New Zealand volcano eruption: five dead after White Island blast – latest updates

Jacinda Ardern confirms that New Zealanders and tourists from Australia, the US, Britain, China and Malaysia are among missing on White Island/Whakaari. Follow rolling updates

Scott Morrison said it is “still too early to tell” the full extent of injuries of the 13 Australians in hospital around New Zealand but that “a number of them are in critical conditions” including those with “quite severe burns”.

Marise Payne said the Australians “are located in multiple hospitals around New Zealand, in Waikato, in Christchurch, in Middlemore in Auckland, in Tauranga and in Hart Valley”.

The challenge for the next few days is supporting those Australians who are so badly injured in hospitals across New Zealand, supporting their families and supporting the families of those who remain unaccounted for. We will be working closely with New Zealand authorities and with Royal Caribbean to provide any support that we can, and we will ensure that all assistance is provided to them and to their families.”

Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and foreign minister Marise Payne have given an update on the 24 Australians believed to be on White Island during the eruption.

Morrison said:

Of the 24 ones, we have been able to ascertain overnight and this morning that 13 of those Australians are hospitalised across multiple hospitals in New Zealand. There are 11 Australians that are still unaccounted for, and that we fear of the five deceased persons, that three of those, up to three are Australians, but that is not yet confirmed.

But with 11 Australians unaccounted for, three of those are feared to be amongst the five that have already been identified as deceased. This is a very, very hard day for a lot of Australian families whose loved ones have been caught up in this terrible, terrible tragedy. Can I also confirm that, after speaking with the New Zealand Prime Minister, that the operation has moved into recovery phase. There were four helicopters that were there as part of the recuse operation and assessing the scene, as the Prime Minister confirmed earlier, that were able to take a reconnaissance of the island at that time, and as New Zealand police said last night, there is not considered to be anyone on that island that remains alive ...

I fear there is worse news to come over the course of perhaps today or over the next few days. This is a terrible tragedy, a time of great innocence and joy interrupted by the horror of that eruption, and I would ask again that we refrain from any speculation about individuals at this time so we can ensure that we can contact and deal directly with families to ease what will be a highly anxious and highly upsetting time for them.”

Continue reading...

NSW fires: authorities warn of ‘very dangerous day’ for bushfires as Sydney shrouded in smoke

Almost 3,000 firefighters across New South Wales will be deployed as more than 80 bushfires continue to burn and temperatures are expected to hit 40C. Follow all the latest updates

• ‘National security issue’: Turnbull tells Q&A Morrison must step up response to bushfires
• Greg Jericho: the Coalition isn’t being honest about the climate crisis. But neither is Labor

Thick “hazardous” smoke back in Sydney this morning pic.twitter.com/HyBxweEFYZ

#Sydney barely visible through the bushfire smoke. Temperatures forecast to reach 36C in the city, 42C in the west. #NSWfires pic.twitter.com/kqAnlDmSLB

I think this is the worst I've seen. #sydneysmoke pic.twitter.com/u3fpI7ZosY

The Bureau of Meteorology says a southerly wind later this afternoon will help ease the smoke choking Sydney this morning, though it may not help firefighters battling blazes across the rest of the state.

A smoky start for #Sydney, with #smoke from nearby fires trapped overnight in a low-layer of the atmosphere, causing it to become concentrated. A southerly buster this afternoon will help reduce the smoke, especially nearer the coast. Health info re smoke: https://t.co/I3gS1GMBVA pic.twitter.com/WJCrmDHsrv

Continue reading...

Lawyer X: Victoria’s top policeman claims he only learned extent of informing in 2011

Graham Ashton tells royal commission he knew gangland lawyer Nicola Gobbo was a police informer before he joined the force

Victoria’s top policeman knew gangland lawyer Nicola Gobbo was a police informer before he joined the force, but said he did not know the extent of her duplicity until years later.

Chief commissioner Graham Ashton was giving evidence on Monday at the royal commission into Victoria police’s use of informants.

Continue reading...

Australian paedophiles pay as little as $15 for online abuse of children in Philippines

Australian federal police say livestreaming of children performing sexual acts marks ‘alarming shift’


Australian paedophiles are paying as little as A$15 for children to perform sexual acts online while being filmed in the Philippines, according to the head of the Australian federal police team in Manila.

