Key events
Victorian police will today search bushland near Geelong as part of the investigation into a cold case that’s more than a decade old.
Lorrin Whitehead, 41, was last seen leaving her Bannockburn home on a Friday afternoon in February 2013, then on CCTV at a local supermarket where she bought water, a card and a pen.
Police say they now have “intelligence that Lorrin’s remains may potentially be located” in the area they plan to search.
A witness had reported seeing Whitehead getting into the driver’s seat of a red 4WD, and this is the last report of her being seen by anyone. She did not own a red 4WD.
Her bank accounts remained untouched after her disappearance.
Victoria police said in a statement:
The area for today’s search is not one that people will regularly walk through, so we’re hopeful there may be some sign of Lorrin here even after all these years.
Nuclear hit for Queensland, Labor says
Sarah Basford Canales
Queensland’s economy will be almost a $1tn worse off by 2050 if the Coalition’s nuclear plan gets the public’s green light at the next federal election, a new Albanese government analysis shows.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is criss-crossing northern and western Australia this week in a pre-election blitz to campaign battlegrounds.
Fresh from visiting Queensland’s Gympie and Rockhampton on Monday, the government has revealed overnight the opposition’s proposal to build and operate two of seven nuclear reactor sites in Queensland would impact the state’s economy by $872bn by the mid-century.
The government’s analysis, based on calculations from Australian Energy Market Operator figures, also reveals the opposition’s plan would impact the state economy’s output by $61.1bn in 2050-51 alone.
On Monday, Albanese told reporters the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, had a vision for a “smaller Australia”.
“Under the Coalition [Dutton’s] vision is for a smaller Australia, is for making less things, is for less economic activity, is for less jobs … A Soviet-style command economy of the energy system with his nuclear plan, because no one in the private sector would touch this with a barge pole because it doesn’t add up economically.”
Albanese and his entourage of Labor frontbenchers are expected to continue the early-year election-style tour on Tuesday in Cairns, where the government hopes to win the seat of Leichhardt.
Northern Territory’s Lingiari, held by Labor on a razor-thin margin, is expected to get a visit before the prime minister heads further west to the new seat of Bullwinkel in outer Perth.
Welcome
Martin Farrer
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Emily Wind with the main action.
Queensland’s attorney general has asked prosecutors to rethink “manifestly inadequate” sentences passed down in two high-profile criminal cases. Deb Frecklington, also Queensland’s minister for justice and for integrity, said the two sentences “in my view, fail to meet community expectations”.
Staying in the Sunshine State, Queensland’s economy will be almost a $1tn worse off by 2050 if the Coalition’s nuclear plan gets the public’s green light at the next federal election, a new Labor analysis shows. Anthony Albanese will draw on the report to attack Peter Dutton’s flagship policy as he continues his tour of electorates in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia ahead of the official start of the federal election campaign. We have more details coming up.
Senior New South Wales police officers and the SES are expected to provide an update this morning on the ongoing efforts to find the missing hiker Hadi Nazari. The 23-year-old has not been seen since he began descending the Hannels Spur trail in the Kosciuszko national park near Geehi, between Khancoban and Thredbo in the Snowy Mountains region at about 2.30pm on Boxing Day.
And Sydney is waking up after (or failed to sleep through) a big storm that swept through the city overnight, breaking a long hot spell. An SES spokesperson told ABC radio they received 189 calls and requests for assistance, with trees down on homes, paths and roads, and roofs springing leaks. More on this a bit later.