Category Archives: Victoria

Daniel Andrews dismisses concerns over independence of review into Flemington racetrack flood wall

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Melbourne Water chair John Thwaites, who was water minister when the wall was approved, will excuse himself from the review

Daniel Andrews has dismissed concerns over the independence of a review into the impact of a flood wall built to protect Flemington racetrack, which will be conducted by an organisation chaired by a former minister of the government that approved the structure.

The track was spared by Friday’s flooding while homes in neighbouring suburbs including Maribyrnong and Kensington were inundated, with some residents believing the wall pushed flood waters away from the track and into their homes.

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Australia news live: thousands of homes at risk in Victoria floods; Nationals accuse budget of targeting regions

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The Goulburn River at Shepparton reaches almost 12 metres and is still rising as residents fill sandbags to protect properties. Follow the day’s news live

Government needs to be securing future of regional communities in net zero transition, McKenzie says

RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas:

Isn’t part of the problem, though, this this deal that Barnaby Joyce and your party, extracted in exchange for supporting net zero was never really outlined in detail. It was shrouded in secrecy and confusion. Haven’t you left yourself kind of vulnerable in the lack of detail?

I think one of the things that’s becoming more and more clear and obvious around the debate about decarbonising Australia’s economy is that there are actually going to be specific communities and places that are more heavily impacted than others. It’s been one of the National party’s great arguments in the last decade because it’s true.

And so what we secured, were able to secure, was funding to ensure that those communities would be able to secure the opportunities that are purported to come with a move to net zero but also be supported to diversify their local economies and to overcome some of the challenges that are unequivocally heading their way.

The Labor party has ripped the guts out of programs at fund regional Australia and has simultaneously awarded over $2bn to Daniel Andrews’ re-election campaign here in Victoria. And voters are going to be heading to the polls within three weeks of the budget being handed down. So it’s hard not to be cynical, I guess, at what seems a blatant politicisation of infrastructure funding.

And now his own minister yesterday on your Insiders program confirmed that Infrastructure Australia hasn’t even looked at this suburban rail loop the and the only person that has is the Victorian auditor general and the report was scathing, so I think there’s huge concerns that this government has a vendetta against the regions and is using any excuse they can to rip regional funding out of the budget, and to re-profile and re-allocate it to re-elect labour premiers.

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Victoria floods: Thousands of homes to be inundated or cut off as some swollen rivers peak on Monday

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Former quarantine facility in Mickleham to act as a shelter and more than 100 schools to be closed

The shuttered Mickleham quarantine facility is being turned into a flood recovery centre amid Victoria’s worsening flood crisis, with thousands of homes expected to be inundated or cut off and some rivers not expected to reach their peak until Monday.

Approximately 6,000 properties were without power on Sunday and more than 9,000 people had already applied for emergency support payments.

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Australia news live: 120 schools to be closed on Monday amid Victorian flood crisis

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Residents in Victoria’s north told to move to higher ground; Anthony Albanese and 100 ADF personnel on the ground as situation worsens. Follow live

Federal government ‘in conversation’ with NSW about Warragamba dam wall

King is asked about how the infrastructure spend is being divvied up with New South Wales clearly getting less than Labor-lead states. King says the decisions were based on the projects that had been submitted to the federal government ahead of the budget.

We will work with the New South Wales government as we lead into the May budget.

Of course we will look at it. At this stage we don’t have enough information from the New South Wales government on which to make a decision.

There is back and forth between Infrastructure Australia and the New South Wales department and I haven’t seen any of that yet.

This is for the early works of this project. We haven’t made any further commitments. We will talk to the Victorians around that as we go forward. They have an election they are facing and this will be a contested project, I’m sure, but something we have confidence in.

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Victoria floods: Shepparton and Mooroopna ‘too late to leave’ as man found dead in Rochester backyard

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Victorian authorities warn flooded rivers yet to peak and prepare for one of the largest evacuation operations in the state’s history

The emergency flood situation in Victoria’s north has intensified as authorities warn it is “too late to leave” for many.

Evacuation alerts have been upgraded for Shepparton, Orrvale, Kialla West and Mooroopna to reflect it is too late for residents to leave those areas.

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Racing Victoria chief says Flemington racetrack wall had ‘unintended’ flood consequences

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Andrew Jones says Victoria Racing Club was ‘entitled’ to protect its property from floods

The flood wall built to protect Flemington racetrack from inundation has had “unintended consequences for neighbouring residents”, the chief executive of Racing Victoria has conceded, as homes surrounding the track began the clean-up from devastating floods.

Andrew Jones told Channel Nine the flooding of the suburbs of Maribyrnong and Kensington was “a difficult situation”, and expressed sympathy for those affected.

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Man dies in Victorian town of Rochester and Shepparton told to evacuate – as it happened

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More than 500 Victorian homes damaged and 500 others cut off in flooding. This blog is now closed

Jonathan How from the Bureau of Meteorology has spoken to ABC News about the severe weather, saying the heavy rain has cleared in southern Victoria and Tasmania.

