Category Archives: Queensland

Embattled Queensland minister Amanda Camm quits Crisafulli frontbench citing health and safety reasons

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Camm, who resigned following months of pressure over her handling of state’s child safety system, cited Helen Haines attack as reason for departure

The Queensland minister Amanda Camm has resigned from cabinet following months of pressure over the state government’s handling of the child safety system and efforts to prevent domestic and family violence.

Camm told reporters on Friday the decision to step down was “mine alone”.

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Indigenous woman shackled to hospital bed while in labour in Queensland

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Birth happens days before Labor and Coalition block bill to ban ‘barbaric practice’ of shackling incarcerated women during childbirth

An incarcerated Indigenous woman was shackled to a hospital bed in Queensland while she was in labour last weekend, an advocacy group has said.

The birth happened just days before Labor and the Coalition blocked a bill to ban the “barbaric practice” of shackling incarcerated women during childbirth.

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Elizabeth Struhs’ child protection case not ‘prioritised’ due to high workload, inquest hears

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Eight-year-old Queensland girl died in 2022 after being denied insulin by her religious parents

Elizabeth Struhs’ child protection case was not “prioritised” or worked intensively because the staff member assigned to her case was “very busy”, a coroner has heard.

The Queensland coroner’s court also heard the case worker may have been “overly influenced” by the presentation of Struhs’ “upper class home”, putting cases believed to involve a more immediate risk ahead of Elizabeth’s.

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Queensland’s LNP has trodden softly in government. It’s now baring its teeth over the power to break up workers’ strikes

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The controversial legislation may end up placing large sections of its suburban support – critical to the party’s lead in the polls – on the bonfire

For almost two years, the Liberal National party’s strategy for government in Queensland has been to stay well clear of issues that risk burning through political capital.

On Wednesday, one of the most tentative conservative governments in recent history announced plans for sweeping and controversial changes to workplace laws.

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Child safety officer incorrectly assessed Elizabeth Struhs as ‘safe’ day after she was admitted to hospital in coma

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Inquest into death of eight-year-old Queensland girl who was denied insulin by her religious parents told her case was complex

A child safety officer incorrectly assessed Elizabeth Struhs as “safe” one day after she arrived at hospital in a coma and nearly died due to the neglect of her parents, a coroner’s court has heard.

A Queensland coronial inquest heard evidence on Wednesday from one of the two child safety officers who ultimately decided to return the then six-year-old, who had type 1 diabetes, to the care of her parents at their home in Toowoomba.

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Video recording device found in cabin of HMAS Leeuwin navy ship in Cairns

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Defence announcement comes after Jacqui Lambie tells parliament a camera had been found concealed in a women’s shower on board

A “video recording device” was found in the cabin of a Royal Australian Navy ship in Cairns, the defence department has revealed, just hours after senator Jacqui Lambie alleged in parliament that a camera had been found concealed in a women’s shower on the vessel.

The department confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that a device had been found aboard the HMAS Leeuwin three days earlier. In a statement after Guardian Australia had contacted the department for response to Lambie’s allegations, a spokesperson said police were investigating, but did not reveal further details about where the device was located.

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Rachel Smith will turn 39 in prison. The high court says she could freeze her eggs from behind bars

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Australia’s highest court says Queensland drug trafficker extracting and storing eggs is not ‘assisted reproductive technology’

A 36-year-old woman has won an appeal in Australia’s highest court about her right to freeze her eggs while behind bars.

Rachel Smith is serving a 10-year prison term in Queensland for trafficking in a dangerous drug.

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Child safety staff determined to send Elizabeth Struhs home with parents despite doctors’ concerns, inquest hears

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Queensland coronial inquest into death of eight-year-old girl continues after 14 members of religious sect were convicted of her manslaughter

It was impossible to change the mind of child safety staff after they had decided to send Elizabeth Struhs home with her parents despite some of her doctors’ concerns, a police officer has told a coronial inquest into the young girl’s death.

Child safety staff decided in 2019 that it would be “more detrimental” to not return Elizabeth, aged six at the time, to her Toowoomba home upon her discharge from hospital after suffering a coma due to diabetic ketoacidosis, a Queensland coroner heard.

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Queensland literary awards: ‘stunning’ debut inspired by segregated shantytown wins top prize

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Lenora Thaker wins $30,000 prize for ‘a work of state significance’ for The Pearl of Tagai Town, which draws on her family’s history in Cairns-Malay Town

A “stunning” debut novel described as “unambiguously and distinctively Queensland” has won the $30,000 top prize at the Queensland literary awards (QLAs).

Meriam and Wagedagam author Lenora Thaker won the Queensland premier’s award for a work of state significance for her historical novel The Pearl of Tagai Town, which was inspired by her ancestors’ lives in an unmapped shantytown known as Cairns-Malay Town. The town once housed Indigenous Australians, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Malaysian and Sri Lankan residents who had been segregated from the white population; it existed from the late 1800s until the late 1950s.

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Bachelor star Sam Wood denied bail as police allege he choked wife until she ‘thought she would die’

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Court hears police attended Wood’s Victorian home over a similar allegation about three years ago, but Snezana Wood had not complained then out of ‘fear of retribution’

The wife of former Bachelor star Sam Wood told police she “thought she was going to die” after he allegedly choked and assaulted her, a Queensland court heard on Thursday.

The court also heard that police in Victoria had attended Wood’s home in relation to a similar incident about three years ago, but that his wife, Snezana Wood, had not wanted to make a complaint at that time out of “fear of retribution”.

