More Australians are turning to local streaming video platforms, according to new data, threatening the dominance of Netflix in the country.
While Disney+ remained the top downloaded entertainment app in the country in the last 12 months, with almost 2m downloads, Netflix came in fourth after Amazon and TikTok, according to the data from Sensor Tower.
Four Australian brands took spots in the top 10 – the streaming apps of Nine, ABC, Seven and Stan. All but Stan are free streaming on demand platforms.
Sensor Tower tracks the number of new downloads from both the Apple and Android stores.
Last month Netflix reported its second quarterly decline in subscriptions globally, dropping 1m subscribers in the quarter.
Sensor Tower’s APAC managing director, Tom Cui, said while Netflix was still the dominant player, there was room for locals.
“When many people think of streaming services, it’s Netflix, Amazon and Disney that spring to mind,” he said. “What our Sensor Tower data has shown is that actually, homegrown streaming services are giving these global brands a run for their money in terms of both popularity and revenue.”
In terms of estimated revenue, Streamotion – the Foxtel-owned platform for Binge and sporting stream company Kayo – beat out Netflix with $15.1m in the past 12 months in Australia, compared to $12.3m for Netflix. Disney Plus was also estimated to beat out both, with $56.1m, followed by TikTok ($28m) and Amazon ($17.6m).
“Streamotion is a key performer with its sporting service, Kayo, ranking higher than most entertainment apps for revenue in Australia,” Cui said. “This is a reflection of how much Aussies love their live sport and if you work in the streaming industry, this is where you can expect to continue to see a surge in consumer downloads and spend.”
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PwC’s entertainment and media outlook for 2022 found that Australians spent $4.8bn on subscription services last year, and that was projected to rise to $6.5bn by 2026.
The report found 75% of households in Australia were paying for a streaming service in 2021, and that it was expected to rise to over 80% this year. The average household was paying for 2.3 subscription services, spending $40 a month.
A Roy Morgan survey in February found Netflix still dominated in terms of total subscriptions, up to 12m, compared to 7m for the group of Foxtel apps, and 4.7m for Stan.
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The communications minister, Michelle Rowland, has indicated the government will push ahead with plans commenced by the former Morrison government to regulate streaming platforms to ensure they are producing Australian content.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority reported that Amazon Prime, Disney, Netflix and Stan spent a collective $178.9m in the 2020-21 financial year on 1,765 Australian programs.
Pinterest may be best known for shopping inspiration and design ideas, but the company’s newest product wants to inspire its users to tap into their own creativity. The company has quietly launched a new iOS app called Shuffles for putting together collages using photos, image cutouts and other animated effects. The app is currently in an invite-only status with the ability to join a waitlist from its home screen.
According to Shuffles’ description on the App Store, users can build their own collages using Pinterest’s photo library or snap photos of objects they want to include using the camera. They can also cut out individual objects from within an image using a tap — a feature that recalls iOS 16’s own clever image cutout ability. Images in Shuffles can then be rotated, layered and resized on the screen to create the collage, and animations and effects can optionally be added. The final project can be shared with friends for collaboration or posted to public groups where others can “remix” the original creation in their own way.
The app’s description suggests it could be used for visualizing a room makeover, fashion ideas, mood boards and more.
While the company hadn’t formally announced its plans around Shuffles, a Pinterest spokesperson confirmed the app hails from its new in-house incubator, TwoTwenty.
“Shuffles is a standalone app created by TwoTwenty, Pinterest’s innovative incubator team. Shuffles is an engaging way to create, publish, and share visual content,” the spokesperson said. “With more people coming to our platform for creative inspiration, we’re continuously experimenting with new ways to help Pinners and Creators bring their ideas to life.”
“As this app is in its initial test phase, we don’t have any additional details to share on the record at this time,” they added, declining to share more about its future plans or monetization potential.
Image Credits: pinterest
Launched last November and named after Pinterest’s first office, TwoTwenty’s goal has been to foster more internal experimentation at the social network and increase its pace of innovation. Other tech giants, including Meta, Microsoft and Google, have similar efforts with their own incubators — NPE, Microsoft Garage and Area 120, respectively.
In Pinterest’s case, the company has been working to make the transition from its past as an image pinboard and bookmarking site that helps drive e-commerce transactions to adapt to today’s creator-driven era where consumers are prompted to make purchases through video content. To address consumer demand for video, Pinterest released its TikTok-like Idea Pins and a live shopping feature, Pinterest TV. The latter was also launched by TwoTwenty’s team, in fact.
