It comes as a sixth teenager was charged with terrorism-related offences after raids across Sydney as investigations continue into church stabbing
A tenth person has been charged in relation to their alleged participation in the Wakeley church riot, according to New South Wales police.
The 27-year-old was arrested at a home in Granville in western Sydney on Saturday after several items alleged to be linked to the incident were seized by the strike force.
Continue reading...Muslim organisations say they were not consulted before counter-terrorism raids that resulted in arrests relating to a church stabbing in Sydney
Representatives of the Australian Muslim community have called out what they called “questionable law enforcement tactics” after seven minors were arrested and six of them charged with counter-terrorism-related offences this week.
Three major bodies, the Australian National Imams Council, the Alliance of Australian Muslims and the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network, have also demanded the government revise Australia’scounter-terrorism laws, saying they “target specific communities”.
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As we reported, X has provided an update on its legal challenge against Australia’s eSafety commissioner, stating it had complied with a direction to remove content from the Wakeley church stabbing.
However, underneath the post from the platform’s global government affairs team (which we quoted in our previous post), the video is available to watch in a reply to the post, as of 7.45am AEST.
The eSafety Commissioner required X to remove posts containing a video of the attack on Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, filmed by an innocent bystander. [The bishop] has expressed his desire for the video to remain online.
X believes it has complied with the notice issued by eSafety, and with Australian law, by restricting all the posts at issue in Australia.
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Hundreds gather in Sydney for Anzac Day dawn service
AAP has the details on Sydney’s dawn service where hundreds of people – including veterans – gathered under a full moon and clear skies for a solemn service in the CBD.
You who have loved will remember the glow of their glad young years, as you stand today to salute them in silence, with pride and with tears.
The best thing about the ceremony this morning is to see the number of people that come early in the morning.
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Inspired by similar protests in the United States, students from Sydney University established a protest on the quad in support of Palestine last night, stating they will remain until the uni cuts ties “with Israeli universities and weapons manufacturers”.
In the US, dozens of students have been arrested at pro-Palestine demonstrations at Yale University and New York University amid similar protests:
For six months now, we have watched bombs rain down on Gaza. These bombs hit their civilian targets because of the research carried out by universities like Sydney University... Students have a responsibility to stand up and refuse to be complicit in genocide.
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Anglicare says government spending eight times more on private investors than building housing itself
The Anglicare Australia executive director, Kasy Chambers, says the government must step up and intervene, instead of leaving housing to the private sector:
We found that the government spends eight times as much propping up private investors as it does on building housing itself. This approach is wrong, and it’s supercharging rents and house prices.
Housing cannot be left to hobby landlords and private developers. Only our government can ensure that rentals are affordable by building homes itself, and by fixing Australia’s unfair tax system.
289 rentals (0.6%) were affordable for a person earning a full-time minimum wage.
89 rentals (0.2%) were affordable for a person on the age pension.
31 rentals (0.1%) were affordable for a person on the disability support pension.
3 rentals (0%) were affordable for a person on jobseeker.
0 rentals (0%) were affordable for a person on youth allowance.
This is not hyperbole. It is Australia’s new normal.
Continue reading...Reports of explosions in Iranian city of Isfahan prompt sell-off of stocks in Australia – and in other markets such as Japan. Follow the day’s news live
The NSW police commissioner, Karen Webb, is speaking to the media after a 16-year-old was charged with a “terrorist act” for allegedly stabbing a bishop on Monday and is expected to appear at a bedside hearing today.
She said members of the joint counter-terrorism team interviewed the alleged offender at a medical facility last night, and he was subsequently charged with a commonwealth offence for terrorism and refused bail.
We expect he will be attending a bedside court hearing today to determine bail. This relates to the stabbing of the Bishop [Mar Mari Emmanuel, who] we allege on Monday night [was] stabbed up to six times.
We also allege that the boy had travelled for 90 minutes to attend that location from his home address.
We’ve got a crisis of male violence in Australia. We know that it’s a scourge in our society, we know it must end and I think it’s really clear women can’t be expected to solve violence against women although it is time for men to step up.
