Australia live news updates: Anzac Day commemorated; ABC reviewing presenter’s social media activity; 17 Covid deaths
Anzac Day #AnzacDay
National Covid-19 update
Here are the latest coronavirus numbers from around Australia, with at least 17 Covid-19 deaths recorded today:
NSW
Northern Territory
Queensland
South Australia
Tasmania
Victoria
Western Australia
Updated at 01.59 EDT
What happened on Monday 25 April, 2022
With that, we’ll wrap up our live news coverage for the day.
Here’s a summary of the day’s news developments:
Have a pleasant evening, we’ll be back tomorrow.
Updated at 03.54 EDT
Port Kembla search under way after people swept off rocks
A search is under way after four people were swept off the rocks at Hill 60, Port Kembla on Monday afternoon.
Emergency services are looking for one person believed to still be in the water after rescuing the other three people.
The trio were taken to Wollongong hospital with cuts and abrasions.
Six ambulances and the rescue helicopter were sent to the coast when emergency services were alerted to the incident about 3.45pm on Anzac Day.
Updated at 03.51 EDT
Replacing Australia’s largest coal-fired power station with renewable energy would create tens of thousands more construction jobs than replacing it with gas, a new analysis has found.
The Eraring coal-fired power station in the Lake Macquarie region of New South Wales is scheduled to close in 2025.
A new report by the Australian Conservation Foundation estimates if the electricity output of the station was replaced entirely with rooftop solar it would create 63,562 construction jobs.
The Australian Conservation Foundation says if the Eraring coal-fired power station’s output was replaced with rooftop solar it would create more than 60,000 jobs. Photograph: Dean Sewell/PR IMAGE
The same amount replaced by solar farms would create 14,415 jobs and windfarms 13,339 jobs.
New fossil fuel generation lagged behind clean options, with gas creating the lowest number of construction jobs at 1,566. New coal-fired power plants would create an estimated 8,576 jobs.
Read more:
Miles Martignoni
The latest episode of Guardian Australia’s election podcast, Campaign Catchup, looks at conflicting messages on Australia’s net zero by 2050 emissions target that are being delivered to voters on the campaign trail by government MPs.
Political editor Katharine Murphy does not hold back when analysing National party candidate for Flynn, Colin Boyce’s, comments that the Coalition’s net zero commitment is a “flexible plan”.
“What these guys aren’t telling voters is that this form of wealth generation has a finite life … Boyce is basically saying: I like a horse and cart, yes I understand there’s new technology coming that will make transport much more efficient and I understand that technology will revolutionise the way our economy works but I’m sticking with my horse and cart because I like it.”
Listen here:
Updated at 03.32 EDT
US secretary of state Antony Blinken and defence secretary Lloyd Austin have held talks with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, an adviser has told local Ukrainian news outlets.
As the Russia-Ukraine war continue, here is what we know on day 61 of the invasion:
World leaders have congratulated France’s president Emmanuel Macron on his re-election and the defeat of far-right leader Marine Le Pen in elections on Sunday.
Macron’s win triggered relief among allies that the nuclear-armed power won’t abruptly shift course, in the midst of the war in Ukraine, from European Union and Nato efforts to punish and contain Russia’s military expansionism.
Emmanuel Macron following his election victory. Photograph: Luc Nobout/ZUMA Press/REX/Shutterstock
The second five-year term for the 44-year-old centrist spared France and Europe from the seismic upheaval of having populist Le Pen at the helm.
However, Le Pen recorded her highest vote yet, and in the wake of the results Macron pledged to reunite the country that is “filled with so many doubts, so many divisions”.
Here are some of the main reactions:
Updated at 03.19 EDT
Josh Butler
A conservative lobby group has indicated it will not remove billboards featuring images of elite Australian female swimmers, pitting them against Zali Steggall over trans women’s participation in sport, even in the face of a legal threat from the sport’s peak body.
Advance, a political action group campaigning against Labor and moderate Liberals at this election, recently launched a series of billboard ads critical of the Warringah MP’s support for trans women to compete in female sports.
The group – formerly known as Advance Australia which claims it was set up to combat “woke politicians and elitist activist groups” – has come out strongly in favour of Liberal Warringah candidate Katherine Deves, whose controversial comments on trans people have attracted widespread criticism.
Swimming Australia says it believes in an inclusive and fair environment for all athletes and ‘strongly condemns’ the use of images of elite swimmers in billboards by conservative lobby group Advance. Photograph: Advance/Facebook
Billboards and social media graphics created by Advance feature the phrase “women’s sport is not for men”, alongside images of swimmers Dawn Fraser, Emma McKeon and Emily Seebohm, who commented recently on trans women competing in female sports.
