A prison break was foiled at Long Bay jail in Sydney, where a group of seven prisoners who are heavy criminals and had access to semi-automatic weapons had planned to subdue prison officers in the visitors' section. The authorities have prevented any attempt at a jailbreak by secretly transferring the prisoners to another location. Meanwhile, Princess Anne has given birth to her first granddaughter, the sixth in line to the British throne, who weighs 3.6 kilograms and has yet to be named. The Queen is planning to visit the baby girl and her family in the coming days. Additionally, the Australian soccer team refused to play against Indonesia if their coach, Rudi Gutendorf, was still leading the Indonesian squad, and the players unanimously agreed to the decision during a secret meeting. The players were reportedly willing to participate only if Gutendorf was replaced by assistant Les Scheinflug.
Restaurant group Lucas Restaurants is to occupy 660 square metres of office space at Jeff Xu's Golden Age development in Melbourne's 130 Collins Street. Chris Lucas's group has purchased space on two levels close to the top of the AU$200m ($145m) tower, which Golden Age bought for $40.5m in 2019. About 70% of the strata-titled offices in the 9,800 sq metre building has pre-sold to buyers paying up to a record-breaking A$21,000 per sq metre, according to Cushman & Wakefield agent Oliver Hay.
Inner-city silos in Melbourne, Australia have been converted into a design exhibition featuring 23 designers from objects to lighting. The six-pack of silos, each 26 metres tall, was built in 1938 as part of Barrett Burston Maltings and were operational until 2018. The exhibition, called The Silo Project, will take place up until May 21 as part of Melbourne Design Week in Australia.
Melbourne-based Lucas Restaurants, which operates several top restaurants, is paying AUD 13m ($9.3m) for two floors of office space in Golden Age's AUD 200m ($143m) tower. The developer has sold about 70% of the offices in the Melbourne CBD building, at record-breaking prices, according to Cushman & Wakefield agent Oliver Hay. Lucas says the building's location and its design drew him to the tower. The restaurant group has had talks about creating a restaurant in the lower-ground space of the tower.
Australian construction giant, Multiplex, has successfully completed stage two of Far East Consortium's $2bn West Side Place in the Central Business District (CBD) of Melbourne. The project spans 70 and 68-storey high-rise towers and was built on the site of The Age building, boasting a luxury apartment block and Ritz-Carlton hotel. Hong Kong-based Far East Consortium purchased the 250 Spencer Street plot from ISPT for $75m in 2013. Following the four-year development, the site includes Central Laneway, a new retail and food precinct spanning Lonsdale and Little Lonsdale.
Train travel can be the best kind of travel. It's social, cost-effective, comfortable, environmentally-friendly and provides scenic views. It's surprising, therefore, that following the trend in high-speed trains that Europe, America, China and Japan have made, Australia has not invested more in rail, particularly for high-speed long-haul travel and long-haul commuting. While there are relatively low levels of demand, even routes between Sydney and Melbourne have high numbers of passengers, enough to support high-speed rail. Yet Australia seems unable to embrace the joys of train travel in the same way as the rest of the world.
Australia's major Falls Festival, which has been held annually over New Year's Eve for the past 30 years, will not take place in 2023 as the event struggles to find a permanent home. Plans to permanently relocate the three-day festival to Murroon, which ended up in the Victoria Civil and Administrative Tribunal after objections, have put the future of the event in doubt. Last year's festival, which was relocated in Melbourne due to Covid-19, featured a strong line-up and crowd, but the Lorne event was cancelled in 2019 due to extreme heat and the risk of bushfire.
A new showroom dedicated to the Steinway & Sons brand named Steinway Galleries has opened in Australia. The gallery, owned by billionaire trucking magnate Lindsay Fox, caters not only to those that play, but also those who simply are entranced by the prestige of having an instrument such as a Steinway piano in their home. The showroom features a performance area that is regularly used for recitals, as well as the relatively new Spirio, which uses old-school pianola technology to allow the piano to play itself.
A Balliang man is in custody following a crash between a truck and a bus carrying pupils between two Melbourne schools. Thirteen children were taken to hospital with serious injuries after the bus was hit by the truck on the suburban border between Exford and Eynesbury, about 25 miles west of the Australian city’s central business district. The truck driver was not seriously hurt, but remained in custody, with police planning to question him.
Australian betting firm Tabcorp may put in an offer worth over AUD100m ($75m) to secure the broadcast rights for the Melbourne Cup, insiders have reported. The five-year deal includes both national and international rights to the championship horse race, which turned 160 years old this year, with the former held by Australian network Ten for AUD100m since 2018. Tabcorp already secured the overseas rights to the 2022 and 2023 competitions, and could sublicense its free-to-air coverage to local broadcasters Nine, Seven or Ten if its domestic bid is successful.
The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has said it is open to an India-Pakistan match in Australia if there is enough interest. The two sides most often meet outside major competitions, such as the World Cup, due to political tensions between the two states. Pakistan's last series against India played in any format was in 2013, and the countries' last Test meeting was in December 2007. The prospect of a Pakistan-India match in Australia comes amid fears of a World Cup boycott owing to a scheduling disagreement between the two countries.
