AAP Rolling News Bulletin for June 8 at 0400
Federal (CANBERRA)
Support for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has slumped while One Nation has edged ahead of Labor as the country's most popular political party in a Newspoll.
The survey showed a four-point rise in One Nation's primary vote to 31 per cent while Labor dipped one point to 30 per cent and the coalition gave up two points to 18 per cent.
The Newspoll, published in The Australian, also registered a one-point decline for the Greens to 11 per cent.
The survey sampled 1240 voters and was conducted between Monday and Thursday last week.
It echoes the results of a Redbridge Group/Accent Research poll published a week ago that had One Nation on 31 per cent support, Labor on 28 per cent and the coalition on 20 per cent.
Honours (CANBERRA)
More than 900 Australians are being lauded after receiving honours on the King's Birthday list for services praised as shaping the nation.
Former Tasmanian premier Will Hodgman, gender equality advocate Natasha Stott Despoja and philanthropist Janet Calvert-Jones are among those appointed Companions of the Order of Australia (AC), which is the nation's highest civilian honour.
All up, 34 Australians received honours through the military division, 149 received meritorious citations and 63 conspicuous accolades, with a further 702 recognised in the general division.
Soldiers will perform 21-gun salutes in both Sydney and Melbourne for the King's Birthday public holiday on Monday, where one blank howitzer round will be fired every 10 seconds until all 21 have been expended.
Late doctor and former Victorian Liberal MP Katie Allen was appointed an Officer of the Order, credited with changing how pediatric food allergy is treated after authoring more than 400 publications in leading medical journals. She died in December at the age of 59 after developing a rare form of cancer.
Iran (BEIRUT)
Israeli forces have struck the outskirts of Beirut for the first time since the United States announced a truce plan for Lebanon last week as an Iranian MP threatened to retaliate, putting talks to end the wider war into new jeopardy.
Iran has long said any peace deal with the US would depend on a ceasefire also holding in Lebanon, which Israel invaded in March in pursuit of Iran-aligned Hezbollah fighters who fired across the border.
There was no immediate formal response from Iran to Sunday's Israeli strikes on the southern outskirts of Beirut but influential Iranian MP Ebrahim Rezaei posted on X that Iran would deliver a "decisive and painful response".
"Look at the sky of the occupied territories tonight," wrote Rezaei, who serves as the spokesman for parliament's national security committee.
Obit Scolyer (SYDNEY)
Scientist Richard Scolyer has died following a lengthy public battle with brain cancer, saying in a statement that he would like to be remembered as "a proud everyday Aussie who 'gave it a crack',".
The renowned melanoma pathologist and father of three, who died aged 59 on Sunday, helped save thousands of people's lives during his career through groundbreaking skin cancer research.
Along with Professor Georgina Long, he took the disease from being a death sentence to largely curable through treatment that activates a patient's own immune system, bringing hope and healing to many.
Born in Tasmania, Professor Scolyer was diagnosed with an incurable and aggressive stage four brain cancer named glioblastoma in June 2023, aged 56, and given just six to eight months to live.
Mideast (CAIRO)
An Israeli air strike on a Hamas-led police station in the Gaza Strip has killed five Palestinians and wounded at least 16 others, health officials say, as mediators begin new efforts to salvage a fragile US-brokered ceasefire deal.
Medics did not say how many of the casualties were police.
The strike on Sunday hit a police post adjacent to a large tent encampment of displaced families in Khan Younis in the south of the enclave.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incident.
Israel has stepped up attacks against police headquarters and personnel in the past several months, killing dozens of them, according to Hamas security officials.
Major fighting has been paused since October under a ceasefire after two years of war, but no agreement has been reached to implement a further US-backed plan for Israeli troops to withdraw, Hamas to disarm and Gaza to be rebuilt.
Honours (CANBERRA)
Will Hodgman was working as a child protection prosecutor when the "fire" in his heart was first lit to get into politics to better protect society's most vulnerable.
Mr Hodgman, who led Tasmania between 2014 and 2020, considers the implementation of his state's plan to reduce family violence during his government's term as one of its most important changes.
"Seeing how governments cannot adequately protect and care for vulnerable people in communities right across the world, but including in my home state, was something I thought I'd like to improve," he told AAP.
"It was that fire in my heart to seek to enter our parliament and pursue what were one of the most significant reforms."
The former Liberal premier has been awarded Australia's highest civil honour, the Companion of the Order (AC), for eminent service to the people and parliament of Tasmania, to economic growth and policy reform, to the law and to the community.
Honours Sport (MELBOURNE)
For more than two decades, Michael Kennedy helped Australia's winter athletes chase Olympic dreams.
Now, the veteran sports administrator has set out on a journey of his own.
After calling time on a 23-year career as chief executive of Snow Australia, which came off the back of the country's record-breaking Winter Olympics campaign in Italy in February, Kennedy headed back overseas to tick off a personal goal.
Kennedy received the news about being appointed a Member (AM) of the Order of Australia in the King's Birthday Honours while walking the 790km-long Camino Frances with his wife, Shannah.
