More than 900 calls for assistance made so far, SES says
NSW SES deputy commissioner Debbie Platz says most of the 900 calls for assistance are from people who are already experiencing damage to homes and vehicles.
She is giving a live update on the severe wet weather forecast to pummel NSW:
Most of the incidences that we have received calls for predominantly are from the mid north coast area. So around about 200 calls to that area, and then 100 for the Sydney area and also the Illawarra area, our south-east zone.
Majority of those calls are from people who are preparing already seen some damage with trees down that have damaged homes and vehicles.
Key events
Benita Kolovos
A joint Victoria police and government press conference was under way earlier into the investigation into alleged sexual assaults at a Melbourne childcare centre.
Acting commander Janet Stevenson says the alleged assaults were uncovered after the discovery of child abuse material. She says:
We immediately acted and executed a search warrant at the Point Cook home of a 26-year-old Joshua Brown. As a result, Brown was charged with over 70 offences which relate to alleged sexual assaults committed against eight identified child victims.
She says Brown was not known to police prior to the investigation:
However, as soon as we identified his alleged offending, he was removed from the community. He had a valid working with children check, which has since been cancelled.
Daisy Dumas
Above-ground work on stage one of Sydney’s beleaguered M6 tunnel project is set to continue after the New South Wales government and the contractors charged with its construction reached a last-minute compromise.
The consortium building new twin 4km motorway tunnels linking Arncliffe and Kogarah in Sydney’s south have been plagued by sinkholes and a “reverse” rock fault which led to CGU – a joint venture of CPB, Ghella and UGL – pulling out of the project and downing tools from yesterday.
This morning, Transport for NSW announced an agreement had been reached with the contractor.
Surface works, including road works, building pathways and cycleways and revitalising parklands, will continue and are expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Transport for NSW secretary, Josh Murray, said the works would progress “separately to the underground challenges”.
In a statement, he said:
The local community deserves certainty. Finishing these areas will be treated as a priority, including surface roadworks, new walking and cycling links and parklands.
This agreement will also allow Transport to continue work on a solution that will lead to tunnelling being completed, while the contractor continues to play its role in securing the construction site.”
Sarah Basford Canales
Anthony Albanese has dismissed a suggestion by a Sky News host he’s prioritising his relationship with China over the US as he faces pressure to lock in a face-to-face meeting with US president Donald Trump.
The prime minister is expected to visit Beijing this month but has yet to lock in a formal in-person chat with Trump after the president abruptly left a G7 meeting last month amid an escalation in conflict between Iran and Israel.
Albanese is under pressure to convince Trump to grant Australia an exemption on global trade tariffs set to resume next week. The US administration has also urged Australia to drastically lift its defence spending to 3% of GDP or higher in response to China’s growing military. A 30-day review by the US Pentagon into the Aukus deal is also expected to conclude shortly.
On Sky News this morning, the prime minister was asked whether his imminent trip to China suggested he was prioritising that relationship over the US.
Albanese responded:
Well, [Chinese president] Xi Jinping has been in office for some time, and the person who had Xi Jinping address our national parliament here was Tony Abbott, just for the record. I’ve met with the US president more than I have met with the President of China since I’ve been the prime minister and I’ve traveled five times to the United States and one time to China.
Albanese told Sky News he’ll have the chance to meet with Trump and other senior US officials in the upcoming summit season toward the latter half of the year.
When we have a meeting, we’ll have a meeting, and when it’s scheduled, that will occur. We’ll see each other a lot in the last months of the year. That’s when summit season occurs … Australia and the United States are both members, of course, of the G20, of the Quad, of Apec. We’ll see each other quite a lot in coming months.
Some Virgin flights cancelled amid severe weather
Passengers flying in or out of Sydney and Newcastle with Virgin today may have their flight affected by severe weather.
A Virgin Australia spokesperson said:
Some services on Virgin Australia’s network have been impacted by adverse weather in Sydney and Newcastle today. The safety of our guests and crew is our top priority and our meteorologists continue to closely monitor the weather system.
