Airline says communication ‘could have been better’ after about 250 passengers waited hours for flight to Denpasar to leave. Follow today’s news live
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16m agoPauline Hanson says Trump had 'a great way' of dealing with migrants
45m agoKPMG appoints lifer as new Australia CEO amid leaks scandal
1h agoRabbi tells royal commission of ‘almost daily’ threats and abuse after Bondi attack
1h agoNine newspapers to cut 30 roles in further redundancies
1h agoSynagogue unsuccessful in application for security grant prior to arson attack
2h agoAsean foreign ministers to meet in Philippines
3h agoQantas apologises to passengers stuck on tarmac for more than four hours
5h agoJoyce dogged by interruptions in 7.30 interview
5h agoBarnaby Joyce defends Pauline Hanson’s podcast interview with far-right criminal Tommy Robinson
Qantas has apologised to about 250 passengers who were stuck on the tarmac in Sydney for four-and-a-half hours on Monday afternoon while the airline dealt with multiple separate aircraft issues.
Flight QF43 to Denpasar had been scheduled to leave at 4.20pm yesterday.
A passenger on the flight called ABC Radio Sydney last night, after four hours of waiting on the tarmac, saying:
They’ve come back with multiple messages and they’ve constantly been changing throughout, the time frame, to the point where a lot of people are not really sure now what’s going on and what is the truth and are we actually going to get off the ground? But there’s been some engineers in and out for hours trying to work out what’s going on with the plane, and now we’re just being told they’re about to shut the computers down and reboot them.
A Qantas spokesperson told Guardian Australia that the flight was delayed initially due to a refuelling issue but then engineers identified a separate issue that required assessment and resulted in further delays.
We understand this was a frustrating experience for our customers and sincerely apologise for this inconvenience. We’re reviewing this incident and acknowledge that our communication could have been better in this instance.
The flight departed for Denpasar at 8.50pm.
Qld government to spend similar on CFMEU inquiry as CCC
The Queensland government will spend more on the investigation of a single union as the annual budget for the state’s Crime and Corruption Commission.
Attorney-general Deb Frecklington and treasurer David Janetzki announced that the state would budget $95m for the state’s CFMEU inquiry, an additional $75m than first budgeted.
The Crime and Corruption Commission is responsible for investigating complaints against all state government bodies including the police; administers the state’s witness protection program; recovers the proceeds of crime; and combats major crime. It has an $82.1m budget this year.
The commission investigates fewer than 1% of complaints referred to it, according to its reporting to parliament. It charged a single person with a corruption offence last year.
Asked whether the lack of investigation was related to budgetary constraints, Frecklington said:
I don’t know whether that’s true. I think I’d like to see your evidence for that one.
Frecklington compared the CFMEU inquiry – Queensland’s version of a royal commission – to the Fitzgerald inquiry, which caused the early resignation and unsuccessful prosecution of the state’s longest-serving premier, four ministers and a police commissioner to be jailed for corruption, led to reforms to the state’s voting system, the creation of the an independent anti-corruption commission and is the subject of several books and films.
The inquiry was initially scheduled to run until October, but was extended by another 18 months in May. It will now run about six months longer than Fitzgerald’s inquiry.
Pauline Hanson says she thinks Donald Trump’s approach to migration was “a great way” of dealing with what she sees as people “using all these ploys to stay in the country”.
Hanson was speaking at a Perth event this morning. Over the course of an hour or so, she reiterated many of her claims about migration and other matters, such as her relationship with Gina Rinehart, which Guardian readers will be familiar with from our previous reporting.
On migration, Hanson said if she came to power she’d “work with the departments” who might be able to identify people overstaying their visas.
I tell you what I do like. Trump did this – Trump said OK, all those in the country illegally, I’ll actually give you a one-way ticket out of the country. And he said, then you can apply to come back in some time later. But if you don’t go, he said, and we find you, you’ll never get back into the country again … I think that’s a great way of doing it.
KPMG has made a lifelong staff member and top executive its new Australian chief executive, rejecting external candidates, as it grapples with its audit leaks scandal.
John Sams will take over after Andrew Yates resigned as CEO and took accountability for the firm’s failure to address staff breaches of client confidentiality.
Sams started his career as a graduate at KPMG UK in 2003, moving to Australia in 2006. He has been a partner at the firm for over a decade, was elevated to chief financial officer in October 2025 and replaced KPMG’s chief operating officer, Eileen Hoggett, after she resigned in June for her role in the leaks.
KPMG Australia said candidates from KPMG Australia, the firm’s international branches and outside the firm were considered for the position, announcing Sams’ appointment on Tuesday.
The firm earlier this month replaced its other headline resignation, its chair, with an internal candidate: independent director Michael Ebeid. Ebeid sat on the firm’s CEO selection panel and cheered Sams’ appointment on Tuesday. He said:
John has a clear mandate from the Board: to strengthen leadership and culture, improve confidence with our people, clients, regulators, government and the Parliament, and focus KPMG on the areas where it can make the greatest contribution.
