Mud muster helps flood affected Taree
The "Mud Muster", a major volunteer mobilisation project being coordinated out of the Taree SES headquarters, has been led by locals.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
NSW Premier Chris Minns won't rule out further censure on Mark Latham after sext revelations
NSW Premier Chris Minns has refused to rule out further action against Mark Latham in state parliament after reports the former One Nation leader sent sexually explicit texts to his then-partner from the chamber. The one-time NSW One Nation leader has faced renewed controversy in recent days following allegations by his former partner of domestic abuse after an apprehended violence order application was filed in court. Mr Latham has denied the allegations, which do not involve any criminal charges and have not been tested in court, but again faced claims on Wednesday he sent explicit messages to his ex-partner from inside parliament. Asked whether he would move any additional censure motions following revelations of the messages, the Premier said he would 'reserve' his answer until more information was presented, but refused to rule it out. 'I wouldn't say categorically we wouldn't be prepared to move (a motion),' Mr Minns said. 'What I would say is that you're right, notice was given in relation to a censure of Mr Latham prior to any of these revelations. 'That goes to the point (that) people were warned about this guy for a long time, and we're going to go ahead with those motions and I am hopeful that it gets wide support to send a clear message that the kind of behaviour that he's been up to for a period of time is completely unacceptable.' Those sentiments were mirrored by Labor upper house leader Penny Sharpe who on Tuesday said she put two motions before the house when parliament resumes in August. One of those motions would seek to refer Mr Latham to the privileges committee over his behaviour. The second would be a more general motion calling into question his overall behaviour. 'Mark Latham has some questions to answer on a whole range of behaviours,' she said. Mr Minns has ramped up his attacks in recent months against Mr Latham, a former Labor leader who has become a key vote against the government in the Legislative Council. In June, Mr Minns called Mr Latham 'Australia's biggest bigot' in a surprise spray during question time, and claimed there was an a 'coalition emerging' between the Greens in the Upper House, the Legislative Council, the Coalition, and One Nation. He claimed they were 'voting together day after day' to 'platform one of the most shameful bigots in NSW', referring to Mr Latham. In a series of late night tweets on Tuesday, Mr Latham said the messages purported to be between him and his former partner were 'not accurate' and claimed 'someone has made changes in very important ways'. Mr Latham claimed the messages, as reproduced in The Daily Telegraph, omitted messages in the chain and claimed in one instance a word had been omitted from a message. But he did not deny claims a message had been sent during question time. 'The Tele is tut-tutting one of these messages was sent during question time,' he said. 'At least I was there. There's a terrible upper house tradition of a whole bunch of MPs never attending QT, they just pop in and out for their own question.'
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Former Treasury secretary Ken Henry calls for urgent overhaul to environmental protection laws
Australia's environment protection laws have both failed to stop the degradation of Australia's natural environment and held back economic growth, former Treasury secretary Ken Henry has warned. In a speech being delivered at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Dr Henry is calling for urgent overhaul of Australia's environment laws, saying changes are needed in this term of parliament. "The stakes are high," he argues. "We have whole industries with business models built on the destruction of the natural world. "I am angry at our failures. But we should all be angry at our collective failure to design economic structures, including environmental regulations, that underpin confidence in a better future for our children and grandchildren. Dr Henry is speaking in his capacity as chair of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation (ACBF), a not-for-profit founded in 2021. He takes the opportunity to plead with Australian policymakers to work together for the good of the nation. "I am here to make the case for the urgent reform of Australia's broken national environment laws, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC)," he says. "Clearly, this is not a small task. There have been three failed attempts in the past 15 years. But reform is essential. And this is the time to get it done. "The EPBC Act has patently failed to halt the degradation of Australia's natural environment. "Report after report tells the same story. The environment is not being protected. Biodiversity is not being conserved. Nature is in systemic decline. "Independent reviews confirm that the environmental impact assessment systems embedded in the laws are not fit-for-purpose. Of particular concern, they are incapable of supporting an economy in transition to net zero and they are undermining productivity," he adds. Dr Henry says economic policy minds around the world have "slowly woken up to the fact" that time is fast running out for the natural world, the foundation of all life on Earth. "It is now well accepted that a degraded natural world poses myriad threats to food systems, the provision of clean air and water, and the continuing supply of other ecosystem services critical to production," he says. "And it is well accepted that things are getting worse, much worse, not better. "In our