As it happened: Brisbane on Thursday, March 20

Thanks for joining us today for our live coverage of news in Brisbane. We’ll be back with the blog tomorrow morning but if you’re just catching up, here are a few of the stories that have made headlines today:

Long-term homeless people living in Brisbane’s parks have been left in the dark one week after the Brisbane City Council announced it would enforce move-on orders to clear them from inner-city spaces.

Communities in northern Queensland are on alert for more flooding as the Lower Herbert River near Halifax broke its banks after a days-long deluge.

A 21st birthday party attended by Lilie James five days before she died was the point at which Paul Thijssen felt he lost control of her, triggering his rapid escalation from manipulation, coercion and lies to monitoring, stalking and finally murder, domestic violence experts have told an inquest into the popular school sports coach’s death.

One of Brisbane’s key hospitality groups is taking charge to reopen The Fox – closed since the 2022 floods – with a bar, bistro, late-night cocktail lounge and rooftop bar.

The US government has released tens of thousands of pages about the assassination of former president John F. Kennedy.

Attacks on property carrying the logo of Elon Musk’s electric-car company are cropping up across the US and overseas, with Cybertrucks set ablaze and bullets and Molotov cocktails aimed at Tesla showrooms.

Whether you’re sinking a beer at the pub, filling your car with fuel, or buying a flashy new set of wheels, a handful of taxes are widening the hole in your hip pocket and helping to bolster a budget that Treasurer Jim Chalmers will hand down on Tuesday.

One of Brisbane’s long-standing botanical parks has turned 100 today.

The Sherwood Arboretum – a type of botanical garden specifically for trees – was founded on 21 March, 1925, with the planting of 72 Queensland Kauri Pines.

The pines remain on the 15-hectare site today, among a further 1350 trees from approximately 250 native species.

The Brisbane City Council estimated Sherwood Arboretum was also home gliders, bats and around 124 species of bird.

“I want to thank those who had the incredible vision for this destination and everyone who’s had a vital hand in preserving and enhancing it for the past 100 years,” Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said.

The arboretum is still about 100 years younger than the County Botanic Gardens, which were established in the early 19th century.

Australia’s population growth has fallen to its slowest rate in two years as net overseas migration continues to ease.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that the population grew by 1.8 per cent in the 12 months to September last year. The country added 484,000 residents over that period, the smallest number and the slowest growth rate since the September quarter of 2022.

Australia’s population is growing at the slowest rate since 2022.Credit: Dan Peled

The slowdown was caused by an easing in net overseas migrants, which added 89,806 people to the country. It was the smallest September quarter result since 2021, when the country still had travel restrictions in place, and was 38 per cent down year-on-year.

Natural population growth – births minus deaths – added 25,211 people in the quarter.

Deaths, traditionally high in the September quarter, increased to 51,600, the second-highest quarter on record.

Western Australia remains the fastest-growing state at 2.5 per cent over the past year, with its population just short of 3 million.

Victoria’s population growth slowed to 2.1 per cent, with the state now home to more than 7 million people for the first time.

NSW’s population went through 8.5 million, with its growth rate easing to 1.4 per cent, while Queensland’s population is now 5.6 million.

Long-term homeless people living in Brisbane’s parks have been left in the dark one week after the Brisbane City Council announced it would enforce move-on orders to clear them from inner-city spaces.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner had said he would give those living in tent encampments 24 hours to pack up and move on, in a bid to open up parkland “for everyone to enjoy”.

A week on, the council said only four people had accepted temporary relief housing, and 14 empty tents had been removed.

Homeless people living in long-term tent encampments across Brisbane’s parks have received an influx of information in the week since the lord mayor announced the council would move them on.Credit: Courtney Kruk

Chief executive Karyn Walsh of not-for-profit Micah Projects, which works with Brisbane’s homeless population, said rough sleepers had been left distressed by an at-times ill-informed debate over the issue.

“Because there’s been a lot of community reaction, a lot of people are getting information from unofficial sources … people get confused,” she said.

Read the full story.

Communities in northern Queensland are on alert for more flooding as one river broke its banks after a days-long deluge.

Triple-digit rainfall totals have battered the region for days, a month after it experienced a flood emergency that killed two people and left 30,000 without power.

On Thursday morning, the Lower Herbert River near Halifax rose past the major flood level of 5.5 metres.

