More than 2 million tourists visit Australian coastal town annually, but a spate of injuries blamed on surfers not wearing leg ropes is raising tempers
Amid the perfect blue rolling waves of Byron Bay’s beaches, a menace lurks.
It’s not sharks or stingers that are spoiling the vibes at perhaps Australia’s most famous tourist town, but out-of-control surfboards.
Continue reading...The premier, Dominic Perrottet, had said he was appalled and disgusted by the situation
The New South Wales Liberals have cut the upper house government MP Peter Poulos from their election ticket, five weeks out from the election, after the premier called on his party to act over an explicit photo scandal.
Poulos had resigned on Friday from his parliamentary secretary role after apologising for emailing explicit images of a female rival five years ago.
Continue reading...Peta Bradley won bronze at the ice swimming world championships after training in a NSW country dam
Covid lockdowns and the closure of the local pool forced a swim team in Armidale, New South Wales, to get creative – and now one of them has broken the Australian record for ice swimming and won bronze at the world championships.
Peta Bradley, 27, placed third in her age group for the 500m freestyle at the recent world championships of the International Ice Swimming Association (IISA) in Samoens, France, and placed ninth overall, setting an Australian record of 07.33.85. She set another Australian record by placing fourth in her age group in the 1,000m, and also came fourth in the 50m butterfly.
Continue reading...Extreme conditions in the north of the state with Victoria, NSW and Queensland also experiencing high temperatures
Large swathes of Australia sweltered amid a heatwave on Friday, including in the Pilbara, where temperatures reached 45C.
Sumaoa Bayliss, the manager at the Red Sands Tavern in the northern Western Australian town of Newman – where it reached 44C – said life goes on in the dangerous conditions, albeit under air conditioning.
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Continue reading...NSW premier gives bill ‘in-principle’ support as independent Alex Greenwich hails a ‘good day for our state’
Growing up as a teenager in the suburbs of Sydney, Chris Csabs was led to believe he needed to be “fixed”.
“I was gay and had grown up steeped in an ideology that told me that God had not made me that way. That there was a negative cause to my homosexuality,” he said.
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Continue reading...Businessman tells NSW inquiry he was approached by Jean-Claude Perrottet because of his previous support for Malcolm Turnbull
A Sydney engineer with links to a former prime minister says the New South Wales premier’s brother approached him for a $50,000 donation in a bid to unseat a federal MP.
Businessman Frits Mare told a NSW parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday that Jean-Claude Perrottet, along with the Hills shire councillor Christian Ellis, asked for a $50,000 contribution from him in 2019 to unseat Alex Hawke.
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Continue reading...In letters tendered at inquiry, Folbigg also wrote she got a ‘raw deal’ after being convicted of murdering three children
Kathleen Folbigg complained of getting a “raw deal” in letters from prison, which have been tendered at an inquiry into her convictions.
The 55-year-old was convicted in 2003 of murdering three of her children and the manslaughter of a fourth.
Continue reading...Federal emergency management minister Murray Watt criticises state cabinet over relief program
Dominic Perrottet has defended his role in the New South Wales government’s allocation of Black Summer recovery grants after the federal emergency management minister, Murray Watt, accused him of being part of a “rorting” process that saw money funnelled away from Labor electorates.
The allegations were made after a national emergency management agency official told Senate estimates this week that they understood the grants went to the NSW cabinet’s expenditure review committee (ECR) before being finalised.
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Continue reading...Committee examining allegations of ‘impropriety’ against a Sydney council and developers will take the unusual step of using a private contractor to serve summons
A New South Wales parliamentary inquiry examining allegations of “impropriety” against a suburban Sydney council and property developers says it will hire private contractors to track down key witnesses who are “failing to cooperate” with the inquiry, including two of Dominic Perrottet’s brothers, in an extraordinary bid to force them to answer questions at a public hearing.
On Tuesday an upper house committee examining the “role and influence of developers and their interactions with councillors and members of parliament” at the Hills Shire council took the unusual step of saying it would contract a private firm to issue Charles and Jean-Claude Perrottet with formal summons to appear.
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Continue reading...Environmentalist alliance says plastic waste from failed supermarket-backed recycling scheme can be safely warehoused until it can be recycled
Environment groups are urging federal and state governments to ensure thousands of tonnes of soft plastic that could end up in landfill are safely warehoused by supermarket chains until recycling facilities become available, even if that takes years.
The Boomerang Alliance – a coalition of 55 conservation groups – has accused the packaging industry of using a failed scheme run by REDcycle which led to more than 12,000 tonnes of plastic collected by the public being stockpiled since 2018 as a marketing ploy to mask how little is being done to improve recycling rates.
Continue reading...Woman deteriorated after surgery in 2019, witness tells panel, but doctor denies any wrongdoing
A witness giving evidence at the start of a five-day disciplinary hearing into brain surgeon Charlie Teo held back tears as she recounted the deterioration of her mother’s health and eventual death after surgery by the high-profile physician.
