Category: Australia

Labor leader denounces ‘publicly funded cruelty’ as thousands protest deportation of asylum-seeker family held on Christmas Island.

Anthony Albanese has spoken directly to Scott Morrison, urging him to stop the deportation of a Tamil asylum seeker family currently being held on Christmas Island, calling it “publicly funded cruelty”.

The opposition leader’s intervention came as thousands of people rallied in cities and towns across Australia on Sunday, including the regional Queensland town of Biloela, in a bid to force the government to let Priya, Nadesalingam and their two Australian-born children Kopika, 4, and Tharunicaa, 2, remain in the country.

Albanese said he had urged the prime minister to intervene, saying it was possible to maintain “strong borders without losing our humanity”.

“I’ve raised directly with prime minister Morrison the need for the immigration minister to intervene in this case,” the Labor leader said on Sunday morning.

“This would not undermine Australia’s borders. It would simply be the very reason why there is ministerial discretion in the Act, to show compassion, to show that there are specific needs for this family.

“These people should be settled here in Australia. It won’t undermine the government’s migration policies. It will simply say that this is a government that is prepared to listen to what the community are saying and saying so strongly.”

Nadesalingam and Priya fled Sri Lanka due to persecution and arrived in Australia separately by boat in 2012 and 2013. After living in Biloela for years, on 5 March 2018 the family of four had their home stormed by Australian Border Force officers accompanied by Serco guards and were moved to immigration detention in Melbourne.

Late on Friday night, the family were flown from Darwin to an Australian detention centre on Christmas Island.

A broad coalition of voices has called for the family to be allowed to stay in the country. The Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce told the Sydney Morning Herald that the community of Biloela “seem to be pretty enthused about keeping this family there”.

“I think we should also be listening to them,” he said.

Sydney shock jock Alan Jones has also been vocal in calling for the family to remain in Australia, calling their potential deportation a “shameful chapter” in the Morrison government. In Melbourne, where the family were held in detention for nearly a year-and-a-half, more than a thousand people gathered around the steps of the State Library of Victoria to show their support, chanting “Let them stay,” before marching through the city.

“I spoke to Priya yesterday, she’s very afraid,” New Zealand journalist and family friend Rebekah Holt told the rally in Melbourne.

“All I could hear in her voice … was the stress, the exhaustion and the fear.
“I asked her if she had a message and she said ‘we’re all alone here’.”

In Sydney, where a few hundred people gathered in Martin Place and chanted “let them stay”, Labor’s federal home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally and SBS sports analyst and refugee campaigner Craig Foster called on the government to intervene.

“As a Christian Australian, my message to our Christian prime minister Scott Morrison [is to] open your heart,” Keneally said.

“Understand what the gospel calls us as Christians to do. It is the parable of the good Samaritan. Where we welcome in our land the stranger, where we treat them with compassion and kindness. This is an opportunity … for him to show Christian leadership, this is an opportunity for him to reflect on what the gospel calls us as Christians to do.

“We’re having a debate right now in Australia about religious freedom. Religious freedom only matters if we as religious people speak up for the values that we hold dear and that’s why I call on our prime minister to do the right thing as a Christian but also do the right thing as the prime minister of this nation.”

“I don’t really understand the motive of the Christmas Island move given that there are many other functioning detention centres in Australia, on the mainland,” she said.

“We are calling on the federal government not to deport the Biloela family. They are in real danger if deported back to Sri Lanka,” Refugee Action Collective’s Chris Breen said. “They have real claims for protection [in Australia].”

The move has created logistical issues for lawyers who are due to face the federal circuit court on Monday and federal court on Wednesday.

The federal court on Friday extended an interim injunction until Wednesdayas two-year-old Tharunicaa had not been assessed for a protection visa.

At the rally in Brisbane, the crowd lent its voice to a rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, while at a vigil in Adelaide, supporters chanted: “Let them stay.” In Hobart, advocates gathered outside the Tasmanian Parliament House building.

Albanese declined to reveal what Morrison had said in response during the “private conversation”, but said he had made plain his views on what he called “publicly funded cruelty on behalf of a government that really has lost touch”.

“We can have, very clearly, strong borders without losing our humanity,” Albanese said.

“I put my case strongly and said it was a strong view of the Labor party that we would support ministerial intervention by minister Dutton and obviously that he [Morrison] was in a position to give guidance to the immigration minister.”

But the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, has consistently refused.

“I would like the family to accept that they are not refugees, they’re not owed protection by our country,” he told the Nine Network on Friday.

