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Today’s headlines
By Angus Thomson
This is where we’ll leave our live coverage of an eventful day’s news. Thanks for following along.
Here’s what you need to know tonight:
- The Victorian government’s decision to pull out of hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games blindsided administrators, left athletes devastated and cast doubt on the future of the event itself. The premiers of WA, South Australia and NSW all said their states would not step up and fill the vacancy, while Olympics powerbroker John Coates told this masthead the regional Games were destined to fail without federal government assistance.
- The Australian Electoral Commission published the written Yes and No cases, which will be included in the official referendum pamphlet sent to households before the vote. Indigenous sporting legends Evonne Goolagong Cawley, Johnathan Thurston and Eddie Betts endorsed the Yes case, while the No case, steered by Coalition MPs and led by Indigenous frontbencher Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, will argue the proposal is “risky, unknown and permanent” and will fuel activists’ calls to abolish Australia Day and change the flag.
- The Bureau of Meteorology held off declaring an El Nino, despite international agencies already declaring the weather event is underway. That didn’t stop the Reserve Bank of Australia warning the dry conditions brought about during an El Nino could push up food prices next financial year.
- And space experts and amateur internet sleuths continue to weigh in on the origins of ‘rocket junk’ that washed up on a WA beach over the weekend. With local attention now turning to what to do next with the mysterious object, Premier Roger Cook flagged that the debris could become part of a local display.
And staying in WA, Ange Postecoglou kicks off his history-making tenure as the first Australian manager of an English Premier League team tonight as his Tottenham Hotspur outfit take on London rivals West Ham at Perth’s Optus Stadium. Putting my Spurs bias aside, it should keep football fans entertained ahead of a month of Women’s World Cup action.
Follow the action on this masthead’s live match blog here.
Goodnight from our rolling coverage of major news from across Australia. This blog will be back up and running from about 7am tomorrow.
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Ex-tennis pro Sam Groth calls for Games costings to be revealed
By Lachlan Abbott
Sam Groth, a former Australian tennis professional and now the Victorian Coalition’s shadow minister for sport, has called for Daniel Andrews’ government to release specific costings for the now-cancelled 2026 Commonwealth Games.
Groth, speaking to ABC radio in Melbourne, said he wanted to see if the state government adequately considered different models for hosting the event – such as hosting part of it in existing Melbourne facilities rather than across regional Victoria.
MP Sam Groth arrives at the Victorian Parliament in May.Credit: Eddie Jim
ABC host Rafael Epstein pointed out Victoria’s Commonwealth Games Minister Jacinta Allan had said the government considered alternative formats, but ultimately found they were all too costly.
Here’s how Groth responded:
Well, I would love to see the figures and how the government has come to this. When we look at what previous Commonwealth Games have cost ... and when you think that the government budgeted $2.6 billion, they’re still going to spend $2 billion on the infrastructure and the legacy, or so they say, I mean, was it really going to cost $4 billion or $5 billion to deliver a 12-day event? I mean, that is a huge cost.
Groth was then asked whether he thought the numbers weren’t real, to which he said:
I think I’d like to see them... when there has already been a quarter of a billion dollars sunk into this in the previous two budgets. And you know, we’ve got news sources this evening reporting that the cost to get out of this contract could be as high as $1 billion. I think we deserve to see where their numbers are and why they’ve arrived at that figure.
Legendary Australian broadcaster Bruce McAvaney blasts Commonwealth Games call
By Lachlan Abbott
Legendary Australian broadcaster Bruce McAvaney says Victoria’s decision to pull out of hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2026 is an embarrassment.
McAvaney, a long-time Olympic Games commentator known for his encyclopedic knowledge and passion for an array of sports, told Melbourne radio station 3AW earlier today that the announcement had shocked him.
Bruce McAvaney.Credit: Getty Images
Here’s his exchange with host Neil Mitchell, edited for length and clarity.
