Brisbane news live: LNP candidate’s Hitler joke ‘wrong’, says leader | Katters want corporal punishment

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli says LNP candidate Bree James’ decision to pose with a defaced portrait featuring an Adolf Hitler moustache was “wrong” and “not funny”.

The candidate for Barron River published a photo – since deleted – of the graffiti on Facebook on Saturday to promote a festival in Cairns.

“German Festival is on tonight at German Club Cairns til late tonight,” she wrote, wryly adding the event included “free facepainting”.

“Even my banner is getting in the spirit and celebrating my German heritage.”

Crisafulli was asked about the post at the LNP campaign launch in Ipswich on Sunday.

“It’s not [acceptable]. It’s disappointing, it’s wrong, it’s not funny,” he said.

“I’ve expressed my view to her very clearly. She has expressed remorse and genuine remorse. She knows my view.”

The trial for the second teenager charged over the death of mother Emma Lovell will begin today, after a judge ruled the case could not go before a jury because members of the community could be influenced by the debate over youth crime.

Lovell, 41, died in front of her husband and daughters during a violent home invasion on Boxing Day in 2022.

The other teenager has been sentenced to 14 years’ jail.

The second defendant, whose charges include murder and burglary, will appear for a judge-only trial under Justice Michael Copley.

The teenager’s legal team earlier this month successfully applied to have no jury in the case, saying Lovell’s death had become “something of a lightning rod for criticisms of the court system”.

Officers are investigating how two people were killed in a head-on crash near Caboolture on Sunday, with the driver of one vehicle assisting police with their investigation.

The 26-year-old man was driving in a Mitsubishi Pajero on the D’Aguilar Highway at Wamuran when police allege it and a Ford Everest station wagon crashed just before 3pm.

Two passengers in the Ford, a 58-year-old man and a 68-year-old woman, died at the scene. The driver, a 57-year-old woman, was flown to the Sunshine Coast University Hospital with life-threatening injuries.

The Pajero driver suffered minor injuries and was taken to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital for treatment, where he remains.

Police said he was continuing to assist with their inquiries and no charges had been laid on Monday morning.

The Brisbane Metro has officially welcomed customers onboard with the first service departing the Eight Mile Plains Busway station this morning about 6.30am.

As the vehicle glided to a stop along platform 1, more than 140 eager passengers piled onto the metro – double the length of a standard bus – to travel the busy 169 bus route between Eight Miles Plains and UQ Lakes.

The route services nine stations on the South East Busway, Eastern Busway and across the Eleanor Schonell Bridge, including Garden City, Griffith University, Greenslopes and the PA Hospital.

Passengers riding the 169 route from today are encouraged to give feedback on their experience via QR codes inside metros. This will help inform the next phase of the rollout – Metro 1 and Metro 2 – which is being negotiated with the state government.

Brisbane City Council transport chair Ryan Murphy was in Eight Miles Plains bright and early this morning to watch the first metro service arrive.

He described the metro as the “critical mass transport service” Australia’s fastest-growing capital city needed.

“Brisbane buses currently carry two-thirds of all public transport passengers and I’m confident the high-capacity, high-frequency Brisbane Metro buses will encourage even more people to ditch the car, helping to ease congestion and keep our city moving,” he said.

The nation’s peak business group will propose a $10 billion federal plan to build more homes and slash the cost of construction in an ambitious bid to revive a reform template from the 1990s to fix the housing crisis that takes aim at stamp duty and obstructionist local councils.

But the proposal, to be unveiled today, requires the federal government to set up a new fund to offer the financial incentives when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his colleagues are focused on $32 billion in other housing measures.

In a sign the proposal might find support within the government, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has talked in recent weeks about the need to “revitalise” national competition policy to help Australians with the cost of living.

The government has played down the prospect of changing the rules on investment properties by overhauling negative gearing and capital gains tax, but has also signalled more housing policies before the election because of the scale of the crisis.

The Katter’s Australian Party is calling for a return to corporal punishment in Queensland, as party leader Robbie Katter, Bob Katter’s son, campaigns befo re the state election.

Asked to respond to the proposal on Seven’s Sunrise, Nationals senator Matt Canavan joked that the online stories gave him “PTSD”, resurfacing memories of getting the strap in year 3.

“I think it should stay with parents. I don’t think teachers want this kind of responsibility,” Canavan said.

“I am not against parents giving the odd smack as long as it is in a reasonable way to children, but it should be up to the parents, not at the school grounds, I believe.”

Canavan then said he believed young Australians weren’t being disciplined enough.

“I think they don’t get the disciplining and they struggle from growing from the boy into the man and you have to realise there are consequences for bad conduct and the sooner you realise that, the better you will end up being.”

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek told Sunrise she was against the proposal.

“I think you would find it pretty hard to find teachers who got into teaching so they could hit kids,” she said.

“When it comes to parents, I got the occasional smack on the bum growing up and I think the much more effective times were when my parents talked to me about the consequences of my behaviour.”

Plibersek said it shouldn’t be completely up to the parents to decide on discipline because there are some parents out there who do the wrong thing.

“There are parents out there who burn their kids with cigarettes. You can’t just say anything goes in a situation like this,” she said.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli says LNP candidate Bree James’ decision to pose with a defaced portrait featuring an Adolf Hitler moustache was “wrong” and “not funny”.

The candidate for Barron River published a photo – since deleted – of the graffiti on Facebook on Saturday to promote a festival in Cairns.

“German Festival is on tonight at German Club Cairns til late tonight,” she wrote, wryly adding the event included “free facepainting”.

“Even my banner is getting in the spirit and celebrating my German heritage.”

Crisafulli was asked about the post at the LNP campaign launch in Ipswich on Sunday.

“It’s not [acceptable]. It’s disappointing, it’s wrong, it’s not funny,” he said.

“I’ve expressed my view to her very clearly. She has expressed remorse and genuine remorse. She knows my view.”

Brisbane is looking overcast as we kick off our blog this morning, but the Bureau of Meteorology predicts the sky will clear to be a mostly sunny Monday. We’re expecting a warm few days to come, with a top of 28 degrees today and temperatures in the low 30s later in the week.

Here’s how the week should pan out: