Australia news LIVE:PM points finger at Coalition over release of former detainee;Taylor says working smarter will make up for migration cuts

An Adelaide woman injured aboard Singapore Airlines flight 321 has no feeling from the waist down and is one of close to 20 patients who remain in intensive care in Thailand.

Kerry Jordan,a British national,and her Australian husband Keith Davis were on their way home from a United Kingdom holiday when the London to Singapore flight rapidly lost altitude over Myanmar on Tuesday night.

Almost half the plane’s 211 passengers were injured in what has become one of the most serious turbulence events in modern aviation history.

You can continue reading Zach Hope’s story here.

AVGO Eggs and Surf Coast Eggs farms says it was “just bad luck” that two of their Victorian farms have been struck down with avian flu in the same week,saying the farms had been hit with different strains of bird flu.

Workers at the two farms have now been forced to cull 560,000 chickens at two farms to halt the spread of deadly avian flu.

On Thursday,workers completed the grim task of killing an estimated 400,000 chickens to halt the spread of deadly avian flu at AVGO Eggs near the small Victorian town of Meredith.

Later that day,Agriculture Victoria confirmed an egg farm in Terang,which was directly connected with the Meredith property through joint management,staff and machinery,had also been hit with avian influenza.

Surf Coast Eggs in Terang was immediately placed into quarantine,and about 160,000 birds were destroyed.

Avian flu has not been detected in Australia since 2020,but the spokesman for AVGO and Surf Coast Eggs siad the two properties had been infected with different strains.

“As a family run,local business,we are devastated by the impact of the avian flu which has been discovered on two of our sites,” he said.

“We have procedures in place at our sites to protect biosecurity. Each of our two infected sites have been impacted by a different strain of the avian flu,which means there has been no cross contamination between our farms – just bad luck.“

“Sadly,it is difficult to protect against avian flu but at such a difficult time,we can rest assured that we have been following all protocols and there is nothing we could have done to prevent this.”

The company now faces a $9 million bill from the outbreaks and it could be months before the farms can reopen.

The strain discovered at AVGO Eggs was H7N3,a highly pathogenic but less severe strain than the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu ravaging wildlife on every continent but Australia.A slightly different variant,H7N9,was discovered at Surf Coast Eggs,in Terang.

It came as a second human case of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was discovered in a dairy worker in the US state of Michigan,transmitted by cattle.

Meanwhile,Agriculture Victoria issued housing requirements for bird owners living near the Meredith and Terang farms.

Poultry farmers,backyard flock and bird owners within five kilometres of the Meredith farm,and 1.5 kilometres of the Terang farm,must house or keep their birds enclosed as practically as possible in cages or sheds.

Victoria’s Chief Veterinarian Graeme Cooke said the housing order had been supported by industry as a sensible step to take in light of the recent avian influenza detections.

“Housing birds when practical,is an effective method of minimising direct contact with wild birds that can carry the disease with no apparent symptoms,” he said.

“The order will reduce the risk that more birds will contract avian influenza,however it will not eliminate the risk of spread.”

The boss of Sydney University has met with pro-Palestinian protestors who have been sleeping in tents outside the quadrangle for the past few weeks.

The student encampment protest is a copy of those seen in US colleges which originated at Columbia University,which has been shut down by police.

The Sydney University encampment has been mostly peaceful,but was embroiled in controversy after a group called Families for Palestine organised a “Kids excursion to Sydney University Palestine solidarity encampment”.

On Friday University vice chancellor Mark Scott said:“I’m pleased to say that today the Provost,Professor Annamarie Jagose,and I met with nominated representatives from the protest encampment including representatives from the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) to discuss their views. This followed a positive meeting with the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) earlier this week.”

“We listened to the claims put forward by representatives and had discussions around academic freedom and free speech. The parties have agreed to meet again early next week and I look forward to continuing our conversations.

“As always,the safety and wellbeing of our community remains our highest priority and I’ll keep you updated on our ongoing discussions of these important concerns.”

The Australian share market has dropped across the board with its worst losses in more than three weeks as hopes fade for midyear interest rate cuts.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index on Friday fell 84.2 points,or 1.08 per cent,at 7,727.6,while the broader All Ordinaries dropped 83.9 points,or 1.04 per cent,to 7,999.2.

The ASX200 fell 1.11 per cent for the week,having suffered losses every day this week except Monday,for its first weekly loss since the week ending April 19.

The Australian dollar was buying 65.99 US cents,from 66.28 US cents at Thursday’s ASX close.

AAP

The fate of an ex-US fighter pilot and Australian citizen facing allegations of helping the Chinese military rests with the attorney-general after a court signed off on his extradition to his former home country.

Former US marine Daniel Duggan had spent 19 months in a maximum-security prison before a magistrate on Friday ruled him eligible for extradition.

He has 15 days to apply for a review in the Federal Court,otherwise it falls to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to determine whether he should be surrendered to the US.

Duggan’s lawyer,high-profile silk Bret Walker,earlier conceded there was no legal argument to be mounted during the brief hearing in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court.

Outside court,Duggan’s wife Saffrine said Friday’s hearing was a box-ticking exercise.

“There was no opening in the local court for my husband to run his case,today was simply about ticking boxes and it’s time to move on to the next stage,” she said.

“We respectfully ask the attorney-general to take another look ... and to bring my husband home.”

Asked by Magistrate Daniel Reiss if Friday’s hearing would be contested,Walker told the court:“Not really,no.”

Reiss noted the position from Duggan’s lawyers had “streamlined the considerations significantly”.

The magistrate ordered the ex-fighter pilot be held in custody to await extradition under a temporary surrender warrant.

Lawyer Bernard Collaery asked for him to be held at Lithgow to be closer to his family.

Outside court,Collaery described the court’s decision as an administrative step that would be followed by a lengthy submission to Mr Dreyfus.

“This was not an examination of the evidence,this was not a mini-trial of matters that are to be decided elsewhere,” he said.

A spokesman for the attorney-general said the government did not comment on extradition matters.

Duggan was arrested in Australia at the behest of the US after being accused of breaching arms-trafficking laws by providing military training to Chinese pilots in South Africa between 2010 and 2012.

He allegedly received about $100,000 for his services.

AAP

An Australian judge has ruled that the social media platform X is subject to a state’s anti-discrimination law even though it does not have an office in Australia.

Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Judge Ann Fitzgerald said in a decision made public Friday that her court has jurisdiction over X Corp. in a hate speech complaint.

The ruling allows the Queensland Human Rights Commission to hear an allegation that X breached Queensland anti-discrimination law by failing to remove or hide anti-Muslim hate speech.

The Australian Muslim Advocacy Network,which brought the case against Twitter in June 2022 before billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk bought and rebranded the platform last year,welcomed the decision as “precedent-setting.”

X has refused to remove material that the network alleges denigrates,dehumanises and demonises the Muslim community,portraying Muslims as an existential threat.

The complaint deals with material including video and photos that can be accessed through a link posted on X by an alleged far-right anti-Muslim conspiracy blog authored by an American citizen. The material is then commented on,copied and shared.

The tribunal has accepted the network’s request that the blog and its principal author not be identified for fear of “adverse consequences” for Muslims.

X had argued that the tribunal had no jurisdiction over the company because it had no presence in Queensland and the “impugned conduct” took place outside Queensland.

Fitzgerald disagreed,ruling X was “present in Queensland because it provides a service in Queensland and in my view carries on business in Queensland.”

Musk is also fighting in Australian Federal Court a notice by an Internet safety watchdog to take down video of a 16-year-old boy allegedly stabbing an Assyrian Orthodox bishop in a Sydney church on April 15.

X agreed to geo-block from Australian users images of what Australian authorities have declared a terrorist act.

AAP

China’s “worrying” military actions in the Taiwan Strait amount to a “very coercive gesture”,the Albanese government says.

Beijing has ramped up military action following the inauguration of Taiwan’s new president,Lai Ching-te.

Drills have included mock air and sea strikes around Taiwanese islands.

Cabinet Minister Bill Shorten labelled China’s manoeuvring “deeply concerning and worrying”.

“We all need peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” he said.

“Common sense should prevail but there’s no doubt that sending a fleet out in this way is a very coercive gesture.”

Shorten said Australia backed the rule of law and freedom of navigation.

“We’ve made it very clear that we will work with China where it’s in our national interest to,” he said.

“But we’ve also made very clear our support for freedom of navigation and a stable South China Sea.”

Beijing had consistently engaged in dangerous actions toward Australia,Taiwan,the Philippines and Japan,Taipei’s representative Douglas Hsu said.

“This is something all the like-minded countries need to pay more attention (to),” he told ABC Radio on Friday.

A Chinese jet fighter also had a close run-in with an Australian navy helicopter earlier this month,launching flares ahead of the chopper that forced it to take evasive action in a widely condemned move.

AAP

GPs should be required by law to follow real-time prescription monitoring to ensure their patients are not “doctor shopping” for medication,a coroner has recommended.

A 16-year-old Victorian boy,known as LI,died from a drug overdose after obtaining pain medication from 70 doctors in the year before his death.

Coroner Ingrid Giles was tasked with investigating the cause and circumstances surrounding his 2019 death during a four-day inquest in March.

He obtained 60 opioid tablets the day before he died after going to three different doctors and three different pharmacies,the court was told.

On the evening of January 28,2019,LI died from a drug overdose in his own bed and his grandmother found his body the next morning.

In the year before his death,the teen had visited 70 different doctors and managed to obtain 64 prescriptions from 31 practitioners.

The 16-year-old was also admitted to hospital several times between 2015 and 2019 for drug issues and self-harm,including swallowing batteries and needles.

In findings released on Friday,Ms Giles said she was satisfied that while LI intended to ingest the medications,it was likely an impulsive act rather than a suicide attempt.

But she found the doctors who prescribed him with opioids,on a one-off or short-term basis,had missed an important opportunity to intervene in his “doctor-shopping” cycle.

“It was a cycle that ended in LI’s death,” Ms Giles said in her report.

The SafeScript system,a central database that allows a doctor to see a patient’s current prescriptions,was first introduced in Victoria in October 2018 but only became more widely used in April 2019.

The coroner found if the system was as available at the time of LI’s death as it is today,there could have been a different outcome for the 16-year-old. AAP

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Ukrainian military intelligence was directly involved in a deadly attack on a concert hall near Moscow in which over 140 people were killed,the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov said,TASS reported on Friday.

Russia has made such allegations before. Bortnikov did not provide evidence to underpin his assertion.

“The investigation is ongoing,but it is already safe to say that Ukrainian military intelligence is directly involved in this attack,” the state news agency quoted Bortnikov as saying.

He also accused the NATO military alliance of faciliting the transfer of “mercenaries and militants of international terrorist organisations from the Middle East,North Africa and Afghanistan” to Ukraine so that they could fight against Russian forces there.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the concert hall massacre in March and U.S. officials said they had intelligence showing it was carried out by the network’s Afghan branch,Islamic State Khorasan. Ukraine has repeatedly denied it had anything to do with the attack.

Bortnikov was cited by TASS as saying that Islamic State Khorasan had played a role in coordinating the attackers’ actions and that Ukrainian military intelligence had also played a direct role.

Reuters