We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.
1 of 2
Thanks for joining us for our live coverage today. We’ll be back tomorrow morning with another blog. In case you missed it, here are some of the stories we’ve been covering so far today:
A “confectionery” store opposite a high school north of Brisbane was raided by police within hours of strict new vape and tobacco laws being introduced to state parliament this week.
Queensland MP Joe Kelly will demand the Crisafulli government launches an inquiry into the sale and branding of “laughing gas” for rampant recreational use after a nitrous oxide dispenser was found near a Brisbane primary school.
The man accused of running an illegal euthanasia operation by using a charity as a front to get veterinary drugs will remain in custody.
Health experts who fear plans to ban pill-testing services are being rushed through and could put lives at risk have called for an urgent meeting with the Queensland government.
Australia has set a goal to cut emissions by between 62 per cent and 70 per cent by 2035 from 2005 levels, as the Albanese government continues its strategy of modestly ambitious climate action over the next decade.
In 50 words, King Charles sent the US president a message about what is on the line for the West. Everything now depends on Donald Trump taking note.
Breakout Lions star Zac Bailey insists he has not given his future thought beyond the end of his 2026 deal, despite rival clubs plotting multimillion-dollar moves to pry the livewire away from the defending premiers.
Twenty-eight fibreglass bones, some nine metres in length, are the spectacular set for a Brisbane Festival show at Queen’s Wharf telling a Stradbroke Island story.
American network ABC has said it will indefinitely stop airing Jimmy Kimmel Live! after the late-night host’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s assassination came under harsh criticism from the head of the Federal Communications Commission.
Increasing the number of Queensland members of parliament should be considered at the next redistribution, according to Robbie Katter.
KAP state members Robbie Katter, Shane Knuth and Nick Dametto.Credit: William Davis
The Katter’s Australia Party representative made the comments after a LNP submission was lodged calling for abolition of the Far North electorate of Hill.
“We need more representation in those areas,” Katter said from parliament house on Thursday.
“I think [the LNP has] manipulated it to their own political gain, which is pretty distasteful.”
Asked if he believed increasing the overall size of parliament instead of taking a seat from somewhere else was a possible solution, he said “that should be on the cards”.
The electorate of Hill is held by Katter’s Australian Party MP Shane Knuth.
The state has rezoned more than 51 hectares in Yatala to build a spate of film industry infrastructure just weeks after the government opened the floor to push through housing and tourism development at Dreamworld.
The development will form part of the Gold Coast Screen Industry Precinct, expected to house a production studio, sound stages, accommodation and education and training facilities.
An artist render of the film precinct.Credit: City of Gold Coast
Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie said the precinct was “tipped to become Australia’s most advanced studio and production precinct” and would draw the screen industry to Queensland.
“The Gold Coast is the centre of Queensland’s screen production success, recognised globally for its world-class production facilities and huge network of skilled screen workers,” Bleijie said.
Bleijie also issued a proposed call-in notice in early September, seeking community consultation on whether to fast-track housing and tourism developments near Dreamworld and WhiteWater World, in Coomera.
The Gold Coast Council supported both decisions, with Acting Mayor Mark Hammel today welcoming the screen precinct announcement.
“It’s an exciting time for screen workers on the Gold Coast, who are part of one of our city’s fastest growing industries,” he said.
Hammel said the decision to create the Yatala precinct followed a two-part public consultation protest.
Australia has committed to upgrading its climate target, setting a new goal to cut emissions by between 62 and 70 per cent by 2035 from 2005 levels.
The 2035 target is an upgrade to the existing target to cut greenhouse gases by 43 per cent by 2030 and represents a major challenge to the government and the economy, given emissions have fallen 28 per cent in the two decades since 2005 and must fall a further 15 per cent in the next five years.
Under the Paris Agreement on climate change, countries are required to set increasingly ambitious targets every five years, and Australia is due to submit its goal before the United Nations’ next climate summit, known as COP30, to be hosted by Brazil in November.
This is viewed as a crucial move to boost Australia’s chances of delivering the government’s commitment to bring COP31 summit to Adelaide next year.
Read more about Australia’s climate target in our national news blog.
The stood-down mayor of Townsville has been issued a show-cause notice.
Troy Thompson has been under investigation by the Crime and Corruption Commission over allegations he misled voters about his military history and university qualifications.
Troy Thompson.Credit: A Current Affair
He denies any wrongdoing.
Minister for Local Government Ann Leahy revealed in Parliament on Thursday she had been briefed by the watchdog in August, and said it set out “serious allegations”.
She confirmed she would issue a show-cause notice today, outlining the basis for her “reasonable belief” dismissal might be appropriate.
“They deserve a council that is stable, accountable and able to deliver for its community,” Leahy said.
The minister confirmed she would travel north tomorrow to speak to residents, business owners and councillors.
Retail giant Kmart breached Australians’ privacy by scanning shoppers’ faces without consent, Australia’s privacy commissioner has ruled.
Between June 2020 and July 2022, Kmart installed facial recognition cameras in 28 stores to combat refund fraud.
Every customer who entered – not just suspected fraudsters – had their biometric data captured.
