Category Archives: Australia news

Future Fund worth $250bn says FoI requests ‘administratively burdensome’

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Fund says ‘hundreds of hours a year’ are required to process requests that would be shielded under proposed Coalition legislation

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The $250bn Future Fund says receiving 10 to 20 freedom of information requests a year is “administratively burdensome” and has confirmed proposed changes by the Morrison government would have shielded it from the kind of request that exposed investments in a company linked to the Myanmar military.

Last month, the Coalition introduced a bill granting wide-ranging exemptions to the Future Fund from freedom of information law, prompting criticism that it was a “calculated response” to an FoI that revealed its $3.2m investment in an Adani company criticised by the United Nations for an arrangement that gave financial support to the Myanmar military.

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South Australian eagle fossil identified as one of the oldest raptor species in the world

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The 25m-year-old fossil reveals ancient eagle had features unlike any seen among modern hawks and eagles

A 25m-year-old eagle fossil discovered on a remote outback cattle station in South Australia has been identified as one of the oldest raptor species in the world.

Palaeontologists discovered the eagle fossil on the shore of a dry lake known as Lake Pinpa in 2016, and have since identified it as a new species, Archaehierax sylvestris, in a study published in the journal Historical Biology.

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Sick, broke and waiting for the disability support pension

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A Senate inquiry has been told Australia’s disability payment rules need to be ‘rewritten’ as people struggle for months, or even years, before receiving support – with some draining their super, relying on charity or accruing thousands of dollars of credit card debt to get by. Many are also forced onto the lower jobseeker payment, with government data showing that 36% of jobseeker recipients are sick or have a disability.

Laura Murphy-Oates speaks to 28-year-old Natasha Thomson, whose two-year battle to access the payment ended up at the top level of the administrative appeal tribunal, and inequality editor Luke Henriques-Gomes, about the barriers to accessing the disability support pension and the push for reform

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Australia Covid live news update: NSW outlines reopening plan as state records 787 cases, 12 deaths; Victoria 705 cases, one death

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ACT eases some restrictions after recording 19 cases, one death; Gladys Berejiklian announces 11 October as day NSW restrictions ease after state records 787 cases and 12 deaths; Victoria records one death and 705 cases; no new cases in Qld; NT continues with reopening plans; 12 new cases in NZ. Follow all the day’s news

A...scamdemic? AAP reports that a record amount has been scammed from Australians this year.

Australians have lost a record $211m to scams so far this year, with people bombarded by bogus calls and texts purportedly from well-known businesses or the government.

The losses between 1 January and 19 September this year have surpassed the $175.6m reported to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch throughout 2020.

The prestigious Melbourne University joins several other tertiary institutions in announcing mandatory vaccination policies.

The University of Melbourne will make having a COVID-19 vaccine a compulsory requirement for attending any of its campuses. Exemptions to apply on medical or eligibility grounds. #springst @UniMelb

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Tony awards 2021: Australian musical Moulin Rouge! triumphs in a Broadway celebration

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The adaptation of Baz Luhrmann’s musical picked up 10 awards in a ceremony that also acted as a comeback for New York theatre

Moulin Rouge! swept the board at the 2021 Tony awards, picking up 10 trophies during a ceremony that also acted as a celebration of the return of Broadway.

The adaptation of Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 Oscar-winning musical, which reopened on 24 September, became the first Australian-produced show to win a Tony for best musical, beating Jagged Little Pill and Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.

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Over 50% of Australians over 16 are fully vaccinated; Berejiklian reopening plans coming ‘next week’ – as it happened

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All the day’s news, as it happened. This blog has now closed

Enjoy your evening, all, and thanks for having me! Here’s just a taste of what we learned today:

In case you missed this earlier (I did) please enjoy this piece by Arwa Mahdawi on cancel culture, critical race theory and ... sexy seahorses.

It’s very easy to laugh at a bunch of rightwing moms clutching their pearls over sexy seahorses – but there’s nothing funny about the systemic, organised way in which conservatives are trying to rewrite history and restrict freedom of speech.