Sams said he was ready to take “tough decisions” to put KPMG “on the right path”. He said:
The firm fell short of the standards rightly expected of us, and the accountability for these failures will continue to be implemented … Despite everything we have faced so far, I am optimistic about the future. Otherwise I would never have taken on this role. I will lead the changes that will make us better, whatever that takes.
The chief rabbi of the Central Synagogue in Sydney, Levi Wolff, has told the royal commission he receives “almost daily” threats and abuse after his public profile was raised after the Bondi terror attack.
Wolff, whose synagogue is about a kilometre from Bondi beach, has told the inquiry that Australian Jews “feel that they’re being asked to justify their place in a country to which they have contributed loyally and peacefully and constructively for generations.”
He has described an incident after an attack in which a member of the community had anonymously posted him a mezuzah, a box with a scroll with Hebrew verses, normally affixed to the entrance of Jewish homes, “with a note with it that said: ‘I am afraid to have this’”:
‘I’m afraid to have this on my door. Please pass it on to somebody who is brave enough and who needs it.’ That note has stayed with me … No one should have to have courage to simply place a symbol of their faith on the doorpost of their very own home.
Wolff said that after the Bondi attack, “my public profile has increased significantly and, with that, the hatred that has been directed towards me has also increased significantly”:
Almost daily, I receive messages of abuse and threats of violence, and initially those messages actually shocked me. But what shocks me now is something else. I have become accustomed to it. I have become accustomed to threats of violence. That should disturb every Australian.
Staff numbers at the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age will be cut by 30 in another round of redundancies announced by Nine’s publishing arm today.
The managing director of publishing, Tory Maguire, called staff to a town hall meeting at 10.30am on Tuesday to unveil what she said was structural change in a digital-first era.
Maguire said in an email seen by Guardian Australia:
The best way to protect our quality journalism is to ensure our organisation adapts to a changing media landscape, that we’re growing commercially and investing in new areas which connect with new audiences. In particular we need to keep shifting towards the digital-first future.
The best way to protect our quality journalism is to ensure our organisation adapts to a changing media landscape, that we’re growing commercially and investing in new areas which connect with new audiences.
In particular we need to keep shifting towards the digital-first future.
Earlier this year Nine made a number of roles in its broadcasting division redundant. This new round of redundancies will not affect the Australian Financial Review.
Marco Rubio expected to join Penny Wong at Asean conference
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was scheduled to land in Manila on Tuesday morning for the Asean conference, joining the Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, and their international counterparts, as the rekindled war with Iran is placing traditional American allies under economic strain.
To give some international context to the talks, the import-dependent Philippines declared a national energy emergency in March and has been forced to cast an ever-wider net for fuel, including purchases of oil from Russia, whose foreign affairs minister, Sergei Lavrov, will arrive on Tuesday as well.
Before departing from Washington on Monday, Rubio said he was open to the possibility of sideline meetings with both Lavrov and China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, who Beijing only officially confirmed would attend on Monday.
A meeting with Wang would come days after the US president, Donald Trump, accused Beijing of meddling in US elections.
The week is also expected to see renewed efforts towards regional energy security, including the ongoing push for ratification of the bloc’s Framework Agreement on Petroleum Security fuel-sharing scheme.
In May, members signed off on a push for an Asean power grid, aimed at connecting national electricity networks to enable cross-border power trading.
Rubio will meet the Philippines president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, as part of a strengthened US partnership with the Philippines, with the disputed South China Sea certain to be on the agenda. Chinese and Philippine ships regularly clash in the crucial waterway, which Beijing claims nearly in its entirety, despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
The Philippines has previously said it hoped to conclude a code of conduct between Asean and China before ending its year as the bloc’s rotating chair but analysts have suggested any deal Beijing would be willing to sign would be toothless.
A Melbourne synagogue was unsuccessful in applications for government grants for security before a December 2024 arson attack that has seen its doors closed ever since.
The royal commission’s fifth block of hearings, which are being held in Melbourne this week, is examining security arrangements for the Jewish community.
Yesterday, counsel assisting, Richard Lancaster SC, said evidence would show “a substantial and ongoing threat” to the security of the Jewish community, leading to a “shrinking of Jewish communal life”.
Today’s first witness is Benjamin Klein, a board member of the Adass Israel synagogue, the subject of an arson attack in December 2024. Asked about applications for grant funding for security in 2023 and 2024 before the attack, he said:
There were letters sent out to both government, local members, to different parts of the Jewish of the community seeking grants. It was local council, there was state government, there were federal grants, which we saw were available. We’d sent out letters and were unsuccessful. We also sent out a letter to Mark Dreyfus at the time, who was the attorney general, and we weren’t successful. There were technicalities in terms of incorporated entities, unincorporated entities. There was a lot of red tape to sort of get through and we weren’t successful.
