Drivers left stranded for hours in Sydney tunnel amid fears of roof collapse
Penry Buckley
Drivers have been left stranded for up to four hours in Sydney’s M4 motorway tunnel, after fears of a concrete roof collapse saw the closure of all westbound lanes, causing delays on surrounding roads.
About 6am this morning, Transport for NSW advised the tunnel was closed westbound Haberfield and North Strathfield due to “emergency roadworks”.
In a press conference this afternoon convened by the NSW minister for roads, Jenny Aitchison, as the issue persisted almost eight hours later, Transport for NSW coordinator general Howard Collins said the tollroad’s private operator Transurban had closed the road following an overnight inspection.
He said engineers had identified an issue with “shockcrete”, a form of sprayed-on concrete which separates the tunnel from a waterproof membrane and the sandstone above.
“The engineers … who were working for Transurban last night discovered a couple of large bulges in the tunnel roof. And quite rightly, for safety reasons, they were concerned that if there was a major issue with this shockcrete, it could fall on vehicles.”
Collins said Transurban had advised they were working to reopen one of the lanes, but said all lanes would again close at 10pm tonight. Aitchison said she had seen reports on social media of drivers being stuck for up to four hours.
Key events
Emergency warning issued for Tasmanian fire
The Tasmania fire service has issued an emergency warning for Levendale, about 50km north of Hobart.
It said in the warning that:
An uncontrolled bushfire at Levendale is travelling towards New Country Marsh Road, Levendale and surrounding areas which is expected to put lives in danger and may destroy homes as early as now.
There is expected to be thick smoke, and showers of embers which may cause fires all around you.
Spot fires may threaten your home before the main fire arrives. Smoke and ash may make it difficult to see and breathe.
Tasmania Fire Service is attending. Conditions are expected to be changeable
Josh Butler
Young Nats urge scrapping of social media ban
The federal Nationals’ youth branch has called on the government to dump the under-16s social media ban, amid a growing Coalition push against the world-leading laws coming into effect from next week.
Coalition members including leader Sussan Ley, Andrew Bragg and Matt Canavan have voiced alarm at the looming 10 December commencement, despite the opposition waving through parliament legislation that specified the date and the party’s former leader Peter Dutton championing the ban.
The Young Nationals have urged the government to scrap the law entirely, saying it would hurt regional Australians.
You can read more on that story here:
Tom McIlroy
New Australian military assistance and sanctions welcomed by Ukrainians
Members of Australia’s Ukrainian diaspora have welcomed new military assistance and sanctions announced by the federal government on Thursday.
The defence minister, Richard Marles, and the foreign minister, Penny Wong, said Australia would give Ukraine another $95m for the war against Russia, and impose new sanctions targeting 45 so-called shadow fleet vessels, being used to support Russia’s efforts to circumvent sanctions imposed by Australia and like-minded partners.
Kateryna Argyrou, the chair of the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations, thanked the Albanese government.
“Even as peace talks continue, Russia has shown no sign it is ready to negotiate for peace,” she said.
“It has continued to maintain its maximalist demands, and has only escalated its daily missile and drone attacks on innocent civilians and grinding assaults on the frontline.”
Argyrou said the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was not genuinely seeking peace.
This is why Australia’s support will be deeply appreciated by Ukrainians. The aid is desperately needed now and will help Ukraine continue to resist Russia’s ongoing aggression.
Following a year in which no military aid was announced for Ukraine, we hope this signals the Albanese government’s determination to provide the timely, steady, and effective aid that Ukraine requires – and will continue to require to defend itself.
Cait Kelly
Pop, smut and Swift: what Spotify Wrapped 2025 reveals about Australian tastes
It may be Fred Again, Donna Summer or Barkaa. Your musical “listening age” could be 21, 57 or three. You have listened to 14 minutes or 40,000.
But it’s not likely to feature much Australian content.
On Thursday morning, Spotify released its annual data dump, revealing to users their top songs for the year, the albums they loved the most, the artists they could not get enough of and the audiobooks they devoured.
