Category Archives: New South Wales

Rental price growth slows from unprecedented highs as tenants hit ‘affordability ceiling’

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Experts say Australia is ‘definitely still in a rental crisis’ but there is only so much people can pay

Twelve months ago, during the height of rental market demand, Carley Eder was issuing lease renewals with price increases of up to $80 a week. Now, her clients will be lucky to have tenants approve $25.

“The market has definitely shifted,” the Central Coast rentals principal said.

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Two men missing in NSW flood waters as Gundagai braces for worst flooding in 33 years

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Search continued for two people swept off ute near Boorowa as prime minister said he hoped for positive news

Anthony Albanese says he is concerned about two men missing in flood waters after their ute was washed off the road in central New South Wales.

As the Riverina town of Gundagai braced for its worst flooding in 33 years, the State Emergency Service undertook 39 flood rescues in the 24 hours to Wednesday morning.

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Environmental activist’s home visited by Queensland police ahead of planned protests in Sydney

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Activist among 30 people in three states and ACT to report visits from officers at request of NSW police ahead of mining forum

Counter-terror police in Queensland have visited the home of an environmental activist following a request from New South Wales ahead of planned protests at a mining conference in Sydney.

The activist is one of about 30 people across four jurisdictions to report visits from police in the past week ahead of the International Mining and Resources Conference, which starts on Wednesday.

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Treasurer says inflation ‘number one challenge’ – as it happened

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We’ve been bringing you some of the news about rain causing more flooding in NSW. Here are some visuals from Wagga Wagga in southern NSW and the Newell highway in the state’s central west.

Jacinta Allan avoids question of whether families returned from Syria would be welcome in Victoria

The first group of families the wives and children of Islamic State fighters arrived in Sydney over the weekend from Syria and are now living in the community in Sydney. Will Victoria accept returnees?

I was with the premier [Daniel Andrews] on Sunday at a at a media event… where the premier was asked this direct question and I’ll give to you the answer he gave on Sunday which is these are very sensitive security matters. They are primarily the province of the federal government, it would not be appropriate -

As a matter of principle, will you accept them [in] Victoria? Or have you asked for them not to come during the election campaign?

We’ve not, Patricia. There is a … As I think we’ve seen from the media reporting around this issue, this is a very careful matter. There is a very -

Sure, but as a matter of principle, do you think returning citizens – they’re Australian citizens – should be allowed to live in Victoria?

I would really direct you to the federal government and the federal … I think you would appreciate that this is not a simple yes or no proposition because there needs to be robust and careful assessments that are not undertaken by the Victorian government. They’re undertaken by the federal government and the federal Department of Home Affairs.

And if they do all the checks and balances, should they be welcome in Victoria?

Firstly it’d be entirely inappropriate to cut across that and secondly, I am in no position to run a commentary.

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Lawyer for Australian families repatriated from Syria says focus should be on their recovery

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Moustafa Kheir says women and children have returned to NSW ‘from hell on earth’ and are cooperating with authorities

The lawyer for four Australian families repatriated from Syria says the focus should be on their recovery, not on the prospect of them being charged with terror offences.

Moustafa Kheir, who represents the four women and their 13 children who arrived in Sydney on Saturday, said he had been involved in interviews the women have had with authorities.

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NSW plastic straw ban: how will it work and what will be gained from it?

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Single-use plastic straws, cutlery and cotton buds will be among items banned from Tuesday

Single-use plastic straws and other items will be banned in New South Wales on Tuesday. The decision follows similar action to ban single-use plastic bags earlier this year.

We take a look at what this means for customers and businesses, and how it will be enforced.

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AFP foil plan to import $1.6bn of liquid meth in coconut water bottles – as it happened

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People have been cleared to return to their homes as flood threat eases in Victoria, but the Bureau of Meteorology is warning of renewed flooding in parts of NSW. This blog is now closed

Chalmers on the size of government debt and making it ‘sustainable’

The treasurer is asked whether the government will consider rethinking taxes like GST and PRRT.

We have already found $22bn in savings, $28.5bn in budget improvements overall. We kept real spending growth flat across the forward estimates. We have got the debt down over the forward estimates. We have let 99% of the temporary revenue surge from higher commodity prices flow through to the budget.

That is good progress when we have shown in doing that … you can move sensibly on all fronts, restraint, trimming spending, sensible tax reform, you can make the budget more sustainable and that will be the task of the two or three budgets remaining in this parliamentary term as well.

We need to work out how do we maintain a focus on Australians with a disability and their families, how do we put them front and centre, and at the same time make sure that spending on the NDIS is sustainable and important part of that is making sure we get value for money for every dollar that is spent in what is a really important, really, really important service that we provide to Australians.

I do understand there is a substantial part of the community that would prefer that that PRRT take was higher.

We haven’t been working up an option to do that to change the PRRT arrangements but the treasury has been commissioned by my predecessor and by his predecessor to do some of this work around the taxing point in the PRRT.

