Category Archives: New South Wales

MP tells Folbigg inquiry son may have died from undiagnosed neurogenetic disorder

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Monique Ryan, a paediatric neurologist before entering parliament, says Patrick Folbigg’s death could be linked to epileptic seizures

Kooyong MP Monique Ryan has told an inquiry into Kathleen Folbigg’s convictions for killing her four children that one of her sons may have died from an undiagnosed neurogenetic disorder.

Ryan, a paediatric neurologist before entering parliament in 2022, said Patrick Folbigg’s February 1991 death at 36 weeks could be linked to epileptic seizures.

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Byron Bay faces housing crisis as short-term rentals such as Airbnb surge, residents say

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The thriving tourism industry is ‘undermining the fabric of our society’, one local tells public hearing into proposed cap

Byron Bay residents have voiced their outrage at the impact short-term rentals have had on the region, with some claiming the area has been invaded.

The New South Wales Independent Planning Commission held its first day of a public hearing into a proposal by the local council to drop the number of days available for short-term rentals from 180 to 90 a year.

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Australia at risk of electricity supply shortages as renewable projects lag behind coal plant closures

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Successive La Niñas have eased demand but with many renewable and storage projects now delayed, the energy market operator has revised its projections

Australia’s main electricity grid will probably avoid major supply shortages next summer, but risks escalate in later years as ageing coal plants exit potentially faster than new renewables and storage projects come on line.

The projections are contained in the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (Aemo) updated Electricity Statement of Opportunities (Esoo) report, released on Tuesday.

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Australia news live: landmark report confirms wage theft by universities; treasurer calls for changes to super laws

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Staff underpaid more than $80m in past three years. Follow the day’s news live

Fresh push to ban ‘asbestos of the 2020s’

There’s a fresh push to ban engineered stone commonly used in kitchen benchtops and linked to an incurable lung disease likened to asbestosis, AAP reports.

Instead of planning a family, we’re planning my funeral. I used to install kitchen benches. People liked engineered stone because it was cheap. But the dust got into my lungs causing deadly, incurable silicosis.

That’s too high a price for anyone to pay. Nothing will save my life but if you join the campaign to stop the importation and manufacture of engineered stone, you can help save someone else’s. Please.

Australian workers like Kyle are dying because of engineered stone.

The companies flooding our markets with this cheap and nasty material know that, but to them profits are more important than people’s lives.

It is incredibly distressing … when we hear about these horrific murders and we have to do more to prevent [them from] happening.

I often say we have to start responding to the red flags before more blue police tape surrounds the family home.

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Australia news live: back safeguard mechanism to ‘put climate wars behind us’, Labor urges Coalition and Greens – as it happened

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This blog is now closed

‘The onus is on Labor’ to explain why it needs more coal and gas: Bandt

There’s some discussion about possible alternatives – one suggestion is to pause new developments on gas and coal developments while reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 have been hammered out.

We are up for good-faith discussions and proposals like that are coming from people like the Climate Council, from The Australia Institute. I’ve seen the Australia Conservation Foundation out saying there are serious problems with the government’s proposal.

You can’t put the fire out while pouring petrol on it.

I don’t think the penny has quite dropped with the government how much things are have moved on. 66% of people between 18 and 34 back our position – don’t want new coal and gas mines opened. 57% of the general population. Things have moved on.

I know Labor talks a lot about history, but the students who are marching in the streets at the moment, behind banners saying, “No new coal and gas” were in primary school in 2009. They do not want it, no one can understand why we are coming up to the year anniversary of the floods in Lismore, people cannot understand why Labor says they want to open up new projects.

Why does Labor want to go to the wall to open new coal and gas projects? These are huge climate bombs. They’ve got a very – I think it is an untenable task...

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‘Selfishly hell-bent on looking good’: the surfing trend dividing Byron Bay

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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.

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NSW Liberals disendorse Peter Poulos ahead of election over explicit photo sharing scandal

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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.

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‘A heightened euphoria’: the Australian swimmer taking on the ice mile

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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.

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WA’s Pilbara hits 45C as large swathes of Australia swelter in heatwave

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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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‘I really was broken’: survivor welcomes Dominic Perrottet agreeing to ban gay conversion practices

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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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Dominic Perrottet’s brother sought $50,000 donation to unseat federal Liberal MP Alex Hawke, inquiry told

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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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Kathleen Folbigg hoped for ‘genetic miracle’ after murder convictions, prison letters show

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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.

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‘Rorting’ claims over bushfire grants rejected by NSW premier

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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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NSW parliamentary inquiry to use firm to track down key witnesses, including two of Dominic Perrottet’s brothers

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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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Tanya Plibersek urged to intervene to stop stockpiled soft plastics from being dumped

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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.

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Neurosurgeon Charlie Teo gave family ‘false hope’ with operation, hearing told

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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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Environment groups call for urgent action on hazardous waste from e-cigarettes

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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.

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Union says NSW health system ‘at breaking point’ and calls for royal commission into funding

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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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Fines against WA climate protester ‘absurdly excessive’, Human Rights Watch says; refund for Myki charges during outage – As it happened

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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.

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Can you predict which parts of Sydney will be next to gentrify?

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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.

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