The platform has also published Australia’s Wrapped list, revealing who we collectively, as a country, listened to and loved together. The results are in – and it is clear: we adore pop and smut.
But notably there were no Australian artists in our top five favourite albums or top five favourite songs, unless you count New Zealand-born and South Korean-debuted Rosé’s collaboration with Bruno Mars – at least she lived in Melbourne for a bit.
Read more here:
Benita Kolovos
Legal and women’s groups warn against standalone offence to criminalise coercive control in Victoria
Legal and women’s groups have urged the government not to introduce a standalone offence to criminalise coercive control in Victoria.
Victoria’s attorney general, Sonya Kilkenny, on Wednesday announced the government would introduce legislation to parliament next year to create the offence – despite previously maintaining the state’s laws already included coercive behaviour in its definition of family violence.
The policy backflip came after the new opposition leader, Jess Wilson, made the reform her first election commitment and Liberal MPs introduced bills on the issue to both houses of parliament.
On Thursday, several groups including Djirra, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, InTouch, Law and Advocacy Centre for Women, No to Violence, Safe and Equal and Women’s Legal Service Victoria, issued a joint statement saying they did not support a new offence. They said:
We are concerned the criminalisation of coercive control will lead to unintended consequences, particularly affecting marginalised communities such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, women from migrant and refugee communities, LGBTIQA+ communities, and women with disabilities, who are often wrongly identified by police as primary aggressors instead of those in need of safety.
We also know that criminalising coercive control does not necessarily make victim survivors safer. Evidence from other states that have implemented standalone coercive control legislation shows that criminalisation does not reduce harm, nor result in increased prosecutions.
The groups said coercive and controlling behaviour was already recognised in the state’s definition of family violence and in family violence intervention order applications. They said the criminal justice system needed to make “better use of this existing mechanism”.
They said both sides of government need to work with victim survivors, Aboriginal community-controlled organisations and legal groups on any proposed changes to ensure “they do not cause unintended consequences or harm to victim survivors”.
Natasha May
Park continued:
People are coming in droves. They’re coming because they’re sick. They’re coming because they haven’t been able to manage a condition through primary care, like our generation often was able to, and therefore when they present at our hospitals, particularly at our EDs, the level of intervention needs to be much greater.
They go from perhaps a category four to a category two patient. That’s because we have not had that regular intervention with primary care. We’re not out there chasing customers. We’re out there trying to provide acute public hospital services. At the moment, we’ve being asked to provide acute public health services as well as aged care as well as NDIS, but we won’t give you any funding for it.
It’s absurd that people think in the commonwealth departments that that’s how a health and hospital system run. I would love for one of these public servants to spend a day in the shoes of someone at one of our big EDs, to see what type of patients are coming through the door, and then go back and say that the advice is you lock the gate at six o’clock. It’s absurd.
Natasha May
NSW health secretary not ‘putting out a neon sign’ for overcrowded hospitals, minister tells commonwealth
The commonwealth and states remain in a stalemate over the public hospital funding agreement, with state and territory leaders accusing the commonwealth of “going backwards” on its commitments and dismayed at the prime minister’s suggestion that states should reduce hospital activity. The health ministers at all levels will be meeting together on 12 December.
In the meantime, the NSW health minister, Ryan Park, sent a strong message to the commonwealth at a press conference this morning:
It beggars belief that a commonwealth government in this day and age would suggest that we try to reduce or manage our demand better. [Health secretary] Susan [Pearce] is not putting out a neon sign for people to go to Blacktown, Westmead or Bankstown hospitals. People are going there because they’re unwell. They’re going there because they haven’t been able to access primary care.
They’re going there because they’re older and they can’t get a residential aged care facility and they can’t get a home care package. They’re going there, staying there and getting stuck there because the commonwealth government hasn’t invested in its part of the health system, and its part of the health system that it’s responsible for is around aged care, NDIS and home care support.
So to say to Susan and the team at NSW Health, just pull back your demand, is absurd. We are not out there chasing customers, folks.
