Category Archives: Australia news

Will Australia’s wildlife recover from this bushfire season?

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Images of burned koalas and native animals fleeing the fire front have been beamed around the world. There are estimates that 1 billion animals have been impacted and experts fear that some plants and animals have been pushed to extinction. So how bad is the damage? And will Australia’s wildlife bounce back?

You can read Graham Readfearn’s articles on the impact of the fires on Kangaroo island wildlife, plus the mass fish kills in the wake of the fires.

Environment editor Adam Morton has written about the latest figures from the government on threatened species, and environment reporter Lisa Cox has written about the world heritage areas burned, plus a guide to the animals most at risk.

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Australian Open 2020: day two – live!

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Second set: Pliskova* 6-1 3-3 Mladenovic (*denotes server): Pliskova holds to love in the time it took me post a tweet and confirm who Sinner faces in the second round.

Shame to see Max Purcell bow out so early, but Jannik Sinner is a kid going places. The Next Gen Finals champ has Márton Fucsovics next.

Italian @janniksin wins his first ever #AusOpen match!

He def. Aussie qualifier Max Purcell 7-6(2) 6-2 6-4 #AO2020 pic.twitter.com/KOZj4JHAJq

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Coronavirus: Australia to screen passengers on flights from China for potentially fatal illness

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Sars-like virus can be transmitted by human contact and has infected more than 200 and killed three

Australia will begin screening passengers on high-risk flights from China for signs of a new Sars-like coronavirus following confirmation from the Chinese health authorities that the virus has begun spreading from human to human.

The outbreak was first reported in Wuhan City in China on New Year’s Eve and tied to a seafood market, but officials have since confirmed that it has spread to other humans who had not frequented the market, as well as to health workers.

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Jailed British-Australian Kylie Moore-Gilbert rejected Iran’s offer to work as a spy

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Melbourne University academic rebuffed bid to recruit her in exchange for her release, letters reveal

Iran tried to recruit the British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert as a spy for Tehran in exchange for her release, but the overture was furiously rebuffed, letters smuggled out of Evin prison reveal.

Moore-Gilbert, a Cambridge-educated academic specialising in Middle East politics, is currently being held in Ward 2A, an isolated Revolutionary Guard-run wing of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, serving a 10-year sentence for espionage, a charge she, and the Australian government, rejects as entirely false.

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Huge hail batters Canberra as severe thunderstorms hit south-eastern Australia

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Hail smashes into Parliament House and brings down trees in the ACT, with heavy rainfall hitting NSW, Queensland and Victoria

Australia’s south-east has been lashed by severe thunderstorms and large hailstones that destroyed buildings and cars in Canberra and left two tourists in hospital after they were injured by lightning.

Two supercell thunderstorms brought hail and heavy rain to cities and towns across the east coast on Monday, battering the outer suburbs of Sydney about 3pm, with 4.5cm hailstones recorded and strong winds bringing trees down over cars in the Sutherland area.

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Large hailstones batter parts of Canberra — video

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Golfball-size hailstones have hit Canberra as severe thunderstorms move through parts of south-eastern Australia. The hail struck parts of Canberra including Parliament House while roofs, windows and cars were damaged across the city. The wild weather follows weeks where the Australian capital has been enveloped in smoke from nearby bushfires

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Huge dust storms in Australia hit central New South Wales

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Videos posted to social media show the clouds turning day into night in some areas

Damaging winds produced by thunderstorms across central New South Wales have whipped up dust storms that turned daytime into night in some towns.

The Bureau of Meteorology issued a series of severe thunderstorm warnings on Sunday evening for inland NSW with the associated winds generating massive dust clouds.

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Man injured in New Year’s Eve Cobargo bushfire dies, as hail pelts Melbourne

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The 84-year-old dies in Sydney’s Concord hospital as Australia’s months-long fire crisis continues

The death toll from the unprecedented bushfires in New South Wales has climbed to 21 following the death in hospital of an elderly man burned in Cobargo on New Year’s Eve.

The 84-year-old was taken from his home on Tuesday 31 December to South East Regional hospital before he was transferred to Concord hospital in Sydney where he died in the early hours of Saturday.

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Coronavirus: Australia’s top health official says there is ‘no current need’ to enhance airport screening

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Sars-like virus has infected nearly 50 people in China, killing two, with cases also detected in Japan and Thailand

Australia’s top health official says there is “no current need” to enhance existing airport screening measures to target an unknown Sars-like virus that has infected nearly 50 people in China and killed two since it was reported on New Year’s Eve.

Australia’s chief medical officer, Prof Brendan Murphy, said authorities in Australia were “watching developments very closely” but had not issued a travel warning.

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Hundreds of thousands of fish dead in NSW as bushfire ash washed into river

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Ecologist fears the Macleay River may take decades to recover, with heavy rains likely to affect other waterways

Hundreds of thousands of native fish are estimated to have died in northern New South Wales after rains washed ash and sludge from bushfires into the Macleay River.

