Labor candidate overlooked for Kristina Keneally touted for NSW state seat

Tu Le says she supports ‘rank-and-file’ vote but doesn’t control decisions made by party bosses

The candidate controversially overlooked by Labor for Kristina Keneally in Fowler at the last federal election has denied being involved in a “stitch up” for a state seat in western Sydney, saying she “doesn’t control” what head office decides.

The Guardian understands senior Labor figures have been testing local support for Tu Le, the Vietnamese-Australian lawyer who was controversially pushed aside to allow Keneally to run in Fowler in May, to run in either Cabramatta or Fairfield at the New South Wales election in March.

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Malcolm Turnbull warns NSW and Queensland of ‘company they’re keeping’ by blocking UN prison inspectors

Former prime minister disappointed by states’ decisions to not allow full access to UN subcommittee on prevention of torture

The former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has warned the New South Wales and Queensland governments to “think carefully about the international company they are keeping” by blocking or limiting United Nations inspectors’ access to detention facilities.

Turnbull said he was disappointed by the government decisions to not allow full access to the team, who are in the country this week as part of the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture, ratified when he was in office in 2017.

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Australia news live: PM calls for explanation on Lidia Thorpe’s undisclosed relationship; WA closing Covid PCR testing sites

Greens leader Adam Bandt asked senator to step down from leadership team due to error of judgment. Follow the day’s news live

SES Victoria’s Tim Wiebusch is speaking with ABC News about the Victorian floods.

In Echuca, where the Murray River is sitting at 94.4 metres above sea level, Wiebusch says:

It’s a very slow, creeping rise that’s occurring there on the Murray downstream of Barnham, through Echuca. And at this stage, the Bureau is still wait indicating that we could see a peak of around 95 metres, which means a that it will be above the October 1993 flood level. So it will really come down to a matter of centimetres as we’ve seen in a number of other locations. Significant volumes of water coming into the Murray, both from the Victorian northern rivers but also the southern rivers in New South Wales.

Nearly 200,000 sandbag have now been used in and around Echuca to try to protect properties or get it ready for protection. And then to the downstream communities from there, over the coming days and weeks.

What people can expect to see on Tuesday night is an improved budget position over the next couple of years. But after that, when the budget assumes commodity prices go back to more normal levels, and when some of these structural pressures, these spending pressures, make a big impact over the latter years of the forward estimates and into the medium term, and that is not covered by this temporary near-term increase in commodity prices.

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Mosman swim coach Kyle Daniels acquitted of five sexual abuse charges

The jury could not find consensus on a further 16 charges related to inappropriately touching students, which Daniels denies

A jury has acquitted the Sydney swim coach Kyle James Henk Daniels of some sexual abuse charges but remains split on others.

Daniels, who turns 24 this month, is accused of inappropriate sexual contact with young female students while working as a part-time instructor at a Mosman swim school in 2018 and 2019.

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Storms and giant hail forecast for eastern Australia, raising risk in some flood-hit areas

Bureau of Meteorology warns of heavy rain, flash-flooding and possible damaging hail in parts of Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia

Rain, thunderstorms and giant hail are forecast for much of the east coast, raising the risk of flash-flooding in areas already reeling from extreme weather.

The Bureau of Meteorology has warned of showers and thunderstorms from northern Queensland, down through New South Wales and into northern Victoria and eastern South Australia into the weekend.

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Unions allege safety concerns after worker on Sydney Metro tunnel died of heart attack

Exclusive: Whistleblowers say they felt under pressure to downgrade seriousness of safety issues but Sydney Metro disputes union claims

A worker died of a heart attack during construction of the Sydney Metro tunnel near Barangaroo station amid allegations from the unions that a defibrillator was not readily available in the construction zone.

Sydney Metro strongly disputes the union claim. However, it acknowledged additional defibrillators were deployed in the tunnels after the incident, which occurred on 6 July.

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Out-of-control train carriage ran 1.5km through Sydney Metro tunnel in one of several safety incidents

Exclusive: Whistleblower says pressure to meet deadlines has led to a culture of trying to avoid delay at all costs, including those caused by safety concerns

A 30-tonne railway trailer transporting equipment on the Sydney Metro project ran uncontrolled for more than 1.5km through the half-built tunnel between Marrickville and Waterloo in July, Guardian Australia can reveal.

