Category Archives: Queensland

Nazi salute will be captured in proposed ban on hate symbols, Queensland government says

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New bill also aims to ensure those who commit crimes motivated by prejudice face tougher penalties

Queensland’s attorney general has confirmed the Nazi salute will be captured under proposed laws that ban hate symbols and strengthen the state’s response vilification.

Shannon Fentiman said she had been “shocked” by the presence of Nazis at an anti-trans protest in Melbourne earlier this month.

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Queensland house where girl, 13, was allegedly tortured burns to the ground

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Police believe the Sunshine Coast home may have been set alight early Wednesday morning

The Queensland home where a girl was allegedly held against her will and tortured has been burnt to the ground days after vigilante threats to firebomb the property.

Police believe the home on the Sunshine Coast may have been set alight in the early hours of Wednesday.

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Queensland police say there is no footage of shooting death of Indigenous man

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Family of Aubrey Donahue had requested body-worn camera vision of incident in Mareeba but police say none exists

Queensland police say no body-worn camera footage captured the moment an Aboriginal man was fatally shot, despite more than 15 officers being present.

Family members of Aubrey Donahue, 27, say he was unarmed, holding a mobile phone and attempting to surrender to police when he was shot four times by tactical officers in the north Queensland town of Mareeba.

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Australia politics live: Howard says Labor’s dominance won’t last long; emissions bill haggling down to the wire

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The government is yet to strike a deal that will get its safeguard mechanism bill through the upper house. Follow the day’s politics live

Paul Fletcher won’t answer the question of whether or not he will run again in Bradfield.

He is dancing around this question like he is auditioning for the new Fred Astaire biopic. (Tom Holland has the role, and anyone who has seen his Umbrella dance will know why.)

I continue to consider serving the people of Bradfield to be an enormous privilege and … any rational politician always considers what they’re going to do as you come to the end of each term.

I’ve done that before the end of each past term, but what I can tell you is it’s an honour to serve the people of Bradfield. I continue to be committed to it, energetic in doing, so I spent most of Saturday across a whole range of polling booths engaging with my constituents. I enjoyed it. I found it energising, and I believe that the Liberal party has a very important role in serving the people of Australia and certainly in serving the people of Bradfield and that’s something I’m committed to.

I think the first point is that after three terms and 12 years, inevitably, it becomes harder to win a fourth term.

It’s the nature of our democracy of Australian democracy that the electorate starts to look for alternatives.

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‘Unprecedented’: domestic violence shelters reach capacity amid Queensland housing crisis

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Women escaping violence are staying in refuges for years due to a lack of alternative social housing, providers say

Domestic violence shelters in Queensland say they are struggling to make space for new arrivals, with the housing crisis seeing women staying in some refuges for years .

The added strain on the sector has created a bottleneck , with shelters having to place some women in hotels or refuges far from their support networks.

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Twitter loses bid to throw out complaint by Australian Muslim group over ‘hateful’ content

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Queensland Human Rights Commission disagrees with assertion complaint is ‘lacking in substance’ and refers matter to tribunal over jurisdiction

Twitter has lost a bid to have a complaint by an advocacy group for Australian Muslims thrown out after they accused the platform of failing to take action against accounts that incite hatred.

The Australian Muslim Advocacy Network (Aman) lodged a complaint to the Queensland Human Rights Commission (QHRC) last June. They argued that, as a publisher, Twitter Australia and Twitter Inc are responsible for content posted by a far-right account that has been referred to in the manifesto of a white supremacist and mass murderer.

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Australia’s aquaculture industry looks beyond fishmeal to improve sustainability

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Bottom trawling associated with the feed product depletes oceans more than wild-catch fishing, expert says

Australia’s growing aquaculture industry is trying to end its reliance on fishmeal in order to become more sustainable.

Fish farms have traditionally been reliant on fishmeal, a feed made from small fish such as anchovies which is often fished unsustainably in developing countries. The practice has jeopardised the industry’s environmental credentials, says Ian Urbania, a pulitzer prize-winning journalist and founder of the non-profit journalism organisation The Outlaw Ocean Project.

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Queensland tenants and social groups welcome proposal to limit rent increases to once a year

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But expert says limiting frequency of rent hikes without a cap is unlikely to make a difference amid rising rate of homelessness

A proposal by the Queensland government to limit rent increases to once a year has been applauded by the tenants’ union and social organisations who say the measure would ease cost-of-living pressures.

In Queensland, landlords can currently increase rents every six months. Limiting rent increases to once a year would bring the state in line with other Australian jurisdictions like Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and New South Wales.

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Five NSW men charged after methamphetamine worth $15m allegedly found on ‘black flight’ from PNG

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Plane intercepted at airstrip in rural Queensland after police allege aircraft was flown under the radar with 52kg of meth on board

A “black flight” allegedly carrying more than $15m worth of methamphetamine from Papua New Guinea has been halted by Australian federal police in rural Queensland allegedly on its way to New South Wales.

The light aircraft landed at an airstrip in the central Queensland town of Monto to refuel on Tuesday when officers swooped and made five arrests.

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Neo-Nazis and trans rights protesters clash in Melbourne; bushfire alert for parts of Great Ocean Road – as it happened

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Melbourne forecast to reach 37C while northern regions of the state could exceed 40C. This blog is now closed

Federal government welcomes decision to hear MH17 case

The federal government has welcomed the International Civil Aviation Organization Council’s decision to hear Australia and the Netherlands’ case against Russia for the downing of flight MH17.

