Australia news live: government calls for charges ‘with teeth’ over Laos methanol poisonings | Australia news

Australia ‘deeply frustrated and bitterly disappointed’ in Laos poisoning charges as ambassador called in

The Laos ambassador has been called in by the Australian government after a decision not to pursue the most serious charges against those responsible for the fatal methanol poisoning of two Australian travellers.

The foreign minister, Penny Wong, said the news would only add to the pain and grief suffered by the family of Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones.

The Australian Government is deeply frustrated and bitterly disappointed that authorities in Laos are not pursuing the most serious charges in relation to the methanol poisoning deaths of Australian citizens Holly Bowles and Bianca Jones.

What happened to Holly, Bianca and four other foreign nationals should never have happened.

The two 19-year-olds were backpacking through Laos in late 2024 when they were fatally poisoned with methanol while drinking at Nana Backpackers Hostel in Vang Vieng.

On Friday, Wong revealed Laos’ ambassador had also been called in.

The Australian government’s special envoy, Pablo Kang, who was appointed to try assist in the investigation, will travel to Laos on Friday.

The foreign minister will also reinforce the government’s position when she meets with her Lao counterpart in Manila next week.

Scammers using fake celebrity endorsements for ‘pump and dump’ schemes

Older Australians urged to exercise caution as online fraudsters use fake celebrity endorsements and financial institutions for scams, AAP reports.

The number of so-called ‘‘pump and dump’’ scams being reported to the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (Asic) has soared recently, causing it great concern.

The scammers use social media and messaging apps to promote dubious money-making ideas by impersonating well-known experts or celebrities and financial institutions.

High-profile economist and markets analyst Tom Piotrowski is just one of those whose names and images have been hijacked to lure potential victims.

Piotrowski, who recently joined National Australia Bank’s nabtrade arm from CommSec, has been a television regular, providing viewers with updates on the financial markets and the economy.

He told AAP.

It breaks your heart.

These fraudsters prey on people who have a passing familiarity with the share market, but they don’t know enough.

I can’t tell you how heartbreaking it is to think that hard-working people are having to deal with this; it’s really terrible.

Pauline Hanson says her daughter is the future of One Nation

In her interview with far-right activist Tommy Robinson, Pauline Hanson says her daughter, Lee Hanson, is the future of One Nation and had the right background and experience for a career in politics.

In news that might be disappointing for Nationals defector Barnaby Joyce, Hanson says Lee had the potential to be a leader one day.

Guardian Australia revealed in February that One Nation has employed the Tasmania-based Lee Hanson as a senior adviser to a New South Wales senator, in a taxpayer-funded role worth as much as $180,000 a year.

She has been spearheading the party’s expansion in Tasmania, and is also the party’s national executive manager.

Pauline Hanson told Robinson her daughter was “a cluey kid”.

She’s quite smart and highly respected. In the positions that she’s held, wherever she’s worked, they didn’t want to lose her.

It’s great to work with her. She’s the future. She’s got the softer approach.

Asked if she could replace her mother as leader, Hanson said it was a position to be earned.

She’s got the potential, but I don’t believe in nepotism. And she has to prove herself. Not only to me, but also to the other members and to the public, and everything like that.

That’s something she has to earn.

Queensland Health reaches settlement with controversial former gender clinic doctor

Queensland Health has reached a settlement with its former employee Jillian Spencer, a controversial critic of the state’s gender clinic.

The psychiatrist was suspended from her role at the clinic in 2023 after making a series of public criticisms of the service.

An independent review that investigated her complaints concluded in 2024 that the service was safe and evidence-based, but was under-resourced and that staff struggled as a result of the public debate about gender affirming care, with some fearing for their safety.

The new LNP government unlawfully banned gender affirming care in public hospitals in 2025, reimposing the ban after it was struck down by the state’s supreme court.Spencer was sacked the same year.

The Children’s Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service, which operates the gender clinic, released a statement on Friday morning making a statement as part of the settlement. Its terms are otherwise confidential and “all disciplinary proceedings against Dr Spencer have been discontinued”, it said.

The CHQ HHS acknowledges that these are matters of legitimate professional and public debate, and that clinicians play an important role in raising concerns about patient safety and clinical practice.

Dr Spencer has been a strong advocate for change in Queensland in the model of care for children and adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria. One of the features of the clinical approach that Dr Spencer has sought is the delay in medical interventions for such patients until adulthood, including puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, because they are serious decisions regarding their body and long-term health.

CHQ HHS accepts that Dr Spencer’s concerns were grounded in her training and background as an experienced child and adolescent psychiatrist.

‘Don’t go to Laos’: family of fatally poisoned teenager issue warning

The parents of an Australian who died by methanol poisoning while drinking at a Lao hostel have urged other young travellers not to venture to the south-east Asian nation.

Melbourne travellers Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles, both 19, were backpacking through in late 2024 when they were fatally poisoned.

