As it happened: Brisbane on Wednesday, November 6

Brisbane City Council’s decision to approve a high-rise residential development around the old Spring Hill Hotel has been taken to the Land and Environment Court.

Work has already started at the prominent inner-city site, with plans for a 119-unit tower and refurbished heritage-listed building, for future retail or hospitality tenants, on the corner of Little Edward and Leichhardt streets.

An artist’s impression of the development planned on the site of the old Spring Hill Hotel.

But two neighbours, Yi Shui Pty Ltd and Burrell Stockbroking, have appealed the council’s decision to approve the project by Dibcorp Investments No. 2 Pty Ltd.

In documents filed with the court, the neighbours argue the development would be too tall, too bulky, too ugly, and potentially put pedestrians at risk.

Thanks for joining us for our live coverage of news from Brisbane and abroad. We’ll be back tomorrow morning – see you then.

In case you missed them, here are some of the stories making headlines today.

Donald Trump is on track to defeat Kamala Harris in a dramatic victory that would make him just the second person in American history to return to the White House after an earlier defeat.

Liberal National Party senator Matt Canavan won’t be withdrawing his bill that would require medical professionals to provide healthcare to fetuses described as “born alive” after an abortion.

Under-pressure opposition frontbencher Bridget McKenzie has apologised for failing to declare 16 flight upgrades, just over a week after she claimed to have never sought or received airline perks.

Back in Brisbane, the owner of a West End restaurant rammed by a ute that was then set alight, burning his business, says he doesn’t know why it was targeted, as police release CCTV footage of two suspects.

Net overseas migration will overshoot the federal government’s budget forecasts as students attempt to stay in the country and New Zealanders leave their weak economy in search work in Australia.

In entertainment news, Eurovision on Tour brings the stars, costumes and kitsch to Brisbane, with runner-up Dami Im joining winners and finalists to sing hits from the planet’s biggest and glitziest song contest.

After being backed in by their diminished partyroom to continue on as Labor’s leadership duo despite the election loss, Steven Miles and Cameron Dick have also headed north.

The pair showed up in Townsville today, where the party lost all three of the key northern city’s seats – leaving it with no representative in the region.

But Miles said the party would seek to make sure it can learn lessons from the loss, and do what it can to listen and represent the city from opposition.

Some of the early advice we’ve had from talking to Townsville locals has been that they just felt we took too long to respond to that surge in crime, and even though, when we did, it did deliver results, many people had already made up their mind to change the government.

But we want to hear from Townsville locals today and over the next four years about what they want us to do between now and 2028 to regain their trust, so that we can win back seats here, but, more importantly, so that we can continue to deliver a really strong plan for our state.

I said so often over the last month or so that Townsville is so critical to the entire state economy, and I’m determined to make sure that even though we won’t have members of our caucus from here in Townsville over the next four years, we will be here often, we will be ensuring that Townsville has a really strong voice in our caucus and also in Parliament.

Premier David Crisafulli and has continued the LNP’s post-election pilgrimage along the coast through north and central Queensland, calling into Cairns and Rockhampton today.

After earlier stops in Mackay and Townsville this week, the new government has been keen to show up in seats it swept from Labor and keep spruiking its “fresh start” message.

There was little new from Crisafulli’s morning media conference, but the premier did express openness to talk with the RACQ about daily fuel price caps – part of Labor’s pitch to voters.

He said the government was “happy to sit down and discuss” solutions with anyone who had ideas, and singled out planning scheme changes for potential boosts to competition.

Crisafulli was also asked whether the LNP would seek to scrap the previous joint state and federal Labor nomination for parts of Cape York to be given UNESCO World Heritage status.

“Look, a big part of it’s federal – but we haven’t turned our attention to it yet,” he said from Cairns, before jetting to Rockhampton for another event for TV cameras and local media.

Video has captured two men running from the scene of a crash on Boundary Street, West End, before a building went up in flames overnight.

A ute, which police say was a stolen white Isuzu D-Max, smashed into the store about 3am on Wednesday before catching fire.

