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Man’s body recovered from NSW flood waters

The body of a man has been recovered from flood waters in NSW this afternoon. It is believed to be that of a missing 63-year-old man last seen in Hillston on Tuesday.

NSW Police confirmed this afternoon they have located the body in the state’s west, after receiving reports of a body being seen on a rural property at Wallanthery, about 35km north-east of Hillston.

Officers received the reports at around 8.30am this morning, and attended the property and retrieved the body, with assistance from NSW SES.

While the body is yet to be formally identified, it is believed to be that of the missing man.

Murrumbidgee Police District, PolAir, Police Rescue, NSW SES, and NSW Ambulance along the Lachlan River were all involved in the search for the man.

Investigations into the circumstances surrounding the man’s death continue and a report will be prepared for the information of the Coroner.

Updated at 03.35 EDT

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What we learned, Wednesday 19 October

And that’s where we’ll leave you this evening. Here’s what we learned:

A second man has died in Victorian flood waters, as premier Daniel Andrews said the state government will be providing $10,000 one-off payments to farmers affected by flooding, as well as $54m for small business, and $4.4m for mental health.

It came as the BoM announced it does not forecast a return to major flooding in the state.

The body of a man has been recovered from flood waters in NSW this afternoon. It is believed to be that of a missing 63-year-old man last seen in Hillston on Tuesday.

Dave Sharma, the former Liberal MP for Wentworth and former Australian ambassador to Israel, said the Labor decision to reverse the recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel “sets peace back”.

Teal MPs Allegra Spender and Zoe Daniels also criticised the decision.

Nearly three-quarters of businesses have told an industry survey the goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 does not go far enough.

The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, shot down the Bureau of Meteorology’s request for people not to call it the BoM, saying Australians should be free to call it whatever they like.

The One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, will have to pay $250,000 in damages after defaming former senator Brian Burston on the Today Show.

Health insurer Medibank has gone into a trading halt after telling customers it had received messages from alleged data hackers.

Updated at 03.57 EDT

Man’s body recovered from NSW flood waters

The body of a man has been recovered from flood waters in NSW this afternoon. It is believed to be that of a missing 63-year-old man last seen in Hillston on Tuesday.

NSW Police confirmed this afternoon they have located the body in the state’s west, after receiving reports of a body being seen on a rural property at Wallanthery, about 35km north-east of Hillston.

Officers received the reports at around 8.30am this morning, and attended the property and retrieved the body, with assistance from NSW SES.

While the body is yet to be formally identified, it is believed to be that of the missing man.

Murrumbidgee Police District, PolAir, Police Rescue, NSW SES, and NSW Ambulance along the Lachlan River were all involved in the search for the man.

Investigations into the circumstances surrounding the man’s death continue and a report will be prepared for the information of the Coroner.

Updated at 03.35 EDT

Power restored to Shepparton and Mooroopna

Power has been restored to homes in Shepparton and Mooroopna, after flooding caused a substation to shut down.

Powercor was forced to de-energise a plant at the Mooroopna Zone Substation after it became too dangerous to maintain due to floodwaters.

But it took to Twitter to announce it has restored power to residents in the region:

Updated at 03.29 EDT

‘It is the BoM’

The assistant minister to the prime minister, Patrick Gorman, was on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, and gave a very straight answer as to whether the Bureau of Meteorology should be the Bureau or its traditionally accepted nickname of BoM?

It is the BoM.

Australians love a nickname, we had a former prime minister who gave himself a nickname, but when it comes to the BoM, they owned that name, they should be proud of it and embrace it.

Obviously the environment minister is reviewing all the circumstances which have led to this not ideally timed announcement. I don’t think the BoM is going to get away from their name any time soon and I checked the app on my phone before coming on it and it was still BoM Weather and it will be for many years to come.

Gorman goes on to criticise the former government for approving the rebranding, which reportedly cost over $200,000:

If we are going to start using such colloquialisms, the former government should have seen the storm clouds coming on this one. It was a large amount of money spent by the former government, the environment minister under the new government is looking to that matter, the circumstances around it.

But obviously there are people who are relying on it but in the work that meteorologists do, and it’s incredibly important work, not just for communities that might be feeling the impacts of flooding or severe weather events, they’re really important for farmers, people in the agricultural sector and aviation and a whole range of industries.

