Australia news live: Chalmers says Meta scrapping factchecking a big concern amid ‘explosion’ of misinformation
Key events
Stay put at a water source if lost, police say
Asked for advice on what to do if lost or disoriented while hiking, Supt Andrew Spliet says to stay put. He spoke to ABC News Breakfast a short while ago:
Generally our searchers will go down towards water courses and so forth. That’s where people generally tend to go, down mountains … once they get a bit exhausted from being out in the conditions. But just stay put. We’ll eventually find you. We put of a lot of time and energy and resources into the searches. If you’re close to a water source of some description, we’ll get there and find you. That’s the advice.
Also if you’re going out in those sort of terrain, take a personal locator beacon. They’re life-saving.
Krishani Dhanji
Police say Nazari ‘walked relentlessly’ while lost in the Snowy Mountains
Supt Andrew Spliet spoke to ABC News Breakfast earlier, describing what Hadi Nazari went through while hundreds searched for him.
Spliet said it appeared Nazari got lost and disoriented after being separated from his friends on Boxing Day in the Kosciuszko national park.
He … pretty much slept, well, rested during the evenings and just walked relentlessly during the daytime. He was able to keep himself hydrated from the water courses and the creeks and so forth up there in the high country and also looked for berries and that sort of thing, which obviously sustained him.
Also said that he came across a hiker’s hut up there that had two muesli bars and that, so pretty much all he had for the last two weeks. So a really good effort by him to stay alive
Krishani Dhanji
Treasurer says Meta’s scrapping of factcheckers ‘very concerning’
Circling back to the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, on ABC News Breakfast earlier, he was asked about Meta’s decision to scrap factcheckers, which he called “very concerning”.
I think misinformation and disinformation is very dangerous and we have seen it really kind of explode in the last few years and it’s a very damaging development, damaging for our democracy.
Labor last year was forced to drop its bill to counter misinformation and disinformation online, due to a lack of support from the Coalition and members of the crossbench.
Chalmers said it’s why they have invested in the ABC, SBS and AAP, to counter misinformation.
Misinformation and disinformation is unfortunately becoming bigger and bigger part of our media, particularly our social media.
We have tried during the course of this parliamentary term to build support for changes on misinformation and disinformation. Unfortunately, the parliament did not find a way to support those kinds of changes and so we’ll have to look for other ways.
You can read more on Meta getting rid of factchecking (and whether you should leave Instagram as a result) here:
Man with Japanese encephalitis in critical condition
A father has been in critical condition with the first case of Japanese encephalitis in Australia since 2022.
Stevie Bond first experienced headaches and a fever in early December when he was taken to Shepparton hospital in northern Victoria, a GoFundMe on behalf of the Bond family said. His condition deteriorated rapidly and he was airlifted to St Vincent’s ICU, Melbourne, in critical condition.
Bond’s “future capacity to live is unknown”, the GoFundMe said.
St Vincent’s confirmed the hospital is caring for one patient with Japanese encephalitis who is in a critical condition.
VicHealth issued an alert of the first human case of Japanese encephalitis in Victoria this mosquito season on the last day of 2024.
“These findings indicate that JE virus is likely circulating in northern Victoria this summer,” the VicHealth alert said.
The deadly virus is transmitted through mosquito bites. It can cause a rare but potentially serious infection of the brain and is spread to humans through bites from infected mosquitoes, VicHealth said.
“This beautiful, kind, loving, funny and much loved man is fighting for his life,” the GoFundMe on behalf of Bond’s family said.
Doctors have advised Cilla and family that should Steve be able to continue his fight and his brain start to recover, the recovery will take months in ICU and years of rehabilitation.
Jim Chalmers argues Labor making ‘sustained progress’ against inflation
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is “pretty pleased to see underlying inflation come down yesterday”. He is speaking live on ABC News Breakfast:
Also pleasing to see that headline inflation has been for some months now at the bottom end of the Reserve Bank’s target range because what that tells us is that we are making and have made really substantial and now sustained progress in the fight against inflation.