But TwoTwenty isn’t just meant to experiment with video. The organization consisting of engineers, designers and other product experts aims to research, prototype and test a variety of new ideas to see if any gain traction. Those that do will be handed off to other teams inside the company to scale.
The early-stage project Shuffles is just one of those ideas.
What’s funny is that Pinterest’s new app is similar to a mobile collage maker Meta ran a couple of years ago through its own in-house incubator, NPE Team. Known as E.gg, the zine maker of sorts developed a small following who enjoyed creating mixed media collages that combined images, text and GIFs. But like nearly all of Meta’s NPE projects, E.gg was shut down. Pinterest’s Shuffles could be looking to tap into that same consumer demand for image-led creativity and inspiration, which Meta had abandoned.
The app also arrives at a time when there’s an undercurrent of resistance to the idea that video has to be the only form of social expression and creativity in social media, as all tech giants are trying to morph themselves into TikTok. This past month, user backlash against Instagram’s deprioritization of friends’ content and photos reached a head after even the Kardashians begged the app to stop trying to be TikTok. Instagram rolled back some of its recent changes as a result but it’s still set on a video-first future.
Pinterest, to some extent, likely understands that its own pivot to video may not be able to retain users’ attention indefinitely in the face of the TikTok threat. Finding another area of growth through an experimentation could give it new avenues to explore.
Financially, the company’s most recent quarter’s earnings provided solid from a numbers standpoint, but it had missed on user growth. Monthly active users were down 9% year over year to 433 million.
The company is due to report its second-quarter earnings after the market closes today. Of note, these will be the first earnings since new CEO Bill Ready took over the job from co-founder Ben Silbermann, who transitioned to executive chairman on June 29, 2022.
Brandon Smith has missed out on more than just game time after receiving a three-week suspension, with the Storm star revealing he was banned from training with his teammates.
Smith had been handed the suspension after he called Adam Gee a “cheating bastard” during the Storm’s shock loss to the Sharks last month.
The 26-year-old was immediately sent for 10 minutes in the bin, and later pled guilty to the charge of contrary conduct.
But the punishment from the NRL wasn’t the end of it for the New Zealand Test rake, who has had to train away from the main squad since.
The unusual banishment has been seen Smith train with the fitness coach for the entirety of the ban.
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“No, that’s not the norm, that’s quite special,” Smith said on Tuesday.
“I think it was just a sort of just getting punished for not putting the team first.
“It’s been pretty hard and a bit of a grind.
“Waking up early and training by yourself, it gets pretty boring.
“But just being able to hang out with the boys now makes me a lot more grateful for being in a team sport.”
Smith believes that the club were trying to send him a message by banning him from training for those three weeks.
After being isolated from the squad for so long, the Kiwi international reflected on what the time away from the main squad had taught him.
“Just making you feel guilty for your actions by taking away what you love most,” he said.
“And for me with footy that’s playing with my mates and my friends and enjoying it.
“They kind of took that away from me and it sucks.
“I got to hang out with the fitness coach and he’s not that much fun either.”
Smith is available to return for Melbourne in their crucial Friday night clash with the Gold Coast Titans at AAMI Park.
Melbourne beat the Warriors in Auckland last Friday, and ended a four-match winless streak to boast.
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The Storm are sitting inside the top four after the win, but are equal on points with both the Broncos and sixth-placed Eels.
“It’s been a weird old year for all of us, we’ve got heaps of injuries.
“It’s no surprise it’s going to be a little bit of a hard one this year.
“We’ve lost Welchy (Christian Welch), Reimis (Smith), George (Jennings) and Paps (Ryan Papenhuyzen) for the season and that’s four of our best 13.
“We’ve got numerous other injuries coming through and they are excuses, but I’m willing to make those excuses now as we’ve had like 16 pretty bad injuries this year and we’ve only got like a 26-man squad.
“We’re still fourth, which is the crazy thing that we’ve been able to keep ourselves in the fight.”
Premier Mark McGowan and billionaire Clive Palmer have been found to have defamed each other during their vicious war of words in 2020 — but the harm done was minor, according to the Federal Court — as they were the damages awarded.
