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Port Macquarie cleans up after ‘mini-cyclone’ – as it happened

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Sat 4 Feb 2023 01.00 ESTFirst published on Fri 3 Feb 2023 16.43 EST
The regional NSW city of Port Macquarie was yesterday battered by what residents described as a ‘mini-cyclone’.
The regional NSW city of Port Macquarie was battered by what residents described as a ‘mini-cyclone’. Photograph: Adam Roberts/Port Macquarie Hastings council/AAP
The regional NSW city of Port Macquarie was battered by what residents described as a ‘mini-cyclone’. Photograph: Adam Roberts/Port Macquarie Hastings council/AAP

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Port Macquarie cleans up after ‘mini-cyclone’

A “mini-cyclone” has left significant damage across the coastal NSW city of Port Macquarie, with trees and powerlines downed and roofs ripped from buildings, AAP’s Phoebe Loomes reports.

Multiple emergency crews responded after the sudden sudden storm hit the coastal city just after 3pm on Friday. Some 60 calls for help were made to the State Emergency Service in the 30 minutes to 4pm, with reports of roofs blown from buildings, fallen trees and requests for flood rescues.

The number of calls had grown to 150 by 5.30pm, said Michael Ward from the Port Macquarie unit of the SES. “There are definitely roofs off buildings, there’s definitely significant damage to buildings in and around the Port Macquarie area,” Ward said.

Yikes, Clarence Street has seen better days. This from my dad after a violent storm swept through Port Macquarie this afternoon. pic.twitter.com/jX7U0rNwSX

— Brooke Wylie (@brookewylie) February 3, 2023

The SES was prioritising re-establishing safe access around the town, before focusing on clearing access to homes and businesses, he said. There have been no reports of significant injuries.

People were being urged to stay well away from downed power lines and to stay at home unless travel was necessary.

Winds ripped the roof from an apartment block at Hastings River Drive in the city, leaving frightened residents fleeing downstairs for cover, Fire and Rescue NSW said.

The regional NSW city of Port Macquarie has been battered by wild winds
The regional NSW city of Port Macquarie has been battered by wild winds. Photograph: Adam Roberts/Port Macquarie Hastings council/AAP

A fallen tree also hit a house causing a roof to tear off a home in Hay Street. Firefighters were called to one of the city’s private hospitals after it was damaged in the storm.

Vehicles were also hit by falling trees, including a truck and car which were both struck by downed gum trees on Murray Street, in separate incidents. Powerlines were also been downed in Hayward Street, where firefighters assisted.

Local residents described the event as a “mini-tornado” and “mini-cyclone”, sharing images showing intense gusts and heavy rainfall.

Port Macquarie residents have described the wild winds as a ‘mini-cyclone’
Port Macquarie residents have described the wild winds as a ‘mini-cyclone’. Photograph: Adam Roberts/Port Macquarie Hastings council/AAP
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Key events

What we learned today, Saturday 4 February

That’s our work here done for today. I hope you’re having a stellar Saturday, and please join us again tomorrow. Here are today’s highlights:

  • Changes are coming to Medicare – what can you expect?

  • Treasurer Jim Chalmers wrote a thoughtful and nuanced essay, and it was met by furious belching from the opinion pages, Katharine Murphy wrote.

  • Luke Henriques-Gomes has been doing a bang-up job following the revelations from the robodebt royal commission – here’s the latest.

  • As the defence minister, Richard Marles, visits his counterpart in Washington, the US president, Joe Biden, has been urged to fast-track research into using non-weapons grade uranium to power submarines.

  • Mostafa Rachwani has taken a look at the horrors of Sydney’s rental market.

  • And here’s how you can see the snazzy green comet streaking across our skies.

All that, and a second Chinese spy balloon has been spotted! This one’s over Latin America. Spy balloons. Imagine popping one of those and watching it whirl around before coming to rest, wrinkled, in a corner somewhere. What a time.

Until tomorrow!

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Anthony Albanese calls Scott Morrison’s Pep-11 actions ‘dishonest’ and ‘incompetent’

AAP is reporting on the ongoing fallout from that time Scott Morrison got himself sworn into a swag of portfolios:

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has described his predecessor’s decision to halt a gas drilling project off the NSW coast, triggering a legal fight, as “dishonest” and “incompetent”.

The federal government and energy company Asset Energy have agreed to end their legal battle over Morrison’s decision, by proposing consent orders to the court.

Asset Energy launched a legal challenge to the Pep-11 decision last year, saying Morrison breached the requirements of procedural fairness and that he was not validly appointed as the responsible minister of the joint authority.

NSW Labor leader Chris Minns listens as prime minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media in Sydney today. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

Albanese said:

What I won’t do is do what the former government did, and essentially create a situation whereby legally, it wasn’t tenable.

This situation has arisen because of the incompetence and the dishonesty of the Morrison government.

Morrison used additional powers he had gained by swearing himself in as resources minister to intervene in the Pep-11 decision and veto it in 2021.

“No one was told that Scott Morrison was sworn in as the resources minister, in order to override Keith Pitt as resources minister. That’s how we got into this debacle where the company has made legal action against the federal government,” Albanese said.