The blaze spread to Arabella’s Middle Eastern restaurant and the shisha bar at its rear, gutting the building.

Footage from a fire that destroyed a ute and restaurant in West End on October 6 has revealed the blaze was deliberately lit, and the vehicle stolen.

Read more.

A man has been bitten on the leg in the latest dingo attack on K’gari, formerly known as Fraser Island.

Rangers have increased patrols and warned visitors to be vigilant after Sunday’s attack, which marked the 21st dingo incident at the popular tourist destination in 2024.

There have been 21 incidents involving dingoes on K’gari in 2024.Credit: Peter Rae

The man was walking from his car to a picnic area at Lake McKenzie when a tagged female dingo suddenly ran at him from behind, rangers say.

The wild dog bit the man on the right calf, causing a minor puncture wound, but then retreated when he turned around and kicked sand at it.

Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service rangers were patrolling nearby and responded quickly.

“Rangers observed the dingo continuing to walk around the car park and loiter close to vehicles and people for about an hour before it returned to the bush,” senior ranger Linda Behrendorff said.

Brisbane City Council’s decision to approve a high-rise residential development around the old Spring Hill Hotel has been taken to the Land and Environment Court.

Work has already started at the prominent inner-city site, with plans for a 119-unit tower and refurbished heritage-listed building, for future retail or hospitality tenants, on the corner of Little Edward and Leichhardt streets.

An artist’s impression of the development planned on the site of the old Spring Hill Hotel.

But two neighbours, Yi Shui Pty Ltd and Burrell Stockbroking, have appealed the council’s decision to approve the project by Dibcorp Investments No. 2 Pty Ltd.

In documents filed with the court, the neighbours argue the development would be too tall, too bulky, too ugly, and potentially put pedestrians at risk.

Environmentalists have given the green tick to just one brand of canned tuna.

For the first time, the Australian Marine Conservation Society has evaluated the nation’s most popular tuna brands and classed them as green, amber or red based on their sustainability credentials.

Safcol’s No Net Tuna is the only fully green-ranked product, with the society ranking it a “better choice” than others.

Safcol’s No Net Tuna only uses fish taken by pole and line methods, while others were given mixed green/red ratings for their sourcing.

Sirena and Aldi’s Ocean Rise tuna received mixed ratings because some of their tuna is sourced from healthy populations, but they also use yellowfin tuna from overfished stocks in the Indian Ocean.

Cans with FAD57 or FAD51 stamped on top come from the overfished yellowfin tuna populations.

We know a few of our readers are paying close attention to what’s happening over in the United States.

Have you taken the day off work to watch TV at the pub? Or are you in the office colouring in the 52 states with red and blue markers?

Tell us what you’re up to (and send a photo if you like).

The Brisbane City Council is today taking preliminary steps to implement “smarter technology” for city traffic management systems – including AI – in its push to ease congestion.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner told ABC yesterday that it was “the holy grail effectively to move people in a growing city”.

“The technology that’s used at the moment was developed in Sydney back in the 1980s,” he said.

“When traffic is flowing normally the current system works pretty well, but if it rains … if there’s an accident on a major route, [or] if there’s a major event on at the Gabba or at Suncorp, everything starts going haywire.

“The latest technology can actually predict these sort of events based on previous events of a similar occasion … and adapt the traffic flow accordingly.”

Council has begun the procurement process, with the systems expected to go to tender next year, and be fully functioning ahead of the 2032 Olympic Games.

Brisbane is set to swap storms for severe heatwaves across the tail end of the week, with temperatures expected to peak at 35 degrees on Friday.

Senior meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said ongoing warm weather conditions have prompted the warnings for the south-east, despite some inland areas reporting up to 30mm of rain yesterday.

“Severe heatwaves are forecast to impact parts of Brisbane area and the Sunshine Coast over the coming days, as the impact of multiple warm days and nights in a row makes itself felt,” she said.

“These heat waves are being driven by the persistent intense heat that has been ongoing across these areas for days – if not weeks – already.”