Latest news with #AustraliaDay
AU Financial Review
3 days ago
- Business
- AU Financial Review
Gina wants a helipad on top of her pink building in Perth
Just weeks after the City of Perth hosted Hancock Prospecting's namesake Australia Day fireworks, the mining giant's development team made their way back down St Georges Terrace – this time with a request. Representatives from the family empire of Australia's richest person, Gina Rinehart, met with city officials at Council House in February to discuss adding a helipad to its $20 million revamp of Roy Hill's new West Perth headquarters.
Sky News AU
17-07-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park under siege for using ministerial car to travel 456kms from Sydney to Jindabyne
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park is under fire after it was uncovered he used a ministerial car to galivant 456kms from Sydney to Jindabyne, despite his official diary recording no meetings in the surrounding area. Ministerial car documents that were provided to The Guardian revealed that Mr Park had journeyed 456kms from Sydney to Jindabyne last August. The lengthy trip between Parliament House to the Snowy Mountains on August 29, which included a ministerial driver, was made during peak ski season. It is also believed the journey fell in the last few weeks of the interschools ski competition, which Mr Park's son participated in. The Guardian reported that Mr Park's son attended school in the surrounding region at the time. However, personal trips made by Ministers using government vehicles were permitted until February this year. NSW Premier Chris Minns announced a tightening of the rules on private use of taxpayer funded drivers after former Transport Minister Jo Haylen had her ministerial driver take her on a 446-kilometre, 13 hour round-trip from her holiday home to a lunch at a Hunter Valley winery on the Australia Day weekend. A Sydney Morning Herald investigation into NSW Ministers who used taxpayer financed drivers for family holidays showed that Mr Park took two trips to Thredbo in November and December 2024, travelling 1000 kilometres on both occasions. Mr Park at the time said the use of the vehicle allowed him to 'reunite with family while undertaking work on a handful of other occasions.' The files only documented Mr Park's trip to Jindabyne and did not record a return journey. Ministerial diaries show that Mr Park had meetings with the Australian Workers Union on the 27th of August and another with Unions NSW on the 28th of August, in addition to two unnamed meetings on the 29th of August at either his ministerial office or Parliament. However, no ministerial diary entries, social media posts or press releases explained the reason for his presence in Jindabyne on the 29th and 30th of August 2024. The travel documents also revealed the Minister made a 250km trip with a ministerial vehicle from Albury to Jindabyne on 6 September 2023. Mr Park told The Guardian in relation to the September 2023 he attended 'ministerial business in Jindabyne' and that 'these trips were in accordance with the rules at the time.' 'I've always followed the relevant guidelines,' Mr Park said. Logs show that Ms Haylen also used a taxpayer funded chauffeur to take her to or from her Caves Beach holiday house at least 14 times. NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley also used a ministerial vehicle in late April to return home from a holiday with his family in South West Rocks after the Premier announced a review into the bail of Daniel Billings who allegedly murdered Molly Ticehurst.
West Australian
15-07-2025
- West Australian
Kojonup sheep farmer ‘gobsmacked' by revoked gun licence ruling by State Administrative Tribunal
A Kojonup farmer and truck driver has been left 'gobsmacked' after the State Administrative Tribunal upheld an order by the WA Police Commissioner to revoke his firearms licence following an assault conviction. Simon Matthews was fined and convicted of common assault in the Katanning Magistrates Court in 2024 for his involvement in a brawl at Lake Towerinning. As a result of the conviction, the WA Police Commissioner revoked the 41-year-old's firearm licence under the Firearms Act, citing the conviction as a basis for deeming Mr Matthews no longer a fit and proper person to hold a licence. Mr Matthews surrendered his four firearms to police last year and said he had been struggling with his day-to-day duties as a farmer and stock driver since. 'I can't fulfil my duty of care with my livestock — that's the biggest impact — and controlling vermin and all the rest of it,' he said. In his evidence to the SAT, Mr Matthews claimed he was never provided the summons notice for the assault. He said it was instead delivered to his partner's workplace, meaning he consequently missed the court hearing. He was convicted under section 55 of the Criminal Procedure Act and fined $800. Mr Matthews said if he received the summons he would have appeared at court and fought the charge. The brawl at Lake Towerinning occurred on Australia Day, 2023, after Mr Matthews was involved in an altercation with a woman and her partner after developing the belief their family member had taken alcohol from his car. Mr Matthews farms primarily sheep, as well as goats, cows, and pigs, on his 400ha family farm Silver City in Kojonup, and transports livestock. Mr Matthews said the revocation of his licence meant he could not adequately put livestock down when needed, and instead had to find another person or vet with a licence. 'Trying to destroy livestock; well hitting them on the head with a hammer — that's olden day stuff, it's not right,' he said. 'When you've got your own tools you can go and do your job straight away, but if you don't have the right tools to do the job with, it can affect you because you've got to go and find someone with a gun. 'Sometimes you can't just cut a sheep's throat, you've got to get it done professionally, and the vets aren't always open.' He said he appealed the Commissioner's decision to the SAT in the hopes he would get his licence back, and would appeal the SAT's decision in a further bid to regain his firearms licence. SAT member Nova Oldfield upheld the Commissioner's decision that Mr Matthews was not a 'fit and proper' person to hold a firearms licence on the basis of the violence of the assault and the 'relatively short time' since the assault had occurred. Ms Oldfield additionally found that Mr Matthews considered himself a victim and remained 'resentful if not angry', showing no remorse or insight into his behaviour. Mr Matthews said his farming duties had been 'impacted severely' by the loss of his guns. 'We've got more work on fixing fences from kangaroos, and that's another cost,' he said.
