Victorian police officer charged with assault after teenager allegedly kicked and punched during arrest
A Victorian police officer has been charged with assault following an investigation by the state’s independent corruption watchdog.
The senior constable was charged after a investigation into allegations the officer used excessive force against an 18-year-old during an arrest in Ballarat in October 2025.
It is alleged the officer punched and kicked the teenager multiple times while they were handcuffed and compliant.
The officer is expected to appear before a magistrates’ court next month.
Key events
What we learned, Friday 18 September
That’s a wrap on a jam-packed week of live coverage!
Before we go, let’s recap today’s top headline.
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Anthony Albanese is flying to the United States today to visit the Apple headquarters in California just weeks after the government released sweeping reform designed to keep children safe online. Albanese will also head to New York to lead Australia’s delegation at the United Nations General Assembly’s high-level week, to promote Australia’s commitment to multilateralism and meet international partners.
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In the podcast with Neil Mitchell, the Asio director general, Mike Burgess, has warned of major security threats from international actors including Iran and China.
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Home affairs department officials warned Australia faces growing threat from overseas agencies’ and hackers’ use of AI and does not have the tracking tools that AI companies can use. Meanwhile, AI companies have told the federal government Australia needs to slow down its artificial intelligence use and create better security laws.
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Drivers in NSW with a prescription for medicinal cannabis will be legally allowed drive with traces of the drug in their system after laws passed state parliament.
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Michele Bullock, the Reserve Bank governor, said “upside risks to inflation appear to be materialising”, setting the central bank on course to deliver a fourth interest rate hike later this month.
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Hundreds of Qantas ground crew workers are preparing for a 24-hour strike next week amid an escalating industrial dispute, but Qantas said that it has contingency plans to minimise the impact on customers.
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A Victorian police officer has been charged with assault following an investigation by the state’s independent corruption watchdog.
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The administrators of the embattled Bathla Group have been given a 12-month reprieve to find the money to keep the Sydney-based property development company afloat.
Have a lovely weekend!
Amanda Meade
Alan Jones trial completes hearing evidence of three of the six complainants
Alan Jones went from being a trusted mentor to a “hostile” presence in the life of an alleged victim after a “boundary was crossed”, a witness told a Sydney court today.
The witness, a close friend of complainant M, did not give evidence in person but his statement was read on to the record by prosecutor Georgina Wright SC on Friday.
He is one of three friends M has testified that he told about the alleged assaults.
Complainant M finished his evidence on Friday morning after four days on the witness stand. The charges are that Jones of kissed M twice without consent and pressed his genitalia against his thigh. The friend said.
There was a point that there was a sharp shift in the relationship between the two.
I started to notice M actively avoiding speaking about Alan, and if Alan was brought up in a conversation, you could visibly see M’s body language change and his tone.
I remember telling M that he should have flogged Alan.
The trial has now completed hearing the evidence of three of the six complainants and will move onto a fourth next week.
Jones, 85, has been charged with 20 counts of indecent assault and two charges of sexual touching against six men. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
South Australia’s struggling wine industry gets more funding poured in
The South Australian government has announced funding to support a troubled $2.4bn wine industry grappling with oversupply, lower grape prices, changing demand and rising costs, AAP reports.
Premier Peter Malinauskas said the $108m package would help growers transition unviable vineyards to other crops and expand an export campaign to exploit the gap in Canada’s market, created by its trade war with the US.
Speaking in the Barossa Valley on Friday, the premier said global structural change in the industry had created an exceptionally large oversupply of wine, and “the impact for the Australian industry has been profound”.
The industry has also struggled with years of drought, and with China’s crippling ban on Australian wine, which ended in March 2024.
The premier said there were “other markets that we know can grow”.
Canada is a growing market for reasons that I won’t offer any personal opinion of.
But for reasons that are self-evident, Canadians aren’t drinking American wine where they once used to, and that gives Australians a really big opportunity to put our wine on Canadian shelves.
The SA Wine Industry Association’s Lucy Clements said the package was a pivotal moment “and the start of a journey of recovery”. The Freestone Estate chief executive said.
