Australia news live: visa of US influencer who stole baby wombat reportedly under review; man charged over alleged bomb threat to Islamic school
American influencer who stole a baby wombat reportedly has visa under review
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, is reportedly reviewing the visa of an American influencer visiting Australia who stole a baby wombat from its distressed mother and uploaded the footage to social media.
As we brought you earlier, influencer Sam Jones, who describes herself as an “outdoor enthusiast and hunter” and goes by the username @samstrays_somewhere, posted a video to Instagram showing Jones holding a baby wombat while laughing and running away from the distraught mother wombat.
The video also shows the baby wombat hissing in distress. Jones then returns the wombat to the bush.
Sky News reported that Burke had provided the network with a statement confirming Jones’ visa was under review.
According to Sky, the statement said:
The department is now working through the conditions on her visa and determining whether immigration law has been breached.
Either way, given the level of scrutiny that will happen if she ever applies for a visa again, I’ll be surprised if she even bothers.
I can’t wait for Australia to see the back of this individual. I don’t expect she will return.
Key events
Man arrested and charged after making alleged bomb threat to Islamic school
Daisy Dumas
A man has been arrested and charged after allegedly making a bomb threat to an Islamic school in south-western Sydney.
The man allegedly posted Islamophobic comments under a TikTok video posted by Bankstown mayor, Bilal El-Hayek, after the mayor visited Al-Faisal College in Lakemba last month.
The man is alleged to have written “kaboom” followed by three bomb emojis.
NSW police confirmed a 53-year-old man from Bradbury was this morning arrested and taken to Campbelltown police station where he was charged with stalk/intimidate intend fear physical etc harm and use carriage service to menace/harass/offend.
Officers attached to Bankstown police area command had been investigating since 5 March after El-Hakem reported the comment to police.
The man was granted conditional bail to appear at Bankstown court on 27 March.
Cyclone NBN outages down to 49,000
The number of NBN outages due to severe weather from ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred have reduced significantly to about 49,000, the agency that manages the network says.
NBN CO says that across south-east Queensland, the number of services impacted has decreased to about 44,000.
Across northern NSW the number of services impacted has remained stable at 5,000, the agency says.
The agency says that in NSW, a major power outage in Terranora is affecting about 3,000 services, but a technician is expected onsite soon to restore power and resolve the issue.
In Queensland, NBN Co says it has identified damage to nodes at 13 sites: Nambour, Gatton, Labrador, Scarborough, Wilson, Landsborough, Burleigh Heads, Paradise Point, Buderim, Surfers Paradise, Karana Downs, Bargara and Gaven, with spare parts and repairs being organised.
NBN Co has staff located at:
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Providence Hall, 1449 Beechmont Road, Lower Beechmont – 8am-5pm
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Mount Glorious Community Hall, 1874 Mt Glorious Road, Mount Glorious – 10am-5pm
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Mount Tamborine Presbyterian Church, 34 Main Street, Mount Tamborine – 10:30am-2:30pm
Where possible, people in affected areas are encouraged to check the NBN network outages page and with their retail provider for specific information regarding their service.
American influencer who stole a baby wombat reportedly has visa under review
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, is reportedly reviewing the visa of an American influencer visiting Australia who stole a baby wombat from its distressed mother and uploaded the footage to social media.
As we brought you earlier, influencer Sam Jones, who describes herself as an “outdoor enthusiast and hunter” and goes by the username @samstrays_somewhere, posted a video to Instagram showing Jones holding a baby wombat while laughing and running away from the distraught mother wombat.
The video also shows the baby wombat hissing in distress. Jones then returns the wombat to the bush.
Sky News reported that Burke had provided the network with a statement confirming Jones’ visa was under review.
According to Sky, the statement said:
The department is now working through the conditions on her visa and determining whether immigration law has been breached.
Either way, given the level of scrutiny that will happen if she ever applies for a visa again, I’ll be surprised if she even bothers.
I can’t wait for Australia to see the back of this individual. I don’t expect she will return.
Fewer than 20% of Islamophobia victims want to report the incident
Dr Susan Carland, a co-author of the fifth Islamophobia in Australia report, says less than a fifth of victims of hate towards Muslims wanted to report the incident to the police.
The report, launched today, found there were 2.5 times more in-person Islamophobic incidents from 1 January 2023 to the end of November 2024 than the previous reporting period. Women were the victims of three quarters of the incidents.
Speaking at the report’s launch in Sydney this afternoon, Carland told the audience:
But what’s also concerning is that less than 20% of people who reported to us wanted to report to the police,” Carland told the audience at the report’s launch in Sydney this afternoon.
When we asked them, ‘Why don’t you want to report to the police?’ for example, the most common response was they saw it as pointless. ‘What’s the point? The police don’t care, and they’re not going to do anything anyway.’
Palmer on talking to media: ‘More exciting than playing lawn bowls’
Asked by a journalist if running election campaigns was his “golf” or his “hobby”, Palmer said:
This is my golf. At 70, I could join many Australians and play lawn bowls. I find this more exciting, talking to you, than playing lawn bowls.
