Source : the age
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of national news for Monday, October 5. Here’s what’s making headlines this afternoon.
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen have headed to the Pacific for the Pre-COP climate change conference beginning today. Australia is co-hosting the event alongside Fiji and Tuvalu ahead of COP31 negotiations in Turkey.
- A OpenAI employee focused on safety has quit and warned that top firms aren’t doing enough to mitigate risks, joining a growing chorus of those raising alarm from within the industry.
- Brazilian senator Flavio Bolsonaro will face President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the run-off of a presidential election, after both candidates failed to win majority votes in Sunday’s first round of voting.
- Sadistic and nihilistic online networks are using Australia’s most popular gaming platforms to coerce children into self-mutilating and committing violence against their siblings and pets, experts warn.
- Reality TV star and fitness guru Sam Wood is behind bars in Queensland after being charged with domestic violence offences in Noosa. He was charged with assault occasioning bodily harm (DV) and strangulation in a domestic setting after police were called to a Noosa address at 9pm on Saturday,
- The federal government has thrown down a challenge to state premiers over the rampant illicit tobacco trade, dangling fresh cash and pointing to Queensland’s dramatic crackdown as a blueprint for the rest of the country.
- Tenants who rely on credit cards to pay their rent could soon be forced into arrears, advocates warn, after a major rental payment platform blocked the method of payment in response to a new ban on card surcharge fees.
Staying with Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen in Fiji, he has also confirmed a new renewables agreement with Vanuatu, the archipelago off Australia’s east coast.
Bowen said the memorandum of understanding would mean Australia helps Vanuatu – population 344,000 – add more solar energy into its grid and develop its renewable energy workforce.
Bowen said the agreement would boost Vanuatu’s “energy sovereignty”.
The announcement comes as Australia continues hosting of Pre-COP with Fiji and Tuvalu, as a lead-in event to the actual COP31 in Turkey. Canberra is taking part in Pre-COP after failing in its bid to host the COP, the world’s biggest annual climate change talks.
Australia will spend $5.7 million helping its Pacific neighbours transition away from fossil fuel use, as it seeks to put the region on the agenda at next month’s COP31 summit in Turkey.
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has announced three measures, including $2.5 million for reliable clean energy in Bougainville, an autonomous island east of Papua New Guinea.
A further $2.2 million will be spent scaling up renewable energy access in PNG’s Oro province, and $1 million will go towards Fiji’s education ministry to help give more schools solar power.
“There is no better place than the Pacific to begin the process of lifting climate ambition and accelerating action, which is our agenda at COP31,” Bowen told reporters this hour.
Washington: US authorities arrested a California woman on Sunday and accused her of spying on the son of Taiwan’s president at the behest of Chinese officials, the FBI said.
The FBI arrested Wanying Zhang, also known as Heather, at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday before her planned departure to China, the agency said in a statement. Authorities charged Zhang, 34, of Irvine, California, with acting as an unregistered foreign agent.
Zhang surveilled a son of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, the FBI said. The agency did not directly name Zhang’s alleged target, but later shared a New York Post report identifying him as Lai Ting-yu, an American resident.
The Justice Department said Zhang travelled to Seattle in 2025 at the direction of Chinese officials and subsequently sent them photos, video and licence plate information of the Taiwanese leader’s son and his family.
One Nation’s biggest donor Gina Rinehart has purchased an $8 million office property in inner-city Brisbane which will become the new headquarters for Pauline Hanson’s populist party.
The mining billionaire bought the Spring Hill property, described in promotional material as a “striking three-storey freehold”, last week through Hanrine Investments, a subsidiary of Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting.
A spokesman for Rinehart confirmed the purchase of the property, and that One Nation planned to relocate its headquarters from its Brisbane Airport base once the suitable fit-out was done.
Rinehart’s spokesman insisted One Nation would not be given free or discounted rent but did not respond to questions from this masthead about who would cover the cost of the fit-out.