Related: Laugh at the outrage over ‘sexy seahorses’ – but there’s nothing funny about conservatives trying to rewrite history | Arwa Mahdawi

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Keen spirit: Australian cyclist uses GPS to recreate Nirvana’s Nevermind cover

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Enthusiast marks album’s 30th anniversary with 150km ride around Adelaide using Strava to sketch naked baby

The naked Nirvana baby has been recreated yet again – this time on the unsuspecting streets of Adelaide.

Pete Stokes rode about 150km on a single-speed bike to sketch the outline of the famous Nevermind cover. His efforts, tracked by GPS-based site Strava, show the baby’s (slightly angry) face over the CBD and the banknote over the leafy eastern suburbs of Burnside and Kensington.

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‘We feel we’re not going to get really sick’: why the pandemic hasn’t dissuaded ocean cruisers

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Travel agents report Australians’ interest in cruising increasing 40% each month since June, with one analyst describing it as ‘the Teflon market for travel’

On 16 September, Miami-based Oceania Cruises, a luxury culinary-focused cruise company that is a division of Norwegian Cruise Lines, set an all-time, single-day booking record. It was driven by the introduction of its newest ship, Vista, due to take its first passengers in April 2023. Nearly half the available inventory of Vista’s inaugural season was sold in one day. These were new cash bookings, 30% of which came from people booking with the company for the first time.

It’s hard to know what this means for Australia. According to Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), 1.34 million Australians took a cruise in 2018, one of the highest rates in the world by population, yet international travel is currently off limits.

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‘Psychedelics renaissance’: new wave of research puts hallucinogenics forward to treat mental health

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In what’s been described as a ‘paradigm shifter’ for psychiatry, Australian clinical trials are exploring the therapeutic benefits of illegal substances

It was out of desperation that Michael Raymond found himself sitting in a remote retreat in the Peruvian Andes, sipping a cup of bitter tea.

Raymond had reached breaking point. His 16-year career as an electrical engineer in high–security situations for the Australian air force had seen him deal with near-death experiences, crashes, casualties and “the aftermath of human remains”.

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NSW frontline medical staff gagged as health system braces for Covid peak

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NSW Health and hospital codes of conduct restrict staff from speaking to media, leading to scarce insight into their experiences

As New South Wales hospitals brace for the peak in admissions and overwhelmed intensive care units next month, the voices of those on the frontline are strangely muted.

Often it is family members, union representatives, professional bodies and patients who are providing a window into what life is like for frontline staff in NSW hospitals.

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Is there a link between motor neurone disease and blue-green algae? NSW expert calls for closer look

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A neurology professor wants MND to be listed as a notifiable disease to help investigate suspected environmental links

A top neurologist has called on the New South Wales government to list motor neurone disease (MND) as a notifiable disease amid suspicions a cluster of diagnoses in the state could be linked to something in the environment.

Prof Dominic Rowe, a neurologist at Macquarie University, has treated 889 MND patients – many from the NSW irrigation town of Griffith – in the past decade.

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Victoria has record number of cases and police swarm St Kilda protesters – as it happened

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Western Australia upgrades travel ban against Victoria to ‘extreme risk’, the same category as NSW. This blog is now closed

This is where we’ll leave our live coverage of news for today. You can follow our live coverage of the AFL grand final here and our coverage of the NRL preliminary final here.

But first, let’s recap the day.

Related: AFL 2021 grand final: Melbourne Demons v Western Bulldogs – live!

A planned sixth day of protests in Melbourne was a flop but more are planned for tomorrow, AAP reports.

Police have snuffed out a sixth day of anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine protests in Melbourne, dispersing and arresting would-be demonstrators.

Hundreds of police lined St Kilda beach and arrested dozens of people on Saturday as protesters initially gathered at Luna Park.

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‘Free and open’: Quad leaders call for ‘stable’ Indo-Pacific in veiled China dig

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Joe Biden meets leaders of Australia, India and Japan in latest effort to cement US leadership in Asia

US president Joe Biden and the leaders of Australia, India and Japan highlighted their Quad group’s role in safeguarding a stable, democratic Indo-Pacific in a veiled dig at rival China.

The first in-person summit of the Quad held on Friday marked Biden’s latest effort to cement US leadership in Asia in the face of a rising China.

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Fraudulent ivermectin studies open up new battleground between science and misinformation

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Studies suggesting ivermectin is an effective Covid treatment relied on evidence ‘that has substantially evaporated under close scrutiny’, fresh research shows

Dr Carlos Chaccour ran into difficulty when he and his colleagues began recruiting patients in Peru for their study to determine the effect of a daily dose of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin on people infected with Covid-19.

