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Hundreds gather in Sydney for Anzac Day dawn service

AAP has the details on Sydney’s dawn service where hundreds of people – including veterans – gathered under a full moon and clear skies for a solemn service in the CBD.

The NSW governor, Margaret Beazley, the premier, Chris Minns, and the police commissioner, Karen Webb, were among those to lay wreaths before the sun rose at the near 100-year-old Cenotaph in Martin Place.

Minns continued the dawn service tradition with a reading from Australian writer and World War I veteran Elliott Napier’s moving poem “Salute”. He told the silent crowd:

You who have loved will remember the glow of their glad young years, as you stand today to salute them in silence, with pride and with tears.

The best thing about the ceremony this morning is to see the number of people that come early in the morning.

Times like today the community can come together and remember those who gave their lives for our country and it’s so nice to see it remain a solemn occasion.

Later today, more than 10,000 current serving Australian Defence Force members and veterans, including World War II veterans, will march from Martin Place to the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park.

Thousands gather in Melbourne for dawn service at Shrine of Remembrance

Let’s take a look at the dawn services held across Australia today, starting with Victoria, where tens of thousands gathered in chilly temperatures at the Shrine of Remembrance.

More than 40,000 people filled the area around the war memorial, which was lit up in red before dawn. The premier, Jacinta Allan, Victoria’s police chief commissioner, Shane Patton, the opposition leader, John Pesutto, and the Victorian governor, Margaret Gardner, were amongst the official party.

The master of ceremonies, Justin Smith, paid particular tribute to Australian peacekeepers, who had “little recognition”.

Many times, against their training, our peacekeepers could not fight back and this brought its own trauma, as they witnessed human beings at their worst. Their enemies weren’t always clear, and their allies weren’t always reliable.

This is the first year veterans of peacekeeping operations will lead Melbourne’s Anzac Day march. More than 10,000 are expected to take part, similar to last year.

As mentioned just a moment ago, the PM is walking the Kokoda Track for Anzac Day and so was represented at the ceremony in Melbourne by Senator Raff Ciccone. Liberal Senator Jane Hume represented the opposition leader, Peter Dutton.

- from AAP

PM speaks of gruelling conditions Australians faced during war

The prime minister made a promise to the people of Papua New Guinea during his speech at the Isurava memorial: “We will never forget”.

For the Papua New Guineans this was not a … backdrop or a battlefield, it was home. And ultimately that’s what Australians were fighting for, too. How far away home must have seemed.

They served through days of camaraderie, through days of grinding exhaustion … days that brought [the] inferno of gunfire or the ghostly finality of a sniper’s bullet. The cruelty of random chance, the silence of sudden death, the terrible suffering of a lingering end…

This was the experience of Australians from across our continent.

The prime minister Anthony Albanese has spent the past two days walking the Kokoda Track to mark Anzac Day, culminating with a dawn service this morning at the Isurava memorial.

Albanese has been walking the track with Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape.

Addressing the crowd, Albanese said they were on “ground made hallowed by Australian sacrifice” where “we now have the privilege of joining together in peace and liberty”.

He remembered and honoured the 625 Australians killed on the Kokoda track, including the 99 who fell in the battle of Isurava. Albanese continued:

Every Anzac Day across Australia, and in battlefields like this one, we honour all who served and all who continue to serve today. It is a collective act of remembrance, reflection and gratitude carried out by multiple generations…

We are gathered in a place that has known the most pitiless ferocity of battle, fought with bullets, bayonet, mortar and the desperation of bare hands. It is also a place that has seen the unadorned strength of the Australian spirit.

Prime minister and opposition leader mark Anzac Day

Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have both marked Anzac Day and paid tribute to service men and women across the country.

In a post to X, the prime minister said:

We gather before the dawn for the generations of Australians since Gallipoli who have served in our name. Every Anzac Day we honour all who have served, and all who continue to serve today. It is our collective act of remembrance, reflection and gratitude. Lest we forget.

The PM is commemorating Anzac Day with a walk through the Kokoda Track with Papua New Guinea’s prime minister, James Marape. We’ll bring you more on this shortly.

Meanwhile, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, shared a video to X and said:

On Anzac Day, we acknowledge the deeds of all Australians who have served in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations throughout our history. We honour the memories of the more than 103,000 Australians who made the ultimate sacrifice. The Anzac spirit has helped us to prevail in war and prosper in peace. In these difficult times, let us know ourselves again. Lest we forget.

