Category Archives: Sydney

Palestinian woman, 61, who fled Gaza detained by authorities after pre-dawn raid in Sydney

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Maha Almassri told she had failed a visa character check and taken to Bankstown police station, then Villawood detention centre, cousin says

A Palestinian woman who arrived in Australia from Gaza has been detained by immigration authorities after a pre-dawn raid in Sydney.

Maha Almassri, 61, was woken by about 15 Australian Border Force officers at her son’s home in western Sydney at about 5.30am on Thursday, her cousin Mohammed Almassri told Guardian Australia.

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Court rejects developer’s bid to turn Sydney boarding house into luxury apartments

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Lord mayor Clover Moore says city ‘should not simply be an enclave for the rich’ and hopes case sets precedent

A court has rejected a developer’s bid to turn a boarding house into luxury apartments in a case the lord mayor of Sydney hopes will set a precedent to stop the ongoing loss of affordable housing.

In the wake of the court’s decision the mayor, Clover Moore, has also called on the Minns government to allow significant loss of individual homes as a ground for rejecting development applications.

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Bodies of two men in dilapidated Sydney house could have been undiscovered by housemate for weeks

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Landlord made welfare concern call about one tenant – but when police arrived they found two bodies

The decomposing bodies of two men found inside a dilapidated terrace on a busy inner Sydney street could have gone undiscovered by their roommate for several weeks, police have said.

On Thursday afternoon, Eleanor Barker, 63, made a welfare concern call to police about one of her tenants. She has owned and lived at the Cleveland Street property in Surry Hills since the 1980s, and rented it out to the two men for at least a decade.

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Royal Prince Alfred hospital management pauses cuts across women and babies unit after protests

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Exclusive: One midwife said staff were ‘so relieved that the cuts had been paused’ and that they hoped a fair roster could be negotiated

Management at Royal Prince Alfred hospital (RPA) in Sydney will pause its cuts to staffing levels across its women and babies unit, just days after staff protested against the changes.

Dozens of midwives and other clinical staff held a snap rally on Tuesday outside RPA, one of the city’s major tertiary hospitals, claiming that management’s decision to reduce the number of midwives rostered on to the birthing unit risked the lives of mothers and babies.

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Flood threat ongoing for parts of NSW and Victoria as east coast weather system subsides

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Heavy conditions expected to continue along parts of the east coast on Thursday

Authorities remain on alert to flood risk across New South Wales and eastern Victoria after a complex low-pressure system swept the nation’s east coast this week, drenchingcatchments.

Severe weather warnings for damaging winds and hazardous surf also remained in place on Thursday morning, with the system still “lurking over the Tasman Sea”, said Helen Reid, meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology.

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NSW weather: storm brings 13-metre high waves and wild winds as BoM warns of ‘second surge’

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Vigorous coastal low forecast to keep sending severe weather across eastern New South Wales for much of Wednesday, before gradually easing on Thursday

Thousands remain without power across New South Wales after severe winds and heavy rain battered the state, with wind gusts up to 130km/h, 13-metre high waves, and several places receiving more than 200mm rain.

The Bureau of Meteorology expected a “second surge” on Wednesday night would bring a further burst of rain and wind to the south coast of NSW and eastern parts of Victoria, with peak gusts of around 90km/h possible along exposed parts of the coast.

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Man in critical condition with lyssavirus after bat bite – as it happened

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NSW wild weather: ‘Conditions can become dangerous quickly’

Wild weather has brought down trees, damaged properties and flooded roads on the NSW coast, NSW SES says.

These incidents are a timely reminder that roads are slippery, and conditions can become dangerous quickly.

Please, never drive, walk or play in flood waters. If you do come across a flooded road, turn around and find an alternative route.

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Australia news live: some Central Coast residents told ‘evacuate now’ amid coastal erosion threat; children’s commissioner says child safety ‘not a priority in this country’

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NSW braces for damaging winds and heavy rain from coastal low. Follow the latest updates live

Gas market review will ‘drive efficiencies in the system’, King says

The resources minister, Madeleine King, says a review into gas market regulations will drive efficiencies into the system.

Our existing policy has made sure that that gas is available. So that’s that combination of existing policies brings in that extra 600 petajoules. So indeed, that work is already happening.

What we’re trying to do and will endeavour to do, and the industry is very supportive of, is to make that more coherent, and how we can make sure we learn from the whole system, reduce duplication in some of the regulation, some of the reporting factors, simply how we can make it work better for consumers, for industrial users, and for the Gas industry itself. And that drives efficiencies in the system, which we expect will help with pricing.

We were honest with the public from day one: the toll situation would get worse before it got better. That’s the reality of the infrastructure pipeline locked in by our predecessors.

And now, the most recent NSW Budget reflects that – with toll revenue projected to rise from $180m to $283m in the 2028–29 financial year.

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Women and babies could die due to midwife cuts at Sydney’s RPA hospital, staff warn

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Midwives’ union president warns women giving birth at one of the city’s largest hospitals will not receive a level of care considered safe

Midwives at one of Sydney’s largest hospitals have warned women and babies could die in light of cuts to the number of midwives staff deployed across the birth and delivery unit.

Hospital staff say 20 full-time equivalent roles have been removed from across the women and babies service at Royal Prince Alfred (RPA) hospital in Camperdown, including five from the midwifery group practice (MGP), effective from Tuesday.