Delivering his judgment today, Justice Michael Lee said the defenses of both sides to allegations of defamation had failed — and the back-and-forth barbs had been defamatory.
But because the Federal Court judge found that both were involved in political argument — as nasty as it was — finding “real or material” damage was almost impossible.
He declined to award claimed aggravated damages to Mr Palmer, and said he could not find he suffered any real damage from Mr McGowan’s comments.
He assessed the damage to Mr Palmer’s reputation warranted an award of $5,000.
And Justice Lee then pointed to Mr McGowan’s landslide election victory as to the fact his reputation was not damaged by Mr Palmer — and might actually have been enhanced.
However, he said Mr Palmer’s comments warranted an award of $20,000 to the Premier.
In summing up the case, Justice Lee said arguments that neither side was involved in political posturing was “unpersuasive and superficial”.
He said amid the feud, the pair had both taken the opportunities to advance their political stance — particularly Mr McGowan, who he said “had a bully pulpit”.
And he concluded the “game had not been worth the candle” — taking up valuable resources from the court and the WA taxpayer.
“These proceedings have not only involved considerable expenditure by Mr Palmer and the taxpayers of Western Australia, but have also consumed considerable resources of the Commonwealth and, importantly, diverted Court time from resolving controversies of real importance to persons who have a pressing need to litigate ,” Justice Lee said.
“At a time when public resources devoted to courts are under strain, and judicial resources are stretched, one might think that only a significant interference or attack causing real reputational damage and significant hurt to feelings should be subject of an action for defamation by a political figure.”
The defamation case between the Premier and the billionaire stemmed from public barbs traded more than two years ago, as the pandemic was still spreading — and with Mr Palmer’s $30 billion claim against WA not yet public.
In press conferences of varying ferocity, Mr McGowan labeled the mining magnate the “enemy of the state” and “the enemy of Australia.”
In response, Mr Palmer allegedly implied Mr McGowan lied to West Australians about the pandemic — and was willing to accept bribes from Chinese interests.
That prompted both Mr Palmer to sue, and Mr McGowan to sue right back – with both men called to personally give evidence, which at times bordered on the bizarre.
During the sometimes florid and emotional testimony, both Mr McGowan and his Queensland adversary made striking claims about how the other’s words had impacted.
The Premier linked the verbal Mr Palmer’s attacks on him to the threats of physical attack from others, which he said left him fearing for the safety of his wife and children.
He promotes these ideas. He encourages all these people to weaponise themselves physically against my family.
“He is the sort of person who gets a band of people out there who believe this stuff. A band of followers he acquires who get wound up and outraged,” Mr McGowan said.
“He promotes these ideas. He encourages all these people to weaponise themselves physically against my family.”
And Mr Palmer went as far as claiming he believed Mr McGowan had granted himself a James Bond-style “license to kill” – and might use it to murder the mining magnate and get away with it.
That clause, he claimed, was his reading of the so-called ‘Palmer Act’ – the extraordinary piece of legislation drafted and passed in haste to kill off Mr Palmer’s mega-bucks royalties claim from the Balmoral South iron ore project in the Pilbara region .
“I then thought about James Bond movies… how would you license someone to kill? I didn’t know what the limits might be,” Mr Palmer told the court.
WA Premier Mark McGowan. Credit: News Corp Australia
“I reached a view that that’s what I thought it enabled them to do if they wanted to at an extreme level… that was a level of concern.
“To my mind, that meant that they could make offenses under the criminal code and not be held liable for them.”
Embedded within the case — and teased out by the lawyers — were communications between Mr McGowan and state attorney general John Quigley, which revealed the level of enmity within the WA government towards Palmer.
In them, Mr Palmer was referred to as fat, as a liar, as a turd and as “the worst Australian who is not in jail.”
Mr Quigley texted that he was working on a “poison pill for the fat man”.
And the 73-year old attorney general even referenced his own love life, asking Mr McGowan: “Are you glad me single again?.”
“Not making love in sweet hours before dawn – instead worrying how to defeat Clive,” Mr Quigley admitted.
That opened him up to being called as a witness — which opened another can of worms. Because Mr Quigley’s performance on the witness stand prompted accusations that he lied on oath, and he had to admit making glaring errors in his evidence of him.
“I gave inaccurate evidence to the court,” Mr Quigley said. “I am embarrassed about them (the answers). What I said was wrong.
