Australia news live: Marles says Labor ‘utterly committed’ to Brereton response but can’t say when work will be completed

Follow today’s news live

Unemployment ‘might take up a little bit’ when new numbers released later this week

Q: Given the economic conditions we’re seeing, what should households with mortgages expect?

[Inflation] won’t necessarily continue to come off in a perfectly straight line, but [it] is a fraction of what it was a couple of years ago when we came to office. That’s a good thing.

So we’ve got a whole bunch of things going for us in Australia, but enough to concern us as well about the global conditions about the way that people are still under considerable cost of living pressure.

The way that I would describe it to your listeners is we’ve got inflation lingering in parts of the world, we’ve got growth slowing in China and elsewhere, we’ve got tensions rising in the Middle East and the war in Europe. We’ve got supply chains which are straining and we’ve got a global economy which is fragmenting and transforming and so all of these factors are really important to us as we finalise the government’s third budget.

These are going to be these global conditions are going to be a really big influence on our budget, so the trip to DC which will be a pretty quick and make the most of it but it’s a good opportunity to take the temperature of the global economy.

Continue reading...

Cost of fire-ant outbreak in Australia could be much higher than ‘flawed’ earlier prediction, data shows

Australia Institute says 2021 analysis had 15-year timeframe when modelling of the invasive species is usually over 20 to 30 years

The cost of a widespread fire ant outbreak may be far higher than predicted in “flawed” government modelling provided to ministers in the fight against the highly invasive species, new research suggests.

The Australia Institute data, released on Wednesday, found that red imported fire ants will cost Australians more than $22bn by the 2040s if left to run rampant, with the benefits of achieving eradication estimated to be three to nine times greater than the $3bn needed to achieve that eradication.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

300,000ha Queensland cattle station bought for conservation after $21m donation

State government and Nature Conservancy jointly purchase Vergemont station, which contains habitat for endangered night parrots

A Queensland outback cattle station the size of Yosemite national park which includes key habitat for the elusive night parrot has been acquired for conservation after an anonymous donation of $21m.

Vergemont station, 110km west of Longreach, was acquired in a joint purchase by the Queensland government and the Nature Conservancy, which brokered the deal. The group said it is likely the single largest philanthropic contribution to land protection in Australia.

Sign up to receive Guardian Australia’s fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter

Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter

Join the Rural Network group on Facebook to be part of the community

Continue reading...

Parents fear children are being sent back to asbestos-riddled classrooms at Queensland school

Premier Steven Miles says experts advise all classrooms at Rochedale state school ‘are safe for staff and students to return’

Parents are terrified their children are still being exposed to asbestos at a Queensland primary school, alleging a patch-up job has not made the classrooms safe.

They fear children may have been exposed to asbestos for months or even years at the school.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Former Test cricketer Michael Slater denied bail over domestic violence charges

The 54-year-old faces 19 charges relating to alleged incidents on the Sunshine Coast between December and April

Former Australian Test cricketer Michael Slater will remain behind bars after being refused bail in a Sunshine Coast court.

Slater is facing 19 charges relating to alleged offences perpetrated on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast on various dates between 5 December 2023 and 12 April.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Global heating pushes coral reefs towards worst planet-wide mass bleaching on record

The percentage of reef areas experiencing bleaching-level heat stress is increasing by about 1% a week, scientists say

Global heating has pushed the world’s coral reefs to a fourth planet-wide mass bleaching event that is on track to be the most extensive on record, US government scientists have confirmed.

Some 54% of ocean waters containing coral reefs have experienced heat stress high enough to cause bleaching, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Watch said.

Continue reading...

Licence to trill: Molly the magpie returned to Queensland carers after special wildlife permit granted

Juliette Wells and Reece Mortensen are allowed to keep the bird, which had become Instagram famous with their staffy, Peggy, but are forbidden from monetising it

Molly the magpie has been returned to its Gold Coast carers – but they are no longer allowed to make money from its 837,000 Instagram followers.

The department of environment, science and innovation approved a special licence for Juliette Wells and Reece Mortensen, who have cared for it since it fell from the nest in 2020.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Joel Cauchi: who was the Queensland man who carried out the Bondi Junction mass stabbing?

Police say 40-year-old was an itinerant who moved to NSW last month and had a history of mental illness

Queensland man Joel Cauchi has been named as the man who killed five women and one man at the Bondi Junction shopping centre during a horrific mass stabbing on Saturday.

The 40-year-old was shot dead by a police officer, Amy Scott, who responded to the attack at the busy shopping centre while on duty for an unrelated matter.

Continue reading...

Queensland police employee accused of selling domestic violence victim’s personal information to ex-partner

Woman suspended from road policing command and charged with one count of stalking and four counts of computer hacking

A Queensland police employee has been suspended and faces criminal charges for allegedly selling the personal information of a domestic violence victim to a former partner, who was later accused of stalking.

The police employee, a 46-year-old woman from the Queensland road policing command, will face court on Friday.

Continue reading...

Bridget Archer leads criticism after Peter Dutton compares pro-Palestine protest to Port Arthur massacre

Tasmanian Liberal MP labels comments ‘wholly inappropriate’ after PM says he was ‘taken aback’ by opposition leader’s speech

Peter Dutton has drawn widespread criticism, including from one of his own MPs, for comparing the 1996 mass murder of 35 people at Port Arthur to a pro-Palestine protest at the Sydney Opera House.