I’m devoted, because I also have an investment in Australia.
I’ve got four children. I think this is a good place, and it’s worth fighting for, and that’s just my view. You’ve got the freedom to agree [or] disagree.
Palmer says he had two aims last election: to elect politicians and criticise Covid vaccine
Palmer has defended his mammoth campaign spending as successful despite only electing one senator elected at the 2022 election.
His former United Australia party spent $123m in total in the 2021-22 financial year. Despite this, it secured just one Senate spot.
At the press club today, Palmer claimed that he had “two purposes” at the time – electing politicians and criticising the Covid-19 vaccinations.
He said:
We spent that money because we had two purposes – one, to elect people to parliament; and secondly, to criticise the vaccine in this country.
There are 25 million Australians, roughly a few more, but five and a half million of them haven’t taken the vaccine.
So on that side, we say that campaign was very, very successful. And it doesn’t mean that you expect to win, it does prove the point that money, per se, doesn’t win elections.
Palmer failed to mention that many of these Australians are children who would not have got vaccinated for the virus.
97% of the eligible Australian population aged 12+ have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Stephanie Convery
Factchecking Clive Palmer on gender and the WHO
In Clive Palmer’s address to the National Press Club today, he brought up the issue of gender – or more specifically, called into question the existence and rights of trans people.
It looks more and more like Trumpet of Patriots intends to target trans people right throughout the coming election campaign, especially if its latest advertising campaign is anything to go by.
So I want to draw your attention to this claim, as I expect we’ll hear it again:
Palmer said:
Our policy is to recognise that there are two genders, a man and a woman; male and female. If you go on the website for the World Health Organization, you’ll find they recognise that. We all should recognise that too, and put away debates that are very, very on the periphery …
Does the World Health Organization really only recognise two genders and deny the existence (and by implication rights) of trans people?
No, of course not. Their info page on gender explains quite clearly that gender is socially constructed, is different from biological sex, and that as a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time.
It also recognises gender diversity as one of the key factors in inequity in healthcare:
Rigid gender norms also negatively affect people with diverse gender identities, who often face violence, stigma and discrimination as a result, including in healthcare settings. Consequently, they are at higher risk of HIV and mental health problems, including suicide.
The WHO has also been consulting for the last few years on guidelines for the health of trans and gender diverse people, describing this project as follows:
The guideline under development aims to address specific health challenges that negatively impact the rights of trans and gender diverse adults to access quality health services, undermining their quality of life and life expectancy …
This new guideline will focus on 5 areas: provision of gender-affirming care, including hormones relating to adults; health worker education on and training for the provision of gender-inclusive care; provision of health care for trans and gender diverse people who have suffered interpersonal violence, based on their needs; health policies that support gender-inclusive care; and legal recognition of self-determined gender identity for adults.
Clive Palmer addresses National Press Club
Clive Palmer, heading up a newly named (but similarly colour-schemed to his previous) political party, Trumpet of Patriots, is giving an address to the National Press Club.
We’ll bring you the interesting tidbits as it goes along, but here’s a little snippet of his preamble, where he speaks about the party’s alleged growth:
We’ve got now over 20,000 members across Australia, and thousands of people are joining every day because they’ve had enough of the boring politicians that don’t answer questions. They’ve had enough of seeing their income decline lower and lower every week. They’ve had enough of their children being harassed at schools, and they want change.
Wong criticises American influencer for ‘dreadful’ baby wombat video
The foreign minister, Penny Wong, has criticised an American influencer visiting Australia who stole a baby wombat from its distressed mother and uploaded the footage to social media.
Posted to Instagram by influencer Sam Jones, who describes herself as an “outdoor enthusiast and hunter” and goes by the username @samstrays_somewhere, the video showed Jones holding a baby wombat while laughing and running away from the distraught mother wombat. The video also shows the baby wombat hissing in distress. Jones then returns the wombat to the bush.
Wong told Seven’s Sunrise program this morning:
It looked pretty dreadful, didn’t it? I will leave those sorts of questions [about whether the influencer should be deported] to [Home Affairs minister] Tony Burke and to the authorities, but, really, leave the wombat alone.
… I think everyone who would have seen that would have thought, leave the baby wombat alone. Leave it with its mum.
Research suggests Islamophobic incidents in Australia have doubled
Daisy Dumas
Islamophobic incidents – including physical attacks, verbal harassment, people being spat on and rape threats – have more than doubled in the past two years, with girls and women bearing the brunt of hatred towards Muslims in Australia, new research shows.
The fifth Islamophobia in Australia report details 309 in-person incidents between January 2023 and December 2024 – a more than 2.5-fold increase from the previous reporting period. Verified online incidents more than tripled to 366.
Girls and women accounted for three-quarters of all incidents and were a third more likely to be physically attacked than boys and men.
Dr Nora Amath, the executive director of the Islamophobia Register, said:
It’s really become a gendered Islamophobia. The majority of victims are Muslim women and the majority of perpetrators are male. It’s very obvious and really concerning.
Read the full story here:
