Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Home affairs adviser accused of untruthfulness as Tamil family waits on court to decide if youngest daughter can apply for asylum
The Tamil asylum seeker family from Biloela may have to wait another three months for a decision on whether their youngest Australian-born daughter can have her asylum application assessed, after a court hearing in which a home affairs adviser was accused of untruthfulness.
Tamil asylum seekers Priya and Nades and their Australian-born daughters Kopika and Tharunicaa have been detained on Christmas Island since late last year awaiting the hearing on the processing of a visa application for Tharunicaa.
Commissioner says Det Insp Mark Thompson ‘gutted’ at phrasing he used about Camp Hill car fire deaths in Brisbane
A senior Queensland detective who said police were keeping an “open mind” as to whether the deaths of Hannah Clarke and her children were a case of a “husband being driven too far” has been stood aside from the investigation.
The Queensland police commissioner, Katarina Carroll, apologised on Friday for comments made by Det Insp Mark Thompson as he appealed for information into the deaths the previous day, saying the detective was “gutted” at his choice of words.
Domestic violence campaigners appalled force wants to consider suggestions Rowan Baxter was ‘driven too far’ when he set fire to his family in their car in Brisbane
Queensland police have revealed that a man who killed his wife and three children by dousing them with petrol and setting them alight had a history of domestic violence and was known to them.
But in comments that have shocked domestic violence campaigners, the force says they are keeping an “open mind” about suggestions the 42-year-old Rowan Baxter had been “driven too far” and are appealing to people who knew the couple to come forward to understand his motives.
The ALP leader says a feasibility study into a new coal-fired power station in Queensland is ‘hush money’ for climate sceptics
Anthony Albanese says he supports jobs and economic activity from the Adani coalmine, but he has blasted a feasibility study into a new coal-fired power plant in Collinsville as “hush money” for climate sceptics in the Coalition.
In Queensland on Wednesday for his fourth “vision statement” since taking the Labor leadership, Albanese told reporters the ALP needed to improve its electoral performance in the state given the poor showing in last year’s federal election. He said he was listening to voters in a number of regional centres.
Yang Chen says watching survival and adventure TV shows helped her stay alive, as she knew to keep hydrated and warm
A Chinese student who survived in flooded and dense Gold Coast bushland for five days used an empty milk bottle to collect water and get by.
Yang Chen went missing last Wednesday while walking with a friend in the Tallebudgera Valley and spent the next five nights sheltering in caves until she was found by water police near Gorge Falls on Monday morning.
Areas of Australia have burnt during the recent bushfire season that used to be too wet to burn. In this first episode of The Frontline, a new series that shows how everyday Australians are already experiencing the climate crisis, we go inside the new fire zone
Morrison government to spend up to $4m in grant for feasibility study into coal-fired power plant in Queensland
The federal Labor opposition says private investors will not touch “with a barge pole” the Morrison government’s plan to support a coal-fired power plant in Queensland.
The government says it will spend up to $6m in grants for two new Queensland electricity generation projects, including a coal-fired power plant, as part of a bid to lower power prices.
Hail smashes into Parliament House and brings down trees in the ACT, with heavy rainfall hitting NSW, Queensland and Victoria
Australia’s south-east has been lashed by severe thunderstorms and large hailstones that destroyed buildings and cars in Canberra and left two tourists in hospital after they were injured by lightning.
Two supercell thunderstorms brought hail and heavy rain to cities and towns across the east coast on Monday, battering the outer suburbs of Sydney about 3pm, with 4.5cm hailstones recorded and strong winds bringing trees down over cars in the Sutherland area.
Mark Coleridge says move to legislate against the sanctity of the confessional will fail to make children safer
A move to compel Queensland priests to report child sexual abuse offences disclosed during confessions would fail to make children safer, Brisbane’s Catholic archbishop has said.
Mark Coleridge has opposed a state government plan to legislate against the sanctity of the confessional as an excuse, defence or privilege.
Protesters from University of Queensland Liberal National Cub – disendorsed by the LNP – yell at performers, leaving children in tears
A rightwing University of Queensland student group has been caught on film attacking a drag queen storytelling event at a Brisbane library.
In videos posted online on Sunday, the small group of students can be heard yelling “Drag queens are not for kids” at the event at the Brisbane Square library on Sunday morning. The event was organised with Rainbow Families Queensland and was hosted by two drag performers, Queeny and Diamond.
Deb Frecklington said she had ‘no choice but to remain grounded’ because she had children, and said the premier’s fashion choices were ‘too much’
Federal and state Labor MPs have rounded on the Queensland LNP leader, Deb Frecklington, after she criticised Annastacia Palaszczuk for her fashion choices and said she had “no choice but to remain grounded” because she had children.
In an interview with the Sunday Mail, Frecklington said Palaszczuk had “deliberately changed her image – the whole ‘Princess Palaszczuk’ is pretty obvious – but I haven’t changed mine”.
Firefighters are bracing for extreme conditions with high temperatures forecast for next few days
Rainfall over parts of eastern Australia during the Christmas break did little to extinguish some of the country’s major bushfires, ahead of worsening conditions and a heatwave due to arrive in the coming days.
