Publication

State heading for big bill Past premiers’ numbers whisperer warns over election promises

The public finance guru who helped repair Victoria’s budget under Jeff Kennett and costed Daniel Andrews’ 2014 campaign promises says the major parties must rein in spending ahead of the election, with debt a major concern for voters and a threat to...

$3B POWER POLE SHOCK

What began as a community protest in Melbourne’s inner west over giant electricity poles being installed on quiet residential streets has now rocked the nation’s highest-profile data centre developer, as it scrambles to find a new way to supply energy...

DISBELIEF IN WANGARATTA

Brendan Nugent with police in Wangaratta on Monday.

Nextdc forced to hit pause on works

Australia’s largest listed data centre developer has warned investors that power supply delays, likely to have been caused by community opposition, will hit the development of its flagship West Footscray facility. Data centre giant Nextdc sought a...

Tram chiefs ‘mishandled millions to dodge fines’

Yarra Trams executives face accusations from senior staff of financial mismanagement and inappropriate handling of conflicts of interest, amid a raft of job losses at the public transport operator. A whistleblower report submitted to the company’s...

KINGSWOOD COUNTRY

Chad Schofield knew he needed to be bold, in his first Everest ride, to beat the world’s best. And in the end, he needed Tempted to be brave. Defying a drift in betting to $6.50 as the Randwick track dried out to a soft 5, having started the day as a...

Brethren leader says he knew nothing

Thoroughbreds and fashion will come together under brilliant spring sunshine today for the running of the 150th Caulfield Cup. Last year’s Cups double winner Half Yours is back for more One man’s 65-year Caulfield love affair Fields, form guide and...

SPRING OPENER

The strappers were up before dawn on Wednesday to give Chris Waller-trained Asterix (front) and Valiant King a workout ahead of tomorrow’s Caulfield Cup. Asterix, co-owned by former New Zealand batsman Mark Greatbatch, is a longshot but Greatbatch is...

Coalition, Greens sink $3 billion aged care plan

The Coalition, the Greens and One Nation have teamed up in the Senate to scrap a bill that would have dumped private health insurance rebates for people over 65, infuriating the Albanese government, which had planned to use the $3 billion in savings on...

SLEEPLESS NIGHTS

Heidi Everett in Melbourne’s CBD. The competition watchdog is taking Australia’s largest egg supplier to court for allegedly engaging in cartel conduct with a raft of other producers, accusing them of manipulating the market for at least six years and...

Wilson gains traction as Carroll’s popularity tanks

As Victorians start to lock in to the choice before them at next month’s state election, the political contest is being fought overwhelmingly on the Coalition’s preferred ground, with the economy, financial management and crime the dominant issues on...

PLANNING A BRAWL

Marta Pascual Juanola’s Carlos de Miguel attended the Hispanic Prosperity Gala at Mar-a-lago with Gabriela Chiriboga in February this year.

THE TOAD IN RINEHART’S WAY

“I have never seen this one,” says Carlos Zorrilla, leaning closer to a white sheet speckled with colourful moths basking in a floodlight’s glow. The environmentalist has set moth traps on his property on the edge of the cloud forest in Ecuador’s...

Tax Office will accept payment by credit card

The Australian Tax Office will again accept credit card payments – for the moment – after the federal government intervened yesterday. The tax office had decided to no longer accept credit cards because new legislation barring surcharges on such cards...

Cloud over coal exports Court ruling to force mining projects to weigh up overseas emissions

Approval for a major coal mine expansion has been declared invalid by the High Court in a decision that will force planning authorities to reckon with emissions from Australian coal burnt overseas. Legal and industry experts warn the ruling will...

Taylor in three-way migration battle

Artists’ impressions of five of the developments Kilkenny has approved Angus Taylor has vowed to cut 650,000 temporary migrants, and attract skilled, tax-paying arrivals to upend the migration program without a recession. But Home Affairs Minister...

