What we learned today, Friday 17 July
And that’s a wrap on our live coverage for today.
Before we go, let’s recap today’s top headlines:
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Telstra’s bosses were grilled during a parliamentary inquiry over a nationwide outage that affected triple zero calls and businesses, disrupted payment systems and stopped trains in two states.
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The Laos ambassador has been called in by the Australian government after a decision not to pursue the most serious charges against those responsible for the fatal methanol poisoning of two Australian travellers.
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Police have arrested a 58-year-old New South Wales woman as part of investigations into the movements of Desmond “Dezi” Freeman.
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One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s interview with fringe far-right figure Tommy Robinson has been posted online. Several political figures, including those in her party, have condemned the comments made during the podcast appearance.
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Australia is experiencing an “explosion” in illegal cigarettes, despite fresh data revealing the nation’s smoking rate has fallen to historic lows.
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Monash University professor David Slucki has told the antisemitism royal commission that current university policies on antisemitism are “pretty adequate” and “you don’t legislate your way out of social discord”.
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The city of Sydney council is investigating whether Divine Playhouse could operate in another building after the queer-inclusive pop-up was forced to close following protests from religious groups.
Thanks for joining us.
‘Darling, I don’t care’: Barnaby Joyce defends Pauline Hanson’s attendance at Dolce & Gabbana show in Sicily
Pauline Hanson has fitted some high fashion into her European sojourn, having attended a Dolce & Gabbana fashion show in Sicily, Italy, this week.
In a photo shared to Instagram, the One Nation leader is seen wearing a $700 (reduced to $229) Anthea Crawford gown to the event, also attended by Gina Rinehart, Norwegian football star Erling Haaland and actor Jennifer Lopez, according to photos shared to social media.
Speaking to the Today show, the One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce defended Hanson’s trip and conceded that billionaire Rinehart had likely sponsored her tour.
It’s a holiday, isn’t it? I don’t care if its Dolce & Gabbana or Prada. As long as you’re paying for it, darling, I don’t care. I would say it would be a fair bet that Gina supported it somehow … It’s her money.
While in Europe, Hanson also visited the UK, where she recorded an interview with far-right British activist Tommy Robinson.
Read more:
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AI credit added to Josh Fawaz’s Like A Prayer cover on Spotify
One of the most popular songs on the Australian charts has quietly had its credits changed to acknowledge the use of generative AI in its creation following widespread speculation.
Josh Fawaz’s cover of Madonna’s Like A Prayer has had an AI credit added on Spotify three months after its release, and one week after multiple musicians and AI experts pointed out the song showed hallmarks of AI music generators like Suno.
The song’s credits on Spotify, where it has been streamed 38m times, now confirm that generative AI created the vocals and the drums.
However, the credits for Like a Prayer have not been updated on every streaming service. On Apple, the credits for all his tracks list only Fawaz as the “performer” and his uncle Fadi Fawaz, George Michael’s former partner, on synths and production.
Fawaz has so far not responded to requests for comment from media outlets, but he has acknowledged using AI in the past, writing on an Instagram post that criticised his music:
I use AI as a tool. What I care about [is] providing my listeners with good music.
Fawaz has gone from a little-known artist to viral sensation in a matter of months with his dance covers of other artists’ hits.
Like a Prayer reached No 1 on Australia’s Radio Monitor Hot 100 in June, meaning it was the most-played song on Australian radio that week. It is now at No. 2 on the Official Independent Singles Breakers chart in the UK, having previously reached the top spot.
Earlier this week, Spotify announced it had removed 75m low-effort, “spammy tracks” from its database in 12 months.
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NSW woman arrested over movements of Dezi Freeman
Police have arrested a 58-year-old New South Wales woman as part of investigations into the movements of Desmond “Dezi” Freeman.
Freeman, a 56‑year‑old self‑described “sovereign citizen” who killed two police officers and injured another in the Victorian town of Porepunkah in August, was shot dead by police.
On Friday afternoon, Victoria police said detectives would question the woman. No further details have been released, as the investigation remains ongoing.
Read more here:
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Queensland’s new outback youth jails are akin to ‘boot camps’, parliamentary inquiry hears
A parliamentary inquiry has heard Queensland’s new “circuit breaker” sentencing legislation for youth criminals is similar to the decade-old “boot camp” scheme developed under Campbell Newman.
The draft legislation gives judges the power to sentence children to one of two facilities to be established in rural or remote settings, rather than to an ordinary juvenile prison. They can do so either as a bail condition before conviction or as a sentence. The intention is to remove the child from “negative peer influences and environments that enable offending behaviour” in order to further their bail condition while offering “hands-on learning”.
The facilities will be funded by the state but operated by a non-government service provider.
Multiple submissions to the parliamentary inquiry compared the program to the youth boot camps established under the former premier Newman, by attorney-general Jarrod Bleijie, now the state’s deputy premier. A series of reviews of that program found it did not offer value for money and was ineffective, partly because children would return home to the same criminogenic environment. It was eliminated by the former Labor government in 2015.
The director general of the youth justice department, Michael Drane, said the new model was different, with a “broadened eligibility criteria” and longer sentences, typically three to six months, among other changes. It will also operate at an “increased scale,” he said.
The Youth Advocacy Centre CEO, Katherine Hayes, told the inquiry there were similarities between the two models, but the new one didn’t include the most effective elements of the Newman-era scheme. She said:
The previous bootcamp iteration found that the community integration phase in the previous model gave the highest prospect of success to participants, whereas in the circuit breaker model there is no community integration phase, which is unfortunate because that’s the phase that really helps the young people on a positive trajectory.
The $80m cost of the scheme would be better spent addressing criminogenic factors like housing pressures, domestic violence and mental health issues, she said.
