Driver released after fatal primary school car crash in Melbourne
The fatal crash of a car through a school fence in Hawthorn East, Melbourne, yesterday afternoon is being investigated by Major Collision Investigation Unit detectives, Victoria police said in a statement.
It’s believed the car was traveling along Burgess Street just after 2.30pm when it veered off the road and crashed through a school fence.
The driver, a 40-year-old Hawthorn East woman, was arrested at the scene. She has since been released pending further enquiries, police said.
“One boy, aged 11 years old, was taken to hospital with critical injuries but he has since died,” police said. Two girls aged 11 years old, one 10-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy were all taken to hospital with serious injuries.
Police on Tuesday said the 40-year-old driver had driven to the school to collect a child, who was in the car at the time of the crash. Both the driver and the child in the car were unharmed.
The incident occurred when she performed a U-turn, crashed through a fence and into a table where five children were sitting, police said.
Speaking from the school on Tuesday afternoon, Victoria police inspector Craig McEvoy said “it appears it is a tragic accident” and had been tough on ambulance workers and other first responders, as well as for the school community.
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Rafqa Touma
Thank you Martin Farrer for kicking off the day’s live blog!
I’ll be rolling your news updates throughout the day – if you see anything you don’t want us to miss, send it my way on X @At_Raf_
Healthy funds needed for disease centre to do tough job
Australia’s planned Centre for Disease Control has a complex and tough task ahead to fulfil its mandate but the real challenge will be funding it into the future, Australian Associated Press reports.
The centre is a key recommendation of the 670-page report on Australia’s Covid-19 response, launched yesterday, which also found the disease exhausted the nation’s healthcare systems, public service and economy, and eroded public trust.
The federal government says it will spend $251m over four years to establish the centre, with a commitment of funding into the future despite the looming election.
The Public Health Association of Australia says the initial funding is modest but a good start.
“The report very much looks to the CDC to take a lead a whole range of the big challenges,” the chief executive, Terry Slevin, said.
This includes building infrastructure to collect accurate disease information in real time.
The centre is also likely to be tasked with behavioural research and influencing the choices that people make when it comes to health.
“These are easy to say, not so easy to do, and so the challenge is to make sure that investment is very much for the long term and growing to match the level of responsibility the Centre for Disease Control can and should prosecute,” Slevin said.
“It has to be a long-term commitment,” he said. “That’s the nature of public health.”
Looking past headline inflation for real deal on rates
Household energy discounts are weighing on Australia’s headline inflation rate, hopefully enough to help it back within the Reserve Bank’s target range of two to three per cent later today, Australian Associated Press reports.
But the central bank says it plans to look through the subsidies because they are temporary, with headline inflation – the official gauge – forecast to exceed the target band by the end of 2025 before returning by late 2026.
Economists, however, say trimmed mean inflation will instead be the figure to watch when the September quarter consumer price index is released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics at 11.30am.
That measure scrubs away major price changes at either end, accounting for the likes of expiring energy bill relief.
Westpac economist Justin Smirk was expecting progress on underlying inflation but the trimmed mean at 0.7% would still be stronger than the RBA would want.
Such a result would take the annual pace to 3.5% from 3.9% in the June quarter.
Lower prices at the petrol pump and cost-of-living assistance were expected to drag the headline figure lower as housing costs, including elevated rents, worked in the opposite direction.
Lower interest rates were still possible before the end of the year, the AMP chief economist, Shane Oliver, said.
“Our base case remains for the RBA to start cutting in February next year, but a cut in December still can’t be ruled out if September quarter trimmed mean inflation comes in as forecast and October monthly underlying inflation shows a further leg down,” Oliver said.
Owners appeal volcano disaster conviction
The owners of an island volcano in New Zealand that erupted in 2019 killing 22 people, including 14 Australians, have launched an appeal against their criminal conviction for violating safety laws, Australian Associated Press reports.
They argue that tour operators – rather than their company – were responsible for the safety of visitors to Whakaari, also known as White Island.
Whakaari Management, a company owned by brothers Andrew, Peter and James Buttle, was found guilty last October of a charge brought by New Zealand’s workplace safety regulator of failing to protect visitors to the island. It was ordered to pay millions of dollars in fines and restitutions to victims of the volcanic eruption, who were tourists from a cruise ship, and their local guides.
Forty-seven tourists and guides were on the island at the time of the eruption, including 24 Australians, 14 of whom were killed.
The company in March filed an appeal. Yesterday, lawyer Rachael Reed told the high court in Auckland that the trial judge had erred when he ruled the volcano’s owners were the managers or controllers of a workplace under the law – and were therefore responsible for mitigating health and safety risks to anyone present.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Rafqa Touma to take you though the day’s news.
Analysis of parliamentary data shows at least 90% of federal politicians have declared taking up invitations to join the exclusive Qantas Chairman’s Lounge and dozens also received flight upgrades, expensive gifts or hospitality from the national carrier – as debate swirls over Anthony Albanese’s use of Qantas freebies, which he says he has declared under the usual practice.
Yesterday’s report into the government’s handling of the pandemic was a very useful way for Anthony Albanese to divert attention away from the Qantas story, writes Guardian Australia political editor Karen Middleton, but Labor can’t quite seem to move the debate away from Peter Dutton’s attacks on Albanese’s character.
What could help Albanese and Labor is if today’s inflation figures show signs of coming down more, and showing the path towards lower interest rates for the country’s beleaguered borrowers. The numbers for monthly and quarterly price rises are out at 11.30am this morning with expectations they could be lower. More coming up.
And yesterday’s big report on Australia’s Covid pandemic response – which exposed some serious shortcomings – recommended we get an American-style Centre for Disease Control. Public health experts say this is a good move. More on that soon.
