Passenger – reported to be Irish tourist, 26 – winched off cliff at Lennox Head by helicopter
One man is dead and another, believed to be an Irish tourist, is in a critical condition after a hang-gliding accident on the New South Wales north coast.
Emergency services were called to the Pat Morton lookout at Lennox Head near Byron Bay about midday on Wednesday after reports of a crash.
Continue reading...A woman was also injured when the pair fell from the flying fox at Cape Tribulation
A South Australian man has died and a woman is in hospital after they fell about 10 metres from a zipline in Queensland’s far north.
The pair were believed to have been harnessed together when they fell from the flying fox run by Jungle Surfing Canopy Tours at Cape Tribulation about 2pm on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Exclusive: public notice on proposal was placed in classifieds of paper in Queensland town of Emerald
A Clive Palmer-controlled company has applied for a mining lease and environmental authority to build a massive coalmine four times the size of Adani’s in the Queensland Galilee Basin.
The Galilee Coal project – formerly called China First – has not progressed since it gained federal environmental approval in late 2013.
Continue reading...Angeleanna Estorffe tells operator ‘I think he’s really hurt’ after her husband was shot by intruders
Harrowing audio has been released of Angeleanna Estorffe struggling to tell a 911 dispatcher her Australian husband was dying after being shot by intruders in their Texas family home.
Brenton Estorffe and his wife were asleep when the intruders broke a window at the rear of their home in Katy, near Houston, just after midnight on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Sterling Mervyn Free molested seven-year-old in bushland before dropping her back at North Lakes shopping centre
A 27-year-old father of two daughters faced a sentencing hearing on Tuesday for sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl after stalking her in the toy section of Kmart at a shopping centre in Brisbane last year.
Sterling Mervyn Free lured the girl from the Westfield North Lakes shopping centre, molested her in bushland and dropped her back to the centre more than an hour later.
Continue reading...The pterosaur, which had a four-metre wingspan, lived about 90 million years ago and was capable of crossing continents
In the heart of Queensland, palaeontologists have found the fossilised partial skeleton of a new winged dinosaur species capable of crossing continents.
The pterosaur, with a four-metre wingspan, may have lived about 90 million years ago.
Continue reading...The head of the Earle Haven nursing home admits failings but claims government auditors were ‘anti-Semitic’
The boss of a Gold Coast aged care facility where more than half the high-care residents were malnourished before it closed has said he is “fed up” and is getting out of aged care.
Arthur Miller admitted to a Queensland parliamentary hearing on Friday that he was not up to the task of managing the high-care facility at his Earle Haven centre, which closed suddenly on 11 July, effectively leaving 69 residents homeless.
Continue reading...Neil Parker said he had to ‘carry his leg’ after breaking it in a six-metre fall down a waterfall at Mount Nebo, north-west of Brisbane in Queensland
A Queensland bushwalker has said he had to “carry his leg” as he crawled for two days to safety after it “clean snapped in half” in a six-metre fall down a waterfall.
Neil Parker, 54, fractured his leg and wrist in the fall on Sunday while walking by himself in Cabbage Tree Creek on Mount Nebo, north-west of Brisbane.
Continue reading...Guardian Australia reports from three communities hard hit by one of the worst droughts in living memory
Australia is experiencing one of its most severe droughts on record, resulting in desperate water shortages across large parts of New South Wales and southern Queensland. Dams in some parts of western NSW have all but dried up, with rainfall levels through the winter in the lowest 10% of historical records in some areas.
The crisis in the far west of the state became unavoidable after the mass fish kills along the lower Darling River last summer, but now much bigger towns closer to the coast, including Dubbo, are also running out of water.
Continue reading...Corporate watchdog says criminal investigation is nearly complete and it is in discussions about way forward
A criminal investigation into Clive Palmer and the collapse of Queensland Nickel is nearly finished and the corporate regulator is in discussions with other government agencies about what to do next, federal parliament has been told.
