Category Archives: New South Wales

Shrinkflation a ‘difficult decision’ for manufacturers, inquiry told – as it happened

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Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who had some colourful moments in his relationship with Donald Trump in his first presidency, is up now being colourful on the ABC. He says the Australian prime minister “has to stand up for Australia and not follow the conventional approach, which is being urged on everyone, which is to suck up to Trump and be utterly deferential:

I had a very successful relationship with Trump because I stood up to him, stood my ground, incurred his wrath, won his respect, and then got very good outcomes for Australia.

He did sort of encourage a mob to try to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power in 2021, on January 6.

The deal that Morrison instigated and Albanese signed up to is a very, very asymmetrical deal. All of the risk was on Australia. We have no agency and no leverage over this, and that’s why I think the most likely outcome is we’ll end up with no submarines, and that will be entirely our own fault because we signed up to a dud deal.

We have been clear, in terms of the Liberal party leadership, that Peter Dutton and the Liberal party have no plans, no intentions, to see any changes to abortion laws, that we respect the states’ rights in that regard, and I am very clear in terms of my respect for women’s reproductive rights.

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William Tyrrell inquest: foster mother tearfully rejects police theory she disposed of body

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Woman questioned in detail about what happened on the morning of 12 September 2014

The foster mother of the missing New South Wales toddler William Tyrrell has tearfully rejected the police theory that she was involved in disposing of the child’s body after his accidental death.

In a recording played at an inquest into William’s disappearance, she emphatically denied she knew where the boy’s body was and what happened to him.

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This article was updated on 7 November 2024 to correct the date of when William Tyrrell went missing.

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Tanya Plibersek was rebuked by NSW minister for decision to block $900m goldmine, documents reveal

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Courtney Houssos says proposed mine would create 860 jobs over its 15-year life and inject $67m annually into local economy

The New South Wales resources minister rebuked the federal environment minister over her decision to block the McPhillamys goldmine project and declared Indigenous heritage shouldn’t be protected at the expense of critical minerals investment, new documents have revealed.

Correspondence tabled in federal parliament shows NSW minister, Courtney Houssos, wrote to Tanya Plibersek in August, five days after Plibersek announced she had refused Regis Resources’ mining application because of the proposed location of a tailings dam and its possible impact on Indigenous heritage.

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Morrison and Abbott praise Trump – as it happened

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There was some seriously colourful language in Senate estimates yesterday, but in this case the media regulator found radio hosts’ words were a step too far. Sarah Martin reports on what the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young described as “revolting, sexist, racist, misogynistic, divisive stuff”:

A “dangerous anti-abortion bill” before the Senate should be withdrawn, if the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, wants credibility on women’s healthcare, the minister for women, Katy Gallagher, says.

It is typical of Peter Dutton to view this purely as a matter of winning or losing votes, rather than any genuine commitment to women’s healthcare.

If Peter Dutton wants any credibility on women’s healthcare, he must immediately ensure Senators [Matt] Canavan and [Alex] Antic withdraw their dangerous anti-abortion bill currently before the Senate.

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2GB’s Ben Fordham pulls out of Liberal event, saying he didn’t realise it was fundraiser for party

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Nine radio star says he speaks to political organisations, Scouts, charities and preschools but draws the line at political promotion

Nine’s 2GB radio host Ben Fordham has pulled out of a Liberal party fundraiser in Kirribilli, saying he did not realise the event was raising money for the political party when he accepted the invitation to speak.

“Kirribilli Branch is honoured to be joined by Ben Fordham, Sydney’s No.1 radio presenter,” the invitation said. “Ben will provide a review of the major stories he has uncovered and covered this year and the very important election year on the horizon.”

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‘Deplorable’: nurse slammed therapy doll dementia patient believed was real baby on table, NSW tribunal hears

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Sudiksha Ahuja found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct and her nursing registration cancelled

An aged care nurse who slammed a dementia patient’s therapy doll on a table and laughed at the distressed patient who believed it was a real baby has been found to have been “callous and deplorable”.

Sudiksha Ahuja was found guilty in August of unsatisfactory professional conduct after being prosecuted by the Health Care Complaints Commission before the New South Wales civil and administrative tribunal, the commission said in a statement on Tuesday. On Monday, the commission cancelled Ahuja’s registration as an enrolled nurse.

