Category Archives: New South Wales

Treasury sounds warning over NSW credit rating ahead of big spending budget

Posted on by

While Moodys have forecast a stable outlook, spending measures spark warning over triple A rating

Treasury officials have warned the New South Wales government its triple A credit rating could be at risk as it prepares to hand down its final budget before the state election next year.

The Guardian understands that in the lead-up to the next budget on 21 June, Treasury told the government that a series of big spending announcements coupled with pressure on the state’s finances could lead to a downgrade in its prized triple A credit rating.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Hikers rescued with hypothermia in Tasmania as extreme cold front sweeps Australia’s east

Posted on by

Eight people became trapped on Mt Wellington’s summit, and another is missing, as blizzard-like weather causes ‘deadly’ conditions

Eight people have been rescued from blizzards and extreme winds on the summit of Tasmania’s kunanyi/Mt Wellington on Saturday night, as winds, rain and below-average temperatures moved across Australia’s eastern states over the weekend.

Six people became trapped in intensifying winds and snow on Mt Wellington’s summit, which overlooks Tasmania’s capital city, Hobart, just after midday on Saturday. The group took shelter in the summit’s toilet block.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

What will the teal wave mean for Victorian and NSW state elections?

Posted on by

Swings at federal election hint at shifts that could be replicated in state polls due in November and March

With the federal poll decided, upcoming elections in Australia’s two biggest states will be the next electoral test for our country’s political parties. The dramatic swing to independents raises interesting questions about what might happen in Victoria in November and New South Wales in March.

It’s important to note that federal election results are not predictive of what happens in state elections, or vice versa. Indeed, there is a history of state and federal elections held in quick succession producing quite different results. The 1992 Victorian state election swept Jeff Kennett to power, less than six months before the state voted strongly for the Keating Labor government in 1993.

Continue reading...

NSW government pledges $500m for faster rail services between Sydney and Central Coast

Posted on by

State to work with federal government on $1bn upgrade that could slash travel time between Sydney and Gosford to 25 minutes

The New South Wales government has backed a $1bn rail upgrade between Sydney and the Central Coast that could pave the way for faster train services.

The state will work with the federal government on the upgrade, with $500m to be set aside in the 21 June state budget, the premier, Dominic Perrottet, says.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Labor says Dutton ‘desperate’ to distract from defence failures – as it happened

Posted on by

Nadesalingam family arrive back home to Biloela; New Zealand ‘heartened’ by Albanese government’s climate stance; Australia records at least 40 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

Jacinda Ardern will be raising Australia’s controversial deportation policy in today’s meeting. Asked if she has knowledge of whether the government is prepared to “water it down a little bit”, she replies:

Just to be clear, the issue we have is not with deportation. We deport as well. If a New Zealander comes to Australia and commits a crime, send them home ... but when someone comes here and essentially, hasn’t even really had any connection with New Zealand at all ... have all their connections in Australia and are essentially Australian, sending them back to New Zealand, that’s where we’ve had the grievance.

I’ve heard the prime minister prior to winning the election speak to his acknowledgement that that is the part of the policy that we’ve taken issue with. Even that acknowledgement says to me he’s hearing us, he knows it’s a problem.

It’s been a bugbear for us for a long time so I would like to see movement on it.

We talked about music on occasion but I’m not sure I would’ve picked necessarily the right music if I think I was given that task.

Continue reading...

Cold or mould: Sydney tenants told to keep windows open throughout winter

Posted on by

Agent says tenants must ensure ‘adequate ventilation’ after record-breaking rains spread mould earlier in the year – even as bitter cold arrives

Tenants in Sydney have been told by their real estate agency it is “critical” they regularly open windows during winter to restrict the spread of mould.

CobdenHayson emailed tenants on 1 June with recommendations “to help you prepare for the winter season”.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Youpla funeral fund collapse: minister seeks advice on compensating victims

Posted on by

Stephen Jones says he needs to know scale of problem before committing to redress scheme

The new minister for financial services has asked Treasury for advice on how to compensate Indigenous people who were victims of the collapse of the funeral expenses fund Youpla.

