Category Archives: Australia news

Research suggests that more than half of Australia’s dingoes are genetically pure, not hybrids

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Finding has implications for the ways that Australia’s native canid – including the extent to which they are culled – are managed

Most dingoes in Australia are pure dingoes rather than hybrids, new research suggests.

New genetic analysis shows that a significantly greater proportion of wild dingo populations are purer than previously thought, with less dog lineage than scientists once estimated.

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Guardian Essential poll: majority of Australians support rent freezes, migration cap amid housing crisis

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Poll finds respondents support policies of the Greens and Coalition, posing a potential risk to the Albanese government

A majority of voters support severe measures to tackle the housing crisis including freezing rents, capping migration and using superannuation for housing, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.

The poll of 1,138 people, released on Tuesday, finds support for a range of signature policies of the Greens and Coalition, demonstrating the risk posed to the Albanese government if it is not seen to be doing enough to fight rising rents and property prices.

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57% supporting preventing wealthy families using family trusts to minimise tax, and just 15% opposed

49% supporting only allowing negative gearing on one investment property, and just 17% opposed

47% wanting to tax deceased estates worth more than $5m to fund affordable rentals, and 23% opposed; and

36% supporting removing all negative gearing tax concessions on investment properties and 25% opposed.

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Mark McGowan: why the only way was down for Western Australia’s political rock star

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After being lauded for his tough Covid response and winning the most one-sided election in Australian history, Labor premier goes out at the top


It is telling that, at the age of 55, Western Australia’s premier, Mark McGowan, cited exhaustion, rather than the fulfilment of political ambition, as the main reason for his sudden resignation.

McGowan strode into the state’s highest office in 2017, but it was his Covid response that propelled him into unprecedented power in 2021, with his party wining the most one-sided election result in Australia’s history – taking 53 of 59 seats in the lower house.

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Australia news live: 3.8 magnitude earthquake largest to hit Melbourne in over a century

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Thousands of people contacted Geoscience Australia to report they felt shaking, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or serious damage. Follow the latest updates

Paterson says the Indigenous voice to parliament’s differentiation on the basis of characteristics people have no control over is “offensive to liberal principles.”

Asked about whether he agrees with his leader Peter Dutton, when he talks about the voice re-racialising Australia, Patterson says:

What proponents of the yes campaign are trying to do is to treat Australians differently. …what we are doing is putting into our constitutional something which treats people differently because of a characteristic over which they have control. And I think that is offensive to liberal principles. And we are all human beings and we’re all Australian, and we should be all treated equally before the law before the Constitution as well.

It is in Australia’s national interest that Ukraine prevail. We have to do everything in our power to ensure they do.

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Victoria earthquake: Melbourne residents feel shake of 3.8 magnitude quake in city’s north-west

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Earthquake detected in Sunbury before midnight on Sunday reportedly largest earthquake in over 100 years in the Melbourne metropolitan area

Parts of Melbourne were shaken by a 3.8 magnitude earthquake that hit near Sunbury in the city’s north-west late on Sunday night.

Geoscience Australia confirmed the quake occurred at 11.41pm. Thousands of people contacted the agency to report they had felt the shaking, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or serious damage.

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Melbourne public transport card readers won’t accept credit cards or iPhones until 2025

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Exclusive: upgraded Myki ticketing system could have been in place sooner, according to alternate proposals tendered

Using credit cards and iPhones to tap on to Melbourne public transport won’t be a network-wide reality until at least 2025, but the Victorian government has defended its new ticketing contract amid claims other bidders could have implemented the compatibility faster.

Upgrades to existing card readers on trams, buses and trains – as well as more ambitious schedules for the installation of new readers – were detailed in two proposals to overhaul the Myki system that would have seen credit card and iPhone payments accepted across the network before 2025, Guardian Australia understands.

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Australia’s rental affordability drops to worst levels in nearly a decade

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New report shows average households are spending a third of income on rent while lower income families pay more than half their earnings

Australian rental affordability has dropped to its worst levels in nearly a decade, with the average household spending a third of its income on rent, as the impacts of the Covid pandemic continue to be felt on the market.

Lower income households pay even more, with more than half of their income going towards their rent, according to new research from ANZ and CoreLogic.

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Albanese urges all citizens to discuss Indigenous voice to ensure successful referendum

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Success ‘will depend on millions of conversations between Australians of all backgrounds and faiths and beliefs’, PM says in speech

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has urged citizens to discuss the Indigenous voice to parliament with friends and family to ensure the referendum’s success. He also claims the no campaign has radically underestimated Australians, who would not succumb to fear campaigns about the constitutional change.

Albanese will use a major speech in Adelaide on Monday to counter claims the government has rushed into the referendum, saying the voice and calls for Indigenous constitutional recognition have developed over decades.

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Woman found dead in Sydney after police failed to locate source of alleged domestic dispute

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Man charged with domestic violence offences including stalking and contravention of an AVO

A man has been charged with domestic violence offences after police found a woman’s body inside a western Sydney apartment, after earlier failing to locate the source of a domestic dispute.

Police received an anonymous phone call about an alleged domestic dispute at a Liverpool apartment block about 11.45pm on Friday.

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Lidia Thorpe to lodge racism claim against Greens party with Human Rights Commission

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Independent senator also foreshadowed abstaining from Senate vote on Indigenous voice referendum in interview with ABC

Senator Lidia Thorpe says she will lodge a complaint to the Human Rights Commission against her former party, the Australian Greens, claiming she experienced racism during her time in the organisation.

