Category Archives: New South Wales

Peregian homes destroyed after ferocious bushfire rips through Sunshine Coast community

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Firefighters fear significant property losses, with scores of blazes still burning in Queensland and NSW

• Mass evacuations as bushfires threaten more homes – live updates

Hundreds of people are holed up in evacuation centres on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast as crews wait to see how many homes have been lost to a ferocious fire, while firefighters in New South Wales are still battling out-of-control fires near the border.

There are fears of significant property losses, with a destructive blaze still burning out of control at Peregian Beach and Peregian Breeze Estate, south of Noosa.

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Australia launches emergency relocation of fish as largest river system faces collapse

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There are doubts the Noah’s Ark plan for the Lower Darling will be enough to prevent more mass fish kills

Faced with a looming ferocious summer with little rain forecast, the New South Wales government has embarked on a Noah’s Ark type operation to move native fish from the Lower Darling – part of Australia’s most significant river system – to safe havens before high temperatures return to the already stressed river basin.

Researchers have warned of other alarming ecological signs that the Lower Darling River – part of the giant Murray-Darling Basin – is in a dire state, following last summer’s mass fish kills.

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Michael Guider, who killed schoolgirl Samantha Knight, walks free from prison

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New South Wales government fails in bid to keep the notorious paedophile behind bars

The notorious paedophile Michael Guider, who killed schoolgirl Samantha Knight decades ago, has walked free from a Sydney prison.

Guider was released from Long Bay jail on Thursday after the supreme court rejected a New South Wales government bid to keep him behind bars for another year.

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Former boss visited Icac witness’s home on day he was summonsed to deliver ‘festive greetings’

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Steve Tong says his name was falsely put on donation records by his superiors at Wu International

A key witness to an anti-corruption probe received a night-time home visit from his former boss to deliver “festive greetings” the same day he was summonsed to give evidence, despite the Chinese festival taking place two months earlier, an inquiry has heard.

Steve Tong, an engineer who says he has no interest in politics, has given evidence to the Independent Commission Against Corruption that his name was falsely put on donation records by his superiors at a property development firm, Wu International, which has links to the former state Labor MP Ernest Wong.

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NSW Liberal MPs threaten to move to crossbench over abortion bill

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If followed through, the move would push the Liberal party into minority government just months after the election

Two New South Wales Liberal party MPs have reportedly threatened to move to the crossbench if the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, refuses to cave to their demands for amendments on a bill to decriminalise abortion.

The conservative Liberal MPs Tanya Davies and Kevin Conolly have reportedly told Berejiklian they will no longer sit in the party room if amendments to the bill are not passed.

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‘Red hot angry’: the fallout from yet another NSW Labor scandal at Icac

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Its general secretary is gone but the question remains: how do you fix a party branch synonymous with sleaze and scandal?

One of Labor’s favourite Chinatown eateries was packed as Kaila Murnain readied herself to speak. It was 2014, the year before the fateful Labor fundraiser at the centre of this week’s explosive anti-corruption hearings.

But the scene was largely the same. The Eight Restaurant in Haymarket was at capacity, the room full of wealthy donors cosying up to some of the most powerful Labor figures in the state.

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Guardian Australia’s The Killing Times wins prize in NSW premier’s history awards

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The Indigenous massacres project produced in collaboration with the University of Newcastle wins digital history prize

Guardian Australia has won the digital history prize in the New South Wales premier’s history awards for its Indigenous massacres project, The Killing Times.

The collaborative series with the University of Newcastle’s colonial massacres research team found there were at least 270 frontier massacres over 140 years as part of a state-sanctioned and organised attempt to eradicate Aboriginal people.

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Big irrigators take 86% of water from Barwon-Darling, report finds

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Lower Darling pushed into drought three years early because of sheer volume of water extraction by just a few licence holders

A handful of big irrigators are responsible for 86% of water extracted from the Barwon-Darling river system, pushing the lower Darling into drought three years early, an expert report has found.

The NSW Natural Resources Commission released the report by the Australian Rivers Institute professor Fran Sheldon on Monday night, after it received criticism for the claim that extraction of water by cotton growers had pushed the river system into hydrological drought three years early.

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Sydney lord mayor calls snap Pyrmont planning review an ‘astounding betrayal of trust’

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Clover Moore warns NSW planning rules at stake after Berejiklian says suburb is ‘open for business and ready to be taken to the next level’

The lord mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, has warned that “the entire credibility of the planning system” in New South Wales is at stake after the premier intervened to order a speedy review of planning controls in Pyrmont, where her own planning department has blocked the development of a 62-storey tower on top of Star casino.

