Gladstone coal power station could close six years early in March 2029
Graham Readfearn
The co-owner of Queensland’s biggest coal-fired power station in Gladstone has said it could close the plant in March 2029 – six years earlier than expected.
Rio Tinto, the co-owner of Gladstone power station (GPS), announced it had notified the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) “of the potential retirement” of Gladstone in March 2029.
Photograph: David Gray/Reuters
Aemo’s expected closure year of the power station, opened in 1976, was 2035. Rio said in a statement:
No final decision has been made to retire GPS, which has operated since 1976, and there is potential to extend the life of the power station should market and other factors allow.
There is no immediate impact of this notification on GPS operations. Existing power supply contracts, including to Boyne Smelters Ltd, will remain in place until their scheduled expiry in March 2029.
Tom McIlroy
Australia could split Cop31 hosting rights with Turkey under potential compromise
Australia could split hosting rights for the Cop31 climate summit under a potential compromise being considered with Turkey, as Anthony Albanese concedes Ankara is determined to stay in the race, even risking both countries’ claims on the 2026 event.
Returning home from the UN general assembly and visits to the UK and the Middle East on Wednesday, Albanese told Guardian Australia he wished host countries were not decided using consensus rules, but pledged to continue diplomatic talks with the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Only one country can hold the Cop presidency, but a range of set-piece meetings take place before and after the leaders’ summit.
Government sources said there was precedent for previous climate summits to be co-hosted or organised across different locations.
Officials find small footprint in search for missing SA four-year-old
The discovery of a small footprint is providing a glimmer of hope in the search for a preschooler on an outback homestead, AAP reports.
Four-year-old August, known as Gus, disappeared from his family’s sheep station in the remote South Australian mid-north on Saturday afternoon.
Alone in searing temperatures and without food or water, authorities’ best-case scenario is Gus has crawled into shelter and is waiting to be rescued from the property near Yunta, about 300km north of Adelaide.
In a significant development, police said a footprint was found on Tuesday night, buoying searchers who have worked day and night to bring the preschooler home safely.
Speaking on ABC radio this morning, Supt Mark Syrus said:
We had a little bit of a breakthrough yesterday where we found a footprint about 500m away from the property.
It has been pretty windy but it’s quite a prominent footprint.
We can positively identify that it’s from a child and it’s a very similar boot pattern to what Gus was wearing when he went missing, so that’s a pretty significant find for us.
However, police have also prepared the family for the worst after five days of searching.
The new penalties for unlicensed tobacco retailers in NSW come amid concern about Australia’s booming black market.
The changes introduce a maximum penalty of up to $1.5m, seven years’ imprisonment, or both, for the sale or commercial possession of illicit tobacco.
Retailers who have submitted a valid licence application on or before 1 October can continue to trade until they are notified of the outcome of their application.
The NSW health minister, Ryan Park, says the laws will not “solve this issue overnight” and that:
I’m a dad to a 15-year-old and this scares the hell out of me because [illegal tobacco] is a product that is dangerous in every sense of the word.
It is a product designed to get people hooked on nicotine and it is a product and a business model that is associated with criminal activity.
The NSW health minister, Ryan Park. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAPShare
NSW government uncertain on number of unlicensed tobacco stores as penalties kick in
The NSW government says it is uncertain how many unlicensed tobacco retailers there are in the state, as new laws designed to curtail the illicit tobacco trade come into effect tonight after a three-month grace period.
From midnight, tobacco retailers must display a valid licence at the point of sale or risk fines from $11,000 to $44,000, and individual fines up to $660,000, under changes which became law on 1 July. About 4,500 retailers have obtained a licence under the scheme, with another 1,000 applications under review.
Initially, the government estimated there were 19,000 retailers in the state, although the NSW chief health officer, Kerry Chant, said today this was “probably an overestimate” which included former retailers which had not deregistered from the previous licensing scheme. She said she “wouldn’t want to hazard a guess at this time” about the number of unregistered retailers.
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Updated at 04.05 CEST
AFL scraps the centre bounce
The AFL has scrapped the centre bounce and removed the substitute rule under significant changes to be introduced for the 2026 season, AAP reports.
But a decision on the mooted “last disposal” out of bounds rule won’t be made until after the next AFL Commission meeting this month.
An umpire practices a centre bounce. Photograph: Will Russell/AFL Media/Getty Images
On Wednesday, the league confirmed umpires will no longer be required to bounce the ball to restart play at any stage during elite-level matches.