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Baby humpback whale dies after stranding on Sydney beach
A humpback whale calf has died after becoming stranded on Greenhills beach in Cronulla, according to the Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (ORRCA).
Responders were deployed early Friday morning after a member of the public reported the stranded whale to ORRCA’s rescue hotline about 6.30am.
Despite efforts to save the 4.5‑metre‑long calf, it died shortly after responders arrived.
It remains unknown why the whale became stranded, with ORRCA saying it is too early to determine what led to the incident.
As part of standard biosecurity procedures, samples have been collected for H5N1 avian influenza testing. At this stage, it is not yet known whether a full necropsy will be undertaken.
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Mehreen Faruqi slams Hanson’s ‘disgraceful racism’ after Tommy Robinson podcast interview
The acting Greens leader, Mehreen Faruqi, has accused Pauline Hanson of “dog-whistling and scapegoating migrants and Muslims” during her interview with far-right UK activist Tommy Robinson.
Speaking on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, Faruqi – who is herself a Muslim and an immigrant – said the comments were “scary stuff”.
That is the lowest you can go, and that is disgusting and disgraceful. This sit-down interview she did with a convicted criminal, a professional anti- migrant, anti-Muslim hatemonger and a white supremacist is … the latest in a decades-long career of hate messaging from Pauline Hanson.
Harking back to a white Australia and piling on racism on migrants and Muslims does have real-world consequences and harm for people in this community, and we should call it for what it is.
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Assistant treasurer condemns Pauline Hanson’s comments on far-right podcast
Assistant treasurer Daniel Mulino has criticised Pauline Hanson over remarks she made during an appearance on a podcast hosted by far-right UK activist Tommy Robinson, saying the One Nation leader “needs to explain herself” for her “ludicrous statement”.
Hanson, who is visiting the UK for conference appearances and a holiday with billionaire benefactor Gina Rinehart, used the interview to repeat unsubstantiated claims about the spread of sharia law and accuse Muslim communities, without evidence, of rorting the national disability insurance scheme.
Speaking on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, Mulino said:
At the very least, what Pauline Hanson has been doing in this interview is throwing around, far too casually, very divisive comments where she has singled out people of a particular faith group, and that kind of behaviour is not appropriate in modern Australian public life.
What she’s also done is made statements with no factual backing, no evidence sitting beside them. She really needs to substantiate what she is saying and, frankly, she has to come up with a fulsome explanation about how it can be justified to make such divisive, inappropriate comments.
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University regulator says multiple students were required to provide funeral notices for special consideration
The Ceo of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Teqsa), Dr Mary Russell, has told the royal commission there was a “pervasive” lack of trauma informed responses to student grievances at universities.
On Thursday, the commission heard an Australian National University student whose relatives were allegedly killed by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza was asked to provide their death certificates to get an exam extension.
Russell pointed to another student who had a family member directly impacted by 7 October 2023 who had to provide evidence to seek an academic adjustment.
Russell told the commission that after 7 October 2023, Teqsa experienced an increase in students and providers expressing concern about student safety and wellbeing.
She said the pro-Palestine encampments were “initially generally respectful and peaceful, but over time strayed into more antisemitic activity”, pointing to the use of offensive slogans and signs.
Russell said there were multiple instances of students seeking adjustments that were required to provide funeral notices and said the lack of trauma informed approaches was “so significant and important and so pervasive that we’ve developed a statement of regulatory expectations”.
Former NSW Fire and Rescue commissioner calls for Singleton coalmine expansion to be scrapped
Friday’s hearing before the NSW Independent Planning Commission is the second of three public hearings considering a broad range of submissions about the Hunter Valley Operations continuation project, the state’s largest proposed coal development.
The first hearing on Thursday heard from mine workers concerned about the mine’s potential closure as well as members of communities from around the state who told the commission about the ways climate change had already affected their lives, from fires and floods that had destroyed homes and businesses to health concerns.
Friday’s hearings have been more technical with the commission hearing evidence from experts.
Greg Mullins, a former commissioner of Fire and Rescue NSW and member of Emergency Leaders for Climate Action told the hearing on Friday afternoon the government’s highest duty was “to keep its citizens safe” and called for the project to be rejected:
The illusory and short-term benefits of approving this extension will help a small number, but will eventually harm everybody, particularly those who have no voice, those who have not yet been born.
This is too high a price to pay for an industry that is in terminal decline.
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Academic boards pushed back against universities adopting IHRA definition of antisemitism, royal commission hears
Chair of the Group of Eight’s expert advisory committee on combatting antisemitism, Dr Alan Finkel says that academic boards pushed back against adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism lest it reduce academic freedom.
Australian universities will be required to adopt definitions on antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from next year, under a legally enforceable standard designed to stamp out discrimination on campuses.
Appearing before the royal commission, Finkel was asked why he felt the Universities Australia definition of antisemitism, which states criticism of the Israeli government is not necessarily antisemitic but could be if it was ground in “harmful tropes, stereotypes or assumptions”, should be adopted sector-wide. He said academic boards were “reluctant to accept” the IHRA definition.
The IHRA definition is contentious because of concerns it could be used to shut down criticism of the state of Israel.
Finkel said there was “a lot of concern” that the IHRA definition would “reduce freedom of expression and academic freedom” and the Universities Australia definition was “easier … to operationalise”.
They needed something that would be suitable for the university environment. It’s a coherent definition. It’s not calling out to other descriptors. It’s not calling out examples. It’s a very, very clear statement of what antisemitism is. Nothing’s perfect, but it is pretty clear.
Ex-chief scientist: Singleton coalmine expansion would make meeting NSW emissions target ‘51% more difficult’ in 2030
Continuing with former Australian chief scientist Penny Sackett’s evidence to the NSW Independent Planning Commission, Sackett told the hearing NSW was already on track to overshoot its legislated 2030 and 2035 emissions reduction targets by about 7.5Mt.