He said the walk, averaging 25km per day for 40 days from France to Spain, had given him time to reflect on his career as an architect of Australia becoming a global winter sports powerhouse.
Ukraine (KYIV)
Russian forces have deliberately struck a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel near Ukraine's Chernobyl power plant, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says, in an "extremely vile" attack that did not lead to a spike in radiation.
The strike significantly damaged a fuel-reception building metres away from where "large amounts of nuclear material" were stored, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which said it had been briefed by Ukraine.
Kyiv's state atomic agency Energoatom said no spent fuel had been stored in the building at the time of the attack.
A resulting fire was extinguished, and no injuries were reported.
Russia has not publicly commented on the alleged strike on the facility, which is located about 15km from the Chernobyl plant, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster.
In finance ...
NZ Aust (CANBERRA)
Labor has laughed off the New Zealand prime minister's criticism of the capital gains tax, arguing the two nations have very different systems.
After Kiwi leader Christopher Luxon said introducing a tax on capital gains would be disastrous for New Zealand's economy, Australia's employment minister Amanda Rishworth denied it was a dig at the Albanese government's tax shake-up.
"I don't think you can compare apples with oranges when we're talking about different tax systems and different countries," she told Sky News on Sunday.
"I would suggest that neither leader would seek to get involved in domestic politics.
"I wouldn't suggest it was a shot across the bow. I would suggest that both leaders are operating in a completely different tax system in their country."
Boresight (SYDNEY)
Another drone company is about to join market leader Droneshield on the local bourse as unmanned aerial vehicles transform modern warfare.
But the Canberra-based company Boresight is a bit different to its Aussie-listed counterparts.
Spun out of privately held Canberra-based defence technology company Criterion Solutions in 2020, Boresight specialises in making cheap drones for target practice.
"We were conceived to cater to the counter-drone market, particularly the people who were shooting drones down," Boresight chief executive Justin Olde told AAP.
"They needed a cost-effective way of shooting down drones, but something that was a good testing and training tool as well."
ASX-listed defence contractor Electro Optic Systems became particularly adept at shooting down drones.
But it was expensive to buy $2500 drones from JB Hi-Fi purely to destroy them, Mr Olde said.
In entertainment ...
Tonys (NEW YORK CITY)
The Tony Awards are capping a record Broadway season, with no clear frontrunner among the leading nominees and a mix of star-driven shows and new works signalling sustained momentum for the New York theatre industry.
Pop singer Pink will host the televised ceremony at Radio City Music Hall in New York on Sunday from 8pm local time (10am Monday Sydney time).
New musicals The Lost Boys and Schmigadoon! lead all nominees with 12 nods each, followed by the revival Ragtime with 11, with 24 shows vying for wins across 26 categories.
Alongside leading contenders The Lost Boys and Schmigadoon!, Titaníque and Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) have built strong followings, making the best musical category one of the most competitive in recent memory.
Noise (SYDNEY)
Gigs at one of Australia's most famous landmarks are set to get louder.
Along with lifting capacity limits, sound regulation for late-night concerts at the Sydney Opera House's forecourt will be raised to be consistent with settings for daytime gigs.
NSW ministers labelled the tweaks as common sense and said sound restrictions would no longer be determined by residents of the 'Toaster' - the nearby luxury apartment building whose residents have regularly complained about noise.
Notably, the Opera House copped a $15,000 fine after residents complained about the volume of a performance from English band Florence and The Machine in 2015.
"Over the decades it became a Sydney sport to move in next door to a pub and then campaign to close it down," Arts and Night-time Economy Minister John Graham said on Sunday
In sport ...
RL Origin NSW (SYDNEY)
Casey McLean says he knew as soon as he hurt his ankle against Wests Tigers that he would be fit and available for NSW State of Origin selection a day later if needed.
The Penrith centre sent a scare through the state camp early in the second half of Sunday's 68-0 thumping win over Wests Tigers when he landed awkwardly contesting a kick.
McLean initially attempted to play on, before coming off the field for tests from club medical staff.
The 20-year-old had scans on Sunday night and awaits results ahead of NSW coach Laurie Daley's game-two team announcement, set to be made after the final game of round 14 on Monday night.
But Panthers staff could find no initial damage to the structural support installed from earlier syndesmosis surgery, and felt McLean could have returned to the field against the Tigers if required.
RU Sevens (LONDON)
Maddison Levi has defied a knee injury to score a superb double and propel Australia's rugby women to world sevens championship glory in France.
The Aussies defeated their biggest rivals in the last global showdown of the season, downing their great rivals New Zealand 26-19 in the final in Bordeaux, the last leg of the three-tournament world championship series.
Their star player Levi had been injured the previous week when they won the second leg in Valladolid, Spain, and she was kept under wraps for the first two days of competition until Sunday's semi-finals and final.
The 24-year-old phenomenon, who's again been shortlisted for women's world sevens player of the year, produced a player of the match display in the final, with her two tries and other scores from Heidi Dennis and Faith Nathan guiding the Australians to their third overall title in five years.
Ends Bulletin
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