Australian News

Looks like a rather significant adjustment to the proposed cuts. Although still moving some beans around rather than dropping it.

Rough back of the envelope stuff it seems like ~80-120k earners get the largest dollar cut, but it's more significant in terms of % income at the lower end. So workers in "professional" roles likely to see the biggest impact, still gonna be tough at the low end of town.

• In short: Victoria police say pepper spray was used on protesters at a rally at the Port of Melbourne where 10 people were arrested.
• It's the fourth day protesters have rallied there blocking an Israeli-owned shipping company from unloading.
• What's next? Police will continue to monitor the situation as protests are expected to continue.

ABC global affairs editor John Lyons told a staff meeting the broadcaster “faced one of its darkest days” when this masthead published a series of leaked WhatsApp messages from a group of pro-Israel lawyers.

Unpaywalled link for any folks that need it.

Labor MP condemns Netanyahu’s rejection of Palestinian state as a step toward apartheid

Julian Hill labels Israeli prime minister’s position ‘appalling’ as he calls for financial consequences for Israeli settlers

Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration he rejects any moves to establish a Palestinian state after Israel’s offensive in Gaza has been labelled “appalling” and a step toward “apartheid” by influential Labor MP Julian Hill.

Hill has called for a suite of measures to respond, including financial consequences for Israeli settlers and an international push to fast-track recognition of a Palestinian state. The left faction convener argued that the “vast majority of the world recognises Israeli sovereignty only within the 1967 borders”.

The condemnation of the Israeli prime minister’s position appears to put Hill at odds with his own leader, Anthony Albanese, who declared on Friday that Australia’s support for “the existence of the state of Israel is completely unconditional”.

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Disgraced former top detective Roger Rogerson dies serving prison sentence for murder

Quick read

• In short: About 4,000 demonstrators have met in Melbourne CBD to support Palestinians and call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
• A small group of people has continued to block workers from unloading an Israeli-owned ship at the Port of Melbourne.
• What's next? A state government minister says people should be able to move in and out of their workplace without fear of their safety.

Unsurprisingly it's still food and housing driving it largely.

Driven by a desire to help others, Elaine worked in sectors like aged care and social services, taking on jobs the government is still desperate to fill.

But after nearly five decades in the workforce, she retired with just $45,000 in superannuation.

The body of 46-year-old Tanya Hehir was found near the Gympie weir yesterday afternoon after she and two others went exploring the town's main stormwater drain on Boxing Day.

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Authorities say a storm cell began dumping heavy rain over the region at about the time the trio entered the stormwater drain.

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It's storm season, and they went in as it started raining?? :-\

• Airbnb misled Australian customers by charging them in US dollars when they made a booking.

• The short-stay accommodation provider has been fined $15 million for breaching consumer law, and will pay $400,000 towards the ACCC's costs.

• Airbnb will also spend about $15 million to compensate more than 63,000 affected customers.

Several Westpac Bank customers are experiencing outages using their phone and online banking.

The bank has acknowledged they are aware of the issue in a statement.

The issue is also impacting St George customers, which is owned by Westpac Bank

Westpac also owns Bank of Melbourne, BankSA, BT and RAMS.

Reports about the exact scope of the outage currently differ wildly. Some outlets saying "thousands" some saying "millions", some saying "intermittent", some not.

Edit: literally while I was confirming the scope, apparently service started being restored.

Online and phone banking has been restored to most Westpac Bank customers after an outage that lasted a number of hours.