As it happened: Brisbane on Monday, September 9

Premier Steven Miles has batted away questions about his leadership of the Labor Party should he lose next month’s state election.

The LNP seized on comments from Health Minister Shannon Fentiman over the weekend about her leadership aspirations.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman.Credit: Jamila Toderas

Miles and Fentiman stood side-by-side this morning to announce a satellite hospital on the Sunshine Coast, where the Premier was quizzed about the future leader of the party.

He rebuffed the question as an “entirely hypothetical situation”.

“My absolute focus is on winning the election in October because the stakes are really high,” Miles said.

“We have a plan and a vision for our state’s future that I’ve sought to outline since December last year, and that I’ll continue to outline right through until October, and we’re against an LNP opposition who are trying to hide their plans.”

Thank you for joining us on this Monday. We will be back with our rolling news coverage tomorrow, so do join us.

Here is what made headlines today:

Detectives hunting a man who badly scalded a baby with hot coffee in a Brisbane park missed the suspected attacker by about 12 hours, as he had just left Australia by the time they knew who he was.

This morning we brought you news that the bells of Brisbane’s City Hall clock were chiming early. The clock then fell silent for several hours. Brisbane City Council has since told us minor repairs were carried out on the clock, which should now be running on time.

“They [the bells] were just temporarily paused for a couple of hours while a minor repair was done, they’re chiming again now,” a council spokeswoman said.

A billionaire high-roller who skipped town owing Star casino on the Gold Coast $43 million has been ordered to repay his debts.

Premier Steven Miles has batted away questions about his leadership of the Labor Party should he lose next month’s state election.

The Premier and Health Minister Shannon Fentiman stood side-by-side this morning to announce a satellite hospital on the Sunshine Coast.

And, the meteor seen over Brisbane between 6.30pm and 7pm yesterday was probably between 30 and 50 centimetres in size, an astrophysicist from the Australian National University said.

The beleaguered casino operator behind Brisbane’s new Queen’s Wharf precinct has won one of the country’s largest gambling debt recovery cases against a Singaporean billionaire whose $43 million cheque bounced.

Dr Yew Choy Wong, a well-known billionaire high-roller gambler, has been ordered to repay nearly $38.7 million in gambling debts after a judge ruled in favour of The Star Entertainment QLD Limited on Monday.

The Star’s Gold Coast casino.

Read more here.

It took six days for detectives to put a name to the face on the CCTV footage and only minutes for them to discover they had missed their man.

Brisbane Detective Inspector Paul Dalton said his team was elated when on September 1 they formally identified the man who had poured a Thermos of hot coffee over a nine-month-old baby boy in a Stones Corner park.

But their elation was shortlived.

“I was in the investigations centre when we put a name to the face and it was a very happy room, only for us to do a check in 15 minutes and find out we’ve lost him,” Dalton said.

Detective Inspector Paul Dalton described the attack as ‘disgusting’ and ‘savage’.Credit: Cameron Atfield

The man had flown out of the country from Sydney the previous day, August 31.

“It was deflated,” Dalton said of the investigations room.

Read more here.

Police have identified the man responsible for pouring a Thermos of hot coffee over a nine-month-old baby in a Brisbane park, but have no clues as to the motive for the “savage” attack.

“This is the one thing that I’m continually scratching my head with, we can find no motive,” Brisbane Detective Inspector Paul Dalton said.

A CCTV image of the attacker fleeing Hanlon Park.Credit: Queensland Police Media

“I think 80 per cent of our calls for service, or some big number, are mental health-related, so it is a possibility that is the case.

“A rational, normal person you would think wouldn’t do something like that, but that’s not always the case.”

Dalton said he was shocked by the attack on a vulnerable baby.

“I can’t think of someone being in a more vulnerable situation … a young mother and a baby sitting on the ground and you’re allegedly approached from behind. Can you think of anything more vulnerable than that, and to take advantage of that?

“It’s one of the most disgusting [crimes] I’ve come across ...

“Every effort will be made to make this person face justice and get some sort of vindication for the poor baby.”

A man who threw a Thermos of hot coffee over a nine-month-old baby in a suburban Brisbane park has been identified as a foreign national who has left the country, Queensland Police have confirmed.

“This is one of the most complex and frustrating investigations … I’ve been involved with,” Brisbane Detective Inspector Paul Dalton said.

