North Queensland showers easing but life-threatening risks remain – BoM
Ben Smee
The Bureau of Meteorology says rainfall in north Queensland is gradually easing, but that serious threat remains after a week of heavy falls.
At Rollingstone, north of Cairns, there has been 1.28m of rainfall over the past week.
On Monday forecasters are expecting “heavy to locally intense” rainfall of about 150-300mm in some cases. That is about half what has been predicted in recent days.
Senior meteorologist Dean Narramore said the low pressure system was “starting to weaken” but that there was “continued threat of dangerous and life-threatening riverine and flash flooding”. He continued:
This is a significant and protracted weather event. That rainfall is expected to ease over the next 24 hours, but there is a lot of water in those catchments, there’s a lot of water on the ground, there’s more significant rain to come.
Key events
NAB has become the first big bank to cut fixed-interest mortgage rates, following challenger Macquarie, as expectations of an impending Reserve Bank rate cut grow, AAP reports.
Rate tracking by comparison site Canstar shows NAB dropped fixed rates by up to 0.25 percentage points for owner-occupiers and up to 0.3 percentage points for investors on Monday.
The move is likely to spur competition from other banks to start cutting rates as lenders try to entice customers to fixed mortgages, given the latest data shows more than 97% of new loans were variable, Canstar data insights director Sally Tindall told AAP.
We’d hope to see competition really ramp up in that space as we get towards a cash rate cut, and then potentially onto the next one.
Wholesale funding is already starting to ease slightly and traders are pricing in an almost 95% chance the central bank will slash the cash rate by 25 basis points on 18 February, after its next two-day policy meeting.
Macquarie was the first lender to cut fixed-rate mortgages in 2025, reducing its one- to three-year fixed-rate mortgages by up to 0.16 percentage points in January.
NAB’s cuts bring it into line with Westpac, offering the lowest one-year fixed rate amongst the big four banks at 6.09%. ANZ is still offering the lowest two- and three-year fixed rates, both at 5.74%.
Jonathan Barrett
Australian dollar plummets as tariffs spook market
The Australian dollar has slumped to its lowest level in more than four years as fears grip currency and share markets in response to the US’ new tariff regime.
The local currency dropped to below 61.2 US cents on Monday, a level last seen during the pandemic-induced selloff in March 2020.
The US president has set in train 25% import taxes for Canada and Mexico across all products other than Canadian energy which will face a 10% tariff.
China will also have 10% tariffs, with the new impositions scheduled to start on Tuesday.
The Australian dollar is viewed as a risk currency and highly exposed to the Chinese economy.
Stock markets in the Asia Pacific region, from Wellington and Sydney to Tokyo and Hong Kong, all opened sharply lower today.
Advocacy organisation supports axing of Childcare Activity Test
The Parenthood has backed the federal government’s planned removal of the Childcare Activity Test.
CEO Georgia Dent said if removed, 126,000 children from low-income families would be able to attend early childhood education and care, which would be of particular benefit to single-mother-families.
Removing the Activity Test is the most significant step towards creating truly universal early education and care. Five-year-olds around the country are currently heading off to school for the first time, and unfortunately one in five is already developmentally vulnerable. In regional and rural areas it’s closer to 2 in five students. A lack of access to early childhood education has a lot to do with that.
The Activity Test requires parents to be working, studying or volunteering in order to receive the Child Care Subsidy, with higher subsidies for higher “activity” hours.
Dent said this created a catch-22 for many parents, especially single mothers or those in insecure and unpredictable employment.
It can take months to get a childcare place, so you can’t get a job until you have secured childcare, but you can’t afford to secure childcare until you have a job.
This is entrenching inequity. The families who are being locked out of early childhood education by the Activity Test are overwhelmingly low-income families, single-mother families, and First Nations and culturally diverse families.
Ben Smee
Key northern Queensland highway cut by destruction of bridge
The Bruce Highway is cut off between Townsville and Ingham after a bridge was washed away in flood waters at Ollera Creek.
Natural disasters can be particularly difficult in north Queensland, where the highway is often the only way in and out of communities. The state of the road has been a heated political issue.
The premier, David Crisafulli, said:
It is not every day you see a bridge torn in two. That is what has happened at Ollera Creek and it is not something that can take an extended period to be repaired.
It has to be repaired to enable the connectivity to occur for goods and services and for the ability for the communities to be connected. Long term it needs to be replaced to a higher standard and I have already begun those conversations, I can assure you.
The major supermarkets say there is about six weeks of supplies already in north Queensland, in the event of major logistical issues.
Amanda Meade
Concept of ‘Middle Eastern race’ raised in Lattouf court case
The ABC says that Antoinette Lattouf’s claim must fail because she “has not proven there is a Lebanese, Arab or Middle Eastern race”, her barrister has told the federal court.
