Category Archives: Australia news

Dutton tight-lipped over how many voluntary redundancies would be offered in public service cuts plan

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Opposition under pressure to release secret modelling and costings revealing how it plans to downsize the public service by 41,000 jobs by 2030

Peter Dutton has dodged revealing how many voluntary redundancies could be offered as part of the opposition’s plan to downsize the public service by 41,000 jobs by 2030.

Speaking at a conveyor manufacturing factory in Perth on Friday, the opposition leader avoided providing further details about the plan.

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Coalition election win could cause loss of hundreds of jobs at agency scrutinising aged care mistreatment, modelling says

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Exclusive: Peter Dutton’s plan to reduce public service may see 26.5% jobs at Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission disappear, according to union

Hundreds of jobs could be lost at the government agency responsible for investigating allegations of serious wrongdoing and mistreatment in aged care homes if the Coalition wins the election, the public sector union has warned.

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission has hired more than 500 public servants since the 2022 election to deal with a backlog of complaints from residents and to resolve a “staggering” number of real, potential or perceived conflicts of interest involving consultants paid millions of dollars to conduct audits in homes.

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Australian comedian ditches US trip due to concern she could be denied entry over Trump jokes

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Alice Fraser thought she was being paranoid until her lawyer advised her jokes about Donald Trump and Elon Musk could be scrutinised at US airport

An award-winning Australian comedian has cancelled a planned trip to the US after receiving legal advice that she could be stopped at the border due to her previous jokes about the Trump administration.

Alice Fraser, who has appeared on Australia’s ABC and the BBC and toured internationally, was due to head to New York in the first week of May to promote her recently published book.

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‘Every year matters’: Queensland’s critically endangered ‘bum-breathing’ turtle battles the odds

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Guardian Australia is highlighting the plight of our endangered native species during an election campaign that is ignoring broken environment laws and rapidly declining ecosystems

A rare “bum-breathing” turtle found in a single river system in Queensland has suffered one of its worst breeding seasons on record due to flooding last December. It has prompted volunteers to question how many more “bad years” the species can survive.

A freshwater species that breathes by absorbing oxygen through gill-like structures in its tail, the Mary River turtle is endemic to south-east Queensland. Its population has fallen by more than 80% since the 1960s and its conservation status was upgraded from endangered to critically endangered last year.

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NSW solar farm to supply almost half energy needs of major gas company

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Shift away from fossil fuels by BOC is expected to cut company’s Australian emissions 40% by 2035 and follows similar commitment by Rio Tinto

A major industrial gas company in Australia will shift its power use away from fossil fuels and instead meet nearly half its electricity needs across three states from solar.

BOC, owned by global gas and engineering company Linde, supplies speciality gases to large manufacturers, industry and oxygen to hospitals.

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‘A time of great anxiety’: renters fear surge in no-grounds evictions before NSW ban comes into force

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Housing organisations welcome the new laws but are bracing for a spike in evictions before the change takes effect

Renters and advocates are worried there could be a surge in no-grounds evictions in New South Wales over the coming month as landlords act ahead of the law changing in mid-May.

The Tenants’ Union of NSW says it’s a “real risk” and the Minns government has dropped the ball by not putting interim measures in place to protect renters.

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Gender politics: will the 2025 election send more female MPs to Australia’s parliament?

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Labor has made great strides towards gender equality among its MPs and senators, but the number of female Coalition members remains stubbornly low

The 47th parliament was Australia’s most diverse to date. Both houses broke records for gender, ethnic and cultural diversity.

Across both houses in the outgoing parliament, the gender split was 55% to 45% in favour of men. Women made up 39% of the House of Representatives and 58% of the Senate.

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NSW government considering buying back Northern Beaches hospital amid Healthscope debt crisis

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Recent incidents, including the death of a newborn, have heightened concerns about the level of care at the hospital

The New South Wales government is considering buying back the public hospital component of Northern Beaches hospital, as its private owner, Healthscope, faces a looming financial crisis.

The government said on Thursday it had been notified of a proposal by Healthscope seeking to have the hospital returned to the NSW public system.

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Dutton ducks question on Liberal party vetting amid concerns over charge against Melbourne candidate

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Opposition leader remains quiet on how Coalition will achieve promise to save $7bn through public service cuts

Peter Dutton has ducked questions about the quality of the Liberal party’s vetting processes after concerns were raised about a 2024 charge against a Melbourne candidate in the latest saga surrounding the party’s candidates.

The opposition leader, who visited a metalworks factory in the Labor-held seat of Aston in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs on Thursday, would also not divulge details about how his promise to achieve $7bn in savings by cutting 41,000 public service jobs by 2030 could match Labor’s plans to dramatically lift bulk-billing rates.

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Sacked Melbourne lawyer who chucked sickie to go to the AFL loses bid to get his job back

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Fair Work Commission finds Mitchell Fuller was not unfairly dismissed for taking a sick day while at the AFL Gather Round in Adelaide

A Melbourne lawyer who pulled a sickie so he could attend the AFL Gather Round in South Australia has failed in a bid to get his job back after his own social media posts proved he was fit for work.

The Fair Work Commission found this week that Mitchell Fuller, who was fired as a solicitor with Madison Branson Lawyers in August last year, was not unfairly dismissed.

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Virgin Australia offers refunds to 61,000 passengers after charging incorrect itinerary change fees

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The airline has apologised and begun informing passengers who are eligible for a refund, with an average value of $55

Virgin Australia is offering refunds to more than 60,000 passengers, after an internal error led to inflated itinerary change fees being charged over the past five years.

