News without the noise
Australian news: federal and state politics, the economy, courts, weather and the stories that matter across the country.
2067 articles · page 13 of 44
The ability for Australians to turn off social media algorithms and sue tech platforms for harm they experience online faces delay, after both the Coalition and the Greens confirmed they will send the government's digital duty of care bill to a Senate inquiry.
· 3 sourcesSmall Business Minister Anne Aly has accused Liberal MP Angie Bell of making racist and misogynistic comments in parliament after Bell called for Aly and the prime minister to be 'shamed and stoned in the square' over the tax office's decision to ban credit card payments. Aly also revealed she has received 19 death threats in the past week alone.
· 7 sourcesThe South Australian government will table amendments to cigarette and retail laws in parliament this week, targeting the illicit tobacco trade with jail time for repeat-offending landlords, longer business closure orders, and higher penalties of up to 17 years in prison and $21 million in fines.
WA Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas has challenged Labor state secretary Mark Reed to repay a $6600 donation to the party from homelessness and domestic violence charity Ruah, questioning why an organisation heavily reliant on government grants would pay for access to ministers.
· 3 sourcesAccused fitness entrepreneur Sam Wood and his wife Snezana Wood are set to list their jointly owned Brighton home, purchased for $7.15 million, as Wood remains in custody awaiting court on domestic violence charges. A source close to the couple says the on-market sales campaign will go live within 48 hours.
· 4 sourcesSt George Illawarra are ready to move for Dolphins and Kangaroos winger Jack Bostock should he become a free agent on November 1, with the club making the 24-year-old its priority marquee outside back target for 2028.
· 4 sourcesWestern Australia's opposition will introduce an amendment to the Coroners Act on Thursday to give the attorney general explicit power to order a coronial inquest, escalating pressure on the Cook government over the 2022 murders of three children in Port Hedland.
Vikki Campion, the News Corp columnist and wife of federal One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce, has begun working as an adviser for the party in New South Wales in the lead-up to the March state election, providing media advice on a part-time basis as a contractor.
· 2 sourcesA Jetstar Airbus A320 narrowly avoided colliding with a van on the runway at Townsville Airport on October 7, with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) classifying the event as a serious incident and launching an investigation.
A Perth police officer who admitted shaking his five-week-old daughter when she would not settle has been sentenced to a 10-month community-based order, with a magistrate warning the assault on the newborn was a 'betrayal of trust'. Nickolas Wayne Peake, 30, appeared in Midland Magistrates Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to common assault in circumstances of aggravation.
· 7 sourcesFormer federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg has revealed he will wait until 2027 before deciding whether to run for his old inner-Melbourne seat of Kooyong, a timeline that casts a shadow over Opposition Leader Angus Taylor's leadership.
· 2 sourcesA split has emerged within the Australian Greens over military aid to Ukraine, with senator Sarah Hanson-Young breaking ranks to support arming the Ukrainian army while new party leader David Shoebridge has explicitly opposed such assistance. The division became public after Shoebridge held a tense meeting with Ukrainian-Australian community leaders on Friday.
Glenorchy City Council Alderman Peter Ridler, who is seeking re-election, breached the council's code of conduct through a series of inappropriate interactions with female employees, a code of conduct panel has found. The determination, made public this week, followed a complaint from the council's former chief executive, Tony McMullen.
Federal ministers are facing renewed pressure from cabinet colleagues to halt the controversial Lee Point housing development in Darwin, as divisions emerge within the local Larrakia Indigenous community over whether sacred site concerns should stop the project.
A 40-year-old man and a 42-year-old woman have been charged with criminal neglect and concealing human remains after a six-month-old baby boy was found dead at an Adelaide motel, with police investigating reports the infant's body may have gone undiscovered for up to a month.
· 6 sourcesThe Powerhouse Museum has appointed celebrity chef Kylie Kwong to a new ambassador role worth $440,000 of public money, just a month after confirming her tenure under a controversial associates program was over. The appointment has angered the arts sector while the museum remains under scrutiny for overspending and an executive procurement investigation referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
· 3 sourcesPolice have launched a homicide investigation after the body of 73-year-old grandmother Yvonne Whear was found partially submerged in a stock dip on a rural NSW property, almost eight months after she was last seen in the Northern Rivers.
