Exclusive: Palaszczuk government expected to begin process of establishing peak body amid pressure to crack down on youth crime
Queensland is looking to establish a youth justice peak body as the issue threatens to become a major sore point for the Palaszczuk government ahead of next year’s election.
Guardian Australia understands the state government will launch a competitive tender process and seek expressions of interest from multiple organisations across the sector.
Continue reading...Government urged to do more to support young people in residential care to ‘break the cycle of offending’
Nearly one in three children on Queensland’s serious repeat offender index is under a child protection order, new figures show.
As of 30 June, 133 of 452 serious repeat offenders had child protection orders, which are made when the children’s court decides a young person needs to be protected from harm.
Continue reading...Grattan Institute says Australia’s regional roads are a ‘dangerous disgrace’ due to paltry federal funding
Regional Australian roads have become a “dangerous disgrace”, according to a new report that warns they will get worse due to paltry funding that favours cities and forces poorer regional councils to waste repair money erecting signs in tribute to government grants.
In a new report, the Grattan Institute has found that roads across the country have become riddled with potholes and other hazards because inadequate federal and state government funding has left councils under-resourced and without sufficient knowledge or data to maintain the roads they are responsible for.
Continue reading...Police say two-year-old was pronounced dead in hospital before another boy was found at the same address, south-west of Rockhampton
Two toddlers are dead after being found inside the same parked car, several hours apart, in a central Queensland town.
Queensland police said they were investigating “the sudden deaths” of the two boys, aged two and three, after they were discovered in a car parked in the back yard of a Woorabinda home on Friday night.
Continue reading...The Queensland government will pay more than $2.2m to families of 97 patients of the hospital’s audiology unit
Townsville University hospital’s audiology unit programmed cochlear implants in some children incorrectly, misdiagnosed others, and even conducted hearing tests on an infant who was asleep, a damning independent review has found.
The clinic was poorly organised, staff were overworked, and key protocols “did not appear to be followed, leading to poor outcomes, monitoring, measurement, and reporting”, the report released on Wednesday said.
Continue reading...Deputy premier Steven Miles says it’s ‘too late’ to cancel projects and any effect on demand is likely to be years away
The Queensland deputy premier has demanded that federal Labor explain why it is cutting infrastructure spending to fight inflation rather than revisiting controversial tax cuts for high income earners.
Steven Miles has upped the pressure on the Albanese government over looming infrastructure cuts in an opinion piece in the Courier-Mail, arguing it is “too late” to cut projects to fight inflation and urging it to reconsider stage-three tax cuts instead.
Continue reading...The Queensland Conservation Council says new entity will take ‘proactive actions’ to ensure state’s environmental laws are enforced
Queensland’s peak conservation group says it will launch a new “enforcement arm”, amid frustration at stalled government promises to establish an independent environmental regulator.
Every Australian state or territory – except Queensland – has an independent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Continue reading...Greens unveil policy designed to freeze rents at January 2023 levels in battle for Brisbane city council
The Greens say they would introduce an effective rent freeze across Brisbane by enacting massive land rates increases for any property investors who increase the rent.
The announcement on Monday will be a centrepiece of the Greens’ campaign for the Brisbane city council, a city where nearly four in 10 homes are occupied by renters.
Continue reading...RBA has left cash rate on hold for four months while warning it might need to keep pushing up interest rates if still-high inflation does not fall. Follow the day’s news updates live
Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the prime minister’s official visit to China is not without challenges but is critical to a “prosperous relationship” between the two countries.
It’s the first official visit by a prime minister into China since 2016 and I think it recognises that this - a stable relationship - is in the interests of both countries. Now, we are clear-eyed about the complexities and the challenges of managing this relationship. But we give ourselves the best chance of prospering together if we engage with one another.
And we’ve already seen some of the fruits of that effort - something like 95% of the trade restrictions by dollar value have been lifted. That’s good for our businesses, our exporters, and our workers. And that’s why it’s so important that this engagement has been happening for some time and why it’s so important that this official visit is taking place this week.
I think this is a sort of rapprochement based on realism. As [Katharine Murphy] was saying earlier, from China’s point of view, they haven’t changed their long-term strategic or economic goals. And neither have we changed our strategic allegiances. But it suits both sides for lots of reasons to get the trade relationship flowing again, to get the economic relationship flowing again, and to be talking again. And that’s what this visit is going to achieve.
Continue reading...Rainfall is expected to fall on Saturday either side of the border after a torrid week of fires claimed more than 60 homes
Communities across Australia’s east coast are hoping a wet weekend will bring a reprieve to firefighters as rainfall starts to set in across New South Wales and Queensland.
But the bushfire threat has arisen in the west as parts of Western Australia experience extreme fire risk with threats to properties south of Perth.
Continue reading...Damning report finds state’s blue card screening system creates unnecessary barriers to placing children with their families
Queensland’s family and child commissioner has called for blue card requirements to be scrapped for First Nations kinship carers after a report found the system relies on “irrelevant information, overpolicing and subjective assessments”.
