For today’s news updates as they happen in Brisbane and beyond, follow us here.
For today’s news updates as they happen in Brisbane and beyond, follow us here.
Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie received the first draft of the 100-day Brisbane 2032 Olympic infrastructure review at the weekend.
As Cameron Atfield writes, this starts the process to finalise the venues and connections needed for the event.
The report remains officially under wraps for now, but according to reports on last night’s Nine News, it recommends building a new stadium at Victoria Park.
A new stadium is something the premier rejected before last year’s election, although he’s been walking away from that position since.
Nine says senior LNP members preferred the option of rebuilding the Gabba.
But the draft review questions whether this could be done in time, as the Gabba can’t be demolished until after Tests in the Ashes cricket series are played there in December.
When asked if the Premier would follow recommendations of the review, his office said the government would make its plan public on March 25.
Multiple pay-by-app parking systems are set to be rolled out in Brisbane, with Brisbane City Council confirming it will go to tender for new providers to “allow motorists to have a choice”.
About 50 per cent of parking in the city is paid for with an app. CellOPark holds the existing contract, and could reapply when the tender goes out.
“As the demand for digital payment options continues to grow, we are committed to delivering greater convenience and improved parking experience for residents and visitors,” a statement from the council says.
“Introducing multiple pay-by-app suppliers in Brisbane will deliver new and improved technology, offering motorists more choice and flexibility.
“CellOPark Australia will continue to provide paid parking services while Council completes the procurement process.”
It comes a few months after Brisbane drivers were caught up in an apparent internal stoush within the company that runs CellOPark.
Former Labor transport minister Bart Mellish has urged Brisbane City Council to stick with a route for stage five of the North Brisbane Bikeway and build it.
This week, Brisbane Times reported council has run four rounds of community consultation for three different routes for the bikeway – but has now returned to the original route it kiboshed in 2018.
Under an agreement signed in 2013, the Queensland government delivered stages one to four of the North Brisbane Bikeway, from Herston to Wooloowin, and the council is responsible for stage five.
Mellish, Labor’s transport spokesman, said the saga had been “going on for more than a decade”.
“Brisbane City Council need to just bite the bullet, pick the right route, and get on with building it,” he wrote on Facebook.
Council has this year returned to a route heading west on Price Street, whereas cycling advocates also believe Dickson Street – the route most recently dumped – needs protected bike lanes.
However, some residents in the area have fiercely opposed bike lanes, with their concerns including the loss of car parking spaces.
Brisbane librarians and other public workers are planning to walk off the job this week amid a pay dispute with council.
The Services Union has confirmed its members will strike from 2pm to 4pm on Thursday, February 27.
The union says libraries, call centres and other public services could close during that period due to understaffing. Council disputes this.
Workers have been offered a 7.25 per cent pay rise over the next two years by Brisbane City Council.
The union says it is pushing for 8.7 per cent and backpay to the date the existing agreement expired. It has also raised concerns about job security and redundancy entitlements.
“We have workers all through the council,” union secretary Neil Henderson said.
“I think our members are just getting a bit weary of how long it’s taking. They haven’t had a pay rise since 2023, so they want a pay rise and they want a decent one.
“It is a complex agreement, but it’s the council that’s really found itself wanting. It needs to focus and get this agreement done.”
Brisbane Times has contacted the council for comment.
Australian authorities found out Chinese warships were running live fire exercises in the Tasman Sea 30 minutes after it started when a Virgin Australia pilot notified them, instead of officials.
Airservices Australia officials told Senate estimates on Monday night that 49 flights were diverted from flight plans because of China’s exercises.
The incident marked the latest challenge to the government’s efforts to stabilise relations with China, as the Albanese government called for answers from Beijing after commercial pilots were forced to divert their routes last week.
Chief executive of Airservices Australia, Rob Sharp told estimates last night they only found out the Chinese task group was planning a live firing exercise at 9.58am on Friday.
“It was, in fact, Virgin Australia, advising that a foreign warship was broadcasting that they were conducting live firing 300 nautical miles east of our coast,” Sharp said.
“That was how we first found out about the issue.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese held a press conference in Sydney, where he spoke from a health care centre alongside MP Jerome Laxale.
They continued Labor’s promotion of its $8.5 billion Medicare package that will expand the bulk-billing incentive to all Australians. Announced by the prime minister on Sunday, the funding commitment has been matched by the Coalition.
