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Remember when then-defence minister Christopher Pyne declared Australia should become one of the world’s top weapons exporters? He promised it would not do so “willy-nilly”. Anyhoo, here’s this from the ABC:
“The ABC can reveal approval is routinely given for Australian-made lethal technology to be sent to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia, but the federal government insists careful consideration has been given to each decision” https://t.co/tyxWalGqtz
— Andrew Greene (@AndrewBGreene) January 6, 2023
New year, same old pandemic. Christopher Knaus has been tracking outbreaks in aged care:
And (warning, another clunky segue approaches), having only just learned that budgie smugglers are de rigueur for Sydney’s gay men, AAP has an interview with Sydney WorldPride’s chief executive, Kate Wickett.
WorldPride is a “17-day extravaganza” and will feature more than 300 official events, dance parties, concerts, and a pride march. Wicket says:
Invite your mum, your dad, your brother, your sister – there is truly something for everyone.
This is about our community, Australia and Sydney in particular coming together to celebrate and advocate for equality and who we are as Australians.
We’ll keep an eye on those floods today. But also, budgie smugglers are back. Cait Kelly takes a look at the post-Abbott era swimwear that makes some people a little twitchy:
This was linked below but deserves its own spot – Sarah Collard has been talking to people on the ground in Western Australia’s Kimberley region:
Good morning.
Residents in two major Western Australian towns have been warned their communities are about to become islands amid the state’s worst flooding on record.
A 50km-wide inland sea is surging towards the Kimberley coast after the swollen Fitzroy River devastated the town of Fitzroy Crossing earlier in the week.
The WA emergency services minister, Stephen Dawson, warned residents they would become isolated by flood waters.
“Derby will be an island in the next few days, it will be cut off,” Dawson told reporters yesterday. “The weather and the water, it’s coming towards it so there will be isolation for probably Broome and Derby.”
The massive flood peak that reached a record 15.81m in Fitzroy Crossing late on Wednesday slammed into the tiny Indigenous community of Noonkanbah, 280km east of Broome, yesterday. Looma and Willare are also flooded, with dozens of others isolated, after seven-day rainfall totals up to 600mm were recorded across the region.
A 400km section of the Great Northern Highway south of Broome has been closed and a 500km part of the same freight route between Willare and Halls Creek remains shut.
Late yesterday it emerged that two top US senators, Jack Reed and James Inhofe, had urged president Joe Biden not to sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, warning it would diminish US national security given the vessels are “scarce”.
The intervention confirmed the US was under pressure not to sell its submarines before Australia was able to build its own as part of the Aukus alliance – meaning it could be decades before Australia gains nuclear submarines.
A spokesperson for the Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, played down the leak, saying “the optimal pathway for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines is taking shape, and an announcement remains on track to be made in the first part of this year”.
Air crash investigators could take 18 months or more to deliver their findings on a helicopter collision that killed four people on the Gold Coast.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) updated its website on Friday to state the anticipated date for completing its investigation was between July and September in 2024.
“A final report will be released at the conclusion of the investigation. Should a critical safety issue be identified during the investigation, the ATSB will immediately notify relevant parties, so that appropriate safety action can be taken,” the bureau’s website said.
The Australian National Audit Office 2019 report into the bureau’s investigative efficiency found that it took an average of 19 months to produce a report on “complex” incidents.
With that, let’s get into it.
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