Homicide investigation launched after deaths of Todd Mooney and 10-year-old Kirra at Biggenden
A shed fire that killed Queensland man Todd Mooney and his 10-year-old daughter Kirra was deliberately lit, police believe.
Remains believed to be the 54-year-old man and the girl were found after the blaze at Biggenden, south-east of Bundaberg, on 20 December.
Continue reading...Cheryl Scanlon says youth crime is ‘complex’ while police minister says number of young people denied bail is proof of tough stance
The Queensland government is facing pressure to tighten its already strict bail laws after two teenagers were arrested for the alleged murder of 41-year-old mother Emma Lovell.
Lovell, originally from Suffolk in the UK, was stabbed in the chest at her home in North Lakes in Moreton Bay on Boxing Day, during an alleged home invasion.
Continue reading...Authorities did not confirm if they were charging anybody over use of the restricted spray, which was posted on social media
Queensland police are investigating an officer who allegedly provided a man with pepper spray and allowed him to deploy it on himself.
In a video seen by Guardian Australia, a sole officer stands next to a young man at a pool party and watches him handle a can of pepper spray.
Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads
Continue reading...Queensland police say the boys, both 17, were charged with murder, attempted murder and break and enter after the alleged Boxing Day home invasion
The woman killed in an alleged home invasion north of Brisbane has been described by her husband as a “beautiful person”.
Two teenagers have been charged with murder after 41-year-old Emma Lovell died after being stabbed in the chest at her home in North Lakes on Boxing Day.
Continue reading...Adelaide stayed at 27.4C overnight while Victoria is forecast to dip no lower than 26C, the state’s hottest night in four years
Adelaide has sweated through a 38C morning as millions of people in the country’s south endure the peak of a summer heatwave.
Heatwave warnings were issued for South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and isolated parts of Western Australia with temperatures 8C to 16C above average.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed.
Ferry services resume in Sydney as fog clears
The fog looks to be clearing in Sydney, or at least the sun has just broken through the clouds where I’m sitting.
Passengers should continue to allow extra travel time and check information displays for service updates as services return to timetable.
Continue reading...Waratah Coal lodges application to overturn recommendation that lease and approvals be refused
A company owned by Clive Palmer is seeking to overturn a landmark ruling that found its plans to dig Australia’s largest thermal coalmine in central Queensland would infringe upon the human rights of future generations and exacerbate the climate crisis.
The coalition that first brought the case court – led by young First Nations women and environmentalists – is vowing to defend last month’s ruling, which they describe as “the most significant decision on climate change and human rights in Australia”.
Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads
Continue reading...Police say there’s ‘nothing really to indicate’ that the Wieambilla shooting could be classified as terrorism
Experts have questioned why Queensland police have resisted classifying the murder of two police officers in Wieambilla as terrorism, amid evidence that the shooters had been inspired by fundamentalist Christianity and conspiracy theories.
Queensland deputy police commissioner Tracy Linford on Thursday said the murder of constables Rachel McCrow and Matthew Arnold on a remote property was not deemed an act of domestic terror because there was no evidence of a connection to any “particular group”.
“We are certainly not classing it as a domestic terror event. At this point there’s nothing really to indicate that,” Linford said.
“What we can see is sentiment displayed by the three individuals – the three Train family members – that appears anti-government, anti-police, conspiracy theorist-type things.
“But we can’t see them connected to any particular group that they might have been working with or inspired them to do anything. We haven’t located anything like that at this point in time.”
Exclusive: Cameron Dick urges resources council to stop risking coal’s social licence with ad campaign as royalty rise is here to stay
The Queensland treasurer, Cameron Dick, says the state will not back down on recent coal royalty increases, warning the mining lobby its multimillion-dollar advertising campaign opposing the changes may harm the industry.
Dick met with the Queensland Resources Council this week to ensure it was “under no misapprehension” the government would stay the course on the new progressive royalty tiers, which increase when prices are unusually high and companies are making windfall profits.
Continue reading...Graham Kent, who investigated the 1987 shooting, says national register stalled because of ‘competitions between jurisdictions’
A former police officer who investigated Melbourne’s Hoddle Street massacre has joined the push for a genuine national firearms register amid concerns about an existing database that experts says is hindered by inconsistencies between jurisdictions.
The deadly shooting of two young police officers and a neighbour on a remote Queensland property last week has sparked renewed calls for an overhaul of Australia’s firearms databases and the creation of a centralised register.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed
Long delays on M7 at Prestons in Sydney
Traffic is banked up on the M7 in Sydney. Chanel 7 is reporting that a truck crash has caused the long delays.
They’re sharing their emotions and their grief because they believe this should never have happened.
It’s really important for us to have that public support. It inspires us to continue to do our job.
