Australia news live: One Nation picks up surprise NSW Senate seat; health minister issues warning on new Covid variant
One Nation wins another Senate seat after NSW results declared
And JERVIS-BARDY
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has won another seat in parliament after Warwick Stacey secured the final spot in the NSW Senate race.
One Nation will now have four seats in the upper house – double the previous term – with Stacey and WA businessman Tyron Whitten joining Hanson and fellow incumbent Malcolm Roberts.
Labor’s Tony Sheldon and Tim Ayres were elected along with Liberals Andrew Bragg and Jessica Collins.
The Greens deputy leader, Mehreen Faruqi, won the fifth spot.
The winners, in order of their election, are:
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SHELDON, Tony – Labor
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BRAGG, Andrew – Liberal
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AYRES, Tim – Labor
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COLLINS, Jessica – Liberal
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FARUQI, Mehreen – The Greens
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STACEY, Warwick – Pauline Hanson’s One Nation
Key events
The NSW floods have dumped a year’s worth of landfill on some towns. Where does it all go?
More on the floods and ongoing clean-up efforts. Some towns have been bogged down by mounds of destroyed couchesfridges and mattresses.
By the time the cleanup is done, some councils expect the amount sent to landfill due to flooding will match the entire volume of waste that is usually sent there for an entire year. Paul De Szell, the liveable communities director for MidCoast council, says that poses a problem:
If you put a year of landfill in one month, the system doesn’t function.
De Szell said while clean-up can take months, getting damaged property out of homes and away from people is essential to protect public health.
[The waste] is wet, it starts to smell. There’s all sorts of bacteria that exists in that flood waste so it’s very important to get that waste off the ground as soon as possible.
The Guardian’s Kate Lyons has more, with pictures from Blake Sharp-Wiggins:
King Charles sends message of support after NSW floods
King Charles has written to express his sympathy and support for those recovering from the record flooding on NSW’s mid-north coast. In a statementhe thanked emergency workers and volunteers, saying:
We can only say that our thoughts are very much with all those who have been affected so badly, especially the family and friends of the five people who tragically lost their lives. We send our special prayers, and the deepest possible sympathy, to all who mourn them.
As the immediate emergency passes, I am only too aware that communities are confronting dreadful, soul-destroying damage to homes, properties and infrastructure, and the loss of precious livelihoods and livestock. As many hundreds of families have been displaced from their homes, I am deeply conscious that the impact of the crisis will endure for many months.
What you should know about NB.1.8.1, the new Covid variant
More than five years since Covid was initially declared a pandemic, we’re still experiencing regular waves of infections.
It is more difficult to track the occurrence of the virus nowadays, as fewer people are testing and reporting infections. But available data suggests in late May 2025 case numbers in Australia were ticking upwards.
Even if neutralising antibody levels are modestly reduced against NB.1.8.1, the WHO has noted current Covid vaccines should still protect against severe disease with this variant.
Read more here:
Woman charged after allegedly stabbing four people in eastern Victoria
Police have charged a 24-year-old woman after four people were allegedly stabbed in Bairnsdale, Victoria, on Thursday night.
Investigators say they were told a woman was behaving erratically at a supermarket in the city just before 10pm last night. Police allege the woman approached a staff member, stabbed him in the stomach and left the store.
She then allegedly had an altercation with a man at in nearby fast-food restaurant car park, assaulted a man at a hotel and stabbed a man at the Bairnsdale train station. All four people were taken to hospital, with the supermarket worker still in serious condition. The other three were treated for minor injuries and released.
Police arrested the woman at the station and have since charged her with intentionally causing injury and recklessly causing injury.
Queensland tourism minister ‘confident’ Great Barrier Reef won’t be listed by Unesco as in-danger
Andrew PowellQueensland’s tourism minister, says he is confident that Unesco, the UN world heritage body, won’t list the Great Barrier Reef as in-danger. Unesco has been threatening for years that the mammoth natural wonder could be designated as such if Australia doesn’t take greater efforts to address climate change and a series of mass coral bleachings.
