What we learned today, Saturday 22 April
That’s it for our live news coverage today. Thanks for being with us.
Here’s what we learned.
The wreck of the Montevideo Maru that was sunk in July 1942 killing more than 1,000 people, mostly Australians POWs, has been located in the South China Sea. The disaster was the worst in Australia’s maritime history.
Anthony Albanese says the conclusion of the search for the Montevideo Maru will bring comfort to families of those lost. The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, says it brings to an end “one of the most tragic chapters in Australia’s maritime history”.
Australia will dramatically scale back the number of infantry fighting vehicles it buys for the army as part of a defence overhaul.
The New Zealand prime minister, Chris Hipkins, who is in Australia, says he is encouraged to see a dramatic drop in the number of Kiwis being deported to his country from Australia.
Police say they’re worried about the welfare of a mother after a days-old newborn baby was left at a house in Blacktown, western Sydney, on Friday afternoon.
The Greens have withdrawn support for Tasmania’s AFL licence bid citing a billion-dollar stadium the party says the island state doesn’t need and can’t afford.
The UN’s weather agency says the last eight years have been the hottest on record, despite three consecutive La Niñas that have a cooling influence on the planet.
Have a good rest of your weekend. We’ll have another live blog tomorrow.
Updated
Australian officials to attend Anzac Day services at Gallipoli, Villers-Bretonneux and Kokoda track
The finding of the wreck of the Montevideo Maru earlier today – where more than 1,000 people, mostly Australian POWs, lost their lives in 1942 – comes ahead of Tuesday’s Anzac Day commemorations.
Australian elected officials will attend dawn services at Gallipoli, the western front in France and the Kokoda track on Tuesday, AAP reports.
At the dawn service in Gallipoli in Turkey, Veterans affairs minister Matt Keogh will deliver the commemorative address on Anzac Day morning.
Assistant veterans affairs minister Matt Thistlethwaite will attend a dawn service at the western front, in Villers-Bretonneux in France.
In Papua New Guinea, international development minister Pat Conroy will commemorate the day at the Kokoda track and Bomana war cemetery.
Multicultural affairs minister Andrew Giles will attend a service at Hellfire Pass in Thailand, where Australian prisoners of war were held during the second world war.
As the country remembers the fallen on the 108th Anzac Day, federal MPs will also attend services in their local communities.
Updated
UN weather agency reviews 2022, with its heat, glacier melt and surging sea levels
Overnight the UN’s World Meteorological Organization released its official review of the climate for 2022.
The past eight years are the hottest eight years on record, the agency said, despite the cooling influence of three consecutive La Niña years.
#ClimateChange shocks increased in 2022. Ocean heat and sea level rise at record levels. Antarctic sea ice hit a new low. Extreme glacier melt in Europe. #StateOfClimate report highlights the huge socio-economic cost of droughts, floods, and heatwaves.🔗https://t.co/yipNQtrK12 pic.twitter.com/Vnrbe9M8Xl
— World Meteorological Organization (@WMO) April 21, 2023
Sea levels were rising between 2013 and 2022 at a rate of 4.62mm per year – double the rate from 1993 to 2022. Sea ice in Antarctica dropped to record low levels.
The loss of ice from glaciers around the world was well above the long-term average, the agency reported, with Europe’s glaciers particularly hard hit by a combination of heatwaves, dust and a lack of winter snowfall.
Europe shattered records for glacier melt in 2022. Switzerland lost 6 percent of glacier ice volume in just one year. This is the #StateOfClimate. 🔗https://t.co/Fos5FofGzb pic.twitter.com/EFQiabXjra
— World Meteorological Organization (@WMO) April 21, 2023
Updated
Fish kill risk remains in Menindee, with invasive carp set for removal
The NSW government has hired a commercial fisher to remove invasive carp from the Darling-Baaka River where millions of native fish died last month.
Removing the invasive carp will reduce competition for food and oxygen with the native Bony Herring in the waters around Menindee in the far north-west of the state.
In a statement, the government said current oxygen levels were good but there was a “higher risk of further fish kill events due to fish being in an already stressed condition”.
Water sampling by the state’s Environmental Protection Agency was ongoing. Residents in the area have been concerned the fish kill event could compromise their main water supply, with some residents having water trucked in.
