Howard ministers considered extinguishing native title over SA site earmarked for nuclear waste dump

Cabinet papers 2002: documents shed light on strategy amid decades-long battle to create national storage centre

John Howard’s government considered extinguishing native title over a South Australian site earmarked for a nuclear waste dump “by agreement or by compulsory acquisition”, the 2002 cabinet papers reveal.

The records, released on Sunday by the National Archives of Australia, shed light on the Howard government’s part in the decades-long battle to create a national storage site for Australia’s low- and medium-level nuclear waste.

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Up to 1800 homes evacuated so far in SA floods – as it happened

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A fourth child in the space of two days has been airlifted to hospital from K’gari (Fraser Island) with suspected Irukandji jellyfish stings.

The RACQ LifeFlight Rescue helicopter airlifted the young boy from the island after he was stung on the upper leg just after 2.30pm on Wednesday.

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Sydney flats evacuated after shopping strip fire and gas leak; sunfish knocks yacht out of Sydney to Hobart – as it happened

Firefighters forced to flee scene of Newport fire after part of the roof collapsed revealing a ruptured gas line; Louis Ryckmans of the crew of Yeah Baby says he initially thought collision with ‘leviathan’ sunfish was boat hitting a reef. This blog is now closed

Heavy rainfall expected across northern Australia: BoM

Howe says the tropical monsoon period is “very active” at the moment across northern Australia.

That’s associated with ex-Tropical Cyclone Ellie which is continuing to deliver heavy rainfall across the NT.

There is a warning for intense rainfall and damaging winds. We’ve already seen rainfall totals of more than 200mm over the last few days, causing roads to be washed out. Reminding travellers to take care and check conditions before heading out.

We will see a cool change move through Adelaide late tonight and towards midnight, moving through western Victoria in the early hours of tomorrow morning.

We will see the cool change move through around lunchtime today for Melbourne and also tomorrow afternoon for Hobart.

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Four people drown in Australian waterways over Christmas weekend

Three Victorians and a South Australian woman die, while two young girls rescued in near-drowning at St Kilda beach in Melbourne

Three Victorians and a South Australian woman have drowned on Australian waterways in a deadly long weekend.

A 17-year-old Pakenham boy died near Mordialloc, south of Melbourne, on Monday afternoon.

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Wong condemns Taliban’s decision to ban women from NGOs – as it happened

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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.

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Village evacuated as flood levees fail along Murray River in South Australia

SES evacuates Walker Flat, east of Adelaide, after it was cut off by the deluge on Christmas morning

Dozens of homes and two caravan parks have been evacuated in South Australia as the flood levees continue to fail along the Murray River.

The State Emergency Service has evacuated the island village of Walker Flat, east of Adelaide, after it was cut off by the deluge on Christmas morning.

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South Australia floods expected to inundate thousands of homes as NT town hit by one-in-50-year deluge

Murray River forecast to peak in coming days as 241mm of rain falls on Timber Creek in the Northern Territory in 24 hours

Thousands of residents in South Australia’s Riverland region are on high alert, with the rising Murray River forecast to peak in the coming days and thousands of properties expected to be inundated in coming weeks.

Meanwhile, a one-in-50-year flood has hit a remote town in the Northern Territory as authorities warn more rain is on the way for the rest of the territory.

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Ancient Aboriginal rock art destroyed by vandals in ‘tragic loss’ at sacred SA site

Archeologist says artwork was ‘unique in Australia’, calling for better protection at Koonalda Cave

Vandals have destroyed a 30,000-year-old artwork at a sacred cave in South Australia, as experts decried the “massive, tragic loss” and expressed frustration at the lack of protection at the site.

The vandals entered Koonalda Cave at Nullarbor Plain and scrawled graffiti across the heritage-listed site, writing “don’t look now, but this is a death cave”.

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Non-essential activity on Murray River banned in South Australia with flood waters to peak at Christmas

The Riverland faces its worst flooding in half a century as communities await the slow-moving disaster

A total ban on non-essential activity on the Murray River in South Australia has been put in place, as the Riverland faces its worst flooding in half a century.

Flood water from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria has been flowing down to the state for weeks, merging into the Murray River, with the peak predicted to hit at Christmas.

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Union fury over Labor decision to split aged care pay rises – as it happened

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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.

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Wong urged to raise human rights concerns on Beijing trip – as it happened

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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.

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Victoria police to prosecute pitch invaders; more contaminated spinach cases in Queensland – as it happened

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.

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Boy rescued after jumping into Adelaide zoo’s giant panda enclosure to retrieve phone

The teenager was using his phone to film the animals when he dropped it into their bamboo forest compound

A South Australian teenager has been rescued after he jumped into Adelaide zoo’s giant panda enclosure to retrieve his phone.

