Another whale tangled in shark nets off Marcoola
Petra Stock
Another humpback whale has been caught in shark nets on the Sunshine Coast on Friday – the fifth to become ensnared this week.
The whale, which became tangled off Marcoola on Friday morning, has since been released, according to Griffith University’s Dr Olaf Meynecke. He said calm conditions were often associated with entanglements.
This is a very calm morning … the whales come pretty close to shore when it’s calm, when they feel the least danger. They come within a few hundred metres of the shore to rest.
If there’s more waves and wind, mothers and calves stay further away to avoid the risk of stranding.
Authorities are still working to release a mother humpback from shark nets near Hervey Bay. The animal has been entangled now for about six days. Most, but not all, of the nets have been removed. Separately, a mother and calf caught in nets off Noosa were freed on Wednesday.
Humpback whales are caught in shark nets every year, said Meynecke, but this was the first time involving five in a matter of days.
Key events
Nino Bucci
Health regulator places conditions on Victorian GP who spoke out on mushroom murders case
A Victorian GP who treated triple murderer Erin Patterson and her victims after the deadly mushroom lunch has been slapped with conditions by the health regulator after speaking out about the case.
Dr Christopher Webster, a GP in Leongatha, south-east of Melbourne, was a witness in Patterson’s trial earlier this year.
After she was found guilty, Webster gave several media interviews about the case, including one in which he called Patterson a “crazy bitch”.
On Wednesday, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) placed conditions on his registration.
According to Ahpra’s register of practitioners, Webster’s conditions include that he must complete:
One-on-one education with an approved educator for a minimum of 8 hours and address the following topics: professionalism and ethics, professional communication, privacy and confidentiality, complying with your obligations under Good medical practice: a code of conduct for doctors in Australia and Social media: How to meet your obligations under the National Law.
The register also says that he must complete the one-on-one education within six months, and that once it is completed he must be mentored.
This mentoring must take place for a minimum of five hour-long sessions on a monthly basis, and must be completed within a year.
Petra Stock
More on shark nets and whale entanglements
There are 27 shark nets in Queensland and 51 in New South Wales. As large numbers of whale mothers and newborns make their way south, spending time near the shore, they are at risk of entanglement.
A spokesperson for Queensland’s Department of Primary Industries said:
Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol officers, the Sunshine Coast shark contractor and a trained marine animal release team from the Sunshine Coast have successfully released a juvenile whale entangled in a shark net at Marcoola beach on the Sunshine Coast.
The entanglement was first reported just before 8am and the whale was successfully released at around 10am.
Our teams were alerted to this incident by reports to the shark control program hotline and we had crews on the scene very quickly. We thank everyone who contacted the hotline, enabling us to provide prompt assistance.
The net is currently being replaced onsite.
Another whale tangled in shark nets off Marcoola
Petra Stock
Another humpback whale has been caught in shark nets on the Sunshine Coast on Friday – the fifth to become ensnared this week.
The whale, which became tangled off Marcoola on Friday morning, has since been released, according to Griffith University’s Dr Olaf Meynecke. He said calm conditions were often associated with entanglements.
This is a very calm morning … the whales come pretty close to shore when it’s calm, when they feel the least danger. They come within a few hundred metres of the shore to rest.
If there’s more waves and wind, mothers and calves stay further away to avoid the risk of stranding.
Authorities are still working to release a mother humpback from shark nets near Hervey Bay. The animal has been entangled now for about six days. Most, but not all, of the nets have been removed. Separately, a mother and calf caught in nets off Noosa were freed on Wednesday.
Humpback whales are caught in shark nets every year, said Meynecke, but this was the first time involving five in a matter of days.
AHRC accepts complaint over Merivale keffiyeh incident
Adeshola Ore
The Australian Human Rights Commission has accepted a racial discrimination complaint against a Sydney restaurant for allegedly denying dine-in service to six Palestinians for wearing keffiyehs after last month’s Harbour Bridge march.
The Racial Justice Centre (RJC) says the group complaint against Merivale-owned Jimmy’s Falafel has been accepted by the AHRC as an alleged breach of the Racial Discrimination Act. Sharfah Mohamed, lawyer at the RJC, says she welcomes the AHRC’s swift acceptance of the complaint.
The AHRC can only accept a complaint when it is “reasonably arguable” that the alleged conduct is unlawful discrimination. The commission will invite Merivale to respond before it facilitates and conducts conciliation between the parties.
A Merivale spokesperson previously told Guardian Australia that management made a decision to protect their staff that involved banning people carrying or displaying flags and placards inside the venue for a 20-minute period after people walking past its venues shouted “obscenities and violent rhetoric”. Merivale said the comments included“death to the IDF”, “death to all Zionist pigs” and “f***ing Zionist pigs and scum”.