NSW agriculture minister Tara Moriarty said:
It’s critical that water oxygen is maintained for native fish populations in the Darling-Baaka River, including Bony Herring, which is a key fish species in this waterway, as well as Murray Cod, Golden Perch and Silver Perch.
Carp is an invasive species that competes with our native fish for available oxygen, food and nutrients, and by contracting a fishing operator to help remove volumes of this species currently accumulating in areas of the river, the reduction in biomass should also prevent further deterioration of water quality.
All possible steps will be taken to prevent impacts to non-target species.
NSW water minister Rose Jackson said the government was taking “proactive and precautionary action” and said advice on drinking water would be shared regularly.
Menindee has been hit hard twice already and having this whole-of-government response to proactively manage the risks for further fish kills will help prevent another disaster happening.
We’re taking steps to ensure the community can have confidence in the management of Menindee for its protection and for future generations.
Updated
Police worried for mother’s safety after newborn child abandoned
NSW police have given an update on the search for the mother of a baby girl abandoned in the western Sydney suburb of Blacktown.
Police say they are concerned for the welfare of the newborn baby’s mother and urged her to contact authorities or mental health services.
Acting inspector David McInerney from Blacktown police told reporters:
We’re really concerned about her health. Childbirth can be quite traumatic and we’re worried for her safety and wellbeing, both physically and mentally. We’re trying to help her.
It’s very concerning, but she’s not in any trouble from police. I want to stress that.
We’re appealing to her to come forward, to get some help, and let us help her.
The baby was still at Blacktown hospital on Saturday, and will be cared for by the Department of Communities and Justice after she is discharged.
Marles on finding Montevideo Maru
The deputy prime minister and defence minister, Richard Marles, says the finding of the wreck of the Montevideo Maru brings to an end “one of the most tragic chapters in Australia’s maritime history”.
For more than 80 years, hundreds of Australian families have waited for news of the Montevideo Maru.
— Richard Marles (@RichardMarlesMP) April 21, 2023
This week, thanks to an extraordinary search effort, the ship’s final resting place has been discovered. pic.twitter.com/NSn3bNjJXm
Updated
Perth police charge man with murder
Western Australian police have charged a man with murder after the death of a woman at a Perth home, AAP is reporting.
Police were called to the Kewdale home on Monday where the 35-year-old woman was found with serious injuries.
Police and St John WA personnel gave first aid before the woman was taken to Royal Perth hospital, where she later died.
A 37-year-old man, who is known to the victim, was arrested in St James and has been charged with murder.
The man was also charged with attempted aggravated armed robbery, aggravated home burglary and reckless driving in relation to other incidents that are alleged to have occurred on the same evening.
He was refused bail and was expected to appear in the Perth magistrates court today, via a bedside hearing in hospital.
Updated
Cairns man charged with torture and manslaughter of toddler
A 39-year-old man from a sugarcane region in southern Cairns has been charged with the torture and manslaughter of a toddler, 18 months after the child’s death, AAP reports.
Emergency services were called to a Gordonvale home before dawn on 27 September 2021, with reports the 23-month-old boy was unresponsive.
The infant was taken to Cairns hospital for treatment, where he later died, Queensland police said.
Suspicious injuries were found on his face and body, police allege.
The Gordonvale man was arrested on Friday after an 18-month investigation by the Cairns Child Protection Unit under Operation Tango Comter.
He was charged with one count of torture and one count of manslaughter.
He was due in Cairns magistrates court today.
Updated
Queensland police shooting death to be investigated
The Queensland police shooting death of a man in Townsville will be investigated by the Ethical Standards Command, AAP reports.
Officers were called to Bel Air Avenue at Kirwan about 4.40pm on Friday, after reports a 52-year-old man was threatening self-harm.
About 15 minutes later, the man approached officers while holding knives, and was shot by police, the acting chief superintendent, Chris Lawson, said on Saturday.
The man was immediately given first aid but died shortly after paramedics arrived.
The incident was caught on police body-worn camera footage, with up to six officers initially responding to the disturbance.
An acting sergeant, a number of senior constables and constables were present at the scene, Lawson said.
He said he was confident based on briefings that officers acted appropriately during the incident.
“Our thoughts go out to the family involved because we don’t want to see people being hurt and we don’t want to see people die,” he said.
