Free Republic

Lawmakers in the Australian state of Queensland have introduced legislation “to provide stronger protections for trans, gender diverse and intersex people.” At the end of April the state’s discrimination laws will be changed so that LGBTQI+ claimants will be offered a host of protections shielding them from “discrimination and vilification” while “intersex people” can similarly expect to be treated differently and afforded protection. A press release from the Queensland Human Rights Commission has set out the changes, detailing the following provisions: Protections against gender identity discrimination and vilification have been in place since 2002 but now the law will be...

Two German tourists became lost in their four-wheel-drive vehicle in a remote part of Cape York after trusting Google Maps. They ended up having to camp for about a week before walking out to safety. What's next?: The pair are safe, but local rangers say it could have been so much worse and are warning people to take care. Two young men are lucky to be alive after walking for several days in the Cape York wilderness when their car became bogged after they followed Google Maps directions. German tourists Philipp Maier and Marcel Schoene left Cairns on February 4...

Some hospitals in South Australia have reintroduced face mask mandates to combat a new COVID-19 wave. The Northern Adelaide Local Health Network, which includes the Lyell McEwin and Modbury Hospitals, have reintroduced mask wearing for all staff and visitors. It comes as the state endures another wave of the virus, with reported cases tripling since early October. "Last Friday it was 50 per cent higher than the previous week," South Australia's Chief Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said today. The new mask rules apply in all clinical settings including emergency departments and wards, but not in public areas like hospital cafes...

The Australian government was left with almost 46m unusable face masks after handing $100m in Covid contracts to an obscure online retailer, who sourced the equipment via companies registered in the low-tax jurisdiction of Cyprus. The Department of Health awarded the contracts in April and June 2020 to Australian Business Mobiles NSW (ABM), a small company whose experience lay predominantly in selling air fryers, robot vacuum cleaners, bedding and massage guns. ABM sub-contracted the supply of the PPE to two companies registered in Cyprus, owned by twins Ricky and Evan Neumann. The Cyprus-registered companies made about $40m on the deals,...

An Australian surfer is presumed dead after he was dragged underwater by a shark in an area known to be frequented by great whites earlier this week, authorities said. Tod Gendle, 55, was paddling in the water with a group of surfers near Granites Beach near Streaky Bay when he was knocked off of his surfboard by a shark around 10:20 a.m. local time Tuesday, witnesses told ABC. “The guy just caught a wave and started paddling back out. He got knocked off his board by the shark and then it circled back around and grabbed him,” onlooker Jack Martin...

A Tesla burst into flames on a busy highway on Monday in the Southern Highlands region of Australia, sending firefighters on a difficult mission to battle the blaze. The fire started after the electric vehicle built by Elon Musk’s company hit debris that fell off another vehicle. The Tesla Model 3, which costs upwards of $60,000, likely caught on fire due to a lithium battery that was damaged after a piece of debris fell from a truck onto the battery shell, according to a report by Daily Mail. Both the driver and passenger of the Tesla were thankfully able to...

An Australian minister called Donald Trump Jr. a “big baby” after he postponed his tour to the country on Wednesday, according to the tour’s promoter. Australian Home Minister Clare O’Neil called the former president’s son a “big baby” in now-deleted tweets after Turning Point Australia announced his three-day tour was being postponed. In a series of posts reported Thursday by Reuters, she blasted Trump Jr. by saying he had been granted a visa. “Geez, Donald Trump Jr is a bit of sore loser,” she said in the tweets. “Donald Trump Jr has been given a visa to come to Australia....

The Essendon football club in Australia is actively considering replacing the bomber aircraft it has used as a logo in various forms since World War II. A research project is now underway seeking to determine how the club’s members and stakeholders view the team in light of modern sensitivities. According to the Herald Sun newspaper, Essendon wants to know whether its fans believe the wartime aircraft logo is the best representation of the Melbourne suburban club that plays in the national Australian Football League.

Although all the details are still emerging from a shooting that left four dead in Louisville, KY earlier in the day, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell is speculating about a what-if scenario and what could be done if the alleged assailant was using a so-called assault rifle. Mitchell suggested that “if” the Louisville incident turned out to be the result of using an assault rifle, how much damage may have been done to the victim’s bodies. “Ken, not to be too graphic, but if it does turn out to be that kind of weapon, the damage to your bodily organs, as we’ve...