Updated at 03.16 EDT

Medibank halts trading after receiving messages from alleged data hackers

AAP is reporting that health insurer Medibank has gone into a trading halt after telling customers it had received messages from alleged data hackers.

Medibank said in a statement to the ASX on Wednesday it had launched a forensic investigation to establish if a group removed customer data.

It said protection of customer data remained a priority.

Medibank systems have not been encrypted by ransomware, which means usual activities for customers continues.

We continue to work with specialised cyber-security firms and have advised the Australian Cyber Security Centre.

Steps to safeguard the network and systems may cause temporary disruptions to services, the insurer warned.

Medibank CEO David Koczkar offered an apology acknowledging the news would concern customers.

Our team has been working around the clock since we first discovered the unusual activity on our systems and we will not stop doing that now.

Medibank said it held a “range of necessary personal information of customers” as a company providing health insurance and services.

Updated at 02.39 EDT

Albanese on announcement of West Jerusalem decision: ‘some things can always be done better’

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has conceded that “some things can always be done better” as he defended his government’s reversal of the recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Speaking with ABC Radio Sydney this afternoon, Albanese defended the decision, which was signed off by cabinet on Tuesday morning:

We’ve had this policy since 2018.

Pressed on the chain of events – including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade updating its website and this fact being reported prior to the decision being formalised by cabinet – Albanese said:

Oh look, of course some things can always be done better, but the truth is that we have been very clear about what our position was.

Albanese noted that the former prime minister Scott Morrison had at first flagged, during the Wentworth byelection campaign in 2018, the possibility of moving the Australian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But the Morrison government did not go that far a couple of months later when it later announced it would delay actually moving the embassy.

Updated at 02.28 EDT

SA premier warns Murray River could reach water level not seen in half a century

The South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas, has warned that people should be prepared for the Murray River to reach levels not seen in nearly 50 years.

Malinauskas said that while the state had time to prepare, government engineers and flood planners are bracing for more intense flows after the flooding in Victoria:

The information that we have at hand doesn’t suggest that major towns are going to be inundated with major flood events.

We are advised that South Australia does face the prospect of more water coming down the River Murray than what we’ve seen since 1975.

Levee systems will be potentially tested and we do need to be getting prepared where we can.

Updated at 02.10 EDT

Shadow attorney general signals opposition could move amendments to anti-corruption commission bill

Since the Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, said Labor had got the balance right on its national anti-corruption commission bill it has seemed likely to pass with opposition support.

But after the second day of inquiry hearings into the bill, the shadow attorney general, Julian Leeser, has flagged that it could move amendments to it.

Leeser told Sky News the view in the government that the legislation is “perfect” is “not borne out” by evidence to the committee from the Law Society, legal bodies, and inspectors overseeing the anti-corruption commission bodies in NSW and Victoria.

He said:

There are a range of areas where I think some of the safeguards need to be tightened. Whether that’s the definition of corruption itself. Whether that’s the availability of judicial review, or the way in which determinations of public hearings are made, or the powers of [the Nacc] inspector.

Leeser wants an independent judge to make rulings on whether “exceptional circumstances” and the “public interest” tests required for public hearings has been met, not the Nacc commissioner, and seems to be endorsing the view of some legal bodies that if the commissioner decides a right of appeal should be created.

Earlier on Wednesday the joint select committee received evidence in support of public hearings from the Victorian Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption commissioner Robert Redlich, and the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption’s John Hatzistergos.

Hatzistergos said:

I am a strong supporter of public hearings. I believe they’re important because they make the organisation accountable. They provide an opportunity for other people to come forward. We’ve had investigations commenced in public, result of that info is other people come forward and we’ve been able to go into other areas that have raised sign issues of corruption. It ensures the transparency and accountability of the organisation.

Redlich has suggested the “exceptional circumstances” should be dispensed with in favour of a safeguard that a public hearing cannot be held if it would “unreasonably damage” the witness’s reputation.

Redlich said under the current bill the person’s reputation is “only a discretionary consideration” that the Nacc may have regard to, which is “not good enough”.