McAvaney: “It’s a big shock, Neil. I didn’t see it coming. I mean, I don’t live in Melbourne … so it’s sort of out of my focus. But I was just looking forward to it, I guess, like any sports fan and hoping maybe that I get a chance to work on it.”
Mitchell: “Will it be embarrassing internationally do you think, Bruce?”
McAvaney: “For sure. Because it’s so close. I mean, this is not the first time [for] the Commonwealth Games because the last Commonwealth Games was supposed to be in South Africa in Durban. And about two or three years out, they also pulled the plug and Birmingham came to the party and saved the Games. And it was a very successful one, I would say. It was lucky. It was fantastic.
“But, this is two in a row, so to speak. It’s almost the centenary of the Commonwealth Games. 2030 will be the centenary. This is a huge challenge now for its future.
“And from Australia’s point of view, and from Victoria’s point of view, yeah, for it to be so late – I mean, it’s only 2023, but we’ve known about it for a fair while – it is an embarrassment.”
‘Rocket junk’ washed up on WA beach makes international headlines
By Heather McNeill and Cameron Myles
Three days on, and the mystery object that washed up on a remote West Australian beach over the weekend continues to gain international attention as more experts join the chorus of people believing it is a piece of a rocket.
Locals found the two-metre metal cylinder on Saturday, with local authorities cordoning the area off shortly afterwards and calling the military in to help identify it.
The Australian Space Agency also said the debris appeared to be from a foreign space launch vehicle.
Australian National University astrophysicist Dr Doris Grosse and Flinders University space archaeologist Dr Alice Gorman believe it was likely a fuel cylinder from the third stage of a launch by India’s space agency.
However, Reddit sleuths were quick to pinpoint the cylinder’s likely origin to a specific model of Indian rocket regularly used to launch satellites.
The local discussion has moved to what to do with the mystery object. WA Premier Roger Cook suggested today that the debris could become part of a local display.
Read more from Heather McNeill and Cameron Myles here.
Traditional owners win legal battle to stop nuclear waste dump
The federal government will review plans to build a nuclear waste dump on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula after the traditional owners won a legal challenge in the Federal Court, leaving the future of the project in doubt.
Federal Court Justice Natalie Charlesworth only upheld one of the four reasons for judicial review, but that was enough to set aside the decision and represent a win for the Barngarla.
“It was important to stop this dump because the Seven Sisters Dreaming goes through there,” Barngarla elder Aunty Dawn Taylor said.
The proposal to build a toxic nuclear waste dump on a farm in regional South Australia has been contentious. Credit: AP
The Coalition government decided to build the dump at Napandee in November 2021, when it announced it had acquired 211 hectares of land with the proposed facility subject to heritage, design and technical studies.
The majority of nuclear waste produced in Australia is associated with the production of nuclear medicine.
Justice Charlesworth said she would not make any decisions on the judicial review until both sides had the opportunity to read her judgment.
She said the only appropriate order was to set aside the whole of the declaration regarding the proposed facility by former resources minister Keith Pitt.
Resources Minister Madeleine King said she would review the judgment, stating Labor had worked with the Barngarla people in the last term of parliament to ensure they secured the right to seek judicial review.
AAP.
Markets wrap: ASX gains as miners, energy companies rally
By Millie Muroi
The Australian sharemarket extended the previous session’s gains on Wednesday as energy and mining companies bolstered the local bourse, following a positive lead from Wall Street.
The S&P/ASX 200 was up 26.8 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 7135.7 at the close, with most of the sectors trading in the green.
The ASX was up at the close today.Credit: Wayne Taylor
Energy companies (up 2.2 per cent) were among the strongest on the local bourse as Woodside (up 2.8 per cent) and Santos (up 1.6 per cent) lifted on the back of a lift in oil prices.
Sage Capital managing director Sean Fenton said resources were stronger after strong data out of China yesterday, and oil stocks were buoyed by oil production cuts by Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Healthcare (down 0.4 per cent) was the weakest sector on the index, with Cochlear (down 1 per cent) and EBOS Group (down 0.9 per cent) among the biggest large-cap decliners.