She said the direct – or scope 1 – emissions from the proposed extension of the Hunter Valley Operations mine in Singleton “would make meeting New South Wales’ target 51% more difficult in 2030 and 68% more difficult in 2035” by adding a further 4Mt of emissions to the projected overshoot – increasing the need to make up for the emissions elsewhere in the economy.
Sackett said also the project’s total emissions would negate the climate benefits of meeting Australia’s national targets out to 2035.
She told the hearing her analysis excluded carbon offsets – which HVO has said it plans to use to reduce its emissions – because she did not think they reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Late last year, the NSW Net Zero Commission warned the Minns government could no longer approve coalmine expansions because they were incompatible with the state’s legislated emissions targets.
Guardian Australia has sought comment from the NSW government and Hunter Valley Operations.
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Ex-chief scientist warns giant NSW coal expansion would derail Minns government’s emissions targets
A former Australian chief scientist says a massive coal extension proposed in New South Wales would produce so much carbon pollution it would make it significantly more difficult for the Minns government to meet its legislated emissions reduction targets out to 2035.
Penny Sackett, who served as Australia’s chief scientist from 2008 to 2011, appeared before the NSW Independent Planning Commission (IPC) this morning on behalf of the anti-coal mining group Lock the Gate Alliance.
The commission is considering a proposal from Yancoal and Glencore to extend open-cut mining at their Hunter Valley Operations joint venture in Singleton by 19 years to 2045. The project would produce an additional 430m tonnes of coal and about 800m tonnes of emissions – most when the coal is sold and burnt overseas.
The coalmine would be the largest in NSW based on the amount of coal produced.
In her evidence to the commission, Sackett challenged an assessment of the project by the NSW department of planning. She said:
The departmental assessment says that HV operations has voluntarily committed to the reduction of emissions in line with the legislated New South Wales government targets, and I’d like to explain to you why that is not true.
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Hanson ‘promoting false, racist and divisive stereotypes’: Acoss chief
The Australian Council of Social Service boss, Cassandra Goldie, has criticised Pauline Hanson’s comments in a podcast with the British far-right activist Tommy Robinson on Friday.
As we reported earlier, the One Nation leader accused Muslim communities, without evidence, of rorting the national disability insurance scheme and lamented the end of the White Australia policy half a century ago. In a statement, Goldie said:
There is no place in public debate for spreading fear, stoking division, and promoting false, racist and divisive stereotypes.
ACOSS stands today in solidarity with all people who are being targeted, including people who are Muslim and of all faiths, people who are migrants, refugees and people seeking asylum.
She said households facing cost-of-living pressures deserve real, compassionate solutions, “not hate-fuelled rhetoric designed to invoke fear and fracture our society”.
Political leaders must set a standard of decency and use words that build solidarity, not division.
Racism won’t help build affordable homes, improve services or lift people out of poverty, but it will fuel fear and anger, undermining our work of creating a fairer country for everyone.
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Gina Rinehart’s estimated A$700m profit from SpaceX IPO all but wiped out as stock price dips
Gina Rinehart is among thousands of Australians who have lost money on Elon Musk’s SpaceX, as the tech company’s share price crashes back to earth.
SpaceX shares closed below their debut price of US$135 a share during trading on Thursday, at $131.11.
Rinehart’s company, Hancock Prospecting, took a stake in SpaceX at its initial public offering (IPO), the biggest debut in stock market history, which briefly made Musk the world’s first trillionaire. Musk’s fortune has fallen to US$838bn as of Thursday, according to Forbes.
Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG Australia, said Rinehart would not be worried by her lost profits.
You’re looking to invest in SpaceX for the long term, you’re backing the man … She knows Elon personally.
Read more here:
Former NSW MP Daryl Maguire found guilty of visa fraud conspiracy
Disgraced former politician Daryl Maguire’s insistence he knew nothing of a conspiracy to create false visa applications for Chinese nationals has been rejected by a jury, AAP reports.
Maguire, the 67-year-old former member for Wagga Wagga, was found guilty in the Downing Centre district court on Friday of conspiring to create the bogus applications for 10 Chinese nationals purporting to employ them at businesses in the NSW Riverina region.
As a result of the verdict, it can be revealed Maguire’s conviction and subsequent jail sentence from a previous corruption probe were wiped on appeal in the lead-up to the visa trial.
Maguire, whose clandestine relationship with then-premier Gladys Berejiklian triggered her exit from politics, was convicted of misleading a corruption probe about potential profits from a major property deal.
Judge Justin Smith in March upheld Maguire’s appeal, quashing his conviction and ordering the charge be dismissed.
The crown had alleged Maguire misled the Independent Commission Against Corruption about his dealings with former Sydney councillor Michael Hawatt on a potential property development, in which Maguire could have received about $720,000 in commission.
The corruption probe, including recorded phone calls discussing the development, triggered Maguire’s retirement from parliament in 2018.
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More cases of bird flu found in WA
A petrel found at WA’s Parry beach and another bird found at Seabird, north of Perth, have received presumed positive results for H5 bird flu.
This means there have been 17 confirmed or presumed positive detections of the deadly bird flu strain in Australia.
All cases were in individual wild seabirds found in coastal locations.
So far, there is no evidence of any mass mortality events and there are no detections in poultry or in the agricultural production system, the Australian chief veterinary officer, Dr Beth Cookson, said.
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Majority of outage-hit Telstra customers to be compensated in credit
The Telstra CEO, Vicki Brady, said the company is in the early stages of working through compensation.
Asked if customers would be repaid in credit or cash, she said it would vary.
I would expect a majority of customers will be in credit, but that will vary depending on some of the organisations we’re engaging with.
