The Queensland government will spend $2m on a fence around Orchid Beach to protect visitors from the native dingo population
A new fence is to be built around a township on Queensland’s Fraser Island after several dingo attacks on children.
The state government will spend $2m on the fence around Orchid Beach on the north-east of Fraser Island, which is also known as K’gari.
Continue reading...Police say the arrests of Sewell and another man in Melbourne followed an investigation into an alleged armed robbery
Australian neo-Nazi Tom Sewell has been charged by police in Victoria over an alleged armed robbery earlier this month.
On Friday, counter-terrorism police arrested two men – 28-year-old Sewell and another 22-year-old – and executed search warrants in Eildon Parade in the Melbourne suburb of Rowville.
Continue reading...The state’s Coalition has been forced further into minority after it lost its second MP to sexual assault allegations. Follow the latest updates
More cold days ahead for south-eastern Australia.
You will feel the chill if you live in southern #SA, #NSW and all of #Vic and #Tas, as cold fronts move through from the Southern Ocean, bringing a 3-day wintery blast of cold, wet and windy weather.
Latest forecasts & warnings: https://t.co/YRNaGYP9ci pic.twitter.com/yaqsY43HpF
The Australian Signals Directorate refuses to say who was behind an attack on parliament’s IT systems in March, despite confirming it knows who it was.
The parliamentary services department confirmed an outage of the system that manages mobile devices was caused by the department shutting the system to prevent an attempted intrusion into the parliamentary computer network.
Continue reading...Report in the Australian newspaper promoting Sharri Markson’s book on origins of Covid criticised as misleading and alarmist by China analysts
The Australian’s exclusive about a “chilling” document produced by Chinese military scientists is based on a discredited 2015 book containing conspiracy theories about biological warfare which is freely available on the internet.
Written by the paper’s investigations writer, Sharri Markson, the report last Saturday said Chinese military scientists “discussed the weaponisation of Sars coronaviruses five years before the Covid-19 pandemic” and predicted a third world war would be fought with biological weapons.
Continue reading...Labor leader set to continue attack over sluggish wages growth; NSW Liberal minister Gareth Ward steps down over allegations which he denies. Follow latest updates
Anthony Albanese is on his way to the ABC studios for his 7.30 interview
The house is adjourned
Continue reading...Health minister would not be drawn on whether Aishwarya Aswath’s death could have been avoided over Easter weekend
The Western Australian government has apologised for a “failure” at a Perth hospital where a seven-year-old girl died after her parents’ desperate pleas for help were ignored.
Aishwarya Aswath spent two hours waiting in the emergency department at Perth Children’s hospital during the Easter weekend after presenting with a fever and being triaged in the second-least urgent category.
Continue reading...Coalition budget delivers $30bn in tax breaks and money for fossil fuel projects but no measures to help struggling universities or clean energy projects. Follow all the latest news and reaction to the 2021 federal budget as it happens
So not a lot new there. Which means question time is going to be a copy and paste affair.
The other question of note?
Why is the border closed for so long?
The key factor, the central factor, the only factor for us what keeps Australians safe. And it’s not simply the rollout of the vaccine, that is a factor for the Chief Medical Officer in making decisions around borders.
They also need to take into account, what is happening with the virus globally, its transmissibility, new variants of the virus, and what it would mean for Australians health and safety.
Continue reading...Ailing sectors targeted, as treasurer releases Australia’s 2021 budget. Follow all the latest. This blog is now closed
There is a lot more to get through with the budget - but you should sleep! - so we will wrap up the blog now and return tomorrow morning when we have all had a chance to let our subconscious mull it over.
There’s a lot more to say - the environment spending, Indigenous spending and university spending leaves a bit to be desired.
The Australian Conservation Foundation’s Matt Rose has also responded:
Environment and climate spending represents less than 1% (0.8%) of the federal budget.
To put it another way, out of every $100 in this budget, 80 cents went to climate, water and the environment.
Continue reading...Former Liberal leader and PM defends decision to support independent rather than National in NSW upper Hunter byelection
Malcolm Turnbull is not ruling in or out supporting more independent candidates in forthcoming election contests, noting he has resigned from politics “but I haven’t resigned as an Australian citizen”.
With a New South Wales state byelection looming in the upper Hunter, Turnbull has urged voters to support independent candidate Kirsty O’Connell – who has been upfront about the inexorable decline of the coal industry as a consequence of climate change – rather than a National party candidate.
Continue reading...Brad Hazzard says AFR story that identified man was ‘appalling’, and warned it would undermine public health
• NSW restrictions: what you can and can’t do under new coronavirus rules
• NSW Covid hotspots: list and map of Sydney case locations
• Follow the Australia live blog
The New South Wales health minister has said a newspaper’s decision to name the man who visited numerous barbecue shops in Sydney while infected with Covid-19 was “appalling” and would undermine public health.
Brad Hazzard said the Australian Financial Review’s story identifying a patient “stinks” because it may discourage the public from cooperating fully with the contact tracers in the future and the man had not consented to have his identity revealed.
