For today’s news updates in Brisbane and beyond, follow us here.
For today’s news updates in Brisbane and beyond, follow us here.
Car registration and other government fees are due to increase this year.
Most charges will rise by 3.4 per cent when the former Labor government’s freeze expires on July 1.
The hike will temporarily exclude car registration.
Rego prices will remain cut by 20 per cent until September 16, when the previously frozen cost increases by 3.4 per cent.
“The Crisafulli government is working tirelessly to repair the state’s finances after a decade of Labor’s fiscal vandalism,” Treasurer David Janetzki said.
Nine News Queensland has announced a new co-host to join long-time anchor Melissa Downes on the evening news desk following Andrew Lofthouse’s retirement earlier this year.
Joel Dry is set to assume the role from August this year after returning to Australia from his current position as a Seven News reporter in London.
Downes – who has been the sole host since late last year, and has 17 years’ experience hosting the Nine Queensland bulletin – said the change would be a “regeneration” for the newsroom.
“I know he will bring a new energy to the newsroom and his insightful reporting will add depth to our bulletin,” she said.
Dry said he was “thrilled” to return to Nine News. He has roughly 15 years of reporting experience that began with the Nine news team in both Adelaide and Brisbane.
Car registration and other government fees are due to increase this year.
Most charges will rise by 3.4 per cent when the former Labor government’s freeze expires on July 1.
The hike will temporarily exclude car registration.
Rego prices will remain cut by 20 per cent until September 16, when the previously frozen cost increases by 3.4 per cent.
“The Crisafulli government is working tirelessly to repair the state’s finances after a decade of Labor’s fiscal vandalism,” Treasurer David Janetzki said.
A serial pest in sperm donation groups has joined the cast of bankrupts, fraudsters and fantasists in Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots.
Joseph O’Connor claims in the biography posted on the party’s website that he brings “a wealth of experience in mental health and counselling” to his candidacy.
But he has also presented himself as Dane McDuff, Blake McBeth, Adam Nilsson and Jack DeBevay in Facebook groups for women and couples looking for sperm donations, among a stream of identities that mushroom each time he is banned from a group.
Multiple women have complained to the group administrators that he has engaged in creepy behaviour, sent them unwanted imagery and is using the groups to find sexual partners.
The unwanted material included videos of himself on a porn site called “Chaturbate” where he uses the moniker JackPhallus.
Read the full report here.
Stockwell has lodged a development application with Brisbane City Council for a 15-storey residential tower at 33 Vulture Street, opposite West End State School.
According to the developer, the tower would have 132 apartments, rooftop and podium level communal spaces, with provision for 199 car parks and 165 bicycle parks, and keep “existing character walls” on Paris and Turin streets.
“The site is unique in having three frontages and topography which results in the proposal presenting as 15 storeys to Vulture Street and 14 storeys to Turin Street,” Stockwell has told the council.
Buses have been redirected away from one of Brisbane’s busiest public transport hubs after a fire alarm was activated.
The incident occurred at Queen Street underground bus station in the CBD. Buses due to stop at the site were redirected above ground to Roma Street.
All doors were closed, and no-one could be seen in the station at 10.30am.
Translink says it’s unclear what set off the alarms, but the issue was resolved within about 10 minutes.
The Speaker of the Queensland Parliament, Pat Weir, will use the winter break to take a two-week, taxpayer-funded trip to the United Kingdom.
In correspondence tabled in parliament today, Premier David Crisafulli has approved Weir’s trip, which will see him visit England, Scotland and Wales, including their respective parliaments.
Weir told Crisafulli the trip would cost taxpayers up to $8000, with the rest to be funded through his role with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and, for three non-scheduled days, by himself personally.
“The trip will include participating in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Mid-Year Executive Committee Meeting and meetings with presiding officers and parliamentary staff at the Scottish and Welsh parliament,” Weir said.
“Discussions with the unicameral parliaments will focus on parliamentary practice, committee systems, processes for scrutiny and budget estimates processes.”
A Royal Australian Air Force pilot accused of staging his wife’s death as a late-night lawn mower accident will walk free from custody after he was granted bail by a Supreme Court judge.
Frances Elizabeth Crawford’s body was found by emergency services at the bottom of a retaining wall at the couple’s property on Thomas Road in the Upper Lockyer Valley about 3.30am on July 30 last year.
Her husband, Robert Crawford, 47, stands accused of killing her, with the prosecution alleging he manipulated the scene by sending messages from her phone to himself after her death.
In making the application for bail last month, Mr Crawford’s barrister, Saul Holt, told the court his client denied strangling his wife in a “murderous rage”. Holt described the prosecution case as “very weak”.
Rain is probable on election day in Brisbane, but it’s unlikely to be heavy.
Up to three millimetres is predicted, with the bulk likely in the late morning and afternoon.
The temperature is expected to peak at about 24 degrees.
Similar sporadic showers are forecast until Wednesday, when the weather is due to clear.
The wreck of HMAS Brisbane has been reopened with limited access to divers after part of it shifted during strong swells from Cyclone Alfred in March.
HMAS Brisbane was scuttled in 2005 off the coast of Mudjimba, on the Sunshine Coast, to become an artificial reef and world-class diving site.
During inspections of the wreck in mid-March, Department of Environment marine rangers reported part of the ship’s front funnel had been lifted off by cyclonic swell, and sat next to the wreck.
Works to make the detached ship components and the ship’s inside safe were still under way, but the Department has opened the site to guided dives with dive companies SunReef and Scuba World.
Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service ranger Steve Hoseck said divers would have “a unique opportunity to witness the impact of a cyclone on a wreck”.
“Even with limited access, we’re delighted to get people back in the water to experience this Queensland icon,” he said.
Public mooring remains closed at the site, and diving groups must track a set dive route that remains 2.5 metres from the wreck, dive when water visibility is greater than five metres, and hold advanced diving certification.
Another serious e-scooter crash has left a woman in hospital with a head injury.
She came off the vehicle on Wharf Street about 4am last night.
The woman was taken to Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital in a stable condition.
It came about 24 hours after a crash on the South East Busway that left a man fighting for life.
The frequency of serious e-scooter crashes has pushed the state government to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the use of personal mobility devices. It will run for almost a year.