What we learned: Sunday 6 October
Thanks for your company on today’s Guardian Australia news blog. Here were the major developments of the day:
Pro-Palestinian rallies were held in most major cities across Australia, despite criticism from politicians and police.
One man was arrested for allegedly holding a sign with a swastika at the Sydney rally.
Seventy-five crew members and passengers have been rescued by Samoan emergency services and Australian defence force personnel after a New Zealand navy vessel ran aground and sank off the coast of Samoan island Upolu.
Two Australian government-assisted evacuation flights from Beirut safely arrived in Cyprus.
The deputy prime minister and defence minister, Richard Marles, accused opposition leader, Peter Dutton, of “intentionally lying” about Australia’s stance on the Middle East crisis. Marles said Australia was in lockstep with the United States regarding Israel’s right to respond to Iran.
The national council of Australia’s tertiary education union has overwhelmingly endorsed the academic boycott of Israel and a long term strategy of demilitarisation of the higher education sector.
There has also been plenty of tragic news to report. A child and an adult died in a buggy rollover in Victoria on Saturday night. On Sunday, a child died in a unit fire in Thorneside, in Queensland, and a 25-year-old man died following a water-skiing incident on the Hawkesbury River.
We’ll be back blogging the day’s news again tomorrow.
Updated
Man arrested for allegedly holding sign with swastika at Sydney rally
A man has been arrested for allegedly holding a sign with a swastika on it at the pro-Palestine rally in Sydney today.
NSW police said this was the only arrest made in relation to the Sydney rally so far, and no further information was available.
Updated
