Australia news live: NSW braces for up to 300mm deluge; IDF investigation into airstrike on aid convoy to be released in next 24 hours | Australian politics

Col Peter Lerner from the Israel Defense Forces is speaking to ABC RN after seven aid workers, including Australian Zomi Frankcom, were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

He said the findings from an IDF investigation into the situation will be made public in the next 24 hours.

The independent investigation has been already presented to the ambassadors of the relevant nations and we will be presenting them to the World Central Kitchen, I expect tomorrow morning and then we’ll be bringing them to the public as well.

It is put to Lerner that there were at least three separate strikes on three cars travelling some distance apart, in a de-conflicted World Central Kitchen convoy coordinated with the IDF, and with at least one logo on one of the roofs.

Q: Is this just something that just happens in wartime, as Benjamin Netanyahu has said?

Lerner:

The nature of warfare is that it is always full of tragedies. Since the dawn of war civilians have been caught up in warfare. We have to be better than that, we have to do better and I think that is our message this morning …

We need to make sure that [humanitarian workers] are not in harm’s way and this is a clear failure of what we are expecting. We spoke yesterday to the office of the liaison officer of the IDF as an officer who was working closely with the [World Central Kitchen]. And he was just devastated from this because he was part of that coordination process. And we need to, and as I said, the details the specifics of what went wrong will be made public within the next 24 hours here in Israel.

Asked about how well IDF commanders on the ground are complying with the rules of engagement, Lerner said if there are any breaches “then they need to be dealt with by disciplinary command level capabilities and perhaps even criminal [charges] if there’s been a very dire mistake.”

The New South Wales shadow health minister, Matt Kean, has resigned from the Coalition for Conservation over its stance on nuclear energy.

Kean, who was formerly an energy minister under the Berejiklian government, published his resignation letter to X last night and said he had become “increasingly concerned with the direction of the Coalition”.

Kean said he first joined as an “enthusiastic supporter” but he is now concerned about a growing focus on nuclear power in the electricity system:

While I recognise that one cannot rule out nuclear playing a constructive role in the Australian electricity system in the distant future, the reality is there is no feasible pathway to play any material role in helping Australia replace our coal fired power stations in line with the climate science.

Kean argued large scale nuclear reactors “have proven costly and slow to deliver” and said Australia does not have “the industry base, skilled workforce, regulatory architecture or social licence” for nuclear power stations to be rolled out “at a pace consistent with averting the worst effects of climate change”.

For these reasons I not only regard advocacy for nuclear power as against the public interest on environmental, engineering and economic grounds, I also see it as an attempt to delay and defer responsible and decisive action on climate change in a way that seems to drive up power prices in NSW by delaying renewables.

The Coalition for Conservation has been contact for comment.

Major flooding could threaten parts of Sydney with drivers warned to avoid non-essential travel as a deadly storm brings intense rainfall along the eastern seaboard, AAP reports.

An inland low and coastal trough joining forces over NSW is forecast to bring heavy localised falls to much of the state today.

Authorities warned 24-hour totals could top 200mm in Sydney and the south coast, with as much as 300mm dumped on the Illawarra Escarpment overlooking Wollongong.

Major flooding was possible along the Hawkesbury-Nepean River bounding Sydney from late today, with Penrith likely to cop as much rain in a day as one-and-a-half Aprils.

Transport for NSW took the rare step of warning drivers statewide to avoid non-essential travel.

For those who need to travel, please take your time and plan ahead by checking Live Traffic NSW to see if your route is impacted by severe weather.

Continue reading:

Emily Wind

Good morning everyone, and happy Friday. Many thanks to Martin for kicking things off. I’m Emily Wind, and I’ll be bringing your our rolling coverage today – from a very rainy Sydney!

If you see something that needs attention on the blog you can get in touch via X, @emilywindwrites, or send me an email: emily.wind@theguardian.com.

Let’s get started.

Daniel Hurst

Let’s bring you more details about the plan by Richard Marles to make “hard decisions” to cut some defence projects.

Speaking at the Sydney Institute last night, Marles was asked whether he had the support of the defence bureaucracy to cut back on historically high “over-programming” of the defence budget. The defence minister replied:

It does mean taking some programs and not going ahead with them. It means re-profiling some. It means delaying others, re-scoping them. But unless we do that, the numbers don’t add up.

Doing that is something which I actually think builds morale, because people now know that what’s going on is real. This is not make-believe money, or make-believe announcements, or hoopla – it’s actually fair dinkum.

And whilst there are difficult decisions that you need to digest, at least there is a sense that what’s happening is fair dinkum and real.

