As it happened: Brisbane on Tuesday, July 15

Thanks for joining us for our live news blog this Tuesday. We’ll be back tomorrow with more live coverage, so please join us. And if you’re just catching up on today’s news, here are some of the stories that have been making headlines:

A 57-year-old man has been found stabbed to death in the front garden of a multimillion-dollar home near a beach north of Brisbane.

The Queensland Police Service will decentralise its command to better resource the regions, in a suite of changes designed to solve fatigue and burnout in its ranks.

Meanwhile, the state’s acting top cop has offered support to family and frontline staff involved in the continuing investigation into the death of a seven-month-old boy near his family’s campsite on the weekend.

Businesses would be banned from applying surcharges to all credit and debit card transactions from July next year under a Reserve Bank proposal that could save Australian consumers close to $1.2 billion annually.

In China, a group of Australian television journalists were briefly blocked from getting on their bus after filming footage outside a popular Beijing tourist attraction by local security officials and told to hand over their footage for viewing by police.

And the German backpacker who was rescued after spending 11 nights stranded in the West Australian outback says she’s working on regaining 12kg she lost in her ordeal.

Opposition defence spokesman Angus Taylor has rebuked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, accusing him of having misplaced priorities amid a broader discussion with the US about a hypothetical war with China.

Albanese has declined to reveal if Australia would fight in any potential future conflict between the US and China over Taiwan, as the Pentagon pressures Canberra for reassurances on how AUKUS submarines would be deployed in the event of war.

Taylor said having alliances was necessary for sovereign nations.

“We’ve got authoritarian regimes that are flexing their muscles, the Chinese Communist Party that is seeking a massive military build-up, or executing a massive military build-up,” Taylor told Sky News.

After the United States’ requests for assurances were made public, Albanese refused to give an explicit public assurance that Australia’s nuclear submarines would help the US in a future conflict.

The response is in line with the long-standing doctrine of strategic ambiguity – a policy of giving no public declarations about military plans.

However, Taylor was critical of Albanese’s actions about broader strategic issues.

The Queensland Police Service will decentralise its command to better resource the regions, cutting about a dozen senior executive positions in Brisbane.

Acting police commissioner Shane Chelepy said no senior executives would necessarily lose their positions, but the service had instead left positions vacant as staff left.

Commissioner Shane Chelepy speaks about the review into staff shortages and burnout.Credit: Catherine Strohfeldt

“Our staff are fatigued and our staff are suffering burnout,” Chelepy said.

“They do a tough job and they need to have those services in the regions in the stations … not in Brisbane.”

The changes come following an independent review into Queensland Police, which produced 65 recommendations to better address staff shortages and burnout.

Chelepy promised to fix problems with finding regional housing, mental health support, and clearly defining the limits of individual roles.

“We’ve seen mission creep within the organisation, particularly post-COVID. We’ve seen police taking on roles they shouldn’t have been doing,” he said.

Chelepy said some recommendations would be implemented in weeks, with others to take up to two years.

Police Minister Dan Purdie said the government would implement all recommendations, alongside those from a review into Queensland watch houses delivered last week.

“This report is the first step… I look forward to going through every recommendation – 65 recommendations – with the commissioner,” Purdie said.

The attrition rate for Queensland state school teachers has been increasing since the COVID pandemic.

Responding to a question on notice, Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek said the annual attrition rate was 3.86 per cent in 2020 and 5.55 per cent last year.

We’ve previously reported on the stress faced by Queensland principals and teachers from the sheer quantity of work and physical violence.

More teachers are leaving their jobs in Queensland.Credit: iStock

Since the LNP came to power, the Education Department has rolled out a red-tape reduction plan, and pledged a zero-tolerance approach to violence and drugs in schools.

Attrition rate measures the rate at which employees leave an organisation, via various avenues including retirement or resignation.

Here is the full breakdown by year:

• 2020: 3.86 per cent
• 2021: 4.42 per cent
• 2022: 5.24 per cent
• 2023: 5.59 per cent
• 2024: 5.55 per cent

Opponents of a proposed coal mine in the Bundaberg region are celebrating today after the state government found it was not in the public interest.

Attorney-General Deb Frecklington said the government would reject Fox Coal’s application to develop a coking coal mine in the Wide Bay-Burnett region, first proposed in 2019, after a full assessment.

Coal Free Bundaberg spokeswoman Cristel Simmonds said it was an “amazing outcome”.