Brady said credit to customers’ Telstra bills were the most effective and quickest way to process compensation.
But Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said that may not be enough:
I just don’t know how much people will want credit if they can’t rely on their phone.
Telstra has received about 8,000 claims from roughly 9 million customers who had been affected.
About $100,000 have been paid out in compensation credits so far, the telco confirmed.
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More on the previous Telstra post.
The chair of the committee, Greens senator Sarah Hanson Young said Telstra reported 3641 outages in 2024 and 5221 in 2025, while banking a profit in 2025 $2.3 bn - a 31% increase on the previous financial year.
Brady said the number of minutes a customer’s phone is out is down 91% from the previous year, and the time to restore an outage is down 22%, so the company’s network resilience is improving, despite the volume of outages going up.
Hanson Young said Telstra had been “pretty smug” in an earlier hearing about the Optus 2025 outage, stating it was an “Optus problem”.
Well, I’m sorry, today we see it’s not an Optus problem. It’s also a Telstra problem. So when you banking huge increases in profit there are more outages, less reliability for people to access and use their mobile phone.
I just don’t think it’s, I don’t think it washes to go around telling people that your system is resilient. It’s clearly not.
Telstra boss says mobile networks ‘are not infallible’ as committee focuses on profits
Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady said in response to a question from Labor senator Helen Polley at the Senate hearing into last week’s outage on whether Australians should accept mobile network outages as part of life by stating:
Networks and environments like a mobile network [are] complex and it’s evolving any sort of complex technology environment. And certainly networks are not infallible, but our job is to make sure we are taking the actions and we are taking those steps that will mitigate as best we can.
I would love to be able to sit here and say there will be zero outages.
The reality of a complex network environment with fast evolving technology, you just can’t.
No telco around the world could guarantee that. But absolutely, we accept here that, it wasn’t good enough. Our controls and our processes definitely let us down. And that impacted a lot of people, and we are deeply sorry for that.
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KPMG board member resigns after Westpac asks for her audit removal
A KPMG board member involved in the audit leaks scandal has resigned from the firm after Westpac asked her to “step aside” from its audit.
Kim Lawry, lead partner on the big bank’s audit, has quit the board today and will retire from KPMG after a “smooth transition” of her work, a firm’s spokesperson said. “We thank Kim for her 30 years of service at KPMG,” they added.
A Westpac spokesperson said Lawry would be replaced as lead partner on its audit by Brendan Twining, KPMG’s current lead engagement partner. They said:
To ensure there is no distraction from the delivery of Westpac’s FY26 audit, Westpac, in consultation with KPMG, asked Lead Audit Partner Kim Lawry to step aside from the Westpac audit engagement.
We thank Kim for her commitment and contribution to ensuring a smooth transition over the past two years and welcome Brendan to the role.
A parliamentary inquiry has heard Lawry was involved in confidential Lendlease information being leaked to staff applying for lucrative audit contracts at Westpac. KPMG fined her $19,000 for her involvement.
It’s the sixth KPMG resignation over the scandal, after the chair, CEO, head of audit and two other partners involved in the Lendlease/Westpac leak. The firm is reportedly weighing hundreds of job cuts but its spokesperson did not respond to questions.
Westpac has lost a board member, Peter Nash, a former KPMG chair who stepped down over scrutiny of his former firm winning Westpac’s audit contract. A whistleblower has alleged the tender was “structurally compromised” but Westpac has said it was “carefully governed”.
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Telstra outage hit ‘approximately 45%’ of calls and data, CEO tells Senate inquiry
Telstra’s chief executive, Vicki Brady, has revealed further details about the impact of the company’s recent outage to a Senate inquiry. Brady said the initial issue affected almost half of all calls and data sessions on the telco’s mobile network.
By 10am, most calls and data services were working correctly, and by 4pm, the initial issue we had identified had been addressed.
At its peak, this initial issue impacted approximately 45% of all calls and data sessions on our mobile network.
In these identified cases, callers received an error message, and the phone may have attempted to connect to an alternative mobile network.
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Telstra’s $30,000, 15-year-old server that wasn’t updated caused outage, execs say
Telstra’s chief executive, Vicki Brady, tells the Senate inquiry on triple zero that the server that brought down the mobile network on Wednesday last week is a $30,000 server called SSU 2000.
It was manufactured in 2011, and costs $30,000 to replace, but execs said the issue was not hardware, but that the company had not applied a software update that could have potentially avoided the outage when maintenance workers reset the server in order to replace faulty backup power and it reset the time in the network back to 2006.
Contrary to earlier reports from the Nine newspapers, Telstra executives said this model was still under support by Scientific Devices, which supplies the technology from Microchip.
However, the executives revealed in both 2022 and in January this year, the company was alerted by the manufacturer that it needed to apply a software update to the server that wasn’t implemented.
And the company’s executive for end-to-end resilience, Gerard Tracey, conceded that had Telstra invested in a new piece of hardware operating in the same design it was intended to, the outage may not have occurred.
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Anton Enus to retire from SBS World News after 27 years
SBS’s long-serving news presenter Anton Enus will present his final SBS World News bulletin in September after 27 years with the multicultural broadcaster.
The SBS managing director, Jane Palfreyman, said:
Anton has been a trusted face for SBS’s audience for over a quarter of a century and is a much-loved and valued member of the SBS newsroom and studio. We will miss him as much as our audience will.
The South African-born journalist covered the transition to democracy in 1994 before moving to Australia. He said:
It seems extraordinary that the time has passed so quickly. It feels like just the other day that I walked into the newsroom for the first time, a newly arrived migrant from South Africa, looking for a job – any job. I was given a professional home and embraced by this family of broadcasters in a way that for me epitomised what multicultural Australia is all about. We are many but we’re also one. I will enjoy following SBS World News from afar.
