Category Archives: Australia news

News Corp comparing ABC to Netflix subscription ‘unbalanced and agenda-driven’, broadcaster chair says

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In strongly worded statement, Kim Williams says allegations in Murdoch-owned tabloids ‘do not stand up to scrutiny’

A claim in News Corp publications across the country that the public broadcaster costs taxpayers more than a Netflix subscription is an “inaccurate, unbalanced and agenda-driven attack on the ABC”, the ABC chair, Kim Williams, says.

On The Daily Telegraph’s front page, an inside page and an editorial on Friday, the Murdoch tabloid alleged the ABC “costs Australia’s 11.5m households $105 each a year, compared to $96 for an annual Netflix subscription” and “failed to reach 10.6m Australians”.

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Australia news live: ‘we have got your back’, Albanese tells steel workers amid speculation over Trump tariffs

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Australia prime minister says Trump giving ‘great consideration’ for an exemption. Follow the latest news headlines live

Dutton calls for more details on interaction between Australia and China in South China Sea

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has also weighed in on that interaction between Australian and Chinese aircraft in the South China Sea on Tuesday.

And then Richard Marles did a press conference to provide details. So we haven’t had a briefing on it as yet, but on what the deputy prime minister says it is deeply concerning because it puts that safety at risk, the safety of our personnel. And that is not something that Australia can tolerate.

[It] needs to be transparent in terms of what’s happened, and I just don’t think we’ve seen all of the detail yet from Richard Marles.

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Hundreds of Sydney trains cancelled as negotiation between NSW government and rail workers come to a halt

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Unions chief says ‘no one can predict the level of disruption that this is going to cause’

Sydney commuters have been warned to avoid non-urgent rail travel on Friday amid delays and hundreds of service cancellations, as a pay negotiations between the train unions and state government grinds to a halt.

The state transport minister, John Graham, said the network was in the midst of a major disruption. “We’ve had more than 350 services cancelled this morning and that is having a big impact across the network,” he told Sydney radio 2GB on Friday.

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Khaled Sabsabi dropped as Australia’s representative to Venice Biennale

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Amid political pressure, Creative Australia says deselecting the Lebanese-born artist will avoid ‘divisive debate’

Khaled Sabsabi, the western Sydney artist who fled Lebanon’s civil war as a child, has been dropped from representing Australia at the 61st Venice Biennale – just five days after being selected to do so.

Sabsabi selection for the 2026 showcase had caused controversy due to some of the artist’s previous works, including a 2007 depiction of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated last year, and a 2006 video rendering of the 9/11 attacks called Thank You Very Much. Shortly after the announcement, Sabsabi admitted to being shocked at being chosen, telling the Guardian: “I felt that, in this time and in this space, this wouldn’t happen because of who I am.”

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Referendum needed for Dutton’s call to toughen citizenship-stripping laws, expert says

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Constitutional law expert Helen Irving says such a change appears to be a distraction from serious nature of anti-Israeli comments from NSW nurses

Peter Dutton’s proposal to toughen citizenship-stripping laws in response to comments made by two New South Wales nurses would probably require a referendum, a constitutional lawyer says.

Both major party leaders have been accused of a “bidding war” on who can look tougher on the issue, with Abul Rizvi, a former senior immigration official, urging politicians not to throw more petrol on the fire amid social tensions.

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NSW Labor accused of trying to ‘redesign’ a mental health system with no psychiatrists

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Patient care compromised by closing beds and shifting workload to less qualified staff, motion claims

The New South Wales Labor government is seeking to “redesign” the state’s mental health system without psychiatrists, despite the risks to patient care, its political rivals claim.

In a NSW legislative council meeting on Wednesday, the shadow assistant minister Susan Carter and the Greens’ health spokesperson, Dr Amanda Cohn, lambasted the Minns government’s handling of psychiatrists’ mass resignations, with Carter accusing the responsible ministers of having “sought to redesign our mental health system to work without specialist psychiatrists”.

