Category Archives: Canberra

Thousands of tonnes of recycling to be transported interstate after fire at ACT processing facility

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Materials Recovery Facility near Canberra had processed 60,000 tonnes of waste a year which will be moved to other capital cities

Thousands of tonnes of waste will have to be transported from the Australian Capital Territory to other metropolitan capitals after a fire at one of the largest recycling centres in Australia.

The fire largely destroyed the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in Hume on Monday night – another setback for the nation’s recycling efforts, which have been struggling to keep pace with demand.

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Canberra recycling centre burns down in ‘significant setback’ for waste reduction efforts

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Cause of blaze unknown, but an incorrectly recycled battery or vape has not been ruled out

A fire that destroyed a recycling centre in Canberra’s south will cause a major setback to waste reduction efforts in the ACT and New South Wales.

Firefighters battled a blaze at the Hume facility that started late on Monday night and raged through to the early hours of Tuesday morning.

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Army helicopter sparked massive Canberra bushfire after crew stopped for toilet break, inquest hears

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ACT coroner’s court is investigating 2020 Orroral Valley bushfire, which was started by helicopter’s search light

The crew on an army helicopter that started Canberra’s devastating 2020 bushfires were landing for a toilet break when they inadvertently ignited the monster blaze.

An inquest began at the ACT coroner’s court on Monday with evidence from the man in command of the helicopter that started the fire.

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Deaths of mother and two sons found in Canberra pond being treated as murder-suicide, police say

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No one else was involved, ACT police say, with complex investigation ongoing

The deaths of a mother and her two young children is being treated as a murder-suicide after their three bodies were found in a pond in Canberra’s north, police say.

ACT police recovered the bodies of the mother and her two boys from Yerrabi Pond at Gungahlin last weekend.

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Body of missing eight-year-old boy found in Canberra pond

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ACT police do not believe any other party involved after previously discovering bodies of mother and brother in Yerrabi Pond on Saturday

ACT police have recovered the body of an eight-year-old boy who was missing after his mother and brother were earlier found dead in a Canberra pond.

Officers had been searching since Saturday for Pranav Vivekanandan in the water of Yerrabi Pond and the surrounding bushland at Gungahlin in Canberra’s north.

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ACT police search for young boy after bodies of woman and child found in pond

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Police received a call on Saturday morning from a member of the public who had seen a person in the pond

Police have launched an urgent search for a young boy after two bodies were found in a pond in Gungahlin in Canberra’s north.

ACT police were investigating after the bodies were found in Yerrabi pond early on Saturday.

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Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyers argued Scott Morrison’s apology to Brittany Higgins was ‘particularly egregious’

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Newly released judgment on Lehrmann’s failed attempt in April to halt sexual assault case shows defence argued then PM’s comments could prejudice fair trial

Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyers accused former prime minister Scott Morrison of making a “particularly egregious” remark during his apology to Brittany Higgins which risked prejudicing his chance of a fair trial, according to a newly released judgment.

Lehrmann tried and failed to permanently stay the case against him in April, arguing pretrial publicity had denied him the opportunity of a fair trial.

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Treasurer says Taylor’s fingerprints ‘all over’ energy policy chaos – as it happened

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Over on Sky News, the questions were all about the next budget:

Host: Joining us live now in Canberra is the prime minister, Anthony Albanese. Prime minister, good morning to you. So, a safe budget to pay for your election commitments. Are tax increases and spending cuts next?

Hang on, Pete. We’ve just had the budget last night. You’re now talking about future budgets. Let’s talk about what we did last night. What we did last night was to fulfil our election commitments, provide cost-of-living relief with cheaper childcare, cheaper medicines, more paid parental leave, more support for affordable housing. And we want to get wages moving again. We did all that without putting pressure on inflation by targeting our investments in things like infrastructure, improving the National Broadband Network, making sure that there’s that growth in the economy without putting pressure on inflation. That was our focus last night. And we managed to achieve it.

