Category Archives: Victoria

Water wars: will politics destroy the Murray-Darling Basin plan – and the river system itself?

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Drought is not the only threat to the river system: the plan to save it is in doubt as states spar over the best way forward

The millennium drought led to the realisation Australia’s major river system would die unless there was united action to save it; the latest drought is threatening to undo the Murray-Darling Basin plan.

The basin states – Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia – as well as the federal government, are due to meet on Tuesday in Brisbane amid threats from the NSW Nationals that it will walk away from the plan unless major changes are made.

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Lawyer X: Victoria’s top policeman claims he only learned extent of informing in 2011

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Graham Ashton tells royal commission he knew gangland lawyer Nicola Gobbo was a police informer before he joined the force

Victoria’s top policeman knew gangland lawyer Nicola Gobbo was a police informer before he joined the force, but said he did not know the extent of her duplicity until years later.

Chief commissioner Graham Ashton was giving evidence on Monday at the royal commission into Victoria police’s use of informants.

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Australia fires: heatwave forecast amid calls for emergency meeting

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Conditions ease but Labor urges emergency Coag meeting before extreme heat in NSW and Victoria

Firefighters have taken advantage of less extreme conditions to try to contain blazes burning across New South Wales ahead of worsening conditions and soaring temperatures expected on Tuesday.

More than 100 fires were still burning across NSW on Sunday, including the massive Gospers Mountain blaze, which is expected to burn for weeks.

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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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Australia fires: record-breaking temperatures fuel bushfires across the country

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Temperatures top 40C in Victoria’s north as up to 11 properties hit by fire in South Australia, while NSW and Tasmania face difficult conditions

Record-breaking spring temperatures helped spark and fan bushfires across the country on Thursday, forecasting a potentially devastating bushfire summer.

In Victoria, 100km/h winds fanned more than 60 blazes, as an unprecedented heatwave moved north to south, drawing comparisons with the “worst conditions you’d see in February or March” from the state’s emergency services minister Lisa Neville.

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Australia fires: All mainland states top 40C as bushfire code red issued in Victoria

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Extreme heat hits across the country as parts of Victoria prepare for worst possible bushfire conditions on Thursday

All of Australia’s mainland states, and the Northern Territory, had areas that reached more than 40C on Wednesday, as a code red bushfire warning was issued for parts of Victoria for Thursday.

By 3pm AEDT on Wednesday, the highest temperatures recorded were 43.4C at Smithville in New South Wales and 42C at Walpepup in Victoria. Ballera in Queensland reached 43.7C, Warburton in WA got 43.8C, Nullarbor in South Australia recorded 46.6C and Lajamanu in the Northern Territory had hit 42.7C.

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Australia braces for electric scooter boom as confusion reigns over state laws

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Some retailers are giving inaccurate advice to shoppers in states where it is illegal to ride e-scooters on public roads or footpaths

Retailers are preparing for a Christmas boom in the sale of electric scooters, even though it is illegal to ride them on public roads or footpaths in several states.

Federal and state regulation has struggled to keep up with the technology, leaving consumers at risk of inadvertently breaking the law.

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John Setka tells Anthony Albanese to ‘grow some balls’ after Victorian Labor no-show

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Labor leader denies non-attendance at Victoria’s Labor party conference sparked by threats of a union walkout

Controversial union boss John Setka has told the federal Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, to “grow some balls”, amid the latter’s no-show at Victoria’s Labor party conference.

Albanese denied his non-attendance at the annual meeting in Melbourne this weekend was sparked by threats of a union walkout.

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Victorian government owed up to $700m after fine system failures

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Merging of Victoria’s court fines system with the centralised fines system has led to a delay in payments

Issues merging Victoria’s court fines system with the centralised fines system has led to a delay in payments for more than 100,000 fines, adding up to hundreds of millions of dollars waiting to be paid to the Victorian government.

Reports estimate the amount of outstanding fines sits as high as $700m, with 120,000 fines going unpaid.

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Melbourne Anglicans vote to express ‘sorrow’ over blessing of same-sex marriages

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Melbourne synod’s vote comes days after Sydney archbishop said Anglicans who back same-sex marriage should leave church

Melbourne’s Anglican church has formally voted to record its “sorrow” over a regional Victorian diocese’s decision to bless same-sex marriages.

The nod of approval given by the Wangaratta diocese in August has angered the Melbourne church’s governing body.

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Cryogenic cylinders full of cattle semen destroyed in fire

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Fire broke out at artificial insemination facility in regional Victoria, Australia

Cryogenic cylinders full of cattle semen have gone up in flames at an artificial insemination facility in Australia.

A fire broke out at Yarram Herd Services in regional Victoria at about 3am on Tuesday. A crew of more than 30 firefighters brought it under control within three hours.

