Category Archives: Australia news

Victoria bushfires: thousands told to evacuate vast East Gippsland fire threat zone

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Visitors and residents told to ‘get out of’ an area half the size of Belgium immediately, in the face of historic fire threat day on Monday

Victorian authorities have told thousands of visitors and residents in East Gippsland – an area half the size of Belgium – to leave immediately in the face of a looming bushfire threat.

Emergency management commissioner Andrew Crisp issued the order on Sunday ahead of what the Bureau of Meteorology has called one of the “significant fire weather days in Victoria’s history”.

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Iran says jailed Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert must serve out her sentence

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Tehran’s foreign ministry says it will not submit to ‘political games and propaganda’

An Australian academic jailed in Iran for espionage must serve out her sentence, Tehran’s foreign ministry said on Saturday, stressing it would not submit to “propaganda”.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert reportedly began a hunger strike in Tehran’s Evin prison on Tuesday after losing an appeal against a 10-year jail sentence.

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What happened? The policies Scott Morrison’s government appears to have abandoned

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Action to protect LGBT students, a payday lending crackdown and an integrity commission are among the Coalition’s lost causes

Governments should be judged not just on what they do with their time in office but also on what they don’t do.

There are only so many hours in a day, and so many parliamentary sitting weeks in a year (there were just 10 since the May election). Nevertheless it’s important to know not just what the top priorities are but also what’s been pushed to the backburner.

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Coalition minister breaks ranks with government to call for volunteer firefighters to be paid

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Darren Chester says he believes there should be payment for ‘one-off’ events or fire levy

The call to pay volunteer firefighters facing extreme, prolonged events such as the current bushfire emergency is getting louder, with a Morrison government minister breaking ranks to call for changes.

The veterans’ affairs minister, Darren Chester, said he had been talking to his Victorian electorate about a payment model for “one-off” events, floating the idea of a fire levy, with evidence continuing to point to longer and worse bushfire seasons as a new normal.

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Australia’s environment minister says up to 30% of koalas killed in NSW mid-north coast fires

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Sussan Ley’s estimate suggests up to 8,400 koalas may have perished in the bushfires

Australia’s environment minister has said up to 30% of koalas on the New South Wales mid-north coast may have been killed in the country’s ongoing bushfire crisis.

Nationally, more than 5m hectares have been burned in an unprecedented bushfire season that has also killed nine people. Some 3.4m hectares have been burnt in NSW alone.

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Australia fires: rain offers little respite as out-of-control bushfires continue to burn

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Firefighters are bracing for extreme conditions with high temperatures forecast for next few days

Rainfall over parts of eastern Australia during the Christmas break did little to extinguish some of the country’s major bushfires, ahead of worsening conditions and a heatwave due to arrive in the coming days.

About 70 bushfires continue to burn throughout New South Wales, despite modest rainfall in some fire-affected parts of the state, while firefighters continued to battle a large blaze in South Australia on Boxing Day.

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Kylie Minogue tries to lure Brexit-weary Britons in new Tourism Australia ad ‘Matesong’

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Pop star reprises Neighbours character in a song that also includes tennis star Ash Barty, comedian Adam Hills and former cricketer Shane Warne

A new $15m tourism campaign featuring Kylie Minogue is aiming to lure Brexit-weary Britons to Australia with the perennial promise of cute marsupials, white-sand beaches and locals who “speak your language”.

The three-minute musical advertisement aired on televisions in the UK before the Queen’s message on Christmas Day, with Minogue and another well-known Australian export, Adam Hills, addressing the nation from Sandringham – a beachside suburb of Melbourne, Australia.

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The year’s best Full Story podcast episodes – recommended by Guardian staff

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If you’ve missed a few instalments or are not sure where to start, here are some staff favourites

Full Story: Guardian Australia’s tri-weekly podcast was launched in October, featuring the best of Guardian Australia’s reporting – and the stories behind the scoops.

