Bonza fleet’s grounding extended – as it happened (2024)

Four men charged over allegedly deliberately lit house fire

Four men have been charged over an allegedly deliberately lit house fire in New South Wales that left two people injured.

Emergency services responded to reports of the fire in Fairfield West on 23 March. The property was destroyed in the blaze and the occupants – a 28-year-old man and 33-year-old woman – were treated for second and third degree burns sustained while fleeing.

Inquiries revealed the fire was allegedly lit in a targeted case of mistaken identity, as the occupants had lived at the home for less than a year.

Further investigations linked the fire to another allegedly deliberately lit fire at a barber shop in Wetherill Park three days earlier. Police will allege the fires were lit in retaliation to a shooting incident in Fairfield West on 17 March this year.

Yesterday detectives executes search warrants in Chester Hill, Rhodes and Rydalmere.

At Chester Hill police arrested two men aged 25 and 21. The 25-year-old was charged with destroy/damage property with intent to endanger life, destroy etc property in company use fire etc >$5000, possess housebreaking implements and fail to comply digital evidence access order direction. He was refused bail and appeared before Bankstown local court yesterday.

The 21-year-old was charged with destroy/damage property with intent to endanger life and fail to comply digital evidence access order direction. He was refused bail and appeared before Bankstown local court yesterday.

At the search warrant in Rhodes, detectives arrested two men aged 25 and 23. The 25-year-old was charged with destroy/damage property with intent to endanger life, destroy etc property in company use fire etc >$5000, two counts of possess housebreaking implements, and fail to comply digital evidence access order direction. He was refused bail to appear in Burwood local court today.

The 23-year-old was charged with destroy etc property in company use fire etc >$5000, possess housebreaking implements and owner not disclose identity of driver/passenger. He was refused bail and appeared in Burwood local court yesterday.

Interim report to be released showing conditions children in care are kept in

Children have described the woeful and unsafe conditions they were kept in by private providers of New South Wales’s expensive emergency state care accommodation system, AAP reports.

The Advocate for Children and Young People report to be released today compiles first-hand accounts of youth in emergency accommodation after they were removed from their families.

At any one time, between 400 and 500 children are in emergency accommodation. Each arrangement costs taxpayers more than $38,000 a week.

The advocate’s report exposes how the children live far from a life of luxury. One person described how, from before they turned 13, they were moved through motels, caravan parks, $99/night rooms or whatever providers could find. Another described being shuttled through facilities made them feel like a “dog being moved from cage to cage”.

The state families minister Kate Washington is launching an urgent review of the foster care system. It will examine the over-reliance on emergency accommodation and investigate how taxpayer money is being spent by non-government providers:

Our urgent review will uncover ways we can give vulnerable kids the future they deserve, starting with a stable, loving home instead of hotels and motels with rotating shift workers.

The interim report will be released today, with a final report due mid-year.

Family violence commissioner to continue raising housing measures with government

Domestic, family and sexual violence commissioner Micaela Cronin says she will continue to advocate for housing measures with the federal government, after yesterday’s national cabinet.

Speaking to ABC News Breakfast, she noted that homelessness is a “critical issue” and for the majority of women facing homelessness, it is “because of family violence”.

It was discussed in national cabinet. I know it’s on everybody’s minds. We have a national crisis around housing and homelessness and everybody that I’ve talked to has clearly said that stable, secure, appropriate housing is a critical factor in helping people both prevent violence but also in their healing and recovery.

So, it is something that I will continue to raise. Part of my role is providing strategic policy advice to government around where the critical areas are, and absolutely housing is one of them.

There are reports this morning that more than one million people who have visited pubs and clubs across New South Wales have been involved in a third-party data breach.

The incident involves Outabox, the IT provider used by some hospitality venues, which includes the front-of-venue sign-in systems.

Outabox said in a statement it had “become aware of a potential breach of data by an unauthorised third party from a sign in system used by our clients”.

We are working as a priority to determine the facts around this incident, have notified the relevant authorities and are investigating in cooperation with law enforcement.

We are restricted by how much information we are able to provide at this stage given it is currently under active police investigation. We will provide further details as soon as we are able to.