Coalition in mental health push

Nick Cave with the Bad Seeds at Alexandra Gardens in January. A major review of the state’s mental health system and the billion-dollar levy used to fund it, along with an overhaul of youth services and the creation of a specialist standalone...

Fakes plague hits Big Build

A fake qualifications racket is infecting the Victorian government’s Big Build and commercial building projects, raising the prospect that workers and the public are exposed to unsafe worksites, and plunging the state’s construction sector into a fresh...

Big money dodges election laws State’s political donation caps undermined by legal loopholes

The movie mogul owners of Palace Cinemas breached the state’s campaign finance rules when they donated almost $20,000 to the Victorian Liberal Party – only for the High Court to in effect legalise the contributions by ripping up the laws. Four...

Mental health probes axed State watchdog secretly scraps systemic investigations

Victoria’s mental health watchdog stopped investigating systemic issues including the availability of beds for young patients and the illegal use of restraints after successive state government cuts to its powers, budget and staff. Outraged mental...

Heeney best and fairest despite scandal

Seagulls in City Square. An absent Isaac Heeney won the Bob Skilton medal as Sydney’s best and fairest player at the Swans’ club awards dinner last night, despite his role in the Pullman hotel scandal. Heeney, who won the major award for the third...

Labor under fire to make cuts as inflation bites

Labor is eyeing spending cuts to prove it is being more frugal to offset inflation and tackle internal unease about voter blowback, but influential party figures have claimed the RBA misdiagnosed the source of inflation and is arbitrarily hurting...

FINAL INSULT FOR LEAGUE

Sebastian Kenihan and partner Danielle Russell with their sons Matthew and Lachlan.

Chalmers defensive as rate rise looms

A man sleeping rough in Melbourne yesterday. A near-record tax haul under Labor has added to scrutiny of its fiscal management ahead of a widely expected rate hike today as Treasurer Jim Chalmers pins the blame on Donald Trump’s war in the Middle East...

Ambos in the driver’s seat Paramedics to take lead over police in mental health callouts

Police will take a back seat during mental health emergency callouts and allow paramedics and health specialists to lead responses under a new agreement intended to better safeguard thousands of highly vulnerable people. The new protocol signed by...

GM FOOD ARRIVES – AND IT’S PURPLE

Photo: Norfolk Healthy Produce

Party pays for shed on Ashby’s property

One Nation has used party funds to build a $56,000 shed on the private land of federal director James Ashby to help launch the micro distillery business he co-owns with leader Pauline Hanson – a move the party is rushing to explain to its members. One...

Albanese wants answers after AI Medicare hack

Labor is eyeing laws to force tech firms to be transparent about rogue AI after an Openai agent hacked Medicare data in the first public case of a bot breaking into a government website, jolting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s plans to become a major...

SWANS SAY SORRY

The five Sydney Swans players at the centre of the Pullman hotel scandal have apologised to their teammates in an emotional meeting at the club yesterday. Amid glares from onlookers in the busy Entertainment Quarter precinct, the five players – Isaac...

PUMP ITUP

Francesca Steele with her children Jeanie and Banjo, and dog Snoop.

Fears as research institute folds

A leading children’s cancer and women’s health institute will cease operating independently and cut at least 75 jobs as it is absorbed into Monash University as financial pressures spark alarm across the research sector. The fate of the 66-year-old...

HARBOUR MASTERS

By the colossal sandstone pillars of Sydney Town Hall, Jess Miller is a long way from the place she used to call home. The light rail whirs past the deputy lord mayor of Sydney on George Street, its bell chiming beneath the gargantuan clocktower...

Premier pledges tougher domestic violence sentences Rapists to face life under Labor

Rapists could be jailed for life and domestic abusers who murder current or former partners would face longer sentences under a suite of changes the Carroll government is promising to try to reduce violence against women. An Australian-first...

Mystery mob doing those ads about debt

Howard praises immigration, says ignore Hanson In Tarneit, on Melbourne’s western fringe, the issues at the centre of Australia’s increasingly febrile immigration debate are part of the daily lives of residents such as Mandy Gupta. He migrated from...

