Closing the Gap numbers ‘aren’t up to scratch’ – PM
Anthony Albanese is speaking to reporters in Alice Springs alongside the Northern Territory chief minister, Lia Finocchiaro.
As Dan Jervis-Bardy reported earlier, a six-year, $843m agreement to deliver services in remote Indigenous communities in the NT has been inked by the commonwealth and Territory governments.
Finocchiaro labelled the funding as “one of the best health funding deals we’ve ever had for the territory”.
We know that community safety is the number one priority of Territorians no matter where they live, but this funding will go further than remote policing, which is critical. It will also support better health outcomes for Aboriginal people living in the bush, greater empowerment and decision making and, of course, making sure that our remote communities are invested in.
Albanese said the six-year agreement was about “empowering those local communities to work with government to deliver real solutions”.
Australians want to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and we know that we’re, frankly, not doing well enough. And no government have done well enough, which is why so many of the indices that will be released next week simply aren’t up to scratch. So this is about doing better.
Key events
Kyle Sandilands reveals he has second aneurysm
The radio host Kyle Sandilands says doctors have found a second aneurysm in his chest, and that surgery for the one in his brain would be more complicated than first expected.
This comes after he revealed on Monday he would undergo “immediate” brain surgery after being diagnosed with the brain aneurysm. He has continued hosting The Kyle & Jackie O Show alongside Jackie Henderson this week.
Speaking on the radio this morning, Sandilands provided an update on his condition and said he left the doctors with “more questions than when I went in”.
Remember how they were going to thread it through a vein and stick a little coil in there? Well, mine’s the wrong shape for a coil … so they have to drill a hole through my skull the size of a drinking glass, pull that bit of skull out and go into the brain.
He said doctors found a second aneurysm in his chest, which would require a separate surgery, as well as “very bad calcium build up in the heart, [with a] 25% chance of having a heart attack in the next five years.” This would also require surgery, he said.
Ben Doherty
Clare Nowland’s son says repercussions of mothers death will ‘echo through our family for generations to come’
At the Kristian White sentencing hearing, Dennis Nowland – Clare Nowland’s fourth child – said his life has been “on hold” since his mother’s death, and that he has been unable to properly grieve because of the criminal justice proceedings and intense media interest.
He said he struggled to comprehend how a police officer – charged with serving and protecting the community – could “fail so catastrophically” to uphold his responsibilities. He told the court:
This is a wound I will never fully heal from, but I have to learn to live with. The repercussions will echo through our family for generations to come.
White, the since-dismissed police officer convicted of Nowland’s manslaughter, is sitting alone in the dock.
PM says Dutton should say where public spending will be cut
Asked about Peter Dutton’s intention to cut public spending, Anthony Albanese told reporters in Alice Springs it’s “not good enough” for him to wait until after the election to reveal where these cuts will be.
As we reported yesterday, the opposition leader provided little information on his plans to get the “economy back on track” through slashing government jobs and other “wasteful spending”.
The prime minister said:
[Dutton] said that they’ll tell you what [the cuts] are after the election. I don’t think that’s good enough. I think you’re entitled to ask where the cuts will be – and that’s before he has to find an additional $600bn of funding, of cuts, in order to pay for his nuclear fantasy.
After one more question, the press conference wrapped up.
Ben Doherty
Clare Nowland’s eldest son tells court of trauma of losing his mother
Circling back to the Kristian White sentencing hearing: Michael Nowland, the eldest son of Clare Nowland, has told the NSW supreme court of the trauma of losing his mother. He said fell into a state of shock at the “inhumane act” perpetrated on his mother.
This was unfathomable. Who in their right mind would do this to a frail 95-year-old lady?
To this day I am traumatised by this gutless, coward act. This continues to cause me sleepless nights and anger, blaming myself as to how I could have negated this act and protected my mother.
Michael Nowland described his mother as “the most caring person in the world”, who was not allowed to die with dignity.
The Nowland family want justice and fairness.
PM taking questions from reporters in NT
Taking questions at the press conference in Alice Springs, Anthony Albanese said the funding for the NT would be “a line item when we hand down our budget”.
It’s not people in Canberra saying, ‘Here’s what you’re going to do.’ It’s engaging with people on the ground that will make an enormous difference …
This is the full suite of services, including policing, that will make a difference … for community safety, children’s health [and] alcohol harm reduction.
Kristian White sentencing hearing begins
Ben Doherty
The sentencing hearing for former police officer Kristian White – who fatally shot 95-year-old Clare Nowland with a Taser gun in a nursing home in 2023 – has begun in King Street courts in Sydney.
Justice Ian Harrison has noted the unique nature of the case, saying the “idiosyncratic, almost enigmatic” circumstance means there is no precedent for sentencing in a case such as this.
The court is about to hear statements from members of Nowland’s family.
PM flags Closing the Gap speeches
Anthony Albanese flagged that Closing the Gap speeches will take place in Parliament on Monday. He told reporters:
I want to make sure, though, that we were here on the ground – the commonwealth government, with the NT government, with Indigenous services here in the Northern Territory – to make a difference.
Albanese says funding outcomes will be monitored
The prime minister said the government had a range of audit processes in place and “if things aren’t working, we’ll change them”.
