National wants the Auditor-General, Parliament’s independent spending watchdog, to run a ruler over the $1.9 billion for mental health allocated in the 2019 budget. The Auditor-General normally looks into whether laws might have…
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Police detect driver allegedly speeding at 251km/h
Police say they are 'lost for words' after detecting a driver allegedly travelling at 251km/h in Melbourne's northwest on Easter Sunday.
Officers say they detected the white Volkswagen sedan allegedly travelling at more than 140km/h over the 110km/h speed limit on the Calder Freeway near Woodend at 12.30am.
The vehicle was intercepted in Kyneton a short time later, where the driver, a 42-year-old Hallam woman, was also seen to be on her phone.
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The woman's car was impounded following the incident.
The 42-year-old is expected to be charged on summons with numerous offences including conduct endangering life, drive at dangerous speed and using a mobile phone while driving.
The detection is part Operation Compass, the state-wide road policing operation during the high-risk Easter holiday period.
Police are targeting impaired driving, speed, distraction and fatigue in high-risk areas throughout metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria.
Operation Compass concludes at 11.59pm on April 25.
Man dead, several injured in highway crash
A man has died and a woman remains critically injured after a motorbike and car collided on a Queensland highway this morning.
The two vehicles crashed on the Bruce Highway, near the McNeil Road intersection in Koumala, central Queensland around 10.25 am.
The 60-year-old driver of the motorbike died at the scene while his passenger, a 19-year-old woman, was airlifted to Townsville Base Hospital.
The woman is battling severe head injuries.
READ MORE: Child found dead in bedroom after fire engulfs home in Brisbane's north
"Paramedics, including critical care and a rescue helicopter are responding to a serious vehicle and motorcycle crash," a spokesperson for Queensland Ambulance Service said today.
"Seven people were assessed."
Queensland Ambulance Service confirmed the driver and four passengers of the car involved were also treated.
They were taken to Mackay Base Hospital in a stable condition.
The driver of the vehicle, a 63-year-old woman sustained moderate injuries while the four passengers, including two children, a woman and a man were unharmed.
Northbound lanes of traffic closed since the incident have since reopened following heavy delays this morning.
Police are appealing to members of the public who witnessed the incident or who may have dashcam footage to assist police with investigations.
Child dead after home catches fire
A Queensland community has described the harrowing moment a fire engulfed a Brisbane home, forcing a family of residents to escape whilst their six-year-old son remained inside.
Mother Karen Chirila, her husband and youngest son, Lincoln, were forced to leave the blaze of their Clayfield home around 4 am this morning, as a wall of fire prevented Ms Chirila from reaching her other son.
Fire fighters found six-year-old Max, just weeks from his seventh birthday, dead inside his destroyed bedroom at the back of the house.
The boy's family told 9News they felt like their entire world had collapsed within a few seconds.
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The community has been left devastated, with one local describing the harrowing moment she saw his mother realise her son could not be saved from the blaze.
"The realisation she couldn't go back into the home to save him is something I will never ever forget," Jenn Davidson told 9News.
"Devastating – an awful thing to witness.
"We as a community are just in shock. It's a heart breaking experience for all involved."
She described the six-year-old as a "lovely boy".
"Beyond words," she added.
Superintendent Paul Durston from Queensland Fire and Emergency Services said the fire is believed to have started at the back of the house, near the boy's bedroom.
By the time firefighters arrived the whole house was ablaze.
"The crews were met by a lot of smoke and a lot of heat, it was very difficult to make entry through the front door but they eventually made entry through there," he said.
Heat from the fire caused the windows to break, causing explosions to ring out.
Superintendent Durston said as older style Queenslanders get quite cold, residents will close their windows which can increase the risk of a fire quickly developing.
"It gets very hot internally and then the windows fail … the fire starts to rage quite quickly," Superintendent Durston said.
Upon entry, fire fighters struggled to get through the property, eventually locating the body of the young boy in his bedroom.
"Firies absolute priority was not to even consider their own lives that stage and just do their very best to make entry into the back bedroom. but the fire was so intense it was impossible at that point," Mark Halverson from QFES said.
