Craig Foster ‘very worried’ about Iran women footballers
Former Socceroo and refugee advocate Craig Foster said he is “very worried” about the fate of the Iran women’s team after they were defeated by the Philippines 2-0, ending their Women’s Asian Cup bid.
It’s unclear when they will return home, but some have expressed “grave” concerns about the players after they did not sing the national anthem last week.
Foster told RN Breakfast:
I think it’s pretty clear to everyone on the potential threat that they’re facing, whether here or particularly if they do return or when they do return to Iran. …
I think the whole Australian football community and Australia is extremely concerned about the potential threat to the lives of these players.
Key events
Paul MacInnes
Tears and drama amid snowboard cross chaos at Winter Paralympics
Snowboard cross is a sport with high technical demands, as athletes negotiate a series of challenges from – to adopt the lexicon – jumps and berms to rollers and drops, all along a winding course. But all this skill is subordinated to the generation of speed. Every movement is calculated to limit resistance and drag.
Add the challenges to balance and navigation that come from racing with a physical disability and it is perhaps not surprising to find that the snowboard cross finals at the Winter Paralympics on Sunday were carnage.
The Australian Amanda Reid, a Paralympic gold-medal swimmer making her debut as a snowboarder, was taken to hospital after crashing out backwards during the heats of the women’s LL1 classification (denoting a more impactful lower limb disability).
The biggest cheers of the day came in the penultimate race when Italy celebrated gold in the men’s LL2 classification (the less severe of the two lower limb categories). Emanuel Perathoner absolutely smashed the field, beating the Australian Ben Tudhope by more than three seconds.
Read more from our dispatch here:
eSafety commissioner says age verification for porn comparable to restrictions on strip clubs and casinos
Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety commissioner, said changes to age verification to access adult content have been a long time coming.
Speaking to RN, she compared access to sites featuring content like pornography to restrictions on children entering bars or strip clubs, calling them “commonsense” measures to protect young people.
She said:
They can’t stroll into a strip club or browse an adult shop or sit down at a blackjack table in a casino. So, this really just brings the online world and those protections that we put for kids in place to the digital realm.
Inman Grant said a “click of a button” won’t pass muster any longer, saying there needs to be more “rigour” behind age verification.
Craig Foster ‘very worried’ about Iran women footballers
Former Socceroo and refugee advocate Craig Foster said he is “very worried” about the fate of the Iran women’s team after they were defeated by the Philippines 2-0, ending their Women’s Asian Cup bid.
It’s unclear when they will return home, but some have expressed “grave” concerns about the players after they did not sing the national anthem last week.
Foster told RN Breakfast:
I think it’s pretty clear to everyone on the potential threat that they’re facing, whether here or particularly if they do return or when they do return to Iran. …
I think the whole Australian football community and Australia is extremely concerned about the potential threat to the lives of these players.
Man charged with murder after alleged stabbing in Sydney’s inner west
A man was charged with murder after an alleged stabbing in Sydney’s inner west on Sunday.
NSW police said emergency services were called to a house in the suburb of Concord around 12pm, following reports of a concern for welfare. On arrival, officers located a man with a stab wound to his chest. He was treated by paramedics but died at the scene.
A second man was arrested at the home and taken to Burwood police station.
He has been charged with murder and refused bail. He will appear at Burwood local court today. An investigation is ongoing.
Nationals say Iranian regime ‘needed to change’
David Littleproud, the Nationals leader, said Australia may have capabilities that could complement the abilities of Gulf nations needing support.
He spoke to RN Breakfast, saying the regime in Iran “needed to change” and that Australia now wants a “completion” of the conflict. He said:
I think it’s important to work through this calmly, to understand the intelligence and the briefings that the government has to get to this juncture … If you’re going to send Australian personnel to a conflict, that is one of the most important decisions any government would make. And I think it’s better that there’s bipartisan support, and that’s why you want to be constructive with the government …
The reality is, we believe in regime change. This was a tyrant that was oppressing the people of Iran. And I think what’s important here is that the people of Iran are empowered and given back their country through whatever mechanism that they should determine
Military requests from Gulf nations should be ‘duly considered’, Ted O’Brien says
Ted O’Brien, the shadow minister for foreign affairs, said Israel and the US were doing the “heavy lifting for the free world” during the ongoing war with Iran.
O’Brien spoke to RN Breakfast, where he was asked about the prospect of Australia assisting its allies. He said Australia should “duly” consider any request by Gulf nations, but said if the country does assist with defensive efforts it would “of course” be seen as participation in the conflict.
There is conflict going on right now in the Middle East, and this is where we’re talking about a very rogue regime. It has sought to undertake terror attacks on our soil and far worse attacks on some of our friends and allies.
We support what the United States and Israel is doing, and therefore, if support is requested, as it has been, it should be duly considered.
Foreign minister Penny Wong said Sunday Australia may offer military support to Gulf nations facing strikes from Iran, but won’t participate in any ground efforts.
Josh Taylor
Australians will have to verify their age to watch pornography from today. Here’s what you need to know
Australians will need to verify their age in order to access adult content on a range of places across the internet, with pornography sites and other sites hosting adult content required to have age assurance in place from today.
