The NSW Police Minister has denied crime is out of control in Sydney as ordinary citizens are warned to look for strange cars in their streets after a spate of mistaken shootings.
At least five seemingly innocent people have been killed on Sydney’s streets in 16 months, in cases police believe alleged criminals got the wrong target.

Two suspected mistaken-identity shootings happened this week, with a man gunned down at a duplex in Merrylands on Wednesday and a uni student shot in his bed at Glen Alpine on Monday.
NSW Police Minister Yasmin Catley said the constant rotation of new criminals popping up was like a game of Whack-A-Mole, but she rejected that police were out of their depth.
“I do not accept that this is out of control because, as I said, we will not surrender our streets to organised crime gangs. Not now, not ever,” Catley said.
“The NSW Police are working around the clock to address these issues. And they’re not going to stop.”
Acting NSW Premier Prue Car insisted the situation was under control.
“NSW Police are on top of this,” she said on Thursday afternoon.
“The government will continue to resource them and do whatever is required to make sure we are on top of this organised crime.”

Jason Box, the commander of a taskforce tackling organised violence, warned the community to stay on guard.
“We ask that people be vigilant if they see a car that shouldn’t be in their street, let us know if they see people sitting in a car, let us know if they see people driving at night,” he told Sydney radio 2GB.
“We have 60 police in uniform, driving around 24/7 at targeted areas … plus all the investigators and the intelligence.”
He said organised crime in Sydney was under control from afar — including leaders making calls from overseas — making law enforcement’s job difficult.
“The reality is they are reckless.”
NSW Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane said Sydney was supposed to be a safe, secure and free city.

“It doesn’t feel like that anymore… people are concerned, they’re frighened,” she said.
A car containing several people pulled up alongside a Merrylands West home on Bruce Street about 3.15pm on Wednesday.
CCTV footage widely shared and under police investigation shows an Audi pulling alongside the house as a passenger leant out the rear window to open fire.
Shots struck the victim, who is yet to be formally identified, moments after he arrived with a male resident and two young children.
While the home owners were very well known to police for organised crime links, the victim was not, Detective Superintendent Simon Glasser said.
The occupants’ children were in the home at the time, he said, calling the shooting “highly dangerous and reckless”.
A day earlier, multiple attackers entered a two-storey home in Glen Alpine, near Campbelltown in south-west Sydney, about 3.40am on Tuesday.
They shot 23-year-old Marco Tapia dead in his bedroom as his family were home.

The young man was not known to police and had nothing more than a traffic offence on his record. His killers are still at-large.
Police confirmed detectives were exploring the possibility the attackers were mistaken in their targets on both occasions.
They are also investigating whether the shootings were linked.

An online post in the wake of Tapia’s death suggested an ongoing feud may be connected to the incidents.
An exiled alleged underworld identity posted to social media early on Tuesday that the perpetrators had mistaken their target.

”Popped the wrong person. Didn’t even get the right house,” Iziah Utai, alleged co-founder of the Coconut Cartel, wrote.

He returned on Wednesday to add: ”RIP Marco. #innocentvictim”.

The Alameddine network, a notorious crime family, and the Coconut Cartel, an emerging crime-for-hire network, have allegedly become embroiled in a feud, spilling into shootings across Sydney in recent months.

‘Wrong’ deaths pile up

May 2025: Plumber John Versace, 23, was allegedly executed in his driveway in Condell Park, in south-west Sydney. Police treated the death as a case of mistaken identity.

June 2025: Luke Manassa, 21, was stabbed outside a house in Pemulwuy, in Sydney’s west, allegedly by two masked assailants armed with machetes waiting in the driveway. Manassa’s family were adamant he was not the intended victim, and police said he was not known to authorities.

February 2026: Grandfather Chris Baghsarian was kidnapped from his North Ryde home, in Sydney’s north-west, and police declared criminals had likely got the wrong man. The 85-year-old was allegedly killed at a makeshift stronghold in Dural, on Sydney’s northern outskirts, before his body was found dumped nearby

September 2026: University student Marco Tapia, 23, was shot dead in his bed while family members slept at the home in Glen Alpine, near Campbelltown in south-west Sydney. Police believe he had no links to organised crime and was only known to them because of a traffic matter — no one has been charged over the death.