Lao authorities are expected to lay charges on Friday, but the families’ experience has led Jones’s mother, Michelle Jones, to issue a warning to other prospective travellers.

Don’t go to Laos.

It was like their lives didn’t even matter. We’re just really appalled by it all.

She also urged travellers to consume bottled or canned drinks.

Jones’s father, Mark Jones, also decried the charges that are expected to be laid.

It’s unacceptable that the passing of our daughter, her best friend Holly, and three other beautiful women’s lives come down to the potential maximum outcome of one year in jail and a $1,600 [fine].

Hanson talks up Trump-like ban on Muslim migration in podcast interview

Pauline Hanson’s interview with Tommy Robinson covers a lot of ground which will be familiar to followers of Australian politics.

She says a One Nation government would ban Islamic headdresses in Australia and stop immigration from locations she considers “radical Islamic countries”.

That plan is similar to US president Donald Trump’s so-called Muslim ban, which targeted migrants to the US from majority Muslim countries.

Hanson says she wants to stop Muslim religious leaders “spewing hate speech”.

Without evidence, she claims members of the Muslim community in Australia are relying on taxpayer support to have large numbers of children.

They are having children because, you know what, in the Koran, it says Allah will provide.

Well the Allah providing is the taxpayer. Well, guess what, I’ve had enough.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s interview with fringe far-right figure Tommy Robinson has been posted online in the past couple of hours.

Hanson has been criticised for meeting with the convicted criminal, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, during a visit to the UK.

The more than hour-long podcast covers Hanson’s rise through politics, her history of controversial statements about Indigenous Australians and multicultural communities and her plans for One Nation in the Future.

She told Robinson many European migrants who came to Australia after World War II didn’t speak English, but they “assimilated”.

But she claimed that changed after the election of Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1972, and the end of the White Australia policy.

They opened it up and got rid of the White Australia policy, then they started bringing in the different migrants.

The Holt government started winding back the race based policy in the 1960s.

Hanson claimed she warned the Coalition that Islamic sharia law was spreading in Australia and that many migrant groups want to come to Australia to access the NDIS.

I said, we’ve got sharia law that’s happening in Australia, I said they’re getting married, multiple marriages, and I said then they’re having their kids and we’re supporting them.

One Nation senator defends Pauline Hanson’s overseas travel

The One Nation senator Sean Bell has backed his party leader as she continues her trip through Europe ahead of her appearance at a conservative political action conference in London.

Bell said:

She is standing up for Australian values.

Asked about photos of Hanson and billionaire Gina Rinehart at a luxury Italian hotel, Bell maintained she was “working tirelessly for the Australian people”.

Those responsible for the fatal poisoning of two Australians travellers must be held accountable, the government has said, as Lao authorities prepare to lay charges.

Melbourne travellers Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles, both 19, were backpacking through the south-east Asian nation in late 2024 when they were fatally poisoned with methanol while drinking at Nana Backpackers Hostel in Vang Vieng.

Earlier, Morton-Bowles father, Shaun Bowles, said he was devastated about news of the charges, with ABC reporting the two offences expected to be laid collectively carry up to one year in jail and a maximum fine of $1,600.

Health minister Mark Butler said the government would be watching closely as Lao authorities prepare to hold a press conference on the matter.

All of us can imagine the grief and the sense of loss that those families are going through now. Our hearts are breaking for them all over again.

The Australian government has offered to provide its Lao counterpart with resources to conduct a full investigation, which had been rejected, Butler said.

There could not be any doubt about what we expect.

We continue to urge them to press for real accountability and introduce some real charges with teeth.

Pauline Hanson has been called “un-Australian” over her appearance on a podcast with far-right UK activist, Tommy Robinson.

The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young told ABC RN Hanson must return to Australia and apologise.

This is so appalling, and frankly, it’s unAustralian.

To go overseas to hang out with a criminal thug … to be laughing on his show about multiculturalism back here in Australia – which are our communities, Australian citizens, and the people who make this country great, Pauline Hanson is the most unAustralian politician in the parliament, and she should come home, face the music, and apologise.

The One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, has been criticised after travelling overseas and appearing on a podcast with the far-right UK activist Tommy Robinson.

During the episode, released on Friday morning, Hanson makes claims that “Muslim streets” have “quite a lot of people on the NDIS”.

But the federal NDIS minister, Mark Butler, has hit back:

I‘m not sure where Ms Hanson is getting her figures from, but they’ve never been provided to me as the minister for disability and the minister for the NDIS.

I suspect they don’t exist.

Butler also condemned Hanson’s decision to appear on a podcast hosted by a convicted criminal.

I’m loath to respond to a podcast between Ms Hanson and this convicted criminal, who frankly has been disowned by so many leading figures on the right.

Australia is experiencing an “explosion” in illegal cigarettes, despite fresh data revealing the nation’s smoking rate has fallen to historic lows.

