As it happened: Brisbane on Friday, December 6

LNP members of a committee considering proposed laws to enact the Queensland government’s hardline youth justice changes have rubber-stamped the bill for passage by parliament next week.

In a report published on Friday afternoon, justice integrity and community safety committee chair Marty Hunt noted the brief one-week scrutiny period had surfaced “concerns”, but said the bill should pass.

“The committee considers that the rights and concerns of victims are paramount and that action needs to be taken to address the growing numbers of serious crimes being perpetrated by young offenders,” he wrote.

One recommendation was made: that the bill be passed by parliament. This is now set to occur next week when MPs return for the last of two post-election sittings before the summer break.

Of the six-person committee, three of which – including Hunt as the chair with a casting vote – are LNP members, the two Labor MPs wrote a statement of reservation criticising the time for scrutiny and LNP’s transparency around the bill’s detail before the election.

In his dissenting report, Greens MP Michael Berkman called for the bill – which the government concedes forgoes global approaches to youth justice and will lead to more kids, likely First Nations, being jailed – to be abandoned.

Thanks for joining us for our live updates today. Have a great weekend and we’ll be back on Monday morning.

Here were some of the day’s major headlines:

A new stadium at Victoria Park has received the backing of the man entrusted to lead the delivery of the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games.

A multinational mining company expects proceedings against an activist to go to trial even after he claimed a courtroom “win” in Brisbane on Friday.

Australia’s first supermodel Maggie Tabberer has died aged 87. Maggie’s daughter, stylist and author Amanda Tabberer, posted the news to her Instagram account today.

More than 1000 people – dressed in bright hues at the family’s request – attended “a celebration of life” for Bianca Jones, the Melbourne 19-year-old who tragically died after from poisoning in Laos, as well as other travellers including her friend Holly Bowles.

Jewish leaders have pleaded with politicians and police to crack down harder on antisemitism after the firebombing of a Melbourne synagogue, as Israel’s top diplomat in Australia absolved the federal government of responsibility for the surge in attacks on the Jewish community.

Brisbane’s Sherwood Magpies Football Club is now home to Fair Play Kitchen, a new gastropub featuring Moreton Bay bug risotto, classic chicken parmigianas and hearty steaks, as well as a tight, globetrotting wine list.

Queensland teenager Gout Gout ran a stunning time at the Australian All Schools Championships, further franking his status as the most exciting young athlete in the country.

Two men are wanted by police after an alleged attempted arson attack at a business in Brisbane.

A Volkswagen Golf R hatchback with the numberplate 407BQ4 was seen outside the building on Sherwood Road in Sherwood about 5am.

The windows were smashed with a brick, before both unsuccessfully attempted to light a Molotov cocktail.

Information has been sought after an attempted arson attack in Sherwood.Credit: Queensland Police

One wore a high-vis jacket, black pants and sneakers. The other wore a black long-sleeve shirt.

Anyone who witnessed the incident or has relevant CCTV is urged to contact police.

About one-in-five drivers returned positive drug tests during a week-long police blitz west of Brisbane.

One-hundred and fifty-two roadside drug tests were carried out across the Darling Downs over the last seven days, with 30 reportedly positive for illicit substances.

Over the same period police conducted 3630 random breath tests, with six drivers found to be under the influence of alcohol.

More than 115 speeding tickets were also issued, with one car pinged at 154km/h in a 100km/h zone on the Gore Highway at Millmerran.

About 279 people have died on Queensland roads so far this year.

LNP members of a committee considering proposed laws to enact the Queensland government’s hardline youth justice changes have rubber-stamped the bill for passage by parliament next week.

In a report published on Friday afternoon, justice integrity and community safety committee chair Marty Hunt noted the brief one-week scrutiny period had surfaced “concerns”, but said the bill should pass.

“The committee considers that the rights and concerns of victims are paramount and that action needs to be taken to address the growing numbers of serious crimes being perpetrated by young offenders,” he wrote.

One recommendation was made: that the bill be passed by parliament. This is now set to occur next week when MPs return for the last of two post-election sittings before the summer break.

Of the six-person committee, three of which – including Hunt as the chair with a casting vote – are LNP members, the two Labor MPs wrote a statement of reservation criticising the time for scrutiny and LNP’s transparency around the bill’s detail before the election.

In his dissenting report, Greens MP Michael Berkman called for the bill – which the government concedes forgoes global approaches to youth justice and will lead to more kids, likely First Nations, being jailed – to be abandoned.

The patient is submerged in an ice bath as an anaesthetic for the impending surgery.

When sufficient numbness is achieved, University of Queensland student Lachlan Fitzgerald begins the procedure, carefully attaching a tiny circuit board to the patient’s back to create a part-living, part-machine biohybrid robot.

The patient is, in fact, a beetle and the backpack-like device sends electrical pulses to its antennae, allowing Fitzgerald to control its movements, while tapping into its natural agility.

“Only when it leaves the desired path that we want it to be on do we intervene and tell it to actually go this way instead of the way it was actually heading,” says Fitzgerald, who is studying mathematics and engineering.

He hopes to create an army of insect-machine search and rescue workers.

“We see a future where after an urban disaster like an earthquake or a bombing, where humans can’t safely access the disaster site, being able to send in a bunch of cyborg beetles to navigate the disaster zone quickly and efficiently,” he says.

