What we learned today, Wednesday 1 October
That’s where we’ll leave the blog for today. I hope you have a great evening. We’ll be back tomorrow with more news. Until then, here were today’s top stories:
Victoria police were in the Benalla area as part of a planned operation in their month-long search for fugitive Desmond Freeman.
The government’s new 5% deposit scheme for first home buyers came into effect, with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, saying the scheme was about young people “realising dream of home ownership”.
Rio Tinto, the co-owner of Queensland’s biggest coal-fired power station in Gladstone said it could close the plant in March 2029 – six years earlier than expected.
The AFL scrapped the centre bounce – something umpires had been calling for – and removed the substitute rule under significant changes to be introduced for the 2026 season.
Officials said they had found a footprint in the search for four-year-old Gus, providing a small glimmer of hope in the search for the South Australian preschooler on an outback homestead.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said he would meet with the boss of BHP amid a shock report that the world’s largest mining company faces a Chinese blockade on its iron ore shipments.
Pro-Palestine activists were planning snap rallies around the country to throw their support behind the Global Sumud Flotilla and call for it to be granted safe passage into Gaza as it prepares to enter the “high risk zone” with Australians on board.
The Communication Workers Union hit back strongly after the boss of Optus’s parent company, Singtel, blamed staff and technology for the triple-zero outage that resulted in at least three deaths. (A fourth death – an infant in SA – was found to have been likely unrelated to the incident.)
Samantha Lee, a supervising solicitor at the Redfern Legal Centre, called for legislative change after a landmark strip-search case finding was handed down yesterday. Justice Dina Yehia awarded $93,000 to a woman who was illegally strip-searched by NSW police at the Splendour in the Grass music festival in 2018.
And Nicole Kidman filed for divorce from Keith Urban after 19 years of marriage, Associated Press reported.
Updated
Northern Territory set to approve voluntary assisted dying, bringing it in line with all other Australian jurisdictions
The Northern Territory, the only jurisdiction in Australia not to allow voluntary assisted dying, is set to approve it after a parliamentary committee ruled in favour of reinstating laws struck down 30 years ago, AAP reports.
The NT became the first Australian jurisdiction to make voluntary euthanasia legal in 1995, but the laws were quickly overturned by the Howard government.
All six states and the ACT have since passed their own laws allowing it.
The acting NT chief minister, Gerard Maley, said a legal and constitutional affairs committee report and proposed drafting instructions would be tabled on the next sitting day for debate.
In a statement today, Maley said:
The attorney-general will now progress drafting of voluntary assisted dying legislation to bring to the legislative assembly.
The broadcaster and media personality Andrew Denton, a longtime campaigner for VAD, said the original 1995 legislation was a “remarkable first” for the NT and he welcomed the proposed new laws.
Denton told ABC Radio in Darwin:
I had someone I loved who died badly. That was my dad, Kim.
He said his father was in hospital with congestive heart failure and other conditions and the staff did their best, but:
For three days it was horrible to watch and it traumatised us.
Updated