Look, we inherited a trillion dollars of debt, Peter, as you know. We inherited a trillion dollars of debt with not much to show for it. What we did last night was to make $22bn of savings. We took the revenue gains that have come through, 99% of those revenue increases from the higher costs of fuel and energy, we put them straight to the budget bottom line, 99% of them. So it was a responsible budget that saw a significant drop in the deficit to $37bn from what was anticipated. That is a responsible thing to do. Because we want to make sure that we fight inflation because that is necessary if we’re going to get real wages moving in the way that we want them to.

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Labor hints at more controls on energy sector – as it happened

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We will be breaking into the political coverage today to keep you updated on the floods as well:

Overnight, residents of the north west NSW town of Narrabri have been ordered to evacuate due to flooding, with the SES issuing the warnings for the town’s industrial and residential areas.

The rivers are very, very full and, of course, our dams are mostly at full capacity at present. So, even the smallest rainfall can cause an elevated risk of flash flooding and riverine flooding. We will see rivers decline, but the risk is real.

We are bracing for another wet weather system into the state on the weekend.

He is a friend of Australia as the UK is a friend of Australia. We congratulate him on his elevation to the Prime Ministership. The UK, like Australia, has no shortage of challenges and no shortage of economic challenges.

So, we wish Rishi Sunak well. Some of us had the opportunity to work with him briefly when we first came to government. I was able to exchange messages with him when he was unsuccessful in the last leadership ballot. I think it says something about his commitment and his persistence, the way that he conducted himself in the interim. I don’t think it’s insignificant that a country like the United Kingdom has its first Prime Minister of colour.

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Politics live: Nationals accuse Labor of regional ‘vendetta’; Chinese state media denounces closer security ties between Australia and Japan

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Albanese government will scrap two Coalition grants programs to set up two new regional programs worth $1bn over next three years. Follow the day’s news live

Gallagher: spending audit is an ‘ongoing piece of work’

And it will continue, Katy Gallagher says:

My view is finance minister is that this is a process that should keep going. We’ve identified obviously, some of that the short term work and that will be reported in the budget.

But this spending audit should should keep going. We should do it in every budget, just to make sure that we’re constantly looking at ways we’re spending money and I think the Australian public would expect us to do that, that it’s not always adding in new spending when there’s … need that arises, and there will be, but we’re looking at existing expenditure as well and how we can reuse that or … realign it with … new investments.

It’s not exclusively infrastructure. We are finding savings across government. We have gone to every single department and ask them to look at their programs to identify programs that don’t need to be done any longer or don’t align with government priorities and where we’ve been able to return some money to the budget we’re doing that.

The other part of it is actually not adding new funding to things but using existing funding to fund some of our our priorities. So it’s been a very useful exercise and I think $22bn is a pretty reasonable figure to have achieved over just, you know, a couple of months in government.

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Brittany Higgins kept dress unwashed for six months after alleged rape, court hears

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Higgins tells court she didn’t want allegation against Bruce Lehrmann to be a ‘media frenzy’ and wasn’t sure if making complaint would cost her her job

Brittany Higgins says she left the dress she wore on the night of her alleged rape untouched and unwashed for six months as she attempted to work out whether making a complaint would cause her to lose her job, a court has heard.

Higgins continued her evidence in the ACT supreme court on Thursday, also telling the jury she had felt “pressured from my workplace” to not pursue a complaint against fellow political staffer Bruce Lehrmann.

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Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyer accuses Brittany Higgins of ‘erasing’ details from night of alleged rape

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Steve Wyborn tells court Australians had been ‘sold a pup’ with Higgins’s allegations Lehrmann sexually assaulted her in Parliament House

Bruce Lehrmann’s lawyer has told jurors that Brittany Higgins “erased” key details from the night of her alleged rape inside Parliament House, saying the Australian public had been “sold a pup” over the allegations.

On Tuesday the trial of Lehrmann, a former political staffer, over the alleged sexual assault of Higgins inside Parliament House began in Canberra.

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Man incorrectly jailed for 58 days in ACT has no right to compensation, court rules

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Canberra court recognises South Sudanese refugee wrongly jailed but rules imprisonment not arbitrary nor a violation of Human Rights Act

A South Sudanese refugee who was wrongly jailed due to a “failure of the system” has lost an attempt to sue the Canberra court responsible for the error.

