Key events
And finally, Albanese is asked about â of course â Taylor Swift, with the Sydney leg of her Eras Tour kicking off tonight.
Albanese will be in the crowd tonight, and attempted to prove he is a real Swiftie to radio listeners, name-dropping some of her albums and noting she is a âgreat lyricistâ â even comparing her to Joni Mitchell.
I think sheâs a great lyricist. Iâm old enough to be a fan of Joni Mitchell, and other great women writers, and I think [thereâs a] maturing of her work over a period of time that people will get to listen to tonight from 1989 through to now, like folklore and evermoreâ¦
Iâm really looking forward to it and I think that itâs a phenomenon that is very empowering. If you listen to the lyrics of Shake It Off theyâre about female empowerment, and I think itâs a very good message for young women.
Turning to Julian Assange, the prime minister said âenough is enoughâ and he should come back to Australia.
Anthony Albanese told ABC News Radio while people have differing views, Assange is an Australian citizen and there is nothing to be served from his further incarceration:
There is nothing to be served by the further incarceration of Julian Assange, and my view is that he should be allowed to come home to Australia to spend time with his family.
PM pushes âcommonsense approachâ on supermarkets
Q: Will the government rule out divesting the supermarket giants to drive competition?
Anthony Albanese said we need to have a âcommonsense approachâ, and suggested that any divestment direction would be âoverreachâ.
The idea that we have a command-and-control economy is not what we have in Australia, what we have is a market-based economy with appropriate regulation. And so the idea that you would determine action like that would, I believe, be overreach.
âI always want to see more competitionâ
Q: Would you like to see other international supermarket chains open in Australia to drive competition?
Anthony Albanese:
I always want to see more competition, and whatever sector youâre looking at, the more entrants the better the outcome when it comes to competition.
What you canât do of course ⦠we canât mandate foreign entrants to come here. What we can do though is look at the economic environment, the regulatory environment, and give encouragement for more competition.
Supermarkets âhave excessive market powerâ, PM says
Anthony Albanese is speaking to Tom Oriti on ABC News Radio.
They are discussing supermarket concentration, and the prime minister is asked whether the supermarkets are price gouging:
Well, quite clearly, they have excessive market power.
We have effectively a duopoly in large parts of Australia â some places [like IGA] or Aldi or other supermarkets will play a role â but overwhelmingly there is a concentration of power, which is why we have three inquiries â¦
When you have that disconnect between the prices being paid for by supermarkets, and then the price being paid by consumers, then somethingâs going wrong.
Yesterday Nationals leader David Littleproud accused the government of taking too long to act on this issue. Albanese is asked whether the Australian public is willing to wait for the outcomes of these three inquiries to see change on-the-ground.
Albanese said âinterim adviceâ would be provided before the final outcome:
David Littleproud was the minister for agriculture ⦠He needs to accept some responsibility for the fact that they sat back [while] this market power occurred largely over the decade in which they were in government, there was a further concentration there.
Peter Hannam
Snowy Hydro 2.0 project gets a blessing â at last
Snow Hydroâs giant Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro project in the Snowy Mountains has got a lot of bad publicity over the years, not least because the costs have blown out to $12bn (from an initial âback of the envelopeâ $2bn) and delays (first power in 2021 is now looking like the end of 2028).
Having one of the three tunnel boring machines, this one dubbed Florence, stuck for a year didnât help.
Having a priest make a blessing to Saint Barbara â the patron saint of tunnellers â last December obviously didnât hurt … and two days later, Florence was back boring again. Coincidence? You decide:
Snowy offered four journalists a day down in the tunnels this week. Safety was taken seriously, as you might imagine.
Still, we couldnât help catching these safety cartoons tacked to the back of toilet doors at the Tantangara reservoir. (Florence was drilling about 0.5km underground, not far away.)
Media got down to see Florence in action but to get there, we had to pile into a so-called multi-services vehicle that crawls along at a maximum speed of 5km/h.
Itâs going to be a long and tedious journey when/if the machine gets 15km or more into the tunnel.
