Swiss tourists victims of NSW shark attack
The woman who died yesterday after being mauled by a bull shark is believed to be a tourist visiting from Switzerland, officials said this morning.
NSW police said the woman, believed to be 25, is yet to be formally identified. A 26-year-old man was also seriously injured in the attack and remains in hospital in a stable condition. He, too, is thought to be from Switzerland.
The shark attack took place at Crowdy Bay in NSW’s mid-north coast, about 6.30am on Thursday morning. The beach remains closed and inquiries are continuing.
Read more here:
Key events
Laws protecting brumbies in NSW national park axed
Controversial laws that gave a wild horse population heritage protections in a famed alpine park are a thing of the past, AAP reports.
A late-night parliamentary sitting repealed laws introduced by the NSW Nationals in 2018, which protected the “heritage value” of the brumby population within the Kosciuszko national park.
Advocates have long argued the protection has helped destroy the park and preference the brumbies over native species.
The repeal bill finally passed NSW parliament’s upper house nearing midnight on Thursday with backing from Labor, the Liberals and crossbench members, although the Nationals maintained their opposition.
Park operators have a mandated target of 3,000 feral horses over nearly one-third of the park by mid-2027, with a controversial cull putting latest estimates at between 1,579 and 5,639 brumbies.
What’s changing in Australia’s nature laws?
Carrying on from Murray Watt’s and Sarah Hanson-Young’s comments this morning about environmental laws …
My colleague Lisa Cox has a rundown of the seven major changes to Australia’s nature laws after their deal with the Greens. They include national environmental standards, ministerial discretion and the closure of logging exemptions.
Read more here:
Swiss tourists victims of NSW shark attack
The woman who died yesterday after being mauled by a bull shark is believed to be a tourist visiting from Switzerland, officials said this morning.
NSW police said the woman, believed to be 25, is yet to be formally identified. A 26-year-old man was also seriously injured in the attack and remains in hospital in a stable condition. He, too, is thought to be from Switzerland.
The shark attack took place at Crowdy Bay in NSW’s mid-north coast, about 6.30am on Thursday morning. The beach remains closed and inquiries are continuing.
Read more here:
Hanson-Young says environmental action and business interests linked
Hanson-Young was asked if she could guarantee the targets wouldn’t damage the economy or business. She said the Greens were looking at the connection between the two, pointing to the devastating algal bloom in South Australia that had smashed local industry, fishing and tourism.
She said:
You cannot continue to pretend that somehow the economy is off over there while the environment has nothing to do with it and that the climate has nothing to do with it. If we want a strong economy, we have to transition. We’ve got to do it faster.
And the community wants it. No one told South Australians that when the climate crisis hit, they wouldn’t be able to go to the beach in the 40C heat over summer. That is what we are facing this summer. And South Australians want action. Australians want action. The world needs action.
‘It is a good day for the environment’, Sarah Hanson-Young says
Sarah Hanson-Young, the Greens’ spokesperson for the environment, said she is pleased with the changes to environmental laws even though the party did not get everything it wanted. Hanson-Young told RN Breakfast the changes meant the “writing’s on the wall for fossil fuels”, adding the Greens were prepared to keep pushing the Albanese government to do more.
She said:
It is a good day for the environment and it’s a good day for our forests and our Australian bushland. A good day for our wildlife.
It’s been a long time coming, having to fix some of these major flaws in Australia’s environment laws that have allowed land clearing to go unchecked, to allow the destruction of our forests, even when there’s endangered species living there, that it’s their home. And there’s a lot more to do.
Murray Watt says Sussan Ley and Coalition ‘incapable of reaching a deal’ on environmental laws
Murray Watt, the environment minister, is speaking this morning after the government overhauled the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act after a deal with the Greens. Watt discounted criticism over the changes, which improves features including a new federal environment protection agency and national environmental standards.
He told RN Breakfast this morning:
I’m afraid Sussan Ley has got to just accept the fact that her own side of politics was completely incapable of reaching a deal with us.
I’ve lost count of the number of meetings, phone conversations I’ve had with numerous Coalition frontbenchers, not just one, trying to work out some sort of arrangement with the Coalition.
But in the end, they just couldn’t be clear with us about exactly what they wanted. So they’ve got no one to blame but themselves if they’re unhappy about a deal being struck with the Greens.
Man charged after allegedly speeding 220km/h in Melbourne without lights on
Victoria police charged a driver for allegedly driving more than 220km/h with no headlights on last night.
Officials said officers saw a Volkswagen Golf travelling at high speeds in Melbourne’s north-west at about 11pm. Police tried to intercept the vehicle but the driver allegedly failed to stop and continued driving while weaving in and out of traffic.
Air support helped follow the car to the suburb of Sunshine, where police were able to stop the vehicle using stop sticks, a tire deflation device.
A man, 18, was taken into custody and has since been charged with multiple offences, including reckless conduct endangering serious injury, dangerous driving while pursued by police, failing to stop and excess speeding, among others.
He will appear in court today.
Qantas closures threaten ‘lifeline’ in rural Australia
Rural Australians fear the closure of three regional Qantas bases will affect access to health, education and business, but the airline insists it is dedicated to supporting the bush, AAP reports.
