Police investigating alleged online threats to third Sydney mosque – as it happened

WA police have confirmed the pilot in the earlier reported crash in Ogilvie WA – a man in his 60s – has died.

He was the sole occupant of the plane. Australian Transport Safety Bureau officers will investigate the cause of the crash.

We’ll wrap up the live blog for a Friday evening here. This is what made the news today:

• NSW police say investigations are under way after online threats were allegedly made to a third Sydney mosque.

• A number of flights between Australia and Bali have been cancelled after Mount Lewotobi in eastern Indonesia erupted late yesterday.

• The department of employment and workplace relations secretary, Natalie James, has paused more cancellations and deductions of people’s jobseeker payments, amid a legal review.

• The man accused of the domestic violence murder of Molly Ticehurst has been mentally assessed and will face court again later in the year.

• A teenager who allegedly tried to force his way on to a Jetstar flight at a Victorian airport with a shotgun before being dramatically overpowered by passengers has been charged with attempting to hijack the plane.

• Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie has called for an independent inquiry into whether the state’s aquaculture companies are selling diseased salmon to the public after a bacterium outbreak caused a mass mortality event at fish farms south of Hobart.

• International students have little to no impact on the Australian rental crisis and are being “politicised” by Labor and the Coalition, new research suggests.

• Allegations of children being sexually abused, left restrained in high chairs for hours and receiving substandard meals have prompted a parliamentary inquiry into the childcare sector.

• The Liberals Against Nuclear group – established by Liberal supporters who are against the party’s nuclear energy plan – are continuing to call on the party to abandon the “unpopular” policy.

• Libby Mettam says she will not continue as Western Australian Liberal party leader but will seek to stay on as deputy, after it became clear she lacked the support of party colleagues after another significant election defeat.

• Victoria passed its tough new bail laws following a mammoth sitting that stretched into the night.

• The long-awaited competition watchdog’s report into the big supermarkets says the retailers raised prices in the cost-of-living crisis to help them become among the most profitable in the world.

Until next time, have a good day.

Former deputy PM’s chief of staff settles with government

The deputy prime minister’s chief of staff, Jo Tarnawsky, has settled her lawsuit against the government, the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, and the prime minister’s chief of staff, Tim Gartrell, after alleging that she was punished for raising a bullying complaint and naming a colleague as an alleged perpetrator.

The case, launched in November, was settled by a confidential settlement, Tarnawsky said in a statement late on Friday.

I came to work at Parliament House in 2022 shortly after the delivery of the Jenkins Review. The government pledged to ‘Set the Standard’ and announced a series of reforms that promised to make the parliamentary workplace safer for staffers like me. Like many, I had high hopes. But my experience has shown that much work remains to be done.

Employees should feel safe to raise workplace concerns with their employers without fear of reprisal. Regrettably, that was not my experience. To obtain resolution, I had to embark on public and traumatic litigation. It is a relief to finally close this chapter and move on with my life.

Speaking up comes with many costs but so does choosing to remain silent. When I look at what is happening in the world right now, holding firm to your values and standing up for what you believe in matters more than ever.

Tarnawsky said she will end 20 years in service of the Australian government and she is proud of her work. She thanked friends, family, colleagues, and her legal team.

21 Mar 202502.40 EDT

Elias Visontay

Displaced Qantas passengers to be bussed to London from Paris due to Heathrow closure

Qantas will bus displaced passengers from Paris to London after several of its flights were forced to divert due to the closure of Heathrow airport.

On Friday, Qantas’s Singapore-London QF1 and nonstop Perth-London QF9 flights landed at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport in the early hours of the morning, local time, after a fire at a substation near Heathrow airport – Qantas’s London destination – that has closed the airport for the entirety of the day and caused havoc across global aviation.

A Qantas spokesperson said passengers would now be bussed to London.

“Our Singapore-London and Perth-London services were diverted to Paris today, with buses arranged to take customers on to London,” the spokesperson said.

“Our teams are working hard to support impacted customers and we thank them for their patience,” the spokesperson said.

Qantas’s QF10 flight from London to Perth has been cancelled for Friday, with customers to be accommodated on other flights. Friday’s QF2, from London to Singapore, will also likely be affected.

Airlines are grappling with a “logistical nightmare”, aviation expert Neil Hansford told the Guardian. Because of the large volume of flights displaced by the closure of Heathrow’s five terminals, London’s other airports are likely unable to absorb all of Heathrow’s operations.

This is expected to lead to aircraft landing at airports where airlines don’t have replacement staff, and without sufficient jet fuel to be refueled.

