Brisbane news live: Crunch time for borrowers as RBA unveils rate call
Eager Billie Eilish fans have set up camp in tents outside the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, waiting for the gates to open for tonight’s concert.
Nine News reported about 400 people were camped outside the Boondall venue, with some coming as far as from Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
Speaking to Nine, people in the crowd said they had been camped out for “a while”, with some spotted as early as Monday morning, a day-and-a-half from the gates opening ahead of tonight’s 7pm show.
“[We’re] just talking to other people, making conversation, just walking up and down the lines – making friends with everyone,” said one fan.
The international superstar touched down at Brisbane Airport domestic terminal yesterday, and will perform on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights, before leaving for Sydney and Melbourne across the next week.
Detectives have charged a 17-year-old boy over alleged indecent assaults at a Sinnamon Park bikeway.
It will be alleged four adult women were indecently assaulted along the Edenbrooke bikeway area between Sinnamon Park and Darra from February 10 to 12.
On February 14, detectives executed a search warrant at a Darra property, where a 17-year-old boy was taken into custody.
He was charged with three counts of sexual assault and two counts of unlawful stalking.
He is expected to appear before Richlands Childrens Court on Thursday.
Investigations are continuing.
Eager Billie Eilish fans have set up camp in tents outside the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, waiting for the gates to open for tonight’s concert.
Nine News reported about 400 people were camped outside the Boondall venue, with some coming as far as from Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
Speaking to Nine, people in the crowd said they had been camped out for “a while”, with some spotted as early as Monday morning, a day-and-a-half from the gates opening ahead of tonight’s 7pm show.
“[We’re] just talking to other people, making conversation, just walking up and down the lines – making friends with everyone,” said one fan.
The international superstar touched down at Brisbane Airport domestic terminal yesterday, and will perform on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights, before leaving for Sydney and Melbourne across the next week.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he has seen the unverified footage of Australian prisoner of war Oscar Jenkins, who was captured by Russia while fighting for Ukraine.
In the footage, Jenkins is asked by what appears to be his capturer whether the previous reports about his death were false and the Australian says he’s alive.
Asked if the footage was real, Albanese said he had seen the video but could not confirm if the footage was real.
“We still hold serious concerns for Mr Jenkins’ welfare. We’ve made it clear to Russia that Mr Jenkins is a prisoner of war and that there are obligations that kick in, in accordance with international humanitarian law, and they must be observed,” he said.
“We’ve also, of course, made representations to Ukraine, including a one-on-one discussion that I had with president Zelensky, raising Mr Jenkins welfare. We have called for Russia to release Mr Jenkins so that he can come home to his family.”
More than 70 per cent of Australian high school students have failed the latest round of civics and citizenship testing – the worst results in two decades of assessments.
The figures, released on Tuesday, have sparked calls for urgent action to arrest the decline amid a backdrop of low levels of trust in democracy, loss of faith in political institutions and a deep fracturing of social cohesion.
National results show the proportion of year 6 students who met the proficient standard in civics testing fell to 43 per cent, tumbling from 53 per cent in 2019.
Just 28 per cent of year 10 students passed the assessment – sliding from 38 per cent in the previous round of testing.
A representative sample of almost 10,000 students sat the test, run by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, in May last year.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese denies he has been spreading misinformation after a Labor Medicare campaign was found to be misleading.
An attack ad posted online by Labor shows Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in 2014 saying “Medicare is dead”, however, ABC reviewed the original footage and found it had been edited in a misleading way. In the unedited clip, Dutton says, “Medicare is dead if we can’t make it sustainable today”.
The full video shows Dutton defending plans to introduce a co-payment for bulk-billed medical consultations.
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Asked about the video and whether Albanese was allowing the spread of misinformation, the prime minister denied this was the case.
“Peter Dutton, when he was the health minister – and remember, he was voted Australia’s worst health minister by doctors – [he] tried to introduce a GP tax, so a tax every time people went to the doctor that would have had to have made a payment. So abolishing bulk billing,” Albanese told ABC Sydney.
“Now, bulk billing is at the heart of Medicare. That’s why we’ve tripled the bulk billing incentive.”
