Remains of Todd Mooney and daughter Kirra found after shed fire at Biggenden on 20 December
A woman has been charged with murder over the deaths of a Queensland father and his 10-year-old daughter five days before Christmas.
The remains of Todd Mooney, 54, and his 10-year-old daughter, Kirra, were found after a shed fire at Biggenden, about 78km south-west of Bundaberg, on 20 December.
Continue reading...Raad, who was repatriated from Syria to Australia in 2022, was forced to surrender her passport and will appear at court again in March
A New South Wales woman who was repatriated to Australia from a Syrian refugee camp has been granted bail after being charged with entering and remaining in parts of Syria that were under Islamic State control.
Mariam Raad, 31, was arrested on Thursday in Young, in the state’s southwest, where she had been living since being returned in October.
Continue reading...Warning as cases of meningococcal disease and invasive group A streptococcus rise. This blog is now closed
Albanese government and Business Council agree to disability employment pilot
The Albanese government has announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Business Council of Australia to create and implement a “new disability employment pilot”.
There are 2.1 million Australians with disability of working age, but only 53.4% are in the labour workforce. We also know 93% of working-age people with disability face difficulties finding work due to the lack of suitable employment and perceived limitations of their disability.
This new employment pilot seeks to address this and provide significant benefits to people with disability, employers and businesses, the economy and the broader community.
There has been a big increase as a consequence of the indexation made necessary by this higher inflation. And so that indexation is flowing through I think in welcome ways to people who are on payments. There will always be an appetite to do more and to do better when it comes to these payments. And we will always do what we responsibly can to support people, particularly people on low and fixed incomes.
It’s not something I’m contemplating because ... our position on those tax cuts hasn’t changed. And it’s not the only factor frankly in the budget which people are talking about right now, in welcome ways. As we get towards the budget, that I’ll hand down in May, there’s a lot of pressure on the budget when it comes to aged care, health care defense, spending the NDIS, the cost of servicing the trillion dollars of debt that we inherited from our predecessors.
Continue reading...Facebook defends decision to delete a small number of advertisements from the no side that independent fact-checkers deemed ‘false’
A stark schism is already emerging in the voice to parliament referendum in how the respective sides are campaigning for support, with the leading yes group overwhelmingly appealing to younger voters while the main no organisation is strongly targeting older Australians.
It comes as Facebook defends its decision to delete a small number of advertisements from the no side that independent fact-checkers deemed “false”. The social media giant maintains it will reject other referendum ads that breach policies – except those from politicians.
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Continue reading...The English Australian actor, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, died at home in Sydney in December
Neighbours and A Country Practice actor Joan Sydney has died at the age of 83.
The English Australian actor, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, died at her Sydney home on 28 December. Her long-time friend and fellow actor Sally-Anne Upton confirmed the news on social media on Friday.
Continue reading...Australian Medical Association calls for rebates to match the increased cost of living, but others say Australia must rethink healthcare as a whole
Medicare rebates to GPs need to double to stem the tide of doctors abandoning bulk billing, the Australian Medical Association has warned, while sounding the alarm over “catastrophically bad” access in rural and regional areas.
Doctors groups claim an increasing number of general practitioners can’t afford to offer bulk billing because federal payments have not kept pace with growing costs.
Continue reading...Exclusive: RSL Victoria is locked in a dispute with sub-branches refusing to sign up to plan designed to rescue state branch’s finances
The president of RSL Victoria has warned an internal fight over poker machine revenue represents an “ominous” threat to the future of the organisation, leaked documents show.
The RSL is locked in a dispute with 10 sub-branches that have refused to sign up to a new funding model designed to rescue the state branch’s finances, which are described as at “a tipping point” with no cash reserves.
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Continue reading...With only six months worth of funding left, library’s director general faces ‘very big decisions’ on the future of Trove
The future of Trove, the National Library of Australia’s expansive public digital archives, is in doubt with just six months funding left, with the library’s director general revealing that it is facing “very, very big decisions” in the next few months, if the government does not step in with funding.
Trove, a free online resource used by thousands of researchers, academics and members of the public, receives more than 20m hits each year. It has been treading water for the past six years, drip-fed by the federal government to the tune of about $5m annually.
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Continue reading...Ex-tropical Cyclone Ellie brings once-in-a-century flooding, forcing evacuations and road closures
Towns are cut off and residents have been evacuated in military planes during “the worst flooding Western Australia has ever seen”.
Authorities are working to let remote Aboriginal communities in the Kimberley region know of the danger, to relocate those who want to leave and deliver critical supplies. Derby, Broome and Noonkanbah have already been isolated.
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Continue reading...This blog is now closed
‘Challenging night’ for WA fire crews in south-west
Earlier today, Western Australian Department of Fire and Emergency Services incident controller Peter Thomas said it had been a “challenging night” for fire crews in the south-west, as bushfires threaten the region.