Marles said he “couldn’t be happier with the response that we’ve received from within Defence in respect of that” but he said it made sense “because it means that people are going to work each and every day with a sense of purpose about what they’re doing”.

Elsewhere in the speech, Marles confirmed defence spending was on track to reach 2.4% of GDP by 2033–34.

That goal is not in question but the particular projects funded are up in the air.

Richard Marles signals budget likely to contain cuts to defence programs

Daniel Hurst

The defence minister, Richard Marles, has signalled that next month’s budget is likely to contain cuts to some programs within his portfolio, even as defence spending increases overall.

In a speech to the Sydney Institute on Thursday night, Marles flagged plans for “tough but necessary decisions to divest, delay, or re-scope” some projects in order to accelerate other projects “that will have the greatest impact on our strategic objectives”.

He said the former Coalition government had “adopted the habit of making large defence announcements without the money to turn these announcements into reality”.

Marles said Labor had “inherited a defence budget that was at historically high levels of over-programming”, meaning programs that were promised without enough money allocated. He said that in some years “that over-programming reached 30 to 40%”:

That means that for every $100 Defence had to spend it was planning to spend $140. Or, in other words, more than a quarter of what Defence had planned to buy or deliver, it had no money for.

Marles said some level of over-programming made sense, similar to the principle of managing a queue to allow for unforeseen circumstances or delays. But he said more than 20% over-programming was “costly for industry and ultimately dishonest” because not all projects could happen and “everyone is just waiting for the eventual train wreck”.

The Albanese government has this morning released its national energy performance strategy to drive a high-energy performance economy, help consumers take control of their energy use and save on bills.

The plan targets five main areas where Australians can improve energy performance and ensure consumers can use energy more efficiently: the economy; households; communities, businesses and industry; the energy system itself; and technology and innovation.

This means investing in home energy ratings tools, lifting minimum standards for new builds, social housing upgrades, grants for small business and local government, and $1bn for low-cost loans to households.

In a statement released this morning, ministers claim the strategy has highlighted that:

• Between 2011, under changes made by the last Labor government, to 2022, minimum standards and transparency on energy efficiency saved Australians $12-18bn in energy costs.

• Flexible demand – including both large-scale demand and controllable EV charging and batteries – would generate up to $18bn in cost savings for consumers through lower capital and wholesale prices by 2040.

• Around 20% of global emissions reduction by 2030 will be achieved by electrification.

It is hoped that consumers can make savings by upgrading appliances, homes and buildings; maximising off-peak times to reduce energy costs; and harnessing renewable energy technologies like solar, batteries or electric vehicles.

Ministers say they will also collate and publish more data to better track energy performance across the economy, better integrate demand-side opportunities into system planning, and establish an advisory group to better coordinate collaboration across business and governments.

Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer and I’ll be taking you through a few of the top overnight and breaking news stories until my colleague takes over.

The pressure on Australia to take a stronger stand against Israel after the Gaza aid worker killings intensified overnight when the charity involved urged the governments of the staff who died to join its call for an independent inquiry. Anthony Albanese called out his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday, saying the latter’s comments that “this happens in war” were “not good enough” to try to justify the deaths of Australian Zomi Frankcom and six other aid workers who were delivering food in Gaza on Monday. But the international food charity World Central Kitchen has called for an independent investigation into the Israeli strikes and called on the governments of Australia, Canada, the UK, Poland and the US to back the demand. There’s also pressure on Joe Biden to act and he discussed the incident with Netanyahu overnight.

When thousands of Australians began receiving demands for back tax from the ATO last year, many assumed they were the only ones to receive the letter. But Guardian Australia went on to reveal the campaign – quickly dubbed “robotax” – was designed to capture up to 1.8 million taxpayers of one description or another, mainly individuals, and raise in excess of $15bn. Jonathan Barrett unravels how the scheme started, how people reacted and what politicians are doing in response.

US shipyards are running up to three years late in building new Virginia-class submarines, according to a report ordered by the US navy secretary, Carlos Del Toro, which was published this week. The findings will only add to existing concerns about the viability of the plan for Australia to buy at least three Virginia-class submarines to fill a “capability gap” in the 2030s. It comes as the defence minister, Richard Marles, has signalled that next month’s budget is likely to contain cuts to some programs within his portfolio, even as defence spending increases overall.

And the huge storm predicted for New South Wales is expected to arrive today and could threaten parts of Sydney and other regions with flooding. Drivers have been warned to avoid non-essential travel as an inland low and coastal trough join forces over the state.

More coming up.