Acting foreign minister Katy Gallagher said on Friday afternoon that Australia ‘remains extremely concerned about the potential for miscalculation and further escalation of conflict’ in the Middle East. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
Acting foreign minister Katy Gallagher said on Friday afternoon that Australia ‘remains extremely concerned about the potential for miscalculation and further escalation of conflict’ in the Middle East. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
The Australian government has urged Iran and Israel to “exercise restraint and step back to avoid a further spiral of violence”.
In response for a request for comment on Israel’s reported retaliatory military actions against Iran, the acting foreign minister, Katy Gallagher, said:
Australia remains extremely concerned about the potential for miscalculation and further escalation of conflict in the region. This is in no one’s interests. We urge all parties to exercise restraint and step back to avoid a further spiral of violence. Australia will continue working with partners to try to reduce tensions and prevent further regional spillover.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had earlier updated travel advice for the region.
Traditional owners welcome plan to stop visitors walking on Kathi Thanda-Lake Eyre without permission
Visitors will no longer be able to set foot on one of Australia’s premier tourist destinations under a proposed plan to protect its cultural significance for traditional owners, AAP has reported.
Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre is the continent’s largest lake. Swimming, driving, boating and landing aircraft on the lake are already banned, but the new plan would prevent visitors from setting foot on its bed without permission.
It is a sacred site for the Arabana people, who have lived in the region for millennia and are the lake’s native title holders.
The Arabana Aboriginal Corporation chairwoman, Bronwyn Dodd, said her people were proud to share Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre but urged visitors to respect their Ularaka (stories), lore and culture:
We have a responsibility to look after the lake and in turn, it looks after us.
Preservation of this lake is also the preservation of our culture.
Attorney general calls on men to ‘step up’ against family violence
Echoing the words of anti-family violence campaigner Rosie Batty, the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, has called on men in Australia to “step up” and stamp out attacks on women, AAP has reported.
In a speech to the family violence symposium held by the federal circuit and family court in Melbourne on Friday, Dreyfus likened the death of more than 25 women this year to an epidemic.
Dreyfus noted the event was being held against the backdrop of “shocking acts of violence against women” just days after five women were stabbed to death at a Bondi Junction shopping centre, and several women were killed in Ballarat in two months. More than 25 women have been killed in Australia so far this year.
“It’s time for men to step up,” he said.
“It’s our responsibility to educate ourselves, our sons, our colleagues and our friends.”
New TikTok Notes app to be banned on Australian government devices
Federal government employees will not be allowed to install the new TikTok app that is the Chinese-owned company’s answer to Instagram, with the existing ban extended to Notes.
On Thursday, TikTok launched Notes, an app dedicated to still images and text in Australia and Canada for initial testing before a wider rollout.
It came a year after the Australian government banned the main TikTok app from government devices, saying the app “poses significant security and privacy risks to non-corporate Commonwealth entities arising from extensive collection of user data and exposure to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government that conflict with Australian law”.
The home affairs department confirmed its existing TikTok ban would also apply to Notes. Photograph: Joly Victor/ABACA/REX/Shutterstock
On Friday, the Department of Home Affairs confirmed that the existing ban would also apply to Notes.
A spokesperson said:
Protective Security Policy Framework Direction 001-2023 addresses the significant security and privacy risks arising from the TikTok application’s extensive collection of user data and its exposure to extra-judicial directives by a foreign government that conflict with Australian law.
The direction extends to TikTok accounts and features subsequently added to the TikTok application, including the photo-sharing capability of TikTok Notes.
Broken Hill newspaper the Barrier Truth announces shock closure
Broken Hill’s independently owned newspaper, the Barrier Truth, has announced its shock closure, AAP has reported.
After almost 130 years in operation, the Truth’s board announced to staff the union-run bi-weekly paper would be shut down as its final edition went to press.
The Barrier Industrial Council president and newspaper board chair, Roslyn Ferry, told AAP the masthead had closed until further notice.
The board planned to seek legal and financial support following the closure, she said.
