As it happened: Brisbane on Tuesday, October 8

A Labor candidate who made multiple crude comments about police has been backed by premier Steven Miles.

This week it emerged Burleigh nominee Claire Carlin tweeted variations of “f**k the police” over several years until at least 2011.

“This is someone who made some comments while not a public official, she said that she doesn’t stand by those comments now and she said that she apologises,” Miles said today.

“I think all of us are entitled to shift our views over time, and when we were younger perhaps we had some views that we don’t necessarily hold.”

The tweets emerged as the LNP leans into a “tough on crime” election narrative. Opposition leader David Crisafulli has rolled out a spate of policies targeting youth offenders, and says he would resign as premier if victim numbers do not drop significantly.

Thanks for joining us for today’s blog. Here are some of the stories that made headlines:

Exclusive analysis by Brisbane Times can reveal five pedestrians have been hit by cars at the zebra crossing outside Paddington Central since 2003 – Brisbane’s most dangerous.

The weather bureau released a severe thunderstorm warning for Brisbane, saying “damaging winds and large hailstones” would be likely as the summer storm season gets off to an early start.

A man has been extradited from Queensland over the NSW death of his mother, who had an AVO against him.

Former British PM Liz Truss left a particularly bitter question time in Canberra within half an hour – an exit far more tactical than her resignation from the top job in British politics.

John Farnham’s voice has been heard publicly for the first time since he was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2022, when doctors removed a tumour from his mouth and reconstructed his jaw.

And Brisbane Roar coach Ruben Zadkovich says there will be no coddling of his emerging stars. In fact, when it comes to 17-year-old Lucas Herrington, the plan is to put “as much pressure and stress as we can on him”.

A Labor candidate who made multiple crude comments about police has been backed by premier Steven Miles.

This week it emerged Burleigh nominee Claire Carlin tweeted variations of “f**k the police” over several years until at least 2011.

“This is someone who made some comments while not a public official, she said that she doesn’t stand by those comments now and she said that she apologises,” Miles said today.

“I think all of us are entitled to shift our views over time, and when we were younger perhaps we had some views that we don’t necessarily hold.”

The tweets emerged as the LNP leans into a “tough on crime” election narrative. Opposition leader David Crisafulli has rolled out a spate of policies targeting youth offenders, and says he would resign as premier if victim numbers do not drop significantly.

A south-east Queensland hospital will almost double in size if the Labor government is re-elected, premier Steven Miles promised today.

The Miles government made their latest health funding pledge at Redland Hospital in Cleveland.Credit: William Davis

Under the $1.6 billion plan, 181 new beds would be made available at Redland Hospital in Cleveland, bringing capacity to 376.

A new emergency department, two new operating theatres and an additional maternity unit would also be built.

“I am genuinely so terrified that, if the LNP win this election, what it will mean for our health system,” health minister Shannon Fentiman said from the site today, alongside Miles and hospital workers.

“In the next decade 185,000 people will call this region home. We have to make sure we’re planning for the future so that everyone can get access to great quality healthcare close to home.”

The announcement came as Labor and the opposition sparred on healthcare policy. Miles says the LNP will build fewer new hospital beds and could outlaw abortion – allegations David Crisafulli disputes.

The LNP’s $50 million regional “reset” program for young offenders will do little to address the root cause of youth crime, a Brisbane-based non-profit has warned.

Youth Advocacy Centre chief executive Katherine Hayes said the policy was a case of treating the symptom, and not the disease.

“The only way to really stop reoffending is to really address the underlying causes of the offending, and that’s not done with a three-week reset,” she said.

“It’s done over years, and it needs to be done in the community, because if you do a boot-camp-style thing, which is what this sounds like, as soon as they go back to the community, then they just go back onto their path of offending.”

David Crisafulli announced his latest policy at a Cairns football club that has been upgraded after incidents of vandalism and break-ins.Credit: Matt Dennien

Youth crime, Hayes said, was a symptom of “broader social dysfunction” brought on by problems such as family breakdowns, substance abuse and family violence.

“When you see an increase in youth crime, you know that there are basic problems that need to be addressed in society, and a lot of these problems the government has a lot of exposure to,” she said.

“A lot of the kids in youth justice system are [Department of] Child Safety kids as well, so the government’s, I think, failing in their duty to them.”

Hayes said family and domestic violence was a much bigger risk to public safety than youth crime, which was receiving a lot more attention this election campaign.

Premier Steven Miles said youth boot camps failed under the Newman government and they would fail again if they were reintroduced.

“Everyone since 2015 has treated [Newman attorney-general and current deputy opposition leader] Jarrod Bleijie’s boot camps as little more than a joke,” he said.

“The fact they’re announcing them today I think points to how shallow their ideas are.”

Home buyers will get interest rate relief once inflation stops being “sticky”, Reserve Bank deputy governor Andrew Hauser has signalled.

Speaking in Sydney this afternoon, Hauser said the RBA was not going to move in “lock step” with other central banks that may have cut their official interest rates already.

Reserve Bank deputy governor Andrew Hauser in August.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

He said the bank remained focused on bringing down inflation, but for a variety of reasons, it had been a little stickier than in other countries such as the United States.