Justice Lee summed up his thoughts on Mr Quigley’s courtroom performance abruptly: “Not dishonest — but all over the shop”.
John Quigley. Credit: DEAN LEWINS/AAPIMAGE
In his summary to the case on Tuesday, Justice Lee cited a quote from British politician Enoch Powell, saying politicians complaining about the press was like a “ship’s captain complaining about the sea”.
And he said the war of words between Mr McGowan and Mr Palmer was the “hurly burly” of two politicians arguing about political issues — predominantly the WA response to the Covid 19 pandemic, and the state response to Mr Palmer’s claim of $30 billion in damages.
Justice Lee also commented that the legislation which blocked that claim proceeded with the “speed of summer lightning”.
He described Mr Palmer’s evidence that he feared for his life at the hands of the WA government was “fantastic” — and “so unbelievable” that it undermined his other evidence.
“Not safe to place any particular reliance on it,” Justice Lee said.
And on Mr McGowan, Justice Lee said he was largely an “impressive witness” — but sometimes fell into the “muscle memory” of non-responsive answers.
And of Mr Quigley, Justice Lee said his evidence was both “confused and confusing”.
“Being a confused witness is quite different from being a dishonest one,” Justice Lee said. “Mr Quigley was not a reliable historian of events.”
Arguments about costs of the case, and who will pay them, will be made later this month.
A multimillionaire dentist and big game hunter from Pennsylvania was found guilty of murder and mail fraud Monday for the shooting death of his wife on an African safari trip nearly six years earlier.
A grand jury found Lawrence “Larry” Rudolph, 67, guilty of gunning down his wife of 34 years, Bianca Rudolph, following a three-week-long trial in a Denver federal courthouse.
He was also convicted of mail fraud for cashing in $4.8 million in life insurance payments following his wife’s October 2016 death — which he claimed was accidental and self-inflicted.
Jurors sided with prosecutors who said Rudolph killed his wife in cold blood as part of a premediated plan to take the life insurance payouts and start a new life with his mistress of 20 years.
They said Rudolph shot his wife while on a hunting trip in Zambia on Oct. 11, 2016 and was overheard years later shouting out “I killed my f**king wife for you!” during an argument with the other woman, Lori Milliron, while out to dinner.
A Pennsylvania dentist faces a maximum term of life in prison or the death penalty after the death of his wife on an African safari. Facebook/Larry Rudolph
The wealthy dentist maintained his innocence during the trial and claimed Bianca Rudolph had accidentally shot herself in the chest while packing away a shotgun when he was in the bathroom. He said his wife de ella had been packing her bags in a hurry as she was in a rush to return home from the trip.
However, prosecutors said her gun wound couldn’t have been self-inflicted. They presented evidence that showed the shot to her heart of her had been fired from two feet to three-and-a-half feet away.
Prosecutors said Rudolph planned to murder his wife after she asked for more decision-making power in the couple’s finances and had demanded he fire Milliron.
Prosecutors argued that Rudolph, 67, killed his wife of 34 years to collect nearly $5 million in life insurance payments and start a new life with his mistress of 20 years.Facebook/Larry Rudolph
Rudolph’s lawyers said he had no reason to kill his wife for Milliron because the couple had been in an open relationship since 2000, which allowed them to have sexual relationships with others.
They also said he had no financial need for the life insurance payouts, which went into a trust for the couple’s children, when he was worth more than $15 million at the time. Investigators for the insurance companies concluded that the shooting was accidental and forked over nearly $5 million to the family.
Prosecutors claimed Milliron, who is the manager of Rudolph’s Pittsburgh-area dental franchise, became privy to the murder after the fact. They accused her of lying to a federal grand jury about her case and her relationship with Rudolph.
Rudolph says the millions in life insurance payments went to the couple’s children, pictured above. AP
She was also found guilty by the same jury of being an accessory after the fact to murder, obstruction of a grand jury and two counts of perjury before a grand jury. She was found not guilty on two other counts of perjury.
Rudolph faces a maximum term of life in prison or the death penalty.
Australia’s median property value has dropped by 2 per cent since the beginning of May, to $747,800—a figure that includes houses and apartments, the latest housing data shows.
CoreLogic research director Tim Lawless says Australia’s housing market conditions were likely to worsen as interest rates ticked higher through the remainder of the year.
Here’s a state-by-state breakdown of Australia’s latest housing figures.
