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Thanks for joining us for our live coverage of news in and around Brisbane today. We’ll be back on Monday morning with more live updates. In case you missed it, here are some of the stories we’ve been covering so far today:
Anthony Albanese is about to embark upon a week of hectic, high-wire trans-Atlantic diplomacy that represents the biggest foreign policy test of his prime ministership, including a meeting with Donald Trump. So what will the PM be looking to achieve in New York and London?
There have been renewed calls for a ban on shark nets in Queensland after five whales became entangled in the past week.
Children’s entertainment group The Wiggles is defending an explosive lawsuit filed against it by the company’s former chief executive, who claims he was sacked after complaining about spending and hiring decisions by one of the group’s founding members.
The adage of do what you love, and the money will follow is one many workers have stuck to for years. But with industries everywhere being upended by artificial intelligence (AI), some employees have begun to question if this sentiment still holds true.
The Australian sharemarket has bounced higher on Friday morning, with technology shares shining after Wall Street pushed to fresh records overnight on the back of a deal between Nvidia and Intel.
Accelerating the take-up of electric vehicles to the rate needed to meet Australia’s emissions reduction target will be a challenge, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has admitted, conceding that drivers have been slow to switch.
Health Minister Tim Nicholls has said the government’s decision to outlaw all pill testing last night was in line with election commitments to defund the government-owned CheQpoint programs.
“The government’s policy position which it took to the election is that there is no safe way to take drugs and that drug checking services send the wrong message to Queenslanders,” Nicholls said.
“There are no surprises in the Government enacting, in government, what it said in opposition it would do.”
He reiterated the government having a “zero-tolerance” approach to illicit drugs, and said the changes to the act would align Queensland with other states that do not permit drug testing.
Pill testing trials have been introduced in some states across Australia, but have yet to be introduced in South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania, where governments remain opposed to introducing a program.
Queensland is the first state to walk back laws after introducing a trial program.
The state opposition has accused the government of gagging both opposition and LNP-party moderates in its controversial decision to ban all pill testing, which it pushed through late last night.
Opposition Leader Steven Miles said the ban would cost lives, and was rushed through by the LNP “to appease the radicals in their right wing”.
“The evidence shows and the experts tell us that law will cost lives, pill testing is as much about getting healthcare to drug users as it is about getting dangerous, deadly pills off our streets,” Miles said.
“The position they took to the election was to end the taxpayer funded program, not to take this extreme step of outlawing it, which no other state has done.”
Queensland Opposition Leader Steven Miles speaks outside Parliament House.Credit: Strohfeldt
Health Minister Tim Nicholls made the changes through last-minute amendment to an unrelated bill last night, skirting the standard committee process that would let experts weigh in, and allowing the government to shut down debate from other members.
Miles said party members within the government “supported pill testing and… didn’t want to see it outlawed”.
“The tactics they deployed yesterday weren’t so much about gagging Labor, they were more so about making sure the moderates in their party didn’t speak their voices,” he said.
Opposition health spokesman Mark Bailey said the bill contained “substantial issues that need to be fleshed out”.
“It was a return to the bad old days of Campbell Newman-style tactics… I was incredibly angry that no MP was allowed to speak on the bill,” Bailey said.
Pill testing company The Loop Australia told Brisbane Times yesterday it was concerned the decision to ban testing was prioritising ideology over the safety of Queenslanders.
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has had to issue a correction after telling a press conference that: “We don’t believe in setting targets at all, from opposition or from government.”
This was bound to raise eyebrows – was the opposition scrapping targets as a policy?
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.
Ley was anxious to clear things up shortly after the press conference wrapped: “I just misspoke in the answer I gave to you, I think on targets,” Ley said.
“We don’t support setting targets in opposition. We do, of course, recognise the importance of targets in government when we have the full information in front of us, which we don’t have. Thank you.”
In Brisbane Festival, a First Nations story of Stradbroke Island, Baleen Moondjan, takes place on a pontoon on the river in front of Queen’s Wharf until Sunday.
Baleen Moondjan.Credit: Markus Ravik
The free St Lucia Serenades are on Saturday 4pm-7pm at the Dr Mary Mahoney AO Amphitheatre, at the University of Queensland. Adam James and the Dreamtime Swing will play songs of famous First Nations musicians in the style of big-band music.
Banging Australian pop musical The Lovers is running at QPAC, with its plot updating A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a cast featuring Muriel’s Wedding’s Natalie Abbott and Hamilton’s Jason Arrow.
Gatsby at the Green Light invites you to “party like it’s 1925” at the Twelfth Night Theatre, with acrobatics, juggling, burlesque and cocktails.
Indeed, the city is spoiled for circus right now: everyone’s favourite Canadian circus stars are back in Cirque du Soleil: Corteo at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, while Lassu Cosmic Cabaret has set up in Victoria Park.
All the winners of the Brisbane Portrait Prize are announced this evening, and the exhibition opens on Saturday at the State Library from 10am.