The wine industry has been touched by very hard times recently … and we are at the heart of that in South Australia.
I am fortunate enough to travel widely globally, meet with buyers all around the world.
So having the runway and the support to do that globally is just such a blessing – and Canada is absolutely part of that story.
Federal police confiscate $2.5m of assets allegedly linked to crime, including $93,000 wine collection
The Australian federal police (AFP) have confiscated more than $2.5m worth of assets allegedly purchased with the proceeds of crime, following a decade-long investigation.
The investigation began in 2016, after Queensland police alerted federal authorities to a wine collection, a boat and a trailer seized during search warrants.
The confiscated assets include two houses, the sale proceeds from a third property, a 124-bottle wine collection valued at $92,900, and two boats and a trailer.
The assets were linked to a 44-year-old Queensland man and his 43-year-old de facto partner, who allegedly transferred properties into the names of family members and close associates before declaring bankruptcy in July 2015.
The man was convicted in April 2020 after being found guilty of several offences, including trafficking dangerous drugs and was sentenced to 17 years and six months in prison.
Later the year, authorities obtained orders in the Queensland supreme court to obtain the two houses and a Riva Ferrari boat and trailer.
Prosecutors alleged in court that the transferred properties and other assets were initially bought with, or later funded in part by, the proceeds of the man’s criminal activity.
Court gives developer Bathla 12-month lifeline to prevent total collapse
Catie McLeod
The administrators of the embattled Bathla Group have been given a 12-month reprieve to find the money to keep the Sydney-based property development company afloat.
Bathla – one of Australia’s largest property developers – went into voluntary administration on 25 August, weighed down by almost $3.6bn in debt, leaving thousands of customers in limbo, some with semi-complete homes they’d bought off the plan.
The insolvency advisory Teneo, which was appointed as Bathla’s administrator last month, sent out a press release a short time ago saying the New South Wales supreme court had approved an extension to Bathla’s administration until 13 September 2027.
The court’s decision means Bathla won’t be immediately forced into liquidation, but it still leaves Teneo scrambling to find the funds to pay creditors to whom the company owes money, as well as its own staff and the contractors for its many projects.
In a statement, Teneo said:
The extension provides the administrators with sufficient time to progress the delivery of construction projects already underway, subject to securing the necessary funding to maintain a minimum viable operating structure.
Teneo’s Stephen Longley said the 12-month extension reflected the size of Bathla’s construction portfolio and the “varying stages of completion” across its projects. He said:
We have taken a cautious approach to the timeframe to ensure there is sufficient time to progress and complete projects in an orderly way …
The extension gives us the time needed to progress projects towards completion, but that outcome remains dependent on securing further lender support to maintain critical central functions at Bathla.
Locking in this funding is therefore an immediate priority and discussions are continuing.
Teneo said it would provide further updates to customers, employees, creditors, subcontractors and other stakeholders as the administration progresses.
Possible shark incident at popular Perth beach
Emergency services have been called to a possible shark-related incident at Sorrento beach in Perth’s north.
The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development said it received reports of a possible shark-related incident in the water at the City of Joondalup beach at about 10.15am on Friday.
Emergency services, including water police, the police air wing and ambulances, were deployed to the scene.
Western Australia police said they would provide more information once they had established the circumstances of the incident.
Victorian police officer charged with assault after teenager allegedly kicked and punched during arrest
A Victorian police officer has been charged with assault following an investigation by the state’s independent corruption watchdog.
The senior constable was charged after a investigation into allegations the officer used excessive force against an 18-year-old during an arrest in Ballarat in October 2025.
It is alleged the officer punched and kicked the teenager multiple times while they were handcuffed and compliant.
The officer is expected to appear before a magistrates’ court next month.
Achol Arok
Good afternoon!
Thanks to Stephanie Convery for being our guiding light this morning. I’ll be with you for the rest of the day.
Stephanie Convery
That’s all from me today – I’ll pass you over now to the inimitable Achol Arok who will take you through the rest of your Friday afternoon.
