Historic Kalgoorlie pipeline set for over half billion upgrade
The Kalgoorlie pipeline is one of the nation's great infrastructure projects. It's up there with the Snowy Mountain scheme and the Overland telegraph line as a visionary nation building project. The WA State Government has announced it will spend more than half a billion dollars upgrading the capacity of the historic Goldfields Water Supply Scheme. Water Minister Don Punch says 543 million dollars will be allocated in the forthcoming State Budget to increase its daily capacity by more than 7 million litres by 2027. Reporter: Sinead Mangan with Jarrod Lucas (Kalgoorlie)
A third vigil has been held in Alice Springs to demand "justice" after Kumanjayi White's death in police custody last month. Many members of Mr White's home community of Yuendumu travelled hundreds of kilometres to be at the vigil, which saw the crowd walk to the Coles supermarket where the young Warlpiri man died. Mr White's family members repeated calls for the NT Police Force to hand over their investigation into his death to an independent body. Reporter: Sinead Mangan with ABC Indigenous Affairs reporter Carly Williams
The GoodSam app recruits everyday people to respond to a cardiac arrest before an ambulance arrives. New South Wales GoodSam volunteers have saved more than 50 lives since 2023. When Geoff Percival collapsed in cardiac arrest and his partner called triple-0, a paramedic was not the first responder; it was neighbour Ashlin Fisher. Reporter: Christien de Garis (Bega)
The tariff war between the US President Donald Trump and China has had an upside for Australian farmers with Beijing restaurants and shops swapping out US beef for Aussie beef. Reporter: Sinead Mangan and Alex Hyman, talent Beef Central publisher and co-founder Jon Condon.
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News.com.au
16 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Australia's bad weather prompts shortage of broccoli
Wild weather that has been battering Australia's east coast for most of this year means it could be bad news for broccoli lovers. The humble vegetable is in short supply due to flooding in New South Wales in May, as well as Cyclone Alfred and drought conditions in South Australia and Victoria. All three major supermarkets — Coles, Aldi and Woolworths — confirmed to that the vegetable is currently in short supply. 'Due to recent extreme weather events across several key growing regions, we have seen some availability challenges around our broccoli ranges,' a Coles spokesperson said. 'We are working closely with our suppliers to improve supply as quickly as possible. The spokesperson continued: 'Customers can still find great value across numerous other vegetables this winter.' The supermarket giant has also placed customer notices in stores to alert shoppers to the fact the vegetable is currently in high demand. A Woolworths spokesperson confirmed they are experiencing a similar shortage, but said it was 'short term'. 'We know broccoli is a winter favourite and, as always, we are working with our grower partners to get more supply back into stores as quickly as possible,' the Woolworths spokesperson told Meanwhile, an Aldi spokesperson confirmed the weather conditions over the past six weeks had created the issue. The German supermarket brand said it was working with produce partners to monitor the situation and ensure the 'best prices possible'. One Reddit user noticed the shortage after monitoring the price of frozen broccoli and cauliflower, as well as fresh broccoli at one supermarket. The frozen product cost $8 per kilogram, while the fresh – which appeared to be sold out – cost $9.90 a kilo. 'I've been watching the fresh broccoli price increase for weeks wondering if it would surpass the frozen price. It finally happened,' the Reddit user stated. 'I don't understand how. Even if bad weather has affected fresh stock, surely still the additional processing cost of cutting, removing stems, washing, bagging and costs of bags for frozen broc would mean the frozen is more expensive.' In March, Ben Pohlner, who runs Volcano Produce in western Victoria, told the ABC his crop was growing — but the lack of moisture in the soil was ruining the taste of his broccoli crop. He said he hasn't been able to grow a decent broccoli crop since September 2024. 'The broccoli has gotten water stress and gone bitter — we've had crop after crop fail on us this year, especially over summer,' he told the publication. 'We still get the nice broccoli or cauliflower head on them but it's practically inedible, it's too bitter to eat.' Australia isn't the first country to experience a shortage of broccoli this year, with the UK experiencing the same in January, The Guardian reported. This was due to the fact that milder autumn and winter weather caused crops to produce earlier than usual. The news of a broccoli shortage comes less than a week after Ian Hemphill, the managing director of Herbie's Spices, said that a variety of factors — including monsoon seasons in Vietnam — had led to a shortage of black pepper. 'As you would appreciate, pepper being an agricultural commodity, it is always effected by the things that effect anything that's grown, harvested, processed,' he told 'And so the changes we're experiencing — the monsoons have been unpredictable, they've been either too low or too heavy. And that's what fertilises a pepper crop.' He said from what he's seen, lower crop yields across countries such as Vietnam, Brazil, Indonesia and India, have seen a lack of availability. He said this is normally when prices go up. Supermarkets such as Coles, Woolworths and Aldi said supply had not been impacted at that stage, but Mr Hemphill said it would be something we'd see the impact of in the next three months as supply was often bought in advance.
