Australia news as it happened: Indigenous leaders’ lash ‘shameful victory’ of No campaign; PM to meet Joe Biden in US

The conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East is also expected to keep pushing up global oil prices, though this won’t be captured in the September inflation data.

The inflation figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics will be closely scrutinised ahead of the Reserve Bank’s November interest rate meeting.

A set of numbers that threaten the RBA’s expected timeline to bring inflation down to target by mid-2025 could tip the central bank towards further tightening.

AAP

The congress is a support and advocacy organisation for Aboriginal justice and equity and the largest Aboriginal community-controlled health organisation in the Northern Territory.

The statement notes that Aboriginal people overwhelmingly supported the Voice. About 75 per cent of voters in remote areas of the Northern Territory voted Yes and some Aboriginal communities recorded Yes votes of over 90 per cent.

The statement says the Voice would have made Australia a fairer and more inclusive nation and the result was a setback for Aboriginal people and for the nation as a whole.

Our peoples have faced many setbacks before.

But we are still here.

Resilience in the face of adversity is part of who we are.

In the face of this result, Aboriginal people – with the support of our non-Indigenous brothers and sisters – will stand strong and support each other as we have always done.

The congress, on behalf of its board of directors, thanked everyone in Central Australia and across the country who voted Yes, and expressed appreciation and respect for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander delegates who drafted the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

The statement follows an official response from Indigenous leaders who supported the Voice to parliament released yesterday after the end of the week of silence to grieve the outcome. This said the “majority of Australians have committed a shameful act whether knowingly or not”.

“It seems on the face of it that this is government misinformation covering up a massive failure,” Roberts said.

Assistant Climate Change and Energy Minister, Senator Jenny McAllister, asked Barnes to respond. Barnes told the Senate hearing that he did not intend to mislead but was overly optimistic.

“I said weeks, not months,” Barnes said, recalling the timeframe he gave in May for Florence to crank up again.

“I should have said months, not weeks. It wasn’t a mistake, it was my optimism at the time.

“What I underestimated was the process to go through given the sinkhole that formed in December is just outside our construction boundary.”

The cost of Snowy 2.0 was nearly doubled in August, going from $6 billion to $12 billion.

Barnes has said the project was rushed from inception, contributing to initial delays and cost increases because of overly optimistic plans. Costs also rose because of global inflation and COVID-19 raising the costs of labour and steel.

It follows a report last Friday that a group of more than 12 black models were using the platform of Melbourne Fashion Week to stage a runway boycott over multiple instances of racism they have experienced across the wider Australian fashion industry.

In her opening remarks on Monday, Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp said she was “proud of the diversity and representation” the event’s organisers had tried to maintain.

The event also began with Capp paying tribute to Melbourne fashion identity Shiva Singam, who died from a heart attack on October 7, aged 50.

The report found that telecommunications companies rapidly sell off their infrastructure and this could limit deals for co-location of mobile services, in which two providers share a tower to improve coverage.

Telstra transferred more than 8000 towers to its part subsidiary, Amplitel. Optus’s parent company sold off many of its towers in several deals, with 4300 sites held under a new entity called Indara Digital Infrastructure. TPG also transferred its towers last year.

The inquiry found temporary mobile roaming was possible during natural disasters and other emergencies, but commercial arrangements would need to be agreed upon.

AAP