Labor leader denies non-attendance at Victoria’s Labor party conference sparked by threats of a union walkout
Controversial union boss John Setka has told the federal Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, to “grow some balls”, amid the latter’s no-show at Victoria’s Labor party conference.
Albanese denied his non-attendance at the annual meeting in Melbourne this weekend was sparked by threats of a union walkout.
Continue reading...Severe isolated thunderstorms forecast in Queensland, which could create dry lightning strikes that start more fires
Forty-degree heat and catastrophic conditions in Western Australia and lightning strikes in Queensland could intensify fires over the weekend as Australia enters its second week of sustained bushfires.
As of Saturday morning, conditions in New South Wales had eased slightly but the NSW Rural Fire Service said an uncontrolled bushfire burning through more than 100,000 hectares near Sydney’s northwestern outskirts was unlikely to be contained before weather conditions worsen.
Continue reading...US reportedly offering to rescue Australian families of Isis fighters trapped in Syria
Australia may be forced to accept three Islamic State fighters in Turkish custody as Ankara begins repatriating foreign fighters to their homelands.
Turkey has so far sent up to 10 fighters back to Britain, the US and Germany, saying it cannot continue to house them, even as the governments have rejected taking their fighters back and have cancelled passports.
Continue reading...After six hellish years inside Australia’s offshore detention regime, Boochani reflects on the country that rejected him, his new-found freedom and the friends he left behind
“One day,” Behrouz Boochani said, observing the bleakness of the abandoned Manus detention centre, its dark form illuminated by wood stripped from the buildings being burned for light, “we will meet in some other place, far away from here.”
That was two years ago, in the middle of a warm November night, when Boochani helped smuggle this reporter into the decommissioned Manus Island detention centre where 400 men were holding out against being forcibly removed: rationing their dwindling supply of food and medicine, guarding against the violent police crackdown they knew was coming, repairing the freshwater wells that had been deliberately spoiled by the retreating guards.
Continue reading...University writes to students on exchange in Hong Kong as campuses become focus of battles between police and protesters
The University of Sydney has urged Australian students on exchange in Hong Kong to return home as pro-democracy protests intensify on university campuses, the ABC is reporting.
The university has written to students after Hong Kong University and other institutions suspended classes for the last few weeks of semester.
Continue reading...Fire danger rating in parts of NSW rises to severe as hot, dry, windy conditions end a brief reprieve of bushfire-hit areas of Australia
• If you are in a bushfire affected area stay tuned to your local emergency broadcaster. Full alerts can be found here for NSW and here for Queensland
A fresh emergency warning was issued for the Hawkesbury on Sydney’s outskirts on Friday for a fast-moving fire, as hot, dry and windy conditions returned to bushfire-hit areas of New South Wales.
The warning was issued for a persistent 80,000-hectare blaze at Gospers Mountain, which was burning in the direction of Colo Heights. Those in the town should leave immediately towards Wilberforce, the Rural Fire Service warned.
Continue reading...How poignant that Behrouz was freed from Australia’s grip and welcomed by Christchurch, a city that knows prejudice only too well
Today our world is a little freer, a little fairer, and a little more hopeful. Today, one less innocent man is incarcerated in Australia’s detention camp on Manus Island, guilty only of seeking refuge from persecution. Behrouz Boochani was no ordinary detainee. The Iranian Kurdish journalist and author became the voice of Manus detainees, and with it the persistent conscience of us all as we learned of the atrocities committed by the Australian government on its remote Pacific island detention camps.
How poignant that he was finally freed to visit Christchurch, a city that knows only too well the violence and suffering borne of prejudice. A city that wrapped its arms so warmly around its refugee community after a terror attack just seven months ago, to heal their wounds and stand for inclusion. Behrouz has said that Christchurch has taught the world about kindness this year. He is also quick to note that the prejudice that leads to violence against refugees is the same that underpins policies allowing cruel treatment of them by governments such as Australia’s. For him, the plight of refugees and displaced persons across the globe right now is connected to the fear-mongering politics of Donald Trump and Scott Morrison.
