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Shareholders approve Myer merger with Premier Investments
Jonathan Barrett
Myer shareholders have approved a merger with Premier Investments apparel brands in Australia, which includes Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Portmans, Dotti and Jacqui E.
The merger received approval from more than 96% of votes cast, according to the results of Myer’s extraordinary general meeting held today. The vote was also widely supported by Premier Investments shareholders at a separate poll.
The transaction involves Premier shareholders receiving Myer stock, which will give Premier chairman Solomon Lew control of just under one-third of Myer shares.
The transaction comes at a challenging time for retailers including Myer, which recently reported lower profits and sales as customers grappled with rising living costs, prompting the department store operator to discount its fashion brands.
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Tennis Australia declines to return serve on reporters
Daisy Dumas
The Australian Open has not been drawn on its on-court interviewers after Ben Shelton launched a volley of criticism over the way the reporters treat tennis players.
The American player blasted on-court interviewers for being “disrespectful” and for their “negativity” after defeating Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego on Wednesday.
Referring to on-court interviews conducted by John Fitzgerald, Roger Rasheed and James Sherry, Shelton said in a post-match press conference that he was “a little bit shocked this week with how players have been treated by the broadcasters”.
Tennis Australia, which oversees the Australian Open and employs the reporters, declined to respond to Shelton’s criticism when contacted by Guardian Australia on Thursday.
All three interviewers are understood to be “world feed” reporters chosen to work at the Australian Open by Tennis Australia. The world feed is the live broadcast package as sold to third-party broadcasters.
Channel Nine, which has exclusive broadcast rights to the grand slam tournament, is understood to make requests via Tennis Australia to use its own talent on court, such as Jim Courier and Jelena Dokic. None of the reporters singled out by Shelton are employed by Nine.
Coverage of the grand slam in Melbourne made headlines earlier this week after Novak Djokovic said comments made on air by the Channel Nine broadcaster Tony Jones insulted him and made a mockery of Serbian fans – an incident that Shelton suggested was not isolated.
Jones issued an apology to Djokovic after the veteran broadcaster’s comments led the 10-time Australian Open champion to boycott further Nine interviews.
The Czech player Jiri Lehecka and veteran tennis champions Boris Becker and Chris Evert took to X to agree with Shelton after the press conference.
LNP denies decision has been made on Brisbane Olympic venues
Andrew Messenger
The LNP has denied the former premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s claim that a decision has been made on the Olympics athletics venues.
The former Labor leader skewered both her own successor Steven Miles and the new government for the decision to abandon her plan to hold the athletics at the Gabba.
The finance minister, Ros Bates, denied her claim that the government’s 100-day review “has actually already decided it’s going” to instead hold the Games at Victoria Park.
“Labor had 1,000 days. There are expert people on that panel. So it’s about time that the politicians got out of the way and had the people who actually know what they’re talking about work out how we’re going to deliver all of this infrastructure,” she said.
Bates said Palaszczuk “just basically went after Steven Miles” and said “he didn’t have a plan”.
On Thursday afternoon, the shadow treasurer, Shannon Fentiman, said the government had to decide between decide whether they were going to “build new stadiums, or are they going to help Queensland families?”
“If they’re going to build a new stadium, they’re going to have to find extra billions and billions of dollars that is going to have to come at the expense of cuts.”
Australian police forces form coordinated group to tackle hate crime
An Australian police commissioners’ communique has been released after their meeting today to discuss a “recent rise in antisemitism and prejudice-motivated and hate crime incidents in some communities”.
It says the commissioners agreed to form a group with deputy commissioners from each jurisdiction to “ensure a formal forum for collaboration on this issue”.
The communique said:
The group will meet monthly to share information and intelligence and, where appropriate, use existing national arrangements to assist with both active investigations and proactive operations that may transcend state borders. While each agency is well equipped to deal with matters in their jurisdiction, the sharing of intelligence and information is invaluable and Australian agencies have used this approach for many years with great success.
Commissioners discussed the unique role police play in making the diverse communities of Australia feel safe through high visibility policing, direct community engagement and robust investigations. Commissioners agreed there has never been a greater need for law enforcement agencies to focus on the core role of policing – to reduce crime and the fear of crime, and to ensure community safety and that all communities feel safe. This is the foundation Australian policing is built on.
Ongoing engagement with the Jewish community, as well as the many diverse communities that call Australia home, will continue to be prioritised by all jurisdictions.
Commissioners strongly denounce antisemitism and condemn prejudice-motivated and hate crimes of any kind, which threaten the unique cultural fabric of Australia.
Driver jailed for crash that killed five people
A driver has been locked up for five-and-a-half years after being warned by police about a dangerous intersection before he drove through it and killed five people, AAP reports.
Minutes before one of the deadliest crashes in Victoria’s history, in April 2023, two officers told Christopher Joannidis about the roads in Strathmerton.
“We’ve had nine killed on it in the last 18 months, basically because people don’t see give way and stop signs,” a police officer told him, in a video played to the county court in November.
But the 31-year-old man did not heed this warning.
He crossed over three sets of rumble strip and ignored give way signs as he drove from Labuan Road on to the Murray Valley Highway.
