Category: MIL-OSI

Source: Airservices Australia

Introduction

I would like to thank the CFA Society for the opportunity to speak here today.

A key part of the Monetary Policy Board’s deliberations is to assess whether financial conditions are tight, easy or neutral in terms of their effect on aggregate demand. It then determines whether those conditions are appropriate to achieve its goals of full employment and low and stable inflation, and adjusts the cash rate target if needed.

Today, I’ll speak about three key building blocks we use to assess financial conditions. While the cash rate target is a good starting point, it is not a reliable guide because it does not account for other factors affecting financial conditions, including structural changes in the economy. Hence, it is worthwhile to:

• compare the cash rate with estimates of the neutral interest rate, although these estimates are highly uncertain
• consider a broader set of financial indicators, which also help to track the transmission of monetary policy through the economy
• examine the RBA’s macroeconomic forecasts, which incorporate measures of financial and economic conditions.

These building blocks point to policy having been restrictive from around 2023. More recently, there are signs that restrictiveness has declined following cuts to the cash rate target and with funding readily available to a wide range of household and business borrowers.

Cash rate target

A good starting point for my talk today is the cash rate target, which is a key focus for commentators assessing financial conditions (Graph 1), and rightly so. It has an important bearing on interest rates in the Australian economy and is the instrument the Board sets to influence financial conditions.

But it’s hard to assess financial conditions by looking at the cash rate alone, as its past behaviour is not a reliable basis for comparison.

One reason is that how tight or easy a given cash rate is depends on expectations of both inflation and the cash rate itself (to which I’ll return shortly). For example, the benefit of a high interest rate to a saver is reduced if inflation erodes what their money can buy over time. Similarly, the burden of a high interest rate on a loan is eased if nominal wages or profits are rising quickly. To address this, we can compare the cash rate to estimates of the nominal neutral rate, which adjusts for changes in inflation expectations over time.

The neutral interest rate is also a useful comparator because it can account for changes in global developments and Australia’s economic and financial structures. These can influence how any given level of the cash rate will affect aggregate demand. The neutral cash rate is the rate that is neither expansionary nor contractionary over the long term – balancing investment and savings at levels consistent with full employment and stable inflation (once current shocks fade). Conceptually, at least, comparing the cash rate to the neutral rate helps gauge the restrictiveness of monetary policy.

Neutral interest rate

The RBA estimates the neutral interest rate using several models. I’ll focus on the average of the models’ central estimates before turning to key differences between them (Graph 2). The average suggests the neutral cash rate has trended lower over recent decades – a pattern seen in other economies. This trend is likely to reflect structural shifts such as demographic change and slower productivity growth. These shifts can increase savings and reduce investment, in which case lower interest rates would be needed to balance the two.

So while the cash rate has been much lower in recent years than in previous decades, this does not imply a one-to-one easing in financial conditions because the neutral rate has also declined. Indeed, a cash rate of around 4 per cent in recent times may have been just as restrictive as 7 per cent was three decades ago if the neutral rate has fallen by around 3 percentage points since then.

In recent years, central estimates of Australia’s neutral rate have risen by about 1 percentage point on average. Factors contributing to this include rising global public debt, lower saving by retiring baby boomers, and increased public and private investment – including in the green energy transition. This rise in the neutral rate implies that any given level of the cash rate is now less restrictive than it would have been otherwise.

So far I have compared the current cash rate with neutral estimates at that time, but we also need to consider cash rate expectations, as they influence longer term interest rates and affect current savings and investment decisions. A declining expected path for the cash rate as shown in Graph 2, for example, implies easier financial conditions than a flat or a rising one.

Limitations of neutral rate estimates

There are limitations to using neutral rate estimates to assess whether financial conditions are tight or easy. The main limitation is that the estimates are imprecise. This has two aspects.

First, the estimates are very uncertain. The span of central estimates across models is wide, but we do not know which model best measures the neutral rate, and each central estimate is derived with uncertainty (Graph 3).