Overnight we did see rainfall totals of 5-15 millimetres across parts of southern Victoria and Tasmania, but the good news is that the heavy rain has cleared but we are seeing ongoing flooding for New South Wales and Victoria.

First in Melbourne, flood warnings out for the Maribyrnong and Werribee rivers. Keep following the advice of local police and SES, but at tension is very much through the northern and inland parts of Victoria.

The north and the north-west of Tasmania had the highest level of rainfall. Record-breaking rainfall over the previous few days. That rainfall accumulated at altitude and made its way down the landscape into the riverine.

The last flooding of significance was in 2016, but the rainfall in 2022 we’ve experienced has exceeded a lot of those values and has been far-reaching by comparison to that previous event.

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Steinway, then the highway: national piano competition forced to flee Shepparton floods

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Final round of the competition brought forward to Friday so competitors and others involved could escape imminent inundation

It wasn’t quite the doomed band on the Titanic playing on heroically, but the finalists in this year’s Australian national piano award were faced with an unexpected challenge as the flood water rose around the Riverlinks Eastbank theatre in Shepparton, where the event’s semi-final stage was due to finish on Friday.

“That would be a very dramatic way of putting it,” said Anthony Chen, 27, although he said he had never experienced conditions like it in his musical career.

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Covid quarantine centre to reopen for flood evacuees – as it happened

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Daniel Andrews says 500 homes have been flooded and another 500 have been isolated. This blog is now closed

An estimated 500 homes are flooded in Victoria with number expected to grow: Daniel Andrews

Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, has been on ABC radio Melbourne this morning, providing listeners with an update on the floods.

Obviously this has been a very, very significant flood event and it’s far from over. There’s a little bit more rainfall but as that weather event passes through, the real challenge is waters continuing to rise and more and more houses being inundated, more and more communities being closed off, becoming isolated, then of course we move to clean up and all of those issues.

We think there’s about 500 homes that are flooded, we think there are another 500 that have been isolated across the state. But I would just say they’re very early estimates and the aerial intelligence gathering choppers are up in the air now ... they’ll be doing all their reports back to the state control centre. So I’d say those numbers are absolutely certain to grow. And indeed, we’re still asking people to leave in some areas. There have been important, important evacuation notices have been issued in a number of communities. So those numbers will go up. That’s why we’ve got nine important relief centres opening and 50 sandbag collection points. There’s an enormous amount of work going on.

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‘Danger period’: Victorians and Tasmanians on high alert as rivers rise rapidly after heavy rain

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Evacuation orders in place across Tasmania and Victoria due to flooding, including in parts of suburban Melbourne’s north-west

Flood-hit communities in north and north-west Tasmania are entering a “danger period” as rivers rise, with evacuation orders current for multiple towns and part of Launceston.

Victorian communities also remain on high alert for dangerous flooding, with residents in six towns urged to leave their homes and move to higher ground.

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Victoria’s 208 LGBTQ+ suicides to be outlined for the first time in new report

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Exclusive: Coroner suspects ‘undercount’ as a decade of suicide data is released to the public

More than 200 LGBTQ+ Victorians have died by suicide in the past decade, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by the state’s coroner.

In a report to be released on Friday, the coroner’s court of Victoria identified 208 deaths by suicide – recorded between 2012 and 2021 – of people who are LGBTQ+.

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Australia news live: Victoria and Tasmania hit by flooding; NT triple murderer sentenced to life in jail

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Seventy flood warnings in place across Victoria, with 10,000 people without power and 40 schools and childcare centres shut. Follow the day’s news live

‘Walk the talk Labor’: Spender urges government to help households decarbonise

Independent MP Allegra Spender has taken to social media to urge the Albanese government to take action supporting Australian households as they decarbonise:

Our families and businesses are hurting. Sovereign risk is not a defence when the super profits are being made because of a war.

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‘Devastating’ outcomes for woman abused by police officer husband after Ibac failures, report finds

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Woman’s escape plan had previously been leaked to abuser, but Victorian anti-corruption body referred case back to police’s internal investigations

Victoria’s anti-corruption commission fundamentally failed a woman who was abused by her police officer spouse, with delays in the handling of her case meaning a second officer who leaked her escape plan could not be prosecuted, a report has found.

The Victorian Inspectorate, the body responsible for overseeing the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (Ibac), tabled a special report to parliament on Tuesday regarding the case of a woman known as Emma.

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Man shot dead by police in Brisbane – as it happened

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Queensland police say officers had been called to Edmonstone Street in South Brisbane around 3pm. This blog is now closed

Treasurer says surging electricity costs will make inflation ‘hang around longer’

We brought you the grim news on the blog yesterday that the head of Alinta energy has predicated a 35% increase to retail electricity bills next year, as energy providers juggle phasing out fossil fuels alongside investment in renewables.

I think one of the reasons this inflation will hang around longer than we want it to is because there are expectations around these electricity price rises being more problematic for longer.