We do want to make sure Australians get a good return for their resources. We need to balance that against the investment that’s been made into the sector. When I get that advice from I will engage in it a meaningful way and I will listen to it.

We have seen I think as you acknowledged in your first question, on this topic, company taxes are up quite substantially. That’s a good thing and we have let that flow through to the budget. The PRRT, there’s a modest increase. I will wait to see what the treasury advises us on the conclusion of the review that my two predecessors put in place.

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Lismore residents can take their homes with them under $800m buyback program

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If residents choose not to move their home or if it is not possible, they will be sold or stripped for materials

In the nine months since floods gutted Harper Dalton’s South Lismore home, he has been waiting for two things: a land buyback and the ability to pick up the redwood home and move it to higher ground.

On Friday it emerged that northern rivers residents eligible for buybacks under a new joint federal and state $800m housing scheme will be allowed to do just that.

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‘A slap in the face’: NSW state housing push set to clip Kiama’s green hills

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Kiama mayor says chosen site has no support infrastructure and viable alternatives for development were overlooked

A portion of the famous rolling green hills near Kiama, on the New South Wales south coast, is under threat from a housing development, after the state government overrode Kiama municipal council zoning to allow a 440-house development.

The South Kiama project is part of a push by the Perrottet government to ease housing pressures, but the Kiama mayor, Neil Reilly, said viable alternative sites on non-rural land were ignored, including an old quarry at nearby Bombo and vacant land within Kiama’s town boundaries.

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ClubsNSW suggests use of facial recognition could go beyond identifying problem gamblers

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Exclusive: Lobby group links technology to identification of people barred from venues for disorderly behaviour

People kicked out of New South Wales pubs for being too drunk could be tracked via facial recognition technology if new laws introduced to parliament last week are not changed, with the powerful gambling lobby refusing to rule out expanding the use of the controversial tool.

A week after ClubsNSW announced it would roll out facial recognition technology to pubs and clubs across the state as a harm minimisation tool that could “only be used to enforce self exclusion” by gamblers, it now concedes its use will be more widespread.

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Federal budget 2022 reply speech live: opposition leader Peter Dutton to respond to Labor’s October budget – latest updates

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Leader of the opposition to give his reply to the treasurer Jim Chalmers’ first budget. Follow the day’s news live

The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi will give notice of a private senator’s bill she will introduce today aiming to halt the indexation on student loans and increase the repayment threshold to above the median wage.

Faruqi says it is one way which would help ease the cost of living burden on people with student debt:

Student debt is no small problem. About three million people in Australia have the burden of student debt.

At a time when the cost of living is biting hard, governments can no longer ignore the student debt crisis and its impacts.

What we have said all the time is that we want wages to grow, and we want them to stay growing. Not to have a short-term growth and then have at the expense of potentially higher unemployment.

So that’s the first thing. The second thing is we’ve got to get an IR system that drives productivity. That’s not about working harder for less, it’s about working smarter. It’s about creating the environment where people use new technology, where they innovate, where they share ideas, where they open new markets, where they have more skilled people.

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Treasurer says Taylor’s fingerprints ‘all over’ energy policy chaos – as it happened

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Over on Sky News, the questions were all about the next budget:

Host: Joining us live now in Canberra is the prime minister, Anthony Albanese. Prime minister, good morning to you. So, a safe budget to pay for your election commitments. Are tax increases and spending cuts next?

Hang on, Pete. We’ve just had the budget last night. You’re now talking about future budgets. Let’s talk about what we did last night. What we did last night was to fulfil our election commitments, provide cost-of-living relief with cheaper childcare, cheaper medicines, more paid parental leave, more support for affordable housing. And we want to get wages moving again. We did all that without putting pressure on inflation by targeting our investments in things like infrastructure, improving the National Broadband Network, making sure that there’s that growth in the economy without putting pressure on inflation. That was our focus last night. And we managed to achieve it.

Look, we inherited a trillion dollars of debt, Peter, as you know. We inherited a trillion dollars of debt with not much to show for it. What we did last night was to make $22bn of savings. We took the revenue gains that have come through, 99% of those revenue increases from the higher costs of fuel and energy, we put them straight to the budget bottom line, 99% of them. So it was a responsible budget that saw a significant drop in the deficit to $37bn from what was anticipated. That is a responsible thing to do. Because we want to make sure that we fight inflation because that is necessary if we’re going to get real wages moving in the way that we want them to.

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Billions in ‘dirty’ money going into NSW pokies should be addressed by cashless gaming card, crime commission says

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Review finds measure is needed to break ‘link between organised crime and gaming machines’

New South Wales should introduce a cashless gambling card to address the billions of dollars in “dirty” money being gambled in pubs and clubs in the state every year, the state’s crime commission has found.

On Wednesday a joint law enforcement agency inquiry into money laundering in NSW issued a damning final report that found “large sums” of the proceeds of crime are gambled by criminals in pubs and clubs across the state, “rewarding and perpetuating crime in the community”.