Even so, assuming our models cover the set of reasonable descriptions of the neutral rate, we can have some confidence that cash rates well above the range of central estimates would constrain aggregate demand (and vice versa for rates well below). But we can be less certain for rates closer to or within that range – as is currently the case.

A second limitation is that the models may not capture all the key aspects of financial conditions, or at least not in a timely manner. Indeed, four of our models rely on macroeconomic data, which are only available with some lag and reflect past financial conditions, making them slow to respond to new developments. These are the four models currently showing lower estimates. The three other models are forward looking. They extract estimates of future short rates from bond yields of various maturities and so they are potentially quite responsive to changes affecting the neutral rate; but again, they are estimated with considerable uncertainty.

Given these limitations, neutral rate estimates form only part of our assessment of financial conditions. We also consider a broader set of indicators of financial conditions.

Additional indicators of financial conditions

Financial indicators can help us to track the transmission of monetary policy to the economy. They also can suggest whether financial conditions align with movements in the cash rate or behave in ways that are amplifying or dampening its usual effects. I’ll focus on just a few indicators – though we refer to a broader set in our quarterly Statement on Monetary Policy (SMP).

Funding cost and interest rate spreads

Changes in the overnight cash rate influence other interest rates, including those affecting banks’ funding costs and lending rates for households and businesses. Graph 4 shows the differences between funding costs and the cash rate, and between loan interest rates and the cash rate. These spreads reflect factors influencing the supply and demand for funding. The top panel shows that the spread between estimates of major banks’ funding costs and the cash rate was very low before the global financial crisis, with depositors receiving low returns relative to the cash rate and bond holders requiring little compensation for a given level of risk. This spread rose sharply during the crisis as credit risk concerns grew and banks shifted from short-term wholesale debt and securitisation to more stable funding sources. During the pandemic, the funding cost spread fell in response to the RBA’s unconventional policies, but it has stayed low since then, reflecting a higher share of at-call deposits and, more recently, low wholesale debt spreads.

Variations in banks’ funding costs, and their willingness to take on credit risk and compete for borrowers, have underpinned movements in key lending rates to households and businesses, shown as spreads to the cash rate in the middle panel of Graph 4. These spreads have narrowed in recent years. The bottom panel shows the cost for larger businesses to raise funds via bond issuance, with spreads to Australian Government Securities yields currently at very low levels.

The sharp rise in banks’ funding costs and lending spreads during the global financial crisis tightened financial conditions and was one reason the RBA cut the cash rate sharply at the time. However, current loan spreads suggest financial conditions are now less tight than a few years ago for a given level of the cash rate. This is consistent with the rise in neutral rate estimates I just mentioned.

Household finanancial conditions

The cash flow and intertemporal channels influence household savings, consumption and housing investment. These are key channels for monetary policy transmission and the associated indicators are useful for assessing financial conditions.

Mortgage payments

Mortgage payments data offer insight into how these channels operate. While required payments have declined this year as the lower cash rate has passed through to banks’ lending rates, they remain elevated due to interest rates being above pre-pandemic averages (Graph 5).

The bottom panel of Graph 5 shows that mortgagees typically pay more than the minimum required. In response to high mortgage rates, extra payments rose above the pre-pandemic average by the end of 2024 (as a share of household disposable income), consistent with the incentive to save more when interest rates were high. But extra mortgage payments have now declined, which is possibly an early response to the easing in interest rates.

Household credit

Lending rates can affect household credit growth by influencing housing prices, borrowers’ ability and willingness to take on new debt, and the incentive to repay existing debt. This was evident as interest rates rose from 2022, with the subsequent decline in the ratio of household credit to household disposable incomes consistent with tight monetary policy (Graph 6).

Household credit growth picked up as interest rates declined this year and housing market conditions strengthened, which is consistent with an easing in financial conditions. However, the stock of household credit excluding offset balances is still falling relative to income and, by itself, doesn’t suggest that financial conditions are easy.

Business debt

The ready availability of funding at favourable spreads has supported the rise in business debt in recent years (Graph 7). Strong competition among banks and non-banks, healthy loan books and an improved economic outlook have underpinned the supply of credit to businesses. Large businesses have also benefited from low corporate bond spreads, with non-financial Australian corporations issuing bonds at record levels this year.

