Category Archives: Australia news

Cold snap with damaging winds, hail and snow forecast for Australia’s south-east

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Severe weather warnings for wind gusts of up 100km/h issued for Tasmania, Victoria and NSW, BoM says

A cold front is set to sweep across Australia’s south-east in the coming days, bringing icy winds and steep drops in temperature.

The front is brushing the southern tip of Western Australia and is expected to strengthen and intensify as it approaches south-eastern Australia.

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Morrison government paid corrupt businessman millions for offshore processing on Nauru

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Mozammil Gulamabbas Bhojani was convicted of bribing two Nauruan officials with more than $120,000

The former Australian government continued to pay millions of taxpayer dollars to a businessman convicted of corruption to provide offshore processing services on Nauru, even after he had pleaded guilty to bribing Nauruan government officials.

In August 2020 Mozammil Gulamabbas Bhojani was convicted of paying more than $120,000 in bribes to two Nauru government officials, including an MP and government minister, for favourable deals on phosphate mining contracts for his Radiance International group of companies.

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NSW renewable energy zones up to two years behind schedule

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‘We are not going to allow the lights to go off,’ state energy minister Penny Sharpe vows

New South Wales’ two main renewable energy zones will be delayed for as long as two years and cost more to build with landholder opposition to new transmission lines partly to blame, the energy minister, Penny Sharpe, has said.

The Minns government briefed journalists about its network infrastructure strategy on Wednesday, revealing that the central-west Orana zone would not hit its “energisation date” until 2027-28, compared with an initial 2025 target. Similarly, the New England zone will now start in 2029 compared with an initial 2027 goal.

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Australia politics live: Christian Porter will not act in Palmer lawsuit against government due to conflict, estimates told

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Former attorney general received confidential information while in office and has said he will not act for Clive Palmer, senators hear. Follow the day’s news live

Cricket builds friendship between Australia and India, says Albanese

Narendra Modi described the Australia-India relationship last night as the three Cs – commonwealth, cricket and curry, the three Ds – diaspora, democracy and dosti (Bollywood film series and friendship) and the 3Es – economy, energy and education.

There is always a discussion about cricket when Australians and Indians gather and I did get the experience of being day one of the fourth test for a brief time with Prime Minister Modi. It was quite an experience in the world’s biggest stadium there in March and Australians and Indians are very passionate about their cricket but it is part of the way that we build our friendship between our two nations.

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‘Don’t F&*! The Planet’: Atlassian issues net zero guide for companies cutting climate impact

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Tech firm founded by Australians Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar says net zero must be achieved by cutting emissions by 90% and only offsetting the remainder

As corporate reports go, the title of Aussie tech firm Atlassian’s guide for other companies to cut their greenhouse gas emissions is as direct and flavoursome as they come: “Don’t F&*! The Planet.”

The firm, founded by Australians Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, says it is already running its operations on 100% renewable electricity and has a “science-based target” to reach net zero emissions no later than 2040.

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Review needed of police deployment to aged care after 95-year-old woman Tasered, says age discrimination commissioner

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Dr Kay Patterson questions whether mental health team would be more appropriate while David Shoebridge says police tools are ‘wrong resource’

The age discrimination commissioner has said the deployment of police officers to respond to incidents in aged care homes should be reviewed after the Tasering of 95-year-old Claire Nowland.

Nowland, who weighs 43kg and lives with dementia, was Tasered by police after she was found armed with a steak knife in her home at an aged care facility in Cooma. She is in end-of-life care at Cooma district hospital after the incident caused her to fall and sustain life-threatening head injuries.

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Australian police find huge haul of Mexican meth worth $273m in hydraulic press

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Federal police try to identify crime syndicate behind elaborate smuggling scheme into NSW, after drugs found at port inspection in Sydney

More than 300kg of methamphetamine concealed deep inside a steel hydraulic press has been smuggled into New South Wales from Mexico.

Australian federal police say the seized haul has an estimated value of more than $273m and could have made up 3m individual street deals.

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Nationals leader repays Gold Coast travel expense claim he made after he ‘sought the wrong advice’

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David Littleproud left parliament early in February to travel to the Gold Coast, three days after he and his spouse settled on a new apartment there

The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, has repaid travel expenses he claimed after leaving parliament early to travel to the Gold Coast in February.

In a statement Littleproud said he had “mistakenly sought the wrong advice” and “incorrectly” re-entered Queensland in between sitting weeks via the Gold Coast.

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Australian tourist who was missing for three days found dead in Kazakhstan

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Body of Melbourne lawyer Jake Herd found at high altitude in poor weather near Big Almaty Lake

An Australian tourist who was missing for three days in mountains in Kazakhstan has been found dead, authorities in the central Asian country said on Tuesday.

Police said they had found the body of Melbourne lawyer Jake Michael Herd, born in 1995, near Big Almaty Lake in the Tian Shan mountains at an altitude of about 2,500m.

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Rolf Harris, convicted sex offender and entertainer, dies aged 93

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Australian-born artist and musician was jailed for sexual assaults on children after a 50-year career as one of Britain’s best-known TV performers

The entertainer Rolf Harris, whose career as one of the best-loved performers on British TV ended in the disgrace of convictions for indecent assault on teenage girls, has died aged 93.

In October 2022, it was reported that Harris had neck cancer and was barely able to speak. His death was confirmed by a registrar at Maidenhead town hall, close to his family home in the Berkshire village of Bray.

