Kent

A woman has been found safe and well, following search and rescue efforts at Currumbin beach in Queensland.

Police were called to an area off Currumbin beach, near Elephant Rock, just before 9:30pm Tuesday, after a man told people nearby that he had seen a woman being swept off rocks into the water.

Police have issued a statement today, saying:

Those people contacted police; however the man was not present when officers arrived, and no information was provided as to the woman’s identity.

A large-scale land, air and sea search ensued over the next few days involving Water Police, shore line searches, divers, jetskis and PolAir. Surf Life Saving Queensland also assisted in the search.

Investigations to locate the man and subsequent public appeals resulted in the woman being identified safe and well around 11am this morning.

Investigations continue to locate the man.

The Bureau of Meteorology has warned that major flooding is expected at Bedourie and Glengyle early to mid-next week.

The Bureau is warning that major flooding is already occurring along the Georgina River at Marion Downs.

Marion Downs peaked around 6.75 metres Thursday morning above the March 1997 peaked level of 6.65 metres. Upstream of Marion Downs, major flooding is easing along the Georgina River at Glenormiston and at Roxborough Downs.

Moderate flooding is continuing along Eyre Creek at Bedourie and Glengyle. Renewed creek level rises are expected during the weekend and creek levels are likely to exceed the major flood levels from early next week as upstream floodwater arrives.

Indigenous representatives to guide health regulation process

Indigenous representatives will be guiding responses to allegations of racism across national health boards, as part of a new culturally safe process being implemented by Australia’s health regulator.

At least two Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives will make decisions about matters concerning culturally safe health care together with health practitioners.

In a statement, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) said:

The Indigenous experts will make decisions with other board representatives about any notification involving Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples. In the most serious matters, this will include the decisions about whether to refer a practitioner to an independent tribunal.

Ahpra acknowledges the ongoing harm to First Nations peoples from racism in the health and justice systems. This national tragedy is reflected in the death of Ms Dhu in Western Australia in 2014 and many others who have died of preventable causes while in custody.

Associate professor Carmen Parter, a descendent of the Darumbal and Juru clans of the Birra Gubba Nation with South Sea Islander heritage, and Aphra board member, said:

Racism is the biggest public health issue that Australia faces today and no one wants to talk about it or do anything about it.

When we move forward to looking at these cases it is so critical to have Indigenous voices brought into the process because we’ll bring that cultural lens on race and how it plays out.

Ahpra has been talking about cultural safety and eliminating racism for a few years, but this is the action, this is going to be visible.

The Hunter area of NSW experienced huge electric storms last night, with more thunder predicted across eastern NSW as well as the Northern and Central Tablelands today.

The Bureau of Meteorology predicts Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong will all be affected by thunderstorms today:

More than half NSW forests lost since 1750, with logging ‘locking in’ species extinction, study finds

If you haven’t already checked out this story from my colleague Graham Readfern, it’s an important, albeit terrifying one:

More than half of the forests and woodland in New South Wales that existed before European invasion are now gone and more than a third of what’s left is degraded, according to new research.

Despite the loss of 29m hectares of forest since 1750 – an area larger than New Zealand – continued logging since 2000 had likely affected about 244 threatened species.

Many species that depended on forests were now being sucked into “an extinction vortex” because of logging, one of the study’s authors, the University of Queensland’s Prof James Watson, said.

Bordertown bikies targeted in police crackdown

Police from NSW and Victoria have arrested 27 people and seized multiple firearms in a joint-agency bordertown operation targeting bikie gangs and other organised crime networks, AAP reports.

During the four-day sweep, Operation Ember officers in the northern state conducted 24 firearms searches, made 19 arrests and seized three guns. Victoria police gathered nine prohibited weapons including a firearm and arrested eight people.

Among them, a 23-year-old man from the Murray River town of Echuca was allegedly found to be in possession of two imitation handguns an imitation longarm, shotgun shells, cannabis and prescription medication.

A second Echuca man, 31, was arrested after the discovery of a homemade shotgun, ammunition and an imitation handgun.

Officers also allegedly located a gel blaster, ammunition, Finks gang paraphernalia, electronic devices and a Harley Davidson believed stolen, during a raid at Albury.

As a result, a 37-year-old man will face court accused of possessing an unauthorised and prohibited firearm and ammunition.

Police say warrants were also executed at premises linked to both the Black Uhlans and Rebels gangs.

NSW State Crime Command’s detective chief superintendent Jason Weinstein said a purpose of the crackdown was to gain a greater understanding of the interstate “OMCG footprint”.

Understanding the activities of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in cross-border towns is integral to disrupting organised crime in our regions.

Cross-border crime is ever present in our society, with the attraction of the drug trade pushing organised criminal figures out of the city and into regional towns, believing they are safe from being targeted and out of constant law enforcement attention.

That couldn’t be further from the truth, Weinstein said.