The airline has apologised and launched an itinerary change claim program, as it begins informing passengers who are eligible for refunds over the incorrect fees charged to customers making changes to their bookings between 21 April 2020 and 31 March this year.

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Pet dogs have ‘extensive and multifarious’ impact on environment, new research finds

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Scale of environmental damage attributed to huge number of dogs globally as well as ‘lax or uninformed behaviour of dog owners’

Dogs have “extensive and multifarious” environmental impacts, disturbing wildlife, polluting waterways and contributing to carbon emissions, new research has found.

An Australian review of existing studies has argued that “the environmental impact of owned dogs is far greater, more insidious, and more concerning than is generally recognised”.

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Chalmers calls Coalition’s economic plan an ‘ambush’ as Taylor plugs spending cuts in treasurers’ debate

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Opposition and Labor offer opposing pitches for economy in treasurers’ debate hosted by Sky News

Jim Chalmers has laid into “Peter Dutton’s coalition of cuts and chaos” in a heated televised debate with Angus Taylor, who took aim at a Labor party he claimed had overseen the “biggest collapse in our living standards in history”.

The treasurer and his counterpart went head-to-head in a debate hosted by Sky News on Wednesday night, answering questions on US tariffs, the cost-of-living crisis, energy and housing.

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Court battle by survivor of Catholic church abuse will help others challenge past settlements, lawyers say

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Man praised for ‘towering courage’ in paving way for survivors to challenge past settlements that effectively protected church institutions

Lawyers for an abuse survivor say a high court ruling on Wednesday will pave the way for more survivors to challenge past settlements that “served only to protect the church institutions” from paying out genuine compensation.

The survivor, known as DZY, was confronted with insurmountable legal barriers to his planned civil action against the Christian Brothers in 2012 over abuse at the hands of two Catholic brothers, brothers Robert Best and Gerald Fitzgerald, in the 1960s.

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‘Where am I going to go?’ Dismay as Queensland council begins tearing down tent encampment

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Homeless residents given an hour to move belongings as City of Moreton Bay brings excavator to Eddie Hyland Park in Lawnton

Homeless residents of one of Moreton Bay’s largest encampments watched on as council rangers and an excavator began tearing down their tents on Wednesday.

A dozen police and council officers arrived at Eddie Hyland Park in Lawnton on Wednesday morning. The large park, next to the Pine Rivers Showgrounds, has been home to a dozen or more people, with about 15 tents standing when authorities arrived on Wednesday morning.

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Australia election 2025 live: Bowen says Coalition modelling on gas bill savings is a ‘scamphlet’ missing important detail

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Follow today’s news live

Health minister grilled on Labor’s $1bn mental health package

The health minister, Mark Butler, says Labor will not technically be building new mental health centres under its $1bn mental health promise.

We’re not building them. This is to fund the operations of these centres. Generally, they will rent existing premises.

They won’t be brand-new buildings. What we will do, say, in a particular area of say, north Brisbane or regional Queensland – we say we want to establish - let’s use the word establish other than build.

Head to Health – no one knew what it was, okay?

We did research. We basically, looked at how the existing services, which had started under the former government, were performing.

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Asian markets fall as Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, including 104% against China, due to take effect – business live

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Stock markets down from Australia to Japan and Taiwan as Trump presses ahead with plans to hit China with huge retaliatory tariffs

Today’s tariffs follow Trump’s 10% tariff on all imports from many countries, including Australia, which came into effect at the weekend.

US customs agents began collecting the unilateral tariff at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses on Saturday. Today’s measures are higher levies on goods from 57 larger trading partners.

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Palau president backs Australia’s bid to host Cop31 climate summit after Dutton labels it ‘madness’

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Surangel Whipps Jr says he would be ‘deeply disappointed’ if attempt were abandoned under Coalition

The president of Palau has delivered a pointed barb at Peter Dutton while strongly backing an Australian bid to host a UN climate conference on behalf of the Pacific, arguing that it would boost regional solidarity and he would be “deeply disappointed” if the attempt was abandoned under the Coalition.

Speaking at a renewable energy conference in Sydney on Wednesday, Surangel Whipps Jr described seeing two-thirds of an island in his archipelago country disappear under water in his lifetime. “For those of us in the Pacific who have lived through storm surges, rising ocean levels and increasingly high tides, the phrase ‘water lapping at our door’ is not a metaphor or a punchline. It’s our fear and reality,” he said.

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Double murderer fails in bid to overturn Queensland’s no body, no parole laws

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Rodney Cherry was found guilty of killing his wife and stepdaughter but argued no body, no parole became law after he was sentenced

A double murderer has failed in a high court bid to overturn Queensland’s “no body, no parole” laws, in a case which also involved almost every other state and territory government.

Rodney Michael Cherry, 65, was found guilty in 2002 of killing his 35-year-old wife, Annette Cherry, and 18-year-old stepdaughter, Kira Guise, at Roma in central Queensland and sentenced to life in prison.

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Australian government gave $2.7m to Elon Musk’s X for advertisements in billionaire’s first year as owner

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Exclusive: Spending came after the Albanese government paused ads for a week amid reports ads were appearing next to inappropriate content

The Australian government spent nearly $3m of taxpayer dollars advertising on Twitter/X in the first year after the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, took over the platform, despite warnings of brand reputation damage that caused the government to initially pause ads.

Data obtained by Guardian Australia, after a protracted freedom of information battle with the federal finance department, revealed $2.7m was spent between November 2022 and November 2023. Musk finalised his purchase of the platform on 28 October 2022.

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