If you’re not sure where to start, or if you’ve missed a few, Guardian staff have picked their favourite episodes for your summer road trips.

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As the long bushfire battle goes on in northern NSW, a brief respite for Christmas lunch

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Two hundred people gather in Wytaliba, where rain has brought relief, but also more concern for the long-term effects of the fires

In the northern New South Wales town of Wytaliba, one of the areas hardest hit by bushfires that have killed nine people, destroyed a thousand homes and burned 5m hectares of Australia in the past three months, a small team has cooked Christmas lunch for 200 people.

Everyone is invited, from the dozens who lost their homes, to the volunteer firefighters, to the Canadian firefighting contingent who have been working to relieve local crews.

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Yes, Australia has always had bushfires: but 2019 is like nothing we’ve seen before

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Record low rainfall has contributed to a continent-scale emergency that has burned through more than 5m hectares and alarmed scientists, doctors and firefighters

As the area burned across Australia this fire season pushes beyond five million hectares, an area larger than many countries, stories of destruction have become depressingly familiar.

At the time of writing, nine people have been killed. Balmoral, in the New South Wales southern highlands, is the latest community affected in a state where up to 1,000 homes have been destroyed. A third of the vineyard area and dozens of homes were razed in the Adelaide Hills. It is too early for a thorough examination of the impact on wildlife, including the many threatened species in the fires’ path.

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‘A difficult year’: Scott Morrison thanks firefighters in Christmas message – video

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Australian prime minister thanks firefighters and volunteers for their work amid drought and the ongoing bushfire crisis in his Christmas message, and pays tribute to two New South Wales rural fire service firefighters who died last week.

In his message, the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, also paid tribute to firefighters, and said that while Christmas was a time to celebrate, it could be a difficult time for some

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New Zealand would be honoured to take Behrouz Boochani. Australia be damned | Morgan Godfery

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The moral case for the former Manus island detainee becoming a citizen is as simple as ‘asylum is a human right’

I wonder if it winds up Peter Dutton to know that Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish-Iranian journalist, award-winning author and former Manus Island detainee, is a free man in the continent’s orbit. Boochani, the best-known witness, critic and victim of Australia’s offshore “processing centres”, remains in New Zealand after his 30-day visa came to an end. No one quite knows what the No Friend But the Mountains author is planning next, but it seems safe to assume that sooner or later he’ll lodge an application for asylum in New Zealand. A permanent reminder to Dutton, his predecessors and the country’s immigration detention system that they are not as close to vanishing the “boat people” problem as they might have thought.

For their part New Zealand’s policymakers fear as much with headlines suggesting if Boochani’s hypothetical asylum application is successful it could “fuel tensions with Australia”. The problem is Behrouz Boochani, New Zealander, would enjoy free movement between his new home and his old incarcerators, unless Dutton and the gang insert new exceptions in the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement. This is the “back door” the Coalition government in Canberra is so afraid of, and the political problem preventing Scott Morrison from taking up Jacinda Ardern’s invitation to resettle the last remaining detainees on Manus.

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Australian bushfires: the story so far in each state

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Bushfires have burned 4m hectares and left nine people dead, and fire authorities say they ‘haven’t seen a season like it’

More than four million hectares of Australia have burned and nine people have died since September in an “unprecedented” start to the summer fire season.

Guardian Australia spoke to fire authorities in every state about what they expect to happen next.

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Home affairs warned Australian government of growing climate disaster risk after May election

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Exclusive: Department’s brief said that ‘coordinated national action’ was needed to ward off increasing disruptions

The government was warned by the Department of Home Affairs after the May election that Australia faced more frequent and severe heatwaves and bushfires, and that livelihoods would be affected without effective action on climate change.

The department’s incoming government brief to the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, warned of “disasters” exacerbated by climate change.