Stephen Jones, who was sworn in last Wednesday after Labor’s election victory, stopped short of committing the Albanese government to compensating the victims, telling Guardian Australia he first needed to understand how big the problem was.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Two sisters in their 20s found dead inside Sydney unit had been there ‘some time’

Posted on by

Police say deaths appear suspicious after bodies found at Canterbury apartment

The bodies of two sisters aged in their 20s have been found at a unit in Sydney’s south-west, with police saying the deaths appear to be suspicious.

Emergency services were called to a home on Canterbury Road in Canterbury about 9.30am on Tuesday.

Continue reading...

Chris Dawson’s second wife JC told friend ‘I think he murdered his first wife’, court hears

Posted on by

Toni Melrose-Mikeska said JC confided in her in 1990, after breaking up with Dawson, who has pleaded not guilty to Lynette Dawson’s murder

The murder trial for Chris Dawson has heard another version of the time the teacher and former rugby league player allegedly sought out a hitman to kill his wife, Lynette, in the early 1980s.

Giving evidence in the New South Wales supreme court on Tuesday, Toni Melrose-Mikeska said Dawson’s second wife, known only as JC, confided in her about her husband after the pair broke up in 1990.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

PM says prospect of Chinese naval base in Cambodia ‘concerning’ – as it happened

Posted on by

Prime minister responds to reports of Chinese naval base in Cambodia; nation records 29 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

There’s no magic fix for inflation, Jason Clare says

Education minister Jason Clare appeared on the Today show this morning alongside Scott Emerson.

Inflation is through the roof. Wages are through the floor. We have got interest rates knocking at the door. The Reserve Bank ... have made it clear there will be a number of interest rate rises, which makes it harder for people with big rate rises already. Especially for people who are ahead in their mortgage, but if you have just signed up and the bank says you have to pay more, it will make it harder and harder.

There is no simple magic fix to this.

The market expects them to increase interest rates because we have an inflation problem in the economy and rising interest rates were something that the Reserve Bank governor flagged before the election and that is the trajectory we are on, but just because these interest rate rises are expected, it won’t make them any less difficult for a lot of people who are already confronting cost-of- living pressures.

That is the unfortunate reality. There is no point mincing words about that. Our job is the government is to make sure that after some of this near-term cost-of-living relief runs out that it is replaced by responsible long-term sustainable cost-of-living relief in areas like medicines and childcare, getting power bills down over time and getting real wages moving again.

Continue reading...

NSW and Victoria to push Albanese government to close public school funding gap

Posted on by

Education ministers say they will demand increase in federal investment to reach 100% of Gonski funding benchmark

A fresh battle over the underfunding of public schools is brewing, with Victoria and New South Wales vowing to push the new Albanese government to lift its contributions to close an investment shortfall.

The new federal education minister, Jason Clare, said boosting the results of Australian school students against international benchmarks and revisiting the needs-based Gonski reforms that aimed to end inequities in the distribution of public money will be among his top priorities.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Friendlyjordies: John Barilaro to be paid $715,000 by Google over YouTube videos

Posted on by

Tech giant and comedian Jordan Shanks may face contempt of court charges over videos published during trial

Google has been ordered to pay former New South Wales deputy premier John Barilaro more than $700,000 over a series of “racist” and “abusive” videos published on YouTube channel Friendlyjordies.

On Monday, federal court justice Stephen Rares ruled that Barilaro had been left “traumatised” by a campaign of “relentless cyberbullying” by comedian Jordan Shanks, who uses the nom de plume Friendlyjordies

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Severe weather warnings for NSW and Victoria as blizzards move in to alpine areas, while SA is lashed by rain

Posted on by

Residents urged to avoid travel as cold front brings frigid temperatures, rain and damaging winds to several states

Blizzard conditions are on their way for large parts of New South Wales and Victoria’s alpine areas as a “vigorous” cold front brings cold showers, strong winds and frigid temperatures, while South Australia has been hit by torrential rain.

The Bureau of Meteorology issued severe weather warnings for damaging wind gusts and blizzard conditions for southern NSW and across much of Victoria, with peaks gusts of up to 130km/h likely over Alpine areas.