Continue reading...Official reception highlights New Zealand’s differences with Australia over immigration
The city of Christchurch has welcomed Behrouz Boochani with a civic reception and a traditional Māori mihi whakatau – a formal welcome – as his presence, and liberty, in New Zealand once again underscores the country’s political differences with Australia over immigration.
Boochani was formally greeted from the plane by the mayor of Christchurch and the city’s Māori leaders, who told him he was welcomed by the mountains, the rivers, and the people of the city.
Continue reading...Exclusive: IMF Bentham says several class actions against mining sector companies are for corporate breaches, not environmental
Australia’s biggest litigation funder, IMF Bentham, has rejected the attorney general’s suggestion the industry is engaging in “lawfare” against mining companies.
The company also hit back at claims by the chief executive of employer body AI Group, Innes Willox, that the industry is out of control, costing Australian business billions of dollars and needs urgent regulation.
Continue reading...Kurdish Iranian refugee and journalist – a multiple award-winner for documenting life in Australia’s offshore detention system – has left Papua New Guinea
•The story behind Behrouz Boochani’s flight to freedom
Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish Iranian refugee and journalist who became the voice of those incarcerated on Manus Island, has landed in New Zealand and says he will never return to Papua New Guinea or Australia’s immigration regime.
“I will never go back to that place,” he told the Guardian, shortly after leaving PNG. “I just want to be free of the system, of the process. I just want to be somewhere where I am a person, not just a number, not just a label ‘refugee’.”
Continue reading...‘Do we simply get gagged?,’ asks Greg Mullins as NSW and Queensland bushfires rage on. All the day’s events, live
Greg Mullins continued:
This is very frustrating for this group of emergency chiefs, because had we spoken back in April, one of the things we would have said was try to get more aircraft on lease from the northern hemisphere, this is going to be a horror fire season.
We are only going to have seven of those large air tankers you saw at Turramurra saving homes the other day. They can be a decisive weapon. I have just come back from California - they had about 30 on one fire. But because the fire seasons are overlapping with the northern hemisphere, they are not available when we need them most.
On the meeting the former fire and emergency chiefs have been seeking with the prime minister and other responsible ministers about Australia’s fire preparations since April, Greg Mullins said:
I wrote to the prime minister on two occasions. I didn’t expect a response to the first letter in April, because of the election in May. I wrote a couple of months later, or a few months later, there was a response, saying he was unable to meet and a message saying minister Taylor would be in touch.
When I was able to speak to minister Taylor’s office, I did point out that he was probably not the right minister to speak to, with minister Littleproud, maybe the finance minister, but definitely the PM – he was unable to assist with that.
This government fundamentally doesn’t like talking about climate change.
I will probably say ... that is all I will say about that.
Continue reading...Catastrophic fire conditions in New South Wales ease, but dozens of Australian bushfires remain burning. In Queensland, 60 fires are burning, with strong winds and temperatures in mid-30s forecast to make for hazardous conditions on Australia’s east coast
• Factcheck: are greens really stopping bushfire hazard reduction?
• Open thread: tell us how you’re affected by the fires
• Sydney suburb in the pink after surviving bushfire emergency
• If you are in a bushfire affected area stay tuned to your local emergency broadcaster. Full alerts can be found here for NSW and here for Queensland
Residents of Pechey (near Hampton) have been told to leave now, and head towards the New England highway.
“There is a bushfire in Pechey and Hampton and conditions are getting worse,” QFES says. “A fast moving fire is travelling from Grapetree Road towards Deeth Road, Sewell Road, Parker Road, Bush Road and Misty Mountain Road. It is currently impacting Parker Road and Sewell Road. The fire could have on the significant impact on the community.”
LEAVE NOW: Pechey (near Hampton) bushfire as at 1pm Wed 13 Nov: https://t.co/ZLMRe45vEu
Images of Walkers Point, which is also at “leave now”.
Residents at Walkers Point, south of Bundaberg, are being told to evacuate to Woodgate with firefighters battling a large bushfire @abcnews pic.twitter.com/pffLy1elsV
Continue reading...Exclusive: email from government directs attendees at conference on climate adaptation to stay quiet on bushfire-climate link
As bushfire conditions were declared “catastrophic” on Tuesday, New South Wales bureaucrats attending a conference on adaption to climate change were directed not discuss the link between climate change and bushfires.
