Author: Australian Correspondent>
Kyle Evans/ABC News Two New Zealand men stranded on Solomon Islands’ highest mountain have been rescued. Keanu Isaksson, 25, and Luca Zylstra 19, were airlifted out of a steep ravine on Tuesday morning, where they had been trapped for the last six days. Mr Isaksson’s mother, Denise Holl, told the ABC a clear window of weather allowed a rescue helicopter to reach the pair, who were located 1,828 metres up Mount Popomanaseu in central Guadalcanal. The helicopter dropped food and a radio to the men, who were then able to clear space for a cargo net to be lowered. “They…
Bruce Scott Hermeneutics is the science of interpretation. When most readers open a newspaper or book, they assume the author intends for them to understand what he is saying. They also instinctively assume that, to understand what the author is saying, they must use a literal, or normal, hermeneutic: They must interpret the text literally or naturally, unless the context indicates otherwise. Interpreting the Bible is no different. The goal is to understand what the human author, as he was moved by the Holy Spirit, intended to say. We do so by using a literal hermeneutic (even with passages dealing with…
Emily Baker and Lila Harris/ABC News The devastated parents of a child abused by disgraced childcare worker David James are calling for urgent reform to the out-of-school-hours (OOSH) care system to better protect children. Michelle, whose name has been changed to prevent the identification of a child victim of crime, was at a theme park interstate in 2024 with her then six-year-old when she received an urgent phone call from police asking if she could check her son’s back for freckles. “I just knew the police had found a picture of my son,” she said. She was next asked to…
Kali Hays/BBC News Australia’s consumer watchdog has sued Amazon, claiming the tech giant introduced adverts in Prime Video using allegedly unfair contract terms. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said Amazon had broken consumer protection law by making the unfair contracts with over a million annual subscribers between November 2023 and August 2025. “Consumers who wanted to avoid ads were left with no choice but to pay more to maintain the service they’d initially signed up for”, ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said. A spokeswoman for Amazon told the BBC the company is “reviewing the case filed by the ACCC…
ABC News Kyle Sandilands has reached a settlement with his former employer ARN Media over the termination of his $100 million contract. According to a statement to the ASX on Wednesday morning, the media company has agreed to pay the radio shock jock $12.09 million to settle the legal dispute before the Federal Court. As part of the settlement, ARN Media has also agreed to advertise Sandilands’s new, independent media project on its platforms in a $1.5 million deal over the next three years. As part of the deal, Sandilands has agreed to a revenue share arrangement with ARN Media,…
By Lana Lam/ Australia Correspondent. A former environment minister will head up a crowd-funded review of the multi-billion-dollar AUKUS submarine deal, Australia’s biggest ever defence project. Peter Garrett, who served as environment minister between 2007 and 2010, said an independent inquiry into the A$368bn ($239bn; £176bn) deal – where Australia will buy second-hand US submarines to replace its ageing fleet – was “long overdue”. Garrett, the frontman of rock band Midnight Oil, said AUKUS was the “most expensive” defence deal ever in Australia but the chance to “question, debate and decide has been taken out of the hands of the…
By Tom Lowry and Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop/ABC News Bondi gunman Naveed Akram was on the counterterrorism radar of police and intelligence agencies as recently as 2022, later than previously known, according to the domestic spy agency ASIO. In a submission to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, ASIO director-general Mike Burgess revealed Akram was subject to “residual risk processes” in NSW in 2022, three years before the Bondi attack. ASIO has previously confirmed it investigated Akram in 2019, but assessed that he did not pose a terror threat at the time. Anyone investigated as a potential terror risk can…
By Dean Dwyer/Australian Correspondent. An Australian research firm whose interest lies in tracking social trends recently released a report focusing on the impact of global events on Australia’s morale and behaviour. Believing that 2026 is inducing similar anxiety to the global events of 2020, the researchers were keen to explore how the unrest in Iran was affecting the Australian psyche. Overall, half of people surveyed feel anxious and frustrated over the conflict in Iran, with 43% also reporting they feel extremely/very uncertain about the future. Although much time has gone into collating the data, the analysts were not able to…
By Michelle Pearse/Australian Correspondent. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has finally ended its memberships with several diversity and inclusion organisations, including the Aids Council of NSW (ACON) Pride in Diversity program. For a national broadcaster, these relationships raised obvious concerns from the outset, and they should not have been allowed to continue for as long as they did. The ABC was paying to be part of organisations that also assessed and ranked it, in some cases linking that to its editorial output. This is a clear conflict and not acceptable for a publicly funded broadcaster. And over time, these concerns had a real impact on…
By Simon Camilleri/Australia Correspondent. President Donald Trump is comfortable telling you what is on his mind. For good or bad, that means there is a long history of recorded statements from Trump, giving his frank and unfiltered thoughts on a variety of topics. For the last ten years, I have been particularly interested in noting whenever he has spoken about his personal views on spirituality, salvation, and his own eternal destiny. It reveals a decade-long spiritual journey in relationship to the gospel of grace that is both fascinating and, at times, tragic. On Not Asking for Forgiveness In his earlier…
By CAITLIN POWELL/Daily Mail A prominent Sydney lawyer has defended the return of ISIS brides to Australia, arguing the public should not ‘condemn’ innocent children, or their mothers, because of the atrocities committed by Islamic State in Syria. Lebanese Muslim Association secretary Gamel Kheir, a 56-year-old conveyancer for Bankstown firm Kheir Lawyers, said the women are entitled to return because they are Australian citizens. ‘I am no defender of these individuals. I am no defender of ISIS. If they are guilty of breaking Australian law, charge them,’ he said. ‘But I value that there is an independent and trusted legal process. I don’t care…
A new survey released by Australian research organization NCLS Research and Christian advocacy movement Common Grace found that many Australian Christians who participated expressed concern about climate change and reported already taking practical steps to address it, including reducing household energy use, installing solar panels and engaging in civic advocacy. The Climate Action Survey of Australian Christians, based on responses from more than 1,100 participants in late 2025, examined attitudes toward climate change, support for various climate-related policies and technologies, and the kinds of actions Christians say they are taking individually and through churches. The findings offer a snapshot of climate…