Category Archives: Australia news

One Nation candidate poised to help Coalition in handshake deal has railed against climate science and Covid ‘little Hitlers’

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Exclusive: Stuart Bonds could hand the Nationals the seat of Hunter thanks to a preference deal and ‘last minute’ change to how-to-vote cards

A One Nation candidate who could hand the Nationals the seat of Hunter, thanks to a handshake preference deal, has called public health officials “little Hitlers” and promoted a conspiracy theory alleging the government has used the climate crisis to control every aspect of people’s lives.

Stuart Bonds told a livestreamed forum with rightwing activists last week that the federal government should not do anything to address climate change. He also claimed “a crime” was committed against Australians during the Covid pandemic, alleging they were used “as an experiment to sell pharmaceutical projects”.

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Paramedic denied access to Bondi Junction ‘hot zone’ tells stabbing inquest policies ‘need to change’

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Critical care paramedic Christopher Wilkinson arrived at Westfield 30 minutes after Joel Cauchi attacked 16 people, killing six

A New South Wales ambulance officer who attempted to save the lives of Bondi Junction stabbing victims on 13 April 2024 says he was “frustrated” after not being able to access injured and potentially dying patients.

Six people were stabbed to death by schizophrenic man Joel Cauchi at the Westfield shopping centre.

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Donald Trump says he ‘will be talking’ to Australia’s prime minister about tariffs

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US president indicated he was aware Anthony Albanese has been pushing for an exemption to trade barriers

Donald Trump says he will speak to the Australian prime minister about trade, telling reporters he knows the Australian government has been trying to contact him.

Australia goes to a federal election on Saturday and while the incumbent, Anthony Albanese, is favoured to win, Trump could be dealing with an alternative prime minister after the weekend.

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Coalition coy on curriculum changes despite Dutton’s claims of student ‘indoctrination’

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Coalition’s outline of changes to national curriculum based on ‘critical thinking’ and ‘common sense’ is yet to be revealed

The Coalition has refused to detail changes it would make to the national curriculum after Peter Dutton said students were being “indoctrinated” and pledged in his budget reply speech to “restore” a curriculum focused on “critical thinking, responsible citizenship, and common sense”.

Dutton has made repeated references to the education system in recent weeks, including floating on Sky News placing a “condition” on funding to ensure kids weren’t “guided by some sort of an agenda that’s come out of universities” and pledging “we need to stop the teaching of some of the curriculum that says that our children should be ashamed of being Australian” in the Channel 7 debate.

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RecipeTin Eats founder accuses Brooki Bakehouse of plagiarising recipes in popular cookbook

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Brooke Bellamy denies taking recipes from fellow cookbook author Nagi Maehashi who said it felt like ‘blatant exploitation’

The founder of food website RecipeTin Eats has accused an influencer of plagiarising her recipes in a bestselling Australian cookbook.

On Tuesday Nagi Maehashi, who started RecipeTin Eats in 2014, accused Brooke Bellamy – also known as Brooki Bakehouse – of plagiarising two of her recipes in Bellamy’s popular cookbook, Bake with Brooki.

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Macquarie ‘very proud’ of Thames Water ownership despite loading it with debt

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Some analysts claim investment bank set supplier on course for collapse before selling it in 2017

The investment bank that sold Thames Water in 2017 after loading the company with debt has said that it is “very proud” of its record, even as the water utility teeters on the verge of collapse.

Australia-headquartered Macquarie led a consortium that owned Thames Water from 2006 until 2017. Macquarie has been criticised by some politicians and analysts for its control of the business, accusing the bank of setting it on course for financial collapse.

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Nine journalist Nick McKenzie allegedly told of Ben Roberts-Smith’s ex-wife’s planned legal action

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Roberts-Smith argues his unsuccessful defamation case against McKenzie and Nine newspapers should be retried because of a ‘miscarriage of justice’

The Nine journalist Nick McKenzie was told about a legal action Ben Roberts-Smith’s ex-wife planned to take against the war veteran ahead of his defamation trial, a court has heard, with the informant allegedly telling him “it’s always good to be on the front foot”.