The spokesperson said its staff understood the decision to include “political items of clothing”.”
If conciliation is unsuccessful, the complaint can take the matter to the federal court.
Guardian Australia has contacted Merivale for comment.
Pedestrian dies after being hit by car in Sydney’s south-west earlier this month
A 60-year-old woman has died after she was hit by a car in Sydney’s south-west earlier this month, NSW police say.
Emergency services were called to the suburb of Bradbury on 9 September amid reports a pedestrian had been hit by a car. Paramedics treated the woman at the scene before she was taken to a local hospital in a critical condition.
She died yesterday in hospital.
The alleged driver of the vehicle, a 24-year-old man, was taken to hospital after the accident for mandatory testing. He was later taken to the police station and charged. His case remains before the courts.
The accident is being investigated.
Asic chair Joe Longo will not seek reappointment
Joe Longo, the chair of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC), will not seek reappointment to the body when his term ends next May.
Longo said in a statement his tenure, which began in June 2021, had been an “immense privilege” saying he had been given an opportunity to “rebuild and renew the agency”. He went on:
When I accepted the position, I was clear Asic needed to become a modern, confident and ambitious regulator.
With the most significant organisational restructure in 15 years, new commissioners, a new CEO and refreshed senior executive team, I see that transformation is delivering dividends.
Longo said Asic had a highly skilled team of dedicated staff, and he could not “praise them enough”.
The ASIC of today is better fulfilling what Australia needs of it. That is just the beginning.
Search for pilot continues after plane crashes in wilderness area
The search continues for the pilot of a light plane which crashed in Budawang national park, AAP reports.
Emergency services resumed their efforts on Friday morning, hindered by poor weather and difficult terrain.
The plane took off from Bankstown airport in Sydney’s south-west on Thursday and was on its way back when an emergency location transmitter was activated at about 4.30pm.
The wreckage was spotted from the air in the park, about 25km north of Batemans Bay on the NSW south coast, at about 5.30pm yesterday.
The crash site could not be accessed by vehicle or on foot, NSW police said.
Penry Buckley
NSW opens fast-charging electric bus depot in Australian first
The NSW government has announced the first conversion of a large Sydney bus depot to electric fast-charging technology as part of its efforts to electrify the state’s 8,000-strong fleet.
The Brookvale bus depot in the northern beaches has been fitted out with Australia’s first gantry-mounted charging system. A mechanical arm connects the buses to overhead power lines via a “pantograph”, similar to the system used to power trains. An electric bus recharges in 20 minutes to an hour, providing up to 300km of travel.
The NSW transport minister, John Graham, says the program has begun in the northern beaches, which has faced serious bus shortages:
The Northern Beaches experienced the worst of the bus driver shortage … and also lost high-capacity bendy buses when they had to be withdrawn from service for body work. Bus passengers here can look forward to a brighter, all-electric future.
As of August this year, greater Sydney had 220 electric buses in operation. Brookvale, the first of Sydney’s 11 bus depots to be fitted out, has 13 electric buses in service, although the government says the 13 charging stations and eight plug in-chargers will support 229.
AMA Queensland opposes the pill testing ban
The Australian Medical Association of Queensland opposes the ban and warned it could put lives at risk, AAP adds. AMA Queensland President Nick Yim said:
We are disappointed with the government’s move to ban pill testing. Pill testing provides an opportunity for individuals to have a conversation with a health professional about their drug use.
As doctors, we are concerned we’ll see an increase in presentations to our emergency departments, particularly in the upcoming summer festival season, where we know people may use drugs.
Queensland bans pill testing despite warnings crackdown puts lives at risk
Queensland has become the first Australian state to ban pill testing, with medical experts warning the move could cost lives, AAP reports.
The legal crackdown follows state government moves to scrap $1.5m in public funding for pill-testing services run by CheQpoint – one in Brisbane, the other on the Gold Coast – forcing services to close in April.
The ban passed in state parliament late Thursday night makes any pill-testing operations illegal.
The health minister, Tim Nicholls, said:
The Crisafulli Government has a zero-tolerance approach to illicit drugs. I want to make it absolutely clear that there is no safe way to take illegal drugs and this government does not support publicly or privately funded pill testing.
Drug-checking services send the wrong message to Queenslanders.
Some services or trials remain in place in the ACT, Victoria and NSW. Queensland was the first state to establish a fixed pill-testing strategy by the ALP.
