined petroleum, to keep supplies of diesel and petrol flowing.

Concerns are now broadening to supplies of fertiliser and other chemicals, heaping more pressure on the Albanese government’s leveraging of overseas exports of coal and gas in a bid to handle of the crisis.

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Ex-Tropical Cyclone Narelle to intensify with Perth a possible target as storm makes rare crossing across continent

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Narelle weakens to a tropical low after bringing heavy rain to already-saturated parts of the Northern Territory

Communities in Australia’s far north were again on flood alert as ex-Tropical Cyclone Narelle continued its destructive westward journey on Monday, with forecasts suggesting the system could re-intensify and potentially threaten the Perth region this weekend.

Narelle had weakened to a tropical low system on Monday after bringing heavy rain to already-saturated parts of the Northern Territory over the weekend.

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One Nation wins at least one SA seat as Liberals consider ‘sobering lessons’ from election defeat

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Labor’s Peter Malinauskas secures at least 32 seats while Pauline Hanson’s party outpolls Liberals and could become de facto opposition

One Nation will win at least one South Australian lower house seat, and is leading in a handful of others, as the Liberals consider “sobering lessons” from Saturday’s thumping election loss to Labor.

One Nation’s electoral success came as federal MP Barnaby Joyce downplayed racism and bigotry accusations against the party before likening a ban on migration from Muslim countries to buying cattle “that just don’t work”.

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Liberals have ‘a lot of work to do’ after SA wipeout, Anne Ruston says – As it happened

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Australia not ‘contemplating’ fuel rationing but state and federal governments have powers, Bowen says

State governments also had fuel rationing powers, Chris Bowen said.

When I was a kid … in the 80s in Sydney, I remember petrol rationing was done by state governments – the state governments do have powers there.

Yes, the Commonwealth government, under the fuel emergency act, has powers.

It’s not designed to be invoked lightly. It really has powers primarily around defence and health, in the first instance, to ensure that those key areas are getting diesel that they need, but also other forms of fuel.

I would need to be satisfied that there’s a real shortage and that the powers under that act are useful.

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Six fuel ships bound for Australia cancelled as Bowen concedes ‘flow of oil to Asian refineries has slowed’

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Energy minister says war on Iran creating ‘uncertain environment’ but insists government doing ‘all the preparatory work’

Six oil ships bound for Australia have been cancelled in recent days but the federal government is not yet considering any drastic measures, the energy minister, Chris Bowen, says.

Bowen said on Sunday that six ships from Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, that had been expected to arrive next month, were cancelled or deferred. The federal government was working to replace the ships, with some already substituted, the minister told ABC TV.

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Petrol theft expected to rise in Australia as police call for more CCTV and prepaid pumps

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Amid a surge in fuel prices and fear of shortages, SA police chief signals officers might stop investigating ‘drive-offs’ unless service stations install prepaid pumps

The rusty green fuel trailer hardly looks like it is worth stealing. But some time before 1 March it was hooked up to the back of a vehicle and taken from a property at Huntley, south of Orange, in the New South Wales central tablelands.

It was just another in a series of thefts that police across Australia are keeping a watchful eye on.

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Rhoda Roberts, Indigenous cultural leader who introduced the term ‘welcome to country’, dies aged 66

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Roberts, who was the first Aboriginal person to host a prime-time current affairs program, was diagnosed with a rare type of ovarian cancer seven months ago

Rhoda Roberts – obituary

Rhoda Roberts, the Bundjalung Widjabul Wiyebal cultural leader and arts devotee, has died at the age of 66.

In a statement made via Instagram, Roberts’s family announced she had died peacefully in hospital on Saturday afternoon, having been diagnosed with a rare type of ovarian cancer seven months ago.

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Donald Trump ‘very surprised’ Australia declined to send troops to strait of Hormuz amid fuel crisis

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US president claims he ‘always says yes’ to Australia, Japan and South Korea, after saying he didn’t need help from trio of countries earlier this week

Donald Trump says he is “very surprised” Australia has not sent warships to aid in opening the strait of Hormuz as the blockade of the key strategic route for global oil supply continues to affect fuel prices.

“I was very surprised,” the US president said in Washington on Friday when asked what he took issue with regarding Japan, South Korea and Australia.

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Sports writer and photographer win Quill awards for work for Guardian Australia

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Jonathan Horn scooped best sports feature prize for a series on AFL, while Chris Hopkins won for pictures of a cancer sufferer caring for her son

Sports writer Jonathan Horn and photographer Chris Hopkins have won Melbourne Press Club awards for their work for Guardian Australia.

Guardian Australia was recognised with eight nominations in a range of categories in the 31st annual Quill awards, which were presented in Melbourne on Friday night.