Luca Ittimani
AI firms want right to use vast amounts of global and Australian content, government says
AI companies have ruled out training models in Australia without reforms to copyright laws because the amount of local and global data they want to process is too vast to do individual deals, the attorney general’s department has confirmed.
The government has made its first wide-ranging comments on copyright negotiations at a parliamentary committee hearing today.
Jenna Priestly, assistant secretary, said rights holder groups claimed AI companies could make a “relatively small number” of deals under current rules, to access plenty of material to train their models on.
But AI companies have told the department they won’t train here under existing copyright rules. Priestly said:
What we’ve heard from them is that because the magnitude of copyright material they need to use for this training is so large, it’s practically, I guess, impossible to … strike the number of voluntary deals that they would need to be able to manage their legal risk.
Priestly said copyright applies in the country where activity occurs, implying any local reform would affect companies’ access to overseas-made content.
As Australia’s copyright framework protects not only copyright material that’s Australian in origin, but worldwide, I think it is a fairly large number that [companies] would need to go and strike deals with.
Priestly said the government late last year consulted on giving AI companies the full legal right to access content that wouldn’t have let rightsholders opt out of their material being used in AI training. The government has moved to considering a narrower data training authorisation in response to feedback and has not made decisions on its reform plans, she said.
Achol Arok
Runaway Tasmanian devil back in her sanctuary after weeks on the loose
A runaway Tasmanian devil named Mary has returned to her home at Paradise Country on the Gold Coast after spending weeks on the loose.
Mary escaped from her enclosure at the theme park in June and spent several months in recovery after being found.
The marsupial has spent recent months exploring the wildlife park and will soon return to the public exhibit, where she can interact with visitors.
Paradise Country curator of wildlife, Lauren Mousley, said:
It has been a long road to recovery for Mary, but we are incredibly pleased to see her back exploring her habitat so confidently.
Throughout her recovery, Mary has defied all the odds, with her improvements being phenomenal, and we can’t wait to welcome guests to the park to watch as the mischievous Mary explores.
Our team have been so dedicated in supporting Mary throughout her recovery and it is amazing to see their reactions when she took her first steps back into the habitat.
BoM updates website with new rain radar features
The Bureau of Meteorology has made some changes to the way its website shows rain radar, a year after it launched an unpopular new site design for which it later apologised.
The new update, which went live on Friday, includes the addition of radar locations, radar quick links, changes to how rainfall is displayed and “radar range rings”, which the Bureau says “provide a visual measurement guide to how far rainfall is from familiar landmarks and locations.”
There are also new features that the Bureau says are designed to feel more like “the old radar view”.
In a statement today, the Bureau said rain was “better detected and more accurately displayed on the weather map”, with higher definition and detail when very light to moderate rainfall is observed and when data from overlapping radars is used.”
Each radar also had a unique URL.
Bureau of Meteorology CEO Dr Stuart Minchin said in today’s statement that the updates were in response to community feedback:
We know how much value the community places on their local rain radar, so we’ve listened to feedback and made these updates to help you get to your local radar faster and estimate how far away rain is.
There are more updates planned for later this year, including some changes to Australian places with dual-names.
We encourage the community to continue to share their website feedback, and we will respond with enhancements and adjustments.
Achol Arok
Australian fashion retailer Cue Clothing Co to close five stores
Long-time Australian fashion retailer Cue Clothing Co, which operates Cue and Veronika Maine, will close five physical stores across Australia.
The five stores are Woden Cue, Parramatta Cue, Mosman Veronica Maine, Melbourne Central Cue and Armadale Cue.
The Sydney-based company, established in 1968, entered voluntary administration earlier this week after failing to find a buyer for the struggling business.
In a statement, administrators FTI Consulting said:
A difficult decision has been made to close five stores across the network, which the Receivers believe is in the best interest of the businesses as a going concern.
No concessions are included in the closures. The Receivers will explore opportunities to re-deploy staff across the network where possible.