A man has died after crashing an SUV into a retaining wall in Jimboomba yesterday.
Police were called to the intersection of Edelsten Road and Amber Crescent about 12.35pm yesterday, where a silver Nissan Patrol travelling westward along Amber Crescent had reportedly passed through a T-intersection and crashed into a retaining wall.
The 62-year-old man driving the vehicle, who was the sole occupant, died at the scene.
Investigations were continuing this morning.
As Brisbane continues to sweat through summer, research from The University of Queensland has found people living in cities are at a higher risk of death from extreme temperatures events than in regional areas.
PhD candidate Patrick Amoatey said after analysing data for more than 2000 suburbs, he found city dwellers with low income, low education, diabetes and limited access to health services were at highest risk of heatwave related deaths.
“We believe the risk is higher in cities because of the ‘heat island effect’, as there are more heat-absorbing surfaces like roads, buildings, and railway lines,” he said.
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In a separate study, researchers from UQ and The Australian National University analysed mortality rates during an extreme heatwave in Victoria in January 2009, along with decades of data, to examine the impacts of climate change on heat related deaths.
An estimated 374 excess deaths occurred in Victoria during the five-day heatwave, with maximum temperatures reaching 12 to 15 degrees above normal.
“Human-induced climate change had increased the excess heatwave-related mortality in the 2009 event by 20 per cent,” Associate Professor Nicholas Osborne said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has steered away from saying if he wants to see a rate cut from the Reserve Bank.
The RBA board will conclude its two-day meeting this afternoon, and financial markets and most economists expect governor Michele Bullock to announce a quarter percentage point cut in the official cash rate, which has been at 4.35 per cent since November 2023.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers also said the RBA’s interest rate decision will be based on economics, not politics.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Speaking to ABC Sydney this morning, Albanese dodged questions aimed at getting his opinion on the rates decision.
“The Reserve Bank, of course, are independent, so we respect the independent decision that they will make,” he said.
“What our job has been to do is to get inflation down. We’ve done that. It had a six in front of it when we came to office. It’s now down to a headline rate of 2.4 and so that is much lower, almost a third of when we came to office, and that is within the band that the RBA aims for. But they’ll make a decision based upon the economics, not based upon any politics.”
A debate on the cost of living turned tense on Nine’s Today this morning, as Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth accused Opposition Leader Peter Dutton of “cheering against the Australian people” by questioning if it was time for an interest rate cut.
In a panel interview with Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie, Rishworth kept to the party lines, reminding viewers that the RBA is “completely independent” and would decide later today based on “economic conditions, not politics”.
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“What I would say is our government has done everything we can to push down or put downward pressure on inflation,” Rishworth said, before turning on the attack.
“We haven’t been doing what Peter Dutton’s been doing, which is somehow arguing that the RBA should keep its interest rates higher. He’s cheering against Australian people.”
Last week, Dutton warned that the RBA should avoid a premature cut that could be followed by a rate increase, and claimed any action by the Reserve would not be enough to offset the cost pressures facing families.
The discussion soon turned into a shouting match, as the pair argued over which party would have tackled the cost of living crisis more effectively when asked about polling in The Australian that found less than a quarter of voters believe inflation would have been lower under the Coalition.
Read more about the political stakes of today’s rate decision here.
Anthony Albanese’s hopes of holding onto a string of mortgage-belt seats across the nation’s capital cities could hinge on the Reserve Bank delivering the first cut in official interest rates in almost five years amid warnings the institution will undermine its reputation if it does not move.
The RBA board will conclude its two-day meeting today, and financial markets and most economists expect governor Michele Bullock to announce a quarter percentage point cut in the official cash rate, which has been at 4.35 per cent since November 2023.
A 0.25 percentage point cut would, if passed on in full, reduce repayments on a $600,000 mortgage by $100 a month. Since the bank started lifting rates before the 2022 election, repayments on that mortgage have risen by almost $1500 a month.
We’ll have full coverage of the decision when it’s published at 2.30pm, and you’ll also be able to watch RBA governor Michele Bullock’s subsequent press conference in the live blog.
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