Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Former Wallabies star had sought $14m in compensation saying he was wrongfully dismissed over anti-gay Instagram post
The long-running legal dispute between Rugby Australia and Israel Folau has ended with a settlement reached over the former Wallaby’s sacking in the wake of an anti-gay social media post in April.
RA apologised to Folau in a joint statement issued on Wednesday that draws a line under the bitter affair, although the exact terms of the settlement will remain confidential.
Young Liberal National party leader Barclay McGain filmed laughing after teenager he interviewed says Australia shouldn’t celebrate ‘a culture that couldn’t even invent the bloody wheel’
A Young Liberal National party leader has been suspended from the party after he was filmed laughing at a teenager saying Australia should “stop celebrating a culture that couldn’t even invent the bloody wheel”.
Barclay McGain, chairman of the Gold Coast Young LNP, is under investigation by his own party over what the state’s Labor government has called disturbing, racist comments about Australian Aboriginal culture.
More than 10% of the area covered by New South Wales national parks has been burned in this season’s bushfires, including 20% of the Blue Mountains world heritage area, state government data obtained by Guardian Australia has revealed.
The amount of bushland destroyed within NSW national parks dwarfs that of the entire previous fire season, when 80,000 hectares were lost.
The opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, says there have been more than 400 ‘senseless loss of life’ since 2001. Follow all the day’s politics – live
Cormann’s full response to the order to produce the Morrison-Fuller transcript has been tabled. The full text of the letter is below.
Dear President
I refer to the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator the Hon Penny Wong, and agreed by the Senate on 2 December 2019, requesting documents associated with phone call between the Prime Minister and the Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force that took place on Tuesday, 26 November 2019.
Labor is furious at the government’s response to an order to produce the transcript of the Morrison-Fuller phone call about the Angus Taylor police investigation.
The Labor leader in the Senate, Penny Wong, read the government’s response to the Senate after it was provided to her at the outset of Senate proceedings by the finance minister, Mathias Cormann. The letter simply referred the Senate to previous answers and said the documents would be subject to a public interest immunity claim because they relate to a police investigation.
This is transparency from the Morrison government. This is the transparency and integrity, or lack thereof from the Morrison government.”
Phu Tran was found by a pastoralist on Tuesday morning south of Alice Springs, police say
A second person who was missing for two weeks in the central Australian outback has been found alive south of Alice Springs.
Phu Tran was found by a pastoralist on Tuesday morning in the area of Palmer Valley, Northern Territory police said. Phu, 40, told the pastoralist he had survived after finding some water.
Inquiry told of invasive searches on teens at Lost City music festival in Sydney, where only five of 30 cases had support person present
A 15-year-old boy was told to “hold your dick and lift your balls up and show me your gooch” and a police officer “ran his hands around” the buttocks of a 17-year-old during two of 25 potentially illegal strip-searches conducted at an underage music festival in Sydney, an inquiry has heard.
Author says she was not at Oxford with Australia’s energy minister, and his implication she was part of an ‘elite’ attacking Christmas is an ‘antisemitic dogwhistle’
The American author Naomi Wolf has accused Australia’s embattled energy minister, Angus Taylor, of an “antisemitic dogwhistle”, and of falsely claiming they were at Oxford University together.
In his maiden speech to parliament in 2013, Taylor told a story about “political correctness” and a dispute over a Christmas tree at Oxford in 1991, when he was a Rhodes scholar at the university, mentioning that Wolf lived on the same corridor.
Australian teacher thanks those who helped free him and says he formed tight bonds with some of his captors
Freed Taliban hostage Timothy Weeks says he never gave up hope he would be rescued during three “long and tortuous” years in captivity in Afghanistan.
Speaking publicly for the first time since his release as part of a complex prisoner swap almost two weeks ago, the Australian teacher thanked all those who helped secure his freedom, and said he had formed extraordinarily tight bonds with some of his Taliban captors.
New South Wales hopes to cut fatalities on the state’s roads by a third with devices that operate day and night in all weather
New South Wales rolled out mobile phone detection cameras on Sunday, hoping to cut the number of fatalities on its roads by a third over two years, transport authorities said.
The world-first mobile phone detection cameras, according to Transport for NSW, which manages the state’s transport services, operate day and night in all weather conditions to determine if a driver is handling a mobile phone.
