A festival organiser is unlikely to refund more than $23 million in ticket sales to patrons after abruptly cancelling the event weeks before it was due to begin.

Long-running music festival Bluesfest announced it had entered liquidation on Friday afternoon, leaving thousands of music fans high and dry.

Founder Peter Noble cited poor ticket sales and rising production costs for the decision to cancel and appoint a liquidator to manage all financial matters, including vendor and partner obligations.

“After careful consideration, we concluded we could not proceed in a way that would meet the standard our audiences, artists and partners expect,” Mr Noble said.

A 510-page report to be lodged with ASIC by the liquidator of Bluesfest Enterprises outlines the company’s affairs and provides details of all ticket holders for the event.

Many patrons paid between $700 and $2000 for the Easter weekend festival, with some spending as much as $15,000.

In a statement to ticketholders, appointed liquidator Jason Bettles said they could lodge a claim for the money paid to the company.

“At this stage it seems unlikely that you will be refunded from the liquidation any money but we will notify you if the position changes,” the statement said.

“If you paid the company on a credit or debit card you may be entitled to have the charge reversed.”

Patrons have taken to social media to vent their frustrations, many worried about being thousands out of pocket.

A staple for music-lovers for more than 36 years, Bluesfest has hosted some of the world’s biggest artists including Bob Dylan and James Brown.

Organisers promoted Bluesfest 2025 as their final curtain call but backflipped on the decision after the festival drew more than 100,000 patrons across four days.

RMIT music scholar and lecturer Sam Whiting said Bluesfest’s troubles were a sign of the times, with big, multi-genre festivals losing their appeal as streaming services pushed audiences toward specific artists.

“Most festivals that are still doing well and are competitive are very genre-specific … or they’ll just have one massive headliner that carries the whole bill,” he said.

The 2026 event was scheduled for April 2-5, with Split Enz, Buddy Guy and Parkway Drive among the main attractions.

It is not yet known whether international artists including Sublime, the Black Crowes, Guy and the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band will proceed with their Australian sideshows, promoted by Bluesfest Tours.

Queen Mary and King Frederik’s first trip to Australia since the Danish royals took the throne isn’t all about sightseeing and photo opportunities.

The royals and their large delegation are also here to do business.

Their state visit aims to deepen trade ties between the Scandinavian country and Queen’s Mary home nation.

The delegation will include more than 50 Danish companies and a focus on clean energy.

Denmark’s deputy prime minister, plus ministers for foreign affairs and climate will accompany the monarchs.

The couple will arrive at Uluru on Saturday, kicking off a six-day state tour which incudes visits to Canberra, Melbourne and Queen Mary’s hometown Hobart.

They will watch the sunset with Indigenous elders in a stop expected to be reminiscent of the 1983 British royal tour, when the late Princess Diana and then Prince Charles, now King, visited the culturally significant monument.

“Denmark and Australia share an interest in nature and cultural conservation and elements related to nature and culture will form part of the state visit,” a statement from the Royal House of Denmark reads.

The pair will be welcomed at Government House in Canberra on Sunday by Governor-General Sam Mostyn, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his wife Jodie Haydon.

Ms Mostyn will host a formal state dinner for the royals.

The Danish royal couple will visit Parliament House where they will receive a ceremonial 21-gun salute.

King Frederik and Queen Mary were proclaimed Denmark’s ruling monarchs in a ceremony attracting wide fanfare in January 2024.

The event marked her 20th year of marriage to King Frederik.

Formerly Mary Donaldson, the pair met during a chance encounter at a Sydney pub during the 2000 Olympic Games.

Then aged 28 and working in marketing, the future queen had no idea she crossed paths with Denmark’s party-boy crown prince.

The last time the royals visited Australia officially was 13 years ago, making this their fourth tour together.

They are likely to spend time with Queen Mary’s relatives in Tasmania, including her elderly father John Donaldson.

King Frederik and Queen Mary’s four children, Crown Prince Christian, 20, Princess Isabella, 18, Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine,15, are unlikely to join their parents on the tour.

Australian fuel transport companies are backing a push to ration fuel in cities to reserve supply for regional areas as businesses run dry.

Up to 762 million litres of petrol and diesel from the emergency reserves of companies will be released to address shortfalls in regional areas, the federal government said on Friday.