The biorobotics lab where Fitzgerald works is putting control backpacks onto giant burrowing cockroaches, a species native to Australia which can grow up to eight centimetres long, and darkling beetles. Species from the darkling family can be found scurrying through environments ranging from tropical savannahs to arid deserts across the world.

“Insects are so adaptable compared to an artificial robotic system, which has to perform so much computation to be able to deal with all these different scenarios that might get thrown at it in the real world,” Fitzgerald explains.

He says cyborg search and rescue beetles or cockroaches might be able to help in disaster situations by finding and reporting the location of survivors and delivering lifesaving drugs to them before human rescuers can get there.

But first, the Australian researchers must master the ability to direct the movements of the insects, which could take a while. Fitzgerald says that although the work might seem futuristic now, in a few decades, cyborg insects could be saving lives.

CNN with Nine News Queensland

Gout Gout was never not going to win, running against Australian schoolboys just months after coming second to the best in the world.

But this wasn’t about whether he’d win. This was about what time the schoolboy star could run. And his time in a heat on day one of the Australian All-Schools Championships in Queensland was simply breathtaking.

Gout ran 10.04 seconds for the 100 metres to win the under-18 race easily. Yes, the tailwind was just too strong (+3.4) for it to be considered a legal time, but that was slightly inconsequential.

Read the full story

Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines touched down in Queensland for the first time this morning when its inaugural flight from Los Angeles landed on Brisbane Airport’s northern runway.

Flight DL93, an Airbus A350-900 with Los Angeles 2028 livery, touched down in the 2032 Olympic host city at 7.18am after a 14-hour, 21-minute flight.

Brisbane Airport Corporation chief executive Gert-Jan de Graaff said Delta’s arrival marked “an unprecedented level of tourism, trade and connection” between Queensland and the US and Canada.

Delta flight DL93 arriving in Brisbane, with its Los Angeles Olympic livery. Credit: Josh Woning/ J&A Photography

“This one aircraft has today bridged two Olympic host cities and strengthened ties between the United States and Queensland,” he said.

“We are over the moon that Brisbane is now Delta’s second destination in Australia. The arrival of one of the world’s largest carriers speaks volumes about this city’s growing prominence as a global destination.”

The introduction of Delta, the third-largest airline in the world by fleet size, to Brisbane adds 306 seats per flight to the airport’s pan-Pacific capacity.

The addition of Delta means Brisbane now has 31 flights a week from North America, by five carriers and from four major hubs – 135 per cent of pre-COVID capacity.

Australia’s first supermodel Maggie Tabberer has died aged 87. Maggie’s daughter, stylist and author Amanda Tabberer posted the news to her Instagram account today.

“This morning we lost our beautiful mother and Nanna,” the post says.

“She was an icon in every sense of the word and we will miss her dearly… Along with the rest of Australia. Rest in peace Nanna. We love you to bits forever.”

Maggie Tabberer has died aged 87.

Maggie gained international attention working with photographer Helmut Newton before becoming a television personality and two-time Gold Logie winner.

She worked at the Australian Women’s Weekly, launched the clothing label Maggie T and her 1998 autobiography Maggie, capturing her independent spirit, became a best seller.

Maggie died five days before her 88th birthday.

A woman has been fined thousands of dollars for feeding a dingo on K’gari, north of Brisbane – in the second time she has been caught.

Authorities said the 26-year-old woman was fishing on the beach at Waddy Point on November 24, when she was caught on dashcam throwing a small fish to the juvenile dingo.

A ranger photographed the juvenile dingo eating the fish on the beach.Credit: Queensland Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation

She admitted to feeding the animal and was fined $2580, the maximum on-the-spot penalty. The maximum court penalty for feeding a dingo is $26,614.

Rangers soon discovered the same woman had been fined $413 in 2022 for having food available in her campsite at the Wongai camping area.

“It is frustrating to have a repeat offender on the island who doesn’t care about the safety of people or dingoes,” said Mike Devery, a compliance manager at Queensland’s Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation.

“Hopefully she has learned an expensive lesson this time, and we hope the dingo doesn’t suffer any adverse effects after being fed.”

He said feeding dingoes even once is enough to teach them to associate humans with food, which can put the animal and person at risk. Once habituated, dingoes can approach unsuspecting people for food and become aggressive if they don’t receive it.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has condemned the firebombing of a Melbourne synagogue, saying the attack was “predictable” given the rise of antisemitism in Australia since October 7.

“It’s absolutely abhorrent to see any place of worship attacked,” he told a press conference.

“I want to pretend that this wasn’t expected, or that it couldn’t be predicted. But I can’t do that to the Australian people.”

Dutton said the rise of antisemitism since October 7 last year had been “unprecedented”.

“Everybody knew that antisemitism, that hatred and that vilification, that racism, was lurking beneath the surface.

“But what we’ve seen on our university campuses, what we’ve seen online, what we’ve seen against people of Jewish faith in the community has been completely and utterly unacceptable, and it should be totally condemned in our country,” he said.

“To see the firebombing of a synagogue, a place of worship, is something that is not welcome and has no place in our country, whatsoever.”

Dutton called for Australia to “double down on our support of the Jewish community”, who he said would be feeling this “very acutely”.