What we learned today, Thursday 2 October
This is where we’ll leave things for today. Have a lovely night. Until tomorrow, here were today’s top stories:
Jane Goodall, the world-renowned primatologist, has died aged 91.
Lawyers for Erin Patterson have confirmed she will appeal against her convictions for murdering three people and attempting to murder a fourth by serving them fatal mushroom during a lunch in 2023. Patterson’s barrister, Richard Edney, confirmed she would appeal during a hearing on Thursday morning.
Australia and Papua New Guinea locked in a major new defence treaty – weeks after the deal – considered a key part of Canberra’s push back against Beijing’s influence in the Pacific – due to domestic political concerns in PNG.
Vanuatu remained open to signing a similar wide-ranging deal with Australia but the Pacific country’s internal affairs minister, Andrew Napuat, said it must assert its sovereignty and will not be subject to pressure or “bullying” from larger countries.
Two bushwalkers with mild hypothermia were rescued from rugged wilderness in Tasmania’s Cradle Mountain national park, less than a week after a tourist died in the same area.
Multiple Commonwealth Bank services went down, with payments, online access and ATMs affected. The bank said it had resolved the issues by about 2.30pm.
A major Victorian government survey, conducted by the government’s consultation arm Engage Victoria, which heard from 34,705 employees found three-quarters of workers said working from home was “extremely” important to them.
The NSW government lifted the cap on major events in Sydney’s Centennial Park, meaning, from next year, the number of events attracting more than 20,000 people will increase from eight to 12 each year.
The Australian Defence Force joined the ongoing search for a missing four-year-old boy named Gus in South Australia.
Updated
Assistant treasurer ‘confident’ clash with states over hospital funding can be resolved
The assistant treasurer, Daniel Mulino, says he’s “confident” the commonwealth, states and territories can resolve their dispute over hospital funding, even though the end-of-year deadline for a new deal is rapidly approaching.
States and territory leaders have rejected the federal government’s latest health funding offer, saying it will shortchange them by tens of billions of dollars and won’t go far enough to cover the costs associated with running public hospitals.
Earlier today, the New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, told reporters the latest offer from the commonwealth was lower than the amount that had been agreed upon at their last national cabinet meeting and that a new deal was “a long way off”.
But Mulino, speaking on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing program, downplayed any concerns the federal government might have that a new agreement not being finalised before the end of the year.
Mulino didn’t answer directly when asked if the government was able to meet the deadline, instead saying:
I don’t want to comment on the details of the negotiations the Minister for Health is engaged in, with his counterparts and other ministers.
But what I would say is that the Commonwealth government has always stated it’s more than open to good faith discussions on these complex issues.
These kinds of discussions are always complicated. But, look, I’m confident we’re going to land on good outcomes.
He pointed out that the health funding negotiations also involved the NDIS and aged care, which involve multiple levels of government.
Updated
