As it happened: Brisbane on Tuesday, February 13

That’s where we’ll leave our live updates. Here are today’s main stories:

Greens MP Amy MacMahon’s car after the collision at Kangaroo Point on Monday night.Credit: Nine News

• Footage of crash involving MP shows pedestrian fleeing to safety
• Tax Office staff caught up in $2 billion TikTok GST scam

The Greens propose to make entry to all council pools free, build five new pools and investigate three sites for outdoor swimming spots.Credit: Brisbane City Council

• New pools and free entry: Greens propose swimming spots for all Brisbane residents
• If twin towers are delayed, Brisbane will get a new CBD park

Barnaby Joyce in question time on Monday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

• Dutton, Littleproud urge Joyce to take time off work to deal with personal issues
• Opinion: “For the first time in forever, I feel sorry for Barnaby Joyce”

Gold Coast-based Taylor Swift fan Katherine Coombes has spent an estimated $3000 on The Eras Tour.

• Tickets to Taylor take toll: Queensland Swifties fork out thousands
• Reynolds, Carrigan apologise for late-night fracas amid nervous wait

Another cyclone may threaten flood-hit regions as Queensland counts the cost of a disaster-riddled summer.

After heavy rain in the Northern Territory, a tropical low is expected to develop this week and track east to Queensland waters in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

A Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said it was a 25 per cent chance of developing into a cyclone, depending on how long it could build up strength in the warm waters of the gulf.

It would be the third cyclone of the season to impact Queensland.

The Gulf region is already reeling from flooding caused by Cyclone Kirrily, which crossed the Queensland coast weeks ago before lingering in the north-west.

In mid-December, Tropical Cyclone Jasper caused record flooding, damaged homes and forced a community to be evacuated when it made landfall as a category two system north of Cairns.

The woman who accused former Brisbane Broncos player Teui “TC” Robati of sexual assault will pre-record her testimony before a planned trial on two counts of rape.

Robati has previously denied he assaulted the woman in a Brisbane bar in December 2022 and claimed the encounter was consensual.

Former Broncos player player Teui “TC” Robati leaves court after an earlier appearance.Credit: Jocelyn Garcia

Robati was axed by the Broncos in February 2023 before the season kick-off.

The case was briefly mentioned in Brisbane District Court today after mediation broke down with prosecutors in the Magistrates Court in January.

Read more.

With a couple of weeks left of summer, Brisbane’s Greens are hoping to win over voters with a plan to make entry to all council pools free and build another five pools.

Greens mayoral candidate Jonathan Sriranganathan said the goal was for “everyone in Brisbane to have access to a local swimming spot”.

The Greens propose to make entry to all council pools free, build five new pools and investigate three sites for outdoor swimming spots.Credit: Brisbane City Council

“Summers are getting hotter, and it doesn’t seem fair that so many people can’t afford to cool down,” he said.

“Household budgets are tight, so we want to make it easy to keep cool by making city council pools free.”

The Greens estimated it would cost $11 million a year to make entry to council pools free and about $80 million over four years to deliver and maintain five new pools.

Read more.

Almost three years on, we now have more insight into the cause of an explosion and generator failure at a major central Queensland coal-fired power station facing allegations it failed to meet performance standards.

While not the long-awaited independent report by Dr Sean Brady, state-owned CS Energy has released what it’s called a technical investigation summary into the Callide C4 incident and the changes made to date.

It lays out a series of events that unfolded after the connection of a new battery charger caused power supply to the partially state-owned generator’s protection systems – such as cooling and lubrication – to fail.

This also stopped it disconnecting from the power grid and led the steam-driven turbine to switch from generating power to being driven by it, with “excessive heat” melting bearings, damaging the shaft, and igniting an “explosive mixture” of leaked hydrogen cooling gas.

A separate “media backgrounder” provided with the report by CS Energy states the incident “was the result of the simultaneous failure of key electrical equipment and system back-ups in a series of complex events that could not have been anticipated”.

Queensland-based Taylor Swift fans have become creative with budgeting for the pop star’s arrival down under, but the bills have racked up.

“I would like to live in the land of girl math and possibly delusion – tickets were purchased last year, so they are free in 2024 and I stand by that,” Gold Coast fan Katherine Coombes explained.

Swifties are out in force as Taylor Swift tours Down Under.Credit: New York Times

High school teacher Coombes, 28, is one of the many fans travelling south for The Eras Tour after Swift snubbed Brisbane in favour of Melbourne and Sydney.

Like many Queensland fans, she’s forked out thousands to be part of this monumental era in live music history. Her conservative estimate: $3000.

Read more.

Properties have been evacuated and traffic is being diverted after a truck rolled on the Bruce Highway in north Queensland, with reports it is leaking a toxic substance.

Police say the rollover was near Caping Road, just south of Proserpine, about 11.30am.

They have established an exclusion zone with a five-kilometre radius and have told motorists to avoid the area or be prepared for delays.

The Australian Tax Office has revealed at least 150 of its staff were suspected of taking part in a social media scam that fleeced the nation out of $2 billion in GST refunds.

In an Auditor-General’s report into the ATO’s oversight and control of fraud of the $90 billion goods and service tax, the tax office revealed it had axed some people and launched criminal investigations into staff who might have been involved.

The Australian Tax Office revealed at least 150 of its own staff were suspected of taking part in a social media scam.Credit: Louie Douvis

The tax office created Operation Protego in 2022 after banks, led by Westpac, noticed unusually large payments going into the accounts of its customers, particularly those whose main source of income were welfare payments.

It had started as videos on social media such as TikTok which explained how people could get the tax office to deliver money directly into their account.

Facilitators then emerged who promised to help people gain the “free” cash by handing over their personal details.

This was used to invent fake businesses, with their own Australian Business Number, which then submitted fake Business Activity Statements to claim GST refunds.

The ATO has been sought for comment.

After floating the idea at a lunch event question-and-answer session last week, Premier Steven Miles has confirmed his government would change laws to increase transparency around youth court cases.

Miles gave the commitment during repeat questioning on youth crime from the LNP opposition during the first parliamentary sitting of the year.

The government will prepare laws to allow greater media access to, and reporting from, youth court cases, with safeguards around a child’s history of abuse and mental health.

Victims’ families would be given greater access to the court process, Miles said, while acknowledging criticism of his questions raised about court practices.

“We believe that that kind of transparency, that kind of scrutiny, is important and is appropriate,” he said.

Companies involved in Meriton’s bid to build two towers on a CBD block opposite the Botanic Gardens want to get heavy machinery on site as soon as possible – even if only to clear space for a park.

Brisbane City Council has been asked to allow the demolition of the Gardens Apartments, which are several residential buildings between Alice and Margaret streets, while it considers Meriton’s application to build two towers of 70 storeys and 79 storeys on the site.

Meriton wants to build the towers “as soon as possible” and has offered council a fallback option should the development be delayed.

According to documents filed with council, a temporary park, with active transport links between Alice and Margaret streets, would be opened to the public within three months of demolition work being completed if construction of the towers has not started by that time.