Penny Wong meets Ukrainian World Congress president

The foreign minister, Penny Wong, says on X she met with the Ukrainian World Congress president, Paul Grod, who is in Adelaide, “to reaffirm Australia’s commitment to maintain pressure on Russia to end its illegal and immoral war”.

Saturday protest planned against Brisbane Olympic stadium plan

A protest rally will be held in Brisbane on Saturday to oppose an Olympic stadium at inner-city Victoria Park after reports it will be a long-awaited 2032 venue plan’s centrepiece, AAP reports.

Brisbane’s infrastructure blueprint is yet to be revealed almost four years after the city was named host, sparking questions for 2032 boss Andrew Liveris from the International Olympic Committee.

The committee urged Liveris to confirm the venue plan at a meeting in Greece overnight, telling him “the sooner the better”.

But Liveris has allayed fears at the gathering that elected Kirsty Coventry as the committee’s first female president.

With 2032 infrastructure to be unveiled on Tuesday, Liveris assured the committee it would deliver a positive way forward after venue speculation played out in the media.

If you’re reading the Australian media, you will know of the ongoing discussion and debate about legacy infrastructure and venues.

Whatever you’re reading, please understand we are being consulted. We are at the centrepiece of the conversation.

This three years has not been wasted ... I am very positive about the way forward.

Opposition to a Victoria Park stadium is expected to bubble over at a protest rally on Saturday.

Campaigners including former premier Campbell Newman had already sent a letter to the Queensland government claiming Brisbane would be embarrassed on the world stage if it “destroyed” heritage-listed Victoria Park to build a stadium.

They are now planning the protest rally as the countdown begins for the long-awaited venue reveal.

Severe thunderstorm warning for parts of NSW

The Bureau of Meteorology is warning of severe thunderstorms for parts of the mid north coast and northern tablelands of NSW.

Andrew Leigh says he hopes US tech companies don’t interfere in Australia’s election

The assistant minister for competition, Andrew Leigh, tells ABC’s Afternoon Briefing he hopes the tech companies, including Elon Musk’s X, don’t intervene in the federal election, following US tech companies lobbying the Trump administration on Australian media law.

We ought to be running an election which is free of foreign interference and one which is a contest of ideas. I hope that in every single election.

You don’t always see it but we need to remember that goal and that the Australian democracy really is an extraordinary creation. We are a great democratic innovator and part of that innovation is ensuring we can have a contest of true ideas and strong policies and I really hope the Liberal and Nationals actually start coming up with some of those policies because I think it is good for the nation when we have competing policy portfolios, not just a government with a big agenda and strong ideas against an opposition with hot air and a bunch of slogans.

He said the government was prepared to take on the tech companies.

The social media minimum age laws that were passed through last year were a marker of that and the news media bargaining code ensures that those platforms which benefit financially from great journalism make a financial contribution towards it. These are sensible measures which don’t seek to curtail the platforms that many of us use and benefit from but which recognise that in a modern economy, we need the results to advance to keep pace.

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Light plane reported to have crashed in Western Australia

WA police say a light plane has crashed in Ogilvie, around 47km north of Northampton.

The incident was reported to police at 11.15am local time after a member of the public saw a plane wreckage near Ogilvie Road west.

The pilot is believed to be the only person onboard, and the level of injuries is currently unknown. Emergency services are on the scene, and there is a 70m exclusion zone around the wreckage.

21 Mar 202500.54 EDT

Teenager charged with allegedly attempting to hijack plane at Victoria's Avalon airport

Elias Visontay

A teenager who allegedly tried to force his way on to a Jetstar flight at a Victorian airport with a shotgun before being dramatically overpowered by passengers has been charged with attempting to hijack the plane.

On Friday, Victoria police announced that its illicit firearms squad had last week served an additional four commonwealth charges on the 17-year-old over the 6 March incident, when officers from the local police station were called to Avalon airport – which does not have a permanent onsite law enforcement presence.

The latest charges include attempted hijack, assault member of airline crew, prejudice the safe operation of an aircraft with intent to kill.

Police had previously charged the youth with multiple offences including unlawfully taking control of an aircraft, orchestrating a bomb hoax and possessing a firearm.

The matter remains before the court.

The teenager allegedly tried to climb the front stairs into the plane cabin but was noticed, by passengers, carrying the shotgun and subsequently overpowered by three civilians, police said earlier this month.

Passenger Barry Clark said he tackled the male who was allegedly dressed as a maintenance worker when he became agitated while speaking to the flight attendant.