Category Archives: Australia news

Search for wreckage atop volcano after plane with two Australians goes missing in Philippines

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The Cessna 340 with former Santos employees Simon Chipperfield and Karthi Santhanam lost contact on Saturday

Two Australian men are feared dead after a plane lost contact in the Philippines with four people on board, as crews work to verify if a wreckage spotted near the crater of a restive volcano is the missing plane.

The plane, which was bound for the capital Manila, lost contact with air traffic control on Saturday, three minutes after it departed Bicol international airport in Albay province, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said in a statement.

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Shorter Indigenous life expectancy should mean lower pension age, court told

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Landmark case from Indigenous man seeking to access pension three years early hears Australia fails to account for age gap from ‘racial disadvantage’

First Nations Australians should be granted access to the pension at a younger age due to a gap in life expectancy “which is closely connected to race”, the federal court has heard.

The full federal court on Monday commenced hearings in a landmark case brought against the commonwealth by 65-year-old Indigenous man, Uncle Dennis, who is seeking to access the pension three years early.

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Australia news live: landmark report confirms wage theft by universities; treasurer calls for changes to super laws

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Staff underpaid more than $80m in past three years. Follow the day’s news live

Fresh push to ban ‘asbestos of the 2020s’

There’s a fresh push to ban engineered stone commonly used in kitchen benchtops and linked to an incurable lung disease likened to asbestosis, AAP reports.

Instead of planning a family, we’re planning my funeral. I used to install kitchen benches. People liked engineered stone because it was cheap. But the dust got into my lungs causing deadly, incurable silicosis.

That’s too high a price for anyone to pay. Nothing will save my life but if you join the campaign to stop the importation and manufacture of engineered stone, you can help save someone else’s. Please.

Australian workers like Kyle are dying because of engineered stone.

The companies flooding our markets with this cheap and nasty material know that, but to them profits are more important than people’s lives.

It is incredibly distressing … when we hear about these horrific murders and we have to do more to prevent [them from] happening.

I often say we have to start responding to the red flags before more blue police tape surrounds the family home.

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Facebook and Instagram to get paid verification as Twitter charges for two-factor SMS authentication

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Mark Zuckerberg follows Elon Musk’s lead in introducing fee for blue ticks, as Twitter gets set to charge for 2FA via SMS

Facebook and Instagram users will soon need to pay to be verified on the social media platforms, as Meta follows in the footsteps of rival platform Twitter.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, announced in a Facebook post on Sunday that the service would first roll out in Australia and New Zealand later this week.

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Australia’s big emitters could cut CO2 by 90% by 2050 without offsets, report finds

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Report finds that supply chains for major industries, including iron and steel, could cut annual CO2 to 17m tonnes by mid-century

Some of Australia’s largest heavy industrial companies have backed a report that says they could cut direct greenhouse gas emissions in their supply chains by more than 90% by 2050, and not have to rely heavily on carbon offsets.

The report, by the Australian Industry Energy Transitions Initiative (ETI), prepared over three years by Climateworks Centre and the CSIRO, found the industrial transition would cost the equivalent of $21bn a year over three decades if Australia were to play its part in trying to limit global heating to 1.5C.

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Greg Craven criticised for comments about voice referendum working group

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Tony McAvoy says Craven ‘way outside his remit’ and ‘incorrect’ to describe some views in the group as ‘misplaced intransigence’ and ‘egotism’

A senior barrister advising the Albanese government on the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum has blasted the constitutional lawyer Greg Craven for claiming members of the referendum working group were willing to “blow it up” if they couldn’t control the outcome.

Working group member Tony McAvoy SC said Prof Craven had stepped “way outside his remit” by incorrectly labelling the views of some in the group as “misplaced intransigence” and “egotism”.

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‘It’s worrying’: Victoria’s affordable rental housing to be allocated by ballot rather than need

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Homes Victoria says ballot helps create ‘fair and transparent’ process but advocate fears those most in need may miss out

The Victorian government’s new affordable rental housing will be allocated to tenants by random ballot rather than need, with applications to be processed by a company already under scrutiny for what advocates have called a “troubling” use of renters’ data.

The first tranche of 34 houses from the 2,400 promised in the affordable housing rental scheme – part of the Andrews government’s “big build” construction blitz – were advertised in January.

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Greens decry ‘utter decimation’ of independent observer program for live exports

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Most voyages carrying livestock out of Australia sailed without an observer, with half of those ships claiming they had insufficient space for an extra person

Almost half the live export ships that sailed from Australia without an independent observer claimed there was “insufficient space” to allow them onboard last year, new data shows.

The independent monitoring scheme established in 2018 after 2,400 sheep died while being exported by Australian exporter Emanuel Exports has weakened considerably since its resumption from a Covid-related pause, data shows.

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Australia news live: back safeguard mechanism to ‘put climate wars behind us’, Labor urges Coalition and Greens – as it happened

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This blog is now closed

‘The onus is on Labor’ to explain why it needs more coal and gas: Bandt

There’s some discussion about possible alternatives – one suggestion is to pause new developments on gas and coal developments while reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 have been hammered out.

We are up for good-faith discussions and proposals like that are coming from people like the Climate Council, from The Australia Institute. I’ve seen the Australia Conservation Foundation out saying there are serious problems with the government’s proposal.

You can’t put the fire out while pouring petrol on it.

I don’t think the penny has quite dropped with the government how much things are have moved on. 66% of people between 18 and 34 back our position – don’t want new coal and gas mines opened. 57% of the general population. Things have moved on.

I know Labor talks a lot about history, but the students who are marching in the streets at the moment, behind banners saying, “No new coal and gas” were in primary school in 2009. They do not want it, no one can understand why we are coming up to the year anniversary of the floods in Lismore, people cannot understand why Labor says they want to open up new projects.