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‘Going to be a big one’: category five Tropical Cyclone Zelia and 320km/h winds headed for Western Australia coast

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‘Top of the scale’ winds strong enough to take out complete houses, destroy power lines and cause widespread damage and disruption

Schools, ports and roads have been closed as northern Australia braces for a tropical cyclone that has developed into a destructive category five system bringing ferocious wind gusts up to 320km/h.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Zelia has rapidly intensified since developing off the Western Australian coast and is forecast to be at its most dangerous and powerful when it hits land.

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Group was ‘drunk, rowdy’ before WA teenager Cassius Turvey allegedly murdered, court hears

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Witness tells trial the group accused of murdering WA boy was ‘a little bit drunk’ and armed themselves with weapons before the incident

An Indigenous teenager’s alleged killers were drunk, rowdy and packing weapons, a witness has said, before admitting he lied under oath at a murder trial.

Cassius Turvey, a 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy, died in hospital 10 days after prosecutors say he was chased down, knocked to the ground and “deliberately struck to the head with a metal pole” in Perth’s eastern suburbs on 13 October 2022.

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Influencer to provide unedited video of nurses’ anti-Israeli threats as pair prevented from practising in Australia

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Mark Butler says pair have had their nurses’ registrations suspended following their ‘sickening comments’

New South Wales police have spoken to an Israeli influencer who they say has agreed to provide investigators with an unedited version of a video chat in which two Bankstown hospital nurses allegedly threatened Israeli patients.

The video attracted widespread political condemnation after it was published by the Israeli content creator Max Veifer and led to the male nurse issuing an apology. The video depicted an edited online conversation Veifer had with the two staff members on a video chat platform similar to Chatroulette.

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Belle Gibson: Victorian authorities ‘won’t let up’ on pursuit of cancer con artist’s unpaid $410,000 fine

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Speaking after Netflix released Apple Cider Vinegar, Jacinta Allan says consumer watchdog is ‘constantly’ working to recover fine imposed in 2017

The Victorian premier says the state’s consumer watchdog is “constantly” pursuing cancer conwoman Belle Gibson and “won’t let up” until she pays the fine she was ordered to pay more than seven years ago.

Gibson, who is the now the subject of a new Netflix series, Apple Cider Vinegar, was in 2017 ordered by the federal court to pay a $410,000 fine plus $30,000 in legal costs for misleading and deceptive conduct, after she falsely claimed to have been diagnosed with brain cancer and cured through alternative therapies and nutrition.

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Australia condemns ‘unsafe’ airspace encounter and rejects Chinese allegations RAAF plane ‘deliberately intruded’

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Australian defence department says it is monitoring three Chinese ships in the Coral Sea

Australia has rejected Chinese allegations an Australian airforce plane “deliberately intruded into China’s airspace” and undermined its national security, saying the actions of a Chinese navy fighter pilot who released flares near the Australian aircraft were “wrong … and very very dangerous”.

Australia’s defence department accused the Chinese navy of an “unsafe and unprofessional” incident by allegedly dropping flares dangerously close to an Australian patrol flight on what it described as routine operations in the South China Sea on Tuesday.

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Bacteria transferred during intercourse could help identify sexual assault perpetrators, scientists say

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Genital microbiome or ‘sexome’ leaves specific signature even when barrier protection is used, which could be traced in absence of DNA material

Bacteria transferred between people during sexual intercourse could be used in forensic testing to help identify sexual assault perpetrators, an Australian study suggests.

Genital bacteria, similar to the microorganisms that make up the gut microbiome, vary between individuals. They are transferred to sexual partners during intercourse and leave specific signatures that can subsequently be detected, researchers found.

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‘Like finding gold’: plains-wanderers spotted in Melbourne’s west for first time in 30 years with help of AI

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Critically endangered bird detected after analysis of tens of thousands of hours of song meter recordings

Critically endangered plains-wanderers have been found living in Melbourne’s west for the first time in more than 30 years.

Notoriously elusive and difficult to spot, the rare birds were detected on two pockets of remnant grassland by Zoos Victoria, with the help of AI.