About 70 bushfires continue to burn throughout New South Wales, despite modest rainfall in some fire-affected parts of the state, while firefighters continued to battle a large blaze in South Australia on Boxing Day.
Record low rainfall has contributed to a continent-scale emergency that has burned through more than 5m hectares and alarmed scientists, doctors and firefighters
As the area burned across Australia this fire season pushes beyond five million hectares, an area larger than many countries, stories of destruction have become depressingly familiar.
At the time of writing, nine people have been killed. Balmoral, in the New South Wales southern highlands, is the latest community affected in a state where up to 1,000 homes have been destroyed. A third of the vineyard area and dozens of homes were razed in the Adelaide Hills. It is too early for a thorough examination of the impact on wildlife, including the many threatened species in the fires’ path.
Bushfires have burned 4m hectares and left nine people dead, and fire authorities say they ‘haven’t seen a season like it’
More than four million hectares of Australia have burned and nine people have died since September in an “unprecedented” start to the summer fire season.
Guardian Australia spoke to fire authorities in every state about what they expect to happen next.
Catastrophic bushfire conditions expected for several SA regions, Queensland faces severe fire danger and Melbourne weather forecast for hottest ever December day, as Morrison says he ‘deeply regrets any offence caused’ by holiday. Follow the latest news and updates
Leighton Drury, the NSW state secretary of the Fire Brigade Employees’ Union and a serving firefighter, has slammed both the New South Wales and federal governments over what he calls a lack of leadership and resourcing.
Both the premier Gladys Berejiklian and the prime minister Scott Morrison have consistently said crews in the state have the resources they need to battle the more than 100 fires currently burning across the state.
But at a press conference today Drury said the union believed the state’s professional firefighting force was currently 400 staff short, and he’d been told some regional crews were facing further cuts.
Drury told media that senior Fire and Rescue NSW figures had told him on Thursday that two regional communities - Urunga near Coffs Harbour on the state’s mid-coast and Peak Hill, south of Dubbo - would have their minimum staffing reduced from four firefighters to two as a result of budget cuts.
Drury said the cuts were emblematic of a wider lack of resourcing within Fire and Rescue NSW, the state’s professional fire service.
The union estimates that since 2011 firefighter numbers have remained at best stagnant while the state’s population has grown by approximately 800,000. The union believes the state’s force is 400 professional firefighters short.
“I’m calling on the premier, the treasurer and the emergency services minister to get in a room with Fire and Rescue NSW we know we’re 400 firefighters short across the state, 300 in regional NSW,” he said.
“That’s just on current numbers, that’s not to deal with the crisis we’re dealing with right now.”
The state’s professional firefighters have been working alongside the Rural Fire Service volunteers battling the more than 100 fires currently burning across the state.
“The RFS are doing all they can but let’s be honest you can’t ask people to do things for free for months on end they have their own lives. We’re coming into Christmas, they have their own jobs, they’ve got to earn a quid which is why we need professional firefighters to take care of these fires.
“The RFS, they’ve been at this now for three months this is not just the last two weeks. These fires started in August. We’ve been telling the government since March. They’re not listening and they need to fix it.”
And there are still currently 100 fires burning across the state, with half yet to be contained.
There are 100 fires burning across the state, with half to be contained. Dangerous fire conditions forecast for Saturday - now is time to prepare. Schools are finishing up this week so review & check your travel plans along your route, & at your destination. #nswrfs#nswfirespic.twitter.com/0UAJR6mrul
Tuesday’s average maximum 0f 40.9C was Australia’s hottest ever and follows the driest and second warmest spring on record
Australia has just experienced its hottest day on record and its worst spring on record for dangerous bushfire weather, according to data released by the Bureau of Meteorology.
Preliminary analysis suggested that Tuesday was the hottest day on record for Australia, with an average maximum across the country of 40.9C. The temperature beat the previous 40.3C set on 7 January 2013, in a record going back to 1910.
BoM data says Tuesday’s 40.9C was the hottest average maximum across the whole country ever recorded, as extreme heat moves across South Australia to Melbourne, Victoria and Sydney, NSW, and bushfires continued. This blog is now closed
It is still unpleasantly warm here in Melbourne, and across much of southern Australia east of the Nullarbor. Fire activity is predicted to increase tomorrow and on Friday.
Here is a roundup of where things stand:
As of Wednesday afternoon there were about 70 bushfires burning across Queensland.
Up to 20 properties lost in Blue Mountains as megafire burns outside Sydney, while fires also threaten communities in Western Australia and Queensland
About 2,000 firefighters are currently fighting more 108 active bushfires in NSW.
The RFS have issued a new emergency warning for areas near Muswellbrook.
EMERGENCY WARNING - Kerry Ridge fire (Muswellbrook, Singleton and Mid-Western LGA) Fire activity increasing. If you are in the area of Olinda, Nullo Mountain and Bogee, watch out for embers that may start fires ahead of the main fire front. #nswrfs#nswfires#alertpic.twitter.com/6UEV0imNRS