Australia news LIVE: Greens agree on housing deal with extra $1b for public, community housing; Qantas senior executive resigns

Cairo: Entire suburbs have been swept away, and 2000 people are feared dead after mediterranean storm Daniel caused devastating floods in multiple coastal towns in Libya.

The destruction appeared greatest in Derna, a city formerly held by Islamic extremists in the chaos that has gripped the east of the North African nation for more than a decade and left it with crumbling and inadequate infrastructure.

Streets are flooded after storm Daniel in Marj, Libya.Credit: LIBYA AL-MASAR TV/AP

Libya remains divided between two rival administrations, one in the east and one in the west, each backed by militias and foreign governments.

The confirmed death toll from the weekend flooding stood at 61 as of Tuesday (AEST), according to health authorities. But the tally did not include Derna, which had become inaccessible, and many of the thousands missing were believed carried away by waters.

Video by residents of the city posted online showed major devastation. Entire residential areas were erased along a river that runs down from the mountains through the city centre. Multi-storey apartment buildings that once stood well back from the river were partially collapsed into the mud.

In a phone interview with Al-Masar television station, Prime Minister Ossama Hamad of the east Libyan government said 2000 were feared dead in Derna and thousands were believed missing. He said Derna had been declared a disaster zone.

Read the full story here.

NSW Labor has moved to unwind laws introduced by the Coalition a decade ago that gave businesses in the City of Sydney two votes in what was a failed bid to oust Lord Mayor Clover Moore.

Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig said the proposed changes to legislation, introduced to state parliament today, would return “democracy and fairness” to the inner-city council before next year’s local government elections in September.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore. Credit: Brook Mitchell

The changes, made in 2014 by then premier Mike Baird, allowed eligible businesses in the City two votes in council elections, compared to one vote each for residents.

The rules applied only to the City of Sydney, on the basis the local government area was home to a high number of business and property owners who contributed to but did not live in the precinct.

But critics saw it as a blatant attempt by the Coalition to remove Moore, who unseated Liberal Michael Yabsley in the former state seat of Bligh – now Sydney – in 1988.

Independent Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, a long-time ally of Moore’s, wrote to Hoenig in May asking for the “unfair” laws to be urgently repealed.

The 2014 laws were the Coalition’s second bid to oust Moore from the lord mayor position.

In 2012 then premier Barry O’Farrell introduced laws, dubbed the “Get Clover” bill, which meant MPs were forced to choose between local or state politics. The laws backfired when Greenwich, her ally, was elected as her successor in a by-election.

Hoenig said in a statement the changes, if passed, would restore balance to the system.

“The Labor government is proud to return the balance to the City of Sydney democratic process,

and plan to have the new laws passed and implemented for the September 2024 council elections.”

Moore previously welcomed Hoenig’s plan to repeal the law, saying it was “an undemocratic gerrymander when passed in 2014, and it remains undemocratic today”.

Liberal City of Sydney councillor Shauna Jarrett said earlier this year that Labor was “disenfranchising” a large part of the local government area, and rather than repealing the laws the state government should consider expanding them to all other councils.

Teal MP Sophie Scamps has urged the Albanese government to lead the nation’s attempts to protect koalas, after the NSW government said it would end logging in parts of the state’s Mid-North Coast.

NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe today announced logging would be halted in key koala habitat inside the proposed Great Koala National Park.

The NSW koala “hubs” constitute about 5 per cent of the area, but around 40 per cent of koala sightings.Credit: Ben Rushton

Sharpe said logging operations in 106 identified koala “hubs” by the government-owned NSW Forestry Corporation were suspended on Friday, while the government continues work towards declaring the national park.

The NSW government’s announcement comes after activists and scientists raised fears logging had intensified in koala hubs as loggers sought to extract as much timber as possible before they were locked out of the proposed park.

The hubs constitute about 5 per cent of the area, but around 40 per cent of koala sightings.

Scamps, who is Mackellar MP, welcomed the NSW government’s announcement as a “small step in the right direction”. But she urged the federal government to “also show some leadership”.

“The [federal] government should amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) to remove exemptions for Regional Forestry Agreements (RFAs).

“This would ensure the environmental impact of logging projects must be assessed by the federal environment minister. The Albanese government should also partner with state governments to fund the transition to a sustainable plantation based sector.

“Today’s announcement is hugely welcome – but it’s just one step governments around the nation must take to protect our native forests, and iconic species such as the koala.”

Debate about Australia’s looming referendum on an Indigenous Voice to parliament animated question time in federal parliament earlier today.

Before the vote on October 14, Europe correspondent Rob Harris has travelled to Inari in northern Finland, which is home of the country’s Indigenous parliament, the Samediggi. The Sami, who are the only recognised Indigenous people of Europe, number between 80,000 and 100,000 across the northernmost Arctic reaches of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia.

President of the Samediggi Tuomas Aslak Juuso.

Reindeer herder Tuomas Aslak Juuso, 38, is the youngest member and president of the 25-member parliament. It’s been a heavy burden over the past few years as the country’s Sami population pushes for further rights of autonomy and self-determination.

Juuso, through his long-time advocacy of Indigenous issues at the United Nations, has watched Australia’s Voice debate from afar and says there’s been a sense of familiarity to it.

His institution, too, has been criticised by its opponents for having too much power, and by his own community for not having enough, by those who think it shouldn’t exist as dividing the nation, vetoing industries and pitting communities against each other.

Read the full story here.

Health Minister Mark Butler says new vaping rules – which will ban single-use vapes and stop people individually importing vapes into the country – will be in place by the end of the year.