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Proposed ban on protest outside places of worship could prevent town hall rallies, Sydney mayor warns

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Clover Moore says police would have power to block peaceful demonstrations and warns against eroding civil rights

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Sydney’s mayor has warned that new laws proposed by the New South Wales government would give police powers to block peaceful protests at town hall – a regular site for demonstrations in the city.

The laws, introduced to parliament on Tuesday and carrying a maximum of two years in prison, are the first tranche of a suite of measures aimed at stemming antisemitism after a series of arson attacks and graffiti on synagogues and in Sydney’s suburban streets in recent months.

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Share of wealth held by Australia’s poorest falls by almost 30% since 2004 – report

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Study by Monash University recommends spending increase to fix inequalities in housing, health and education

The wealth held by Australia’s bottom 40% has declined by almost a third in two decades while 3.3m live below the poverty line, a damning report into Australia’s track record on quality of life shows.

Monash University’s third Transforming Australia report, released Thursday, shows progress on more than half of the 80 indicators has stalled or is in freefall, painting a deteriorating picture of the country’s social, economic and environmental wellbeing.

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Gang violence sparked by ‘love triangle’ led to Cassius Turvey killing, court told

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Four adults accused of murdering the 15-year-old in Perth after becoming involved in a dispute between two teenage boys over a girl

The girl at the centre of the “love triangle” that allegedly led to the death of Cassius Turvey in a Perth suburb has taken the stand at his murder trial.

The 15-year-old Noongar Yamatji boy died in hospital 10 days after he was “caught, knocked to the ground and deliberately struck to the head with a metal pole” in Perth’s eastern suburbs on October 13, 2022.

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Antoinette Lattouf v ABC hearing live: editorial adviser declines to comment on string of Patricia Karvelas social media posts presented in court

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Lattouf’s unlawful termination claim against ABC examines how and why she was sacked after posting on social media about Israel-Gaza war. Follow the hearing live.

Fagir presses Latimer on the social media advice given to Lattouf

Fagir is now taking Latimer to advice he received from the acting editorial director, Simon Melkman.

The direction to Steve was that Ms Lattouf doesn’t post anything in the context of the Middle East conflict on her socials.

That was the direction.

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Australia ‘killing’ US manufacturing with aluminium imports, Trump’s trade adviser says

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Peter Navarro’s comments to US media, which follow president’s 25% tariff announcement, were shared on an official Trump administration account on X

Donald Trump’s trade adviser claims Australia is “crushing” and “killing” America’s manufacturing sector with its imports of aluminium, as the Albanese government scrambles to try to secure exemptions to the president’s 25% tariffs on metal.

Anthony Albanese said he was still hopeful the local steel and aluminium industry could be spared from the tariff regime, even after escalating comments from the Trump administration criticising current trade arrangements with allies, including Australia.

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Pressure from ‘higher up’ at ABC to sack Antoinette Lattouf from very first day on air, court hears

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ABC manager who had approached Lattouf for temporary hosting role told the court she had ‘tried to stop them’ from firing journalist

There was pressure from “higher up” in the ABC to sack Antoinette Lattouf from the very first day she was on air, Lattouf’s line manager has told the federal court.

Elizabeth Green, the ABC manager who had approached Lattouf for the temporary hosting role, told the court she had “tried to stop them” from firing Lattouf but that “there was pressure coming from higher up”.

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AFL plan to extract more money from gambling faces potential legal challenge

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Exclusive: Bookmakers consider fighting proposal to increase fees from 0.9% to 1.5% of turnover from most bets

The AFL’s bid to secure a bigger share of gambling losses – despite public health warnings and criticism of sports betting – faces a potential legal challenge from bookmakers who believe it is already taking too much.

A draft proposal sent to bookmakers shows the AFL wants to significantly increase the cut it takes from bets placed on its matches. The cut, known as a product fee, is a percentage of a bookmaker’s turnover or revenue, whichever is highest.

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