Category Archives: Western Australia

Nine Entertainment journalists vote for industrial action – as it happened

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Biden has been ‘a great fan of Australia’: Albanese

Anthony Albanese is speaking with ABC RN after Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the US presidential race.

The president has been a great fan of Australia. [A] very significant economic relationship has grown out our trade during his presidency … He’s someone who has stood up for values of social inclusion, and importantly as well for Australia and for the world he’s been a leading figure on climate action.

He was a gracious host to myself and Jodie during our state visit last year … [He] will continue to be over the coming months the most important leader in our globe. Of course, the United States is our most important ally.

The policies won’t change much. I mean, he’s obviously very interested in policies around tariffs and trade. I don’t think that will change much from his first term.

I think the challenge for us with with Donald Trump is to remind him that one of America’s unique advantages is its network of allies and partners and to make the maximum use of that. And there’s been great progress … in terms of Aukus [and] many groupings in the Indo-Pacific … and all these need to be sort of maintained and strengthened and that requires American leadership.

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Linda Reynolds’ lawyers pore over Brittany Higgins phone download ahead of defamation trial

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Team working through documents including more than 56,000 pages of information Australian federal police downloaded from Higgins’ phone

Lawyers for Liberal senator Linda Reynolds are poring over tens of thousands of pages of potential evidence taken from Brittany Higgins’ phone.

The former defence minister, who plans to retire from politics at the next election, is suing her former political staffer over a series of social media posts she says damaged her reputation.

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Indonesian boys jailed by Australia claim no translation provided in court

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Minors who were locked up in adult prisons for people smuggling say they could not understand proceedings and thought they were going home

Vulnerable Indonesian children say they were either given no interpreter or an interpreter who spoke the wrong language during deeply flawed people smuggling prosecutions, leaving them unable to understand court proceedings before their imprisonment by Australia in maximum security adult jails.

The Australian government last year agreed to pay $27.5m in compensation to more than 200 Indonesians who were wrongfully prosecuted and detained as adult people smugglers while they were children.

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Labor group praises Fatima Payman for upholding party ‘principles and policy’ to cross floor

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Exclusive: Labor Friends of Palestine hit out at federal government’s stance as ‘weakening’ commitment to Palestinian statehood

Labor Friends of Palestine have praised Fatima Payman’s decision to cross the floor to support Palestinian statehood as “entirely consistent with Labor principles and policy” and rejected federal Labor’s stance as a “weakening” of its commitment on the issue.

After Anthony Albanese temporarily suspended the senator from caucus, the group wrote to Payman declaring that she had “the support of thousands of rank-and-file ALP members”.

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Shadow energy minister says system in ‘dire trouble’ – as it happened

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Australia needs more gas supply on east coast, Albanese says

Anthony Albanese is speaking to the ABC from Devonport.

We’ll work those issues through with Aemo.

We need more gas supply. We announced our future gas strategy a short while ago because we understand that we need more supply. Gas has an important role to play in manufacturing in particular. But also in providing firming capacity for the renewables rollout.

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WA police formally apologise to family of Aboriginal woman who died in custody in 2014

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Ms Dhu died two days after being locked up at police station after arrest for unpaid fines of $3,622

Western Australia’s police chief has formally apologised to the family and community of a 22-year-old Aboriginal woman who died in custody a decade ago.

Yamatji woman Ms Dhu, whose first name has not been used for cultural reasons, died two days after being locked up at South Hedland police station on 4 August 2014.

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WA premier Roger Cook says murder of mother and daughter in Perth home ‘senseless’ and ‘chilling’

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Gunman shot Jennifer and Gretl Petelczyc, aged 59 and 18, at Floreat home where it’s believed his ex-wife was staying, before taking his own life

Western Australia’s premier says more needs to be done to combat domestic violence after the “chilling and horrific” murder of a mother and daughter by a gunman searching for his ex-wife, though police say they cannot classify it as a family violence matter.

Cook also said he would consider strengthening WA’s tough gun laws, which were recently updated and are in the process of passing through the parliament.