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Tanya Day’s family win bid to release CCTV footage to combat ‘invisibility’ of her suffering

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Inquest agrees that family’s advocacy and public interest outweighs concerns about privacy and dignity

The family of Aboriginal woman Tanya Day has persuaded the coroners court to release footage of her final conscious hours, saying that not releasing it would render her suffering – like the suffering of so many Indigenous people – invisible.

Coroner Caitlin English announced on Friday that she would release selected footage of Day’s time in the cells of Castlemaine police station. She said the public interest and the possibility that it could prevent further deaths in custody outweighed her earlier concerns about protecting the 55-year-old’s privacy and dignity.

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Eurydice Dixon’s father says he hopes killer ‘gets better’ after receiving life sentence

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Judge sentences Jaymes Todd to a non-parole period of 35 years for crimes described as crimes as ‘sadistic’ and ‘categorically evil’

Eurydice Dixon’s father said he hoped the man who raped and killed his daughter “gets better,” shortly after the killer was sentenced to to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 35 years.

Jaymes Todd stalked Dixon, 22, for more than an hour before attacking her as she walked through Princes Park following a comedy gig ‪on 12 June‬ last year.

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Crown Resorts: inquiry to examine whether James Packer’s casino group fit to hold licence

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Former judge also asked to report on whether NSW gambling laws need to be overhauled

A public inquiry into allegations of wrongdoing at casinos run by Crown Resorts will decide whether the James Packer-dominated group is fit to hold a licence in New South Wales and whether the state’s gambling laws need to be overhauled.

Terms of reference, released by the NSW Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority on Thursday, show the inquiry, to be headed by former judge Patricia Bergin, will also investigate whether Packer’s decision to sell almost 20% of Crown to Hong Kong billionaire Lawrence Ho breached the gambling group’s licence to build a high-roller casino at Barangaroo in Sydney.

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Melbourne archbishop says George Pell innocent and questions if victim mistaken

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Peter Comensoli says he accepts victim was abused but wonders whether he was wrong in naming cardinal as abuser

Catholic archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli says he believes convicted paedophile Cardinal George Pell when he protests his innocence, and has speculated if the sole living victim got the name of his abuser wrong.

A day after Victoria’s court of appeal upheld Pell’s conviction for the rape of a 13-year-old choirboy and sexual assault of another at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996, Comensoli said while he respected the courts, he also believed his friend and would continue to visit him in prison.

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Vatican invokes Cardinal George Pell’s ‘right to appeal’ after child sexual abuse conviction upheld

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Former Vatican treasurer, and most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be convicted of child sexual assault, maintains innocence after losing appeal

The most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be convicted of child sexual abuse, Cardinal George Pell, has lost his appeal against his conviction, but maintains he is innocent.

In a brief statement issued after the decision the Vatican reiterated that Pell maintained his innocence, and that it was now “Pell’s right to appeal to the high court”.

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Cardinal George Pell loses appeal on child sexual assault conviction – live

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Appeal dismissed by a majority of two to one for the 78-year-old who will remain in prison until October 2022. He was sentenced in March for sexually assaulting two choirboys in 1996

By the way - this is a huge testament to the value of the jury system. I will have so much to say about that. There is NO strong evidence judges alone are less biased or more correct than a jury of 12. #Pell.

Interesting that Morrison said the decision to strip Pell of his honours is independent to the government. Back In February my colleague Paul Karp was told that if Pell lost the appeal the prime minister would write to the Council of the Order of Australia recommending it review and revoke the honour, a decision made on its recommendation by the governor general.

Related: PM to strip George Pell of Order of Australia honour if cardinal loses appeal

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Homeless woman says Centrelink took entire $3,500 tax return for disputed robodebt

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Couch surfing 50-year-old says welfare agency told her she wasn’t in financial hardship

A Melbourne woman battling homelessness says her entire $3,500 tax return was swiped by Centrelink last month, despite the fact she disputes the alleged robodebt.

But when Sue Prgic, 50, complained to the agency that the money had been taken without her knowledge, she said staff had asked to know what she would do with the cash if it were returned.

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Weather warning: cold snap continues across south-eastern Australia

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Strong and gusty winds to bite parts of New South Wales as frosty temperatures sweep Victoria

Wild weather conditions are predicted to lash parts of New South Wales on Sunday afternoon, with conditions in Victoria expected to remain icy as the state is swept by another cold front.

The Bureau of Meteorology forecast weather conditions in NSW would ease on Sunday morning before picking up again with strong and gusty winds in many areas of the state for the rest of the day.

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Cardinal George Pell: purported letter from prison sparks investigation

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Victorian justice department says prisoners are not allowed to post on social media or ask others to post on their behalf

Authorities are investigating whether a letter circulating online, apparently written by disgraced Cardinal George Pell to supporters breaks prison rules.

The letter, dated 1 August, was posted on Twitter by an account called “Cardinal George Pell Supporters” on Friday night.

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