Father Chris Riley, founder of Youth Off the Streets, dies at 70
Father Chris Riley, the founder of Youth Off the Streets, died at his home on Thursday, the group said. He was 70.
Riley established the charitable group in 1991 as a food van providing meals to young people experiencing homelessness in Sydney’s inner city. It has since grown to a staff of more than 220 people that provides support services and education pathways to children and young people aged 12 to 24 in NSW and Queensland.
Riley worked at the organisation for more than three decades, stepping away in 2022 due to illness. Anne Fitzgerald, the chairperson of the group’s board, said:
He was a tireless advocate for homeless and disadvantaged youth, and he inspired and changed thousands of young lives. Father Riley will be remembered for his compassion, tenacity and unwavering belief that every young person deserves the chance to reach their full potential.
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Petra Stock
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Jordyn Beazley
Offer to delay march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge by three weeks remains
An organiser of a pro-Palestine protest that would involve marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge has said the offer is still open to delay the rally by three weeks if the police are willing to work with them.
Earlier today, spokesperson for the Palestine Action Group, Josh Lees, spoke outside the supreme court ahead of a hearing that will decide if the protest will be “prohibited” or “authorised”.
If the protest is prohibited, organisers could still proceed with the protest. However, participants would not have immunity from being charged under the summary offences act. Lees said:
We put forward a whole proposal for 24 August, we would have our march over the Sydney Harbour Bridge that would march identical routes to the World Pride March in 2023.
Lee said that if the court sided with police, there was a “real possibility” there would still be thousands of people who turned up on Sunday determined to march across the bridge regardless.
It’s important to be clear here, if we lose the authorisation of this protest that does not deem a protest unlawful … It’s not prohibited in any genuine sense. People have the right to protest, to gather and assemble, and it’s not an unlawful act.
Ben Doherty
‘Entirely preventable’ malnutrition crisis has caused 74 deaths in Gaza this year, WHO says
The World Health Organization has recorded 74 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza in 2025, 63 of which occurred in July. Those deaths include 24 children under five. The WHO said in a statement:
Most of these people were declared dead on arrival at health facilities or died shortly after, their bodies showing clear signs of severe wasting. The crisis remains entirely preventable. Deliberate blocking and delay of large-scale food, health, and humanitarian aid has cost many lives.
Save the Children Australia CEO Mat Tinkler said it was “simply a fact that virtually everyone in Gaza is starving and the government of Israel is responsible”. Tinker said “only serious intervention from the international community … will prevent further descent into mass starvation”.
The government of Israel has denied there is widespread famine in Gaza, with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying: “There is no starvation in Gaza, no policy of starvation in Gaza.”
Israel’s deputy chief of mission in Australia, Amir Meron, said pictures of emaciated children in Gaza were “false” and claimed the children pictured had congenital conditions. Meron said:
We don’t recognise any famine or any starvation in the Gaza Strip. Israel has never acted in a policy of starvation. There is no such policy. There is no starvation in the Gaza Strip and there is no willingness of Israel that such a thing will happen in the Gaza Strip.
Ben Doherty
Aid worker says conditions in Gaza ‘hell on earth’
An Australian aid worker has described conditions in Gaza as “hell on earth”, saying starving children have said they would rather die than continue to endure the famine being imposed on the occupied territory by the Israeli government.
Georgia Tracey, an Australian recently returned from Gaza, said children are telling aid workers they want to die, saying:
What kind of wicked world are we living in where we allow children to be so relentlessly attacked, starved and deeply traumatised that they would prefer not to live any more?
When a child tells us that they would rather die than continue to live in this hell on earth that the Israeli government has forced on them, how can we say anything but how sorry we are that humanity has failed them?
Save the Children runs child-friendly spaces inside Gaza. One of the activities inside its child-friendly spaces in Gaza is a “wishing cloud”. Previously, children have wished to attend school, for peace, or to see friends again. In recent weeks, however, Save the Children staff have reported children wished to die.
One child wrote: “I wish I was in heaven where my mother is, in heaven there is love and food and water.”
Rhino horns made radioactive to foil traffickers in South African project
A South African university has launched an anti-poaching campaign to inject the horns of rhinos with radioactive isotopes that it says are harmless for the animals but can be detected by customs agents, the Associated Press reports.
