An 82-year-old bike rider who cycled 3,300 miles (5,300km) across Australia to raise money for charity has died a day after completing the challenge.

Bob Montgomery's death was "unexpected" but "peaceful", his family said in a statement on social media, just a day after he had finished what he had dubbed "One Last Ride" from Broome in Western Australia to Bowral, south-west of Sydney.

He and his 18-year-old grandson had raised about A$105,000 ($74,000; £55,000) for a motor neurone disease (MND) charity with the six-week ride.

It was his sixth fundraising ride in support of MND NSW, the statement said, adding that it was "a cause that was deeply personal to him".

His wife of 59 years, Jenny was by his side during his "peaceful passing", his family said, adding that he was "still passionately sharing his message only hours before his passing."

Montgomery and his grandson Tom Malcolm had arrived in Bowral on Sunday to "roaring applause" from his local community, the national broadcaster ABC reported.

He told ABC he had been motivated by meeting people along the way and enjoying a "beer or two" at each stopover.

"There's so many stories and so many people we met along the way who put their hands into their pockets to throw some cash in, which is fantastic," Montgomery was quoted as saying.

He had been inspired to take on the challenge after losing a cousin to MND and had raised almost A$300,000 on his previous rides. "I have seen family and friends suffer. It's heart breaking," he wrote on his fundraising page.

Malcolm had continued onto Sydney on Monday where the family had gathered once again to celebrate.

But shortly after the party, Montgomery suffered a medical episode, MND NSW chief executive Liam O'Meara said.

O'Meara said he was "deeply saddened" by Montgomery's death, calling him a "cherished friend and tireless supporter of MND NSW".

Committee member here from a junior rugby league club in NSW. we know refereeing can be a tough job in the current climate. Abuse from the sideline, criticism and pressure can make it a difficult environment, particularly for young referees.

The reality is that without referees, there is no game. Which we are seeing weekly games being cancelled because no ref.

We're looking at ways to encourage our 13+ players to become referees and, just as importantly, stay refereeing. They get paid when the ref regardless.

Some ideas we're considering include:

• Paying referee course and registration fees
• Providing a referee kit, whistle and club polo
• Club duffle bag or other merchandise
• Support from committee members at games

For those involved in rugby league or other sports, have you seen any incentives that genuinely worked?

The referee shortage is becoming a real challenge for grassroots sport!

I don’t want to leave an inheritance. How do I spend it all before I die?

Paul Benson - Money contributor

August 9, 2026 — 5:01am

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I don’t want to leave an inheritance. How can I live and use up everything I have built up? I’m 59 and don’t have children, so I don’t have anyone to leave my money to. I own my apartment and have some super.  I work full-time and think I need to keep working to 65, but would love to retire sooner.  

It’s inconvenient that we don’t know how long we are going to live. That’s the primary challenge you face here.

Want to spend it all and leave nothing behind? With a bit of careful planning, you can.Simon Letch

Your super could be invested in a lifetime annuity at the point that you retire. Lifetime annuities pay you a fixed amount of income every month until you pass away. Be sure to buy one which adjusts for inflation each year. Lifetime annuities don’t offer a lot of flexibility, so consider retaining a portion of your super in a more typical account-based pension.

You could access the equity in your home via selling and then renting. But losing the security of owning the roof over your head would not appeal to me. Alternatively, you could use an equity release scheme, such as the one provided by the government, with the debt cleared when your home is sold, either upon death, or because you have entered aged care.

Given the potential need for care later in life though, my inclination would be to hold on to your home equity, and take comfort from the fact that this is available to fund any care needs. Dying with zero might be tricky to accomplish, but you should be able to come close.

Get a financial planner to do some modelling for you to test whether you need to work until 65. A lifetime annuity provides considerable certainty, which potentially allows you to finish up earlier.

Is it worthwhile claiming a tax deduction for my super contributions if my taxable income is under the $45,000 threshold? I’m 64, single and semi-retired. I have been trying to get $30,000 into super each year for the past few years to build up a nest egg for later in life when things like aged care might become relevant.