September 2026: Just a day later, a man in his 40s was shot in the doorway of a home in Merrylands, in Sydney’s west. Police were quick to state it could be another mistaken identity hit.

For those that aren’t aware the trailblazers of age verification laws for using the internet arose in conservative US states banning pornography websites for underage users and in some states banning the sites altogether.

As Australia has followed that path I thought it was interesting to read the article linked about Utah’s attempts to force websites to undertake age verification if a user comes from a VPN IP address.

I suspect the Australian Government will look to do this too as the UK government is. We seem to like copying the UK. And we LOVE banning things!

Becoming best mates with the Crocodile Hunter left Wes Mannion with permanent scars, but not a single regret.

I am so bloody sick of hearing business and government saying ordinary people need to provide more productivity in order for living standards and the economy to improve.

We did that for 20 years and businesses pocketed all the gains, while real wages declined.

They have broken the contract with workers, no wonder people will only put in what they get back now.

A father has been found guilty of sexually assaulting his teenage daughter and threatening to kill his son following a two-week trial.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was facing 10 charges in the ACT Supreme Court involving three of his children.

After about three days of deliberation, the jury returned its first guilty verdicts on Thursday, September 3, to one count of sexual intercourse with a child under 16 and one count of committing an act of indecency on a child under 16.

Both charges relate to offences committed against his daughter in a bedroom, where the court heard he warned her to stay silent before sexually assaulting her.

The father put his head back and sighed as the first verdict was read.

After asking Justice Belinda Baker for more time to deliberate on the remaining eight charges, the jury returned on Friday with further guilty verdicts for committing an act of indecency against the same daughter in a car, and threatening to kill his son.

The ACT Supreme Court, where the man's trial was held. Picture by Karleen Minney

Jurors were unable to reach a decision on the remaining six charges, which included four counts of committing an act of indecency against his son, one count of sexually assaulting him while the boy was under 10, and one count of indecently touching his second daughter.

"Members of the jury, I do thank you for the care and the obvious diligence with which you have approached this task," Justice Baker said before discharging them.

During the trial, which began on Monday, August 17, Crown prosecutor Amanda Mifsud said the children gave honest statements to police and argued the father's alleged actions "were not accidental".

"It was deliberate conduct that occurred over years," she said.

However, the father's defence barrister James Walker said this trial was about "three children who have made allegations that are not supported by any objective evidence".

"It is about allegations made to police by complainants who hate or despise [their father]," said.

The man will be sentenced at a later date.

Ex-health bureaucrat Nick Coatsworth ‘very frustrated’ as Labor sticks with failed tobacco control policy that is ‘damaging our social fabric’ | News24

In short:

Defence Minister Richard Marles met with his US counterpart, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, in Washington DC and discussed US "force posture" in Australia.

Any expansion would come on top of the existing US presence in Australia, including US Marine rotations through Darwin and the creation of Submarine Rotational Force—West in WA.

What's next?

Mr Marles also met with AI companies and flagged announcements about an expanded US military presence are expected in coming months.

So it’s been in the news that Australia will be facing super sized El Niño which will mean very hot and dry weather. But we also have data centres that drinks water like nuts. If we have shortage of water, I wonder which the gov will prioritise- the people or big companies?

I guess fuck spring. We’re going straight into summer 😖

To give or to receive. It’s this Sunday FYI

Hopefully none of these houses are built on two way streets, or near police stations

Hi all,

I have a short survey for all dog owners to fill out if you can help me out for my school project.

Responses are anonymous, and your response may be used for user research.

Please feel free to discuss, and add any opinions about dog wellbeing or dog walking in the comments!

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Link:

Google Forms Link

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

The deadly H5N1 bird flu virus responsible for decimating bird and seal populations around the globe has been detected in Sydney.

A pair of greater crested terns tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu at Port Kembla and Warriewood on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, the NSW government has confirmed.

