Category Archives: Victoria

Easey Street double murder and rape accused faces Melbourne court nearly 50 years after alleged attack

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Perry Kouroumblis was extradited from Italy and charged over the 1977 deaths of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett

An accused double murderer has faced a Melbourne court close to five decades after police allege he stabbed two women to death in a frenzied attack.

Perry Kouroumblis, 65, appeared bleary-eyed as he sat in the dock of the Melbourne magistrates court on Wednesday after arriving on Australian soil on Tuesday night.

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Labor declines to review three coal proposals for potential climate impact – as it happened

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More on the new Malaysia-based maritime institute:

The government is contributing $1.78m over four years to support the institute, which will train regional government officials on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, broader maritime law and ocean governance, awareness of maritime domains and environmental protection.

We don’t want to see any unilateral changes to the status quo across the Taiwan straits, and our focus is on doing everything we can in terms of exercising our international voice around promoting stability and peace in and around the Taiwan straits, in and around Taiwan.

Rules and norms are vital for our shared maritime region and the countries of our region make an ongoing contribution to maintaining and promoting them.

The institute will deliver training to officials from across the region on complex maritime legal and policy topics. It will nurture leaders and help further our collective contribution to a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.

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Pro-brumby activists racially vilified head of Indigenous group, Victorian tribunal finds

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Exclusive: Yorta Yorta woman targeted in campaign by Barmah Brumby Preservation Group that included posters with racist slogans, Vcat finds

A pro-brumby activist organisation racially vilified the then head of an Indigenous group in Victoria through posters and social media posts showing her face and racist slogans, the state’s civil and administrative tribunal has found.

The Barmah Brumby Preservation Group displayed public posters showing the face of Monica Morgan, a Yorta Yorta woman, and racist slogans. Morgan argued at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (Vcat) the posters, along with social media posts and comments between 2020 and 2023, incited hatred of her and Yorta Yorta people on the basis of race.

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Australia news live: Allan defends Victoria after it’s named worst state for business; Burke to meet Indonesian minister over Bali Nine

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The Victorian premier has defended the state’s business credentials saying there’s key data missing from the Business Council of Australia’s report. Follow today’s news headlines live

Weather check shows mixed conditions forecast across Australian cities

It’s a mixed, if warm, bag in capital cities today, with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting storms in Melbourne, sunny skies in Brisbane and Adelaide and showers across all other major cities.

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South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and NSW could experience blackouts from too much solar power, Aemo warns

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Aemo says it does not want to ‘directly control people’s rooftop solar’ but it may be necessary to reduce or cut off power gleaned from the sun

The power grid in eastern Australia could experience “outage conditions” as soon as next spring unless states speed up actions to cope with surplus generation from solar panels on sunny days, the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) has warned.

In a report released on Monday, Aemo called for an “emergency backstop” mechanism to ensure grid stability when households and other solar photovoltaic (PV) owners export excess electricity.

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Victoria clubs give more money to themselves in guise of ‘community benefits’ for tax breaks

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Latest disclosures include clubs who claim millions spent on their own golf and racecourses as donations to broader community

Poker machine venues in Victoria have significantly increased the amount of gambling revenue they are spending on themselves, while justifying it as a “community benefit” to get a tax cut.

Victoria’s community benefit scheme provides a tax cut to clubs that reinvest 8.33% of gambling revenue back into the community. But these clubs are able to list upgrades to their own golf courses, renovations and operating costs – which help keep gambling rooms open – as community benefits.

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Two people dead in Mornington Peninsula shooting as police search for man who fled scene

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Victoria police say man and woman died with gunshot wounds after reports of altercation at Rye home about 4am

Victoria police are searching for a man after a woman and a man were shot dead on the state’s Mornington Peninsula.

Police were called to an altercation between a group of people at an address on Parson Street in Rye shortly after 4am on Monday. Police arrived to find a man and woman with gunshot wounds.

