Ex-Parramatta council chief executive Gail Connolly and other staff allegedly targeted people for reprisals, while some workers were surveilled

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

A New South Wales anti-corruption inquiry is investigating whether three friends in powerful positions at a western Sydney council, who called themselves the “Pink Ops”, subverted recruitment and promotion processes to benefit friends.

The NSW Independent Commission against Corruption (Icac) held its first day of public hearings on Monday into allegations concerning Parramatta council’s former chief executive Gail Connolly, as well as council employees Roxanne Thornton and Angela Jones-Blayney and other staff.

NSW police called to incident in Maroubra amid reports of offensive comments made at under-12s game

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

A woman has been charged with using offensive language after alleged antisemitic comments were made at a children’s netball match involving a Jewish-led team in Sydney.

New South Wales police said it was called to netball courts at Heffron Park in Maroubra just after 10am on Saturday, after reports a woman had made offensive comments towards a group of people at an under-12s game between the Maccabi and Saints netball clubs.

Davis, 32, arrested on Wednesday and charged with inciting hatred and causing fear. Arrest comes after police criticised at royal commission into antisemitism

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Prominent neo-Nazi Joel Davis has been charged with alleged hate speech following a protest by the National Socialist Network outside New South Wales parliament.

About 60 members of the now-disbanded group stood in formation on Macquarie Street on 8 November last year, allegedly holding a large banner that read: “Abolish the Jewish lobby.”

Chris Minns’ chief of staff launched legal action to avoid giving evidence. Since the court ruled in his favour, others are doing the same

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Witnesses are refusing to appear before New South Wales parliamentary inquiries due to a recent court ruling, in a move labelled as having a “completely unacceptable” impact on public interest investigations.

In December, the NSW court of appeal ruled that provisions of the Parliamentary Evidence Act allowing for arrest warrants were invalid on the basis that they impaired the court’s institutional integrity.

Chris Minns says technology has been ‘weaponised against women, and our laws have not kept pace’

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

After their marriage of 25 years deteriorated and his wife expressed a desire to leave, a man in regional New South Wales bought a GPS tracking device from an auto parts retailer.

He used it to monitor her movements for the month, and up to at least the day before he shot and killed her, and then turned the gun on himself.

State’s police minister says buyback ‘doesn’t focus on keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists and criminals’, leaving NSW only clear supporter of plan

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Queensland has rejected key recommendations from the Bondi royal commission’s interim report, insisting plans for a national gun buyback will not keep weapons “out of the hands of terrorists and criminals”.

The report, handed down by commissioner Virginia Bell on Thursday, raised doubts about whether efforts to establish a national gun register after the 2022 police killings at Wieambilla in Queensland had been “unduly leisurely”. Bell recommended the federal government and the states speed up a jointly funded weapons buyback scheme.

Transition and legal handover of hospital from private operator Healthscope to NSW Health occurs at 7am on Wednesday

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Sydney’s Northern Beaches hospital is officially entering the public system, ending a troubled eight-year public-private partnership, although uncertainty about the future of private services remains.

The transition and legal handover of the hospital from private operator Healthscope to New South Wales Health will occur at 7am on Wednesday. The New South Wales health minister, Ryan Park, said it was a “historic day”.

Annalouise Spence allegedly used credit card to make ‘unauthorised purchases of luxury and personal items, including clothing, artwork and jewellery’

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

The former private secretary of billionaire philanthropist Judith Neilson has been charged with dozens of counts of fraud after she allegedly used a business credit card to make more than $1m worth of purchases, including luxury clothing, artwork and jewellery.

Annalouise Spence, 50, was refused bail at a local court hearing on Thursday after being charged with 68 counts of dishonestly obtaining property by deception.

Two staff suspended after damning review finds department was warned last December that triple murderer Regina Arthurell was living in the home

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Two staff members in the New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice have been suspended following a review into why two foster children went to live with a convicted triple killer.

The review, which was made public on Wednesday, found “significant failures” by the department led to foster children aged 12 and 14 living alongside convicted murderer Regina Arthurell until her removal from the home last month.

Exclusive: Australian Recreation Union says it plans to support candidates and parties that oppose gun control laws brought in after terror attack

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

A gun users’ group targeting marginal Labor seats in next year’s New South Wales election plans to campaign for candidates who oppose the government’s firearm laws enacted after the Bondi terror attack.

In an email sent to the electorate offices of 15 Labor backbenchers last week, the Australian Recreation Union (ARU) said it had recruited campaign managers across 17 “vulnerable” electorates, including Kogarah, the seat of the premier, Chris Minns, and Swansea, held by the police minister, Yasmin Catley.

Greens criticise premier’s ‘extraordinary attack’ on judiciary and urge him to accept he ‘got it wrong’

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

The New South Wales premier has doubled down on an anti-protest law struck down in the state’s highest court last week, defending the legislation introduced by his government as “rational and proportionate”.

But advocates for protesters charged at demonstrations restricted under the laws have criticised Chris Minns’ comments, calling them a “extraordinary attack” on the judiciary.

Former SAS corporal allegedly placed man on his knees and ordered fellow soldier to shoot him, according to statement of facts

Australian soldiers have told prosecutors they executed unarmed civilians at the orders of Ben Roberts-Smith or in complicity with him, according to a statement of facts tendered to the New South Wales local court.

Roberts-Smith, a Victoria Cross recipient and once one of Australia’s most lionised soldiers, faces five charges of the war crime of murder, allegedly committed while he served in the Australian SAS in Afghanistan.

Each victim was unarmed and present in a location where Roberts-Smith could reasonably have suspected insurgents to be located;

Each offence was committed in a situation where there was no active engagements with enemy forces and the Australian Defence Force was in control of the environment;

Evidence was planted or falsely associated with each deceased to enhance reporting that each of the killings was within the lawful rules of engagement;

Each deceased was handcuffed, detained for a period, and questioned prior to their execution;

None of the deceased was killed in a situation where the Australian Defence Force did not have effective control of the battlespace.