Indian Express
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Australia Day: People are getting facts wrong, says Jason Gillespie
Former Australia fast bowler Jason Gillespie has said people who oppose a possible date change to Australia Day are not aware of a key historical fact. Australia Day which is celebrated on January 26 has come under criticism from Indigenous community as it marks the arrival of the first fleet in 1788. In recent times there has been lot of chorus about changing the date and Gillespie who has indigenous roots said that the argument that January 26 is the only appropriate date to celebrate Australia Day is wrong. 'What I find interesting is that when a lot of people defend Australia Day being on January 26 they say 'it has always been January 26', he told News Corp. 'That's factually incorrect. You go over history and that has not been the only day Australia has celebrated Australia Day.' Gillespie's argument is backed by facts. Its only since January 26, 1994 that all states and territories in have incorporated to celebrate Australia Day on the said date. Before 1994, certain states and territories staged celebrations on the Monday closest to the date. Also, the first official Australia Day celebrated in 1915 was on July 30. It was a way to raise much needed funds during World War I. 'It (January 26) is seen as a day of genuine and deep sadness for Indigenous Australians and not seen as a day to celebrate. If it creates such sadness (for many people) on such an important day of the year – and it has been moved before – surely there must be 300 or more days Australia could look at which could be a great day for everyone to celebrate,' Gillespie said. In Australia's rich cricketing history there have been only two cricketers from Indigenous background to play Test cricket. Gillespie was the first and more recently Scott Boland became the second. 'I naively assumed that I couldn't possibly have been the first,' he told ABC Radio Adelaide a few years ago. 'With our rich, multicultural history in our country, with so many people from so many diverse backgrounds, I just assumed there must have been lots of [Indigenous] cricketers and lots of sportspeople.'
National Post
11-07-2025
- Politics
- National Post
Geoff Russ: Macdonald's critics don't just hate our first PM. They hate Canada
Article content In many cases, the national holiday of 'Australia Day' has been cancelled, with calls to rename it 'Invasion Day.' Article content Like Canada, Australia is increasingly portrayed as a primordially evil settler state that is irredeemable until a sort of bureaucratic cultural revolution takes place. Article content Last year, a school field trip in Toronto resulted in students of ' colonizer ' ethnicity being asked to wear blue to set them apart from their classmates. Article content It was an inappropriate, if not dehumanizing, decision by the school staff, who should have lost their jobs over it. That is all part of the process of demoralization and alienation. Article content This racial division of society is a branch from the same tree that sprouted 'Kill the Boer' in South Africa. Article content For context, 'Kill the Boer' is a song that emerged during the apartheid era in resistance to South Africa's white-minority government that ended in 1994. Article content The tune was revived in the 2010s by far-left political leader Julius Malema, who routinely accuses the remaining white population of hoarding their wealth and continuing to oppress the country's Black majority. Article content Article content Malema has insisted that the title of the song is a metaphor, stating that, 'we've not called for the killing of white people, at least for now.' Article content That sort of extreme discourse has not been broached in Canada, and people should not expect mass violence anytime soon. However, the underlying assumptions about the value of 'colonizers' hardly differ from Malema's. Article content Take the reaction from the hard-left to the massacre of Israeli citizens by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Article content Former Ontario NDP MPP Sarah Jama's first reaction was to issue a statement accusing Israel of apartheid and engaging in 'settler colonialism.' Article content Jama made sure to mention that she, too, was 'a politician who is participating in this settler colonial system.' Article content The inability to wait until the victims' blood was dry before equivocating was telling. Article content Others, such as a lecturer at Langara College in Vancouver, celebrated the ' amazing, brilliant offensive ' as an act of liberation, and have been unapologetic about doing so to this day. Article content 'Kill the Boer' is not an isolated phenomenon, it is part and parcel of the global decolonial movement. Article content Macdonald is being wiped from the public eye for two reasons. Article content The first is that he was once commemorated with more monuments in Canada than any other prime minister, and was thus an easy target. Secondly, his efforts created the country that so many people despise. Article content It is not so much Macdonald whom they seek to dishonour as it is Canada itself. Article content Article content Article content