remnant forests, the habitat of endangered species, including the koala and the greater glider, continue to be logged and cleared. "About 100 million hectares of forests have been cleared since 1788, and remarkably the practice continues with an average of 400,000 hectares of primary and second forest cleared each year between 2015 and 2019. "The most recent National State of the Environment Report confirms a state of crisis, finding that 'our inability to adequately manage pressures will continue to result in species extinctions and deteriorating ecosystem condition, which are reducing the environmental capital on which current and future economies depend,'" he observes. "Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is happening, here in Australia. Not driven by pesticides so much as a determined commitment to clear the bush and to destroy the natural world. And he argues policy paralysis isn't an option anymore. Dr Henry argues Australia has been talking at length about our national problems with housing, productivity growth, the tax system, and the energy transition, but these things are all related to our environment protection laws. "Environmental law reform provides an opportunity to reconstruct the cooperative federal reform capability we developed in the 1990s but have since lost," he says. "A strong federal reform capability will be required to deliver other, even more challenging, economic reforms. Environmental law reform can provide the template. "I am the third speaker since 2021 to address the National Press Club on the need for the reform of national environment laws, following former environment ministers Sussan Ley and Tanya Plibersek. "Both ministers detailed myriad problems with the existing laws. Both pledged to implement the far-reaching reforms recommended by the Independent Review, chaired by my long-time reform comrade Graeme Samuel during 2019 and 2020. "Yet, despite the quality of Graeme's review, and the strong commitment of these ministers, from opposite sides of the political fence, here we are, in the winter of 2025, and nothing has changed. He expresses frustration with the lack of movement. "There has been plenty of activity. Policy papers have been drafted and endorsed at the highest levels of government. Bills have been drafted and debated. "There have been endless rounds of consultation. Acres of literal and virtual newsprint have been generated by those arguing the merits and costs of reforms. Parliamentary committees have come and gone. "But the laws haven't moved an inch. Not a single reform has been implemented. Why?" he laments. Dr Henry argues the EPBC has utterly failed. He says Samuel's review made 38 recommendations to change the trajectory of nature loss, and to ease the burden of the complexity, confusion and meaningless process that has been a cause of frustration to landholders and the business community, and which has undermined our national productivity. "Remarkably, the wide-ranging set of recommendations was supported by both business and environmental organisations," Dr Henry says. "Support from both camps remains strong today, despite two parliamentary terms marked by a failure to pass the necessary legislation." He said core to Samuel's proposed reforms was a set of binding National Environmental Standards and enforceable rules to apply to all environmental decision-making, nationwide. The standards would specify in detail, with a minimum of discretion, how Matters of National Environmental Significance would be managed, protected and, where required, restored. "Graeme recommended removing from the Act all the special carve-outs and exemptions. He also recommended clear and unambiguous principles, language and terms," he says. "Standards would be backed by high integrity data and evidence that would inform decision-making, replacing the project by project, species by species approach hardwired into the EPBC Act with a landscape and regional approach. "Regional plans would enable the identification of areas that should not be developed, areas required for long-term restoration and those areas where development assessments could proceed rapidly," he said. He says under that proposal, the concept of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) would be applied not project by project, but region by region. "Project by project application of ESD is simply nuts. "It is time we stopped pretending we have the cognitive discipline to choose a sustainable balance among economic, social and environmental goals, project by project. "ESD would be applied not project by project, but region by region. In this way, dealing with the spatial and inter-temporal challenges to rational decision-making to which I referred earlier," he says. Finally, he says economists were also realising that they had to change their way of thinking about the world. "Economics is concerned with optimising choices," he notes. "Over the past 100 years or so, economics has, for the most part, ignored the most important constraints on human choices. These are embedded in the immutable laws of nature, in chemistry, physics and biology. "Human development is necessarily constrained by these laws. "Our failure to recognise that the laws of nature affect the set of feasible choices available to us is now having a discernible impact on productivity. And things are getting worse, with accelerating speed. Lifting productivity growth is going to require much better articulation of the natural constraints affecting the choices available to us. These must be written into law, in the form of enforceable National Environmental Standards. "In reforming the EPBC Act, we can get this right. We have had all the reviews we need. All of us have had our say. "It is now up to parliament. Let's just get this done," he concludes.
