PM says science predicted more frequent and intense weather events ‘and that’s precisely what is happening’
Josh Butler
On ABC Newcastle, the prime minister added: “[every] weather event can’t be traced down specifically to climate change, because there’s always been extreme weather events in Australia. But what you can say is … the science told us they’d be more frequent and more intense and that’s precisely what is happening, which is why my government are taking it so seriously.”
Albanese praised the SES, police, fire services and other emergency responders as “heroes”.
Listen to the advice, make sure you log on to the relevant sites and keep informed if you’re in these communities because we just don’t want to see any further tragedies because, you know, it is just heartbreaking what has occurred.
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Updated at 22.03 EDT
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Australian shares on track to make the week a winner
The Australian share market is set to finish the week higher, after Wall Street settled on the back of better-than-expected US manufacturing data.
By lunchtime on Friday, the S&P/ASX200 rose 17.6 points, or 0.21%, to 8,366.2, as the broader All Ordinaries gained 19.9 points, or 0.23%, to 8,591.3.
The top 200 is about 2.1% from its record-high close on 14 February, while Wall Street’s S&P500 index is almost 5% short of its peak and down 1.8% for the week.
Closer to home, NAB economists say Australia’s economy is on track to stick its soft landing, despite emerging downside global economic risks, while downgrading their national GDP growth forecast for 2025.
“We have lowered our expectation for GDP growth this year to 1.8 per cent year-on-year (from two per cent) but left our inflation and labour market tracks unchanged,” economists Michelle Shi and Gareth Spence wrote.
The RBA will need to continue to lower rates in the near term to ensure that the labour market remains healthy.
The S&P/ASX200 rose 17.6 points this week by lunchtime today. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP/File
Six of 11 local sectors were trading higher by lunchtime, with financials, IT stocks and real estate helping lift the bourse.
All big four banks were in the green after trending lower on Thursday, with NAB and ANZ in front with gains of more than 1.1%.
Energy stocks pushed 0.7% higher with oil slipping since Thursday’s close because of a stronger US dollar and expected output increases from Opec+ countries.
– Australian Associated Press
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Updated at 00.04 EDT
Krishani Dhanji
Boele retains Bradfield lead by four votes
The count in Bradfield is still going, and the margin is just four votes in favour of independent candidate Nicolette Boele.
It’s expected that the distribution count will be completed today, and then we will almost certainly go into a recount, which the AEC generally carries out whenever there is a margin of 100 votes or fewer.
Once that recount is done, if there’s still a less than 10 vote margin – and this is very rare – the AEC or one of the candidates can consider going to the court to “void” the seat, which would trigger a full byelection.
Nicolette Boele door-knocking during the election campaign. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
One of the reasons to trigger that would be the number of unexplained multiple votes that could push the result in one way or another – so that’s like when someone votes in the election twice.
In 2019, on average there were about 15 unexplained multiple votes per electorate, but psephologist Kevin Bonham has told me that those unexplained votes have been trending down in recent decades as the AEC develops ways to better control the issue.
So to repeat – this is very rare, but the AEC or a candidate can petition the court of disputed returns to void a seat if it’s just too close after the recount.
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Updated at 23.59 EDT
NSW floods map
More rain is forecast to drench flooded areas in the Hunter region and mid-north coast of New South Wales.
You can see the extent of the rainfall, areas affected by flooding, and how the rainfall compares to historical averages, in our flooding map and chart by Nick Evershed and Josh Nicholas here:
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Australia must prepare for Hollywood-style cyber-attack
Australia has yet to suffer a critical, Hollywood-style cybersecurity incident, according to the nation’s top online cop, but our defences are being tested and criminals grow in number.
The rate of cyber-attacks against Australian businesses may also be higher than statistics indicate, she warned as small businesses continue bearing the brunt of financial losses.
