What we learned, Thursday 22 September
That’s where we’ll leave you this public holiday evening. Here’s your day’s recap:
About 600 Australians, including politicians, dignitaries and special guests, attended the national memorial in honour of Queen Elizabeth II today. Federal parliament will reconvene on Friday, a rarity, with the whole day devoted to speeches of condolence for the monarch.
Anti-monarchy protests took place across the country, with federal Greens senator Lidia Thorpe addressing the demonstration in Melbourne.
Optus suffered a massive cyber-attack, with the personal information of customers stolen, including names, dates of birth, addresses, and contact details. The telco suffered the data breach when hackers, believed to be working for a criminal or state-sponsored organisation, accessed the sensitive information by breaking through the company’s firewall.
Australia has been asked for more armoured vehicles by Ukraine, and Penny Wong has condemned Russian president Vladimir Putin’s threats to use “all means” at his disposal in the war against Ukraine.
Wild weather has wracked NSW and is heading into the Northern Rivers region this evening, with warnings current for heavy rainfall in many areas and the risk of flash flooding in parts of the state already hit repeatedly by floods this year.
Flights in and out of Sydney were thrown into chaos by the wind and rain this morning, with more than 40 cancelled.
And nearly 200 stranded pilot whales have died on Tasmania’s west coast, but rescuers successfully returned 32 animals to deeper water on Thursday.
Until tomorrow, look after yourselves.
Updated
‘Art is meant to be reactionary’
The artist who painted a mural of the late Queen Elizabeth in Sydney has responded after it was painted over with the colours of the Aboriginal flag, AAP reports.
As anti-monarchy rallies took place across the country on Thursday, the street art in Sydney’s inner west was covered up with black, red and yellow spray paint.
The mural artist, Stuart Sale, says he has no intention of painting over it. He told AAP:
It belongs to the streets now, art is meant to be reactionary. Now it’s been turned into something new and that’s the nature of street art.
Sale, who has painted murals of a number of significant figures including Shane Warne and George Floyd, said he wasn’t thinking about the monarchy when he produced the piece of the Queen in Marrickville.
I just felt it was quite a big thing that happened in the world and I wanted to document it. I don’t really have an opinion on the Queen.
Updated
