Category Archives: Australia news

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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Austrade forum to promote links with oil giant Saudi Aramco condemned by activists

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Environmental groups say the event in Perth to court the biggest polluting oil company of all time is ‘akin to a joint trade show with a tobacco major’

A government meet-and-greet to connect Australian industry with the world’s largest oil company, Saudi Aramco, has been criticised by environmental groups as “akin to a joint trade show with a tobacco major”.

Australia’s international trade agency Austrade will host the event, “Doing business with Aramco 2023”, next Friday at the Duxton Hotel in Perth.

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Australian judge apologises after claiming that colleagues are appointed regardless of merit

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Justice Joshua Wilson planned to tell an international conference that court positions are filled on the basis of politics rather than ability

A federal and family court justice who planned to deliver a speech at an international conference claiming that progressive governments appointed diverse judges regardless of merit has been forced to apologise to his colleagues and told he can no longer attend the conference.

The speech by Justice Joshua Wilson had been uploaded on the court’s website before Justice William Alstergren, the chief justice of the family court and chief judge of the federal circuit court, was alerted to its contents and ordered that it be removed this week.

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Nationals push for $10m fines and ability to break up Coles and Woolworths if they abuse market power

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Exclusive: David Littleproud says former Coalition government was ‘too slow’ on compulsory grocery code of conduct

David Littleproud has offered to help Labor bolster competition law protections for farmers and suppliers in a bid to prevent potential abuses of market power by Australia’s big supermarkets.

The Nationals leader proposes making the grocery code of conduct compulsory, boosting penalties to a “punitive” $10m maximum and adding powers to break up grocery giants in the event of misconduct.

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‘Doesn’t make any sense’: call for Queensland home park rent caps to apply to all tenants

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Advocates for renters say state shouldn’t play favourites with proposed limits on rent increases

It’s “unfair” that a proposed rent cap for Queensland manufactured home park residents will not be considered for tenants in the wider private housing market, advocates say.

Manufactured home parks are marketed as retirement villages for those over 50, where residents lease the land from the park owner, with rent going towards shared facilities and utilities.

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Mike Cannon-Brookes wins control of Sun Cable solar project from Andrew Forrest

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Entrepreneur says plan to send renewable energy to Singapore from Northern Territory a ‘nation-building project for Australia’

Mike Cannon-Brookes has prevailed over Andrew Forrest in a billionaires’ battle for control of Sun Cable, an ambitious development promising to transmit solar-generated electricity from the Northern Territory outback to Singapore.

Cannon-Brookes and Forrest had been involved in a bidding process for the $30bn-plus project after they fell out over its future direction and the company, also called Sun Cable, went into voluntary administration.

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Nurses union fined $350,000 for West Australian strike; Rex Patrick loses FOI challenge – as it happened

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The former independent senator has lost his legal challenge against what he argued were unreasonable delays in the freedom of information (FOI) system. Follow the day’s news live

Evacuated dental hospital near site of Sydney blaze becomes emergency services hub

While the light rail that runs past the charred husk of the burnt out building on Randle Ln is running this morning, many of the roads are blocked off by police tape, including a usually very busy section of Elizabeth St, which will likely have an impact on morning traffic.

There’s else a lot of work to be done. The building opposite has been damaged by that extreme heat. Firefighters were able to cut that fire off from spreading into the building across the road. But the main priority is that wall. There are two walls that are in a precarious position.

We are talking about tonnes and tonnes of bricks that could come down and become projectiles that is why we have such a tight exclusion zone, not allowing anyone in, including firefighter[s], until we get the engineers in.

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Indigenous leaders warn that ‘hate is raining down on us’ as voice campaign ramps up

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Minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, asks nation to ‘lean on the wheel of history and give it a push’

Racism is taking its toll on Aboriginal communities during the voice debate, “and it is going to get tougher”, the minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, has said at a meeting of the government’s referendum advisory group at Uluru on Friday.

“This is going to be a difficult campaign. It’s one of the reasons that we’ve set aside $10m in the most recent budget for mental health, particularly for Aboriginal people, distributed through the Aboriginal community-controlled health organisations for that very reason,” Burney said.

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Joe Biden’s advisers say he doesn’t want to drag Pacific allies into ‘headlong clash’ between US and China

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Senior White House official says president hears region’s concerns and ‘does not want conflict’ with China

Joe Biden’s senior advisers have acknowledged countries in the Indo-Pacific don’t want to be “trampled by a headlong clash” between the US and China.

In a webinar with an Australian audience on Friday, senior White House national security council (NSC) officials said the US president wanted to give allies and other close partners “breathing space” to engage with China constructively.

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Bruce Lehrmann inquiry: Senior officer held serious concerns about perceptions of collusion with defence

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AFP acting assistant commissioner tells inquiry she was concerned police and defence counsel interactions were feeding ‘conspiratorial ideas of collusion’

A senior ACT police officer has told an inquiry into the prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann for rape that she held serious concerns that there were perceptions her officers were colluding with lawyers for Lehrmann’s defence.

AFP acting assistant commissioner, Joanne Cameron, was a commander in charge of ACT policing investigations when Lehrmann faced trial last year over allegations he raped his former colleague Brittany Higgins in parliament house in 2019.

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Joy McKean: ‘trailblazing’ Australian songwriter and wife of Slim Dusty dies aged 93

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Described by Paul Kelly as ‘one of our greatest songwriters’, McKean – who wrote some of Dusty’s biggest hits – died on Thursday night surrounded by family

Australian singer-songwriter Joy McKean, who wrote some of her husband Slim Dusty’s most popular songs, has died at 93 from cancer.

EMI said McKean had passed away peacefully on Thursday night, surrounded by family. “She will be remembered as a pioneer in Australian music,” the statement read.

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Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly says Facebook must act against ‘tidal wave’ of racist trolls

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Indigenous body says it has blocked about 300 people in the past week who used racist slurs

Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly has called on Facebook to act against the “tidal wave” of racist online trolls that it says have targeted its work.

But Facebook’s parent company Meta has defended its record of addressing online abuse, saying it was a problem all tech companies needed to confront.

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Sydney fire: two teenagers assisting police with inquiries after Surry Hills building blaze

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Authorities ‘furiously’ searching for two people among 15 sleeping rough in heritage building the night before fire

Two teenagers were assisting police with their inquiries after a fire at a heritage-listed building in Sydney’s Surry Hills that police described as a “once in a decade” inferno. The cause of the fire remains unknown.

Police were also “furiously” searching to locate two people who were among 15 sleeping rough in the building the night before the fire. They have confirmed 13 of those people were safe and well.

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Labor can’t count on Greens support for petroleum resource rent tax, warns Adam Bandt

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Exclusive: Party leader says the reform is ‘weak’ and ‘not worth the napkin it was written on’, accusing government of bending to gas lobby

Greens leader Adam Bandt has warned the government it “can’t count” on the minor party’s support for its “weak” changes to petroleum resource rent tax.

The comments underscore the possibility that if the Coalition blocks the changes the Greens may demand more revenue from offshore oil and gas in return for its support in the Senate, where it holds the balance of power.

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Australia should increase competition to fight ‘excessive pricing’ by supermarkets, Rod Sims says

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Former regulator head’s comments follow Guardian Australia analysis which shows Coles and Woolworths increased profit margins during cost-of-living crisis

The former competition watchdog head Rod Sims says Australia’s big supermarkets have likely used their market power to increase prices higher than necessary during a cost-of-living crisis and that the government should consider reforming merger laws to limit their dominance.

Sims, who retired as the chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) last year, said Coles and Woolworths have little to worry about when making pricing decisions because they control two-thirds of the market.

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