Iran has closed one of the world’s busiest oil corridors – the Strait of Hormuz – in response to the US-led war launched against it, causing a global shortage that has led fuel prices to skyrocket.

Fuel should have already been reserved for the regions, said Westlink Petroleum managing director Danny Kreutzer, whose Queensland-based company transports fuel for 500 businesses.

“We’ve got a lot of angry customers that want their fuel,” he told AAP.

“A lot of them have been pretty good to deal with and understand the situation that we’re in.

“Every other fuel distributor in the country, we’re all the same. It’s really impacted our business, because we just can’t get the volume we require on a normal day.”

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has raised the prospect of rationing fuel in the cities to help address supply issues.

“It is a crisis,” he told ABC Radio on Friday.

Mr Joyce said trucks had to be kept moving to ensure food remained on supermarket shelves and other vital infrastructure could be serviced.

Mr Kreutzer said conflict in the Middle East had made the situation so volatile oil companies and wholesalers didn’t know what price to charge his business for fuel, because they “don’t know whether they’re making money or losing money”.

The consumer watchdog has told fuel retailers to respond to claims they dramatically hiked petrol and diesel prices soon after war broke out in the Middle East.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen has repeatedly assured federal parliament Australia has enough fuel.

He has said panic-buying motorists were behind supply issues and soaring prices.

Mr Bowen and motoring associations are pleading with people to stop stockpiling fuel, labelling behaviour seeking to profiteer off the situation “un-Australian”.

Australia has relaxed quality standards for the next 60 days in a bid to boost the domestic market.

The minister rejected Mr Joyce’s proposal to ration fuel in metropolitan areas.

Opposition energy spokesman Dan Tehan has accused Mr Bowen of deploying ad-hoc measures in response to the supply and price crunch.

An Australian businessman recklessly compiled reports for individuals whom he should have suspected were Chinese spies, a jury has found.

Alexander Csergo, 59, was running a telecoms business in Shanghai when he was approached on LinkedIn in November 2021 by a woman claiming to be from a Chinese think tank.

His decision to then prepare fake, plagiarised reports for two individuals only known as Ken and Evelyn was enough for a NSW District Court jury on Friday to find him guilty of one count of reckless foreign interference.

The 59-year-old, who had been working on telecommunications infrastructure while in Shanghai, should have suspected that Ken and Evelyn were working for China’s Ministry of State Security, the jury found.

He used open-source information to compile reports on a variety of topics including mining, politics, defence and security.

He also falsely claimed he had interviewed a number of individuals, including former prime minister Kevin Rudd.

The reports were handed to Ken or Evelyn in person – sometimes at restaurants and cafes devoid of other people – in exchange for envelopes containing the equivalent of thousands of dollars in cash.

Despite this information being worthless, the jury still found Csergo guilty after being told by crown prosecutors that the relationship with him and his contacts were valuable.

Ken also handed the 59-year-old a “shopping list” of sensitive topics to research when he returned to Australia in early 2023.

This document was found by domestic spies and police when they raided his eastern Sydney home in March that year.

Thousands of Australian music fans will be left high and dry at Easter, with one of Australia’s largest festivals cancelled weeks out from the event.

Bluesfest organisers made the decision on Friday to cancel the Byron Bay event after experiencing poor ticket sales and rising production costs.

It has been a staple for festival-goers for more than 36 years, and has hosted some of the world’s biggest artists such as Bob Dylan.

“For more than three decades, Bluesfest has brought extraordinary artists and audiences together in Byron Bay while also driving significant tourism and economic activity for the Northern Rivers and NSW,” festival director Peter Noble said in a statement.

“This makes the decision incredibly difficult. After careful consideration, we concluded we could not proceed in a way that would meet the standard our audiences, artists and partners expect.”

It was impossible to proceed with the festival due to the current operating environment for major live music events, the festival added.

The festival was scheduled to run from April 2-5, with Split Enz and Parkway Drive the headline acts.

The festival said a liquidator had been appointed to manage all financial matters for the event, including vendor and partner obligations.

Ticket holders, including parking pass customers and campers, are expected to be contacted by the liquidator with more information and potential refund arrangements.

Organisers promoted the 2025 Bluesfest as the event’s final curtain call, but soon backflipped on the decision after the festival.

More than 100,000 patrons attended last year over the Easter long weekend.

