Australia news live: Dutton to make first public appearance of the year at Melbourne rally; police release CCTV of Sydney synagogue vandals

Dutton speech expected to argue Australia ‘less safe’

As we wait for news out of the Liberal party’s Melbourne rally, the Nine papers appear to have been dropped an excerpt of Peter Dutton’s speech.

The Nine papers report that the speech, to be delivered in the Labor-held electorate of Chisholm in Victoria, will see Dutton pitch his party as the only solution to “reverse the decline” of Australia.

Dutton will outline the Coalition’s priorities of cost of living, migration reform, nuclear power and housing affordability and is expected to emphasise questions of safety.

He is expected to say:

Our country is less safe. Our society is less cohesive. For so many Australians, aspiration has been replaced by anxiety. Optimism has turned to pessimism. And national confidence changed to dispiritedness.

Without Scott Morrison to hate on, can teals deal a blow to the Coalition this election?

Intense anti-Scott Morrison sentiment and frustration with Coalition inaction on climate change, integrity and the treatment of women fuelled the teal wave that crashed through Liberal heartland at the 2022 federal election.

Now with Morrison gone, Labor in power and cost of living the most pressing issue in the electorate, the independents confront a very different political landscape.

Byron Fay, the executive director of the Climate 200 fundraising vehicle that backs the campaigns, acknowledges the “headwinds” facing independents in 2025.

But Fay insists there are “tailwinds”, too – a set of factors fuelling optimism that the movement might not only retain but expand its presence in Canberra.

The first, he says, is the track record of the incumbents: the performance of teals Zali Steggall, Allegra Spender, Zoe Daniel, Kylea Tink, Sophie Scamps, Kate Chaney, Monique Ryan and other crossbenchers like Andrew Wilkie, Rebekha Sharkie, Helen Haines and David Pocock.

The second is the ongoing erosion in the major party vote, a decades-long trend now approaching a tipping point that would redefine the political system in Australia.

People are not liking what they’re seeing from the duopoly and as a result the major party vote is in systemic decline.

For more on this story, read the full report by Guardian Australia’s Dan Jervis-Bardy:

Dutton to make first public appearance of the year at Melbourne campaign rally

Dan Jervis-Bardy

Regulator finds ‘inadequate’ safety protocols at NSW aerial firefighting operator

Poor safety practices and an “organisational failure” have plagued the company that runs New South Wales’s firefighting fleet, according to a report from the aviation safety regulator obtained under freedom of information.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports the regulator has delivered a scathing assessment of Coulson Aviation after an investigation into the crash of a tanker aircraft during a firefighting campaign in Western Australia in 2023.

According to the report, obtained by the SMH under freedom of information, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (Casa) said the company’s review of its own safety provides were “inadequate”, meaning potential hazards were overlooked and “contributing factors that could have led [to] a repeat incident or accident” were ignored.

Coulson Aviation said the company has addressed the issues raised by Casa.

‘We knew we couldn’t stop everything’: a fire controller looks back on Australia’s black summer

Bernie O’Rourke can vividly recall flying out from Newcastle in September 2019 on one of the first catastrophic fire days of a season now known as black summer.

It was 1.30 in the morning and, as the navy helicopter zigzagged over the bushland between Armidale and Taree, O’Rourke could see up to five fires blazing bright in the darkness. While night fires usually resemble “dots of colour” across a black landscape, this time O’Rourke saw something “very weird”.

“The glow,” he says. “The intensity of the glow.

Ideally at night things cool down, so you can take the opportunity to do some more work with the fire, or build some containment, or try to get the upper hand a little bit.

But this was in forest and vegetation where it was just going. Really big heads of fire, with high flame heights.

O’Rourke is one of an estimated 82,480 black summer responders. Some joined volunteer crews, battling raging fires and clearing fuel loads. Others, like O’Rourke, were support workers and coordinators whose decisions carried potentially life-changing consequences for those on the frontline.

