Category Archives: Western Australia

Blazes flare amid extreme conditions in Australia – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. Our live coverage will continue tomorrow morning

We are wrapping up the live blog now, but we will be back at 7am AEDT for the latest on the fires.

As of 9pm, this is what we know.

There’s now what media (but not RFS) refer to as a megablaze in the Kosciuszko national park with three fires at emergency level in that area of southern NSW, just near the Victorian border.

There’s also concern that a fire at watch-and-act level in Faulconbridge in the Blue Mountains could worsen around midnight once the southerly reaches there. People in the Wentworth Falls and Leura areas are being advised to stay alert.

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Australian bushfires: the story so far in each state

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Bushfires have burned 4m hectares and left nine people dead, and fire authorities say they ‘haven’t seen a season like it’

More than four million hectares of Australia have burned and nine people have died since September in an “unprecedented” start to the summer fire season.

Guardian Australia spoke to fire authorities in every state about what they expect to happen next.

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Australia fires: weather bureau says Tuesday was nation’s hottest day on record – live

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BoM data says Tuesday’s 40.9C was the hottest average maximum across the whole country ever recorded, as extreme heat moves across South Australia to Melbourne, Victoria and Sydney, NSW, and bushfires continued. This blog is now closed

It is still unpleasantly warm here in Melbourne, and across much of southern Australia east of the Nullarbor. Fire activity is predicted to increase tomorrow and on Friday.

Here is a roundup of where things stand:

As of Wednesday afternoon there were about 70 bushfires burning across Queensland.

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WA, NSW and Qld bushfires: properties lost in Gospers Mountain fire – as it happened

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Up to 20 properties lost in Blue Mountains as megafire burns outside Sydney, while fires also threaten communities in Western Australia and Queensland

About 2,000 firefighters are currently fighting more 108 active bushfires in NSW.

The RFS have issued a new emergency warning for areas near Muswellbrook.

EMERGENCY WARNING - Kerry Ridge fire (Muswellbrook, Singleton and Mid-Western LGA)
Fire activity increasing. If you are in the area of Olinda, Nullo Mountain and Bogee, watch out for embers that may start fires ahead of the main fire front. #nswrfs #nswfires #alert pic.twitter.com/6UEV0imNRS

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Western Australia bushfire out of control as temperatures expected to surge above 40C

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NSW firefighters upgrade Gospers Mountain blaze to emergency as police launch investigation into fires in regional Victoria

An out-of-control bushfire has burnt through more than 11,000 hectares of land north of Perth with residents urged to leave while they still can.

It comes as New South Wales firefighters upgraded the Gospers Mountain blaze to an emergency on Saturday afternoon, and police launched an investigation into a spate of fires in regional Victoria.

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NSW fires: five bushfires merge north of Sydney – as it happened

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Gospers Mountain, Paddock Run and Little L Complex, Three Mile and Thompson Creek fires overlap, and there are now seven emergency warnings in NSW as fire conditions worsen along Australia’s New South Wales and Queensland coasts. This blog is now closed

We are going to wrap the live blog up here. As of almost 7.30pm AEDT there are still seven fires at emergency warning level across NSW.

They are:

Related: Australia fires: five blazes merge north of Sydney as conditions forecast to worsen

Some more photos from photographer Matthew Abbott out at Kulnura:

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Frustrating cities: behind Australia’s urban design fails

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Sydney’s pedestrian bottlenecks, Brisbane’s barren streetscapes and Perth’s freeway fiascos: cities across the country are making classic mistakes

In every city there are places where the road should be just a bit wider, where the bus stop would be better a few metres down or, perhaps, a multi-lane highway simply should not exist.

Bad urban design is a barrier to what should be the smooth flow of life in cities. It ruins commutes and can make daily life unnecessarily difficult for the disabled or elderly.

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NSW and Queensland fires updates: worst of bushfires season ‘still ahead’, says fire chief – live

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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

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Murdoch University sues whistleblower after comments on international students

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University also demands names of journalists who spoke to Gerd Schröder-Turk, after comments on Four Corners

Murdoch University is suing an academic whistleblower and demanding the names of journalists he spoke to and the dates of their interactions, court records show.

One of Australia’s leading integrity experts, AJ Brown, says the university’s actions highlight the “huge imbalance” in power between whistleblowers and large employers and shows protections for those who speak out “remain something of a mess”.

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Exiting the cashless welfare card trial is almost impossible, critics say

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Government accused of ‘demonising vulnerable people’ after only 100 of the 5,000 people on the program allowed to leave

Only 100 of the more than 5,000 people on the cashless welfare card trial have been allowed off the scheme, and the process for exemption has been labelled humiliating and hard to understand.

The government argues the card, which stores up to 80% of a welfare recipient’s payment for use at selected stores, leads to a reduction in violence and harm related to drinking alcohol, illegal drug use and gambling.

