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Australia news live: Tropical Cyclone Narelle bears down on WA towns; hundreds of calls for help overnight as storms hit NSW coast | Australia news
Narelle bears down on WA coastal towns
A series of isolated coastal towns are in the firing line as a powerful tropical cyclone barrels towards Australia’s west coast, Australian Associated Press reports.
Tropical Cyclone Narelle, which was upgraded yesterday to a severe category 4 system off Western Australian packing winds up to 250km/h, is on track to cross the coast late on Friday between Carnarvon and Kalbarri as a degraded category 3 system.
It was tracking parallel to the coast around Exmouth overnight, the Bureau of Meteorology said, and would affect Coral Bay and Denham before crossing the coast in the Shark Bay area.
Kalbarri State Emergency Service deputy Steve Duncan said the town was as prepared as it could be for Narelle’s arrival in the early hours of Saturday.
“The majority of the town was here for (Cyclone Seroja in 2021),” he said.
“That’s one benefit of past events, people are more aware.”
Seroja flattened the coastal town of about 1,500 people after it crossed the coast as a category three system.
“People are still quite jumpy,” Duncan said.
“It was quite a traumatic event for the town, so people are very wary on any potential cyclone Impact in the area, which is quite understandable.”
Read our report here:
Key events
Hundreds of calls for help as storms hit Sydney and NSW coast
New South Wales State Emergency Service responded to 400 calls for help overnight as storms hit the coast, with 223 incidents reported in the Sydney area alone.
An SES spokesperson told Guardian Australia the highest proportion of calls were in the in the Warringah and Pittwater areas of the Northern Beaches, with 56 incidents. They included a flash flood in Brookvale, where a driver was rescued after their car was caught in rapidly rising floodwaters triggered by the intense rain.
In Dubbo, where a large storm hit mid-afternoon, there were 46 incidents including fallen trees and leaking roofs. (Footage on the ABC yesterday also showed a crane on a construction site partially collapsing in the storm.)
The SES expects to be busy today, too, with damaging to destructive winds of 100km/h and gusts up to 125km/h forecast from the South Coast up to Seal Rocks bringing the risk of falling power lines and trees.
The other major risk for coastal communities is large and powerful surf, which the SES expects to continue for the coming days and could lead to coastal erosion, especially on south-facing beaches bearing the brunt of the southerly swell.
Malcolm Turnbull laments ‘tragedy’ of Aukus and calls for ‘self-resilience, independence’
The former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has been digging the boot into the government over Aukus on ABC News Breakfast this morning, though he did seem to be in accord with government that it was probably the best to let Trump’s most recent comments “go through to the keeper” and that it was wise not to get into a “verbal slanging match with Donald Trump”.
On Aukus, Turnbull lamented – not for the first time – the nature of the submarine deal:
The tragedy of Aukus is it made us vastly more dependent on the United States at a time when the United States is becoming vastly less dependable …
The tragedy of Aukus and, you know, frankly, much of our national security policy since the Morrison government, has been a constant sacrifice of sovereignty for the sake of security but in reality we’re going to end up losing both. So we have to be able to stand on our own two feet.
If ever there’s one message that comes out of these events at the moment, it is events at the moment, it is sovereignty, self-resilience, sovereignty, self-resilience, independence, patriotism. We’ve got to get off our knees.
Power outages in Sydney after storms hit city overnight
Power outages continue across Sydney this morning after heavy storms battered the city and surrounding areas overnight.
More than 10,000 sites were reportedly affected by power outages last night after lightning, hail and wind gusts of up to 80km hit the the city.
As at 8am this morning, Ausgrid were reporting 3,789 sites affected by unplanned outages, while 670 Endeavour energy customers were affected.
Storms batter parts of Victoria and NSW with damaging winds and rain
Storms battered parts of Victoria and New South Wales overnight and continue into this morning in some areas, with winds reaching over 100km/h and heavy rain.
Victoria’s State Emergency Service received more than 190 requests for assistance statewide, including 97 for fallen trees and 46 for building damage. Requests were spread across the state busiest units were in Moorabbin with 14 requests, and Heidelberg with 10.
There are power outages across Victoria this morning, with around 3,400 customers affected in the state’s east, according to Ausnet, and another 390 in the west, per Citipower.
Severe weather warnings are still in place for areas of Victoria’s north-east, with heavy rainfall and damaging winds battering east Gippsland, rainfall of between 60mm and 80mm and flash flooding expected over elevated areas today.
We’ll bring you updates from NSW shortly.
