Speaker 1: Why on Sky News.
Speaker 2: This is Sharry Good Evening.
Speaker 3: Major news tonight as Tony Burke is forced to cancel
Speaker 3: the visa of a Hesbella supporter at the eleventh hour
Speaker 3: after our revelations. This as we further expose this preachers
Speaker 3: links to Australians our exclusive in a moment, Cyclone Alfred
Speaker 3: continues its terrifying approach towards Brisbane. We'll get full coverage
Speaker 3: from meteorologists and our reporters on the ground, and despite
Speaker 3: the natural disaster, Albanezi refuses to rule out calling the
Speaker 3: election this weekend.
Speaker 2: Matt Canavan and Adam Crichton will be here in a minute.
Speaker 3: Also tonight, Donald Trump's warning to her mus after meeting
Speaker 3: with hostages in the White House. First, let's have a
Speaker 3: look at this major national security story. The Home Affairs
Speaker 3: Department has canceled the visa of a pro Hasbela preacher
Speaker 3: at the eleventh hour after our relations last night. Who's
Speaker 3: saying Mackie was set to arrive in Australia within days
Speaker 3: fresh from attending the funeral of terror Lada Hassan Azrala,
Speaker 3: he called one of the world's greatest freedom fighters. If
Speaker 3: you missed our report last night. Here's some of the
Speaker 3: inflammatory content Mackie's posted online.
Speaker 4: Palestinian history. When things go very quiet and everyone seems
Speaker 4: to think that it's all over, people come out to resist.
Speaker 4: Palestinians come out to resist. But you know, my favorite
Speaker 4: Shohada are always right at the back. That I love
Speaker 4: to go to their graves because when I sit down
Speaker 4: next to their graves, there's no name, because they really
Speaker 4: reflect self annihilation in God, sacrifice and blonde and martyin
Speaker 4: them and defending the week, and mother's saying goodbye to
Speaker 4: their sons and a wife is saying goodbye to their husbands.
Speaker 4: That's what it looks like on the side that's inspired
Speaker 4: by Calabala today contempt.
Speaker 3: Despite all of this, and despite praising Nasrallah and attending
Speaker 3: his funeral, Mackie was set to arrive for a speaking
Speaker 3: tour of Melbourne and Sydney any.
Speaker 4: Day now, a couple of days, I'll be in Melbourne
Speaker 4: and Sydney and I'll see all you guys there in Shulah.
Speaker 3: Well after our report last night, there was outrage in
Speaker 3: the Jewish community that former Israeli government minister IoLET Shakhed
Speaker 3: had her visa canceled but not this Heswela supporting preacher.
Speaker 3: The Australian Jewish Association said, so a senior former minister
Speaker 3: from Israel's most diverse government is banned by Labor, but
Speaker 3: a pro terrorist Islamic preacher is welcomed to Australia. By now,
Speaker 3: everyone knows that Labour would sell their grandmothers for a
Speaker 3: few extra Western Sydney votes.
Speaker 2: But this is next level.
Speaker 3: And Jewish community advocate Marnie Peerlstein said, please explain Australia
Speaker 3: how IoLET Shakhed, former Israel Minister of Justice, was denied
Speaker 3: a visa to Australia, but Hussein Macki, who just attended
Speaker 3: Hesblaalider Hassan Nasrala's funeral, gets to come and do us
Speaker 3: speaking to her, we called on Home Affairs Minister Tony
Speaker 3: Burke last night to cancel this visa in the interest
Speaker 3: of social cohesion and national security. But Tony Burke told
Speaker 3: us last night, well, Mackie's been to Australia before. But
Speaker 3: then today we confirmed that Home Affairs the Department has
Speaker 3: now canceled his visa.
Speaker 2: Macki will not be arriving in Australia now.
Speaker 3: To be clear, I've since learned that this was a
Speaker 3: decision that Tony Burke.
Speaker 2: Had nothing to do with. It was made by his department, and.
Speaker 3: Tony Burke wouldn't even comment on this today, despite the
Speaker 3: fact he spoke in quite strong terms about Alette Shakehad's
Speaker 3: visa ban. He said that he was concerned she'd undermine
Speaker 3: social cohesion. But nothing from Tony Burke today on this
Speaker 3: visa conselation, not one comment.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Macki declined to respond to our questions yesterday, but then
Speaker 3: today he posted to social media that he was the
Speaker 3: subject of a smear campaign. He said Sky News ran
Speaker 3: a smear campaign against me to get me banned from Australia,
Speaker 3: and he complained about Zionist accounts tweeting Tony Burke non
Speaker 3: stop to pressure him, et cetera, et cetera, and encouraged
Speaker 3: his followers to contact Tony Burke. But when I contacted
Speaker 3: Hussain Macki yesterday, he did get my questions and he
Speaker 3: blocked me from his Instagram account.