Further to the AAP story below on the Nazi debate in the senate, and the Liberal senator Sarah Henderson getting so upset – I’ve listened to the audio, and am still trying to work out why she was so distraught. But here’s what we do know:

Henderson was on her feet and crying in the wake of gibes from the Labor senator Murray Watt about text messages she reportedly sent to the Victorian liberal leader, John Pesutto. Watt said “the most disgraceful thing”, she said.

He withdrew the remarks, which he said were about those text messages.

Pesutto is under pressure to expel MP Moira Deeming, who was part of an anti-trans rights rally at which extremists performed Nazi salutes. He had said he would remove Deeming for “organising, promoting and attending” the rally. Deeming says she has done nothing wrong, vowed to fight the expulsion attempt and distanced herself from the neo-Nazis who she says gatecrashed the event.

The ABC reported that Henderson urged Pesutto not to go ahead with the expulsion.

During this morning’s debate, when the opposition tried to force a debate on their move to ban Nazi symbols, Watt started interjecting.

Henderson said:

Senator Watt said the most disgraceful thing. And he’s to withdraw it. I am disgusted in you.

Watt responded:

I referred to the text messages that senator Henderson sent. I withdraw.

Labor campaign bus goes missing

After a morning on the hustings in two key seats, the Labor campaign has been delayed after its bus went missing.

After opposition leader Chris Minns held a press conference in Parramatta earlier, a contingent of media, staffers and MPs Rose Jackson and Jo Haylen, have been waiting while efforts were made to contact its driver.

After about half-an-hour – and many phone calls – the driver, and bus, were eventually located. Phone trouble on the driver’s part, apparently.

Both parties have had bus troubles in the final week of the campaign. Labor was initially using an electric bus but had to switch to diesel after it ran out of charge on Tuesday, while the Coalition bus also broke down on Thursday.

Amanda Meade’s Weekly Beast is out! She’s covering Andrew Bolt and Joe Hildebrand getting stuck into socialists and Sky News’s field day about David Pocock’s Tame Impala T-shirt.

Have a read:

Truck driver dies in fiery crash on NSW north coast

A truck driver has died in his burning cab despite frantic efforts to save him after his B-double rolled on a Pacific Motorway off-ramp on the NSW north coast, AAP reports.

Emergency services were called to the off-ramp at Brunswick Heads about 6am on Friday after reports the truck had rolled.

Police said two people rushed to the scene and tried to free the man from the B-double but the cabin was engulfed in flames and the driver died at the scene.

A report will be prepared for the coroner.

One northbound lane of the Pacific Motorway was expected to be closed for a number of hours and motorists were urged to avoid the area.

Central bank stridency points to RBA reticence to pause rate hikes

Soon after Silicon Valley Bank needed a rescue two weeks ago, investors had pared their expectations about how much central banks would be lifting interest rates. The forced takeover of former banking giant Credit Suisse by its larger Swiss revival UBS last weekend further tempered the mood.

The same was true for Australia’s Reserve Bank, with investors betting the central bank’s job tightening of monetary policy is done, and the next move will be a rate cut.

Well, the US federal reserve “looked through” the financial turmoil and went ahead with another 25-basis-point rate rise this week. Their key rate is actually a range of 4.75% to 5%.

And the UK followed suit overnight, with the Bank of England also hiking its key rate by 25bp, to 4.25%. Inflation there perked up to 10.4% for the year to February (vs 10.1% in January).

So where does that leave the RBA? Well there are two more pieces of data it will be watching out for by the time the board next meets on 4 April. We get February retail sales for last month and consumer price index numbers for that month the following day.

CBA’s Gareth Aird says February jobs figures were on the strong side and the month NAB business survey was also “robust”. Ahead of next week’s two data releases, CBA is tipping the RBA will lift its cash rate for a record 11th consecutive time by 25bp to 3.85%:

We believe the Board would like to pause in their tightening cycle next month. And we think that is the appropriate policy response given only [about] 45% of the increase in the cash rate to date had passed through to scheduled mortgage repayments at the end of 2022.

(Christopher Kent, assistant RBA governor, discussed the monetary lags here.)

CBA, which has its mitts on a lot of credit card data, reckons those February sales will be down 0.3% from the previous month. The CPI numbers will show a further slowdown, with the annual rate to decline from 7.4% to 6.9%, Aird says.

It’s fair to say the RBA would like to have more data on the underlying strength of the economy. Within the bank, there’s a view that the monthly – rather than the quarterly – CPI numbers are somewhat sketchy, and need to be handled with rather long tongs.

The bank knows price rises remain very broad based so they will be looking for a showdown to be confident the rate rises so far are sufficient to quell inflation.

While a pause in rate hikes would be cheered on by many, perhaps a 15bp rise might be the compromise approach. Among other things, we’d finally get a “round” cash rate number at 3.75%.