Continue reading...

Whale watching season starts early as humpback population bounces back

Posted on by

Not long ago, the humpback was almost wiped out, now its numbers are booming in what conservationists say is a ‘wonderful success story’

People across Australia’s east coast are catching an earlier than expected first glimpse of breaching humpback whales as they migrate north, and scientists say the reason why is a conservation success story.

Whale watchers were treated to a spectacular show in Sydney on Monday as two humpback whales surged from the water metres from their boat. Dr Wally Franklin, director of the Oceania Project, said sightings have also been reported off the coast of Merimbula, Byron Bay, Tweed Heads, the Gold Coast and Hervey Bay, as the whales journey north from the Antarctic to the Great Barrier Reef.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Public sector pay to fall under NSW government wage cap, report finds

Posted on by

Exclusive: Union-commissioned study finds cap will see wages fall by thousands of dollars a year

Public sector workers will lose thousands of dollars a year due to rising cost of living pressures unless the New South Wales government scraps its controversial cap on wages, according to a new report released ahead of plans for further industrial action.

As a coalition of unions prepares to ramp up its campaign against the Coalition, the report, commissioned by Unions NSW, found nurses, teachers, police and paramedics all face being thousands of dollars worse off due to the 2.5% cap on wage increases introduced in 2011.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Teen fatally stabbed during gathering at home in Sydney’s west

Posted on by

NSW police say the alleged offender was the boyfriend of a mutual friend who had been invited to the party

A 16-year-old boy has been fatally stabbed at a gathering at a western Sydney home.

Emergency services were called to a house at Ropes Crossing, near Blacktown, early on Saturday morning to find the boy suffering a stab wound.

Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning

Continue reading...

Albanese honours Queen amid jubilee celebrations; up to seven monkeypox cases detected; 59 Covid deaths reported – as it happened

Posted on by

Prime minister renames island in Lake Burley Griffin to honour monarch’s 70 years of service to Australia. This blog is now closed

Brisbane’s new Greens MPs set their sights on the suburbs

Brisbane’s new Greens MPs talk about the moments they “flipped” voters – the driveway conversions of climate unbelievers or hostile folks who had only ever supported the major parties.

Continue reading...

Icac chief tells pork-barrelling forum that NSW fund is on ‘other side of the line’

Posted on by

Anti-corruption watchdog plans to publish its own report on pork-barrelling, ‘including whether and how it relates to corrupt conduct’

The head of the New South Wales anti-corruption watchdog has cited the Berejiklian government’s notorious $252m Stronger Communities fund as a clear example of pork-barrelling, saying almost its sole motive was political, calling it “clearly on the other side of the line”.

Peter Hall QC, the chief commissioner of the state’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac), told a forum, examining the legality of pork-barrelling in politics, that the fund was “on the other side of the line” of what was “permissible”.

Continue reading...

Disgruntled NSW Liberals lay blame for federal election rout

Posted on by

After preselection chaos, party is pointing fingers at the state executive, Alex Hawke, Scott Morrison – and Covid restrictions

A wave of recriminations is sweeping through the NSW Liberal party over the division’s performance and the delays in preselecting candidates for NSW federal seats that resulted in most being chosen only weeks before last month’s federal election.

Blame is being levelled at the unwieldy, faction-riven state executive, at the former prime minister Scott Morrison and his “captain’s picks”, and at his delegate on the state executive, Alex Hawke, who had been widely blamed for holding up preselections by failing to make himself available for months to vet candidates.

Continue reading...

Fights broke out as top-down approach to Lismore flood response failed, inquiry told

Posted on by

Locals who were trying to help rescue residents and feed evacuees clashed with NSW agencies, community witnesses say

Lismore residents have told of fights breaking out between members of the public trying to help and officials attempting to implement a failed “top-down” approach during the height of the flood emergency.

Several community witnesses at a parliamentary inquiry into catastrophic flooding in the town told MPs on Tuesday they were completely disillusioned with Resilience NSW, the new agency established in 2020 to lead disaster and emergency efforts from prevention to recovery.

Continue reading...