NSW police are investigating after toddler found in Riverwoood on Wednesday afternoon
A toddler has been found dead in a Sydney apartment alongside an injured a man, authorities say.
The three-year-old was found inside the Riverwood home at about 4pm on Wednesday.
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Continue reading...Potential candidates include opposition party’s federal vice-president and upper house MP Matt Bach as Labor considers whether to contest electorate
The Victorian opposition will face voters for the first time since John Pesutto took on the leadership, with a byelection to be held following the resignation of the long-serving Liberal MP Ryan Smith.
Several potential candidates have been floated since Smith announced on Wednesday he would step down from parliament on 7 July, triggering the byelection in his electorate of Warrandyte in Melbourne’s north-east.
Continue reading...Inventory shows Australia has burned through 27% of emissions budget under Paris climate accord in 25% of allotted time
Australia’s carbon emissions edged lower in 2022 with reductions from the electricity sector partly countered by increases in pollution from transport and agriculture.
The country’s emissions last year totalled 463.9m tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent (Mt CO2-e), down 0.4% or 2m tonnes from the previous year. Preliminary estimates for the year to 31 March 2023 indicated emissions totalled 464Mt CO2-e, or 0.2% lower on a rolling 12-month tally, the national greenhouse gas inventory shows.
Continue reading...Move called ‘historic’ but agreement with Australia forecast to raise Britain’s GDP by only 0.08% by 2035
The UK’s post-Brexit trade deals with Australia and New Zealand have come into force, a moment lauded by the government as “historic” despite critics arguing they give away “far too much for far too little”.
The trade agreements – the first of those negotiated after Britain’s EU exit to enter into force – come after George Eustice, who was the environment secretary when the UK-Australia trade pact was struck in December 2021, admitted it was “not actually a very good deal” for Britain.
Continue reading...Kamal Fadel, a representative of the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara, was initially blocked from entering venue by Moroccan embassy staff
A diplomatic celebration of African unity in Canberra has degenerated into an undiplomatic altercation, with officials from the Moroccan embassy verbally abusing a representative of the Sahrawi people of Western Sahara while attempting to block him from entering the venue.
The representative Kamal Fadel, who had been formally invited to the Albert Hall event on Thursday evening, was initially stopped from entering by Moroccan diplomats. Australian federal police officers and other African ambassadors were forced to intervene, a video seen by Guardian Australia shows.
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Why didn’t the Coalition government know about these issues?
Shouldn’t it have?
And that’s exactly I would imagine the issues that will be fleshed out by this inquiry it, because this has been a loophole if you like, but that said privacy provisions, particularly when you’re dealing with government agencies, are really important to engender trust.
Now, as I said, there are a number of processes under way. We’ve seen what happens in recent times, when there is ongoing media commentary or into matters that relate to criminal proceedings. So we should be very careful about being part of that commentary that might impact other proper processes.
Secrecy provisions are there and privacy provisions are there for very good reasons. Now, whether those privacy provisions manifested in the best outcome here is for others to say, but I don’t think we should throw the baby out of the bathwater. We want to make sure that people have trust in the ATO trust when they give information to agencies that it will be kept private.
But look, this will all be flushed out it will all be flushed out in two inquiries. One by the AFP – there’s been a reference made to them already. And the other by a Senate references inquiry and I don’t want to pre-empt exactly what that particular that references inquiry will find. My colleagues right across the chamber will be investigating this issue, I would imagine, very thoroughly along with others to do with the PwC scandal.
Continue reading...New data reveals the average return economy airfare to the most popular overseas destinations is now $1,827, compared with $1,213 in 2019
Australian international air fares have surged by more than 50% above pre-pandemic levels, new data shows, even as the cost of jet fuel plunges, creating a tailwind for airline profits and source of frustration for travellers.
Analysts link the apparent discrepancy between high fares and falling costs to profit maximisation, with airlines including Australia’s national carrier Qantas, in no hurry to give up the extra income.
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Continue reading...About 110 of the state’s top high-fee paying private schools will be required to pay tax on staff salaries, raising more than $420m over three years
Fears that stripping “high-fee” Victorian private schools of their payroll tax exemption will lead to job losses are a “red herring”, education experts say.
The change, revealed in last week’s state budget, means about 110 private schools will be required to pay tax on staff salaries, raising more than $420m over three years.
Continue reading...After shivering through an unexpectedly cold May, BoM forecasts higher-than-average daytime temperatures, along with colder nights and less rain
Winter is coming … even though it may not feel like it.
With Thursday marking the first day of winter, much of Australia can look forward to a warmer-than-average season, after a historically cold May for much of the east coast.
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Continue reading...CoreLogic says units are now the only option for many tenants but supply is limited, forcing up rents
Renting a house in Australia costs just $39 more a week than renting a unit, compared to a difference of $64 a year ago, new research shows.