Parts of the Macleay River – favoured by recreational fishers – have been turned into what locals described as “runny cake mix” that stank of rotting vegetation and dead fish.

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Coalition awarded $500,000 sports grant to rejected project after Andrew Broad quit

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Seat became hotly contested once the then National MP quit after allegations of improper conduct on a work trip

The Morrison government awarded a $500,000 sports grant in the rural Victorian seat of Mallee a year and a half after it was first rejected – when the seat became hotly contested due to the resignation of Nationals MP Andrew Broad.

The Northern Grampians shire council applied for the grant in September 2018 and was rejected in the first round of the controversial community sport infrastructure grant program, only to see the $500,000 Lord Nelson Park project in St Arnaud approved in April 2019, just weeks out from the election.

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Explainer: Bridget McKenzie is digging in over calls to resign but does her defence stack up?

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Labor’s Ros Kelly was forced to quit over a sports grant scandal but Nationals deputy says she is going nowhere. So what’s the difference?

In 1994, at the height of an eerily familiar sports rorts scandal, John Howard stood up in parliament and fired a question at besieged Labor sports minister Ros Kelly.

Does the minister agree that, whatever debate there may be concerning the principle of ministerial responsibility, the practice has almost invariably been that a minister resigns when his or her continued presence is causing damage and embarrassment to that government?

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Australian bushfires from the air: before and after images show scale of devastation

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Nine aerial photos depict the crisis from beach to bush, farm to forest, across NSW and South Australia

More than 10.7m hectares of land have burnt so far in Australia’s bushfires – larger than the total area of South Korea, or Portugal, and 1.3 times the size of Scotland.

The ongoing and unprecedented bushfire crisis has spread across six states and multiple months.

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Queensland archbishop opposes planned law to compel priests to report child sexual abuse

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Mark Coleridge says move to legislate against the sanctity of the confessional will fail to make children safer

A move to compel Queensland priests to report child sexual abuse offences disclosed during confessions would fail to make children safer, Brisbane’s Catholic archbishop has said. 

Mark Coleridge has opposed a state government plan to legislate against the sanctity of the confessional as an excuse, defence or privilege. 

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Rain brings joy to farmers in NSW and Victoria and dampens some bushfires as others burn

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Fire-hit areas receive desperately needed rain, as severe thunderstorms cause flooding in Melbourne

Up to 50mm of rain has fallen across parts of New South Wales and Victoria, dampening bushfires even as dozens more continue to burn.

Fire-hit regions of NSW’s Snowy Valley and south coast, and Victoria’s East Gippsland and north-east, received as much as 15mm of desperately needed rain on Wednesday and Thursday, while severe thunderstorms caused flooding in Melbourne.

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Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert begs Scott Morrison to help get her out of Iranian jail

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Letter comes as human rights groups urge foreign governments to take a stronger line with Tehran

The imprisoned British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert has begged the Australian prime minister to secure her release from an Iranian jail, as human rights groups urge foreign governments to take a stronger line with Tehran.

A Cambridge-educated academic specialising in Middle East politics, Moore-Gilbert has been imprisoned in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since September 2018, after she was arrested at Tehran airport while trying to leave the country after attending an academic conference.

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James Murdoch criticises father’s news outlets for climate crisis denial

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Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Fox cited for ‘frustrating’ coverage of Australian bushfires

Rupert Murdoch’s son has strongly criticised his family’s news outlets for downplaying the impact of the climate crisis, as bushfires continue to burn in Australia.

James Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn, issued a rare joint statement directly criticising his father’s businesses for their “ongoing denial” on the issue, which has been reflected in the family’s newspapers repeatedly casting doubt on the link between the climate emergency and the bushfires.

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Legal questions complicate how Rural Fire Service can spend donated millions

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Experts warn donors should be aware that money given to the RFS can’t be used to help bushfire victims or recovery efforts

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service trustee may be unable to distribute donated funds, including more than $50m raised by the comedian Celeste Barber, to other states or to bushfire victims, legal experts have warned.

At least $70m has been raised for the RFS, other state fire services, the Red Cross and wildlife charities, as part of a global fundraising effort during Australia’s horror bushfire season.

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Australia bushfires are harbinger of planet’s future, say scientists

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Apocalyptic scenes give glimpse of what would be normal conditions in 3C world

The bushfires ravaging Australia are a clear sign of what is to come around the world if temperatures are allowed to rise to dangerous levels, according to scientists.

“This is what you can expect to happen … at an average of 3C [above pre-industrial levels],” said Richard Betts, professor of geography at Exeter University. “We are seeing a sign of what would be normal conditions in a 3C world. It tells us what the future world might look like. This really brings home what climate change means.”

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