Australia news live: man accused of murdering Samantha Murphy faces court; 15% childcare pay rise celebrated

Man accused of murdering Samantha Murphy faces court

Adeshola Ore

The Victorian man accused of murdering Ballarat woman Samantha Murphy is appearing in the Ballarat magistrates court.

Patrick Stephenson, 23, is appearing via video link from custody, wearing a white shirt.

Both parties are seeking an adjournment of 12 weeks due to an extensive brief that includes CCTV footage, the court has heard.

The court hearing comes more than six months after Murphy, 51, was last seen when she left her Ballarat East home to go for a run on 4 February.

In March, police charged Stephenson, from the nearby town Scotsburn, with the murder of Murphy, a mother of three. They alleged he killed her in a “deliberate attack” on the day she disappeared in the Mount Clear area, about 7km from her home.

*This post has been updated to correct Stephenson’s age.

Samantha Murphy disappeared after leaving her home to go for a run in February. Photograph: VIC POLICE

Key events

More on the report into Victoria’s health services system

The report also recommended each network had a “formal relationship with a major tertiary, a women’s and a children’s hospital”.

The report said Victoria had more independent health services “than any other Australian state, in fact it is more than the rest of Australia has combined”:

While other Australian health departments work with a maximum of 16 networks to ensure the right health care is delivered at the right time and in the right place, our department has 76 individual services – more than the rest of the nation put together.

Victoria’s health services system does not make the best use of our vital healthcare resources due to duplication of activities across the 76 services and a lack of scale efficiencies. This reduces the resources available for direct patient care.

Victorian premier expected to announce merger of some of the states health services

We’re expecting the Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, and health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, to hold a press conference any minute about their decision to provide hospitals with an additional $1.5bn in funding.

The duo are also expected to outline plans to merge some of the state’s health services, though yesterday the government confirmed there would be no forced amalgamations.

Ahead of the press conference, the government released the final report of an expert advisory committee set up to investigate the design and governance of Victoria’s health services system. The committee, led by former Labor MP Bob Cameron, has recommended the state’s 76 independently governed health services in Victoria merge into 11 “location health service networks”.

Five of these networks would be located in regional Victoria: Barwon South West, Grampians, Loddon Mallee, Hume, Gippsland. The remainder would be in metropolitan Melbourne: West Metro, Parkville, North Metro, East Metro, South Metro, Bayside.

The report said each network would be a “single entity” with a “new, skills-based board with membership that reflects the diversity of its region” and a newly recruited chief executive officer but its “pre-existing site identities and brands” should remain the same.

It said staff would work under a single employer and could be deployed “across sites in accordance with community need”. Financial management, corporate governance and back office staff would be combined for each network.

Jack Karlson, who shot to fame after ‘succulent Chinese meal’ arrest, dies aged 82

The man who immortalised the phrase “this is democracy manifest” while starring in what has been described as the preeminent Australian meme, Jack Karlson, has died aged 82.

Karlson – although there are debates as to whether this was his real name or one of many aliases – was a serial prison escapee and small-time crook who shot to fame in 2009 after a news clip of his arrest at a Chinese restaurant in Brisbane’s seedy Fortitude Valley in 1991 was uploaded onto the internet.

“What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal?” Karlson theatrically boomed as his bear-like frame resisted a string of police officers.

Chris Reason, the Channel 7 journalist who reported Karlson’s arrest 33 years ago, paid tribute to Karlson on social media site X, tweeting that “Mr Democracy Manifest has died”.

ASX edges lower in response to Wall Street jitters

Australian shares opened slightly lower this morning after a case of jitters hit Wall Street late in the American trading session marked by concerns over consumer spending.

Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX200 was at 7,684 in the opening minutes of trading, down 0.2%.

Global share markets have experienced extreme volatility since late last week, after several pieces of economic data, including jobs and payroll data, raised questions over the health of the US economy.

There have been lingering concerns that cost-of-living pressures will eventually depress spending to such an extent that economies around the world, including Australia, will plunge into recession.

In the US, shares of the San Francisco-based Airbnb fell more than 13% overnight after the homestays company warned it was “seeing shorter booking lead times globally and some signs of slowing demand from U.S. guests”.

The major US indices had started strongly in the American session, before suffering another round of selling coming into the close.

Many listed Australian companies will report their annual earnings over the coming weeks, providing an insight into whether rising living costs are weighing on corporate profits.

Man accused of murdering Samantha Murphy ordered to reappear before court on 14 November

Continuing on from our previous post: Moya O’Brien, Patrick Stephenson’s lawyer, says she met with her client during the week and there are no additional custody matters.

Magistrate Mark Stratmann orders Stephenson to reappear in the Ballarat magistrates court on 14 November.

Stratmann says no application for bail has been made.

Road closure in Sydney CBD after crane loses its load

The roads are closed between Pitt Street and Bathurst Street in the Sydney CBD after a crane lost its load.

A Fire and Rescue NSW spokesperson said crews were there “as a precaution” and it’s not believed there were any injuries.

Live Traffic NSW warns of heavy traffic conditions, telling motorists to use Kent Street instead.