Petroleum Exploration Permit 11, known as Pep-11, is a petroleum well off the NSW coast between Wollongong and Newcastle, covering about 8,200 sq km.

If the court accepts the orders, Morrison’s decision would be overturned and put back to the Commonwealth-NSW Offshore Petroleum Joint Authority for consideration, the federal government said on Friday.

The federal and NSW state governments are both members of the decision-making authority.

-AAP

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Wait! There’s more colour and movement from prime minister Anthony Albanese’s lunar new year celebrations …

Anthony Albanese interacts with lion dancers during lunar new year celebrations in Sydney. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP
NSW Labor leader Chris Minns, Anthony Albanese, Labor candidate for Ryde Lyndal Howison and Labor member for Bennelong Jerome Laxale speak to the media. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP
Anthony Albanese meets with local residents. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP
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This is a nice change from the nodding shoulder pads (the local luminaries who usually feature in the background at press conferences) … although the kid does not look chuffed to be there.

Lion dancers are seen in the background as prime minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during lunar new year celebrations in Sydney. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP
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New York man heads off on dream holiday to Sydney, Australia only to end up in Sidney, Montana

A New York man heading off on a dream holiday to Sydney, Australia to take a cruise got the shock of his life when he looked out of the plane window to see snow-capped mountains rather than the golden sands of Bondi beach.

“I saw a mountaintop covered in white snow. At that point, I knew I was in trouble,” Kingsley Burnett, 62, told local TV channel KTVQ after he realised he had booked and caught a flight to the tiny Montana city of Sidney rather than the Australian city.

“It’s a matter of acronyms. The S-Y-D as opposed to S-D-Y. Somebody has to fix that,” Burnett said, explaining how a mix-up over airport codes had led to his unfortunate mistake that had landed him in Billings, Montana, as a tiny jet waited to make his connection to the wrong Sydney.

Burnett also admitted to the TV station that he had been trying to be frugal for his trip and been pleasantly surprised at the cheapness of the flight he had found for his planned trip halfway across the globe.

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Police looking for truck driver who allegedly backed into police car

South Australian police are hunting for a truck driver who allegedly backed into a police car, ramming its front at a traffic control stop before speeding away.

Police stopped the small tipper truck off Lawrence Hargrave Way in Adelaide as it was allegedly not displaying a rear number plate on Thursday afternoon.

As the officer was getting out of his car, the driver of the truck quickly reversed and collided with the front of the police vehicle, causing minor damage, police allege. The driver then sped off, they say.

Police have released images of the vehicle, believed to be a 2007 Mitsubishi Canter tipper truck.

-AAP

Police are seeking information from the public to help identify a truck driver who allegedly reversed into a police car at Parafield in Adelaide. Photograph: South Australia police/AAP
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WA Liberals have all-women leadership team after election of state president

The Western Australian Liberal party has elected Caroline Di Russo as its state president, making for an all-women leadership team including the state leader, Libby Mettam, and WA federal leader, Michaelia Cash.

The party was hammered at the 2021 state election, with Mettam and the former state leader David Honey being the only Liberal MPs left in the lower house.

Mettam challenged for the leadership and took on the job on 30 January after Honey declined to contest the position.

Di Russo, after her election at the party’s state council meeting on Saturday, said she looked forward to working closely with Mettam and Cash in preparation for the 2025 state and federal elections.

“Our timeless Liberal values remain fit for purpose. They’re the answer to many of the challenges we must face as a country, and the key to unlocking the enormous potential of our great state and the people within it,” she said in a statement.

“But only by electing more Liberal voices to parliament can our values have that positive impact.”

Cash said Di Russo’s election as state president was well deserved.

-AAP

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ABC apologises for ‘incomplete picture’ of Alice Springs meeting

Amanda Meade
Amanda Meade

The ABC has apologised for broadcasting an “incomplete” picture of a community meeting in Alice Springs at which attenders were quoted claiming there was a “disgusting display of white supremacy”.

After complaints the report unfairly characterised the sentiment at the 30 January meeting, ABC News reviewed its reporting and published an apology on Friday.

“The views of those interviewed who had attended the meeting were accurately reported and were clearly newsworthy,” the statement said.

“However, we acknowledge that one report on AM was incomplete, and did not adequately cover the full context of the meeting or the range of perspectives expressed at it. ABC News apologises to audiences for providing an incomplete picture of the event in this instance.”

The AM report remains online with an editor’s note.

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NSW Greens announce plan to deal with plastic recycling crisis

The New South Wales Greens have proposed a solution to the soft plastics crisis, after supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths were ordered to dump more than 5,200 tonnes of soft plastic – currently being stored at warehouses across NSW – into landfill.

Greens MP and the party’s waste spokesperson, Cate Faehrmann, unveiled the plan on Saturday, which includes immediately redirecting the entirety of the more than $800m a year waste levy “towards dealing with the waste crisis”.