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Torres Strait Islanders invite Anthony Albanese to witness climate harms firsthand
Two Torres Strait traditional owners at the heart of a landmark climate case against the Australian government have invited the prime minister to their islands after they lost in the Federal Court. Uncle Paul Kabai and Uncle Pabai Pabai from the remote low-lying islands of Saibai and Boigu, just kilometres from Papua New Guinea, have spent four years fighting for the government to be found negligent when it comes to its emissions reduction targets and adaptation measures. On Tuesday, Federal Court Judge Michael Wigney found the government did not owe them a duty of care. But the Guda Maluyligal traditional owners said their home and cultural connection was too important for them not to keep up the fight. "It is overwhelming for me and Uncle Pabai as we have gone through this journey since 2021 and for us, it is emotional," Uncle Paul told ABC News Breakfast. "We're not going to stop here." From Cairns, hundreds of kilometres from his ancestral home of Saibai, he called on all Australians to "battle together and give a strong voice to the government". "It's time now for us to keep knocking at the government's door." On Tuesday, Justice Wigney said that while the Torres Strait Islanders' case had proven many of its factual allegations, the law currently did not provide an "effective legal avenue" to claim damages for harm "as a result of government decisions and conduct". He said he was bound by the previous decisions of appellate courts. "That will remain the case unless and until the law in Australia changes either by the incremental development or expansion of the common law by appellate courts, or by the enactment of legislation," he said. "Until then, the only real avenue available to those in the position of the applicants and other Torres Strait Islanders involves public advocacy and protest, and ultimately, recourse via the ballot box." The judge said that without urgent action, the Torres Strait Islanders' worst fears would be realised. "Unless something is done to arrest global warming and the resulting escalating impacts of climate change, there is a very real risk that the applicant's worst fears will be realised and they will lose their islands, their culture and their way of life, and will become, as it were, climate refugees." The Grata Fund financed the case, which was modelled on a successful case from the Netherlands. Its executive director and founder, Isabelle Reinecke, said they were "just getting started". "Last night I think [there] was a lot of defiance and anger and grief and I now just actually feel a strong sense of hope," she told the Indigenous Affairs Team. "We've seen outpourings of solidarity from around the country and I know the community are feeling strong and this is just the beginning of the next chapter." She said the court made "strong statements of fact". "I also have hope, because the court did not say that accountability is impossible under the law, it just said that it is not ready yet and so I have a lot of hope that the law will and can develop," she said. "The findings of the court were extraordinarily strong on the facts and the uncles are still considering an appeal, so that journey is not yet over." She said the fact that legal change could be slow was evidenced by the Mabo case, led by Meriam man Eddie Koiki Mabo, which spent 10 years in the courts. She said the team was pleased to see the government's response to Tuesday's decision included a commitment to "adapting to climate impacts", and she called for the government to commission a study into what those adaptation measures could be. The judge was highly critical of climate targets set by the Coalition in 2015, 2020 and 2021, finding they did not "engage with or give real or genuine consideration to the best available science". Shadow Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Dan Tehan defended the previous government's record and said in a statement that in 2021–22 "emissions were down 28 per cent on 2005 levels, exceeding our international commitments." "Labor is yet to explain credibly how they will achieve their targets and how much it will cost, without fudging the numbers," he said.