Fraser told the Daily Telegraph last week “I don’t think it’s fair to have transgender men competing against women”; McKeon told a Griffith University event that she “personally would not want to be racing against someone who is biologically a male”.
Swimming Australia CEO, Eugénie Buckley, said the body “strongly condemns” the use of the athletes’ imagery in the ads, and claimed Advance had never sought or received permission to use them.
Read more:
Updated at 03.20 EDT
Travellers from Australia and New Zealand joined Turkish and other nations’ dignitaries at the former World War I battlefields at Gallipoli for a solemn service at dawn Monday to remember troops killed, reports Associated Press.
As the sun rose, participants held a minute of silence to reflect on the sacrifices of tens of thousands of soldiers from the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps, known as Anzacs, who landed at the beaches at Gallipoli, in northwest Turkey.
“At this time 107 years ago, on ships that covered the ocean off this tiny bay, thousands of Australians and New Zealanders were preparing to land on this rugged coast,” New Zealand army chief, Maj. Gen. John Boswell, said during the ceremony. “For all but a few, this was to be the first experience of the horrors of combat.”
“Most were convinced that, as one New Zealand soldier wrote in his story: It will be the greatest day in our lives.’ The sunrise they witnessed that day was for all too many to be the last they ever saw,” he continued. “Across our countries, home after home was plunged into mourning.”
Visitors from Australia and New Zealand attend a dawn ceremony at Anzac Cove in the Gallipoli peninsula in Canakkale, Turkey on Monday. Photograph: Kemal Aslan/Reuters
Among those who made it to the ceremony was 27-year-old Taylor Murphy from Victoria, Australia, who said the pros of being at Gallipoli “outweighs the cons of the pandemic.” “It feels quite surreal to be here,” she said. “We are feeling quite emotional.”
The tragic fate of troops from Australia and New Zealand is believed to have inspired the two nations to carve up national identities distinct from the British. Anzac Day is marked as a coming of age for the two nations.
WA records one Covid death and 5,639 new cases
Western Australia has recorded 5,639 new Covid-19 cases and one death – a man in his 80s.
There are 240 Covid patients in hospital in the state, including nine in intensive care.
Updated at 02.01 EDT
National Covid-19 update
Here are the latest coronavirus numbers from around Australia, with at least 17 Covid-19 deaths recorded today:
NSW
Northern Territory
Queensland
South Australia
Tasmania
Victoria
Western Australia
Updated at 01.59 EDT
Josh Butler
The deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, has responded after police arrested a man who allegedly yelled abuse at him on a rural highway, saying he was “very grateful to the police for their quick work in dealing with this matter”.
“It was a sad and unsavoury incident but we have important work to do as elected officials and this incident in no way overshadows that,” Joyce said in a statement.
“Once again, I thank my protective detail for their bravery in keeping myself and my staff safe and I look forward to continuing our work on the campaign trail.”
News Corp reported that Joyce had been travelling between Tamworth and Armidale on Friday, when he pulled off the road to make a call. A passing car was said to have stopped 40 metres away, with the driver allegedly getting out and yelling at Joyce.
The deputy PM’s federal police detail prevented the man from coming closer, but the man is reported to have directed explicit criticisms at Joyce. The 52-year-old man is due in court today, after being charged with threatening to cause harm to a commonwealth public official and failure to comply with bail conditions,
The arrest was made by Operation Wilmot, a special AFP taskforce set up to “ensure the security of high-office holders and parliamentarians during the 2022 federal election” in conjunction with the electoral commission.
Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce. Photograph: Phat Nguyen/AAP
Updated at 01.48 EDT
West Australian authorities are working to contain a Covid-19 outbreak aboard one of the first cruise ships allowed back in the state, reports AAP.
WA Health has confirmed it is managing an undisclosed number of positive cases aboard the Coral Discoverer, docked at Broome in the state’s north-west.
Infected passengers and close contacts are isolating and all passengers and crew are being tested.
Small cruise ships carrying no more than 350 passengers and crew have been permitted to enter WA waters since 17 April.
The Coral Discoverer, which departed from Darwin earlier this month, has a capacity of 72 passengers.
“Maritime vessels are permitted to allow positive cases to disembark and move to suitable accommodation to complete their isolation/quarantine requirements,” a WA Health spokesperson said.
“All precautions will be taken to ensure the Broome community is protected.”
Read more:
Updated at 01.37 EDT
Natasha May
Vietnam veteran Gware Green does not look forward to Anzac Day.
“It brings back all the bad memories, all of your friends that didn’t come back in one piece,” he says.
Green was one of 11 schoolmates from Gilgandra who served in Vietnam. Only 10 came back.
Green’s close friend Michael Noonan was 21 when he died in Vietnam. He and Green were in the same battalion, but served in different companies. “I was almost alongside of him but didn’t know until two days later.”