Taxpayers could be missing out on almost $200 billion in forgone revenue over the next decade, as a result of property investor tax breaks, analysis shows.

Research published by the Parliamentary Budget Office on Friday, at the behest of the Greens, estimated the capital gains tax (CGT) discount and negative gearing deductions on investment properties would cost taxpayers more than $24 billion per year by 2035/36.

The findings were latched onto by Greens treasury spokesman Nick McKim, who is leading a Senate inquiry into the CGT discount and is set to deliver a report by March 17.

“Winding back the CGT discount would help renters, first-home buyers and the budget,” he said.

“The evidence given to the Greens-led Senate inquiry has made the case for change overwhelming.”

The PBO found negative gearing and the CGT discount together would result in $15.4 billion in forgone revenue this financial year.

Since 2015/16, almost $110 billion has been forgone, with another $190 billion expected over the next 10 years.

However, Peter Tulip, chief economist at free-market think tank the Centre for Independent Studies, warned reforming the CGT discount would be unlikely to recoup anywhere near that amount of revenue for the federal budget.

Most of the proposals flagged would bring in little extra revenue in the first few years, because of elements grandfathering existing assets, he said.

Investors would also change their behaviour as a result of the new tax incentives, prioritising other assets or delaying sales to put off realising their gains, which would lead to less revenue.

As well as the cost to the budget, advocates for change have pointed out the concession benefits overwhelmingly favour wealthier Australians.

Analysis by the Australian Council of Social Service, also released on Friday, found 22 per cent of all CGT discount expenditure accrued to Australia’s top five wealthiest electorates – all in Sydney and Melbourne.

“This is money that could be invested in social housing, essential services, income support and the communities that need support the most,” said ACOSS chief executive Cassandra Goldie.

“Instead, it’s being used to supercharge inequality.”

Wentworth, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, accrued the greatest benefit, with the average resident receiving a CGT break of $13,450 per year. 

Meanwhile, the western Sydney electorate of Blaxland, where the average taxable income is $53,542, receives an average CGT concession of $333.

Independent Wentworth MP Allegra Spender on Wednesday released a white paper calling for the CGT discount to be cut from 50 per cent to 30 per cent.

Dr Tulip said the most attractive model for reform would be a return to the pre-1999 tax regime, in which capital gains were discounted in line with inflation, so investors were only taxed on the real income they made from the asset.

Qantas has agreed to a multi-million dollar settlement to kill off a class action against its contentious COVID-19 flight credits.

The lawsuit accused the airline of breaching contracted refund obligations to customers who had flights cancelled between the start of 2020 and November 1, 2022.

The $105 million settlement, revealed by Qantas on Friday, is subject to approval by the Federal Court of Australia.

Under its terms, the airline makes no admission of liability.

The airline noted it had previously provisioned for the lawsuit and the increased sum would be recognised outside of underlying earnings in the second half of the financial year.

Qantas shareholders appeared unfazed by the announcement, with shares fractionally down when the Australian Securities Exchange opened on Friday.

Echo Law filed the class action against Australia’s national carrier in 2023, alleging the airline misled customers about their refund options, withheld funds and engaged in a “pattern of unconscionable conduct”.

The firm alleged Qantas breached Australian consumer law by failing to immediately issue refunds and retaining customers’ funds when flights were cancelled in 2020

The airline rejected the claims at the time, declaring it had refunded more than $1 billion to customers impacted by flight disruptions in 2020.

Qantas launched a campaign to encourage customers to use remaining flight credits after Australia’s consumer watchdog indicated a probe into the issue was almost complete.

In August 2023, Qantas removed the expiry date on flight credits issued during the pandemic, meaning customers could indefinitely request a cash refund.

Australia’s resources minister is heading to Japan for talks with her global counterparts about shoring up fuel supplies in the face of oil market chaos that’s being driven by the war in the Middle East.

The price of brent crude, the US oil benchmark, surged to more than $100 a barrel on Friday (AEDT) amid reports Iran had been laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz – a key trade route for oil from the region.

Resources Minister Madeleine King said she would meet her counterparts from the US, Japan, South Korea, Timor Leste and other countries at the Indo-Pacific Energy Security Forum, where petrol and diesel supplies would be on the agenda.

