Category Archives: Victoria

Five vice-chancellors in Victoria paid more than $1m in 2024, prompting claims of ‘largesse’

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Union says universities blaming budget deficits for job cuts while pushing executive salaries ‘into the stratosphere’

Just three of Victoria’s vice-chancellors took pay cuts last year despite growing outside pressure to address “broken” university governance and accusations of “executive largesse”.

The universities’ latest annual reports, tabled in state parliament on Tuesday, showed six of Victoria’s nine vice-chancellors increased their pay or left it unchanged last year compared with 2023.

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Koalas face death, attacks and starvation as blue gums chopped down in Victoria

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The state government is aware of koala welfare problems but says it has ‘no cost-effective’ solutions

Thousands of koalas are being displaced each year as blue gum plantations are cut down in Victoria, worsening overcrowding in nearby forests and exacerbating the risk of injury and death during bushfires.

An estimated 42,500 koalas live in blue gum plantations in south-west Victoria, data shows. Between 8,000 and 10,000 hectares of plantation are harvested each year, making thousands of koalas homeless.

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Helmeted honeyeaters return to Cardinia in Victoria for first time since 1983’s Ash Wednesday bushfires

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Healesville sanctuary releases 21 critically endangered birds in hopes a new wild population will thrive

For the first time in 42 years, critically endangered helmeted honeyeaters have returned to Cardinia in south-east Victoria, where they were found until the Ash Wednesday bushfires in 1983.

Helmeted honeyeaters are charismatic, energetic and curious, according to Dr Kim Miller, the manager of threatened species at Healesville sanctuary.

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Sarah Witty v Adam Bandt: how an unlikely Labor champion took down a Greens giant

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Melbourne was barely on the ALP’s radar as a seat it could win – but a sparsely funded campaign proved powerful

Labor could hardly be considered a metaphorical David in most federal election contests. But in the progressive seat of Melbourne, where the now-beaten Greens leader Adam Bandt had reigned for 15 years, there are similarities to the oft-told biblical story.

On 28 March, when Anthony Albanese called an election date for May, Melbourne appeared on no one’s list as a battle to watch.

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Erin Patterson trial live: no record of cancer diagnosis for Erin Patterson on state’s register, health official says

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Australian woman has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and attempted murder relating to a lunch she served at her Leongatha home in 2023. Follow live updates

Don and Gail had dined at Erin’s before, court hears

Anna Terrington also recalls a lunch that her parents, Don and Gail, had at Erin’s house in 2023 – before the fateful mushroom meal.

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Erin Patterson trial live: medical staff reveal differing severities of illness of each guest at fateful mushroom lunch

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Australian woman has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and attempted murder relating to a lunch she served at her Leongatha home in 2023. Follow live updates

Ian Wilkinson says late wife Heather ‘fairly excited’ about lunch

The examination now turns to the invite for the mushroom lunch.

There was no reason for the lunch.... We were very happy to be invited. It seemed like maybe our relationship with Erin was going to improve.

Just seemed like a normal person to me... when we met, seemed quite friendly. We never had arguments or disputes.

She just seemed like an ordinary person.

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Mushroom lunch’s sole surviving guest details deadly meal and its aftermath as trial of Erin Patterson continues

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Ian Wilkinson, whose wife was among three who died, tells Victorian court the triple murder accused ‘just seemed like a normal person to me’

The only surviving guest of the beef wellington lunch at Erin Patterson’s house has told her triple murder trial he was happy and excited about being invited for the meal.

Ian Wilkinson, the pastor at the Korumburra Baptist church, is the sixth witness in the supreme court trial at the Latrobe Valley law courts in Morwell.

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Hundreds of little corellas killed in suspected poisoning attack in regional Victorian city

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Horsham local Glenn Coffey says he witnessed large numbers of sick birds falling out of trees and drowning in Wimmera river

Victoria’s conservation regulator has launched an investigation into the suspected fatal poisoning of 300 little corellas in Horsham, in the state’s north-west.

The incident, which began on Tuesday last week, has killed hundreds of protected birds in a popular park near the Wimmera river, just south of the city centre.

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Erin Patterson trial live: cross-examination of second witness Christine Hunt begins in mushroom murder trial

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Australian woman has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her Leongatha home in 2023. Follow live updates

Our justice and courts reporter, Nino Bucci, was in the court room in Morwell last week for the first week of Erin Patterson’s murder trial.

Catch up on his report on the first week of the trial:

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Victorian Labor was bracing for a federal backlash – now Jacinta Allan sees vindication

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Despite relentless commentary about the premier’s unpopularity, the state swung even harder to Labor than in 2022, while the Liberal party blame game has begun

If anyone is as happy as Anthony Albanese right now, it’s Jacinta Allan.

As the federal election results rolled in on Saturday night, one of the biggest surprises came in Victoria – where Labor defied months of grim predictions to strengthen its grip on the state.