Sydney: home prices down
Average change: 2.2 per cent decrease in July
Sydney median house value: $1,346,193
Median unit value: $806,310
Five of the eight capital cities recorded a month-on-month decline in July, led by Sydney dwelling values recording a drop of 2.2 per cent.
“Although the housing market is only three months into a decline, the national Home Value Index shows that the rate of decline is comparable with the onset of the global financial crisis (GFC) in 2008, and the sharp downswing of the early 1980s,” Mr Lawless said.
“In Sydney, where the downturn has been particularly accelerated, we are seeing the sharpest value falls in almost 40 years.”
The harbor city still has a median house price of $1.35 million and median unit price of $806,300.
Adelaide: home prices up
Change: 0.4 per cent increase in July
adelaide median house value: $705,634
Median unit value: $431,409
Corelogic data shows Adelaide dwellings have recorded a 24.1 per cent annual increase.
Brisbane: home prices down
Change: 0.8 per cent drop in July
Brisbane median house value: $884,336
Median unit value: $504,520
Brisbane edged into negative territory for the first time since August 2020.
Mr Lawless says the trend in rising rents is seen in each capital city, led by Brisbane with a 4.2 per cent rental rise over the three months to July.
“Rental markets are extremely tight, with vacancy rates around 1 per cent or lower across many parts of Australia,” he said.
Canberra: home prices down
Change: 1.1per cent drop in July
canberra median house value: $1,047,912
Median unit value: $626,128
Canberra’s median house value sits at $1.05 million.
Mr Lawless said that unit values across the combined capital cities are generally recording smaller falls compared with house values.
“This trend is most apparent across the three largest capitals as well as Canberra, where housing affordability challenges may be deflecting more demand towards the medium to high-density sector,” Mr Lawless said.
“Such widespread and rapid rental growth is likely to remain one of the key domestic factors pushing up inflation, along with construction, food, transport and energy costs.
“While some of these can be attributed to global supply chain issues, the rental situation is a domestic one caused by a combination of tight supply and amplified demand,” Mr Lawless said.
Darwin: home prices went up
Average change: 0.5 per cent increase
Darwin median house value: $589,748
Median unit value: $374,340
The RBA has increased interest rates for three straight months, with another increase expected this afternoon.(abcnews)
Hobart: home prices down
Change: 1.5 per cent decrease
Hobart median house value: $782,748
Median unit value: $577,307
Corelogic data shows Hobart’s dwelling values recorded a 10.1 per cent increase over the year to July.
Melbourne: home prices down
Change: 1.5 per cent decrease
Melbourne median house value: $964,950
Median unit value: $614,351
Melbourne dwelling prices are now down for five months in a row with prices recording a 1.5 per cent decline in July.
The data shows that major regional centers Geelong, Ballarat also recorded a decline in home values over the three months to July.
Perth: home prices slightly up
Change: 0.2 per cent increase
Perth median house value: $587,024
Median unit value: $411,460
Looking at annual figures, Perth dwellings have recorded a 5.5 per cent increase.
Mr Lawless says that Perth, Adelaide, and Darwin property markets had recorded a sharp slowdown in the pace of capital gains since the first interest rate hike in May.
Property prices in Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart fell sharply in July.(CoreLogic)
How will rate rises change things?
The RBA has lifted the cash rate by 1.75 percentage points since its first rate rise in May to 1.85 per cent.
Just as the cut in interest rates to record lows was the key driver of the price boom coming out of the pandemic lockdowns, AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver says the surge in interest rates now underway will be the key driver of the property market ahead.
“Being able to borrow at a fixed rate of 2 per cent or less was a key driver of the boom in prices with fixed rate lending accounting for 40-50 per cent of new lending about a year ago,” he said.
“But with fixed mortgage rates now up nearly three-fold from their lows and variable rates rising rapidly this has substantially reduced the amount new home buyers can borrow and hence their capacity to pay.
“As a result, the rug has effectively been pulled out from under the property market.”
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.
Australian house prices dropping at ‘fastest rate’ since 2008(Emilia Terzon)
Spotify wants to give users more control over how they listen to music on the platform.
The service is adding separate play and shuffle buttons for Premium users.
The new change will be available in the app’s Android and iOS versions in the coming weeks.
