The Labor government has promised to end the climate wars, after Prime Minister Albanese outlined the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
Labor's minister for the department, Chris Bowen, spoke today and defended Labor's promised 43 per cent emissions reduction target falling well short of the 75 per cent target that emergency leaders were pleading for.
"We have been elected with a mandate for real action on climate change - ambitious but achievable action," Mr Bowen said.
On top of adding in climate change, the Albanese government altered other APS departments, including what is possibly the longest title for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts - a nice little hat tip to Australia's art industry after it was merged into communications by the Coalition.
While the government is altering the systems, things are still quite slow when it comes to the Senate race count, in particular for the ACT's battle between independent David Pocock and Liberal senator Zed Seselja.
"I'm keen to wait and give him the opportunity to concede and wait for the final result," Mr Pocock said.
And despite the count being faster for House of Representatives seats, we just got our first formally declared result.
The NSW seat of Eden-Monaro was finalised this morning, with Labor's Kristy McBain holding it with a margin of just over 8 per cent.
Meanwhile, postal votes continue to be received and counted by the AEC ahead of tomorrow's deadline.
In news outside of politics, an estimation from Southern Cross University's Professor Bradley Eyre found the amount of water during the height of the Lismore floods was enough to fill half of Sydney Harbour.
"At the peak of the first flood, the water coming down Wilsons and Leycester Creeks would have filled an Olympic-sized swimming pool in just over a second," he said.
"In total, around 250 billion litres of water came down these two creeks, which is enough to fill half of Sydney Harbour."
The snow season is launching early as three alpine resorts announced they're bringing forward opening days after a deluge of snow.
Falls Creek has reported an average of 37 centimetres of snow in 48 hours. The resort declared its snow season will open on Saturday, earlier than the June 11 planned opening.
Mt Hotham and the Perisher snowfields also received good falls, enough to bring forward their opening days as well.
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