Australia news as it happened: PM to take on antisemitism taskforce recommendations; US could demand AUKUS changes

Thanks for being with us folks. We’ll be back tomorrow with more live coverage.

A woman has died, and a boy and a man have been seriously injured after an elderly driver lost control on a bend in the road in Melbourne’s outer east.

Police say the 91-year-old woman lost control of her Toyota Yaris hatchback on Coleman Road, Wantirna South, about 12.20pm.

Follow live updates on the Wantirna South crash here.

“Tragically, that vehicle has collided with a couple and a child – a young boy – who’s believed to be about three or four years of age,” Victoria Police Superintendent Justin Goldsmith said on Thursday afternoon.

“Tragically, the female is deceased as a result of that collision, and we have a male who is with that person who’s also suffered life-threatening injuries.”

Here’s a story for the book-lovers, from Lachlan Abbott:

Moving can be hard.

There’s the pain of saying goodbye. The expense of finding a new place. And the physical effort required to shift all your possessions.

Fortunately for the Hill of Content bookshop, that last ordeal was made a little easier on Thursday morning when hundreds of Melburnians formed a human chain along Bourke Street to pass thousands of titles from the old storefront to its new location.

Phoebe Boatwood, 21, (left) met Kate Benjamin, 24, and Luke Benjamin, 27, in line as they passed on books.Credit: Photograph by Chris Hopkins

Read the full story here.

Qantas customers caught up in the data breach are under increased risk, with experts warning that the information stolen from the airline could be used to target accounts they hold at other high-profile brands.

The airline on Wednesday said that 5.7 million customers had their information accessed by hackers last week, including information on frequent flyer accounts (including membership tier status: bronze, silver, gold, platinum or Chairman’s Lounge), addresses and even the food preferences of thousands of travellers.

US-based cybersecurity company Arkose Labs’ chief executive, Kevin Gosschalk, told this masthead the stolen information could potentially be used to break into accounts that the affected Qantas customers had with retail, grocery and luxury brands.

Read the full story here.

Telstra’s plan to axe hundreds of workers will have a negative impact on customer service, according to the union representing telco workers.

On Wednesday, Telstra confirmed a report by this masthead that it is set to axe 550 jobs in order to “reduce complexity, create efficiencies, and respond to changing customer needs”. The telco said the cuts were unrelated to its use of AI.

Communication Workers Union president Shane Murphy says Telstra is turning its back on its greatest asset: its people.

Telstra plans to cut hundreds of jobs.

“Telstra customers should prepare for the possibility that they will be talking to more machines than actual people, and the customer service they’ve come to know will no longer be available,” he said.

“Telstra should really be considering the reason behind these cuts, and we highly advise they think long and hard about the impact to service delivery, not just their bottom line.

“Telstra employs around 31,000 full-time workers globally.”

The telco will face pressure to maintain service levels for its premium-paying customers despite employing fewer staff. Telstra last year slashed 2800 workers, a move chief executive Vicki Brady said at the time would save up to $350 million and help the telco stay competitive amid rising inflation and energy costs.

Jillian Segal, Australia’s antisemitism envoy, has just been on 3AW to discuss the launch of her “Plan to Combat Antisemitism”. Here’s some of what she had to say:

Asked how significant the problem of antisemitism was in Australia, she said: “I think it is bad, there are no two ways about it ... universities have been, I think, a hotbed of antisemitism.

“We’ve had a very successful multicultural country. Antisemitism has been growing. It started well before October 7, where Hamas invaded Israel, but obviously that was a spark that has led to a huge increase. And we need to work on stamping it out.”

On the government’s response to the launch of her report today: “It’s not for them to say yes to (every recommendation). It’s a plan for society. It’s my plan. It will need support not just from the federal government – not everything is in their control. It will need support from university administrators. It will need support from educators, state governments, the head of arts organisations.

“When you’re trying to bring about a cultural change, it’s not as though the government can wave about a magic wand. It’s a matter for our whole country to work on together over several years.”

Antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal, speaking today at the launch of her report.Credit: Dylan Coker

She said universities “have been very supportive and open to working on the problem with me”.

Asked about her proposal to address antisemitism through education, Segal noted NSW made the Holocaust a compulsory part of history teaching for years 7, 8, 9 and 10. She thinks we should do that across the country, and “we can start understanding antisemitism in junior school”.

“The problem is not with free speech, but where you draw the line on hate speech,” she said.

“If we have Jews being intimidated or marginalised, it doesn’t stop with the Jews. They might be first, but it goes to other communities, and that threatens our social compact and our democracy.

“We have seen problems in Victoria, and we saw some horrible things last weekend. All places of worship should be protected and sacrosanct. But even worse was marches turning violent.”

You can read our full coverage of her report here.

Australia has been warned it must improve its protections for the Great Barrier Reef or face the prospect of seeing the reef included on the UNESCO World Heritage In Danger list, an outcome governments of both parties have fought against for years.

The UN’s World Heritage Committee met in Paris on Wednesday and ordered a full review of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef management in 2026, following the sixth mass bleaching event in nine years and severe coastal flooding.

