Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has responded to the overnight shootings in Orlando, Florida, in which 50 people were shot and at least as many more injured.
Turnbull described the killings as “an act of terror and an act of hate”.
Later in the day, after he had spoken to the US Ambassador to Australia, John Berry, Turnbull said: “This was a murderous attack on gay people in this nightclub. Many people of course could be victim of an attack like that. We don’t have all the details but it was clearly directed by a murderous hatred of gay people exercising their freedom to gather together.”