Enus’s final SBS World News bulletin will be on Friday 11 September.
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‘Telstra let Australians down’: CEO’s Senate grilling begins
The chief executive of Telstra, Vicki Brady, has fronted federal parliament as senators begin interrogating the telco over last week’s outage.
She opened with an apology to the Australian people.
Last week, Telstra let Australians down, we let our customers down, we let the community down, and we fell short of what people rightly expect from us.
For this, I am deeply sorry.
Telstra has a critical role in that system, and we take that responsibility extremely seriously.
No one should be left wondering, whether a call for emergency help will get through.
Telstra blamed the lack of a software update for a key time-keeping system for outage that caused nationwide chaos last week.
Its maintenance teams were also unaware of a design change that affected how it would reset.
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Victorian Liberals to decide whether to ditch Moira Deeming as candidate
A Liberal MP is facing disendorsement ahead of an upcoming state election despite dropping an eleventh-hour legal bid against her own party, AAP reports.
The Victorian Liberal party called a meeting for Friday afternoon where they will vote on whether to remove upper house MP Moira Deeming as a candidate for the November election.
Deeming announced on Wednesday she had withdrawn her supreme court challenge against the party president, Brian Loughnane, which was initially sought to prevent the party from moving against her following an incident in May.
The MP, who sits in the upper house for the Western Metropolitan region, had accused colleague Matthew Guy of grabbing her “violently” in a headlock, but since said she misunderstood the meaning of headlock.
Vision obtained by AAP from a function in May showed Guy placing his hand on Deeming’s upper back as they leant in to talk to one another.
Guy told reporters in June that Deeming owed him a public apology, adding he vehemently denied that anything untoward took place and police found no offence had been committed.
The Victorian Liberal party state executive will meet at 5.30pm on Friday, with a vote to disendorse Deeming expected to be easily reached.
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City of Sydney investigating new space for LGBTQ+ arts venue following closure
The city of Sydney council is investigating whether Divine Playhouse could operate in another building after the queer-inclusive pop-up was forced to close following protests from religious groups.
Divine Playhouse’s landlords ordered the space to stop engaging in “offensive trade”, prompting the venue to close its doors and cancel all events.
Members of the arts, hospitality and LGBTQ+ communities have since banded behind the pop-up, with more than $30,000 raised for its legal fees and almost 15,000 people signing a petition to keep it open.
The Sydney lord mayor, Clover Moore, has asked her staff to investigate whether another space could be made available if the landlord does not allow the Divine Playhouse project to proceed.
In a statement, she said:
Sydney’s queer communities deserve places to create, perform, laugh, dance and belong.
That is why the closure of the Divine Playhouse is such a disappointing and concerning outcome.
If we want to be a truly global city, we must stand with those who invest in culture, support independent venues, and defend both freedom of belief and freedom of creative expression.
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‘You don’t legislate your way out of social discord,’ royal commission hears
Monash University professor David Slucki has told the royal commission that current university policies on antisemitism are “pretty adequate” and “you don’t legislate your way out of social discord”.
Discussing how to combat growing division on university campuses, he said there were “gaps” in policies and procedures but most universities “have antisemitism policies, discrimination policies. They have things that are built in”.
He said “all or nothing” thinking was pervading public discourse, whereby “when we disagree with someone, we see them as wrong and as bad or evil.”
You don’t legislate your way out of social discord. We actually need to find a way to change the cultures in our institutions … What is antisemitism a symptom of? It’s polarisation. It’s the impact of social media. It’s a broader threat to our democracy …
Criticising states is a vital part of our democracy … Some of the stories we’ve heard this week point to the fact that sometimes we’re talking about harassment and bullying and conduct that’s unbecoming … We have to be clearcut in our mind when we are talking about what is criticism, what is debate, what is effective pedagogy in a classroom, rather than putting a blanket idea of what’s acceptable and not acceptable.
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‘Most Australian Jews’ want to see a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine, royal commission hears
Monash University professor David Slucki has told the royal commission into antisemitism that “most Australian Jews” want to see a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine.
Slucki is director of the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation at Monash and established the Monash Initiative for Rapid Research into Antisemitism (Mira) in 2024, which was tasked with delivering a training program on antisemitism in higher education and a definition of antisemitism.
He said even people who identified as Zionists had a “wide range of views about what it means to be attached to that”, and there had been “concern” in recent years about whether Israel held up its promise for liberalism among the Jewish community.
Many people are very conflicted, because they are attached to the state of Israel, but they have a vision of what the state should look like. Most people don’t want violence. They don’t want to see endless conflict, they want to see peace in the region … My sense is most Australian Jews want to see a two-state solution in Israel.
Slucki said there was a distinction between criticising the Israeli government and supporting a strong Jewish state, and believing Israel ought not to exist, but it had become “increasingly hard” to say “yes, I criticise Israel and I think Israel should exist”.
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One Nation policy has ‘a bit of cray-cray’, Nationals senator says
The Nationals senator Ross Cadell has offered a mathematical analysis of Australia’s political parties to Sky News.
With One Nation, you get 60% solid policy and a bit of cray-cray thrown in.
With us, you get a bit more moderate-centre stuff that I don’t really like in the Senate, where there’s some Labor-lite stuff that we do.
[So] with the Nats, you get a mix of maths: you get 80% good stuff, you get 10% cray-cray and 10% Labor-lite.
There’s mixes on what you want to trade off with, but I just think we need less government in the world, in Australia, telling people what to do.
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Son charged with murder after father found dead outside burning house in western Sydney
A man has been charged with murder after his father was found dead outside a burning house in a suburban driveway.
Emergency services were called to the western Sydney home in the early hours of Thursday morning, where they found the body of a man, believed to be aged 64, partially on fire.
