As it happened: Brisbane on February 7

That’s where we’ll leave our live updates. We’ll be back with you tomorrow morning. Here are the headlines you might have missed today:

The Greens’ proposed trams would travel along Kessels, Beaudesert and Ipswich roads then down Main Street and over the Story Bridge.

• The Greens have been criticised over a $10 million proposal to revisit Brisbane trams.

Maree Mavis Crabtree is accused of the murders of her children, Erin (inset top) and Jonathan (inset bottom).

• A woman accused of murdering her two adult children has been granted bail after more than six years behind bars.
• Wallabies star Kurtley Beale “did what he felt like doing” when he groped a woman on the bottom inside a Bondi bar, and the act was captured on CCTV, a prosecutor has argued.
• Independent MP Bob Katter got into a disagreement over paying cash in a Canberra cafe.
• An Australian doctor has just made global history. This is what happened.

Scientists have calculated that if just shy of 2 per cent of the sun’s radiation is blocked, that would be enough to cool Earth by 1.5 degrees.Credit: ASRI via The New York Times

• With Earth at its hottest point in recorded history, a growing number of astronomers and physicists are proposing a potential fix that could have leaped from the pages of science fiction: the equivalent of a giant beach umbrella, floating in space.

Another planned office tower has been scrapped in favour of units, with a 71-storey apartment building planned for Margaret Street.

The 254-metre tower would be one of the tallest in Brisbane and replaces plans for an approved 46-storey building that would have added 47,764 square metres of office space to the CBD.

Instead, KS Property plans a 537-unit development for the site, next to the heritage-listed Brisbane Synagogue. Earlier plans for a link, or arcade, between Mary and Margaret streets has been abandoned because of fears from the Jewish congregation.

“In light of recent significant global [and local] events, the Brisbane Hebrew Congregation has expressed concerns in respect of the location of the cross-block link on the site,” town planners Urbis wrote in a Brisbane City Council assessment report, submitted on KS Property’s behalf.

“Concerns around the safety and security of the congregation and its members, and for the Synagogue building itself have been expressed and accordingly the cross-block link has been removed from the proposal.”

A woman has been charged over the death of a man allegedly hit by a car on a Brisbane road.

Police charged the 20-year-old woman with dangerous operation of a motor vehicle over the January 19 incident.

“It will be alleged that around 8.30pm a 32-year-old man was struck by a car on Kelvin Grove Road,” police said.

“He was transported to the Royal Brisbane Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries on January 27.”

The woman was scheduled to appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on March 6.

As political debate over youth justice policies ramps up again following the alleged murder of grandmother Vyleen White at a Redbank Plains shopping centre, and reports some of those involved were on bail, the LNP is leaning into calls for swift action.

Party leader David Crisafulli has suggested that while a parliamentary committee is looking at youth justice reforms, the Miles government should still act and remove the UN-backed sentencing principle that detention be a last resort for young offenders “this week”.

Asked at a lengthy media conference in Brisbane this morning about his suggestions a move by the party to again dump the measure would be useful, despite it being recognised nationwide, Crisafulli said “history shows it works” and questioned if “the UN should have a right in Queensland’s Youth Justice Act”.

(In 2020, the Australian Institute of Criminology labelled it a “key theme” to avoid dragging more young people into detention and the increased risk of reoffending which comes with that. Already, experts say, it has been effectively removed in Queensland for young people declared serious repeat offenders.)

Crisafulli said his party’s still-in-progress youth justice platform would seek more transparent courts, but previous policies around “naming and shaming” or youth curfews were not on the agenda. He also doubled down on claims “crime will always be lower” under the LNP.

Another inquiry will be held into the operation of Brisbane Airport and the impact of aircraft noise on the local community.

The Greens have instigated a Senate committee inquiry into the issue, having long called for a curfew and made noise a federal, state and council election issue.