Novak Djokovic has just won an Australian Open in straight sets against a much younger man. His victory was the triumph of a strong, moral, Christian man after PC stupidity attacked him last year and his father this year. The Serbian people I saw watching his televised performance were enthralled. Families. All generations together. Having fun. God Bless Freedom.

Australian baggage handlers have been issued a stern warning by the CEO of a top national ground services provider after shocking footage of mishandling emerged online. Qantas and Swissport Australia have launched an “urgent investigation” after employees were filmed slamming luggage onto a conveyor belt. The footage, understood to have been filmed at Melbourne airport, shows three baggage handlers – who have been stood down pending investigation – throwing, kicking, and slamming passengers’ luggage onto a conveyor belt. Some bags are thrown so hard that they fall off the other side of the belt. ... One man is shown laughing...

A frisky Australian club patron bashed a cleaner who caught him engaged in an “intimate” act inside a disabled toilet. Ex-army technician Billy Dean Fallon, 28, repeatedly punched the cleaner after bursting out of the female disabled cubicle at Nightjar nightclub in Burleigh Heads, Queensland, on January 20. Fallon admitted assault occasioning bodily harm on Monday at Southport Magistrates Court, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported.

South Australia's Naracoorte Caves is one of the world's best fossil sites, containing a record spanning more than half a million years. Among the remains preserved in layers of sand are the bones of many iconic Australian megafauna species that became extinct between 48,000 and 37,000 years ago.The reasons for the demise of these megafauna species are intensely debated. But the older the fossils we can find, the better we can understand the species' evolution and extinction.To date, determining the precise age of the caves has been difficult. However our research demonstrates, for the first time, how old Naracoorte's caves...

(AFP) – A gunman fired around five shots inside Canberra’s main airport Sunday, sending passengers fleeing but injuring no one before he was detained by Australian police. Images posted on social media showed a police officer restraining a man on the ground inside the terminal as the emergency alarm sounded in the capital’s main airport.

As Australian banks continue to focus on digital transactions for customers, ATMs and bank branches are disappearing across the country, according to new data. The analysis revealed close to 460 bank branches have shut down across the nation in recent years, and dating back to 2020, approximately 3800 previously active ATMs have been removed. NSW alone now has 140 fewer in-store banks, and almost 300 suburbs don't have a singular ATM to withdraw cash.

'The McGowan Govt needs to explain how this type of state action is at all proportionate or necessary,' said Libby Mettam, deputy leader of the Liberal Party of Western Australia.PERTH, Australia (LifeSiteNews) – Australian police interrupted a Catholic Mass on Thursday after reportedly receiving a tip that a number of churchgoers were not wearing masks. “On Thursday evening, police responded to a report from a member of the public of people not wearing masks inside a church in Mount Hawthorn,” Western Australian (WA) Police told media outlet The West Australian. A photograph of the incident shows a police officer checking...

Australian police stormed into a Catholic mass Friday evening searching for mask less individuals. Sky News Australia reported that St. Bernadette’s Catholic Church in Mount Hawthorn, Perth had to pause its service while a police officer walked through the church to “ensure every parishioner was masked.” The parishioner, in his interview, added that the police “proceeded to check three or four parishioners’ exemptions and then left, everything was in order,” he said, referring to an exemption which is required from a doctor for somebody to skip the mask requirement.

Australian truckers used social media over the weekend to plan their own “Freedom Convoy” similar to the one in Canada, telling supporters they should “swarm to Canberra to protest mandates and restrictions” on Monday. A GoFundMe page for the convoy was frozen after raising over $160,000 to support the cause.

A 31-year-old woman in Australia has been charged with arson after she set fire to the COVID-19 quarantine hotel where she was staying on Sunday morning, authorities said. The unidentified woman lit the fire in the 11th-floor room where she was quarantined with her two children at the Pacific Hotel Cairns in the northern city of Cairns, the BBC reported.

A compromised political elite is responding to a virus likely juiced up in a Chinese bioweapons lab by adopting scientifically unprecedented, Communist-style social controls. When Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called last year for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, China retaliated with tariffs. Domestically, a cohort of Beijing-friendly former ambassadors, foreign and defense ministers, and state premiers dutifully reminded the public that China’s status as Australia’s biggest trading partner makes antagonizing the regime a risky business. Beijing sycophants have recycled versions of this talking point for years, rationalizing China’s contempt for Western universal values, territorial aggrandizement, repression of...