Business investment has historically had a weak direct relationship with aggregate business debt, as that investment is mainly internally funded and influenced by factors like profitability and economic conditions. Even so, strong business debt growth is consistent with a positive outlook by businesses and lenders. Credit growth also contributes to money supply growth, which can offer a timely – though imprecise – signal of trends in aggregate demand and inflation.

The indicators I’ve discussed add context and, together with neutral rate estimates, help to assess how tight or easy financial conditions are. However, these two building blocks cannot determine if a policy stance is appropriate for achieving the Board’s goals. This is because they do not account for all the factors that shape the economic outlook, including recent shocks and other cyclical influences. For that, we rely on the RBA’s economic forecasts.

Macroeconomic forecasts

When forecasting, we look at the current state of financial conditions and assume that the cash rate follows the path implied by market pricing. Our forecasts also incorporate a wide range of macroeconomic factors shaping the domestic outlook, such as conditions in major trading partners and Australian governments’ fiscal policies. This approach helps us to assess whether financial conditions are such that the Board’s inflation and employment objectives are likely to be met. If not, it implies that the Board might need to consider a different path for the cash rate than that implied by market pricing.

In addition to the market path for the cash rate, our forecasts assume the Australian dollar trade-weighted exchange rate remains at its current level. Several other financial variables also feed into the forecasts. For example, household consumption is influenced by housing lending rates, credit growth, and equity and housing prices (through wealth effects). The cost of capital, which incorporates business lending rates, feeds into models of non-mining business investment. Despite the inclusion of these measures, the models that form the starting point for our forecasts may not properly capture financial conditions, so judgement about this dimension is required – alongside judgement about macroeconomic factors.

For over a year, forecasts in the SMP have assumed the cash rate would gradually decline through 2025 and early 2026 before stabilising. The forecasts have implicitly reflected an assessment that financial conditions were restrictive and restraining demand. This was bringing demand and potential supply into better balance and easing labour market tightness. As a result, underlying inflation was expected to gradually return towards the midpoint of the 2–3 per cent target range. With the economy approaching balance, policy was expected to move towards a more neutral stance.

We can use model estimates to see how the outlook might change if the cash rate path were to deviate from the baseline. The red shaded area in Graph 8 shows projections for inflation and unemployment if the cash rate was 50 basis points higher or lower than the August SMP baseline. For instance, if the cash rate was 50 basis points higher (all else equal), inflation would be expected to fall below 2.5 per cent and be declining by late 2027, while unemployment would be expected to be around 4.5 per cent and rising. In summary, based on what we knew at the time, cash rate paths that deviated too far from the August SMP baseline would have been less likely to meet the Board’s goals for inflation and full employment.

However, our macroeconomic forecasts carry significant uncertainty. This includes uncertainty about our assessment of how tight or easy overall financial conditions are, which has been – and will continue to be – closely scrutinised. Historical forecast errors, illustrated by fan charts, show that the range of potential outcomes for underlying inflation and unemployment is very wide out beyond the near term (Graph 9).

Conclusion

It makes sense to use a number of different methods to assess financial conditions given the considerable uncertainty involved with each.

The first building block – the conceptual cornerstone if you like – is to compare the cash rate with estimates of the nominal neutral rate. Model-based estimates of the neutral rate suggest that financial conditions have been tight, working to restrain aggregate demand. Based on the market path, the cash rate is expected to sit within the wide range of central estimates of neutral over the coming period. However, even that range understates the uncertainty. And while neutral rate estimates are a useful cross-check, they are not a suitable guide to the near-term path of monetary policy.

Nevertheless, what neutral rate estimates suggest accords with a range of indicators of financial conditions. These indicators offer more timely evidence of monetary policy effects than measures like economic activity and inflation. Indeed, several indicators of financial conditions – including mortgage payments and housing credit growth – show early signs of responding to the easing in financial conditions this year.

