As it happened: Brisbane on Thursday, May 29

Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has bitten back after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese criticised the council’s management of the Story Bridge:

I’ve been working closely with Federal Minister King, however, I’m also happy to brief the Prime Minister on the independent report written by respected experts, which found we’ve been excellent stewards of the Story Bridge.

As the report noted, we have invested more than $120 million into maintaining the Story Bridge over the past 20 years in addition to investing $3 million into ongoing maintenance every year over the long term.

The Story Bridge is an 85-year-old national icon that was only built to last 100 years and we want to restore it so it can last another 100 years, just like we did with City Hall.

The latest advice states the Story Bridge footpaths would need to be replaced “in the next two to five years,” however, we’re progressing a replacement sooner to ensure they’re safe.

What we’re proposing now is a long-term restoration project over the next 15 to 20 years, just like what has been undertaken on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in recent times.

The state and federal governments collect 97 cents in every tax dollar paid, which is why we’re saying no to a toll and yes to sustained investment from all three levels of government.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has hit out at the Brisbane City Council, accusing it of letting the Story Bridge fall “into disrepair”.

The Story Bridge footpaths – used by about 4000 walkers, bike and scooter riders daily – were closed on March 5, with reports later revealing several parts of the bridge were an “extreme risk” to the public, while council has called for cash from the state and federal governments to restore it.

But Albanese said the federal government had already “kicked in a couple of million dollars” for a business case for the restoration.

“The primary responsibility for this is the Brisbane City Council,” Albanese said, speaking on ABC Radio Brisbane on Thursday morning.

“The Brisbane City Council shouldn’t have allowed the maintenance to go into disrepair over a period of time.

“So I’m not pointing the finger at anyone here, just to say that it is a local road, a local bridge, and local infrastructure does need that constant monitoring and maintenance.

“If you do it right, if you’re fixing things as time goes on, then you’re not faced with a big bill down the road.”

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has previously defended his council’s record of maintenance on the bridge, saying it had spent $80 million since 2019 to restore and prolong the bridge’s life.

Protesters will today face Brisbane Magistrates Court over their plans to shut the bridge’s six traffic lanes for a march on Friday morning, after police challenged the planned action.

Thanks for joining us for live coverage of news in Brisbane today. We’ll be back tomorrow morning. In the meantime, catch up on some of the other stories that have been making news:

A protest organiser has labelled Brisbane’s lord mayor “budget Bjelke-Petersen” after a protest that would have shut down all six traffic lanes on the Story Bridge during peak hour was blocked by a court ruling.

Working at home could boost productivity, the government’s own analysis has found, as a major report reviewing the pandemic economy concluded hybrid arrangements are not to blame for Australia’s stagnating growth.

A US trade court has blocked President Donald Trump’s tariffs from taking effect, ruling that the president overstepped his authority by imposing across-the-board duties on imports from countries that sell more to the United States than they buy.

Having written over 100 books, many of them cookbooks, and spawned countless imitators, who better to comment on the latest food world stoush than the doyenne of homemaking, Martha Stewart? Last night, she did just that.

Even in defeat, Zane Nonggorr’s 78-minute stint attempting to thwart the Hurricanes announced him as a key inclusion for the Wallabies when the British and Irish Lions arrive in Australia.

And in this week’s Perspective, Courtney Kruk asks us to spare a thought for the business owner who’s just been savaged by a one-star review and watched their Google rating drop – all because a dish didn’t agree with one guy’s palate.

Despite a week of cooler nights, Queensland is in line for a warmer-than-usual winter this year, with the south-east set for above-average-rainfall through the next three months.

The Bureau of Meteorology has predicted the state will likely see both warmer daytime maximum and overnight minimum temperatures in its long-term weather outlook, released today.

With a rainband set to hit Brisbane and surrounds tomorrow, meteorologist Helen Reid said autumn was still clinging on in the south-east, and would likely overstay its welcome.

“We have seen other parts of the country, further south, really have a sense of drying out and clearing and getting some very cold mornings, but that hasn’t been able to work its way further north yet,” Reid said.

Reid said rain later this week was unlikely to bring more than 20 millimetres to greater Brisbane and would clear by Sunday – although coastal regions might see a thunderstorm on Saturday.