Continue reading...Waverley Council reconsidering popular practice, which could lead to new restrictions, a reduction in nets or a ban on the sport
Australia’s most famous beaches may restrict volleyball following complaints the sport poses a risk to other beachgoers.
Informal games of beach volleyball are a regular sight at Sydney’s Bondi and Tamarama beaches, which allow three and four nets respectively.
Continue reading...Sydney man charged with terrorism offences after he allegedly travelled to Turkey in 2013 and on to Syria, where police say he recruited foreign fighters for Isis
A 30-year-old Sydney man who is alleged to be an Islamic State recruiter has been arrested and charged with terrorism offences upon his return to Australia.
Mohamed Zuhbi arrived in Melbourne on a flight from Turkey about 4pm on Saturday and was taken into custody by counterterrorism authorities at the airport.
Continue reading...A perceived lack of cultural awareness has raised concerns about how the rollout will be received, but islanders are working to overcome the barriers
Disruptions are not uncommon on Badu Island, one of the largest islands in the Torres Strait. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, the Torres Strait went into lockdown in line with the rest of the country, and locals were encouraged not to travel between islands.
Charlotte Nona, the director of Queensland Regional Health in the Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula, says there is only one frontline health worker for the entire population on Badu.
Continue reading...Preselection vote leaves the long-serving powerbroker in hard-to-win third place at the next federal election
The influential Tasmanian conservative powerbroker Eric Abetz has been demoted to third place on the Liberal party’s Tasmanian Senate ticket in a shock preselection vote.
It could signal the end of Abetz’s almost three-decade Senate career, given that third place on the ticket is difficult to win.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to China
Continue reading...Mark Dreyfus says corruption watchdog needed to investigate government buying $30m in offsets related to new airport
Labor has strengthened its call for a national integrity commission, saying it is needed to investigate the Morrison government’s purchase of more than $30m in environmental offsets related to the development of the western Sydney airport.
The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, made the call after the New South Wales transport department referred its purchases of $50.6m in offsets from the same western Sydney properties to the state’s Independent Commission Against Corruption for investigation.
Continue reading...The government has revealed the destinations to which quarantine-free holidays will be allowed
The government has just announced its green list for quarantine-free international travel into England. The countries on it are Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Israel, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, and Portugal, including the Azores and Madeira.
Related: England’s traffic-light system for foreign travel: all you need to know
Continue reading...The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has told a Senate hearing on Covid-19 there are 173 unaccompanied children in India who are trying to return to Australia. More than 9,500 Australians are stranded in the country, 950 of them classed as vulnerable, following a flight ban from India that will end on 15 May. Australian airline Qantas doesn’t take unaccompanied minors, potentially limiting options to come home through Air India or special repatriation flights
Continue reading...Scott Morrison says India travel ban will not be extended and has committed to three repatriation flights before the end of May. Follow latest updates
The Covid-19 inquiry is hearing from Australians stranded in India, including Sunny, who traveled to India in May 2020 because his father was in a critical condition with no support during India’s coronavirus lockdown.
Sunny’s father passed away on 1 June 2020 while Sunny was in hotel quarantine in Dehli. He wants to bring his mother home to Australia with him, but his flights in July 2020 were cancelled due to the Melbourne lockdown.
Sunny said it was “next to impossible” to come back with 10,000 stranded Australians seeking seats on Air India flights and no Qantas repatriation flights until November. He paid $10,000 to fly to Australia from Japan, but was bumped from the flight.
Sunny said the Australian government had been “totally insensitive to stranded Australians” after he suffered “11 months of misery”.
Sunny and his mother live in an area experiencing a “tsunami of infections”, with 60-70% of people on the street infected with Covid-19. He said they lived holed up in the house “in fear for our lives” but worried it was only a matter of time before they were infected.
Sunny quoted the advice of the chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, that the India travel ban could, in the worst-case scenario, result in the death of Australians in India.
He called for a comprehensive schedule of repatriation flights to get all Australians in India and elsewhere home.
Meg, another Australian in India, has told the committee she was stranded in India after she travelled there on holiday in January 2020.
Meg was unable to fly back in October when her Cathay Pacific flight via Hong Kong was cancelled, and she hasn’t been able to get a seat in the “raffle” of respite or charter flights.
She said:
The daily fear of going out and contracting Covid was with us every day and it it still is now, the situation is so bad. The Australian government hasn’t provided any kind of emotional support to those stranded in India. We are part of Facebook and Whatsapp groups – people are depressed about the situation. Emotionally people are so down and depressed.
We haven’t really received anything from the high commission. Every time I’ve called for help, guidance, the phone would just ring out no matter how many times you call.
The website for the new Labor campaign we mentioned earlier is now live. It is seen as a bit of an opening salvo for an election which could be more than a year away.
Continue reading...Embassy officials first visited Robert Pether on day 26 of his detention in Baghdad, his wife says
An Australian citizen has still not been told what charge he is facing, has only just been seen by Australian officials and is yet to meet his lawyer, despite spending 30 days behind bars in Baghdad.
Australian officials visited Robert Pether for the first time on Monday, day 26 of his detention, and are now asking if he can get a meeting with his lawyer.
Continue reading...