“We want to resolve these incidents as peacefully as possible.”
Queensland police’s use of force policy was clear that officers should use whatever force necessary to resolve an incident at the minimum level possible, Lawson said.
He said it was a distressing time for the man’s family, with some living locally, but police would continue to provide them with support and information.
Lawson could not confirm whether it was one or multiple officers who shot the man, and said that would form part of the command’s investigation into the incident.
The investigation would also look into reports the man was taken to hospital the day before the shooting and discharged.
The force was providing support to officers involved in the incident, Lawson said.
The standards command’s investigation into the incident is subject to oversight by the Crime and Corruption Commission.
Updated
‘Pain beyond our modern comprehension’: remembering the Montevideo Maru disaster
It would be three years before the true scale of the loss was known to the families, but the sinking of the Montevideo Maru in the early hours of 1 July 1942 was Australia’s biggest maritime disaster.
Some 1,051 lives were lost – almost all of them Australian – as the ship loaded with POWs was torpedoed by submarine USS Sturgeon, the ship’s commander unaware of the cargo.
Some 80 years after the sinking, the ship has now been located 4,000 metres down off the coast of the Phillipines.
On the 75th anniversary of the disaster, the then director of the Australian War Memorial, Dr Brendan Nelson, laid out the harrowing circumstances before, during and after the event.
Four torpedoes were fired at the Montevideo Maru at 2.29 am on 1 July.
Two struck the ship. She sank stern first, completely gone 11 minutes from impact.
One of the handful of Japanese crew who survived the sinking and subsequent march through the Philippine jungle, said:
“The Australians in the water sang Auld Lang Syne to their mates below as the ship sank.”
Many of the dead had been captured during the January 1942 fall of Rabaul – the capital of the then Australian Mandated Territory of New Guinea, now Papua New Guinea.
About 400 Australians had written what would be their final letters home to loved ones as they waited to leave on the Montevideo Maru. Hopeful families wrote back, not knowing the fate of their loved ones until the war’s end, after lists of recovered POWs had been checked.
As Nelson detailed in his speech:
The bare truth would finally be revealed in September 1945. In homes the length and breadth of Australia, telegrams unleashed pain beyond our modern comprehension. Around them the rest of the nation celebrated its hard earned victory.
Updated
Greens withdraw support for Tasmania’s AFL bid over stadium cost
The Greens have withdrawn support for Tasmania’s AFL licence bid citing a billion-dollar stadium the party says the island state doesn’t need and can’t afford.
The minor party said on Saturday it had written to advise the AFL boss, Gillon McLachlan, and the league’s commissioners of its “difficult decision” to quit the tripartisan push for Tasmania to join the national competition.
The Greens leader, Cassy O’Connor, said in a statement:
Tasmanian Labor should do they same.
They too were misled by the premier who reassured us the bid was not contingent on a new stadium, when we now know the AFL said it was a prerequisite from day one.
O’Connor says Tasmania has more than earned the right to join the national league, without billion-dollar strings attached.
The AFL says Tasmania’s quest for a 19th licence is conditional on construction of a contentious $715m stadium at Hobart’s waterfront.
The project requires $240m in federal Labor funding. It is being considered ahead of the 9 May budget.
Updated
Deer populations surge to pest level, experts say after animal crashes into home
Experts say deer populations are surging across Victoria, which may explain the incident on Thursday in which a deer crashed into Alexander Hill’s Alphington home in Melbourne’s north-east after the animal spotted itself in a window and thought it was another deer.
“We probably need to be removing 40% or so of the population each year just to stabilise the numbers, and that’s a huge amount when you consider there’s well over a million in the state,” says Andrew Cox, the chief executive of the Invasive Species Council.
The Hill family fled to safety on the upper floor of their home while they waited for a ranger to collect the deer, but after the front door was opened it bolted to nearby parkland.
There have been a string of other inner-city deer sightings in recent years.
Two years ago, a deer that ran down Johnston Street in Collingwood and Fitzroy and was later euthanised after it spent two days on the loose.
Deer on the loose if Fitzroy @Channel9 pic.twitter.com/A4MBwAXdOZ
— Charlie Cross (@charliecross24) June 5, 2021
Around three years ago, Cox says, a deer jumped through a window in a different Alphington home.