“We are at the point where we are in discussions with other government agencies about the appropriate way forward,” the Australian Securities and Investments Commission commissioner, John Price, told a parliamentary committee on Friday.
Continue reading...Firefighters fear significant property losses, with scores of blazes still burning in Queensland and NSW
• Mass evacuations as bushfires threaten more homes – live updates
Hundreds of people are holed up in evacuation centres on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast as crews wait to see how many homes have been lost to a ferocious fire, while firefighters in New South Wales are still battling out-of-control fires near the border.
There are fears of significant property losses, with a destructive blaze still burning out of control at Peregian Beach and Peregian Breeze Estate, south of Noosa.
Continue reading...About 50 fires still burning around Queensland and 60 across NSW, 21 of them uncontained
Queensland and New South Wales fire crews are still battling difficult conditions.
There are 57 fires burning around Queensland on Sunday but one at the border towns of Applethorpe and Stanthorpe and another in the Gold Coast hinterland are causing the most concern.
Continue reading...Peter Dutton says family of four ‘not owed protection’ after they were removed from deportation flight in Darwin thanks to court injunction
A Tamil asylum-seeker family whose deportation was halted in mid-air on Thursday night do not deserve protection from Australia, Peter Dutton has said.
The family of four were put on a non-commercial flight from Melbourne bound for Sri Lanka about 11pm on Thursday.
Continue reading...Adrian was held in seclusion 99% of the time between 24 September 2012 and 18 June 2018
Disability advocates have expressed outrage at revelations an intellectually disabled man judged unfit to face criminal charges was effectively detained in permanent solitary confinement for six years.
The case of Adrian, whose real name has been suppressed to protect his identity, is contained in a scathing report by the Queensland ombudsman into the state’s forensic disability services system.
Continue reading...Exclusive: accidental release of intelligence operative’s name in Annastacia Palaszczuk’s diaries blamed on ‘administrative error’
The Queensland premier’s office has mistakenly published the name of a secret intelligence operative in an extraordinary national security breach potentially punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment.
The name of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (Asio) agent was accidentally published during the routine public release of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s diaries, a practice designed to boost government transparency.
Continue reading...Queensland police say group that set off in boat for Dauan Island on 31 July are unlikely to be found alive
Queensland police have concluded the child’s body found on the Papua New Guinea mainland is unlikely to belong to one of five people missing from an empty boat found floating in the Torres Strait.
The search operation continued on Sunday with police vessels and aerial surveillance.
Continue reading...CSIRO says dramatic climate events are compounding the effects of underlying global heating
Extreme climate events such as heatwaves, floods and drought damaged 45% of the marine ecosystems along Australia’s coast in a seven-year period, CSIRO research shows.
More than 8,000km of Australia’s coast was affected by extreme climate events from 2011 to 2017, and in some cases they caused irreversible changes to marine habitats.
Continue reading...Brumby 610 aircraft left William Creek airport and crashed on approach to Leigh Creek airport, police say
A pilot and his passenger from Queensland have been killed in a light plane crash in northern South Australia.
Police have confirmed stud farmer Peter Gesler, 59, and his 48-year-old female passenger died after the plane crashed in scrubland near a small airport just before 6.30pm on Saturday.
Continue reading...Two worldviews face each other uncomprehendingly – and the flashpoint is the climate emergency
This is the first piece in a new series on what the election result means for the progressive side of politics and the path forward
Political commentators reflexively overinterpret election results. The story we’ve been told is that the Coalition’s win means that “Australian voters” have rejected Labor’s radical plan for reform of the tax-and-spend system, confirming that Australians prefer stability and incremental change.
Continue reading...Shaun Coolwell died in hospital after being handcuffed and injected with the sedative midazolam
Queensland police and paramedics dealing with an Indigenous man during a violent, drug-induced episode failed to recognise the sudden deterioration of his health, a coroner has said.
Shaun Charles Coolwell died in hospital after being sedated and restrained in his sister’s Logan home, south of Brisbane, in October 2015.
Continue reading...