Melbourne airport grounded flights because of flooded terminals and the risk of lightning, as geelong was hit by hail up to 3cm in diameter
Thousands of Victorians have been left without power and Melbourne airport has been forced to ground flights as a major storm front swept across the state’s south.
There was also extreme weather on the way for parts of the Northern Territory and West Australian coasts on Friday as a tropical low deepened over the Timor Sea.
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Long delays on M7 at Prestons in Sydney
Traffic is banked up on the M7 in Sydney. Chanel 7 is reporting that a truck crash has caused the long delays.
They’re sharing their emotions and their grief because they believe this should never have happened.
It’s really important for us to have that public support. It inspires us to continue to do our job.
They’ve also lost two colleagues … so they are hurting incredibly.
A lot of work to be done to assist them as we move into the future because the pain will never go away.
Continue reading...Fellow Liberal new arrival Evan Mulholland calls for prison sentences to be scrapped for some drug offences
New Victorian Liberal MP Renee Heath has railed against the Labor government, claiming it needed to “get out of classrooms, get out of churches”, while her party colleague Evan Mulholland has used his first speech in parliament to call for the scrapping of prison sentences for some drug offences.
The pair were among the first newly elected MPs to address parliament for the first time on Tuesday evening, following the November election that delivered the Andrews government a fourth term.
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Crossbench say Australia needs to ‘get cracking’ on Cop15 commitments
More reactions are coming in after the close of the biodiversity Cop15 – which leading scientists have called “vastly more important” than the Cop27 climate meeting, because it decides the “fate of the living world”.
We need to get cracking on implementation to deliver on commitments.
Continue reading...Father of one of the teenagers says the family was ‘very desperate’ after group’s belongings were discovered on Rosebud beach on Monday night
Four teenagers have been found alive in what police are calling a “Christmas miracle” after going missing in waters off Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.
Two 18-year-old men and two women aged 18 and 19 were found across the bay on Swan Island off the Bellarine Peninsula about 9am on Tuesday.
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It’s officially a week before Christmas, which means the forecasters at the Bureau of Meteorology are fairly confident they can tell us what whether we can set up for an al fresco Christmas lunch or not.
For some parts of the country, there is a chance of showers:
Particularly in the south, we can get some volatile weather but all the patterns really starting to change as we move into later part of this week.
So we’ll see a weather system move through southern parts of the country, Thursday and Friday. Then a big high-pressure system behind it will quickly move into the Tasman Sea and then kind of sit there over the Christmas weekend into early the following week and normally that drives a lot of warm weather across much of southern parts of the country and our guidance is showing a similar pattern with that as well.
Continue reading...Warning comes as more than 130 people who ate range of contaminated fresh food items suffer symptoms including hallucinations and delirium
Australians are being urged not to seek out contaminated baby spinach products for a recreational high after more than 130 people who ate a range of fresh food items suffered symptoms including hallucinations and delirium.
Authorities were on Sunday night testing the weed believed to be responsible for the widespread recall of products containing spinach thought to have come from a farm in Victoria.
Riviera Fresh – Riviera Farms Baby Spinach
Fresh Salad Co – Fresh and Fast Stir Fry
Woolworths – Chicken Cobb Salad and Chickpea Falafel Salad
Continue reading...Sport governing body says ‘such behaviour has no place in Australian football’. This blog is now closed
‘We will look at the facts’
James Johnson is asked whether Melbourne Victory has any outstanding sanctions for past incidents. He says he is not aware of any but past events may be considered as an “aggravating factor” as an investigation into the incident unfolds:
There is no other suspended disciplinary action that I’m aware of, but what I will say is that we will be working through that today. We have already started working on the show cause process as of late last night, and we will be moving forward as quickly and swiftly as possible to finalise it, because it is important we get ahead of this issue as a sport.
What I can say is that we will look at the facts, we’ll look at it objectively and we will take a decision that we believe is in the overall best interest of the game but I prefer not to comment on the specifics of the outcome because we have to go through that process first.
What happened during the game last night and what happens with the result;
A “show cause letter” to Melbourne Victory;
An attempt to identify individuals involved in the pitch invasion.
This is an element that … infiltrates our game and tries to ruin it for the people who love us was in. We’ll be looking to weed out those people from the sport.
Continue reading...Indigenous children routinely subjected to racist slurs and excessive force, including use of stun guns, Yoorrook Justice Commission told
First Nations children are routinely strip-searched by police and it amounts to “state-sanctioned violence”, a defence lawyer has told Victoria’s Indigenous truth-telling commission.
Tessa Theocharous told the Yoorrrook Justice Commission that the constant mistreatment of Aboriginal children by Victoria police was rooted in racism.
Continue reading...Two police officers and another member of the public were shot dead at a Wieambilla property, then two men and a woman were killed by police late last night. Follow the day’s news live
Police officers who were shot and killed on a regional Queensland property were searching for a New South Wales man last seen by his family almost a year ago, Guardian Australia understands.
