A Tamworth monument to a British explorer was defaced on Friday.
From Tom Plevey in Tamworth.
Oxley’s Anchor, which marks British explorer John Oxley’s route through the region in 1818, was sprayed with red paint and the word ‘Invasion’ was painted down both sides of the shank. The person responsible has not been identified.
Gomeroi man Marc Sutherland, Tamworth Regional Council’s first Indigenous councilor, said it appeared to have been done as an expression of discontent at Australia Day:
For me, I think it’s a clear sign of frustration, within the community, who’ve been strongly advocating that the 26th is not an appropriate day to hold a national celebration.
I think that the monument acknowledges Oxley ‘discovering’ this region in NSW – that’s not true, because Gomeroi people have been living in this region for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Oxley.
I take it as a public action, a public protest trying to air that opinion.
Tamworth is currently holding the Country Music Festival, with large numbers of tourists in the regional city.
Key events
A group of men wearing balaclavas have been stopped in a Sydney train station.
A witness who was on the train and spoke to Guardian Australia said the train was diverted to North Sydney, and people onboard were told it was going to be terminated due to a police operation.
“The police were waiting for the train at North Sydney. The police were obviously were there waiting for them, and for at least two hours talking to them.”
After two hours, the man was returning home and saw police were still with the men on the train.
“When I came back home about two hours [later], I noticed the train still sitting there with those passengers still on the train. .. You could see them on the platform interviewing them.”
The group of about 40 hooded men were seen at Artarmon station just before midday on Friday.
After boarding a train, the group was stopped at North Sydney station by more than 20 police officers.
Passengers not involved with the group have been evacuated, a spokeswoman for Transport for NSW said.
As of 4pm a NSW Police operation was still underway.
“The men are being taken off the train, but slowly,” a NSW Police spokeswoman told AAP.
The train is due to begin moving shortly, a Transport for NSW spokeswoman added.
– With AAP
Andrew Messenger
QUT academic Amy McGuire, who spoke at the Invasion Day protest in Brisbane/Meanjin, said protesters marched up to the Gabba.
“A lot of the protesters went straight to the barricades, which were pulled down,” she told Guardian Australia.
“We’re obviously all in on the fact that … always was, always will be, Aboriginal land. This is Invasion Day. Free Palestine, Free Gaza, and just making it known what the reason for this day is, that this isn’t the day to celebrate.”
McGuire said, “it’s unbelievable that on a day that signifies invasion, that you could have something like an Australia Day Test”.
“So it’s very much confronting the forced amnesia that this day represents where they want us to be quiet about what is currently happening in this country, and they want to keep celebrating on our graves effectively. So it’s about disruption.”
Lisa Cox
The southerly that moved through Sydney early this afternoon saw temperatures at Sydney airport drop 11C in the space of five minutes.
Observations at the airport at 1.55pm recorded a temperature of 40.1C. At 2pm that had fallen to 29.7C.
The southerly will reach areas including the Hunter and Central Coast in coming hours.
The Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Gabrielle Woodhouse said:
We’re seeing that change push through, which is going to bring some welcome relief.
That change is expected to bring showers and potential storms to the northern ranges and slopes and north coast on Saturday and Sunday with a risk of severe storms throughout the weekend.
Temperatures in much of the state are forecast to be slightly cooler than they have been for a few days before creeping up again during the week.
Lisa Cox
Southerly change brings relief to Sydney after temperatures reach high 30s
Temperatures in most parts of Sydney reached the high 30s today before the arrival of a southerly change that will bring relief from the heat over the next few days.
The highest temperature was 40.6C recorded at Sydney airport just before 2pm. In western Sydney, temperatures climbed to 39.8C at Bankstown, 39.5C in Canterbury, 39.9C in Camden and 39.3 at Sydney Olympic Park.
Elsewhere in the state, temperatures reached the high 30s on the Central Coast, 42.2C at Williamtown in the Hunter and 40.4C in Scone.
Temperatures in northern inland NSW won’t peak until later this afternoon but have reached 42C in Bourke, 43.2 in Brewon and 43.9 at Girilambone.
Teenage girl dies after boat collision
A teenage girl has died in hospital after being pulled from the water following a boating accident in southern Sydney, AAP has reported.
The 16-year-old was taken to hospital after two boats collided at Grays Point in a horror start to the Australia Day long weekend.
Emergency services were called to the Grays Point boat ramp shortly after 10.15am on Friday when they found two tinnies had collided, NSW police said in a statement.
Paramedics treated the girl at the scene before she was taken to St George hospital in a critical condition, where she later died.
Two teenage boys, both 16, were also taken to St George hospital for mandatory testing.
Police marine area command is investigating the incident.
A Tamworth monument to a British explorer was defaced on Friday.
From Tom Plevey in Tamworth.
Oxley’s Anchor, which marks British explorer John Oxley’s route through the region in 1818, was sprayed with red paint and the word ‘Invasion’ was painted down both sides of the shank. The person responsible has not been identified.
Gomeroi man Marc Sutherland, Tamworth Regional Council’s first Indigenous councilor, said it appeared to have been done as an expression of discontent at Australia Day:
For me, I think it’s a clear sign of frustration, within the community, who’ve been strongly advocating that the 26th is not an appropriate day to hold a national celebration.
I think that the monument acknowledges Oxley ‘discovering’ this region in NSW – that’s not true, because Gomeroi people have been living in this region for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Oxley.