The plan was opposed by a group calling itself Coal Free Bundaberg.Credit: Coal Free Bundaberg

Opponents were concerned about the effects of the mine on the region’s farms, water catchments, turtle nesting habitats and the nearby Great Barrier Reef.

Lock the Gate Queensland coordinator Maggie Mckeown said it did not make sense to build coal mines on valuable farmland, and she hoped the government might extend the decision to other coal mines that would affect farmland, including around Baralaba and Emerald.

Businesses would be banned from applying surcharges to all credit and debit card transactions from July next year under a Reserve Bank proposal estimated to save Australian consumers $1.2bn each year.

On Tuesday, the RBA released its review into card surcharges, proposing a suite of reforms aimed at lowering fees for both consumers and merchants, with a lever to also apply pressure on credit card companies and financial players higher up the chain by forcing them to publish details of the fees they charge.

The proposal could save Australian consumers upwards of $1 billion a year.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

The RBA’s proposal to stop fees on credit and debit card transactions, which will now be subject to an industry consultation window, goes further than reforms the Albanese government had previously discussed banning surcharges only on debit cards.

For years, businesses have been able to apply surcharges to credit and debit card payments, but the amount is not supposed to exceed what it costs a business to process the payment.

While average surcharges have been about 0.7 per cent of the transaction, they have ranged from 0.1 per cent to 10 per cent.

In its preliminary view, the RBA has proposed banning all surcharges for consumers using Eftpos, Visa and Mastercard – applying its rules to American Express would rely on separate reforms to the payments act currently on the horizon – noting “surcharging is no longer achieving its intended purpose of steering consumers to make more efficient payment choices”.

“Avoiding surcharges has become harder as cash usage has declined, businesses are increasingly charging the same surcharge rate across debit and credit card and there are significant challenges,” the RBA said.

The RBA arrived at its decision to include credit cards in the surcharge ban after feedback from its initial issues paper released in October, where payment service providers estimated the cost of banning surcharges for just debit cards would be more costly, time-consuming and confusing to implement than a uniform ban.

With Brisbane students heading back for term three at private schools today, and state school students returning yesterday, police have reminded drivers that school zones are back in effect.

During the school holidays, officers did more than 39,000 breath tests and 2200 roadside drug tests.

More than 600 drivers were found to be over the legal alcohol limit, while more than 450 returned a positive test for drugs and had to undergo further testing.

Acting Chief Superintendent of Road Policing Steven Newland urged drivers to slow down, reminding people school zones will also be in effect.Credit: SMH

Police said they were “extremely concerned” about some of the high speeds detected, particularly involving young and inexperienced drivers, and motorbike riders.

On July 6, an 18-year-old was allegedly caught travelling at 177km/h in an 80km/h zone at Park Ridge.

“Travelling at nearly double the speed limit is unacceptable behaviour – there is no excuse for those kinds of speeds,” Acting Chief Superintendent of Road Policing Steven Newland said.

A man has been rushed to hospital in the early hours of this morning after he was seriously injured during an alleged break-in at his northern Gold Coast home.

Police were called about 3.45am to a house on Baileys Mountain Road, in Upper Coomera, to reports of a break-in and assault.

The resident, a 29-year-old man, said two unknown people had forced their way into his home before attacking him.

He suffered arm injuries and went to Gold Coast University Hospital, where police said he remained this morning in a stable but serious condition.

Officers declared a crime scene at the Baileys Mountain Road residence, and opened an investigation.

A court will decide whether the federal government has a duty of care to protect First Nations people whose homes and communities are being threatened by the impacts of climate change.

At risk of becoming Australia’s first climate refugees, Uncle Paul Kabai and Uncle Pabai Pabai filed the landmark case against the government in the Federal Court in 2021.

Traditional owners Uncle Pabai Pabai and Uncle Paul Kabai are suing the Commonwealth over its climate change policies.Credit: Justin McManus

They claim it failed to protect their homelands among the Torres Strait Islands from climate change.

The uncles are seeking orders from the court that would require the government to take steps to prevent harm to their communities, including cutting greenhouse gas emissions in line with the best available science.

The court, which is due to hand down its decision on Tuesday in Cairns, heard evidence communities on Boigu and Saibai could have less than 30 years left before their islands become uninhabitable.

The Commonwealth has argued it is not legally required to consider the best available science or the impacts of climate change when setting emissions reduction targets.

AAP