Senior officer Andrew Perkins told Guardian Australia there was an “alarming shift” from previously more common types of “sex tourism” to “convenient and low-risk” online abuse of children which can be customised to the specific requirements of customers.

Continue reading...

NSW fires so destructive thousands of koala bodies may never be found, ecologist says

Inquiry hears most koalas cannot move fast enough to get away from fires leaping from treetop to treetop

Fires burning around New South Wales have razed koala habitats so extensively “we will probably never find the bodies”, an ecologist has told a parliamentary inquiry.

On Monday the NSW upper house inquiry held an urgent hearing into the state’s koala population and habitat after this season’s “unprecedented” bushfires destroyed millions of hectares of forest.

Continue reading...

Australia fires: heatwave forecast amid calls for emergency meeting

Conditions ease but Labor urges emergency Coag meeting before extreme heat in NSW and Victoria

Firefighters have taken advantage of less extreme conditions to try to contain blazes burning across New South Wales ahead of worsening conditions and soaring temperatures expected on Tuesday.

More than 100 fires were still burning across NSW on Sunday, including the massive Gospers Mountain blaze, which is expected to burn for weeks.

Continue reading...

The volunteers fighting fires: ‘there’s always the fear you’re not going to come home’

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service is made up of mechanics, bakers, students, retirees and young parents. They face a dangerous Australian summer

Fire warning signs are pinned to thirsty eucalypts every few kilometres on the highway.

The paddocks around central west New South Wales look golden from a distance, but are crispy and brown underfoot. Wind has been howling for days, stirring up red dust on the horizon. Severe fire conditions are looming; it’s only the beginning of summer.

Continue reading...

‘Just leave’: Delhi, Beijing and Mexico City residents on how to cope with pollution

As air quality plummets on the Australian east coast as a result of devastating bush fires, residents of cities clogged with smog share their coping strategies

The east coast of Australia is in the grip of a bushfire and air pollution crisis. But plummeting air quality levels are a regular occurrence in cities in India, Latin America and China. Here, residents and experts from Delhi, Beijing and Mexico City explain how they survive the smog.

Continue reading...

Queensland fires: ‘firenado’ forms as Australia blazes continue – video

Aerial footage captured a 'firenado' forming on Saturday in the Bundamba suburb of Ipswich, Queensland, as a huge fire rapidly advanced across dry grassland, threatening homes. Queensland state authorities have issued an emergency warning as the east coast of Australia works to tackle more than 100 bushfires

Continue reading...

Australia fires: helicopter crashes as 140 bushfires rage in NSW and Queensland – live

RFS says Gospers Mountain blaze, which has merged with neighbouring fires, will take many weeks to put out

A shipping container full of fireworks? Really?

This is from AAP:

A shipping container loaded with fireworks has exploded and residents have been warned to flee as an unpredictable fire closes in on homes in south-east Queensland.

The fast-moving blaze is burning in bushland at Bundamba, west of Brisbane, and travelling in a northerly direction from White Street towards the Warrego highway.

This, I fear, will be the trend for the afternoon. Across the east coast of Australia, fires worsening with strengthening winds, no respite in temperatures.

Watch & Act - Blue Gum Road (Tenterfield LGA)
Fire is burning SW of Urbenville. Spot fires are starting ahead of the main fire front. If you are in the Wallaby Creek area, seek shelter as the fire approaches. Protect yourself from the heat of the fire. #nswrfs #nswfires pic.twitter.com/Fw0wlqMgOE

Continue reading...

NSW fires: five bushfires merge north of Sydney – as it happened

Gospers Mountain, Paddock Run and Little L Complex, Three Mile and Thompson Creek fires overlap, and there are now seven emergency warnings in NSW as fire conditions worsen along Australia’s New South Wales and Queensland coasts. This blog is now closed

We are going to wrap the live blog up here. As of almost 7.30pm AEDT there are still seven fires at emergency warning level across NSW.

They are:

Related: Australia fires: five blazes merge north of Sydney as conditions forecast to worsen

Some more photos from photographer Matthew Abbott out at Kulnura:

Continue reading...

Australia fires: five blazes merge north of Sydney as conditions forecast to worsen

More than 100 bushfires were burning in New South Wales on Friday, more than half of them out of control

Five fires burning to the north of Sydney joined up into one huge conflagration on Friday, with out-of-control blazes threatening homes and lives.

