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- Passengers stranded at Perth Airport after a fuel re-supply fault
- Long wait times at South Australia’s emergency departments
- In golf, another impressive round from Minjee Lee at the U-S Open
Thousands of passengers are stranded at Perth Airport, after a significant fuel supply issue forced the cancellation of nearly 60 flights.
Dozens of flights arriving and departing the airport had been unable to refuel.
The airport says the fuel supply issue has now been rectified.
This group of water polo players say they don’t know how they will make it to New Zealand in time for their international match representing Australia.
“Haven’t really been told anything, we were just told ‘flight’s cancelled’, they’ll keep us updated. It’s been like, an hour since we came here and were told about it, nothing so far.” Male 2: “The game starts tomorrow so I don’t know…it’s pretty annoying but you can’t really do much about it, you’ve just got to look on the positive side of things.”
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South Australian hospitals are being forced to cancel some elective surgeries, as the overburdened health system faces one of the worst crises in its history.
A ‘code-yellow’ alert has been issued, as a surge in respiratory illnesses mean around 270 health staff are off sick with conditions including COVID-19.
Every public emergency department has been classed as ‘busy’ or ‘very busy’, with wait times of up to 4-and-a-half-hours for non-urgent cases.
State opposition leader David Speirs says Premier Peter Malinauskas owes an apology to anyone who has had elective surgery cancelled or postponed.
But S-A Health Minister Chris Picton says the Opposition is being alarmist and the government is working effectively to address the issue.
“There are hundreds of extra beds that are needed across the system and that’s why we are doing exactly that. Would I like those beds to be available yesterday? Of course, I would.”
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Queensland’s opposition have slammed the findings of the state’s supermarket inquiry, saying the recommendations won’t deliver real change to Queenslanders.
The inquiry examined the state’s supply chain, investigating why there are price discrepancies between primary producers, supermarkets and consumers.
Opposition leader David Crisafulli has called the inquiry a “missed opportunity” and dismissed the recommendations made in its final report, which was released on Friday.
But Premier Steven Miles has defended the investigation, saying the government is currently considering the eight recommendations in order to make a formal response.
The reports recommended measure including introducing a farmers’ commissioner to act as a central point between producers and to monitor and report adverse pricing behaviours.
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The New South Wales government has announced it will contribute $5 million dollars to support ‘spontaneous volunteering’ in the local community.
Spontaneous volunteers are community members who contribute to one-off events to support the New South Wales State Emergency Services, without making a long-term commitment.
The state’s Emergency Services Minister, Jihad Dib, says $5 million dollars will be available in grants to councils, NGOs and community groups to train and recruit spontaneous volunteers.
“In this report, what became very clear is that volunteers do so – and are joining emergency services – because they believe in community, they believe in giving back. But there’s also some gaps that we identified. We want to look at where we look at volunteering into the future, we want to start planning for the future, we want to start making sure that all of the volunteers who are suffering from fatigue, have also then got additional support whenever they can.”
Ticketek says a “cyber incident” may have exposed its customers’ names, dates of birth and email addresses.
The ticketing company said in a statement that data from Ticketek Australia account holders stored on a cloud-based platform by a global third-party supplier had been affected.
Ticketek says it is working diligently to put every resource into completing an investigation.
Minister for the Arts, John Graham says data breaches are becoming increasingly commonplace.
“Sadly it feels like a fact of life to hear about these data breaches as a consumer. So, we’re encouraging people to be vigilant about it, make sure they’ve changed their details if possible, and they keep alert about this. But it is something that’s been reported and is being heavily monitored.”
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The World Food Program [[WFP]] says civilians in Gaza are paying the “highest price of political failure of war.”
Matthew Hollingworth, the WFP’s director for the Palestinian territories, says people are living with health concerns that are beyond crisis levels.
Mr Hollingworth, who spent the last 10 days in Gaza, says people are so concerned about their well-being that they are considering storming the border with Egypt.
He said food deliveries in the south are making it to around 27,000 people, but said the WFP is “trying desperately to support people in the central areas in particular, where almost a million people have fled.
“We are tired. People are tired. We desperately need to start helping people go beyond this day-to-day existence and scraping for an existence. And to do that, there has to be a cease fire.”
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Minjee Lee has earned a golden shot at winning a third golf major in three years, with another impressive round at the Women’s U-S Open in Pennsylvania.
Lee’s second-round one-under 69 left Australia’s number 9 in a tie for third, just three shots behind Thai halfway leader Wichanee Meechai.
Minjee Lee said it’s been a great experience so far.
“I love playing U-S Opens, I love the challenge, love the difficulty. I love that I really need to think about what I’m doing and be strategic – yeah, no, I enjoy it.”
Australians Hannah Green, Sarah Kemp and Gabriela Ruffels have also made it through to the third round.