Superintendent Trent King believed an accelerant was used in the fire, which was allegedly started by the man’s 36-year-old son in Glenmore Park.
Police arrested the 36-year-old man in a car on Parkes Avenue at Werrington about 6.45am, five hours after the alleged altercation.
The man was treated by paramedics for minor injuries before he was taken to hospital under police guard.
King said while the victim is yet to be formally identified, the pair were father and son.
There appears to have been an altercation between the two parties there following a break and enter into the premises, the front door was forced.
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Hardware and network redundancy not the cause of Telstra outage, company says
Telstra’s submission to the triple zero inquiry also states that because there are three Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers, when the Melbourne one disconnected for maintenance, the other two worked as redundancy and backup as expected.
The failure mode here was not inherently related to hardware, levels of redundancy, or the architecture of our network.
Telstra said the Melbourne server supplied an incorrect date once switched back on.
Downstream systems used that date in security, authentication, session and policy-control processes.
The issue was therefore not simply the loss of one NTP server or redundancy in the design of the configuration of the three NTP servers, but the propagation and acceptance of erroneous date information by interconnected systems that rely on timing as a trust and ordering reference.
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Telstra blames system change and lack of software update for outage
Ahead of Telstra chief Vicki Brady‘s appearance in a Senate inquiry hearing on last week’s national mobile outage later today, the telco’s submission to the inquiry revealed the cause of the outage, as the company says a lack of redundancy was not the cause.
The submission details for the first time the likely cause of the outage, which confirmed reporting that one of Telstra’s network time protocol (NTP) servers designed to ensure the systems had the correct time had reset back to 2006.
Telstra said it has three NTP servers - one in Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth. During maintenance on the Melbourne server, it was required to shut down and restart the server, but the company said because of an “underlying software configuration” the device restarted with the wrong date, back in 2006.
Over the next few hours, the incorrect date rippled slowly across the network, causing authentication certificates in other servers to become invalid.
Customers were intermittently unable to authenticate onto the network (“no service”), which affected their ability to place voice calls and use data across Telstra’s
mobile network.
Telstra said it had made an intentional design change to the equipment to fix an earlier fault but this had not been properly documented, meaning maintenance workers were not aware how the device would be reset.
A software update had also not been applied to the device, and if that had been done, the outage may not have occurred, Telstra said.
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Penny Wong says Australia ‘bitterly disappointed’ in Laos poisoning charges as ambassador called in
The Laos ambassador has been called in by the Australian government after a decision not to pursue the most serious charges against those responsible for the fatal methanol poisoning of two Australian travellers.
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, said the news would only add to the pain and grief suffered by the family of Holly Morton-Bowles and Bianca Jones.
The Australian Government is deeply frustrated and bitterly disappointed that authorities in Laos are not pursuing the most serious charges in relation to the methanol poisoning deaths of Australian citizens Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones.
What happened to Holly, Bianca and four other foreign nationals should never have happened.
The two 19-year-olds were backpacking through Laos in late 2024 when they were fatally poisoned with methanol while drinking at Nana Backpackers Hostel in Vang Vieng.
On Friday, Wong revealed the Laos ambassador had also been called in.
The Australian government’s special envoy, Pablo Kang, who was appointed to try assist in the investigation, will travel to Laos on Friday.
The foreign minister will also reinforce the government’s position when she meets with her Lao counterpart in Manila next week.
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Scammers using fake celebrity endorsements for ‘pump and dump’ schemes
Older Australians urged to exercise caution as online fraudsters use fake celebrity endorsements and financial institutions for scams, AAP reports.
The number of so-called ‘‘pump and dump’’ scams being reported to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (Asic) has soared recently, causing it great concern.
The scammers use social media and messaging apps to promote dubious money-making ideas by impersonating well-known experts or celebrities and financial institutions.
High-profile economist and markets analyst Tom Piotrowski is just one of those whose names and images have been hijacked to lure potential victims.
Piotrowski, who recently joined National Australia Bank’s nabtrade arm from CommSec, has been a television regular, providing viewers with updates on the financial markets and the economy.
He told AAP.
It breaks your heart.
These fraudsters prey on people who have a passing familiarity with the share market, but they don’t know enough.
I can’t tell you how heartbreaking it is to think that hard-working people are having to deal with this; it’s really terrible.
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Pauline Hanson says her daughter is the future of One Nation
In her interview with far-right activist Tommy Robinson, Pauline Hanson says her daughter, Lee Hanson, is the future of One Nation and had the right background and experience for a career in politics.
In news that might be disappointing for Nationals defector Barnaby Joyce, Hanson says Lee had the potential to be a leader one day.
Guardian Australia revealed in February that One Nation has employed the Tasmania-based Lee Hanson as a senior adviser to a New South Wales senator, in a taxpayer-funded role worth as much as $180,000 a year.
She has been spearheading the party’s expansion in Tasmania, and is also the party’s national executive manager.
Pauline Hanson told Robinson her daughter was “a cluey kid”.
She’s quite smart and highly respected. In the positions that she’s held, wherever she’s worked, they didn’t want to lose her.
It’s great to work with her. She’s the future. She’s got the softer approach.
Asked if she could replace her mother as leader, Hanson said it was a position to be earned.
She’s got the potential, but I don’t believe in nepotism. And she has to prove herself. Not only to me, but also to the other members and to the public, and everything like that.
That’s something she has to earn.
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Queensland Health reaches settlement with controversial former gender clinic doctor
Queensland Health has reached a settlement with its former employee Jillian Spencer, a controversial critic of the state’s gender clinic.
The psychiatrist was suspended from her role at the clinic in 2023 after making a series of public criticisms of the service.
An independent review that investigated her complaints concluded in 2024 that the service was safe and evidence-based, but was under-resourced and that staff struggled as a result of the public debate about gender affirming care, with some fearing for their safety.