The only reason workers weren’t killed, according to those on site, was because it happened on a Saturday at noon, when they were on their break.

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Sydney festival 2023: Town Hall to be filled with 26 tonnes of sand for program showpiece

The heritage building’s floor will become an indoor beach for an award-winning opera – one of a few architectural landmarks that will get a new life this summer

Twenty-six tonnes of sand will be shipped into Sydney town hall as part of the 2023 Sydney festival, with the heritage-listed building transformed into a faux beach for an award-winning opera starring 79 people and a dog.

The program for the annual festival, announced today, will amplify stories from Indigenous and female-identifying creatives next year. Led by artistic director Olivia Ansell for the second time, it will champion climate action, marginalised voices and the rediscovery of underused spaces in the city – including Harry Seidler’s mushroom-shaped building in Martin Place, which will be turned into a 1970s-themed bar and live music hub, with audiences invited to stay in the retro hotel rooms above.

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NSW’s refusal to allow UN inspectors in prisons ‘raises questions’, human rights commissioner says

Lorraine Finlay says state government’s decision means Australia is ‘failing to live up to the promises it made to the world’

Australia’s human rights commissioner, Lorraine Finlay, has questioned why the New South Wales government was blocking officials from the United Nations inspecting its jails if it was confident about meeting minimum standards.

She said the NSW move could jeopardise promises made by Australia as part of the UN’s Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (Opcat) that was ratified by the federal government under former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2017.

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Victoria floods: Thousands of homes to be inundated or cut off as some swollen rivers peak on Monday

Former quarantine facility in Mickleham to act as a shelter and more than 100 schools to be closed

The shuttered Mickleham quarantine facility is being turned into a flood recovery centre amid Victoria’s worsening flood crisis, with thousands of homes expected to be inundated or cut off and some rivers not expected to reach their peak until Monday.

Approximately 6,000 properties were without power on Sunday and more than 9,000 people had already applied for emergency support payments.

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Australia news live: 120 schools to be closed on Monday amid Victorian flood crisis

Residents in Victoria’s north told to move to higher ground; Anthony Albanese and 100 ADF personnel on the ground as situation worsens. Follow live

Federal government ‘in conversation’ with NSW about Warragamba dam wall

King is asked about how the infrastructure spend is being divvied up with New South Wales clearly getting less than Labor-lead states. King says the decisions were based on the projects that had been submitted to the federal government ahead of the budget.

We will work with the New South Wales government as we lead into the May budget.

Of course we will look at it. At this stage we don’t have enough information from the New South Wales government on which to make a decision.

There is back and forth between Infrastructure Australia and the New South Wales department and I haven’t seen any of that yet.

This is for the early works of this project. We haven’t made any further commitments. We will talk to the Victorians around that as we go forward. They have an election they are facing and this will be a contested project, I’m sure, but something we have confidence in.

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NSW Labor pledges to boost transport and teaching staff ahead of 2023 election bid

Chris Minns has promised to build a local fleet of trains to replace the state’s ageing stock and 10,000 extra fixed teaching roles

New South Wales Labor leader Chris Minns has looked to galvanise party faithful 160 days out from the state election in March 2023.

He used a speech to a NSW Labor conference to promise a locally built fleet of trains to replace NSW’s ageing rail stock and 10,000 extra teachers.

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Coogee beach among NSW swimming spots with ‘poor’ water quality amid La Niña deluge

Twice the number of sites have been exposed to concerning levels of pollution and sewage since 2019, government report finds

One in five swimming spots in New South Wales have been rated as having “poor” or “very poor” pollution levels, including Sydney’s popular Coogee beach, after the state experienced its wettest summer in a decade.

Twice the number of beaches, lakes and lagoons have been exposed to concerning levels of pollution and sewage since 2019, according to the annual state of the beaches report released by the NSW Department of Planning and Environment.

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Victoria floods: Shepparton and Mooroopna ‘too late to leave’ as man found dead in Rochester backyard

Victorian authorities warn flooded rivers yet to peak and prepare for one of the largest evacuation operations in the state’s history

The emergency flood situation in Victoria’s north has intensified as authorities warn it is “too late to leave” for many.

