The ‘hot mess’ Olympics? How Queensland’s 2032 Games planning descended into farce

The LNP’s vision is for an Olympics held in venues rather than a city – and guarantees controversy across Brisbane and beyond

Few people in Queensland disagreed with the former state premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, when she described plans for the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane as a “hot mess”.

Tuesday’s announcement by the new LNP government was framed as an end to the sort of disarray that has plagued Olympic planning during the past four years.

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Murder charge for man arrested at Brisbane airport after 79-year-old woman found dead

Body discovered with fatal stab wound at home in Brisbane’s north-west

A man will remain in custody after he was arrested at Brisbane airport and charged with murdering a 79-year-old woman whose body was found at a suburban home.

Emergency services were called to a residence on Chestnut Place about 4.20pm on Monday at The Gap in Brisbane’s north-west, Queensland police said.

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Queensland plans to build 2032 Olympics stadium on significant Indigenous site

Despite premier David Crisafulli ruling it out during election, the government is expected to announce plans for stadium at Victoria Park

The Queensland government is expected to announce that a significant preserved site of Indigenous heritage in central Brisbane, a massacre site on a songline, will host the main stadium of the 2032 Olympics.

Premier David Crisafulli repeatedly promised not to build a new stadium to host the athletics during last year’s election, and also specifically ruled out building one in Victoria Park.

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Brisbane Olympics 2032: why these Games could turn out nothing like we had planned

The IOC – which gave us 11 years to plan – must be nervous about the state of affairs

The 2032 Olympic Games loom for Brisbane residents with equal parts promise and fear.

On one hand, there is the opportunity to write Brisbane’s name alongside some of the world’s great cities.

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Backlash in Brisbane as New Order gig gets go ahead in storm-damaged city

Ticket holders for the Tuesday night concert at an outdoor riverside venue have complained about the decision to go ahead in the wake of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred

Live music promoters TEG Group and British band New Order are facing a public backlash after announcing they would go ahead with a scheduled concert in Brisbane as the city grapples with major flooding in the wake of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.

The concert, part of the Manchester synth-pop pioneers’ Australian tour, is set to take place Tuesday night at Riverstage, a 9,500-capacity outdoor venue located on Brisbane river, within the city’s Botanic Gardens.

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Tropical Cyclone Alfred live updates: wind and rain intensify as category 2 storm nears south-east Queensland and northern NSW

BoM path track map predicts TC Alfred will cross coast on Saturday near Brisbane, the first storm of its size to do so in decades. Follow the latest updates today

Welfare recipients told to perform mutual obligations as cyclone bears down

We have a news story this morning about the impact the cyclone is already having on life in Queensland.

Fallen trees and giant stands of bamboo blocked the single road to our farm until the army and council brought heavy machinery to clear a path some time after.

We were without running water or power for days, maybe weeks, the packing shed a makeshift kitchen where we ate meals cooked off a gas barbecue and drank instant coffee made with rainwater and UHT milk to the hum of a generator.

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Cyclone Alfred live updates: BoM tracking map forecast shows category 2 storm hitting Brisbane and south-east Qld; landfall in Queensland and NSW delayed as storm slows – latest news

BoM path track map predicts TC Alfred will cross coast on Friday near Brisbane, the first storm of its size to do so in decades. Follow the latest updates today

Speaking of preparations, adjunct senior lecturer at the Centre for Disaster Studies at James Cook University Yetta Gurtner gives advice here:

Chalmers confident insurance companies ‘know their responsibilities’

I’m confident they know their responsibilities and obligations to people.

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Brisbane schools and public transport shut as Cyclone Alfred to hit later than expected

Parts of Queensland and NSW prepare as BoM weather forecast shows Alfred making landfall between Maroochydore and Coolangatta

Schools, airports, public transport and most businesses are beginning to shut down in Brisbane and across south-east Queensland, as authorities advised Tropical Cyclone Alfred will likely arrive later than expected.

Advice to residents is now that Alfred’s track to the coast has slowed, and that it will likely cross the southeast Queensland coast at some point on Friday.

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Tropical Cyclone Alfred: Queensland evacuations begin as storm path tracks towards Brisbane

Up to 20,000 homes could be flooded, with beachside and low-lying suburbs most at risk, city council flood map shows

Queensland authorities are advising some residents to leave coastal properties in the path of Tropical Cyclone Alfred, amid warnings that a storm surge of up to 1 metre higher than typical tides could inundate communities.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said Australian Defence Force assets have been placed on standby to respond to the looming storm, which was tracking towards the heavily populated coastline between the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast.

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Ocean rower Aurimas Mockus stranded by cyclone off Australia’s east coast safely rescued

Lithuanian rower’s two-day wait to be rescued off Queensland comes to an end

A Lithuanian rower has been rescued off the Queensland coast after he was caught in a tropical cyclone’s 130km/h winds and monster waves.