We understand this news may cause concern to our staff, clients and their customers, and we thank them for their support and patience as we work to resolve this as swiftly as possible.

It is understood the breach involves people’s information such as their names, birth dates and addresses.

Every Queenslander will get a $1000 credit on their energy bills this year, courtesy of the state government.

Labor premier Steven Miles claims it is the biggest cost-of-living initiative by a state government - ever.

The government says most households won’t have to pay anything towards their next power bill, and many won’t have to pay one until 2025. Miles:

This follows the success of the current $550 rebate provided to households this year, which has helped lower electricity bills by 9.5% and bring down inflation.

A lower energy bill puts more money back in the pockets of Queenslanders.

It will cost $2.5bn and be paid for with coal royalties, and is clearly aimed at buying love in advance of the October state election.

The prime minister is asked if he would fund a national toll of women killed by violence, like Australia has a road toll?

Anthony Albanese told ABC RN the topic of data was discussed at national cabinet yesterday, and “a range of measures” will be examined ahead of the next meeting, in the next quarter.

So we’re not kicking this can down the road, and one of the issues to be examined is data collection.

Q: So you do want to fund the publishing of official data of the toll of women killed?

Albanese:

We want to work with state and territory governments on data collection. We want to work on cross border issues as well, to make sure – just as we worked on a national firearms register – what we want to make sure that is if there are perpetrators who are crossing state boundaries, that data and appropriate information is available.

The prime minister is asked about figures published by Guardian Australia showing less than half of applications to the payment for women escaping violence between July and September last year were approved – effectively half of women applying.

Will that change so every woman who applies will gets it?

Anthony Albanese responded that when you’re handling taxpayer money you have to ensure “some processes [are] in place” to make sure it “goes to the people who are eligible”.

I think that we need to make sure that people who deserve it, people who need it, get this payment. And I think overwhelmingly we need to make sure that any gap which is there goes towards the person making the application, is absolutely critical that people get this payment …

Q: You don’t mind the rejection rate at the moment?

Well, I don’t like the idea that anyone who should be getting this payment hasn’t got this payment, to be very clear.

He said the leaving violence payment is an initial support measure, with other payments to be available afterwards like “supporting pathways for housing” to ensure “that people can get back on their feet”.

‘Not free speech to promote hatred and violence and misogyny’: prime minister

Speaking about online content, Anthony Albanese spoke about “one particular fellow who’s become quite famous for his misogynistic, violent” content – but did not name the person.

The prime minister said this person’s content is having an impact in Australia as well as Europe, having “an impact on young minds and shaping what is normal”.

The tragedy here is that has a devastating impact on young people, but particularly of course on young girls and young women, and then women, mums and families. It also is denigrating the nature of our relationships …

That’s what we as a society, [we] need to have that debate about it. You have a debate at times about freedom of information, and those issues [around] free speech. This isn’t free speech to promote hatred and violence and misogyny. We need to have that debate as a society as well.

A pilot of age assurance technology will be funded in the May budget. The prime minister is asked what sort of content the government is trying to stop young people from accessing?

Anthony Albanese responded:

Inappropriate material, such as violent p*rnography, a range of material that you as a parent or parents listening to your program today would not want their children to just be able to click a couple of buttons and … end up having access or being exposed to material which is damaging for them.

This is a change that is occurring. One of the tragedies of courses, the way the algorithms work, is that it’s not like a young person has to go searching for this some time – now, it’s [everywhere]. It’s the material searching for them, and that is a very dangerous circ*mstance.

It is something that is raised with me by parents probably more than any other issue and it’s accelerated over a period of time since since my son was was young, is that parents are worried about the time that their kids spend [online and] they’re worried about what they have been exposed to.

Albanese asked whether jobseeker should be raised to help women fleeing violence

ABC RN host Patricia Karvelas spoke to a former Labor minister Jenny Macklin who recommended increasing jobseeker, saying it is “needed for women fleeing violence”.

Karvelas: Do you agree with her that women who are fleeing violence need that payment to be increased?

Anthony Albanese:

I agree that we’ll have a budget on May 14.

The prime minister continued:

You’re asking me to make a bunch of announcements today and I won’t be doing that. We’ve received the report along with a whole range of other submissions, and we make budget announcements on budget night.