Sydney Airport control tower evacuation sparked by gas leak
Ben Doherty
Sydney Airport’s control tower was evacuated on Sunday morning after a minor leak of gas into the air conditioning system. The evacuation prompted two international flights to be diverted to other airports.
Airservices Australia said the tower was evacuated for one hour and its rescue fire fighting service attended. No-one was harmed in the incident and the airport terminal was not evacuated. The alarm was first raised shortly after 7am.
A spokesperson for Airservices Australia said:
All Airservices’ air traffic management services were quickly restored.
A Ground Stop – and holding Notam (notice to pilots and industry) – have now been cancelled.
Two international diversions occurred.
United Airlines flight UA863 from San Francisco was diverted to Brisbane Airport, while United Airlines flight UA101 from Houston was sent to Canberra, landing there just after 8am.
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Australian Olympian Phil Coles dies at 91
The three-time Olympic canoeist and former Australian International Olympic Committee member Phil Coles has died aged 91, AAP reports.
Coles represented Australia as a canoeist at the 1960, 1964 and 1968 Olympics before turning to sports administration. He served as an IOC member from 1982-2011.
Paying tribute to Coles, IOC’s president, Thomas Bach, said:
He was key to getting an Australian Olympic team to the Olympic games Moscow 1980 against all requests for a boycott.
It made him proud for the rest of his life to have led these athletes into the Olympic stadium …
Personally, I have lost a wonderful friend with whom I shared so many moments of our Olympic lives.
The Australian Olympic Committee’s president, Ian Chesterman, said Coles’s service to Australian sport was “immense”. He added:
Phil’s passing, after a lifetime in sport, is a sad day for the Olympic movement and for many involved in the wider sports community in Australia.
Coles played a central role in Sydney winning the rights in 1993 to host the 2000 Summer Olympics, widely recognised as one of the greatest games ever.
But he was forced to stand down from the local organising committee in 1999 after being one of 24 IOC members implicated in the bidding bribery scandal for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. An inquiry found Coles received lavish hospitality from Salt Lake City officials and he was officially reprimanded.
Sydney Airport control tower evacuation sparked by gas leak
Ben Doherty
Sydney Airport’s control tower was evacuated on Sunday morning after a minor leak of gas into the air conditioning system. The evacuation prompted two international flights to be diverted to other airports.
Airservices Australia said the tower was evacuated for one hour and its rescue fire fighting service attended. No-one was harmed in the incident and the airport terminal was not evacuated. The alarm was first raised shortly after 7am.
A spokesperson for Airservices Australia said:
All Airservices’ air traffic management services were quickly restored.
A Ground Stop – and holding Notam (notice to pilots and industry) – have now been cancelled.
Two international diversions occurred.
United Airlines flight UA863 from San Francisco was diverted to Brisbane Airport, while United Airlines flight UA101 from Houston was sent to Canberra, landing there just after 8am.
I’m on United flight that diverted to Canberra. We are told diversion is due to not enough fuel to circle & wait for Sydney tower issues to be resolved
— John Frierson (@JGFrier) January 28, 2023
Sydney Airport control tower evacuated
There are reports of delayed and diverted flights at Sydney Airport after an air control tower was evacuated.
Airservices Australia has told Nine that the incident was sparked by fumes emitting through the air conditioning system, resulting in two international flights being diverted.
We’ll bring you more as we hear any updates.
My colleague Joe Hinchliffe has been speaking with residents of a street in Goodna, a working-class suburb on Brisbane’s outskirts. Many of the houses there were destroyed in last year’s devastating floods, and residents have accepted buybacks from a joint state and federal government scheme to minimise risk to life and property.
According to climate experts, these sorts of buybacks will become increasingly common as global heating fuels more frequent natural disasters.
It makes for a moving and poignant read:
Tony Burke set to unveil national cultural policy
Here are some details about the national cultural policy that the arts minister, Tony Burke, is expected to announce tomorrow.
The policy, which has five pillars, will include quotas for local content on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Apple TV. News Corp papers report that streaming giants will be required to spend 20% of their Australian revenue on producing local content.
Burke first revealed details of the new national cultural policy at the end of last month at the Woodford folk festival. He said at the time that Australia’s local film and TV industry faced an “automatic structural disadvantage” because the country has a small, predominantly English-speaking population, so content from overseas “will always be cheaper per minute to produce”. He added that fixing the disadvantage would require domestic content quotas.
The quotas are planned to be legislated by the end of 2023 and to come into force by July next year.
The national cultural policy is also expected to include the establishment of the Centre for Arts Workplaces, a federal body that will handle complaints about mistreatment, sexual harassment and bullying in the arts.
The agency, an offshoot of the Australia Council, will have the power to recommend the government stop funding organisations that lack proper workplace procedures, according to the Nine papers.
Albanese government pushed ‘opt-out’ alcohol restrictions: McCarthy
Paul Karp
The assistant minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, has confirmed the Albanese government urged the NT government to shift to opt-out alcohol restrictions, foreshadowing further toughening of restrictions this week.
Last week the NT government imposed new alcohol rules, including two alcohol-free days and restricted trading hours the rest of the week, in response to crime fears in Alice Springs.
