Brisbane News Live: The well-connected Qld weapons company; Palmer car museum gets nod; Barty sad for de Minaur

Former Maroons lock Corey Parker says the decision to recall Dane Gagai to the Queensland team is a masterstroke.

Parker, who played in Gagai’s debut in the Origin decider in 2015, said coach Billy Slater knew what the outside back was capable of doing in front of a home crowd at Suncorp Stadium.

“Dane Gagai played 22 straight Origins and is the only player to win the Wally Lewis Medal (for player of the series) as a winger in State of Origin, which he did in 2017,” Parker said.

“The reason he is such a good Origin player is because he understands the enormity of the jersey he is wearing and takes it super personal.

“Dane wants to rip, tear, fight and do whatever he needs to do to win an Origin game and you see that in the aggressiveness with how he plays.

“His Maroons performances have always been top shelf based on the fact that he never wants to let the jersey or his teammates down in the Origin arena. He understands and gets why Origin is what it is. That is also my understanding from playing alongside him.”

A snap curfew imposed on Alice Springs has worked, the city’s mayor says, but has called for longer-term solutions to address issues in the community.

Renewed clashes in Alice Springs threatened to extend a three-day, snap curfew that was imposed, with police arresting five people on yesterday following a feud in the town’s centre.

A decision is yet to be made on whether to extend the curfew, in which access to the CBD is barred from 10pm to 6am unless people had a valid reason to be there.

Alice Springs Mayor Matt Paterson indicated the curfew had “worked in the CBD” but has been “pushing crime out into the suburbs”.

“Ultimately, the community gets to have a breath while there’s extra resources and police in town,” he told ABC TV today.

However, he said imposing constant curfews in response to crime was not the permanent solution to issues.

“This is 30 years of policy on the run that’s got Alice Springs and central Australia to where we are, and it’s decisions driven out of Canberra and Darwin,” he said.

“There is a vision for a long-term plan, and I think that that is welcomed.

“But what we need to do is speed that process up, because there will be no requirement for a long-term plan if these things continue in Alice Springs, because it will drive good residents out of the community.”

The Somerset region will be home to Australia’s biggest car museum, after the council approved a development application by controversial businessman Clive Palmer.

The former politician in June abandoned plans to build a huge vintage car and motorcycle museum on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, withdrawing his planning application to transform his Palmer Coolum Resort at the 11th hour before councillors were due to vote, amid community backlash.

However, on Wednesday, Somerset Regional Council approved the billionaire car-enthusiast’s museum on West Road, Patrick Estate, just south of Lake Wivenhoe, a 1½-hour drive west of Brisbane.

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In the dead of night, a lion mauled in a territorial brawl and limping thanks to a poacher’s trap that years earlier ripped off part of a leg, entered Kazinga Channel in Uganda and swam for more than a kilometre through waters defended by hippos and infested by crocodiles.

A thermal drone camera operated by a Queensland biologist’s research team hovered above. The researchers who captured the extraordinary crossing by the lion, named Jacob, alongside his brother, Tibu, have now reported it was the longest-ever swim by lions on record, smashing the previous distance of 300 metres.

The event not only contributes to the epic legacy of Jacob, a lion whom Griffith University’s Dr Alexander Braczkowski has studied for years; it’s also a key illustration of the extreme lengths the world’s remaining wild creatures are taking to survive.

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Ash Barty is “broken” for Alex de Minaur but believes he will bounce back better than ever from the disappointment of withdrawing from his first Wimbledon quarter-final.

De Minaur revealed on Monday he suffered a hip injury during his four-set win over France’s Arthur Fils, but it was not until two days later that news emerged he had suffered a tear and was unable to take to centre court to face Novak Djokovic.

Barty, 28, and de Minaur, 25, shared the Newcombe Medal six years ago, and developed a strong friendship and mutual respect during their rise to the top of Australian tennis and now the world game.

The 2021 Wimbledon champion, who is yet to speak to de Minaur since his withdrawal, backed her fellow Australian to return to his best once he was fit again.

“You could see how much it means to him. Like he said, this was the biggest match of his life,” Barty said.

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Telstra’s decommissioning of its 3G network and shift to 4G is not delaying the ability to use a debit or credit card, mobile phone or smartwatches to pay for a bus ticket in south-east Queensland, Translink says.

Instead, the COVID-19 pandemic caused international supply chain problems, “tripling standard delivery timeframes” and meaning bus trials will begin “later this year”, Translink said.

Queensland Transport’s $371 million Smart Ticketing system, which has been rolled out since 2019 as a replacement for the Go Card, was meant to be in place by 2022.

Smart ticketing allows commuters to buy adult tickets on trains and ferries, and on the Gold Coast light rail, but still not on buses.

Translink and project supplier Cubic are still identifying “technical complexities” that are stopping the Smart Ticketing readers on 2600 buses from “working effectively” across different geographic locations.

Cubic declined to answer questions.

The recent Queensland budget added $22.8 million to finish the rollout.

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It’s partly cloudy today with some fog and a maximum temperature of 23 degrees.