Category Archives: Australia news

Albanese government urged to keep focus on human rights as it rebuilds relationships in Asia

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Thawing diplomatic relations with China shouldn’t mean ‘taking a backwards step with Beijing’, Human Rights Watch says

The Albanese government should not compromise on human rights as it seeks to repair relationships with China and south-east Asian countries, a leading advocacy group has warned.

Human Rights Watch has written to the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, urging him to “impose targeted sanctions against Chinese government officials who are responsible for crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang.

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Parts of John Hughes’ novel The Dogs copied from The Great Gatsby and Anna Karenina

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Australian author denies he is a plagiarist and says he has been ‘influenced by the greats’ of literature

The Australian novelist John Hughes, who last week admitted to “unintentionally” plagiarising parts of a Nobel laureate’s novel, appears to have also copied without acknowledgment parts of The Great Gatsby, Anna Karenina and other classic texts in his new book The Dogs.

The revelation of new similarities follows an investigation by Guardian Australia which resulted in Hughes’ 2021 novel being withdrawn from the longlist of the $60,000 Miles Franklin literary award.

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National electricity market suspended as NSW residents told to conserve power to reduce blackout risk

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Australian Energy Market Operator suspends spot market after it became ‘impossible to operate’ amid projected energy shortfalls

Australia’s main wholesale electricity market has been suspended by regulators in the latest sign that the crisis threatening the stability of energy supplies is deepening.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) took the drastic step of suspending the entire national electricity market for the first time in its history on Wednesday.

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Encrypted messaging apps should be regulated to tackle extremism, Victorian inquiry hears

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Experts say spread of misinformation and use of encrypted services drives far-right extremists and racism

The federal government needs to take action against encrypted messaging apps like Telegram to curb the rise of far-right extremism, a Victorian inquiry has been told.

Dr Belinda Barnet, a media lecturer at Swinburne University, told a hearing that far-right extremists had initially been sharing hateful content on mainstream sites such as Facebook and Twitter but were increasingly being deplatformed.

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‘Not a 24-hour operation’: Shane Fitzsimmons defends Resilience NSW response to floods

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Inquiry hears of residents’ anger that disaster agencies treated flood response as a ‘nine-to-five job’

New South Wales disaster management agencies have defended their rescue and recovery response to the record-breaking floods that claimed 13 lives earlier this year.

An upper house committee inquiry also heard that fewer than 10% of flood victims across the state have received crucial disaster relief funds.

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Greens senator questions viability of new party convener over past comments about trans people

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

Greens senator Janet Rice says the position of the party’s recently elected Victorian convener is “untenable” unless she distances herself from previous 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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NSW residents urged to conserve power – as it happened

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Paul Erickson speaks at National Press Club; Bowen says energy system ‘under pressure’; AEC says it will not conduct a recount in federal seat of Gilmore; foreign affairs minister’s first trip to Solomon Islands since security deal with China; Victoria records 18 Covid deaths, NSW records 14. This blog is now closed

Quick note:

NSW is reporting 7,260 new Covid cases and 14 deaths this morning.

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Most emergency patients in NSW seen within 30 minutes during Omicron outbreak, report suggests

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NSW Health secretary says emergency departments remain under significant pressure due to high Covid-19 and flu cases

During the peak of the Omicron outbreak the majority of emergency department patients in New South Wales were seen within 30 minutes, a new report from the Bureau of Health Information (BHI) has revealed.

The report, which covers the period of January to March 2022, looks at how the health system coped with the thousands of daily Covid cases during the Omicron wave.

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‘Situation is urgent’: treat housing crisis like a natural disaster, Queensland government told

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Advocates call for a leaders’ meeting to coordinate support for people displaced by floods, pandemic and soaring house prices

The Queensland government should respond to the deepening housing crisis as it would a natural disaster and invest billions in new housing stock, advocates say.

It should also convene leaders from the sector to form that response and guarantee the 2032 Brisbane Olympics do not fuel homelessness and housing stress.

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Queensland casino inquiry could impact on $3.6bn project, gambling expert says

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Probe ordered into Star’s suitability to hold licence amid construction of Queen’s Wharf development

One of Australia’s leading gambling researchers says the business case for Brisbane’s $3.6bn Queen’s Wharf development could possibly collapse if Star Entertainment were to be stripped of its casino licence.

The state’s attorney general, Shannon Fentiman, has ordered a probe into the casino operator’s suitability to hold a licence in Queensland after a New South Wales inquiry heard allegations Star had potentially acted criminally.

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Fastest-growing black hole of past 9bn years may have been found, Australian-led astronomers say

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Scientists spot extremely luminous object powered by supermassive black hole using Coonabarabran telescope

Astronomers believe they have discovered the fastest-growing black hole of the past 9bn years.

