Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has condemned anti-Indigenous rights protesters who disrupted two Anzac Day dawn services as hundreds of thousands gathered across the nation to commemorate their war dead.

Hundreds of thousands of people have gathered across Australia and New Zealand for dawn services and street marches to commemorate their war dead on Anzac Day.

Australia has rejected a coal mining application based on environmental law for the first time.

MELBOURNE – Overseas travelers should be quarantined in hotels guarded by police, an inquiry into an Australian city’s bungled quarantine program reported on Friday. Victoria Health Minister Jenny Mikakos and senior public servant Chris Eccles both resigned after the inquiry heard evidence of their involvement in the program. Also Friday, Australia’s highest court upheld a state’s border closure and dismissed billionaire businessman Clive Palmer’s argument that the pandemic measure was unconstitutional. The seven High Court judges ruled that Western Australia’s state border closure to non-essential travel applied during “a hazard in the nature of a plague or epidemic” complied with the constitution. All Australian states and territories have used border restrictions to curb infections and a court ruling against Western Australia could have impacted their pandemic responses.

Diners are seen in a dining room of popular Melbourne Restaurant Chin Chin in Melbourne, Australia, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)CANBERRA – Australia’s highest court on Friday upheld a state’s border closure and dismissed billionaire businessman Clive Palmer’s argument that the pandemic measure was unconstitutional. The seven High Court judges ruled that Western Australia’s state border closure to non-essential travel applied during “a hazard in the nature of a plague or epidemic” complied with the constitution. All Australian states and territories have used border restrictions to curb infections and a court ruling against Western Australia could have impacted their pandemic responses. His lawyers had argued that the border restriction unreasonably infringed upon Australians’ constitutional right to free travel between states.