Why does Labor want to go to the wall to open new coal and gas projects? These are huge climate bombs. They’ve got a very – I think it is an untenable task...

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Australian government urged to ‘stop playing with people’s lives’ as people returned to detention

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Dozens of people released from immigration detention due to federal court ruling now told they will be re-detained

Lawyers have called on the Australian government to “stop playing with people’s lives” as it moves to re-detain dozens of people who were released from immigration detention over Christmas.

About 160 people had been released from detention due to a full federal court case ruling that aggregate sentences do not count for the purposes of the Migration Act’s automatic visa-cancellation provisions.

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‘They bleed you dry’: the recruitment scammers preying on Australian job seekers

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As cybercriminals increasingly target the job market, antipoverty advocates say punitive welfare rules leave job seekers particularly vulnerable

“I can’t stop kicking myself,” Rose* says.

The 51-year-old has just lost $10,000 to scammers – a life-changing amount for the mother of three.

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Woolworths expands self-checkout AI that critics say treats ‘every customer as a suspect’

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Supermarket says cameras used to detect accidental wrong scans while experts say the technology is ‘punitive’ and call for reforms to protect privacy

Woolworths has expanded the use of technology that films customers scanning items at self-checkouts to 110 stores in three states, as critics say the functionality could make people feel they are under constant surveillance.

For the past year, Woolworths has trialled new self-checkouts with cameras installed overhead to observe customers scanning items. The company said artificial intelligence is used to detect when items are not scanned correctly, with footage of the scan recorded and played back to the customer instructing them to re-scan.

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NSW Labor pledges $1bn state-owned investment company for renewable projects if elected

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‘Privatisation does not work. It has been a disaster for New South Wales and under Labor it stops,’ leader Chris Minns says

A New South Wales Labor government would create a $1bn state-owned energy security company to drive investment in renewable energy projects and lower prices in the state, the party’s leader, Chris Minns, has said.

On Sunday, Labor will pledge to establish a NSW “energy security corporation”, an investment vehicle for renewable energy projects in the state, should the party win the 24 March state election.

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‘Selfishly hell-bent on looking good’: the surfing trend dividing Byron Bay

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More than 2 million tourists visit Australian coastal town annually, but a spate of injuries blamed on surfers not wearing leg ropes is raising tempers

Amid the perfect blue rolling waves of Byron Bay’s beaches, a menace lurks.

It’s not sharks or stingers that are spoiling the vibes at perhaps Australia’s most famous tourist town, but out-of-control surfboards.

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Voice to parliament should not be the subject of a partisan debate, Albanese says

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The PM promises to ‘reach out’ to any opposition politician who wants to discuss how the voice will work as he kicks off a national week of action on the referendum

The Indigenous voice to parliament should not be the subject of partisan debate, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has said, promising to “reach out” to any opposition politician who wants to discuss how the voice will work.

He opened a national week of action on the referendum in front of an enthusiastic crowd in his home electorate in Sydney’s inner west on Saturday.

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NSW Liberals disendorse Peter Poulos ahead of election over explicit photo sharing scandal

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The premier, Dominic Perrottet, had said he was appalled and disgusted by the situation

The New South Wales Liberals have cut the upper house government MP Peter Poulos from their election ticket, five weeks out from the election, after the premier called on his party to act over an explicit photo scandal.

Poulos had resigned on Friday from his parliamentary secretary role after apologising for emailing explicit images of a female rival five years ago.

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NSW Liberals suspend MP; Burney urges ‘big fat yes’ voice vote – as it happened

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Brittany Higgins cries foul over diary leak and Linda Reynolds says she was victim of ‘political hit job’. This blog is now closed

Man’s body found in car submerged in SA’s Murray River

Police were called to the scene on Friday at 1.30pm after a member of the public spotted the sunken car near Hindmarsh Island in the lower Murray.

I want people to know it’s a matter of life or death to people who are blind or vision-impaired.

It’s really important we have these alerting systems because we’re not opposed to electric vehicles – we want the planet to survive – but we want people to be aware of the pedestrian issues.

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Brittany Higgins wants inquiry to look into diary leak as Linda Reynolds makes ‘political hit job’ claim

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Former Liberal staffer’s personal diary pages reported in the Australian, which also published fresh interview with Higgins’s former boss

Brittany Higgins will seek to raise the leaking of her private material, including the contents of her personal diary, with the current inquiry probing the handling of the Bruce Lehrmann case.

The alleged leak was revealed on Saturday as Higgins’s former boss Linda Reynolds broke her silence to allege she was the victim of a “political hit job”.

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‘A heightened euphoria’: the Australian swimmer taking on the ice mile

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Peta Bradley won bronze at the ice swimming world championships after training in a NSW country dam

Covid lockdowns and the closure of the local pool forced a swim team in Armidale, New South Wales, to get creative – and now one of them has broken the Australian record for ice swimming and won bronze at the world championships.

Peta Bradley, 27, placed third in her age group for the 500m freestyle at the recent world championships of the International Ice Swimming Association (IISA) in Samoens, France, and placed ninth overall, setting an Australian record of 07.33.85. She set another Australian record by placing fourth in her age group in the 1,000m, and also came fourth in the 50m butterfly.

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‘Party with purpose’: Sydney WorldPride kicks off with 500,000 expected to attend 300 events

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The city’s biggest ‘occasion’ since the 2000 Olympics will be a 17-day program celebrating equality

Sydney has marked the start of WorldPride with a Progress Pride flag raising ceremony, kicking off a 17-day program of art, performances, talks, parties, sport and comedy to celebrate equality.

The festivities will amount to Sydney’s biggest “occasion” since the 2000 Olympics and are expected to draw 500,000 visitors to 300 free and ticketed events.

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