They’ve also lost two colleagues … so they are hurting incredibly.
A lot of work to be done to assist them as we move into the future because the pain will never go away.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed
Crossbench say Australia needs to ‘get cracking’ on Cop15 commitments
More reactions are coming in after the close of the biodiversity Cop15 – which leading scientists have called “vastly more important” than the Cop27 climate meeting, because it decides the “fate of the living world”.
We need to get cracking on implementation to deliver on commitments.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed
It’s officially a week before Christmas, which means the forecasters at the Bureau of Meteorology are fairly confident they can tell us what whether we can set up for an al fresco Christmas lunch or not.
For some parts of the country, there is a chance of showers:
Particularly in the south, we can get some volatile weather but all the patterns really starting to change as we move into later part of this week.
So we’ll see a weather system move through southern parts of the country, Thursday and Friday. Then a big high-pressure system behind it will quickly move into the Tasman Sea and then kind of sit there over the Christmas weekend into early the following week and normally that drives a lot of warm weather across much of southern parts of the country and our guidance is showing a similar pattern with that as well.
Continue reading...Queensland Council of Social Services report reveals rental costs, inflation and inadequate welfare payments squeezing household budgets
Thousands of low-income families in Queensland don’t have enough money to meet basic living or dietary standards due to surging rental costs and inadequate welfare payments, according to a report.
Queensland Council of Social Services modelling shows unemployed single parents and families where only one parent is able to work are the most vulnerable to financial shocks, emergencies or unplanned expenses.
Continue reading...Father able to stop the attack on the five-year-old boy, who was bitten multiple times while playing on a beach
A young boy who is in hospital after being attacked by a dingo in Queensland is stable and “doing well”, a spokesperson from Hervey Bay hospital has said.
The child, aged five, was bitten on the head, arm, and buttocks at the remote Ocean Lake camping area in K’gari (Fraser Island) on Sunday afternoon.
Continue reading...Warning comes as more than 130 people who ate range of contaminated fresh food items suffer symptoms including hallucinations and delirium
Australians are being urged not to seek out contaminated baby spinach products for a recreational high after more than 130 people who ate a range of fresh food items suffered symptoms including hallucinations and delirium.
Authorities were on Sunday night testing the weed believed to be responsible for the widespread recall of products containing spinach thought to have come from a farm in Victoria.
Riviera Fresh – Riviera Farms Baby Spinach
Fresh Salad Co – Fresh and Fast Stir Fry
Woolworths – Chicken Cobb Salad and Chickpea Falafel Salad
Continue reading...Sport governing body says ‘such behaviour has no place in Australian football’. This blog is now closed
‘We will look at the facts’
James Johnson is asked whether Melbourne Victory has any outstanding sanctions for past incidents. He says he is not aware of any but past events may be considered as an “aggravating factor” as an investigation into the incident unfolds:
There is no other suspended disciplinary action that I’m aware of, but what I will say is that we will be working through that today. We have already started working on the show cause process as of late last night, and we will be moving forward as quickly and swiftly as possible to finalise it, because it is important we get ahead of this issue as a sport.
What I can say is that we will look at the facts, we’ll look at it objectively and we will take a decision that we believe is in the overall best interest of the game but I prefer not to comment on the specifics of the outcome because we have to go through that process first.
What happened during the game last night and what happens with the result;
A “show cause letter” to Melbourne Victory;
An attempt to identify individuals involved in the pitch invasion.
This is an element that … infiltrates our game and tries to ruin it for the people who love us was in. We’ll be looking to weed out those people from the sport.
Continue reading...Australian couple behind Wieambilla attack were in regular contact with man with a similar fundamentalist theology
In the hours after Gareth Train and his wife, Stacey, murdered two police officers and wounded a third during a chilling, premeditated attack on their remote Queensland property this week, they posted a haunting video to YouTube.
“They came to kill us, and we killed them,” Gareth says, his face partly obscured in darkness.
Continue reading...Family member remembers quiet girl whose life went ‘downhill’ after marrying
Every year, Stacey Train’s mother would call the mobile of her estranged daughter and leave a message on her birthday.
But, according to another family member, if her son-in-law, Gareth, picked up she would quickly hang up.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Andrew Wallace urges colleagues to be ‘mindful’ of possibility but says he has no hard evidence
The deputy chair of parliament’s intelligence committee has suggested “foreign state actors” may have stoked anti-vaxxer and rightwing extremism sentiment in Australia during the Covid-19 pandemic in a bid to influence the outcome of the May federal election.
“I’m very mindful of the increase in the fanning of rightwing extremism in the lead-up to the last federal election,” the Coalition MP Andrew Wallace told Guardian Australia.
Continue reading...