Australian News

Unsurprisingly it's still food and housing driving it largely.

Driven by a desire to help others, Elaine worked in sectors like aged care and social services, taking on jobs the government is still desperate to fill.

But after nearly five decades in the workforce, she retired with just $45,000 in superannuation.

The body of 46-year-old Tanya Hehir was found near the Gympie weir yesterday afternoon after she and two others went exploring the town's main stormwater drain on Boxing Day.

...

Authorities say a storm cell began dumping heavy rain over the region at about the time the trio entered the stormwater drain.

...

It's storm season, and they went in as it started raining?? :-\

• Airbnb misled Australian customers by charging them in US dollars when they made a booking.

• The short-stay accommodation provider has been fined $15 million for breaching consumer law, and will pay $400,000 towards the ACCC's costs.

• Airbnb will also spend about $15 million to compensate more than 63,000 affected customers.

Several Westpac Bank customers are experiencing outages using their phone and online banking.

The bank has acknowledged they are aware of the issue in a statement.

The issue is also impacting St George customers, which is owned by Westpac Bank

Westpac also owns Bank of Melbourne, BankSA, BT and RAMS.

Reports about the exact scope of the outage currently differ wildly. Some outlets saying "thousands" some saying "millions", some saying "intermittent", some not.

Edit: literally while I was confirming the scope, apparently service started being restored.

Online and phone banking has been restored to most Westpac Bank customers after an outage that lasted a number of hours.

As someone who comes from these communities i can tell you 100% then is going to drive people out of farming. When the water buybacks happened in the past it drove a lot of farmers to the wall with just how little they could produce. They are already feeling like this could happen again.

More on this:

John Shipton: "Julian Assange can be freed with a phone call." Speech outside Prime Minister Albanese's Office, 09-12-2023 https://odysee.com/@Activism4Assange:6/John_Shipton_Speech_outside_PM_Albanese_Office_09-12-2023:a

‘Show some backbone’: call for Albanese to help release Julian Assange https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/news/show-some-backbone-call-for-albanese-to-help-release-julian-assange/news-story/48dfd3999dc90bad6b581df1c6d8c8fa

More on this:

John Shipton: "Julian Assange can be freed with a phone call." Speech outside Prime Minister Albanese's Office, 09-12-2023 https://odysee.com/@Activism4Assange:6/John_Shipton_Speech_outside_PM_Albanese_Office_09-12-2023:a

Albanese’s “Enough is Enough” Stance on Assange Is Pitiful. The People Demand More https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/albaneses-enough-is-enough-stance-on-assange-is-pitiful-the-people-demand-more/ https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/albaneses-enough-is-enough-stance-on-assange-is-pitiful-the-people-demand-more/

Chemist Warehouse has struck a deal with Sigma Healthcare to create the biggest pharmacy company in Australia [...] a company with a value in excess of $8.8 billion.

It also makes Sigma Healthcare a substantially bigger player in the market. Right now, Sigma has a market capitalisation of $810 million — but the deal grows its value by almost 11 times.

But it's not only the monetary value of the company that makes this such a big deal — it would also make it one of the top 100 companies listed on the ASX.

The merger will create three tiers of pharmacy that won't compete with each other: the big box discount (Chemist Warehouse), the full service (Amcal, My Chemist) and the discount (Discount Drug Stores).