Greater Hunter, greater Sydney, Illawarra/Shoalhaven, central ranges, northern slopes and north-western regions have ‘severe’ or ‘very high’ danger
Total fire bans were in place for the greater Hunter – which is facing severe fire danger – greater Sydney, Illawarra/Shoalhaven, central ranges, northern slopes and north-western regions.
These regions and the far south coast, southern ranges and New England, as well as the ACT, had very high fire danger.
They stand at the centre of many of our political debates as we navigate the increasing influence of China in our region, its attempts to infiltrate our politics and institutions, and Australia’s increasing economic dependence.
Bureau of Meteorology says extreme conditions of all kinds can be expected from Sunday, with large hail forecast for south-eastern Queensland
Queensland and New South Wales have been warned to prepare for severe storms bringing dust, 90km/h winds and hail, followed by three days of even worse bushfire conditions.
The Bureau of Meteorology said severe storms would blow across inland southern Queensland on Saturday night, bringing damaging wind, dust storms and the possibility of dry lightning. South-eastern Queensland can expect damaging winds and large hail on Sunday.
Liberal party warned against complacency and told not to ‘overlook that the margin of victory was very small’
Scott Morrison navigated the government through a “narrow” path to victory but was aided by Labor’s “many missteps” and a strong contrast with Bill Shorten and Labor’s policies, the Liberal party review has found.
A summary of the review of the 2019 election, released on Friday, warned against “complacency”, suggesting the Liberal party must improve its candidate selection and rebuild in Victoria and New South Wales or risk defeat at the next election.
The ‘war on gangs’ rhetoric may be politically effective, but as a policy it fails, time after time
It took me almost 10 years to notice that the green ink snaking across my old man’s forehead said “Mongrel Mob”. I never thought the bulldogs wrapping around his hands meant gang member. I mean, he was a dog lover, and he was Dad.
You never really know your parents’ life before you were born, right, even when it’s written across their bodies. You only know the person who is, your mum or dad in the here and now, and it’s almost impossible to imagine they’re someone other people might fear. This is why it took almost 10 years to figure out that the thing on Dad’s head was the reason people were locking their car doors when our family was walking past.
PM concedes a misstep in his defence of minister as Labor continues its attack. All the day’s events, live
From Peter Dutton’s office:
The Australian Government has declared three terrorist attacks for the purposes of the Australian Victim of Terrorism Overseas Payment (AVTOP) scheme.
The Senate is finishing up its divisions on the ensuring integrity bill. That’s brought on the second reading debate, where we go into the amendments.
We’ll be in amendment hell until about 11.45am. Then it’s usual Senate business for a bit, and then straight back into the IR bill. The only thing that will interrupt it then, is question time.
Clive James, the broadcaster, poet and television critic, has died aged 80 after a long illness.
The Australian died at his home in Cambridge on Sunday, his agent confirmed. A private funeral attended by family and close friends took place in the chapel at Pembroke College, Cambridge, on Wednesday afternoon.
Governor Philip Lowe says quantitative easing ‘could help’ but it is ‘not on our agenda at this time’
The Reserve Bank may create money to buy government bonds if it runs out of levers to boost the economy when it drops the official interest rates to 0.25%, its governor, Philip Lowe, has said.
Lowe told the Australian Business Economists dinner in Sydney on Tuesday that quantitative easing “could help” if further interest rate cuts and fiscal stimulus failed to boost the economy although it was “not on our agenda at this point in time”.
Westpac chief executive’s resignation draws little sympathy on all sides of politics. All the day’s events, live
And here is another indication of where question time is headed:
Last week, a bank broke money laundering laws 23 million times.
But instead of going after them, the Liberals are going after unions – trying to take away their right to exist.
This Government hates working people. We'll fight them every step of the way. pic.twitter.com/9vMhFquk4W
A group of north Queensland dairy farmers are on their way to Canberra to express their frustrations at what is happening within their industry.
That’s at the same time the Nationals are trying to get ahead of Pauline Hanson, who may have come late to the issues, but certainly has been running full steam ahead since becoming aware of it.
David Littleproud, the drought minister, some time ago said he fixed the supermarket [milk price] problem. He said he thumped his chest, waved his fists at them, and demanded they put their milk prices up.
Well, we know that solution lasted about five minutes.