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Erin Patterson turned ‘extremely aggressive’ in dispute with estranged husband, mushroom murders trial hears

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Simon Patterson tells Victorian court of ‘inflammatory messages’ his wife sent to his parents amid a financial dispute

Erin Patterson was “extremely aggressive” during a financial dispute with her estranged husband about their children, a Victorian court has heard, as more message exchanges between the former couple were revealed.

Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in Leongatha in South Gippsland in 2023.

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Murder charges over shooting of gangland lawyer Joseph Acquaro dropped

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Victoria DPP’s move on charges against Vincenzo Crupi brings end to case that threatened to force police to reveal informer’s identity

The Victorian director of public prosecutions has dropped murder charges relating to the shooting death of gangland lawyer and police informer Joseph “Pino” Acquaro.

The explosive development brings to an end a court case that threatened to force Victoria police to reveal the identity of human sources in order to prosecute Vincenzo Crupi, who they alleged had murdered Acquaro.

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Erin Patterson no longer accused of attempting to kill husband as mushroom murders trial begins

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Victorian supreme court judge tells jury that charges relating to Simon Patterson have been dropped

The trial of Erin Patterson for allegedly murdering her in-laws by serving them a lunch laced with death cap mushrooms has started in a Victorian court.

Patterson, 50, faces three charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder relating to a beef wellington lunch she served at her house in South Gippsland in 2023.

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Synthetic opioids linked to spate of overdose deaths found in wastewater across Australia

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Detection of powerful nitazenes in samples from 60 sites a ‘red flag’ amid surging use to lace street drugs

Synthetic opioids a thousand times stronger than morphine and an animal sedative used to lace street drugs have been detected in Australia’s wastewater.

The discovery has been described as a “red flag” and comes as the deadly class of synthetic opioids – nitazines – claims dozens of lives in Australia.

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‘Disrespectful’ booing of welcome to country at Melbourne Anzac Day dawn service condemned

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Small group booed and yelled at Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown’s welcome and Victorian governor’s acknowledgement of country

A man is expected to be charged for offensive behaviour after a group including an alleged neo-Nazi booed and heckled a welcome to country at Melbourne’s main Anzac Day dawn ceremony.

A small group of people booed and yelled throughout the welcome delivered by Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown at the 5:30am service at the city’s Shrine of Remembrance.

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Third-party groups targeting teals in key seats swarm pre-poll areas in NSW and Victoria

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Third-party group Better Australia has posters and representatives wearing yellow ‘community adviser vests’ at multiple locations in Sydney.

Third-party groups targeting the teal independents are flooding pre-poll locations in Victoria and New South Wales, and include campaigners with links to the Jewish community such as Repeal the Teal.

In Goldstein, where the independent Zoe Daniel is hoping to hold off Liberal candidate Tim Wilson, Repeal the Teal has made its presence known this week with posters, T-shirts and pamphlets. The group is also campaigning in Kooyong.

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Trade unionists, conservationists and church groups unite against Dutton’s nuclear plan

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Seven Regions Nuclear Free alliance launches campaign representing groups who oppose the Coalition’s proposed nuclear reactors in their communities across Queensland, NSW, SA, Victoria and WA

Trade unions, conservationists, First Nations groups, church congregations and community organisations have launched a coordinated campaign against opposition leader Peter Dutton’s plan for nuclear reactors across Australia.

The Coalition has pledged, if elected, to build seven nuclear reactors to replace retiring or retired coal sites naming Tarong and Callide in Queensland, Liddell and Mount Piper in New South Wales, Port Augusta in South Australia, Loy Yang in Victoria, and Muja in Western Australia.

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Mykola Bychok: the Melbourne bishop who will help choose the next pope

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As a cardinal under the age of 80, the Ukrainian-born priest will be one of the select few Catholic leaders to gather in the Vatican for the papal conclave

A 45-year-old Ukrainian-born Melbourne bishop who will be among the world’s top-ranking Catholic officials who will vote to select the next pope says he is filled with sadness over Pope Francis’s death.

Mykola Bychok, Australia’s highest ranking Catholic official after Francis made him a cardinal late last year, is currently on his way to the Middle East for a pilgrimage but will travel on to Rome for the funeral and then the papal conclave.

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Nine-year-old boy dies at popular NSW holiday spot amid spate of drownings over Easter long weekend

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The child died after becoming trapped between rocks at South West Rocks on Sunday afternoon

A nine-year-old boy has died after becoming trapped between rocks at a popular holiday spot on the New South Wales mid-north coast, amid a spate of drowning deaths over Easter.

Police and other emergency services tried to free the boy from the site at South West Rocks on Sunday afternoon but he died at the scene.

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Woman dead and man missing after being swept into sea in Victoria as four die in separate incidents on NSW coast

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One woman managed to get back to shore after three washed into water near George Bass coastal walk south of Melbourne

A woman has died and a man is missing after they were swept from rocks near a popular coastal walk in Victoria.

A further three people have also drowned in separate incidents in New South Wales.

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