Tag: News in Australia

Hazel Hawke has been farewelled at Sydney’s Opera House with a musical tribute.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has given her colleagues a lukewarm assessment of Labor's chances of retaining government at the final caucus meeting before the 14 September election.

Senior government sources have reported that Climate Change Minister Greg Combet told former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd eighteen months ago that he would support a change in leadership if he were to become Federal Treasurer as a part of the deal.

As Julia Gillard marks three years as prime minister, Labor backbenchers say ministers are being unhelpful by attacking Kevin Rudd.

Legal action from 2DayFM in the Austereo group gags broadcasting watchdog from publishing findings of a six-month long inquiry into the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha.

A risqué advertisement for the British Lions Test series showing a kangaroo in a compromising position with a lion is causing controversy in Australia. The 'Rooting for the Wallabies' ad is visible from the sky on approach to Melbourne international airport.

The Australian Mint marks the Diamond Jubilee year of Queen Elizabeth II with a special new coloured coin.

Community leaders in Australia’s north have welcomed the coalition’s white paper proposal, but some remain sceptical.

Indigenous leaders have marked the sixth anniversary of the controversial 2007 government intervention in the Northern Territory by questioning the psychological repercussions of regulating the day-to-day management of Aboriginal communities.

Justice has been done with the life sentence handed to Adrian Ernest Bayley for the rape and murder of Melbourne woman Jill Meagher, her family says.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says the government’s crackdown on 457 visas is not a done deal in parliament.

Australian women respond to a Destroy The Joint Facebook call to action, #convoyofcleavage, after columnist Grace Collier criticises Prime Minister Julia Gillard for showing too much cleavage in parliament.

Former prime minister Bob Hawke has ruled out intervening to smooth tensions between Prime Minister Julia Gillard and former leader Kevin Rudd.

Recent polling suggests that Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s attempt to reignite a political gender war has backfired, with the embattled Labor leader losing significant support amongst male voters after claiming that Tony Abbott would marginalise women and change abortion rights if elected to government.

A leadership showdown between Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her detractors could be put off until after Labor's landmark schools funding legislation passes federal parliament.

Perth shock jock Howard Sattler will pursue legal action against Fairfax radio after he was sacked for asking prime minister Julia Gillard whether her partner is gay.

Western Australian shock jock Howard Sattler has been suspended from the airwaves after asking PM Julia Gillard if her partner is gay during an interview.

Defence has launched a massive investigation into more than 100 army and other personnel over the distribution of offensive images of women.

Feminists fear a massive Labor defeat in September will set back their cause for up to a decade.

Australian workers doing plumbing repair work on the Sydney Harbour Bridge have walked off the job after they said two apprentices were exposed to asbestos.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has hit back at the Newman government’s ban on federal Education Minister Peter Garrett visiting schools in the state by ordering all Labor MPs to stand outside school gates and push the Gonski reforms to parents that are dropping off and collecting their children.

The New South Wales government have launched a $1.5 million road safety awareness campaign designed to discourage people from texting while driving. The “Get Your Hands Off It” campaign takes a tongue-in-cheek approach specifically designed to target the 20-to-29-year-old age bracket, with the accompanying video going viral.

Police have begun work on a property in the Riverina region of New South Wales in an effort to discover the body of anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay, who went missing thirty-six years ago after a series of confrontations with Griffith marijuana growers.

Recalling his own ridicule at the hands of Julia Gillard, shadow treasurer Joe Hockey has rejected prime ministerial criticism of the Liberal Party.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says a menu circulating on the internet from a Liberal National Party fundraising menu is “grossly sexist and offensive”, and the Opposition should disendorse former Howard government minister Mal Brough as the candidate for the Queensland seat of Fisher.

The Palmer United Party has unveiled the first of its Victorian candidates in Melbourne today, with former world champion boxer Barry Michael and AFL legend Doug Hawkins being revealed as the fledgling party’s latest signings.

Federal Education Minister Peter Garrett has been banned from setting foot on the campus of any Queensland school, with the Newman Government claiming that it was taking action to prevent the state’s educational facilities from becoming “the venue for the Gonski media roadshow.”

Former federal Labor leader Mark Latham has urged Prime Minister Julia Gillard to adopt the Coalition’s policy of sending boats carrying asylum seekers back into Indonesian waters in order to address the severity of the people smuggling issue.

Adrian Bayley was on parole for raping five women and on bail for an assault when he raped and murdered Jill Meagher, a court has heard.

The federal attorney-general doesn’t want to be drawn on whether Australia is using information gathered by a controversial US surveillance program Prism.

Two men have died and two remain in a critical condition after drinking a bad batch of home brew grappa in rural Queensland, with the government saying that it will investigate the incident in order to determine whether steps must be taken to prevent the same thing happening again.

Leadership speculation in the federal government has put the country at risk of an early election after Independent MP Tony Windsor claimed that the deal he made in 2010 to support the Gillard Government would be “null and void” if the Australian Labor Party were to change leaders before the ...

Artists, jurists, academics and sports legends have been honoured on the Queen’s Birthday list, released in Australia on Monday.

Australian border protection authorities won’t yet recover the bodies of dead asylum seekers near Christmas Island.

Labor would attract almost seven per cent more votes on a two-party preferred basis if Kevin Rudd was prime minister, a poll says.

The son of controversial former Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, John Bjelke-Petersen, has quit the Liberal-National Party and today announced that he will run as a candidate for the Palmer United Party.

Former Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has revealed that she underwent surgery to have a tumour removed from a lymph node in her neck last week and has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Former Labor leader Kevin Rudd says he is available to campaign in seats across the country, but is not a candidate for the leadership.

A live 12-hour interactive show about the Great Barrier Reef, featuring underwater tweets and footage from divers, is being broadcast on YouTube. Watch the video below.

The ABC will stop making the animated version of Bananas in Pyjamas, featuring loved children's characters B1 and B2. ABC have seen a recent decline in overseas merchandise sales.

The family of the British nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, who committed suicide days after a prank call by two Australian DJs has slammed the radio station for giving one of the DJs, Michael Christian, a major award.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison was left looking red-faced as a dozen journalists abandoned a press conference he’d called outside Canberra’s Parliament House to chase down Labor rival Joel Fitzgibbon.

Communications minister Stephen Conroy says he’ll be meeting with stakeholders in Canberra on Thursday to discuss the latest asbestos scare in communities living around the national broadband network (NBN) work sites.

The awarding of "Top Jock" to Australian DJ Michael Christian, one of the 2DayFM radio jocks embroiled in the UK royal prank call scandal during which nurse Jacintha Saldanha took her own life, has been labelled in "bad taste".

Queenslanders will each fork out an additional $181 as a result of the Newman Government’s second budget announcement yesterday, which is expected to earn the state an additional $1 billion in revenue over the next fiscal year.

Former cabinet minister Joel Fitzgibbon has openly ridiculed Labor HQ in the wake of opinion polls showing the government heading for a massive defeat, whilst backbencher Graham Perrett likened the situation ahead of the 14 September federal election to an Indiana Jones movie.

A former Sydney bishop says the Catholic Church needs to fundamentally change to address its abuse crisis.

One Nation founder Pauline Hanson has claimed that she understands the lifestyle of Australia’s “young ones” in a national radio interview that discusses the controversial politician signing up to Facebook in the lead-up to the upcoming federal election.

Pauline Hanson is making her seventh bid for parliament, lining up to run for the Senate as a One Nation candidate.

Mr Yunupingu, the former Yothu Yindi lead singer, has died aged 56 at his home in the Northern Territory.