Controversial Collingwood star Jordan De Goey has been given personal leave by the AFL club, with no time frame set on his return.
It comes a day after he was hit with a $25,000 suspended fine and he apologised for his “disrespectful” conduct while partying in Bali.
Continue reading...Opposition denies claims of running a ‘low-level scare campaign’ on Perrottet government’s proposed land tax implementation
Public transport built in NSW, toll relief and 100 new public preschools will centre the state opposition’s budget reply speech, as the NSW treasurer, Matt Kean, continues selling his “reform” agendaahead the state’s March polling date.
Chris Minns, the NSW opposition leader, will on Thursday unveil a number of pledges but will stop short of presenting his entire pitch to the voting public, with his plans for home ownership remaining under wraps despite an earlier attack on the government’s planned stamp duty reform for first home buyers.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...Hough Pharma, which supplies home tests to Coles and Woolworths, allegedly failed to provide reports or appropriate customer support
A major supplier of Covid-19 rapid antigen tests to Coles and Woolworths has been fined $106,560 for allegedly failing to keep Australia’s drug regulator informed about the safety and performance of the tests.
Hough Pharma Pty Ltd was issued multiple infringement notices by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) on Thursday for what the agency described as “serial non-compliance” with regulatory requirements.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...Woman repeatedly told Zumbo she did not want physical contact with him, Sydney court told
A senior staff member of former MP Craig Kelly told a young woman that no man she could marry would ever love her more than he did, despite her telling him she had no romantic interest in him and repeatedly rebuffing his requests for physical contact, a Sydney court has heard.
Francesco “Frank” Zumbo, 55, is facing 20 charges, including sexual touching and indecent assault, linked to accusations by five women between 2014 and 2020.
Continue reading...Dominic Perrottet called on to halt Barilaro appointment pending inquiry; at least 63 Covid deaths recorded nationwide. This blog is now closed
NSW teacher strike ‘about politics, not pay’, Kean says
Matt Kean has hit out at plans by public and Catholic school teachers to strike next Friday after receiving a 3% pay rise offer, well below the rate of inflation.
Our 3% pay increase is far more than the Labor government’s 1.5% pay increase for public servants down in Victoria.
So the same unions complaining about our generous pay rise up here in NSW and protesting aren’t marching in the streets down in Victoria.
A senior woman, a senior public servant with knowledge of financial markets and trade particularly with the United States was offered the job, it was rescinded by the New South Wales government.
We don’t know by whom. And then John Barilaro mysteriously was given it just last week.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Investment NSW chief executive did not have ‘conflict of interest’, agency says after former deputy premier’s appointment to $500,000-a-year role
A senior public servant who reported directly to John Barilaro before his resignation from parliament was on the interview panel who gave the former deputy New South Wales premier a $500,000-a-year trade commissioner job, but the agency involved says there was no conflict of interest.
Amy Brown, the chief executive of Investment NSW, was one of four bureaucrats who interviewed Barilaro for the New York-based trade commissioner job.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...Packs contain 52 photos of dead and missing people in initiative backed by victims’ families
Packs of playing cards featuring cold-case murder victims and missing people will be distributed to New South Wales inmates in the hope of solving serious crimes.
The cards, which were produced by prisoners working in Corrective Services Industries, feature photographs and information about 52 unsolved homicide cases or suspicious disappearances.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...Pressure grows on state government to increase public sector salaries to meet cost of living
Record health funding promised in the Queensland budget is meaningless without a wages policy that attracts essential workers and keeps pace with cost of living increases, unions say.
Michael Clifford, the general secretary of the Queensland Council of Unions, said the 2022 budget surplus should be channelled into a fair pay increase for public sector workers after years of stagnant wages.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...Accusations of academics being paid per piece, rather than per hour, comes amid widespread higher education wage complaints
The National Tertiary Education Union has accused Victoria’s Deakin University of paying casual academics per student assignment marked, rather than an hourly rate, in a formal dispute notice lodged with the institution.
The alleged breach of the institution’s enterprise agreement comes amid an underpayment scandal that has plagued Australia’s tertiary sector for the past two years. The Fair Work Ombudsman is investigating 11 cases of potential wage theft at universities.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...Robertson might be tiny but for poet and schoolteacher Peter Ramm, it is the secret weapon that helped him win the UK’s biggest prize for unpublished poetry
Robertson is a small, pretty town perched on the edge of the New South Wales southern highlands, almost teetering on the escarpment that falls away to the Illawarra and Shoalhaven coasts.