Campaigners at the Brisbane Flight Path Community Alliance declared the inquiry a victory, while Brisbane Airport Corporation said it was ready to participate.

“Brisbane Airport welcomes the opportunity to talk about the essential role aviation plays in connecting Queensland to the world, and our efforts to reduce noise and look after our neighbours,” an airport spokesman said.

A small but mighty crocodile spotted feasting on an unusual diet of sandwiches had to be relocated after becoming too chummy with far north Queenslanders.

Wildlife officers in Ingham were called by a member of the public who saw a small crocodile approach someone at a local creek.

Feeding crocodiles, even small ones, is risky because they become used to people and will always approach (file image).

“We found a small crocodile lying at the edge of the pond and its behaviour indicated it had been fed by people,” wildlife officer Ella Meeve.

Meeve said bits of bread and leftover sandwiches were seen discarded around the creek where the one-metre crocodile was found.

The animal had become too comfortable with people, which meant officers had to remove it from Palm Creek to a licensed farm.

Feeding crocodiles, even small ones, is risky because they become used to people and will always approach under the belief there might be food.

More crocodiles are moving around in the region because of recent floodwaters thanks to back-to-back cyclones Jasper and Kirrily.

Meeve urged locals and visitors in far north Queensland not to approach or feed crocodiles for their own safety and the animal’s life in the wild.

Yesterday at the parliamentary cafe in Canberra, independent MP Bob Katter says he got into a disagreement because he tried to pay in cash.

Bob Katter visits Innisfail in far north Queensland after ex-tropical cyclone Jasper.

Telling Sky News Australia this morning about what happened, Katter said the disagreement should be a launch pad to protest a cashless society.

“[The cashier] said, ‘we don’t accept cash’ and I said ‘well too bad for you, you have to, it’s legal tender and it’s illegal for you not to take cash’,” he said.

“We’ve had a lot of anti-cashless rallies in north Queensland … it’s quite right we start the fight against cashless society, if you have a cashless society, the banks control your life.

Ultimately, after the argument, Katter said he was allowed to pay in cash.

“I said ‘no, no no, I will stand here, and you will accept this legal tender and if you don’t you’ve broken the law’ so the manager came down, and he ran off, and he said ‘yeah, it is the law, we do have to accept cash’,” he said.

Ex-cyclone Kirrily has finally left Australia after dumping several months worth of rain in NSW while the flood emergency remains in parts of Queensland.

Some 86 millimetres fell at White Cliffs in northwestern NSW in the 24 hours to 9am on Tuesday - four times the February average, according to Bureau of Meteorology senior metrologist Dean Narramore.

He said much of the state was hit with 30-50 millimetres, noting 86 millimetres was recorded at Kiama on the south coast and 64 millimetres at Orange.

Thirteen flood warnings remain active in Queensland after widespread heavy rainfall in the past week.

Major warnings have been issued for the state’s northwest at the Burketown airstrip following rapid river rises at the weekend, and for Walkers Bend along the Flinders River.

Major alerts are also in place for towns along the Moonie and Balonne rivers in south-east Queensland.

Narramore expected showers and thunderstorms in north-east NSW, south-east Queensland and northern Queensland in coming days, but said the conditions were still considered “typical wet season” activity for this time of year.

Not for the first time in the past year, now Queensland Premier Steven Miles is facing criticism from the state’s key civil liberties group over comments about the courts.

Miles yesterday, when asked about transparency in youth court matters, said he felt magistrates were being too strict and should allow greater media access where possible.

Queensland Council for Civil Liberties vice president Terry O’Gorman said Miles would be fully aware magistrates were only acting within the laws his government has, and can, set.

Attacking Queensland magistrates for applying laws brought in by Premier Miles’ own Labor government requiring that a court ‘look only at the potential prejudice suffered by the defendant’ is an unprincipled, weak and pathetic stance by a Premier spooked at losing the upcoming October Queensland state election on law and order grounds.