Category Archives: Queensland

Australian effort to contain fire ants hampered by funding shortfall, documents show

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Invasive Species Council releases material showing contrast between original $133m plan to fully eradicate the ants and $89m ‘revised work plan’

Lack of proper funding is hindering efforts to contain the spread of invasive fire ants by Australian authorities, according to documents obtained by the Invasive Species Council.

The documents show a stark contrast between the original $133m plan to fully eradicate the ants and an $89m “revised work plan” to continue for the next 12 months. This revised plan would only treat half the area needed, even as the ants continue their southward march towards New South Wales.

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Investor linked to Stuart Robert is still a director of 10 companies despite ‘severing ties’ with Australia

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Despite claiming he lives overseas and can’t testify at a parliamentary hearing, John Margerison still has a role in at least 10 firms according to Asic records

A Gold Coast businessman with ties to former Liberal MP Stuart Robert remains listed as a director in at least 10 Australian companies despite “severing ties” and living abroad.

John Margerison had been called as a key witness for a parliamentary hearing in July into contracts awarded by Services Australia and the National Disability Insurance Agency.

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Australia news live: pre-emptive release of Sofronoff report ‘denied me procedural fairness’, Shane Drumgold says

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ACT director of public prosecutions steps down after agreeing with ACT attorney-general Shane Rattenbury his position was ‘no longer tenable’. Follow live news updates today

PM urges people to look at the yes and no pamphlets

Albanese is asked about the word “Makarrata”, which has been subject to attack by the no campaign.

Why would someone disagree with the idea of Makarrata, with which is a Yolngu word for coming together after conflict - what that is about is just advancing reconciliation.

What the no campaign insists on doing is talking about anything but what is in the question before the Australian people. I would say to your listeners, have a look at what the question is, have a look at the yesand the no pamphlets. The yes pamphlet with its optimistic appeal for hope and a vision for the future, and the no campaign quoting people, misquoting people who are not actually supporting it.

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Fears for father and five children after fire off coast of Brisbane

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Police say brothers – aged 11, 10, four-year-old twins and a three year old – and their 34-year-old father unaccounted following fire on Russell Island

Five young boys aged between three and 11 years and their father, 34, are feared dead after a fire broke out in a home on an island off the coast of Brisbane.

The blaze started at the Todman Street house on Russell Island just after 6am on Sunday and spread to other premises, razing three.

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PM accuses Coalition of ‘creating noise and confusion’ over voice – as it happened

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Australia has ‘nothing to fear and everything to gain’ from a yes vote, Anthony Albanese says. This blog is now closed

Albanese says he won’t announce date of voice vote at Garma

Albanese will not announce at Garma what date the voice to parliament referendum will be held on:

I’ve made it clear a year ago what the timetable would look like, that it would be in the last quarter of this year. Obviously when we get into December, you are into the rainy season, so that gets knocked out. September, it could be held then except we have the footy finals.

We’ll make an announcement soon. We’ll talk through with the Australian Electoral Commission and make sure it’s an appropriate date, one that doesn’t clash with other events.

What is occurring with this referendum is it’s a clear proposition … the words are clear that have been put forward, they’ve been passed by the parliament, overwhelmingly by the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Indeed, across the parliament, both sides say they support constitutional recognition. Both sides say that you need to legislate the voice. The only difference is that Peter Dutton is saying that if you actually … enshrine it in the constitution, that that is something that they oppose.

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Queensland police declare crime scene after body found in burnt-out camper trailer

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Emergency services were called to the fire at a Teviotville property in the Scenic Rim region during the early hours of Friday morning

A body has been discovered after a camper trailer was destroyed in a blaze in south-east Queensland.

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How a picture of bedsheets from dark web led police to Brisbane childcare centre and man’s arrest

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Tiny traces from videos and images drew detectives to a childcare worker accused of being Australia’s worst serial paedophile

In 2014, detectives from a specialist Queensland police unit came across a small number of videos and images posted online, depicting the abuse of two girls but containing few clues as to where in the world they had been made.