In 2017, a deer was injured after breaking into a funeral parlour in Ringwood. And just last week, one jumped into a backyard in Kew East.
Richard Francis, the president of the Vertebrate Pest Managers Association, says it’s easy for deer to travel into Melbourne because of the city’s well-connected reserve system along creeks and rivers. But it’s just a fraction of what is being experienced in rural Victoria, stemming from when the venison market crashed in the 90s and deer were released into the wild.
Francis says exploding deer populations, which have been described as the next rabbit plague, are also becoming an issue in Tasmania, New South Wales and parts of Queensland.
Frances says deer, which are not native to Australia, cause massive damage to bushland and are also an issue for the agricultural sector.
Since 2020, Victoria has used professional animal controllers to cull deer and installed fences to restrict the animal’s movements.
But Francis and Cox say the state government needs to classify deer as a pest. Deer are still a protected species under the Wildlife Act, however, three years ago the government removed the protected status for deer where the animal is causing damage.
Updated
Australia to scale back on infantry fighting vehicles in major defence overhaul
We mentioned earlier a wide-ranging review of Australia’s defence force has recommended some projects immediately be delayed and stripped back to address overspend.
We have some more details here:
The army had planned to acquire up to 450 infantry fighting vehicles, at a cost of up to $27bn, to replace Australia’s Vietnam war-era armoured personnel carriers, writes Daniel Hurst.
But a review, billed by the Albanese government as the most significant update of defence planning in nearly 40 years, will recommend reducing this number to just 129 vehicles, enough for one mechanised battalion.
Updated
NZ PM encouraged by plunging number of deportations from Australia
The plunging number of deportations across the Tasman has encouraged the New Zealand prime minister, Chris Hipkins, who hopes the issue is now “dealt with”, AAP reports.
New Zealand has long protested Australia’s practice of deporting criminals who are Kiwi citizens but have lived lives in Australia.
The New Zealand government claims the deportations – which total 2,916 in the past nine years – have contributed to an uptick in gang numbers and crime.
Its protests fell on deaf ears during the Coalition government but have been taken on board by Anthony Albanese’s Labor government.
New data released in Australia and NZ has shown the scale of the decrease.
The number of subclass 444 visas cancelled in recent years dropped from 466 in 2020-11 to 244 in 2021-22 and 129 in 2022-23, Australian home affairs department figures released to News Corp showed.
The NZ Herald, citing police data, also reported the number of deportations had roughly halved.
Updated
UN refugee chief laments ‘myopic’ approach to displaced peoples
The United Nations high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, has delivered a major speech urging better co-operation between nations, saying slogans like “stop the boats” were ineffective.
Grandi spoke to my colleague Ben Doherty, who has the full story.
Updated
Media law barrister Matt Collins says the decision by Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch to drop a defamation case against news outlet Crikey was “stunning”.
Immigration minister says decade wasted in ‘retreat from international engagement’
The immigration minister, Andrew Giles, has said Australia has wasted a decade retreating from international engagement on refugee issues, “to the detriment of the world’s most vulnerable people, our regional relationships and our global standing”.
In a speech last night at Refugee Legal – a not-for-profit that gives free legal advice and support – Giles said:
The time of negative globalism is over. It’s time to return not just to constructive engagement in our region and around the world, but to assume leadership in addressing the global displacement crisis as Australia did 70 years ago.
Giles evoked the 1949 “light on the hill” speech of then prime minister Ben Chifley, who used the phrase to describe the role of the post-war Labor movement.
Since federation, Australian governments have twice had to grapple with the enormous challenge of reopening to the world.
After the devastation of the second world war, this was a central pillar or the Chifley government’s reconstruction efforts, and today, the Albanese government is continuing to respond to the pause on migration that came with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Seventy years ago, of course, we embarked on a migration journey that has transformed our nation into a diverse and dynamic multicultural society.
This transformation, in very large part, has been shaped by the nearly one million refugees who have come to Australia since the end of world war two.
We should take great pride in this, and in the fact that it was Australia’s signature that brought the refugee convention into effect.
We should remember that Ben Chifley’s famous light on the hill shone beyond our national borders. His call to action extended to ‘anywhere we might give a helping hand’.
That was, and remains, our movement’s greatest objective.
Today, as our immigration system connects Australians to loved ones and supports our economic recovery, we consider too the fact that there are presently more people forcibly displaced than at any time in human history.
