Victoria vows to unmask online trolls accused of vilification
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, announced a suite of social media reforms on Sunday, saying families needed new ways to protect their children online, Australian Associated Press reports.
Under the proposed changes – the first for an Australian state – social media companies could be forced to identify anonymous accounts accused of online vilification.
The Victorian civil and administrative tribunal would be granted “demasking” powers to order platforms to reveal the identities of account holders in those cases.
The government will also lower the legal threshold to sue social media and artificial intelligence platforms for negligence causing psychiatric harm to children.
Current laws require families to prove a child has suffered a permanent impairment of at least 10% before pursuing damages.
These assessments are made by medical practitioners, who apply calculations to estimate how significant a given injury is.
The changes would scrap that threshold for suits brought on behalf of minors, with further changes for adult victims to be considered.
Marilyn Bromberg, an associate professor of law at the University of Western Australia, said the changes were a step in the right direction but should go further.
So-called “demasking” powers in some overseas jurisdictions had been shown to discourage harmful behaviours in some cases, she said.
“It’s a brave start, but I don’t think it goes far enough,” she said.
The harms that social media can cause young people have been substantiated by compelling, peer-reviewed research.
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Lao officials reportedly cite “lack of evidence” over death of two Australian teens
The ABC has reported comments by police chiefs in Laos, including claims they could not lay charges related to the suspected methanol poisoning deaths of Australian teenagers Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles because autopsies were not carried out.
As we reported yesterday, the Australian government has updated its travel advice for Laos, advising travellers to “exercise a high degree of caution” due to the risk of methanol poisoning.
A distillery owner has been charged with “operating a business illegally and the production and sale of consumer goods dangerous to health”.
But the ABC reports that at a closed briefing on Friday, “Lao officials did not explicitly link the charges being laid on the distillery owner with the deaths of [the] two young Australian women”.
International journalists had been excluded from the press conference, but the ABC says it has obtained a transcript.
It reports comments by a Laos police colonel, who reported said: “[police did not] have sufficient evidence that can confirm that the deaths of the five tourists were caused by the action of any individual or any other causes”.
“[It’s] because our authorities have not conducted an autopsy on the bodies of these people.”
The five tourists, including Jones and Moreton-Bowles, were taken to a Thai hospital, where they later died.
Australian officials at the press conference said they had provided information to Lao police, including toxicology and death certificates.
Australia’s fuel tax break slowing BHP’s decarbonisation, mining giant’s investors warned
A briefing document circulated to BHP investors has warned that the federal government’s fuel tax break is acting as a handbrake on the decarbonisation of the miner’s Australian operations.
Earlier this year, a leaked cache of documents obtained by Guardian Australia and the ABC’s Four Corners revealed BHP had halted or delayed key emissions reductions projects, just years after describing climate change as an “existential” threat that required the greatest mobilisation since the second world war.
A briefing document distributed this week to BHP investors cited the Guardian and ABC revelations and said they posed serious questions about the transparency and accountability of the company’s decarbonisation program.
The briefing document encouraged investors to ask BHP whether it would set a medium-term emissions reductions target, saying its absence meant “there is no clear imperative to decarbonise in the medium-term”.
A BHP spokesperson said the company had been transparent about its plan to reach its goals with shareholders, and had indicated it was “reliant on third party technologies the industry needs to electrify equipment”. The delays to its decarbonisation program had been explained publicly in its 2025 annual report and elsewhere, the spokesperson said.
Read more here:
The community laundry working to reduce heart disease in the Northern Territory
Rheumatic heart disease was largely eliminated in developed nations by the mid-20th century, with the advent of running water to ensure people and homes could remain clean. But in the overcrowded and broken housing in many remote communities, the diseases persist.
A significant contributing factor is the spread of scabies. Up to 70% of Indigenous children in remote communities contract scabies before their first birthday. If untreated, scabies sores can become infected with group A streptococcus bacteria, which can lead to acute rheumatic fever and ultimately rheumatic heart disease.
And one of the easiest ways to reduce rates of scabies is to ensure access to a working laundry.
Read the full story here:
Victoria police recover more than $1m in stolen vehicles
Victoria police have recovered more than $1m in stolen cars and arrested 79 people in an operation targeting cloned and stolen plates in Melbourne’s south-east.
The vehicles found by Frankston Crime Investigation Unit’s Targeted Enforcement Crew, established at the end of March, include a Toyota Land Cruiser worth $200,000 and four vehicles – an Audi A5, Nissan Patrol and two Toyota Hiluxes – valued at around $70,000 each.
Another 20 vehicles stolen across Melbourne worth between $10,000 and $50,000 have been found.