The Tasmanian Liberal backbencher Bridget Archer labelled Dutton’s comments “incredibly disrespectful” and “wholly inappropriate”.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Great Barrier Reef discovery overturns belief Aboriginal Australians did not make pottery, archaeologists say

Paper dates 82 pottery pieces found in single dig site at between 3,000 and 2,000 years old

Groundbreaking archaeological research may have upended the longstanding belief that Aboriginal Australians did not make pottery.

A paper published in the Quaternary Science Reviews on Wednesday details the finding of 82 pottery pieces from a single dig site on a Great Barrier Reef island, dates them at between 3,000 and 2,000 years old and determines that the pots were most likely made by Aboriginal people using locally sourced clay and temper.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Tanya Plibersek rejects Toondah Harbour project over impact on globally significant wetlands

Walker Corporation had proposed 3,000 apartments, marina and shops for the site, which is a critical habitat for the endangered eastern curlew

Toondah Harbour: should a wetland home to endangered birds become $1.3bn worth of shops, high-rises and a marina?
To the moon and back with the eastern curlew

The environment and water minister, Tanya Plibersek, has announced she will reject an apartment and retail development on an internationally important wetland at Queensland’s Moreton Bay.

Plibersek said on Tuesday she would refuse Walker Corporation’s Toondah Harbour project first proposed eight years ago and opposed by a long-running community campaign backed by scientists and conservationists – because it would have an unacceptable impact on the Ramsar site.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Mohamed came to Australia as a teenager. Now, he faces being deported to a country he doesn’t know

After almost a decade in immigration detention Mohamed Coker was told he would be put on a plane to Sierra Leone within hours

“My dad was murdered there. The people that murdered my dad are still around … I fear the same thing will happen to me.”

Mohamed Coker, 33, spoke to Guardian Australia on his way to the airport.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

NSW weather: significant flooding threat remains for parts of Sydney despite heavy rain easing

NSW premier says rising flood levels present ongoing danger for some communities, including in western Sydney

Sydney may have woken up to blue skies on Saturday, but flood levels were continuing to rise across parts of New South Wales with evacuation orders issued after an overnight deluge broke rainfall records.

Suburbs on the city fringes were facing the threat of significant flooding after copping more than a month’s worth of rain while a major landslip in the Blue Mountains left one community cut off.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

East coast weather: flood warnings for Queensland and NSW as BoM forecasts heavy rainfall

Drivers have been urged to reconsiders their travel plans ahead of a forecast deluge

Heavy rainfall will drench parts of Queensland and New South Wales this weekend, with motorists urged to stay off roads.

Laura Boekel, senior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, said a trough is affecting both Queensland and New South Wales, producing a significant amount of rainfall across the two states.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Australia news live: PM says it ‘isn’t good enough’ to say Gaza strike on aid workers ‘just a product of war’

Prime minister reiterates that has ‘demanded full accountability for what has occurred’ from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Follow the day’s news live

After a number of comments about the state of famine in Gaza, which Hyman appears to be disputing – it’s quite difficult to keep up with his comments, though they seem to include allegations that Hamas is stealing aid – he is asked by host Sally Sara if he’s rejecting UN concerns of hunger and starvation in Gaza. I will come back and check his comments shortly but the upshot seems to be that he is, more or less.

I’ll bring you more direct lines from this interview shortly, bear with me.

I mean, obviously, we know that this isn’t something that the IDF would do or the Israeli Air Force would do on purpose.

There’s a war going on. Wars are awful. Nobody wanted this war, we certainly didn’t want this war, but we’re forced to fight it because it’s a war for our very existence.

Continue reading...

Man found dead in Queensland flood water as weather systems collide over eastern Australia

Man, 71, found near vehicle in Logan as NSW and Qld residents warned to prepare for up to 200mm of rain, thunderstorms and flash flooding

A man has been found dead near his vehicle in Queensland floodwaters as storms bring heavy rain to eastern Australia.

Police found the 71-year-old man at 5.20am on Thursday, after being called to the Logan suburb of Greenbank to conduct a welfare check.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Queensland’s first festival pill-testing service finds ‘Canberra ketamine’ sold as MDMA

Rabbits Eat Lettuce festival, near Warwick, held Australia’s first multi-day festival clinic last weekend

The organisers of Queensland’s first festival pill-testing service say many drugs sold as MDMA turned out to be other substances including one recently dubbed “Canberra ketamine”.

The Rabbits Eat Lettuce festival, near Warwick, held the first multi-day festival clinic in Australia on the weekend, after two patrons died at the same event in 2019.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Charges laid after presumed Queensland car-crash victim found to have been shot

Police announce manslaughter charge after initially believing man, 21, had died as a result of crash at Booie, near Kingaroy

A man’s death on a Queensland property was initially treated as a car crash fatality by police – who have now charged another man with manslaughter after the discovery of a gunshot wound during the postmortem process.

Investigators initially believed a 21-year-old Nanango man died in the 21 March crash after hitting a fence pole on a private property on Kingaroy Barkers Creek Road at Booie, near Kingaroy.

But after allegedly discovering a gunshot wound on his upper body, police have charged a 38-year-old Kingaroy man with one count of manslaughter and insecure storage of weapons.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Australia news live: heavy rain and strong winds to hit Victoria; Easter campers rescued from Queensland flood waters

Five people rescued while dozens remained stranded at campsite in northern Queensland. Follow the day’s news live

Support for Labor drops in WA as Coalition gains ground among the young

Voters in Western Australia are shifting away from Labor towards the Coalition, as the opposition gains ground among young people.

Continue reading...