You’ve said the government would put the economy above politics, can you really say that’s what you doing if you leave the stage-three tax cuts in place as they are?

I can say that, and I think what people will see in the budget in two weeks’ time is some difficult decisions in difficult times.

Our job is to make sure that our budgets are perfectly calibrated to the economic conditions as we confront them.

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Australia news live: increased risk of floods, tropical cyclones and heatwaves, long-range forecast warns

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The Bureau of Meteorology has released its long-range forecast for Australia’s coming severe weather season. Follow all the day’s news live

‘It’s time to move on now’: Tanya Plibersek on Andrew Thorburn saga

On Sunrise, environment minister Tanya Plibersek was asked about a war of words between Victoria premier Daniel Andrews and Andrew Thorburn, the would-be CEO of Essendon who resigned following criticism about his role as chairman of City on a Hill.

When it comes to rampant homophobia, when I lead the pride march every year, I do that with a sense of genuine concern, support and commitment.

I think the important thing here is that the fellow in question has resigned from the position, it really is a matter for the football club. It seems like they are moving on from a national perspective, the government is committed to making sure that we introduce religious discrimination laws, as we said we would. I think it’s time to move on now.

I think that his personal views should be separated from the overarching views of the church that he is involved with … I’m in the Catholic Church, it doesn’t mean I believe in every tenet of the Catholic Church. This is completely out of order and Mr Thorburn should get his job back. The whole thing looks like a total mess.

I think you always look back and think I could have done this or not. I tried to do as much as I could as prime minister in the sense that every day was precious, every day we were trying to drive big reforms forward. On sexism and misogyny I specifically regret not calling it out earlier.

I had thought when I first became prime minister that the maximum reaction to me being the first woman would be in the early days and it would wash away … I was clearly wrong on that. Knowing what I know now it was going to gather and get worse. Potentially if I called it out earlier it could have been a bit easier. You never get to run the control test in politics.

I think things have changed, I think it’s impossible to imagine a prominent woman in Australian politics would be called the things I was without it having huge negative consequences today … but we’ve still got a way to go.

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Funding shortfalls force Melbourne legal centre to stop taking calls on police misconduct

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Criticism mounts of Victoria’s police oversight model, with Andrews government urged to establish new watchdog

A Victorian community legal centre that specialises in police misconduct matters has stopped taking calls from the public because of funding shortfalls amid calls for the Andrews government to establish a new police watchdog.

The Police Accountability Project, which is based at Inner Melbourne Community Legal Centre, is only taking on new clients referred to it by other lawyers and the most egregious cases, as it can no longer operate a phone intake line that had previously serviced as many as 400 people a year.

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Extinction Rebellion protesters glue hands to prized Picasso – as it happened

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Dutton on his answer to filling the gap should stage-three tax cuts go through

Dutton:

If you look at even post lockdowns on a month by month basis, you can see months where we’ve gone back into surplus, so the settings we have in government, our instinct as Liberals, as a Coalition when it comes to budget management are vindicated.

When you look at where we are with a 50-year low unemployment, when you look at the strength of the underlying indicators here in Australia, that is a very significant contrast to where the UK or US budget is, and this government inherited a very strong position after nine years of Coalition management.

David, we went to the last election with a promise and I’m not in the business of breaking promises. The prime minister can contemplate it. He looked the Australian public in the eye and it seems he wasn’t so genuine and that he was prepared to make that statement.

I want to see the prime minister honour his commitment and not lie to the Australian people.

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Prized Picasso ‘unharmed’ after Extinction Rebellion activists glue hands to painting in Melbourne

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Two people were arrested and later released without charge over the protest at the National Gallery of Victoria

Two Extinction Rebellion activists glued themselves to a prized Pablo Picasso painting at the National Gallery of Victoria to draw attention to environmental causes ahead of the state election next month.

The protesters – who were arrested and later released without charges being laid – used superglue on Sunday to attach themselves to Picasso’s Massacre in Korea, which was on loan to the gallery as part of its Picasso Century exhibition. The NGV said in a statement the artwork, which was protected by a perspex glazing, was not harmed.

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All-day public transport travel for $2 in Victorian Liberal election pledge

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The party said it would save a typical family $3,500 a year, and cost nearly $1.3bn over four years

Victorians could pay just $2 for all-day public transport if the Liberal party wins the state election.

The opposition on Sunday announced it would slash the price of train, tram and bus travel in a bid to combat the cost of living.

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NSW floods: SES performs six rescues amid 63 flood warnings and continuing rainfall

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Four defence force helicopters on standby as low-pressure system, forecast to persist until Sunday, brings flash flooding, landslides and damaging winds

Rivers in New South Wales are overflowing and emergency services have had to perform six flood rescues in 24 hours as another battering of heavy rain and thunderstorms descends on the east coast.

The third low-pressure system was forecast to persist until Sunday morning, bringing flash flooding, landslides and damaging winds strong enough to bring down powerlines and trees.

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