“I’m hoping to achieve good discussions about where everyone else is sitting in addressing the fuel supply or demand issues they’re facing in their countries,” she told ABC TV on Friday morning.

Ms King said boosting supplies of critical minerals and rare earths – used in electric vehicle batteries, smartphones and sensitive defence technologies – would also be discussed.

Asked if Australia could face broader fuel shortages if the conflict drags on for more than a few weeks, Ms King conceded the longer the war continued, the harder it would be for the global economy.

“The ripple effects of such conflict reach everybody’s shores, including Australia’s,” she said.

The federal government has relaxed quality standards for the next 60 days to boost the domestic market with an extra 100 million litres of fuel per month, allowing fuel with higher levels of sulphur to be used.

Quality levels will still remain very high by international standards, the government said.

Ms King said Australia was still well-supplied with global fuel shipments and there were no indications future deliveries would be delayed.

“We do have the supply. There have  been difficulties in some areas because of the extraordinary demand, but we do have sufficient supplies,” she said.

Deputy Opposition Leader Jane Hume said the government had unfairly blamed motorists for panic-buying petrol when broader structural issues were to blame for the shortage, adding that Labor had failed to guarantee Australians they won’t run out of fuel.

“We’re very pleased that there’s going to be more fuel, particularly getting out to the regions,” she told Seven’s Sunrise program on Friday.

Families of people murdered in the Bondi massacre fear the royal commission into anti-Semitism will become a farce following the sudden resignation of a former ASIO boss from the inquiry.

Former spy chief and US ambassador Dennis Richardson announced he was quitting the probe as he was “surplus to requirements”.

Originally brought on to run an independent investigation into possible intelligence failures leading up to the December 14 terror attack, his report was rolled into the broader anti-Semitism royal commission.

The wide-ranging federal probe was called after almost a month of lobbying from Australia’s Jewish community.

Jenny Rotyur, the niece of Boris Tetleroyd who was fatally shot at the Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach, said the families were worried “everything would fall apart”.

“We wanted a really close look at the intelligence agencies and their failures,” she told AAP.

“We are becoming extremely concerned that this royal commission is turning into a farce.

“We need the truth to be found, and without an expert on security agencies, I’m finding it hard to believe they’re going to be able to do that.”

Speaking to reporters in Canberra on Thursday, Mr Richardson said his departure would not affect the inquiry’s investigation into intelligence services.

Sabina Kleitman, the daughter of Holocaust survivor and Bondi victim Alex Kleytman, said she and the community were “shocked” by Mr Richardson’s announcement.

“Due to his credentials he would be the best person to get down to the reason behind what had happened,” she said.

The families only found out about his resignation through media reporting and were awaiting a full response, Ms Kleitman said.

Her 87-year-old father was shot in the chest as he died shielding his wife of almost 60 years from the gunmen.

Mr Kleytman had survived the horrors of World War II and persecution in the Soviet Union before relocating to Australia with his family for a safer life.

He was among 15 people killed by a father-son duo in one of the nation’s worst ever mass shootings.

The inquiry, headed by former High Court judge Virginia Bell, will hand down an interim report by the end of April.

Australia has ordered all non-essential officials to leave Israel and the United Arab Emirates two weeks after the US and Israel’s war on Iran engulfed the Middle East.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said staff were directed to leave “due to the deteriorating security situation”.

“Essential Australian officials will remain in-country to support Australians who need it,” she said in a statement posted on social media on Thursday night.

“We continue to advise Australians not to travel to Israel and the UAE. 

“We urge you to leave the Middle East if you can and if it’s safe to do so.”

Senator Wong’s statement comes after the government told families of Australian officials in Israel and Lebanon to leave in the days before the war began on February 28.

Voluntary departures were also offered to diplomats’ dependents in the UAE, Jordan and Qatar.

The war has so far killed about 2000 people and caused the biggest disruption to global oil supplies in decades.

Oil prices that had ‌come down earlier this week after US President Donald Trump said the war ⁠would soon be over soared back above $US100 a barrel after an apparent escalation in Iranian attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf.

The two-week-old conflict has prompted thousands of Australians to flee the region, with the government saying on Tuesday that more than 2600 Australians were returning home on commercial flights.

Senator Wong said the overwhelming majority of Australian citizens who were travelling through the Middle East and became stuck when the war broke out had returned home.