Australians commemorating Anzac Day should not be alarmed as police anticipate more arrests of members of a violent extremist group linked to a teenager who allegedly stabbed an Orthodox Christian bishop, AAP reports.

Counter-terrorism police arrested seven alleged members of a religiously motivated violent extremist group yesterday, following a teen’s alleged terror-inspired stabbing of a bishop in Wakeley in Sydney’s west.

The teenagers aged 15 to 17 had been closely monitored by counter-terrorism police after a 16-year-old boy launched the stabbing attack on Assyrian bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and priest Isaac Royel during a live-streamed church service on 15 April.

Another five people were assisting police with their inquiries.

More than 400 police officers executed 13 search warrants across Sydney yesterday after authorities deemed the loosely connected group posed an “unacceptable risk and threat to the people of NSW”, the police deputy commissioner, David Hudson, said.

The execution of those warrants is continuing. I can assure the community there is no ongoing threat to the community and the action we have taken [on Wednesday] has mitigated any risk of future or further harm.

The federal police deputy commissioner, Krissy Barrett, stressed the arrests yesterday and any further arrests are “not linked to Anzac Day commemorations or any religious holiday”.

There is no immediate danger to the community.

No specific targets had been nominated but the ongoing threat and loose nature of the group – including some splinter groups – alarmed authorities, NSW police said.

Yesterday our political correspondent Paul Karp reported on a secret report that exposed sexism in the marine unit of the Australian Border Force.

That report was carried out in secret by the Australian Human Rights Commission and found that 100% of women who responded to a survey “witnessed sex discrimination, sexual … and/or sex-based harassment” and 78% had personally experienced that behaviour.

Today, a broader report by the AHRC’s s Respect@Work team details “examples of potentially unlawful conduct or inappropriate behaviour raised by ABF officers”.

These included alleged sexual discrimination, such as:

• Comments from a team leader about wanting to “get rid of all his part-time workers” who were all women;

• misogynistic and belittling comments by a male supervisor to a female officer to the effect that she belonged in the kitchen;

• a female officer constantly told to smile while working on sensitive issues

Paul’s full report can be read below:

And welcome back to another day on the Australia news live blog – thanks to Martin for kicking things off. I’m Emily Wind, and I’ll bring you our rolling coverage today.

See something that needs attention, or have a story tip? You can get in touch via X, @emilywindwrites, or send me an email: emily.wind@theguardian.com.

Let’s get started.

We’ve already mentioned Karen Middleton’s interview with defence and veterans’ suicide commissioner Nick Kaldas, and you can read the full story here:

Our columnist Paul Daley picks up the same theme, writing that we’re likely to hear some familiar numbers today about how many troops lost their lives serving the nation. But he argues that we too often accept these figures without challenging the reasons for going to war as continue to do.

What we don’t hear about so often is that one serving or former defence force member has a suicide-related contact with emergency services every four hours – and that, he says, is the tragic, forgotten story of today.

Good morning and welcome to our rolling news coverage for Anzac Day. We’ll have all the news from across the country as the nation remembers the sacrifice of the armed forces, but before then I’m Martin Farrer, bringing you the main overnight news.

As dawn services mark Anzac Day across the country, we have an exclusive interview with the commissioner into defence and veterans’ suicide in which he urges the military to consider a way of formally honouring the serving and former personnel whose service caused wounds or costs their lives away from the battlefield.

There are factors in military service “that cause suicidality to occur that are not related to battle”, the commissioner for defence and veterans’ suicide, Nick Kaldas, tells us today, as he reflects on a startling revelation ahead of his report due in September. He urges defence chiefs to take more responsibility for the problem, saying it has been missing. More coming up.

Police chiefs have reassured Australians that there is “no immediate danger” to Anzac Day events despite seven teenagers with alleged “violent extremist ideology” being arrested in Sydney counter-terror raids yesterday. The arrests come amid the ongoing investigation into the alleged stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanual at the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church in Wakeley last week. A 16-year-old has been charged with a terrorist offence over the alleged attack.

Bullying and harassment “are normalised” in some sections of the Australian Border Force according to a damning report, which suggests cultural issues identified in a secret report revealed by Guardian Australia yesterday are not confined to its marine unit. A broader Respect@Work report on the ABF, a summary of which has been seen by Guardian Australia, also details “examples of potentially unlawful conduct or inappropriate behaviour raised by ABF officers”. More coming up.