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Narrabri evacuated as flood waters enter homes in saturated northern NSW

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Hydrologist says flood levels similar to last year but this time the water has nowhere to go, prolonging the disaster

About 1,500 residents in Narrabri, in the north-west slopes of New South Wales, have been told to evacuate as the flooding crisis continues across swathes of eastern Australia.

There were 121 current emergency warnings in place across NSW on Tuesday, including 22 directing people to evacuate or move to higher ground, as swollen rivers threatened homes.

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Labor hints at more controls on energy sector – as it happened

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We will be breaking into the political coverage today to keep you updated on the floods as well:

Overnight, residents of the north west NSW town of Narrabri have been ordered to evacuate due to flooding, with the SES issuing the warnings for the town’s industrial and residential areas.

The rivers are very, very full and, of course, our dams are mostly at full capacity at present. So, even the smallest rainfall can cause an elevated risk of flash flooding and riverine flooding. We will see rivers decline, but the risk is real.

We are bracing for another wet weather system into the state on the weekend.

He is a friend of Australia as the UK is a friend of Australia. We congratulate him on his elevation to the Prime Ministership. The UK, like Australia, has no shortage of challenges and no shortage of economic challenges.

So, we wish Rishi Sunak well. Some of us had the opportunity to work with him briefly when we first came to government. I was able to exchange messages with him when he was unsuccessful in the last leadership ballot. I think it says something about his commitment and his persistence, the way that he conducted himself in the interim. I don’t think it’s insignificant that a country like the United Kingdom has its first Prime Minister of colour.

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NSW health minister Brad Hazzard to retire from politics at state election

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71-year-old member for Wakehurst on Sydney’s northern beaches says it’s time for a ‘new beginning’

Long-serving New South Wales Liberal MP and Covid-era health minister Brad Hazzard has announced he will retire from politics at the state election, saying it is time for a “new beginning”.

The 71-year-old is best known for his role in trying to manage the Covid-19 crisis, fronting the media frequently to inform about the virus and urge adherence to recommended health measures.

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Politics live: Nationals accuse Labor of regional ‘vendetta’; Chinese state media denounces closer security ties between Australia and Japan

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Albanese government will scrap two Coalition grants programs to set up two new regional programs worth $1bn over next three years. Follow the day’s news live

Gallagher: spending audit is an ‘ongoing piece of work’

And it will continue, Katy Gallagher says:

My view is finance minister is that this is a process that should keep going. We’ve identified obviously, some of that the short term work and that will be reported in the budget.

But this spending audit should should keep going. We should do it in every budget, just to make sure that we’re constantly looking at ways we’re spending money and I think the Australian public would expect us to do that, that it’s not always adding in new spending when there’s … need that arises, and there will be, but we’re looking at existing expenditure as well and how we can reuse that or … realign it with … new investments.

It’s not exclusively infrastructure. We are finding savings across government. We have gone to every single department and ask them to look at their programs to identify programs that don’t need to be done any longer or don’t align with government priorities and where we’ve been able to return some money to the budget we’re doing that.

The other part of it is actually not adding new funding to things but using existing funding to fund some of our our priorities. So it’s been a very useful exercise and I think $22bn is a pretty reasonable figure to have achieved over just, you know, a couple of months in government.

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Australia live flood updates: body found in search for woman swept away in NSW; Echuca locals watch levee as they wait for flood waters to peak

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Another low pressure system is moving towards Victoria down the NSW coast, which is likely to bring rain to Gippsland

Daniel Andrews says there will be a flood update at 11.30am

Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, is at a school in Seaford in Melbourne’s south-east, announcing $1.6bn to upgrade schools and kindergartens. Before he goes into the details, he’s providing a short flood update.

It’s not expected that they will go higher than the peaks that were recorded during the beginning of this flood event. But it is an anxious time out there.

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Sydney’s property prices dropped 10% this year, with $450 a day lost from average home

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Decline comes as RBA documents indicate values may sink as much as 20% nationally from their February peak by end of 2024

Sydney’s property prices have fallen by more than 10% since their mid-February peak, shedding almost $450 a day in value on an average home, and leading other major markets lower, CoreLogic said.

The 10.1% decline for home values in the harbour city so far comes as documents from the Reserve Bank of Australia indicate average property values may sink as much as 20% nationally from their recent highs by the end of 2024. That decline would be the steepest since the 1980s if realised.

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Jury discharged in trial of Sydney swim coach Kyle Daniels after failing to reach verdicts on 11 charges

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Prosecutors to decide whether to pursue third trial after jurors acquitted Mosman swim instructor of 10 charges but could not reach decision on others

The jury in the sexual abuse retrial of Sydney swim coach Kyle James Henk Daniels has been discharged after being unable to reach verdicts on 11 charges.

Prosecutors must now decide whether to put the 24-year-old on trial for a third time.

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