Anthony Albanese has left a total ban or opt-out restrictions on the table, depending on the report of the central Australian regional controller, Luritja woman Dorrelle Anderson, due by 1 February.
Asked if there should be a ban, McCarthy told Sky News:
Yes, it’s interesting hearing all the debate about that. I mean I don’t know if you’ve heard but certainly here in Darwin the lord mayor has asked for those bans to be spread across Darwin city and the Northern Territory. So there is a broader conversation across the Northern Territory around alcohol.
In Alice Springs itself though … we have to stay focused with them. This is where the report this week that comes from the Northern Territory government is absolutely critical. The federal government has urged the NT government to ensure that there is the opportunity to opt out for communities. And they have the power here in the Northern Territory through the legislative assembly to do that. So this week is going to be a critical moment.
Marles and Wong to travel to France and UK
The defence minister, Richard Marles, and the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, have announced they will travel to France and the UK.
They will meet their French counterparts in Paris on Monday for what is known as a “two-plus-two” consultation. It confirms a Guardian Australia report last week about the planned trip.
Australia–UK ministerial consultations will take place on 1-2 February in London and Portsmouth.
Marles said:
In an increasingly challenging strategic environment, our longstanding defence relationships with France and the United Kingdom are essential to promoting stability, protecting the rules-based order and avoiding further conflict.
I look forward to working with my French and UK counterparts to continue supporting Ukraine and ensure an inclusive, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific.
The visit to the United Kingdom also provides an important opportunity to discuss Aukus.
Wong said:
Deepening practical cooperation with France in the Indo-Pacific, reflecting the priorities of our partners, is critical to our vision of regional stability.
Close coordination with the EU is essential as we stand together to face challenges in Europe and in our region.
Following the meetings, Marles will travel to the US to meet with his counterpart, Lloyd Austin. Wong will travel to Brussels to meet with Josep Borrell, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.
Daniel Hurst
Rudd’s disclosures to be marked ‘ceased’
For years, the former prime minister Kevin Rudd has disclosed details of state-linked media interviews and other public speaking commitments on the Australian government’s foreign influence register.
Guardian Australia can reveal Rudd’s listings are about to go into a form of hibernation as a result of his looming appointment as Australian ambassador to the US.
Rudd has so far disclosed 84 activities linked to 70 foreign principals, all of which will soon be marked as “ceased”.
As a former cabinet minister, Rudd would ordinarily be subject to lifetime disclosure obligations under the foreign influence transparency scheme.
But the Turnbull government-era laws included exemptions for current MPs and also commonwealth public officials, including ambassadors.
Read the full story here:
Man dies of snake bite east of Brisbane
A man in his 60s has died after a suspected snake bite east of Brisbane, AAP reports.
It’s believed a brown snake bit his hand at a private property at Kensington Grove just before 10am on Saturday.
The man was in a critical condition when paramedics arrived and he later died.
Police are not treating the death as suspicious and will prepare a report for the coroner.
Greens’ Thorpe ‘comes from a totally different perspective’
Asked about Greens senator Lidia Thorpe, who is opposed to the Indigenous voice unless it is combined with recognition of Indigenous sovereignty, Littleproud said:
Lidia Thorpe and I don’t agree on a lot and probably will continue not to agree on a lot, but I don’t think that where she’s coming is the same perspective as us …
We’ve experienced the failure before in our communities. So Lidia Thorpe comes from a totally different perspective and I wouldn’t say that the Nationals are on the same page as her.
Littleproud won’t change position on opposing Indigenous voice
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, spoke on Sky News this morning. He said he would not change his position on opposing the Indigenous voice to parliament, and compared it to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, which he said had failed. Littleproud:
We’ve gone down this path before and it’s failed … This is about putting in another layer of bureaucracy, a lie of bureaucracy that will get in the road … Putting another layer of bureaucracy to listen to a few that are sent to represent vast communities over a large geographic area didn’t work before.
On the apparent sticking point of bureaucracy, he also said:
We should be taking the bureaucracy to these people instead of these people coming to the bureaucracy and Canberra.
Littleproud also discussed crossing the floor and … diversity:
As it has always been in our party room in a federal level, you are able to cross the floor. That is the unique nature, the diversity of the National party that we celebrate and that we protect as the custodians of the party room now, to ensure that that diversity of our party room continues to be enshrined in our culture.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of today’s news. It’s Donna Lu here, taking you through your Sunday. Here’s a look at the day’s top stories:
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The arts minister, Tony Burke, is expected to announce a national cultural policy tomorrow, reported to include the establishment of a federal agency to crack down on sexual harassment and bullying in the arts industry, and a new quota for local content on streaming platforms.
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In tennis, local wildcards Rinky Hijikata and Jason Kubler have had a dream run at the Australian Open, winning the men’s doubles title last night. The Belarusian player Aryna Sabalenka took out the women’s singles title.
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Flume has won the top spot in Triple J’s Hottest 100 with his track Say Nothing.
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A search is continuing in Western Australia for a radioactive capsule lost somewhere along 1,400km of road, as authorities admit it was missing for more than two weeks before anyone realised.
I’m at Donna.Lu@theguardian.com or on Twitter @donnadlu – please get in touch if there’s something I should know!
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