And we focus on how we can give that helping hand.
Giles criticised former immigration ministers for politicising refugee issues.
In Australia, for more than 20 years, politicians have cynically looked to fear rather than hope.
Past ministers for immigration have had a bit to say about so-called activist lawyers.
So I’ll join them, to note my appreciation, in particular to those at Refugee Legal.
Since its establishment in 1988, Refugee Legal has provided free specialist legal assistance to people seeking asylum, refugees and disadvantaged migrants in Australia.
A cohort the most in need of legal assistance, and historically with some of the worst access to that assistance.
Updated
Search for mother continues after newborn abandoned in western Sydney
A search for the mother of an abandoned newborn baby left at a house in Sydney’s west continues this morning.
Emergency services were called to a home at Blacktown on Friday afternoon and paramedics treated the baby, thought to be just days old.
A police spokesperson said the choice of location was thought to be “completely random” and the mother had no connection to the property.
Read more here:
Updated
Key event
‘At long last’: Albanese on finding Montevideo Maru
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, says the successful search for the final resting place of the Montevideo Maru will bring comfort to the loved ones of those who died on the 1942 ship.
At long last, the resting place of the lost souls of the Montevideo Maru has been found.
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) April 21, 2023
Among the 1,060 prisoners on board were 850 Australian service members – their lives cut short.
We hope today’s news brings a measure of comfort to loved ones who have kept a long vigil. pic.twitter.com/husOu6peUL
Albanese said:
The extraordinary effort behind this discovery speaks for the enduring truth of Australia’s solemn national promise to always remember and honour those who served our country. This is the heart and the spirit of Lest We Forget.
Updated
Wreck of ship at centre of Australia's worst maritime disaster located
The wreck of the Montevideo Maru, which was carrying more than 1,000 people, mostly Australian prisoners of war, when it was torpedoed in 1942 has been reportedly located in the South China Sea. The incident represents the greatest single loss of Australian lives in wartime.
The ABC is reporting that the Silentworld Foundation has located the wreck of the freighter, which had been requisitioned by the Japanese navy.
In a Facebook post, the foundation said this morning:
After exhaustive search efforts between Silentworld Foundation, Fugro, and the Department of Defence, in the South China Sea, we are able to announce that we have found the final resting place for these 1,080 souls.
After 12 days at sea, the team found a possible sighting of the wreck using an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) with in-built sonar.
A team of experts, including maritime archaeologists, conservators, operations and research specialists and ex-naval officers, worked for days to verify the wreck. The search, and discovery, is the culmination of five years of planning from Silentworld Foundation, and 20 years of dedication from the Montevideo Maru Society.
The wreck lies in over 4000m of water, deeper than RMS Titanic, and there will be no efforts to remove artefacts or human remains. It will lie undisturbed, and the survey and recording of the site will be non-invasive out of respect for the families of those who were lost.
Updated
Good morning
Happy Saturday and welcome to the Guardian’s live news coverage. I’m Graham Readfearn.
Defence will likely dominate the day after news broke last night that Australia is set to dramatically scale back the number of infantry fighting vehicles it buys for the army as part of a defence overhaul to be announced on Monday.
The army had planned to acquire up to 450 infantry fighting vehicles, at a cost of up to $27bn, to replace Vietnam war-era armoured personnel carriers.
But a review, billed by the Albanese government as the most significant update of defence planning in nearly 40 years, will recommend cutting this number to 129 vehicles, enough for one mechanised battalion.
Elsewhere it was announced last night that about 380,000 New Zealanders will gain the right to apply for Australian citizenship without becoming permanent residents first, under changes restoring reciprocity to the rights of expats of the two countries.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, will welcome the New Zealand prime minister, Chris Hipkins, to Australia for an official visit today, with a gala dinner in Brisbane tonight.
Albanese said the changes were “consistent with our ambition to build a fairer, better managed and more inclusive migration system”.
Finally, the NSW Liberal leader, Mark Speakman, will spend his first full day in the job after taking the leadership at a party room meeting yesterday, ending weeks of speculation around who would lead the party after former premier Dominic Perrottet stepped down.
The Liberal-National coalition will enter the parliament with 36 members in the lower house against a Labor government governing in minority with 45 seats.
Let’s get into it.