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Tropical Cyclone Narelle barrels west after ripping off roofs and downing trees in far north Queensland

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Second landfall expected over weekend in NT as Queensland premier says relatively limited damage so far ‘an incredibly good news story’

Tropical Cyclone Narelle weakened in intensity on Friday evening after barrelling into far north Queensland as one of the state’s fiercest cyclones in living memory – downing trees, ripping off roofs and swelling rivers.

As of 4pm local time, the Bureau of Meteorology downgraded Narelle from a category 3 to category 2 storm, meaning while it was less severe there were still destructive winds near the centre of 100 km/h and wind gusts up to 150 km/h.

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Gas giants warn against windfall gains tax as Pocock says ‘wartime profits’ should go to struggling Australians

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Government faces political fight as industry says mooted 25% levy on exports would hurt Australia’s economy and energy security

Gas giants will lobby against any federal government moves to introduce a 25% export levy on windfall profits, as crossbenchers pressure the prime minister to redirect billions of dollars in “wartime profits” to Australians struggling amid the global energy crisis.

It comes after the prime minister’s department asked Treasury to model the effects of placing a flat 25% tax on gas exports, the ABC reported on Friday, along with any further changes to the petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) and corporate income tax.

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Australia news live: Tropical Cyclone Narelle poised to hit Queensland coast within hours with wind gusts up to 250km/h

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Tropical cyclone expected to make landfall in far north Queensland within hours. Follow today’s news live

Waves of near-record heights smash Cairns coastline

One of the challenges posed by Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle is the lack of weather monitoring infrastructure in remote parts of Cape York.

Winds of that speed are pretty hard to imagine if you haven’t experienced them before. They are just so, so strong, capable of uprooting really large trees or completely stripping them of their branches …

It can also cause extensive damage to properties in the path of those very strong wind gusts as well as power outages.

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WA police investigate flyers targeting LGBTIQ+ community distributed to homes

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The anonymous leaflets display pictures of LGBTIQ+ people along with accusations of crimes such as drug trafficking and paedophilia

Police in Western Australia are investigating flyers distributed to homes across Perth targeting members of the state’s LGBTIQ+ community.

The flyers, which are anonymous, display photographs of LGBTIQ+ people and falsely accuse them of crimes such as paedophilia.

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Bernardi vows to pay for flights taken with Hanson on Rinehart’s plane amid confusion about SA’s donations ban

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World-leading laws to be tested before South Australian election, complicated by Hanson and Bernardi’s political status

Cory Bernardi says he will pay for multiple flights with Pauline Hanson in a plane registered to Gina Rinehart’s company amid confusion about whether the trips may contravene South Australia’s new laws banning political donations.

Saturday’s SA election is the first since the new laws came into effect. There are a range of exemptions to the ban, but it is not clear if any of them apply to One Nation as parties, candidates and the electoral commission work through the “world-leading” laws for the first time.

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Tropical Cyclone Narelle to make landfall in far north Qld on Friday as category 5 storm, bringing 315km/h wind gusts

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Massive storm tracking a path to Queensland coast, which intensified offshore Thursday morning to category 5, fuelled by warm waters in Coral Sea

Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle is expected to make landfall in far north Queensland on Friday morning as a monster category 5 storm, bringing destructive wind gusts of 250km/h, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

The severe cyclone rapidly intensified over the past 48 hours and in the early hours of Friday morning had built to a category 5 storm that was barrelling west, sitting about 150km east of the small town of Coen. Coen has a population of approximately 330.

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NSW police overusing ‘highly intrusive’ legal powers to monitor phones and computers, national watchdog finds

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Commonwealth ombudsman also finds Victoria and Queensland police not keeping adequate records

The New South Wales police force is overusing intrusive technology to monitor the phones and computers of people suspected of committing less serious crime, the commonwealth ombudsman has found.

The watchdog said Victoria and Queensland police were not keeping sufficient records to justify their use of the electronic surveillance powers, while NSW police “were unable to demonstrate” they were meeting the requirements of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979.

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Is this the world’s first quantum battery? Australian scientists say so

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Researchers say their prototype is a big step towards fully functioning batteries with rapid charging times

Australian scientists have developed what they say is the world’s first proof-of-concept quantum battery.

Quantum batteries, first proposed as a theoretical concept in 2013, use the principles of quantum mechanics to store energy, and have the potential to be more efficient than conventional batteries.

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DiDi raises prices in Australia to cover soaring petrol costs amid conflict in the Middle East

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Other delivery and transport companies such as Uber, DoorDash and Australia Post are weighing whether to charge more

Rideshare giant DiDi has raised its prices to cover soaring petrol costs, becoming one of the first major companies after the airlines to charge Australian consumers more as a result of the conflict in the Middle East.

Uber, DoorDash and Australia Post were among the delivery and transport companies weighing whether to add charges, as small businesses hike fees.

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