Category Archives: Australia news

Victorian Greens leader ousts party’s state convener over past comments about trans people

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Parliamentary leader Samantha Ratnam says she acted under party rules to overturn the recent election of Linda Gale

The leader of the Victorian Greens has ousted the party’s controversial state convener after successfully applying to have recent election results set aside.

Linda Gale, a senior industrial officer at the National Tertiary Education Union, was elected last Saturday to fill a casual vacancy as state convener of the Victorian Greens, despite co-authoring a 2019 paper that had been labelled “transphobic”.

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Wallaroos defeated by Canada in stormy Pacific Four finale

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  • Australia fly home from Pacific Four tournament winless
  • Wallaroos face back-to-back Tests against Black Ferns in August

Australia’s womens rugby team, the Wallaroos, have been defeated 22-10 in a brave performance against world No 4 Canada in the wild weather of Whangarei, on New Zealand’s North Island.

The world No 8 ranked Wallaroos led the Pacific Four game early, after pushing the ball to the edges where winger Lori Cramer kicked ahead for halfback Layne Morgan to chase it down, snatch it up and win a penalty five metres out. A good leap at the line-out from lock Michaela Leonard secured possession for a fine forward drive for the line and hooker Ashley Marsters duly planted it over the stripe.

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Queensland cafe manager admits ‘little joke’ over Kardashian has turned into an ‘unbelievable mess’

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Matt Black says his claim the reality TV star and her boyfriend Pete Davidson had dined at restaurant had gotten twisted

It was a story that sparked chaos and excitement for a small cafe in far north Queensland.

On Thursday, in an interview with the ABC, the manager of a Cairns cafe claimed Kim Kardashian had joined her comedian boyfriend Pete Davidson for a meal the day before – in what appears to have been a hoax.

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Wildcard Kyrgios cruises into Halle semis after blowing away Busta

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  • Kyrgios into semis after defeating Pablo Carreno Busta 6-4 6-2
  • Australian No 2 on the verge of reaching his first grass-court final

With no histrionics and no dramas, just pure, no-nonsense enjoyment, Nick Kyrgios has roared into the semi-finals of the Halle grass-court tournament.

The Australian, so often sidetracked from his own brilliance by unnecessary distractions, was the model of businesslike concentration on Friday - with just the odd showman’s trick chucked in - as he blew away Top 20 baseliner Pablo Carreno Busta 6-4 6-2.

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Albanese urged to intervene in Assange case; Perrottet defends Barilaro job; at least 55 Covid deaths – as it happened

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NSW premier says John Barilaro’s new role ‘no surprise’ to him; government ministers say Assange case ‘should be brought to a close’. This blog is now closed

Could an eighth world title be in the offing?

AAP reports:

Once I got past Caroline [Marks], I was super confident and I knew I could do it.

Lakey [Peterson] is an amazing surfer, so I knew it was going to be a tough Final but it doesn’t get any better. I love doing this. I love winning, I love doing this sport.

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Catholic church uses paedophile priest’s death as shield against new allegations in NSW

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Lismore diocese wins halt on civil case after arguing woman had never complained before Clarence Anderson died in 1996

The Catholic church has used the death of a known paedophile priest to shield itself from being sued over new complaints of child sexual abuse.

Earlier this month, the Lismore diocese won its argument for a permanent stay of civil proceedings brought by a woman who was 14 years old when she was allegedly sexually assaulted by Father Clarence Anderson in 1968 inside her family home.

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Aboriginal people make up vast majority of pedestrian deaths in NT

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Families call for change as data shows Indigenous people on foot dying at a troubling rate

Kumanjayi Napurrula Dixon took the route 74 bus through Darwin’s outer south-eastern suburbs, got off at the last stop, and kept walking south along the Stuart Highway.

It was a Monday night, and the Anmatyerre grandmother was going to see her family at their camp near Coolalinga. She never made it. Between getting off the bus and making it to camp, she was allegedly hit by a car and died.

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Dan and Dom: the two premiers leading a vibe shift in Australian politics

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Differences between Daniel Andrews and Dominic Perrottet are part of their successful relationship

Victoria and New South Wales’ premiers, Daniel Andrews and Dominic Perrottet, couldn’t be more different: one is a progressive from Labor’s socialist left faction and the other a conservative from the Liberal party’s right.

But together, they represent a political vibe shift – a sense that long-term ambitions for their states can be achieved, with cooperation paramount.

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‘Great equaliser’: fears higher parking costs may limit access to iconic Sydney beaches

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NSW Council of Social Services says councils should not make beach visits out of reach for lower-income families

A trip to the beach is about to get more expensive as parking rates rise in some parts of Sydney, causing concerns they will put some of city’s best natural wonders out of reach for lower-income families already facing increasing cost-of-living pressures.

Mosman council said it will increase parking rates by up to 75% at popular spots, including Balmoral Beach.

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Russian billionaire launches legal action against Australia’s foreign minister over sanctions

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Alexander Abramov’s lawyer says his client has not ‘given aid or comfort’ to Russian government’s war in Ukraine

Russian billionaire Alexander Abramov has launched legal action against Australia’s minister for foreign affairs, seeking to be removed from the list of people the government has hit with sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.

Abramov, who lives in Switzerland and made a fortune estimated at more than US$6bn from the Russian steel industry, was among business, military and political figures sanctioned by Australia in April.