Green didn’t return to Gilgandra until 10 years after the war because “it was very hard to front Michael’s mother”.
People assemble for the dawn service in the town of Armatree in western NSW. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
On Monday, Green stood at the front of the dawn service in Armatree, a western NSW town of 150. He was joined by an Afghanistan veteran as well as those who still farm the land their fathers and grandfathers were given as soldier settler blocks.
At dawn, a small crowd gathered in the tiny town to remember their service, as soldiers and settlers, to carve out a place in the community’s history.
Read more of this dispatch from Natasha May, Guardian Australia’s rural network reporter, with pictures from Mike Bowers:
Updated at 01.16 EDT
Labor has hit back at Peter Dutton’s claim that the only way to “preserve peace is to prepare for war”, suggesting the Coalition’s actions fall short of its words.
The defence minister made the comments on Anzac Day morning, warning that “people like Hitler” are not “consigned to history” and Australia must do more to stand up to China’s aggression in the region.
China’s security agreement with Solomon Islands has injected national security as a central issue of the federal election campaign, with Labor declaring it the worst foreign policy failure since the second world war.
On Monday, Scott Morrison said that Australia shares the same “red line” as the US and that a Chinese base in the south Pacific would be unacceptable, but did not spell out what Australia would do if this occurred.
Dutton told Channel Nine’s Today program the comments reflect “the reality of our time”, and the past sacrifices of the Anzacs in conflicts will not “see us through to eternity without conflict in our region”.
Dutton said:
We have to be realistic that people like Hitler and others aren’t just a figment of our imagination or that they’re consigned to history … We’re in a period very similar to the 1930s now and I think there were a lot of people in the 1930s who wish they had spoken up much earlier into the decade.
Labor’s deputy leader, Richard Marles, responded that “we certainly need to prepare, but we have not seen the preparation under this government”.
Marles said:
Words are one thing, action is another … This is a government which beats its chest.
When it comes to actually delivering, and doing what needs to be done, it’s a government which repeatedly fails.
Read more:
Updated at 00.53 EDT
Scott Morrison has told the UN that Australia will reach net zero emissions by 2050 – but according to the Coalition’s candidate in Flynn, this commitment is a flexible, non-binding plan that leaves plenty of “wiggle room”.
Colin Boyce, who has previously been on the record opposing the government’s net zero target, even though it is National party policy, on Monday suggested the government’s net zero plan may not happen because of the uncertain geopolitical climate.
“Zero net carbon emissions by 2050, Morrison’s document, is a flexible plan that leaves us wiggle room as we proceed into the future,” Boyce told the ABC. “We’ve seen the world change significantly in the last three months in terms of the use of fossil fuels, all in relation to the geopolitical situation in Europe”.
Boyce also noted Morrison’s net zero “statement” last year was “not binding, there will be no legislation attached to it”. The LNP’s Flynn candidate said it had been made clear on page 81 of the government’s transition plan that the future of gas and coal would ultimately be determined by international demand.
In Australia’s nationally determined contribution submitted to the UN last October, the Morrison government said: “Australia adopts a target of net zero emissions by 2050. This is an economy-wide target, covering all sectors and gases included in Australia’s national inventory.”
Read more:
Updated at 00.28 EDT
Man arrested and charged over Barnaby Joyce incident
Josh Butler
Federal police have arrested and charged a man who allegedly yelled abuse at the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, on a rural highway last week.
News Corp reported that Joyce had been travelling between Tamworth and Armidale on Friday, when he pulled off the road to make a call. A passing car was said to have stopped 40 metres away, with the driver allegedly getting out and yelling at Joyce.
The deputy PM’s federal police detail prevented the man from coming closer, but the man is reported to have directed explicit criticisms at Joyce.
On Monday, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said a man had been arrested over the incident. In a statement, the AFP said:
The 52-year-old man was refused police bail and is expected to appear in Tamworth local court today (Monday, 25 April 2022), after police charged him yesterday with threatening to cause harm to a commonwealth public official and failure to comply with bail conditions,
Police will allege the man verbally threatened an AFP officer and adopted a fighting stance during Friday’s incident.
The arrest was made by operation wilmot, a special AFP taskforce set up to “ensure the security of high-office holders and parliamentarians during the 2022 federal election” in conjunction with the electoral commission.
AFP detective acting superintendent Jeremy Staunton said:
The AFP supports political expression and freedom of speech. However, when it leads to disruption, harassment, intimidation, threatening behaviour and damage to property, it can reach the threshold of a criminal offence.
Politicians, candidates and the people who work with them should be able to do their jobs safely and we will not tolerate criminal behaviour.
The charge of threatening to cause harm to a commonwealth public official carries a maximum penalty of five years’ jail, the AFP said.
Updated at 01.51 EDT