We’ll intervene to make sure that the dollars go to where they are anticipated, which is improving the lives of Territorians. So we have high expectations of organisations that deliver taxpayer-funded programs.
Closing the Gap numbers ‘aren’t up to scratch’ – PM
Anthony Albanese is speaking to reporters in Alice Springs alongside the Northern Territory chief minister, Lia Finocchiaro.
As Dan Jervis-Bardy reported earlier, a six-year, $843m agreement to deliver services in remote Indigenous communities in the NT has been inked by the commonwealth and Territory governments.
Finocchiaro labelled the funding as “one of the best health funding deals we’ve ever had for the territory”.
We know that community safety is the number one priority of Territorians no matter where they live, but this funding will go further than remote policing, which is critical. It will also support better health outcomes for Aboriginal people living in the bush, greater empowerment and decision making and, of course, making sure that our remote communities are invested in.
Albanese said the six-year agreement was about “empowering those local communities to work with government to deliver real solutions”.
Australians want to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and we know that we’re, frankly, not doing well enough. And no government have done well enough, which is why so many of the indices that will be released next week simply aren’t up to scratch. So this is about doing better.
Ex-police officer Kristian White faces sentence hearing
A now former police officer who fatally Tasered a 95-year-old dementia patient in New South Wales could receive a jail term when he faces a sentence hearing.
Kristian James Samuel White was found guilty of manslaughter after Tasering Clare Nowland at Yallambee Lodge aged-care home in the southern NSW town of Cooma in the early hours of 17 May 2023.
He will face a sentence hearing in the NSW supreme court today, during which prosecutors are expected to argue he should serve time behind bars. Read more below:
Follow live: Antoinette Lattouf v ABC hearing
Day five of the Antoinette Lattouf v ABC unlawful termination claim is under way today.
Chris Oliver-Taylor, the outgoing ABC content chief who sacked Lattouf, has begun giving evidence.
Remaining witnesses include the former ABC Radio Sydney manager Steve Ahern, the ABC Radio Sydney’s content director, Elizabeth Green, and former chair Ita Buttrose.
You can follow along live with Kate Lyons in our separate live blog here:
Domino’s to close 205 ailing stores, mainly in Japan
Jonathan Barrett
Domino’s Pizza Enterprises will close 205 stores, mostly in Japan, after prolonged struggles in its Asian expansion.
The Australian-listed company, which holds the branding rights in several countries of the American pizza chain, had invested heavily in Japan but without the success of other international brands such as KFC, which has a passionate following there.
The managing director, Mark van Dyck, said Japan was still a “high potential market” and that Domino’s would adopt a more focused strategy.
We are committed to being disciplined in expansion – prioritising locations in high-density prefectures where we can drive incremental growth.
Domino’s was an early market darling of the pandemic amid a boon in takeaway food and deliveries. But its share price has crashed more than 80% since those 2021 highs, weighed down by changed buying habits and its troubled operations in Japan and France.
The pizza chain had unsuccessfully tried to reshape its menu to meet local tastes, such as introducing pizza rice bowls to drive sales in Japan.
Domino’s disclosed in a trading update today that same store sales had increased in its Australia and New Zealand reporting unit over the past six months, but fallen sharply in Asia.
All of the 205 stores that will be closed were recording losses, with 172 located in Japan.
Unions NSW calls for stronger action on short-term holiday rentals across state
Unions NSW is urging the state government must take action on short-term holiday rentals on platforms like Airbnb, saying they are worsening the housing affordability crisis and pushing essential workers out of their communities.
It has made a submission to the essential worker housing inquiry, pointing to a survey that shows 78% of frontline workers in NSW are in housing stress, spending more than 30% of their income on housing.
Unions NSW said that as of March last year, 167,955 dwellings across Australia were being used for unhosted short-term rentals – and in Sydney, Airbnb listings were occupied on average for only 71 nights a year.
Of the Airbnbs in Sydney, more than 30% are run by investors with 10 or more listings.
It said the housing affordability crisis had reached “critical levels” as low vacancy rates in Sydney couple with weekly rents rising by almost 60% since 2020, from $519 to $833.
Mark Morey, the secretary of Unions NSW, will present the evidence to the upper house inquiry today. He said in a statement:
Places like Byron Bay are taking matters into their own hands, introducing a 60-day cap on unhosted short-term rentals. The NSW government must follow suit and introduce statewide limits in high-demand areas.
Parts of remote WA forecast to reach 47C
Moving over to the west coast, Western Australians are continuing to swelter through a heatwave, with remote areas facing near 50C temperatures into the weekend.
The Bureau of Meteorology is warning of maximum temperatures in the low to high 40s, and overnight minimum temperatures in the mid 20s to low 30s.
Both Marble Bar and Gascoyne Junction are forecast to reach a top of 47C today and tomorrow. The latter reached 49C on Sunday, 49.2C on Monday and 48.8C on Tuesday this week, according to the bureau.
Leinster, Leonora, Paraburdoo, Wiluna and Meekatharra are all expected to reach 46C at the weekend. Laverton is expected to reach 45C at the weekend, followed by 46C on Monday.