After the discovery by taskforce Argos, the Australia federal police (AFP) and other agencies began an international search for the victims. This included uploading the material to a database that could be searched by other law enforcement agencies.

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News live: economists wary ahead of RBA rates decision; agriculture minister says Australia is free of lumpy skin disease

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Anthony Albanese says increasing the income-free area for jobseeker would have ‘unintended consequences’. Follow live news updates today

PM says he would ‘rather not have’ double dissolution trigger as housing bill to be reintroduced

Anthony Albanese has spoken to ABC Sydney and FiveAA about Labor’s $10bn housing Australia future fund bill, which is going to be reintroduced to parliament, possibly providing a trigger for a double dissolution election.

That doesn’t necessarily provide for an early election, it could go into 2025 – but what it does is mean that can be a focus and you have a joint sitting after a double dissolution is held, but I just want this legislation to be passed … Their spokesperson [Max Chandler Mather] put this in writing in an opinion piece in a magazine, essentially saying that if this is just waved through and happens we won’t be able to continue to door knock and campaign on it. Well, I don’t want to play politics with this – I want to get this done. We have a mandate for it, and the Senate should pass it.

The truth is you do need appropriate development, particularly along public transport corridors … But it’s true sometimes local government can get in the way because people want to oppose anything at all that looks like development. But the truth is we do need to increase housing supply, that’s the key.

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Missing ADF personnel involved in Queensland helicopter crash identified – As it happened

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Families grant permission to name the four service members who went missing during military exercises off the coast of Whitsundays on Friday – this blog is now closed

Asked about the surplus the government now finds itself overseeing, Rishworth is asked whether there will be any further assistance in the next budget.

Of course, the changes we’re making - whether it’s to rent assistance, jobseeker - are structural changes. They’re ongoing increases that will be applied. So when you talk about the surplus from last year, that’s a very different circumstance to the reforms that we’ve made which are ongoing and structural. We have calibrated these to be responsible to help people that are doing it tough. But also, that they’re sustainable into the long-term.

The economic inclusion committee was providing a very specific advice on the level of jobseeker to inform the budget process. Of course, the budget process has to take in a range of different factors, including a responsible structural adjustment. But also, of course, as the treasurer has said, making sure that we’re not adding to inflation. So there is a lot of issues that we do have to weigh up in a budget process.

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Unseasonably warm winter weather sweeps eastern Australia as Sydney reaches 25C

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One of the main factors contributing to the unusually high temperatures is the warm ocean conditions, a BoM meteorologist says

Unseasonably warm weather swept across the eastern states this weekend, with Sydney hitting 25.2C on Sunday, with high temperatures set to continue.

Parts of the country were expected to reach temperatures about 8C above normal for July on Sunday, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

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Australian military helicopter crash: missing crew identified as Albanese pays tribute

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Taipan helicopter was taking part in joint military training exercise Talisman Sabre when it crashed in waters off Queensland’s Whitsunday Islands on Friday night

The four missing crew of a helicopter which crashed during a military training exercise in waters off Queensland have been identified, as navy divers and allies assisted with the search on Sunday.

Lt Gen Simon Stuart, chief of the Australian army, said the families of the men had given permission to name the four soldiers: Capt Daniel Lyon, Lt Maxwell Nugent, WO Class Two Joseph Laycock and Cpl Alexander Naggs.

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Properties worth more than $25bn were bought with cash in Australia’s three biggest states in early 2023

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Many cash purchases were made in regional areas of NSW, Victoria and Queensland as buyers downsized to less expensive housing

More than one in four transactions for dwellings or land is settled with cash in Australia’s three most-populous states, with buyers largely unaffected by higher interest rates, data group Pexa said.

Many of the cash purchases (those paid for in full without a loan) were made in regional parts of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, often by retirees or others downsizing to less expensive properties. Cash purchases for foreign students or recent migrants also make up a sizeable share of sales in inner-city areas.