On Monday, four officers attended the remote property at Wieambilla in the Western Downs region in connection with the disappearance of Nathaniel Train, 46, from Dubbo in NSW.
Continue reading...Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell expected to enter upper house, where Labor needs six crossbench votes to pass legislation
Victoria is set to elect its first One Nation MP, who will sit on an upper house crossbench that will likely be dominated by progressive parties, including up to four Greens.
The Victorian Electoral Commission will distribute preferences in the eight upper house regions on Wednesday. ABC election analyst Antony Green has said it is looking likely that One Nation’s Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell will beat Labor’s James McWhinney for the final seat in Northern Victoria.
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Severe weather warning for damaging winds in NSW and Victoria
Several children have been injured after a firework shot into a crowd during a Christmas event in Sydney’s northern beaches last night.
An 11-year-old boy was initially taken to Royal North Shore hospital, before being transferred to the Children’s hospital at Westmead for treatment of burns and a chest injury.
An eight-year-old girl was taken to Northern Beaches hospital for treatment of burns and a wrist injury. She has since been released.
Police have been told a 12-year-old boy was taken to hospital by his parents for treatment to minor burns and has since been released, and six other people were treated on scene by NSW Rural Fire Service for minor injuries, and left prior to the arrival of paramedics and police.
Senior politicians from both major parties to travel to Vanuatu, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and Palau this week. This blog is now closed
The Bureau of Meteorology expects scattered showers expected over South Australia.
Meanwhile the heatwave that has settled across northern Australia is expected to ease.
Continue reading...The Victorian Labor and Liberal parties face challenges over the next four years after a decisive election result
Despite predictions of a late swing to the Coalition and the possibility of minority government, Labor not only emphatically won the Victorian state election – it has outdone its 2018 “Danslide” result by one lower house seat.
The size of the victory, as well as the likelihood of a largely progressive crossbench in the upper house, provides Daniel Andrews with a mandate to tackle important reform. This includes scrapping group voting tickets and overhauling the criminal justice and child protection systems, which are being examined at public hearings by the nation’s first truth-telling inquiry, the Yoorrook Justice Commission.
Continue reading...Jordan Crugnale claims Bass, seeing the party’s presence in the lower house increased by one seat
Victorian Labor has surpassed its emphatic 2018 “Danslide” election result, claiming victory in the seat of Bass, in Melbourne’s south-east.
Labor MP Jordan Crugnale claimed the seat on Friday night, after a redistribution before the poll made the seat notionally Liberal with a margin of 0.7%.
Continue reading...Victoria police confirm at least seven infringements totalling $462 each were issued for ‘serious traffic offences’
Mourners who were fined for running red lights during late music icon Uncle Archie Roach’s funeral procession will not have them overturned.
Victoria police confirmed at least seven infringements totalling about $462 each were issued to mourners travelling as part of the motorcade, including the driver of a hearse carrying Roach’s body back to Country in August.
Continue reading...Emma Vulin wins newly created seat in Melbourne’s south-east to equal party’s previous election result
The Victorian Labor government holds as many lower house seats as it won in the 2018 “Danslide” election after claiming victory in Pakenham, ahead of a final declaration in Bass.
Labor candidate Emma Vulin claimed victory for the newly created seat in Melbourne’s south-east on Thursday, after a tight race with Liberal David Farrelly.
Continue reading...Federal government tight-lipped on whether it will allow ceremonies on other dates as Merri-bek council votes on change
The future of citizenship ceremonies at three Melbourne councils hangs in the balance, as the federal government refuses to reveal whether it will revoke a Coalition-era policy that forces the ceremonies to be held on 26 January.
The Greens-led Merri-bek council, in Melbourne’s north, on Wednesday voted to abandon Australia Day citizenship ceremonies and instead honour the date with a mourning event to recognise the dispossession of Indigenous Australians.
Continue reading...The central bank has raised the cash rate by 25 basis points to a decade high of 3.1%. Follow the day’s news
Shorten confident solution will be found ‘well before Christmas’
The national cabinet meeting was supposed to see the federal government negotiate with the states on an acceptable intervention on soaring energy prices.
It will be delayed just a few days. The fact of the matter is all options are on the table.
It’s no secret with the premiers, the challenge is Putin’s war in Ukraine has flowed through to coal and gas prices all around the world and it’s affecting Australian families.
Continue reading...Demand back to normal in emergency department after long wait times for some patients with less urgent illness
The Royal Children’s hospital in Melbourne is back to “normal” levels of demand after a surge on Monday night that led to emergency wait times of up to 12 hours.
Dr Sarah Arachchi, a general paediatrician who works across public and private hospitals in Melbourne, said a lack of bulk-billing doctors, summer viruses including Covid-19, and health anxiety among carers had led to the hospital having to urge people to seek alternative care if their child’s condition was not urgent.
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