It is most famous as the home of The Big Potato – an appropriately tuber-shaped concrete monolith on the main street – and a triumphant rugby league team called the Spuddies.
Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter
Continue reading...Dennis Basic, 42, had pleaded guilty to animal cruelty, assaulting police and throwing a missile following Melbourne protests in 2020 and 2021
An anti-lockdown protester has been jailed for throwing a heavy bollard at a mounted officer and hitting a police horse in the head during separate protests in Melbourne.
Ex-Hells Angels bikie Dennis Basic, 42, was sentenced to 26 months and 14 days in prison on Tuesday for a dozen offences including assaulting an emergency worker, animal cruelty and recklessly causing injury.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...Gladys Berejiklian told Jenny West she had the job in August but that offer was later rescinded and the role readvertised
The New South Wales government offered a plum trade commissioner job to a senior public servant with a stellar résumé, only to rescind the offer and later appoint the former deputy premier John Barilaro after readvertising the $500,000-a-year role.
Barliaro’s New York appointment was not signed off by cabinet, even though it had overseen a series of identical appointments to other cities.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...NSW Teachers Federation president says Dominic Perrottet ‘did nothing’ to improve ‘uncompetitive salaries and unsustainable workloads’
Public and Catholic school teachers in New South Wales will strike next week after the state government handed down its budget on Tuesday including the already announced 3% lift to the public wage cap, which the NSW Teachers Federation and the Independent Education Union say will act as a cut to real wages.
Unions representing other public sectors will meet over the coming week to decide on next steps once they have had a chance to examine the budget papers, which union bosses claimed lack detail.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...Bureau of Meteorology says winter will be wetter than average and a rare three-in-a-row La Niña is still on the cards
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has announced an end to the 2021-22 La Niña in the tropical Pacific – but it could return with the BoM changing its status to “watch”.
La Niña, which involves warming ocean temperatures in the western Pacific, typically delivers increased rainfall across much of Australia along with cooler daytime temperatures south of the tropics and warmer night-time temperatures in the north.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...Conservationists celebrate $200m fund for expanding national park land but concerns remain over lack of spending on renewables and emissions reduction
Queensland conservationists are celebrating a state budget with unprecedented funding for new national parks, but others are outraged it “does nothing” to address the climate emergency.
On Tuesday, the Palaszczuk government committed $262.5m to protecting more land for nature. That included $200m for expanding the national park estate, a figure the World Wide Fund for Nature described as the largest single investment in national parks acquisition in the state’s history.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...Tasneem was allegedly killed in front of her father after being taken to northern Pakistan from Perth with her three children
An Australian woman has allegedly been bludgeoned to death by her father-in-law with an axe in northern Pakistan after an argument about moving back to Australia with her children.
Sajida Tasneem was allegedly killed in front of her father at a home she shared with her in-laws in the city of Sargodha, 250km south of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, on 11 June.
Continue reading...Twitter suspends two fake accounts pretending to be Fatima Payman; nation records at least 59 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed
Victoria is reporting a spike in Covid related deaths, after 28 people lost their lives overnight:
Rally outside NSW parliament to protest government’s wages policy
We are losing skilled teachers, nurses, cleaners – and we’re going to have more pressure in NSW for services to be provided that we can’t retain.
It’s not much to ask and the government needs to act.
Continue reading...Researchers estimate that carbon emissions from transporting food are about 6% of the global total, with fruit and vegetables the largest contributor
Transporting food from where it is produced to our dinner plates creates at least triple the amount of greenhouse gas emissions as previously estimated, a new study suggests.
So called “food miles” are likely responsible for about 6% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, the authors of the study found after calculating that 3bn tonnes of CO2-equivalent was produced in transporting food for human consumption each year.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Continue reading...Report finds Australia’s ‘Pacific step-up’ could lack credibility if perceived to be only in response to China’s presence
Australia must move on from a “crisis mentality” as it seeks to reset its relationship with Pacific island countries, including by rejoining a key UN climate fund, a thinktank says.
Australia must do more than simply position itself as a first responder to natural disasters if it is to become “an effective climate ally with the Pacific”, according to a series of policy papers to be published on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Funding boosts in social housing, health and rail projects flagged ahead of Tuesday’s budget
The Palaszczuk government has been relatively tight-lipped ahead of the state budget being handed down on Tuesday.
Over the past few weeks, the New South Wales government has made a series of major announcements – totalling more than $30bn in commitments – in the weeks leading up to an election budget, also being handed down on Tuesday.
Continue reading...