Updated at 01.53 EDT

Jim Chalmers denies announcement of West Jerusalem decision was ‘botched’

I just wanted to return to Jim Chalmer’s appearance on the ABC, where he was asked if the government “botched” the announcement of the move to revoke the recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Chalmers denied the announcement was botched, and acknowledged some “disappointment” with the decision:

All we did on this occasion was reaffirm a policy that we’ve had for quite some time now, some years. We do understand that some in the Australian community are disappointed with this decision, we know these are sensitive issues but from our point of view we reaffirmed a longstanding position held for some time now, and that is that this is a final status issue for negotiations, peace negotiations between the two parties, so we have reaffirmed that. We don’t lightly dismiss the concerns that have been raised, we take them very seriously, we know it’s a sensitive issue and an important issue. Yes, for me, I do support and was part of the discussion that led to yesterday’s announcement, so I take responsibility for that as well but my primary focus has been on the budget.

Updated at 01.37 EDT

Labor MP apologises to Jewish community for ‘insensitive timing’ of West Jerusalem decision

The federal Labor MP Josh Burns says he is hurt by his government’s decision to revoke the recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and has apologised to the Jewish community for the “insensitive timing” of the announcement.

The MP for the seat of Macnamara in Victoria also implicitly accused the government of not properly considering the policy shift before it was announced. The announcement on Tuesday reverses the position adopted by the Morrison government in 2018.

In a statement today, Burns said he took his role as a leader of the Australian Jewish community extremely seriously:

Of course, I understand Israel has designated its capital as Jerusalem. It’s where its government buildings are and where its parliament sits. Frankly, capital cities are sovereign decisions for countries.

I didn’t like the Morrison government playing politics with these sensitive issues, and it’s my view that any further alteration to Australia’s policy needed to be considered extremely carefully.

To my disappointment, this did not happen.

I know people in my electorate and across Australia are hurt by this decision, and to be honest, so am I. And in relation to the insensitive timing of this announcement on a holy day, I am sorry – that clearly shouldn’t have happened.

I know the past 24 hours have been extremely difficult for many people. It’s a reminder of the deeply held views that must be considered whenever [we] develop policy on the region.

What I’m focused on now is rebuilding trust between the federal Labor government and the Australian Jewish community, as well as developing sound and principled foreign policy in consultation with all impacted parties.

Updated at 01.34 EDT

Treasurer says effect of floods on cost of living will ‘make things a bit tougher for people’

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is on the ABC this afternoon, and says the government is still “working through” how the current floods will affect the economy in the coming months.

Chalmers was asked if he had any sense as to how the floods in Tasmania and Victoria will affect cost of living. He said things will get “a bit tougher for people”:

We are seeing this primarily with what happens in flood-affected areas, focused mainly on the human consequences which the prime minister said.

We are working through now. Clearly one of the ways most Australians will feel the impact of these natural disasters is in the supermarket aisles. We’ve seen this before, unfortunately. Flooding is becoming a more and more regular occurrence in this country and we’ve seen before what it means for fresh produce, what it means for fresh food, what means for meat and other groceries – so we can expect to see that again.

We are really, as we speak, working through trying to get our best understanding of what it means for inflation. Australians are already under the pump and this will make things a bit tougher for people. There’s no use pretending otherwise.

Updated at 01.16 EDT

Lidia Thorpe praises athletes standing against fossil fuel sponsorships

The Greens senator Lidia Thorpe has thrown her support behind athletes who’ve recently stood against sponsorships with fossil fuel companies.

In a statement, Thorpe name-checks Australian test captain Pat Cummins, netballer Donnell Wallam and former AFL player Dale Kickett for their protests against taking sponsorships from fossil fuel companies.

This was most recently highlighted by the players taking issue with Netball Australia for their new sponsorship deal with mining giant Hancock Prospering.

Thorpe congratulated the players for taking the stand:

This country loves sport. Our athletes are our children’s role models, and we’re seeing a broad spectrum of athletes, fans and community leaders taking action for climate justice. This shows the next generation what good leadership looks like, in caring for our country and community.

We can’t keep enabling greenwashing through fossil fuel sponsorship of sports teams when our country is dying. Increasingly frequent extreme weather events, fires, floods and crop failures show how urgent climate action is. These athletes are using their influence for positive change and that should be commended.

Updated at 01.04 EDT

Watch: Did a whale penis wash up on a Queensland beach?

So, in a bit of a change of pace, we asked and got answers to a very important question: did a whale penis wash up on to a Queensland beach?

If you haven’t seen that viral TikTok and have no idea what this is about, you better strap in:

Did a whale penis wash up on a Queensland beach? – video

Updated at 00.49 EDT