Jordyn Beazley
Bocsar chief says small number of charges highlights complexity surrounding such abuse
Jackie Fitzgerald, the executive director of Bocsar said:
The small number of charges highlights the complexity of investigating and prosecuting this form of abuse.
With a median time of 131 days from the police report to charge, it’s clear that building a prosecutable case under this new legislation requires time, evidence, and a deep understanding of the patterns of behaviour involved.
Fitzgerald said the true test of the legislation will come when a case that proceeds to trial for the first time allows “the courts to examine the evidence, interpret the law, and set important precedents for how coercive control is prosecuted in NSW”. She added:
In the first 12 months, only three coercive control charges were finalised in court.
In two cases, the charges were withdrawn by prosecution. And in the third case, the defendant pleaded guilty, meaning no contested charges have yet been tested through the judicial process.
Jordyn Beazley
Only nine people charged during first year of NSW’s landmark coercive control laws
Only nine people have been charged in New South Wales under the state’s landmark coercive control laws, despite there being nearly 300 recorded incidents.
The data, released today by the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (Bocsar), tracked the impact of the legislation – which criminalises coercive control in intimate partner relationships – in the year since it was introduced last July.
The legislation marked a significant shift in the way domestic violence was recognised in the state amid a nation-wide reckoning over how many women continue to be murdered by their intimate partners.
Bocsar found there were five distinct controlling behaviours on average in the 297 recorded incidents. The most common were harassment and monitoring or tracking. Meanwhile threats or intimidation, financial abuse (48%) and shaming or humiliation were recorded in around half of the incidents.
The rates were higher in the regions, with the Far West and Orana and Central West recording the highest in the state. Nearly half of those that alleged a coercive control incident had a recorded history with police of being victim-survivors of domestic violence.
Benita Kolovos
Victoria police have been undertaking ‘significant investigation’ after deaths
Police say since the deaths of Akueng and Achiek, in two separate incidents on the night of 6 September, a “significant investigation” by the homicide squad has been under way to “identify those responsible and collect all available evidence”.
They say local police also increased patrols in the Cobblebank area as part of their community reassurance efforts, and met with local schools, council and community leaders.
The investigation into the deaths remains ongoing and urged anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or submit an online confidential report.
Seven teens arrested and questioned over stabbing deaths of Dau Akueng and Chol Achiek
Benita Kolovos
Seven teenagers have been arrested and are being questioned over the stabbing deaths of 15-year-old Dau Akueng and 12-year-old Chol Achiek earlier this month.
Police on Friday confirmed homicide squad detectives raided homes in Melton South, Thornhill Park, Caroline Springs, Sunbury, Wollert, Hillside and Sydenham and arrested the seven teens.
They are a 19-year-old Thornhill Park man; a 19-year-old Caroline Springs man; an 18-year-old Wollert man; three 16-year-old boys and a 15-year old boy, all from the north west suburbs of Melbourne.
They are now being interviewed by police.
Jack Snape
Gout Gout misses out on 200m final but says better performances are ‘coming’
The promising debut of Gout Gout on the international stage has come to an end after he was eliminated at the world championships in a competitive semi-final in Tokyo.
The 17-year-old finished fourth last night in his race behind winner Bryan Levell, and missed out on the two additional time-based qualification places on offer after running at 20.36sec.
Although Torrie Lewis couldn’t progress in the women’s 200m either, Australia’s middle distance runners and high jumpers found success in the National Stadium on Thursday.
In the men’s 200m, Gout’s time was marginally slower than the 20.23sec he ran in his heat, and was well off the 20.02sec he produced to lower his own national record in a meet in Czechia in June.
But he was positive afterwards, and said he would build on this experience. “Semi-finalist, and to go out there and compete against the big guys, I couldn’t be prouder of myself for sure,” the teenager said.
Read more here:
Patrick Commins
Nearly one in three single-parent households in Australia live in poverty, Hilda report shows
A major national survey has revealed a “silent crisis” among Australian families, with nearly one-in-three single-parent households living in poverty.
The newly released statistical report on the long-running Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey found that, after adjusting for housing costs, 31.3% of single-parent families were living below the poverty line in 2023.
This group is nearly three times more likely to be in poverty than two-parent households, the survey showed.
The latest reported figure was down from a record high reported in 2022, but was still well above the 25% share of single-parent households in poverty a decade earlier and higher than the 28.3% in poverty in 2003.
Hilda’s co-director, Roger Wilkins, said the history of the survey revealed a worsening trend over the past 10 to 15 years as changes under the Howard and Gillard governments forced single parents – predominately mothers – off parenting payments and on to less generous unemployment benefits.
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