Douglas Smith
Child protection roundtable expected next week
A national roundtable on Australia’s child protection system is expected to be held in Perth at the end of next week, following calls from Indigenous leaders and federal politicians.
Earlier this week, reporting by The Australian uncovered multiple failings by Western Australia’s child protection department in addressing reports of neglected First Nations children living unsupervised and in squalor in Port Hedland.
Lawyer and human rights advocate, Kurin Minang Noongar woman Hannah McGlade was first to call for a national roundtable, which has been backed by the independent senator for Victoria Lidia Thorpe, who said:
What has happened in Western Australia is horrific. We need real action to keep children safe.
We cannot accept the status quo, which is seeing children across the country exposed to extreme risk and harm within these systems.
I support Dr Hannah McGlade’s call for an urgent roundtable of Aboriginal leaders working in child and family safety.
We also need a federal inquiry to hold the Albanese government to account. We are seeing failures in child protection systems nationwide, and the Albanese government is failing to act.
Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, is expected to announce that the roundtable will be held in Perth on Friday next week.
The Guardian understands the roundtable will take steps to address calls from Indigenous leaders for a complete overhaul of child protection.
The government will also discuss how it can act on past recommendations, findings and policies that are already available.
Andrew Messenger
Queensland police union pushed for changes to definition of victim of domestic violence
The Queensland police union has pushed for the changes to the definition of victim of domestic violence, in order to reduce paperwork for officers dealing with domestic violence callouts.
In a Wednesday press conference, general president Shane Prior said the union wanted domestic violence to only apply to people in a romantic partnership, and not to include, for instance, violence by adult children against their parents.
That change hasn’t been included in the bill, but Prior said he was still pushing for it:
I certainly don’t stop when I’m told no the first time. No means not right now. So what I’m going to be focusing on is making sure that we deliver for police in this state.
AI is enabling foreign interference and hackers, home affairs department says
Luca Ittimani
Australia faces growing threat from overseas agencies’ and hackers’ use of AI and does not have the tracking tools that AI companies can use, home affairs department officials say.
Kira Spencer, a deputy secretary, has told a parliamentary committee a key risk for Australia is AI in “information operations”, which are security agencies’ use of deception and psychological warfare. She said:
AI’s quicker, easier, nastier. And it enables it to be much more realistic and so the language is better. If you’re looking at targeted foreign interference, they scroll all your parliamentary speeches, your social media profiles, everything about you so they can find a really targeted way to engage with you and make it more likely that you will engage back.
Spencer said some AI companies had been able to track false communications from state actors but the government could not match the companies’ large-scale tools.
Officials also said AI made it “easier, faster, cheaper” for malicious actors to hack Australia’s key systems.
Part of the argument for Australia to bring in AI companies to train AI here is that law enforcement could better address threats or law breaches. Fergus Hanson, head of the Office of AI, told the committee:
If you’ve got an AI training firm physically located here, it enables a different type of collaboration, for example law enforcement cooperation. So if there is a threat to Australians’ lives, through misuse of those platforms … This just invites a different level of collaboration that you can have, that is not possible if you don’t have the companies necessarily located in your jurisdiction.
Andrew Messenger
Queensland to allow on-the-spot DV orders to be issued against victims
Queensland police will be able to issue on-the-spot domestic violence protection orders against victims of domestic violence, under new legislation tabled yesterday.
The legislation eliminates all exemptions to the state’s police protection direction system, and makes them the sole alternative to the civil DVO system available to police. Police will be now be able to issue them on behalf of other police, or against children.
It also permits so-called “cross orders” – a direction against both people in a relationship – “in exceptional circumstances”, where the officer cannot identify the victim or offender. According to documents tabled with the bill:
Cross applications and cross orders are used by perpetrators as a means of continuing to control, intimidate and terrify victims.
Experts have warned of potential police misuse of the new system, because there is less oversight. Police have been repeatedly found to have routinely misidentified perpetrators and victims by a string of inquiries, often due to a culture of disbelieving female victims.
The legislation is designed to make the system more efficient, by reducing the paperwork police are required to complete for a protection order.