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Australian military helicopter crash: four feared dead as search and rescue teams discover aircraft debris

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Four people were on board the Australian army helicopter when it went down at about 10.30pm on Friday in Whitsundays

Four pilots are feared dead after an Australian army helicopter crashed into water off Hamilton Island in Queensland on Friday night, with search and rescue teams discovering aircraft debris.

As the search continues, the Australian Defence Force has announced a temporary pause on the use of MRH90 helicopters as a precaution.

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Birmingham says opposition doesn’t ‘fear’ early election – as it happened

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This blog is now closed

Housing bill squabble to bring back possibility of double dissolution election

Parliament resumes next week after a five-week hiatus over winter, which means all the squabbles and fights we left in June are starting to whirl up again – chief among them housing. As Daniel Hurst reported this morning, Labor is going to bring back its housing bill to the house in October, where it will pass. Once it hits the Senate, things get a little more dicey. If it’s rejected by the Greens, who so far aren’t seeing what they want from the government, then the government has a double dissolution trigger.

The early indications are that there was a 50m exclusion zone around the deceased.

All efforts had been made to cover the body but at certain stages of the forensic examination, that body did need to be uncovered so the forensic police could do their work for the coroner and unfortunately, those children did walk past.

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Queensland woman who laced husband’s soup with pills pleads guilty to manslaughter

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Court hears Judith Ann Venn was caring for her husband and was at the ‘end of the road’ when she killed him

Judith Ann Venn had reached the “end of the road” when she gave her husband of more than 40 years an overdose by lacing his favourite soup with pills and killed him, a court has been told.

The now 69-year-old was caring for Lance Hilton Venn, whose bipolar disorder had worsened significantly over the previous 18 months.

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Man charged after allegedly riding lawn mower through Queensland town while drunk

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Police allege the man was driving through Ingham with almost four times the legal blood-alcohol limit

A Queensland man has been charged with high-range drink-driving after he was caught allegedly riding a lawn mower through the town of Ingham while drunk.

The man, 51, was stopped by police who had seen him driving the ride-on mower in the wrong direction down Herbert Street last Sunday.

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Sole survivor charged with murder over Bruce Highway car crash that left three dead at Federal, Queensland

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afferty Rolfe, 25, faces three counts of murder after allegedly attempting to ram another car before the crash in the Sunshine Coast hinterland

The only survivor of a fatal three-car crash on a Queensland highway has been charged with three counts of murder.

Rafferty Rolfe, 25, of Yandina, is accused of following and attempting to ram a Nissan Navara, which veered on to the wrong side of the Bruce Highway at Federal, south of Gympie, and into the path of an oncoming Great Wall utility on Friday.

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Investment in Indigenous community health key to reduce diabetes rates

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Calls for greater funding in local health services as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people suffer from high rates of type 1 and 2 diabetes

Australia needs to invest in local community-led health providers to reduce rates of type 2 diabetes in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the peak body for Indigenous health services has said.

Thirteen percent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people over the age of 18 have been diagnosed with diabetes – three times the national rate for non-Indigenous people, according to data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

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Two men accused of importing $61m of cocaine hidden in yacht at Townsville

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Matthieu Anthony Rees and Rachid Kachour arrested at ACT apartment after federal police seize 247kg of cocaine

Two men have been accused of importing more than $61m worth of cocaine by sea after Australian federal police seized 247kg of the drug allegedly hidden in a yacht in Queensland.

Matthieu Anthony Rees, 44, and Rachid Kachour, 55, both from Griffith in the ACT, were arrested at their apartment on Thursday as part of an investigation into cocaine seized from a yacht moored in Townsville.

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Fire ants breach Queensland containment zones six times as authorities try to stop march to NSW border

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Experts say pest eradication program is underfunded and it is a ‘matter of time’ before ants move beyond Queensland

Fire ants have breached containment zones in south-east Queensland six times in the past six weeks, triggering the expansion of biosecurity controls at the New South Wales border.

The imported red fire ants – considered one of the world’s worst invasive species – were detected at a site at Tallebudgera last week, about 5.5km from the NSW border. The find was the farthest south the pest has been detected in Queensland.

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