The gunman, 63, shot Jennifer Petelczyc, 59, and her 18-year-old daughter, Gretl, on Friday at their Floreat home, where his ex-wife was believed to have been staying, before taking his own life.

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Labor takes aim at Adam Bandt’s refusal to support two-state solution in Middle East – as it happened

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Bandt condemns antisemitic graffiti on school, calls for end to Gaza invasion

Adam Bandt was also asked about the threatening graffiti discovered at Mount Scopus Jewish day school in Melbourne on Saturday, where the words “Jew die” were painted on the school’s front fence.

I condemn those words. There’s of course no place for that and we’ve said from the very beginning, from the first moment this got debated in parliament, no to antisemitism, no to Islamophobia, no to the invasion.

I think what you are seeing across the country is a very strong push for peace. People are fighting not only against antisemitism, but fighting to end the invasion of Gaza as well.

It’s up to Palestinians and Israelis to equally enjoy those rights. And if that’s what they choose to self-determine, then that’s what they choose to self-determine. Our point is that the international community can no longer pretend that the slaughter and the invasion is not happening.

Well, support for Israelis as well as Palestinians, as I’ve said, both having their rights to self-determination under international law. Now, at the moment, what is happening at the moment is that we are seeing over 34,000 people killed. A region brought to the brink of starvation and this is a manmade famine.

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Man, 63, fatally shot friend of ex-wife before killing himself at home in Perth’s west, police say

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Police believe the man was looking for his former wife at the house where he killed a 59-year-old woman and her 18-year-old daughter

A man has shot and killed a woman and her teenaged daughter in a west Perth home before turning the gun on himself in an apparent murder-suicide, police say.

The 63-year-old man is alleged to have gone to the house in Berkeley Crescent, Floreat just before 4.30pm on Friday looking for his ex-wife, who was not at the house.

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‘A lot of asbestos in the streets’: WA declares ‘hazmat emergency’ after tornado hits Bunbury

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More than 100 homes damaged when tornado ripped off roofs, collapsed walls and sucked up debris in state’s south-west

Asbestos scattered over residential streets has prompted a “hazmat emergency” response in Western Australia’s south-west, with specialist crews urgently working to contain any possible exposure aftter a devastating tornado.

More than 100 homes were damaged when the tornado ripped off roofs, collapsed walls and sucked up debris into the sky at Bunbury on Friday afternoon.

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Aurora australis: spectacular southern lights might be seen as far north as Queensland after ‘extreme’ solar storm

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Social media users post pictures of skies lit up around the country while the Bureau of Meteorology warns of solar storm’s impacts

Aurora australis has lit up skies across southern Australia after an “extreme” geomagnetic solar storm.

Social media users in posted pictures of brightly coloured skies in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and across the Tasman in New Zealand.

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Australia weather: spill warning for Sydney’s Warragamba dam as Bunbury recovers from freak WA tornado

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Warragamba dam in NSW nearing capacity after two West Australians were hospitalised on Friday

Warragamba dam could spill over the Mother’s Day weekend amid severe weather warnings on the east coast, and after a tornado tore through the West Australian city of Bunbury, injuring two people.

WaterNSW issued a warning on Friday that the Warragamba dam was nearing capacity after several days of rainfall, and that a spill event was “likely in coming days”.

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Perth stabbing: police shoot dead boy, 16, after alleged attack that has ‘hallmarks’ of terror incident

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WA premier Roger Cook suggests teenager who allegedly stabbed man in Bunnings car park in Willetton may have been radicalised online

Western Australian police say they have shot and killed a teenager who allegedly attacked a man in a Perth car park on Saturday night.

Detectives on Sunday said there was no ongoing threat to the public and the 16-year-old was believed to have been acting alone in Willetton.

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Bonza urged to pay April wages; data breach exposes family violence, sexual assault data – as it happened

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PM responds to reports regional women camping out, sleeping in cars

Anthony Albanese has commented on reports that carparks in regional areas are being opened for women to sleep in tents or their cars.

We have allocated funding through our Housing Australia Future Fund for emergency accommodation for women and children escaping domestic violence. I will be in discussions with the states and territories as well about what more can be done.

