As it happened: Grocery stores face billion-dollar fines; Nuclear energy debate dominates return of parliament

Two of the teenagers who allegedly triggered a lockdown at an Adelaide Westfield yesterday afternoon have been arrested.

Two groups of young men fighting in the food court of the Marion shopping centre, in south-west Adelaide, activated a centre-wide lockdown, as panicked shoppers fled.

Police searched the centre for the group, but the young men, some of whom were allegedly armed with expandable batons, were not initially located yesterday.

Further investigations led to the two arrests, with two boys, aged 15 and 16, charged with assault, affray and aggravated robbery, and two expandable batons seized.

The boys will appear in the Adelaide Youth Court later today.

South Australia Police are continuing their investigations to locate the remaining boys involved in the indent, which they believe was not random.

Australia’s supermarket giants could be fined billions of dollars – the highest penalties for any industry – if they breach a revamped and mandatory code of conduct designed to fix an imbalance of bargaining power between the major grocery stores and small suppliers.

Woolworths would face maximum penalties of $5 billion and Coles could be forced to cough up $3.8 billion – 10 per cent of each company’s annual turnover – under the massive fines that will be introduced on the recommendation of a major review tasked with strengthening the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct.

Read the full story here.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the phase of intense fighting against Hamas in the Gaza Strip was coming to an end but that the war would not end until the Islamist group no longer controls the Palestinian enclave.

Once the intense fighting is over in Gaza, Netanyahu said, Israel will be able to deploy more forces along the northern border with Lebanon, where fighting with Iran-backed Hezbollah has escalated.

“After the intense phase is finished, we will have the possibility to move part of the forces north. And we will do this, first and foremost for defensive purposes. And secondly, to bring our (evacuated) residents home,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14.

“If we can, we will do this diplomatically. If not, we will do it another way. But we will bring [the residents] home,” he said.

Many Israeli towns near the border with Lebanon have been evacuated during the fighting.

Asked when the phase of intense fighting against Hamas will come to an end, Netanyahu answered: “Very soon.”

But the military will still operate in Gaza.

“I am not willing to end the war and leave Hamas as it is,” he said.

Netanyahu also reiterated his rejection of the idea that the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority run Gaza in place of Hamas.

Reuters

Good morning blog readers. My name is Josefine Ganko, and I’ll lead our live coverage through the morning.

It’s Monday, June 24.

Here’s what made news in Australia and around the world overnight.

• A new poll revealed many Australians are willing to consider nuclear power even if they are unsure, raising the stakes for Labor and the Coalition in an election fight on energy.
• Australia’s supermarket giants could be fined billions of dollars if they breach a revamped and mandatory code of conduct.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the phase of intense fighting against Hamas in the Gaza Strip was coming to an end but that the war wasn’t over yet. His comments come as footage of an injured Palestinian man strapped to the bonnet of an IDF vehicle spread online.
• Gunmen opened fire at a synagogue, an Orthodox church and a police post in Russia’s north Caucasus region of Dagestan, killing six police officers and injuring 12.