As it happened: Brisbane on Friday, May 23

Detective Acting Inspector Ryan Thompson is providing an update on the investigations into 17-year-old-girl Pheobe Bishop, reported missing from Bundaberg since May 15.

Thanks for joining us for our live coverage of news in Queensland today. We’ll be back on Monday morning with more live coverage.

If you’re just catching up, here are some of the stories that made headlines today:

Homicide detectives have been brought in to help investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl in central Queensland, with police searching remote bushland and creeks for any trace of 17-year-old Pheobe Bishop.

A reformed Coalition would drastically scale back the nuclear energy plan it took to the election, according to a leaked document outlining the negotiations between Liberal leader Sussan Ley and Nationals leader David Littleproud.

The cost of living in Brisbane has been rising, according to the latest consumer price index data, with the price of food and non-alcoholic beverages increasing more than any other city.

A second Jetstar flight has been cancelled after a fault in its navigation system, suspected to be related to solar flare activity.

After nearly 13 years, West End live music institution The Bearded Lady is closing its doors. Owner Jamie Simmonds explains the story behind its demise.

And Australians are surprisingly swearing less online than people in other countries, but researchers suspect the nation is saving it for face-to-face interactions.

Detective Acting Inspector Ryan Thompson is providing an update on the investigations into 17-year-old-girl Pheobe Bishop, reported missing from Bundaberg since May 15.

A plan to march across the Story Bridge to protest against continuing footpath closures may end up in court, with Brisbane City Council and police denying permission for it to go ahead.

Organisers wanted to hold the action at 8am on Friday, May 30, and said it would require a complete shutdown of peak-hour traffic while active transport advocates walked and cycled across the bridge.

Protest organiser and Brisbane cyclist Kathryn Good said she had filed notice for the demonstration a week earlier than legally required to allow the Brisbane City Council and police to fully prepare.

“The intent of the protest is to cause traffic disruption … [but] we want it to be a safe protest, we want it to be a legal protest,” she told this masthead.

Good participated in a mediation session this morning with council and police. It ended with the two bodies intending to file a court order against the demonstration on the grounds of safety and excessive interference with motorists’ right to movement.

The council’s infrastructure chair Andrew Wines said they were working on a solution within months, and had ruled out closing a traffic lane for pedestrians and cyclists in the meantime.

Good said it was “really hard to swallow” the idea that the roads could not be closed for several hours, while footpaths are expected to remain closed until the end of the year.

A parliamentary committee tasked with considering the Crisafulli government’s planned expansion of police wanding powers has rejected calls for greater scrutiny.

Crime and Corruption Commission chairman Bruce Barbour and Victim’s Commissioner Beck O’Connor were among those calling for a review or evaluation of wanding operations, as had been promised before Jack’s Law was made permanent.

But in a report tabled today, the LNP-led committee said it had been advised by the Queensland Police Service that any review was a matter for government, and data to be included in its annual report would provide sufficient transparency.

The committee recommended the legislative changes be passed, albeit with Greens MP Michael Berkman dissenting and calling for the promised review to be completed.

“The bill in its current form is not based on sufficient evidence or justification,” Berkman wrote.

“There is no evidence it will progress its stated aims, but substantial evidence of its potential harms.”

A second Jetstar flight has been cancelled after a fault in its navigation system, suspected to be related to solar flare activity.

A Brisbane to Bali flight was scrapped yesterday after disturbances to its Global Positioning System (GPS) prevented the flight from taking off, Jetstar confirmed.

The disruption follows an earlier cancellation of a flight from Melbourne to Bali a day earlier, as well as a number of delays, lasting for hours, that affected other flights at the Qantas-owned economy airline.

Jetstar aircraft at Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport.Credit: The Age/Chris Zappone

The GPS fault also caused subsequent delays of Jetstar flights to Bali, Fiji and Hobart from Australia’s east coast yesterday.

The spate of difficulties comes days after the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a warning about solar flare activity in previous days, raising the possibility that electromagnetic interference could affect aviation communication and navigation.

Read the full story.

Three people have been arrested over a spate of break-ins and vehicle thefts between northern Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast.

On Monday afternoon, police found a 34-year-old Hervey Bay man at a service station in Rothwell, north of Brisbane. He ran away from officers before being arrested.