Spotify is finally adopting one of YouTube Music’s most useful features for years: the ability to play or shuffle soundtracks with separate buttons. The new change is coming to both its Android and iOS apps.
The service has announced that the separate play and shuffle buttons will be available only to Premium subscribers in the coming weeks. The goal is to give them more control over how they listen to music.
Prior to this update, you could only use the combined play/shuffle button, which played songs at random by default. To play them in order, you’d have to tap individual songs. What’s perplexing is that the desktop version lacks this combined functionality, with only the play button appearing on album and playlist pages.
This was one of the app’s long-standing drawbacks, forcing Adele to request a revamp. Spotify seemed to have heeded the singer’s call and removed the default shuffle feature from albums late last year.
“We don’t create albums with so much care and thought into our track listing for no reason,” Adele tweeted then. “Our art tells a story and our stories should be listened to as we intended.”
The separate functions will appear at the top of albums and playlists, as they do on many of the best music streaming services, such as YouTube Music and Apple Music.
(Image credit: Spotify)
“This new change will allow you to choose the mode you prefer at the top of playlists and albums and listen the way you want to,” Spotify said in a blog post (opens in new tab). “Whether you love the joy of the unexpected with Shuffle mode, or prefer listening to tunes in order by simply pressing Play, Spotify has you covered.”
However, the new update might not sit well with free users who have long clamored for the same change. Indeed, Spotify charging for what should be the most basic function of its app is a bit surprising.
Australia’s cycling team has claimed another gold and silver medal against all odds in the 1000m time trial at the Commonwealth Games.
Shock news just hours before the race rocked the highly fancied trio of Matt Glaetzer, Thomas Cornish and Matthew Richardson and had commentators predicting they could miss the podium altogether.
AusCycling made the call to switch handlebars after deciding the pursuit bars that caused Alex Porter’s horror crash at the Tokyo Olympics were unsafe.
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It forced the Aussies into a last-minute switch to sprint bars, which commentators and riders alike said would cost them about one second in a race that only lasts for a minute.
“It’s a major hindrance,” said Australian Olympic gold medalist Scott McGrory.
“The aerodynamic bars are so much faster.
“It’s a devastating blow for the Australians.”
But Cornish set a cracking pace and couldn’t be reeled in by Nicholas Paul from Trinidad and Tobago, the quickest man in the world this year until today.
Matthew Glaetzer celebrates winning Gold in the Men’s 1000m Time Trial. (Getty)
Then Glaetzer, himself involved in a horror crash just days earlier, smashed the one-minute mark to claim his second gold medal of the meet.
“It felt terrible with two laps to go, but I knew I had one last ride and I’ve been there before, come back from disappointment,” Glaetzer said.
“It just goes to show that, no matter what happens, you can always go again.
“My goal was to go to sub-59 seconds here but when we lost the bars, it’s like well, I’ll just have to go sub one minute on sprint bars and that turned out to get the job done.”
Richardson finished fourth.
Glaetzer was the defending champion coming into the race but had lowered his sights somewhat in light of the rollercoaster week he’d had.
The handlebar switch-up was only the latest controversy after he was involved in a serious crash in the Keirin quarter-finals and had a bronze middle stripped from him in the men’s sprint.
Matthew Glaetzer celebrates winning gold in the Men’s 1000m Time Trial at the Commonwealth Games. (Getty)
“Today was tough. I’m surprised I went that fast to be honest,” he said, adding he would have been happy with a podium finish as the Aussies “left a second out there” thanks to the different equipment.
“I felt terrible with two to go; I was like ‘Oh, dear’.
“But yeah, I knew I had one last ride. I’ve been there before having to come back from disappointment and yeah, just the credit to show that no matter what happens you can always go again.”
Commentators Kate Bates and Scott McGrory agreed the Aussies were disadvantaged, Bates going as far as to say it cost Glaetzer a world record.
“That is a world record on the right equipment. That’s what we have just seen right there,” Bates said.
“That is more than a gold medal. That has got to be one of the fastest kilometers that has ever been ridden at a disadvantage, sub-optimal equipment.
“But Matty Glaetzer redemption right there.”
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Commonwealth Games in pictures: Indian rider Meenakshi Meenakshi injured in horror cycling crash
Speaking of the Greens, Senator Lidia Thorpe – a DjabWurrung, Gunnai and Gunditjmara woman – says her tone in taking the oath of allegiance yesterday “was the tone that you use when you really, really, really don’t want to do something and you ‘re being forced to do it”.