Burke lays down gauntlet with intake of less breadth

Labor has moved to reset Australia’s two-decade-old migration framework by cutting nearly 40,000 backpackers, tightening the international education system and forcing undocumented migrants to leave, as it stakes its re-election bid on finally reaching...

RAY OF HOPE

Lilia Tennant still remembers being curled up on the floor of a store on Chapel Street with agonising abdominal pain. They were 13, shopping with their mother, and days away from getting their first period. ‘‘It was pretty crazy, I literally fell to...

PAPLEY POISED FOR PRELIM

Michael Bachelard Patrick Stevenson in Syria.

SURFACE TENSION

A retired spray painter and avid motorcyclist went for a weekend ride with a mate. He hit a pothole and never returned. Peter Mason, 71, known as ‘‘Tiki’’, was riding along a stretch of road on the Western Highway near Trawalla on Sunday afternoon...

BOYS 2 MEN

It’s Victoria’s oldest secondary school, with a remarkable history and a roll call of famous names among its alumni. But, asks Bridie Smith, is there more to Scotch College than privilege, entitlement and wealth?

Melbourne’s housing growth defies Labor’s targets Brakes on urban sprawl failing

Almost half of Melbourne’s new housing approvals are concentrated in the city’s outer growth corridors despite Labor’s push to prioritise building new homes in established suburbs and curb urban sprawl. There were 20,252 dwellings approved across...

Hastie and the fallout with Gina

The MCG was transformed under golden spring sunshine yesterday when 100,021 fans were razzle-dazzled by the LA Rams, the San Francisco 49ers and the entertainment spectacular that is America’s NFL. In mid 2022 Liberal Andrew Hastie was invited by the...

IT’S KICKING OFF

SHEAR DETERMINATION

When Brad Fry arrived as the new principal at Tintern Grammar in 2015, the school was just emerging from a profound period of change. The school that began as a coeducational school had become girls-only before opening a separate campus for boys and...

‘I FEEL LIKE I’M THE POLICE’

Picture this: Middle Park Bowls Club on a sultry Saturday afternoon in February. Sausages sizzle and pop on the barbecue. Crowds in bare feet wobble bowls down the length of the green. Here I am with my wife and our son, 11, and daughter, 14, to...

Breakthrough trial on statins Medication slashes heart attack risk for over-70s

Millions of older, healthy Australians could soon be advised to start taking statins after landmark research found the medication reduced the risk of heart attack and stroke by 30 per cent in those aged over 70. Until now, the benefits of taking the...

How Carroll was kept out of the Loop under Andrews

Ben Carroll was sitting in his Bali hotel room on a family holiday when he received a call from a journalist seeking confirmation on a big story – that the Melbourne Airport Rail Link, a major infrastructure project close to Carroll’s heart, had been...

‘DEVASTATION EVERYWHERE’

Hundreds of people are dead and many more, including 35 Australians, have been reported missing after a deluge of ice and rock tore through narrow river valleys in Nepal and China sweeping away everything in its path. Among the missing are 61-year-old...

Secret rail loop tax exposed

Former premier Jacinta Allan and several of her ministers chose not to tell Victorians about a levy the government slapped on public transport fares in a bid to bankroll the Suburban Rail Loop and other Big Build projects. The Victorian...

‘OUR PEOPLE CAN’T WAIT ANY LONGER’

Five years after the mental health royal commission and amid revelations of clusters of youth suicides across Melbourne, the Coalition has pledged a comprehensive review of the failures of Victoria’s youth mental health system. Aboriginal groups...

THE ONLY WAY IS UP?

Sunshine, Dandenong, Broadmeadows and Footscray would see the most significant change in housing density as Melbourne faces ‘‘crunch time’’ finding places to live for its burgeoning population. Projections of what Melbourne could look like in 2101 if...

NOT DONE YET

Finals-bound Sydney beat North Melbourne yesterday in front of the Swans’ smallest SCG crowd of the year. Meanwhile a mystery recording and at least one fresh allegation of sexual assault have emerged in the investigation into last week’s events at an...

