Victoria's train network fails to meet accessibility standards
University student Lilly Cascun walks half an hour to another train station that meets her accessibility needs. ( ABC News: Costa Haritos )
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ABC News
44 minutes ago
- ABC News
Erin Patterson tells murder trial how foraged mushrooms may have ended up in deadly lunch
Accused triple-murderer Erin Patterson has given her account of how she made a beef Wellington dish that resulted in the deaths of three relatives and made another seriously ill. Ms Patterson, 50, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of her parents-in-law Don and Gail Patterson, and Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson. Heather's husband, Ian Wilkinson, was the sole surviving guest of the lunch. The trial of Erin Patterson, who stands accused of using a poisoned meal to murder three relatives, continues. Look back at how Tuesday's hearing unfolded in our live blog. To stay up to date with this story, subscribe to ABC News. On Wednesday, Ms Patterson's defence lawyer Colin Mandy SC continued to question her as her evidence entered a third day. Ms Patterson told the court that at the time of the lunch, she had been concerned that her relationship with the wider Patterson family, including her in-laws, was becoming more distant after her separation from her husband Simon. She said for her, the meal on July 29, 2023, represented an opportunity to be more "proactive" about maintaining that relationship. Ms Patterson said she chose to prepare beef Wellingtons for the lunch because she wanted to make something special and her mother had made it for "really important occasions" in the past. She told the court she found the recipe in her RecipeTin Eats cookbook, but she said she made some "deviations" to the recipe. "The primary one was, I couldn't find, you know, the big log that the recipe called for ... so I had to use individual steaks so I had to adapt to that," she said. She said by making individual servings she used a larger quantity of mushrooms and pastry to cover the cuts of meat. Ms Patterson also chose not to put prosciutto in the dish because she said Don Patterson did not eat pork and she removed a crepe layer the recipe called for because it "looked a little bit complicated". While outlining the ingredients she used to the jury, Ms Patterson said she had started preparing six individual beef Wellingtons early in the morning on the day of the lunch, using mushrooms purchased from Woolworths. "As I was cooking it down, I tasted it a few times and it seemed a little bland, to me," she said. "So I decided to put in the dried mushrooms that I'd bought from the grocer that I still had in the pantry." She said at the time she believed they were dried mushrooms purchased from Melbourne but then conceded they may have been foraged. "Now I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well," she said. She told the jury she was aware of poisonous mushrooms growing in the Gippsland area but denied ever foraging for mushrooms in Loch and Outtrim, where the court previously heard death cap mushrooms were flagged on a website. The court has previously heard that Ms Patterson organised the lunch to discuss a cancer diagnosis but it has been revealed in court that she has never had cancer and she agreed she misled them. Ms Patterson became emotional on Wednesday when she told the jury she had lied to her mother-in-law about a number of medical issues. The court was shown messages previously seen by the jury where Gail asked Ms Patterson about a medical appointment she had told her about regarding a lump on her arm. In the message exchange, Ms Patterson told Gail she had a needle biopsy and an MRI but she admitted to the court both were lies. "Some weeks prior, I had been having an issue with my elbow with pain and I thought there was a lump there and I had told Don and Gail about that," she said. "They had shown quite a lot of care about that, which felt really nice." She said she maintained the lies even though the issue had started to resolve because she felt embarrassed. "I shouldn't have done it." Ms Patterson said at the lunch, she led her guests to believe she required treatment for ovarian cancer and they prayed for her health. "I led them to believe that I might be needing some treatment ... in the next few weeks, or months," she said. Erin agreed she misled her lunch guests, who had all showed "a lot of compassion" for the health issue she had told them about. She told the court that in reality, she was making plans to have gastric bypass surgery in a bid to take control over concerns she had about her weight. "I was ashamed of the fact that I didn't have control over my body or what I ate, I was ashamed of that … I didn't want to tell anybody, but I shouldn't have lied to them," she said, sniffing. "Primarily in my mind [I] was thinking I might need help getting the kids to and from the bus and other activities, might need to explain why I'm going up to hospital for a day or two … so that was really the focus of what I was talking about." After her guests left the lunch, Ms Patterson said she ate several pieces of a cake Gail Patterson had brought to the lunch. After eating the cake, Ms Patterson said: "I felt sick, I felt overfull, so I went to the toilets and brought it back up again." On Tuesday, the court heard she had struggled with binge eating and bulimia throughout her life. She said later that night she remembered feeling "really nauseous" and had diarrhoea. "It felt pretty frequent to me, every 20 minutes at some times, maybe further apart at other times," she said. The following day Ms Patterson said she drove her son to Tyabb for a flying lesson and had to pull over near some bushland to go to the toilet. "I went off into the bush and went to the toilet ... I had diarrhoea," she said. "I cleaned myself up a bit with tissues and put them in a dog poo bag ... and we hit the road again." In a police interview previously shown to the jury, Ms Patterson's son said she did not stop to use the toilet during that trip. She then detailed a visit to the hospital the following day because she believed she might need some fluids to assist with the diarrhoea she was experiencing. "Every time I drank water it went straight through me, couldn't seem to retain it, so I thought … I should go in, for a little bit," she said.