“It probably comes as no surprise that maintaining operations, particularly over the past 12 months, has been extremely challenging,” Ms Ferry said in a statement.
Woodside revenue falls 31% in first quarter due to sluggish production and falling prices
Sluggish production and falling fossil fuel prices have slashed revenues at Australia’s largest oil and gas producer, Woodside, by almost a third, AAP has reported.
The Perth-based company’s revenue for the first quarter fell 31% compared with the previous year to $US2.97 billion ($A4.66 billion), it announced on Friday.
Over the same period, production dropped by 4% while gas and oil prices slumped by 25%.
Despite the lacklustre result, the chief executive, Meg O’Neill, said significant progress had been made on Woodside’s three major growth projects – Sangomar in Senegal, Scarborough in WA and Trion in the Gulf of Mexico.
Sangomar is now 96% complete, with first oil targeted by mid-2024, O’Neill said.
Electric cars must generate artificial noises under new laws
Electric cars sold in Australia will have to generate artificial noises when driving slowly in carparks and driveways, to aid pedestrian safety around the otherwise quieter vehicles, as part of design requirements unveiled by the Albanese government on Friday.
Acoustic vehicle alerting systems (Avas) will be required in new electric, hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell cars, trucks and buses from November 2025, under the new Australian design rule that brings the country into line with similar requirements in the United States and Europe.
When an electric car travels above 30km/h, it sounds much the same as a petrol-driven vehicle, as the noise is emitted from the tyres vibrating against the road rather than the engine. But below that speed, it becomes barely audible.
BMW has previously hired Hans Zimmer to help score their electric car sound. Photograph: Andrew Harker/Alamy
This can make encountering the vehicles more dangerous for pedestrians, particularly people with low vision. The new design rules are expected to prevent 68 fatalities and 2,675 serious injuries by 2060.
Vision Australia’s manager of advocacy Chris Edwards said the group had been calling for Avas to be made mandatory in EVs in Australia since 2018.
Edwards said:
All pedestrians should have the right to feel safe and confident when navigating public spaces and today’s announcement is a significant step towards protecting that for people who are blind or have low vision. There is no doubt that this is an announcement that will save lives.
Manufacturers will ultimately get to decide what artificial noises they will feature. BMW has previously hired Hans Zimmer to help score their electric car sound. My colleague Jordyn Beazley has previously covered the question of what electric vehicles should sound like here:
The Australian government has urged Iran and Israel to “exercise restraint and step back to avoid a further spiral of violence”.
In response for a request for comment on Israel’s reported retaliatory military actions against Iran, the acting foreign minister, Katy Gallagher, said:
Australia remains extremely concerned about the potential for miscalculation and further escalation of conflict in the region. This is in no one’s interests. We urge all parties to exercise restraint and step back to avoid a further spiral of violence. Australia will continue working with partners to try to reduce tensions and prevent further regional spillover.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had earlier updated travel advice for the region.
$60m digital passenger declaration app experienced delays, end product ‘inflexible’, home affairs tells inquiry
The department’s acting chief information officer, Matt Jones, added the digital passenger declaration app – which was supposed to be the first step toward overhauling and digitising Australia’s travel and visa system – was also inflexible.
Labor chair, Julian Hill, asked what the department received from Accenture over its $60m contract before it was terminated prematurely: “So, [Accenture] built an app?”
Jones responded:
“Yeah, and a very hard-wired app, so if we wanted to change questions around, for example, health status, it was going to take weeks and weeks and weeks whereas our expectations and the requirements in the tender was that it was supposed to be configurable.”
Home affairs grilled over Covid-era passenger declaration app that operated for only 3 months
Officials from the home affairs department have been grilled by a parliamentary joint committee over their contract with IT company, Accenture, to build a $60m digital passenger declaration app for border re-openings that operated for just three months.
The department’s involvement in signing the contract with the IT firm back in September 2021 was the subject of a scathing report from the Australian national audit office, which found the department undermined its attempts to achieve value for money and did not adequately deal with conflict of interest issues.