New AFL football boss, Greg Swann, said the decision was made with umpire health and safety in mind, as well as a desire to create consistency across all competitions. Swann said:
The centre bounce has long been a part of Australian football tradition, but as the game has evolved, there are several areas which will benefit from allowing umpires to simply throw the ball up at the restart …
By removing the skill aspect of bouncing the ball, umpires can focus their energy on adjudicating the game and consistency of decision making.
Briggs on AI replacing him: it doesn’t know ‘what a lounge room in Shepparton smells like’ – video
Australian rapper Briggs was asked by independent senator David Pocock yesterday whether AI could currently make a fake Briggs track. He said:
I doubt it very much. I don’t think AI at the moment understands what a lounge room in Shepparton, Victoria smells like. It is the innate human quality of the art.
Briggs on AI replacing him: it doesn’t know ‘what a lounge room in Shepparton smells like’ – videoShareBenita Kolovos
No preselection challenge mounted against John Pesutto in Victoria
Former Victorian opposition leader John Pesutto will not face a preselection contest in his seat of Hawthorn ahead of the 2026 state election.
Conservative forces in the Liberal party had been planning to mount a challenge on the once blue-ribbon, now ultra-marginal inner Melbourne seat – but nominations closed on Tuesday afternoon without any other candidate putting their hand up.
John Pesutto. Photograph: Con Chronis/AAP
Sources close to Pesutto say they challengers were likely scared off by the strong support he has in the community and the Hawthorn branches.
Pesutto lost the leadership after the federal court found he repeatedly defamed fellow Liberal MP Moira Deeming by falsely implying she sympathised with neo-Nazis and white supremacists. He was ordered to pay her $300,000 in damages and her $2.3m legal bill.
He managed to fend off bankruptcy proceedings by securing a $1.5m loan from the Liberal party and more than $500,000 in crowdfunding.
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Updated at 03.16 CEST
Gladstone coal power station could close six years early in March 2029
Graham Readfearn
The co-owner of Queensland’s biggest coal-fired power station in Gladstone has said it could close the plant in March 2029 – six years earlier than expected.
Rio Tinto, the co-owner of Gladstone power station (GPS), announced it had notified the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) “of the potential retirement” of Gladstone in March 2029.
Photograph: David Gray/Reuters
Aemo’s expected closure year of the power station, opened in 1976, was 2035. Rio said in a statement:
No final decision has been made to retire GPS, which has operated since 1976, and there is potential to extend the life of the power station should market and other factors allow.
There is no immediate impact of this notification on GPS operations. Existing power supply contracts, including to Boyne Smelters Ltd, will remain in place until their scheduled expiry in March 2029.
ShareCatie McLeod
Base formulation may be linked to 20 sunscreens falling short of SPF claims, drug regulator finds
More on yesterday’s reports that more sunscreens have been pulled from shelves across the country:
The same base formulation has been identified in 20 sunscreens that Australia’s medicines regulator has warned are unlikely to have a sun protection factor (SPF) rating of more than 21, with some products as low as SPF 4.
Photograph: davidf/Getty Images
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) on Tuesday identified sunscreens sold by 17 different companies using a base formulation made by manufacturer Wild Child Laboratories as likely to fall far short of their sun protection factor claims.
The TGA published the list of sunscreens as part of an investigation it launched in June after the consumer advocacy group Choice released its own testing that found several leading Australian sunscreens did not provide the protection that they claimed.
You can find the whole list here:
ShareNatasha May
The statement from peak health bodies highlighted that eight medical practitioners issued more than 10,000 scripts each for the highest-strength THC products over just a six-month period, according to analysis conducted by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra).
An upper house inquiry report released earlier this year recommended cannabis be legalised, pointing to an unequal system where those who can obtain medicinal cannabis for recreational use are not penalised while those cannot are punished harshly:
ShareNatasha May
Patients ‘learning the answers’ they need to guarantee medicinal cannabis script, health bodies warn
Some of NSW’s peak health bodies are calling on the state government to reform medicinal cannabis prescribing and dispensing as clinics are operating in a way there is a conflict of interest while patients are “learning the answers they need to guarantee a script”.
The NSW branches of the Royal Australian College of GPs (RACGP), the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) and Australian Medical Association (AMA) have written a joint letter to state’s health minister, Ryan Park, citing concerns around poor regulatory oversight allowing profits to come before quality healthcare.
They say the numbers of patients using medicinal cannabis products “continue to explode” – from 18,000 in 2019 to more than a million by January last year. The concerns raised in the letter are:
Medicinal cannabis clinics operating predominantly via hasty telehealth consultations.
“Closed loop” arrangements where the telehealth prescriber sends the prescription to a dispensary owned by the same operation facilitating a clear conflict of interest and “cannabis only” clinics effectively acting as a production line for the supply of these products.
Inappropriate prescribing of medicinal cannabis and cynical promotion of these products to patients.
Strategies demonstrating a singular focus on profit over quality healthcare, which risks fragmenting patient care.
Photograph: Darren England/AAPShare
Updated at 02.09 CEST
Optus has failed customers and needs to restore confidence, Albanese says
Albanese said Optus had failed their customers and needed to be transparent as the telco investigates multiple triple-zero outages. He told reporters:
I think it is in Optus’ interests to restore confidence. Optus has failed customers. They need to be transparent. …
This should never have occurred.
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PM says scheme will have ‘minimal impact’ on prices
Albanese was asked about the scheme’s impact on house prices. He said the country needed a “full suite” of measures to help address the housing crisis:
It will have a minimal impact, there will be a slight increase in prices.
What it will do is to allow more young people to get into home ownership and this is just one of the measures we are dealing with … It makes an enormous difference. The earlier people can get into home ownership, the more it makes economic sense.
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Updated at 01.47 CEST
Albanese says 5% deposit scheme about young people ‘realising dream of home ownership’
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is speaking in Sydney about the new 5% deposit scheme for first home buyers, which went into effect today.
He said:
We want more Australians to realise the dream of home ownership, more affordable housing, more social housing to be built, more rentals to be built. We want to address the housing issues, whether it be home ownership, private rentals or social and public housing.
Good-quality housing matters. The security of a roof over your head is so important.
From today, more young Australians can get the keys quicker and, instead of paying off someone else’s mortgage, they will be paying off a home of their own.
Anthony Albanese. Photograph: Erik Anderson/AAPShare
Updated at 02.01 CEST
Gambling harms more pronounced as online betting jumps
Australians are gambling more than they can afford, with harm rates increasing despite the number of people betting overall decreasing, AAP reports.
The number of people gambling has steadily decreased over the past 15 years, but gambling harm and problem betting rates haven’t reduced, meaning a larger proportion of people who gamble do so in riskier ways.
Photograph: Nadir Kinani/The Guardian
Online gambling has more than quadrupled to cover more than 33% of adults since 2017, according to research out of ANU. Almost one in five adults bet at risky levels in the past year.
There has been a spike in problem gambling due to the prevalence of online gambling, including the ease of access through sports betting apps, report author Aino Suomi said:
It’s the online gambling that is really driving risky gambling and it’s bringing gambling into family homes with kids.
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Updated at 04.20 CEST
Josh Taylor
Optus asks tech provider Ericsson to investigate Dapto tower outage
Optus has said it is working with equipment provider Ericsson to determine the cause of the outage of the tower in Dapto, NSW, on Sunday that caused nine triple zero calls to not go through during the outage.
Late on Tuesday, Optus said it was Ericsson’s equipment that “did not appear to operate as it should”. The tower appeared active on the network but the calls being made via that tower did not connect or transfer to other networks, Optus said.
The initial assessment shows 5G was working but 4G was not, which is what prevented calls from connecting – 4G is used to carry voice calls on Optus’s network.
The tower did not alert Optus that 4G was not operational. Ericsson has undertaken a review of its elements of the Optus network and found that what occurred on the site was an “anomaly” that has not been seen elsewhere.
An Optus spokesperson said:
We are assured by Ericsson that they have their global product development unit urgently analysing this.
To be clear, the tower is fully operational.
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Updated at 01.02 CEST
Expert calls for law change after landmark strip-search case
Samantha Lee, a supervising solicitor at the Redfern Legal Centre, said a landmark class action against the state of NSW over allegedly unlawful strip-searches conducted by police at music festivals was a “very significant” finding that should lead to legislative change.
Lee spoke to RN Breakfast after Justice Dina Yehia awarded $93,000 to a woman who was illegally strip-searched by NSW police at the Splendour in the Grass music festival in 2018.
Lee said of yesterday’s findings:
It’s one of the largest class actions against police in Australia. It’s very significant in terms of preventing unwarranted and humiliating strip-searches.
Now we need legislative change. What the legislation needs to do now is to ban this strip-searching against children and young people. The main finding from this judgment is that it is not a reason to strip-search if there is possession of minor drug possession or if there is a drug dog indication.
They’re very intrusive, invasive and humiliating procedures, as her justice said, and that for that reason parliament intended that they only be used in very limited circumstances.
Police officers and drug detection dogs among festival goers at Splendour in the Grass in 2019. Photograph: Mark Metcalfe/Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 00.45 CEST