Sam Wood, a 46-year-old wellness influencer from Melbourne, was denied bail in a Queensland court on Thursday and will be held in custody indefinitely awaiting trial, after police argued his behaviour was “escalating” and that he posed an unacceptable risk.

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Queensland man charged with murder after three-month-old son dies from ‘significant internal injuries’

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Uneeb Ullah, 28, from Ipswich, has been remanded in custody after his arrest on Tuesday evening for the alleged murder of the child

A Queensland man has been charged with the murder of his three-month-old baby son, after the boy died in hospital this week.

The infant, from the Ipswich area west of Brisbane, died almost a week after being taken to hospital with “significant internal injuries”. The boy had been on life support.

This story was amended on 7 October 2026. A previous version incorrectly stated Uneeb Ullah was from Logan

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Former Bachelor star Sam Wood charged with domestic violence

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Fitness influencer, 46, faces court on Monday after his arrest in Noosa at the weekend

The fitness influencer and reality TV star Sam Wood has been charged in Queensland with domestic violence offences.

The personal trainer and star of the third season of reality TV show The Bachelor was charged on Sunday and spent the weekend in police custody after an alleged incident on Saturday night.

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Queensland anti-corruption commission investigated just 20 of more than 6,000 complaints in a year

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Statistics showed there is ‘almost no chance’ a complaint made against a government department like the police would be investigated independently, expert says

Queensland’s anti-corruption commission has investigated just 20 of more than 6,000 complaints of suspected corruption in the past year, as the state government comes under renewed pressure to implement a years-late recommendation to end the practice of police investigating police.

The statistic was revealed in Queensland’s Crime and Corruption Commission’s annual report, tabled in state parliament on Friday afternoon.

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One Nation boss called David Farley an ‘asshole’ in lead-up to Farrer byelection, text messages reveal

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Exclusive: Documents seen by Guardian Australia show that Kelvin Morton has also clashed with party HQ staff and Brisbane volunteers

One Nation’s general manager, Kelvin Morton – brought in by the party to improve its vetting processes – referred to David Farley as an “asshole” just days before Farley’s historic Farrer byelection win for the party in May.

In a series of text messages seen by Guardian Australia, Morton responds to a news article published in the Sydney Morning Herald about infighting among senior party figures over Farley’s previously undeclared support for the Labor party.

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Anthropic lands deal in $31bn datacentre in western Queensland, David Crisafulli says

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Premier describes deal as ‘major win’ that will deliver more jobs for the state and put more energy into its grid

Anthropic, the AI company behind the large language model Claude, has done a deal to lease the site of its first Australian datacentre in western Queensland.

The $31.9bn datacentre will be the largest of its kind in Australia, according to planning documents.

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Mother flagged faulty smoke alarms before house fire that killed father and five children, court hears

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Pre-inquest conference into Queensland deaths hears witnesses did not hear any smoke alarms during 2023 fire

A landlord was repeatedly warned about improperly installed smoke alarms before a house fire that killed a father and five children in Queensland in 2023, a coroner has heard.

Deputy state coroner Donald MacKenzie held a pre-inquest conference into the Russell Island deaths on Tuesday.

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Sydney reaches 33C in potentially warmest start to spring since mid-1800s, while snow forecast in southern NSW

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A total fire ban is in place for greater Sydney with extreme fire danger exacerbated by hot and windy conditions

Summer heat is due to arrive early across much of eastern Australia with potentially record early September temperatures predicted for Brisbane and Sydney, while snow was expected in southern New South Wales.

Maximum temperatures in Sydney during the first days of September were on track to match the city’s midsummer average of 26.4C, warmer than any other start to spring since the city’s Observatory Hill station opened in 1858.

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Identity of high-profile Queensland man drawn into extortion case to remain secret after court ruling

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Man – referred to as MM by court – will keep his identity hidden after legal challenge against suppression dismissed

The identity of a high-profile Queensland man drawn into a Cairns extortion case will remain secret, after the state’s supreme court threw out a legal challenge against a suppression order.

The man – referred to as MM by the court – was drawn into an extortion case earlier this year. He is not a party to the case and is not accused of any offence.

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Queensland concedes law imposing mandatory jail on some offenders as young as 10 breaches human rights

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State government says ‘breach bail, go to jail’ laws raise risk of overcrowding in jails, while one expert warns they may lead to ‘cruel outcomes’

The Queensland government’s latest law and order crackdown – subjecting some children as young as 10 to a mandatory sentence of a year behind bars – could lead to “cruel outcomes”, according to human rights lawyers.

In documents tabled with the legislation on Thursday, the government conceded its laws, dubbed “breach bail, go to jail”, would breach human rights and risk further straining the state’s overcrowded jails, youth detention centres and police watch houses.

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Pregnant woman dead and toddler found unharmed after outback Queensland siege ends in apparent murder-suicide

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A 45-year-old man and 23-year-old woman were found dead in the Charleville home after a near eight-hour police siege

A pregnant woman and a man have been found dead at a home in the outback Queensland town of Charleville, in an apparent murder-suicide after a protracted overnight standoff with police.

Police confirmed on Thursday that a toddler, who was found unharmed, had been at the home during the eight-hour siege that began on Wednesday evening.

Several streets in the remote town, 600km west of Toowoomba, were locked down by police after officers arrived at the property on King Street following reports of “a serious assault”.

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