While May rainfall has fallen well below year-on-year averages for Brisbane, the city waded through its wettest March on record this year, with ex-tropical cyclone Alfred dumping over 450 millimetres in four days.

A teenager who stabbed his stepfather 35 times has walked free after a Brisbane Supreme Court jury found him not guilty of murder.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded not guilty to murder on the basis of self-defence, after being accused of fatally stabbing his stepfather on September 7, 2022.

The court had been told the teen – aged 16 at the time of the incident – was scared and thought his stepfather was going to kill him. After a tense conversation where the stepfather called the teen “weak” and a “pussy”, the boy tried to defuse the situation by going to the toilet.

The pair got into a struggle where the stepfather grabbed the boy by the collar. The boy pulled a 23cm knife from his pocket and slashed at his stepfather in an attempt to break free of a “bear hug”.

After a week-long trial, the jury deliberated for a matter of hours and unanimously found the teenager not guilty of murder and the alternative charge of manslaughter.

Justice Frances Williams told the teenager he was discharged and allowed to walk free from the dock, with gasps of relief from family members in the gallery.

A specialised Brisbane disability services and support service has been permanently banned from NDIS funding, with the clinic’s director and any future clinics he might operate also barred.

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission investigated Cocoon SDA Care, based in Eight Mile Plains, for “serious and systemic conduct”, finding it had issued claims to the federal health funding provider for people that were dead or imprisoned, and had unlawfully breached patient privacy.

The clinic’s trading director, Muhammad Latif, was also issued the banning order, which will come into effect on June 7.

NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commissioner Louise Glanville said the care provider had “grossly violated” the trust of families and frontline workers.

“This was nothing less than callous and deliberate abuse of a system designed to support dignity, independence and fairness for people with disability,” Glanville said.

Cocoon SDA Care had been monitored by federal agencies for a “significant period”, with the commission issuing Latif a notice to ban in March, which was escalated to a suspension of registration on May 10, and finally a permanent ban.

Brisbane traffic could be set to meet its match with AI programming, as the council launches an expressions of interest process next week.

The Brisbane City Council’s traffic management system upgrade would leverage AI processing to control red lights, reroute vehicles during heavy traffic, or after accidents, and plan detours during events or road closures.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said similar systems across the globe had incorporated AI into management systems to improve traffic flow.

“Brisbane traffic drops by an average of just six per cent during school holidays, so smarter technology has enormous potential to help ease congestion right across our city every day,” he said.

The program will open expressions of interests from Friday, June 6, with council having held an industry briefing in November last year.

Plans to shut the Story Bridge’s six lanes of traffic during tomorrow’s peak hour have been binned, after a magistrate ruled the protest could not go ahead.

Protesters had lodged a notice of intention of the protest on May 20, making it an authorised action under the Peaceful Assembly Act, for a one-hour walk across the bridge to draw attention to their calls for Brisbane City Council to allocate one car lane to pedestrian, cyclist and scooter traffic while the footpaths are repaired.

The Story Bridge footpaths – used by about 4000 walkers, bike and scooter riders daily – were closed on March 5, with reports later revealing several parts of the bridge were an “extreme risk” to the public, while council has called for cash from the state and federal governments to restore it.

Mediation last week failed to resolve the issue, and police took the matter to Brisbane Magistrates Court.

Magistrate Ross Mack pointed to disruptions for thousands of commuters if the protest went ahead.

Kathryn Good, who lodged notice of the protest and was self-represented in court, said she understood the protest would cause disruption, but pointed to numerous other times the Story Bridge was shut, including for seven hours this Sunday for the Brisbane Marathon.

On ABC Radio Brisbane this morning, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was asked about the imminent closure of Toowong Private Hospital and whether his government would step in.

“Mark Butler, our Health Minister, is looking at the whole funding of private hospitals, making sure, as well, that the relationship between the money that’s paid from the health insurers to the private hospitals is fit for purpose,” Albanese said.

“Quite clearly the health insurers need to pay additional money for the private health care that’s provided, and that is creating an issue across the board.

“So Toowong is one of the issues that is being dealt with, but this is a challenge across the board. The government is very conscious of it. The private hospital sector plays an important role in delivering our healthcare.”

Albanese said Labor had increased funding for mental health, including dedicated clinics “available to people right around our regions as well as our cities and our suburbs”.