The sunshine state is heading to the polls on 26 October. Can Labor cling to power or will there be an LNP landslide?
Queenslanders will go to the polls on 26 October. Here are five things you should know.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed.
Investigations under way after alleged theft of non-fuctional guns from museum
An investigation is under way after a museum in Lithgow, in the NSW Central Tablelands, was allegedly broken into overnight.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Labor MP Jonty Bush among those speaking out about state’s youth justice policies after Guardian Australia investigation
Queensland’s most prominent victims’ rights groups say the state government must remove children from police watch houses after the release of confronting footage showing the “brutal” treatment of children in the adult holding cells.
The videos, published after a year-long investigation by Guardian Australia and SBS The Feed, showed young people locked in “freezing” isolation cells, becoming panicked and struggling to breathe.
Continue reading...Ipswich West’s LNP representative informed of his microvascular ischemic disease the day he was sworn in
A 52-year-old Queensland MP has announced his resignation from state parliament after being diagnosed with a brain disease that leads to early-onset rapid developing dementia.
Ipswich West LNP MP, Darren Zanow, has announced his imminent retirement after he was diagnosed with microvascular ischemic disease.
Continue reading...David Crisafulli criticises pill testing trial in sign opposition may roll back harm minimisation polices if elected in October
The Queensland opposition leader, David Crisafulli, has criticised the state’s new pill testing regime, a potential sign his party would roll back Labor’s new drug policies if elected in October.
The sunshine state opened its first festival clinic on Thursday and will open the first fixed site clinic in Brisbane next month. The Labor government has committed to open a second once a site has been confirmed.
Continue reading...Some Labor MPs are eyeing the LNP’s tough policy on detention in bid to sway anxious voters in October election
Looking down the barrel of the camera, LNP leader David Crisafulli addresses Queenslanders directly in the party’s latest TV ad.
Appearing concerned and candid in his home town of Townsville, Crisafulli delivers a simple message: Elect me, and I’ll keep you safe.
Continue reading...The federal opposition leader’s calls to include nuclear power in Australia’s energy mix has so far failed to win support from his state colleagues
The federal Coalition faces a battle with the states on its proposal for nuclear power stations at the sites of decommissioned coal power plants, with state premiers and opposition leaders alike largely against Peter Dutton’s proposal.
Labor governments and Coalition oppositions in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia are either outright opposed to the plan or have failed to endorse it.
Continue reading...Concerns raised after former Cherish Life vice-president Alan Baker elected chair of party’s Griffith divisional council
A prominent anti-abortion campaigner has won control of a Brisbane division of the Liberal National party, prompting alarm among moderates that “fringe infiltrators” were attempting to increase their influence as polls point to a state election win.
Alan Baker, a former vice-president of the anti-abortion lobby group Cherish Life, was elected chair of the LNP’s Griffith federal divisional council (FDC) by two votes on Thursday night.
Continue reading...Steven Miles’s government is fighting battles on multiple fronts – and shifting right or left will only create new problems elsewhere
Seven months before Campbell Newman was tossed from office by angry Queensland voters, he called a press conference, flanked by members of his cabinet, and apologised.
“I just want to say I am sorry today if we have done things that have upset people,” Newman said, days after his government was humbled, with a 19% swing, at a Brisbane byelection. “We will be doing a lot better in the future.”
Continue reading...Premier Steven Miles says massive swing against ALP in two key byelections was ‘very bad’ for his government
Queensland premier Steven Miles concedes massive swings against his government at the Ipswich West and Inala byelections are “very bad” for the Labor party and could result in a wipeout at the October general election if it doesn’t acknowledge the message sent by voters.
Labor lost the safe seat of Ipswich West to the Liberal National party after a two-party swing of about 18%.
Continue reading...Nationals’ Bridget McKenzie and Andrew Willcox top list with more than $20,000 spent each on nights away from home
A handful of federal politicians are spending more than two-thirds of their time on the road and in hotels, with one Nationals MP billing taxpayers for accommodation nearly every night over a four-month period, latest travel expenses data shows.
Andrew Willcox, the first-time member for Dawson, spent 113 days travelling over a 116-day period between August and December 2022, according to the most recent independent parliamentary expense authority’s (Ipea) data.
Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads
Continue reading...Candidate in 2022 federal election facing up to 12 months’ prison if found guilty of knowingly providing false or misleading information
A Liberal National party candidate in the last federal election has faced court accused of providing false information about his residential address to the electoral commission.
Vivian Rakesh Lobo was issued a summons to appear in Brisbane magistrates court on Friday after a federal police investigation followed a referral from the Australian Electoral Commission.
Continue reading...Leader will refocus climate debate on job creation in rural areas to remove tension between resource-rich regions and urban south-east, sources say
The incoming Queensland premier, Steven Miles, is expected to announce on Friday that the state will lift its lagging emissions reductions targets, among a number of “day one” initiatives to be unveiled by the new state leadership.
Miles will enter a caucus meeting on Friday as the only candidate for the Labor leadership vacated by the retiring premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Green Day Energy has had its bank account frozen after going into administration amid a legal dispute between its owners
A fledgling “green coal” company owned by two Queensland Liberal National party figures has had its bank account frozen and become mired in legal action, 18 months after being awarded a $5.5m commonwealth grant in the dying days of the Morrison government.
Guardian Australia can reveal the federal government is “considering its position” in relation to the grant to Green Day Energy, after the company was placed in voluntary administration by director David Hutchinson, the former LNP president. Hutchinson is being sued by Green Day’s largest shareholder, Brad Carswell, a former party official and candidate.
Continue reading...Former federal senator says her conservative views will take a back seat to kitchen table concerns during Queensland state parliament election
A few days after Amanda Stoker announced her run for Queensland state parliament in June, the former federal senator was due to appear at a panel discussion organised by the libertarian lobby group, the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance (ATA).
Stoker has built her reputation pitching herself to groups like the ATA, which exists in a political space that brings together folks from the Liberal National Party’s conservative fringe and the coterie of small freedom parties that have splintered to the right.
Continue reading...Tony Abbott, Warren Mundine and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price were among those urging attendees to oppose the voice to parliament
“We are one,” the motto above the CPAC logo proudly blared on the lanyards around the necks of attendees for the Conservative Political Action Conference in Sydney on Saturday.
It clashed somewhat incongruously with the even bigger text attached to the bright red media passes given to the few journalists who came to cover the event: “FAKE NEWS”.
Continue reading...Cameron Caldwell wins retiring member Stuart Robert’s seat with Labor candidate Letitia Del Fabbro conceding less than 90 minutes after polls closed
The Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, has been given some breathing room with the LNP comfortably retaining its safe Gold Coast seat of Fadden.
Labor, which had debated whether to even run a candidate in the poll, went into the byelection expecting the LNP to win – it was always about by how much.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
Continue reading...Stakes are high in contest for Queensland seat. This blog has now closed
Singleton Roosters to play their first game since tragic bus accident
NSW premier Chris Minns is in Cessnock today, where he will attend the first games of the women’s and men’s Singleton Roosters Australian rules football teams since the bus tragedy that rocked the community in June.
For the rest of winter and into spring, there’s a very high chance of above average temperatures, and actually quite a high chance of unusually warm temperatures as well.
Continue reading...Opposition leader accuses Labor of politicising the royal commission findings and calls Bill Shorten a ‘political animal’
Peter Dutton has conceded that “mistakes” were made by “individuals” involved in the unlawful robodebt scheme, while warning against a “trial by media” on the findings of the royal commission.
At the Liberal National party’s state conference in Brisbane on Saturday, the federal opposition leader accused Labor of politicising the issue and referred to the government services minister, Bill Shorten, as a “political animal”.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
Continue reading...This blog is now closed.
Bill Shorten: robodebt commission report will be a ‘vindication’ for victims and their families
The NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, says today “is a vindication” for victims of the robodebt scandal with the royal commission report being handed down. He told ABC’s RN this morning:
The heart of this story today is the fact that real people unlawfully had debt notices … raised against them by the most powerful institution in Australia, the commonwealth government.
Two of these people, after receiving robodebt notices, subsequently took their own lives that I’m aware of.
Today is not the day [their mothers] want. What they really want is their sons to be alive.
One of the challenges we’re seeing across the country is great teacher shortages … COVID brought that timetable forward.
Classrooms are more complex, there is a great diversity of needs across the classroom, and as society changes a lot of teachers and education ministers are testifying about the impact of technology in classrooms.
Continue reading...