Category Archives: Victoria

Australia news live: Tasmanian premier says ‘never appropriate’ to compare Port Arthur massacre to anything; stabbing at Bondi beach

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Follow the day’s news live

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has defended his comments comparing a pro-Palestinian protest at the Sydney Opera House to the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, AAP reports.

Speaking on the Today show, Dutton stood by his remark and said the comparison was a commentary on the prime minister’s leadership:

The point I was making – which is absolutely a legitimate one – is that I thought this was a time for the prime minister to show leadership and to step up. Instead, we’ve had crickets.

You’ve got a contrast, I think, with John Howard, who stood up at a point of national importance for our country, demonstrated leadership and changed the course of history for the better.

That’s the parallel that I’m making – to the absolute absence of leadership from the prime minister at the moment, which has given rise to those in the Jewish community talking about feeling unsafe in our country.

I don’t resile from that at all.

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Bridget Archer leads criticism after Peter Dutton compares pro-Palestine protest to Port Arthur massacre

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Tasmanian Liberal MP labels comments ‘wholly inappropriate’ after PM says he was ‘taken aback’ by opposition leader’s speech

Peter Dutton has drawn widespread criticism, including from one of his own MPs, for comparing the 1996 mass murder of 35 people at Port Arthur to a pro-Palestine protest at the Sydney Opera House.

The Tasmanian Liberal backbencher Bridget Archer labelled Dutton’s comments “incredibly disrespectful” and “wholly inappropriate”.

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Mona loses Ladies Lounge anti-discrimination case with ‘persons who do not identify as ladies’ to be allowed entry – as it happened

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A search will resume this morning for a woman who went missing while bushwalking at Belmore Falls in New South Wales.

Just after 1pm on Sunday, emergency services were called to Belmore Falls near Robertson after reports a woman had slipped and fallen down a cliff. An extensive search was initiated, but the 20-year-old was not located and the search was suspended at dusk.

We’ve got large multinationals in the supermarket ring who aren’t captured. So I’d like to see this expanded over time.

Woolworths, I think, makes a good point, and that is the code to be extended should be expanded to cover rivals Amazon, Costco and even Chemist Warehouse.

We’ll have more to say on that in coming weeks and months.

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Asbestos confirmed in seven Melbourne parks after latest tests

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PA Burns Reserve and the Altona Coastal Park the latest sites to have ‘small amounts of asbestos’ discovered

Victoria’s environment watchdog and a Melbourne council have confirmed traces of asbestos at seven parks and reserves across Melbourne, as the regulator probes the sources of the contamination.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, the Environment Protection Authority confirmed small amounts of asbestos-contaminated material had been discovered at PA Burns Reserve in Altona, in Melbourne’s west. The EPA said its inspection over the weekend found “good quality mulch laid over industrial waste”.

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Victorian Labor party members to stage revolt over public housing tower redevelopment

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Exclusive: Rank and file group wants a doubling of social housing at the 44 tower sites and a guarantee all the land will stay in public hands

Rank and file Victorian Labor party members will use an upcoming state council meeting to push the government to guarantee no public land will be sold off to private developers when it knocks down the state’s 44 public housing towers.

Labor for Housing – a non-factional advocacy group within the Victorian Labor party that advocates for better housing policies – will also use May’s state conference to call for a doubling of the social housing contained in the planned redevelopment.

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Investigation under way after gas pipeline off Victorian coast ruptures

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Gas platforms in the area are among the oldest offshore oil and gas operations in the country

The offshore oil and gas regulator is investigating after an undersea gas pipeline ruptured off the Victorian coast, causing a visible “sheen” on the ocean’s surface.

The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (Nopsema) confirmed it received a notification about a potential spill from ExxonMobil subsidiary Esso on Saturday morning.

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Australia news live: PM says it ‘isn’t good enough’ to say Gaza strike on aid workers ‘just a product of war’

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Prime minister reiterates that has ‘demanded full accountability for what has occurred’ from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Follow the day’s news live

After a number of comments about the state of famine in Gaza, which Hyman appears to be disputing – it’s quite difficult to keep up with his comments, though they seem to include allegations that Hamas is stealing aid – he is asked by host Sally Sara if he’s rejecting UN concerns of hunger and starvation in Gaza. I will come back and check his comments shortly but the upshot seems to be that he is, more or less.

I’ll bring you more direct lines from this interview shortly, bear with me.

I mean, obviously, we know that this isn’t something that the IDF would do or the Israeli Air Force would do on purpose.

There’s a war going on. Wars are awful. Nobody wanted this war, we certainly didn’t want this war, but we’re forced to fight it because it’s a war for our very existence.

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Asbestos found in recycled mulch next to playground in Melbourne’s west

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Local council confirms material was found at the Donald McLean Reserve in Spotswood

Asbestos has been discovered in recycled mulch at a park in Melbourne’s west, prompting the closure of a playground and inspections of other public places.

A resident had reported items found in tanbark near a new playground at Donald McLean Reserve in Spotswood to the local council earlier this week.

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Melbourne men allegedly sought $2.5m worth of phones to be shipped to Russia and other countries

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Victoria police say four men were charged with nearly 100 fraud and deception offences

Members of a Melbourne organised crime syndicate have been charged over alleged complex frauds totalling almost $4m, including sending phones to Russia.

Financial crime detectives from Victoria police arrested four men on Wednesday and charged them with almost 100 fraud and deception offences after an 18-month investigation.

