Latest news with #Illawarra
News.com.au
6 hours ago
- Politics
- News.com.au
More pressure mounts on rapist MP Gareth Ward to resign
Minister for the Illawarra Ryan Park has joined calls for convicted rapist and Kiama MP Gareth to resign from NSW parliament, urging him to 'do the right thing'. Ward was taken into custody on remand on Wednesday while awaiting sentencing after he was found guilty by a jury of three counts of indecent assault and a fourth count of intercourse without consent. The charges relate to acts against two young men – an 18-year-old at Meroo Meadow in 2013 and a 24-year-old man in Potts Point in 2015 – and sparked calls for the independent south coast MP to resign from parliament. Amid growing calls for Ward to resign from parliament, Mr Park, the member for Keira and Health Minister, said on Friday the matter would 'without a doubt' change the political landscape in the Illawarra. 'I echo what the Premier has said and what I think the community expects, and that is, I think Mr Ward should do the right thing and resign,' he said. 'I think after that, it will be a matter for the community. There will obviously be a process determined through the Electoral Commission, and then we'll let that process take its course.' Mr Park said he spoke 'on behalf of the community' when he spoke of the 'brave victims'. 'They're the people that I'm worried about the most,' he told reporters. 'To bring forward this issue and bring forward evidence, and to bring forward these charges, has no doubt resolved or brought up a lot of difficult things for those individuals and our community. 'At the moment we should be worried about those two people because I'll be honest, to do this would not have been easy, and I have got a great degree of admiration for those people involved and a great degree of sorrow. ' Premier Chris Minns has also called on Ward to resign. 'It is completely ridiculous to be in a situation where someone has been not accused, not charged, but convicted of incredibly serious offences and stay as a member of parliament,' he said on Monday. 'I haven't spoken to all of my colleagues, and I haven't spoken to the crossbench or the opposition about it, but it would seem ridiculous that he would continue as a member of parliament.' Mr Minns confirmed the parliament had the power to remove Ward but noted it was important that the Legislative Assembly's decision 'is not punitive'. 'The punitive measure is up to the NSW court. It's not up to parliament,' he said. 'They'll make the decision about what punishment is applied, not us.'
The Australian
4 days ago
- Sport
- The Australian
One-punch victim Harry Froling signs two-year NBL deal with Illawarra
Harry Froling is officially back in the NBL – just two years after being told he'd never play basketball again following a horrific one-punch attack. As revealed by Code Sports last month, Froling has joined reigning champions the Illawarra Hawks on a two-year deal. The former NBL Rookie of the Year will initially be an injury-replacement for his younger brother Sam, who has been ruled out with a season-ending Achilles. Froling's Illawarra signing caps off an incredible comeback following his life-threatening one-punch attack in Wollongong in 2023. 'MEANT TO DIE': FROLING'S INSPIRATIONAL COMEBACK The big man was left with a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain, prompting doctors to declare his career was over. Former Bullets NBL Player Harry Froling, Zillmere. Picture: Liam Kidston Froling dropped into a state of depression, piling on weight as he sat on the couch at home feeling sorry for himself. He showcased impressive resilience to fight back from the head injury and return to basketball this year via a stint with the Taranaki Airs in the NZNBL. Froling averaged 19.9 points, 8.8 rebounds and shot 30 per cent from deep on nearly six attempts per game in 10 matches before parting ways with the Airs last month. In mid-May, he penned a deal to play NBL1 with the Melbourne Tigers and has excelled in his five games thus far. He is averaging 23.6 points, 10.8 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game. Froling's return to the NBL is incredible given the doubts he had after life-saving brain surgery. Harry Froling (L, playing for the Brisbane Bullets) and brother Sam Froling of the Hawks go head to head in 2022. Picture: Getty The big man detailed the depths he dropped to in an exclusive interview with this masthead last December. His weight ballooned to 158kg, he had no income, a six-month wait to process the disability pension and his self-esteem was at rock bottom. 'It's definitely the darkest place I've ever been in,' Froling recalled. 'I wouldn't say I was suicidal, but I definitely had thoughts where I thought it would be easier not to go through this and to not be here. 'I did have times when I thought, 'f*** this, I don't want to be here, this is s**t and I'd rather not be around'. 'I was depressed and I got to the point where I was damaging my relationships with people. I was having issues with mum and dad, relatives and friends. I was just a bad person to be around. 'I was the victim, but I also had that victim's mentality. It just got to the point where I had to start to look in the mirror.' Matt Logue Sports reporter Matt Logue is an award-winning sports journalist and author who brings more than 20 years' experience to NCA NewsWire and CODE Sports. Starting out in regional newspapers in Dubbo and Bathurst, he moved to Sydney in 2006 and spent eight years at Rugby League Week magazine. He has also worked at the Newcastle Knights as a senior reporter under seven-time premiership-winning coach Wayne Bennett, Big League magazine and the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs. Matt is passionate about all sports, but has particular loves for rugby league and basketball. @mattlogue7 Matt Logue