The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, announced in September that industry-designed codes covering adult content and extreme violence or self-harm content would go into force in two tranches – in December last year and from 9 March.
The second tranche, from Monday, will cover websites, social media, storage services, AI chatbots, app stores and equipment providers like phone makers or console developers.
How will it work, what will we need to do, and can we avoid it? Read more here:
Good morning! Nick Visser here to take the reins. Let’s get to it.
Nationals select candidate to run in Sussan Ley’s NSW seat
Krishani Dhanji
The Nationals have selected a former army colonel, Brad Robertson, to challenge former Liberal leader Sussan Ley’s seat of Farrer at the upcoming byelection on 9 May.
Both the Nationals and the Liberals will be contesting the seat, which was held by Ley for 25 years, but represented by former Nationals leader Tim Fischer before her.
The Coalition candidates will face challenges from One Nation, who selected agriculture businessman David Farley, and from community independent Michelle Milthorpe.
In a statement, the Nationals said the seat has a “proud Nationals history”, and that the byelection “presents an opportunity for The Nationals to give Farrer strong regional representation in Canberra”.
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, called Robertson a “local champion”.
The Nationals are all about local champions. Brad Robertson has dedicated his life to serving Australia. First in uniform and now in his community.
Floods could persist across Northern Territory for a week
Flooding in Katherine could last for a week as the Northern Territory town has been topped by flood waters, AAP reports, with both the Katherine and Daly rivers threatening to reach record-breaking levels after a recent deluge.
The Katherine River was receding late on Sunday after reaching 19.2m on Saturday but plenty more rain is forecast in coming days.
Bureau of Meteorology senior officer Jude Scott said the Daly River, which was at 14.4m late on Sunday, would also continue to rise.
Hundreds of people in Nauiyu/Daly River Community have been evacuated by helicopter to Darwin, where they are sheltering at the showgrounds.
The Katherine mayor, Joanna Holden, said the next couple of days would be critical, with more rain forecast.
She said about 1,000 people had been moved to evacuation centres in Darwin, Katherine and Mataranka. Another 80 people were evacuated from Daly River by helicopter on Sunday after conditions prevented them from leaving on Saturday.
Some schools will remain shut today while they are used as emergency shelters.
Flood warnings and flood watches are also in place for much of Queensland. Moderate to heavy rainfall is forecast across parts of northern, central, and south-east Queensland for the next couple of days as a broad trough draws in deep tropical moisture across the state.
Sydney’s new airport motorway to open this week
Penry Buckley
Sydney’s M12 motorway, the “driveway” to the new Western Sydney airport, will open this Saturday, the federal and NSW governments have announced.
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, and the federal transport minister, Catherine King, will cut the ribbon on the 16km stretch of road in Sydney’s west this morning, following four years of construction and a combined $2.1bn joint state and federal spend.
The road will open to local traffic in the early hours of 14 March, although an intersection directly linking it to the M7 motorway at Cecil Hills won’t be completed until mid-year. Western Sydney airport says it is scheduled to begin passenger flights in October.
Unlike the under-construction M6 motorway and western harbour tunnel, also owned by the state, the M12 will be toll-free, although motorway connections onto the city are owned by private toll operator Transurban. A metro line linking the heavy rail network is not expected to open until late 2027, although the government has announced a free bus service in the interim.
The government says the M12 project has required 2.6 million cubic metres of earthworks, equivalent to moving the volume of 1,064 Olympic pools, and has seen more than 18,500 trees planted. The motorway expected to take 25,000 vehicles a day off local roads. Minns says:
Communities in Western Sydney deserve this world-class infrastructure which will ease pressure on local roads, cut travel times and improve connectivity with the rest of Sydney’s road network.
From Saturday, thousands of motorists will have the chance to use this new motorway for the very first time to more quickly and easily get to where they need to go.
Wong says dependents of Australian officials told to leave UAE
Imogen Dewey
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said in a post late last night that families of Australian officials have been told to leave the United Arab Emirates as war in the Middle East spreads.
“The Australian Government has directed the departure of dependants of Australian officials posted to the UAE, due to the deteriorating security situation,” she wrote in a post on X on Sunday night:
Our travel advice has been updated to reflect that direction. We continue to advise Australians not to travel to the UAE.
She said that more than 1,700 Australians have so far returned on direct flights from the UAE and that the government was “contacting registered Australians directly when we know seats are available”.
If you can secure a seat, please consider taking it.
Welcome
Good morning, and welcome to Guardian Australia’s live news blog.
In case you missed it yesterday, the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, confirmed the Australian government is considering offering military support to assist Gulf nations facing strikes from Iran, but will not participate in any ground troop deployment.
Closer to home, age verification requirements for porn sites are now in effect. And in the Northern Territory, two major rivers are flooding, with homes inundated, roads cut, supermarket shelves bare and hundreds of people evacuated – we’ll have more on that soon.
Nick Visser will be here shortly to take you through the day’s events as they happen, before federal parliament returns tomorrow.