In his opening address to the pre-COP summit in Fiji, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen has stepped into his role as the chief negotiator of the international climate pact, calling on the world to “match ambition with delivery”.
While the actual cost to Australia of subsiding this meeting is still being debated – Bowen acknowledged that it was in the ballpark of $20 million, while the Coalition says it is more like $25 million – he insists this meeting will be “transparent, predictable and inclusive for all”.
He also signalled that the summit would discuss the urgent need for finance to adapt to rising sea levels.
“I see the Pacific not just elevating their own issues, but also on behalf of the world’s vulnerable states, on behalf of the small island developing states around the world,” Bowen said.
“Whether they be in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, or anywhere, lifting those issues that are common for all, but using the Pacific to do so. The fact that some of the nations that need the climate finance for adaptation the most are those who struggle to get it the hardest, who find it more difficult.”
Extreme heat is increasingly threatening pregnant women and babies, according to a multi-country survey of maternity health workers that offers a frontline view of the health consequences of a warming climate.
Almost three-quarters of 1000 health professionals surveyed across India, Australia, Brazil, the UK and Zimbabwe said they had seen an increase in heat-related cases or complications affecting pregnant women over the past five years. Seventy-six per cent reported an increase affecting fetuses or newborns.
The survey was commissioned by Wellcome, the London-based health research foundation, and conducted online by Censuswide. The survey comprised 200 maternal health professionals in each of the five countries.
Ninety-eight per cent of respondents said they had cared for a pregnant woman whose health they believed had been harmed by extreme heat, while 99 per cent said the same of a baby. About 23 per cent had seen pregnancy complications requiring additional monitoring or treatment that they believed were linked to heat exposure.
Barnaby Joyce has defended One Nation’s decision to rent an inner-city Brisbane office building, newly purchased by Gina Rinehart, to serve as its new headquarters.
Hanrine Investments, a subsidiary of Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, finalised the $8 million purchase last week, The Australian reported. One Nation is reportedly due to relocate there once a fitout is finished.
“It’s her building, it’s her lease,” Joyce said on News24.
“We’re leasing … at commercial rates. If we’ve got an individual who’s got money, they should be allowed to spend it as they see fit. If they want to support One Nation, knock yourself out.”
Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro will face President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the run-off of a presidential election, the country’s electoral authority just announced.
The country’s electoral court in Brasilia said neither the 80-year-old incumbent, seeking his fourth non-consecutive term, nor the 45-year-old son of former president Jair Bolsonaro would reach the 50 per cent plus one of the total votes needed for a first-round win.
With just over 97 per cent of the first round ballots counted, the right-wing Trump-aligned challenger took 47.45 per cent of valid votes, beating the forecasts in most private surveys. Leftist Lula received 44.66 per cent.
The two leading candidates will advance to the second round on October 25, beating out a field of 12 in a campaign focused on concerns about the growing cost of living, corruption and insecurity in Brazilians’ daily lives.
The next presidential term begins on January 5, 2027.
AP, Reuters
Julia Gillard is among the headline speakers for the major climate talks kicking off in the Pacific today.
The former Labor prime minister is set to address two events this afternoon – one on the International Court of Justice and another on how to protect pregnant women and babies from the health impacts of extreme heat.
The latter session, in which Gillard will speak alongside the Albanese government’s special envoy for climate change Kate Thwaites, is described as a “call to action”.
“The evidence is strong enough to act,” the event description reads.
Labor MP Julie-Ann Campbell and opposition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg clashed on the Today show earlier this morning over Australia’s economic outlook.
Asked if the government’s spending was driving inflation, Campbell insisted Labor was focused on “responsible economic management” and “cost-of-living relief”.
Bragg countered, claiming Labor had lost control of the nation’s finances.
“Whatever savings Chalmers and Albanese come up with will be a pimple on the elephant’s ass compared to the disaster they’ve created,” he said. “They’ve pushed up spending from 24 to almost 27 per cent of GDP – which is, like, historically high levels. We’ve not seen anything like this in my lifetime. So they’ve got to radically change course, or just resign.”
