Australia news live: NSW to enforce gender parity in selective schools as bias to boys grows; fatal e-scooter crash in WA

Gender balance introduced for NSW selective schools from 2027

Changes to the allocations of places for girls and boys in coeducational selective schools in New South Wales will address a growing gender imbalance, the state government says.

Applications for 2027 entry, which open on 6 November, will see an equal number of spaces for girls and boys at all selective and partly selective high schools in NSW, as well as opportunity classes in public primary schools.

The gender mix across all years in selective high schools is now 58% male to 42% female. The imbalance has grown in recent years, for example, falling from 45% of year 7 places being taken up by girls in 2019 to only 41% in 2025.

Cohorts at some schools are now more than 75% male, with parent feedback showing it had led girls not to accept places offered to them.

The acting minister for education, Courtney Houssos, says:

There’s a growing decline in girls accepting places in opportunity classes and selective high schools, and we want to ensure our schools have a healthy gender balance.

Entry to one of NSW’s more than 40 fully or partly selective schools is hotly contested. In May, riot police were called to manage out-of-control crowds at this year’s entry exams.

Updated at 02.17 CEST

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Ariarne Titmus: ‘I’m leaving at the right time’

Four-time Olympic gold medallist Ariarne Titmus, who announced her shock retirement from swimming this week, has just spoken to the ABC.

Four-time Olympic gold medallist Ariarne Titmus has announced her retirement from swimming. Photograph: Ashley Landis/AP

Titmus, who has said the seed for her retirement was sewn by a cancer scare before the Paris Games, says she has “definitely made the right decision”.

I’m glad that I’m leaving like this. I’m not leaving through injury or my performance dipping, I’m leaving at the right time. I still love the sport, off the back of the great Olympic Games, so I am happy with that.

People forget that in swimming you start young. I first represented Australia at 14 and then made the senior national team when I was 16 so I have spent a decade representing this country. I have so much to look forward to in my life and hopefully people will see the work that I will continue to do.

Titmus, who is retiring as one of the greatest distance swimmers of all time, says she hopes to continue to be involved in the sport through broadcast and commentating.

Updated at 02.17 CEST

Camper lost for nine days found after lighting fire to alert rescuers

A camper lost for more than a week in remote bushland in eastern Victoria has been found alive after lighting a fire to draw the attention of searchers, police say.

Troy Milne, 61, went missing after leaving a campsite at Woodside Beach in Wellington shire to pick up supplies on Tuesday 7 October.

The 61-year-old man went missing from Woodside Beach, the southern-most part of the continuous Ninety Mile Beach in eastern Victoria. Photograph: Noelia Ramon/TellingLife/Getty Images

A multi-agency nine-day search was carried out to locate Milne, who uses insulin to treat his diabetes, after fears he had suffered a medical episode.

In a statement, Victoria police said he was found near his vehicle by Forest Fire Management Victoria staff at about 5pm on Thursday, after he lit a fire in the hope emergency services would respond.

Wellington police inspector Wayne Rothwell said finding Milne, who has been transported to hospital for treatment and observation, was remarkable.

It was a challenging search due to the huge area that Troy had been spotted travelling around so it was extremely difficult to narrow down where to concentrate our efforts.

Once Troy lit the fire, it drew the attention of our fire crews who quickly responded and located him.

Updated at 02.17 CEST

Gender balance introduced for NSW selective schools from 2027

Changes to the allocations of places for girls and boys in coeducational selective schools in New South Wales will address a growing gender imbalance, the state government says.

Cohorts at some schools are now more than 75% male, with parent feedback showing it had led girls not to accept places offered to them.

The acting minister for education, Courtney Houssos, says:

There’s a growing decline in girls accepting places in opportunity classes and selective high schools, and we want to ensure our schools have a healthy gender balance.

Entry to one of NSW’s more than 40 fully or partly selective schools is hotly contested. In May, riot police were called to manage out-of-control crowds at this year’s entry exams.

Updated at 02.17 CEST

WA police investigating fatal e-scooter crash

Police in Western Australia are investigating the death of a man after an e-scooter crash in a northern suburb of Perth earlier this week.

In a statement, a spokesperson for WA police said a 55-year-old man was riding an e-scooter in Warwick when he crashed at about 3.10pm on Wednesday.

The man was taken by ambulance to the Royal Perth hospital, but died from his injuries on Thursday.

WA police’s crash investigators are examining the scene and appealing for witnesses to call Crime Stoppers or share dashcam, CCTV or mobile phone footage online.

E-scooters are legal in WA for riders aged over 16, provided they do not go faster than 50km/h on main roads, 25km/h on shared paths and local roads and 10km/h on footpaths.

Updated at 01.50 CEST

Call for better workplace support around menopause

Women experiencing menopause are one of Australia’s fastest-growing workforce demographics, but they say shame, stigma and a lack of support is driving them to early retirement.

The affects of menopause on a woman’s career can be profound, with a 2021 study finding 83% of people surveyed said their work had been negatively affected by the hormonal change.

