Victorian electorate will be first test of support for overhaul that shifts more of the benefit to low- and middle-income earners amid cost-of-living pressures
Ilene Jones’s wishlist for a tax cut is simple – more money to spend on school fees, a laptop for her son and groceries.
“It’s just the basics. It’s not extravagant,” she says.
Continue reading...Both monuments reportedly spray-painted with ‘The colony will fall’ in apparent protest against Australia Day date
Victoria police are investigating “criminal damage” to a century-old Captain Cook statue in St Kilda in an apparent protest over the Australia Day public holiday.
Another statue, of Queen Victoria near the Melbourne city centre, was doused in red paint.
Continue reading...As Buruli ulcer cases rise in Victoria, Australian researchers say they have finally solved the ‘transmission enigma’
When Alice Mika was bitten by a mosquito last summer in Melbourne’s west, she didn’t think anything of it.
Then, a small raised bump appeared on her ankle more than five months later and wouldn’t go away. She saw her GP who prescribed antibiotics, believing it to be a spider bite.
Continue reading...The Coalition backed a bill in 2022 to start the treaty process but spokesman Peter Walsh says ‘things have changed’
The Victorian opposition has dropped its support for a treaty with the state’s Indigenous people, citing concerns about cultural heritage laws.
The move was described by the state’s First People’s Assembly as “disappointing but not surprising”.
Continue reading...After a lengthy, multiple-agency investigation, officers unearthed guns and ammunition at a Mornington Peninsula property
Three men, including an alleged Russian organised crime suspect, have been charged after a cache of explosives, guns and drugs were seized from a rural Victorian property.
A lengthy investigation led officers to a property at Tyabb on the Mornington Peninsula on Wednesday where they dug up six storage cases of sophisticated explosive devices.
Continue reading...Health authorities warn people living in or visiting coastal areas to cover up in warmer months as a precaution against the mosquito-linked condition
Victorian health authorities tracked a record number of flesh-eating ulcers cases last year, prompting a warning to cover up in warmer months.
In 2023, 363 Buruli ulcer cases were diagnosed in Victorians but most were not severe. The ulcers, caused by bacteria, can create significant skin damage including painful lumps, limb swelling and occasionally severe pain.
Continue reading...Indigenous traditional owner groups and advocates submit major land reform proposals to state’s truth-telling commission
Victorian traditional owner groups are calling for special land rights to prevent land they own from ever being repossessed by the government, as the state prepares for nation-first treaty talks to begin this year.
Indigenous traditional owner groups and Aboriginal advocacy organisations have submitted major land reform proposals to the state’s Indigenous truth-telling commission which is this year investigating housing and land inequality facing First Nations Victorians. The inquiry’s recommendations could inform treaty negotiations which are scheduled to begin later this year.
Continue reading...Police say three people were in the car and the child and driver have been airlifted to hospital
A person has died and a child has been airlifted to hospital in critical condition after the car they were travelling in left the road and hit a tree in Echuca.
Victoria police say they believe the car was travelling along the Murray Valley Highway just after 12.30pm when the accident occurred.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Boy’s mother says she had to withdraw her super and re-mortgage home to pay off his debts to criminals
Betting giant Tabcorp has been ordered to stop accepting cash at its machines in Victorian pubs and clubs unless they are properly supervised by staff after a teenager – with gambling debts of nearly $100,000 – placed bets at multiple venues.
According to the state’s gaming regulator, the 16-year-old was able to gamble on more than 30 occasions between May 2022 and October 2023 at multiple venues across Melbourne’s northern suburbs. The matter is the subject of ongoing court action against venues.
Continue reading...Police arrest four men and a boy alleged to be connected to the Finks motorcycle gang and a series of arson attacks on tobacco stores
Police have arrested four men and a boy believed to be connected to the Finks outlaw motorcycle gang and a series of arson attacks on tobacco stores in Victoria.
The arrests are the latest example of police responding to the so-called tobacco wars, which have seen criminal gangs fight for control of the “significant source of income” generated by the sale of illicit tobacco.
Continue reading...Authorities believe extreme heat and physical activity, rather than a single bad batch, exacerbated drug’s impact at Hardmission
All nine people hospitalised after a mass drug overdose at an electronic music festival in Melbourne last weekend suffered severe hyperthermia, with three people remaining in a critical condition.
Another woman in her 30s was hospitalised on Friday after a suspected drug overdose at a separate music festival in the Melbourne suburb of Flemington. She remains in a critical condition.