The case has been “comprehensively assessed” and reviewed since 2012, a home affairs spokeswoman added.

Speaking on the ABC Insiders program on Sunday morning, Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek said “common sense and compassion” should prevail. She called on Dutton to “use your ministerial discretion – let’s just let this family stay”.

“Ministerial discretion is in our immigration laws for a reason and it’s so that common sense can apply when there are strong compassionate circumstances.

“This is a family that is working, volunteering, raising their children in a regional community. We’ve got a government crying out for migrants to move to regional communities. They are well integrated, they are well-supported in their community.”theguardian

NSW is in uncharted territory as bushfires burn across the state, with 15 emergency warnings issued for blazes from the Blue Mountains to the Queensland border, and reports of property damage and people potentially trapped in their homes.

More than 85 fires were burning on Friday night with NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons saying there were reports of “multiple community areas being impacted, loss, damage and destruction”.

As of 9pm local time, 49 of those 85 fires were uncontained, according to NSW RFS.

He said almost 1200 firefighters were on the ground and 70 aircraft had been deployed “to save as many people as possible.”

Earlier he told ABC TV: “It’s a very dynamic, it’s a very volatile and it’s a very dangerous set of circumstances that we’re experiencing.”

“We are in uncharted territory … we’ve never seen this many fires concurrently at emergency warning level.”

MidCoast Mayor David West, who lives in Brimbin, said that in his 73 years he had never seen anything like the fire in his area.

“I’m looking at a sky that’s screaming danger, that’s saying ‘get out of my way, I’m going to kill you’,” he told AAP on Friday night.

“I know that sounds melodramatic but it’s not. This is a fire that’s devouring everything in its path.”

Mr West said he’d heard unconfirmed reports of property loss, and people in the Bobin area who “are really, really – can I tell you, suffering”.

ABC reported that the RFS had received reports of people at several locations being trapped in their homes.

The RFS in a tweet said many people had called for help but the size and speed of fires meant they couldn’t get to everyone.

MidCoast Council deputy mayor Claire Pontin – who lives in nearby Hallidays Point – says the area was “tinder dry”.

“It’s just crispy. In places, you can hear the leaves crunching under your feet.”

It’s thought two homes were damaged or destroyed in the fire burning at Stockyard Flat near Walcha.

Fires around Port Macquarie turned the skies an eerie reddish-orange colour, with many residents taking to social media to post images and video of the “apocalyptic” scene.

The fire danger should lessen over the weekend, although threat levels are forecast to rise again on Tuesday or Wednesday next week.

Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Rose Barr says there should be a brief reprieve in fire weather conditions as temperatures cool over the weekend.

Mr Fitzsimmons in an online video said that while conditions were going tobe a little better on Saturday, “there’s so much fire out in the landscape that there’s going to be an extraordinary amount of work with firefighter crews”.

Jetstar has firmed up a delivery date for the first of its new long-range Airbus A321NEO aircraft, which will free up some of its larger aircraft to pursue growing markets in Asia.

Qantas’ budget subsidiary will receive its first A321NEO LR aircraft in August next year, with another to arrive before Christmas 2020 and a total of 18 to be in the fleet by the end of 2022, the airline confirmed on Friday.The 232-seat jets will predominantly operate on Jetstar’s domestic network, as an updated version of its existing A320s.

However, the new aircrafts’ more efficient engines mean they can fly further and fly routes such as Melbourne to Bali overnight after operating within Australia during the day.

“We can do that within the first four or five (deliveries), and that will free up approximately three 787s, so then we get the opportunity to decide where to put those,” he said.

“Obviously you don’t make that decision too early… but I suspect we will be utilising those partly to also provide some growth on Bali.”

For passengers, the new planes’ seats will be 18.2 inches wide and have a 29 inch pitch (legroom). That is slightly more generous than its existing short-haul A320s (17.9 wide, 29 inch pitch), and wider but with less legroom than its 787 seats (17 inches wide, 30 inch pitch).

The new aircraft will not have seatback screens, but Jetstar on Friday announced it would install in-flight streaming to both its new and existing short-haul jets so passengers would be able to watch television and movies on their own devices on long flights to Bali.Overhead cabins meanwhile will be 40 per cent larger than its current A320s.

Jetstar has a total of 109 A321 NEOs on order for Airbus, including 36 of its XLR (extra long-haul) variant, but it has not confirmed the delivery scheduled for those remaining aircraft.theage

Engineers say 33 planes should be grounded after US aviation regulator asks airlines worldwide to check 737NG fleets for cracking in ‘pickle fork’

Australia’s aircraft engineers association has called on Qantas to ground all of its Boeing 737 aircraft after cracks were discovered in one of its planes.