Seven children have been seriously injured as a result of a collision involving a school bus and a dump truck in Melbourne. According to reports, the truck hit the back of the bus, causing it to overturn. Twenty-one children received initial treatment at the scene and seven were seriously hurt. Reportedly, the children involved had been returning to school after taking part in an athletics event. The 52-year-old truck driver has been arrested and charged with dangerous driving. Additional charges are thought to be possible. Speed may have played a part in the incident.
Former Liberal MP Moira Deeming has helped to block an inquiry that would scrutinise Victoria’s rental crisis, which would examine the factors behind high rent prices in Victoria, options to increase the supply and standard of long-term rentals and suggest recommendations designed to aid the issue. The inquiry failed after a final vote on a joint Green and Coalition motion showed it was on a tied 19 votes to 19, with Deeming joining with the Andrews government. The political decision came under fire, particularly as almost one-third of Victorians were renters in the 2019-20 financial year.
Australia's housing crisis cannot be solved by simply abolishing negative gearing and reducing capital gains tax, according to independent economist Chris Richardson. He explained that, after several studies, even if legislation is changed significantly, it would barely affect housing prices, which rose by over 1% a month in Sydney in August. In fact, he argued that Australia's "overuse" of negative gearing is part of a wider problem. The only solution is to build more affordable homes, he added, calling on Australians to say "Yes In My Backyard", particularly older homeowners who often object to new developments in their area.
Australian truck driver charged over school bus crash that hospitalised 18 children
Reuters
23-05-17 08:58
A truck driver has been charged following a collision with a school bus in Melbourne, which hospitalised 18 children, including seven who were left seriously injured. The bus, carrying 45 students, overturned after being hit by the truck. Police have charged a 49-year-old man with four counts of dangerous driving causing serious injury.
A group of readers have written to The Sydney Morning Herald to express their concern over Australia’s tax policies. They argue that the government's mistake is to have introduced tax cuts that benefit wealthier individuals rather than focusing on fixing the imbalances affecting low and middle-income employees. The piece, in particular, mentions the fact that Australia is a wealthy nation that is attached to the fair go concept, making it particularly important to address the issue of income inequality by ensuring that the rich don’t get richer while the poor fall further behind. Further opposition is expressed with regards to the proposed move of the Powerhouse Museum to Parramatta, in addition to the ban on a Mem Fox illustrated book in Florida.
Fashion brand Henne, co-founded by influencer Nadia Bartel, showcased its 2022 “Chroma” collection at Sydney Fashion Week in a church instead of on a runway. The collection featured low-slung denim, suiting and netting dresses, and was described as having ’80s power dressing and Y2K-inspired elements. Despite its popularity among young women, Henne is not considered the most refined brand at the event. Bec Judd, a former footballer’s wife who co-owns the active wear brand Jaggad, was among the celebrities and influencers who attended the event.
The debate about whether to pick a specialist wicketkeeper or a wicketkeeper-batsman in England's Test side has been ongoing for generations. In Test cricket's early years, keeping wicket was the preserve of specialists. Jack Blackham, Australia's keeper in the inaugural Test match in 1877, advised would-be keepers to “Give it up and take on bowling” because of the mental and physical arduousness required to keep wicket. Picking keepers for their batting was seen as a risk that could jeopardize their primary skill, and sides were advised to pick the best wicketkeeper and then worry about where they batted. This led to George Duckworth being preferred in all five Ashes Tests in 1928/29, with Les Ames only making his debut in the following year. Ames became a reliable keeper and made England a more balanced side, while also opening up new possibilities in front of the stumps. By the time Ames retired, however, he had scored 8 of the 11 centuries by Test keepers.
In the 1950s, Godfrey Evans replaced Ames as England’s wicketkeeper. Evans is considered by some to be the finest keeper of all time, but he also wanted to emulate Ames’ batting, although he knew he would not be able to match Ames’ returns. As a result, Evans developed his keeping and stood right up to the stumps to make catches. England once conceded 1,054 runs in the field without Evans allowing a single bye and the bowlers had unlimited confidence in him behind the stumps. The 1950s saw wicketkeepers’ batting averages increase marginally from the previous decade, and some, like Johnny Waite and Imtiaz Ahmed, had averages just over 30 while keeping. When keepers could bat with a panache matching – or even exceeding – Ames, however, they tended not to remain keepers. Ultimately, leading batsmen should not be burdened by the gloves because they need to concentrate on their primary role in the side of as run-makers.
Australian Fashion Week has made history as the first brand from the First Nations took a solo show after 27 years of the fashion event taking place. Ngali’s Denni Francisco founded Billiecart Clothing, a direct-sales children’s wear company and has won the National Indigenous Fashion Awards’ top prize for the past two years. Francisco’s five-year-old Ngali brand was an immaculate collection of contemporary prints executed on loose silk dresses, trousers and shirts, slouchy knitwear the color of ochre dust and hand-painted boots. Ngali’s motto is “together we create,” which enables attention to be deflected to the various artists behind the fashion brand.
65 former students who attended the independent Catholic Kilbreda College girls' school in Melbourne have each received a letter containing a used condom. The women, who left the school in 1999, live in south and south-eastern Melbourne. At least 100 letters have been sent, each in similar handwriting, with graphic messages. The women have speculated that their details may have been taken from an old year book. The case is being treated as a targeted attack.
