What we learned, Monday 4 August
And with that, we are going to put the blog to bed. Before we go, let’s recap the big headlines:
The NSW State Emergency Service (SES) issued flood watch warnings for large parts of Newcastle and the lower Hunter region. The alerts come amid evacuations overnight in Gunnedah in the New England region.
The federal government will provide $20m in aid for organisations to deliver food and medical supplies into Gaza. The aid announcement followed mass protests in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide on Sunday, with thousands of demonstrators, including state and federal Labor MPs marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Anthony Albanese is also seeking a call with Benjamin Netanyahu as soon as possible. Bob Carr says the prime minister would be “wasting his breath” if he mentioned a two-state solution on the call.
Labor MP Ed Husic said more and more Australians had grown concerned about the impact of Israel’s war against Hamas on civilian populations.
Tasmania police will continue searching for a small plane that went missing en route from the state’s north to NSW on Saturday.
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said he does not regret voicing his opposition to the Sydney Harbour Bridge protest but said he respected Australians’ right to protest.
While Susan Ley expressed concern about Sydney being thrown “into chaos for hours” and mused about people accessing emergency services, with the additional police deployed to monitor the event.
Anthony Albanese appointed Krissy Barrett as the new commissioner of the Australian Federal Police. It’s a historic appointment, which will see Barrett become the first woman to lead the agency.
A Chinese national has been charged with alleged foreign interference by the Australian Federal Police. In a statement, the AFP say the woman has been accused of covertly collecting information about a Canberra Buddhist association on behalf of a public security bureau of China.
Thank you for spending part of your day with us. We will be back tomorrow to do it all again.
Updated
All Brisbane domestic airport passengers forced to re-screen at security after metal detector fault
Passengers in Brisbane airport are all having to be re-screened by security after a fault with a metal detector, the airport has said:
Due to a technical fault with a single metal detector at Brisbane Airport’s Domestic Terminal, all people within the terminal are being re-screened.
The fault was quickly identified and there is no safety or security threat.
However, it will take some time to rescreen all passengers and staff, delaying flights.
We apologise for the inconvenience and thank passengers for their patience and understanding.
Our care team has been activated and is on the ground to support passengers.
There is no impact to the International Terminal.
Updated