The new LNP government unlawfully banned gender affirming care in public hospitals in 2025, reimposing the ban after it was struck down by the state’s supreme court.Spencer was sacked the same year.
The Children’s Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service, which operates the gender clinic, released a statement on Friday morning making a statement as part of the settlement. Its terms are otherwise confidential and “all disciplinary proceedings against Dr Spencer have been discontinued”, it said.
The CHQ HHS acknowledges that these are matters of legitimate professional and public debate, and that clinicians play an important role in raising concerns about patient safety and clinical practice.
Dr Spencer has been a strong advocate for change in Queensland in the model of care for children and adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria. One of the features of the clinical approach that Dr Spencer has sought is the delay in medical interventions for such patients until adulthood, including puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, because they are serious decisions regarding their body and long-term health.
CHQ HHS accepts that Dr Spencer’s concerns were grounded in her training and background as an experienced child and adolescent psychiatrist.
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‘Don’t go to Laos’: family of fatally poisoned teenager issue warning
The parents of an Australian who died by methanol poisoning while drinking at a Lao hostel have urged other young travellers not to venture to the south-east Asian nation.
Melbourne travellers Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles, both 19, were backpacking through in late 2024 when they were fatally poisoned.
Lao authorities are expected to lay charges on Friday, but the families’ experience has led Jones’s mother, Michelle Jones, to issue a warning to other prospective travellers.
Don’t go to Laos.
It was like their lives didn’t even matter. We’re just really appalled by it all.
She also urged travellers to consume bottled or canned drinks.
Jones’s father, Mark Jones, also decried the charges that are expected to be laid.
It’s unacceptable that the passing of our daughter, her best friend Holly, and three other beautiful women’s lives come down to the potential maximum outcome of one year in jail and a $1,600 [fine].
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Hanson talks up Trump-like ban on Muslim migration in podcast interview
Pauline Hanson’s interview with Tommy Robinson covers a lot of ground which will be familiar to followers of Australian politics.
She says a One Nation government would ban Islamic headdresses in Australia and stop immigration from locations she considers “radical Islamic countries”.
That plan is similar to US president Donald Trump’s so-called Muslim ban, which targeted migrants to the US from majority Muslim countries.
Hanson says she wants to stop Muslim religious leaders “spewing hate speech”.
Without evidence, she claims members of the Muslim community in Australia are relying on taxpayer support to have large numbers of children.
They are having children because, you know what, in the Qur’an, it says Allah will provide.
Well the Allah providing is the taxpayer. Well, guess what, I’ve had enough.
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Pauline Hanson complains about immigration on far-right podcast
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s interview with fringe far-right figure Tommy Robinson has been posted online in the past couple of hours.
Hanson has been criticised for meeting with the convicted criminal, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, during a visit to the UK.
The more than hour-long podcast covers Hanson’s rise through politics, her history of controversial statements about Indigenous Australians and multicultural communities and her plans for One Nation in the Future.
She told Robinson many European migrants who came to Australia after World War II didn’t speak English, but they “assimilated”.
But she claimed that changed after the election of Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1972, and the end of the White Australia policy.
They opened it up and got rid of the White Australia policy, then they started bringing in the different migrants.
The Holt government started winding back the race based policy in the 1960s.
Hanson claimed she warned the Coalition that Islamic sharia law was spreading in Australia and that many migrant groups want to come to Australia to access the NDIS.
I said, we’ve got sharia law that’s happening in Australia, I said they’re getting married, multiple marriages, and I said then they’re having their kids and we’re supporting them.
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One Nation senator defends Pauline Hanson’s overseas travel
The One Nation senator Sean Bell has backed his party leader as she continues her trip through Europe ahead of her appearance at a conservative political action conference in London.
Bell said:
She is standing up for Australian values.
Asked about photos of Hanson and billionaire Gina Rinehart at a luxury Italian hotel, Bell maintained she was “working tirelessly for the Australian people”.
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Australian government advocating for charges ‘with teeth’ over Laos methanol poisonings
Those responsible for the fatal poisoning of two Australians travellers must be held accountable, the government has said, as Lao authorities prepare to lay charges.
Melbourne travellers Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles, both 19, were backpacking through the south-east Asian nation in late 2024 when they were fatally poisoned with methanol while drinking at Nana Backpackers Hostel in Vang Vieng.
Earlier, Morton-Bowles father, Shaun Bowles, said he was devastated about news of the charges, with ABC reporting the two offences expected to be laid collectively carry up to one year in jail and a maximum fine of $1,600.
Health minister Mark Butler said the government would be watching closely as Lao authorities prepare to hold a press conference on the matter.
All of us can imagine the grief and the sense of loss that those families are going through now. Our hearts are breaking for them all over again.
The Australian government has offered to provide its Lao counterpart with resources to conduct a full investigation, which had been rejected, Butler said.
There could not be any doubt about what we expect.
We continue to urge them to press for real accountability and introduce some real charges with teeth.
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Greens senator says Hanson is 'unAustralian' and calls for apology over podcast appearance
Pauline Hanson has been called “un-Australian” over her appearance on a podcast with far-right UK activist, Tommy Robinson.
The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young told ABC RN Hanson must return to Australia and apologise.
This is so appalling, and frankly, it’s unAustralian.
To go overseas to hang out with a criminal thug … to be laughing on his show about multiculturalism back here in Australia – which are our communities, Australian citizens, and the people who make this country great, Pauline Hanson is the most unAustralian politician in the parliament, and she should come home, face the music, and apologise.
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Mark Butler ridicules Pauline Hanson’s NDIS claims on far-right activist’s podcast
The One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, has been criticised after travelling overseas and appearing on a podcast with the far-right UK activist Tommy Robinson.
During the episode, released on Friday morning, Hanson makes claims that “Muslim streets” have “quite a lot of people on the NDIS”.