Under the collaborative project involving the University of the Witwatersrand, nuclear energy officials and conservationists, five rhinos were injected in what the university hopes will be the start of a mass injection of the declining rhino population, which they are calling the Rhisotope Project.
Last year, about 20 rhinos at a sanctuary were injected with isotopes in trials that paved the way for Thursday’s launch. The radioactive isotopes even at low levels can be recognised by radiation detectors at airports and borders, leading to the arrest of poachers and traffickers.
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This man surfed more than 4,000 waves in 25 days
Blakey Johnston has broken a world record by surfing 4,097 waves in 253 sessions, over 25 days, at Urbnsurf Sydney, a wave pool for surfing. Each day was considered to be as physically challenging as running a marathon.
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Minns hails Riley as a visionary who changed the lives of ‘tens of thousands’
The NSW premier, Chris Minns, said Riley’s work building Youth Off the Streets had seen the group become a “lifesaving network of crisis accommodation, counselling and other wraparound support services”.
Minns said:
Father Riley believed there is no child born bad, only circumstances to overcome, and he spent over three decades proving that with compassion and opportunity young lives can be transformed.
On behalf of the people of NSW, I extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, the Youth Off The Streets community, and the countless young people whose futures he helped build.
Father Chris Riley, founder of Youth Off the Streets, dies at 70
Father Chris Riley, the founder of Youth Off the Streets, died at his home on Thursday, the group said. He was 70.
Riley established the charitable group in 1991 as a food van providing meals to young people experiencing homelessness in Sydney’s inner city. It has since grown to a staff of more than 220 people that provides support services and education pathways to children and young people aged 12 to 24 in NSW and Queensland.
Riley worked at the organisation for more than three decades, stepping away in 2022 due to illness. Anne Fitzgerald, the chairperson of the group’s board, said:
He was a tireless advocate for homeless and disadvantaged youth, and he inspired and changed thousands of young lives. Father Riley will be remembered for his compassion, tenacity and unwavering belief that every young person deserves the chance to reach their full potential.
Wet, wintry weekend in store for NSW
New South Wales is heading for a sodden Saturday, with the wet and wintry weather that has been plaguing the east coast expected to ramp up over the weekend.
After a week of intermittent showers, the bulk of the rain was forecast to hit on the weekend as a low-pressure system deepened off the coast, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. Senior meteorologist Angus Hines said:
The rain, which we’ve seen over the past few days for eastern Australia, will be greatly amplified. That’s going to mean a very, very wet weekend.
Heading into Saturday, the weather system was expected to home in on NSW, with severe weather warnings issued for damaging winds and heavy rainfall for central eastern parts of the state.
Much of the NSW coastline could receive falls of between 50 to 100mm over the weekend, Hines said, with the heaviest falls expected for the coast and ranges between the Hunter and mid north coast. Some places could even see “a serious amount” – more than 150mm.
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Andrew Messenger
Queensland public transport ridership rose 16.8% after 50c fares
Queensland’s 50c fare scheme caused a major spike in public transport ridership, state parliamentary estimates has heard.
Director general Sally Stannard told a hearing on Thursday night that patronage had increased by 16.8% compared with the same time period in the prior year.
About 77 million trips had been taken since the scheme went into effect, resulting in a saving of about $159m for riders. Stannard said:
As at 30 June 2025, patronage in south-east Queensland for the 2024-25 financial year was 15% higher compared to the previous financial year. Rail was 17.4% higher; bus was 12.2% higher; Gold Coast light rail was 23.3% higher; and ferry was 31.4% higher.
The change was implemented under former Queensland premier Steven Miles.
Andrew Messenger
Queensland review of gender-affirming care may not be released to the public
The Queensland government banned gender-affirming care – such as puberty blockers – in public hospitals in January while a panel led by psychiatrist Ruth Vine conducted a review.
The health minister, Tim Nicholls, said it would be up to Vine to determine how her advice would be treated. Nicholls said:
Prof Vine and her committee and her fellow reviewers have a very wide remit, including recommendations as to how her advice is treated.
I’ve clearly and consistently said that the cabinet and the government will consider the advice by Prof Vine and I will be guided and will not preempt the decisions of cabinet in relation to how that advice is dealt with.