National cybersecurity coordinator Lt Gen Michelle McGuinness issued the warnings at the AusCERT cybersecurity Conference on the Gold Coast on Friday, which comes a month after large superannuation firms were targeted in a coordinated online attack and less than a year after 12.9 million Australians had private information stolen in the MediSecure hack.
Despite a growing number of attacks on large Australian organisations including healthcare, telecommunications and legal firms, McGuinness told the audience none had damaged the nation’s critical infrastructure or had a lasting impact.
Australia has seen the dark side of significant cyber incidents such as Optus, Medibank, Latitude Financial, HWL Ebsworth, Ramsay Health Care and Medisecure [but] we are actually yet to see a catastrophic cyber incident with impacts across multiple critical infrastructure sectors.
We must continue to evolve and thrive to ensure that those scenes we see in Hollywood never actually eventuate.
– Australian Associated Press
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Updated at 23.28 EDT
The prime minister is asked about insurance for people in flood-affected areas:
We have been in contact with the Insurance Council and we continue to engage with them. We need to acknowledge that whilst Australia has always had extreme weather events, the science told us that those events would be more frequent and would be more intense and that is placing pressure on the system. It is a challenge that we need to deal with and be conscious of and we certainly are. That is why we’re engaged directly, not just with the Insurance Council, the peak but also individual insurance companies.
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Updated at 23.27 EDT
SES commissioner says flood waters won’t recede quickly
The SES commissioner, Michael Wassing, says the flood-affected areas extend from north-east NSW down to Eden and the NSW border. Flood rescues are still occurring, even though the weather has started to moderate.
Severe rainfall overnight in some of the Sydney metropolitan areas has led to flash flooding and Wassing says emergency services are expecting possible minor flooding in the Hawkesbury and Colo river systems.
Wassing warns that people shouldn’t relax yet, as the water from rainfall overnight is still making its way through the river system:
We are still seeing, as we’ve already heard, some of that, even as late as the rainfall from overnight which was intense in many locations. We’re still seeing it come back through the river system so where locals would normally be used to flood waters receding very quickly in some cases, that is not the case.
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Updated at 23.19 EDT
More ADF personnel to help in floods crisis
The federal government will make more defence force personnel available to the emergency assistance and recovery effort, in addition to the ADF helicopter that has already been deployed to help, the prime minister says.
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Updated at 23.16 EDT
Disaster assistance has previously been activated for 16 local government areas, but Albanese announces it has now been extended to three more: Armidale, Muswellbrook and Walcha. Services Australia will provide “on the ground assistance” in coming days to help people access those payments, he says.
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Albanese to flood victims: ‘You are not alone’
Emergency services have performed 177 flood rescues in the past 24 hours and a total of 678 since the floods began, which Minns says is “an amazing, heroic logistical effort”.
Minns acknowledges the communities that are still isolated, including people in Taree, which he says have had “a torrid three days”.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, says he had intended to go to Taree this morning but it was not possible. He continues:
But our thoughts are with communities that are cut off at this point in time. And we’re here to basically say, very clearly and explicitly, you are not alone. The federal government, the state government, local government as well as the whole of the people of New South Wales and, indeed, the people of Australia are with you at this time.
Tragically, we’re seeing more extreme weather events. They’re occurring more frequently and they’re more intense.
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Updated at 23.03 EDT
Chris Minns announces hardship grants
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, has announced personal hardship assistance grants of $180 per individual or $900 per family will be available as soon as possible for those who are affected by the floods in NSW.
Speaking to the media in Maitland, with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, behind him, Minns says there are still 39 emergency warnings still in place and many of them are evacuation orders.
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Updated at 22.55 EDT
Nicolette Boele’s lead in Bradfield down to four votes
Hard to keep up with that margin in Bradfield at the moment, but Nicolette Boele’s lead is now down to four votes.
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Updated at 22.46 EDT
We’re expecting the NSW premier, Chris Minns, to give an update on the floods from Maitland in the next 10 minutes or so. We’ll bring that to you as soon as it happens.
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Updated at 22.46 EDT