Kaytlin Ezzy, an economist at property data firm CoreLogic, said Australians have been increasingly turning to units amid sky-rocketing rents. This has caused the rental price gap between houses and units to shrink as demand for units outstrips supply.
Continue reading...Researcher found clear patterns when she identified how women were killed and how police and the justice system responded
A “damning” new study of the deaths of more than 150 First Nations women at the hands of their partner or former partner has found patterns of policing failures, with the lead researcher saying most were preventable.
The study by Monash University examined 151 coronial court investigations and inquests of First Nations women and girls who were killed by intimate partner violence over a 20-year period.
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Adam Bandt rails against Woodside’s exclusion from petroleum resource rent tax
Greens leader Adam Bandt is speaking to ABC radio RN Breakfast about the petroleum resource rent tax (PRRT) changes and in particular the fact that Woodside’s Western Australian North-West Shelf project isn’t included in it.
The tax is still broken, and they’re meant to be subjected to it. They should pay their fair share of tax. As I say, even after these changes, Australia only brings in a few $100 million extra from these big gas corporations that are making billions of dollars of profits. It’s about a 10th of what comparable countries bring in. If we made these guess corporations pay their fair share of tax. They’d be an extra $94 billion over the decade to go to things like delivering cost-of-living relief, funding a rent freeze, getting dental into Medicare.
Continue reading...Footage uploaded to Snapchat shows the Toyota Corolla travelling along a narrow road near Bochara apparently at 130km/h
Video footage has emerged from inside the car involved in Saturday’s quadruple fatality before it crashed into a tree, killing three teenagers and a 31-year-old woman in south-west Victoria.
The footage shows the car travelling along a narrow country road over the shoulder of the driver as music plays, before zooming into the speedometer.
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Continue reading...Senator’s comments come as leader Adam Bandt says the party is yet to see the complaint of racism foreshadowed by Lidia Thorpe
Senator Mehreen Faruqi has revealed she has “experienced racism in the Greens” as leader Adam Bandt declined to rule out that the party had received complaints about alleged racism beyond one expected from Lidia Thorpe.
Faruqi, the Greens’ anti-racism spokesperson, made the comments at a press conference on Tuesday at which Bandt confirmed the party is yet to see the complaint of racism foreshadowed by senator Thorpe on the ABC on Sunday.
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Continue reading...The two parties reportedly settled with News Corp saying it had not paid any damages and the articles in dispute would remain online
Bruce Lehrmann has discontinued defamation proceedings against News Corp over its initial reporting of Brittany Higgins’ allegations after he settled with the media company.
News.com.au said in a statement that the settlement involved the payment of a portion of Lehrmann’s legal costs only.
Continue reading...Atherton hospital staff were offered blood tests but the state’s chief health officer says he would be ‘very surprised’ if they showed high levels of lead
Lead contamination has been discovered in the water at a new hospital building and at an Aboriginal health clinic in far-north Queensland.
The Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service (CHHHS) announced that a number of water samples taken at the new clinical services building at Atherton hospital and at a health facility in nearby Yarrabah contained lead at levels that exceeded the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommended guidelines for safe drinking water.
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Continue reading...Legislation will be introduced to state parliament on Tuesday freezing the salaries of MPs and executives from July
Promised pay rises for New South Wales frontline workers will be funded by a two-year freeze on the wages of state politicians and public service senior executives.
Legislation will be introduced to state parliament on Tuesday freezing the salaries of MPs and executives from July and redirecting the millions of dollars in savings to nurses, paramedics, teachers and other frontline workers.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: State Aboriginal Legal Service calls for end to ‘over-policing’ of Indigenous people
The proportion of Aboriginal people in prisons across New South Wales has reached an all-time high, prompting an urgent call from key groups for governments to end the “over-policing” of Indigenous communities.
The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (Bocsar) figures revealed Aboriginal people accounted for a record 29.7% of the state’s adult prison population in February, dipping slightly to 29.5% in March.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: Documents obtained by Guardian Australia show Australia attempted to reassure countries amid nuclear proliferation concerns
Australian officials have told foreign diplomats that the Aukus submarine plan is “expensive” and not “easy to replicate”, as part of an effort to play down concerns about the risks of other countries racing to do the same, a newly released tranche of documents reveals.
Officials also urged diplomats to be on guard for disinformation about the nuclear-powered submarine plan, the documents show.
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Continue reading...Big four have pledged to align business practices with Paris agreement but loophole allows them to fund sector, activist group says
Australia’s big banks have loaned more than $13bn for fossil fuel projects over the past two years even as they publicly advocate for emissions reductions, a new report suggests.
Analysis by environmental activist group Market Forces has found that while Australia’s major banks largely avoid providing direct project finance to new coal, oil and gas projects, they do fund corporate entities that develop them.
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