Aurimas Mockus ran into trouble about 740km east of Mackay while attempting a 12,000km Pacific Ocean crossing from San Diego to Brisbane in his solo rowing boat.

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Social media influencer manufactured symptoms that caused one-year-old to have brain surgery, Brisbane court hears

The woman, 34, is accused of torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations

A social media influencer allegedly gave her baby multiple drugs that led to a cardiac arrest and manufactured symptoms that caused unnecessary brain surgery as part of a plan to gain fame and money online, a magistrate has heard.

Queensland police have accused the woman of filming the torture of her one-year-old infant after administering drugs to worsen the symptoms of her brain tumours.

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‘We want the whole truth’: residents of Queensland city plagued by foul odours fear inquiry won’t clear the air

After years of enduring fetid smells from waste plants, some in Ipswich are sceptical of a freshly announced inquiry into the health impacts

Residents of a city who have endured years of noxious odours from waste plants are divided over the announcement of an inquiry into the health impacts.

For the last six years, residents of Ipswich, southwest of Brisbane, have been complaining of smells they described as raw sewage, ammonia, ethanol, rotting compost, sour milk and decaying animal bodies.

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Australia weather: rainy week forecast for Sydney and Brisbane – but BoM says summer isn’t over yet

Bureau of Meteorology says showers and storms a regular feature of Australian summer but warm and dry periods still to come

Showers are expected to continue for Sydney and Brisbane throughout much of the coming week but summer isn’t over yet, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

In fact, the senior meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said showers and storm activity were a regular feature of the Australian summer, especially for northern Australia, as well as south-east Queensland and eastern New South Wales.

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Two men charged after young woman allegedly shot and killed in Brisbane

The pair each face one count of murder after Chloe Mason was found dying in the street in Caboolture on 22 December

Queensland police have arrested and charged two suspects wanted for an alleged murder after a woman was chased and fatally shot in a Brisbane suburban street.

A 29-year-old Marsden man, Codye Thomson, and a 32-year-old Caboolture man, Kaine Thomson-Gleeson, were arrested without incident in Logan on Monday.

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New Year’s Eve fireworks 2024: the best places to watch NYE celebrations around Australia

Night skies will light up on New Year’s Eve to welcome in 2025. Here’s your guide to child-friendly shows plus what time and where to see the fireworks in Sydney, Melbourne and across the country

Night skies across Australia will light up on New Year’s Eve to herald the beginning of 2025.

Whether you are in a capital city or regional town, there are fireworks displays scheduled early in the night – for children, and those wishing to hit the hay early – and at midnight, for people counting down to the new year.

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Pauline Hanson claims Brisbane councillor racially vilified her by calling One Nation ‘racist’

Party leader threatens to take Labor’s Emily Kim to Human Rights Commission over ‘racial comments’

Pauline Hanson has threatened to take Emily Kim, a Brisbane city councillor to the Human Rights Commission, claiming racial vilification for Kim describing One Nation as “racist”.

Kim, a Labor councillor received a letter from Hanson’s legal representative Donald Bundesen by email on 25 October, the day before Queensland’s state election.

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‘Fly high beautiful girl’: Thorneside residents pay tribute to eight-year-old girl and babysitter lost in house fire

Investigators are working to determine cause of blaze that claimed lives of Raven Contini and 31-year-old Stephanie Ryan

Floral tributes and messages of condolence are gathering outside a home east of Brisbane after a blaze killed an eight-year-old girl and her babysitter.

Raven Contini and 31-year-old Stephanie Ryan, were found dead in the Thorneside home after a fire ripped through the townhouse on Sunday morning.

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Second body found at scene of Queensland house fire that killed girl, 8

Body believed to be that of missing 31-year-old babysitter located at destroyed townhouse in Thorneside

Queensland police have found the body of a second person at the scene of a house fire at Thorneside, south of Brisbane, believed to be that of a missing 31-year-old woman.

It comes after the body of an eight-year-old girl was found by Queensland Fire and Emergency Services after the fire was extinguished on Sunday.

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Liz Truss urges conservatives to ‘defund state media’ as she rails against left at Australian CPAC event

Former British prime minister also criticises the Bank of England and bureaucrats in speech at rightwing conference in Brisbane

Liz Truss, the former British prime minister, has claimed the left is winning “the argument” and called for the defunding of public broadcasters to help win it back during a speech at the Australian Conservative Political Action Conference.

About 1,000 people at the CPAC conference in Brisbane also heard the former Conservative party leader blame the “unelected Bank of England” for a financial crisis which contributed to her departure as prime minister after just 49 days, following her disastrous mini-budget.

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Five things you should know about the Queensland election

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.

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