A STARC DIFFERENCE

A six-wicket blitz from Mitchell Starc ensured Australia’s bowlers bounced back against Bangladesh on day one of the second Test yesterday, but the troubles plaguing the home team’s star batters continued.

Swans’ accusers to sue stars, club over alleged sex assault

Jenneth Kenneth arrived in Australia in 2024 with dreams of financial security but the reality involved back-breaking work and long hours, away from family and friends. Natassia Chrysanthos and Alex Ellinghausen travelled to Fiji and Vanuatu to hear...

At last, light to shine in dark corners

Premier Ben Carroll has promised to give the newly established royal commission into the building industry whatever additional time, funding and power it needs to rid the state’s construction sector of criminals and corruption. Former South Australian...

POLICE FOCUS ON HEENEY

Senior Sydney Swans player Isaac Heeney has been revealed as the focus of Victoria Police’s investigation into an alleged sexual assault. Heeney and four other players – who have been suspended by Sydney for the rest of the season – have been barred...

THEY’LL GO TO GREAT LENGTHS

In its day, the Wonthaggi pool was ahead of its time. When it opened in 1980, there were few indoor pools in regional Victoria. But the pool’s heyday ended long ago. The 25-metre pool, about 140 kilometres south-east of Melbourne, is primitive by...

‘WE HOPE THIS ISN’T THE START OF A FEUD’

The underworld had largely counted Fadi Haddara as done with the most dangerous days of his old life. The once flash and fearsome crime boss had slipped into semiretirement, albeit with some solid encouragement from tobacco rival Kazem ‘‘Kaz’’...

‘I’M HAPPY TO TAKE A BOW’

Say what you will about the Logies red carpet, but it’s never dull. Trading international luxury designers for local labels and couturiers, it serves as a reminder that not all Australian fashion is subtle. Before the ceremony at The Star in Sydney,...

THE TOUGHEST GIG

Genevieve Muir has two teenage boys and two younger ones, a social work degree and a parent who is a family therapist – but she still finds parenting hard. Wendy Tuohy reports, in the first part of an ongoing series.

FRONT LINE OF THE FORGOTTEN WAR

In a jungle war, you can’t see the other guy. There are no sweeping front lines here. No revealing plains or fields. Trenches and camps are hidden in layers of foliage, up mountains cloaked in mist and landmines. You hear him, though. His rumbling...

NEEDY SAY MORE

Nick Reece likes to recount that he spent his first day as lord mayor volunteering at the Salvos, but now he is scrambling to repair his relationship with the Salvation Army and Melbourne City Mission after failing to deliver promised funding. In an...

The slow and then sudden demise of a champion club of the A-league

GONE WEST

Kids’ mental health unit shut, staff investigated

A children’s mental health unit has been closed and five of its staff stood down amid allegations of bullying and the use of force against vulnerable young patients. The unit at a major Melbourne hospital has halted admissions to its inpatient unit –...

NO HOLES BARRED

Dozens of motorists were left stranded on the side of the Princes Freeway yesterday after a series of potholes in Melbourne’s east concealed by heavy rain wreaked havoc on commuters. Michael Westall was forced to pay $1300 to have the front driver’s...

MAKE US MORE MARVELLOUS

Build a swimming pool on the Yarra. Make public transport free on weekends. Ban Airbnb. These are just some of the ideas you’ve told us could make our city better. We want to hear more. In October, The Age will host Melbourne Assembly, a public forum...

THE ADAPTATION CONVERSATION

Gloria and Ian Brereton survive on a dark kind of wishful thinking. Their hope is that by the time the next flood sweeps through their little house in Mooroopna in rural Victoria, they’ll be dead. ‘‘We’re sort of towards the end of our lives,’’ says...

States to fire up as GST deal declared a $60b dud

The Morrison government-era deal to placate angry West Australians over their share of GST is poised to be labelled a $60 billion failure in an independent report that will spark a fresh round of interstate arguments over how the federation is...