Andrew Messenger
Brisbane traffic congestion ranked 10th worst in world but experts question ‘black box’ analysis
Brisbane ranks among the world’s most congested cities – ahead of sprawling megacities such as Bangkok and well in front of Sydney and Melbourne – according to a transport analytics report.
According to the report, an average Brisbane driver lost about 84 hours to congestion in 2024, an increase of 14% on 2023. That ranks the city as the world’s 10th-most congested, behind Istanbul (105 hours), New York (102 hours) and London (101 hours).
But experts have cast doubt on the methodology of INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard, which compares travel times when roads are empty in the middle of the night with speeds at peak hour to calculate what it calls “delay”.
“This is a rogue metric,” said Matt Burke of the Griffith University Cities Research Institute.
“INRIX scores are a bit of a black box. You don’t quite know exactly how they’re calculating this.”
You can read more here:
Ella Archibald-Binge
More than 1% of Northern Territory population imprisoned as record jail numbers predicted to climb
Police watch houses in the Northern Territory are being repurposed as long-term prison cells as record imprisonment numbers push the system to breaking point.
There were 2,613 people locked up in the NT on Tuesday – more than 1% of the territory’s population of 255,100, according to the NT Department of Corrections.
By contrast, in Western Australia – the state with the next highest imprisonment rate – about 0.2% of the population is behind bars. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows the NT incarceration rate is more than five times the national average.
More than 250 people are being held in NT police watch houses, spilling over from overcrowded prisons unable to cope with a surge that is only expected to grow as tough new bail laws take effect this week.
“Police watch houses are overcrowded, they’re oppressive, the lights stay on, the noise is constant. Prisoners complain that they don’t have privacy when they go to the toilet,” Clancy Dane, the principal lawyer at Territory Criminal Lawyers, said.
Read the full story here:
Petra Stock
New research into one of Australia’s most specialised and bizarre animals has revealed the marsupial mole’s biology is as unusual as its appearance.
Despite the animal’s striking resemblance to “true” moles from Africa and parts of the northern hemisphere, marsupial moles were most closely related to bandicoots and bilbies, the study in Science Advances said.
University of Melbourne researchers, who led the study, extracted DNA from a museum specimen then sequenced and analysed its genome to uncover the evolutionary secrets of the golden-haired species, about which “almost nothing is known”.
You can read more here:
Appetite for discounting on show in retail figures
After yesterday’s inflation numbers, analysts will turn their attention to retail sales from the Australian Bureau of Statistics today for a read on consumer behaviour.
An early start to discounting helped fuel a solid 0.6% lift in retail sales in October.
Consumer spending has been trending generally weak, reflecting a barely growing economy and households under pressure from higher mortgage repayments and inflation.
The Reserve Bank has been keeping a close eye on consumers as too much spending could complicate the inflation task and keep interest rates higher for longer.
– Australian Associated Press
‘Good news for renters’: slower growth recorded
Rental growth across the nation is slowing amid the housing crisis, as economists predict a greater “balance” in the market.
New data released by REA Group, which owns Australia’s leading real estate site, shows advertised rents were unchanged in all capital city markets apart from two in the December 2024 quarter.
Brisbane and Canberra were the only capital cities to record rent increases over the past three months, but Adelaide and Perth experienced the strongest increases over the past year.
Median advertised weekly rents in Sydney ($730) and Melbourne ($570) flatlined for six months, with rents growing at their slowest pace since late 2021.
The relief comes at a time when housing affordability in Australia continues to deteriorate, as households buckle under the strain of high cost-of-living pressures.
In regional areas, advertised rents didn’t move from $550 a week in the last three months, but spiked by a massive 10% over 2024.
REA Group senior economist Paul Ryan said the figures meant good news for renters.
“We’re seeing broadly, the market come back into a bit better balance between renters and landlords in a bit more rental availability,” he told AAP.
– Australian Associated Press
Rafqa Touma
Thanks to Martin Farrer for kicking off the blog this morning.
I’ll be rolling your news updates through the day – let’s get into it.
More on that seaplane crash from AAP:
The owners of the seaplane say they are distraught over the tragedy.
