Australia news live: fugitive property developer won’t give evidence this week to Icac; SBS secures rights to 2030 Fifa World Cup | Australia news
Fugitive property developer Jean Nassif withdraws from NSW Icac appearance
Penry Buckley
Fugitive property developer Jean Nassif has withdrawn from a scheduled video appearance at the NSW Icac later this week, just days after the corruption watchdog announced he would appear.
As evidence from witness Charles Perrottet concluded this afternoon, counsel assisting the commission, Dr Peggy Dwyer SC, said:
Mr Nassif was scheduled to give evidence in this public inquiry via video link this Friday. However, he has provided the commission with a medical certificate, and his appearance has now been rescheduled to later in the public inquiry.
It comes less than a week after Icac announced that Nassif, who fled Australia for rural Lebanon in 2022 after a NSW parliamentary inquiry which preceded Icac’s investigation, would appear.
Icac is investigating the allegation that Liberal figures including Charles Perrottet anticipated receiving $2m in prohibited political donations from Nassif in exchange for political outcomes that would benefit his developments.
Perrottet, who has been asked this afternoon about a 2021 dinner meeting with Nassif at Nobu in Melbourne, has denied he ever asked Nassif for payments for political outcomes, but said he would lie and add a “political flavour” to updates to the developer to keep him on side.
Nassif has previously denied any wrongdoing.
Key events
‘Justice is served’: Family relief over killer’s guilt
The family of a loved 16-year-old boy murdered in a shopping centre stabbing are relieved justice has been served, AAP reports.
Oscar Hamilton was killed in September 2024 at Woodgrove Shopping Centre in Melton, northwest of Melbourne.
His killer, now aged 17, had denied he was guilty of murder, claiming he only wanted to confront the other boy rather than seriously hurt him.
But a Victorian Supreme Court jury on Tuesday returned its guilty verdict after only two hours of deliberations.
The teen looked down as he learnt his fate, while Oscar’s family and friends cried.
Outside court, they said they were deeply relieved at the jury’s decision. A relative told reporters:
Justice is being served.
While this verdict brings a sense of legal closure, it doesn’t lessen the profound grief and the emptiness we carry every day.
“(Oscar’s) life was tragically cut short and we will spend the rest of our lives honouring his memory.
‘I have no recollection’: Ed Husic says memory affected after car crash
Labor MP Ed Husic has recalled the aftermath of a car crash involving a truck and another car travelling on Sydney’s M7 motorway in his first media interview since his return to work.
The incident on 4 August happened at Dean Park, as the Chifley MP was travelling home from his electorate office at about 6.20pm, according to a spokesperson.
Husic was treated by paramedics at the scene and taken to Westmead hospital for assessment and treatment, and was discharged the following day.
Speaking on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, Husic said he has no memory of the accident.
I have no recollection. I am completely blanked of my memory of midday, the day on which the accident occurred, until I regained consciousness in the emergency department. I’ve been trying to piece together parts of the day.
I have to literally go through toll receipts, messages, photos, all those types of things to try and work it out.
I’m really grateful, I am very, very lucky. I’m very fortunate that I’ve been able to walk away from that. I’m fortunate I’ve been able to recover as quickly as I can, and I put that down to the tremendous public health network we have in our state.
Pauline Hanson holds fundraiser at Melbourne fine dining restaurant
Benita Kolovos
One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, has just wrapped up a fundraiser at Melbourne fine dining restaurant Vue de Monde.
As we reported over the weekend, One Nation charged a group of business leaders $2,000 to attend the event “deliberately small” gathering of 18 in Melbourne’s CBD ahead of the November state election. It’s understood some guests paid as much as $5,000 to be seated next to the Queensland senator.
Guests included former Liberal party donor and the state branch treasurer, Andrew Abercrombie; Kai Cantwell, the head of the gambling industry’s lobbying body, Responsible Wagering Australia; and former Liberal turned Libertarian and now One Nation member Peter Angelico.
