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SA state election turning into popularity test for One Nation
Sarah Basford Canales
The South Australian state election is shaping up to be a test for One Nation’s surge in popularity.
The state Liberal party is looking to avoid another crushing defeat, but Newspoll’s latest findings suggest its primary vote in South Australia is at an abysmal 14%.
Meanwhile, One Nation’s primary is polling ahead of the Liberals at 24% with Labor on 44%.
So, with the Liberals trailing behind the minor right-wing party, they’re going to need all the preference flows they can get when South Australians go to the polls on 21 March.
That could be tricky because South Australia’s One Nation has now ruled out doing any preference deals with the Liberals.
The state’s shadow treasurer, Ben Hood, is not happy, describing One Nation’s move as “highly destructive” and said:
Our message to voters is clear … If you’re not happy with where things are headed in South Australia, then you’ve got to vote Liberal.This is a highly destructive move by One Nation that will only ensure more Labor MPs and condemn South Australia to a lifetime of debt.
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Tones And I Show To to headline bushfire relief concert in Victorian town
The Victorian government has said it is supporting Australian musician Tones and I’s sold-out concert in the bushfire-affected Longwood, which will raise funds for the town and surrounding region as residents recover from the January fires.
The Tones and I Goes to Longwood concert, scheduled for tomorrow at the Longwood Reserve, will support communities and emergency services affected by recent bushfires, with $5 from each ticket sold donated to the Strathbogie Disaster Relief Fund.
The minister for tourism, Steve Dimopoulos, today announced the government would help cover the costs of the concert under its regional events fund, though he didn’t say how much financial support it would provide.
The government has supported more than 450 events across regional Victoria, with upcoming events including the Lost Trades Fair in Woodend, Grampians Grape Escape and Nightide in Queenscliff, Dimopoulos said.
He said:
We are proud to support this event which will provide a much-needed boost for a community that has had a really tough summer.
The Regional Events Fund brings thousands of visitors to regional Victoria, providing a huge boost for businesses and showcasing some of our state’s most incredible destinations.
Rennee Vercoe, a local resident and member of the bushfire relief concert’s organising committee, said:
Longwood might be a small town, but it’s full of heart.
Being able to host Tones and I at the Longwood Recreation Reserve is a huge moment for our town – it’ll bring people into the region, showcase our community, and give those touched by the bushfires a positive night to share.
NRLW player Kate Fallon cleared of assaulting her teenage neighbour
An NRLW player has been cleared of assaulting her teenage neighbour in a fight over food delivery after a chaotic court hearing that nearly landed the teenager in hot water, AAP reports.
Parramatta Eels centre Kate Fallon, 22, faced Sydney’s Downing centre local court on Friday after pleading not guilty to assaulting her 17-year-old neighbour in July 2024.
The teenager claimed she was knocking on doors in a unit block in Sydney’s eastern suburbs in search of a missing $70 food delivery when Fallon attacked her.
Fallon’s barrister, Thomas Skinner, argued the assault claims weren’t supported by evidence, pointing to the teen’s later testimony that she ran up the stairs.
The accounts provided by the 17-year-old and her sister were markedly different, he said, with the sister telling the court she saw the teenager held against a wall by her throat.
The claim was not confirmed by the complainant, who had also identified only one altercation where her sister had suggested there were two, Skinner noted.
He pushed for the charges to be dismissed, telling the court: “The allegation on its face is implausible.”
While the prosecutor argued the witnesses had not been deliberately untruthful, he conceded the court might not find the assault had been proven.
Magistrate Lucas Swan said he had difficulty accepting the teenager’s account given the inconsistencies and her evasive approach to simple questions.
“I had serious questions about her reliability as a witness of truth,” he said.
The complainant initially said she didn’t strike Fallon at all during the altercation but, when pressed, maintained she had acted in self-defence.
Swan said there could be “no confusion about a person punching an individual” and he had “serious questions” about the teenager’s reliability.
The demeanour of the teenager and her sister did not help, with the magistrate noting contempt of court proceedings had been raised after they left court without permission during the hearing.
Swan dismissed the charges against Fallon and declined to make an apprehended violence order.
Fallon, who played seven games in the 2024 season, has remained on the roster with the Parramatta Eels since her arrest and the club has supported her throughout the court proceedings.
Sculpture by the Sea has returned to Perth for 2026 after 2025’s iteration was cancelled due to a lack of money, AAP reports.
If the fickle fun ride of Australian arts funding was a sculpture, it would be shaped like a rollercoaster - one you could put by the beach.
Installing and displaying 70 artworks at Cottesloe Beach does not come cheap, with just under a third of the event’s $2.7m budget coming from federal trade and investment agency Austrade.
The export-oriented body has provided a $1.5m grant to the WA event to cover its staging in 2026 and 2027.
About 20% of the budget comes from WA’s state government through Tourism WA and Lotterywest.
The event’s founder, David Handley, said:
The Perth public made it very clear how disappointed they were that the exhibition would be no more.
Within a couple of days, we got a phone call from people in the government saying, ‘how can we make this happen?’
The original Sculpture by the Sea event in Sydney attracts an audience of about 450,000 people and is billed as the largest free outdoor sculpture exhibition in the world.
It lost $1m in federal money after 2023, when it was ranked in the bottom third of applicants in a funding round by federal arts funding agency Creative Australia.
Half the artists on show in Perth are from Western Australia, including Jason Hirst from the Perth-based public art company Little Rhino Designs.
He spent more than $100,000 fabricating the two-by-ten metre sculpture Love You, which was initially accepted for the 2025 exhibition.
artists are also on display, from nations including Canada, India, Iraq, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Switzerland, Britain and the United States.
