Rohan Smith

Melbourne

Acting Deputy Editor at News.com.au

Acting sections editor for https://t.co/d997raiwpY. Overseeing verticals including finance, lifestyle, travel, entertainment and technology. DMs open.

Articles

Young voters played a huge role in the election

1 week ago | news.com.au | Rohan Smith

Adam Bandt was on to something when he popped on the headphones to DJ in front of 500 attendees at the iconic Melbourne live music venue The Night Cat in March. He cited Charlie XCX and Billie Eilish among artists on rotation at the 53-year-old’s Flemington home. Was it one of the cringiest moments of the election campaign? Sure. But it was also a commendable strategic play to capitalise on the first election where millennials and Gen Z outnumber baby boomers at the ballot box.
Greens wipeout: Adam Bandt fighting to hold seat as Max Chandler-Mather ousted

1 week ago | news.com.au | Rohan Smith

Facing a complete wipeout of his party, Greens leader Adam Bandt took to social media just before midnight on Saturday to declare he would retain his seat. That’s despite early results indicating the seat of Melbourne, which he has held since 2010, being a very tight race and yet to be called. Depending on preference flows, the final count could go against the incumbent.
‘Huge bump’: Peter Dutton’s path to victory revealed after dramatic shift

1 week ago | news.com.au | Rohan Smith

This is not the same race it was in 2022. If you’ve been paying attention to election commentary and staying across the polls, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s already over. The final RedBridge-Accent national poll released on Wednesday showed Labor leading 53-47 in two-party-preferred terms, marking a one-point gain since April.
‘Will do what it takes’: Exclusive club’s plan to block Merivale’s Melbourne CBD plan

2 weeks ago | news.com.au | Natalie Brown |Rohan Smith

One of Melbourne’s most exclusive gentlemen’s clubs has moved to block billionaire restaurant baron Justin Hemmes’ contentious plans to turn a car park in one of the city’s most sought-after pockets into a “hospitality, entertainment and creative wonderland”. Mr Hemmes, the so-called “king” of Sydney’s hospitality scene, purchased 34-60 Little Collins Street in February for $55 million.
Trad wives of far-right: White Australian mothers push patriarchy, neo-Nazi ideology

3 weeks ago | news.com.au | Rohan Smith

A group of Australian women dress in flowing white gowns and flower crowns, but the hyper-innocent aesthetic is masking a very different reality. These women spend their days mirroring a life 70 years in the past — that of the ultra-feminine traditional housewife. They are largely housebound, bake cakes and breads for their husbands and know never to speak back.
Samantha Azzopardi, Malka Leifer prison relationship, kiss exposed

4 weeks ago | news.com.au | Rohan Smith

One of Australia’s most prolific conwomen — best known for her twisted portrayal of a vulnerable “schoolgirl” — has struck up a relationship with an ex-principal predator while behind bars at a maximum security prison in Melbourne. Samantha Azzopardi, 36, was jailed for two years last October for posing as a 17-year-old sex-trafficked schoolgirl from Belgium named Hattie Leigh and collecting more than $20,000 meant for victims of domestic violence.
Period home demolished in Melbourne’s north as NIMBYs fight development

1 month ago | news.com.au | Rohan Smith

Oakhill estate in the Melbourne suburb of Reservoir is one of the most sought-after pockets in all of the city’s north. And there’s a special reason for that. On every street in the area are emaculately-maintained Californian bungalows — a style of home that exploded in popularity in Melbourne from about 1915 until 1940. You can’t miss them — their characteristic single-storey, low-pitched roof and front porch have been home to generations of locals in the vibrant Italian and Greek neighbourhood.
Richmond injecting room: Drug users say it saved their lives

1 month ago | news.com.au | Rohan Smith

Dead bodies on the street. Drug users injecting in broad daylight. It’s a horror show for some but recovering addicts say it’s not the whole story. News.com.au last week visited Richmond, an inner-city suburb that is home to Melbourne’s heroin epidemic and the site of the city’s only injecting room.
Melbourne drug crisis: Injecting room, Richmond in spotlight, overdose video

1 month ago | news.com.au | Rohan Smith

WARNING: Disturbing content. A woman hovers over a man in the darkness. She is holding a needle to his neck, injecting what she later reveals to be “pure heroin”. Within minutes, the man is stumbling around, slapping himself in the face and writhing on the ground. “He just had a whack of pure heroin, I shouldn’t have given it to him, f***. Any Narcan?” the woman asks in reference to the antidote to opioid drugs.
Melbourne drug crisis: Junkies take over Richmond near safe injecting room

1 month ago | news.com.au | Rohan Smith

A child’s pink bike, fitted with training wheels, rests against the wall in the corridor next to piles of rubbish, used syringes and a Coles shopping trolley. The smell is putrid — a mix of urine and cigarette smoke. A procession of drug users make their way past security on the ground floor and into the lifts. They will be met, according to residents I spoke with, by a dealer in her 80s selling the “cheapest and purest quality drugs”.