· 3 sourcesNew quarterly figures show nine in ten children in urgent need of Queensland state care were not assessed on time in the past four months, a backward step on a year ago, as Child Safety Minister Amanda Camm returned to parliament and insisted the residential care system had stabilised.
· 4 sourcesNorth Melbourne has secured Sydney Swans All-Australian defender Nick Blakey on an eight-year deal worth close to $12 million, with reports revealing the Kangaroos took steps to manage the risk posed by the unresolved Pullman hotel incident before completing the trade.
· 11 sourcesLeaked draft documents show the Prime Minister's office edited and approved lines in a bipartisan parliamentary letter on artificial intelligence before it was sent to Anthony Albanese, prompting accusations of political interference and a rejection of that criticism from the committee's chair.
· 4 sourcesThe World Surf League has provisionally suspended Alan Cleland Jnr after it was made aware of allegations of a sexual assault involving an NSW teenager at a private gathering in Tahiti in August. Three other alleged perpetrators are not affiliated with the league.
· 4 sourcesThe Northern Territory government has announced it will make pepper spray accessible to 16 and 17-year-olds as part of legislation to permanently legalise the self-defence weapon, following a 12-month trial. Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said the reforms would expand on trial conditions that limited purchase to adults.
Telstra’s nationwide mobile outage in July wiped an estimated $552 million from the Australian economy, according to new modelling that consumer advocates will put before senators this week. The figure is more than 500 times the roughly $1 million Telstra has paid in compensation.
· 4 sourcesQueensland Attorney-General Deb Frecklington has told state parliament that notorious childcare paedophile Ashley Paul Griffith has been approved for extradition to New South Wales, where he will face about 180 additional charges relating to children.
· 6 sourcesNew South Wales police have confirmed that a decomposed body found in a stockyard trough near Murwillumbah last week is Yvonne Whear, the 73-year-old woman who vanished eight months ago. Her death is being treated as homicide.
· 4 sourcesThe Queensland ombudsman, Anthony Reilly, has backed away from a call to close the Wacol youth remand centre even as a new inspection report details children self-harming in an attempt to be transferred, warning that the state's tougher bail laws could instead spark a crowding crisis in police watch houses.
· 2 sourcesA nest of red imported fire ants, described by the Invasive Species Council as one of the world's worst super-pests, has been discovered at the Enfield Intermodal Logistics Centre in Sydney's inner west, prompting a containment response from NSW authorities. The nest, found in a lure used by Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry officials, has been destroyed and no further nests have been found.
· 3 sourcesNorthern Territory Police say a rivalry played out on social media is fuelling a wave of car thefts in Katherine, with children as young as 11 allegedly trying to outdo each other in a spate that saw six cars stolen in a week.
NSW Health has issued an urgent warning after 43 people were assessed for bat bites or scratches over the past two weeks, a significant increase from 10 cases in the same period last year, prompting renewed calls for the public to avoid handling bats due to the risk of bat lyssavirus, a close relative of rabies.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has issued an urgent recall for 13 immune system supplements containing andrographis, following reports of anaphylactic reactions including a fatal attack in June 2024. Consumers are advised to stop using the products immediately and return them to the place of purchase.
Australia's eSafety commissioner has acknowledged it does not have the power to proactively prevent a livestream of the looming US military execution of Nidal Hasan, but says it will monitor and enforce obligations that could require online platforms to block it themselves.
· 3 sourcesThe final section of Sydney's $30 billion M1 metro line between Sydenham and Bankstown will not be able to run longer trains, because platforms at five refurbished stations are too short for eight-carriage services. Future capacity growth will instead rely on running trains more frequently, while the line's opening still awaits approval from the national rail regulator.
· 3 sourcesA South Korean cosmetic surgery company has cancelled a two-day Sydney event where prospective patients were due to meet Korean doctors, after the ABC raised questions about whether the doctors were allowed to practise in Australia. The cancellation has renewed warnings from Australia's peak plastic surgery body about the risks of travelling overseas for procedures.