But the federal NDIS minister, Mark Butler, has hit back:
I‘m not sure where Ms Hanson is getting her figures from, but they’ve never been provided to me as the minister for disability and the minister for the NDIS.
I suspect they don’t exist.
Butler also condemned Hanson’s decision to appear on a podcast hosted by a convicted criminal.
I’m loath to respond to a podcast between Ms Hanson and this convicted criminal, who frankly has been disowned by so many leading figures on the right.
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Spike in illicit tobacco ‘a law and order disaster’, health minister says
Australia is experiencing an “explosion” in illegal cigarettes, despite fresh data revealing the nation’s smoking rate has fallen to historic lows.
Those who smoke are increasingly using illicit tobacco, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW) National Drug Strategy Household Survey has found.
But daily smoking rates have fallen to a historic low and are tracking well ahead of national targets, while vaping rates have stabilised.
The federal health minister, Mark Butler, has responded to the report, telling ABC radio:
It shouldn’t be any surprise, in spite of this explosion of illegal cigarettes – which has been a law and order disaster – that that hasn’t changed the general mindset of smokers.
They want to quit and they need some help to do that.
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Father of methanol-poisoned backpacker ‘devastated’ as charges set to be laid
The father of an Australian woman who died from methanol poisoning while travelling in Laos has said the charges that will be laid against those allegedly responsible have left his family devastated.
Melbourne travellers Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles, both 19, were backpacking through the south-east Asian nation in late 2024 when they were fatally poisoned with methanol while drinking at Nana Backpackers Hostel in Vang Vieng.
Those allegedly responsible are set to be hit with charges, but the father of Morton-Bowles, Shaun Bowles, has told 2GB radio that they were not the results his family were looking for.
It is devastating news to us.
His understanding was the charges are going to be be put against the owner of the distillery that made the allegedly tainted vodka.
We’re still not convinced that they’re the right people.
We’ve had so many conflicting stories come out, it’s very hard to pin down who exactly is at fault.
But clear, that’s not been the case.
The ABC reports the two charges expected to be laid collectively carry up to one year in jail and a maximum fine of $1,600.
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Australian military may help protect ships in the strait of Hormuz, UN shipping leader says
Arsenio Dominguez, the secretary general of the UN’s shipping agency the International Maritime Organization (IMO), says the Australian military may have a role in protecting ships travelling through the strait of Hormuz once “volatility” in the region settles.
But he said the focus should be on the US and Iran again walking back from the conflict. Dominguez told the ABC:
It is not a 100% guarantee that a merchant vessel will not be affected while being supported by military assets.
It could be considered as a short term assistance, but not in the long or permanent term.
Once the situation de-escalates, those types of assistance may provide additional guarantees will actually help in the trust and the rebuilding of operations.
Dominguez said that while it was not safe for ships to travel through the strait at present, the focus should be on ending the war, not on other nations providing military assets to allow freer movement of vessels.
The message is very loud and clear for everybody…de-escalate.
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Good morning, Kat Wong here to pick up the blog. Let’s dive in.
Pauline Hanson to speak at rightwing CPAC event in London
Pauline Hanson is due to speak at a gathering of hard-right figures from around the world being held in London this week.
The former UK prime minister Liz Truss is hosting the event, which is the inaugural British spin-off from America’s influential CPAC gathering that powered the rise of Donald Trump.
Ben Quinn has the full story:
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Meta to alert parents when teens discuss self-harm with Instagram’s AI
Social media giant Meta has rolled out new safety features that will alert parents using Instagram’s supervision tools if their teen talk about suicide or self-harm with the platform’s AI feature.
The change comes after the platform sought feedback from more than 75 youth mental health clinicians on how to improve Meta AI’s responses to teens’ distressing prompts.
Currently, the platform’s AI chatbot directs teen users to crisis helplines and encourages them to reach out to a parent or another trusted adult. Meta says it will now “proactively alert supervising parents” based on signals developed with experts.
The company said:
We worked with parents and experts to understand which AI conversations warrant an alert – such as those where a teen makes a clear reference to hurting themselves, even if that reference is subtle. We then built a dedicated AI system to identify these conversations.
The feature, now live in the US, UK, Australia and Canada, is expected to be available to users globally by the end of the year.
Telstra CEO to face parliamentary inquiry over national outage
Telstra’s bosses are set to be grilled over a nationwide outage that affected triple zero calls and businesses, disrupted payment systems and stopped trains in two states.
Telstra’s chief executive, Vicki Brady, will be among a group of executives who will front a parliamentary inquiry into the incident in Canberra on Friday.
The Greens communication spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, said the committee holding the probe had called an emergency hearing over the outage.
“The truth is, Telstra, just like Optus, has put their profits ahead of public safety and public service for far too long, and the law allows them to,” she told reporters at Parliament House on Thursday.
“We need better laws in place, stronger laws that protect the rights of the public, the rights of the consumer, and to force these companies to actually deliver a reliable service.”
Telstra is accepting compensation claims from affected customers and small businesses who can provide evidence to support their case.
Hanson-Young said the telco “has done the bare minimum when it comes to compensation for consumers”.
“The company should be taking responsibility, and it should be offering automatic compensation to everyone who they put in a difficult and dangerous position.”
Representatives from the Australian Communications and Media Authority and the communications department will also give evidence at the inquiry.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Kat Wong with the main action.
Telstra’s chief executive, Vicki Brady, can expect some tough questions when she goes before a parliamentary inquiry today. The snap two-day inquiry was called to look at last week’s Telstra mobile outage that shut down trains and payment systems across the nation, and meant some couldn’t make triple zero calls.
And we have news from Instagram, which has announced a new AI safety feature that will alert parents if their children’s chats turn to self harm.