More than 200 millimetres of rain smashed parts of North Queensland, including Townsville, as the region endured a fresh deluge of flash floods.

Emergency services urged nearby residents to move their vehicles to higher ground as the river broke its banks.

Read more.

Two enormous and bizarre creatures will float over the Sunshine Coast Hinterland in May as part of a local arts event.

The Skywhales hot-air balloons, created by renowned artist Patricia Piccinini, will take flight on Sunday, May 4, during the Horizon Festival.

Artist Patricia Piccinini with Skywhalepapa, a companion piece to Skywhale, during a test flight.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“In nine short years, Horizon has welcomed almost 320,000 visitors to the Sunshine Coast, employed 6800 creatives, and delivered a $16.2 million economic benefit to the region,” Sunshine Coast Mayor Rosanna Natoli said.

The Skywhales have previously appeared in Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, and one was tethered to the Brisbane Powerhouse in 2014.

Piccinini’s work explores the relationship between nature and technology, blending hyperrealism with the surreal.

An armed break-in at a Morningside home could be linked to a string of thefts and attempted robberies spanning from 11pm until almost 3am overnight.

About 2.40am a group, with one person wielding a knife, broke into a property on Agnew Street, and threatened a 50-year-old man who lived there.

Police said the intruders demanded car keys from the resident before a struggle broke out, and the 50-year-old was injured. Nothing was taken, but the group fled in a stolen black sedan.

Before the Morningside break-in, police received reports of robberies at Bulimba, Cannon Hill and Wakerley.

About 11pm, a person entered a Bulimba home, stealing items and fleeing in a vehicle.

About 1am two vehicles were stolen from a Cannon Hill address following a break-in, and two break-ins were reported between 2am and 2.30am in Wakerley and Cannon Hill.

Pet-friendly flights are a step closer to being unleashed, with a food safety authority calling for public submissions on the proposal.

Virgin Australia is seeking regulatory approval to allow passengers to travel with their companion dogs and cats. The change requires an amendment to food safety rules for food handling in an enclosed area.

A promotional image released for Virgin Australia’s announcement that pets will be allowed on board.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand is calling for public comment after its safety assessment found the risk of “foodborne transmission of pathogens” from companion animals on board “is low when risk management controls are in place”.

Virgin announced its plan to accommodate pet lovers in March 2024, citing the trend of US and Canadian airlines. The Australian airline also pointed to its own social media surveys showing “nearly 70 per cent of respondents advised they would travel with their pet in the cabin, with 57 per cent saying they would fly more regularly if the service was a reality”.

Virgin clarified that pets would not be allowed to roam the aisles of flights. The airline has proposed the service be limited to “small cats and dogs on specific domestic routes” in approved pet carriers.

Pet-friendly seating would be limited to a number of rows, and a fee would be charged. The airline’s policy on assistance animals would be unchanged.

Submissions, which close on April 30, can be made at the FSANZ website.

Former lord mayor Graham Quirk says Brisbane might no longer reap all the benefits that drove the city’s bid to host the Olympics.

Quirk – who was lord mayor when the bid was first considered in 2015, and who led the first review into Olympic venues last year – said on ABC Radio Brisbane this morning there were three “essential outcomes” behind the bid.

Graham Quirk.Credit: AAP

“The first of those, of course, was road and public transport infrastructure – we didn’t need any specific Olympic public transport or infrastructure built, we needed those things that would keep up with population growth,” he said.

Quirk said the other goals were boosting tourism through investing in tourist attractions, and “to a lesser level” inspiring sports in younger Queenslanders.

“We might have missed the boat a little bit, I think, in terms of the public transport infrastructure ... the other two, though, are certainly still very achievable,” he said.

“All of the focus and all the discussion has been around sport venues, and that wasn’t what it was about originally.”

Logan Mayor Jon Raven says the solution to hooning in the region is not more policing, arguing young people need somewhere safe to hoon.

“The amount of police you would need to be able to enforce on this is just unrealistic,” Raven told Nine News.

“We’d all love a solution where people can go somewhere where it’s safe to do it … you’ve got to find a way for people to do this safely.”

Hooning behaviours are categorised as offences in Queensland, with penalties ranging up to a maximum fine of almost $6500 and 40 demerit points, or jail time up to six months.

The Logan City Council set up several dozen cameras across its CBD, as well as speed humps, traffic islands, chicanes and bollards through areas it identified as high risk for dangerous driving activity.