Speaker 2: He just didn't answer them, didn't respond.
Speaker 3: Now, over the past two weeks we've exposed a collection
Speaker 3: of pro Hasbilist supporters in Australia and now tonight we
Speaker 3: can reveal the connections between Mackie another Australians. Here's Maki
Speaker 3: with one Australian who we revealed attended the funeral of
Speaker 3: Nasrallah Hassan Jeba. That image was taken in Iraq, we
Speaker 3: believe in August last year. As you may recall from
Speaker 3: our reporting last week, Jaba was prominent at pro Palestinian
Speaker 3: rallies here in Sydney. Then here's Maki with Aberd al
Speaker 3: Majid Mortada. This image was taken in Australia in July
Speaker 3: last year, and Mortada also attended Nasralla's funeral recently. Then
Speaker 3: another one, here's Maki with Ishak Zaan And if you
Speaker 3: can see your screen closely, the caption on that image,
Speaker 3: taken from social media says brother for Life. We believe
Speaker 3: that was also taken last year in Iraq. And finally,
Speaker 3: here's Maki cutting the hair of a HESBLA supporter who
Speaker 3: lives in Australia known online as Akisabra, and he also
Speaker 3: attended Hassan Nasrala's funeral in Lebanon, tagging me in the
Speaker 3: post so that I know he was there. There are
Speaker 3: many other Australians that Maki has connected with and will
Speaker 3: continue to investigate and expose this issue now. Shadow Home
Speaker 3: Affairs Minister Senator James Patterson called last night for Maki's visa.
Speaker 2: To be canceled.
Speaker 3: He said no one who attended Nasralla's funeral should be
Speaker 3: welcome in Australia well now tonight. Patterson says this raises
Speaker 3: questions about the other Australians who attended the funeral.
Speaker 5: What is being done about the Australian citizens who were
Speaker 5: identified again by Sky News attending Hassan Israela's funeral in
Speaker 5: Lebanon several weeks ago. Some of them have now returned
Speaker 5: to Australia. What is being done about them? Are they
Speaker 5: being investigated for associating with the listed terrorist organize? Why
Speaker 5: didn't the government use the temporary exclusion powers to keep
Speaker 5: them offshore while those investigations could take place?
Speaker 3: And He's right the visa cancelation is an acknowledgment that
Speaker 3: attending an event organized by a terror group is a problem.
Speaker 3: As your Director General Mike Burgers said just last week
Speaker 3: that attending overseas terror events would be concerning.
Speaker 6: As a security service, I'd be regardless of whether it's
Speaker 6: listed or not. If they were going to an event,
Speaker 6: whether were vile extremists or known terrorists, we would be
Speaker 6: interested as Australia's security service.
Speaker 3: Yet we still haven't heard anything from Tony Burke about
Speaker 3: what is going to do with the individuals that we've reported.
Speaker 3: We've named and shamed them, we've exposed them who attended
Speaker 3: the funeral. Tony Burke has been accused of having a
Speaker 3: clear conflict of interest here.
Speaker 2: He elected of Watson, has a.
Speaker 3: Large Muslim community who he needs to vote him back
Speaker 3: in as he comes under pressure from the Muslim Votes movement.
Speaker 2: But he's also Home Affairs Minister.
Speaker 3: He's in charge of all of our national security. He's
Speaker 3: in charge of counter terrorism and Hezbelah is a listed
Speaker 3: terror organization, whether he likes it or not, so his
Speaker 3: department had to take action here today.
Speaker 2: But you compare his lack of.
Speaker 3: Leadership with what we're seeing right now. In the United States,
Speaker 3: President Donald Trump met with some former hostages in the
Speaker 3: Oval Office in this emotional meeting.
Speaker 7: You will take it to roddor Vison Earth.
Speaker 8: So this hell and just the worst thing that anybody
Speaker 8: can go through.
Speaker 1: By other days, they handcuff one of the boys that
Speaker 1: is with us.
Speaker 2: Emily Kine and.
