Knock down a few, build one: in NSW that counts as a gain for councils’ housing targets

Exclusive: Metrics reflect gross addition to supply, even as unit blocks in affluent Sydney suburbs are being replaced by luxury single properties

Luxury homes built on the site of former unit blocks in Sydney are counting towards council targets for new dwellings, even where they have reduced the available housing stock by displacing multiple properties.

A swathe of interwar apartment buildings in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and inner city face the wrecking ball, to be replaced with modern residences, as Guardian Australia revealed on Wednesday.

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NSW premier open to ‘pattern-book’ housing across Sydney as solution for crisis

Unlikely alliance pushes for more medium-density housing of the sort typically found in inner-city suburbs

The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, says he is open to a proposal to pre-approve “pattern-book” housing designs that can be rolled out in Sydney suburbs – an idea being championed by an unlikely alliance of unions, big business and universities.

The Housing Now group, launched on Monday, argues that 30 suburbs need to be, in effect, transformed into inner-city Surry Hills by adding higher density houses and medium-rise apartment buildings.

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Police investigate after $30m super yacht destroyed by fire in Sydney

Only debris remained after crews were unable to extinguish the blaze that engulfed the multimillion dollar vessel

Police and fire investigators are looking into the cause of a blaze that sank a $30m super yacht owned by Australian-British businessman Michael Hintze in Sydney on Saturday night.

Police said emergency crews were called to a dock fire on Clarke Road at Woolwich on Sydney’s lower north shore just after 8pm on Saturday night to find the 195-foot (59-metre) vessel, the Andiamo, fully engulfed.

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NSW police arrest one man and hunt two others allegedly involved in Sydney crash that killed siblings

Woman, 24, and her brother, 15, died after their Toyota Echo was hit by a Mercedes in Heckenberg smash

Police have arrested a 20-year-old man after the deaths of a woman and her teenage brother in a high-speed, three-car crash in Sydney’s south-west.

Two other men allegedly involved in the crash are being sought by New South Wales police.

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Driver charged after horror crash that killed two children, aged nine and 10, in Sydney’s south

Police called to Monterey at 9.50pm Friday night following reports a car had crashed into a tree

The driver of a car that crashed in Monterey on Friday night, killing two children, has been charged over the horror smash, and will face a bedside court hearing on Sunday.

The 33-year-old driver, from Beverly Hills, has been charged with two counts of dangerous driving occasioning death, and one count of causing bodily harm by misconduct.

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NSW government department ‘refusing’ to publish community feedback on shark nets

Greens MP says it is ‘unacceptable’ that results not made public as Minns government faces calls to abandon nets

The New South Wales Department of Primary Industries has kept hidden the results of surveys it conducted to gauge community opinion on shark nets, as the government forges ahead with the controversial deterrence strategy.

The department has not published the surveys for the past two years and has not released the results to two upper house MPs, environmentalists and Sydney’s Randwick council despite their requests for them.

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Australia news live: Federation Square axed as Women’s World Cup live site after fan misbehaviour

Follow today’s live news updates

Melbourne lord mayor threatens to cancel Federation Square viewing site due to rowdy behaviour of small group of ‘idiots’

And sticking with the flares, Melbourne’s lord mayor, Sally Capp, has threatened to cancel the live viewing site at Federation square due to the rowdy behaviour of a small group of supporters.

If we could find those idiots and make sure they don’t attend, then Fed Square will be going off again, but unfortunately sometimes the few ruin it for the rest of us.

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Warm July breaks dozens of longstanding Australian temperature records

Many weather stations in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart clocked their highest July temperatures ever as the country’s winters get hotter

Dozens of longstanding temperature records tumbled across Australia during a warm July.

Across the country maximum temperatures were overall about 1.2C above the long-term averages in July and all capital cities except Canberra were warmer than average, Bureau of Meteorology data shows.

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Australian Border Force raid home in Sydney’s south amid reports nuclear isotopes found

Road blocked off in Arncliffe with hazmat officers, but authorities refuse to comment on whether nuclear material was found at the address

The Australian Border Force has raided a home in Sydney’s south amid reports nuclear isotopes have been found.

ABF officers were understood to be at the unit in Kelsey Street in Arncliffe executing a search on another matter when they discovered the potentially hazardous materials.

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Opposition refers minister to Ibac – as it happened

This blog is now closed.

Warren Mundine said he has kicked two people off his no campaign group Recognise a Better Way, one of which for allegedly making an antisemitic comment.

I’ve actually kicked several people off our campaign in regard to their comments and I intend to keep on doing that.

That’s just between us and the couple of people we had sent off. I don’t appreciate racist comments … All they know is I got rid of them and I don’t accept any racial comments from anyone in regard to these issues.

… It wasn’t particularly about Aboriginals, one was a very antisemitic comment and I’m not gonna wear that crap.

When I talk about treaties, when I talk about constitutional recognition, it is in regard to treaties that are signed between the commonwealth government and First Nations peoples.

… I believe in treaties between the First Nations and the commonwealth and at that, and I put it in that context.

