Key events
Poll suggests Australians want more action on Israel
Australians want the government to do more to pressure Israel into delivering more aid to Gaza, polling from Oxfam suggests.
In the poll, conducted by YouGov, 82% of respondents felt that “the prevention of food, medicine and water reaching civilians in Gaza is unjustified”, while 67% believed that “the Australian government should do more to support civilians being able to access food, water and medicine in Gaza”.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has intensified in recent weeks since Israel announced a halt to aid, with only a trickle of trucks carrying food allowed to enter the territory in the past week.
While Oxfam Australia and other groups who commissioned the polling welcomed foreign minister Penny Wong’s presence on a joint statement of 22 other countries last week calling on Israel to return to full levels of aid into Gaza, the charity believes more pressure is needed. Chrisanta Muli, Oxfam Australia’s acting chief executive, said
With a massive amount of lifesaving aid still stalled at Gaza’s gates, the tiny flow we’ve seen so far represents a drop in an ocean of need. Australians want their Government to take a stronger stance to halt the devastating destruction of Gaza and its people. They are clearly saying, ‘The status quo is untenable’.
You can read more about concerns for famine in Gaza here:
Sydney trains fare-free day commences after chaotic week
Train users in Sydney will enjoy a welcome difference in their morning commute this morning, with a fare-free day in place as a gesture from the government to apologise after several days of chaos across the network last week.
Opal card readers will be switched off for all train and metro services – including airport link trains – and commuters will not need to tap on. The fare-free day does not extend to regional travel services, nor buses, light rail, ferries within Sydney.
The fare-free day was announced last week after a live wire with enough voltage to instantly kill a human fell on the top of a train on Tuesday, trapping 300 passengers on board and grinding all heavy rail lines, bar one, to a halt.
Due to a central vulnerability in Sydney’s rail network, the incident led to almost 48 hours of widespread outages and delays, with workers advised to work from home to alleviate pressure on the network.
You can read more about the incident and the vulnerability of Sydney’s rail network here:
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Elias Visontay here bringing you news updates from overnight and this morning.
The New South Wales police minister, Yasmin Catley, is “horrified by the level of violence” seen on Sydney streets after a double shooting in the heart of Parramatta on Sunday evening. Officers were called to the incident at about 5.10pm, where they found two men with multiple gunshot wounds, near two others who were uninjured. The injured men were taken to hospital.
Police were then called to a street about 4.7km from the shooting scene after receiving reports of a car fire and arrived to find a vehicle and a nearby tree alight. Investigations are under way into whether the two incidents are linked.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Meteorology has issued broad warnings for damaging winds across swathes of southern Australia. In Victoria, the Bureau has warned that north-westerly winds are strengthening ahead of a cold front bringing damaging to winds about elevated parts of the state on Monday morning. The risk of damaging winds is expected to become more widespread in western and central parts of the state during the day today, particularly with showers and thunderstorms. The warning follows a 122km/h wind gust being detected at Mount William at 11:58 pm last night.
Authorities are also warning of “damaging, possibly destructive winds” developing over South Australia. A vigorous cold front is crossing central parts of the South Australian coast and will move over eastern inland areas during the morning, the Bureau said, with north-westerly winds to then strengthen ahead of the front before shifting more westerly behind it. Destructive winds are classified as those measured above 125km/h.