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Melbourne private school Kilvington grammar charged over death of student after Vietnam excursion

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Worksafe also charged World Travel Expeditions after Lachlan Cook, 16, died in hospital following health complications

A travel company and a Melbourne private school have been charged over the death of a student who became unwell on a school trip.

The Kilvington grammar school student, Lachlan Cook, 16, suffered diabetes complications during a trip to Vietnam in September 2019 and later died in hospital in Melbourne.

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Victoria government blasted for rejecting truth-telling inquiry’s key recommendations

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Yoorook Justice commissioners disappointed ‘crucial’ recommendation to immediately raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 without exceptions was rebuffed

Victoria’s First Peoples’ Assembly and the head of the state’s Indigenous truth-telling commission have criticised the Allan Labor government for seeking more time to consider overhauling child protection and criminal justice systems.

The government on Wednesday handed down its response to a report by the Yoorrook Justice Commission, which called for it to tackle systemic injustices experienced by First Nations people in the child protection and criminal justice sectors.

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Australia news live: heavy rain and strong winds to hit Victoria; Easter campers rescued from Queensland flood waters

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Five people rescued while dozens remained stranded at campsite in northern Queensland. Follow the day’s news live

Support for Labor drops in WA as Coalition gains ground among the young

Voters in Western Australia are shifting away from Labor towards the Coalition, as the opposition gains ground among young people.

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Victoria trials reusable crates for fresh produce to cut ‘invisible’ waste from supply chain

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Pilot scheme supplies 1,000 folding boxes to farms and wholesalers to reduce single-use cardboard, paper and plastic

A pilot scheme to replace cardboard produce boxes with reusable plastic crates has been launched in Victoria, with the aim to cut “invisible” cardboard waste.

The Victoria Unboxed project, led by the food charity Sustain with Sustainable Victoria, has supplied 1,000 reusable plastic crates to transport produce from farms to venues, wholesalers and homes across Melbourne. The trial aims to reduce the need for single-use packaging, including cardboard, plastic and paper waste.

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‘One of Melbourne’s big characters’: youth worker Les Twentyman dies aged 76

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Twentyman spent more than four decades campaigning on youth homelessness and social welfare

The prominent Melbourne youth worker and social justice campaigner, Les Twentyman, has died aged 76.

The Les Twentyman Foundation announced his death in a statement on Saturday.

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Man shot dead in ‘very targeted’ attack in Melbourne’s north, police say

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Victoria police say victim of Glenroy shooting was known to them and had a criminal record

Police are treating the fatal shooting of a man at a strip of shops in Melbourne’s north as a targeted attack.

The man was shot dead in a car park outside shops on Justin Avenue at Glenroy just after 4.30am on Good Friday.

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Stamp duty: would Victoria be better off with a land tax instead?

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As the state government considers reforming its contentious stamp duty, here are the benefits and pitfalls of replacing it with an annual tax

The Victorian government has given its strongest indicator yet it is open to reforming stamp duty – one of the state’s most contentious taxes.

The government this week released its response to a parliamentary inquiry that urged the state to investigate options to scrap stamp duty and replace it with a broad-based land tax.

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Peter Dutton in standoff with state Liberal leaders over federal Coalition’s nuclear plan

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The federal opposition leader’s calls to include nuclear power in Australia’s energy mix has so far failed to win support from his state colleagues

The federal Coalition faces a battle with the states on its proposal for nuclear power stations at the sites of decommissioned coal power plants, with state premiers and opposition leaders alike largely against Peter Dutton’s proposal.

Labor governments and Coalition oppositions in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia are either outright opposed to the plan or have failed to endorse it.

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Israel must allow humanitarian relief to reach Gaza, Australia and UK say in new joint statement – as it happened

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As part of the latest Aukus developments, Australia will send A$4.6bn to the UK to clear bottlenecks at the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor production line.

Richard Marles was asked why it costs so much, and why this component needs to be done in the UK. He told ABC News Breakfast:

We made clear a year ago that we wouldn’t be building the nuclear reactors in Australia. They will be built by Rolls Royce at its facility in Derby in the UK and once the sealed reactors are built, they will be taken here to the Osborne Naval ship yard and placed in the submarines which the rest of which will be built here at Osborne.

Building nuclear reactors is difficult to do and in order for this to play out, that facility in Derby, which is building nuclear reactors for Britain’s navy, that needs to be expanded and that is what this contribution is for.

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‘Controlling’ man tricked wife into leaving Australia in order to have her visa cancelled, court told

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The man has pleaded not guilty to ‘exit trafficking’ after taking his wife to Sudan in 2014

While on a trip back to Sudan, a mother left her children with her husband to go and cook for them. But when she returned from her parents’ place, her husband and two young kids had vanished, a Melbourne court has heard.

Her husband faced the first day of a trial by jury in Melbourne’s county court on Thursday, accused of deceiving his wife into leaving Australia after withdrawing sponsorship for her visa.

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Focus on youth crime may be influencing bail decisions for children, Victorian judge says

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Exclusive: supreme court judge says ‘it is a cause for concern’ if public policy is considered over individual merits of a case

A Victorian supreme court judge has raised concerns an increased focus on crime may be causing authorities to take a “more conservative approach” when it comes to assessing bail suitability for children.

In a decision published earlier this month, supreme court judge Rita Incerti granted a 16-year-old Aboriginal boy bail after he had earlier been denied by a magistrate at Bendigo children’s court.

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