We regret the impact of this on guests’ travel plans and are working hard to ensure they reach their destination safely and as soon as possible.
We encourage guests travelling today and tomorrow to keep an eye on the status of their flight via our website or app.
Guardian Australia understands there have been 12 cancellations.
Petra Stock
NSW SES responds to more than 600 incidents since Monday
New South Wales State Emergency Service has responded to more than 600 incidents since Monday morning, as a severe weather system battered the state’s coast.
An SES spokesperson said there had also been more than 900 calls to the state operations centre.
We’re seeing a lot of debris and trees down, requests for sandbags and also leaking roofs.
We’ve been asking people to prepare their homes and properties since last week, and now it really is too late to be outside in the weather.”
We are anticipating there to be flash flooding this afternoon as commuters head home. So we’re just urging people that if they do come across flood water on a road, to stop, turn around and find an alternative route.
Weather system could persist into Thursday morning, BoM says
The Bureau of Meteorology’s Gabrielle Woodhouse says weather warnings will persist until late Wednesday or early Thursday:
At this stage, the earliest that we’ll see some of those warnings being cancelled from the weather side of things is going to be potentially later Wednesday, or more likely on Thursday.
With that wind threat persisting into Thursday along the waters, we also have a coastal hazard warning and hazardous surf warning with the winds that we’re expecting around this low pressure system. It’s really going to increase the waves along the New South Wales coast, with significant wave heights in excess of about five to six meters, expected along at least central and southern parts of the coast. And this is also going to elevate some of the sea levels, and so we’re going to have a greater coastal erosion risk as a result of this system.
More than 900 calls for assistance made so far, SES says
NSW SES deputy commissioner Debbie Platz says most of the 900 calls for assistance are from people who are already experiencing damage to homes and vehicles.
She is giving a live update on the severe wet weather forecast to pummel NSW:
Most of the incidences that we have received calls for predominantly are from the mid north coast area. So around about 200 calls to that area, and then 100 for the Sydney area and also the Illawarra area, our south-east zone.
Majority of those calls are from people who are preparing already seen some damage with trees down that have damaged homes and vehicles.
Woodhouse says the threat of destructive wind gusts will increase as the low pressure system deepens further today:
What we’re talking about here is destructive wind gusts of around 125km/h being possible right along the coastal fringe. We’re expecting that that risk is going to shift southwards towards parts of Sydney and potentially parts of the Illawarra, even as far south as Jervis Bay or Ulladulla.
Conditions are expected to escalate through this afternoon, bringing the risk of flash flooding. Woodhouse continues:
We’re looking at that wind potential increasing, but also that threat of heavy rainfall increasing. This is most likely for areas across the Illawarra as well as parts of Sydney.
This means that we have a greater flash flood risk, with potential for some fairly heavy falls to develop over a short period of time, and we could see some of those falls in excess of 100 or 120mm over the course of three to six hours.
Destructive wind gusts of up to 110km/h expected today, BoM says
The BoM’s Gabrielle Woodhouse says the low pressure system in NSW shifted south overnight, bringing rainfall to the coast.
The system is expected to run through to Thursday, with peak impact from midday today and tomorrow.
Woodhouse gave a forecast update a moment ago:
We have a number of warnings in place, and that includes a severe weather warning for damaging to locally destructive winds as well as heavy rainfall.
It’s likely that we’ll see some damaging winds of around 60 to 70km/h, and gusts of about 90 to 110km/h. That includes across parts of the ranges, but also near the coast. This includes southern parts of the mid north coast, the Hunter, Sydney, and down through the Illawarra and parts of the south coast.
Vigorous coastal low will bring ‘short and sharp’ rain, NSW SES says
The NSW SES is giving a live update on severe weather conditions in the state:
Deputy commissioner Debbie Platz says:
This system is a very dynamic system. It is fast moving and very different to recent events that we have seen in New South Wales.
What we expect is the rain will be very rapid, it will be heavy, it will be short and sharp.
More on flights as severe wet weather is forecast to pummel NSW.
There have been cancellations of some Qantas flights in and out of Sydney today.
Passengers can expect to be contacted directly if there are changes to their Qantas flights. There may be more cancellations to come.
Petra Stock
Travellers reminded to check their flight status due to severe weather in NSW
Travellers in and out of New South Wales have been reminded to check their flight details, with severe weather conditions already affecting flights in and out of Sydney airport.
Airservices Australia said aircraft movements had been reduced on Tuesday morning, and it was working to manage the impact of severe weather conditions in Sydney.
We are continuing to monitor the situation and will adjust operations throughout the day as appropriate.
A Sydney airport spokesperson said there could be impacts to flight schedules.
Sydney Airport is closely monitoring the forecasts of severe weather for NSW. There may be impacts to flight schedules, and we recommend passengers check with their airline regarding the status of their flight.
Almost twice as many deaths by drug overdose than road traffic in 2023, new research finds
Drug overdoses caused 189 Australians to die a month in 2023, with a policy research non-profit calling for a national strategy to end the overdose crisis.
New analysis from Penington Institute found 2,272 Australians died from an overdose that year – almost twice the number of road traffic deaths in the same year (1,315).
Over three-quarters of the deaths were unintentional, and most involved more than one drug type.
The data snapshot found opioids were the most common drug involved in unintentional deaths (43.9%), stimulants replaced benzodiazepines as the second-most common drug (33.1%), and unintentional deaths involving cocaine increased by from 94 in 2022 to 100 in 2023.
It also found people over 50 made up a larger share of deaths than in previous years (47.9% in 2023, compared to 46.8% in 2022), and the rate of deaths among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples remains significantly higher compared to non-Indigenous people (21.3 deaths per 100,000 Australians, compared to 5.7 deaths per 100,000 Australians among non-Indigenous people).
“People don’t often think about overdose, but these figures bring home just how big and persistent an issue it is in Australia,” the Penington Institute CEO, John Ryan, said.
A decade of losing more than 2,000 Australians to overdose annually marks a sombre milestone.
Governments need to tackle overdose with the same level of energy and enthusiasm used to reduce alcohol and tobacco harm in Australia. We need a comprehensive national overdose response strategy to end the overdose crisis.
Five Australians evacuated from Iran
Tom McIlroy
The federal government has helped a group of five Australian citizens get out of Iran, via a commercial flight from Mashhad to Dubai.
Commercial flights are not yet operating from Tehran, however limited departure flights are happening from the east of the country.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is securing seats on the flights and contacting hundreds of Australians who have registered with officials to seek help getting home.
But airport operations continue to change at short notice. Officials are monitoring the situation closely.
As well as communicating information directly with registered Australians in both English and Farsi, Australian officials are helping Australian citizens cross the land border between Iran and Azerbaijan.
A backlog in the number of Australians seeking permission to cross the border has been cleared, following representations from the foreign minister, Penny Wong, and Australian officials.
The border crossing requirements are a complex process and are subject to change without notice.
More than 150 Australians have now received border codes for crossing from Iran into Azerbaijan and more than 50 have successfully crossed in recent days, being met by Australian officials once across.
Benita Kolovos
Continued from previous post:
Victoria police deputy commissioner Wendy Steendam, acting commander Janet Stevenson, the Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, police minister, Anthony Carbines, minister for children, Lizzie Blandthorn, and the chief health officer, Dr Christian McGrath, are going to hold a press conference on the investigation at 9.30am.
In a statement, Stevenson said it was “an incredibly distressing and confronting investigation for all involved”. She said:
I know many members of the community will hear this news and feel enormously concerned. The most important thing for our investigators was that we needed to identify the [alleged] victims involved. These are some of the most vulnerable members of our community and the conversations police have had to have with their families were no doubt life changing in the worst possible way.
Stevenson urged anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers.