Australia news LIVE: Erin Patterson found guilty in Victorian mushroom trial; RBA tipped to deliver fastest interest cut rate since beginning of COVID-19 pandemic

Good afternoon and thanks for reading today’s live coverage.

I’m Broede Carmody and I’ll be anchoring the national news blog for the rest of the afternoon.

Here’s what you need to know if you’re just joining us.

• We’re about an hour away from learning whether the Reserve Bank will cut interest rates.
• Erin Patterson is spending her first full day in prison after a jury found her guilty of the murders of Don Patterson, Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson, and the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson.
• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has brushed off calls for a national cabinet to address antisemitism, arguing Australians want “action” instead of more meetings. Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has supported calls for a national cabinet to tackle antisemitism.
• In Queensland, it’s been revealed that the woman recently mauled by a lion had visited the predators about 80 times before she lost her arm.
• In international news, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said US President Donald Trump should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
• And hopes are fast fading in the search for additional survivors in the Texas flash flooding disaster.

They are the pictures purchased by media outlets across the world, splashed on front pages. Erin Patterson, in a prison van, mid-meltdown.

Now, we have the inside story of how photographer and journalist Martin Keep managed to capture the defining images of the high-profile trial.

Patterson believed the confines of her prison van would shield her from the media’s relentless gaze – but she was wrong.

On Monday, May 12 – two weeks into Erin Patterson’s trial in the usually quiet Victorian country town of Morwell – most of the photographers and journalists covering the murder trial were taking the opportunity of a jury-free day to get some well-earned rest.

Martin Keep, though, ventured out into the bitter cold, a custom rig held high above his head with studio flashes twisted around his camera. It was a bizarre creation, and something that Keep’s colleagues had never seen before.

The custom rig photographer Martin Keep used to capture Erin Patterson.

It worked perfectly. Read why here.

And now to news in Queensland, where we have just received new details about the Darling Downs Zoo lion attack.

A woman mauled by a lion at Queensland zoo had visited the predators “about 80 times” before she lost her arm in the fateful attack.

Darling Downs Zoo co-owner Steve Robinson has confirmed the victim of the attack on Sunday morning was his sister-in-law, who had 20 years’ experience with the lions, with the ordeal “still very, very raw” for the zoo community.

An image from the Darling Downs Zoo website shows a woman patting a lion through the fence.Credit: Darling Downs Zoo

Speaking to media outside the reopened zoo on Tuesday morning, Robinson said the woman – a teacher visiting from NSW – was “not terribly lucid” so it was not yet clear how the accident occurred.

“We haven’t really pressed for answers as to what she was doing and how this happened,” he said.

Robinson said at the time of the incident, which was “over in a split second”, the woman was with her sister – Robinson’s wife and co-owner Stephanie Robinson – and the zoo’s carnivore keeper.

Read the full details in Cameron Atfield and Brittney Deguara’s story.

The death toll from catastrophic flooding in Texas has surpassed 100, as hopes fade of finding survivors.

At least 104 people have died after an eight-metre wall of water demolished a number of counties in central Texas at the weekend.

In hard-hit Kerr County, home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps for children, searchers have found the bodies of 84 people, including 28 children, according to Kerr County officials.

Deaths in nearby counties brought the total number of deaths to at least 104.

Officials comb through the banks of the Guadalupe River after the weekend’s fatal flash floods.Credit: AP

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Ten girls and a counsellor were still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river.

As the death toll increased, officials in Kerr County have revealed little about what, if any, actions they took to safeguard residents, tourists and visitors in an area known as “flash-flood alley”.

Kerr County officials have deflected a series of pointed questions about preparations and warnings as forecasters warned of life-threatening conditions.

“Today’s not the day and now’s not the time to discuss the warnings, who got them, who didn’t got them. Right now I’m only worried about public safety,” Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said during an emergency session of the county commissioners court.

Survivors have described the floods as a “pitch-black wall of death” and said they received no emergency warnings.

One of the cabins at Camp Mystic, where dozens of girls went missing after a flood.Credit: AFP

With AAP, AP, Reuters

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes US President Donald Trump should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Netanyahu nominated Trump for the prestigious award, and handed the president a nomination letter during a meeting at the White House.

“He’s forging peace as we speak,” Netanyahu said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu passes to US President Donald Trump a letter nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize, during their meeting at the White House.Credit: AP

“In one country and one region after the other. So I want to present to you, Mr President, the letter I sent to the Nobel Prize Committee. It’s nominating you for the Peace Prize, which is well deserved, and you should get it.”

Trump has long called himself a master peacemaker and made clear his desire for the Nobel Prize.

Read the full story here.

With Reuters, AP.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is in Melbourne visiting the synagogue targeted in an arson attack on Friday night.

She said under a Coalition government, she would commit to the Executive Council of Australian Jewries 15-point plan to combat antisemitism, which includes the introduction of antisemitism education in school curriculums.

Ley said she welcomed federal Education Minister Jason Clare’s suggestion this morning that schools should do more to teach students about antisemitism.

“Under my leadership, we recommit to supporting this community wholeheartedly and the 15-point plan that ECAJ has put together from a summit several months ago is a very sound sensible plan to implement today,” she said.

“[Combating antisemitism] is about education, it is about the governance of our universities. It is about what happens in schools, and it is about social media and national security responses. That is why the plan makes sense and, yes, education in schools about antisemitism is part of that.”

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley supported a national cabinet to tackle antisemitism. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Ley said antisemitism had reached an “unacceptable” level in Australia.

“Hate can never be normalised. It can never be excused. It can never be explained away. We stand with the Jewish community in Australia today and every day. We won’t look away. We will be here to see this through,” she said.

The opposition leader also supported calls for a national cabinet to tackle antisemitism.

“It is a good suggestion. There are issues around this which require the policing authorities across the different states to come together, so we don’t have failures of laws and law enforcement,” she said.

“The prime minister should be looking at national cabinets on a regular basis, yes.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also weighed in on trade tariffs, revealing he hasn’t given up on negotiating with US President Donald Trump for reductions in tariffs on Australian good imported to the US.

“We’ll continue to put our case that tariffs are an act of economic self-harm and that we should be entitled to reciprocal tariffs, which is zero,” Albanese said.

However, while he pledged to fight for reductions, he conceded “no country has a better deal than Australia”.

“Australia has a tariff rate of 10 per cent, which is at least as low as any country in the world,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has brushed off calls for a national cabinet to address antisemitism, saying Australians want “action” and not “a meeting”.

“Every time an issue comes up, people say, ‘Let’s have a national cabinet.’ Let’s be clear. What people want is not a meeting, they want action,” Albanese said in Hobart.

His comments come days after a series of antisemitic incidents in Melbourne, including an arson attack of a synagogue.

Albanese described antisemitism as a “scourge” that had “no place in Australia”.

“What we saw in Melbourne with the attacks that occurred are reprehensible, deserve condemnation, and the gentleman concerned … should face the full force of the law,” he said.