“To be told that I have to swear allegiance to a queen from another country, I feel really uncomfortable about that given I’m a First Nations woman, and my allegiance is to this country and the people of this country, not to a queen who lives in England and who has not been elected,” Thorpe told Melbourne-based radio station 3AW.
Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens in the Senate, Senator Lidia Thorpe.Credit:alex ellinghausen
Thorpe was made to redo her oath in the Senate after calling the Queen to colonize in her first try, which was ruled out of order by president Susan Lines.
Today’s 3AW interview descended into a fiery debate in which host Neil Mitchell accused Thorpe of being disrespectful and a hypocrite after she said she was part of an “illegitimate” parliament.
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“To be there with the Black Power salute, sarcastic tone, and in describing the Queen as a colonizer is divisive and destructive at a time where we need a unity of purpose,” Mitchell said.
Thorpe denied both accusations.
“I suppose what it does is it puts a spotlight on truth-telling,” she said. “This country was invaded, and this country does not have an agreement with its people.
“This country is rich and vibrant. And we have things here, our country and our own people, that we should be swearing allegiance to. So I wanted to inform the Australian public that we are still, today, swearing allegiance to someone who has nothing really to do with our everyday lives.”
A mother, her four children and two other people were killed early Sunday when a vehicle was hit head-on by a wrong-way driver along Interstate 90 in McHenry County, according to authorities.
One day after the tragedy, candles and stuffed toys lined the base of a tree outside the Rolling Meadows home where the family lived.
“It is a light, a candle and hopefully up in heaven they’ll see it,” said neighbor Jean Petryniec.
Lauren Dobosz and her four children – Emma, 13, Lucas, 7, Nicholas, 6, and Ella, 5, died when a wrong-way driver slammed into their van on Interstate 90 just west of the Illinois Route 23 interchange near Hampshire at approximately 2:11 a.m.
Both vehicles became engulfed in flames upon impact. Another 13-year-old riding in the van, as well as the driver of the car, died at the scene. The driver was identified as Jennifer Fernandez, 22, of Carpentersville, according to the Illinois State Police.
Thomas Dobosz, 32, who was driving the van, sustained serious injuries and was airlifted to an area hospital.
Neighbors say the family was going on a vacation when the tragedy occurred.
Lauren worked as a bartender at Lulus, a gaming facility down the road from her home in Rolling Meadows.
The establishment’s general manager described the mother of four as a “very friendly” and “outgoing” person – someone he became friends with right away.
“I was shocked,” Kenny Felten said, recounting his response upon learning Lauren and her children died in the crash. “I was shaking, couldn’t believe it. You never think someone you know is going to be part of such a tragic event. Here we are.”
While she was well-liked by her colleagues, Lauren was passionate about, and spent much of her free time, as a cheerleading coach for the Oriole Park Falcons.
“She talked about it a lot, it was a big passion of hers,” Felten said. “We gotta remember her for that. It’s hard right now with everything that’s happened. Not to think about that, but we gotta remember she loved her kids, her family, being a part of their family, raising money for fundraisers and stuff like that .”
Dawn Brand, whose daughter attended school with the two 13-year-old girls, said “everyone is having a very hard time,” adding the “kids are all devastated.”
“I know they were very involved throughout the community,” she stated. “Everyone said they were a very loving family and involved in sports and stuff too. Everyone is taking it very bad.”
Lauren’s cheerleading team set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for funeral expenses, remembering the mother as “full of life and laughter” and her children as “spunky, sweet and sassy.”
“Lauren always made a great impression on everyone she met, she was full of life, laughter, and always a good time,” the team’s post read. “We’re going to miss you Lauren and your spunky, sweet, sassy kids and every so loved friend. We shall shine bright this year. Will miss you!”
Illinois State Police investigators are working to determine why the driver, Fernandez, was going in the wrong direction. Autopsies are expected to take place in the coming days.
Community Consolidated School District 15, which the children attended, said in a news release, “We are simply heartsick, and in both shock and mourning over the tragic loss of five students and one of parents.” Mental health professionals will be present throughout the week to provide assistance to anyone grapping with the loss, according to district officials.
A caregiver support training will also take place Aug. 2 to provide parents and staff with information and support regarding how to help children “during this difficult time,” according to the district.