ABC News
36 minutes ago
- ABC News
Community service providers react to Tasmanian election promises tackling cost-of-living pressures
Bills are going up and wages are sluggish. Money just won't stretch as far as it used to and it's leaving many Tasmanians going without. The growing cost-of-living issue in Tasmania has been described by some as a crisis. Now it's a staple of Tasmania's snap election, with both major parties jostling to prove they are the right ones to ease living costs in the state. But there is no magic wand to fix a situation that has been steadily growing worse for years. According to the Tasmanian Council of Social Service (TasCOSS), 120,000 Tasmanians are living below the poverty line, meaning they don't have the resources to meet basic needs. One in five — or 50,000 — Tasmanians are experiencing energy poverty, meaning they can't pay their electricity bills so they ration energy use, go into debt or make cuts to other essentials. And more than 5,000 people are on the social housing waitlist. The ABC spoke to several community service organisations about what they wanted to see parties doing to address cost-of-living issues this election. As the manager of Goodwood Community Centre, a Neighbourhood House in Hobart, Natham Reynolds is at the coalface. "Our numbers coming through the door are really huge at the moment," Mr Reynolds said. "Each week we have more than 1,000 people. "We've just had a Christmas in July lunch where we had 70 people here." Mr Reynolds has been the manager for more than two years. He says the demand for services increases week on week. He also said the work is difficult and challenging but worth it. "It really takes a bit of a toll on you," he said. "You like to leave your work at home, but you're always thinking when you go home, 'Is there any more I can do or where else can we help?' "You find you're always trying to think of new ideas or different support systems to help people, even once you finish work." Simone Zell is the chief executive of Neighbourhood Houses Tasmania. She said there needed to be a fundamental shift in how we address cost of living. "So that we have priorities that are about supporting people to have access to the basics," Ms Zell said. Ms Zell said access to earlier intervention when it comes to healthcare was crucial. "We need to make sure that people can have access to healthcare where they are so they are not in those more crisis situations and they are not presenting at hospitals," she said. The Salvation Army's Amelia Natoli said the issue for many in the community sector was ensuring adequate funding for existing programs. "For many of our programs we're on the same level of funding that we might have got five or 10 years ago, and everyone's aware that the cost of doing anything has gone up," Ms Natoli said. "For us, we're actually not able to deliver the same level of service for the same price as we could five or 10 years ago. She said without increased funding the organisation could not "keep the lights on" at its family and domestic violence refuge or at its alcohol and other drugs space. "But until we can actually just keep the current services running at the level that they need, it's really hard for us as an organisation to ask, 'Can we have further funding to be able to add another six beds at our family violence refuge?' Because we just don't know that we'll be able to staff it and keep everything running," Ms Natoli said. Loaves and Fishes chief executive Andrew Hillier said one-in-five Tasmanians were facing food insecurity, and innovative solutions were needed. He said he wanted to see the parties embrace a food-systems approach, bringing together different organisations to deal with issues. "Organisations like Eat Well Tas that are focused on education, Neighbourhood Houses that distribute food and … farmers who grow and in some cases their food gets rejected." Mr Hillier said the Liberal government held a roundtable before the election was called, but it needed to go beyond facilitating discussions — he said the ideas needed resources. "[We want to make] sure we've got markets and ways of buying food, creating alternative markets for local, small and medium farmers and producers, so that food can be available at lower cost." He also said it was essential to support the grassroots community organisations on the frontline delivering support. Labor has been coming out hard on cost of living, offering everything from a price cap on electricity prices (they won't be able to rise more than 2.5 per cent) to freezing car registrations for a year, which will save the average person $15 a year. Apprentices would be eligible for half-price registrations. The party also has a policy to allow people to pay all government-issued