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Australia news live updates: Albanese extends Covid funding as nation records 51 deaths from virus; energy supply will meet weekend demand, Aemo says

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NSW premier says health funding ‘a great start’ after national cabinet meeting; electricity reserves improve across National Energy Market; ASX plunges to lowest level since November 2020; nation records 51 Covid deaths. Follow live

The PM is making the rounds this morning, appearing on Sunrise and repeating his line that almost a decade of “delay and denial” under the former Coalition government led to the current energy crisis (I feel like this will be a recurring theme today.)

People want an end to the nonsense that’s gone on for the last decade.

You can’t fix 10 years of inaction in just 10 days but we are taking immediate action through Aemo to make sure that the lights stay on. At the same time, we’re making sure that we create the investment environment to make sure we get it right.

The gas is actually the property of the people of the state, whichever state that is, and there should have always been enough for the state and the country in question. It just seems to me to be very strange that there’s no gas for local people yet.

Coal-fired power generation is very old technology and very difficult for coal plants to cope with renewables coming onto the grid, basically, new renewables every minute

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One in two young Australians experienced stressors during pandemic, data shows

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People aged 18 to 24 had to deal with mental ill health or job woes far more than older people, Australian Bureau of Statistics finds

Young people have experienced more stressors than older Australians throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new data.

On Friday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released new figures from its National Health Survey, on stressors, diet and breastfeeding. The survey collected information from 11,000 households around the country between August 2020 and June 2021.

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Craig Kelly staffer Frank Zumbo told alleged victim he was ‘very affectionate’ due to Italian heritage, court hears

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Zumbo, who has pleaded not guilty to 20 charges including sexual touching, insisted on driving woman to work so Liberal ‘spies’ wouldn’t see her catch bus

Former federal MP Craig Kelly’s office manager gave gift card vouchers to a young female employee and asked her to kiss him on the lips to repay the gesture, 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. The third alleged victim gave evidence on Friday at Downing Centre local court.

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Federal court strikes down key part of Coalition’s crackdown on class action funding

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Labor says decision called into question the legal basis for former government’s ‘absurd attempt to regulate funded class actions out of existence’

The federal court has removed a barrier to class actions imposed by the former Coalition government, a decision the new attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has welcomed as a “victory for ordinary Australians” seeking to pursue justice against big corporations or governments.

In 2020, the former government imposed a costly regulatory burden on litigation funders – entities that bankroll notoriously expensive class actions – to define them as managed investment schemes.

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Anthony Albanese backflips on national cabinet secrecy and refuses to say why

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PM opts to continue to prevent release of documents related to meetings with state leaders despite his previous criticism of the practice

Anthony Albanese has backflipped on national cabinet secrecy, opting to continue to prevent the release of documents related to meetings of the prime minister and state and territory leaders, despite strident criticism of the practice in opposition.

At a press conference after his first national cabinet meeting as prime minister, Albanese confirmed the commonwealth had not proposed ending the practice, despite his accusation that Scott Morrison was “obsessed with secrecy”. Albanese refused to answer questions about why he had backflipped on the matter.

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Sydney house prices still 20% above pre-pandemic levels despite rising interest rates

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Economists say while property prices could come down by up to 20%, affordability has ‘never been worse’

House prices in Sydney remain more than 20% above pre-Covid levels despite rising interest rates, as economists warn housing affordability has “never been worse”.

After hitting record highs in January, Sydney house prices have dropped -1.5%, but remain 22.7% above pre-2020 levels, according to CoreLogic data.

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Linda Burney launches campaign to raise support for referendum on First Nations voice to parliament

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Minister for Indigenous Australians tells crowd to ‘be loud and proud’ in expressing support for referendum

The government’s campaign to raise support for a referendum on a First Nations voice to parliament was launched to a packed and enthusiastic meeting in the inner west of Sydney on Thursday evening.

Australia’s new minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, received a standing ovation after she told the crowd at Marrickville town hall the Uluru Statement was an “incredibly generous invitation to the Australian people to walk together with First Nations people, and the journey begins here in Marrickville”.

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‘No alternative’: Greens MPs call for the party’s Victorian convener to resign

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Newly elected convener Linda Gale co-authored a 2019 document described as ‘inconsistent with Greens values’

Two Victorian Greens MPs say there is “no alternative” but for the party’s recently elected state convener to resign after she refused to disavow past comments that have been labelled “transphobic”.

Linda Gale, a senior industrial officer at the National Tertiary Education Union, was elected on Saturday to fill a casual vacancy of state convener of the Victorian Greens.

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Australian Medical Association calls for overhaul of national cabinet secrecy rules

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Omar Khorshid says Australians ‘have a right to know’ what is discussed, ahead of Anthony Albanese’s meeting with states and territories

Secrecy rules should not “automatically” apply to national cabinet documents and deliberations, the head of the Australian Medical Association has said.

Omar Khorshid made the comments ahead of Anthony Albanese’s first meetings with the state and territory leaders on Thursday evening. Friday’s meeting is expected to deliver major changes to the intergovernmental body, including a greater productivity reform focus.

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NT police officer accused of raping teenager acted as a ‘caring father figure’, court hears

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Patrick Carson took advantage of immature young woman who had recently arrived in Darwin, prosecutor tells trial

A police officer accused of raping a teenager exploited his position as a father figure to control his alleged victim, a Northern Territory court has been told.

Patrick Carson, aged 37 at the time of the alleged crime, has pleaded not guilty in the supreme court to raping the woman, then 19, twice in Darwin during 2020.

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