Speaker 5: Akata and Kata's heir.
Speaker 1: And smile.
Speaker 2: They used to eat in front of us. Well they
Speaker 2: stopped us.
Speaker 9: It's a miracle, the family out of yourself.
Speaker 8: Believe you've been sent by a island.
Speaker 7: It's recently.
Speaker 8: Thank you. Thanks here were good for you. We're alive,
Speaker 8: freakly for girls. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 8: I've never had anything like this.
Speaker 10: I mean, I've saved a lot of people, but I've never.
Speaker 7: Seen anything like this where you lived under those conditions.
Speaker 2: What a powerful meeting.
Speaker 3: And as you heard there, many of the hostages thanked Trump,
Speaker 3: saying that they believed if it weren't for him, they'd
Speaker 3: still be in captivity. You can't even compare Trump's moral
Speaker 3: leadership to that of our hopeless ministers like alban Easy
Speaker 3: and Burke. Trump was clearly deeply moved and troubled by
Speaker 3: the stories of torture and starvation that he heard, because
Speaker 3: after that meeting, Trump sent the strongest possible warning to Hammas.
Speaker 3: He wrote, Shalom Hammas means hello and goodbye. You can
Speaker 3: choose release all the hostages now, not later, and immediately
Speaker 3: return all of the dead bodies of the people.
Speaker 2: You murdered, or it is over for you.
Speaker 3: Only sick and twisted people keep bodies, and you are
Speaker 3: sick and twisted. He said, I'm sending Israel everything it
Speaker 3: needs to finish the job. Not a single Hummus member
Speaker 3: will be safe if you don't do as I say,
Speaker 3: and he went on. That is unwavering solidarity. That is
Speaker 3: unwavering moral clarity. This is what we've been missing from
Speaker 3: international leadership since October seventh, and we need more of it,
Speaker 3: particularly in Australia. Now tonight, we're on standby for Cyclone
Speaker 3: Alfred to hit in the next twenty four hours. Millions
Speaker 3: of families in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales
Speaker 3: are anxiously waiting for the once in half a century
Speaker 3: cyclone to make landfall overnight Friday. Meteorologists say this will
Speaker 3: be the worst storm in seventy years, and defense and
Speaker 3: rescue vehicles are on standby.
Speaker 11: Two thousand sees volunteers in the northern rivers, two hundred
Speaker 11: essential energy electricians and winesmen who are ready to reconnect power,
Speaker 11: massive resources from fire and rescue, the Australian Defence Force on.
Speaker 3: Site, the Bureau of meteorology say winds are already high tonight,
Speaker 3: with large swells and powerful way, some as high as
Speaker 3: twelve meters. There's also predicted to be in total over
Speaker 3: eight hundred millimeters of rainfall and this could lead to
Speaker 3: both flash and riverine flooding, and both of which could
Speaker 3: be life threatening.
Speaker 11: I've just been brief that overnight there was a wave
Speaker 11: recorded off the Gold Coast off main Beach of twelve
Speaker 11: point three meters.
Speaker 2: Now we've never seen a wave that large.
Speaker 5: This could mean totals of over eight hundred millimeters for
Speaker 5: this event.
Speaker 9: In terms of flooding, that rainfall is expected to produce
Speaker 9: both flash and riverine flooding, and both of these types
Speaker 9: of flooding can be life threatening.
Speaker 3: And speaking of flooding, we're already seeing videos like this.
Speaker 7: Holy Now.
Speaker 3: The cyclone was originally meant to make land for overnight tonight,
Speaker 3: but its movement has slowed and it's now set to
Speaker 3: hit the coastline overnight tomorrow. Our Sky News meteorologists were
Speaker 3: ahead of the game. If you're watching last night, you
Speaker 3: would have seen Rob Sharp tell us on air that
Speaker 3: the cyclone would arrive at twenty four hours later then
Speaker 3: forecast and now that's.
Speaker 2: What the Bureau is saying officially as well.
Speaker 3: Its movement has been described as erratic and here's where
Speaker 3: it's expected to first hit Australian shores between Noosa and
Speaker 3: cool and Gata early in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Speaker 3: After that, its current trajectory shows it moving west after
Speaker 3: it did stall this morning. Now, while the cyclone movement
Speaker 3: has slowed, this doesn't affect its impact, and it could
Speaker 3: even mean that the impact would intensify.
Speaker 2: We just don't know for certain yet.