ABC News
44 minutes ago
- ABC News
GDP numbers argue for more RBA interest rate cuts as savings rise and spending flatlines
Australia is teetering on the brink of falling back into a per capita recession, but the bad news could soon be good news for borrowers. The latest National Accounts published by the ABS show Australia's economy inched forward by just 0.2 per cent over the first three months of this year. Over the year to March 31, economic activity increased by just 1.3 per cent. Over both the past quarter and the past year, Australia's population grew much faster than its economy. Per person, our economic output is 0.4 per cent less than it was a year ago. As IFM Investors chief economist Alex Joiner pointed out, economic growth has failed to keep up with population growth for nine of the past 11 quarters. Per person, Australia now produces 1.7 per cent less than it did around three years ago. On the surface, it's a grim picture, but the details show there is room for some optimism. First up, Cyclone Alfred brought great disruption and damage to heavily populated areas of south-east Queensland and northern NSW. The repair jobs to fix that damage will add to GDP over the current and coming quarters. Secondly, it was the public sector dragging the chain, with no growth in its spending and a decline in investment as a number of major infrastructure projects were either completed or put on hold. This should be a relief to those economists who have worried about public spending "crowding out" the private sector, which now appears to have more room to step up. Thirdly, the drop in activity didn't mean a drop in incomes, with business profits up as well as wages, and even rents, all growing faster than inflation. So, if incomes are growing across the board but economic activity is stagnating, where's all the extra cash going? Into the bank. From historical peaks above 20 per cent during COVID, when stimulus payments collided with a physical inability to get out and spend the dough, the household savings rate plummeted to a low of just 1.5 per cent in September 2023. That was the lowest since December 2007, as households chewed into their savings to cope with high interest rates and a surging cost of living. But the savings rate has rebounded from that low. In the March quarter it rose to 5.2 per cent, which is roughly back where it was immediately before COVID. This is a fourth reason why the economic slowdown in the March quarter isn't as bad as it seems. Now that savings are back around more normal levels, it becomes increasingly likely that future income growth (such as from yesterday's minimum and award wage decision) will be channelled into household consumption. And there's a very simple way to make this happen. The publication this week of the RBA's May meeting minutes reconfirmed that the board had seriously contemplated a 0.5 percentage point cut, before opting for 0.25. However, at least at the start of this week, most Australian economists had been anticipating that the Reserve Bank would wait until August before making another cut. But financial market traders strongly disagree, particularly after reading those minutes and seeing today's GDP numbers. They are now pricing in a greater than 80 per cent chance that the RBA will cut interest rates again in July with about a 70 per cent chance of a follow up cut in August. Markets predict the cash rate will be at or below 3.1 per cent by the end of the year, down 75 basis points (or three standard rate cuts) from its current level of 3.85 per cent. That's not surprising, given that the RBA most recently predicted annual economic growth of 1.8 per cent in the year to June — a forecast that now requires a very unlikely 0.7 per cent leap in growth this quarter to achieve. With inflation seemingly tamed, at least for now, excuses are running out for the Reserve Bank not to lower interest rates more quickly. The rising savings rate, weak household consumption and modest growth in private investment all reinforce the idea that the cash rate is "restrictive" — that is that it is still holding back the economy. What better way to encourage households and businesses to spend more on consumption and investment, and save less, than by cutting interest rates? The odds of the RBA cutting rates sooner rather than later are also boosted by the dour global economic outlook, clouded by Donald Trump's tariff policies and generally erratic policymaking. The OECD released its latest Global Economic Outlook report overnight, and cut its global growth forecast for this year from 3.1 to 2.9 per cent, with no improvement expected next year. "Today's policy uncertainty is weakening trade and investment, diminishing consumer and business confidence and curbing growth prospects," the organisation's secretary-general, and former Australian finance minister, Mathias Cormann said. Indeed's Asia-Pacific economist Callam Pickering warned we are far from immune. Treasurer Jim Chalmers said that "the Australian economy remains one of the strongest in the world" but, at the moment, that's little to write home about. And, as Pickering pointed out, Australian productivity has been unchanged over the past two quarters and remains more than 5 per cent below its peak. Meanwhile, the lingering affects of previous inflation and real wage declines are likely to take at least until the end of this decade to repair, even if nothing goes wrong in the meantime. While the re-elected government is talking up its reform agenda to try and kick-start the private sector, Pickering argued the RBA must also play its part. "The RBA will need to cut rates at least another couple of times this year to provide sufficient support to households and businesses, while ensuring that the unemployment rate remains low and we avoid recession." Having avoided falling off what successive RBA governors have described as "the narrow path" of reducing inflation without spiking unemployment, it would be ironic if the bank was too slow to recognise the latest bend in the economy and blithely walked right over the edge.
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Queensland police officer faces serious assault charge
A Queensland police officer charged over an alleged excessive use of force incident has faced court for the first time. Senior Constable Robert Kevin McGee, 55, was stood down and charged with one count of assault occasioning bodily harm after the incident which occurred while he was on duty on the Gold Coast. Police prosecutors will allege the incident happened on the Gold Coast Highway at Miami in January. Mr McGee is accused of injuring a man who was under arrest and being taken to the Southport Watchhouse. He was charged in May after a four-month investigation. He appeared without legal representation when his matter was mentioned briefly in the Southport Magistrates Court on Wednesday. He did not enter a plea and was granted bail. The case was adjourned until August.