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Australia charts hottest spring on record for mean temperatures – as it happened

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The health minister, Mark Butler, is holding a press conference in Adelaide to announce the endometriosis drug Visanne will be added to the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. It’s the first listing of an endo treatment in three decades.

This is a condition that impacts more than 1 million women – one in seven women and teenage girls – and for too long, too many women have been made to suffer in silence.

[They’ve] been told by many healthcare professionals, it has to be said, that this is “normal”. That it is a normal part of period pain or many other explanations for debilitating, crippling pain.

This is all about providing cheaper medicines and cutting-edge treatment to Australian patients generally, but [particularly] in the area of endometriosis, which has attracted such inadequate support for hundreds of thousands of Australian women.

This listing is beyond time.

The major contributor to the record has been the minimum temperatures, which averaged 17.2ºC over the spring season for the site, and were elevated by cloud cover, precipitation, and most notably, humidity.

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Venomous tiger snake slithers up driver’s leg on Melbourne freeway

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Woman weaves through traffic at 80km/h before fleeing from snake in car barefoot and attempting to flag down passing motorists

Victoria police have carried out one of the “more bizarre welfare checks” after a deadly tiger snake slithered up a driver’s leg as she was travelling at 80km/h on a major freeway.

Police said they were called to Monash Freeway near the Toorak Rd exit in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs on Saturday morning after receiving reports of a barefoot woman trying to flag down passing traffic.

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‘Treating workers like robots’: Woolworths blamed for empty supermarket shelves as warehouse strikes continue

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Stores in New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT affected as industrial action by up to 1,500 employees stretches into second week

Woolworths bears responsibility for the empty shelves seen in supermarkets across parts of Australia by attempting to treat workers like “robots”, the head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has said, as a strike of warehouse workers extends into a second week.

Up to 1,500 employees began rolling 24-hour strikes on 21 November in warehouses in New South Wales and Victoria, seeking improved wages and safety. One of the major issues is a new framework system employed at the warehouse that tracks workers down to the minute, and logs performance each shift using an algorithm.

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Senator calls social media ban a ‘sham’ – as it happened

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Canavan says under-16 social media ban has caused new generation to become passionate about democracy

Nationals senator Matt Canavan was loudly outspoken against the under-16 social media ban bill and voted against it – but as we know, the bill ultimately passed.

It has been great seeing people learn how the parliament works. And with that in mind, note that the social media bill is not yet law. Tomorrow morning it heads back to the House of Representatives because there were amendments passed in the Senate tonight. It then has to go to the governor general. But both these steps are almost certain to happen.

Thanks again for all of your help and support. We got some amendments on digital ID so it was not for nothing and the fight continues.

As it currently stands, underlying inflation is still too high to be considering lowering the cash rate target in the near term.

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Australia politics live: Thorpe says her suspension from Senate a ‘colonial action’ and stages pro-Palestine protest from gallery

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Follow today’s news live

Nuclear costings coming ‘in coming weeks and months ahead of election’: Taylor

The shadow treasurer was also asked when the Coalition would release the costings of its nuclear plan.

We will not be announcing it on your program this morning, as much as you might like me to.

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Thunderstorms, hail and possible flash flooding forecast for Sydney after days of intense heat

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New South Wales to see wild weather and heavy rainfall after ‘unseasonably hot’ temperatures

Severe thunderstorms are forecast to bring lightning, damaging winds and hail to New South Wales on Thursday, following days of intense heat earlier this week.

Sydney, Wollongong, Goulburn, Orange and Gosford are anticipating severe thunderstorm activity, with thunderstorms also forecast for inland Queensland on Thursday.

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Australia politics live: Hanson fails in bid to refer Payman over citizenship; Thorpe withdraws ‘shut your mouth’ comment to Labor senator

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Follow the day’s news headlines live

Labour market steadying as latest monthly CPI result looms

The consensus for much of the year has been the Reserve Bank’s 13-year high interest rates would squeeze demand in the economy, nudge up unemployment and help bring down inflation. And then it could start cutting its cash rate.