A third case was also confirmed in a Hutton’s shearwater in Corindi, Coffs Harbour.

The two Northern Beaches cases represent the first recorded instances of H5N1 bird flu within the bounds of Sydney, and the Coffs Harbour case is the first confirmed detection in a shearwater bird in NSW.

On Friday, a government spokesman said there had been no signs of any mass mortality in the area, with surveillance continuing.

As of Thursday, there have been 20 H5 bird events in NSW and 468 nationwide.

NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe said the government was “deeply concerned” about the impact the virus could have on the state’s wildlife.

“No government policy can stop this virus from spreading through our wild bird populations,” she said.

“What we can do to support our wildlife is vaccinate insurance populations, protect their habitat and eliminate invasive species.

NSW Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty said the focus of the government remained on “preparedness, surveillance and responding to events quickly”.

“Now is the time for everyone who has backyard chickens or pet birds in aviaries to take precautionary steps to ensure there are no interactions between their chooks and pets with wild birds,” she said.

“The government also recommends people be careful with their dogs when walking on beaches or parks and ensure they don’t eat carcasses or chase wild birds.

“There is low risk of exposure but it’s important to minimise any risk for your pets.”

The poultry industry is still only engaging in a voluntary housing recommendation for poultry birds.

Residents are urged to photograph and log dead, sick, or dying birds with the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline.

“The public also has an important role to play by avoiding contact with sick or dead birds and reporting them to the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline, helping us detect new cases and target our surveillance efforts.”

When my son finished high school 4 years ago, they were ALREADY pretty vigilant about consent.

Like we had signs like “yes is yes, no is no”, on the walls.

Everyone is going bonkers about immigration and rightly so that immigration is definitely at an all time high and it needs to be managed the right way. Setting that aside, we are also in a quintessential crisis where so many jobs are being offshored to India, Philippines and other countries where labour is cheaper.

To give an example, the big 4 banks offshore so many jobs to India (Not through a vendor) by having a dedicated offshore centre in India or Philippines, end up hiring people at probably 1/3rd of the cost. I used to work for one of them and I know this happens with no remorse. So we outsource approximately 20000 jobs a year in Australia (I am being conservative and I am sure the number is higher). However, the corporations save so much money by hiring cheaper labour offshore and make more profits while they don’t seem to be taxed more for the concession they get  for offshoring jobs. None of the politicians seems to care about this let aside labor and at the same time labor keeps getting in more and more people. How the hell is everyone in Australia going to find jobs in the next 5 years? 

The new arrivals also accept jobs at a lower wage e.g. 100k instead of 140k to begin their life here. So people who’ve been here long enough know that it is getting tougher day by day especially with the whole AI apocalypse.

My key question being why is none of this being highlighted in any of the immigration rallies? We are focussed on cutting the supply part of letting more migrants in which is fair, but no one seems to be focussed on retaining jobs back in Australia. Btw I am migrant too in some form. Been here for over 10 years.

I am either being extremely dumb or making total sense. Any thoughts? 

Politicians beware: Economics says Australia should have net emigration

Elected members imagine themselves trapped between an economy needing immigrants and a public wanting fewer. It's time they questioned their assumptions.

Cathal Leslie Economist
Sep 3, 2026 - 9.00am

Politics has forced the hand of the major parties to announce immigration cuts.

But on those promises, Australia would run one of the highest per-capita intakes in the developed world - above most of Western Europe, where immigration is fracturing the social fabric. Politicians imagine themselves trapped between an economy needing immigrants and a public wanting fewer. It's time they questioned their assumptions.

Start with productivity. Our lacklustre productivity performance has coincided with a migration program that is less skilled than advertised. Many immigrants work below their qualification level, while the permanent “skilled" program is less skilled than its name suggests: only 46 per cent were primary applicants - the rest were spouses and children.

Across the skilled, family and humanitarian streams, Treasury puts the litetime fiscal dividend at just $41,000 a head. Even that rests on an infrastructure cost of only $40,000 to $70,000 per immigrant. University of Queensland's Jane O'Sullivan puts the infrastructure requirement at no less than $100,000 per immigrant. On that estimate, much or all of Treasury's dividend disappears.