I take it as a public action, a public protest trying to air that opinion.
Tamworth is currently holding the Country Music Festival, with large numbers of tourists in the regional city.
Police operation at North Sydney station
A police operation is under way at North Sydney station.
The operation started at 11.30am, with no reports of injuries.
Buses are diverting away from the station by using the Pacific Highway instead, missing some stops.
NSW police say the situation is contained and there is no threat to public.
More to come.
Protest forces Gabba lockdown ahead of Australia-West Indies Test
The Gabba had been placed in lockdown ahead of day two of the Test between Australia and West Indies after protesters entered the Brisbane cricket venue, AAP has reported.
Groups carrying Palestinian and Aboriginal flags had gathered outside the stadium on Friday, with police making at least two arrests about 90 minutes before day two was scheduled to begin.
Queuing patrons were stopped from entering, with staff informing them the stadium had been placed in lockdown.
Extra police were stationed outside the Gabba, while the players arrived earlier than normal to avoid the possibility of disruptions.
Play was no longer affected.
Andrew Messenger
Rally hears criticism of Queensland for voting against the voice
The academic Chelsea Watego criticised Queensland for being the most adamantly against the voice to parliament referendum.
Some 68.2% of Queenslanders voted no.
“Prime minister Albanese said on October 14, the Australian people have spoken,” she said.
“You hear what they said? We don’t deserve shit. Not even an advisory body. We got to listen to that. And here in the state of Queensland, the voice in the violence was particularly loud. This place had the highest no vote in the country. But apparently it’s on track to a treaty.”
Most of the thousands of protesters set off on the traditional march route across the river to Musgrave Park, a gathering point since before white settlement.
But a smaller group of a few hundred protesters set off in the opposite direction, aiming to picket the Gabba.
Australia plays the West Indies in the Australia Day Test today.
Wayne Wharton exhorted the crowd to protest the “bullshit test” which he said was design to “insult our people on this day” and to “burn down the house”.
“We go there, we make the noise, we shut them down and we make them listen,” he said.
Andrew Messenger
Steamy hot Brisbane rally draws huge crowd
It was steamy hot at Brisbane’s rally. The crowd was so large, it spilled out of Queens Gardens, with thousands of protesters and signs reading everything from “not a date to celebrate” to “no justice no peace”.
The journalist and academic Amy McQuire spoke against what she called a policy of forced “amnesia”.
She said Queensland had among the country’s highest rates of imprisonment for young Indigenous people. Other speakers criticised the state Labor government for overriding the Queensland Human Rights Act to allow young people to be held in adult jails.
“They don’t want us to connect the dots to what is currently happening over in Palestine. This Invasion Day here is our Nakba,” she said.
“Seventy-five years ago, Palestinians, Indigenous peoples to that area, were forcibly displaced, murdered and massacred. And they want us to forget that.”
ACCC vows to ‘forensically’ examine supermarket prices
The consumer watchdog has vowed it will “forensically” examine possible price gouging at the checkout as part of an inquiry into the supermarket industry, AAP has reported.
Appearing on Sky News today, the ACCC deputy chair Mick Keogh said the industry had rapidly changed since the last inquiry into the sector in 2008:
The focus will be on the extent to which there’s competition between supermarkets and the margins that are gained on the way through the supply chains.
This will give us the opportunity to quite forensically look at those pieces of information and get to the bottom of what is going on there.
He also said the duopoly of Coles and Woolworths would be a significant focus.
NSW is set to be hit by a cool change, the BoM has said:
Hill is asked about some residents not receiving emergency messages:
Telstra, Optus and NBN have advised with a prolonged power outage we are losing communications in some of our mobile towers. They are trying to ensure they get fuel to the generators.
Some of the towers, the batteries are now starting to lose all their charge and the network is dropping out.
And I think, and I want to say this clearly, while we might have an advanced technology, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s resilient technology when we have these natural disasters.
I really think this is a learning that particularly at a state and federal level they need to look at. Getting communications to our community is vitally important if we are going to protect them.
Hill is asking the community to “be patient” while Ergon sorts out the power.
What Ergon has to do is it has to make safe the area so their staff can complete.
I am asking the community just to be patient on this.
We have critical infrastructure, particularly around our water services, we need Ergon to connect.
We have critical infrastructure for both public and private hospitals that Ergon need to ensure it is safe.
So they really need to be looked at first and, on top of that, Ergon is still continuing to try to ensure it puts on as many residential customers as possible.
More than 9,000 without power after cyclone, Townsville mayor says
The mayor of Townsville, Jenny Hill, is speaking now:
The real issue now is the power network. We know that and we’ve seen some of the footage of some stations that for some reason failed during the event. As well as we know that some services dropped out because of debris, transformer hit by debris.
Ergon is working very hard to connect more than 1,000 people in the Townsville area and 8,000 customers in the Burdekin. There are other areas that have had power outages but by and large it is the Townsville area.
Eden Gillespie
Townsville airport to reopen but thousands remain offline after cyclone
Townsville airport will reopen from about 3pm on Friday while local shops and cafes have also begun to open doors after Cyclone Kirrily.
SeaLink will operate two return services to and from Magnetic Island on Friday afternoon on a reduced timetable.
NBN Australia said 9,000 services remained offline across the country, the majority related to power outages in Townsville.
Temporary wifi and charging stations will be available all day for residents at the Ayr council chambers.