The man, now in his 30s, had fled the war-torn nation of his birth before his brothers were made child soldiers. He lived in a Kenyan refugee camp for 10 years before coming to Australia in 2005, the ACT supreme court heard.

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Clare O’Neil suggests Labor may legislate fines after Optus data breach – as it happened

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The Nationals want to get back to their roots – the regions.

The country party are launching a “regional listening tour” to find out what is affecting people in the country.

Migration is not the only solution to the challenges our regions are up against,” Littleproud said.

We need to look at what can be done now to help those Australians that are already in town.

We know distance is one of the greatest barriers to opportunity. So we’re coming to your town to create this opportunity to share your concerns and help us come up with the solutions.

For example, would a Regional University Centre stop our children from leaving town? Or could paying their HELP debts be the incentive they need to stay where we need them?

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Australian house prices falling at fastest rate since 1980s as ‘sharp’ downturn widens

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CoreLogic says every capital city except Darwin fell in August, with Sydney dropping 2.2%

Every capital city in Australia except Darwin is now in a housing downturn, according to a new report, with values falling at a trajectory not seen since the 1980s.

CoreLogic’s home value index shows national housing values are falling rapidly, after rising about 29% during a period of sharp growth.

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First government-backed pill testing clinic finds 40% of ‘cocaine’ contained no coke

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Canberra service examined 70 samples in August with 25% of potential users discarding drugs once made aware of what they actually contained

Australia’s first government-backed pill and drug testing service has found a majority of samples were tainted with other substances, with a quarter of people choosing to ditch their drugs after getting them checked.

In its first month of operation, Canberra’s fixed-site CanTest health and drug checking clinic examined 70 samples, with 18 people discarding their drugs once the results were in.

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Ukraine makes bid for Russian embassy land in Canberra after lease terminated

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Ukrainian ambassador, who is currently touring Australia to look at defence supplies, says his government will formally apply for Yarralumla site

Ukraine is looking to snap up a plot of land in Canberra that is potentially available after the National Capital Authority terminated the Russian embassy’s lease.

The NCA said this week it cancelled the lease because of its “use it or lose it” policy. More than a decade since Russia’s building plans were approved, construction has failed to progress. The capital authority gave Russia 20 days to vacate the property.

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Russia considering legal action after Canberra lease on new Australian embassy site terminated

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Lease terminated under ‘use it or lose it’ policy after Russian government failed to complete building within three years

The Russian government says it is considering legal action against a federal authority after it was ordered off the site of its new embassy in Canberra.

On Wednesday, the National Capital Authority said it had terminated the Russian embassy’s lease over a block of land in Yarralumla, a wealthy lakeside suburb in Canberra, and ordered it to clear the site within 20 days.

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Dutton says he was not aware of Morrison’s secret ministries – as it happened

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Ed Husic pushes for ‘brain regain’

Industry minister Ed Husic will this week host a series of five roundtable meetings with science and technology leaders in the lead-up to the federal government’s jobs summit, in a bid to kickstart what he called “brain regain” – attracting Australia’s bright minds working overseas to return home, to combat the so-called “brain drain”.

These discussions will also include ways to increase the representation of women and people of diverse backgrounds in skilled occupations. One of my priorities is on “brain regain” – encouraging Australian researchers and innovators to return home. I am interested to hear ideas on how this can be best achieved.

I can’t emphasise strongly enough that this is the start of engagement with these industry sectors. After the jobs and skills summit I will continue the work with industry leaders to ensure we apply practical solutions to accelerate Australia’s pathway to high-skilled, high-value economy.

He’s applied for a job and that’s coming with a significant degree of scrutiny, as it should do. That’s part of the territory if you’re going to put yourself forward for those roles.

If he felt the need to protect the environment from offshore drilling for gas off Sydney’s northern beaches and he felt he needed to swear himself in as minister, that’s something I support.

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Man charged with firearms offences after Canberra airport shooting

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Police say a NSW man, 63, will face court following Sunday shooting that led to evacuation of airport

A man has been charged with firearms offences after a shooting that prompted the evacuation of Canberra airport on Sunday.

A man was arrested at the airport after allegedly firing about five shots inside, some leaving bullet holes in terminal windows, at 1.30pm on Sunday.

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