One Nation’s Victorian leader, Warren Pickering, was the first to arrive, joined by the party’s state secretary, Bianca Colecchia.
If the fundraiser is for the Victorian party, as suggested by the authorisation recently added to the event’s invite, the party will have 21 days to declare the donations of those who attended.
But as we reported, it has only declared one donation this financial year:
Fugitive property developer Jean Nassif withdraws from NSW Icac appearance
Penry Buckley
Fugitive property developer Jean Nassif has withdrawn from a scheduled video appearance at the NSW Icac later this week, just days after the corruption watchdog announced he would appear.
As evidence from witness Charles Perrottet concluded this afternoon, counsel assisting the commission, Dr Peggy Dwyer SC, said:
Mr Nassif was scheduled to give evidence in this public inquiry via video link this Friday. However, he has provided the commission with a medical certificate, and his appearance has now been rescheduled to later in the public inquiry.
It comes less than a week after Icac announced that Nassif, who fled Australia for rural Lebanon in 2022 after a NSW parliamentary inquiry which preceded Icac’s investigation, would appear.
Icac is investigating the allegation that Liberal figures including Charles Perrottet anticipated receiving $2m in prohibited political donations from Nassif in exchange for political outcomes that would benefit his developments.
Perrottet, who has been asked this afternoon about a 2021 dinner meeting with Nassif at Nobu in Melbourne, has denied he ever asked Nassif for payments for political outcomes, but said he would lie and add a “political flavour” to updates to the developer to keep him on side.
Nassif has previously denied any wrongdoing.
Australian missing in Himalayan flood disaster ‘safely located’ in Tibet
Authorities have located an Australian who had been unaccounted for after deadly flash floods along the Nepal-Tibet border.
The department of foreign affairs and trade (Dfat) has been in contact with the Australian, who is in Tibet and is receiving consular support.
The news comes days after another Australian, Cara Severino, was safely located over the weekend.
At least 42 Australians remain unaccounted for in the region.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said Australian officials are continuing to work with local authorities and partners to locate and assist those still missing. Wong said:
It’s hard to imagine the sense of relief their loved ones must be feeling after what will have been an incredibly harrowing few days.
Despite this second piece of welcome news in recent days, we must remain realistic about the days ahead.
Around 4,000 people remain missing across the affected areas, and the conditions facing search and recovery teams are extremely challenging. Communications remain difficult, infrastructure has been destroyed and many areas are still difficult to reach.
As each day passes, our grave concerns for those still unaccounted for inevitably grow.
Our thoughts remain firmly with all those waiting for news of family and friends, and with the search and rescue teams working in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
Nick Visser
That’s all from me. Achol Arok will take the blog from here. Enjoy the first day of spring.
SBS secures broadcast rights to 2030 Fifa World Cup
SBS has secured the rights to the 2030 Fifa World Cup, ensuring the event will be broadcast in Australia for free once again after a hugely successful event this year.
The next men’s World Cup will celebrate the competition’s 100th anniversary and be hosted jointly by Morocco, Portugal and Spain.
“SBS is without question the home of ‘the World Game’ in Australia and we are so pleased to retain the exclusive rights for 2030,” the SBS managing director, Jane Palfreyman, said. “The FIFA World Cup is one of the few sporting events that truly brings Australians together across all cultures, languages and communities.”
In 2030 audiences will once again be able to experience every match live and free on SBS. Securing the FIFA World Cup 2030TM continues the important partnership between SBS and FIFA that spans more than four decades and reflects our longstanding commitment to making the world’s biggest sporting moments accessible to all Australians.
The 2026 World Cup reached more than 18 million Australians and became the most successful World Cup coverage in SBS’s history.
Next year’s Fifa Women’s World Cup in Brazil will be broadcast on Channel Ten and Paramount+.