Man accused of murdering Samantha Murphy faces court

The Victorian man accused of murdering Ballarat woman Samantha Murphy is appearing in the Ballarat magistrates court.

Patrick Stephenson, 23, is appearing via video link from custody, wearing a white shirt.

Both parties are seeking an adjournment of 12 weeks due to an extensive brief that includes CCTV footage, the court has heard.

The court hearing comes more than six months after Murphy, 51, was last seen when she left her Ballarat East home to go for a run on 4 February.

In March, police charged Stephenson, from the nearby town Scotsburn, with the murder of Murphy, a mother of three. They alleged he killed her in a “deliberate attack” on the day she disappeared in the Mount Clear area, about 7km from her home.

*This post has been updated to correct Stephenson’s age.

Parenting group hails 15% wage rise for childcare workers as ‘historic’

The parenting advocacy group The Parenthood, which is working to highlight the flow-on effects of poor childcare access, has welcomed a 15% wage increase for early childhood educators as “historic”.

CEO Georgie Dent said in a statement the move was good news for both educators and parents struggling with the cost of living:

This has been decades in the making and is a victory for every early childhood educator and teacher – past, present and aspiring, as well as children and families.

It is also momentous for gender equity as it directly addresses the chronic undervaluing of a highly feminised workforce, and bolsters a critical enabler of women’s workforce participation.

Dent said the pay rise would help stem the loss of early educators who are leaving in record numbers, because they cannot afford to cover their own cost of living.

Record staff vacancies in early education have been felt particularly keenly in regional, rural and remote areas with early learning services either closing altogether or reducing numbers.

Qantas review finds 'considerable harm' to brand under Joyce term

A self-launched review into the governance of Qantas over the period that led to legal scandals and the trashing of its brand has found there was “considerable harm” caused to the company under the leadership of the former CEO Alan Joyce.

In the governance report released today as the Qantas board announced it would dock Joyce’s pay packet in the 2022-23 financial year by $9.26m and other senior executives by 33%, the airline acknowledged the magnitude of what went wrong.

The events that damaged Qantas and its reputation and caused considerable harm to relationships with customers, employees and other stakeholders were due to a number of factors.

It noted the financial hit from legal action from the consumer watchdog – related to selling tickets to thousands of flights it had already cancelled in its internal system – had led to a settlement costing Qantas $100m in penalties and $20m in compensation costs. Additionally, the airline is bracing to incur significant costs – some have estimated in excess of $100m – in compensation for ground handlers it was found to have illegally dismissed during the pandemic.

The review found that a “top down” culture at Qantas meant other leaders felt they couldn’t “speak up” to challenge Joyce over controversial decisions.

There was too much deference to a long-tenured CEO who had endured and overcome multiple past operational and financial crises.

This included the company’s tendency, under Joyce, to “often had an adversarial approach to engagement with key stakeholders and external communications”. The review also found that the Qantas board “was financially, commercially and strategically oriented”, and recommended in the future this focus “should be complemented by enhanced focus on non-financial issues, employees, customers and all stakeholders”.

Greens say government’s child care pay announcement doesn’t go far enough

The government’s big announcement this morning is a 15% increase over two years for early childhood educators, funded by the government.

The pay boost means an average educator receiving the award wage will receive an extra $103 a week from December this year, which will increase to $155 a week by December next year, with the $3.6bn package being phased in over two years.

To be eligible for the money, which has to be entirely given to staff, through a pay rise, child care centre operators have to commit to not increasing their fees above 4.4% over the next 12 months, from today.

Greens early childhood education spokesperson Steph Hodgins-May says the increase doesn’t go far enough; the Greens want the government to commit to the union’s original request of a 25% increase.

This is a workforce in crisis. For too long, educators have been underpaid and as a result are leaving the industry in droves.

Labor must commit to going that step further and paying our educators what they’ve been calling for and what they deserve, for doing the most important work imaginable – educating and caring for our kids.

Tony Burke aware of the word ‘Aotearoa’ since 1980s thanks to Split Enz song

New Zealand’s prime minister, Chris Luxon, might need to scrub up on his knowledge of his country’s musical impact on Australia in the 1980s if his latest comments are anything to go by.

AAP reports Luxon defended the removal of the Māori language, known as te reo Māori, from an official invitation to Tony Burke from Aotearoa’s cultural minister, Paul Goldsmith.

You can read more here, but Luxon defended Goldsmith’s instruction to officials to remove the greeting tena koe (meaning hello), the signoff nāku noa, na (which became yours sincerely) and the Māori name for New Zealand, Aotearoa.

Goldsmith said he didn’t think Burke would understand what Aotearoa meant and thought, “Let’s just keep it simple”.

Responding to questions from the NZ opposition about it in question time, Luxon joked that “in my dealings with Australians it always pays to be incredibly simple”. Burke, though, said he has known the word since he was 13.

I learned the word in 1982 thanks to Split Enz including a reference in the lyrics to Six Months in a Leaky Boat.

The Split Enz hit peaked at No 2 in the Australian charts that year, and ended 1982 as the 18th biggest song overall. The group referenced their homeland in the third stanza:

Aotearoa, rugged individual, glisten like a pearl, at the bottom of the world.