Speaker 3: The wind speeds are expected to reach highs of one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty kilometers an hour for gusts of wind
Speaker 3: and ninety five kilometers per hour at the center of
Speaker 3: the cyclone. The entire city of Brisbane and much of
Speaker 3: southern eastern Queensland and northern New South Wales is basically
Speaker 3: now in lockdown, with families told to stay indoors. Supermarket
Speaker 3: shelves have been stripped bare as a resident stock up
Speaker 3: ahead of the storm, with predictions that power and even
Speaker 3: running water could be cut off. There are an estimated
Speaker 3: four and a half million people potentially in Cyclone Alfred's path,
Speaker 3: and all flights in and out of Brisbane have now
Speaker 3: been canceled. Five thousand homes on the Gold Coast lost
Speaker 3: power this morning, and ten thousand homes across the Northern
Speaker 3: Rivers region are without power. Now we're going to cross
Speaker 3: live to our reporters on the ground and get the
Speaker 3: latest from meteorologists about how Alfred is tracking. In a moment,
Speaker 3: all right, let's bring in now Senator Matt Canavan and
Speaker 3: Adam Crichton, who's now joined the Institute of Public Affairs,
Speaker 3: still a columnist at The Australian. Great to see you back
Speaker 3: in person from the United States before we start. Well,
Speaker 3: to start with, you're in Queensland right now, you're not
Speaker 3: in the direct firing line of Alfred. But what is
Speaker 3: the mood like on the ground.
Speaker 2: In your state?
Speaker 12: Oh, look Shore, I think some people are a bit anxious.
Speaker 12: Of course, it's not normal for cyclones to be this
Speaker 12: far south, although it it does happen from time to time,
Speaker 12: but most people in living memory probably haven't been through one.
Speaker 12: So it's a bit anxious for people, I suppose for
Speaker 12: us up here in North Queensland, it's a common occurrence.
Speaker 12: I'm confident that Queenslanders will get through this. With that
Speaker 12: more northern track. Now the cyclone apparently should hit the
Speaker 12: mainland at least there's maybe a lower speed, although we
Speaker 12: don't know where it's going to go exactly, but if
Speaker 12: that happens, the wind shouldn't be too high. I think
Speaker 12: the bigger issue for Brisbane. Traditionally when cyclones do hit
Speaker 12: Southea is Queensland the biggest issue. The bigger issue is
Speaker 12: the flood and the rain afterwards, and we probably we're
Speaker 12: going to get a lot of rain in that catchment
Speaker 12: and it is one that can flood. Now at least
Speaker 12: that's something that can be dealt with with some warning
Speaker 12: and people just need to stay safe and out of
Speaker 12: those waters. But it can lead to a lot of
Speaker 12: damage and a big clean up. So I'm sure the
Speaker 12: whole country will be there. As they have with other
Speaker 12: Brisbane floods, people recover.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think it is. You know, a lot
Speaker 3: of people are very concerned about how it's going to hit.
Speaker 3: There's also, of course, the question of whether Alban Easy
Speaker 3: will delay calling the federal election. He was poised to
Speaker 3: do that this Sunday and he was pressed on this
Speaker 3: issue today by my colleague Kieran Gilbert.
Speaker 10: You couldn't call an election in the face of a
Speaker 10: natural disaster like this.
Speaker 1: That's just not going to.
Speaker 10: I mean that will that would be a tinner which
Speaker 10: you don't have.
Speaker 1: That couldn't happen, surely, Kieran.
Speaker 7: I'm focused on, not on votes. I'm focused on lives.
Speaker 7: I'm focused on Australians and Australians showing our character at
Speaker 7: this debuil time. You know what I've been focused on,
Speaker 7: Kieran is governing. We have a budget that we're prepared
Speaker 7: for and we put out the time.
Speaker 1: Sounds like you're delivering the budget.
Speaker 7: Well, we put out the timetable of that last year, Kieran.
Speaker 3: Don't you like Kieran's framing of that question. That would
Speaker 3: be a tinier if you call the election this weekend,
Speaker 3: which I know you don't have. I don't know he
Speaker 3: doesn't have a tinier. Good on KG for pressing him
Speaker 3: on that.
Speaker 2: Adam.
Speaker 3: It doesn't sound like the Prime Minister's ruled out.
Speaker 2: Calling the election if he did, especially.