The witness, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told Judge Jennifer Boland at the Health Care Complaints Commission in Sydney on Monday her mother developed paralysis and became wheelchair-bound after surgery in 2019.
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Continue reading...Head of Clean Up Australia says disposing of vapes is ‘a new and serious environmental issue’
Environment groups have called for urgent clarity and regulation to respond to an increase in hazardous waste from e-cigarettes as vaping becomes more popular.
The number of people using e-cigarettes doubled between 2016 and 2019, according to the federal government, with a survey showing more than 30% of 14- to 17-year-olds have tried vaping.
Continue reading...Report commissioned by Health Services Union is scathing of failure to invest in community and preventative healthcare
The Health Services Union has called for a royal commission into New South Wales’ funding for health and hospitals, claiming in a new report that the system is “at breaking point” because it incentivises unnecessary or expensive procedures, rather than primary or preventive healthcare.
The report, prepared for the HSU by Impact Economics and Policy, says the “fragmented” nature of the health system intrenched inequality and did not produce the best outcomes for the money spent.
10% of people in NSW waited more than two hours after calling for an ambulance from July to September;
Patient complaints about healthcare services have increased 40% since the start of the pandemic, and 144% since 2011-12;
1,000 hospital beds in NSW are occupied by people staying longer than recommended who could be in aged care or are NDIS participants, costing about $500m a year;
Overservicing is a significant problem. For example, half of all babies born in private hospitals are delivered by caesarean section, three times the rate recommended by the World Health Organization;
Half of almost 4,500 Health Services Union workers surveyed said they were considering leaving the profession within the next five years.
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Continue reading...Activist pleaded guilty on Friday to criminal damage. This blog is now closed
Productivity commission report will be released in March
Chalmers says he has received a five-year review from the productivity commission about how Australia can respond to flagging productivity across the Australian economy.
I’d like to do that sooner, ideally in May, so that we can have this national debate about our productivity performance and some of the recommendations in there. Now, inevitably, a government won’t pick up and run with every single one of the recommendations from the Productivity Commission, but there may be some that we can run with. There will be some that align with the government’s economic plan and our policy objectives.
No doubt people will want to ask him about that and he can explain it. I think there’s a broader issue here about how the bank communicates the context for its decisions. This is one of the things that I have been discussing with the RBA Review Panel. I actually discussed it with them on Friday in one of the regular meetings that I have with the review panel, how they communicate their decisions and the context behind their decisions is one of the key focuses of that review.
Continue reading...Researchers have developed a model which uses changes in the socioeconomic status of an area to anticipate gentrification
One consequence of rising rent and house prices in Sydney is the further gentrification of inner suburbs, with wealthier people displacing poorer households in certain desirable areas.
These shifts in neighbourhood composition in Australia’s largest city can have negative effects on the people displaced – people losing access to their community networks and familiar surroundings, as well as more practical concerns like access to transport and health infrastructure.
Continue reading...Cost-of-living pressures, disadvantage and ‘oversaturation’ of machines in the region leading to higher levels of gambling-related harm, researchers say
Almost two-thirds of Sydney’s gambling losses come from western Sydney, with advocates concerned the cost-of-living crisis is exacerbating problem gambling in the region.
A research paper from Western Sydney University, which has called gambling-related harm a “silent epidemic”, also says three LGAs in western Sydney account for a third of Sydney’s total gambling losses.
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Continue reading...Sydney is gearing up for a massive, global party — but it’s also an important reminder of the work still to be done on LGBTQ+ rights
Sydney’s WorldPride will have something for everyone, organisers say, as the city gears up for 17 days of festivities surrounding the 45th anniversary of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
The festival – which will include more than 300 events – kicks off on Friday, and will end with an expected 50,000 people walking across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Sunday 5 March.
Continue reading...Opposition says it will step into vacuum left by NSW government’s lack of interim solutions to improve experience for passengers
Labor has promised to improve the ageing trains that run from Sydney to Melbourne and Brisbane if it wins the New South Wales election, as the Coalition’s delayed replacement fleet leaves passengers in carriages without phone reception for most of this decade.
The pledge follows revelations from an advisory report that the NSW government’s contract for new regional trains is set to blow out by more than $1bn, with the first of the rolling stock that was meant to enter service this January now delayed to as late as December 2025.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: Party treasurer Charlie Taylor has attended fundraisers hosted by the minister who appointed him
Dominic Perrottet has defended his government’s appointment of a senior Liberal official – who made thousands of dollars in political donations to the party – as the chair of a New South Wales productivity council set up to provide independent advice on innovation.
In January the state’s innovation minister, Alistair Henskens, appointed Charlie Taylor to chair the state’s Innovation and Productivity Council (IPC).
Continue reading...Emergency services were called to Frazer Beach on Wednesday afternoon, but neither could be revived
A man and a woman have died after being pulled from the water unconscious on the Central Coast of New South Wales.
Just before 4.20pm on Wednesday, emergency services were called to Frazer Beach, around 50km south of Newcastle, after reports two people had been pulled from the water unresponsive.
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