The cause of the fire is unknown. An investigation has been launched.
Due to the extensive damage to the building it is unclear whether the home had working smoke alarms.
"We have no reason to believe there weren't," Mr Halverson said.
"Interconnected smoke alarms that will sound in the bedrooms even if the fire has started elsewhere provide that early warning so they are a vital safety feature for all occupants of dwellings."
Mr Durston said while emergency crews are glad they saved the lives of the three residents, they are devastated by the loss of the child.
"Very difficult for crews when they can't save all of the lives inside because of the heat and the fire so the crews are quite distraught," he said.
"They're not good scenes but the crews did the best they could when they arrived and we had 26 firefighters here that worked tirelessly to try and get this situation under control as quickly as they could."
First cruise ship returns to Sydney after more than two years
The first cruise ship for more than two years has arrived into Sydney Harbour.
P&O Australia's Pacific Explorer was given a special welcome after returning to Australia from Limassol in Cyprus, via Singapore.
Two tugs with water cannons performed a special "ballet" to welcome the ship, which was empty except for crew.
It can carry 1998 passengers and 924 crew.
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However it won't leave on its first cruise with passengers until May 31, to make the first call at the new Brisbane International Cruise Terminal on June 2.
The return of cruise ships will bring a much-needed cash injection back into the $5 billion industry that supports 18,000 Aussie jobs.
Plus they will allow cruise addicts to indulge in the holidays they love. A total of 1.35 million Australians took a cruise in 2018.
More ships will gradually return to Australia in the coming months, though some firms have cancelled cruises months ahead because the resumption was uncertain.
Pacific Explorer was set to enter Sydney Heads at 9.30am, pass the Opera House at 10.20am and dock alongside the Overseas Passenger Terminal at 10.30am.
Cruise fans were invited to welcome it by gathering around the harbour.
As reported by 9News, cruise firms are busy rehiring staff, while suppliers are also gearing up for their return after a bleak two years.
Almost 30 passengers on the Ruby Princess ship died after the coronavirus spread on board at the start of the pandemic, with NSW Health blamed after it then tore through the country when passengers disembarked.
Since then, cruise ships have not been allowed to dock anywhere in Australia.
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Cruise Lines International Association managing director of Australasia Joel Katz said extensive new health rules would allow a phased revival.
"The end of the cruise suspension is huge landmark and will be celebrated by many thousands of Australians whose livelihoods depend on cruising," he said.
Victoria was the first state to outline its rules for cruises.
Cruise ship passengers aged over 12 must be at least double-vaccinated and all crew members triple-vaccinated under new protocols.
Unvaccinated children under 12 or anyone with a valid medical exemption can travel but they must not make up more than five per cent of the ship's passengers.
Passengers will also need to test negative for COVID-19 before embarking and if boarding with symptoms, must return another negative PCR test that day.
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'Time warp' Mosman house sells for $5 million at auction
An original four-bedroom home in Sydney's Mosman that has been largely unchanged since the early 1970s has sold for around $5 million at auction.
The property at 9 Sirius Avenue was originally owned by Kathleen Laurence, who died in 1972 and left the home to Sydney University.
There was, however, a condition: the university could take ownership of the home so long as her sister Angela Laurence was allowed to live there for the rest of her life.
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Ms Laurence died last year, leading to the property going to the market last week.
Selling agent Cameron Scott from McGrath Lower North Shore told 9News.com.au there was a huge amount of interest in the home, particularly online where it amassed more than 150 enquiries.
At auction between competition from multiple bidders the home ended up selling in the vicinity of $5 million.
READ MORE: Aussie property price crash 'unlikely' even though interest rates set to lift
A video shot by local news outlet Mosman Collective shows the home bearing all the hallmarks of an original 1970s property.
From tasseled light shades to period-correct newspapers, the home even features a vintage "Early Kooka" gas stove.
The adjacent block of land at 11 Sirius Avenue is also up for sale, where it is expected to fetch as much as $2.7 million.
Massive shark washes up on Florida beach
A three metre hammerhead shark washed up on a beach in the US, much to beachgoers' surprise.