Speaker 3: With the cyclone hitting on Saturday. I mean Matt sounded
Speaker 3: a bit calm, but it could be catastrophic.
Speaker 2: We just don't know. I mean, he can't go to
Speaker 2: the polls.
Speaker 13: Yeah, Look that's certainly right. I think the preference for
Speaker 13: the government is not to have a budget on the
Speaker 13: twenti fefth of March because they don't want to crystallize
Speaker 13: all of the bad economic data, and so the preference
Speaker 13: is the trongth of March. But if it's a yes,
Speaker 13: so that's what I'm meant twelve April. But if the
Speaker 13: storm is very very bad, and that sadly seems very
Speaker 13: possible at the moment, then yes, he can't call an election,
Speaker 13: and so therefore it's more likely to be on the
Speaker 13: third of May or the seveneenth of May, which is
Speaker 13: a full term.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 13: One of the other depressing things about this storm is
Speaker 13: all the lefties are jumping on it as an example
Speaker 13: of climate change, when I think the most empirical most
Speaker 13: empirical evidence suggests that the severity of these cyclones over
Speaker 13: time has actually been declined. Cyclone Alfred actually, and you
Speaker 13: know it's worth pointing out to it actually has a
Speaker 13: man's name, which is interesting. I thought all these storms
Speaker 13: are used to have women's names. Maybe this is DEI
Speaker 13: in meteorology.
Speaker 1: I don't meant to have Anthony.
Speaker 3: He meant to Anthony exactly that's exactly right. This was
Speaker 3: meant Anthony was the next name on the list, but
Speaker 3: then I suppose they didn't want to politicize a cyclone,
Speaker 3: so they.
Speaker 2: Took the next name, which is Alfred.
Speaker 3: But Adam makes an interesting point because initially cyclones were
Speaker 3: all women's names until nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 13: That's right, of course, you know famously Cyclone Tracy. This
Speaker 13: has also been a phenomenon in the US as well,
Speaker 13: where they used to have women's names and now they
Speaker 13: have men's names.
Speaker 2: It's DEI hitting the weather system. I'm not against it.
Speaker 2: It's fine, it's fine. Good, good to hear, Adam.
Speaker 3: And hopefully you aren't against these lockdowns, because of course
Speaker 3: against them.
Speaker 13: There's a sensible lockdown, sensible laws. I'm not going to
Speaker 13: last two hundred days.
Speaker 2: I hope no.
Speaker 12: Right alo on that I mean, I mean, Shari, the
Speaker 12: people have been the businesses. University has been closed since Wednesday.
Speaker 12: It's been perfectly fine in Brisbane. I do think there's
Speaker 12: a post COVID people are just a bit too quick
Speaker 12: to do this.
Speaker 1: I've spoken to small businesses today or pulling the hair.
Speaker 12: Out, I mean they suffer right like their businesses have
Speaker 12: been smashed. These last few days were perfectly fine weather
Speaker 12: in Brisbane, while big businesses public servants of course don't
Speaker 12: bear that cost. And I don't know, it just seems
Speaker 12: again for us up here in North Queens it's a
Speaker 12: bit strange to do that well ahead of a cyclone hitting.
Speaker 1: It's no that probably going to hit till Saturday. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know. Look, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: fear around there.
Speaker 12: I hope people don't get over anxious. It's something people
Speaker 12: should be able to live through if they take reasonable precautions.
Speaker 1: That's all we need to do.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: Well, let's have a look at this statement that the
Speaker 3: Chinese Embassy in the US put on x today. They said,
Speaker 3: if war is what the US wants, be it a
Speaker 3: tariff war, a trade war, or any other type of war,
Speaker 3: we're ready to fight to the end. Well, Trump's new
Speaker 3: Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth responded, have.
Speaker 14: A look, we're prepared. Those who long for peace must
Speaker 14: prepare for war. That's why we're rebuilding our military. They
Speaker 14: don't seek that war. We will, and the President has
Speaker 14: sought historic peace and historic opportunities. But my job is
Speaker 14: the Secretary of defense is to make sure we're ready.
Speaker 3: I mean, Matt kind of and I'll start with you
Speaker 3: on this, but China is basically threatening war there and
Speaker 3: at the same time we have Chinese worst warships circumnavigating
Speaker 3: our coastline.
Speaker 2: This is alarming.
Speaker 12: Look, I also think this is something we shouldn't overreact to.
