More than 130 bushfires continue to burn, with three people dead and 150 properties destroyed, and conditions set to worsen
The greater Sydney region will face catastrophic fire danger on Tuesday for the first time since the rating was introduced and fire authorities say conditions in other parts of New South Wales could also be set to worsen.
The warning was issued as more than 80 fires continued to burn in the north of the state late on Sunday.
Continue reading...Three people dead, seven or more missing and more than 150 homes destroyed
• Bushfires blaze across Australia’s east coast – in pictures
• Braving the blazes: footage of bushfires ravaging coast
Three people have been killed and there were fears for another seven still missing after uncontrolled bushfires destroyed more than 150 homes over thousands of hectares of eastern Australia.
At a fire in the Kangawalla area, near Glen Innes on the New South Wales north coast, a body was found in a burnt-out car by a volunteer firefighter.
Continue reading...NSW’s Glen Innes the site of confirmed deaths and missing persons, as 77 bushfires still burn across the east-coast states
• Full report: At least 100 homes destroyed in NSW and Queensland fires
There have been a few questions to the PM, including one about the ferocity of these early fires and links to climate change.
“My only thoughts today are those who lost their lives and their families, the firefighters fighting the fires, the response effort that has to be delivered, and how the the Commonwealth can support those efforts,” he replied.
“We always have to listen carefully to the warnings, and undertake the preparations that are advised in every single season. I think that Australians increasingly understand that and I would be encouraging them to revisit their fire preparation plans. The fire might be on your doorstep today, but as we go into every fire season and every summer season, the risk is ever present, and it’s important that families understand what the evacuation procedures are. What numbers to call. What things to ready themselves with, and how they can best prepare their properties in the event of a firestorm.”
Prime minister Scott Morrison is speaking now – and he’s flagged a “contingency option” of further involvement of the defence forces.
He said the deployment of ADF – beyond the airlifts they’re already doing – hadn’t been requested yet, but he and relevant ministers were discussing having them ready.
Continue reading...Irregularity known as Indian Ocean dipole bringing weather extremes across region
Twenty years ago in 1999 a new weather pattern was described for the first time. Now it has shifted up a gear and is causing devastation across east Africa.
The Indian Ocean dipole, sometimes called the Indian El Niño, is an irregular oscillation in which the surface temperature of the sea is alternatively greater in the ocean’s west and its east. The positive phase, when it is warmer in the west, sees more rain in the west and greater chance of drought in the east. These are reversed in a negative phase.
Continue reading...There are fears that some people are trapped in their homes in an unprecedented bushfire emergency
Ok, we’re going to leave it there for this evening. Thanks for joining us and we’ll be back in the morning with more reporting on the bushfire situation.
For information about current bushfire warnings monitor emergency websites, including www.rfs.nsw.gov.au and www.qfes.qld.gov.au.
Stranded by the fires today. Disconcerting when you watch dozens of fire trucks laden with firies rush past under lights and sirens. As a journo I know how hard the firefighters work, but on days like today, thank god for the @NSWRFS and @FRNSW #nswfires pic.twitter.com/SCGPfdmtv9
Continue reading...Hot and windy weather has created volatile conditions along parts of Australia’s east coast
Parts of Australia faced an unprecedented bushfire threat on Friday evening as more than 100 blazes burned across coastal New South Wales and Queensland.
Communities on NSW’s mid-north coast and the far north coast were battling the worst of the conditions, which were described by authorities as “uncharted territory” and that led to a dramatic, orange-red glow descending on the fire-threatened city of Port Macquarie.
Continue reading...John Ioannou confirms visit from NT police and denies allegations made against him by the APY artists collective
A private art dealer in Alice Springs has said allegations that he had taken elderly Indigenous artists from their communities to paint for him and that one was being forced to paint away a $20,000 debt for her son were being “intentionally fabricated”.
The dealer, John Ioannou, contacted Guardian Australia through a friend to provide his defence to allegations made against him by the APY artist collective in a letter to the federal ministers for Indigenous Australians and the arts, and the South Australian premier.
Continue reading...There is no definitive roadmap from the reviewers, but a couple of dangerous ideas are floated
The forward sizzle about the release of Labor’s campaign review was focused on the obvious conflict point – how Bill Shorten would absorb the post-mortem. Would the review be scathing about the former leader’s lack of popularity, attributing the lion’s share of the blame for the election loss to him? Would Shorten then strike back, setting the framework for a contested term, and another election loss?
The reviewers met with Shorten privately early on Thursday, before the review went to the national executive, so the former leader was briefed ahead of the public unveiling. Shorten then responded publicly to the review before it was released, framing it on his own terms, and his own terms were clear as a bell. In the world of second chances, “were the universe to grant re-runs” the former leader would do things differently and, by the way, he’d be around for the next 20 years.
Continue reading...Minister says he does not believe Indigenous artists are choosing to seek better economic opportunities in working for private dealers
The minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, says he intends to take stronger sanctions against private art dealers or “carpetbaggers” who are exploiting vulnerable and elderly Aboriginal artists in central Australia.