Read the full wrap from Millie Muroi here.
Games blowout not an exaggeration, deputy premier says
By Angus Thomson
Victoria’s Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan has denied the government’s claims of a cost blowout are overplayed, despite the boss of Commonwealth Games Australia boss Craig Phillips labelling them a “gross exaggeration”.
Phillips told a press conference this morning the $6 billion blowout estimate announced by Premier Daniel Andrews this morning was not reflective of the operational costs presented to the organising board of the Games in June.
Victorian Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan, Minister for Regional Development Harriet Shing and Premier Daniel Andrews this morning. Credit: James Ross
Allan told the ABC’s Raf Epstein a short time ago that the $6 billion figure was the total cost of the Games.
“What we’re responsible for as the government as a whole is the total cost of running the Games,” she said. “Their [the organising committee’s] focus is ... the sporting side of the program, our focus has to be for the whole of the state.
“We weren’t going to run the game at any cost.”
Legal expert outraged by his ‘out of context’ inclusion in Voice No pamphlet
By Lisa Visentin
Returning to the release today of the written Yes and No cases ahead of the Voice referendum, and Constitutional lawyer Greg Craven has accused the No campaign of misleading voters after it quoted him criticising the proposed Voice model as “fatally flawed” in its official written case, saying his request to Peter Dutton’s office not to be included was ignored.
Constitutional lawyer Greg Craven, an ardent Voice supporter, says he is outraged by the No camp’s decision to quote his early criticisms of the proposed constitutional change in its pamphlet.
Craven, a longtime ardent supporter of a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous Voice, said he was outraged and would lodge a complaint with the Australian Electoral Commission about the No case, which he accused of taking his criticisms of the proposed model “totally out of context” in a bid to confuse voters.
“I’m really very annoyed about this,” Craven said on Tuesday after the AEC published the written Yes and No cases on its website.
“The object is to muddy the waters so that people are too scared to vote Yes. When you look at these documents, you can see that is exactly what is happening.”
Read the full story from Lisa Visentin here.
Other countries have declared an El Nino, so why hasn’t Australia?
By Laura Chung
The Bureau of Meteorology has left the El Nino level at an alert in its latest update, despite international agencies already declaring the weather event is underway.
It’s one of the most important drivers of unusual weather over the entire globe.
For most of Australia, El Nino brings dry weather and therefore greater bushfire risk. But in other parts of the world, such as southern parts of the United States, an El Nino event leads to wetter conditions.
The Bureau has different criteria from other international weather agencies.
For most of Australia, El Nino brings dry weather and therefore greater bushfire risk.Credit: Sean Blocksidge
Three of the Bureau’s four El Nino conditions have been met, including warmer ocean waters accumulating near South America, international modelling, and a certain level of air pressure difference between Tahiti and Darwin over three months.
The last criterion is the weakening of equatorial trade winds, which is yet to happen.
Games would have inspired generations to come, says athletics boss
By Michael Gleeson
Athletics Australia has joined the chorus of disappointment and regret at the Victorian Government’s decision to belatedly pull the rug on the regional games.
“It is with great disappointment that we hear the news only today of the Victorian Government’s decision to withdraw from hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games,” chief executive Peter Bromley said. “The Victorian Government’s decentralised regional delivery model was ambitious, but we were encouraged by the impact this could have on the wider Australian community.”
Australia Steven Solomon (second from right) competes in the 400-metre sprint event at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham last year. Credit: AP
He stressed Commonwealth Games had long been a pathway for athletes to achieving on the world stage and this was now denied them.
Bromley said the withdrawal was a missed opportunity to elevate athletics in the country and “inspire generations to come”.
“While we are hearing this news as it unfolds, we acknowledge that there is now a significant amount of work to be done,” he said. “Athletics Australia stands ready to collaborate closely with Commonwealth Games Australia, the State and Federal Government to navigate the challenges now presented by the cancellation of the Victorian Games.”
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2023-07-18 09:55:03Z
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