And there will be a lot of that downtime when the main headrace tunnel gets to be 15km or longer⦠this multi-services vehicle has a top speed of 5km/hour. Imagine three hours each way in this: pic.twitter.com/HxNt2MylXx
— @[email protected] (@p_hannam) February 22, 2024
Might need more of those âcount the hazardâ cartoons to pass the time.
Natasha May
Cancer diagnoses increasing ârapidlyâ among Australian prisoners
Australian prisoners with cancer are increasing in number and struggling to get treatment, according to a new study published today in the Royal Australasian College of Physicians Internal Medicine Journal.
The largest ever study of cancer in Australian prisoners tracked 191 patients in Victoria over a 15-year period, evaluating their access to healthcare against the national guidelines for best management for common cancer types.
In the studyâs first period between 2002-2006, there were 31 cancer diagnoses with a median age of 45, whereas in the final time period between 2012-2016, there were 101 cancer diagnoses and a median age of 55.
Access to health care equivalent to that of the general population is a fundamental right of all prisoners, lead researcher Dr Genni Newnham says. However, the ageing prison population is experiencing worse health outcomes.
Our study showed that over time, cancer diagnoses in the prison population has increased rapidly. And wait times for prisoners to see a specialist were up to 30 weeks. Itâs a problem thatâs only getting worse.
Newnham said that missed appointments was a âhuge issueâ but that the lack of transport available played a role alongside personal choice.
There must be a concerted effort made by health and justice systems to improve the way cancer care is delivered to incarcerated patients.
North-west WA battens down as Lincoln approaches
Moving over to the west coast now, where communities in Western Australiaâs north-west are bracing for the arrival of a massive weather system that is expected to slam into the coast as a tropical cyclone, AAP reports.
Ex-Tropical Cyclone Lincoln is expected to gather strength and re-form as it tracks south-west along the Pilbara coast, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
The bureau predicts it will cross the coast as a category-two system near Coral Bay on Saturday. Meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said:
As it makes landfall thatâs when we will see the most intense impacts. Destructive wind gusts up to 140km/h are possible and very heavy rainfall that could lead to flash flooding.
Bradbury said wind gusts up to 100km/h that were strong enough to bring down trees and power lines were possible today.
A cyclone blue alert has been issued for the area from Mardie south to Wooramel, with residents urged to prepare for severe weather, destructive winds and potential flooding.
Lincoln crossed the Northern Territory coast late last week as a category-one tropical cyclone from the Gulf of Carpentaria before moving inland across the Top End and into WA as a storm.
It dumped heavy rain across a wide area, triggering flood watches and warnings in north-west Queensland, the NT and northern WA, before moving offshore again on Wednesday.
Fire update
Victorian CFA chief officer Jason Heffernan spoke to Sunrise this morning to provide an update on the fire situation. Here were the key takeaways:
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The bushfire west of Ballarat didnât abate as much as firefighters were hoping overnight. It is progressing to the north, and a renewed emergency alert to leave immediately has been issued for Elmhurst.
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Milder conditions are expected today but wind will be challenging: up to 30 and 45km/h.
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About 5,000 test message alerts have been issued to affected communities to leave immediately.
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Relief centres have been established inArarat, Maryborough and Wendouree.
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âAll attention is on Elmhurstâ for the next couple of hours.
âPeople just have to be prepared to wait until the danger passesâ
Pyrenees mayor Robert Vance spoke to ABC News Breakfast just earlier from the relief centre in Wendouree, where residents from Beaufort, Raglan and surrounds have evacuated to.
He said those at the centre were waiting for more information as to when they would be allowed back:
The fire is still a very major, ongoing concern. People just have to be prepared to wait until the danger passes before they return.
Vance said people were doing âreasonably wellâ given the circumstances, but were anxious to find out what had happened to their homes and properties.
Cait Kelly
Child protection data
About 33% of all reports to NSWâs Child Protection Helpline express concerns about a child experiencing domestic and family violence, either alone or in conjunction with parental mental health and or substance use issues, research has revealed.