“We are devastated by those injured and the loss of the two passengers involved in the terrible incident yesterday,” Swan River Seaplanes company director Kristy Bailey said.
“Our deepest and sincere condolences are with their families and friends.
“We are heartbroken by the tragic loss of James [Wong], a talented and dedicated pilot who was an integral and deeply cherished member of our team.”
Investigators to try to salvage remaining seaplane wreckage off Rottnest Island
Investigators will today attempt to salvage the remaining wreckage of a seaplane that crashed during take-off, killing three people and seriously hurting three other passengers, AAP reports.
It is believed the aircraft carrying seven people struck a small limestone outcrop near popular holiday spot Rottnest Island, off the coast of Perth, about 4pm on Tuesday.
The Cessna 208 Caravan 675 plunged nose-first into the water near Thomson Bay, killing pilot James Wong, 34, a 65-year-old Swiss woman and a 60-year-old Danish man.
Investigators hope the sunken plane and wreckage already retrieved will provide answers about the cause of the crash, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner, Angus Mitchell, said on Wednesday.
“Any of the information that we can gather from on board the plane, that’ll be our focus tomorrow as we recover the plane from the seabed,” he said.
“Any of the recorded information from on board, from mobile phones.”
Mitchell said bureau investigators working with police would continue interviewing witnesses to the crash.
Kosciuszko hiker Hadi Nazari expected to return home today
We will be hearing more about Hadi Nazari’s Kosciuszko national park ordeal today after he is debriefed by police.
He spent the night at Cooma hospital but is expected to be sent home today.
“I have every confidence that he’ll be released very soon,” NSW police Insp John Broadfoot told reporters yesterday.
“Our specialist paramedics have had a look at him and he’s seemed in great condition so full hopes he’ll be on his way home very shortly.”
In a statement on behalf of the family, sister Zahra Nazari said they were grateful he was safe and sound.
“We are grateful for everyone involved in helping us find my brother,” the family said.
In the meantime check out this piece by Cait Kelly about how he foraged for berries and drank water from creeks to keep going.
$50m federal incentive for farmers and truckers to go electric
Sarah Basford Canales
The Albanese government will today announce a $50m initiative to encourage farmers and freight companies to buy up electric vehicles as part of its plans to decarbonise the economy.
The energy minister, Chris Bowen, said a deal between the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and Metro Finance will offer eligible farmers, freight companies and other small and medium businesses the option to take on cheaper loans to buy electric vehicles.
A farmer financing a $60,000 electric vehicle, for example, could save about $1,700 in interest over five years, the government said.
More than 4,000 electric vehicles were bought using the financing subsidies as of December 2024.
Bowen said:
Australian motorists deserve more choices of cleaner, cheaper-to-run cars and that’s exactly what the Albanese government is delivering.
Electric vehicles made up 9.5% of light vehicle sales last year, rising from 8.4% in 2023 and 3.8% in 2022.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer here to take you through a couple of the best overnight stories before Rafqa Touma takes over as your news guide for the day.
Hadi Nazari will be debriefed by rescue teams today after his remarkable 13-day ordeal lost in the Kosciuszko national park wilderness. The 23-year-old was described as “alert” and able to walk after being rescued yesterday but was taken to Cooma hospital last night for checks. The Riverina district commander, Supt Andrew Spliet, said police wanted to hear from him about how he stayed alive and how he protected himself from the daytime heat. More coming up.
Peter Dutton will hold his first election campaign-style rally in Melbourne on Sunday, according to a report in the Age this morning. It says that Liberals were told an event was coming in the eastern suburbs where the Coalition is aiming to win back the seats of Chisholm and Aston as Dutton responds to Anthony Albanese’s whirlwind tour of Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia this week. Speaking of which, his Labor government is putting up $50m to incentivise farmers and freight companies to switch to electric vehicles. More coming up.
Police watch houses in the Northern Territory are being repurposed as long-term prison cells as the number of prisoners reached more than 1% of the territory’s population this week. That is more than five times the national average – and if the NT were a country it would have the second-highest incarceration rate in the world. We’ll have reaction as it happens.