Powell told RN Breakfast:
We have to ensure that we can continue to protect our reef and have our tourism operators continue to offer the product that they do. So I’m confident that [we have] got the processes, the practices, the programs, the investment that is required to ensure that we’re doing all we can at the state level to keep the reef off that Unesco list.
Powell said he was a “little bit frustrated” by previous Queensland governments actions on the reef, but said he remains focused on the site as an international draw card.
I’m a father of five. I want my kids to continue to experience the Great Barrier Reef in the same way I have, if not in a better way.
You can read more about the Unesco threats here:
Pat Dodson says he is encouraged about Labor’s comments on truth-telling
Pat Dodsona former Labor senator and a commissioner of the 1989 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custodysaid he was dismayed and saddened after the death of a 24-year-old Indigenous man in police custody in Alice Springs earlier this week.
Dodson, known as “the father of reconciliation”said he was encouraged that the Albanese government signalled this week it remained open to truth-telling and treaty. He told RN Breakfast:
I’m encouraged that the way to go forward is being proposed. Proposed or that they’re open to that, and obviously it’s got to be committed to, and then they’ve got to set up a process to enact it. But it’s a great thing because we’ve got to start listening to the different stories.
These are unique peoples with a unique culture who are here prior to the colonisation of the nation and we’ve got to start respecting them as such and dealing with them.
Read more here:
Hume says it’s time to ‘straighten your tiara’ and get to work, as her mother would say
Hume went on to say that, despite her feelings, she would support Ley’s leadership and work to “win back the hearts and minds and votes of Australians”. She told Sunrise:
The most important thing we can all do here now is get behind Sussan Ley, put our shoulders to the wheel. Because there’s a very big task ahead of us.
As my very wise mother would say: ‘Stop your nonsense, chin up, chest out, straighten your tiara and let’s get on with the job.’
Jane Hume: ‘Of course it hurts’ being demoted to backbench
The Liberal senator Jane Hume said she was hurt after being demoted from the shadow cabinet to the backbench this week under the newly reformed Coalition. “This isn’t the playground. This is the parliament,” she said this morning. Hume spoke to Sunrise:
Of course it hurts. It hurts professionally because I was a hard-working and prolific and high-profile member of the frontbench in the previous opposition. It hurts personally, too, because you know, Sussan and I are friends.
Hume went on to say there was something “liberating” about being on the backbench and being able to “speak without having to stick to the party line”.
That’s certainly going to make for much more interesting Sunrise interviews.
Read more about the new shadow cabinet here:
Dai Le says Magda Szubanski’s diagnosis reminded her of her own health troubles
Mp give le was on Today this morning and spoke about actor and comedian Magda Subanskiwho said yesterday she has been diagnosed with stage four blood cancer. Le, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014, said this morning:
I mean, as a breast cancer survivor, when I watched that clip, I remember also when I had to shave my hair off because I knew that my hair would fall off once chemo started.
And it’s so great that she actually, you know, can talk about it because a lot of women just don’t don’t want to go there.
Le said it was one of the most difficult times in her life when she received her own diagnosis. She encouraged people to speak with their doctors early if they had any troubling symptoms.
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Mark Butler reiterates Australia will not bail out Healthscope
The health minister reiterated on RN Breakfast that the government would not bail out Healthscope, the private equity-backed operator of Sydney’s embattled Northern Beaches hospital. The company has maintained its 37 hospitals will remain open as it works through receivership. Butler said:
We’re not going to bail out an overseas private equity who made a play to make a profit. We’re not going to do that, I don’t think there would be many taxpayers who would urge me to do that.
As possible, we can see an orderly transfer and sale of these important assets to a more stable operator.
Read more on the collapse of Healthscope from the Guardian’s Jonathan Barrett and Natasha May here:
