Category Archives: New South Wales

NSW and Qld fires: 300 new fires across NSW today and a dozen homes damaged – live

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Rural Fire Service says a firefighter has been injured in Sydney as New South Wales faces catastrophic fire conditions across greater Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra/Shoalhaven with strong winds and high temperatures. Dozens of bushfires continue to burn across Queensland and Australia’s east coast

• Catastrophic fire danger: what does it mean?
• Open thread: tell us how you’re affected by the fires
• If you are in a bushfire affected area stay tuned to your local emergency broadcaster. Full alerts can be found here for NSW and here for Queensland

I take that back, the latest update has moved it back up to nine emergency alert level fires:

In the latest update from the RFS, they’ve downgraded six of the fires, meaning there are now four emergency alert level fires.

Those are:

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More than 60 fires threaten NSW and 45 burn in Queensland – as it happened

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More than 575 NSW schools to close as conditions forecast to worsen on Tuesday, while dozens of bushfires continue to burn across Australia’s east coast. This blog is now closed

This is where we’ll leave our rolling coverage today. Guardian Australia will be covering all the developments tomorrow. Here’s what’s happened so far:

ABC Weather has published an explanation of why Tuesday is looking so bad: it’s a cold front.

“Tomorrow with the winds you’ll be seeing a more south-easterly direction,” Grace Legge, senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology, told the ABC.

Why a cold front signals disaster for fire danger https://t.co/NOr4mZ54B3 via @ABCNews pic.twitter.com/3ZrwsfqZeg

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NSW and Queensland fires: Sydney to face catastrophic fire danger for first time

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More than 130 bushfires continue to burn, with three people dead and 150 properties destroyed, and conditions set to worsen

The greater Sydney region will face catastrophic fire danger on Tuesday for the first time since the rating was introduced and fire authorities say conditions in other parts of New South Wales could also be set to worsen.

The warning was issued as more than 80 fires continued to burn in the north of the state late on Sunday.

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NSW and Queensland fires: emergency warnings for 17 fires in NSW – as it happened

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There are fears that some people are trapped in their homes in an unprecedented bushfire emergency

Ok, we’re going to leave it there for this evening. Thanks for joining us and we’ll be back in the morning with more reporting on the bushfire situation.

For information about current bushfire warnings monitor emergency websites, including www.rfs.nsw.gov.au and www.qfes.qld.gov.au.

Stranded by the fires today. Disconcerting when you watch dozens of fire trucks laden with firies rush past under lights and sirens. As a journo I know how hard the firefighters work, but on days like today, thank god for the @NSWRFS and @FRNSW #nswfires pic.twitter.com/SCGPfdmtv9

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Scores of bushfires burn out of control in NSW and Queensland as temperatures soar

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Hot and windy weather has created volatile conditions along parts of Australia’s east coast

Parts of Australia faced an unprecedented bushfire threat on Friday evening as more than 100 blazes burned across coastal New South Wales and Queensland.

Communities on NSW’s mid-north coast and the far north coast were battling the worst of the conditions, which were described by authorities as “uncharted territory” and that led to a dramatic, orange-red glow descending on the fire-threatened city of Port Macquarie.

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CCTV footage key to inquest of Bernard Gore who died trapped in Westfield stairwell

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Tasmanian man’s body was found in a fire stairwell at Bondi Junction shopping centre three weeks after he disappeared

As Bernard Gore’s wife of 50 years waited to meet him in a Sydney shopping centre, she had no idea her husband was trapped nearby in a fire stairwell where he would later die.

Angela Gore, surrounded by her children, cried silently as an inquest heard how her husband’s body was found kneeling forward – as if he’d fallen off a nearby chair – in the stairwell at Westfield Bondi Junction in early 2017.

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To the moon and back with the eastern curlew

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Ultra-endurance athlete, aerodynamic wonder … and facing extinction. Why the bird who flies 30,000km a year needs Australia’s mudflats

• Vote for your favourite in the 2019 bird of the year poll

The ascent is vertical. Up, up and into the jet stream. If the conditions are not right up there it will come back down and wait. But if there is a good tailwind in the right direction it will begin an epic journey that will take it around the curvature of the Earth; from the Arctic Circle to the southern hemisphere.

Using the sun and stars as a compass, and navigating by the Earth’s magnetic field, recognising landmarks, the far eastern curlew will fly nonstop to the Yellow Sea, where it fuels up on the mudflats of north-east China.

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Police officers abused Afghan women in Sydney traffic stop, watchdog finds

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Video footage shows 24-year-old woman and her stepmother being pulled over and belittled by two officers

Two New South Wales police officers have been found to have engaged in serious misconduct after they racially abused and belittled two Afghan women at a traffic stop in western Sydney.

On Thursday the Law Enforcement and Conduct Commission released a series of investigations into police conduct in the state, including video footage of a 24-year-old woman and her stepmother being pulled over by police in April.

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Hang-glider killed and another critical after crash near Byron Bay

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Passenger – reported to be Irish tourist, 26 – winched off cliff at Lennox Head by helicopter

One man is dead and another, believed to be an Irish tourist, is in a critical condition after a hang-gliding accident on the New South Wales north coast.

Emergency services were called to the Pat Morton lookout at Lennox Head near Byron Bay about midday on Wednesday after reports of a crash.