The supermassive black hole consumes the equivalent of one Earth every second and has the mass of 3bn suns, they estimate.

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Australia news live updates: Queensland on brink of power outage as eastern states battle big chill; WA to shut state-owned coal plants

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Penny Wong to visit New Zealand foreign minister; at least 31 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

Lack of reserve notice from energy regulator

It’s going to be a long day by the looks of it when it comes to “lack of reserve” notices and intervention by the Australian Energy Market Operator, such as this early one in NSW:

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Western Australia to become coal-free by 2030 with Muja power station to be shut down

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Mark McGowan says state’s two remaining coal-fired power stations are becoming less viable due to rise of renewable energy

The Western Australian government will shut its last coal-fired power unit before the end of the decade and spend an extra half a billion dollars to foster new jobs for displayed workers, the state government said.

Later this year, the first of the state-owned 854-megawatt Muja power station’s units near Collie, south of Perth, will close, with the entire plant to be shut by 2029. The nearby 340MW Collie plant will exit the market by the end of 2027, the premier, Mark McGowan, said in a statement on Tuesday.

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NSW education department launches legal action against teachers union over May strikes

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State government accuses New South Wales Teachers Federation of breaching orders from Industrial Relations Commission

The New South Wales Teachers Federation is facing potential court-ordered penalties because of widespread strikes in May over pay and conditions in public schools.

In a lawsuit, the state’s Department of Education accused the union of breaching orders made by the NSW Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) in November last year ordering it to refrain from further industrial action.

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Whoopi Goldberg joins international backlash over Sydney Morning Herald’s treatment of Rebel Wilson

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Editor Bevan Shields has now accepted full responsibility for the paper’s coverage and apologised for the delay in acknowledging mistakes were made

The international backlash against the Sydney Morning Herald over its reporting of Rebel Wilson’s new relationship with fashion designer Ramona Agruma has intensified, with celebrities including Whoopi Goldberg now criticising the masthead.

Columnist Andrew Hornery and Herald editor Bevan Shields have this week apologised after Wilson was given a two-day deadline to respond to plans to write about the relationship.

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Sacking of Melbourne worker homeschooling children found to be discriminatory

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Tribunal finds dental assistant was unlawfully discriminated against during Victoria’s Covid restrictions

A Melbourne dental assistant has been awarded $12,000 after she was sacked during the Covid-19 pandemic while forced to homeschool her children.

Fiona Carpenter took her former employer Pearly Whites to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, claiming she was discriminated against because of her family responsibilities and a broken foot.

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ASX: Australian stocks close almost 3.6% down after global sell-off on inflation fears

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Benchmark ASX200 index closes 246 points lower, after falling 360 points in the first 15 minutes of trading on Tuesday

Australian shares have joined a global retreat, ending almost 3.6% lower, as investors fear central banks will lift interest rates more aggressively, slashing economic growth and companies’ profits.

The benchmark ASX200 share index of the top 200 companies lost just over 5.2% within the first quarter an hour of trading, or more than 360 points. The losses, though, were pared by the end, with the market ending 246 points lower at 6,686. The Australian dollar also remained below 70 US cents.

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Court hears claims Lynette Dawson was seen alive in months after her 1982 disappearance

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Chris Dawson’s murder trial hears audio recordings of Ross Hutcheon telling police of alleged Sydney sighting

Lynette Dawson’s brother-in-law claimed he saw her alive in Sydney after she disappeared in 1982, the New South Wales supreme court has heard.

In the murder trial of Chris Dawson on Tuesday, audio recordings were played of an interview Ross Hutcheon, Dawson’s brother-in-law, gave to police in March 2019 and evidence he gave to the local court in February 2020.

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Columnist apologises after being accused of trying to out Rebel Wilson

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Andrew Hornery, gossip columnist for Sydney Morning Herald, says he regrets how he handled the story

An Australian newspaper columnist has apologised after being accused of trying to out the actor Rebel Wilson.

Andrew Hornery, who writes a gossip column for the Sydney Morning Herald, said he regretted how he handled the story – which has been characterised as an attempt to expose the sexuality of the Pitch Perfect star.

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Electricity consumers in Queensland cut use to avoid blackouts as NSW and Victoria face shortages

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Market operator in talks with large consumers as country faces energy crisis mainly due to poorly performing coal-fired generators

Some of Queensland’s biggest consumers agreed to cut their power use on Monday to help the grid avoid blackouts, and similar requests could be made in New South Wales and Victoria on Tuesday if regulators maintain forecasts for potential electricity shortfalls.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) on Monday afternoon started talks with big consumers under its Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (Rert) scheme to head off a gap projected at one stage to be 1,454 megawatts in Queensland at 5.30pm.

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