On Tuesday the federal court of Australia heard that a friend of Emma Roberts had told McKenzie that Roberts-Smith was planning to notify and write to the Commonwealth director of public prosecutions (CDPP) about an alleged “breach” and to “restrain any further publications being made”.

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This article was amended on 2 May 2025. An earlier version incorrectly stated that Nick McKenzie was told Emma Roberts planned to contact the CDPP. McKenzie was told that Ben Roberts-Smith planned to do this.

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Erin Patterson no longer accused of attempting to kill husband as mushroom murders trial begins

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Victorian supreme court judge tells jury that charges relating to Simon Patterson have been dropped

The trial of Erin Patterson for allegedly murdering her in-laws by serving them a lunch laced with death cap mushrooms has started in a Victorian court.

Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in South Gippsland in 2023.

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‘The eighth wonder of the world’: China’s terracotta warriors to march on Australia for blockbuster show

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Perth will host huge exhibition of ancient treasures from first emperor’s tomb in June, with 40% of the artefacts leaving China for the first time ever

Two thousand years ago, in a bid to conquer death itself, China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang commissioned a city of the dead: a 49 sq km mausoleum guarded by an army of clay warriors, built to defend his tomb for eternity.

When farmers near Xi’an unearthed the first clay head in 1974, they cracked open one of humanity’s greatest archaeological mysteries, with more than 8,000 Terracotta Warriors discovered over the last 50 years. Now, fragments of that dream of immortality rise again – this time in Perth, where the largest exhibition of the Terracotta Warriors ever staged in Australia will head later this year

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The Coalition denies emissions will rise if it wins the election. What do the facts say?

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We break down the major parties’ climate claims, counter-claims and policies – and find out what the experts say

The Coalition has disputed claims that greenhouse gas emissions would be higher if it won the election than under a returned Labor government. It points to its record between 2013 and 2022 compared with what has happened under Labor over the past three years.

Speaking to the ABC’s RN Breakfast on Monday, the Coalition climate change and energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, said “under the former Coalition government you saw emissions fall” – from 12% to 29% less than 2005 levels. And that in Labor’s three years in office emissions “have flatlined”, showing the ALP has “failed”.

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Guardian Essential poll: Labor leads Coalition in final pre-election poll as Dutton’s approval rating slips further

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Poll also finds most Australians voting based on who will leave them better off in three years – rather than comparing situation to three years ago

Anthony Albanese holds an election-winning lead with just days left of the campaign, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll, with Labor leading the Coalition 52% to 48% on a two-party basis.

Albanese’s approval ratings have ticked up slightly since the last poll two weeks ago, but Peter Dutton’s has slipped for the fourth poll in a row, with the Liberal leader’s public standing dropping as the campaign has progressed. The Essential poll shows more people have switched their support to Labor because of the campaign over recent weeks, and that two-thirds of Australians say they’re voting based on who will leave them better off in three years – rather than comparing their situation to where it was three years ago.

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Labor says the CSIRO put a $600bn price tag on Coalition’s nuclear dreams. It’s not quite right

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Number comes from the Smart Energy Council (SEC), a renewable energy industry group, almost six months before Coalition modelling

Labor’s campaign spokesperson, frontbencher Jason Clare, claimed on Monday that CSIRO had put a $600bn price tag on the Coalition’s plans to build taxpayer-funded nuclear reactors at seven sites.

“Have a look at the work that the CSIRO has done that proves that this will cost $600bn. It won’t turn a light on for 20 years. It’ll only produce about 4% of the energy that Australia is going to need,” Clare told ABC Radio National.

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Sole CCTV operator using bathroom when Bondi Junction attack began, Sydney court hears

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Coronial inquest into 2024 incident also told killer had ‘preoccupation with death and murder’ before fatally stabbing six people

The man who fatally stabbed six people in a Sydney shopping centre last April had a “preoccupation with death and murder” and made online searches for serial killers and the Columbine school shooters in the days before his attack, a court has heard.