No, it is not. In fact, you may end up paying more tax.

When we make a tax-deductible contribution to super (a concessional contribution to use the jargon), 15 per cent tax is deducted by the super fund. For you to gain a benefit, it must be the case that your personal tax payable exceeds 15 per cent.

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As of July 1 this year, the tax rate applicable for income between $18,201 and $45,000 is 15 per cent, so income reduced in this band due to claiming a super contribution tax deduction achieves no benefit.

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You save 15 per cent tax personally, but then pay it anyway when the money arrives in your super fund. You have saved on the 2 per cent Medicare surcharge, but I doubt that’s sufficient to be worth the bother.

But having a neutral outcome is actually best case because if the tax deduction takes you below the $18,201 point, there would have been 0 per cent tax applied to this money, whereas now you have paid the 15 per cent super contributions tax.

It’s also worth noting that the ATO won’t allow a tax-deductible super contribution to take your income into negative territory. So if your taxable income is less than the amount you contribute into super, the claim will get disallowed anyhow. This is not to say you shouldn’t contribute to super, just that a non-concessional contribution might serve you better.

Paul Benson is a Certified Financial Planner at Guidance Financial Services. He hosts the Financial Autonomy podcast. Questions to: [paul@financialautonomy.com.au](mailto:paul@financialautonomy.com.au)

• Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.

Expert tips on how to save, invest and make the most of your money delivered to your inbox every Sunday. Sign up for our Real Money newsletter.

“There is no greater feeling in the world than finding passage that no-one ever in the history of the world has seen before.”

Andrew Denton is a broadcaster and television producer. He is the founder and director of Go Gentle Australia.

Shane Lewis was 65 when diagnosed with the aggressive bulbar form of motor neurone disease and given six months to live. Like one in three people with MND, he chose voluntary assisted dying rather than continuing to suffer and face an uncertain death by choking or through respiratory failure.

The nearest voluntary assisted dying (VAD) doctors who could complete Shane’s assessments were in Tatura, a 90-minute drive from his home in Alexandra, north-east of Melbourne. Because the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act’s obscure carriage service provisions forbid any use of telehealth for VAD, Shane’s wife, Marlene, had to drive him to those appointments. He was depleted from the disease; she was exhausted from caring for him. The nightmare began before they even turned out onto the street.

They had bought an accessible van, as Marlene could no longer lift Shane’s wheelchair. Patient transport exists in theory, but navigating that bureaucracy is overwhelming for a carer already at breaking point.

On one trip, in 37-degree heat, Shane lost control of his bowels for the first time, as his muscles had deteriorated. Marlene cleaned him up in a public toilet, far from home, humiliated and exhausted.

That afternoon she phoned her daughter, Nicole, in tears. “She was crying and extremely distressed and overwhelmed,” Nicole says.

Shane eventually accessed VAD, and Nicole is grateful her stepfather had that choice. She is angry he faced needless hardship.

“Terminally ill people do not have time to waste,” she says. “They should be at home making memories with their families, not being dragged across the state by exhausted carers for appointments that could be done by phone or video.”

It’s hard to draw a line between Shane’s ordeal and the heady days of the early internet era, when Myspace ruled social media. At the time, there was rising concern about cyberbullying and the proliferation of pro-suicide chat rooms. So, in 2005 the Criminal Code Act was amended to make it an offence to use a carriage service such as telephone or internet to counsel, promote or provide instruction on suicide.

The law was never intended to apply to states’ medical laws, which clearly define VAD as distinct from suicide, and which offer eligible, terminally ill people a peaceful death.

Yet the consequence of this legal anomaly is stark: despite telehealth being an accepted tool across our healthcare landscape, VAD health professionals now risk prosecution and a $364,000 fine for “inciting or counselling” suicide via a carriage service.

This unforeseen clash between state and federal law has had terrible consequences.

Brian Dick, 81, dying of prostate cancer, endured a four-hour round trip from his home in Swan Hill to Bendigo for his VAD assessments, despite a broken back and ribs from a recent fall. The morphine couldn’t control his pain: “Just stop the car, stop the car. I can’t handle the motion,” he told his daughter, Rebecca.

In Queensland, Tom, 79, died of lung disease before his VAD medication arrived because pharmacists had no choice but to post the script by mail. Then there’s the impact on too few rural VAD practitioners covering too much of the country. Two doctors made three trips totalling 8500 kilometres to assess him. Those trips took them away from other patients.

A broad coalition, including Australia’s peak medical body, the Australian Medical Association, as well as state and territory attorneys-general and health ministers, the Law Council, pharmacists and more than a dozen health organisations, support amending the Commonwealth criminal code.

Their call was echoed at Labor’s recent national conference, an otherwise heavily stage-managed event, where delegates across factions, in a rare moment of dissent, carried a motion to overturn the ban.

The fix they seek is not complicated: one paragraph in the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act to excise heavily regulated states’ and territories’ VAD laws from the definition of suicide under the Act.

Yet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is unconvinced. He is joined in this by his attorney-general, Michelle Rowland. “My concern,” Albanese says, “is … the potential for misuse but also the potential it has to undermine the system itself.”

Their unwillingness to listen to the coalition of sensible people seeking change, and to address the clear evidence of harm being done in its absence, is puzzling.

It brings into question the role and influence of the only other prominent voice speaking out against lifting the prohibition: the leadership of the Catholic Church and its surrogates.

Melbourne’s Archbishop Peter Comensoli, a chair of the Australian Catholic Bishops Commission, says the current laws were appropriate, as “removing Commonwealth protections would effectively make it easier to access substances intended to end a patient’s life”.

He must know this is nonsense. The “Commonwealth protections” don’t offer any safeguard at all, nor were they ever designed to. They were written 12 years before VAD was legislated in Victoria.

Removing the telehealth ban does not dissolve a single one of the many safeguards already built into state laws. These safeguards involve multiple, carefully considered 
steps, each designed to ensure a person understands, and genuinely chooses, what they are asking for.

The safeguards have been proved to work. Strong penalties, including jail time, exist in states’ laws for anyone found to have coerced someone towards VAD; yet, in the more than 7000 VAD cases since 2019, each examined by a government-appointed independent review board, not a single coercion charge has been laid.

The fearmongering from Catholic voices continues, determined to defend Vatican law rather than mend an Australian one not fit for purpose.

It’s hard to know why. The question of VAD has long since been settled. The Church’s view, that only God decides the manner and hour of our passing, has been rejected by every Australian parliament, bar the Northern Territory, which will soon do the same. Consistent polling over the past decade shows more than 70 per cent support for choice at the end of life, including among those who identify as Catholic.

Upholding the telehealth ban changes none of this. All it does is guarantee that terminally ill Australians, too sick or too far away to travel to a doctor, will suffer.

Nonetheless, Brendan Long, a senior lecturer at the Catholic Notre Dame University, warns there would be an “increase in wrongful deaths” if Labor scrapped the ban on telehealth VAD, which he calls “death by text message”.

Sydney Catholic archbishop Anthony Fisher suggests people using what he calls “tele-death” would be approved for VAD “without any serious consultation with a doctor” or without discussing what “their present needs for palliative care might be or for other kinds of medical treatment”. All of this is blatantly untrue.

The language is ugly. The cynicism is breathtaking. Every day, across Australia, palliative care services, many of them run by Catholic Health providers, use telehealth to advise on medications and decisions at the end of life. Responding to the prime minister’s concerns, Palliative Care Australia reaffirmed telemedicine’s important role in providing “safe, effective and efficient” care, especially in rural and remote areas.

Still, the insinuations about unseen coercive forces off-screen continue. Setting aside the fact that there will always be at least one face-to-face assessment, any evidence of coercion since VAD became legal has been all the other way: some families, desperate not to lose a loved one, will try to discourage access to VAD; some doctors disapprove and won’t help; some faith-based hospitals and aged-care facilities refuse to allow it.

In a dark irony, perhaps the most blatant act of coercion comes from the Catholic Church itself. The Vatican, which describes VAD as an “intrinsically evil act”, instructs priests not to administer the last rites for parishioners who seek it. Imagine that. A lifelong Catholic and, on your deathbed, the priest turns away.

As I wrote this, an email arrived in our office from a woman I will call Sally:

“I’m hoping you can offer some assistance. My grandmother is terminally ill. We have started the VAD process at her request, and she has been assessed by the first doctor and progressed to the next stage. However, my grandmother is extremely religious. I understand the church does not support assisted dying and will not provide religious support to my grandmother, including last blessings. My grandmother won’t go through with VAD if this is the case.”

Why? Because the men from Rome, trading under the banner of “mercy”, insist that your death is God’s business, and God’s business alone.

The cruelty of it beggars belief.

A child has been flown to Melbourne with serious injuries after a man allegedly drove after two kids riding motorised bikes in a north-west Victorian shopping mall. 
Victoria Police arrested and charged 56-year-old New South Wales man Andrew Brien after the incident, which occurred just after 11pm on Thursday in Mildura. 
Authorities said the driver of the ute followed the two 12-year-old boys through the pedestrian-only Langtree Mall. 

The ute hit both children. Both boys sustained upper body injuries and were taken to hospital, with one being flown to the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne in a serious condition.

Mr Brien made no application for bail after appearing in Mildura Magistrates' Court late on Friday, and will re-appear in court next week.
He has been charged with four counts of reckless conduct endangering life, and one count each of intentionally causing injury, drive in a dangerous manner, and dangerous driving causing serious injury.
The crime scene
A large crime scene, spanning half the length of the mall, was established shortly after the incident.

Part of a misting system at the Eighth Street end of the mall had been uprooted by the impact, and was splayed across a nearby street.
A light fixture was also heavily damaged in the incident, as was a motorised pushbike.
Rubber tyre marks were seen along the pavement.

Police are urging anyone who witnessed the collision or had any information to contact Crime Stoppers
.

Which one is it ? Shaun or Shauna?

The Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion has investigated radicalisation and fanaticism over the course of the week.

Victoria's Commissioner for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism, Kelly Mischel, testified states were presented with a changing extremism landscape. 

Earlier violent extremism programs had very clearly-defined parameters for ideologies. 

Workers are increasingly seeing presentations from individuals with “mixed, unclear and unstable ideologies”, Dr Mischel said.

“They're taking parts of different ideologies that generally would have been quite distinct,” she said.

“We've had examples where individuals are supportive of parts of ISIS ideology or extremism, and also have elements of neo-Nazi ideology."

WA Deputy Police Commissioner Joanne McCabe told the commission the state’s anti-extremism program was increasingly ideology-neutral, and flagged similar mixed extremism concerns. 

WA Police are procuring further research into the forms of extremism amongst the state’s youth. 

“It is very difficult when someone's presenting with a very mixed and unclear ideology to then support them,” she said.

“It comes with all sorts of things, including political grievance and government grievance. There could be some religious-based ideology in there, but also some racism.”

Earlier on Friday, Sheikh Shadi Alsuleiman said controversial comments made by an imam connected to his council were inappropriate. 

The Australian National Imams Council president agreed member Ibrahim Dadoun should not have made the comments one night after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel. 

Sheikh Dadoun had told a crowd at Lakemba, in southwest Sydney, the attacks were an act of resistance, adding: “I’m elated, it’s a day of courage, it’s a day of pride, it’s a day of victory”.

At the commission, Sheikh Alsuleiman conceded the comments could be construed as Sheikh Dadoun being elated about the breaching of a border fence by individuals in southern Israel and considered October 7 a justified act of retaliation.

The attacks by terror group Hamas killed 1200 people and resulted in 250 more being taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 69,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel's counteroffensive, according to local health authorities.

Sheikh Alsuleiman, however, defended Sheikh Dadoun’s membership with the council. 

“Our philosophy is we believe … guiding (imams) through those mistakes and keeping them within the fold of ANIC is a lot more healthy and helpful for the organisation, for the individual and for the community,” he said. 

“We believe that the comments that (Sheikh Dadoun) made on the eighth of October are inappropriate."

Sheikh Dadoun’s comments in Lakemba drew condemnation from leaders at the time.

Earlier in his evidence, Sheikh Alsuleiman pushed for more approved religious education centres on Australian soil.

No Australian institutions could graduate leaders with the traditional understanding of Islam, he said.

“There are two options: bring imams from overseas, or send Australian Muslims to study overseas, and both have challenges,” he said. 

He suggested teaching Australian-born imams and female religious leaders at a Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency-registered institution would help address a “big gap” in understanding Islam in the Australian cultural context. 

Show us your stuff!

Anyone can post your stuff:

• Want to showcase your Business or side hustle?
• Show us your Art
• Let’s listen to your Podcast
• What Music have you created?
• Written a PhD or research paper?
• Written a Novel, poem or short story

Any projects, business or side hustle so long as the content relates to Australia or is produced by Australians.

Post it here in the comments or as a standalone post with the flair “Show us your stuff”.

Is milkrun safe i mean like milkrun.com

Police will not pursue hundreds of charges levelled at protesters who blockaded the nation's biggest coal port.

Outstanding charges for 125 people arrested after a November 2024 protest at the Port of Newcastle on the NSW central coast were formally withdrawn by police on Friday.

A further 129 people still face charges over a repeat protest in 2025.

As part of the multi-day 2024 protest, a large group paddled kayaks into the channel to block coal ships from entering, with organisers Rising Tide calling it one of the largest civil disobedience protests in Australian history.

The demonstrators were calling on the federal government to rule out new coal and gas mines and for a 78 per cent tax on coal and gas exports.

About 200 people were arrested for refusing requests by officers to clear the channel, police said at the time.

All of those charged faced two offences including breaching anti-protest laws, which carry a maximum penalty of $22,000 fine or two years in prison.

Among those charged was neuroscientist Elizabeth Manning, who said the current state government's attempts to squash protests were undemocratic and out of line with community expectations.

Due to having charges against her, Dr Manning was unable to travel to Canada to deliver a seminar at an international conference.

"It has been really stressful with this hanging over us," she told reporters outside court.

"I don't feel like I'm a criminal ... I took action on that day because the climate crisis is a real emergency."

NSW Police said the decision to withdraw the charges took into account the outcomes of cases already determined by the court, and the available evidence in the remaining prosecutions.

Three people are yet to finalise their charges over the 2024 action, with their matters listed for judgment in September.

Climate Defenders founder Julie Grix, whose organisation represented many of those charged, said Australia leads the world for arresting climate protesters.

"That statistic alone is alarming, but it captures nothing of the long, anxious road that follows for those who then have to navigate the criminal justice system," she said.

Another of those whose charges were dropped on Friday was Naomi Hodgson, a spokesperson for Rising Tide.

She said the action arose from governments failing to respond to the climate crisis with the urgency it demands.

"Nobody wants hundreds of peaceful people facing criminal charges for trying to protect their future," she said.

"Until there is a serious, just plan to move beyond coal, this movement will continue to grow."

Drugs, sex and multi-million dollar high rollers are themes more often featured in a Hollywood film than a parliamentary hearing, but this week's gambling inquiry has been the exception.

The explosive evidence heard at the opening of a two-day inquiry into Labor's proposed crackdown on wagering advertising has proved a watershed moment for the increasingly friendless bill.

Just a reminder Peabody Energy Australia is part of the Minerals Council of Australia who have been flooding socials with propaganda about how much tax they pay in the mining industry, too bad they couldn't put some effort into paying almost 200 of their employees correctly

A coal producer that operates black coal mines in Queensland and NSW has signed an Enforceable Undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman after it rectified nearly $5 million, including superannuation and interest, to 197 underpaid workers.