Government will ‘focus on what’s in Australia’s national interest’, Watt says
The environment minister, Murray Watt, has just been on the airwaves, on ABC’s RN, where he was also asked about Trump’s criticism of Australia.
Watt kept to almost exactly the same lines as Marles:
Well, as we’ve said many times, we’re not going to give a running commentary on the various statements of President Trump. What we’re going to do is focus on what’s in Australia’s national interest.
It’s been very widely reported that we’ve delivered the support that we’ve been asked for, which is a defensive support for the UAE. I heard you say that you’ll have the ambassador from the UAE on the program shortly and he’ll be able to tell you more about the support that we’re providing to defend the UAE from incoming attacks from Iran.
That’s the request that we’ve received. That’s the request that we have agreed to. And I’m not aware of any further request having been made of Australia.
Marles won’t give ‘running commentary’ on what Trump has said
The defence minister and deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, has been speaking to ABC News this morning in the wake of US president Donald Trump’s comments overnight that Australia had been “not great”.
Marles says Australia has not rejected any requests from the White House and refused to comment directly on the president’s statements.
He said:
We are looking at the requesting we get from countries around the world, including the United States and obviously we answer them in the context of our national interest …
The last thing I’m going to do is give a running commentary on what the president has said. All we can do is respond to this situation, respond to the requests that are made of us, but doing so with a focus on what is our national interest. That is what we are doing.
Controversial radio host Kyle Sandilands is expected to make his first appearance in court today in a showdown with a $100 million contract on the line, Australian Associated Press reports.
The top-rated host is suing his former employer ARN in the federal court in Sydney, alleging the termination of his contract with the company was invalid because there was no act of serious misconduct.
He also claims the termination breached Australian Consumer Law.
ARN, the parent company of KIIS FM, which previously broadcast Sandilands’ show for more than a decade, said on Monday it disputed the claims and would defend them.
Stephanie Convery
Thank you so much Martin for kicking us off this morning! I’m Stephanie Convery and I’ll be with you from now until early afternoon.
‘I was a little bit surprised they said no’
It’s not the first time Donald Trump has made a comment like this; a week ago he was asked by an Australian journalist what he wanted from Australia in the Iran conflict and said “Well, they should get involved, and I was a little bit surprised they said no, because we always say yes to them”.
In response, the defence minister, Richard Marles, said Australia had not been asked to send military support to the strait of Hormuz, and the prime minister said Australia had already sent a plane, defensive missiles and supporting personnel to the United Arab Emirates.
Trump says ‘Australia was not great’ after US hit Iran
In today’s press conference at the White House, the US president has taken another swipe at Nato, the UK and Australia for not being more involved in his war against Iran.
We have covered the Nato comments here:
But Australia got a little mention too, late in the press conference, in response to a question about his phone calls with UK PM Keir Starmer.
Trump said:
[Starmer] did something that was shocking: he didn’t want to help us.
And maybe in particular that country, you know, the longest bond, the longest ally.
Australia, too, Australia was not great. I was a little surprised by Australia.
I wouldn’t say anybody was great, other than the five countries in the Middle East. We never really had very much support.
Narelle bears down on WA coastal towns
A series of isolated coastal towns are in the firing line as a powerful tropical cyclone barrels towards Australia’s west coast, Australian Associated Press reports.
Tropical Cyclone Narelle, which was upgraded yesterday to a severe category 4 system off Western Australian packing winds up to 250km/h, is on track to cross the coast late on Friday between Carnarvon and Kalbarri as a degraded category 3 system.
It was tracking parallel to the coast around Exmouth overnight, the Bureau of Meteorology said, and would affect Coral Bay and Denham before crossing the coast in the Shark Bay area.
Kalbarri State Emergency Service deputy Steve Duncan said the town was as prepared as it could be for Narelle’s arrival in the early hours of Saturday.
“The majority of the town was here for (Cyclone Seroja in 2021),” he said.
“That’s one benefit of past events, people are more aware.”
Seroja flattened the coastal town of about 1,500 people after it crossed the coast as a category three system.
“People are still quite jumpy,” Duncan said.
“It was quite a traumatic event for the town, so people are very wary on any potential cyclone Impact in the area, which is quite understandable.”
Read our report here:
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then Stephanie Convery will take you through the day.
Isolated Western Australian coastal towns were in the firing line as Tropical Cyclone Narelle continued to build in strength overnight as it rolled parallel to the coast before expected landfall later today.
Controversial radio host Kyle Sandilands is expected to make his first appearance in court today in a showdown with a $100m contract on the line. We’ll have details as it happens.