A report by the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia found women who were unable to work during menopause would retire about five years early, forgoing thousands in potential retirement savings.

Kathryn Carter worked in a fast-paced corporate environment for years before experiencing early peri-menopause at the age of 39:

I had been incredibly privileged to have so much workplace support related to my fertility and pregnancy. Yet when I was then experiencing perimenopause, I was really taken aback by how limited the options were and how much stigma there was around the topic.

Ahead of World Menopause Day on 18 October, Carter says workplaces need to have open conversations to shift culture and become “meno-friendly”.

– AAP

Updated at 01.12 CEST

NSW police also investigating home invasion in Port Macquarie

Police said that multiple offenders reportedly entered a home just after 2am in Port Macquarie where they confronted a 26-year-old man and shots were fired. The 26-year-old man was not physically injured and two men fled the property soon after.

Officers will address the media about the investigations later this morning.

Updated at 01.14 CEST

Police investigating after two incidents of shots fired in western Sydney

The NSW police are investigating two public place shootings in Sydney’s west after at least two shots were fired into the air at a roundabout.

The police said in a statement:

About 1am today … emergency services were called to a home on Bluegum Avenue, Prestons, following reports shots were fired.

Officers attached to Liverpool City police area command arrived to find unknown people had fired at least two shots at a home before leaving the scene in a car.

[At] about 1.20am today … emergency services were called to Greenway Drive, West Hoxton, following reports of shots fired.

Officers attached to Liverpool City police area command arrived to find unknown people had fired at least two shots into the air at a roundabout, before leaving the scene in a car.

No injuries were reported in either incident.

Updated at 01.15 CEST

Minns says portion of struck-down anti-protest law regarding places of worship survives ruling

Staying with the NSW anti-protest law and which was struck down as unconstitutional in NSW yesterday.

Sarah Schwartz, a legal director at the Human Rights Law Center and executive officer at the Jewish Council of Australia, was on ABC a short time ago speaking about the supreme court decision. She said:

I think that what this ruling shows is that our politicians should be looking at ways of strengthening our democratic rights and institutions and acknowledging that that the right to protest is really fundamental to our democracy.

If government wants to make laws that are going to impact our fundamental rights and freedoms, they need to have a really good reason to do so. They’ve got to have a problem that they’re responding to, and evidence that the laws proposed will actually address that problem. And these laws do neither.

On Thursday, after the judgment, the premier Chris Minns said the government would take time to consider the ruling:

These laws were designed to strike the right balance between community protection and the freedom of political expression.

He also noted the decision had no impact on the section of the law making it a crime to impede, harass, intimidate or threaten a person accessing a place of worship without a reasonable excuse. That offence carried a maximum of two years in prison.

Updated at 23.34 CEST

Labor MP says ‘weaponisation’ of event where IDF member spoke was catalyst for unconstitutional law

A New South Wales Labor MP has said the political catalyst for the government’s expansion of police powers to shut down protests near places of worship was a “big lie”.

Yesterday the supreme court found a law which gave police the power to move-on protesters who were near a place of worship – regardless of what the protest was about – was unconstitutional.

The police powers were expanded in February as part of suite of reforms by the Minns government aimed at curbing antisemisitm. The outspoken Labor MP Stephen Lawrence posted on his social media yesterday:

The political catalyst for the parliament passing this law was actually a big lie, the suggestion of an antisemitic protest at a synagogue in Sydney.

The Liberal party more than anyone else regurgitated the big lie. What actually happened was a protest was organised at an event about Israeli military industries featuring an IDF speaker at an undisclosed location. At the last minute organisers announced the non religious event at a synagogue and a protest occurred across the road in a peaceful way.

The weaponisation of this was part of the political environment that then led to the unconstitutional legislation. I hope in what is now a calmer time everyone reflects on this unhelpful distortion. We all need to be accurate and truthful in the interests of social cohesion.

Updated at 23.19 CEST

Hume says time of introspection for Liberal party is over

Jane Hume, who is not in Ley’s shadow cabinet, was asked if she thinks there’s a cost to having more inexperienced colleagues promoted to the ministry. She said:

It’s very important to make sure that we get renewal, but at the same time, we have those experienced wise heads there with the corporate memory and the experience of governments and oppositions past to make sure that we guide the right policy solution.

Hume, after being asked what her assessment is on the Liberal party becoming a “genuine option”, said “the time for introspection is over”:

Let’s get on with the job. We need to light up that policy agenda, make sure that we build a compelling alternative for ordinary Australians, because that’s what the Liberal party is all about.

She was also asked about comments made by backbencher Andrew Hastie that Australians are “strangers in their own home” and if she was concerned it would isolate the party from multicultural communities. Hume said:

The Coalition and the Liberal party in particular, have been great supporters of multicultural Australia for decades now, it was in fact the Liberal party that dismantled the white Australia policy, something that we’re particularly proud of.

Tim Wilson made a similar claim in 2018, giving the credit to Harold Holt. An RMIT fact check rated the assertion as “simplistic”.

Updated at 23.12 CEST

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