Finally, the RBA’s macroeconomic forecasts are based on a range of financial indicators, including the expected path of the cash rate implied by market pricing. Our forecasts imply that the tightness in financial conditions has eased, which will help to keep the economy in balance in the period ahead, with full employment and inflation moving toward the centre of the target range. However, this outlook is subject to considerable uncertainty, and we will continue to reassess it in light of what the incoming data mean for the economic outlook and evolving risks.

Source: New South Wales – News

Just after midday on Friday 3 October, police were called to the intersection of Marion Road and Murdoch Avenue at North Plympton after reports of a crash between a Toyota sedan and a Nissan station wagon. 

A 29-year-old woman from Queensland, who was 22 weeks pregnant at the time of the crash, was a passenger in the Nissan station wagon.  She was taken to hospital for treatment, and sadly, the unborn child has died as a result of injuries sustained in the crash. 

Another passenger of the Nissan, a 64-year-old woman from Queensland, was also taken to hospital for treatment to minor injuries. 

Traffic Services Branch members are investigating the circumstances of the crash.

Superintendent Shane Johnson, Officer in Charge, Traffic Services Branch, said, “This is a devastating tragedy that highlights the fragility of life and the far-reaching consequences of road trauma. The loss of an unborn child in such circumstances is heartbreaking, and our thoughts are with the family during this incredibly difficult time.”

In Australia, the death of an unborn baby as a result of a road crash is included in the road toll if the mother is more than 20 weeks pregnant. As a result, this will be the 71st life lost on South Australian roads this year.

Anyone who witnessed the crash or has any dashcam footage and has not yet spoken to police is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or online at www.crimestopperssa.com.au

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Source: Murray Darling Basin Authority

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Thanks very much for coming along this morning. A couple of years ago we banned mobile phones in schools and we’re seeing the impact that they’re having, kids are more focussed in the classroom, kids are also having more fun in the playground, they’re playing with their mates rather than staring at their phone.

But when three o’clock comes the phone gets handed back or gets out of the bag and kids dive back in to the cesspit of social media. You can see that if you look at school students at bus stops around the country while they’re waiting to get the bus back home, and that’s why the action that the Government is taking to ban, to restrict access to social media for young people under the age of 16 is so important.

Education Ministers will meet on Friday in Queensland, and at that meeting we’ll be briefed by Anika Wells, the Communications Minister, as well as Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner, on the work that they’re doing, the preparations that they are making ahead of the implementation of this ban on the 10th of December. It’s important that they brief Education Ministers because it’s important that we’re able to help schools prepare for this big change.

It’s not the only thing that we need to do, and on Friday Education Ministers are also going to consider a report about the work that we need to do to help keep our kids safe at school from bullying. Bullying isn’t just push and shove in the playground or stealing someone else’s lunch money, it looks a lot different today than what it looked like back when we were at school. A big part of that is because of social media and because of the internet.

Nowadays the bully can follow you all the way home, and back into your home, and bully you on the phone or on the iPad in front of everybody, day and night. Bullying online means that everybody can see it, that you can feel like you can never escape it. It helps to explain some of the most tragic and heart wrenching examples that the people who have done this review have seen and heard from mums and dads whose children have taken their own lives because of it.

The evidence that we’re seeing tells us that about one in four young people tell us they’ve been bullied in the last few weeks at school or by school friends, that about one in two young people have been bullied online, and terrifyingly that 13 per cent of young people tell us that that online bullying involves someone telling them to kill themselves.

The eSafety Commissioner tells us there’s been a 450 per cent increase in the number of complaints to her about online bullying. This is getting worse, not better, and it needs action. It’s a national problem, it needs a national response.

That’s why earlier this year I appointed two individuals, Charlotte Keating and Jo Robinson, to lead work on a National Plan and that’s what I’ll present to Education Ministers to consider when we meet on Friday.

Happy to take some questions.

JOURNALIST: You mentioned bullying isn’t just about pushing and shoving, have you seen the numbers go down since social media was a thing?

CLARE: I’ve seen reports that tell us that bullying in the playground is a bit less but bullying online is a lot more. This is complex, this is hard. What parents are telling us is that a big part of the problem is schools not acting fast enough, that the sooner you can nip it in the bud the better.

What teachers are telling us is, “We need more support, we need more tools, we need more resources, we need more training”. So, these are all the sorts of things that we’ll consider as part of this report.

JOURNALIST: What training do teachers currently have to identify this behaviour in school?

CLARE: Yeah, I won’t pre empt what’s in the report because we’ll hand that down later this week, but there are some great programs that are implemented in schools right across the country. What we want to do is find the best and apply it right across the country.

JOURNALIST: I just wanted to ask you about the Instagram PG-13 ratings, would that help bullying in any way?

CLARE: Well look, what that shows is that the big tech companies can act to protect our kids if they want to, and the acid needs to be put on them to make sure that this ban on access to social media works. There are always going to be young people that get around it or attempt to get around it. There are young people that get access to alcohol today even though you’re not supposed to drink alcohol until you’re 18. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have laws to stop people selling alcohol to young people. I don’t expect this to be perfect, but I do expect it to make a difference and help to keep our kids safe, help to keep most of our kids out of the cesspit of social media. All the pressure is on parents at the moment, that are trying to get their kids out of this. The pressure needs to be put on companies like Instagram and all the other social media companies to help us out, help parents out, help our kids out.

JOURNALIST: And will you be training parents as well when it comes to identifying this behaviour?

CLARE: You mean on bullying or do you mean on social media?

JOURNALIST: On bullying.

CLARE: So just on social media, we’re not putting any responsibility on the parents here. The responsibility is on to Instagram and on to X and on to all of these social media companies that are providing social media access to young people right now.

In terms of bullying, parents are telling us, I guess, two things. They’re worried when their child walks through the school gate that they’re going to get bullied and they want to know what they can do to help protect their children, what they can do when their child tells them that they’ve been bullied by somebody else at school or online.

There are some parents that are also telling us, “If I get a phone call from the school and they tell me that my child, my son or my daughter is the bully, what do I do to change their behaviour to make sure that it stops?”

The people that have led this review for us have spoken to about 1,700 people across the country who have made submissions, they’re mums, they’re dads, they’re teachers, they’re students too. They’ve sat down and they’ve spoken to mums and dads who have lost their kids because they’ve taken their life because the bullying seemed inescapable.

And those mums and dads are telling them and they’re telling us that we’ve got to act quickly to nip this in the bud.

JOURNALIST: And just lastly, the report comes out by the end of the week but what sort of ages are most affected by both social media and by the pushing and shoving type of bullying?

CLARE: Well, it’s all ages. It’s primary school, it’s high school. There was a report on the weekend that made the point that you see this happening as young as 10, sometimes even younger, you know. I know from personal experience, not as a Minister, that this can happen really young.

What’s important is that children know what it is, can call it out, are not afraid to tell the teacher to tell the principal and that schools know what to do and act quickly. That’s what’s important here. That’s what this report is all about; making sure that we take national action and make sure that we set a standard that’s applied in every schoolyard.
Chloe.

JOURNALIST: Thank you, Minister. Obviously quite a lot covered there, I just wanted to ask you about Meta’s new PG-13 settings on Instagram. Do settings like that mean that the social media age ban is still warranted?

CLARE: Oh absolutely. Remember this ban is for young people under the age of 16. What this shows is that all of the claims by the companies that this is all too hard and won’t work and they can’t do anything is wrong, that they can. They just have chosen not to until this Government has put the pressure on them.

We’re doing this for a reason. Mums and dads across the country have told us they’re worried about their kids and what’s happening to them because of social media, because of the poison of social media, because of this cesspit that too many of our kids fall into and the impact that it’s having on their mental health.

It’s what young people are telling me as well. As Education Minister I’m in schools all the time. I’ve spoken to a lot of young people, 16 and 17, who tell me, “I wish this was in place earlier”.

But social media looks different today than it did even two or three years ago, that the algorithms mean that you just get fed the same stuff all the time and that you get sent down this rabbit hole that you feel like you can’t get out of. That’s why we’re doing this.