Steve Purvinas, the federal secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA), said the fleet of 33 should be “grounded until such time that Qantas can establish which aircraft are safe and which aircraft aren’t”.

According to Purvinas, the crack was discovered in a part of the plane known as the “pickle fork”, which is part of the landing gear.

“It is a primary structure which takes the load off the wing,” he told the ABC on Thursday. “This could cause loss of control of an aircraft, and Qantas shouldn’t be flying them.”

“The first [crack] found on a Qantas aircraft was about an inch long, it’s very small. But these things do propagate very quickly when they’re under load…It’s when that grows, and that grows very quickly, that you have problems.”

He told the ABC on Thursday that another crack had been found in a second plane overnight.

On Thursday morning, Qantas announced it would bechecking more than 30 of its Boeing 737 aircraft after cracking was discovered in one plane during a maintenance check.

But Purvinas said the airline should go further and ground the fleet.

Earlier this year, the US Federal Aviation Administration ordered global airlines to check any 737s that had completed 30,000 flights for cracks.

The Qantas plane involved had completed fewer than 30,000 cycles.

“Qantas would never operate an aircraft unless it was completely safe to do so.

“Detailed analysis by Boeing shows that even when a crack is present, it does not immediately compromise the safety of the aircraft, as indicated by the timeframe given by regulators to perform the checks.”

The problem came to light after Boeing said that it had found cracking in a part of the 737NG (the model before the troubled 737 Max) called the “pickle fork” on jets being overhauled in China.

Nearly 5% of 810 inspections subsequently conducted have found cracks in the part, which attaches the plane’s fuselage to the wing.

Purvinas told the ABC that repairs on this kind of crack take “months to fix” and require a special Boeing team.

… on the escalating climate crisis. This is the Guardian’s pledge: we will continue to give global heating, wildlife extinction and pollution the urgent attention and prominence they demand. The Guardian recognises the climate emergency as the defining issue of our times.

Our independence means we are free to investigate and challenge inaction by those in power. We will inform our readers about threats to the environment based on scientific facts, not driven by commercial or political interests. And we have made several important changes to our style guide to ensure the language we use accurately reflects the environmental catastrophe.

In Australia, we commit to delivering the most comprehensive environmental reporting in the country. We will hold those in power to account for their inadequate national response and keep our focus on the actions of the Morrison government. Guardian Australia will continue to pursue deep investigations into the most important environmental issues.

The Guardian believes that the problems we face on the climate crisis are systemic and that fundamental societal change is needed. We will keep reporting on the efforts of individuals and communities around the world who are fearlessly taking a stand for future generations and the preservation of human life on earth. We want their stories to inspire hope. We will also report back on our own progress as an organisation, as we take important steps to address our impact on the environment.

The Guardian made a choice: to keep our journalism open to all. We do not have a paywall because we believe everyone deserves access to factual information, regardless of where they live or what they can afford.

We hope you will consider supporting the Guardian’s open, independent reporting today. Every contribution from our readers, however big or small, is so valuable. Support The Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.

Australia’s major media organisations have come together to fight for increased press freedom and whistleblower protection.

Australia’s major media organisations blacked out their newspaper front pages and websites on Monday in a coordinated push for legislative change to protect press freedom and force the government to increase transparency.

According to the organisations – which include SBS, the ABC, Nine, News Corp Australia and The Guardian – a slew of laws introduced over the past 20 years have hindered the media’s capacity to act as the fourth estate and hold the government and other powerful figures to account. 

The blackout coincides with a government inquiry into press freedom, which on Friday heard from media bosses and journalists who said national security and intelligence legislation was leaving reporters unable to do their jobs and whistleblowers afraid to come forward.

The first-of-its-kind action was coordinated by Australia’s Right to Know coalition, of which SBS is a member, to draw attention to what it believes the future will look like if “laws continue to erode media freedom so that governments can cover up information from the public”.

“For the first time ever, Australia’s leading media organisations have come together in this way to defend the growing threat to every Australian’s right to know about information that impacts their lives,” the coalition said.

The topic of press freedom hit headlines in June when the Australian Federal Police raided the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst and the ABC offices, in the latter case over a series of stories that included allegations of misconduct by Australian special forces abroad made possible by a whistleblower.

It is still unclear whether the journalists at the centre of the raids will be charged.

Following the raids, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the government was “absolutely committed to freedom of the press”, adding the government was not made aware of the investigations.