It also heard that at the moment the attack began, the sole CCTV security room operator had been using the bathroom and re-entered the CCTV room less than two minutes later, towards the end of the man’s stabbing rampage.

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Dutton claims majority of veterans don’t want welcome to country at Anzac Day ceremonies

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Opposition leader says opening of parliament is an appropriate time for ceremonies but that acknowledgment on planes is ‘over the top’

Peter Dutton has confirmed he does not believe welcome to country ceremonies are necessary at Anzac Day dawn services and on commercial flights, continuing to stoke a culture war in the final week of the election campaign.

It comes days after a neo-Nazi booed and heckled a welcome to country ceremony at a dawn service in Melbourne.

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Synthetic opioids linked to spate of overdose deaths found in wastewater across Australia

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Detection of powerful nitazenes in samples from 60 sites a ‘red flag’ amid surging use to lace street drugs

Synthetic opioids a thousand times stronger than morphine and an animal sedative used to lace street drugs have been detected in Australia’s wastewater.

The discovery has been described as a “red flag” and comes as the deadly class of synthetic opioids – nitazines – claims dozens of lives in Australia.

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Nasal spray similar to ketamine to be added to PBS for treatment-resistant depression

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Spravato, derived from a popular club drug and also known as esketamine, offers hope to tens of thousands of Australians living with chronic mental illness

A medication chemically similar to ketamine will be made cheaper to improve the lives of Australians suffering from treatment-resistant depression.

The drug, which comes in the form of a nasal spray, is a chemical cousin of ketamine, used for decades as a powerful anaesthetic before it was adopted as a party drug in underground rave culture.

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Pro-gas group with link to Liberal party referred to ACCC over alleged misleading claims

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Integrity organisation claims Australians for Natural Gas overstates role of gas in economy and failed to disclose directors’ links to industry on website

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been asked to investigate allegedly misleading claims made by Australians for Natural Gas, a pro-gas group with directors who include a gas industry executive and a Liberal candidate running in the federal election.

Lawyers acting for Climate Integrity, a not-for-profit focused on corporate accountability, have filed a complaint with the ACCC. They argue the website and advertising materials of Australians for Natural Gas have failed to disclose its directors’ links to the gas industry and Liberal party, and overinflated the role of gas in the economy and energy transition.

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Leaders’ debate live updates: Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton meet in final election debate

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This blog is now closed

Mark Riley asked each leader what the Australian dream looks like for an average Australian in the property market today?

Peter Dutton said it “looks like a nightmare” and blamed the matter on migration:

When you bring a million people in they want a house for their kids and their family, fair enough, but what we’ve seen is Australians being displaced from home ownership, and our young Australians now, saving harder than ever, paying more rent than ever. They’re locked out of the market.

We are concentrating on supply, not just demand, because we know that’s the key going forward.

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Australia election 2025 live updates: Coalition won’t cut working holiday visas, McKenzie says; Labor promises 24/7 free telehealth

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Nationals senator says working holiday visa, which supplies labour to regional areas, will not be part of Coalition’s planned migration cuts. Follow updates live

Peter Dutton is due to arrive any moment at a campaign rally in the Labor-held seat of Hawke in Melbourne’s west.

The opposition leader is expected to deliver an energetic sermon to the party faithful ahead of the Coalition’s last-week “blitz”.

Over the last three years, when defence comes to us, the independent strategic review identifies capabilities and assets that need to be bought, then we have put that in the budget. The biggest expansion in peacetime since World War II, you see defence spending growing as a share of the economy or GDP over the forward estimates and over the next ten years.

If more needs to be done, of course the prime minister has indicated we’re open to doing that.

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Virginia Giuffre, Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew accuser, dies aged 41

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Giuffre’s family issue statement confirming she killed herself at her farm in Western Australia

Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent victims of the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein who also alleged she was sexually trafficked to Prince Andrew, has died aged 41.

Her family issued a statement on Saturday confirming she took her own life at her farm in Western Australia, where she had lived for several years.

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