TRANSCRIPT:
- Activists responsible for a red paint attack on Labor MP offices in Melbourne;
- Remote terrain still hampering critical relief efforts in Papua New Guinea;
- Australia falls short in their last practice game ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup.
The vandalising of several Labor MP offices and the US consulate in Melbourne has been linked to activists in a pro-Palestine movement.
The groups have proclaimed Friday a "national day of action against Labor MPs".
Bill Shorten's office was among those targeted.
He says this type of conduct is unacceptable.
"People have got a right to feel strongly about the distressing scenes of Gaza and in Israel. But there's a line and you don't cross it... If these protesters who have this sense of that their cause is so special that they're allowed to break the law in Australia, that's just rubbish. It's threatening coercive bullying, illegal conduct.”
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Israel has pressed on with its offensive in Rafah, a day after saying its forces had taken control of a buffer zone along the border of Egypt and Gaza.
It says the zone's capture cuts off a route used by Hamas to smuggle arms into Gaza during more than seven months of war that's laid waste to much of the territory, and raised fears of famine.
Israel has kept up raids on Rafah despite an order by the International Court of Justice, the top UN court, to stop.
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Remote terrain continues to hamper critical relief efforts in Papua New Guinea, where the government and UN agencies are battling to reach survivors of a deadly landslide in Enga province.
Authorities say rescue operations have been impeded by the unstable geological conditions and the risk of secondary disasters, with heavy equipment and aid slow to arrive because of a damaged bridge on the main road and tribal unrest in the area.
But survivor and local community member Frida Yeahkal says they are desperate for help, since the disaster destroyed everything they had.
"The stones from the mountain still keep falling. The land, food gardens and houses have been destroyed, and we appeal to the government to help us relocate to a safe place, where we can settle...There is little food and water. We are hungry and asking for your help. We are not even sleeping at night. We are afraid that more of the mountain will slide down and it will kill us all."
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Australia has confirmed it's sending millions of dollars to Ukraine for humanitarian needs.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong says the $31 million package will include $20 million for an energy support fund to provide heat and electricity to Ukrainians as the European winter begins.
The Coalition has been critical of Labor for not acting sooner, arguing that Kyiv had issued a call for a shipment of coal six months ago.
But Senator Wong says this is the better approach.
"If you ship coal from Australia you have shipping and insurance costs. In fact this amount of money, should Ukraine wish to spend it for coal, would yield an equivalent amount of coal to what we saw previously. But this allows Ukraine to make its own decisions about where it best applies this funding, including for example on the energy network, which as I said, has been substantially damaged by Russia."
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A social media post that ranks female high school students has emerged in Queensland, just weeks after a similar incident in Victoria.
The pupils from a Coomera school on the Gold Coast were sorted into offensive categories on the post, including abduction material, one night stand, and unrapeable.
The Education Department says the post was not made by a member of the school community.
Queensland Premier Steven Miles says he's appalled by the whole affair.
"This is an awful story. The comments I have seen are vile and disgusting. And no girl should not experience being spoken about in that way. It goes again to the scourge of social media and the impact that that's having on young people in our state, something I've spoken a lot about and something I am very concerned about."
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A new electorate is set to be created in Western Australia on the back of the state's growing population.
The seat in the Perth hills is likely to be named after Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Bullwinkel, who was the sole survivor of the 1942 Bangka Island massacre of Australian nurses.
Victoria looks set to lose a seat, in the southeast of Melbourne.
The electoral commission has proposed eliminating the seat of Higgins, currently held by Labor backbencher Michelle Ananda-Rajah, who won the seat from the Liberals at the 2022 election with a slim two per cent margin.
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In cricket news, Australia has lost their last practice game ahead of the Twenty20 World Cup in the US and Caribbean.
The nine-man side fell short by 35 runs to the West Indies in what is their final warm-up match before the tournament begins in earnest.
Their first match of the Cup will be against Oman in Barbados on June 6.