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Australia fires live: NSW and SA count cost of bushfires after Balmoral and Cudlee Creek devastation – latest

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Cudlee Creek fire revealed to have destroyed 86 homes in South Australia while 100 more estimated lost in New South Wales as residents wait to discover extent of devastation from weekend’s fires. Follow the latest news and updates

SA Premier and Governor tour the fireground in Woodside in Adelaide Hills #safires @abcadelaide @CFSAlerts pic.twitter.com/VRfRvWLdny

Many more homes could have been lost in the NSW town of Balmoral on Saturday when the RFS firefighting crew ran out of water.

Guardian Australia’s Helen Davidson reports flames began reaching 200m above the treetops and the town, which is on tank water, simply did not have enough to meet demand.

We were desperately trying to get more water into us, desperately calling for more to come in. A member from another brigade spoke to his boss about getting another truck into us really quick. That company saved a lot of homes.

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I lived through Aids denialism in South Africa. Morrison’s slippery climate stance is doomed | Sisonke Msimang

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Using tactics straight out of the Trump playbook, the PM has mocked those who are outspoken

It is painful to watch political denial in action. Believe me, I’ve been down this road before. I lived through Aids denialism in South Africa and I’m witnessing denial again in Australia.

In the last few weeks, as fires have raged across New South Wales, and as the nation has grown increasingly furious about Scott Morrison’s lack of leadership, I have felt like I am in a time warp.

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Australia fires: NSW devastation laid bare as 72 homes destroyed in SA bushfires

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Australian PM Scott Morrison says government won’t change its climate change policy as New South Wales premier says ‘not much left’ of town of Balmoral

The devastation from Australia’s bushfire crisis became clearer on Sunday, as the South Australian premier said 72 homes had been destroyed and his New South Wales counterpart revealed there was “not much left” of the town of Balmoral, south-west of Sydney.

It is feared the figures for homes lost may get much worse as authorities continue to assess the damage from Saturday, and with dozens of fires still active.

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Waiting for a megafire: the battle against Australia’s biggest blaze

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The Gospers Mountain fire has consumed hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest and is now threatening towns and lives

The fire is two kilometres away, but the heat is already beginning to warm the faces of those who wait.

The air is eerily still. There is no wind. There are no birds. There is no natural noise, just the distant chatter of helicopters in the sky, flying between water source and flames.

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Australia fires: 23 firefighters injured in South Australia as second person confirmed dead – live

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Emergency fire warnings have been issued for parts of NSW, including Greater Sydney, Victoria and South Australia. Follow for the latest news and updates

And this frightening footage from Adelaide.

As poster Lucky Tran says: “Thousands of expats are now returning home to Australia for the holidays and seeing sights like this from the plane. Incredibly heartbreaking.”

So.... this is what my hometown of Adelaide, Australia is looking like for the holidays...

( https://t.co/SVtoNiQ2mn)#ClimateCrisis pic.twitter.com/zR8TY8z92S

The Gospers Mountain fire covers a very large area, and emergency warnings and conditions will vary in different parts of the area.

The most dangerous area now is from Bilpin to Kurrajong Heights.

This is the potential fire spread map for Gospers Mountain and Green Wattle Creek in NSW today.

Right now, there is an emergency warning for Bilpin to Kurrajong Heightshttps://t.co/oYWX28NJmR pic.twitter.com/bBYznfNqwx

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Climate of chaos: the suffocating firestorm engulfing Australia

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The death toll from the unprecedented crisis has reached eight and sparked an apology from the prime minister

Even by the standards of 2019, with an Australian public increasingly conditioned to the threat of unprecedented bushfires and and warnings of record-breaking heat, this has been a week unlike those before it.

On Friday, firefighters were battling more than 200 fires across five states as a heatwave engulfing the country pushed temperatures in the south into the mid-40s, and Sydney and other centres were enveloped in a smoke that health professionals warned had been at hazardous levels for nearly a month. Strong winds pushed the smoke 900km south, where it also blanketing Melbourne.

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