What we learned, Friday 26 April 2024
With that, we’ll end our live coverage of the day’s news.
Here’s a summary of the day’s main news developments:
Jobseeker payments should be raised to 90% of the age pension and indexed to prevent people going “without life’s essentials”, the government’s poverty experts say.
Sydney man Benjamin Cohen, who was wrongly named on air by Seven News as the Bondi Junction killer, has reached a confidential settlement with the network.
Meanwhile, prime minister Anthony Albanese has labelled Faraz Tahir, the security guard killed in the Bondi Junction Westfield stabbing, a “national hero” at his funeral service in Sydney.
Bruce Lehrmann has agreed to pay the columnist and author Peter FitzSimons’ costs for complying with a subpoena during Lehrmann’s failed defamation proceedings against Network Ten and former Project presenter Lisa Wilkinson.
Scott Farquhar, the Australian tech billionaire and joint chief executive of software company Atlassian, will step down from his role at the end of August to spend time with his young family and focus on philanthropy, the company says.
Thanks for reading. Have a pleasant evening and weekend.
Updated
Taylor Swift makes Aria chart history
Some breaking news suitable for a Friday night: Taylor Swift has made Australian music history, becoming the female artist with the most No 1 albums in Aria history.
Her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, is her 13th album to reach No 1 on the Aria album chart, surpassing the record held by Madonna.
She is also now the first artist ever to hold the entire top 10 on the singles chart, and currently holds 29 spots in the top 50 singles at once – a feat that has never been achieved before.
Swift remains the only artist to replace themselves at No 1 on Aria album chart, and has done so three times.
Jimmy Barnes continues to hold the overall record for most No 1 albums with 15 solo albums (and another five with Cold Chisel), followed by the Beatles with 14.
Updated
‘His mission was to protect people’: brother pays tribute to Faraz Tahir at funeral
Bondi stabbing victim Faraz Tahir has been buried by his brothers and friends from Sydney’s Ahmadiyya Muslim community, after his funeral in the city’s west.
Earlier in the day, around 700 mourners and dignitaries expressed their condolences to Tahir’s family, who arrived in Australia from overseas on Wednesday.
His brother, Mudasar Bashir, told reporters Tahir had been “the strongest person in our family”.
He said:
He was a really good, jolly person, always smiling, and always he intended to help people ... his mission was to protect people like we have seen him ...
Every time when we spoke to him, he said “I’m okay. I’m good. I’m happy. This is a good country ... I have freedom here. I can say that I am a Muslim and I can go to the mosque. I can pray. I can do everything.”
He told reporters what it was like to see Tahir’s body for the first time in six years:
“I tried to speak with him because he was my brother ... when I saw him, I just said ‘it’s been six years and now I’m meeting you finally, for the last time’.”
Updated
‘He sacrificed his life for all Australians’: mourners commemorate Faraz Tahir’s bravery at funeral
Bondi stabbing victim Faraz Tahir’s bravery has been commemorated by friends and mourners at his funeral in Sydney’s west.
Tahir’s security guard colleague and fellow victim, Muhammad Taha, attended on special leave from hospital, wearing a gown and blanket. Sitting in his wheelchair, Taha told reporters Tahir’s last words before confronting perpetrator Joel Cauchi:
We were trying to save people at that time. and his last words at that time was ‘let’s find out what’s going on’. So we rushed towards that area.
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community’s national president, Imam Inamul Haq Kauser, said Tahir had proven himself a martyr:
There’s one pledge which our youth make, that they will sacrifice their time, honour and life for others, for the sake of nation, and for the country. And we are very happy that he has proved it with his actions and deeds ...
Although he was a stranger in this country ... he sacrificed his life for all Australians. He was a very brave person from childhood. He saw that people are panicked, he rushed to them.”
Updated
Rental increases may have way to go, adding to inflation ‘stickiness’
Economists are still ruminating over this week’s ABS release of higher than expected inflation for the March quarter. (Even if we probably shouldn’t panic.)
Jonathan Kearns, a former senior RBA economist now at Challenger, is among those predicting the central bank will have no choice but to revise its own inflation estimates next month to indicate inflation won’t be slowing as fast as earlier projected.
That revision could potentially push back the timing of when the RBA thinks inflation (now at 3.6%, according to headline CPI) will be back within its 2%-3% range. Its February model had annual inflation at 2.8% by December 2025, and perhaps that won’t happen now until 2026.
One thing that’s looking less likely is a cut in official interest rates in 2024.
“The risks to easing too soon, and so eroding inflation’s return to target, are significant and so it’s appropriate that the market now does not expect the RBA to cut rates this year,” Kearns said in a note circulated on Friday.
Part of his caution comes from the rental market, where increases - at 7.7% in the year to March - remain at about the highest in 30 years. The change in rents captured by the CPI has only been about 13% since the pandemic, while advertised rents have increased about 50%.
Rental increases don't look like easing much in the near term (no matter what the RBA does to interest rates).
— @phannam@mastodon.green (@p_hannam) April 26, 2024
(Via Jonathan Kearns, Challenger.) pic.twitter.com/PIhs9jerGg
Rent inflation, in other words, will remain strong for some time, Kearns says.
Woolies fined $1.2m for short-changing former workers
Woolworths has been fined $1.2m after admitting it failed to pay out more than $1m in leave entitlements to about 1200 Victorian workers.
The supermarket giant was facing a maximum penalty of more than $10bn, but magistrate Nahrain Warda on Friday found the smaller fine to be suitable punishment.
Woolworths self-reported its breaches to Victoria’s wage watchdog in February 2022 after it undertook a review of its payroll systems.
It discovered some of its employees were not paid their long service leave entitlements after leaving the company due to discrepancies in payment calculations.
Wage Inspectorate Victoria’s investigation found the underpayments happened on 3617 occasions between January 2020 and July 2022. The company was charged for those who were underpaid more than $250, which resulted in about $1m in unpaid leave for 1227 former Victorian staff.
Woolworths pleaded guilty on 18 April in Melbourne magistrates court to the more than 1000 charges laid down by the inspectorate.
The company’s barrister, Saul Holt KC, said Woolworths had been described as a “model accused” by prosecutors as it had self-reported and self-investigated the underpayments.
The court fined Woolworths $1,277,000 without conviction, while its subsidiary Woolstar was handed a $36,000 penalty. Woolworths was ordered to pay the regulator’s $15,000 legal costs.