But Paul Murphy, chief executive of the union for Australia’s journalists the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, said there had been a “tidal wave” of legislation over the past two decades that made it harder for journalists and whistleblowers to uncover the truth.

A number of our journalist members have told me since the police raids earlier this year that they’ve lost sources, that they’ve lost stories because [sources] clearly see the nature of those raids as being government agencies sending a message,” he said.

Compared to New Zealand, the US, the UK and Canada, Australia’s intelligence and national security laws are the “most oppressive”, Denis Muller from the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism told SBS News.

Australia also does not have any protections for free speech.

The ABC’s managing director David Anderson also warned that Australia was at risk of becoming “the world’s most secretive democracy”.

“No one is above the law but something in our democracy is not working as it should when we fail to protect people acting in the public interest,” he said.

 The ABC, which is entirely government-funded, is a member of Australia’s Right to Know coalition.As part of the new campaign, Australia’s Right to Know coalition – which was formed in 2007 – conducted research that found 87 per cent of people said they valued a transparent democracy but only 37 per cent believed they were currently living in one.

Of the more than 1,000 people surveyed, 35 per cent said they believed the government was keeping them informed about the things they have a right to know.

Without press freedom “the community are denied information which is in the public interest that they should have,” Dr Muller said.

“All of the current whistle-blower cases are all about matters of great public interest. And if the community is denied information about them, then it’s going to be in a far less well-informed position to make decisions at election time.”sbs

 

Funafuti, Tuvalu: Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he is accountable only to the Australian people after holding his ground against Pacific leaders who had joined forces to dial up the region’s efforts to phase out coal.

Australia was left isolated as leaders bickered during a marathon summit meeting on Thursday night, as fears grow that China will seek to exploit diplomatic differences over how to respond to the effects of climate change on low-lying island nations.

Mr Morrison stood his ground against the anti-coal push, while acknowledging climate change was the single biggest threat to the security of Pacific island nations.

The Prime Minister went on a hard economic sell during the 12-hour meeting, telling leaders that getting young people into jobs with help from schemes such as the Pacific worker program was key to the region’s future prosperity.

Mr Morrison did much of the negotiating with other leaders, sidestepping diplomats to ensure the final statement incorporated key concerns from Pacific countries while retaining Australia’s right to maintain its own economic interests.

PM believes Australia is doing enough to reduce emissions

Asked whether he would have to answer to the Pacific over his stance, Mr Morrison replied: “I am accountable to the Australia people – that’s who I’m accountable for.”

Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga, the chairman of the forum, hinted there were major disagreements during the summit but said he was pleased to get a “negotiated outcome”.

“Australia is an important partner in the forum family, likewise everyone else. We tried our best,” Mr Sopoaga said.

“I think we can say we should have done more work for our people. We have to live with that.”

Both Mr Morrison and the Trump administration have re-engaged with the region as China’s influence grows through billions of dollars worth of loans and infrastructure investments.

Mr Morrison said the role of other state actors had not been mentioned at the leader retreat, with most discussions focusing on matters of urgency like illegal fishing and the fallout from nuclear testing over many decades.

Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Malielegaoi, one of the Pacific’s most influential leaders, said on Thursday that island nations would not line up with Australia and the United States against China, declaring “their enemies are not our enemies”.

In addition to tweaking the forum’s final declaration, Australia also pushed back on attempts from smaller island states to include a strong statement urging the world to speed up its transition away from coal towards renewable energy.

Australia also succeeded in its push to not have the term “climate change crisis” in the communique. Sourch: theage

A man accused of fatally stabbing a woman and seriously injuring another in Sydney’s CBD on Tuesday has been released from hospital and is expected to be charged over the attacks today.

Mert Ney, 20, was discharged from Prince Alfred Hospital, where he underwent surgery on his lower leg, and was taken to Surry Hills police station this afternoon.

NSW Police said it was expected he would be charged later today.

Mr Ney is accused of killing 24-year-old Michaela Dunn with a kitchen knife, before stabbing Linda Bo, 41, as she was walking in the CBD.

Passers-by who witnessed the alleged attack against Ms Bo gave chase, apprehending Mr Ney and pinning him down using cafe chairs and a milk crate until police arrived.

Ms Bo was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital in a stable condition, while the body of Ms Dunn was later found in a Clarence Street unit.

Police have since confirmed that Mr Ney had visited Ms Dunn for sexual services on the afternoon of the attack.

On Thursday it emerged that Mr Ney had seen Ms Dunn on at least one occasion before, and had also seen other sex workers, according to the Scarlet Alliance Australian Sex Workers Association.