There were letters sent out to both government, local members, to different parts of the Jewish of the community seeking grants. It was local council, there was state government, there were federal grants, which we saw were available.
We’d sent out letters and were unsuccessful. We also sent out a letter to Mark Dreyfus at the time, who was the attorney general, and we weren’t successful. There were technicalities in terms of incorporated entities, unincorporated entities. There was a lot of red tape to sort of get through and we weren’t successful.
The commission has heard that the synagogue’s board has since had to employ someone to oversee funding applications for security grants. After the attack, the federal government has pledged up to $30m to rebuild the synagogue.
As we mentioned earlier, the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, is in the Philippines today for the Asean foreign affairs ministers’ meeting, the East Asia summit foreign ministers’ meeting and the Asean regional forum.
The 11 Asean nations include Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Timor-Leste.
Crucially, it means Wong could have an opportunity to put pressure on Lao officials after they said they do not have enough evidence to lay charges over the methanol poisoning deaths of Australian citizens Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones – because autopsies were not carried out.
In a statement on Friday, Wong said the government was “deeply frustrated and bitterly disappointed that authorities in Laos are not pursuing the most serious charges” in relation to the deaths.
Labor announces $25m in support for Gaza
The federal government has announced a $25m package of support for aid in Gaza and “reforms for governance” in Palestine, “to strengthen the institutional foundations of the State of Palestine”.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, and the minister for international development, Anne Aly, announced the funding this morning, saying it forms part of “coordinated international efforts to advance a two-state solution.”
The funding includes $15m to the UN Horizon Fund, whose strategic goal is to “contribute to inclusive early recovery and reconstruction for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip” after the 10 October ceasefire last year.
More than $80m has been pledged to the Horizon Fund internationally, with contributions from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, the government’s media release notes.
Australia has also pledged $10m to the World Bank’s Palestinian Fund for Reconstruction and Development (PFRD) “to strengthen the Palestinian Authority’s public financial management”. Japan, the UK, Canada, France, Sweden, Switzerland, and Iceland have also contributed to the PFRD.
This package demonstrates Australia’s practical commitment to Palestinian recovery, reform and institution-building. Hamas can play no role in the State of Palestine. A lasting peace requires legitimate governance, economic opportunity and security for both Palestinians and Israelis. Australia will continue to work closely with international partners to help create those conditions.
This package demonstrates Australia’s practical commitment to Palestinian recovery, reform and institution-building. Hamas can play no role in the State of Palestine.
A lasting peace requires legitimate governance, economic opportunity and security for both Palestinians and Israelis.
Australia will continue to work closely with international partners to help create those conditions.
The humanitarian needs of Palestinians remain immense, and communities will require sustained support to recover and rebuild. This funding package will complement our existing humanitarian assistance. This investment will help strengthen institutions, advance reform efforts and support communities as they work towards recovery and resilience. Australia’s development assistance delivers practical outcomes for vulnerable people while supporting the governance and institutional reforms needed for long-term stability and prosperity.
The humanitarian needs of Palestinians remain immense, and communities will require sustained support to recover and rebuild. This funding package will complement our existing humanitarian assistance.
This investment will help strengthen institutions, advance reform efforts and support communities as they work towards recovery and resilience.
Australia’s development assistance delivers practical outcomes for vulnerable people while supporting the governance and institutional reforms needed for long-term stability and prosperity.
Penny Wong congratulates Ed Miliband on appointment as UK foreign secretary
As the UK prime minister, Andy Burnham, announces his new cabinet, the congratulations from Australian ministers have been rolling through.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, congratulated Ed Miliband on his appointment as UK foreign secretary, saying on X:
Australia and the UK have an enduring partnership, underpinned by shared history, values and interests. I look forward to working with you again to further strengthen and modernise our relationship.
She also congratulated the outgoing UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, on her new appointment as secretary of state for health and social care, saying on X:
Thank you to @YvetteCooperMP for your friendship and for your contribution to our close partnership. Your leadership and determined diplomacy have helped deepen cooperation between Australia and the UK, and I wish you every success as Health Secretary.
Thank you to @YvetteCooperMP for your friendship and for your contribution to our close partnership.
Your leadership and determined diplomacy have helped deepen cooperation between Australia and the UK, and I wish you every success as Health Secretary.
Wong is currently in the Philippines to attend the Asean-Australia foreign ministers’ meeting, the East Asia summit foreign ministers’ meeting and the Asean regional forum.
She described the meetings as an opportunity “to advance Australia’s interests and continue work on shared challenges, including energy security, supply chain resilience and long-term economic prosperity.”
The meetings will also mark the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, and 80 years of diplomatic ties between Australia and the Philippines.