Police say stolen or cloned plates are often attached to the same make, model and colour of stolen vehicles matching the original car to avoid detection. Frankston investigation and response inspector, Melissa Nixon, said:
We strongly advise anyone who is trying to sell a car or posting images of their car online to blur the numberplate, to avoid falling victim to anyone scanning social media for registration plates to clone.
You can also install anti-theft screws which make it very hard for thieves to steal your plates quickly and without damaging them.
‘Insane’: Liberal senator on Hanson comments on trans rights
Earlier, the Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, was asked on Insiders about a speech made by Pauline Hanson at this week’s CPAC summit in the UK, in which she said Australia’s stance on transgender rights was “stupid”.
In another speech at the conference, Bragg’s Coalition colleague, Bridget McKenzie, claimed that Australians were not being consulted on the issue.
Asked about Hanson’s comments, Bragg said, “I think we have to be sensible about these things”.
The reality is that if you want to have a free and fair society, then you don’t go out of your way to make life harder for people who are in a small minority. That’s always been my view that in public life, you should try and use whatever power you have to make life easier for people, not harder.
Now, in terms of the trans community, it’s a small community, and I just don’t accept the view that Pauline Hanson expresses, that it’s some great risk to Australia. Where there have been issues, they should be addressed. But the idea that there’s a spectre of transgender people taking over Australia, I just think is insane.
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Pianist Jayson Gillham peforms joint concert for Palestinian families
Pianist Jayson Gillham has performed a concert for Palestinian families.
Gillham and Jordanian-Palestinian pianist Iyad Sughayer played together for families and refugee communities at a private gathering in Melbourne hosted by Palestine Australia Relief and Action (Para) yesterday.
Para founder, Rasha Abbas, said:
Healing is a long road. For Palestinians, for Gazans, for the families in our care, carrying grief and worry that most of us can barely imagine, there is no quick remedy. But music creates space. Space to grieve. Space to breathe. Space to feel held by something larger than ourselves. Space to remember that our shared humanity is greater than anything that divides us.
Earlier this month, Gillham said he was “very disappointed” after the federal court threw out his case against the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, finding he was not unfairly dismissed over comments he made about Israel’s actions in Gaza.
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Coalition says houses should be affordable but stands by pledge to roll back tax reform
Returning to Insiders, Andrew Bragg, the shadow housing minister, has defended the Coalition’s election promise to reverse the Albanese government’s negative gearing and tax changes.
He says:
We don’t think that higher taxes will create more houses, and the problem we’ve had in this country is we have had not enough houses built.
Asked if the Coalition supports the recent drop in property prices, following a Resolve Political Monitor poll which suggests 61% of Australians support a decline, Bragg says:
For younger people, some of that should be returned to younger people, because prices are too high in Australia for young people who are looking at, in some cases, 15 times a multiple of their salary to buy a first house. That is not fair. It is not reasonable, and so that’s why I think our policies must be focused on affordability over the longer term, which is really about how do you get a quarter of a million houses a year built every year in this country.
Bragg says Hanson has ‘made a business’ of criticism of minorities
The shadow housing minister, Andrew Bragg, has been asked to weigh in on One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s claims about Muslim Australians at the UK’s CPAC conference this week. He has told the ABC’s Insiders:
Look, she’ll do or say anything to tee off against minority interests. She’s made a business out of teeing off against minority interests, and I think it’s very regrettable. But it’s free speech as part of our society. She’s allowed to hang out with whoever she wants to hang out with on a European holiday.
Asked if he is opposed to a preference deal with One Nation, Bragg says:
We will always shoot for majority government, and we reject a large part of the agendas of both the Labor party and the One Nation party … I mean, they’re both as bad as each other. It’d be a coin toss. I mean, I just think that they’re both very bad, and that’s why we are taking our responsibility very seriously, of being a party of government that can win an election across all of Australia.
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Liberal senator ‘strongly disagrees’ with Tony Abbott on multiculturalism
The Liberal senator Andrew Bragg says he “strongly disagrees” with Tony Abbott after the former prime minister said that multiculturalism had “failed in Australia”.
Bragg has been asked on the ABC’s Insiders about the comments made by Abbott, the current president of the Liberal party, in a video posted to social media.
Bragg says:
Well, I don’t agree with that, and I’d make the point that liberalism has actually created multiculturalism because it creates a framework for people to have freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of conscience. And the Liberal party built modern Australia, if you look at the Menzies government opening up after the war, the Holt government abolishing parts of the White Australia policy, and then, of course, Malcolm Fraser’s actions to promote multiculturalism and introduce things like the SBS.
So we have a very proud record to stand on, and I think it’s very important that we’re clear about that.