I don’t think debating definitions is the way to go … We need to act, we need to educate ourselves, men need to step up, we need to talk to our sons, to our colleagues, to our friends. We need to work together to a solution. And I think going down some kind of almost a wrong path to say let’s redefine – it’s not about definitions. This is about action. We need to shift the way in which we think about this …
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Unemployment ‘might take up a little bit’ when new numbers released later this week
Q: Given the economic conditions we’re seeing, what should households with mortgages expect?
[Inflation] won’t necessarily continue to come off in a perfectly straight line, but [it] is a fraction of what it was a couple of years ago when we came to office. That’s a good thing.
So we’ve got a whole bunch of things going for us in Australia, but enough to concern us as well about the global conditions about the way that people are still under considerable cost of living pressure.
The way that I would describe it to your listeners is we’ve got inflation lingering in parts of the world, we’ve got growth slowing in China and elsewhere, we’ve got tensions rising in the Middle East and the war in Europe. We’ve got supply chains which are straining and we’ve got a global economy which is fragmenting and transforming and so all of these factors are really important to us as we finalise the government’s third budget.
These are going to be these global conditions are going to be a really big influence on our budget, so the trip to DC which will be a pretty quick and make the most of it but it’s a good opportunity to take the temperature of the global economy.
Continue reading...Dozens of flights cancelled at Sydney airport and drivers told to avoid non-essential travel as inland low and coastal trough combine
Helen Reid from the Bureau of Meteorology has just provided us with an update on the Sydney rain and said the city could very well receive a month’s worth of rain in one day.
She pointed to the Observatory Hill gauge and said on average in April, there is around 126.5mm of rainfall during the month. Since 9am yesterday morning, there has been 106mm of rain.
We are expecting rainfall over Sydney to increase during today … I would suggest that if we got more than the April average, that wouldn’t be too beyond too far beyond this stretch of imagination.
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Renewed push to scrap activity level requirements for childcare subsidies
There was a lot of disappointment last budget when the government did not scrap the activity test as a way of making early child education more accessible and universal.
Zoe Daniel MP, Member for Goldstein
Georgie Dent, the CEO of the Parenthood
Sam Page, the CEO of Early Childhood Australia
Kate Carnell, the former Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman and former ACT chief minister
Natalie Walker, the deputy chair of Goodstart Early Learning
Sue Morphett, a businesswoman and the former president of Chief Executive Women
Continue reading...Asio bosses fear ‘growing threat’ as foreign governments are allowed to gain knowledge of tradecraft
Australia’s intelligence chiefs have asked the government for new laws to stop former spies marketing their skills abroad, fearing current provisions are allowing foreign adversaries to gain invaluable knowledge of Australian tradecraft.
Asio is seeking specific consolidated legislation requiring that former spies gain explicit permission before they offer themselves as trainers, in light of what it says is the serious and growing threat of espionage and foreign interference.
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As part of the latest Aukus developments, Australia will send A$4.6bn to the UK to clear bottlenecks at the Rolls-Royce nuclear reactor production line.
Richard Marles was asked why it costs so much, and why this component needs to be done in the UK. He told ABC News Breakfast:
We made clear a year ago that we wouldn’t be building the nuclear reactors in Australia. They will be built by Rolls Royce at its facility in Derby in the UK and once the sealed reactors are built, they will be taken here to the Osborne Naval ship yard and placed in the submarines which the rest of which will be built here at Osborne.
Building nuclear reactors is difficult to do and in order for this to play out, that facility in Derby, which is building nuclear reactors for Britain’s navy, that needs to be expanded and that is what this contribution is for.
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Expect to hear a lot more on this today:
Southern Australia could face gas shortages during “extreme peak demand days” from 2025 as Bass Strait supplies dwindle, the Australian Energy Market Operator has said.
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The Republican candidate for the US presidency, former president Donald Trump, has had a few things to say about former Australian prime minister and current US ambassador Kevin Rudd.
