Australia news live: storm warnings for NSW; paraglider dies after crashing into Victorian paddock | Australia news

Prize money at next month’s Australian Open has been significantly boosted with the world’s best players sharing a record pool of $86.5 million, with the singles winners receiving more than $3 million each.

Tournament organisers announced on Friday prize money at Melbourne Park had been increased by 13 per cent – $10 million – for 2024.

The biggest boost goes to players who bow out in qualifying and in the early rounds of singles and doubles.

Players will collect collect $31,250 – up from $26,000 – just to make the first round of qualifiers while first-round losers in the main draw will net 13 per cent more than this year, earning $120,000.

Semi-finalists will net $990,000, losing finalists $1.725m and the singles champions will receive $3.15m each – an increase of $175,000.

Prize money has more than doubled from the $40 million back in 2015.

Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley said:

We’ve upped prize money for every round at the Australian Open with the major increases in qualifying and the early rounds of singles and doubles.

We want to ensure Australia remains the launch-pad for the global tennis season and the players and their teams have everything they need to help them perform at their best and continue to enjoy the Happy Slam.

– AAP

A teenage boy killed in a shark attack off the coast of South Australia has been remembered as a talented and dearly loved member of the surfing community.

The 15-year-old, identified by friends and a family member as Khai Cowley, was mauled by a suspected great white while surfing off the remote Ethel beach on the Yorke Peninsula west of Adelaide about 1.30pm on Thursday.

Emergency services rushed to the popular surfing spot in Innes national park but were unable to save the boy, who was from Maslin Beach in Adelaide’s south, police said.

Surfing SA paid tribute to the talented surfer on Thursday night:

We are devastated to learn that a young, talented and dearly loved member of our surfing community was the surfer involved in the attack at Ethel Beach, and are absolutely shattered to hear that the incident was fatal.

Our utmost deepest sympathies are with his family.

Read the full story from AAP here:

A paraglider has died after crashing into a paddock in Towong, Victoria police have confirmed.

Emergency services were called to the area on Murray Valley Highway about 2.40pm yesterday. Despite paramedics working on the man, he died at the scene. He is yet to be formally identified.

The death is not believed to be suspicious and police will prepare a report for the coroner.

Eastern NSW can expect storms that may become severe this afternoon, potentially bringing large hail and damaging winds, the Bureau of Meteorology says.

Severe storms are also likely tomorrow in the north-east of the state (with the BoM concerned that these will also bring destructive winds, giant hail and intense rain).

The health of refugees and asylum seekers held in Australia’s offshore detention centres in the Pacific has been found to be two to three times worse than for those detained on mainland Australia.

The conclusion was reached in a research paper published in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care.

Successive Australian governments since 2013 have held asylum seekers in Nauru and on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea, before it was shut down by court order in 2017.

Since 2013 quarterly health reports have been produced by detention health provider International Health and Medical Services for the government that include information about the number of medical appointments and the reasons for them.

University of Greenwich researchers Ryan Essex and Erika Kalocsányiová used reports from 2014 to 2017 to create a longitudinal data set to compare onshore and offshore detention, and how they changed with time.

They used metrics that measured psychological distress, the number of appointments and prescriptions each quarter, and found offshore detainees generally needed far more medical attention.

Offshore detainees were more likely to raise a health-related complaint, access health services and be prescribed medications, often at two to three times the rate of those onshore.

Essex said the results substantiated the anecdotal evidence that had come from detainees and in a number of inquiries that offshore detention was far more detrimental to the health of refugees than onshore detention.

– AAP

Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop is a multibillion-dollar vision for a ‘city of centres’ – but how long will it take?

Benita Kolovos

When Dan Andrews’ Victorian government released the business case for the Suburban Rail Loop in 2021, in the middle of yet another Covid-19 lockdown, much of the coverage focused on the cost – $34.5bn for the first stage alone.

But contained within the 400-page document was also a new vision for the city of Melbourne. It read:

SRL is much more than a transport project.

It will transform Melbourne into a ‘city of centres’ – supporting vibrant precincts outside the central business district that will provide more high quality jobs, greater housing options, and green and open space in attractive, well-connected neighbourhoods.

After the release of draft vision papers this month, it’s becoming clearer how the project will reshape the first six areas along the SRL East line: Cheltenham, Clayton, Monash, Glen Waverley, Burwood and Box Hill.

Here’s what we know so far:

Queensland’s power demand expect to spike again as heatwave rolls on

Peter Hannam

Queensland is set for another scorching day as the sunshine state more than lives up to its moniker, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

Actually, it’s not just Queensland but also much of northern Australia that is roasting in unusually hot weather. (And while some people will say, “this is just summer”, it’s worth noting that native species have their thermal limits, as we’ve seen in past heatwaves.)

The Christmas-new year period is typically one of relatively low electricity demand because most of industry is taking a break, and roof-top solar and solar farms are harvesting that sunshine.

So it was interesting to see Queensland had one of its heaviest days for power demand yesterday, with supplies nearing record levels, according to the Australian Energy Market Operator.

Given that today looks likely to be hotter than yesterday in the populated south-east of the state, it’s not surprising that Aemo is forecasting power demand to peak a bit higher.

Paul McArdle, an energy expert at Global-Roam, noted on his Watt Clarity website that the demand jump comes even as about 50,000 households remain offline because of the Christmas Day storms across parts of the state. (Media reports this morning put the number at about 35,000.)

As McArdle notes, we’re lucky the heatwave isn’t happening a bit later in the summer:

Imagine what would have happened to the demand levels had this same weather pattern hit us late in January or early February 2024 with industry and commercial industrial energy users back at work!?

He added that the state would “surely” break the all-time demand record of 10,119 megawatts if such heatwaves return then.

Drivers in Brisbane bore the brunt of record petrol prices this year with the Queensland capital the nation’s most expensive city to put fuel in the tank.

Regular unleaded cost on average 193.4 cents a litre, an NRMA analysis of 2023 petrol prices across the nation revealed.

It was a different story for Perth, which had the lowest average for regular unleaded at 183.9 cents a litre, cementing the city’s place as cheapest or second cheapest capital since 2017.

Adelaide, which has one of the strongest concentrations of independent service stations in the country, recorded the second cheapest price for the year at 186 cents a litre.

Sydney’s average of 190.7 cents a litre made the harbour city the fourth cheapest capital, despite being the nation’s largest market.

Record petrol prices and a continuation of highly volatile movements in global oil prices in 2023 contributed significantly to the nation’s inflation crisis and rising interest rates.

In September petrol prices reached the highest on record in Australia.

– AAP

(More to come on this one … )