Visitors at Pompano Beach, north of Fort Lauderdale in Florida, encountered the shark's corpse on April 6, according to CNN affiliate WPLG.
A team of scientists from the American Shark Conservancy took samples and identified the shark as a female great hammerhead, after moving the body away from onlookers.
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Hannah Medd, a conservation scientist and the founder of the American Shark Conservancy, told CNN that she and her team took the shark's measurements as well as fin clippings to test its DNA and muscle tissue for biopsies.
The female was pregnant and weighed around 225 kilograms, she said.
The Conservancy, which has a license to take samples from protected species like the hammerhead shark, was alerted to the animal by the Broward County Sea Turtle Conservation Program, which surveys for turtle nests on beaches.
A member of the team had encountered the body with a hook in its mouth.
The "specific type of hook usually indicates someone was fishing for a large animal like a hammerhead," Ms Medd said.
"This species, in particular, is quite susceptible to stress," she said.
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Ms Medd explained that a small community of recreational fishermen target sharks for catch-and-release, which is legal in Florida, although the sharks cannot be harvested.
But the stress of catch-and-release, combined with wounds from fishing hooks, can sometimes lead to death.
"This is a pretty rare event," Ms Medd said.
"We get a call for maybe one to four a year [hammerheads] that have washed back up."
She said that her team has advocated for best catch-and-release practices, like using stronger fishing gear, which reduces the "fight time" during which the sharks are struggling with fishermen. Less fight time means less chance of injury or mortality.
"These sharks are really good at fighting," she said. "That's why the anglers like to catch them — it's exciting."
She added that "because they're prohibited, we typically can't get samples, so in this case it was an unfortunate but good chance for us to learn more about a pretty important species."
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After the biologists took their samples, a nearby construction crew dug a hole and buried the shark on the beach, said Ms Medd.
Some beachgoers had emotional reactions to the dramatic sight of the shark washed up on the shore. Ms Medd said she saw some witnesses crying.
"You never want to see an animal this big laying on the beach," said Pompano Beach resident Kevin Nosal, according to WPLG.
"This is 11 feet long and over 500 pounds. It's a female, so it's always sad when a female passes."
Great hammerhead sharks are common in the coastal waters around Florida, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. They can reach as long as 5.5 metres and live for more than 20 years. The fish are sometimes targeted by commercial longline fishermen for their fins, says the commission.
As a predator, hammerhead sharks wield important influence on the ocean ecosystems, according to Ms Medd. "They're just a very important piece of that food web that keeps our oceans healthy."
"Even people enjoying a day at the beach like to see healthy oceans and coastlines," she said. "Sharks are actually a part of that."
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Queensland records four COVID-19 deaths and 5141 new cases
New South Wales, Western Australia and Queensland have recorded rises in COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours.
Queensland recorded another 5141 new cases of coronavirus overnight, taking the state's total of active cases to 46,287.
Hospitalisations dropped to 551 while intensive care admissions remain steady at 19.
The state reported four COVID-19 related deaths.
READ MORE: Body of 24-year-old man found at Gladstone house
https://twitter.com/qldhealth/status/1515857649559957505?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Meanwhile, in Western Australia, the state recorded 5605 new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours.
No new deaths were recorded.
There are 227 people in hospital with the virus, six of those are in intensive care.
https://twitter.com/MarkMcGowanMP/status/1515866839263641603?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
However, New South Wales recorded 11,166 new coronavirus cases overnight, while four more lives have been lost to the virus in the state.
There are now 1576 people being treated in hospital for COVID-19, which is up slightly on yesterday's figures.
There are 67 coronavirus patients currently in intensive care.
https://twitter.com/NSWHealth/status/1515827543441821696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Today's new COVID-19 case numbers are an increase on yesterday, when 9,725 were reported.
Meanwhile, Victoria has recorded 7918 new COVID-19 cases and one new death.
https://twitter.com/VicGovDH/status/1515829589490102274?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
There are 431 people being treated for COVID-19 in Victorian hospitals, 30 in ICU and 10 on ventilators.