Kmart breached customers’ privacy by scanning their faces without consent, the privacy commissioner has found.Credit: Bloomberg
Privacy commissioner Carly Kind said that after a three-year investigation, she found the practice was “a disproportionate interference with privacy.”
“I do not consider that the respondent (Kmart) could have reasonably believed that the benefits of the facial recognition technology system in addressing refund fraud proportionately outweighed the impact on individuals’ privacy,” she said in a statement.
“[It was] also minimal with respect to [Kmart’s] annual revenue, which was $9.2 billion in the 2020 financial year.”
Kmart argued it was entitled to use the technology under a Privacy Act exemption for tackling unlawful activity, but Kind rejected that defence, concluding the collection of biometric information from thousands of innocent customers was unjustified.
Kmart was contacted for comment. The company co-operated with the investigation and stopped operating the system in July 2022.
Kmart has been ordered not to repeat the practice in the future, and will have to publish a statement on its website within 30 days explaining its use of facial recognition technology and the regulator’s finding against it.
This is the second time the regulator has ruled against facial recognition in retail, following a similar finding against Bunnings last year, a decision that is currently under review by the Administrative Review Tribunal.
Major miner Anglo American Australia has cut roles at Queensland operations just a day after BHP slashed 750 workers as the coal industry ramps up its stoush with the state government over its royalties regime.
Anglo American confirmed to this masthead on Thursday morning it had completed redundancies at mining roles as well as its Brisbane office, citing weaker coal prices and rising operational costs for the “comprehensive review of our organisational structure”.
Workers at the Grosvenor mine near Mackay were told on Wednesday roles had been cut and while the mining company has not revealed the extent of the losses, the Isaac Regional Council told the ABC it would result in about 200 job losses at the site.
The confirmation comes after BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) revealed on Wednesday it would slash 750 jobs, blaming the government’s continued coal royalties for edging the market towards “crisis point”.
Anglo American’s vice president of people and corporate relations, Ben Mansour, said the job cuts were needed to “ensure the long-term sustainability of our business”.
“Our focus is on supporting safe, core operations and simplifying our business to adapt to ongoing market pressures – including lower coal prices and rising costs,” he said in a statement.
“These changes are essential to secure the future of our steelmaking coal operations in Central Queensland.”
Walt Disney-owned ABC said it would indefinitely stop airing “Jimmy Kimmel Live” after remarks the late-night host made on-air about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“Mr Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views, or values of the local communities in which we are located,” said Andrew Alford, President of Nexstar’s broadcasting division.
“Continuing to give Mr Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue.”
The ABC has pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s show off-air indefinitely after comments he made about Charlie Kirk on his show two nights ago.Credit: Getty
“Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC-affiliated markets,” said the statement from Nextstar Media Group.
The offending comments were made by Kimmel on air two nights ago during his opening monologue: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
Kimmel went on to say, “This is not how an adult grieves the murder of somebody he called a friend. This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish, OK?”
Tonight’s show will not be aired, and will be replaced by other ABC programs for the foreseeable future.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is being urged to lobby Trump to step up efforts to counter China’s influence and stop key regional partnerships from floundering after Australia failed to sign a historic bilateral defence treaty with PNG this week.
The PM returned to Australia yesterday without finalising the agreement with its Pacific neighbour. It was the government’s second security agreement to fall through in the past eight days, after Australia also failed to strike a security pact with Vanuatu last week, in what the federal opposition has called “a serious foreign policy embarrassment”.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his PNG counterpart James Marape signing a communique in Port Moresby today. The PM failed to sign a new bilateral defence treaty with PNG during his Port Moresby trip.
The news comes just days before Albanese is set to fly to the US for the opening session of the UN General Assembly where he is likely to meet for talks with Trump.
A meeting between the two leaders is yet to be scheduled, but Albanese will be attending a reception held by Trump in New York on Tuesday next week.
Read more here.
A coalition of health experts is calling for an urgent meeting with the Queensland government to discuss plans to ban pill-testing services, with fears legislative changes are being rushed through without adequate consultation.
Chief executive of The Loop Australia, the service that ran Queensland’s first permanent pill-testing sites before they were defunded earlier this year, said changes could be introduced to parliament as early as tonight and urged the government to meet with experts before making “irreversible legislative changes that could put Queensland lives at risk”.
“Without these services, people using drugs have no way to know if they’re taking dangerous substances like nitazenes – synthetic opioids far more potent than heroin that have already been detected in Queensland,” Francis said.
“This is exactly the kind of public health emergency where expert voices should be heard.”
Francis said experts had repeatedly requested to meet with the Crisafulli government since it announced the pill-testing sites would be closed, and after they refused to release a taxpayer-funded evaluation of the service.
The group recently secured private funding to re-open the service, but delayed after the government announced they would introduce legislation to block pill-testing.
AMA Queensland president Dr Nick Yim condemned the government’s refusal to engage with experts and reiterated their calls for “evidence-backed treatments that save lives”.
“Multiple studies from around the world show this health-based approach, with a focus on education and intervention, is highly effective,” Yim said.
“The government says ‘there is no safe way to take drugs’. If they have evidence to demonstrate this, they should release it, so the Queensland community can examine the data.”
1 of 2
Copyright © 2025

source