The boy was using his mobile to film the animals when he dropped it into the bamboo forest on Monday.

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Covid-19 Australia data tracker: coronavirus cases, deaths, hospitalisations and vaccination

Guardian Australia brings together all the figures on Covid-19 cases, as well as stats, charts and state-by-state data from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA, WA, Tasmania, the ACT and NT. Here you can also find the numbers on the vaccine rollout and fourth dose booster vaccination rates.

In September 2022, federal and state governments began releasing data once a week, on Fridays, rather than daily. As a result, Guardian Australia has aggregated the data released before that date to weekly values, to make the new figures comparable with the old.

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Rocket launches pose extinction-level threat to SA’s tiny southern emu wren, conservationists warn

Tanya Plibersek could list the bird as endangered amid concerns about proposed rocket launch site

A tiny southern emu wren, which conservationists fear is under threat from rocket launches, could be listed as endangered within days.

Conservationists say planned rocket launches on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia pose an extinction-level threat to the wren, one of Australia’s smallest birds.

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News live: Penny Wong condemns Russia’s deadly missile attacks; Deliveroo to end operations in Australia

Foreign minister says ‘Australia stands with Ukraine’ following reports a Russian missile landed in Polish territory killing two people. Follow the day’s news

ABC Radio asked Simon Birmingham about reports from this morning that a Russian missile has hit Poland near the Ukraine border: The shadow foreign affairs minister says:

This is deeply, deeply troubling news.

If an accident occurs it can result in a real escalation ... it shows just how dangerous a game Russia is playing.

We can’t expect instant miracles, but the ultimate test of dialogue will be the outcomes that are received if this dialogue is successful, to see breakthroughs in regard to those trade barriers... and also critically the just treatment of Australian’s detained in China.

And then of course challenges in terms of engagement within the region, that we must continue to argue for China to respect international law, international rules and norms

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PM’s meeting with Chinese president confirmed – as it happened

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Andrews rules out deal with the Greens and independents in event of minority government

Dan Andrews was also asked what would happen if Labor finds itself in a minority government situation – will it do a deal with the Greens?

No deal will be offered and no deal will be done.

And independents – no deals with independents?

No deal will be offered and no deal will be done.

So if you’re in a minority situation and you hold more seats than the Liberal party, what happens? You go back to another election?

Well, I think what the best thing to do, and what happens, Michael, is we work hard for the next 13 days, we work hard to put a positive and optimistic plan out there, and we’ll see what the verdict of Victorian voters is. I’m arguing, I’m urging people to vote for a strong, stable majority Labor government, to vote for your local Labor candidate.

The new SEC – government-owned, not private for-profit, but government-owned electricity, so owned by every single Victorian – creates nearly 60,000 jobs – 6,000 of those will be apprentices. It will be 100% renewable electricity. These companies can’t be relied upon to replace themselves. They’ll just put another profit machine in place. We need to make sure that we’re looking after pensioners, we’re looking after families and, indeed, businesses. And without electricity, there is no economy, so we have to replace them. And we choose to replace them with a public option – a government-owned option. An option that’s owned by every single Victorian.

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South Australia suffers biggest blackout since 2016 as weather system brings more flooding to inland NSW

Severe storms continue to drench exhausted communities as a humid air mass prompts flash flooding alerts in eastern Australia

Wild storms have caused the biggest blackout in South Australia since the entire state went dark in 2016, as flash flooding caused havoc in parts of New South Wales and Victoria.

More than 423,000 lightning strikes were recorded in SA on Sunday. Heavy winds downed trees and SA Power Networks received more than 500 reports of fallen wires.

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Covid-19 case numbers exploding across Australia as fourth wave takes off

Chief health officers urge people to take up protective measures as Covid hospitalisations double in some states

The number of active Covid cases has exploded across the country as Australia enters its fourth wave, prompting renewed warnings to protect vulnerable aged care residents.

Jurisdictions collectively recorded more than 58,000 new cases of Covid in the past week, with some states reporting a doubling in the number of people hospitalised with the virus.

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Remains of 18 Indigenous people held by UK museums return to Australia

Return is part of painstaking effort to recover thousands of ancestors stolen from traditional lands who now lie in more than 20 countries

The remains of 18 Indigenous people have been returned to Australia by two British museums, part of the laborious and painstaking effort to recover thousands of ancestors stolen from their traditional lands which now lie in more than 20 countries around the world.

At midnight Australia time on Wednesday, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum returned 17 ancestors to the custodianship of the federal government, which will hold them while further research is undertaken “to determine the traditional custodians”. Another was given to the custodianship of the south-east First Nations people of South Australia, who were represented by Robyn Campbell.

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