- AAP
Updated
‘Watch this space’: education minister flags announcement ‘shortly’ on student debt reform
An announcement on student debt reform will be made “shortly”, the education minister has confirmed.
Speaking to reporters in Perth ahead of an education ministers meeting on Friday, Jason Clare was asked whether the commonwealth would change Hecs/Help indexation in the upcoming federal budget to relieve the debt burden on students.
Figures released this week showed student debts would increase by around 4.8% when next indexed on 1 June as a result of high inflation, following a 7.1% rise last year.
Clare said:
I’ve made the point inside the parliament and outside the parliament that we need to make Hecs fairer, and we’ve got the report of the Universities Accord team that sets out a number of recommendations about how we can do that.
The prime minister and the treasurer said last week that we’re looking at what we can do here. We’ll have more to say on that shortly. So watch this space.
Updated
Tucker Carlson to headline 'Australian Freedom Conference'
Far-right pundit Tucker Carlson will visit Australian cities on a speaking tour later this June and July, where he will appear alongside billionaire mining magnate and former politician Clive Palmer.
Carlson and Palmer will be joined by by American filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza and Queensland GP Dr Melissa McCann for the “Australian Freedom Conference”.
The conference is billed as covering “a range of topics, including current and future threats to truth, democracies and personal freedoms”.
Tickets cost between $200 and $290.
Carlson, a former Fox News host, now runs his own media outlet, the Tucker Carlson Network, where he recently interviewed the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Palmer, spruiking the conference, said “Tucker has long advocated that news coverage in the west can be wrongly used as a tool of repression and control”.
Palmer added:
He believes democracy cannot function properly under these controls and the only solution to ending propaganda is fearlessly speaking the truth. I’m delighted Australia has the opportunity to hear from Tucker and our other speakers on this informative national tour.
Updated
Exclusion zone established amid police operation at University of Sydney
More on the police operation under way at the University of Sydney.
Earlier this afternoon New South Wales police confirmed an operation was under way at the University’s law school in Camperdown, in Sydney’s inner west.
Police said in a statement that an exclusion zone is in place and the community is urged to avoid the area.
The University of Sydney has said the Fisher library and law library “are currently closed due to an emergency until further notice”.
Fisher/Law Libraries are currently closed due to an emergency until further notice.
— Sydney Uni Library (@Sydney_Library) April 26, 2024
SciTech and Susan Wakil Health Library are open for students.
We will let you know when Fisher and Law re-open.
Updated
ACT DPP responds to questions over alleged Lehrmann evidence leak
The office of the ACT director of public prosecutions has finally responded to repeated inquiries from Guardian Australia in relation to the recent findings of federal court justice Michael Lee in the Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial.
Guardian Australia had asked whether any action was being contemplated over the leaking of the confidential contents of an evidence brief that had been prepared for separate legal proceedings.
The question arose again this week when the Australian federal police commissioner, Reece Kershaw, suggested police were reviewing the handling of evidence to see whether further investigation was required.
The office of the ACT DPP has now provided the following response:
“The acting Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Anthony Williamson SC, notes the public comments made by AFP Commissioner Kershaw at the National Press Club.
It is not the practice of the DPP to comment on ongoing police inquiries or investigations. To do so has the capacity to compromise the right of a person to a fair trial.
Discussions between the DPP, his or her prosecutors, and/or the police in relation to police investigations and possible charges that might be brought against a person are the subject of legal professional privilege.”
In finding against the applicant, former ministerial adviser Bruce Lehrmann, in Lehrmann’s defamation suit against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson, Justice Lee said he was “comfortably satisfied” that Lehrmann had lied about having no role in leaking private text messages obtained by police from the phone of Brittany Higgins, the former colleague who had accused him of raping her, to the Seven Network’s Spotlight program.
The messages had been included in an evidence brief prepared for Lehrmann’s 2022 criminal trial on the rape charge but were never tendered in court. The trial collapsed due to juror misconduct and was discontinued out of concern for Higgins’ mental health. Lehrmann pleaded not guilty and has always denied the rape allegation.
It was alleged during the civil defamation trial that the leak breached a rule known as the Harman principle and laid out in a high court judgment from a 2008 case, Hearne v Street. The principle specifies that evidence provided under compulsion by the court for one set of legal proceedings cannot be used for any other purpose.
Updated
Victorian government announces $900,000 for pelvic pain and menstrual health education
The Victorian government will spend $900,000 to run free pelvic pain and menstrual health education sessions for students in government schools, the education minister has announced.
Ben Carroll says the funding, allocated in the 2023-24 budget, will allow for 400 in-person education sessions for years 5 to 10 to begin from next year.
He said sessions will include curriculum-aligned, age-appropriate and evidence-based information about menstrual health and pelvic pain. Students will develop skills and confidence to recognise when and how to seek help and support.
He said most half of all Australian women experience pelvic pain, and for the one in nine women with endometriosis, diagnosis can take on average seven years:
Nobody should suffer in silence, so we are educating young people about pelvic pain, so they know what to do if and when it affects them.
Health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, said:
We know that schoolyard conversation around menstruation and pelvic pain has historically been seen as taboo – that’s why education to destigmatise and remove the shame associated with periods is so important. We are ensuring more young Victorian girls understand their bodies and seek help before their pain impacts their overall health and wellbeing.
Updated
Many thanks for joining me on the blog today – and throughout the week. Elias Visontay will be here to see you through the rest of the afternoon. Take care, and have a lovely weekend.
Prime minister labels Faraz Tahir a ‘national hero’ at funeral service
The prime minister has called Faraz Tahir, the security guard killed in the Bondi Junction Westfield stabbing, a “national hero” at his funeral service in Sydney.
Hundreds of mourners and dignitaries joined Tahir’s family at Baitul Huda mosque in Sydney’s west to farewell the Pakistani refugee, who would have celebrated his 31st birthday on Wednesday.
Anthony Albanese paid tribute to Tahir, speaking to the crowd outside the front of the mosque:
Without doubt, he helped save lives that day. And without question, Faraz Tahir died a national hero and he will be remembered as a hero in the history of this hard time …
[He] counted himself lucky to have come to Australia. In truth, Australia was lucky to have him.
The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, joined Albanese to pay tribute, and said:
He was excited about the next chapter in his life, and one of the things that we mourn today is the loss of that next chapter, of all the good that was coming after last Saturday. Friends, as a community, New South Wales was heartbroken today, as we farewell Faraz.