Those who smoke are increasingly using illicit tobacco, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW) National Drug Strategy Household Survey has found.

But daily smoking rates have fallen to a historic low and are tracking well ahead of national targets, while vaping rates have stabilised.

The federal health minister, Mark Butler, has responded to the report, telling ABC radio:

It shouldn’t be any surprise, in spite of this explosion of illegal cigarettes – which has been a law and order disaster – that that hasn’t changed the general mindset of smokers.

They want to quit and they need some help to do that.

The father of an Australian woman who died from methanol poisoning while travelling in Laos has said the charges that will be laid against those allegedly responsible have left his family devastated.

Melbourne travellers Bianca Jones and Holly Morton-Bowles, both 19, were backpacking through the south-east Asian nation in late 2024 when they were fatally poisoned with methanol while drinking at Nana Backpackers Hostel in Vang Vieng.

Those allegedly responsible are set to be hit with charges, but the father of Morton-Bowles, Shaun Bowles, has told 2GB radio that they were not the results his family were looking for.

It is devastating news to us.

His understanding was the charges are going to be be put against the owner of the distillery that made the allegedly tainted vodka.

We’re still not convinced that they’re the right people.

We’ve had so many conflicting stories come out, it’s very hard to pin down who exactly is at fault.

But clear, that’s not been the case.

The ABC reports the two charges expected to be laid collectively carry up to one year in jail and a maximum fine of $1,600.

Australian military may help protect ships in the strait of Hormuz, UN shipping leader says

Arsenio Dominguez, the secretary general of the UN’s shipping agency the International Maritime Organization (IMO), says the Australian military may have a role in protecting ships travelling through the strait of Hormuz once “volatility” in the region settles.

But he said the focus should be on the US and Iran again walking back from the conflict. Dominguez told the ABC:

It is not a 100% guarantee that a merchant vessel will not be affected while being supported by military assets.

It could be considered as a short term assistance, but not in the long or permanent term.

Once the situation de-escalates, those types of assistance may provide additional guarantees will actually help in the trust and the rebuilding of operations.

Dominguez said that while it was not safe for ships to travel through the strait at present, the focus should be on ending the war, not on other nations providing military assets to allow freer movement of vessels.

The message is very loud and clear for everybody…de-escalate.

Good morning, Kat Wong here to pick up the blog. Let’s dive in.

Pauline Hanson to speak at rightwing CPAC event in London

Pauline Hanson is due to speak at a gathering of hard-right figures from around the world being held in London this week.

The former UK prime minister Liz Truss is hosting the event, which is the inaugural British spin-off from America’s influential CPAC gathering that powered the rise of Donald Trump.

Ben Quinn has the full story:

Social media giant Meta has rolled out new safety features that will alert parents using Instagram’s supervision tools if their teen talk about suicide or self-harm with the platform’s AI feature.

The change comes after the platform sought feedback from more than 75 youth mental health clinicians on how to improve Meta AI’s responses to teens’ distressing prompts.

Currently, the platform’s AI chatbot directs teen users to crisis helplines and encourages them to reach out to a parent or another trusted adult. Meta says it will now “proactively alert supervising parents” based on signals developed with experts.

The company said:

We worked with parents and experts to understand which AI conversations warrant an alert – such as those where a teen makes a clear reference to hurting themselves, even if that reference is subtle. We then built a dedicated AI system to identify these conversations.

The feature, now live in the US, UK, Australia and Canada, is expected to be available to users globally by the end of the year.

Telstra’s bosses are set to be grilled over a nationwide outage that affected triple zero calls and businesses, disrupted payment systems and stopped trains in two states.

Telstra’s chief executive, Vicki Brady, will be among a group of executives who will front a parliamentary inquiry into the incident in Canberra on Friday.

The Greens communication spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, said the committee holding the probe had called an emergency hearing over the outage.

“The truth is, Telstra, just like Optus, has put their profits ahead of public safety and public service for far too long, and the law allows them to,” she told reporters at Parliament House on Thursday.

“We need better laws in place, stronger laws that protect the rights of the public, the rights of the consumer, and to force these companies to actually deliver a reliable service.”

Telstra is accepting compensation claims from affected customers and small businesses who can provide evidence to support their case.

Hanson-Young said the telco “has done the bare minimum when it comes to compensation for consumers”.

“The company should be taking responsibility, and it should be offering automatic compensation to everyone who they put in a difficult and dangerous position.”

Representatives from the Australian Communications and Media Authority and the communications department will also give evidence at the inquiry.

Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Kat Wong with the main action.

Telstra’s chief executive, Vicki Brady, can expect some tough questions when she goes before a parliamentary inquiry today. The snap two-day inquiry was called to look at last week’s Telstra mobile outage that shut down trains and payment systems across the nation, and meant some couldn’t make triple zero calls.

And we have news from Instagram, which has announced a new AI safety feature that will alert parents if their children’s chats turn to self harm.