Breakfast News Briefing - 5 August 2025

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello from the Amplifying newsroom. I'm Ashley Nolan. Federal police
have charged a woman from China with foreign interference. The
woman accused of spying on a Buddhist group in Canberra.
It's the first time a foreign national has been charged
with targeting members of a specific group. Stephen Nutt from
the AFP counter Terrorism Group says we can all do

(00:22):
our bit to keep Australia safe.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
One of the best defenses to foreign interference is increased
community awareness to the threat and reporting is off suspicious
activity to authorities.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
The ACT is experiencing its worst flu season yet, already
exceeding the total number of cases reported in all of
twenty twenty four. Last year, the territory recorded four eight
hundred and thirteen cases in total, but we've now recorded
four thousand, nine hundred and forty one cases as of
the end of July twenty twenty five, takes over from

(00:57):
twenty twenty four as the worst year on record for
flu cases. The Canberra Airport Northern Road has been given
the green light despite concerns over the critically endangered Cambra
Grassland's earless dragon that lives in the area. There are
a bunch of conditions around the road's approval, including limits
to how much grassland can be cleared and funds set

(01:19):
aside for the breeding and protection of the dragons, but
conservation groups say it's not enough to make up for
the lost habitat a heads up for all motorists who
frequent King's Avenue Bridge as maintenance works get underway, lane
closures have been scheduled until the fifteenth, with both northbound
and southbound lanes alternating enclosures between nine thirty am to

(01:43):
three thirty pm. During that time, speed limits will be
reduced to forty k's an hour. Act Shelter is calling
on the government this National Homelessness Week to invest into
more social and affordable housing. CEO Kurndobson says every night
there's around seventeen hundred Camberans who are receiving support from

(02:04):
homelessness services.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
The social housing has declined its proportion of overall housing.
We see more than three thousand people on the waiting
list for public housing and that just means that people
who find themselves in that situation where they're at risk
of homelessness, business or they are homeless, there isn't that
pathway into housing.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Our Local Tourism Leaders Forum has welcomed a forty six
million dollar cash injection into the ACT economy from Somemonats
thirty seven. A new economic impact report that looked into
the event held in January also found eighty one percent
of attendees would likely attend Somemonats again next year. Chair
of the Canberra Tourism Forum, David Marshall says the money

(02:46):
spreads right across the ACT community.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
Generating forty six million dollars means that businesses right around
the Act benefit and so you're looking at not only
at accommodation and restaurants, but obviously takeaway food places. You're
looking at petrol stations. Whole array of industries benefit from this.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
And that's the latest of news. We'll have another update
for you right here later today