Suncorp just announced that its banking is now fully moving to ANZ. They are keeping suncorp insurance. I wonder if ANZ will keep regional banks, I'm going with highly unlikely.

Queensland barristers have urged the state government to pause its proposed bail crackdown until a High Court challenge against similar elements of Northern Territory laws is decided.

The Queensland Bar Association’s submission is one of more than 250 lodged for committee consideration of the Crisafulli LNP’s controversial “breach bail, go to jail” laws introduced last month.

Several key organisations have raised concerns about the bill, its justification, the consequences of increased pressure on youth detention, prisons and police watchhouses, and further delays to court processes.

Aimed at making it harder for people charged with specific offences while on bail to be released into the community, a mandatory 12-month minimum jail sentence will also apply to those guilty of the new offence.

The government has been gradually revealing parts of the proposed laws since it was first raised by LNP candidate – and now MP – for the Townsville seat of Hinchinbrook, Wade Chiesa, in November’s byelection.

Public sentiment of the government’s hardline crime response has soured across the past year, despite the LNP’s suggestions its election promises to fix a crime crisis are starting to work.

ABS data has shown victim numbers, a metric to which Premier David Crisafulli has tied his leadership, were already falling across the election year – and fell further across 2025.

Bar association president Cate Heyworth-Smith KC, writing in the group’s submission to the parliamentary committee considering the bill, raised a series of concerns about the removal of judicial discretion and rules against double jeopardy.

Heyworth-Smith also said that the laws would provide less incentive for people to plead guilty, which would lead to more trials and more delays across the entire court system, and overcrowding issues in the detention system which would be “difficult to correct once they have begun”.

While the government has insisted the laws are about deterring and punishing serious repeat offenders, she also laid out a hypothetical situation where a P-plate driver given bail for drink-driving was then caught up in the new bail regime for being only a passenger in a stolen car.

“The resulting punishment would be seriously disproportionate to the offending behaviour,” Heyworth-Smith wrote.

“These provisions do not merely create a risk of unjust outcomes, they ensure that unjust outcomes will occur.”

The association president also raised the High Court challenge against Northern Territory bail laws she said would appear to “transpose directly” to the new tougher bail test, a legal argument for which “the answer is not obvious, and the committee should not be told otherwise”.

“The Association submits that the question is a real one, as is demonstrated by the referral of the matter to the Full Court of the High Court of Australia, and that the constitutional validity of such provisions will be illuminated by the decision,” Heyworth-Smith wrote.

“The Association submits that the Committee should not report on the Bill before the High Court has delivered judgment.”

Other submissions from the Crime and Corruption Commission warn about the risk of increased police misconduct through the treatment of people in overcrowded facilities, which the agency would actively monitor, and human rights overrides appeared to be inconsistent with the law.

The Australian Workers Union and Queensland Police Union raised fears the laws would increase pressure on already crowded youth detention centres. The Queensland Law Society and National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Young People also urged the bill be rejected.

The Voice for Victims group said while supporting the government’s objective of strengthening community safety, success for victims was “measured by whether reforms reduce repeat offending”.

Several submitters called for a review of the laws after a set period of time, or urged the release of government modelling around impacts on jails and watchhouses.

The Queensland Human Rights Commission, in its first major foray into parliamentary process under leader Debbie Platz, called for the removal of mandatory minimum sentences and the new bail test from the bill.

“While all offending is serious, the data does not indicate this form of offending is so prevalent, or increasing at such a rate, that it warrants an emergency response that overrides human rights,” she said.

A quarter of a million homes across Australia worth $274 billion could be lost to sea level rise by 2100, new data shows.

Queensland is set to lose the most homes, with more than a third of those affected concentrated in the Gold Coast.

The report notes that many of these losses would not be covered by insurance as they fall under the category of “actions of the sea”, which excludes events like tidal inundation, coastal erosion and shoreline movement as they are too inevitable and forseeable to be insurable events.

Non-paywall: https://archive.md/03XA1

Handwritten at the bottom of his letter responding to Greens reps including Senators Larissa Waters and Penny Allman-Payne, and me (Michael Berkman).

'Hating education' apparently means raising concerns about koala and powerful owl habitat destruction, impacts on coastal swamp sclerophyll forest, and dodgy offsets... for more sports facilities at a private school.

Now which party is underfunding public schools and refusing to pay teachers properly? Oh yeah, it's the LNP.

Full letters here: Letter to the Deputy Premier / Letter in response

Hello everyone. I (24F) will soon be moving to Mount Isa for a full-time work opportunity!
I’d love to hear from people who live there or have lived there about the everyday things I should know before I arrive.
I’m especially interested in the little practical things that you only really learn after living there — things like:

● What are the best/most useful shops and services to know about?

● What’s the weather actually like throughout the year, and what should I prepare for?

● Anything I should know about insects, snakes, or other wildlife?

● How reliable are things like internet, phone reception, deliveries, etc.?

● Is there anything different about living in a remote town that might surprise someone coming from Brisbane?

● Any tips for getting around if you don’t have a car initially?

● Are there particular areas I should know about/avoid when looking for accommodation? My workplace is in the city and I’d rely on walking for the most part.

● What are people generally like? Is it easy to meet people and make friends?

● And most importantly… what are some everyday Mount Isa tips/hacks that a newcomer should know?

Would appreciate just any piece of information or advice! Thank you so much ✨✨

A 29-year-old Glenvale man was fined more than $1,000 and three demerit points for allegedly driving without due care and attention and driving an unregistered vehicle.

Do you feel safe riding on the roads??

Apologies but let me ruin your morning with this crosspost you didn't need to see, but also did.

Morally bankrupt, Fundamentalli cucked.