Mr Ney had also previously been treated for mental health issues, presenting himself at Blacktown Hospital just days before the incident, before checking himself out after six hours.

Seven West Media chief executive Tim Worner has unexpectedly resigned, with chairman Kerry Stokes declaring “now is the time for change”.

Mr Worner, whose leadership at Seven was tainted by his affair with former executive assistant Amber Harrison and court action that followed, will be replaced by James Warburton — a one-time Seven executive before he defected to become Network Ten’s managing director.

In a statement to the stock exchange, Mr Stokes said Mr Worner had tendered his resignation and that Mr Warburton would take over immediately.

“Tim has been a tireless leader at Seven for more than two decades. All parties agree now is the time for change,” Mr Stokes said.

“We are fortunate that James was able to commence immediately.”

In announcing Mr Worner’s resignation, Mr Stokes said the company reaffirms its financial guidance issued in a May 21 trading update.

Mr Worner’s tenure was tarnished after Ms Harrison went public with allegations of cover-ups, credit card misuse and bullying inside Seven.

However, Ms Harrison’s case against the company was dismissed in the NSW Supreme Court, which found she breached confidentiality agreements.

A woman who threw an egg at the Prime Minister’s head during an election campaign event has been sentenced to an 18-month community corrections order and will have to complete 150 hours of community service.

Amber Holt, 25, was sentenced at the Albury Local Court on Tuesday, after pleading guilty earlier this month to common assault.

Holt threw the egg at Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s head while he was campaigning at a Country Women’s Association conference in Albury in May.

The egg grazed his head but did not smash.

Holt also pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis at the time of the egging.

She was also seven days away from finishing an 18-month good behaviour bond for a domestic violence incident.

In sentencing Holt, Magistrate Rodney Brender said it was unacceptable for citizens to be subject to any degree of violence.

“You can’t have people attacking people for their political views physically,” he said.

The prosecution had argued the offence was aggravated by the degree of planning that went into the egging, which involved Holt hearing of the Prime Minister’s visit on the radio, driving to the supermarket to buy eggs, and then travelling to the event.

But Holt’s lawyer said the offending fell “well short of a sophisticated degree of planning”.

“This is short of organised criminal activity,” he said.

The defence also argued that Holt had significant mental health issues, and had voluntarily left her employment at Cotton On and moved in with her parents in Victoria after the incident to address her health.

Holt was ordered to pay a $110 fine for possessing cannabis at the time of the crime.

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“I just want to apologise to everyone involved.

“I don’t encourage anyone to follow what I did, it’s just caused more drama.”

Fighting back tears, she said she had been motivated to throw the egg by a desire to draw attention to the plight of refugees on Manus Island.

She said she and her family had been the target of threats since the incident.

“It’s led to a lot of insults, a lot of threats to my family and loved ones [as well as] myself,” Holt said.

“I’ve had a lot more attention than I’ve ever had in my life and it’s not been great.” abc.net

The head of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) will retire from the force after three decades, triggering an international hunt to find his replacement.

In a statement, Commissioner Andrew Colvin said he told the Federal Government before the election he would not seek an extension to his five-year contract, which ends on October 1.

“This has been by far the hardest decision of my 30 years as a police officer, but I believe this is the right decision for me, for my family, and for the AFP,” he said.

Commissioner Colvin joined the AFP in 1990 and went on to lead its response to national and international terrorism between 2002 and 2005.

“It is with enormous pride that I have led the AFP for the past five years, a time during which we have achieved incredible success against a range of crimes both at home, and abroad,” he said.

Commission Colvin’s departure comes at a tumultuous time for the AFP, which has faced scrutiny from media organisations for raids on journalists after the election.

He was overseas when officers raided the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst and the ABC’s headquarters in Sydney.

But his departure appears unrelated to the circumstances surrounding the raids.

Commissioner Colvin said he told the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet before the election that he would retire.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, in a statement, said Commissioner Colvin told him of his plans “shortly after” the May 18 election.

Mr Dutton thanked Commissioner Colvin for his service, and said he had offered “inspirational leadership” as the nation’s top police officer.

“Andrew has played a significant role in responding to many of our nation’s major security issues in his 30-year career in law enforcement, this has included coordinating the AFP’s national and international response to terrorism events to the 2002 Bali bombings, 2003 Jakarta Marriot bombing and the 2004 Australian embassy bombing,” he said.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott picked then deputy commissioner Colvin in 2014 to lead the AFP after the Government carried out an international search.

Mr Dutton said the Government had begun its search to select a new commissioner.with, abcnews