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Narendra Modi receives rock-star reception in Sydney as Anthony Albanese hails ‘rich friendship’

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Australian PM announces cricketer Adam Gilchrist as board member of new centre for Australia-India relations in Parramatta

Thousands of members of Australia’s Indian community have given a rapturous stadium welcome to Anthony Albanese and Narendra Modi as a new centre for Australia-India relations was announced for Sydney’s west.

The two prime ministers were constantly cheered at the Olympic Park rally on Tuesday evening ahead of more formal talks between the pair planned for Wednesday.

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‘Hitlist’ of private schools criticised and businesses and public sector join outcry over Victorian budget

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New tax measures and job cuts to help repay state’s Covid debt spark criticism from multiple groups

Victorian private schools are among a chorus of critics of the state’s latest budget, after payroll exemption for schools with “high fees” was cut and landlords and big businesses were hit by new taxes.

To help repair the state’s budget bottom line, the Andrews government on Tuesday revealed more than 100 private schools will no longer be shielded from payroll tax in a budget measure the opposition and independent education sector warns will lead to higher fees for parents.

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News Corp denies it played a part in Stan Grant’s decision to leave Q+A amid racist attacks

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Murdoch’s Australian media chief calls on ABC to ‘correct the record’ after accusations that excessive coverage encouraged racist social media trolls

Rupert Murdoch’s top executive in Australia has defended News Corp’s reporting of the ABC’s coronation broadcast and denied it played a part in Stan Grant’s decision to stand down from hosting Q+A after becoming the target of racist attacks.

News Corp Australasia chief executive Michael Miller responded to an interview on Monday in which the ABC news director Justin Stevens accused News Corp of targeting the ABC because the public broadcaster threatened its business model.

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Queensland changes laws to accommodate UN prisons inspectors

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A UN anti-torture subcommittee suspended its inspections last year after being refused access to some facilities

The Queensland government has passed a bill to remove legislative barriers that prohibited UN officials from visiting places of detention during their visit to Australia last year.

A UN anti-torture subcommittee suspended its tour of Australian detention facilities in October after Guardian Australia revealed Queensland refused access to some mental health facilities that hold people charged with crimes, while New South Wales blocked inspectors from entering all of its detention facilities.

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Spy boss says terrorism threat lower – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

The conversation moves on to Stan Grant and whether Richard Marles agrees with some of the comments ABC news boss Justin Stevens has made about the criticism Grant experienced by organisations like News Corp and its “relentless campaign”.

Marles is asked whether he has read some of the comments under articles about ABC staff which appear in newspapers like the Australian.

Should those newspapers be dealing with the consequences and the commentary? I’ve read some of them I’ve read some of them about myself, too. They’re revolting.

Look, I mean, they are revolting. It’s it’s an area in an age of social media where – where there are comments that are posted, well – anyone who engages in social media, I think we all need to do much better.

And the answer the question about why I haven’t read all them is precisely because of the impact which one has when you do read them all.

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Sydney dementia patient ‘didn’t sleep for months’ after police called to subdue her, family say

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Calls for reform grow with daughter of patient saying families should be notified when police are deployed to aged care homes

A family who say they were not told when police were deployed to help control their 79-year-old mother in a Sydney dementia unit are calling for a change to make it mandatory for family to be notified about the use of law enforcement.

On 4 June 2020, paramedics attempted to subdue an agitated Norma Robertson, who had only been in the care of the dementia unit at HammondCare in a Sydney suburb for about four weeks.

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Nearly half of those seeking Australian homelessness charity’s help have jobs but can’t pay soaring rents

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Mission Australia report finds demand for its services has jumped as CEO says government needs far more than ‘Band-Aid crisis solutions’

Four in 10 people who sought help from a major homelessness charity in the past three years were employed but could not meet skyrocketing rents, according to a report by Mission Australia.

The report comes as the demand for the organisation’s homelessness services, mainly based in New South Wales, jumped by 26% to 7,378 people between January 2020 to December last year.

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Australian jobseekers told to use ChatGPT to apply for jobs and shown irrelevant videos

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Exclusive: A taxpayer-funded online employability course that included videos on body language contained ‘not curriculum-endorsed materials’

A taxpayer-funded employability course is under fire after jobseekers complained that much of the compulsory training involved being shown irrelevant, inappropriate and, at-times, bizarre YouTube videos.

Under contracts signed by the Coalition last year, the federal government will pay private providers about $300m over five years to run Employability Skills Training (EST) courses as part of the commonwealth’s $7bn Workforce Australia program.

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Affordable rental properties in Australian capital cities at ‘record low’

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Just 16.2% of all rentals listed for $400 or less in April 2023, down from 30.2% in 2022

The number of properties listed for under $400 per week has halved in the last year, new data from PropTrack shows.

The report, which analysed data from listings on realestate.com, found the rental crisis had worsened in the past 12 months. In 2022, it said, 30.2% of all rental listings were under $400 a week. That number has now dropped to 16.2%.

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NT government knew it could not reduce climate risk when it greenlit ‘carbon bomb’ gas production in Beetaloo Basin

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Exclusive: New documents also reveal federal government admitted Australia did not have policies to ensure project would meet key recommendation in full

New documents reveal the Northern Territory government knew it could not meet a key recommendation to reduce the climate risk of its planned massive expansion of gas production, and asked the Albanese government for help.

Federal climate change officials in turn admitted Australia did not have any existing policies that would meet the recommendation in full.

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