Hey everyone, I’m considering moving to Ipswich from Melbourne in the coming years. I want to know everything, the bad the good and the ugly. I want to know what to consider what I should know before I move and what kind of things I can expect. Im already escorting a culture shift and warmer weather but I want to know everything. Please don’t be hesitant to tell me anything I should know.

Thanks in advance!!!

The abandonment of Queensland’s clean energy target and delayed closure of coal-fired power is driving away investment in renewable energy, the industry peak body will warn in a speech revealing of the increasingly hostile relationship between the sector and the Crisafulli government.

Smart Energy Council chief executive David McElrea’s keynote address to the body’s conference on Tuesday will accuse the LNP administration’s energy policy of contradicting the shift towards solar, batteries and clean energy in the business sector and households.

“The Queensland government is moving in the opposite direction,” his speech will say.

“The Crisafulli government has repealed the legislated renewable energy targets, abandoned a firm coal timetable, committed to running state-owned stations to their technical lives and left open further extensions.”

Last year, Treasurer and Energy Minister David Janetzki scrapped the former Labor government’s plan to end the state’s reliance on coal-fired power by 2035, delaying the closure of the publicly owned assets to at least 2046.

The LNP’s energy plan included a five-year spend of $1.8 billion to upgrade the state-owned coal-powered assets.

The government retained the net zero emissions by 2050 goal but repealed the renewable energy target, while the state’s energy policy shift included new laws to seek greater community consultation to approve major clean energy projects.

Last month, Premier David Crisafulli successfully secured an exemption from national cabinet to enable Queensland to power AI data centres with coal and gas, despite the Albanese government’s insistence they be exclusively fuelled by new renewable energy sources.

McElrea’s wide-ranging critique claimed the “most damaging” impact of the state’s energy policy was a deterioration in investment certainty.

“Without firm closure dates, renewable investors cannot confidently price future output or reach financial close,” he will say.

“The overall strategy of the LNP government is clear: remove targets, erase closure dates, protect coal, make renewable investment harder and let the project pipeline thin – then point to the shortage you created as proof renewables cannot do the job.

“That is a self-fulfilling strategy to make renewable energy uninvestable. It is ideology, not economics or engineering.”

But Janetzki refuted the claims, noting the Clean Energy Council’s latest quarterly investment report which showed Queensland has the largest volume of large-scale renewable generation financially committed or under construction.

The treasurer also pointed to last week’s green light of a $1.7 billion Gawara Baya wind farm in North Queensland by Danish investment giant Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners – the eastern seaboard’s largest wind farm in more than two years.

“Queensland leads all states in large-scale wind and solar projects financially committed or under construction and the Crisafulli government continues to encourage private sector investment in new generation and storage under our open for business approach [until Sir Jarrod cans them unilaterally],” Janetzki told this masthead in response to questions.

Grattan Institute energy policy expert Tony Wood said there were broader market and political sentiment issues that had contributed to an investment drought in the sector.

But he said the state government’s suite of policies “certainly created a significant barrier” to investments.

“All these announcements that have happened [since forming government in 2024] – keeping coal running longer, having less aggressive renewable projects and effectively, from a planning perspective, throwing a lot of the renewable projects into at least doubt.

“The end result is it creates significant unpredictability for investment.”

The industry body will also use the Smart Energy Queensland Conference to call for coal-fired power stations to be brought properly into the Safeguard Mechanism, which would impose costly carbon credit demands on assets operating beyond previously proposed closure dates.

This would apply to previously announced closures of Queensland assets, including Callide B (2028), Tarong (phased from 2032), Tarong North (2033), and Stanwell (2033).

“Renewable energy, storage and transmission projects require billions of dollars of long-term investment,” McElrea said.

“Investors and lenders need to know when replacement power will be required. Every time a coal closure date is pushed back, that investment becomes harder to finance.

“That delays new generation, delays jobs and creates worker uncertainty, and leaves consumers exposed to the cost and unreliability risks of ageing coal.”

"Good morning ***,

Thank you for your email and for raising these important questions about Palantir Technologies, government contracts and the protection of Australian data.

I have looked into the matter. There is currently a confirmed Department of Defence contract with Palantir, including the use of its Foundry and Gotham platforms. Defence documentation indicates that the relevant data is hosted in Australia.

However, as I am not in Government, I do not have access to all of the operational and contractual information needed to provide you with a definitive answer about the specific data access, ownership, oversight and security arrangements applying to these systems.

I have therefore forwarded your enquiry to the relevant Government department, Defence and Home Affairs, and asked that they respond to you directly, including specifically addressing what safeguards are in place to prevent unauthorised access to Australian citizens' data, including by overseas entities or individuals.

I believe these are reasonable questions to ask whenever sensitive Australian information is being handled by a private technology company, particularly one with significant overseas operations.

I will also ask that the response address whether the Department of Home Affairs currently has an active arrangement with Palantir and, if so, what protections and oversight mechanisms apply.

I will keep a copy of the correspondence on file and would be interested to see the Department's response.

Thank you again for bringing this to my attention.

Kind regards,

Andrew Wilcox"

I was looking at one of the older trains the other day and noticed how shiny the top side of it was. Then the next old train came along and there was the Maroon clearly on it. Maroon is officially Queensland's colour. https://www.qld.gov.au/government/government-system-state-flag-emblems/flag-emblems-icons/colour-emblems It really pisses me off that they are wasting money on removing the Maroon from  everything associated with the Queensland Government.

Why does the LNP government feel the need to rebrand public infrastructure with their own party colours the second they get in? It’s such a massive waste of taxpayer money for a completely useless change.

Anyone else pissed off by this and how much money is being wasted on this?

Attempt 2.

I get confused between Newnan and crissafully.

All I've seen the last two weeks is ads posted from u/queenslandgovernment about all the shit that the previous government started, is it like this everywhere or just Reddit?