The rejection of the Star proposal for the 237 metre tower, in the historic area zoned for eight storeys to the west of the CBD, has bitterly divided the state government and led to a ferocious campaign by Star, aided by the Daily Telegraph and radio talkback host Alan Jones.

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British ski instructor jailed for rape and assault in Australia

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Matthew James Williams sentenced for ‘horrifying’ attack on pair in Jindabyne

A British ski instructor has been jailed for 10 years for raping a woman and physically assaulting her male friend in Australia.

Matthew James Williams, 29, attacked the pair on a street in Jindabyne, south of Canberra and near the border between New South Wales and Victoria, in July 2018. He had followed the woman and her 25-year-old companion after they left a pub to walk home.

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Michaela Dunn identified as victim who died in Sydney stabbing attack

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The family of the 24-year-old woman, whose body was found in a Clarence Street unit after Tuesday’s rampage, asked for privacy

The woman murdered in a vicious knife attack in Sydney has been named as Michaela Dunn.

The 24-year-old was allegedly killed at an apartment on Clarence Street in city’s CBD on Tuesday by Mert Ney, a 20-year-old who police say had a history of mental health issues.

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Sydney stabbing: one woman killed and one injured in ‘terrifying carnage’ in CBD

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Police say 21-year-old suspect from western Sydney was carrying information on extremist ideologies when arrested

A man who allegedly stabbed a woman to death in Sydney’s central business district before attacking others on a busy city street with a butcher’s knife was arrested carrying information about terrorist attacks and extremist ideologies on a USB drive.

But police say the man did not have any known links to terror groups, and that he acted alone. The attacks are not being treated as a terrorist attack, the New South Wales police commissioner, Mick Fuller, said on Tuesday night.

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Sydney’s desalination plant set to expand as drought continues

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NSW government wants to be ready to increase water supply if the drought worsens

The New South Wales government has begun preliminary planning to boost output at Sydney’s desalination plant, in a bid to secure the city’s water supply as dam levels continue to drop.

The Kurnell plant, which can currently supply drinking water for up to 1.5 million people in Sydney, returned to operation in January for the second time since 2012.

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Weather warning: cold snap continues across south-eastern Australia

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Strong and gusty winds to bite parts of New South Wales as frosty temperatures sweep Victoria

Wild weather conditions are predicted to lash parts of New South Wales on Sunday afternoon, with conditions in Victoria expected to remain icy as the state is swept by another cold front.

The Bureau of Meteorology forecast weather conditions in NSW would ease on Sunday morning before picking up again with strong and gusty winds in many areas of the state for the rest of the day.

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Wild weather: severe winds, snow, surf and rain lash Victoria, South Australia and NSW

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Delays at Melbourne and Sydney airports, Frankston pier ripped from its moorings and snow at the AFL as polar blast strikes

Icy winds up to 120km/h, snow, wild surf and rain continued to lash South Australia, Victoria and parts of New South Waleson Friday, and snow fell at the AFL in Canberra.

The “strongest weather system this winter” to hit south-east Australia has continued its path of carnage across the country, grounding flights in Sydney and Melbourne, and leading to hundreds of calls to the State Emergency Service across all three states.

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Sydney councillor’s verbal abuse over rainbow flag was vilification, court finds

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Julie Passas fined $2,500 after calling Ashfield neighbour’s flag celebrating same-sex marriage Yes vote ‘offensive’

A Sydney local councillor’s behaviour has been found to amount to homosexual vilification after she verbally abused a neighbour for displaying a rainbow flag on the day of the same-sex marriage postal survey result.

Julie Passas, who was the deputy mayor of Inner West council at the time, told neighbour Daniel Comensoli the flag he erected to celebrate the 61% Yes vote was “offensive to my culture and religion” and that he should not be allowed to marry “until you could breastfeed and have children”.

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Jihadist who planned attack on police and carved slogan into cellmate’s head jailed for 34 years

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Bourhan Hraichie planned attack on Bankstown police station and threatened to kill NSW prisons boss

A New South Wales man who carved a terrorist slogan into a cellmate’s forehead and planned an Islamic State-inspired police shooting will spent at least 29 years in jail.

Bourhan Hraichie, 22, pleaded guilty in the NSW supreme court to four offences over his long-running plan to organise a terrorist attack on Bankstown police station, and causing grievous bodily harm to Michael O’Keefe with intent to murder.

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NSW set to decriminalise abortion as health minister says it’s ‘time for change’

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Independent MP Alex Greenwich to introduce bill developed by cross-party working group

The New South Wales health minister has declared it’s “time for change” when it comes to abortion law, ahead of the introduction of a new bill which would see pregnancy terminations regulated as a medical procedure around the state.

Currently abortions in NSW are dealt with under the Crimes Act 1900.

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