Evacuation alerts have been upgraded for Shepparton, Orrvale, Kialla West and Mooroopna to reflect it is too late for residents to leave those areas.

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Man dies in Victorian town of Rochester and Shepparton told to evacuate – as it happened

More than 500 Victorian homes damaged and 500 others cut off in flooding. This blog is now closed

Jonathan How from the Bureau of Meteorology has spoken to ABC News about the severe weather, saying the heavy rain has cleared in southern Victoria and Tasmania.

Overnight we did see rainfall totals of 5-15 millimetres across parts of southern Victoria and Tasmania, but the good news is that the heavy rain has cleared but we are seeing ongoing flooding for New South Wales and Victoria.

First in Melbourne, flood warnings out for the Maribyrnong and Werribee rivers. Keep following the advice of local police and SES, but at tension is very much through the northern and inland parts of Victoria.

The north and the north-west of Tasmania had the highest level of rainfall. Record-breaking rainfall over the previous few days. That rainfall accumulated at altitude and made its way down the landscape into the riverine.

The last flooding of significance was in 2016, but the rainfall in 2022 we’ve experienced has exceeded a lot of those values and has been far-reaching by comparison to that previous event.

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Unlicensed driver who killed two young brothers walking home from NSW pool jailed for 13 years

Shane and Sheldon Shorey, aged six and seven, died after Jacob Steven Donn crashed a car in Wellington, in central west NSW, while he was drug-affected

A driver who caused the deaths of two young brothers returning home from the local swimming pool in regional New South Wales has been jailed by a judge who said cars were not playthings.

As a mother and four boys walked along a footpath after visiting the pool in Wellington, she saw an out-of-control red Commodore heading straight for them.

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Covid quarantine centre to reopen for flood evacuees – as it happened

Daniel Andrews says 500 homes have been flooded and another 500 have been isolated. This blog is now closed

An estimated 500 homes are flooded in Victoria with number expected to grow: Daniel Andrews

Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, has been on ABC radio Melbourne this morning, providing listeners with an update on the floods.

Obviously this has been a very, very significant flood event and it’s far from over. There’s a little bit more rainfall but as that weather event passes through, the real challenge is waters continuing to rise and more and more houses being inundated, more and more communities being closed off, becoming isolated, then of course we move to clean up and all of those issues.

We think there’s about 500 homes that are flooded, we think there are another 500 that have been isolated across the state. But I would just say they’re very early estimates and the aerial intelligence gathering choppers are up in the air now ... they’ll be doing all their reports back to the state control centre. So I’d say those numbers are absolutely certain to grow. And indeed, we’re still asking people to leave in some areas. There have been important, important evacuation notices have been issued in a number of communities. So those numbers will go up. That’s why we’ve got nine important relief centres opening and 50 sandbag collection points. There’s an enormous amount of work going on.

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More than half of NSW MPs own more than one property

High ownership of multiple residences among state MPs has prompted accusations they are ‘blind’ to the escalating rental crisis

More than half of MPs in the New South Wales lower house own multiple residential properties, prompting concerns the state’s politicians are “blind” to record increases in rental prices.

Amid a fresh push for reform to the rental market, an analysis of MP disclosure records show landlords are disproportionately represented on Macquarie Street.

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Australia news live: Victoria and Tasmania hit by flooding; NT triple murderer sentenced to life in jail

Seventy flood warnings in place across Victoria, with 10,000 people without power and 40 schools and childcare centres shut. Follow the day’s news live

‘Walk the talk Labor’: Spender urges government to help households decarbonise

Independent MP Allegra Spender has taken to social media to urge the Albanese government to take action supporting Australian households as they decarbonise:

Our families and businesses are hurting. Sovereign risk is not a defence when the super profits are being made because of a war.

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Covid outbreak on Ruby Princess ‘not an accident’ and cruise should never have sailed, court told

Operators reject class action claims it was ‘negligent’ for ship to sail as it had insufficient medical supplies to combat an outbreak

The companies operating the Ruby Princess cruise ship have rejected allegations they were responsible for the 2020 Covid outbreak that led to the deaths of 28 people.

Charterer Carnival and shipowner Princess Cruise Lines are facing a class action in Australia’s federal court over the outbreak.

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