I was involved in the beginning … and then after it got further down the track in regard to [what] it was looking at, [then I said] I don’t support that.

It has to be the First Nations, it has to be the traditional owners who make those agreements. I can’t speak for other people’s country, and they can’t speak for my country.

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Sydney airport emergency: man accused of making bomb threat on flight refuses to leave police cell to face court

Canberra man Muhammad Arif charged after Kuala Lumpur-bound Malaysian Airlines flight turned around on Monday because of alleged disturbance onboard

A man accused of making a bomb threat on an international flight out of Sydney airport on Monday afternoon has refused to leave his police cell to face court.

Canberra man Muhammad Arif, 45, has been charged with making a false statement about a threat to damage an aircraft, and for failing to comply with cabin crew’s safety instruction.

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Mary-Louise McLaws, epidemiologist who guided Australia through Covid, dies aged 70 from brain cancer

Health minister says professor and WHO advisor was ‘an incredibly calm, articulate voice at a time that was very frightening’

Professor Mary-Louise McLaws, the epidemiologist who guided Australians through the Covid-19 pandemic, has died at the age of 70 from brain cancer.

McLaws died in her sleep on Saturday night, her husband Richard Flook said in a statement to the Sydney Morning Herald.

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Unseasonably warm winter weather sweeps eastern Australia as Sydney reaches 25C

One of the main factors contributing to the unusually high temperatures is the warm ocean conditions, a BoM meteorologist says

Unseasonably warm weather swept across the eastern states this weekend, with Sydney hitting 25.2C on Sunday, with high temperatures set to continue.

Parts of the country were expected to reach temperatures about 8C above normal for July on Sunday, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

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Bondi could face summer without shark nets as Sydney councils push for alternatives

State government yet to make a decision as it seeks consultation, while Waverley mayor calls for ‘better options’

The debate over shark nets at Sydney’s beaches has resurfaced as several councils, including the one responsible for Bondi beach, push for a more modern way to protect swimmers this summer.

The nets are due to be in place at 51 beaches between Newcastle and Wollongong in less than five weeks. But the state government says it will not make a decision on whether the nets will be rolled out until it hears from eight coastal councils.

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‘Out of control’: Sydney police battle escalating gang war with five people shot in five days

Commissioner Karen Webb says targeted hits are ‘sad indictment’ on city as investigators work to bring situation under control

Sydney detectives are struggling to contain the city’s escalating gang war and are facing a “wall of silence” despite two people dying in separate shootings over the past five days.

The recent spate of shootings started a month ago when the prominent underworld figure Alen Moradian was shot dead in broad daylight at Bondi Junction.

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Body of tech entrepreneur Andrew Findlay found off Sydney coast a week after fatal boat crash

Police confirm body found among debris off Watsons Bay a week after accident that also killed art dealer Tim Klingender

The body of missing tech entrepreneur Andrew Findlay has been recovered from water off Sydney’s east coast a week after a boating accident that also killed his friend, prominent art dealer Tim Klingender.

New South Wales police confirmed on Thursday that Findlay’s body had been retrieved not far from where that of Klingender, 59, was found floating among debris off Watsons Bay.

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Man shot dead in Canterbury in Sydney’s second ‘targeted shooting’ in two days

Latest victim is fifth person shot this week, fanning fears city’s underworld gang wars are escalating

A man has been shot dead in Sydney’s south-west, just hours after a high-profile criminal lawyer was shot and injured in the driveway of his home.

The latest victim is the fifth person shot this week, fanning fears the city’s underworld gang wars are escalating.

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Sydney deputy school principal jailed for sexual chats with ‘teenage girl’

Damian Wanstell was arrested after sending explicit texts to undercover police posing as 14-year-old

A former deputy principal has been jailed after sending protracted sexually explicit chats to someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl.

In sentencing Damian Scott Wanstall on Wednesday, judge Andrew Colefax asked how, as a father, he could discuss sexual acts and arrange to meet up with someone so young for that purpose.

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High-profile lawyer Mahmoud Abbas shot outside Sydney home in ‘targeted’ attack

Emergency services found criminal defence lawyer with gunshot wounds after a shooting in Greenacre

A high-profile Sydney lawyer has been shot outside a home in what police believe is a targeted attack.

Emergency services were called to a home on Narelle Crescent in the south-west Sydney suburb of Greenacre at about 10.25am on Wednesday after reports of shots being fired.

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‘Tragic accident’: tech entrepreneur presumed dead after boat incident off Sydney Harbour

Body of art dealer Tim Klingender, 59, found amid debris from fishing boat at base of The Gap but Andrew Findlay, 51, still missing

Police will continue the search for a second man lost overboard in a fishing boat accident off Sydney Harbour on Thursday, but say they do not believe he could have survived.

The body of the art dealer Tim Klingender, 59, was found on Thursday, after his borrowed fishing boat was discovered overturned and broken up on the rocks at the base of The Gap off South Head, near the entrance to Sydney Harbour.

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