Updated
Violence against women not ‘unsolvable’, Victoria police assistant commissioner says
Continued from last post:
Lauren Callaway said she doesn’t believe the issue of violence against women is “unsolvable”. She told a media conference:
It is a problem that is going to take a long time to shift attitudes. I’ve been in the role for four years but the issue of domestic violence started to get traction in Australia in the 1970s. We just had the 50th anniversary of the first women’s crisis shelter. Our understanding of what the problem was back then to what is today is very different.
She said police, the family violence sector, academics and activists were all working together to try to understand the underlying drivers of why – 50 years on – the issue remains so prevalent.
In the last four years there’ve been several high profile murders where the community gets very outraged by it, and rightly so ... and we talk about the issue and we come up with ideas. Governments have invested heavily in Victoria in trying to resolve family violence. But I think the best thing that we can hope for now is to try and work out: what are the principles within the system that we’ve got that we can strengthen, to bring more safety to victims and more accountability to perpetrators?
Updated
Circling back to Victoria police’s family violence command assistant commissioner, Lauren Callaway, who gave a press conference earlier this afternoon (you can read our first post here).
Callaway said she understood why women are taking part in 17 rallies across Australia this weekend and calling for greater action on a growing epidemic of women killed in violent attacks. She said:
It’s not the first time we’ve been at this moment and sadly, I don’t think it’ll be the last time we’re at this moment. I understand how women are frustrated about this particular crime theme and how devastating it is to families and friends. It just seems like there’s another terrible news story every day.
Those of us who work in family violence are equally disheartened by the statistics. And they’re not just statistics – they are people who have suffered the most tragic circumstances of family violence … Some solutions, I think, place too much emphasis on women to do the changing, and we know that that’s not the long term solution.
Updated
Social services minister says current rates of domestic and family violence ‘unacceptable’
The federal social services minister, Amanda Rishworth, says the current rates of domestic and family violence are “unacceptable”.
Speaking to 10 News First earlier today, she said no single government or organisation would be able to address the issue on their own, and “we all need to push in the same direction”.
This includes men standing up and calling out violence. That is a critical part of the response. But I will not be deterred and I’m pushing on efforts to end family, domestic and sexual violence …
We do need to invest in all areas, but this is where everyone’s responsibility comes in. If you see disrespectful attitudes or violence, it might be casual violence against a woman, it’s everyone’s role to call it out, step up and just be very clear. It is unacceptable.
Does that mean we need public campaigns about respecting women and changing behaviours? Rishworth flagged the government campaign “stop it at the start” will be promoted further in the coming months.
She also acknowledged that First Nations women experience “disproportionately high levels” of domestic and family violence, and said:
We currently have a steering group of First Nations women and men leading that work to develop a standalone plan for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children and how we keep families safe. This is critical work that needs to be led by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Updated
Renting families and overseas students not in competition, research suggests
International students are not competing directly with families in the rental market as they typically prefer inner-city apartments over standalone homes in the suburbs, new research suggests.
Australian renters have experienced eye-watering rental increases over the past few years and stiff competition for available properties, with vacancy rates hovering around record lows.
Fingers have been pointed at international students returning after borders reopened but the property industry research challenged this narrative and said there were a range of pandemic-fuelled housing trends and long-term structural issues at play.
The study, commissioned by the Student Accommodation Council, found only 3% of international students lived in detached houses, with the vast majority – 74% – in accommodation purpose-built for the cohort close to universities. Another 8% were living in apartments.
The research from the Property Council offshoot also found international students made up a small 4% slice of the total rental market.
- from AAP
Updated
Greenlife can resume supplying mulch under stricter licence conditions, EPA says
The company at the centre of the New South Wales asbestos crisis can return to its regular operations after the environmental regulator lifted a prevention notice that prohibited it from producing and supplying mulch.
The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has released a statement saying Greenlife Resource Recovery, and its parent company VE Resource Recovery (VERR), had complied with all aspects of the prevention notice issued in January after asbestos was discovered in mulch at the Rozelle parklands.
The regulator said the company could now resume supplying mulch but under stricter licence conditions.
The EPA’s acting executive director of operations, Adam Gilligan, said the new conditions included testing for asbestos prior to supplying mulch offsite:
Following the discovery of asbestos in mulch at sites across Sydney, we took immediate action to prevent further production at the Bringelly facility.
VERR has now followed our directions and safely disposed of existing stockpiles but further mulch production at the site is now subject to stricter regulations.
We have implemented a comprehensive testing regime on VERR to collect 32 discrete samples from individual mulch stockpiles that cannot be moved until results are tested and validated by a National Association of Testing Authorities (NATA) accredited laboratory.
Gilligan said the EPA would also be conducting regular compliance checks at Greenlife Resource Recovery’s facility.
According to the conditions, Greenlife must follow strict methods for taking samples from its mulch stockpiles and report the results of any tests to the EPA within two business days of receiving them.
The discovery of asbestos in mulch in Rozelle triggered the biggest environmental investigation in the state’s history. More than 75 sites across greater Sydney were found to have asbestos-contaminated mulch.
Updated
Victorian police give press conference on family violence
Victoria police’s family violence command assistant commissioner, Lauren Callaway, held a press conference earlier this morning, in the wake of several high-profile alleged murders of women across the nation.
Callaway sought to reassure Victorians the state had a “good system” in the wake of a 2016 royal commission into family violence, which she said other jurisdictions had also learnt from. But she said she understood community concern:
These homicides tend to ask us, is there something more that we can do?
She said disclosure registers, tracking of perpetrators with ankle bracelets and allowing women to carry pepper spray had all been floated in recent days. These measures, she said, would not help in the majority of cases where victims are known to perpetrators:
We need to really remember that the majority of violence committed against women is done by men who are known to women and it’s in places where they’re expected to be safe, like their home. So it’s not that stranger danger element, although that can be part of some cases, but it’s not the majority of cases.
So if we’re looking at people known to us, then we need to think about what are some measures that we can use as police officers to try and strengthen accountability on that perpetrator when they don’t follow the conditions of their intervention order, they don’t follow the conditions of an order that they might be in the community on from a sentence. They’re the sorts of things we need to look at.
Updated
WA targets family violence with $96.4m funding package
Western Australia will spend $96.4m to bolster the safety and support of victim-survivors of family and domestic violence, AAP reports.
The state government funding, to be included in May’s budget, will enable family and domestic violence response team operations to be expanded to seven days a week.
It will also provide 17 additional community corrections officers over four years and a new family and domestic violence one-stop hub in Perth.
