Four teens arrested after car chase involving allegedly stolen BMW in Melbourne’s CBD, police say
Victoria police say they have arrested four teenage boys after a car chase in Melbourne’s CBD this afternoon in which a pedestrian was struck.
In a statement, police said they saw a BMW being driven erratically on the Eastern Freeway in Doncaster about 12.30pm and followed it into the CBD.
A woman was struck on Exhibition Street who was taken to hospital for observation with no life-threatening injuries, police said.
Police said the BMW, which they believe was stolen from the Boroondara area yesterday, was dumped a short time later on Bourke Street Mall, where the four boys fled on foot.
They were arrested a short time later outside a shopping centre on Lonsdale Street, police said.
Two 17-year-olds, a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old from the Bendigo and Yarra Ranges areas were being interviewed as of 2.45pm, police said.
Key events
Woman’s family finally gets answers more than 13 years after she disappeared
More than 13 years after a vibrant and “fiercely free-spirited” young woman disappeared without a trace, a coroner has found she was killed by her controlling lover, AAP reports.
Leisl Smith, 23, was last seen alive on CCTV getting into a white ute at Tuggerah railway station on the NSW Central Coast in August 2012.
The vehicle belonged to her accused killer, James Church, who was charged with her murder and faced trial 10 years later.
But the trial verdict was sealed after Church died by suicide on the eve of it being delivered in the NSW supreme court in July 2022.
Smith’s family have now finally received answers to painful questions about what happened to the vibrant 23-year-old after the inquest findings were handed down. Coroner Harriet Grahame determined Smith died by homicide at the hands of Church before midnight on August 19.
Although a body has never been found, the coroner found it was likely the 23-year-old was killed at a remote location in the NSW Upper Hunter region.
Four teens arrested after car chase involving allegedly stolen BMW in Melbourne’s CBD, police say
Victoria police say they have arrested four teenage boys after a car chase in Melbourne’s CBD this afternoon in which a pedestrian was struck.
In a statement, police said they saw a BMW being driven erratically on the Eastern Freeway in Doncaster about 12.30pm and followed it into the CBD.
A woman was struck on Exhibition Street who was taken to hospital for observation with no life-threatening injuries, police said.
Police said the BMW, which they believe was stolen from the Boroondara area yesterday, was dumped a short time later on Bourke Street Mall, where the four boys fled on foot.
They were arrested a short time later outside a shopping centre on Lonsdale Street, police said.
Two 17-year-olds, a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old from the Bendigo and Yarra Ranges areas were being interviewed as of 2.45pm, police said.
Catie McLeod
Hi, I hope you’ve had a nice day so far. I’ll take you through the rest of this afternoon’s news.
Nick Visser
That’s all from me. Catie McLeod will be your guide for the rest of the arvo. Take care!
Former Optus CEO gets new top job at Australian Unity
Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, the former CEO of Optus, has been named the new chief executive of Australian Unity after she resigned from her previous post in 2023 amid criticism over the company’s handling of a national outage.
Bayer Rosmarin will begin her role on 15 December after a transition period alongside current head Rohan Mead. The chair of Australian Unity, Lisa Chung, said in a statement:
A dynamic and adept contemporary business leader, Kelly possesses the values alignment and credentials to advance the group’s vision of positively impacting the wellbeing of its members, customers, employees and the community.
Bayer Rosmarin resigned at the end of 2023 in the wake of the nationwide outage, which took down phone and internet services for close to 14 hours. Optus was ultimately fined $12m over the matter.
Multiple people arrested in Melbourne CBD after police pursuit
Victoria police arrested a number of people in the Melbourne CBD this afternoon after a pursuit.
Police said in a statement they would provide more information when it comes to hand, but added “there have been no injuries during the incident and there is no threat to the community”.
Aerial footage obtained by the ABC appeared to show a white car stopped near tram tracks near the city’s Bourke Street Mall.
Eva Corlett
Dismay in New Zealand after government fails to recognise Palestinian statehood
Opposition parties, Palestinian groups and a former prime minister have expressed dismay over New Zealand’s decision not to recognise Palestinian statehood, saying it places the country on the wrong side of history and puts it at odds with its traditional allies.
Last week, the UK, Canada, Australia and others formally declared their recognition of statehood ahead of a special UN conference in New York. As of this month, 157 of the 193 UN member countries have recognised a Palestinian state.
It had been anticipated that the New Zealand coalition government would follow suit, particularly in light of previous comments from prime minister Christopher Luxon and other senior ministers that recognising statehood would be a matter of “when, not if”.
But during his address to the UN general assembly on Saturday, foreign affairs minister Winston Peters said while New Zealand was committed to a two-state solution, it would not yet recognise the state of Palestine.
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Three charged with murder in WA after missing man’s body found in bushland
Two men and a woman have been charged with murder after the body of a missing 33-year-old man was found in bushland during an intensive police search, AAP reports.
Police deemed the disappearance of Jayden Stewart Selfe suspicious and launched an intensive search of a bush area and a residential property in Perth for clues. Officials said they had “grave concerns” for Selfe’s welfare and believed his last known contact with people known to him was in May 2025.
Police said Monday they had found Selfe’s body after a two-week search.
A 42-year-old man from Banksia Grove, a 40-year-old man from Attadale and a 39-year-old woman also from Attadale have been charged with murder.
They have been remanded in custody to appear before Perth magistrates court on Monday.
Chalmers backs communications minister’s trip to New York
Chalmers hit back at opposition leader Sussan Ley’s criticisms that communications minister Anika Wells travelled to New York during Albanese’s visit to the UN general assembly.
Anyone who knows minister Wells knows that she would have been taking her responsibilities in the Optus matter very seriously at the same time as she advanced on the global stage our world-leading new regime to protect kids in social media.
It’s possible to do both of those things at once, and that’s what Anika has been doing.
It’s not surprising that the opposition leader will be playing politics with something like this.
Chalmers says government is holding Optus to account after triple-zero outages
Chalmers was asked about the latest string of triple-zero outages after Optus said this morning nine calls in the Dapto region of NSW failed. The telco said an issue with a mobile phone tower affected calls made between 3am and 12.20pm on Sunday.
Chalmers said:
Optus is accountable for the outage that we saw on the 18th of September, and also what’s happened with the tower in New South Wales. The government’s holding it to account. We have directed ACMA, the communications watchdog, to investigate.
This can’t happen again. This is an absolutely shocking failure from Optus, and the most appropriate course of action for the government to take to get to the bottom of this is to ask ACMA to conduct a very thorough investigation.
Chalmers added Australians shouldn’t lose faith in the triple-zero system, saying the government will sort out what went wrong.
Chalmers says Australians should be ‘proud’ after final budget outcome shows $17bn improvement over pre-election outlook
Treasurer Jim Chalmers and finance minister Katy Gallagher are speaking about the release of the final budget outcome, which shows a deficit of $10bn. That’s more than $17bn better off than the forecast at the pre-election outlook.
Chalmers said:
We’ve been able to achieve this outcome because we have found savings, we’ve shown restraint, we’ve banked upward revisions to revenue, we’ve kept unemployment low, we’ve got real wages growing again, and you can see the dividends of all of that in the final budget outcome.
This gives us one of the strongest budgets and economies in the G20. Australians should be proud of the progress that we’ve made in our budget and in our economy – but we acknowledge, as a government, that there is more work to do.