The man is accused of being involved in robberies over the last month between Bald Hills in Brisbane and Caloundra West on the Sunshine Coast.

A raid on a Burpengary East home this week uncovered a cache of allegedly stolen goods, including e-bikes, jewellery, and clothing, as well as drug paraphernalia.

Two more people were arrested there – a 35-year-old woman and 43-year-old man, both from Burpengary East – and charged with receiving stolen goods and drug possession.

The 34-year-old was initially charged with 53 offences – with a further two added on Wednesday – including nine counts of unlawfully using a motor vehicle, and five counts of fraud.

The three are due to face Caboolture Magistrates Court between late May and the end of June.

Four crew killed in an army helicopter crash were “brave and selfless to the end”, the defence minister says, confirming the government accepts all 46 recommendations of a safety report.

The Aviation Safety Investigation Report into the MRH-90 Taipan helicopter crash off the Whitsunday Islands in Queensland on July 28, 2023 was released this week.

Captain Danniel Lyon, Lieutenant Maxwell Nugent, Warrant Officer Class Two Joseph Laycock and Corporal Alexander Naggs were killed when their helicopter crashed into the sea during Exercise Talisman Sabre.

Defence Minister Richard Marles thanked the Defence Flight Safety Bureau for their “tireless” work on the report and said every recommendation would be accepted by the government.

The investigation, one of four into the crash, was an important step in understanding what occurred and learning from it, the minister told reporters in Brisbane yesterday.

“I would observe that the four crew who tragically lost their lives I’m absolutely certain were brave and selfless to the end,” he said. “Our thoughts are very much with their families, and we continue to work with them.”

A motorbike rider has been pulled over with a medium-sized dog on the handlebars.

The 35-year-old woman was stopped by police about 2pm on Saturday at Alexandra Headland on the Sunshine Coast.

A pooch was strapped to her chest and had its paws on custom-made pads attached to the front fork.

The dog had its paws on custom-made pads attached to the front fork.Credit: Queensland Police

“Yeah, you can’t unfortunately be riding around with a dog in between your arms,” an officer told the woman.

“I must say it’s the first time I’ve seen it.”

The rider was hit with a $376 traffic infringement notice.

The boyfriend of a girl missing under suspicious circumstances north of Brisbane says he “can’t believe this is all real”.

Pheobe Bishop failed to check in for her flight from Bundaberg to Western Australia about 8.30am last Thursday.

On Wednesday, investigators declared her home in the nearby township of Gin Gin a crime scene, and seized a grey Hyundai ix35 SUV.

Last night Nine News Queensland spoke to the boyfriend Bishop had been planning to visit in WA.

“As you can imagine, he is devastated but says he’s holding up OK and still just can’t believe this is all real,” reporter Clare Todhunter said.

Police confirmed Bishop was not living with family when she disappeared, and her two housemates have been interviewed.

They reportedly claim she was dropped at the airport that morning.

Police are seeking CCTV and dashcam footage from the area to trace the group’s movements that morning.

Four factory resets of one device, mushroom photos on another and a third containing angry messages about a “gaslighting” and “deadbeat” estranged husband, whose family she wanted nothing to do with.

This was among some of the evidence prosecutors allege had been found on phones, tablets and other devices seized from Erin Patterson’s home, her triple murder trial was told yesterday.

She is accused of intentionally poisoning her former in-laws, Don and Gail Patterson, 70, and Heather Wilkinson, 66, by serving them a toxic beef Wellington on July 29, 2023.

All three died in hospital in the days after the lunch, while Heather’s husband Ian was the only survivor of the meal. Patterson has pleaded not guilty to all offences and claims it was a terrible accident.

Victoria Police digital forensics officer Shamen Fox-Henry showed the jury his analysis of devices seized from Patterson’s home.

Fox-Henry’s report on a mobile phone that Patterson had handed to police after they searched her home revealed four factory resets had been done in 2023. This included one remote wipe of the phone on August 6, the day after she had handed the device to police.

Photos taken of mushrooms in May 2023, including some inside a food dehydrator, were found on a tablet seized by police and also shown to the jury.

Read more about what the court heard yesterday.