“We would call the patient and say, ‘You have just been diagnosed with Covid and you’re eligible for this study. Are you taking ivermectin?’” he says.

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Australia Covid live news update: new offshore processing agreement with Nauru; NSW confirms 11 deaths, Victoria one; police await fifth day of Melbourne protests

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The Associated Press is reporting an Australian economist who was arrested when Myanmar’s military seized power in February made an appearance Thursday in a court in the capital Naypyitaw, where he will be tried for violation of the official secrets law, his lawyer said.

Sean Turnell had been serving as an advisor to the country’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who was also arrested when her elected government was ousted by the army. Suu Kyi and three of her former Cabinet ministers have also been charged under the law.

Shadow energy minister Chris Bowen gave a blistering doorstop press conference earlier, blasting the Coalition’s climate and energy policy shift.

It comes as federal treasurer, Josh Frydenbrg is due to tell business leaders later today that the government needs to shift towards adopting a net zero commitment.

Josh Frydenberg personally intervened to try and get the chief executive of AGL sacked because he dared to invest in renewable energy. When he was energy minister, he wouldn’t commit to net zero by 2050. He was the architect of the failed National Energy Guarantee.

Yet, now in some sort of bizarre positioning, internally in the Liberal party, he thinks he can be the champion of net zero. Well, he’s got net zero credibility. Josh Frydenberg has net zero credibility when it comes to climate change. He has too often had the chance to act and too often failed.

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Furious French defence contractor to seek compensation over Aukus deal

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Head of Naval Group attacks Australia’s ‘political’ decision to cancel €56bn contract with his firm

Australia has signed up to an empty promise by agreeing to a US nuclear powered submarine deal for which there is no clear delivery date or technology transfer agreement, the furious head of the French defence contractor Naval Group has warned.

Pierre Eric Pommellet also said his firm will be seeking compensation for Australia’s cancellation of a €56bn (£48bn) contract for 12 new Attack-class submarines, which he described as a purely political decision which came without warning.

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‘It breaks my heart’: Australian parents say mental health strain on their children is worsening

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In ANU study parents report negative effect of Covid and prolonged lockdown has become ‘a lot worse’ than earlier in pandemic

After finishing her final year of high school in 2019, Amy’s* daughter had dreams of leaving Geelong, in Victoria, to travel to the UK for a working holiday using money saved from her waitressing job.

Then the pandemic and lockdowns hit.

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Panda ‘twerks’ around pen to prepare for rare mating event at Adelaide zoo – video

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Australia’s only two giant pandas are getting ready to rumble. Once a year, a tiny mating window opens. The notoriously sex-shy animals will have about 36 hours to try for a cub. Thanks to the pandemic, which kept a Chinese reproduction expert out of the country, and a better understanding of the panda (research shows it’s best to just 'let them be pandas'), Adelaide zoo now sees natural breeding as the best option for Wang Wang and Fu Ni. Giant pandas are no longer endangered, but with just over 1,800 in the wild, they’re still vulnerable. Around the world, panda keepers have met the goal of having 600 in breeding programs.

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Arrest footage and teargas raise concerns about Victoria police’s use of force to quell protests

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Video of a man being thrown to the ground by an officer at Melbourne’s Flinders St Station sparks internal investigation

The use of weapons like teargas and stinger grenades and vision of a man being thrown to the ground by a Victorian police officer at Flinders Street Station has raised concerns about police’s use of force during the ongoing protests in Melbourne this week.

On the fourth day of protests in the city, footage emerged online showing an officer approaching a man from behind and throwing him to the ground. The man appeared to be talking calmly to other officers at the time.

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Macron yet to take call from Australia’s Scott Morrison over sub snub

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Australian PM hopes to speak with French president ‘when the time is right and the opportunity presents’

French president Emmanuel Macron has not yet taken a call from Scott Morrison amid continuing fury in Paris over the torn up submarine deal.

Morrison, the Australian prime minister, said he hoped to speak with Macron “when the time is right and when the opportunity presents” but he understood “the hurt and the disappointment” felt by France over the cancellation of the $90bn arrangement.

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