On a day that brought choking smog to Sydney, the premier of New South Wales said the entire coastline of the state was on fire.

Continue reading...

‘Atrocity of the century’: Uighur activist urges Australia to take tougher stance against China

Rushan Abbas says countries doing business with China are enabling its mass detention of 3 million people, including her sister

A leading Uighur activist, Rushan Abbas, has urged Australian MPs to take a stronger stance against the Chinese regime, while backing controversial comparisons between the state’s authoritarianism and Nazi Germany.

Abbas, who met with MPs in Canberra on Thursday and held a roundtable at the US Embassy on the plight of the Uighur Muslim minority in western China’s Xinjiang province, said that “modern day” concentration camps holding as many as 3 million Uighurs were a case of “history repeating itself”.

Continue reading...

Frustrating cities: behind Australia’s urban design fails

Sydney’s pedestrian bottlenecks, Brisbane’s barren streetscapes and Perth’s freeway fiascos: cities across the country are making classic mistakes

In every city there are places where the road should be just a bit wider, where the bus stop would be better a few metres down or, perhaps, a multi-lane highway simply should not exist.

Bad urban design is a barrier to what should be the smooth flow of life in cities. It ruins commutes and can make daily life unnecessarily difficult for the disabled or elderly.

Continue reading...

Chaos in parliament over Coalition’s union-busting bill – politics live

Scott Morrison announces cut in number of government departments as part of public service overhaul. All the day’s political news, live

Labor is moving a motion saying the government’s attempts to push the union-busting bill through without debate was “anti-democratic”.

Better still is this bit of the motion:

This is a prime ministerial tantrum, with the prime minister of Australia behaving like a juvenile schoolyard bully just because he didn’t get his way last week.

We’re now moving through the votes for the government’s union-busting bill.

A side note - this is the 100th division to take place in the House for this sitting fortnight.

Continue reading...

Blooming scary: runner rescued after getting stuck in cornflake seaweed on Gold Coast beach

Algae piles up thigh-deep in places – and could keep water murky for weeks

A woman running on a Gold Coast beach has been rescued after becoming stuck in masses of cornflake seaweed that has piled up thigh-deep in places.

A seaweed expert, Pia Winberg, said the bloom of Colpomenia – also known as sea potatoes, oyster thief or cornflake seaweed – was not unusual for this time of year.

Continue reading...

Police ask Clover Moore for statement on Angus Taylor – politics live

Sydney lord mayor approached by police investigating accusations the emissions reduction minister relied on a falsified document to attack her. Follow all the day’s political news live

That’s where we’ll leave the live blog for the day. Thanks for following along.

It’s been another messy day. Many say the medevac repeal has made it one of parliament’s darkest.

Another development on the Angus Taylor front.

The City of Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore, has been approached by police to provide a statement for their investigation into accusations Taylor relied on a falsified document to attack her travel-related emissions. The council said in a statement:

Continue reading...

NSW police officers deny telling 15-year-old boy to ‘show his gooch’ during strip-search

Two officers named as part of the search have refuted the teenager’s account at an inquiry in Sydney

A police officer involved in searching a boy at an underage music festival in Sydney says he has “no memory” of the teenager being asked to “show me your gooch”, and that it “didn’t happen”.

The 15-year-old claims he “froze” when he was asked to drop his pants during a strip-search at Sydney Olympic Park in February.

Continue reading...

Senate calls on government to expedite asylum claim of two gay Saudi journalists in ‘arbitrary’ detention

Multiple global news organisations call for release of men, who fled their country only to become embroiled in Australia’s detention system

The Senate has passed a motion calling on the government to recognise the increased risk it has placed on two gay Saudi journalists by keeping them in detention after they claimed asylum last month.

Guardian Australia can reveal that multiple news organisations around the world have called for the release of the men, warning the Australian government they are watching the case closely.

Continue reading...

Police locate body near Alice Springs believed to be that of missing woman Claire Hockridge

Hockridge was one of three people to go missing in the Northern Territory outback two weeks ago, but her companions were both rescued in recent days

Searchers have found a body believed to be Claire Hockridge, who has been missing in the Northern Territory outback for two weeks.

Hockridge was in a group of three people who became stranded in the central Australian outback a fortnight ago, but her partner, Tamra McBeath-Riley, and their friend Phu Tran, were both rescued in the last few days.

Continue reading...