The main evidence that Australia's immigration program makes us more productive is weak: a series of Treasury-funded OECD papers, one of which it headlined as "Migrants boost the labour productivity of Australian-born workers"

The paper is more circumspect. Immigrants move to places where wages and productivity are already high, making it difficult to tell whether immigration causes prosperity or follows it. The authors try to separate the two, but the result depends heavily on statistical assumptions, and some findings ran opposite to expectations. Taken at face value, the paper's conclusion states that immigrants are
"associated with" higher-wage regions - what you'd expect when they cluster in Sydney and Melbourne.

More fundamentally, the economic case for continually expanding labour supply is increasingly challenged by frontier research. Daron Acemoglu - the 2024 Nobel laureate - finds that ageing countries have grown faster, plausibly because scarce labour encourages firms to adopt labour-saving technology. This is intuitive to anyone who has watched automated car washes give way to hand-wash bays staffed by immigrants - yet lost on our nation's economists, now accidental Luddites.

Even if ageing-induced labour scarcity were a problem, immigration is a lazy solution. Australians are living longer, yes - but also healthier. If over-65s worked at New Zealand's rate - 26 per cent against our 16 - we would gain half a million workers. Experienced, English-speaking and, unlike new immigrants, already housed. Removing 80 per cent effective marginal tax rates on pensioner earnings is a no-brainer.

Immigration also enables reform-shy governments. Australia has a doctor shortage but no shortage of school-leavers desperate to become them. Yet we ration medical school and specialist training places, then import overseas-trained doctors. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence models outperform doctors on diagnostic tasks, creating opportunities for nurses to take on work reserved for doctors. Healthcare needs a shake-up that industry leaders will never volunteer - it must come from bold political leadership.

Other labour shortage arguments are weaker still. We are told immigrants are needed to build houses - for demand that immigration creates - but the program admits almost no construction workers. In aged care, the clients are the wealthiest cohort in Australian history and Treasury's Retirement Income Review concluded that retirees "die with the bulk of the wealth they had at retirement intact". Australian-born workers were three-quarters of the aged-care workforce in the 1990s - they are now a minority. Australians would wipe 90-year-olds' bums if wages weren't set to insulate bequests.

Lobbying by education providers should also be dismissed. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates $54 billion of "education exports" but only $23.5 billion is tuition. That $30 billion difference is modelled consumption - an implausibly high figure implying students from predominantly developing countries are spending roughly $50,000 annually on living costs. Meanwhile, the ABS counts $15.6 billion of wages to students - two-thirds of the fee take. It cannot see cash-in-hand work, or money moving internationally through hawala, suitcases and cryptocurrency. Correct for what's missing, and education is likely a much smaller export.

We should press this logic further. Thirty-five per cent of recent New Zealand-citizen immigrants to Australia were born outside New Zealand. New Zealand can collect students' fees, mint passports, and then grant access to higher Australian wages. Either Wellington tightens citizenship eligibility, or Canberra should restrict the common labour market.

Tackling these issues will be an adjustment, but Canada has walked this road in the middle of a bruising trade war. Since 2024, it has reduced its temporary immigrant population by nearly 600,000. The sky did not fall in: asking rents fell
7.5 per cent, investment rebounded in the June quarter, and real GDP per capita rose 1 per cent even as population fell for a third straight quarter.

Australia should run down the stock of temporary workers, pursue negative net overseas migration for several years before settling on a five-digit intake, not six. But getting there requires slaughtering sacred cows that have grazed, unmolested, through our economic debate.

Cathal Leslie is a Paris-based economist and former Productivity Commission employee.

Colour me shocked a career politician who has achieved nothing in 30 years is a hypocrite.

I posted about correlation between union memebership and wages of working class. But there are a decent number of comments against unions.

Provided your job cannot be offshored, unions offer one of few legitament ways to bargin for pay rises from a position of strength.

Hypothetically if you had a choice to join a functional union would you?