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Drilling for Sydney to Newcastle high-speed rail begins but Labor accused of uncosted ‘fantasy project’

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Two drill rigs, installed on barges, have started work on the Hawkesbury River at Brooklyn and at Brisbane Water near Gosford

Drill rigs have started boring into rocks and riverbeds to determine the best route for the tunnelling megaproject needed for a high-speed rail line between Sydney and Newcastle, but the fast train’s future is far from certain amid questions about its cost.

Almost three years after Labor came to power on a promise to build the fast train, two drill rigs have begun geotechnical examinations on the Central Coast of New South Wales, the Albanese government announced on Tuesday, as its newly formed High-Speed Rail Association (HSRA) works on a business case for the project’s first stage.

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Australia politics live: Albanese tells caucus Labor will campaign on ‘risk’ of Dutton; Miles returns as Queensland Labor leader

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‘We need to extend the average time people stay in our defence force,’ says Matt Keough

The defence personnel minister, Matt Keough, has also been talking about that retention and renumeration package for defence.

We need to extend the average time people stay in our defence force.

That does mean it had a vulnerability. We’re looking at moving to more of a mesh-type arrangement of satellites, which provides greater resilience, with a more up-to-date technology, and we’ll be able to deliver the technology faster as well.

We are very much confident that we can meet these targets and that’s because we have properly funded them and we have a plan to get there, which is about really improving the terms of service for those who work in our defence forces.

We’re increasing and expanding the bonuses for continuing on in the defence force. We’re continuing the original retention bonus after your initial service obligation for three years and beyond that. There will be another bonus for people who stay in the defence force after that. And that’s really targeting those who are in their seventh, eighth, ninth years of service, which gets to the middle ranks where we’ve got an issue. And we’re also going to grow the active reserves so there are more opportunities for people in the reserve to do full-time or part-time work in the defence force.

This original plan goes back seven or eight years and it was about having two or three satellites above Australia to deliver that capability. Since then, we have seen technologies develop which can shoot satellites out of the sky but we have also seen technologies develop where you have thousands of micro satellites in a more distributed way providing the same effect and we are seeing that with Starlink above Ukraine.

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William Tyrrell inquest: foster mother abused outside court after police allege she may have buried toddler

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Counsel assisting warns ‘fairness is deserved by all’ after inquest hears foster mother may have disposed of three-year-old’s body following accidental death in 2014

The coroner overseeing the inquest into William Tyrrell’s disappearance in 2014 has issued a warning after the toddler’s foster mother was abused outside court.

Counsel assisting Gerard Craddock SC told the deputy state coroner Harriet Grahame that someone had yelled at the foster mother at Lidcombe coroners court on Monday as the inquest resumed for two further weeks of evidence.

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More than 500 new poker machines installed in NSW despite Chris Minns promising to slash numbers

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Total number of machines in state increased from 87,094 in March last year to 87,644 in October

More than 500 new poker machines have been installed since Labor won office in New South Wales last year, despite a campaign pledge to cut their numbers in pubs and clubs.

In January 2023, two months before the state election, the now premier, Chris Minns, declared a Labor government would “reduce the number of poker machines” in NSW.

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Search for boy, 11, swept out to sea on NSW Central Coast to resume on Tuesday

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Strong current took child trying to cross The Entrance channel with father and three younger brothers

A search for an 11-year-old boy swept out to sea by a strong current on the New South Wales Central Coast will resume on Tuesday.

A 43-year-old man had been crossing the channel between an estuary and the ocean from the northern side of a location known as The Entrance, with his four boys, aged 11, nine, seven and three. The eldest child was swept into the ocean.

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Heatwave to turn parts of Australia into ‘one of the hottest places in the world’ this week

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Some of the east coast and the north will bake in a furnace of potentially life-threatening heat, the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts

A heatwave is due to strike Australia’s east coast, with temperatures expected above 40C, making the country’s north “one of the hottest places in the world” this week, the Bureau of Meteorology has forecast.

Residents in northern New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory are being warned to brace for unsettled weather through the week, starting on Monday, as a mass of heat moves eastward from central Australia.

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NSW pokies club promoted rewards scheme on first day of gambling harm awareness week, emails show

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Members urged to ‘use your mobile phone to quickly tap and connect to a gaming machine’, potentially at odds with gambling ad ban

On day one of a gambling harm awareness week, one of the biggest pokies clubs in Australia reminded members they could earn rewards by using their machines.

GambleAware week is an annual campaign run by the New South Wales government to raise awareness of gambling harm. It urges people to set limits, to stay sober while gambling, to balance gambling with other interests and not to chase losses.

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Australia news live: PwC reveals it sacked eight staff over data breaches; Perth man dies after being taken to police watch house

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Court to rule in Pauline Hanson-Mehreen Faruqi case

A federal court judge is ready to rule on whether Pauline Hanson made a racial slur when she told Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi to go back to Pakistan.

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NSW police dogs died in car’s special cooling ‘pod’ when engine switched off, force says

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Investigation under way into whether mechanical failure resulted in deaths of German shepherds Xtra and Soldier in Sydney

New South Wales police are investigating whether engine failure led to a police car’s air conditioning failing and the subsequent death of two police dogs inside a special “dog pod”.

The German shepherds Xtra and Soldier were found dead inside the police vehicle by their handler on Thursday at about 12.30pm.

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NSW Labor accused of ‘pretty deliberate attempt’ to minimise impact of long-promised drug summit

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Once-in-a-generation summit set to commence in Griffith on 1 November amid concern over transparency and questions over commitment to meaningful change

New South Wales Labor has been accused of trying to minimise the impact of a once-in-a-generation drug reform summit amid last-minute changes and concern from experts over transparency.

The long-promised NSW drug summit begins on Friday in the regional city of Griffith before hearings in Lismore and Sydney.

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Victoria to cut more than 130 bushfire forest service jobs – As it happened

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Young man dies in multi-vehicle crash in Queensland’s Bundaberg Region

A fatal multi-vehicle traffic crash last night at Elliot in Queensland’s Bundaberg Region last night is being investigated by the police forensic crash Unit.

All travel has been appropriately declared and is a matter of public record.

The only people that need to look at the rules are [shadow transport minister] Bridget McKenzie and Peter Dutton. They’ve got some serious explaining to do.

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Attorney general considering releasing full robodebt report – As it happened

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Mark Butler flags importance of an Australian CDC in future pandemic responses

The federal health minister, Mark Butler, spoke to ABC News Breakfast this morning, after the Covid inquiry report was released yesterday.

Currently, we’re the only developed country that doesn’t have that single authoritative body that can provide to governments and communities about an evidence-based approach to pandemic response and to other communicable diseases. So that is the foundation on which we build a system to respond to the next pandemic - because there will be a next one – much more effectively than we did to Covid.

We all remember just how incredibly difficult and challenging it was, how it affected every aspect of our lives. And in terms of how the government worked during that period of time – we worked with those public health experts and advisers. Our focus was very much on the health and wellbeing of our community, particularly the vulnerable members of our community who were most at risk.

This was a deadly disease. We saw, particularly overseas, it killed so many people. So we were focused on a public health response – a public health response that was focused on supporting the health of our community, and also too understanding the significant additional supports that we needed to provide to small businesses to support them during this incredibly difficult time.

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Broken Hill customers to get bill reprieve as power outages continue

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Origin and EnergyAustralia agree to defer bills after brownouts cripple region for better part of a week

Customers who have suffered through Broken Hill’s mass outages are set for a temporary reprieve on their bills as locals continue to be hit with night-time power cuts in sweltering conditions.

Two power companies – Origin and EnergyAustralia – have agreed to defer bills to those who have been affected by the outages that crippled the region for the better part of a week.

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NSW police fight to stop Newcastle port ‘protestival’ in second court challenge to protests in a month

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Rising Tide event would involve thousands of paddling climate activists blocking coal exports

The New South Wales police force is challenging a planned protest through the supreme court for the second time this month – this time an event in Newcastle calling for climate action.

The November protest is organised by Rising Tide and known as the “People’s Blockade of the World’s Largest Coal Port”. It would involve thousands of activists paddling into the Port of Newcastle on kayaks and rafts to stop coal exports from leaving Newcastle for 50 hours.

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