Speaking on ABC radio in Alice Springs on Wednesday, Wyatt said he thought the current system, under which dealers voluntarily join the Indigenous Art Code (IAC), was not working.
Continue reading...The woman, 32, and man, 24, were reported missing after failing to turn up to their jobs on Monday
Two bodies, believed to be a missing couple, have been found in far north Queensland.
A woman, 32, and a man, 24, both from Townsville, were reported missing in the Cairns area on Monday after failing to turn up to their respective jobs.
Continue reading...National security adviser Robert O’Brien says Beijing has bullied smaller nations by militarising resource-rich waters
The US has condemned Chinese “intimidation” in the South China Sea, alleging it has bullied smaller south-east Asian nations by militarising the resource-rich waters and seeking to control the global trade route.
Speaking at an Asean-US summit in Bangkok, the US national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, said China’s sweeping exclusive claims in the South China Sea – already rejected by the court of arbitration – were illegitimate and a form of realist imperialism.
Continue reading...Tasmanian man’s body was found in a fire stairwell at Bondi Junction shopping centre three weeks after he disappeared
As Bernard Gore’s wife of 50 years waited to meet him in a Sydney shopping centre, she had no idea her husband was trapped nearby in a fire stairwell where he would later die.
Angela Gore, surrounded by her children, cried silently as an inquest heard how her husband’s body was found kneeling forward – as if he’d fallen off a nearby chair – in the stairwell at Westfield Bondi Junction in early 2017.
Continue reading...Health minister Greg Hunt promises ‘significant package’ for aged care but won’t commit to figure
Labor has launched a new campaign targeting the government over aged care funding, as the health minister, Greg Hunt, commits to delivering a “significant package” for the sector before Christmas.
Setting a deadline of 11 November when parliament returns, opposition leader Anthony Albanese said the “aged care, action now” campaign would gather signatures from across the country calling for immediate funding to address a crisis in the sector.
Continue reading...Family appeals to immigration minister David Coleman to stop their deportation to Bangladesh
A five-year-old boy born in Australia is facing deportation to Bangladesh with his family after their visa applications were refused because his “mild disability” would be a burden on the medical system.
Dr Mahedi Hasan Bhuiyan arrived in Australia on a student visa in 2011. He and Rebaka Sultana married the next year in Bangladesh and she joined him in Australia in 2013. Later that year their son, Adyan, was born at a Geelong hospital.
Continue reading...Police forced their way into Erina home after seeing flames coming from side of the house
New South Wales police officers have shot dead a man they say was wielding an axe and threatening them during a house fire north of Sydney.
The officers had forced their way through the front door of a home at The Entrance Road in Erina about 10.20pm after noticing flames coming from the side of the house.
Continue reading...Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources unable to agree on plan backed by Australia, France and EU
Conservationists have expressed frustration that an international commission for protecting marine life in Antarctica has failed for the eighth consecutive time to create a marine park across 1 million sq km on the continent’s east.
Members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) could not agree on the proposal, backed by Australia, France and the EU, that would have protected habitat for penguins, seals, whales and seabirds.
Continue reading...The deficiencies in the mental health and aged care systems are distressing realities that need to be confronted
The facts on suicide in Australia, the Productivity Commission informs us, are stark. Every year, 3,000 people end their own lives, more than eight people every day. It is the leading cause of death for young adults, and suicide rates in Indigenous communities are more than double the rest of the community. This picture has been static for a decade.
Some people with mental illness are plagued with suicidal ideations, and for some that ends in tragedy, but as Scott Morrison’s suicide prevention adviser, Christine Morgan, told me earlier this year, a substantial proportion of people who take their lives in Australia never present to clinicians with depression or another illness.
Continue reading...Ultra-endurance athlete, aerodynamic wonder … and facing extinction. Why the bird who flies 30,000km a year needs Australia’s mudflats
• Vote for your favourite in the 2019 bird of the year poll
The ascent is vertical. Up, up and into the jet stream. If the conditions are not right up there it will come back down and wait. But if there is a good tailwind in the right direction it will begin an epic journey that will take it around the curvature of the Earth; from the Arctic Circle to the southern hemisphere.
Using the sun and stars as a compass, and navigating by the Earth’s magnetic field, recognising landmarks, the far eastern curlew will fly nonstop to the Yellow Sea, where it fuels up on the mudflats of north-east China.
Continue reading...Warning comes a week after company flagged it may close its New Zealand smelter
Mining giant Rio Tinto says its Australian Aluminium smelters, which employ more than 2,600 workers, are not sustainable at current power prices.
The company runs three smelters in Australia, which are under financial pressure due to the high price of electricity, which makes up about a third of their costs, and the low price of aluminium due to a flood of cheap supply coming from Asian competitors.
Continue reading...Aircraft grounded after hairline cracks found between wing and fuselage
Qantas has pulled three of its Boeing 737 planes from service after finding hairline cracks but have said they will not ground all 737s they fly.
Three planes have now been affected by cracks in the “pickle fork” structure between the wing and the fuselage. On Thursday, the aircraft engineers union said the airline should ground the entire 737 fleet.
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