Watch the press conference back here:
Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie received the first draft of the 100-day Brisbane 2032 Olympic infrastructure review at the weekend.
As Cameron Atfield writes, this starts the process to finalise the venues and connections needed for the event.
The report remains officially under wraps for now, but according to reports on last night’s Nine News, it recommends building a new stadium at Victoria Park.
A new stadium is something the premier rejected before last year’s election, although he’s been walking away from that position since.
Nine says senior LNP members preferred the option of rebuilding the Gabba.
But the draft review questions whether this could be done in time, as the Gabba can’t be demolished until after Tests in the Ashes cricket series are played there in December.
When asked if the Premier would follow recommendations of the review, his office said the government would make its plan public on March 25.
The Reserve Bank’s cut to official interest rates has delivered a huge boost of confidence to homebuyers and renters while managing to ease worries about inflation.
The ANZ-Roy Morgan weekly measure of consumer sentiment, released this morning, revealed a 4.7 point jump in confidence over the past seven weeks.
Confidence is now at its highest point since May 2022, before the Reserve Bank started lifting interest rates and just ahead of the election of the Albanese government.
ANZ economist Sophia Angala said confidence among mortgage holders jumped 10.7 points while there was a four point lift in confidence among renters.
“We expect a gradual uptrend in ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence (index) this year, as tax cuts, easing inflation and the RBA’s easing cycle support household disposable incomes,” she said.
While confidence lifted, expectations around inflation eased. Weekly inflation expectations fell by 0.7 percentage points to 4.2 per cent. A month ago, it was around 5.5 per cent.
Measures of current financial conditions increased by 7.5 points while expectations for future financial conditions jumped by 10 points.
All police will be issued with tourniquets in Queensland, following the shooting of an officer in Brisbane this year.
The government will spend $5 million on 125,000 first aid kits containing the devices, with the roll-out beginning immediately.
Police will be given discretion on when and where they should be carried.
“I’m happy to announce that we’ll be supplying every frontline police officer in Queensland with personal tactical first aid kits, which do include the tourniquets,” police minister Dan Purdie told 4BC this morning.
“They’ll do a risk assessment, and, if they decide they might need to carry that on their person at any given time, it’ll be available for them to do that.”
The announcement comes after a 40-year-old senior constable was shot during a confrontation in Annerley earlier this year.
A first-year officer had bought his own tourniquet, which he was carrying, and applied it to his colleague to stem significant bleeding.
Police said his actions may have saved the senior constable’s life.
A station-issued tourniquet was generally previously kept in a police officer’s car.
A tropical cyclone off the Queensland coast might intensify to a category 3 system, but whether it will move closer to the state remains uncertain.
Tropical Cyclone Alfred is sitting about 970km north-east of Mackay in Queensland and is slowly moving south-east while intensifying.
It is expected to become a category 3 system tomorrow as it tracks farther away from the coast.
The Bureau of Meteorology is still watching several scenarios for where Alfred could track later in the week.
Some bring it closer to the coast, others have it moving farther south, well away from Queensland and some even weaken it below cyclone strength.
Alfred is having almost no impact to Queensland in the meantime, other than some gust winds for coastal communities from K’gari to Townsville.
The man accused of murdering Toyah Cordingley is due to face trial more than six years after the young woman’s body was found at an isolated beach.
The Supreme Court of Queensland on Tuesday will start hearing the case in Cairns, about 40km south of the alleged crime scene in the state’s far north.
Rajwinder Singh, a nurse from Innisfail, about 90km from Cairns, was charged in March 2023 with the murder of 24-year-old Ms Cordingley.
Police accused Singh of fatally stabbing Ms Cordingley at Wangetti Beach, north of Cairns.
Ms Cordingley drove to the beach for a Sunday afternoon walk with her dog on October 21, 2018.
Her family raised the alarm later that evening when she didn’t return.
Her body was found by her father and other searchers half-buried in an isolated section of sand dunes about 800m from her car, which was parked in a camping ground at the beach’s southern end.
Her dog was found unharmed and tied to a tree.
Police claimed Ms Cordingley had died after “a personal and intimate attack”.
Ms Cordingley, a pharmacy worker, was known within her hometown to be gentle, humble and loving.
Read more about the case here.
AAP