News.com.au
21-07-2025
- General
- News.com.au
Baby whale struck by boat off NSW coast
Extraordinary drone footage has captured the moment a boat hits a baby whale off the coast of NSW. Content creator Michael Hatte was tracking two southern right whales – a mother and calf – as they migrated north past the Illawarra region on Saturday. His footage, taken at Stanwell Park, shows the calf swimming behind its mother when a small boat carrying three people comes into view. The boat drives straight over the calf, with the impact knocking the vessel's three occupants off their feet. 'I had already stopped filming but could see the boat heading straight for the pair that were just below the surface,' Mr Hatte, who gave permission to use his video, wrote. 'I pressed record and captured the whole event, which is literally 3 seconds long. 'Bub moving it's head just at the right time, impact could have been devastating!' Mr Hatte had been whale watching with his wife and called the organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans (ORRCA) to report the incident. 'Followed bub for as long as I could, no signs of injury and actually went back to feeding and playing with Seaweed not long after in some very shallow water,' he wrote on social media. Whales are protected under NSW laws and boats must stay 100m away from adult whales and 300m away when calves are present. For jetskis it's 300m at all times. ORRCA had been tracking the duo as they moved along the NSW coastline, and believed the older whale was also hit by a boat near Merimbula on the South Coast earlier this month. In a post on its Facebook on Saturday, ORRCA said the mother 'carries a vessel strike injury on her flank, likely caused by a boat propeller'. 'With her injury, this mother is already facing additional challenges, making it even more important that she and her calf are given space & quiet as they travel. 'Southern Right Whales rely on sheltered coastal bays to rest and feed their young, and they need to do this without interference.' Its spokesperson, Pip Jacobs, told the ABC the baby appeared to have recovered and the two whales were seen in Sydney Harbour on Sunday. 'Vessel strikes can be fatal … but we're pleased to confirm that mum and baby seem to be doing well,' she said. 'These whales are particularly difficult to spot from the water, so they're often in the way of boats who don't know they're there. 'We know no one wants to hit a whale.'
Malay Mail
17-07-2025
- Health
- Malay Mail
Is it OK to boil water more than once, or should you empty the kettle every time?
SYDNEY, July 17 — The kettle is a household staple practically everywhere — how else would we make our hot drinks? But is it okay to re-boil water that's already in the kettle from last time? While bringing water to a boil disinfects it, you may have heard that boiling water more than once will somehow make the water harmful and therefore you should empty the kettle each time. Such claims are often accompanied by the argument that re-boiled water leads to the accumulation of allegedly hazardous substances including metals such as arsenic, or salts such as nitrates and fluoride. This isn't true. To understand why, let's look at what is in our tap water and what really happens when we boil it. What's in our tap water? Let's take the example of tap water supplied by Sydney Water, Australia's largest water utility which supplies water to Sydney, the Blue Mountains and the Illawarra region. From the publicly available data for the January to March 2025 quarter for the Illawarra region, these were the average water quality results: pH was slightly alkaline total dissolved solids were low enough to avoid causing scaling in pipes or appliances fluoride content was appropriate to improve dental health, and it was 'soft' water with a total hardness value below 40mg of calcium carbonate per litre. The water contained trace amounts of metals such as iron and lead, low enough magnesium levels that it can't be tasted, and sodium levels substantially lower than those in popular soft drinks. These and all other monitored quality parameters were well within the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines during that period. If you were to make tea with this water, re-boiling would not cause a health problem. Here's why. It's difficult to concentrate such low levels of chemicals To concentrate substances in the water, you'd need to evaporate some of the liquid while the chemicals stay behind. Water evaporates at any temperature, but the vast majority of evaporation happens at the boiling point — when water turns into steam. During boiling, some volatile organic compounds might escape into the air, but the amount of the inorganic compounds (such as metals and salts) remains unchanged. While the concentration of inorganic compounds might increase as drinking water evaporates when boiled, evidence shows it doesn't happen to such an extent that it would be hazardous. Let's say you boil one litre of tap water in a kettle in the morning, and your tap water has a fluoride content of 1mg per litre, which is within the limits of Australian guidelines. You make a cup of tea taking 200ml of the boiled water. You then make another cup of tea in the afternoon by re-boiling the remaining water. On both occasions, if heating was stopped soon after boiling started, the loss of water by evaporation would be small, and the fluoride content in each cup of tea would be similar. But let's assume that when making the second cup, you let the water keep boiling until 100ml of what's in the kettle evaporates. Even then, the amount of fluoride you would consume with the second cup (0.23mg) would not be significantly higher than the fluoride you consumed with the first cup of tea (0.20mg). The same applies to any other minerals or organics the supplied water may have contained. Let's take lead: the water supplied in the Illawarra region as mentioned above, had a lead concentration of less than 0.0001mg per litre. To reach an unsafe lead concentration (0.01mg per litre, according to Australian guidelines) in a cup of water, you'd need to boil down roughly 20 litres of tap water to just that cup of 200ml. Practically that is unlikely to happen — most electric kettles are designed to boil briefly before automatically shutting off. As long as the water you're using is within the guidelines for drinking water, you can't really concentrate it to harmful levels within your kettle. But what about taste? Whether re-boiled water actually affects the taste of your drinks will depend entirely on the specifics of your local water supply and your personal preferences. The slight change in mineral concentration, or the loss of dissolved oxygen from water during boiling may affect the taste for some people — although there are a lot of other factors that contribute to the taste of your tap water. The bottom line is that as long as the water in your kettle was originally compliant with guidelines for safe drinking water, it will remain safe and potable even after repeated boiling. — Reuters
ABC News
15-07-2025
- Sport
- ABC News
Harry Froling signs with NBL team Illawarra Hawks after near-fatal one-punch attack
Harry Froling says he lived life in the fast lane "the first time around". It is a telling choice of words. For the 27-year-old, life is now divided between before and after the night of January 22, 2023, when he suffered a one-punch attack outside a Wollongong nightclub that left him with a major brain injury and little chance to return to professional basketball. But after more than two years of intense rehabilitation, he has been signed by the Illawarra Hawks as an injury replacement player for his brother Sam. Froling says he returns to the court a changed man. "I was always inconsistent and that was also with my off-court stuff — my training habits, what I was eating and how I was looking after myself," he told ABC Illawarra Breakfast. "I'd have a bunch of 20-point games but then I'd have a bunch of five-point games. After the attack, doctors told Froling he had a slim chance of returning to work of any kind, let alone professional basketball. Over the last two years he has not only had to physically rehabilitate himself, but also dig himself out of a deep depression. Part of Froling's recovery has involved changing his attitude towards life. "I'm a basketball player, but it's not who I am," he said. "I used to heavily rely on basketball as my identity, whereas I think now it's more like I don't take basketball for granted. Froling, who is 210 centimetres tall, will play a crucial role in bolstering the Hawks' front court this season. His brother Sam has an Achilles injury and Lachlan Olbrich has gone to the NBA. Froling's return to the court has been measured, quiet and humble. He first trained with the Hawks towards the end of last season to try to lose weight and regain confidence. He then played in the New Zealand NBL and the Australian NBL1 competitions, which saw his vast skill set on display again. "Teams just wanted to see me string together a few months of it and I think I was pretty consistent and was putting up good numbers and getting good feedback from people," Froling said. "It's easy to say you're going to do something, but this is how I act and how I behave now. "I'm not going to tell everyone what I'm going do and what I plan on doing. "I'm just going to go and do it and whatever comes with it comes with it." Froling says playing for the Hawks allows him to not only compete and train alongside his brother Sam, but also offers an opportunity to give back to the team that welcomed him last season. He said several of Hawks staff and players had contacted him during his rehabilitation to offer support. "Obviously what happened with Sam's injury sucks, but now I can step in and help the club that's done so much for me," Froling said. "It was a cool feeling when I got told [they wanted me] and I pretty much signed as soon as they told me it was all official and the contract was through.