Oshie Fagir for Lattouf said the ABC has argued “there is no basis on which it is defined as a fact that there is a Lebanese Arab or Middle Eastern race”.
Now this is a model litigant, an organisation that publicly suggests that it is confronting and treating seriously the concerns of its diverse workforce, and it comes to this court, and says that Ms Lattouf should fail because it has not been proven that there is such thing as a Lebanese race.
Counsel for the respondent, the ABC, objected to the applicant raising the issue of race, saying it is not a discrimination case but a case about the reason for her termination.
Brad Battin an ‘extreme right-wing leader’, Victorian premier claims
Benita Kolovos
Circling back to the press conference in Victoria, Allan has also sharpened her attack on Brad Battin, the new Liberal leader, who she described as an “extreme right-wing leader”.
She says she’s yet to hear from Battin on the government’s proposed anti-vilification laws, which will be debated in parliament when it returns tomorrow.
Allan says:
What needs to be made clear today, tomorrow, at any point this week, from the Victorian Liberal party and its extreme right-wing leader is, will they stand with the government and make hate a crime? The sort of hateful behaviour, the hateful, evil antisemitic behaviour that we are seeing – let’s make that a crime.
Let’s make it very clear that you can be who you want to be, love who you want to love, and should not be vilified for that. Let’s see what the Liberal party has to say on that.
Jonathan Barrett
Retail spending slips after shoppers bring forward Christmas spending
Australian retail trade dipped slightly in December after many shoppers took advantage of Black Friday sales to buy Christmas presents the month before.
Retail sales fell to $37bn in December, down 0.1% compared with November. The figures confirm a growing trend in Australia for shoppers to replace their December spending splurge with more purchases in late November.
Spending on household goods was resilient in December, rising 1.6%, while households cut back on their typical clothing and footwear purchases, the Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows.
Food retailing increased slightly, although there was a drop in supermarket and grocery store spending.
North Queensland showers easing but life-threatening risks remain – BoM
Ben Smee
The Bureau of Meteorology says rainfall in north Queensland is gradually easing, but that serious threat remains after a week of heavy falls.
At Rollingstone, north of Cairns, there has been 1.28m of rainfall over the past week.
On Monday forecasters are expecting “heavy to locally intense” rainfall of about 150-300mm in some cases. That is about half what has been predicted in recent days.
Senior meteorologist Dean Narramore said the low pressure system was “starting to weaken” but that there was “continued threat of dangerous and life-threatening riverine and flash flooding”. He continued:
This is a significant and protracted weather event. That rainfall is expected to ease over the next 24 hours, but there is a lot of water in those catchments, there’s a lot of water on the ground, there’s more significant rain to come.
Benita Kolovos
Allan puts case for voting Labor in Werribee byelection
Back to Victorian premier Jacinta Allan’s press conference.
On the byelection in Werribee, Allan is asked why voters would back Labor, given the lack of funding it has given the safe seat over the years.
Why wouldn’t a Werribee voter “vote out a Labor member, so in two years’ time Labor throws the kitchen sink at the electorate to try to win it back?” a reporter asks.
Allan replies that the government is listening to the local community and is investing in more road infrastructure in the area. She says:
We have to keep building, we have to keep investing and that’s the message we’re getting. We’re not just listening to that message, we’re acting on that as well, with these investments and more. And I want to say that very clearly to the Werribee community and communities right around the state, in contrast to our Liberal opponents, who have already flagged an agenda for cuts and have already flagged an agenda of hurt.
I say to the Liberal party, what are you going to cut and who are you going to hurt? Because I’m going to fight against those cuts, and I’m going to fight for vulnerable Victorians who need a premier to fight for them.
Amanda Meade
ABC editorial chief said Lattouf hadn’t breached ABC guidelines, court told
The ABC’s editorial director told the broadcaster’s executives that Antoinette Lattouf had not breached the ABC’s editorial guidelines early in the week when the journalist was a stand-in host in December 2023, the federal court has heard.
The advice from the editorial director was sought after the ABC received a large number of complaints about the ABC’s decision to appoint her as a casual host.
Oshie Fagir, for Lattouf, said the ABC’s managing director David Anderson had done his own research of her social media and told his executive that he found evidence that her “socials are full of anti semitic hatred”.
“Now there is no explanation in Mr Anderson’s evidence of what precisely he regarded to be antisemitic hatred, but that is what he said in a text message to Mr [Chris] Oliver Taylor,” Fagir said in his opening statements.
He [Anderson] then went on to say ‘not sure we can have someone on air that suggests that Hamas should return to their ethnic cleansing in Gaza and move on to the West Bank’. Now it’s very difficult to understand what on earth Mr Anderson was talking about, but the hostility is patent, and the reason for the hostility is patent.
Fagir said former ABC chair Ita Buttrose said Lattouf should not have been hired and should be removed, saying “we owe her nothing”.
“We’re copping criticism because she [Lattouf] wasn’t honest when she was appointed,” Buttrose said, according to Fagir.
Ben Smee
Queensland authorities ready for ‘likelihood of more flooding’ – Crisafulli
Meanwhile, the Queensland premier, David Crisafulli, says communities between Mackay and Cairns should stay alert.
Speaking to the media this morning, he said authorities “remain prepared for the ongoing prospect of more rain and the likelihood of more flooding”.
He also urged residents in Townsville’s “black zone” – six suburbs: Hermit Park, Railway Estate, Rosslea, Idalia, Oonoonba and Cluden – who were advised to leave yesterday, should stay away until given the all clear.
He said more rainfall, tides, and dam releases meant those areas were still at risk of more flooding.
Our advice to people in the black zone at the moment is to stay outside the zone and to stay safe. We are prepared for a scenario where rivers continue to rise.
Benita Kolovos
Allan says Dutton ‘grossly uninformed’ on rail loop project
Allan is also asked to respond to comments federal opposition leader Peter Dutton made on 3AW radio this morning in which he said the state government’s Suburban Rail Loop project was a “cruel hoax”.
Dutton said Allan “doesn’t have a dollar to her name” to put towards it.
She replied:
Well, it’s pretty clear that the federal opposition leader doesn’t spend much time in Victoria, because if he did, he wouldn’t make these grossly uninformed comments that he’s just made … we’ve got funding from the state government, funding from the federal government committed to this project, and it’s clear to me that Peter Dutton is signalling he’s going to go back to the future.
He’s going to repeat to Victorians what we saw when he last sat at the cabinet table, dudding Victorians of their fair share of funding.
Benita Kolovos
Allan says forecast Victorian weather change could bring more damage
In respect to the storms, the premier says the Barwon South West region was worst affected. Allan says:
Geelong was really, really hard hit. There were also parts of the south east and Phillip Island as well. Look, the clean\-up is obviously in full swing.
This morning, the SES had 820 requests for assistance, mostly for trees down but also for flash flooding and building damage. And there is likely to be more reports coming in over the course of the morning as people assess the damage in their local areas.
It was a wild storm, and that huge lightning event has caused a number of these fires that we’ve been talking about … A predicted weather change tomorrow afternoon is also causing a worry that there’ll be more storm and wind and dry-lightning damage that’s going to come with that weather change tomorrow afternoon.
Benita Kolovos
Report smoke if you see it, Allan urges after ‘huge lightning storm’
Allan also urged anyone who lives near the fires that can see smoke to report it to authorities, as it may be the result of the “huge lightning storm” overnight.
The commissioner has asked me to ask Victorians in these areas too that if you see smoke on the horizon, if you see smoke in your local area, please report it. That huge lightning storm event that swept through the state yesterday has caused these fires, particularly around the Colac Otway area, and there’s a concern that they may have caused more, that as the heat of the day rises, these fires will become active.
So please be alert to your condition. Please support the work of our emergency services, our volunteers. The state control centre will be providing a more detailed update later on today, but again I do ask all Victorians to stay alert to your conditions, look after one another.
We’ve still got a couple of really hot days to come in just this week, and we’ve still got a number of weeks of summer ahead of us.
Benita Kolovos
Premier confirms two properties thought lost to fires in Victoria’s north-west
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, held a press conference in Werribee earlier this morning, ahead of the byelection this weekend. She also provided an update on the extreme heat the state is experiencing.
Allan says:
For the next day or two ahead, the prediction is for ongoing extreme heat and when I was speaking with the emergency management commissioner earlier this morning, he asked me to remind Victorians that the cumulative impact of day after day of extreme heat is really impacting on vulnerable Victorians. So if you can, please check in on your loved ones, please check in on your neighbour and also look after yourself as we go through this period of extreme heat.
She says two fires continue to burn in the Grampians national park. A fire in Little Desert is also now under control after it broke containment lines due to extreme winds on Sunday, as is a blaze in Hattah. However, fires in the Colac-Otway regions continue to develop.
Allan says:
Our thoughts are with the community around Hattah in the north-west of the state, where there was a fire that they quickly got back under control, but very sadly, there were two properties that are believed to have been lost, and they’re doing further assessments in that community. And then we turn our attention to the fires around the Colac Otways area, where there are fires around the north and the west of Apollo Bay – and this is particularly concerning. There are huge resources, ground resources are being deployed right now to get on top of this fire.
Townsville residents evacuated amid rising flood waters
Residents of parts of Townsville and nearby towns, including Ingham and Cardwell, have evacuated to shelters as rising flood waters inundate their homes.
Heavy rainfall is expected to continue to soak north Queensland, pouring more water into dams and rivers that have already overflowed, forcing further evacuations and threatening thousands of homes.
Authorities are warning the near-record deluge could become more severe than “once in a lifetime” storms five years ago.
Article by:Source: Caitlin Cassidy