Since 2001, Queenslanders who work around children have needed to obtain a blue card, with offences including drug trafficking, murder and child abuse disqualifying a person from obtaining one. But a report by the Queensland Family & Child Commission (QFCC) found blue cards create additional barriers to placing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children with their families.
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Watts has gone on to confirm that there are still 65 Australians stuck in Gaza that the government is “supporting” and are being provided consular assistance.
Watts says Dfat is working to get those individuals to the Rafah crossing and out of Gaza “as soon as possible”.
We know this is an incredibly distressing time for Australians in Gaza and their families and we are providing all possible support we can, communicating through all available channels the best information and options we have about their safety in a very difficult situation.
The circumstances on the ground are incredibly challenging and they are changing on a day to day basis. This is a conflict zone. It is a very difficult operating environment so we do the best job we can in the circumstances.
Crossings like this are the result of an enormous effort from Australian consular officials and diplomats in the region. So many conversations at the ministerial level, foreign minister Wong spoke with her counterparts in the region and we’re grateful that this initial cohort has made the crossing from Gaza to Egypt.
Continue reading...Rural firefighters’ chief says Queensland in ‘survival mode’ amid dry weather, with 53 homes destroyed by fire in the Western Downs
Queensland is in “survival mode” as dozens of bushfires burn across the state and there is no rain on the horizon, the head of the volunteer firefighters association has said.
Firefighters have contained a bushfire at Tara, on the Western Downs four hours west of Brisbane, that destroyed 53 homes and claimed two lives. But fires have flared up to the north and south, with emergency warnings in place on Wednesday for a fire between Warwick and Stanthorpe on the Southern Downs.
Continue reading...More than 80 fires are burning across Queensland, with extreme fire conditions forecast for Darling Downs region
Forty-six homes have been destroyed in deadly Queensland fires as authorities warn conditions will continue to deteriorate on Tuesday.
Extreme fire conditions have been forecast for the Darling Downs region, with strong westerly winds and high temperatures expected to accelerate fires and fatigue firefighting crews.
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Australia’s ‘agricultural demands’ did not meet recent negotiations, EU spokesperson says
According to Politico, a spokesperson for the EU executive had this to say about the breakdown of free trade deal negotiations:
The European Commission regrets the lack of progress made during talks in Osaka today.
Our negotiating teams made good progress in recent weeks, including in the days leading up to the Osaka meeting. There was optimism that a deal was within reach.
My job as Australia’s trade minister is to get the best deal that we can for our producers, our businesses, our workers and our consumers.
Unfortunately we’ve not been able to make progress.
Continue reading...Daniel Andrews went out on top but in Queensland the premier fights on, even as the LNP gears up to go all-in on regional seats
“What you see is what you get” has been Annastacia Palaszczuk’s unofficial political motto. She’s used the line dozens of times, as the fledgling “unexpected” premier in 2015; ahead of a leaders’ debate in 2017; and again and again during the bruising Covid campaign of 2020.
It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that a year before the next election and with polls showing Palasczuk and her government on shaky ground the Queensland premier has retreated to familiar territory.
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The PM has said he has raised Julian Assange’s case with President Biden, but he shied away from calling him to intervene, saying Biden ‘doesn’t interfere with the Department of Justice’.
We keep our discussions private. I made clear Australia’s position that I made as Labor leader, the same position I hold as prime minister, which is that enough is enough, it is time that this issue was brought to a conclusion.
Well, the Australian officials are working very hard to achieve an outcome which is consistent with the position that I’ve put.
Look, this is - this is of major benefit, not just to the workers and the base there at Virginia and other places, but, of course, particularly for South Australia and Western Australia. This will be a jobs bonanza, and it will do more than the direct jobs as well.
A bit like the former auto industry did … this is highly advanced manufacturing for Australia. We will reap the benefit for decades to come.
Continue reading...Firefighters continue to battle major blazes near Tara, where more than 30 homes have already been lost
Residents in Queensland’s Western Downs and Gladstone regions were ordered to evacuate in the middle of the night, as dozens of fires continue burning around the state.
Just before 1am on Saturday multiple emergency warnings were issued for the communities of Tara, Wieambilla and The Gums in the Western Downs region, west of Brisbane.
Continue reading...Decision to discharge ‘low risk’ Anthony O’Donohue from mental health service in 2016 found to be ‘not satisfactory’
The firebombing death of a young bus driver “might not have occurred” if different decisions had been made about the care of the mental health patient who had been deemed “low risk” before killing him, Queensland’s state coroner has found.
Terry Ryan handed down his findings a day before the seventh anniversary of the death of Manmeet Sharma, a 29-year-old from India who had been working as a bus driver for the Brisbane city council for just three months.
Continue reading...Brisbane supreme court finds Sharon Graham, 63, was architect of plot to kill Bruce Saunders for insurance money
A woman accused of being the architect of a murder plan that involved a man being fed into a woodchipper has been found guilty.
Sharon Graham, 63, pleaded not guilty to the murder of Bruce James Saunders at a property near Gympie on 12 November 2017.
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