For more on this story, read the full story by Walter Marsh:

Mother of Australian man killed in LA fires says she had no water to douse flames

The mother of an Australian man killed in the California fires has described how she tried to save her son from the blaze but could not douse the flames consuming his cottage because the water was switched off.

In a post to social media, Dr Shelley Sykes said her son, Rory Sykes, lived in a cottage on their Mount Malibu TV Studio estate when it burned down on Wednesday.

Sykes said she was unable to get her son out of the building before it caught alight.

I couldn’t put out the cinders on his roof with a hose because the water was switched off by @LVMWD Las Virgenes Municipal Water. Even the 50 brave fire fighters had no water all day!

Sykes said her son was born blind with cerebral palsy and had difficulty walking, but underwent surgery to regain his sight and learn to walk.

He overcame so much with surgeries & therapies to regain his sight & to be able to learn to walk. Despite the pain, he still enthused about traveling the world with me from Africa to Antarctica.

Read more on this story below:

Fears grow over censorship of secret Queen Elizabeth and Philip papers

Researchers fear that thousands of government documents about the late Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, due for release in the next two years, could be censored.

The files are scheduled to be made public in 2026 and 2027, five years after the royal couple’s deaths, and internal discussions have begun in Whitehall about how to process them and what should remain secret.

The papers are likely to include records of the highs and lows of the queen’s 70-year reign, correspondence between the royal household and government departments, and accounts of royal overseas tours, births, marriages, deaths, divorces and other momentous events in the second Elizabethan age.

Most public records considered to be of historical significance are released after 20 years, but there are numerous exemptions for government papers, including for national security reasons, disclosures that might affect international relations, and those involving members of the royal family. Separately, the royal family’s own archives at Windsor are not deemed public records, nor covered by the UK’s Freedom of Information Act.

Papers involving communications with the monarch are kept secret until five years after their death.

For more on this report, read the full story by the Observer’s Richard Palmer:

Minns says security for Jewish institutions will be upgraded over coming weeks

The premier said that police have already released video of a man wanted for questioning regarding an act of vandalism at the Allawah synagogue, but there has been no information about the person’s identity.

No one would like or tolerate or put up with this kind of vandalism, this racist vandalism on their house, their place of worship, their school, their community.

It shouldn’t be tolerated anywhere on the streets of Sydney. So if you know this individual, if you have any information as to who he is, please report it to New South Wales police or Crime Stoppers or triple zero as soon as possible.

Minns said the police response will continue along with an upgraded security support for Jewish institutions in the coming weeks, saying these events marked a “fraught time” in Sydney’s history.

Accelerant may have been used in Sydney synagogue attack, Minns says

Webb said the investigation has now been taken over by counter-terrorism command, Strike Force Pearl, that will draw on local and specialist resources “when needed”.

So again, we appeal to anyone out there who knows who has perpetrated these disgusting offences to come forward and tell police who they are.

We will continue pursuing them until we find them.

NSW police seeking two people over incident at Newtown synagogue

Australian-born Mary marks one year as Queen of Denmark

Tasmanian-born Queen Mary of Denmark will mark a year anniversary since her husband, King Frederik X, succeeded to the throne.

Tuesday marks the one-year anniversary of the high-stakes royal succession, after chain-smoking octogenarian Queen Margrethe announced a shock abdication after 52 years on the throne.

Mary was described by one royal house watcher, Thomas Larsen, as a “power broker” and “crucial adviser to the king”. Another, Trine Villemann, author of a book on the Danish royal household, described Mary as the “backbone” of her husband’s reign.

She’s King Mary. She’s the power behind the throne. Nothing gets done at Amalienborg Palace without Mary (or her staff’s input).

Here we have this girl from Tasmania, a completely ordinary normal girl who has not been afraid to seize power. It’s a really successful feminist story.

Villemann said Mary’s 19-year-old son, Crown Prince Christian, appears more comfortable with his future role as king than his father had at the same age.

Mary always made sure that Christian saw and learned from what his parents were doing, which means today we have this very self-assured, confident crown prince.

– AAP

Second Sydney synagogue defaced with graffiti

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