Victorian health authorities believe the overdoses at last weekend’s Hardmission festival were not caused by a single bad batch of the drug MDMA as originally feared and that extreme heat and physical activity exacerbated the drug’s impact.
Police allege the men are connected to fires at the Altona business, as well as an arson attack at a Croydon tobacco shop
Three men allegedly linked to a bikie gang have been arrested after a twice-targeted tobacco shop was destroyed by fire and another was set alight on Christmas Day.
The first blaze broke out at the shopfront on Pier Street in Altona just before 4am on Thursday.
Continue reading...Robert Farquharson’s name has been removed from the headstone of his three children, whom he murdered in 2005
Robert Farquharson has been stripped of his control over the gravestones of the three children he murdered when he drove a car into a dam in 2005, after a Victorian government intervention.
Farquharson is the first convicted person in Victoria to lose the rights over a family member’s gravesite after legislative changes in 2021. It comes almost two decades since he deliberately drove his three children into a dam in south-western Victoria, in an act of revenge against his ex-partner for leaving him.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Consumer Affairs Victoria investigating Panthera, which was fined $500,000 in 2020 after pursuing debts from people who were not liable
One of Australia’s largest debt collection companies is continuing to operate in Victoria despite being blacklisted in the state over its unlawful pursuit of false debts, undue harassment and misleading conduct.
Panthera Finance and its subsidiaries are major players in the Australian debt collection and acquisition sector, and were paid millions by the former government to help collect welfare debts for Services Australia.
Continue reading...Supporters of the African nation’s dictatorial regime have clashed with opponents in the diaspora at similar events in other countries
Australian federal police and government officials have met representatives of the Eritrean community in a bid to avoid potential violence during a planned cultural festival in Melbourne’s western suburbs this weekend.
Similar events held in Europe and North America in recent months have ended in violence and arrests, as supporters of the African nation’s regime clashed with members of the pro-democracy youth movement Birged Nhamedu.
Continue reading...Man jumped into rushing flood waters and tied 74-year-old woman to a tree after she was swept 100 metres downstream
A man jumped into rushing flood waters to save a woman swept away into Bendigo Creek, risking his own life to secure her with ratchet straps to a tree, as Victorian towns braced for more flood damage.
The rescue came amid flash flooding across parts of the state, which emergency services on Tuesday afternoon said was easing. However, flooding along several rivers continued, with 20 properties in and around Seymour affected by the deluge.
Continue reading...On recent floods in Victoria and Queensland, Albanese said Australian defence force was a vital asset but that future recovery mitigation may need a re-think
Anthony Albanese and the Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, say a re-think of disaster recovery and flood mitigation may be needed due to climate change, with at least 26 homes inundated in the state’s flooding.
Across Victoria, 61 emergency warnings remained in place on Tuesday afternoon as Mooroopna and Shepparton, in the state’s north, brace for high and moderate flooding in the coming days.
Continue reading...Eight people were in induced comas after the Hardmission event at Flemington on Satuday
The suspected MDMA overdoses at a Melbourne music festival that left eight young people in medically induced comas over the weekend has sparked renewed calls for nationwide pill-testing programs.
Harm reduction and social justice advocates, and the Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA), were among those urging state governments to legalise pill-testing, saying the scale of the overdoses highlight the urgency of the issue.
This article was amended on 8 January 2024 after Ambulance Victoria clarified that eight people were in induced comas, not seven.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed.
Liberal senate leader and shadow foreign minister Simon Birmingham says a reported bomb threat against a person flying the Palestinian flag in Botany “has no place in our nation”.
He wrote on X (formerly Twitter):
Australia is a democratic nation of free speech. Whether driven by disagreement, intolerance or Islamophobia this act has no place in our nation.
Whatever anyone’s views about flying the Palestinian flag at this time, this is illegal and reprehensible behaviour to be condemned.
ENOUGH! TAKE DOWN FLAG! ONE CHANCE!!!
Continue reading...Parts of Seymour and Yea subject to evacuation orders as BoM forecasts more intense rain and wild weather
Residents in north-eastern Victoria are bracing for further flooding in the coming days, after heavy rainfall inundated the state and forced two towns to evacuate.
An evacuation order was issued for parts of the Goulburn Valley town of Seymour, in central Victoria, shortly before noon on Monday, before similar orders were put in place for sections of nearby Yea.
Continue reading...