Premier Chris Minns says technology will be largest expansion of aerial shark surveillance in the world. Follow the day’s updates live

Labor has to get into an ‘arm wrestle’ with One Nation, Chris Minns says

Chris Minns was also asked about how Labor should respond to the surging poll numbers of One Nation. The New South Wales premier told Sky “we’ve got to get into the arm wrestle”.

People have got every right to vote for One Nation if they want to. And if they feel that they’re the best antidote or the best medicine for what’s ailing the state or the country, that’s exactly what they’ll do. Our job is to convince them otherwise and to say, well, this is our plan for the future.

The populist right or far right movement has swept through Brazil, Argentina, the United States, Hungary, Italy, perhaps France, maybe the UK. So we’d be pretty naive not to think that it could affect us here too.

One of my biggest gripes with what Hanson has been saying … is that she seems to be saying, if you support multiculturalism, then you’re also for Sharia Law, multiple marriages … that’s utter garbage. That’s not the view or the lived experience of people that live in Sydney, who grew up in Sydney … I wouldn’t support Sharia law or any of these insane ideologies in a place like Australia, but I do believe multiculturalism’s worked.

We now are in a situation where … we seen a reduction in the number of people who are enjoying our beaches and enjoying the Pacific Ocean, even in the winter period. So we know we want to take action … It’s not going to be foolproof. We can’t promise it won’t lead to further shark attacks in the future, but we think it’ll mitigate the risk.

They’re a protected species. They’ve been a protected species since the 90s, and I’m not convinced it would work. I mean, the distances these sharks travel are massive. It’s not like we can knock a few off and send a message to the rest of them …

I think it’s a different situation for bull sharks. Generally they’re in our estuaries … We’re looking particularly at an audit of the number of sharks in Sydney Harbour. We want to keep people safe, particularly when there’s a higher number of people in the water.

Continue reading...