Asked if Abbott should stop commenting on the issue, Bragg says: “He’s entitled to his views, and I strongly disagree with them.”
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Jane Hume says Hanson’s comments on UK tour ‘un-Australian’
The deputy Liberal leader, Jane Hume, has criticised Pauline Hanson for statements about migration and multiculturalism at the CPAC conference in London, telling Sky she condemns the One Nation leader’s comments.
“I think that they were unnecessary. They were divisive. They were inflammatory, and they were totally un-Australian,” Hume said.
“That’s not the way we operate in Australia. We have had a proud history of multiculturalism. We’re a great migrant nation.”
Hume said Hanson was wrong to lament the removal of the White Australia policy in the 1960s and 1970s.
If we’re going to have the prosperous and progressive society that we have always wanted, that we’ve always enjoyed in Australia, we need to make sure that we have a migration program that’s delivering for our country, that’s driving productivity, not taking away from it, but restoring a White Australia policy is not part of that.
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Hanson ‘taking us nowhere’ on divisive race debate: Labor
Pauline Hanson’s appearances with far-right activist Tommy Robinson and at a conservative political conference in London have been criticised at home, with Labor frontbencher Andrew Charlton calling the One Nation leader “incredibly divisive”.
The assistant minister for science, technology and the digital economy told Sky News Hanson’s comments about migration and multiculturalism weren’t adding to the national political debate.
“Australia is a multicultural country,” he said.
Waves of migrants have added a huge amount to our country, and I just think it’s incredibly divisive to be saying that some groups should be here and suggest that other groups shouldn’t be here.
Now that’s divisive, and importantly, I just don’t think it takes us anywhere as a nation. It doesn’t address any of the real challenges that we have in this country. It’s not building new homes. It’s not helping people with cost of living. It’s not reforming our tax system.
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Rising fuel prices could force interest rate rise
Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP, said fuel prices could rise another 10 cents as the rebound in oil prices had not yet fully flowed through, in a note on Friday.
Oil prices would rise further if the conflict in the Middle East continued and global stockpiles ran short, Oliver said.
The longer the strait remains closed and the war escalates, the greater the risk that oil prices will have to rise to around $US150/barrel to bring demand down to match the hit to supply.
Prices are set to rise a further 16 cents when the federal government’s partial fuel relief expires on 2 August. Oliver predicted the government would extend the excise cut.
Rising prices would add to inflation, increasing the chance of an interest rate hike from the Reserve Bank. Markets on Friday were betting on a 65% chance of a hike by December, up from about 50% a week earlier.
Diesel prices rise 15 cents in five days
Diesel prices have risen 15 cents a litre in five days as Donald Trump’s war in Iran lifts global oil prices.
Oil and fuel costs have risen to their highest levels in over a month. Brent crude oil prices fell to nearly US $70 a barrel after the mid-June peace deal between the US and Iran but have risen to US$88 after over a week of strikes.
Rising oil costs have pushed up wholesale prices for diesel and petrol, with service stations passing the increase on to motorists.
Diesel prices have risen from 192.8 to 209.9 cents per litre from Monday to Saturday in Melbourne, according to MotorMouth average data. Diesel hit 207.1 cents in Brisbane, 205.1 in Sydney, 204.3 in Adelaide and 201.5 in Perth.
Unleaded petrol prices are up seven cents per litre in a week, at 177.5 cents per litre in Brisbane, 175.8 in Melbourne and 172.5 in Sydney.
Ski fields reach July temperature high on Saturday
It was a remarkably warm day in the Australian alps yesterday, with several ski fields reaching temperatures that look set to be record-breaking (the records are yet to be confirmed by the Bureau of Meteorology’s climate team).
Mount Hotham reached 11.1C. That’s 2.4C higher than the previous July record of 8.7C set in 1994.
Falls Creek hit 11.5C, topping it’s previous highest July maximum of 9.8C in 1992.
Perisher in New South Wales hit 11.9C, which also looks set to be a new July high.
Dr Andrew Watkins, a research associate at Monash University who posted the observations to social media, remarked:
Big slow moving high pressure systems creating large areas of descending & warming air hitting a radiation inversion = warm air trapped above the ground. Plus climate change…
Back in June, the BoM was anticipating poorer conditions for snow, with a warmer and drier winter forecast.
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Welcome
Good morning, and thanks for joining us. I’m Penry Buckley and I’ll be taking you through today’s breaking stories. Let’s get started.
Several ski fields have recorded temperatures that look to be record-breaking on a remarkably warm day in the Australian alps yesterday. More details on that soon.
Diesel prices have risen 15 cents a litre in five days as Donald Trump’s war in Iran lifts global oil prices, with fighting escalating over the strait of Hormuz.