Half-moon damsels (Neopomacentrus bankieri), lemon damsels (Pomacentrus moluccensis), and juvenile golden butterflyfish (Chaetodon aureofasciatus) swim along a bleached Acropora coral.Credit: © Victor Huertas / Greenpeace

It flagged four areas where Australia should improve: cutting climate pollution, improving water quality, preparing for climate-driven disasters like mass bleaching and ensuring fisheries are managed sustainably.

A spokesperson for Environment Minister Murray Watt said State of Conservation reports were part of routine reporting on the Great Barrier Reef.

“Australia most recently provided State Party Reports on the State of Conservation of the Reef in 2019 and 2022, as well as two progress reports that were provided to the committee in early 2025 and 2024.

“We welcome the recognition of Australia’s efforts to improve water quality, support and partner with reef Traditional Owners, deliver sustainable fisheries management and increase the reef’s resilience to climate change.
“The Australian Marine Conservation Society Great Barrier Reef Campaign Manager, Dr Lissa Schindler, said the UNESCO decision shows that the world is still deeply concerned about the reef.

“While there has been some progress, Australia’s efforts still fall short of what’s needed to protect this globally significant natural wonder.

“We still don’t have a clear pathway to meet water quality targets, Queensland’s climate ambition looks set to be pared back despite climate threats to the reef intensifying, and there has been no clear progress on reducing deforestation along the coastline, which is contributing to water pollution. The full review in 2026 will be a critical test.”

The Great Barrier Reef suffered mass coral bleaching in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022, 2024 and 2025, with the World Heritage Committee noting with utmost concern the outlook for the reef “remains one of continued deterioration due largely to climate change”.

WWF-Australia Head of Oceans Richard Leck said the bleaching was far worse than scientists had foreseen just a few years ago.

“In 2017, UNESCO – in collaboration with leading reef experts – predicted that under a worst-case scenario, the Great Barrier Reef would experience two severe bleaching events per decade by 2035. Under a milder scenario, this would not happen until 2041.

“We’ve had six mass bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef in the past decade. The impacts of heat stress on the reef are far more severe than UNESCO itself predicted,” he said.

A young surfer who was feared lost at sea off the NSW North Coast has miraculously survived after a small-town community mobilised and used a local’s weather knowledge to find him on a remote island 13 kilometres offshore.

Darcy Deefholts, 19, left his Wooli home about 2.30pm on Wednesday on a bicycle with a Malibu longboard under his arm and plans to go for a surf. He wouldn’t make it home for almost 18 hours.

After a desperate search, missing teen surfer Darcy Deefholts has been found.Credit: NSW Police

Deefholts’ father, Terry, told the ABC he was at the point of “thinking the absolute worst”.

“I didn’t give up hope, but jeez I was close,” he said. “It’s a one in a million. Who survives this?”

His family raised the alarm when Deefholts didn’t return home from his surf. The out-of-character disappearance prompted his family to contact police and report him missing.

When Darcy couldn’t be found in an initial search after nightfall on Wednesday, hope was rapidly fading.

Read more on this story here.

Good afternoon – I’m Liam Mannix, taking over from Emily Kowal to bring you the latest updates.

Here’s a quick rundown of today’s top stories:

• A car has struck multiple pedestrians at a crash near a playground in Melbourne’s east. Follow our live coverage here.
• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has confirmed his government will adopt several key recommendations from the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism’s report, aimed at tackling hate in Australia. Among the recommendations announced by Jillian Segal is a proposal to cut funding to universities, charities, and cultural groups that do not adequately address antisemitism.
• Australia may soon face pressure from a potential future Trump administration review to pay more for submarines under the $368 billion AUKUS agreement and to ensure the vessels support the United States in any conflict involving Taiwan. Opposition finance spokesperson James Paterson warned the deal could be in jeopardy if the Albanese government didn’t show stronger leadership.

Jillian Segal was named the special envoy on antisemitism in July last year.Credit: Nick Moir

• Linda Yaccarino, CEO of Elon Musk’s social media platform X, has announced her departure after two years in the role. In a farewell message, she spoke positively of the platform’s future, as it moves forward alongside Musk’s AI venture, xAI – the creator of chatbot Grok.
• A report commissioned by the CFMEU’s administrator has uncovered a troubling culture within the Queensland division of the union, including intimidation tactics and threats directed at women and children.
• Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has shared a personal story in The Australian Women’s Weekly, revealing she once drew a semi-automatic rifle in self-defence when confronted by a man while camping alone on a remote road in central New South Wales.
• In the United States, the death toll from devastating floods in Texas has surged. More than 160 people are unaccounted for, and at least 119 fatalities have been confirmed, including 95 in hard-hit Kerr County.
• The US has imposed sanctions on Francesca Albanese, a United Nations special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. This marks the first time the US has directly sanctioned a UN official.

Stay tuned – we’ll have more updates coming your way shortly.

We now have more images coming in from the scene at Wantirna South. You can follow our breaking rolling coverage here.

Multiple people have been hit by a vehicle in Wantirna South.Credit: Nine News Melbourne

The crash appears to have occurred near a playground.Credit: Nine News

Caller “Ann” just spoke to 3AW:

“It’s just a suburban street. A car has mounted the footpath ... at high speed. There’s four ambulances there, police galore, and all the roads are blocked off. It’s quite horrendous.

“The roads are all still blocked off. No one can go down there.”