· 2 sourcesKing Island District School will receive a $5 million upgrade, including a roof over its outdoor court and new bathrooms, funded by returns from the Tasmanian government's stake in the island's tungsten mine. The investment follows a letter from three students who said the court was unusable for half the year due to slippery conditions.
· 4 sourcesAustralian engineer Robert Pether has been reunited with his family in Dublin after finally being allowed to leave Iraq, more than five years after his arrest on fraud charges he and his family long argued were trumped-up.
Smart glasses are giving blind and deaf Australians a new level of independence, yet the same devices are at the centre of a fractious political debate over privacy, with the Greens moving to introduce a 12-month import ban in the Senate today.
The Climate Council has warned that coal and gas mines are exploiting a loophole in Australia's Safeguard Mechanism to expand operations and add emissions without facing the stricter pollution limits applied to new projects, urging the government to close the gap ahead of a scheduled review next year.
· 2 sourcesAustralia's health system is unprepared for a coming wave of elderly patients, with projections showing a 411 per cent increase in patients aged 85 and over presenting to emergency departments by 2050, according to the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine's State of Emergency 2026 report. The report, released at Parliament House in Canberra, warns that older patients are routinely left in hospital corridors to deteriorate while waiting for a bed, putting them at greater risk of death within seven days of presentation.
· 6 sourcesThe federal government's Workplace Gender Equality Agency has urged Australian employers to make management roles more flexible, including through part-time arrangements and co-CEO positions, warning that women's higher resignation rates from senior jobs are widening the gender pay gap.
· 3 sourcesThirteen freshwater turtles rescued from a drying water hole in western New South Wales have been returned to the Gingham water hole, months after the state government stopped environmental water flows to the area following a private landholder complaint.
· 2 sourcesAustralia's online safety regulator could try to stop Australians from watching a planned livestream of a US military execution in early December, but a history of court battles with social media platforms suggests any attempt would trigger a very public fight and possibly a diplomatic incident with Washington.
· 3 sourcesOnline property management platforms are charging Australian renters new fees or pushing them onto paid "memberships" in response to the Reserve Bank's ban on card surcharges, which took effect on 1 October. Tenants are being encouraged to challenge or bypass the extra charges, including in Victoria, where fees on rent payments are already banned.
· 3 sourcesThe wife of Australian democracy campaigner Tran Hiep has pleaded for his release after learning he spent his 51st birthday alone in a pre-trial detention centre in Ho Chi Minh City, almost a month after Vietnamese authorities arrested him on alleged terrorism offences.
· 3 sourcesThe latest edition of Column 8, the readers' letters slot published across the Sydney Morning Herald, Brisbane Times and WA Today, finds contributors testing artificial intelligence with absurd questions, celebrating a small act of childhood empathy at Nippers, and debating everything from egg freshness to the delights of the word "gruntled."
· 3 sourcesA year after Tiana Mangakahia lost her battle with breast cancer, her family says the tears continue but now carry a rally cause in her honour. The former Opals guard, who braved her diagnosis to complete one final chapter on the basketball court, is remembered for a career that spanned Australia, Russia, France and America.
· 3 sourcesReports across the Nine newspaper network are leading on a “freakish display” from Smith in Durban, with coverage indicating Australia has taken control of the Test against South Africa on day three at Kingsmead.
· 3 sourcesAbout 500 of Victoria's most prominent chefs, restaurateurs, and hospitality figures gathered on Monday evening at The Timber Yard in Port Melbourne for the 46th Age Good Food Guide awards, an invite-only event where no tickets are sold and no venue can pay for inclusion.
· 3 sourcesOn day five of the first Test in Durban, South African opener Aiden Markram registered a defiant half-century off 130 deliveries, the second-slowest half-century of his Test career, as the Proteas fought to avoid defeat. Australia, needing six wickets to claim victory, remain in control but Markram's resistance has provided a rearguard dig.
· 11 sources