A new report released by ANROWS, in partnership with researchers from the University of Sydney, shows more than 40% of the 127,884 children reported to the Child Protection Helpline and experiencing domestic and family violence had a parent (primarily their mother) previously identified in police reports as a domestic and family violence victim.
But only 26% of children identified with parental mental health concerns in their safety reports had a parent with a record of accessing mental health services before the initial report.
Tessa Boyd-Caine, the chief executive at ANROWS, said:
Families can experience intense pressure where this complex constellation of mental illness, drug and alcohol issues and family and domestic violence exists. We need to make sure families are getting the help they need when they need it in a way that is supportive and fit for purpose.
These findings show us where it is possible to intervene early and ensure the level of service provision is proportionate to need.
Cait Kelly
Homelessness funding push
Leading homelessness advocates and unions have united in a joint push for state and federal housing ministers to plug a $73m funding black hole they say threatens to worsen the homelessness crisis by jeopardising the future of 700 critical support jobs.
Each day homelessness services are forced to turn away 295 people due to a lack of resources. New analysis of the latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data reveals the number of children sleeping rough, even after seeking homelessness assistance, has surged 20%.
An additional $450m is needed to meet demand for homelessness support, the letter, signed by Homelessness Australia, the Australian Services Union, Community Housing Industry Association, and Acoss says.
A $73m funding black hole exists because funding previously provided to meet the costs of the equal remuneration order expires in June 2024.
Kate Colvin, the chief executive of Homelessness Australia, said:
The reality on the ground is heartbreaking. Every day, families and children are left without a roof over their heads, sleeping in cars or worse. This is not just a funding issue. Itâs a human crisis that demands compassion and commitment.
Workers in this sector are confronted by extremely difficult choices already, like picking between a mother and child fleeing violence or a teenager without a home. The last thing they need is uncertainty about their job or that of their colleague.
Fire threat to increase as hours pass
Chris Hardman, the chief fire officer with Forest Fire Management Victoria, just provided a fire update on Sky News.
He said the fire behaviour had abated overnight but the threat would increase around midday:
When we get to around midday today, weâll see those fire dangers start to increase again and the winds pick up a little bit, and that fire will continue to move through through that grassland ⦠Weâve got fantastic firefighter resources that are in position and making sure that they can do everything to protect community.
Hardman also said there appeared to be home losses but more information would not be available until impact assessment teams could make their way through:
It is likely that there will be some losses but we do not have any impact assessments at the moment. We have impact assessment teams in place and we will assess losses over the day.
Evacuation urged as bushfire rages
A renewed leave immediately warning has been issued for communities west of Ballarat amid a disastrous bushfire, with thousands already evacuated and homes feared lost.
The emergency warning encompasses Amphitheatre, Elmhurst, Eversley, Glenlofty, Glenlogie, Glenpatrick, Glenshee, Green Hill Creek, Landsborough, Mount Cole, Mount Lonarch, Nowhere Creek, Percydale and Warrenmang.
The bushfire is between Mount Cole and Raglan, and a wind change is leading it towards Avoca. The warning says:
Leaving immediately is the safest option, before conditions become too dangerous.
Targeted search launched into disappearance of Samantha Murphy
A targeted search for Ballarat East woman Samantha Murphy will begin today, led by detectives from the missing persons squad, after her suspicious disappearance.
Victorian police said the extensive search would involve a significant number of detectives from across crime command and other specialist commands, as well as local police.
They will focus on an area highlighted by intelligence derived from phone data.
Extensive searches have been conducted throughout the Canadian forest area since Murphyâs disappearance almost three weeks ago, but no trace of her has been found.
The 51-year-old was last seen leaving her property on Eureka Street to go for a run, about 7am on 4 February.
Samantha was known to regularly run through the Canadian forest area. Police are treating her disappearance as suspicious due to the length of time she has been missing and given that no trace of her has been found.
Investigators are in the process of reviewing about 12,000 hours of CCTV footage and following up more than 500 separate pieces of information.