The Greens’ plan also includes dedicating $100m from the waste levy towards establishing soft plastics recycling schemes; establishing a “plastics reduction taskforce” to develop a soft plastics recycling strategy; mandating procurement targets for recycled plastic content in single use plastics as well as products like roads and pathways, railway bollards and street furniture, and expanding the trial of kerbside soft plastics recycling to Sydney.

Faehrmann said the environment minister needs to rule out this waste going to landfill”. She added:

The minister needs to find a safe storage solution and invest in those businesses that already have soft plastic recycling schemes to be able to scale them up.

The collapse of RedCycle and the discovery of millions of tonnes of stockpiled soft plastics that are now on their way to landfill has revealed a deeply broken plastics recycling system. The Greens’ plan will create a sustainable soft plastics recycling scheme that won’t disappear overnight.

The community is crying out for options to recycle their waste, this should be a no brainer.

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Decision to allow MDMA and psilocybin to be prescribed is exciting, scientists says

The CSIRO scientist Peter Duggan has been talking to the ABC about the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s decision to allow MDMA and psilocybin to be prescribed – it was big news that dropped late yesterday, but you can catch up here.

Duggan said:

It is very intriguing and exciting, but the exact way that these drugs work is still yet to be fully determined. They act on a particular serotonin receptor … serotonin is the feel happy drug, but if you are suffering from one of these serious depressive illnesses, anything that can improve your mood can be quite beneficial.

These drugs work to improve your mood, and they do seem to have quite a long-lasting effect from one single dose, apparently.

Only a limited number of psychiatrists would be prescribing them at first, he said, but that number would increase as more were trained up.

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Richard Marles meets with US defence secretary at Pentagon

Here’s the defence minister, Richard Marles, on his Pentagon meeting with the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin:

An excellent meeting with my good friend @SecDef in Washington today.

Plenty to discuss ahead of a big year of Australia-US cooperation including AUKUS. pic.twitter.com/CR5RfOeCeP

— Richard Marles (@RichardMarlesMP) February 3, 2023

And here’s Austin – he kicked off that #UnbreakableAlliance hashtag when he met Marles last year:

My friend @RichardMarlesMP, Australia’s Deputy PM, visited the Pentagon today to discuss the #UnbreakableAlliance between our two countries — a mateship designed to uphold a free and open Indo-Pacific. pic.twitter.com/zd5KXhlIXn

— Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) February 3, 2023
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Tamsin Rose
Tamsin Rose

Teals and other NSW independents seek to kill controversial Pep-11 gas permit

The “kingmaker” Sydney MP, Alex Greenwich, and a coalition of independent political hopefuls will attempt to kill the controversial Pep-11 gas exploration licence by banning development of the area through a change in New South Wales law.

The six independents, who could hold the balance of power in under two months, will on Saturday unveil a bill that would amend the state planning act to ban certain types of development on land and at sea, negating possible future federal approval.

MP Alex Greenwich and a group of NSW independent political hopefuls will attempt to kill the controversial Pep-11 gas licence. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

“It’s remarkable that the federal Labor government would seek to overturn the only good environmental policy of the former Coalition government,” Greenwich said.

Exclusive by Tamsin Rose:

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Tory Shepherd
Tory Shepherd

Psychiatrists to be allowed to prescribe MDMA and psilocybin

After decades of “demonisation”, psychiatrists will be able to prescribe MDMA and psilocybin in Australia from July this year.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration made the surprise announcement on Friday afternoon.

The drugs will only be allowed to be used in a very limited way, and remain otherwise prohibited, but the move was described as a “very welcome step away from what has been decades of demonisation” by Dr David Caldicott, a clinical senior lecturer in emergency medicine at the Australian National University.

Read more:

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Sydneysiders happy with quality of life but concerned about cost of living, poll finds

Sydneysiders are happy with their quality of life and think it has improved as the city has bounced back from the worst of the pandemic, but many are concerned about the cost of living, a new poll has found.

The poll, conducted by Ipsos for urban thinktank the Committee for Sydney, surveyed 1,000 people from across greater Sydney between 5 and 17 January, and found that 81% of Sydney residents are satisfied with their quality of life, which is up from 74% in 2022. That figure is 75% in New York City and 76% in London.

Many believe life is improving in the city too – 37% said quality of life was better than 12 months ago, up from 19% in 2022 and 20% in 2021.

However, 85% of the city is concerned about cost of living, a figure that has remained stubborn in recent years. The poll found a correlation between concern with cost of living and a poorer sense of quality of life.

Sydneysiders are also returning to the office, with 33% of workers now commuting five days a week, up from 28% in 2022. There’s been a significant drop in the numbers working from home every day, with just 12% not going into the office at all, down from 30% in 2022.

Of the more concerning findings, the poll found that 64% of residents in the north of Sydney agreed nightlife was safe, 61% in the eastern and city suburbs, but this figure dropped to 42% in the western suburbs.

Ehssan Veiszadeh, the interim CEO of the Committee for Sydney, said “there’s a tremendous sense of confidence in the community heading into 2023” but that “the one outlier is access to affordable, decent housing, and cost of living”.

When you break down the results, it’s clear people who are concerned about cost of living are more likely to be pessimistic about the future.

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