What happened Friday 11 February, 2022
With that, we’ll wrap up the live blog for today.
Here were the day’s major developments:
- Anthony Albanese says the head of spy agency Asio has not raised any concerns with him about Labor’s federal election candidates, stating Peter Dutton is engaged in “game-playing” with national security issues.
- The telco Optus has appointed the former New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian, who is under investigation by the state’s corruption watchdog, to a senior executive role.
- The Australian government has officially listed the koala as endangered after a decline in its numbers due to land clearing and catastrophic bushfires shrinking its habitat.
- Ben Roberts-Smith told a fellow soldier he had shot an unarmed and captive Afghan teenager in the head with a pistol, and that killing him was “the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen”, the former comrade has told the federal court.
- The head of Australia’s peak aged care body has linked NSW premier Dominic Perrottet’s decision to lift Covid restrictions late last year to the deaths of hundreds of aged care residents.
- Religious groups have expressed disappointment at the federal government’s decision to shelve controversial religious discrimination laws, claiming parliament lost sight of the original intent of the legislation.
Thanks for following along. Have a great evening.
The police officer who made a plan to arrest Kumanjayi Walker has denied the main reason she wanted the operation to start in the morning was so she could have a sleep, a court has heard.
Yuendumu’s Sgt Julie Frost also denied she deliberately withheld evidence, during heated cross-examination in the trial of constable Zachary Rolfe on Friday.
Rolfe, 30, is charged with murdering Walker, 19, in the remote community of Yuendumu on 9 November 2019. He has pleaded not guilty to murder and to two alternate charges.
Frost was the officer in charge of Yuendumu station, about 300km north-west of Alice Springs, when Walker was shot dead.
The Northern Territory supreme court has previously heard Frost requested officers from the immediate response team (IRT) to travel to Yuendumu on 9 November 2019 because of a series of issues within the community, and to assist in the arrest of Walker the following day.
Read more:
#ALERT: Severe thunderstorms have caused flash flooding in the #Newcastle and Lower #Hunter regions.
— 9News Sydney (@9NewsSyd) February 11, 2022
Many streets – including local roads at Bar Beach and Jesmond - remain CLOSED, as emergency services struggle to clear the deluge.
Full weather report, 6pm on #9News pic.twitter.com/y8vgMuXvaT