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Federal court orders Sydney Muslim cleric to remove ‘racist and antisemitic’ lectures from social media

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Wissam Haddad was sued by two members of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry over lectures in 2023 recorded in Bankstown

A Sydney Muslim cleric has been ordered by the federal court to take down a series of “fundamentally racist and antisemitic” speeches posted online, and instructed by a judge not to make similar addresses again.

But Justice Angus Stewart ruled other criticisms of the state of Israel and its military did not breach the Racial Discrimination Act, finding it is not inherently antisemitic to criticise Israel.

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Greens call for investigation into NSW police arrest that injured former candidate

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Sue Higginson demands critical incident be declared after Hannah Thomas taken for surgery, but acting police minister says matter does not ‘meet the threshold’

A Greens MP has called for an independent investigation into New South Wales police arrests at a protest that resulted in a former Greens candidate being taken to hospital with serious facial injuries.

Sue Higginson says a critical incident should be declared after Hannah Thomas, who ran against Anthony Albanese in the Sydney electorate of Grayndler, sustained facial injuries during arrest at a protest on Friday. The protest was outside a business in Belmore accused of “supplying electroplating and surface coating services for a variety of applications including aerospace and defence technology” to Israel.

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Student allegedly hacked Western Sydney University to get discounted parking and alter academic results

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Police allege the woman’s hacking escalated to allegedly threatening to sell confidential student data on the dark web

A former Western Sydney University student allegedly waged a four-year hacking campaign on the institution which began as an attempt to secure discounted parking on campus and culminated in her threatening the sale of student information on the dark web.

The 27-year-old was arrested on Wednesday and charged with 20 offences including accessing or modifying restricted data on a computer, dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception, and unauthorised modification of data with intent to cause impairment.

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‘Legacy-making’ Sydney metro stations take out top prize in NSW Architecture awards

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‘Transformative’ project wins the 2025 architecture medallion as town centres, industrial restorations and residential homes collect other awards of note

Sydney’s recently opened network of city metro stations have taken out one of the top prizes at the Australian Institute of Architects’ 2025 NSW Architecture awards, announced on Friday night.

Dozens of Australian architecture firms, engineering companies, landscape designers and public art experts shared in the 2025 NSW architecture medallion for their work on the Central, Barangaroo, Gadigal, Victoria Cross, Martin Place, Waterloo, Sydenham and Crows Nest stations in what the judges hailed as a “legacy-making” and “city-shaping” cross-sector collaboration.

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Four teenagers charged over alleged six-hour gang-rape of girl in Sydney

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Police accuse four males – aged 14, 16, 18 and 19 – of attacking a 17-year-old in her car in Liverpool in city’s south-west

An alleged six-hour gang-rape of a teenage girl in a car at the hands of four youths has been described by senior New South Wales police as a degrading incident that “beggars belief”.

A 14-year-old boy was the youngest of the group who allegedly took part in the sexual assault across south-western Sydney in December 2024.

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Police hunt masked gunmen who shot three people at Sydney kebab shop in ‘brazen’ daylight attack

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One of three victims of ‘horrifying’ shooting in Auburn has had two previous attempts made on his life, NSW police say

A man shot in a “shockingly brazen” daylight attack in south-west Sydney, which wounded two other people, has had two previous attempts made on his life.

The acting New South Wales police commissioner, Peter Thurtell, said it was “beyond comprehension” three people could be gunned down in Sydney in daylight.

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Daylight saving shapes how we spend, socialise and travel, NSW data reveals

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Exclusive: As the shortest day of the year draws near, government study shows how earlier sunsets curb economic activity and public transport trips

Daylight saving and its delayed sunsets encourages people to stay out later and spend more money, New South Wales government data shows. The data also found more evening light attracts people to public transport and out of their cars.

Conversely, that uptick in mobility almost entirely vanishes in the days after clocks are wound back an hour, as earlier sunsets cut post-work social and economic activity, the data showed.

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Explosion in Sydney apartment blows out brick wall and damages adjoining units

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Cause of blast in Lidcombe unit unknown, with one person taken to hospital

Officials are unsure of the cause of an explosion at an apartment block in western Sydney that saw one person taken to hospital, saying “there is no fire”.

Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) responded to reports just before 6.30am on Friday of an explosion at an apartment block in Lidcombe.

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Sydney’s second airport is nearly built. But will the airlines and people come?

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Victoria’s Avalon has struggled to take wing, but some project Sydney’s new 24-hour, high-tech airport will one day match Heathrow for passenger numbers

It has been talked about for decades, and a year and a half out from its opening, Western Sydney International is looking more and more like an airport.

Last week, press gathered to mark the completion of its runway.

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Should Sydney’s light rail carriages be modified after second death in two years?

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Police believe man was crossing track between two carriages when struck, sparking safety debate

For the second time in two years, a pedestrian has died after being struck by a tram on Sydney’s light rail.

New South Wales police said they found a man under a tram carriage in Surry Hills on Thursday afternoon. Paramedics treated him at the scene, but he died.

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Cauchi’s mass murders put harsh spotlight on failings of mental health and police systems

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Funding shortfalls and inadequate services are letting down people in psychiatric crises, the Bondi Junction stabbings inquest hears

Joel Cauchi’s mother didn’t appear before the coronial inquest examining her son’s life and the day her son murdered six people at a popular Bondi Junction shopping centre. But her presence was often felt, taking shape in the form of notes she had written to his doctor or in a conversation with a police officer.

One of the most striking moments of the inquest was when Michele Cauchi, now in her mid-70s, was filmed via body-worn video camera on a police officer.

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