Australia news live: renewable rebound adds 7GW to grid; new search for Samantha Murphy

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One in 10 people are waiting more than three weeks for a doctors appointment, new data reveals, with the Australian Pharmacy Guild urging Australians to turn to their services for everyday health needs.

The president of the guild, Trent Twomey, appeared on ABC News Breakfast this morning. He said pharmacists were now providing short courses of antibiotics for uncomplicated UTIs, vaccinations and prescriptions for hormonal contraception.

There’s a range of everyday common health conditions that are unnecessarily blocking up our emergency departments and contributing to those wait times to see our precious general practitioners.

We would love to see more GPs. Who doesn’t love their local family doctor? My wife and I and our children certainly do. But we all know how difficult it is to not only find one, find one that bulk-bills, but find one that hasn’t closed their books and can take an appointment. That’s not just in the bush, that’s in our major capital cities as well, whether it’s after 6pm or on a weekend, when your local pharmacy is open.

Good morning and many thanks to Martin Farrer for kicking things off for us. I’m Caitlin Cassidy and I’ll be with you on the blog today. As always, you can reach out at caitlin.cassidy@theguardian.com or via socials.

Victoria police renew search for remains of missing Ballarat woman Samantha Murphy

In March, a 22-year-old man was charged with murder in relation to the disappearance of Murphy, who vanished on 4 February.

Police said they undertook a “targeted search” in the Ballarat area on Tuesday as part of the investigation, with the search to resume this morning.

Samantha Murphy, who went missing in February. Photograph: Victoria police

Murphy’s family have also been advised of the search.

Detectives from the Missing Persons Squad as well as a range of specialist resources from across Victoria Police, New South Wales Police and The Australian Federal Police were involved in the search.

Since February, police have regularly undertaken a range of enquiries and small-scale searches as part of the current investigation. We are not in a position to supply further specific details of today’s operational activity at this time. Police ask that members of the public do not attend the search at this time.

The next question you ask Google could return with a detailed answer penned by artificial intelligence. The tech giant revealed plans to expand its Google Search AI Overviews product to Australia on Tuesday, testing whether the summaries it creates will encourage users to click on more links.

Google’s AI Overviews, which have been tested in the US since May, use the company’s generative AI tool Gemini to summarise search results for users.

The AI tool is commonly used to respond to open-ended or complex search queries, Google product search senior director Hema Budaraju told AAP, where it can summarise steps, research, or suggestions on other websites.

This could include tips on how to clean a couch, for example, or steps to solve a maths problem.

A very small percentage of users will see the AI overviews by default in their search results on a subset of queries where we believe these overviews make the results even more helpful.

The tool famously suffered errors in early testing when AI-generated summaries told users to add glue to cheese to make it stick on pizza and to eat one small rock a day. The dangerous advice was based on an old Reddit comment and a satirical news article, respectively.

University of the Sunshine Coast computer science lecturer Dr Erica Mealy said the mistakes highlighted the challenge of using a large language model to explain issues rather than to correct or suggest words.

-AAP.

‘The opposite of climate action’?

Yesterday the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, approved three coalmine expansions in a step described by conservationists as reckless and “the opposite of climate action”.

When Anthony Albanese’s government came to power in 2022 it declared that, after decades of disaster and neglect, the environment was going to be a top priority.

Energy future under debate

The Australian Energy Market Operator has declared the national grid would remain reliable as it shifted from running on mostly coal to mostly renewables, but it would require planned investments in new generation to be delivered “on time and in full”.

Bowen said the Coalition’s proposal to limit investment in large-scale renewables and eventually build nuclear plants would ensure this did not happen.

“[Opposition leader] Peter Dutton wants to stop renewable investment, tear up contracts for new renewable and transmission projects, and deliver expensive nuclear reactors in two decades time,” he said.

Dutton gave a speech on nuclear energy on Monday, but did not release new information about what the Coalition planned. He promised those details – including the expected cost for households and businesses and how the Coalition planned to prevent blackouts as ageing coal plants reached the end of their scheduled lives – before the next election.

Data shows renewables ‘on track’: Bowen

The climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, said the data showed the national grid supplying the five eastern states was expected to run on 42% renewable energy this year. He said it showed its plan was “on track and building momentum”.

Dylan McConnell, an energy systems researcher at the University of New South Wales, said the data showed the transition to a cleaner power grid was progressing.

“There is this narrative that has developed that the transition has stalled and that’s demonstrably not true,” he said. “It is happening, it just needs to speed up.”

Australia expected to add 7GW of renewable capacity this year

Renewable energy investment and construction across Australia has rebounded beyond what had been forecast this year after slumping in 2023, but will need to accelerate further to reach the pace needed to meet the Albanese government’s goal for 2030.

Australia is expected to add more than 7 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity to the nation’s grid this year, up from 5.3 GW last year, according to data released by the Clean Energy Regulator. The new capacity is split roughly equally between large-scale solar and wind farms and small rooftop solar systems, mostly on homes.

The regulator said final investment decisions were made on 1.8GW of new large-scale developments in the first half of the year.

This surpassed the 1.6GW in total commitments in 2023, when investment decisions crashed to the lowest level in years, in part due to a long-standing legislated federal renewable energy target reaching its capacity and uncertainty over when coal-fired power plants would close.

The Albanese government chose not to expand the legislated target, but has promised to underwrite 25GW of new large-scale solar and wind as they aim to have 82% of Australia’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

Welcome

Good morning and welcome to the rolling news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with some of the headlines from overnight before my colleague Caitlin takes over.

A boost in renewable technology investment has been spruiked by the climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, as evidence that wind and solar power in Australia trumps a plan for nuclear energy. The Clean Energy Regulator said yesterday that it was expecting an average of more than 40% of the energy grid to come from renewable energy in 2024.

Victoria police are launching another search this morning as part of their investigation into the alleged murder of Samantha Murphy, who went missing in Ballarat in February.

Over the past three decades, Australia’s immigration system has come up with at least 25 different visa types to help people forced from their homes by humanitarian emergency, according to refugee advocates. This huge variation lays bare the complexities of the issue but also the iniquities. Read Rafqa Touma and Ben Doherty’s interview with Hassan Elhassan, a Sudanese-Australian working two jobs to support his family, who are denied much help despite fleeing a civil war:

More coming up.