The minister announced as part of the May federal budget that he would ban disposable vapes – millions of which are sold under the counter – from being imported into the country by enhancing enforcement at the border. But he did not announce a timeline.

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler says Labor is determined to stamp out the “public health menace” of vaping.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Independent MP Sophie Scamps asked Butler how that reform was progressing.

“Since that announcement…. a number of convenience stores that sell vapes have opened up in my electorate in Mackellar [in Sydney’s northern beaches]. These stalls are typically located close to busy school bus stops and selling vapes to school age children,” Scamps said.

“What is the Minister’s timeline for shutting down the illegal sale of vapes to children?”

Butler provided a new piece of information in his response:

“By the end of this year I intend to put in place an import control regulation that will make illegal the import of these vapes,” he said.

“It is no surprise these vape stores are being opened right across the country, right next to schools because that is the target market for this insidious product. Let’s be clear, this is a product being shamelessly sold to recruit a new generation of nicotine addicts, and tragically it is working.

“This public health menace has exploded over the course of the last few years. This government is absolutely determined to stamp it out.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has dismissed another Coalition question trying to cast doubt on the length of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, as he said the No campaign was running a “deliberate strategy of promoting fear over fact”.

Albanese waved a copy of The Sydney Morning Herald in federal parliament as he referred to the front-page story of both the Herald and The Age today, which exposed how the No campaign is telling its volunteers not to identify themselves upfront as No campaigners.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has again defended the wording of the Voice referendum question.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The No campaign has called on volunteers to use fear and doubt rather than facts to trump arguments used by the Yes camp, including by raising concerns about financial compensation to Indigenous Australians if the Voice referendum were to succeed, which the government has rejected.

“There they are, telling their campaigners to promote fear rather than hope. Promote division rather than unity,” Albanese said.

“Promote ignoring rather than listening. Promote exclusion rather than recognition. The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a great statement of around 440 words. The constitutional recognition referendum question is very clear as well.”

Albanese said there were three elements to the referendum question: recognition of Indigenous Australians, a Voice that may make representations on matters affecting Indigenous people, and the primacy of the parliament in making laws about the Voice.

Coalition senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has previously claimed the Uluru statement is a 26-page document, while Albanese and Indigenous leaders have stressed it is one page.

Indigenous leader Marcia Langton has denied calling No voters “racist and stupid” after media reports about her triggered questions in federal parliament about the tactics being used by the campaign against the Indigenous Voice.

Liberal Party deputy leader Sussan Ley cited Langton’s comments in the media on Tuesday to ask Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney to condemn the remarks, but the minister responded by calling on all sides to avoid racism in the argument over the referendum.

Professor Marcia Langton.Credit: James Brickwood

Langton, a key figure in the design of the Voice as an advisory body to be enshrined in the Constitution, has responded by telling this masthead she was criticising the No campaign leaders for their tactics, not Australian voters who were being targeted with the message.

“I’m saying the claims being made by the No case are based in racism and stupidity – and appeal to racism and stupidity,” Langton said by phone from Western Australia, where she is campaigning for the Voice.

“And they are appealing to Australians to frighten them into adopting highly racist and stupid beliefs.”

The Bunbury Herald reported Langton’s initial remarks on Tuesday after the Indigenous leader spoke to a forum in south-west Western Australia the previous day.

The headline said “Racist or stupid” and the subhead said “Voice author slams No campaign”.

When Ley asked the question of Burney, she told parliament that Langton had accused No voters – rather than No campaign leaders – of “base racism or sheer stupidity”. The report in the Bunbury Herald, however, said Langton was speaking about the “No case” and its message to voters.

Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Langton said her remarks in Bunbury were in response to a listener at the forum who asked if all Aboriginal people would get compensation if the Yes vote succeeded.

She said her answer was that Indigenous people would only get compensation if a court ruled they had a fair claim, a similar situation to any Australian. Langton told this masthead she also told the questioner that the No campaign claims about compensation was false.

“So they’re frightening you with a claim that is blatantly not true and is based in racism and stupidity,” she said she added.

“The media reporting is a very deliberate tactic to make me look like a racist when I’m not,” Langton told this masthead.

“I am not a racist, and I don’t believe that the majority of Australians are racist. I do believe that the no campaigners are using racist tactics.”

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has ripped into Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on another question about the Voice, calling him the “the leader of the misinformation and disinformation campaign”.

“This leader of the opposition is the leader of a misinformation and disinformation campaign. He knows it. He has misled the people of Australia repeatedly throughout this campaign. And he should be ashamed of himself,” Dreyfus said at the end of a series of passionate comments directed at Dutton.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus traded barbs with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton in question time on Tuesday.Credit: Alex Ellighausen

Dutton had queried whether the parliament was able to override provisions of the constitution, in response to an answer given by Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney about the primacy of the parliament in making laws about the Voice.

Dreyfus said Dutton knew the constitutional provision was clear. “He knows that the legal nonsense that he has repeated for month after month has been dismissed by the former chief justice of the High Court of Australia, Robert French, by the leading constitutional lawyer, Bret Walker, who said of that sort of question that it was too silly for words,” he said.

“And that is what we have heard repeatedly from this leader of the opposition, who will stop at nothing in his campaign of disinformation and misinformation. What have you got to say for yourself?”

Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke then went on to accuse Dutton of spreading “misinformation on live TV”. “Everybody saw it. He knows it wasn’t true. He should withdraw it,” Burke said.

But Dutton said the government MPs were engaging in “confected outrage”. “It’s hard to imagine a more egregious example of it than today,” he said.