I said a moment ago we’re not expecting that things are going to be perfect, but we are expecting that this is going to help a lot of young people right across the country. And we’re not putting pressure on mums and dads to be the police of all of this, we’re expecting companies like Instagram, we’re expecting companies like Meta, to do their job and be part of the solution here, to help keep our kids safe.

JOURNALIST: Considering the timing though do you think that Meta’s rolling out these PG-13 settings to hopefully try and get out of the age ban?

CLARE: I don’t know about that. I think they’ve made comments about things like this a couple of months ago as well. There’s no getting out of it. This legislation has been passed. It’s being implemented on the 10th of December, and we want them to implement it and to deactivate the accounts of people under the age of 16.

They’ve got to be part of the solution here, and that means implementing this legislation.

JOURNALIST: Just finally, Minister, on the bullying report that’s coming out, you know, once that’s put into motion, how will you measure the success in reducing bullying?

CLARE: Well, the big part of success here is making sure that we turn words into action, that what is in this plan is properly implemented. And that’s the hard part, you know. We know how big a problem this is. The hard part is making sure that the standard we set is applied in every school across the country, whether it’s primary schools or high schools, whether it’s public schools or private schools.

And so, what I’m hoping on Friday is that Ministers agree to the recommendations in this report and that we agree to develop an implementation plan to see it implemented across the country.

JOURNALIST: That’s all for me, thank you, Minister.

CLARE: Thank you. We’ve got one more.

JOURNALIST: What would make the state Ministers not agree? Is there anything in the report that they  

CLARE: I’ve got a lot of confidence that they’ll agree. State Ministers, like me, see this all the time. They know how serious this is. Sorry, they know how serious this is and how important it is that we act. And this is not a report that is going to take them by surprise because they’ve worked very closely with Jo Robinson and Charlotte Keating, the authors of this report, and so Friday when we meet to discuss this report, it’s an opportunity for us to comb through the recommendations and then make a decision about implementing it right across the country.

Thanks guys.

Source: Murray Darling Basin Authority

NATALIE BARR: Australia’s school bullying crisis is reaching breaking point. So, this week, Education Ministers from around the country will come together to desperately work on a national plan to tackle this issue. It comes as reports of online bullying surge almost 500%. That’s in the last five years. It’s hoped the review will finally create a consistent nationwide response to protect our kids. It follows several tragic incidents of young Australians like 12 year old Charlotte O’Brien taking their own lives. For more, we’re joined by Federal Education Minister Jason Clare. Good morning to you.

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Morning, Nat.

BARR: Bullying a 500% increase, teachers resigning, young kids taking their lives. What do you think the answer is?

CLARE: There’s no single answer. What we know is that this is getting worse, not better. It’s not just push and shove in the playground, it’s not what it was when we were kids. And a big part of it is the internet, because now bullying can follow you home after school and you can cop it day or night. And what’s worse is it’s not just a comment to you or a couple of others in the playground. The whole world can see it. Which explains why in the most heartbreaking examples you’ve seen, people take their own life. Well, what we see in those statistics, Nat, is that about 50% of young people say they’ve been bullied online and 13% have been told to kill themselves online. That gives you an idea of the seriousness.

BARR: Horrific. And we often have people writing in; parents, grandparents, desperate, saying, “We’ve gone to the school, no one’s helping us, please help us”. So, what can you, as the heads of the Education Departments do?

CLARE: Yeah. Well, this review, which was led by two experts in this area, talk to parents exactly like that, including mums and dads whose children took their own life. So, we’ve got the, I guess we’ve got the benefit of their awful, tragic experience. And they’ve said that, they’ve said a big part of the problem is often that it takes too long after the bullying starts for the school to act. There are schools that do great jobs here, but this is a national problem. We need a national standard to how we go about it. So, parents are telling us schools have got to act really quickly, to nip it in the bud. Teachers are telling us that they need more tools or assistance about what to do and how to do it, and also better training about how they go about it. So, we’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, but trying to make sure that the best approaches are applied everywhere.