We have maintained since May 2018 that the Russian Federation is responsible under international law for the downing of Flight MH17.

We now look forward to presenting our legal arguments and evidence to the ICAO Council as we continue to seek to hold Russia to account.

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Myer to close flagship Queensland store in Brisbane’s Queen Street mall

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Retail company to vacate premises at the Myer Centre it opened in 1988 after talks broke down with landlord over new lease

Myer will close its flagship Queensland store in Brisbane’s Queen Street mall after more than three decades.

The retail company says it will vacate its five-floor store in the Myer Centre days after posting a 24% jump in half-yearly sales.

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Myer to close flagship Brisbane store – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

Turnbull concerned about UK economic situation

Malcolm Turnbull rounded out his concerns there with one shared with Paul Keating – although the language he used was a little more moderated than the former Labor PM is famous for.

The bottom line is their economy is sick. It’s got fundamental, sort of existential problems. And you’ve got to ask yourself, whether Britain is going to be able to sustain investment in its navy and its military in the years ahead, given this huge demand that they’ve got elsewhere, not least the National Health Service.

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Queensland passes controversial youth crime laws after heated human rights debate

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New laws include the overriding of the Human Rights Act to allow children to be charged for breaching bail

The Queensland government’s controversial youth crime laws have been passed in parliament despite strong opposition by human rights advocates and experts who warn they are ineffective and will result in more children incarcerated.

The laws include overriding the state’s Human Rights Act to make breach of bail an offence for children. They will also expand an electronic monitoring trial for children as young as 15 and provide additional funding of $9m to assist victims of crime.

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ABC staff to walk off job next week – as it happened

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This blog is now closed.

Acting prime minister and defence minister Richard Marles has spoken to ABC News Breakfast this morning after the $368bn announcement of the Aukus deal yesterday.

In response to the reaction from China accusing Australia, the US and Britain of embarking on a “path of error and danger”, Marles defends making a decision that is in Australia’s national interest:

We are seeking to acquire this capability to make our contribution to the collective security of the region and the maintenance of the global rules-based order.

And one of the issues within our region we are witnessing the largest conventional military build-up that the world has seen since the end of the second world war. And it’s not Australia who is doing that, but that shapes the world in which we live.

We’re completely confident these are in complete compliance with non proliferation.

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Most Australian states face sharp power bill rises, despite government’s intervention

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Energy regulators issue draft default market offer, which set cap for this year’s increases

Power bills for households in three states will rise as much as 23.7% from 1 July if the Australian Energy Regulator’s draft determination, announced on Wednesday, is confirmed. Prices in Victoria may rise by almost a third.

The AER chair, Clare Savage, said the increases were “significant” but they could have been as much as 40% to 50% without the federal government’s intervention in December to cap domestic gas and black coal prices.

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Queensland floods: Burketown residents warned of crocodile-infested waters ahead of expected peak

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Authorities say community still in town could be isolated for up to two weeks with water levels continuing to rise

About 70 people are holding out in the stranded Queensland town of Burketown, as the swollen Albert River to the town’s east continues to rise, and authorities warn that flood waters are likely infested with crocodiles.

Ahead of the expected peak of flood waters, the ranger in charge of the Carpentaria Land Council Aboriginal Corporation, Zachariah Sowden, said there had already been reported sightings of crocodiles swimming in flood waters.

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Queensland to hold inquiry into health risks of e-cigarettes amid concerns some contain toxic chemicals

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More knowledge needed about whether vaping is a ‘stepping stone’ to smoking and to raise awareness of harmful effects among youth, premier says

The Queensland parliament will hold an inquiry into the health risks, use and prevalence of e-cigarettes, amid concerns that some vaping products marketed as “nicotine free” actually contain the addictive chemical.

Queensland laws allow the sale of nicotine-free vaping devices in tobacco shops. E-cigarettes containing nicotine are only available with a prescription.

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Queensland floods: police say Burketown ‘not safe’ as dozens airlifted out

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Residents in state’s rural west are bracing for the peak of record flooding on Sunday

Residents in Queensland’s rural west are bracing for the peak of record flooding on Sunday as authorities warn any remaining residents, particularly the elderly and children, to leave immediately.

Police concerns centred on the outback town of Burketown, in the state’s north-west, where authorities were on Saturday “strongly urging all remaining residents to leave … as soon as possible”.

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Record-breaking floods in north-west Queensland cause partial evacuation of outback town

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Gulf of Carpentaria town’s elderly residents airlifted and supplies flown to nearby Indigenous community as rivers reach peak levels

Vulnerable people will be evacuated from an outback town by air amid widespread record-breaking floods across Queensland’s vast north-west.

Small helicopters and planes will be used to airlift elderly people from Burketown near the Gulf of Carpentaria to Mount Isa, about 400km to the south, on Friday.

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Queensland’s north hit by heavy rain and floods as tropical storm heads south

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Widespread rainfall expected in state’s south-east this weekend but nowhere near the 500mm recorded in the north-west

The tropical storm that has caused widespread flooding across far north Queensland is heading south, but is expected to ease before it hits Brisbane, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

Parts of Queensland’s north-west were hit with more than 500mm of rain in the 48 hours to Thursday morning, the BoM information specialist Danny Teece-Johnson said.

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