Quest to protect rare parrot from deadly bird flu
Another bird story to follow on the good news below: A vaccination program to help protect a critically endangered parrot from deadly H5 bird flu has begun in earnest ahead of its summer breeding season.
AAP reports the migratory orange-bellied parrot, which has a wild population of 90-100, was considered a priority species by the federal government after the strain’s arrival in Australia.
Researchers have raised specific concerns about the risk of H5 to the parrot due to its loss of genetic diversity over the past century and its potentially weak immunity.
Its wild population is propped up by a captive breeding program housed at Five Mile beach outside Hobart. Veterinarians at the facility have started vaccinating 350 of the captive birds, including juveniles who will later go free in Tasmania to join the wild population as part of annual releases.
Orange-bellied parrots, which are about the size of a budgie, only breed in Tasmania in summer and spend the winter in coastal Victoria and South Australia.
Their population dropped to just 17 wild individuals in 2016.
Eva Corlett
‘It’s fantastic’: 90 kākāpō chicks swell population of the world’s heaviest parrot
The population of the world’s heaviest parrot, the kākāpō, has surpassed 300 birds for the first time in 75 years, after a record breeding season triggered by the mass fruiting of a native New Zealand tree.
Ninety chicks were officially added to the population of the critically endangered birds on 1 September, pushing the total to 325 – a record high since recovery efforts began.
“The last time the population is thought to have exceeded 300 birds may have been as long as 75 years ago,” said Deidre Vercoe, the conservation department’s kākāpō recovery operations manager.
We had a four-year gap between breeding seasons, so it’s fantastic to finally see the population increase after all that time.
Read more here:
Sarah Hanson-Young urges parliament to take up VAD reform bill
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said calls from South Australia to reform the use of telehealth to access voluntary assisted dying (VAD) services amounted to a need for “crucial reform” that cannot wait.
As reported in the blog earlier, South Australia has asked the federal government to amend the criminal code to remove legal uncertainty around the use of telehealth for VAD services. Labor’s national conference recently voted to repeal a law that prevents telehealth for VAD consults, but the prime minister has not supported the idea.
Hanson-Young said access to VAD is a “right every Australian should have access to”, adding in a statement:
Voluntary assisted dying is legal in every state and territory, yet too many Australians living with terminal illness are denied access to VAD advice and care because they are blocked from speaking to their doctor on the phone.
The senator has introduced a bill to address telehealth access:
The Prime Minister must not let his personal opinion to compassionate end-of-life healthcare stand in the way of a conscience vote. We cannot afford to treat voluntary assisted dying as a luxury for the lucky few who live close to healthcare infrastructure.
Parliament could fix this by the end of the year. All it takes is the political will to work together and put patients and their families first.
Sarah Basford Canales
Hanson accuses Labor minister of ‘victim-blaming’ and demands apology over comments
Pauline Hanson has accused a senior Labor minister of “victim-blaming” and demanded an apology over suggesting One Nation is politically dangerous and divisive.
For the second day in a row, the Queensland senator has used social media to hit back at the Albanese government after the attorney general, Michelle Rowland, said One Nation was dangerous and had platformed extremists.
Rowland, earlier this morning, told ABC radio:
I don’t wish ill on Ms Hanson in a physical way. I don’t wish any politician any ill will, irrespective of their political persuasion. But I think sometimes when comments like this are made, one needs to look at oneself and one’s behaviour and the kinds of standards that they accept into their own party and their own ideology.
Hanson demanded the federal first law officer retract the comments and apologise, claiming Rowland seemed to “excuse the violent threats directed against” the party.
Millions of Australians support One Nation. They are not extremists. They are not dangerous. And ministers should not use language that encourages others to treat them as if they are. No minister, especially the attorney general and first law officer of the country, should suggest there is any justification for threats against Australians because of the political party they support. Labor should be asking why Australians are abandoning them for One Nation, not demonising those Australians for how they vote and putting them in danger.
Crédito: Link de origem