Speaker 12: I mean, what Pete Hegseth said is pretty normal that obviously,
Speaker 12: all countries should put themselves in a position to prepare
Speaker 12: for the worst, prepare for conflict outcome. That's why you
Speaker 12: have a Department of Defense. But the Trump in particular,
Speaker 12: President Trump in particularly being very clear he doesn't want war.
Speaker 12: He wants to be a peacemaker. So I don't think
Speaker 12: anything is imminent per se. But that does raise the
Speaker 12: question are we ready for the worst outcome? Obviously, as
Speaker 12: I say, any Department of Defense, any ministry of defense,
Speaker 12: should be doing that.
Speaker 1: But it seems to me that in the last few.
Speaker 12: Years, particularly under this labor government, we've we've been using
Speaker 12: the excuse, the.
Speaker 1: Fig leaf of Ucust.
Speaker 12: To hide the deficiencies in our defense forces exist Today.
Speaker 12: August is very important. It's a good thing we're doing it,
Speaker 12: but that's going to take decades. There are things we
Speaker 12: need to do right now that are being deferred, like
Speaker 12: the purchase of the joint strike fighters that we will
Speaker 12: bring back, and instead of doing that, it's just, oh,
Speaker 12: we're doing aucust, but that's the years away.
Speaker 2: Adam, What do you think about this?
Speaker 13: Yeah, look, I think matters right. I think that we've
Speaker 13: dropped the ball on our defense spending for a very
Speaker 13: long time.
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 13: For instance, my understanding is the government hasn't even said
Speaker 13: where the submarine base on the East Coast is going
Speaker 13: to be, and even when they decide, that's going to
Speaker 13: take ten years to actually build a thing.
Speaker 2: So we need to do that urgently.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 13: Look, the most famous front page for me from the
Speaker 13: Australian last year was when we only had one operational
Speaker 13: sub in the water, just one submarine to defend the
Speaker 13: entirety of Australia. That's completely absurd. And yet the political
Speaker 13: conversation here is just so focused on stuff what I
Speaker 13: would say is irrelevant in relation to our defense. I mean,
Speaker 13: I think trumps selection and I think the understandable perception
Speaker 13: that the US may be a more fickle ally in
Speaker 13: the future really stresses that we need to get our
Speaker 13: own house in order on defense.
Speaker 3: I don't think that perception is accurate, but I agree
Speaker 3: that the message is, you know, we need to increase
Speaker 3: our defense spending absolutely all right, Adam Crichton and Matt Canavan,
Speaker 3: thank you both very much for joining me. All right,
Speaker 3: let's get straight back to cycloon Alfred now and joining
Speaker 3: me is meteorologist from Sky Newswather Alison Osborne. Allison, thanks
Speaker 3: for your time. Look how is olfread tracking right now?
Speaker 3: As we got to air Shari.
Speaker 10: Since the system made quite an erratic stall for much
Speaker 10: of this morning, it has readopted it east It's Westwood
Speaker 10: Track rather towards the southeast Queensland coast. This evening it
Speaker 10: has retained its strength. It's a Category two system, but
Speaker 10: the impacts are already being felt. We've seen damaging wins
Speaker 10: impact parts of the Byron region in northeastern New South Wales,
Speaker 10: bringing down power lines as we can see here in Balana.
Speaker 10: And at the same time, wave heights have been on
Speaker 10: average between seven and nine meters off the southeast Queensland
Speaker 10: coast and definitely that has resulted in abnormally high tides
Speaker 10: swallowing beaches fairly dangerous conditions there looking at the rain radar,
Speaker 10: we can see wave after wave of showers they've rolled
Speaker 10: on through on that leading edge of tropical Cyclone Alfred today.
Speaker 10: But it's that wall of water we can see out
Speaker 10: to see that is what is coming. If we zoom
Speaker 10: out and take a look at the current tropical cyclone
Speaker 10: warning that has not changed. Gale force winds underway are
Speaker 10: expected within twenty four hours between Double Island Point in
Speaker 10: Queensland and Grafton Inn.
Speaker 3: At New South Wales, so landfall is looking later than
Speaker 3: it was initially forecasts. We're now looking still in the
Speaker 3: early hours of Saturday morning. So what does that mean
Speaker 3: for everyone in the path of the storm.
