Category Archives: Australia news

Albanese government urged to push international banks to stop funding fossil fuel development

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Exclusive: Report claims Australia’s shareholdings in development banks has made it responsible for investing $828m in fossil fuel projects over five years

Australia’s shareholdings in three international banks – including the World Bank – has seen it responsible for investing $828m in fossil fuel projects between 2016 and 2021, according to a research report.

The World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank have collectively pumped $32.85bn into fossil fuel projects – almost entirely linked to oil and gas production or power generation – over the same period, the report says.

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NSW lawyers call for reform of ‘disgraceful’ tactic churches use to block abuse claims

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Critics say the seeking of permanent stays in cases where perpetrators have died amount to ‘another layer of abuse’ for survivors and a failure of moral leadership

The Australian Lawyers Alliance is preparing to meet with the New South Wales attorney general to lobby for reform against the “disgraceful” tactics employed by churches and other institutions to prevent abuse survivors from pursuing justice.

A Guardian investigation – based on interviews with 13 lawyers, analysis of court records, and discussions with survivors and their advocates – found earlier this year that churches and other institutions are now routinely seeking permanent stays in cases where perpetrators have died, arguing they cannot possibly receive a fair trial.

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ACCC’s airline monitoring program to conclude despite growing claims of fare overcharging

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Exclusive: consumer and aviation figures call for continued scrutiny as Australian companies post multibillion-dollar profits and prices remain high

A key government program monitoring Australian airlines’ behaviour is ending just as carriers face claims they are overcharging passengers, prompting consumer and aviation figures to call for a dedicated and ongoing inquiry to probe the industry.

Calls for greater scrutiny from Australian Airports Association chief executive, James Goodwin, and former competition tsar Rod Sims come as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s domestic aviation monitoring taskforce expires at the end of June.

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Australian child pleads with prime minister to be rescued from Syrian detention camp

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Exclusive: ‘I have spent half my life in a tent closed off by gates like a prison,’ says the child, who is under 10, in a voice message to Anthony Albanese

An Australian child trapped in a Syrian detention camp has pleaded directly with prime minister Anthony Albanese to be rescued and brought home.

“I am one of the children left behind in Roj camp and I have spent half my life in a tent closed off by gates like a prison,” a voice message sent to the prime minister’s office says. “I have never been to school, laid in grass or climbed a tree.”

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US warned it might suspend ties with Australian special forces over war crime allegations

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Gen Angus Campbell also tells Senate that army member’s employment arrangements were ‘adjusted’ after US raised issue

The United States warned that it may have to suspend cooperation with Australian special forces after the release of a report into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, the Senate has heard.

The chief of the Australian defence force, Gen Angus Campbell, also confirmed that an army member’s employment arrangements had been “adjusted” after the US raised the issue.

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Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto served with fresh defamation threat by ousted MP Moira Deeming

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Sixteen-page notice contains list of claims against Liberal leader as he faces another by-election after the resignation of veteran Ryan Smith

Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto has been served with a fresh defamation threat by ousted MP Moira Deeming, as the party faces a by-election headache.

Lawyers for Deeming, who was expelled from the parliamentary Liberal party this month for allegedly bringing discredit on the party, has issued a second defamation concerns notice to Pesutto.

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Boy, 3, found dead in Sydney unit alongside injured 45-year-old man

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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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Victorian Liberals gear up for byelection following the resignation of Warrandyte MP Ryan Smith

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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.

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Australia’s emissions fell 0.4% in 2022 despite increases in transport and agriculture pollution

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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.

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UK’s post-Brexit trade deals with Australia and New Zealand kick in

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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.

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Moroccan officials accused of intimidation after fracas at African unity event in Canberra

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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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Queensland LNP criticised for ‘failure of leadership’ on voice – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

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.

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Why Australians are paying 50% more for air fares than pre-pandemic even as jet fuel costs drop

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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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Victorian private schools ‘fear-mongering’ over job losses after tax exemptions axed, experts say

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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.

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Warm winter weather awaits Australians after month of record-breaking cold

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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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Rental units only $39 cheaper than houses per week as demand soars for affordable options

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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.

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‘Incredibly concerning’: new study highlights policing failures in deaths of Indigenous women by domestic violence

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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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Australia politics live: Lambie threatens to disrupt Senate over Afghanistan medals; question time under way

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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.

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Video shows car speeding moments before crash in Victoria that left four dead

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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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Mehreen Faruqi reveals she has ‘experienced racism in the Greens’

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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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