The funding will also help establish a dedicated organisation to support and develop family and domestic violence-informed workforces and boost the capacity of existing community-based counselling and advocacy services.
Two emergency accommodation programs for victim-survivors in the Goldfields will be expanded and a men’s behaviour change program in Perth will receive additional funding.
Work will also start on an information hub to inform family and domestic violence risk assessment and a lived experience advisory group to inform policy and service design.
Updated
Police operation under way at University of Sydney law school
NSW police have confirmed a police operation is under way at the University of Sydney law school in Camperdown, in Sydney’s inner west.
Police said in a statement that an exclusion zone is in place and the community is urged to avoid the area.
No further information at this time.
Updated
WA Parks and Wildlife continuing to monitor Dunsborough beaches after stranding event yesterday
The Parks and Wildlife Service of WA has provided an update after a number of pilot whales became stranded near Dunsborough at a Western Australian beach yesterday.
It has received reports of one juvenile pilot whale at Eagle Bay beach and are continuing to monitor its welfare.
Meanwhile, a pod of whales has been located offshore from Eagle Bay and other pods dispersed throughout the Capes area.
Boats and a spotter aircraft continue to monitor and assess any sighting reports and staff are available to respond as required.
They have urged the community to stay away from the beaches and water, and to report any stranded whales to 9752 5555.
Acoss calls for ‘substantial’ lift to jobseeker and youth allowance
The Australian Council of Social Service (Acoss) says the federal government must “substantially lift” the jobseeker and youth allowance benefits in the upcoming budget.
This comes as the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has again called for jobseeker to be raised to 90% of the age pension, which Paul Karp covered earlier in the blog here.
The Acoss CEO, Cassandra Goldie, said the prime minister had promised his government “would not leave anyone behind”, but the “more than one million people” who rely on “deeply inadequate” income supports are “barely surviving”.
People receiving these payments are eating one meal a day, skipping essential medication and foregoing cooling or heating in a desperate bid to keep a roof over their heads.
The Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee’s report shows these people are being left behind, and the social and economic cost of inaction will only grow the longer the government waits.
We urge the government to heed the top recommendation of the [committee] and substantially lift jobseeker and youth allowance so that people can live with dignity.
Updated
Channel Seven settles with man it wrongly identified as Bondi Junction killer
As Amanda Meade reported earlier: Sydney man Benjamin Cohen, who was wrongly named on air by Seven News as the Bondi Junction killer, has reached a confidential settlement with the network.
You can read the full story below:
A Seven Network spokesperson has said in a statement:
As Seven stated earlier, it was a mistake to name Mr Benjamin Cohen as the Bondi Westfield attacker. Seven has apologised to Mr Cohen. The parties have reached a settlement on confidential terms.
Updated
Antipoverty Centre denounces findings of government’s expert panel
The Antipoverty Centre has denounced the key findings from a panel of government poverty experts, stating the panel has “no legitimacy” as “there are no poor people on it”.
As Paul Karp reported earlier, the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has again called for jobseeker unemployment benefits to be raised to 90% of the age pension. You can read the full details earlier in the blog here.
An Antipoverty Centre spokesperson and jobseeker recipient said it was hard to “see the point” of a report that “restates what the government was told last year, knowing that they will yet again ignore it”.
As the government knows, and as the committee itself has said, people directly affected by poverty must be on it. It can have no legitimacy otherwise.
The committee ‘won’ by Senator [David] Pocock is nothing more than window dressing that gives the government an easy way out on its meaningless election commitment to review JobSeeker in every budget.
We are in an undeniable cost of living crisis. People in poverty are the worst affected and least equipped to cope.
The Antipoverty Centre is calling on Labor to immediately increase Centrelink payments to “at least the Henderson poverty line” and work with unemployed people to “develop a sophisticated measure of poverty”.
Updated
Federal budget on track for second successive surplus, fiscal update shows
Figures out today from the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, offer the latest indication the Albanese government is on track to post a second consecutive budget surplus.
The underlying cash balance for the 2023-24 financial year to 31 March 2024 – or three-quarters of the way in – was a deficit of $1.8bn. However, the projection in the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook was for a deficit by this point of about $6bn.
Instead, payments have been $4.8bn shy of what had been expected by now, while receipts have fallen by a smaller $649m than projected.
When the 2023-24 budget was announced last May, it projected a budget deficit of $13.9bn, a shortfall that shrank to $1.1bn by the mid-year update. The latest figures indicate the gap will be closed, and then some, in the final quarter of this fiscal year.
The last key building block for forecasting the budget just landed – the monthly data for March https://t.co/HIwdW1hl3T
— Chris Richardson (@ChrisEconomist) April 26, 2024
On the one hand the budget continues to roar.
Over the last 12 months, the cash underlying surplus was $31.5bn – well up on the $22.1bn in 2022-23 pic.twitter.com/3h5jfWy0JL
However, the independent economist Chris Richardson reckons the surplus has peaked, with spending accelerating 6.4% over the past year. Almost all the extra revenue is coming from personal taxes.
And there will be the $20bn-plus tax cut coming on 1 July and a host of spending increases in the works, not least for defence and the NDIS.
In other words, if a back-to-back budget surplus is declared on 14 May when the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, releases the 2024-25 budget, don’t expect a “three-peat”.
Updated
Smoke may be visible in parts of Sydney during hazard reduction burn
The NSW Rural Fire Service has flagged that smoke may be visible over greater Sydney in the coming days, as hazard reduction burns take place in the Blue Mountains.
The hazard reduction burns are being conducted by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, it said, south of Faulconbridge.
Smoke will be visible locally and may be experienced across Greater Sydney over coming days.
#NPWS has commenced work on the Western Ridge hazard reduction burn, south of Faulconbridge in the Blue Mountains. Smoke will be visible locally and may be experienced across Greater Sydney over coming days. Only report unattended fires to 000. https://t.co/XrE2qbbZzP #RFS pic.twitter.com/k3Vsdo5TQE
— NSW RFS (@NSWRFS) April 26, 2024
Updated
NSW police back state government on bail changes
NSW police will back the state government to stop court registrars from making bail decisions in domestic violence-related cases, AAP reports.
The state government this week announced a formal review of bail laws following the alleged domestic violence murder of Molly Ticehurst. You can read the full story below:
Asked if she would like to see a change where court registrars don’t make decisions on serious matters such as sexual assault or stalking, the police commissioner, Karen Webb, said “certainly”. She told Sydney radio 2GB:
When I saw the attorney’s announcement (about the review), he was clear that one of those suggestions being considered was that a prosecutor or a magistrate consider bail, rather than a registrar.
