Category Archives: Melbourne

Man who scaled 55-storey Melbourne tower without harness taken for questioning by police

Posted on by

Climber, identified by police as a 29-year-old Newry man, believed to have reached top of 163m-tall residential building about 7.30am

Police say they have spoken to a man who scaled a 163m-tall residential tower in Melbourne’s city centre without a harness, while another person filmed him using a drone.

According to Victorian police, the man was seen climbing the side of 60 A’Beckett Street about 7.30am. He did not appear to be using any safety equipment.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Scorching weather forecast for western Sydney, Melbourne and northern Victoria

Posted on by

Heatwave warnings as ex-Tropical Cyclone Kirrily continues to dump heavy rain across parts of outback Queensland

Much of southern Queensland and eastern New South Wales will be gripped by heatwave conditions over the weekend as western Sydney and Melbourne brace for temperatures in the high 30s on Sunday.

Ex-tropical cyclone Kirrily has continued to dump heavy rain across parts of outback Queensland but the system was forecast to track south, taking a route across NSW, before finally leaving the continent on Tuesday.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Melbourne weathers its first January without a ‘hot’ day since 1984

Posted on by

Temperatures have not topped 35C since March last year as summer heatwaves skip Victorian capital

Melbourne is about to mark an unusual milestone. So far this summer the Bureau of Meteorology has not classified any single day as “hot” – that is, above 35C.

While other parts of the country have sweltered through severe heatwaves, the first month of 2024 has recorded no days above 35C, as observed at the BoM’s Melbourne Olympic Park weather station. On 12 January it was 33.4C and on 13 December it was 34C, but the last time the city’s mercury nudged over 35C was 18 March last year.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Victoria’s Robinsons Bookshop apologises after owner’s call for more ‘white kids’ on book covers

Posted on by

Susanne Horman’s comments have been ‘taken out of context’ and ‘misrepresented’, business says

Victoria’s oldest independent bookshop has apologised after its owner called for more picture books with “just white kids on the cover” and claimed that the chain would stop stocking “woke agenda” content that divided people.

Susanne Horman, the owner of Robinsons Bookshop chain, posted a series of tweets in December where she called for an “substantial shift” in Australian publishing, arguing the focus should be in line with public opinion, requests for books and “for what is good”.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Captain Cook statue sawn off and Queen Victoria monument defaced in Melbourne on eve of 26 January

Posted on by

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.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Alleged Russian organised crime suspect charged over explosives and firearms cache in Victoria

Posted on by

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.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Tabcorp banned from accepting cash in unsupervised Victorian machines after teen gambles almost $100,000

Posted on by

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.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

MDMA overdose: nine people hospitalised after Melbourne music festival had severe hyperthermia

Posted on by

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.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Three men allegedly linked to bikie gang arrested after Melbourne tobacco shop torched twice in two days

Posted on by

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.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Police on alert for potential violence at Eritrean festival in Melbourne

Posted on by

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.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Australian capital city rents up 13% over year as further hikes predicted for 2024 amid housing shortage

Posted on by

Housing advocates call for urgent reform to address growing crisis as capital rents hit average of $600 a week

Australia’s record shortage of rental properties will continue to drive prices up for tenants, analysts say, with a new report revealing combined capital city rents rose 13.2% year-on-year.

Data from PropTrack, the property analytics division of REA Group, has revealed national rental prices rose 11.5% over the past year, with combined capital city rents up 13.2% to an average of $600 a week, driven by large increases in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Calls for nationwide pill testing after suspected MDMA overdoses at Melbourne music festival

Posted on by

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.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

This article was amended on 8 January 2024 after Ambulance Victoria clarified that eight people were in induced comas, not seven.

Continue reading...

Man charged after four stabbing attacks in Melbourne overnight that seriously injured victims

Posted on by

Victoria police say random attacks were not terror-related with 31-year-old man facing 15 charges

A man is facing more than a dozen charges after he allegedly stabbed four strangers in Melbourne overnight in what police say were “completely random” and unprovoked attacks.

Officers on Sunday arrested the 31-year-old Melton man who allegedly used public transport to travel across the city when committing three separate attacks on Saturday night.

Continue reading...

Alleged Melbourne home invader shot dead after struggle, police say

Posted on by

Man found dead in driveway of Donnybrook home with gunshot wounds after ‘firearm claimed off one of the offenders’, detective alleges

A man found dead in a driveway in Melbourne’s outer north was allegedly part of a group of home invaders before he was shot during a struggle, police say.

The man, who was yet to be identified, was found outside the property on Middlemount Street in Donnybrook, 30km north of Melbourne’s CBD, at about 4.20am on Sunday.

Continue reading...

Sleeper services may return on Sydney-Melbourne route after new trains arrive, as night patronage booms

Posted on by

Exclusive: NSW government says it is open to all options even though new rolling stock, now due in 2026, will have reclining seats only

The permanent withdrawal of sleeper carriages on Sydney-Melbourne trains may be averted after new rolling stock enters service, thanks to the increasing popularity of intercity rail.

New Spanish-built trains ordered by the previous Coalition government were initially meant to enter service in January 2023, but are now not expected to be running before April 2026. As yet, there is no firm arrival date.

Continue reading...

Rubbish bin and rocks used in attack on mobile speed camera in Melbourne that injured operator

Posted on by

Police say group jumped on the car in Coburg and shattered windows in what union calls ‘horrific planned assault’

A mobile speed camera operator has been injured after his car was attacked by five men in a Melbourne street.

The blue SUV, fixed with traffic cameras in its rear window, was operating on Nicholson Street at Coburg in the early hours of Friday morning when it was attacked.

Continue reading...

‘Bureaucracy going mad’: the 250 ‘magnificent’ 10m-high trees being felled for a Melbourne bike path

Posted on by

Residents of Queens Avenue in Caulfield East are ramping up the fight against the 1km path and vow to ‘fight until the bulldozers come’

For 30 years, Tamara de Silva has woken up to the sound of birds chirping in the trees across the road from her home in Melbourne’s south-east.

“Listening to the magpies and the lorikeets in the mornings, watching them playing around – it lifts your spirits,” she said.

Continue reading...

Eleven people in hospital after fire at Melbourne New Year’s Eve house party

Posted on by

Police say one man has life-threatening injuries after ‘terribly serious’ fire in suburb of Mill Park

Eleven people have been taken to hospital, including a man with life-threatening injuries, after a fire broke out at a New Year’s Eve house party in Melbourne’s north-east.

Emergency services were called to a home on Development Boulevard in the suburb of Mill Park just after 11pm on Sunday, responding to reports of a fire burning in the garden.

Continue reading...

New Year’s Eve: huge crowds turn out in Australian cities to see in 2024

Posted on by

Hundreds of thousands gather in Sydney and Melbourne to enjoy spectacular fireworks displays

Australians turned out in their hundreds of thousands to see in the new year under a midnight sky lit up by fireworks.

In Sydney, crowds were abuzz and at maximum capacity as revellers crammed picnic rugs together across harbour foreshore vantage points. More than 8.5 tonnes of fireworks went up in smoke alongside 80,000 pyrotechnic effects to the sounds of jubilant cheers.

Continue reading...

Police investigating after Qantas crew pin down passenger on flight from Bali to Melbourne

Posted on by

Video shows airline staff and other passengers holding a man down after disturbance on flight on Sunday

Federal police are investigating after Qantas cabin crew were forced to pin down a disruptive passenger on a flight from Bali on Sunday.

Video shows Qantas staff and other passengers holding the man down after a disturbance on a flight from Bali to Melbourne.

Continue reading...