Bureaucrats from the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment were sent an email soon after the AdaptNSW 2019 Forum began, causing consternation among some attendees who saw it as tantamount to gagging them.
Continue reading...Good history demands the full and uncomfortable story be in the official account
Suggestions that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is impeding or trying to censor an official history of Australia’s East Timor peacekeeping mission are disturbing but unsurprising.
They’re disturbing because good history must have as bedrock an independence from national reputation-shaping and political interference. The line between that and propaganda is fine.
Continue reading...Full bench of seven judges will decide on Cardinal Pell’s appeal, likely to be heard in 2020
Cardinal George Pell will have a final chance to overturn his conviction on historical child sexual abuse offences after the high court in Canberra agreed to hear appeal arguments in a special full court sitting.
A date for the appeal hearing is yet to be set but it is likely to be early in 2020, by the full bench of seven judges. Led by the high-profile silk Bret Walker SC, Pell’s legal team will argue that the majority of judges in Victoria’s court of appeal erred by finding in August that jurors were not unreasonable to believe the testimony of Pell’s victim.
Continue reading...Rural Fire Service says a firefighter has been injured in Sydney as New South Wales faces catastrophic fire conditions across greater Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra/Shoalhaven with strong winds and high temperatures. Dozens of bushfires continue to burn across Queensland and Australia’s east coast
• Catastrophic fire danger: what does it mean?
• Open thread: tell us how you’re affected by the fires
• If you are in a bushfire affected area stay tuned to your local emergency broadcaster. Full alerts can be found here for NSW and here for Queensland
I take that back, the latest update has moved it back up to nine emergency alert level fires:
In the latest update from the RFS, they’ve downgraded six of the fires, meaning there are now four emergency alert level fires.
Those are:
Continue reading...Afghan president Ghani hopes move will help secure release of American and Australian
Afghanistan’s president says he has ordered the release of three Taliban fighters in an effort to persuade the insurgent group to free a kidnapped American and Australian professor.
Timothy Weekes, an English teacher from Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, and Kevin King, from Pennsylvania, were abducted three years ago from outside American University of Afghanistan in Kabul by fighters in military uniform.
Continue reading...World’s biggest planemaker hopes aviation authorities will soon approve plane’s flight control software
Boeing said on Monday it could have its fleet of 737 Max jets flying again by January as safety checks on the aircraft’s troubled flight software reach completion. The planes were grounded in March in the wake of two fatal crashes in the space of five months that killed 346 people.
The world’s biggest planemaker said it hoped the Federal Aviation Administration would approve certification of the plane’s flight control software before the end of the year. A fault with the plane’s anti-stall mechanism is believed to have caused the Lionair crash in Indonesia last October and then the Ethiopian Airlines disaster in March.
Continue reading...New South Wales faces an unprecedented fire danger on Tuesday amid high temperatures and strong winds
Fire chiefs in Australia have warned of “the most dangerous bushfire week this nation has ever seen”, saying New South Wales – the country’s most populous state – faces an unprecedented “catastrophic” fire day on Tuesday
Sixty fires are currently burning in across the state, 40 of which are running out of control. There are also nearly 50 fires burning in Queensland, and fires in Western Australia and South Australia.
Continue reading...More than 575 NSW schools to close as conditions forecast to worsen on Tuesday, while dozens of bushfires continue to burn across Australia’s east coast. This blog is now closed
This is where we’ll leave our rolling coverage today. Guardian Australia will be covering all the developments tomorrow. Here’s what’s happened so far:
ABC Weather has published an explanation of why Tuesday is looking so bad: it’s a cold front.
“Tomorrow with the winds you’ll be seeing a more south-easterly direction,” Grace Legge, senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology, told the ABC.
Why a cold front signals disaster for fire danger https://t.co/NOr4mZ54B3 via @ABCNews pic.twitter.com/3ZrwsfqZeg
Continue reading...