bills monthly at no extra charge compared to annual payment, including car registrations. It would invest in Loaves and Fishes' food strategy, providing it with $5 million over five years. The Liberals have an energy-saver policy in place: the renewable energy dividend. Most recently it resulted in $60 shaved off Tasmanian power bills. The Liberals' big cost-of-living promise this campaign is TasInsure, a Tasmanian-owned insurance company the party claims would result in Tasmanians saving up to $250 a year on insurance bills, while businesses would save up to 20 per cent. The party has also announced half-price bus fares would be extended for another year. The Greens have a whole raft of policies designed to address cost-of-living pressures, including putting a stop to "unreasonable" rent rises and introducing means-based fines. Community sector leaders are generally positive about the policies announced during the campaign so far, but the feeling is most pledges do not go far enough. Ms Zell said some of the policies could be better targeted at vulnerable Tasmanians. The Salvation Army's Amelia Natoli said even a $15 discount for those who are struggling would provide relief. "I do think the impact it would have if it is particularly focused on those individuals that we work with could certainly be quite high," she said. "We really need to look at how we keep our most vulnerable front of mind." Ms Zell said in the end, many of the policies were just "tinkering around the edges". "I really hope that in these last two weeks [of the election campaign] that we actually see some brave vision around 'let's actually do things differently'," she said. "We do have so many Tasmanians right now really struggling and we're looking at how we can shift that situation so that we can see people's lives being changed." To see more of the parties' promises to address cost of living and more, go to the ABC's election promise tracker.
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Matthew Dellavedova sells bayside home after Melbourne exit
Basketball champion and Olympian Matthew Dellavedova and his wife Anna have bounced their bayside home. Meanwhile a South Gippsland pub co-owned by ex-Brisbane centre half-back Justin Leppitsch and wife Christie is also pulling interest on the market, as is a Ringwood venue where former Tiger Kayne Pettifer is a tenant. Dellavedova, an ex-Melbourne United and Cleveland Cavaliers player, signed a three-year deal with the Sydney Kings earlier this year. Following this, he and Anna listed a five-bedroom Sandringham home with $4.5m-$4.7m price hopes in June. The circa-1890s house that the Dellavedovas have just farewelled features a pool, spa and outdoor barbecue kitchen, four living areas, a cellar and separate studio. Belle Property Sandringham principal director Fran Harkin said there was strong interest in the abode with about 45 buyers, mostly families, inquiring about the property before it sold this week. Ms Harkin declined to comment on the price, but industry insiders indicated that it changed hands for a sum within the asking range. She said the residence's period style and proximity to the beach won buyers over. 'It's got that charm that just tugs on people's heart strings,' she said. A four-time Olympian, Dellavedova was part of the Australian mens' basketball team, the Boomers, that won bronze at the 2020 Tokyo games. In 2016, Dellavedova won an NBA championship as a Cleveland Cavaliers member. He later signed a four-year $US38 million (A$50.5m) with the Milwaukee Bucks. Meanwhile, The Rusty Gurnard pub in Port Welshpool, South Gippsland, that's co-owned by three-time AFL premiership player turned Collingwood assistant coach, Leppitsch, wife Christie and their business partners has been served up to the market. They have extensively renovated the Lewis St hotel that had previously stood empty for a number of years. CRE Brokers' Phil Mammolito said that the pub had attracted good interest during an expressions of interest process that closed on July 3, and that he was expecting to spend a few weeks working through offers for The Rusty Gurnard. And another AFL pub sale is brewing, with a three-storey Ringwood venue where ex-Richmond player Kayne Pettifer is a tenant is for sale with $5m-plus price hopes. The Maroondah Highway complex incorporating The Bungalow Beer Garden and pub is owned by Pettifer's mate and business partner, Joe Cossari. The building's second floor function space can host 150 to 180 guests. Legendary TV newsreader Peter Hitchener's 50th birthday bash was held at the site. O'Brien agent and auctioneer John Rombotis and Aston Commercial's Jeremy Gruzewski and Joshua Colosimo marketing the property, which is available as a partially-tenanted or vacant building.