We know that the circumstances where a woman is escaping a violent situation [and] has to sleep in her car or surf on a couch of a friend and rotate around, we hear stories about that as well, is unacceptable in 2024. We need to do better. There’s no question about that.

We need to look at bail laws. More importantly, we actually need to look at how we can keep women, or victims and children in the home environment and force the perpetrator to leave. We have a program in NSW called the Staying Home: Leave Violence program. There are over 138 LGAs in this state at the moment, only 91 have access to that program, even though we know it is incredibly effective. We need programs like that funded immediately, not just across NSW but across the country.

I am optimistic about who we are as a country and our capacity to take responsibility for ourselves. The time of us to do this is now. We don’t have three months, which is what the government is suggesting, to wait and see what happens next. By then another 23 women will have lost their lives.

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Two 17-year-old climate activists claim WA premier Roger Cook defamed them over Woodside protest

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Emma Heyink and Tom Power say the premier made false comments about protest at company’s annual general meeting

Two 17-year-old climate activists are alleging the Western Australian premier, Roger Cook, defamed them by falsely claiming during a press conference they intimidated and threatened the children of the CEO and chair of petroleum giant Woodside Energy.

The two teenagers, Emma Heyink and Tom Power, are activists involved with campaign group Disrupt Burrup Hub and were involved in a protest at the Woodside annual general meeting at Crown Casino last Wednesday.

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Twenty-six pilot whales dead after mass stranding on WA beach

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Up to 160 whales have beached themselves at Toby Inlet near Dunsborough, more than 250km south of Perth

Authorities are rushing to save more than 150 whales from a mass stranding at a beach in Western Australia’s south-west. Four pods have spread across roughly 500 metres at Toby Inlet near Dunsborough and 26 of these have died, Parks and Wildlife Service Western Australia confirmed.

“There are 20 whales in a pod about 1.5km offshore. Another pod of about 110 animals are together closer offshore,” a spokesperson said.

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Nine-year-old among four killed in car crash in Western Australia

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Three brothers and family friend died at the scene in Clackline in the state’s wheatbelt

Three brothers, one of them only nine years old, and a family friend have been killed in a car crash in the Western Australian wheatbelt region.

The brothers, aged 21, 19 and nine, died at the scene in Clackline in the early hours of Friday morning, along with a 45-year-old man, who was visiting from NSW.

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First Nations boy, 10, dies in apparent suicide while in state care in Western Australia

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Advocates say the boy took his own life, leaving his family ‘devastated’ and triggering a coronial inquest

A 10-year-old First Nations boy has died in an apparent suicide in state care in Western Australia, advocates for the family say.

Advocates for the family say the boy, who cannot be named, took his own life on Friday night, leaving his family “devastated” and triggering a coronial inquiry.

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Cars submerged and shopping centre roof collapses as severe storm hits Perth

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About 50 calls to SES for assistance as ‘very localised’ storm reportedly dumped up to 130mm of rain in less than an hour

Parts of Perth broke a six-month-long dry spell on Friday with a fierce storm and flash flooding that left people stranded in submerged cars and caused part of a shopping centre roof to collapse.

A spokesperson for WA’s emergency services said SES volunteers had been going “flat out” to help fire crews with rescues. There had been about 50 calls for assistance over the course of the afternoon.

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Peter Dutton’s office billed taxpayers almost $6,000 for staff to travel with him when he attended Gina Rinehart party

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Exclusive: Opposition leader travelled at own expense to lavish party, but documents reveal two staff also made the trip to Perth

Peter Dutton’s office claimed nearly $6,000 in public expenses for staff and security to travel to Perth with the opposition leader when he attended Gina Rinehart’s lavish birthday party.

Dutton’s office has said he travelled at his own expense to the party for Australia’s richest woman, which included a horseriding performance, multiple large cakes and onstage pyrotechnics. But travel information obtained under freedom of information shows members of Dutton’s team – which his office said included a staffer and a security detail – claimed travel from Melbourne to Perth and back again on 29 February, the night of the party on the banks of the Swan River.

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