One Nation leader welcomed by far-right figures including Tommy Robinson and Rupert Lowe.

The Victorian government has announced it will reimburse passengers who incurred additional costs during disruptions to the state’s regional rail services caused by the Telstra outage.

In a statement last night, the premier, Jacinta Allan, said the government would pay back affected passengers and expected “Telstra to match it, dollar for dollar”.

The state government has also committed to funding two days of free travel on V/Line.

Allan said it was “completely unacceptable that so many Victorians were stuck without an essential service for so long”.

“Telstra should compensate Victorians and help make sure it never happens again … Australians have endured too many major outages – and it’s always country people who bear the brunt,” she said.

Trains across the state are now returning to service and triple zero is continuing to conduct welfare checks.

Good morning, and happy Friday – Nick Visser here to take over and round out the week. Let’s get to it.

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