And then more recently, we’re actually starting to see [the labour market] tighten.

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Senate crossbenchers side with Coalition to oppose Greens motion to dump anti-abortion bill – as it happened

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The independent MP Zoe Daniel was on ABC News Breakfast earlier to discuss her alternative to the under-16 social media ban, which she introduced as a private member’s bill yesterday.

Daniel said her bill would implement an overarching statutory duty of care on social media companies “that goes to safety by design – but that in and of itself is not enough”.

What you need to make that work is the companies to assess the risks, mitigate the risks, be transparent about how they’re doing that.

The bill builds in penalties so if the companies do not comply, they could be fined up to 10% of global revenue. Also, their onshore executives could be held accountable for that … and the bill also has a provision to enable users to have control over the algorithm, as exists overseas, particularly in the EU …

[There are] obviously privacy concerns, and given the government’s had to pull their misinformation [and] disinformation – or their censoring the Australian public – bill from the Senate this week, we want to make sure we get strong, robust laws that don’t damage the [right to] privacy and make compulsory Australians having to have digital IDs.

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Victoria to introduce Australia’s strictest poker machine rules, with $1,000 limit to be slashed by 90%

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Andrews-era reforms to be introduced in state parliament on Tuesday will cap load-up to $100, $400 less than in New South Wales


The Victorian government will use the final sitting week of the year to introduce to parliament long-awaited gambling reforms, which will slash the maximum amount punters can put into poker machines at a time from $1,000 to $100.

The gaming minister, Melissa Horne, will on Tuesday introduce the gambling legislation amendment (precommitment and carded play) bill 2024 to parliament, about 16 months after the former premier Daniel Andrews announced the changes.

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Australian student injured in West Bank says life ‘flipped upside down’ as Palestinian community demands answers

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Ranem Abu Izneid, injured by shrapnel in Israeli-occupied Abu Dis, says ‘there is no hope for me to regain my vision’

An Australian dentistry student has lost her vision after being struck by shrapnel in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, sparking outrage in the Australian Palestinian community.

Ranem Abu Izneid, 20, was studying in her room on 15 November at Al Quds University in Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem, when she heard bombs and soldiers shouting.

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Australian police offer to help Laos investigation into suspected methanol deaths as Melbourne teenagers mourned

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Prime minister pays tribute to Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles while families vow to turn tragedy into ‘mission for change’

Australian federal police have offered to help the Laos investigation into multiple deaths linked to a suspected mass methanol poisoning event.

Melburnians Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles, both 19, were among six foreign tourists to die.

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Musk argues social media bill may not be lawful – as it happened

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Does the delay on gambling ad restrictions have anything to do with the demands of lobbyists?

Clare O’Neil said it wasn’t about lobbying, but “about making sure that we get this right”.

And the minister has pointed to previous attempts to scale back gambling advertising that have actually resulted in more gambling advertising. This is a delicate area, and we’ve got to get the balance right, and that’s what the minister is seeking to do.

These complicated matters, they just are. You know, if this was a really simple problem to fix, then it would have been fixed a long time ago.

I would say our government deserves credit for stepping up and saying we’re going to take action on this, and the minister [Michelle Rowland] is doing what is appropriate, which is diligently working through what the proposals will look like.

The minister is working with people, experts, stakeholders, others who will be affected by this legislation, and the government has said will come forward with … proposals early next year.

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Parents of teenagers who died in suspected Laos methanol poisoning hope deaths ‘not in vain’

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Bianca Jones’s father urged Laos government to investigate deaths to the ‘fullest’ and ensure it could not happen again

Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones’s devastated families have pleaded with Laos authorities to get to the bottom of a mass methanol poisoning tragedy.

The Australians, both 19, are among six foreign tourists who have died from a suspected methanol poisoning event in Laos.

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