Australia news live: Labor announces $7bn for Queensland’s Bruce Highway; Etihad plane aborts take-off at Melbourne airport | Australia news

An Etihad plane travelling from Melbourne to Abu Dhabi had to abort its take-off amid “technical reasons”, with emergency crews attending as a precaution.

In a post to X overnight, Etihad Airways said:

Our flight EY461 from Melbourne has been delayed, following a rejected take-off. The flight crew decided to reject the take-off for technical reasons and emergency services attended as a precaution. The safety and comfort of our guests and crew remains our highest priority.

A video was posted to reddit, appearing to show firefighters spraying the engines of the plane at the end of the runway. One reddit user, who said they were on board the flight, wrote:

The first thing the captain said to us after we stopped was that we experienced “engine [exceedance]” on the right side, and that the fire trucks were coming because the brakes were very hot … He later said two tyres were flat. We got towed for a short bit before we had to stop as the flat tyres were damaging the runway.

We’ve contacted Etihad and Melbourne Airport for more information, and will update once we hear back.

Thieves take Barbie doll collection worth $15,000

More than 150 Barbie dolls worth more than $15,000 have been stolen from their dream home, AAP reports, alongside Elvis collectables and a Jack Daniels esky.

That dream home, in the Victorian country town of Tatura, near Shepparton, was broken into in early December while the owners were away on holidays.

The iconic dolls, still in their original packaging, took their owner 12 years to collect and are estimated to be worth in excess of $15,000. Many of the stolen dolls, released between 1970 and 2017, are extremely rare.

It’s believed the thieves could attempt to sell the vintage dolls online, and police have asked the public to keep an eye out for them, saying in a statement:

Just the slightest bit of information might be Kenough to track down the missing dolls.

Albanese to travel country this week, gearing up for election year

The ABC News Breakfast host noted that prime minister Anthony Albanese will head off on a multi-state blitz today, gearing up for the election later this year. Is this pork-barrelling in a state where Labor needs to win votes?

Catherine King said the government had “significantly” reformed infrastructure investment, engaging with Infrastructure Australia in the decision-making process for commonwealth investments.

We’ve actually worked really hard to make sure that we aren’t actually making decisions about where infrastructure is needed based on, frankly, what the previous government did on the colour of the seats that it would go through.

She said the focus was on “where do we need to lift productivity in the nation, [and] where do we need to look at things such as road safety, liveability and sustainability.”

If you look up and down that [Bruce Highway] corridor, there are not a lot of seats that Labor holds or is expecting to hold along that corridor. We are investing in Queensland, we’re investing in the productivity of the entire state, and this project, this investment really will improve road safety for all of those communities alongs highway.

Why is the federal government funding 80% of Bruce Highway upgrades?

Asked by the ABC News Breakfast host why the federal government is funding 80% of the upgrades for the Bruce Highway – rather than asking the state government to take on more of this – Catherine King said both the current and previous state government argued the road is the “only major freight route through Queensland”.

It has seen increasing traffic volumes, and in order to get this done, it needs the commonwealth to step in as part of the National Land Transport Act, the National Highway, to really partner significantly to get this road up to three stars.

It will require contribution from the Queensland government and they, of course, will be responsible for contracting, tendering and managing the budget for this, and making sure that it stays on track and stays within the funding envelope that has been offered by the commonwealth.

The federal government has today announced a $7.2bn funding injection for the Bruce Highway in Queensland – which will fund about 80% of the upgrades needed to make the 1,600km stretch safer.

The transport minister, Catherine King, spoke with ABC News Breakfast just earlier about the announcement, which is aiming to get the road up to a three-star rating:

At the moment there are sections of this road that remain at one and two-star rating … When you have grade separation, when you have barriers, when you take out some of the dangerous curves, that really does reduce the road safety risk of a road and there are sections of this road – particularly up around the Mackay end – that are still at one star.

And we have seen over 40 people last year [lose] their lives … on the Bruce Highway, and this investment will go to lifting the road safety improvement and productivity of what is the single biggest artery right the way through Queensland.

A search will resume for a missing bushwalker last seen on Boxing Day, AAP reports, after the deployment of specialist search-and-rescue crews, as temperatures climb and a bushfire burns in the area.

Hadi Nazari, 23, has not been seen since about 2.30pm on 26 December when he began descending the Hannels Spur trail in the Kosciuszko national park near Geehi, between Khancoban and Thredbo.

Two friends reported him missing when he did not arrive at the campground where they planned to meet. Rubbish and hiking poles believed to have belonged to Nazari were found on Tuesday but there has been no sighting of him despite the ongoing search efforts.

Specially trained volunteers camped overnight as other experts were winched in by aircraft to search at the weekend, with hot and humid conditions adding to the difficulty of searching the rugged terrain. More than 300 people have been involved in the search operation, NSW police said.

Temperatures reached 37C at Geehi on Sunday afternoon with a milder top of 28C forecast today. A fire in the national park near Hannels Spur was brought under control by Sunday afternoon with an alert area of about 40 hectares.

Welcome

Emily Wind

Good morning, and welcome back to the Australia news live blog – our first for 2025. I’m Emily Wind, and I’ll be taking you through our rolling coverage.

A search will today resume for missing bushwalker Hadi Nazari, 23, who was last seen on Boxing Day in the Kosciuszko national park. The search is entering its 12th day, AAP reports, after the deployment of specialist search-and-rescue crews, as temperatures climb and a bushfire burns in the area. We’ll have more on this in a moment.

Meanwhile, winds from the Southern Ocean will bring relief to parts of south-eastern Australia who have sweltered through a three-day heatwave. As Royce Kurmelovs reports, the wind change is expected to draw cold air up through Victoria and bring much-needed relief, including to fire crews working on the fire front in the Grampians.

As always, you can reach out with any questions, feedback or tips via email: emily.wind@theguardian.com. Let’s get started.