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WA Labor conference: chaos after walkout during Welcome to Country

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WA Labor president apologises to Indigenous Australians for walkout by right faction union delegates

Western Australia’s Labor conference has turned chaotic after a large number of delegates walked out during a Welcome to the Country ceremony and tribute to the former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke.

It was reported a large portion of the crowd heckled Perth MP Patrick Gorman and the WA Labor president, Carolyn Smith, before storming out of the complex.

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Farmers jailed in Australia for smuggling Danish pig semen in shampoo bottles

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Two men from GD Pork pleaded guilty in WA to breaching biosecurity laws to gain ‘unfair’ breeding advantage

Two pig farmers in Western Australia will be jailed after being convicted of illegally importing Danish pig semen concealed in shampoo bottles.

Torben Soerensen has been sentenced to three years in prison, while Henning Laue faces a two-year sentence after pleading guilty to breaching quarantine and biosecurity laws.

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Extreme weather has damaged nearly half Australia’s marine ecosystems since 2011

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CSIRO says dramatic climate events are compounding the effects of underlying global heating

Extreme climate events such as heatwaves, floods and drought damaged 45% of the marine ecosystems along Australia’s coast in a seven-year period, CSIRO research shows.

More than 8,000km of Australia’s coast was affected by extreme climate events from 2011 to 2017, and in some cases they caused irreversible changes to marine habitats.

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Bedford man who murdered his family never to be released from prison, judge orders

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Anthony Harvey murdered his wife, Mara Lee, their three children and his mother-in-law in their Perth home

A man who admitted using knives to murder his wife, three young children and mother-in-law has become the first person in Western Australia ordered by a judge never to be released from prison.

Anthony Robert Harvey, 25, killed two-year-old twins Alice and Beatrix, three-year-old Charlotte and their mother, Mara Lee Harvey, 41, at their Bedford home on 3 September 2018.

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‘Just a matter of when’: the $20bn plan to power Singapore with Australian solar

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Ambitious export plan could generate billions and make Australia the centre of low-cost energy in a future zero-carbon world

The desert outside Tennant Creek, deep in the Northern Territory, is not the most obvious place to build and transmit Singapore’s future electricity supply. Though few in the southern states are yet to take notice, a group of Australian developers are betting that will change.

If they are right, it could have far-reaching consequences for Australia’s energy industry and what the country sells to the world.

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Melbourne girl, 13, dies from the flu as national death toll nears 300

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Crystal-lee Wightley dies at her family’s home three days after getting sick

A Melbourne family say they are heartbroken after a 13-year-old girl died from the flu late last week, as the national death toll nears 300.

Crystal-lee Wightley had the flu for three days before she died at her family’s home.

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Western Australian police stations to fly Aboriginal flag in reconciliation move

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Indigenous community welcomes plan but warns against prioritising symbolism over action

Western Australia will become the first state in Australia to permanently fly the Aboriginal flag outside every police station as part of an attempt to address long-standing divisions between police and Indigenous communities.

The proposal forms part of WA police’s first ever reconciliation action plan, released on Tuesday, which also includes a promise to increase Indigenous staffing levels in the organisation, develop protocols for delivering a Welcome to Country at police events, and “look into the feasibility of offering Aboriginal language lessons to staff”.

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Archbishop’s response to mandatory child sex abuse reporting labelled ‘pig-headed’

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Perth’s Timothy Costelloe says forcing revelations will interfere with the ‘free practice of the Catholic faith’

Perth’s Catholic archbishop, Timothy Costelloe, says forcing religious leaders in Western Australia to reveal knowledge of child sex abuse risks “interfering with the free practice of the Catholic faith” and will be ineffective – a stance that advocates say is “ignorant and pig-headed”.

The state government plans to expand mandatory reporting laws to include religious leaders such as priests, ministers, imams, rabbis, pastors and Salvation Army officers.

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Federal election 2019: Clive Palmer rounds on Labor as he defends Coalition preference deal – politics live

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Scott Morrison also defends deal as Coalition attacks Labor’s childcare plan as ‘communist’. All the day’s events, live

Both campaigns are now in debate prep mode, so we are going to power down for the moment.

But it’s just a break, not goodbye. We’ll be back just before 7pm eastern time to bring you the blow-by-blow of the first leaders’ debate.

On what he would do in terms of climate policies (given his history on the subject with the Gillard government):

It was Tony Windsor and I who forced the changes. Both sides have the ability to get on with embedding climate change into the processes of government. At the time we did have world-leading legislation.

I concede we lost control of the politics and that Tony Abbott, as the alternate prime minister, came in on a wave of, you know, that carbon tax message, which even his chief of staff, you know, after the event, has admitted was more about the politics than anything to do with policy.

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