What we learned today, Wednesday 5 July
That’s where we’ll leave the blog for today – thanks so much for joining us. Here is a wrap of the day’s biggest stories:
The prime minister Anthony Albanese says it is “unacceptable” for Hong Kong authorities to place bounties on two democracy advocates based in Australia, and says he is disappointed at the move.
The minister for water, Tanya Plibersek, has requested an assessment of the Murray-Darling Basin water recovery plan – which was set to be completed by next June.
A magistrate has berated prosecutors for allowing the police officer accused of Tasering a 95-year-old grandmother not to appear in person before court.
The United Nation’s weather agency has declared that the world is now in an El Niño.
An interim report by the ACCC, the consumer watchdog, found childcare centres had raised fees between 20% and 32% from 2018 to 2022 – dramatically outpacing inflation.
In a speech at the National Press Club, the Indigenous affairs minister Linda Burney, cautioned Australians against becoming “polarised” by the no campaign “making false claims”.
A bus driver and a passenger are in a stable condition in hospital after a bus carrying more than 10 people crashed through two houses on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula after it was hit by a cement truck.
A court has heard Seven Network chair Kerry Stokes’s private company, ACE, stood to benefit financially if Ben Roberts-Smith won his war crimes defamation trial, in line to claim 15% of any damages the former soldier was awarded.
Mining company gets ‘slap on the wrist’ for water theft
A major petroleum and coal mining company has been spared prosecution for unlawfully using hundreds of millions of litres of water from a river in rural NSW during one of the worst droughts in the state’s history, AAP reports.
Japanese energy giant Idemitsu was found to be unlawfully collecting and using the water at its Boggabri coalmine in north-eastern NSW following an investigation by the state’s water regulator.
Anti-mining collective Lock the Gate Alliance alerted the Natural Resources Access Regulator of the violation in 2021, saying the water should have been diverted around the mine into the local creek system.
The regulator confirmed Idemitsu had acted unlawfully but said the parties settled to an enforceable undertaking negotiated with the company itself.
The regulator on Wednesday confirmed the terms of the undertaking, including an agreement to pay $54,000 in compensation.
Other terms include $15,000 to cover the regulator’s investigation costs and quarterly surface water reporting until 2027 and consultation with the local Indigenous community about the impact of past water take.
Boggabri farmer Sally Hunter, whose family endured significant hardship during the drought, said the decision not to prosecute was totally unacceptable.
She said the “slap on the wrist” response only encouraged coal mining companies to commit serious environmental crimes without the risk of serious penalty.
Updated