QantasLink announced its bases in Canberra, Hobart and Mildura will shut from April 2026 soon after Rex fell into voluntary administration and budget airline Bonza collapsed.
Executives from the flying kangaroo’s regional operation will front a Senate inquiry today examining the reliability and affordability of aviation services in rural Australia.
A submission from Mildura rural city council said its airport was a critical link to regional centres in Victoria, NSW and South Australia.
Passengers were concerned the base closure would limit access to reliable air travel from the town 550km north-west of Melbourne. QantasLink’s exit also had the potential to discourage investment in the region, the council warned.
Good morning, and welcome to Friday. Nick Visser here to get the blog rolling. Let’s get to it.
Henry Belot
Centre for Public Integrity says government’s $560m grant scheme ripe for ‘pork barrelling’
The Centre for Public Integrity has raised concerns that a $560m invitation-only grant program established by the Albanese government is ripe for pork-barrelling
The major and local community infrastructure program was launched in September after being promised during the election campaign earlier in the year.
According to the centre, its guidelines make it clear that only organisations identified by the government will have access to cash. The centre has also raised concerns about a lack of assessment criteria.
In a report released today, the transparency group argues the $560m grant scheme has “conditions ripe for politically motivated funding allocations, or pork barrelling”:
When election promises are channelled through grants without open or transparent eligibility criteria, the distinction between policy delivery and political patronage becomes blurred.
Both major parties have used such mechanisms in the past – including through the community development grants program and Building Better regions fund – to direct taxpayer money toward electorally advantageous projects.
Iran denounces Australia’s terror designation
Iran has denounced Australia’s decision to designate the Revolutionary Guards a terror-sponsoring group, as relations between Canberra and Tehran took another downward turn.
In August, Australia blamed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological wing of Iran’s military, for two 2024 arson attacks targeting its Jewish community, and expelled Tehran’s ambassador.
In a statement on Thursday, the Australian government said it was using new legislation passed in the wake of the attacks to designate the Guards a “state sponsor of terrorism”.
The government added: “These cowardly attacks on Australian soil were designed to undermine and sow division in our multicultural society, by targeting Jewish Australians to inflict harm and stoke fear.”
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said “Iran’s attacks were unprecedented and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil” and had prompted the listing.
Responding to the designation, Iran’s foreign ministry called it “an insulting and unjustified act” and a “violation of international legal rules and norms related to the national sovereignty of states”.
“This irresponsible action is in line with the gross error that the Australian government committed based on completely false and fabricated accusations by the security institutions of the Zionist regime (Israel),” Iran’s foreign ministry statement read.
It also expressed “indignation at the adherence of certain Australian political officials to the harmful policy of the Israeli regime by spreading lies against Iran”.
Relations between the two countries have spiralled in recent months.
After blaming Iran for the arson attacks targeting a kosher restaurant in Sydney and a synagogue in Melbourne, Canberra declared the Iranian ambassador persona non grata and gave him and three other Iranian diplomats a week to leave the country.
It was the first such expulsion by Australia since the second world war.
Canberra also recalled its own ambassador and suspended the activities of its embassy.
In June, Australia was one of a small number of US allies to explicitly welcome Washington’s bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities during a 12-day war between Israel and Iran.
– AFP, Reuters
More storms on the way for south-east Queensland
Hail has hammered a storm-hit region with more wild weather ahead as east coast communities brace for damaging winds and heavy rain, Australian Associated Press reports.
Storms rolled into south-east Queensland yesterday for the fourth straight day with inner-city Brisbane among the first hit.
Although there may be a slight lull today, more rain is forecast for Saturday.
Hailstones up to 4cm in diameter peppered the city yesterday as the skies opened with more expected to come as severe storms “bubble along” the east coast last night.
Wild weather is set to impact the state from the Sunshine Coast in the south-east to the Cape York Peninsula in the north.
“The storms are packing a punch,” Angus Hines of the Bureau of Meteorology told AAP.
There’s a fairly extensive risk for today and there is still a number of communities including pretty populated ones on the east coast which could be hit by some pretty severe thunderstorms.
The bureau had earlier warned of “giant hail, big enough to cause damage to properties, vehicles and crops” for south-east Queensland.
You do not want to be outside in that, so please move your cars under cover and stay inside when a storm approaches.
Damaging to destructive winds at and above 100km/h are easily enough to bring down trees and power lines and cause property damage to homes, properties and businesses.
More than 10,000 people were without power yesterday afternoon after days of “catastrophic” superstorms in the south-east.
Cyclonic winds toppled trees, removed roofs and brought down powerlines, shutting roads and forcing schools to close with repairs still under way.
At one stage more than 160,000 properties were left without power.
There is some relief in sight with a “lull” in storm action forecast for Friday but it will be a “brief reprieve” with stormy weather returning by Saturday, Hines said.
Check out our story here:
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the day’s breaking news before Nick Visser guides you through to the weekend.
South-east Queensland will be given a brief reprieve today after four days of violent storms bringing huge hailstones and damaging winds. But the wild weather is expected to return again tomorrow. More details coming up.
The Centre for Public Integrity has raised concerns that a $560m invitation-only grant program established by the Albanese government is ripe for pork-barrelling. More details soon.
And Iran has accused Australia of violating international rules by designating the country’s Revolutionary Guards a terror-sponsoring group. More on that, too, soon