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Hundreds of koalas feared burned alive in out-of-control bushfire near Port Macquarie

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Blaze around Lake Innes and Lake Cathie in northern NSW has destroyed more than 2,000 hectares and spread smoke haze to Sydney

Hundreds of koalas are feared to have died in an out-of-control bushfire in northern New South Wales which has raged unchecked for days in the heartland of their prime habitat.

The blaze, reportedly caused by a lightning strike near Port Macquarie, has burned more than 2,000 hectares, including an important koala breeding ground.

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Sparks fly after roadworks leave power pole in middle of Newcastle street

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Ausgrid hits out at council for widening Foundry Street and moving the kerb during the electricity distributor’s live work ban

Newcastle residents have been left confused after a series of events led to a power pole seemingly installed in the middle of a road.

Photos of the baffling pole – which sits in the middle of Foundry Street in Wickham – were shared widely on social media, as the City of Newcastle and electricity distributor Ausgrid traded blame for who was responsible.

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Resisting drought’s day zero: the NSW towns close to running dry

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After water restrictions and emergency infrastructure, the final drought strategy is sheer perseverance

People have started visiting the outback town of Pooncarie just to see a place that’s running dry.

Josh Sheard, the publican at the Pooncarie hotel, says the remote town in far south-west New South Wales needs the attention.

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Michael Lavarch to review NSW Labor after ‘shocking’ allegations at Icac

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Anthony Albanese and Jodi McKay announce the appointment of the Keating government attorney general

The former attorney general Michael Lavarch will lead a review into New South Wales Labor after the suspension of the general secretary Kaila Murnain over claims the party accepted $100,000 in banned developer donations from Huang Xiangmo.

The New South Wales Labor leader, Jodi McKay, and the federal leader, Anthony Albanese, announced the appointment on Sunday, promising to create structures to prevent a repeat of what McKay called “shocking and appalling” allegations at the anti-corruption watchdog.

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More than 50 homes destroyed by NSW bushfires as rain offers hope of respite

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About 40 fires have been burning across NSW, destroying homes and killing an elderly couple

At least 52 homes have been destroyed in bushfires which swept across northern New South Wales, killing an elderly couple and leaving locals devastated.

There was much-needed rainfall overnight, with about 16mm falling in some fire-affected areas, but the wet conditions mean the use of heavy machinery by crews has had to be suspended for the day.

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Bushfire that razed homes in NSW town Rappville may have been deliberately lit

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Rappville blaze, which destroyed at least 10 homes, described as a ‘bastard act’

Police will investigate a suspicious blaze that destroyed at least 10 homes in a rural hamlet in northern New South Wales.

Authorities believe the fire that ripped through the Rappville this week may have been deliberately lit, in what the NSW emergency services minister, David Elliott, has described as a truly “bastard act”.

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NSW hidden donations: opposition declares ‘crisis of confidence’ in planning system

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New South Wales Labor calls for more planning reforms after Guardian revelations about undisclosed political donations

The New South Wales opposition has warned of a “crisis of confidence” in the state’s planning system following revelations that 13 corporations hid their donations from the state’s planning authorities.

A Guardian investigation on Monday found some of Australia’s biggest companies – including Woolworths, Caltex, Origin Energy and AMP – had failed to declare sizeable donations to planning authorities while seeking to develop or approve property in the state.

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Two dead after small plane crashes into forested area west of Coffs Harbour

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The men who died in the northern NSW plane crash are believed to be a Gold Coast father and son

Two men – believed to a Gold Coast father and son – have died after their small plane crashed into steep, forested terrain in northern New South Wales.

Police confirmed the deaths after trekking to the crash site in the Dorrigo national park on Saturday afternoon.

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Huang Xiangmo: judge to reveal why she froze $140m of Chinese businessman’s assets

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Anna Katzmann said Huang could only use the money to pay debt to ATO or for living or legal expenses

A judge will today reveal her reasons for slapping a $140m asset freezing order on controversial businessman and political donor Huang Xiangmo after an application by the Australian taxation office.

At an urgent hearing in Sydney on Monday, federal court judge Anna Katzmann ordered Huang not to dispose of assets worth up to the $140.9m claimed by the ATO, including more than $6m worth of property in Sydney and an apartment in Hong Kong.

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Barnaby Joyce and Tony Abbott decry ‘infanticide on demand’ at abortion rally

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Former PM and deputy PM deploy incendiary language to describe decriminalisation bill being considered by NSW parliament

The former prime minister and deputy prime minister of Australia have claimed at an anti-abortion rally in Sydney that a proposed decriminalisation bill has nothing to do with decriminalisation.

Tony Abbott described the bill as “infanticide on demand”, while Barnaby Joyce described it as “the slavery debate of our time” while also perpetuating a false claim about pro-choice protesters on Saturday.

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‘I don’t know how we come back from this’: Australia’s big dry sucks life from once-proud towns

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Guardian Australia reports from three communities hard hit by one of the worst droughts in living memory

Australia is experiencing one of its most severe droughts on record, resulting in desperate water shortages across large parts of New South Wales and southern Queensland. Dams in some parts of western NSW have all but dried up, with rainfall levels through the winter in the lowest 10% of historical records in some areas.

The crisis in the far west of the state became unavoidable after the mass fish kills along the lower Darling River last summer, but now much bigger towns closer to the coast, including Dubbo, are also running out of water.

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