So our volunteers from the Donnybrook area across the south-west [who have] come to deal with this incident.
We’ve had some strong winds that have been coming consistently from the east, but been fairly strong and making it challenging for our crews.
When we allow sportspeople from Russia to participate in the Australian Open, we do exactly what Putin wants.
It doesn’t matter what flag Russian Federation players compete under. It has Ukrainian blood on it.
Continue reading...Queensland Resources Council says industry would welcome restrictions easing but new long-term customers since found elsewhere in Asia
Australia would benefit from a lifting of China’s ban on its coal but any gains would likely be modest as miners have largely redirected supplies elsewhere, analysts said.
Shares of ASX-listed coalminers shot up on Wednesday after reports China was considering lifting its restrictions on coal imports from Australia from April. The ban was imposed in mid-2020 amid deteriorating bilateral relations that have since begun to improve.
Continue reading...Mark Butler signals measure could be lifted if China provides ‘real-time uploading’ of genomic sequencing of cases
Australia’s health minister says he wants pre-flight Covid testing for travellers from China to be “temporary”, suggesting the requirement could be lifted if Beijing shares more information about its outbreak.
Mark Butler suggested on Thursday – the first day of the new testing regime – that the measure was put in place as part of an international push for China to provide real-time data on the genomic sequencing of Covid cases.
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Continue reading...NSW leader says counterparts will back moves to fix national health system, after raising issues with access to bulk-billing GPs
The New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, believes all state and territory leaders will be united in pressuring the federal government to overhaul Medicare and healthcare services through national cabinet.
Dominic Perrottet and his Victorian counterpart, Daniel Andrews, came out in agreement this week on calling for better integration between primary care and public health systems across the country.
Continue reading...Two drivers in hospital after alleged ‘high-speed accident’ at four-way intersection near Shepparton
Police are investigating whether some passengers of a car were wearing seatbelts at the time of an alleged high-speed crash between two vehicles that resulted in the deaths of four people in central Victoria.
Those killed were passengers in a Peugeot that collided with a Toyota Hilux ute at an intersection at Pine Lodge, near Shepparton, on Wednesday afternoon.
Continue reading...The Victorian capital is still on track to outpace Sydney as the biggest city in Australia but Covid lockdowns slowed that growth
Melbourne’s population growth turned negative during the pandemic as people fled prolonged Covid lockdowns, while Queensland welcomed a steady stream of people moving from other states, new population data shows.
The data from the Centre for Population showed Melbourne’s rate of population growth dropped from 1.8% in 2018-19 to -1.6% in 2020-21. Both international and interstate migration to Victoria fell, with annual population growth going backwards at -0.9%.
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Continue reading...Government says purchase of truck-mounted rockets ‘largest expansion of army strike capability in living memory’ with range extended from 50km to 300km
Australia will spend more than $1bn on new naval missiles and acquiring a US rocket artillery system used by the Ukrainian military.
The defence industry minister, Pat Conroy, said the acquisition of 20 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (Himars) including launchers, missiles and training rockets, from US defence contractor Lockheed Martin was the “largest expansion of army strike capability in living memory”, reflecting the need to deter threats in a time of “strategic uncertainty”.
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Continue reading...Unique case may set precedent as family alleges church’s failings caused man’s violence in later life
A Victorian court has paved the way for the children and wife of an abused altar boy to sue the Catholic church, alleging the church’s failings caused their father and husband to become a violent alcoholic and drug addict who beat them later in life.
The abuse victim, now dead, was an altar boy in north-west Victoria in the mid-1970s when he was allegedly raped by Father Bryan Coffey, a parish priest who allegedly used his role as the supervisor of the local school’s cross-country team to prey on children.
Continue reading...Search for Malaysia Airlines plane that disappeared with 239 people on board should resume now that new equipment and data is available, expert says
The Australian government should get behind a new search for the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the man who headed up the initial search says, now that new equipment and data is available.
Peter Foley was the program director for the international effort, led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, to find the plane. MH370 went down on 8 March 2014, with 239 people on board. The disappearance of the plane is one of the world’s greatest enduring mysteries.
Continue reading...Declining soil organic carbon could undermine state’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050
Forests in New South Wales could become net carbon emitters in coming decades, undermining state government efforts to reach net zero emissions, according to a report by one of its own agencies.
The Natural Resources Commission has warned the Perrottet government the carbon benefits the state’s forests provide are degrading and will continue to degrade without “major intervention”.
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Continue reading...Record flooding in Western Australian region forces evacuations. This blog is now closed
People battling floods in South Australia and now the Kimberley in Western Australia will be among those glad to see a shift back to more typical rainfall patterns.
As it happens, that sort of shift in climate influences looks to be under way, particularly as the La Niña in the Pacific continues to weaken.
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