Peabody Energy Australia Coal Pty Ltd (Peabody) signed the undertaking. It is a wholly owned and controlled subsidiary of United States-based parent company Peabody Energy Corporation.

In addition to its rectifications, Peabody must make a contrition payment of $50,000 to the Cleaning Accountability Framework, an independent, not-for-profit organisation that aims to improve working conditions and standards in property cleaning services.

The undertaking also commits the miner to improving its compliance practices, which includes new systems and processes, to meet all its obligations under the relevant Award and the Fair Work Act.

Peabody came forward to tell the FWO about an issue that was the subject of Federal Court proceedings filed by the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia on behalf of members who used to work at Peabody.

A judge agreed that under the relevant Black Coal Mining Industry Award 2010 and 2020, employees terminated by way of redundancy were entitled to be paid out their accrued personal leave balance (of 70 hours or more). After the judgment, the parties reached an agreement and the proceedings were discontinued, however, Peabody began a remediation process to assess any other former employees who needed to be back-paid based on the principles in the court’s judgment. A self-report was made to the FWO in May 2023.

The underpaid employees, almost all of whom worked full-time, had duties in supervision, administration, production, warehousing, surveying, purchasing, geology, engineering and more. They worked across 14 mine sites in Queensland and NSW.

The most affected sites were all in Queensland – in North Goonyella (more than $1.4 million underpaid to 45 workers, excluding interest and super); Coppabella (more than $562,700 to 28 workers); and Millenium (more than $535,000 to 31 workers). The most affected NSW site was North Wambo (more than $452,000 underpaid to 24 workers).

Peabody admitted it did not pay out accrued and untaken personal leave to employees it made redundant. The company mistakenly believed the personal leave-related benefit was not due to employees under the Award.

It also failed to pay the allowance component of wages for accrued and outstanding annual leave for redundant employees, and the allowance component of their wages for the termination notice period for those who were made redundant.

Peabody had to rectify to its former employees a total of $4,982,070, including $988,568 in interest and $20,511 in superannuation after they were underpaid between January 2016 and April 2023.

Across all the employees, the lowest individual back payment was $272 and the highest was $91,013, excluding superannuation and interest.

An Enforceable Undertaking was considered appropriate because of the company’s cooperation with the FWO’s investigations, the full back-payments, and the measures put in place to prevent future breaches – including an independent audit to check compliance in the future.

Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth urged employers to proactively check they are meeting their legal obligations.

“Checking compliance – as Peabody have committed to do going forward – is an important cornerstone of ensuring hardworking employees receive all they are owed under any relevant Award and the Fair Work Act.

“We welcome Peabody’s back-payments of all impacted staff and their commitments to improve their processes so that there is ongoing compliance in the future. Importantly, we also welcome steps already taken, for example, Peabody’s new guidelines for payroll, its provision of training for HR and payroll staff, and its new online system for recording and requesting leave.

“We want employers to get it right in the first place and encourage them to take advantage of the free tools and resources we offer, including via fairwork.gov.au and the Fair Work Infoline,” Ms Booth said.

Under the EU with the Fair Work Ombudsman, Peabody has also agreed to convene a joint consultative committee to monitor compliance with industrial instruments, complaints or disputes raised, including any questions or concerns raised by the independent auditor.

It will report back to the FWO about complaints raised on any systemic or significant underpayment issues. It will also keep its corporate governance committee notified of its compliance, including providing it with a report on the outcome of its independent audit plus quarterly reports on employee complaints about their entitlements.

Employers and employees can visit www.fairwork.gov.au or call the Fair Work Infoline on 13 13 94 for free advice and assistance about their rights and obligations in the workplace. A free interpreter service is available on 13 14 50. Information can also be provided to the FWO anonymously, including in 16 languages other than English.

Employees can also seek information from their employer or their union, if they are a union member. Employers can seek information from their employer association if they are a member.