Speaker 10: Similar impacts are expected to originally forecast sharrow, but there
Speaker 10: is the risk that the rain event to follow may
Speaker 10: be prolonged exacerbatesating that risk. Now we're still tracking a
Speaker 10: coastal crossing between Nooser and cool and Gatta close to
Speaker 10: Brisbane in the early hours of Saturday morning. This will
Speaker 10: put the most destructive winds and the heaviest rains south
Speaker 10: of that system, firmly south of Brisbane at this stage,
Speaker 10: so around the Gold Coast and the Byron Coast. So
Speaker 10: we're watching for destructive winds and heavy rain. Twenty four
Speaker 10: hour rainfall totals in this region could reach up to
Speaker 10: four hundred and fifty millimeters and destructive winds could exceed
Speaker 10: one hundred and fifty five. Damaging winds are very far
Speaker 10: reaching right down to the Coffs coast during Friday and
Speaker 10: Saturday the fallout and what is prompting evacuation orders right.
Speaker 2: Now flood warnings.
Speaker 10: With major flood warnings now current for the Northern Rivers
Speaker 10: and the mid North, we're likely to see that flooding
Speaker 10: really start to build from Friday night.
Speaker 3: Charry, all right, Allis and Osborn from Sky News Weather,
Speaker 3: appreciate your time, and after the breakwcross live to Brisbane
Speaker 3: to see how the city is preparing ahead of the cyclone.
Speaker 2: Will be with Sky News reporter Harry Clark. That's coming
Speaker 2: up in a minute.
Speaker 3: Okay, welcome back, and let's go straight now to the
Speaker 3: suburb of Cleveland on Brisbane's Bayside. A cycle on Alfred
Speaker 3: keeps moving towards the city. Sky News report Harry Clarke
Speaker 3: is with me, Harry. What's it like on the ground
Speaker 3: at the moment?
Speaker 9: Sharry, Well, right now, I've said it a few times,
Speaker 9: but then you know, change my tune a bit. Today
Speaker 9: it's the calm before the storm. But I said that
Speaker 9: earlier today and then all of a sudden it whips
Speaker 9: up and then calms back down again. But right now
Speaker 9: at Cleveland on Brisban's Bay side, there's just a very
Speaker 9: slight drizzle of rain and no wind, which was unlike
Speaker 9: the conditions were just about half an hour ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw you on with Chris Kenny earlier this evening.
Speaker 3: How are locals feeling on the ground. Are people afraid?
Speaker 3: Are they anxious? What's the general sentiment?
Speaker 9: I think a little bit anxious, But people don't seem
Speaker 9: really concerned or fearful of this weather event, Sharry. People
Speaker 9: in southeast Queensland have been through severe weather events before.
Speaker 9: Obviously there was floods as recently in recently as twenty
Speaker 9: twenty two in Brisbane and then that huge flood in
Speaker 9: twenty eleven. So it's not uncommon to be getting orders
Speaker 9: and regular updates from the Bureau of Meteorology and Weather
Speaker 9: in government authorities about staying off the roads, keeping inside,
Speaker 9: preparing your properties, sandbagging, that kind of thing. But it's
Speaker 9: very rare for a cyclone to actually hit in southeast
Speaker 9: queens then they're common, of course up in the tropics,
Speaker 9: up in the far North and North Queens then, but
Speaker 9: this is a rare event. I haven't seen a cyclone
Speaker 9: since ninety three. There was a small one in the
Speaker 9: northern parts of Brisbane, and then back in the fifties
Speaker 9: for the Gold Coast and then the nineteen seventies for Queensland.
Speaker 9: So people are just anxious to see how it unfolds.
Speaker 9: But I don't think people generally are too alarmed about
Speaker 9: how dangerous or destructive it might become.
Speaker 2: And I think that's the thing.
Speaker 3: Because it is further south than normal put people wouldn't
Speaker 3: be they wouldn't exactly know what to do to prepare.
Speaker 3: We've just been seeing on the screen vision of people's
Speaker 3: sandbaggings and they've been cues hours and hours long, people
Speaker 3: waiting to collect sand to protect their property. So for
Speaker 3: many people, they will be getting ready to face this
Speaker 3: cyclone for the first time in their lives. Harry, stay
Speaker 3: safe from the ground and thank you for the update.
Speaker 3: Now we do have a shorter program tonight. We've got
Speaker 3: Caroline Marcus's documentary Fair Game, The Fight.
Speaker 2: For women's sport coming up now.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for watching this week, and I'll
Speaker 3: see you again Monday at eight pm.