I support that if that’s where the government lands.
Webb noted that an executive member of the force has been sitting in on a bail monitoring group for many years, and added:
We’ve been lobbying for some time to make amendments to the Bail Act, particularly around protecting women … We’ve got a seat at that table and it’s important that we do.
We’re not obviously the only seat and there’s many moving parts, but certainly we’ve been a member for many years and domestic violence … has been one of my priorities since I started.
I call it one of those silent crimes along with child abuse and sexual abuse.
Updated
Sussan Ley clarifies comments on X and eSafety commissioner
The deputy Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, has clarified earlier comments she made backing the eSafety commissioner, stating it was “patently obvious” Australian laws could not apply internationally.
Yesterday, Ley said she was “disappointed” in the X boss, Elon Musk, and backed the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, “100%” in ordering footage of the Wakeley church stabbing to be removed from social media. She told Sky News at the time:
I’m for X obeying the law, and I’m not for the actions and the statements of our eSafety commissioner being ignored.
Host Peter Stefanovic said: “But he [Musk] argues that’s fine if you want to mute it here, but we should have no rights to be able to tell X what to do in its own country or other countries beyond our borders.”
Ley responded: “That’s patently ridiculous, of course we should.”
She was at odds with the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, who labelled the eSafety commissioner’s demands for a global takedown of the footage as “silly”. You can read the full story below:
This morning, speaking to Sunrise, Ley had seemingly changed her tune and said Australia “can’t be the internet police for the whole world”.
Whether you’re a mum or dad in Uzbekistan, China, New Zealand or the UK, you don’t want to see a live stabbing or your kids to see it. We all support the eSafety commissioner keeping Australians safe online but we recognise that we can’t be the internet police for the whole world.
– with AAP
Updated
Pocock responds to poverty report: ‘We have a social safety net that is not keeping people safe’
The independent senator David Pocock has responded to the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee report (see previous post). He said:
What this expert committee has found is that we have a social safety net that is not keeping people safe. People reliant on income support payments won’t benefit from the tax cuts that the rest of us will receive.
What the Committee is challenging all of us to do is decide what kind of country we want Australia to be.
The government talks a lot about not leaving anyone behind – this report and especially the new Economic Inclusion Framework it proposes – gives them a blueprint to achieve this.
Having our leaders saying we can’t afford to lift people out of poverty while they are still giving 50% capital gains discounts to property investors and refusing to fairly tax companies making multi-billion dollar profits from exploiting our natural resources is unacceptable.
Updated
Jobseeker should be lifted to 90% of pension, government poverty experts say
The Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, the government’s official advisers on the adequacy of income support, has once again called for jobseeker unemployment benefits to be raised to 90% of the age pension.
In its report, released today, it said:
The current rates for the JobSeeker and related working age payments ... are too low. Despite the $40 base rate increase delivered in last year’s federal budget, people receiving these payments told the Committee that they regularly go without life’s essentials because they simply cannot afford them. This is in part the result of unsatisfactory indexation arrangements over many years. Without change to indexation arrangements, the living standards of recipients of these payments will continue to fall – whether measured relative to average or national minimum wages, pensions, or income poverty measures.
The government should at least “commit to a timeframe for the full increases of jobseeker and related payments to be implemented, if increases are to be staged”, it said.
The EIAC also called for:
An increase in commonwealth rent assistance.
Comprehensive employment services reform.
Abolishing the activity test for the childcare subsidy to guarantee all children access to a minimum three days of high quality early childhood education and care.
Earlier in April Guardian Australia exclusively revealed the government will lift early childhood educators’ wages as part of the May budget, but it is unclear whether it will agree to requests to remove the activity test.
Updated
Polling shows Crisafulli ‘very likely to be premier’ after state election, Miles says
The Queensland premier, Steven Miles, says that now the opposition leader, David Crisafulli, is leading the polls, it is time he announced his vision for Queensland.
As was reported earlier, the LNP opposition is on track for election victory in Queensland as support for the incumbent government falls, according to a new poll.
Miles told reporters in Mackay today:
He still has not detailed a single, actual plan for our state.
I know he wants to be a small target. I know he wants to stay as tiny as he can so that Queenslanders don’t know what his plans are.
So you can’t just say you have one, without telling Queenslanders what’s in it, especially when you have the kind of polling results today that say it is more likely, very likely, that he will be the premier come October.
– from AAP
Updated
eSafety commissioner says X must do ‘everything practical and reasonable’ to hide dangerous content
The eSafety commissioner has stood by previous comments when asked about videos of the Wakeley church stabbing that remain on X.
As we reported earlier, social media platform X said overnight it had complied with a notice to remove content relating to the stabbing from its platform. X’s global government affairs account issued a statement saying:
X believes it has complied with the notice issued by eSafety, and with Australian law, by restricting all the posts at issue in Australia.
The notice had referred to specific posts containing video of the stabbing. However, new posts continue to appear. Directly below X’s overnight post was at least one reply featuring the video, which could be viewed in Australia.
We contacted the eSafety commissioner for a response, who referred to its most recent statement:
The removal notice identified specific URLs where the material was located.
The commissioner also referred to another previous statement:
While it may be difficult to eradicate damaging content from the internet entirely, particularly as users continue to repost it, eSafety requires platforms to do everything practical and reasonable to minimise the harm it may cause to Australians and the Australian community.
– with Stephanie Convery
Updated
Hotel detention is lawful, full federal court upholds
The full federal court has upheld an earlier ruling that the use of Alternative Places of Detention (APODs) – immigration detention in hotels – is lawful.
In July, Justice Bernard Murphy said that detention of a refugee in Melbourne hotels for more than 14 months “lacked ordinary human decency” but did not breach federal laws.
Today a full court consisting of justices Rangiah, Anderson and Button dismissed the appeal brought by Mostafa “Moz” Azimitabar, who was detained in two Melbourne hotels.
The judges said the Migration Act “impliedly conferred power on the minister to approve in writing ‘another place’ of immigration detention”.
In the earlier decision, Murphy had said:
I can only wonder of the lack of thought, indeed the lack of care and humanity, in detaining a person with psychiatric and psychological problems in the hotels [for] 14 months. Primarily, in hotel rooms with windows that only opened 10 centimetres and for most of the time, without access to an outdoor area or to breathe fresh air or feel the sun on his face.