ACCC puts petrol companies on notice amid accusations of price gouging
The consumer watchdog has put petrol stations on notice amid accusations retailers are using the Middle East conflict as an excuse to gouge their customers.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) put out a statement on Friday saying it was “keeping a close eye on the petrol market” after the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, asked it to monitor for profiteering behaviour.
The ACCC said the prices of international crude oil and Singapore Mogas 95 – the relevant international benchmark for the wholesale price of petrol in Australia – had increased sharply and the spike was being influenced by the conflict.
However, as my colleague Patrick Commins reported on Thursday, changes in international benchmark fuel prices can take about two weeks to work their way through service stations in the major cities, and longer in the regions, according to the Australian Institute of Petroleum.
Yet average petrol prices in Australian city suburbs jumped almost immediately, including an 8.4c rise in average Brisbane prices since Friday, and a 7.5c average increase in Melbourne, according to Guardian Australia’s analysis of data from petrol tracking website Motormouth.
In a statement, one of the ACCC’s commissioners, Anna Brakey, said:
The ACCC will not hesitate to take action if representations and market behaviour by a petrol company contravene competition and consumer laws.
We have written to major fuel companies to set out our expectations about domestic fuel pricing as these international events unfold.
At this time, as at any time, we encourage motorists to use fuel price apps and websites to shop around to find the lowest prices.
The ACCC said crude oil prices had spiked in early January due to “geopolitical developments” in Venezuela and Iran, but dropped again by the end of the month, with overall minimal influence on the Mogas 95 price.
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Catie McLeod
Hello, I hope you’re having a very nice Friday. I’ll take you through the rest of the afternoon’s news.
Nick Visser
That’s all from me. Catie McLeod will guide you into the weekend. Take care.
Major flood warnings across the Northern Territory and Queensland
The Bureau of Meteorology has issued multiple flood warnings for the Northern Territory and Queensland as tropical lows bring heavy rain to the region.
In the NT, major flood warnings are in place around the Katherine River, the Waterhouse River, the Roper River, the Daly River and the Georgina River.
Significant river level rises have been observed in many areas.
Angus Hines, a meteorologist with the BoM, said the Daly district south of Darwin could have six-hour rainfall totals of 90mm to 140mm.
It will continue to be extremely wet. … With more rain on the way we could see more rivers reach their flood levels and potentially burst their banks.
In Queensland, significant flooding has been seen north of Cairns and in the surrounding areas. Heavy rain is moving inland, with six-hour rainfall totals of 70mm to 130mm over interior parts of north Queensland.
Major flood warnings are in place around the Flinders River, the Georgina River and the Thomson River.
Daisy Dumas
Fire ants detected in Queensland’s prized Gondwana rainforests
Fire ants have been discovered in the world heritage-listed Gondwana rainforests in south-east Queensland.
A red imported fire ant nest was on 3 March found by a member of public in Lamington national park in the Gold Coast hinterland, a section of ancient rainforest that is internationally recognised for its extraordinary biodiversity and ecological history stretching back to Gondwana.
The nest’s site is outside the Fire Ant Eradication Program’s containment boundary.
The program has destroyed the nest and is urging residents and businesses in Binna Burra in the Scenic Rim region to stay alert for the insects, which are native to South America and can kill people and livestock, and damage infrastructure and ecosystems.
Invasive Species Council advocacy director, Reece Pianta, said fire ants were one of the worst invasive threats to Australia’s wildlife and a failure to eradicate them in south-east Queensland could lead to them spreading across most of the country.
He continued:
To find a nest inside one of the world’s most ancient and beautiful rainforests is alarming. These places should be beyond the reach of invasive species.
Rainforest is an unusual habitat for fire ants, which shows just how adaptable and dangerous they are and why every part of Australia is at risk of fire ant infestation.
Callum Jones
How Flightradar24 became the go-to platform for the world to watch global aviation crises unfold
Mikael Robertsson and Olov Lindberg did not set out to build one of the pre-eminent monitors of global airspace. In a bid to draw more eyes to their Swedish flight price comparison portal, the entrepreneurs added a page charting air traffic.
That page became Flightradar24, the portal that people around the world now turn to when there is chaos – and drama – in the skies.
In recent days, as the US-Israel war on Iran rapidly cleared the airspace over the Middle East, prompting widespread travel chaos that disrupted hundreds of thousands of travellers, viewers from around the world gravitated to the platform.
On Flightradar24 the impact on aviation was clear. With large swaths of the Middle East closed to air traffic, two narrow flight corridors emerged, crammed with little yellow plane symbols – the first to the north of Iran, through the Caucasus, but below Ukraine’s closed airspace, and the second to the south, through Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Oman.
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Benita Kolovos
RACGP opposes Victoria’s change to contraceptive pill access
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has opposed the change in Victoria over access to the contraceptive bill, as we reported earlier. It says it goes against the advice of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), which has ruled the pill should only be prescribed by doctors who can manage the risk of serious complications.
The RACGP chair, Dr Anita Muñoz, said:
We are deeply disappointed that the Victorian government appears to be listening to lobbyists for pharmacy owners rather than the medicines experts, the TGA, whose guidance exists to protect patient safety. At a time when the government faces a challenging political environment in an election year, it has chosen a shortcut on women’s healthcare instead of investing in the evidence‑based solutions that actually improve access.
The premier, Jacinta Allan, pre-empted the criticism at her press conference, saying pharmacists were highly skilled and trained healthcare professionals:
This is about opening up access, and what it means for GPs is it frees up time for them. Because we know there’s huge pressure on the primary care system that it is hard to get in and find a bulk-billing appointment. This makes those spots available for other people while women are getting the access to the care that they need … It’ll be safe, it’s being done in a professional way, but it’s also going to really mean a big difference, particularly for younger women will be able to get access to the oral contraceptive pill, and it could be life changing for them.
