What happened this Friday 27 May 2022
With that, we’ll wrap up our live news coverage of the day. Here’s a summary of the main news developments:
- The Murugappan family is set to return home to the rural Queensland town of Biloela after the interim home affairs minister, Jim Chalmers, said on Friday afternoon that he had exercised his powers under the Migration Act to give them bridging visas, fulfilling a pre-election promise to let them go home.
- Twelve people have been seriously injured and at least eight more taken to hospital after a tour boat accident at Horizontal Falls in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
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Scott Morrison’s staff conveyed a clear message to border force officials through Karen Andrews’ office on election day that they wanted the department to publicise the interception of a boat from Sri Lanka, Guardian Australia understands.
- The 42,000-year-old remains of Mungo Man and Mungo Lady have been reburied despite an application to stay the burial under federal Aboriginal heritage laws and the New South Wales government promising in writing that the burial would not go ahead.
- An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 struck off the coast of Timor-Leste and was so strong it was felt in Darwin, Australia.
Thanks for following along. Have a great evening.
Updated
NSW paramedics take industrial action
Paramedics in New South Wales are taking industrial action tonight.
On Friday evening, the Australian Paramedics Association said thousands of NSW paramedics would refuse to take billing details, report on KPIs or move from their home stations from 5:45pm. The union said it was bringing forward planned industrial action “in response to the NSW government trying to silence paramedics with legal challenges”.
In a statement, the union said its “escalation in industrial action was previously scheduled to begin on Monday morning but will now begin from night shift tonight across NSW”.
The statement said:
The union has been calling for commitments in the budget to fund more specialists and community care, increase staffing numbers by at least 1,500, and increase paramedic wages.
APA (NSW) secretary Gary Wilson said:
This is a disgraceful attempt to stifle paramedics’ voices.
We’ve been sounding the alarm on dangerous wait times, extreme fatigue and chronic under-resourcing for months, and the government has failed to act. It’s a disgrace that the only time the government acts is when paramedics take action that will hurt their bottom line.
Paramedics won’t be intimidated into silence when the lives of our patients are at stake. The health minister and premier continue to throw around empty words while failing to act.
Updated