Trump spoke to UK conservative Nigel Farage on GB News, saying if Rudd is hostile “he will not be there long”:
The Aukus deal that is in place, America, you know, the UK, Australia, very, very important deal, it is there to try and combat that huge growth in China. But now of course things have changed in Australia, we have a Labor government in Australia. The previous ambassador, Joe Hockey, I think was quite a good friend of yours, you got on pretty well with him. Now they have appointed Kevin Rudd. Former Labor MP, an he has said the most horrible things, you were a destructive president, a traitor to the west, and he is now Australia’s ambassador in Washington. Would you [take a phone call from him?]”
Yeah, well don’t know. He won’t there be long if that is the case. I don’t know much about him. I heard he was a little nasty. I heard he’s not the brightest bulb. I don’t know much about him, but he won’t be there long if he is at all hostile.
Continue reading...Former PM called ‘reckless’ for accepting talks with foreign minister Wang Yi. Follow the day’s news live
Energy minister Chris Bowen is on a bit of a media blitz this morning.
More renewables are coming on to the grid, which is lowering the default price of energy, but this is Bowen’s main message (he is speaking to ABC radio RN here)
Nuclear is the most expensive form of energy in the world at the moment. There will be a real choice at the next election between the cheapest form of energy and the most expensive.
Continue reading...Julie Inman Grant has asked companies including Google, Meta and Telegram to explain how they are taking action against violent and extremist material
Australia’s online safety regulator has issued notices to Telegram, Google, Meta, Reddit and X asking how they are taking action against terror material on their platforms.
It is five years since an Australian murdered 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in New Zealand, and broadcast the massacre on Facebook live. Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said she still receives reports that video and other perpetrator-produced material from terror attacks are being shared on mainstream platforms, although there were now slightly less on mainstream platforms such as X and Facebook.
Continue reading...Some visas reinstated after further security checks but Amnesty urges government to provide clarity on vetting processes
Palestinian groups and refugee advocates say they are “so relieved” that the federal government has reversed visa cancellations for people fleeing Gaza, after several were stranded on their way out last week.
Some of the visas have been reinstated after further security checks, but advocates have urged the government to provide further clarity on the vetting processes, to give assurance to other Palestinians with Australian visas who manage to get out of Gaza.
Continue reading...Shadow home affairs spokesperson James Paterson labels social media platform a ‘bad faith actor’
The shadow home affairs spokesperson has labelled TikTok a “bad faith actor” and a “serious threat” to Australia’s national security, urging the Albanese government to follow the United States in its crackdown on the video-sharing app.
The Liberal senator James Paterson said he was not advocating for a total ban on the popular app but wants Australia to emulate the United States in its bid to force the Chinese tech company that owns TikTok to divest its business in the US.
Paterson told ABC’s Insiders on Sunday he hoped changes to the app’s ownership structure would lower the risk of Australian data being harvested by the Chinese government and prevent its influence in spreading disinformation.
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Zoe Daniel says Asean has not done enough on crisis in Myanmar
The independent MP for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, was just on ABC RN to discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Myanmar. She argued that Asean hasn’t done enough on the issue, and needs to do more.
There’s also I think, a desire within Asean for economic cooperation and to try to take that route with the junta as a form of leverage … My concern though is that, I think, that we might be heading down the path of a form of normalisation with the junta and you’ve currently got a situation where about 30% of the country is in stable control of rebel ethnic groups, and the junta is really only holding the major cities.
Any form of normalisation with the junta that is pushed by Asean, and I think will be raised with the Australian government for support this week, could backfire because it could in effect allow the junta to enter some of those areas that are reasonably stable and are actually managing themselves.
Continue reading...Mike Burgess says security agencies ‘don’t radicalise people’ and stands by actions of police in case of 13-year-old with Islamic State ‘fixation’
The Asio chief has insisted security agencies “don’t radicalise people” but admitted “dealing with minors is incredibly difficult” after court findings criticising an undercover operation targeting a 13-year-old child with autism.
Guardian Australia revealed last month that the boy, known by the pseudonym Thomas Carrick, was granted a permanent stay on terror-related charges last October, after a magistrate found police “fed his fixation” with Islamic State during the operation and “doomed” his efforts at rehabilitation.
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