A man captured running from a Brisbane park after hot liquid was poured over a nine-month-old boy in a random attack.Credit: Queensland Police

“We had a name to start with. That name turned out to be incorrect – it wasn’t actually the person we were looking for.”

Police have since identified the man as a 33-year-old foreign national who has been coming and going from Australia on working and holiday visas since 2019.

“It wasn’t until September 1 that we were able to put a name to the face in the CCTV,” Dalton said.

Dalton confirmed the man travelled to NSW by car in the wake of the attack at Hanlon Park in Stones Corner on August 27, and was in NSW on August 28.

He flew out of Australia on August 31.

Police are due to provide an update at 2pm on their global search for a man who poured hot coffee over a nine-month-old boy in a Brisbane park, inflicting severe burns.

Watch the press conference, below (it stars at 7 minutes, 40 seconds):

On to the confirmed (and expected) news today that the state’s former sole One Nation MP Steven Andrew has joined the Katter’s Australian Party ranks.

Katter’s party now holds four of the seven seats on Queensland’s crossbench.

Premier Steven Miles was full of praise for the minor party today.

However, he brushed off talk about the party’s potential future role as a “kingmaker” in the event neither Labor nor the LNP win a majority of seats in next month’s state election.

In the event of a hung parliament, KAP members will be in the box seat to hold the balance of power.

Miles said Katter’s MPs “do a good job of representing regional Queensland”.

“I’m not surprised to see them continue to expand their ranks,” he said.

“They’ve really moved into that gap left by the National Party when it merged with the Liberal Party. What you see now is that the LNP doesn’t represent much of regional Queensland, and it’s the Katter Australia Party [sic] and the Labor Party who do.”

Premier Steven Miles has batted away questions about his leadership of the Labor Party should he lose next month’s state election.

The LNP seized on comments from Health Minister Shannon Fentiman over the weekend about her leadership aspirations.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman.Credit: Jamila Toderas

Miles and Fentiman stood side-by-side this morning to announce a satellite hospital on the Sunshine Coast, where the Premier was quizzed about the future leader of the party.

He rebuffed the question as an “entirely hypothetical situation”.

“My absolute focus is on winning the election in October because the stakes are really high,” Miles said.

“We have a plan and a vision for our state’s future that I’ve sought to outline since December last year, and that I’ll continue to outline right through until October, and we’re against an LNP opposition who are trying to hide their plans.”

With less than seven weeks until polling day, Queenslanders who want to cast a postal vote for the October 26 state election can apply from today.

Postal vote applications will be open until October 14.

About 900,000 postal ballots were issued ahead of the last state election, a roughly three-fold increase on the 2017 election figure.

But 57,350 postal votes were later rejected by the Electoral Commission of Queensland. A further 100,000 who applied for a postal vote ended up voting by other means.

Postal votes can be rejected for a number of reasons under the Electoral Act, such as the declaration envelope not being signed or witnessed, and is separate to the ballot paper itself being considered informal.

Early voting for the state election will be extended, running from 8am-6pm on weekdays for two weeks before polling day.

Currently, the LNP is tracking ahead in the polls to win the election, ending Labor’s nine-year reign.

The Miles government has added a sixth new satellite hospital to its pre-election promise list today: this one on the Sunshine Coast.

Fraser Coast, Rockhampton, Yarrabilba, Mackay and Beenleigh have already been announced as potential locations for more facilities if Labor wins re-election next month.

Just don’t ask where, exactly, the sites will be. The government is saying it still needs to hash this detail out based on the availability of land, or property.

The Redlands Satellite Hospital opened its doors in August 2023.Credit: Queensland Health

Labor holds just two marginal seats on the Sunshine Coast, but Health Minister Shannon Fentiman told media today that the new facilities – along with the seven promised exclusively last election (all now completed) – were designed to meet population growth.

“I want every resident of the Sunshine Coast to know it doesn’t matter which suburb this satellite hospital is in, it is going to benefit you, because it is going to take demand off the Sunshine Coast University Hospital,” Fentiman said.

The LNP has promised to change the names of the facilities, as it claims the word “hospital” causes confusion. The Australian Medical Association agrees.

The facilities offer free, walk-in treatment from 8am to 10pm for non-life threatening issues, along with specialist outpatient services.