Embattled Star looking for new options after Brisbane casino deal falls through
Star Entertainment Group is looking at alternative options for its half-stake in a newly opened Brisbane entertainment complex after failing to reach agreement on a sale it had been negotiating for months, AAP reports.
The embattled casino operator had since March been planning to sell its 50% interest in the Queen’s Wharf Brisbane to its Hong Kong partners, which each hold a quarter-stake in the 12-hectare riverfront development.
But Star said on Friday it had been unable to reach a final agreement on a number of commercial issues with Chow Tai Fook and Far East Consortium by Friday’s deadline.
It offered to extend their negotiating framework for another week, but the duo rejected that offer and walked away.
That means Star has until next Wednesday to repay Chow Tai Fook and Far East Consortium a $10m advance on the sale it received back in March, and until 5 September to repay another $31m.
Asylum seekers on Nauru contract dengue as advocates call on Australia to take responsibility
At least nine asylum seekers on Nauru have contracted dengue fever amid an outbreak on the island, including one man who was medically evacuated to Australia for treatment and then returned this week, according to a legal aid group and an asylum seeker there.
Cases of dengue, also known as break-bone fever, rose sharply in July amid a broader outbreak of the virus in the Pacific.
Heidi Abdel-Raouf, the manager of detention casework advocacy at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC), said the group was aware of nine men who have dengue “but there are reports of many more”.
There are approximately 93 asylum seekers and refugees on Nauru, who mostly live in the community on a stipend of $230 a fortnight from the Australian government. They have been there between two and 22 months, and will never be settled in Australia under government policies. Those with refugee status currently have no resettlement options.
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House prices at all-time highs in almost half of Australian suburbs
More on the record house price figures, as we reported in the blog earlier: housing market values in almost half of all Australian suburbs are at all-time highs – and plenty more are expected to join them, AAP reports.
In a sure sign the housing market has recovered, property platform Cotality, formerly known as CoreLogic, released data on Friday showing record values in almost 45% of suburbs.
The property data firm has predicted the proportion of suburbs at peak value will rise to 50% in the coming months on the back of national dwelling value growth in June.
In Australia’s most expensive housing market, 37% of Sydney suburbs were at record highs, while just 13% of Melbourne’s reached new highs. Queensland’s market is booming with almost four-in-five (78%) suburbs in Brisbane at peak dwelling values and regional markets in the state about the same mark.
Three-quarters of Perth’s suburbs have hit record values, as have 61% of Adelaide’s.
Natasha May
Peak dental body calls on government to urgently promote children’s dental scheme as more than 1.5 million children missing out
A million-and-a-half children are missing out on the free dental scheme for kids, the peak dental association has said as it calls on the government to better promote it to parents.
Guardian Australia has previously reported that the department of health and aged care has acknowledged more than 2.4 million children were eligible for the Child Dental Benefits Schedule (CDBS) in the 2023-24 financial year, but less than 40% used it.
New data released today by the Australian Dental Association (ADA) based on a survey of 25,000 adults showed that of the families who believed they were eligible for treatment under the scheme, only 36% – just over one in three – actually use it.
The survey found the scheme is “shrouded in confusion and misinformation” with many parents unaware of its existence or unsure of their eligibility.
The ADA president, Dr Chris Sanzaro, says:
“This leaves millions of eligible Australian families either going without dental care or paying more out of pocket than they need to, when it could so well fund a child’s first dental visit. It’s a scheme that’s shrouded in mystery and confusion – and with over 1.5m Australian kids missing out, the government urgently needs to better promote it to ensure eligible families can access this care.”
Krishani Dhanji
Trump accuses foreign nations of ‘freeloading’ on drug prices as Australia insists PBS prices won’t rise
Donald Trump has threatened a crackdown on major pharmaceutical companies who fail to sell cheaper drugs to the US, and criticised nations “freeloading on US innovation”.
Trump wrote to 17 pharmaceutical companies, demanding they treat the US as the “most favoured nation” and lower prices of drugs for the US Medicaid scheme, and threatened to use “every tool in our arsenal” to crack down on pharmaceutical giants if they fail to cut drug prices for Americans within 60 days.
In Australia, under the pharmaceutical benefits scheme (PBS), pharmaceutical companies negotiate directly with the department of health on pricing.
The Australian government hasn’t said whether tariffs or restrictions from the US on pharmaceuticals would impact the PBS.
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