BARR: And everyone’s on the same page. Okay, let’s just quickly talk about social media and the ban coming up. We’re hearing this morning that teens, they’re smart, they’re crafty. We know that, we were once. They’re already finding loopholes. Dozens of accounts already have ‘account owned by Mum’, or they’re adding ‘plus Mum’. They’re putting their surname on, they’re putting images of their parents on their account. They’re moving to apps like Lemon8, which is a clone of Instagram. Do you think this ban is going to work or are they already ahead of us?

CLARE: There’s always going to be young people that try and get around it. There’s young people that can get access to alcohol, you know, at the moment.

BARR: Are there?

CLARE: Well, there certainly are. But we’ve still got laws that say you can’t sell alcohol to people under the age of 18. So, I think we’ve got to accept here, I don’t expect this is going to be perfect, but I do expect that it’s going to make a difference, that it’s going to help. All the pressure’s on mums and dads at the moment to get young people off social media. The pressure should be on the companies. And so that’s what this is about. We’re putting the asset on companies like Instagram saying “you’ve got the technology, you know what works, help us to help our kids”.

BARR: And then we’ve got to get heavy with them. Okay, Jason Clare thank you for coming in here.

CLARE: Thanks Nat.
 

Source: New South Wales – News

An eagle-eyed security guard monitoring cameras at the shopping centre allegedly spotted a knife in the man’s pocket just before 2pm on Wednesday 15 October.

Security tracked the man on camera and alerted police.

A Western District patrol approached the man, who was unaware of the recent changes in legislation.

The box cutter was seized, and the 48-year-old Port Adelaide man was arrested and charged with carry offensive weapon and breach of bail.  He was refused police bail and will appear in the Port Adelaide Magistrates Court tomorrow.

There were no threats or injuries during this incident.

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Source: Australian National Party

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Source: New South Wales – News

It will be alleged that about 11am on Tuesday 14 October, the Police Communications Centre received a call on the 131444 number from a man who began swearing and abusing the call centre staff member.

The call was terminated and the same man then began calling 131444 more than 70 times during the day and night.

About 5.20am today (Wednesday 15 October), patrols went to the man’s Hectorville home and arrested him for use carriage service in harassing or offensive way.

A few minutes after the 47-year-old man was bailed and released, he used a phone to call 131444 again, which was in breach of his bail conditions.

He was arrested again just outside the City Watch House and was again charged with use carriage service in harassing or offensive way, along with breach of bail.

He was refused bail.

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Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

The Northern Territory Police Force has arrested a 22-year-old man who absconded from NT Corrections custody earlier today in Tennant Creek.

Around 11:50am today, the man was located and arrested by local Tennant Creek police at an address in Ford Crescent.

He remains in custody and is expected to be charged in relation to this incident later today.

Source: Australian Capital Territory Policing

14/10/25

Source: New South Wales Community and Justice

Search continuing at Hollybank Forest Reserve today for missing Scottsdale man Peter Willoughby

Wednesday, 15 October 2025 – 3:07 pm.

Search and rescue teams returned to the Hollybank Forest Reserve area today, searching for missing Scottsdale man Peter Willoughby. 
“Search and rescue teams – comprising members from Tasmania Police, Tasmania SES, and Tasmanian Mounted Search and Rescue – returned to the Hollybank Forest Reserve area today, searching for 76-year-old Peter Willoughby who has been missing in the area since Sunday 5 October,” said Tasmania Police Northern Search and Rescue Inspector Nick Clark. 
Mr Willoughby was reported missing on the afternoon, after he went walking in thick bushland near Hollybank. 
“Today our search teams re-covered some of the terrain previously searched, and we also searched new areas to the south of Mr Willoughby’s last known location.” 
“Despite our extensive search efforts over the past ten days, sadly at this stage, we have not located Mr Willoughby.”   
“We remain determined to find Mr Willoughby, but given the length of time he has been missing, and the inclement weather conditions in the area, police hold serious concerns for his welfare.” 
Anyone who may have seen Mr Willoughby in the Hollybank area, or has information that could lead to his location, is asked to contact police no 131 444 and quote ESCAD 000192-05102025.