🔵 Are you being lied to?

HEARD THIS WEEK👂

💬 “A disservice to our future”: Climate disinformation is a coordinated attack on communities

Local surfers banding together to protest gas exploration off their coast. Grandmas pushing for a liveable world for their grandchildren. Local residents looking for quality information on the environment.

All have been targeted in the past decade by coordinated disinformation campaigns actively working to mislead Australians.

What happened: Last week, the Australian Senate handed down its final report from an inquiry into climate misinformation and disinformation.

The report, backed by Labor, the Liberals, the Greens and David Pocock, found that inaccurate and misleading information about climate change and renewable energy was being circulated intentionally, with the purpose of causing confusion in communities and eroding trust in scientists.

What does it look like?: “It doesn't look like anything, that’s the problem,” Brendan Donohoe told the Lorikeet. Donohoe is a local surfer who has been involved in campaigns for cleaner oceans and against gas exploration off the coast of the Northern Beaches.

• “If you don't wanna believe in climate change, there's plenty of misinformation that will bolster that view; that’s the real problem,” he said. “Disinformation, essentially, is comforting to a lot of people … but it is really a disservice to our future. We need good information. We need good media.”

Read the full article below.

🪨 More than 20 years after the gates closed, Hornsby Quarry is now a park

Hornsby Quarry has sat empty for more than 20 years, an artefact of industry long gone from the upper North Shore.

What happened: On Saturday, parts of the old quarry were opened to the public as “Hornsby Park”. The area surrounding the old crusher plant - where basalt was smashed into gravel - is now coated with lawns and dotted with picnic shelters, and there is a lookout over the quarry void.

This is the first stage of the site's revitalisation.

If you interested in the park or the history of the site, read our full article here, or watch our short video on Hornsby Quarry below.

🏉 “Do or die” for TG Millner Field, as mayor urges locals to get involved before it’s too late

The debate about TG Millner Field has been bubbling away for nearly a decade, but we are entering the final stretch.

Locals have less than three weeks to make their feelings known about the home of Eastwood Rugby, ahead of the NSW Government deciding whether to allow a 132-residence development to proceed.

Read the full story below.

LOOKING NATIONALLY 👀

🔴 Brave or crazy? Labor minister tests the waters on expanding parliament

What happened? The Prime Minister has poured cold water over a plan to expand the federal parliament.

Special Minister of State Don Farrell has been pushing to grow the size of the House of Representatives (lower house), telling the National Press Club on Monday:

“Roughly every 40 years there’s been a re-evaluation of representation. Increasing the size of parliament is what great Labor leaders do.”

Growing pains: The Australian parliament was expanded twice, in 1948 and 1984, both times under a Labor government.

Since the 1980s, Australia’s population has risen from about 15.6 million people to an expected 28 million this year.

MPs have gone from representing roughly 66,000 voters per seat in 1984 to about 120,000 in 2026.

The cost: A 2024 Parliamentary Budget Office report said expanding parliament by 40 MPs - 16 new senators and 24 new lower house MPs - would cost an extra $596 million over seven years from the 2027–28 financial year.

Read the full story below.