Anyone who endured even two weeks of hotel quarantine during the Covid-19 pandemic would surely understand how difficult it must have been. As a matter of ordinary human decency, the applicant should not have been detained for such a period of time in those conditions.
The decision in this case does not turn on the humanity of the applicant’s detention, it is about whether the minister had power under the act to approve hotels as places of immigration detention. The minister had, and has, the power to do so.
Updated
Australia’s tax take increased the most among OECD nations in 2023 – but remains near the bottom
It wasn’t great timing, but the average tax take of Australians (well, single workers) had the biggest increase among the 38 economies that make up the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2023.
With the cost of living increasing, having to fork out more to the taxperson – 2.14 percentage points more, to be precise – didn’t help Australians under the pump. (Canadians managed to pay about the same, or 0.01 percentage points less, as one comparison.)
The Albanese government’s decision not to extend the $1,500 low- and middle-income tax offset was one culprit, with the lack of indexation for tax brackets the other main one. Had the government not let the offset lapse, though, the RBA would have had to lift its interest rates higher to curb inflation, so it’s a bit swings-and-roundabouts.
And for a wider context, Australia ranks 30th out of the 38 OECD members in the tax take.
OECD finds Australia had the largest increase in the % of wages paid as tax in 2023, with a 2.14 percentage point gain. The jump was in part the result of the low- and middle-income tax offset not being extended. Still, among the 38 nations, Australia's 'tax wedge' ranked 30th. pic.twitter.com/pjkSV0wmmz
— @phannam@mastodon.green (@p_hannam) April 25, 2024
But, of course, single workers are only one measure. On the score for benefits, Australia is a bit more middle of the pack. The agency said in its Taxing Wages 2024 report:
Taking into account child related benefits and tax provisions, the employee net average tax rate for an average married worker with two children in Australia was 18.0% in 2023, which is the 13th highest in the OECD, and compares with 14.2% for the OECD average.
Updated
Atlassian co-founder Cannon-Brookes ‘couldn’t be prouder’ as Farquhar announces plans to step down
As Jonathan Barrett reported earlier, the co-CEO of Australian software company Atlassian, Scott Farquhar, will step down from his role at the end of August.
(You can read more about this earlier in the blog here.)
His co-CEO, Mike Cannon-Brookes, has shared a post on social media following the announcement, posting a number of photos and writing:
Mate. Thank you. It’s been one hell of a ride. Couldn’t be prouder.
💙 @scottfarkas 👊🏻 Mate. Thank you. It’s been one hell of a ride. Couldn’t be prouder. https://t.co/tRhassk4wj pic.twitter.com/9aWQKLD5P3
— Mike Cannon-Brookes 👨🏼💻🧢🇦🇺 (@mcannonbrookes) April 25, 2024
Updated
Civil liberties council says Australian citizens on board aid flotilla bound for Gaza
The NSW Council for Civil Liberties (NSWCCL) is urging the federal government to do “everything within their power” to safeguard an aid flotilla en route to Gaza with Australian citizens on board.
The flotilla is expected to depart from Turkey shortly, carrying 5,500 tonnes of humanitarian aid – including food and medical supplies – for Palestinians.
In a statement the NSWCCL said it was aware that international human rights observers would be accompanying volunteers onboard, “including Australian citizens”. It is calling on the government to do “all that they can, both publicly and through diplomatic means”, to ensure the aid flotilla has safe passage:
This includes ensuring, to the fullest extent possible, that it is not intercepted by any foreign States and that their safe passage as a humanitarian convoy is respected …
It is concerning that the death of aid workers, including Australian citizens, has not resulted in any meaningful action being undertaken on behalf of the Australian government.
The council’s president, Lydia Shelly, said the aid flotilla represented “a failure of the international community, including Australia, in ensuring that innocent men, women and children do not continue to be killed, injured, starved and displaced in Palestine.”
Updated
Body found floating in water at Pyrmont wharf
The body of a man has been found floating in the water at Pyrmont this morning, NSW police have confirmed.
Emergency services responded to the reports about 7.30am, attending the scene at Pirrama wharf.
Police officers recovered the body of a man believed to be in his 50s. He is yet to be formally identified.
An investigation into the circumstances surrounding the man’s death has commenced.
Updated
Peak Muslim bodies deny they were consulted by police in lead up to anti-terror raids
Peak Muslim bodies have denied they were consulted by policing bodies in the lead up to the recent anti-terror raids.
At a joint press conference this morning, the Australian National Imams Council, the Alliance of Australian Muslims and the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network criticised law enforcement agencies for their handling of the investigation into associates of a teenager who allegedly stabbed a bishop at a church last week.
They called for a revision of anti-terrorism laws to “eliminate” the classification of religiously motivated terrorism, saying the language used doesn’t “reflect the complexity of these acts” and targets “specific communities”.
A spokesperson for ANIC, Ramia Abdo Sultan, said:
Despite reports to the contrary, there was no consultation with the community prior to these operations. The lack of evidence pointing to a concrete threat or plan among these youths, as noted by senior police officials, calls into question both the necessity and the manner of these operations. This lack of transparency exacerbates the distress within our community.
Peak bodies of the Australian Muslim Community have spoken out against law enforcement bodies and the government in light of anti-terror raids this week. pic.twitter.com/T0sltnsRZ3
— Mostafa Rachwani (@Rachwani91) April 25, 2024
The group demanded that the law enforcement agencies and the government commit to an “immediate and thorough” investigation into the processes behind the raid. Sultan said:
There must be a commitment to meaningful engagement regarding this process with the community and to avoid sensationalism that can cause undue panic and a breakdown in social cohesion.
Updated
Bushland search begins for missing woman Jessica Zrinski
Homicide detectives have begun a three-day bushland search after the disappearance of Jessica Zrinski.
The search will take place in the NSW central tablelands region in the Jenolan state forest, police said in a statement.
Zrinski, 30, was last seen in the Bossley Park area of Sydney about 10pm on 27 November 2022. Police were alerted on 3 December when family members could not locate or contact her.
Local officers made extensive inquiries at the time before detectives with the state crime command’s homicide squad took carriage of the investigation.
Inquiries revealed she was in the car park of a hotel on Mimosa Road at Greenfield Park about 10pm on 28 November 2022, before leaving in a blue Holden Commodore station wagon about 10 minutes later.
That same vehicle is believed to have travelled west on the M4 motorway and Great Western Highway towards the Blue Mountains.
Investigators have today launched a land search in the Jenolan state forest, about 13km north of Jenolan Caves. The search is expected to continue for three days with assistance from the dog squad, rescue and bomb disposal unit, and other volunteers.
Updated
Atlassian’s billionaire co-CEO to step down
Scott Farquhar, the joint chief executive of Australian software company Atlassian, will step down from the role at the end of August to spend time with his young family and focus on philanthropy, the company told shareholders.
Farquhar’s co-CEO, Mike Cannon-Brookes, will lead the company, which is one of the most successful tech firms to have ever emerged from Australia, turning its co-founders into multibillionaires.
The two co-founders are among the most high-profile advocates of clean energy and emissions reduction in the Australian business community. The company said in a statement to shareholders overnight:
Scott steps away to spend more time with his young family, improve the world via philanthropy, and help further the technology industry globally.
Atlassian is listed in the US. Farquhar will remain on the Atlassian board.
Updated
More than a dozen rallies this weekend calling for end to gender-based violence
More than a dozen rallies will be held across Australia this weekend calling for an end to gender-based violence.
Organised by advocacy group What Were You Wearing, the first rallies will be held in Ballarat and Newcastle today.
Tomorrow rallies will be held in Sydney and Adelaide, and on Sunday, rallies will take place across the country in Melbourne, Bendigo, Geelong, Coffs Harbour, Wagga Wagga, Orange, Perth, the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, Brisbane and Canberra.
The WWYW founder, Sarah Williams, spoke to ABC News Breakfast earlier this morning and said:
I didn’t expect when I started organising the rallies that so many people from everywhere over Australia would be, not only angry, but wanting to stand together in solidarity to really see an end to this … I think there is no better time than now to really put some pressure on change-makers to make some change.
The group has five demands, including for the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to declare violence against women a national emergency. It is also calling for more funding for domestic, family and sexual violence support services.
Updated
LNP extends lead in Queensland, according to latest YouGov polling
The Liberal National party opposition is on track for election victory in Queensland as support for the incumbent government falls, AAP reports.
YouGov polling shows two-party preferred support for the LNP opposition is up 2% to 56%, from the previous poll in October. This compares to 44% for the government, after 1,092 voters were surveyed between 9 April and 17 April.
The opposition has also increased its primary vote to 44%, compared with 27% for the Miles government, the poll published by the Courier-Mail today shows.
That represents a decline of six percentage points in Labor’s primary vote since October and a nearly 13% drop-off since Labor’s 2020 election win under the former premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.
Current projections point to the LNP comfortably winning more than the 13 seats required to form a majority government, when the election is held on 26 October.
The LNP under leader David Crisafulli has already netted an extra seat this year after an enormous swing towards the party in two by-elections in March.
The Queensland Greens and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation have also increased their primary vote by two percentage points each to 15% and 10%, respectively, the YouGov polling showed.
Updated
Teenager charged after alleged stabbing at Melbourne shopping centre
A 17-year-old boy has been charged after an alleged stabbing at a shopping centre in Melbourne yesterday.
A statement from Victoria police alleges that six males were fighting near a cinema inside a Maribyrnong shopping centre before spilling out to the restaurant area around 6.10pm last night.
Two of the males were allegedly armed with machetes, and an 18-year-old St Albans man was taken to hospital with a suspected stab wound to the arm.
An 18-year-old Sunshine North man, 17-year-old Braybrook boy and 18-year-old Deer Park man were arrested at the scene.
The Sunshine North man was released pending further enquiries, and the Deer Park man was released with intent to summons.
The Braybrook boy has been charged with intentionally causing injury, affray, assault with a weapon, and possessing a control weapon. He has been bailed to a children’s court at a later date.
Police believe the parties were known to one another.
Investigators are appealing to the public for any information to identify the two other males involved in the incident. Anyone with information can contact Crime Stoppers.
Updated
Operation to rescue pilot whales stranded on WA beach wraps up
An operation to save more than 150 pilot whales that had stranded on a Western Australian beach has wrapped up, with a majority returned to the ocean.
The Parks and Wildlife Service of WA confirmed 28 long-finned pilot whales died after stranding at Toby Inlet, near Dunsborough, yesterday:
As of yesterday afternoon dozens of stranded whales had been returned to the ocean and had not been sighted by a spotter plane, with officials “hopeful that the pod will not return to the shallower water”.
Four pods had spread across roughly 500 metres, with officials rushing to the scene to coordinate a rescue response alongside the community. Parks and Wildlife yesterday said:
Scientists and veterinarians are continuing to collect samples and data from the whales before the final whales are removed from the beach. This data will hopefully help scientists understand more about the species and their behaviour.
Last night, SharksWA confirmed all whale carcasses had been removed from the beach. People should remain cautious of sharks in the area, it said.
Updated
Dutton says Australia shouldn’t ‘dictate’ what content other countries can view on social media
Peter Dutton has defended X’s ability to keep a video of the Wakeley church stabbing on its platform globally despite requests from the eSafety commissioner to take it down, stating Australia can’t “dictate” what other countries do.
But Dutton supports the content being taken down in Australia, he told the Today show:
I’d love to say that it could be taken down so that no kid across the world could watch it, [and] we strongly support the commissioner’s position in relation to taking it down so that Australians can’t view it. But we can’t pretend that Australia can dictate to other countries around the world what people see within their countries …
So I just think we need to be realistic about what the options are here. We can’t police the whole internet across the world, but we can influence what happens in Australian society.
This is similar to comments he made yesterday:
The NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, was also on the program and denied Australia was “trying to control the internet globally”.
We’re not trying to do that, but this violent filth shouldn’t be accessible.
Shorten said to the X boss, Elon Musk: “You may run your company, but you don’t run Australia and our laws [and] if we want you to take it down, we expect you to respect that.”
Updated
Video of Wakeley stabbing available under X post where it says content has been removed
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 United Australia party senator Ralph Babet previously came under fire from his parliamentary colleagues for sharing the video of the church stabbing, which also remains on his X account at the time of posting.
Updated
X says it has complied with eSafety notice, wants content to remain online
Social media platform X says it believes it has complied with a notice issued by Australia’s eSafety commissioner to remove content relating to the Wakeley church stabbing.
In a post by the platform’s global government affairs team overnight, X said it wanted to provide an update on the legal challenges in Australia:
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.
X’s legal challenge is focused on “two key issues”, it said. The first is that the platform does not believe posts should have been banned in Australia “at all”.
The content within the posts does not encourage or provoke violence and fits within the Australian legislation’s category that permits content that can be reasonably considered as part of public discussion or debate.
Secondly, X said it opposed any attempt for a global takedown of content because “we believe that no government should possess such authority”.
X believes in respecting the right of a country to enforce its laws within its jurisdiction, and also believes that Governments should not be able to censor what citizens of other countries see online, and that regulators should stay within the boundaries of the law. We believe these principles are important to defend and we will continue to do so.
To catch up on the latest regarding X/Elon Musk v Australia’s online safety regulator, Josh Taylor explains below:
Updated
Dutton says there is bipartisan support to do ‘whatever we humanly can’ to address violence against women
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, says there is “bipartisan support to do whatever we humanly can” to address violence against women.
Speaking on the Today show, he commented on recent alleged domestic violence deaths across the country and said:
There’s no lack of bipartisanship support – every level of government wants to come together to do everything we can. There’s record amounts of money being put in each year.
The NSW government is talking about bail laws at the moment, which I think is part of it, to keep [alleged] offenders away from committing very violent acts, but there’s so much more before that has to happen as well. And there are lessons from royal commissions that haven’t been learned …
There’s bipartisan support to do whatever we humanly can to resolve the issue. But as you say, society is failing at the moment.
Updated
Man and baby found after going missing in Sydney national park
The man and baby who went missing in in Sydney’s south overnight have been located safe and well, NSW police have confirmed.
Ben Cullen, aged 39, and Roam Cullen, aged 3 months, had last been seen on Sir Bertram Stevens Drive, Royal National Park, about 8.15pm last night.
When they failed to return home and could not be found or contacted, officers were notified and began inquiries into their whereabouts.
Following inquiries and an appeal for assistance, they returned home about 6.30am this morning, police said.
Updated
Good morning
And happy Friday – welcome back to the Australia news live blog, and many thanks to Martin for kicking things off. I’m Emily Wind, and I’ll be taking you through our rolling coverage today.
See something that needs attention? You can get in touch via X, @emilywindwrites, or send me an email: emily.wind@theguardian.com.
Let’s get into it.
Crown Melbourne has undertaken ‘significant work to transform itself’, gaming minister says
Continuing from our last post: A Victorian royal commission in 2021 found Crown Resorts unfit to run its Southbank premises after concluding its conduct was “illegal, dishonest, unethical and exploitative”.
But it did not lose its licence to operate. Instead, commissioner Ray Finkelstein recommended Crown be given two years to reform itself under a government-appointed special manager.
Private equity giant Blackstone has since bought Crown’s three casinos in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth.
The minister for gaming, Melissa Horne, says:
The VGCCC and the Special Manager have noted that Crown Melbourne has undertaken significant work to transform itself – and its transformation efforts must continue.
This isn’t set and forget – we’re further enhancing the VGCCC’s powers to ensure what happened in the past at Crown Melbourne can never happen again.
Updated
Victorian government to strengthen powers of state gambling watchdog
The Victorian government is set to introduce new laws to ensure Crown Resorts continues to run Melbourne’s only casino to the highest standards.
The minister for gaming, Melissa Horne, has announced she will be working on legislation to strengthen the powers of the state gambling watchdog, the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission (VGCCC).
It comes after the VGCCC last month ruled Crown could keep its licence to run the Melbourne casino, saying it had made a “significant turnaround” from past illegal behaviour.
As part of the arrangement, Crown will be required to continue implementing its transformation plan under a direction from the watchdog.
Horne says the government’s legislation will include increasing penalties if Crown does not comply with the VGCCC’s statutory direction to implement its plan.
It will also allow the VGCCC to issue penalties to Crown’s “close associates” if they breach the legislation that governs casino operations in Victoria – the Casino Control Act 1991.
Updated
Hundreds to gather in Marsden Park to farewell Faraz Tahir
A family has reunited in their grief as they prepare to farewell the security guard Faraz Tahir who sacrificed his life in facing a killer, AAP reports.
Hundreds of mourners are expected to gather today at a Marsden Park mosque in Sydney’s north-west in honour of the man described as a national hero. Tahir was one of the six victims killed at Westfield Bondi Junction on 13 April in a mass stabbing rampage.
A prayer service organised by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community will be open to the public to pay their respects at the Masjid Baitul Huda.
Three of Tahir’s brothers, an uncle and a nephew visited the mosque yesterday in preparation for his funeral. The eldest, Muzafar Ahmad Tahir, said his brother was a brave man who showed strength from a very young age.
The head of the family said he believed Tahir would be safe in his new home in Australia.
Tahir had fled persecution in Pakistan before arriving in Australia in 2022, intending the country to be his final home.
Man and baby missing in Sydney national park
A man and a baby are missing in a national park in Sydney’s south, NSW police say.
Ben Cullen, aged 39, and Roam Cullen, aged 3 months, were last seen on Sir Bertram Stevens Drive, Royal National Park, about 8.15pm yesterday.
When they failed to return home and could not be located or contacted, Sutherland shire police area command began inquiries.
Police and family hold serious concerns for both Ben and Roam’s welfare as this is out of character, police said in a statement, urging the public to contact police or Crime Stoppers with any information.
Ben is described as being of Caucasian appearance, 177cm tall, medium build, with short brown hair and blue eyes.
He was last seen wearing a navy-blue shirt and black pants.
Updated
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our rolling news blog. I’m Martin Farrer bringing you the best overnight stories before my colleague Emily Wind takes over.
Our top Australian story today is that Westfield security guards in Victoria have claimed that their requests for more protection were not acted on in the months before the mass stabbing at Bondi Junction.
Sydney’s Imams Council is expected to hold a press conference in Lakemba this morning to discuss the Wakeley terror incident. Seven teenagers were arrested on Wednesday in counter-terrorism raids after they were linked to the teenager accused of the alleged attack on an Assyrian bishop in his church in Wakeley 11 days ago. A 14-year-old boy was among five teenagers charged with a range of terrorism offences after the police raids.
Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners are expected to gather today at a Marsden Park mosque in Sydney’s north-west to farewell security guard Faraz Tahir, who died in the mass stabbing at Westfield Bondi Junction on 13 April. More on that soon.
The Australian son of a 68-year-old Palestinian woman with ill health has expressed his “shock and surprise” after her temporary visa was cancelled on the grounds that she poses a risk to Australia’s national security. Fatma Almassri, whose 27 children and grandchildren live in Australia, was given a visitor visa in November but it was cancelled last week.
And police are searching for a man and a baby who have gone missing in Sydney’s south – more on that soon.