But the party said it is not aware of the complaint and is committed to stamping out racism at work and in parliament.

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Australia news live: Lidia Thorpe to lodge human rights complaint alleging racist treatment from the Greens

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Sydney man arrested for alleged major heroin smuggling operation after deportation

A Sydney man has been charged for allegedly orchestrating one of the biggest heroin imports in recent history after being deported from Türkiye, the Australian Federal Police has said.

Police will allege the man has been based in a number of countries since March 2020 and is responsible for organising the importation of 347.9kg of heroin into Sydney in December 2020, while he was based in Thailand. It will also be alleged this man has extensive links to transnational organised crime groups, which helped facilitate this importation.

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Teenager fights for life after car crash kills four people in Victoria’s west

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Police investigating cause of single-vehicle accident after car lost control and hit tree

A teenage girl is fighting for life as police probe a single-vehicle crash that killed four others in regional Victoria.

Police remained at the scene of the crash on Wannon-Nigretta Falls Road, Bochara on Saturday evening after the car with five people on board lost control and hit a tree.

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Two men charged after police find $60m worth of cocaine in shipping container in Sydney

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Police were called to a container logistics company in Port Botany after reports of a break and enter on Thursday night

Two Greek nationals have been charged with numerous offences after police allegedly found $60m worth of cocaine in the walls of a shipping container in Sydney.

Police were called to a Port Botany container logistics company after reports of a break and enter about 11pm on Thursday.

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Only 12 of 35 dementia units promised by 2023 Australia-wide are operational, health department says

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Exclusive: spokesperson says six units more will open by the end of 2024 but declines questions about cause of delay

Just 12 of a promised 35 specialist dementia units the government committed to have running by 2023 are operational, a health department spokesman has said.

To respond to a growing number of people with dementia and suffering from severe behavioural and psychological symptoms, the federal government in 2016 announced the Specialist Dementia Care Program [SDCP].

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More than 40,000 hectares of nationally vital koala habitat marked for potential logging in NSW

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Analysis shows area includes 9,000 hectares where there was already active logging as pressure grows on government to end practice

Conservationists say forest areas that include 41,000 hectares of nationally important koala habitat have been identified for potential logging on the north coast of New South Wales in the region’s 12-month logging plan.

The analysis, by the North East Forest Alliance, comes as pressure grows on the NSW government to cease logging of native forests after the Victorian government announced logging in its native forests would end in December, six years earlier than planned.

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Bridget McKenzie praises Victorian Nationals’ vote against Indigenous voice; third teenager comes forward over Surry Hills fire – as it happened

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Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, is speaking from the Northern Territory on the Indigenous voice to parliament as today marks 56 years since the 1967 referendum.

Today marks 56 years since the 1967 referendum. One of the most successful federal referendums in Australia’s history. A day when Australians came together to vote to change the constitution so Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people would be counted as part of the population.

As a nation, we look back at the 1967 referendum, at Charlie Perkins and his freedom rights, at more than a 90% vote “yes” which was done with great pride.

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Maria Kovacic: former NSW Liberal president will replace Jim Molan in Senate as Andrew Constance’s bid fails

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Kovacic ran for the lower house seat of Parramatta in the last federal election but was defeated by Labor’s Andrew Charlton

A former president of the New South Wales Liberal party will fill the Senate vacancy left by Jim Molan, who died of prostate cancer in January.

Maria Kovacic, who resigned from her official party position to run for the NSW Senate seat, defeated her closest challenger, Andrew Constance, a former NSW cabinet minister.

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Linda Burney hits back at Dutton’s claim Labor risking reconciliation with Indigenous voice referendum

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Minister for Indigenous Australians says referendum ‘will be determined by the Australian people, not politicians’

The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, has hit back at comments from Peter Dutton and accused the opposition leader of “playing politics” with the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum and dividing Australians.

Dutton said on Saturday the cause of reconciliation could be set back if the referendum on an Indigenous voice failed but accused the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, of starving Australians of detail.

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A spying scandal and lots of coffee: how Guardian Australia launched 10 years ago | podcast

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In a special edition of Full Story, Guardian Australia’s daily podcast, Bridie Jabour speaks to the key players of its launch in May 2013

The story of how Guardian Australia launched in 2013 is one of strength, determination, a chance encounter, a spying scandal and a lot of coffee. At a time when Julia Gillard was prime minister, newspapers were laying off thousands of staff and Gina Rinehart was vying to take control of Fairfax, the Guardian arrived in a dire period for public interest journalism. But since May 2013 the once-tiny news site has achieved what some thought impossible. In this special edition of Full Story, Bridie Jabour speaks to the key players of Guardian Australia’s launch.

This podcast also features Katharine Viner, Lenore Taylor, Katharine Murphy, Alan Rusbridger, Lee Glendinning, David Marr, Christian Bennett, Graeme Wood, Malcolm Turnbull, Luke Pearson, Lorena Allam, Melissa Davey, Ben Doherty, Mark Scott, Cassandra Goldie, Michael Safi and Luke Henriques-Gomes.

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‘A festering tree’: growing calls for parliamentary inquiry into NSW police use of force

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Justice experts say there needs to be a more rigorous process for when Tasers and guns can be deployed to change the way officers manage incidents

Calls are growing for a parliamentary inquiry into use of force by New South Wales police, with justice experts saying too much focus is being placed on the actions of individual police officers rather than the “festering” systemic problem.

“This isn’t a case of a few bad apples, it’s a case of a festering tree,” said Samantha Lee, a lawyer at Redfern Legal Centre.

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