The app, which asked incoming passengers to Australia for their health and vaccination status, launched in March 2022 but was ultimately dumped in July 2022 by home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, after Labor took up government.
First assistant secretary, Claire Roennfeldt, told the hearing the contract with Accenture was “mutually” terminated due to a change in biosecurity laws but also spoke at length of how the IT firm failed to deliver on expectations and experienced ongoing delays.
Few women among election candidates in Solomon Islands as counting continues
From AAP:
Which 50 Solomon Islanders will make up the next government remains in doubt, but one thing is clear: few will be women.
The Pacific nation, where rapidly deepening ties with China have grabbed international headlines, held its biggest election day on Wednesday, with 1200 candidates running for seats in national and local parliaments.
Counting is expected to continue in earnest on Friday with a few surprises among the early results already declared.
Martin Fini, the pro-China leader of the country’s most populous province, was confirmed to have lost his seat a year after coming to power in Malaita in controversial circumstances.
But few victors across the country will be women, having made up a paltry 5% of candidates in the joint elections.
WA police call for witnesses after fatal Clackline crash
Police have asked anyone who might have seen the car to get in contact:
What I will ask is if anyone was on the road in the early hours or late evening yesterday or the early hours of this morning, if they did witness anything or did see a silver Nissan Navara utility travelling down that road, or have dashcam, if they could please contact Crime Stoppers.
It’s really important that I remind people of the fundamentals of driving on our roads, particularly in regional WA. Do not drive tired, do not drink and drive or use drugs and drive. If you’re driving particularly long distances in the dark, in remote locations, you take suitable rest periods and respite periods, wear your seatbelt, and please do not touch your phones at all.
‘Three brothers and their family friend’ killed in Wheatbelt car crash, police confirm
A WA police spokesperson is speaking to media now:
When you lose three young men, three brothers and their family friend in one crash, this is a heartbreaking incident for WA. I attended the scene this morning and as you can imagine, it was a very confronting scene for first responders, to attend and, investigate.
He said the 21-year-old man was the driver, his two brothers aged 19 and 9 were in the back seat and their family friend, 45, was in the passenger seat.
All four occupants sustained critical injuries and they died at the scene. Major crash investigations have attended and they are conducting an investigation surrounding the circumstances of that death.
Many thanks for your company on the blog today. The lovely Cait Kelly will be here to take you through the rest of our rolling coverage. Take care, and enjoy your weekend.
The Bureau of Meteorology has shared a national weather forecast for the weekend ahead. Heads up for those on the east coast: don’t forget your umbrellas!
Here's what to expect across Australia over the weekend, including rain & thunderstorms in south-east #Qld & parts of #NSW, but mostly settled conditions elsewhere. Video current as of 12:30 pm AEST, Friday 19 April 2024.
Ahpra survey shows culture of bullying in trainee doctors
Non-binary and women medical trainees around the nation have reported higher experiences of bullying and mistreatment, AAP reports.
Serious concerns about the culture of medicine were raised by trainee doctors of all genders in the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency survey of more than 23,000 doctors in training in 2023.
Those who identify as non-binary reported the most instances of bullying, harassment, discrimination and/or racism.
16% of non-binary respondents disagreed that bullying, harassment and discrimination is not tolerated by anyone in the workplace.
Some 32% of female respondents witnessed bullying, harassment, discrimination or racism in the past year, while 58% of non-binary respondents said the same.
Female trainees also reported more workplace bullying and mistreatment than their male counterparts.
Non-binary and women medical trainees around the nation report higher experiences of bullying and mistreatment. Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian
The Ahpra board chair said the culture of medical training needed ongoing attention. Anne Tonkin said in the December 2023 report:
In such a complex system of shared accountabilities and responsibilities, there is no quick fix. The urgent need for ongoing commitment to building a culture of respect in medicine and medical training remains.
More than 18,000 participants answered a question about their gender, with more than 9000 trainees identifying as female, 8000 as male and 67 as non-binary.