Douglas Sirk’s melodramas are considered highlights of 1950s Hollywood and All That Heaven Allows starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson is getting a free screening at GOMA at 1pm Sunday as part of a series of “sublime” cinema.
And further afield, the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers is on again. This weekend’s events include the Grand Central Floral Parade on Saturday and the Paw Parade on Sunday in Queens Park.
Pill testing has been outlawed in Queensland after late-night manoeuvres by the Crisafulli government to pass the laws without public or parliamentary scrutiny.
Health Minister Tim Nicholls made the changes through last-minute amendments to an unrelated bill debated in parliament on Thursday, bypassing the committee process that allows expert stakeholders to give evidence related to planned law changes.
The move also allowed the government to avoid serious debate on the floor of parliament, repeatedly shutting down attempts by non-government MPs to raise concerns.
“There is no safe way to take drugs,” Nicholls claimed. “Only the Labor Party is backing drug dealers in this house.”
A coalition of health and social service groups, along with the family of a Joshua Tam, who died in 2018 after taking an unknown substance at a music festival, unsuccessfully sought a meeting this week to urge the government to reconsider its opposition to the evidence-based scheme after news of the plans emerged.
The government defunded the two permanent services after coming to power, and flagged further action to stop them re-emerging with the help of private funding after recent news one of them would reopen with philanthropic backing.
A man has been charged over a Nazi salute at Brisbane’s anti-immigration rally last month.
Queensland police confirmed the 39-year-old Caboolture man was arrested on September 16 by counter-terrorism officers.
He was charged with one count of public display of giving a Nazi salute, and was expected to appear in the Caboolture Magistrates Court on October 7.
“Offences of this nature are unacceptable, and police will assess any report with the utmost seriousness,” Security and Counter Terrorism Command acting assistant commissioner Heath Hutchings said.
“The [Queensland Police Service] strongly condemn anyone who incites hatred within our community – there is no place for it.
“Everyone in Queensland has a right to feel safe, to not feel threatened or victimised. Anyone who feels threatened or fearful by the actions of others should contact police.”
Leader of the National Party David Littleproud has called the government’s 2035 climate targets “an expensive charade”.
“The detail that Chris Bowen doesn’t want to talk about hasn’t been put in those reports … If Chris Bowen is so passionate about his plan, tell us the cost,” Littleproud said on Radio National this morning.
“[Labor] will not give you a straight answer about what the energy grid will actually cost.”
Nationals leader David Littleproud.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“We believe in climate change. We believe there’s ways to do it, but not necessarily Labor’s way.
“So what you can see in that report is, if you do look at Labor’s history, they haven’t reduced emissions at all in the last three years. They’ve flatlined,” the Nationals leader said.
He also said the government’s climate targets focused disproportionately on the reduction of emissions rather than mitigation, insisting that his party’s policy would instead “look at mitigation, and try to mitigate emissions here as part of a global perspective”.
“I’m going to find a way that will make sure that [Australians] can afford it and that we’ve adapted to a changing climate, protected our economy, but protected them. That’s what leadership is.”
Motorists have been urged to avoid the rail bridge on Pine Street in Wynnum after a truck crash this morning.
Emergency services were responding to the incident, in which a small truck hit the rail bridge and became wedged.
A truck wedged under the bridge over Pine Street.Credit: Facebook/Joan Pease
A Cleveland-to-Central train was also cancelled from Manly to Boggo Road due to the crash.
“Please avoid this morning. Emergency crews on site,” MP Joan Pease told the community.
Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said he “understands” and “respects” the commentary of critics and scientists who say the government’s climate targets do not go far enough in tackling climate change, but has doubled down on yesterday’s announcement that Australia aims to cut emissions by 62-70 per cent of 2005 levels by 2035.
“With all due respect to those commentators who say we should be doing more, they don’t need to deliver. The government does, and the government has set out yesterday, not only a target, but a comprehensive plan to help us get there,” he said on Radio National this morning.
“I believe acting on climate change is a huge economic opportunity for our country. I really do believe that, but I also believe it has to be managed carefully and calibrated carefully, the biggest economic transition in our country’s history does need to be handled carefully … And my job is to deliver.”
Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Bowen also said electricity prices would be higher if the transition to clean energy was delayed.
“The modelling was undertaken to help the government make a decision in the national interest. The target we set out yesterday is the best economic model for the country, and prices will be higher if we delay the transition or pretend it’s not happening,” he said on ABC News Breakfast.
Responding to criticisms that the 2035 target was not ambitious enough in combatting the projected impacts of climate change, Bowen told Radio National: “A target higher than 70 [per cent] would involve unacceptable environmental, social and economic costs for our country.”
Asked whether he thinks yesterday’s announcement would affect Australia’s bid to host COP31 – the UN’s next annual climate summit – he said: “The Pacific is strongly backing our bid … And the situation remains that the vast majority of the constituency supports our bid.”
The final decision on who will host the summit is expected to be made this month.
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