Joannidis’s Mercedes-Benz sedan crashed into a Nissan Navara ute with five people and a dog inside, pushing it into the path of a truck towing two trailers of milk.
The ute’s driver, Deborah Markey, 62, her dog Sophie and four farm workers from Taiwan and Hong Kong staying at her home – Zhi-Yao Chen, Pin-Yu Wang, Wai Yan Lam and Hsin-Yu Chen – were all killed instantly.
Joannidis, who pleaded guilty to five counts of dangerous driving causing death, had his bail revoked when he faced the county court in Melbourne in November.
Funding boost, long-term reform needed for mental health sector, expert says
A significant lift in funding and long-term reform will be needed to avoid future worker shortages and provide critical mental health services, the incoming head of the sector’s peak body says.
AAP reports that as a pay dispute drives almost two-thirds of NSW’s public hospital psychiatrists towards resignation, the crisis in Australia’s largest health system has fuelled calls for greater national action.
Former royal commission into defence and veteran suicide head, Dr Peggy Brown, was announced as the new chair of Mental Health Australia on Thursday and said state and federal governments needed to work more closely together to improve outcomes.
The NSW crisis should spark discussions about the mental health sector’s long-term needs, rather than forcing a quick fix that might not stand the test of time, Brown said.
The risk is discussions will occur to get over the hump of a crisis, but that the opportunity might be lost to actually have those important conversations.
The mass resignations in NSW – building on existing and widespread vacancies in the public system – have spurred state officials to lean on private sector psychiatrists while drawing on other health workers, such as psychologists, GPs and nurses to fill gaps.
Brown said it was widely known that there were systemic issues with services in other states and territories.
Any overhaul of service delivery needed to be done over time, not on the run during a period of crisis, she said.
Aboriginal people given access to restricted WA government files in bid to track family history
Aboriginal people in Western Australia will be able to access records, usually kept from the public eye, to find out more about their family history, AAP reports.
The restricted government files, which are closed to the public because of their sensitive nature, span from 1886 to 1972, and include information on births, family history, relatives, and medical records.
Research experts from Aboriginal History Western Australia can help people access these records, and will be travelling across the state’s south-west to host free family history sessions.
They’ll travel, alongside the state library of Western Australia’s Storylines team, to Collie, Manjimup, Margaret River, Busselton, Bunbury and Eaton, helping families begin the journey of researching their family history.
The Storylines archive holds more than 12,000 photographs and other documents relating to Aboriginal people in the state.
The Aboriginal History WA community education officer Duane Kelly said these sessions are a great starting point for Indigenous people to know and understand more about their history.
Kelly said Aboriginal History WA, which is part of the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, also has a number of truth-telling projects, which will be highlighted at the family history sessions.
The truth-telling projects focus on institutions like missions and orphanages or other subjects like Aboriginal trackers, or the extent of Indigenous involvement in agricultural and pastoral leases in the state.
Anti-corruption watchdog charges 28 more people over alleged bribes to register Victorian builders
Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog has charged a further 28 people as part of its investigation into allegations the Victorian Building Authority (VBA) accepted financial bribes in exchange for registering builders.
The state’s Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission (Ibac) on Thursday afternoon announced it had charged one VBA employee and 27 people who were building registration applicants or allegedly helped facilitate building registration applications for other people.
“These charges are in addition to six people who were charged as part of Operation Perseus in 2024, including two VBA employees, two building registration applicants and two other people involved in the alleged corrupt conduct,” Ibac said.
You can read more on that story here:
Here’s the full story on the news we brought you earlier about Splendour in the Grass not returning in 2025:
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An autopsy confirmed Quairney had died from a heart attack and her nausea and vomiting were early signs of her heart failing.
Jamieson found St Vincent’s had missed Quairney’s diagnosis but she commended the hospital on its response in the years after her death.
The coroner recommended St Vincent’s and the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine consider adopting Quairney’s story as a case study to highlight the importance of comprehensive assessments and identifying atypical heart attack symptoms in women.
A St Vincent’s spokesperson told AAP the hospital was reviewing the report and would formally respond to the court on the recommendation.
Coroner finds Victorian woman’s death could be case study for how to diagnose heart attacks
Heart attacks can present differently in women so it’s important health practitioners and patients learn the signs before it’s too late, experts say.
AAP reports Sheila Marion Quairney, 68, presented to Melbourne’s St Vincent’s hospital on the evening of 2 April 2023, with symptoms of nausea, vomiting and pain in her upper abdomen.
She died hours later from a heart attack that was misdiagnosed as an adverse reaction to codeine.
Victorian coroner Audrey Jamieson found St Vincent’s had failed to consider and identify that Quairney was experiencing a heart attack during her admission.
The 68-year-old had gone to the hospital’s emergency department a day after she fell and struck her ribs while using a stationary bike.
She had taken pain medication including codeine but her pain increased, and the nausea and vomiting began.
Quairney’s vital signs and breathing were normal when she first presented at the hospital and two clinicians determined her symptoms were likely caused by an adverse reaction to codeine.
But her condition deteriorated and she went into cardiac arrest while she was having an intravenous cannula inserted.