“As soon as it stops being sticky, we’ll react,” he said.

Central banks in the United States, New Zealand, Canada and Britain have all started cutting their official interests. All, bar Canada, still have a cash rate above the Reserve Bank’s 4.35 per cent.

Today’s Melbourne Institute monthly measure of inflation, which closely tracks the official inflation rate, rose by 0.1 per cent in September to be up 2.6 per cent over the past 12 months. Its measure of underlying inflation also increased by 0.1 per cent in the month and is up just 2.2 per cent over the past year.

Hauser said while he had the concerns of many people about interest rates, most understood the damage that inflation could cause.

“The cost of inflation ... hits hardest on people on low incomes, on fixed incomes, often older people, people trying to get on to the housing ladder, people on welfare benefits,” he said.

“It is poisonous because it gets into absolutely every economic decision.

“It is not overstating things to say that countries [that] have lost control of inflation more severely, as has happened in the past, quite often get wars, get civil unrest.”

Former deputy premier Jackie Trad has joined the state election campaign, albeit in a low-profile manner.

Trad joined MP Peter Russo to door-knock residents in Sunnybank on the King’s Birthday public holiday.

Trad, who lost her seat of South Brisbane to the Greens in 2020, described Russo – who holds the safe Labor seat on a margin of 14.5 per cent – as “one of the most decent and honourable men I have ever come across in politics and in life” in a post on her official Instagram account.

Trad posts infrequently on social media, but in March shared her support for Labor’s Bec Mac, who contested The Gabba, which overlaps with her old seat of South Brisbane, and Labor’s lord mayoral candidate Tracey Price.

Brisbane locals have been invited to have their say on council’s plan to allow new developments to have fewer parking spaces in a number of inner-city suburbs.

The changes would reduce the number of carparks required for new residential buildings, so locals could swap car ownership for cheaper housing in the heart of Brisbane.

Council would extend the CBD parking rules to a number of inner-city suburbs (red) and decrease the minimum number of parks for others (yellow).Credit: Brisbane City Council

Council plans to bring parts of inner-city suburbs, including Bowen Hills, Milton, West End, and Newstead, into the same planning zone as the CBD – limiting car parks to around half a park per apartment.

Public consultation will remain open for four weeks, closing at 11.59pm on November 5.

Council first presented the changes in May, winning support from the Labor state government, but raising concerns from community groups over active transport infrastructure in the inner city.

The project was expected to undergo final reviews after community consultation closes, and would be adopted into the city early next year if approved.

After giving some more detail on health yesterday, the LNP has shifted its focus back to youth crime and early intervention today.

Speaking from the Southside Comets FC in the Cairns suburb of Edmonton, LNP leader David Crisafulli announced the latest measure to target kids before they end up in court.

Under his plan, community organisations will run voluntary, residential “reset” programs for kids aged 10-15 at risk of falling into the criminal justice system, each lasting up to three weeks.

David Crisafulli, youth justice spokesperson Laura Gerber and Southside Comets FC president Keiren O’Brien inspect recent security upgrades at the football club.Credit: Matt Dennien

There would be one in each of the state’s far north, north, west, central, Wide Bay, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane, Ipswich and Darling Downs, and Gold Coast and Logan regions.

The programs would take eight to 10 kids at a time, and could offer sports, adventure, skills, cultural or service activities. Referrals could be made by teachers, police, and family.

Most kids would be allowed to stay within their region, with Crisafulli adding that some kids “might have a better opportunity to turn themselves around in another neighbouring region, but that would be the exception”.

The programs are expected to be running by 2026, and would cost $50 million over four years, should the LNP win government this month.

Former police officer Beau Lamarre-Condon will soon either admit to or defend allegations he murdered former Channel Ten presenter Jesse Baird and his Qantas flight attendant boyfriend Luke Davies.

The 29-year-old allegedly killed the couple at Baird’s Paddington share house in February, before dumping their bodies in surfboard bags near the town of Bungonia, south of Goulburn.

Beau Lamarre-Condon (left) is charged with murdering Jesse Baird and Luke Davies.

The then-senior-constable has been in custody since he handed himself into police four days after the deaths.

Lamarre-Condon’s matter was briefly heard at Downing Centre Local Court on Tuesday, when his lawyer John Walford said he was in the “last throes” of finalising instructions.

“There will be a committal on the next occasion,” Walford told the court, referring to his client’s next court appearance on November 5.

Magistrate Theo Tsavdaridis asked if that would be a committal for sentence – meaning Lamarre-Condon would plead guilty to the murders – or a committal for trial– meaning he would plead not guilty.

Walford did not elaborate on how his client intended to plead.

At his last court appearance in August, Lamarre-Condon’s initial two murder charges were formally replaced with two domestic violence murder charges.

A fresh count of aggravated breaking and entering with intent to commit a serious indictable offence was also formalised, with police accusing Lamarre-Condon of breaking into Baird’s home six months before the alleged killings.

A man in his 20s is being treated at the Mater Hospital following a near-drowning at the South Bank lagoon yesterday afternoon.

Emergency services were called shortly before 5pm, and paramedics reported the man suffered potentially life-threatening injuries.

The man was transported to Mater Hospital yesterday.