Nick Visser
That’s all from me. Nino Bucci will take it from here. Take care.
Patrick Commins
Housing Australia says most 5% deposit scheme borrowers ahead on their repayments
Only 11 claims have been paid out against the more than 250,000 first-home guarantees issued by the government since the 5% deposit scheme began in January 2020, Housing Australia says.
As at the end of November, 267,000 households have taken advantage of the popular measure, which is aimed at helping people buy their first home with only a small deposit.
Housing Australia officials at estimates said 75% of all loans in this scheme were ahead on their repayments as at the end of October, while 23% were on schedule.
That left 0.6% of loans where the borrowers were behind in their repayments, and another 0.8% were in hardship.
The Reserve Bank says low-deposit loans are inherently riskier, but the experience five years into this scheme suggests borrowers are faring well so far.
Tasmania Fire Service issues bushfire emergency for region near Hobart
The Tasmania Fire Service has issued a bushfire emergency warning for the rural region of Glenlusk, about 8km from Glenorchy, a suburb of Hobart.
Officials say an uncontrolled bushfire is travelling through the area, which is imminently expected to put lives in danger and damage homes.
There is expected to be thick smoke, and showers of embers which may cause fires all around you.
Spot fires may threaten your home before the main fire arrives.
Smoke and ash may make it difficult to see and breathe.
Officials said those in the area need to act now to survive, activating their bushfire plans and moving to a safer location.
Melissa Davey
Public health group issues ‘plea’ to reverse absorption of independent VicHealth agency
The Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) has launched the Save VicHealth campaign after the Victorian government announced it will slash 1,000 public service jobs, with independent health agency VicHealth to be absorbed by the Department of Health as part of a restructure.
VicHealth is one of the world’s first health promotion foundations, and the PHAA says closing it “… will prove a disaster for the health of the people of Victoria and must be reversed”.
“I make a personal plea to Premier Allan,” the PHAA CEO, Adj Prof Terry Slevin, said.
Please think beyond the immediate pressures, and do not fold one of the world’s leading preventive health agencies into the health department where the enormous pressures to address the urgent will inevitably shrink commitment to the important work of thinking and acting on initiatives to stop Victorians getting sick in the first place.
The Victorian Greens health spokesperson, Dr Sarah Mansfield, said without VicHealth, powerful corporations will not face proper scrutiny:
VicHealth has always been willing to take on the big corporate interests that harm Victorians’ health, like the junk food industry, big tobacco and alcohol, and gambling – something the Allan Labor government has repeatedly demonstrated they’re too afraid of doing.
Border force detains six foreign nationals after police find them in remote WA
Krishani Dhanji
Authorities have found six men in remote Western Australia who arrived by boat.
First reported by the WAtoday newspaper, WA police confirmed in a statement that an off-duty police officer found two men on Monday, north of Kalumburu. Police found four additional men in the Kalumburu area on Tuesday.
A police spokesperson said “the men were conveyed to Kalumburu Multi-Functional Police Facility for medical assessment”.
It’s understood Australian Border Force officials have detained the six men. The ABF would not comment on the matter.
Nino Bucci
Former head of global drug syndicate jailed
A Canadian national who was the head of the Sam Gor syndicate has been sentenced to 16 years in prison by a Victorian court.
Tse Chi Lop, 62, was sentenced in the Melbourne county court on Thursday for a conspiracy to traffic commercial quantities of illicit drugs within Australia from 2012 to 2013.
He pleaded guilty on 7 November 2025 and will be eligible for parole in 10 years.
The Australian federal police said in a statement that it established Operation Volante in 2012 to investigate Sam Gor, which at its peak was the biggest trafficker of methamphetamine to Australia.
The AFP commissioner, Krissy Barrett, said the sentencing marked the end of one of the most high-profile investigations in the AFP’s history:
Operation Volante is a culmination of 14 years of hard work and perseverance from our investigators and international network.
This investigation highlights that the long arm of the AFP can reach criminals across the world.The AFP will continue to supercharge our global operations to defend and protect Australia’s future from domestic and global security threats.
