Lidia Thorpe welcomes first treaty with traditional owners and says PM ‘needs to take notice’
Victoria senator Lidia Thorpe welcomed the passage of Australia’s first treaty with traditional owners, as we reported in the blog earlier.
Thorpe, a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman, said in a statement:
I congratulate the First Peoples’ Assembly on this historic milestone. And the whole country should recognise the decades of first peoples’ resistance, organising and activism that brought us here.
This treaty is welcome progress and a good start towards real self-determination.
Thorpe said the milestone should not be cause for congratulations to the Labor party, saying prime minister Anthony Albanese needed to “take notice” of the treaty in light of the failed voice referendum:
Labor will pat themselves on the back for this moment, but the truth is they are still destroying Country, locking up our people, and forcibly removing our children in huge numbers. I will not congratulate Labor for treaty while they continue harming our people.
Albanese needs to take notice of this. The federal government has completely stalled since the failed voice referendum. It’s for Albanese to get over it and move on.
Key events
Mine explosion that left two dead happened when ‘shot firing’ was being prepared, company says
The company that owns the Endeavour mine in western New South Wales has provided more details about an incident that left two people dead in an explosion earlier this week.
Polymetals Resources said it did not yet know the cause of the explosion but said it took place during a time when “shot firing was being prepared as a secondary detonation activity”. Shot firers are responsible for assembly, positioning and detonating explosives to break solid rock.
Patrick McMullen, 59, and Holly Clarke, 24, were killed on Tuesday. Both worked as shotfirers.
The company said this morning:
It is hoped that outcomes from these investigations will help eliminate any re-occurrence of such an incident within the industry.
Dave Sproule, the chairman of the company, said:
Words fall short of how deeply affected the Polymetals’ family is by this tragic incident. The feeling of profound sadness when life is lost is never forgotten. We’re devastated by what has happened and share our deepest thoughts and condolences with the families, their friends and our colleagues. We are doing everything we can to support those affected.
The company plans to restore operations at the mine in stages, with some work set to begin early next week.
AFP commissioner to sign new security agreement with PNG
Australian federal police commissioner Krissy Barrett will sign a new policing agreement with Papua New Guinea tomorrow meant to “improve the information flow and investigative support” with the Pacific nation.
Barrett said the new deal will focus on investigations that span jurisdictions and target organised crime networks in both PNG and Australia. She said:
This will streamline information exchange and sharing of police resources and technology, enabling them to disrupt threats earlier.
To keep Australia and PNG safe, we need to keep our region safe. And our great policing partners in the Pacific show what an important bloc of partners they are.
What’s driving the sudden explosion in flies across Sydney?
Insect populations are booming across New South Wales, with flies swarming beachgoers, catching rides on pedestrians’ backs and trying to get a drink of the tasty nectar seeping from people’s mouths.
But are there more flies than usual – or has Sydney just forgotten what all the buzz is about?
“This call happens every year,” Tanya Latty, an entomologist and researcher in insect behaviour at the University of Sydney, tells Guardian Australia.
It’s spring in Sydney, that’s kind of what’s happening. We get used to there not being a lot of flies over winter and, when they show up in the spring every year, people ask if there are more than usual.
Read more here:
Does the Albanese government have a transparency problem? – Full Story podcast
A report by the Centre for Public Integrity has accused the Albanese government of “leaning into a culture of secrecy”. Labor’s record on transparency also featured in parliament this week after independent ACT senator David Pocock led a revolt against the government for failing to produce a key report into “jobs for mates”.
Bridie Jabour talks to the editor, Lenore Taylor, and the head of newsroom, Mike Ticher, about whether the Albanese government is failing to live up to its own expectations on transparency.
Listen here:
Cait Kelly
Potential law allowing Centrelink payments to be stripped criticised as ‘shocking overreach’
Proposed laws allowing Centrelink payments to be stripped from those evading arrest while accused of serious crimes would be a “shocking overreach of police powers into the social security system”, welfare advocates warn.
The amendment to the income apportionment bill, added by Labor this week during parliamentary debate, would mean police officers would have the power to request the cancellation of Centrelink payments to those accused of a “serious violent or sexual offence” when an arrest warrant had been issued.
Some advocates and social security legal experts, including the Antipoverty Centre, the Council of Single Mothers and their Children, the Anti-Poverty Network South Australia, the Australian Unemployed Workers Union and Everybody’s Home have said the amendment represents punishment without conviction and blurs the separation of powers.
The Anglicare Australia executive director, Kasy Chambers, said the proposal was “completely at odds with the principles of fairness and justice” and called on the government to scrap the amendment. Chambers said:
This is a shocking overreach of police powers into the social security system. We’ve seen too many times what happens when governments rush through changes without thinking through the consequences. Robodebt should have been warning enough.
Krishani Dhanji
At least 30 Coalition MPs and senators gathered for net zero meeting
The Coalition net zero meeting is about halfway through now – it started at 8am and is expected to run for three hours.
Here’s how it’s been taking shape.
It’s been called a “listening” meeting, so those in the room are given up to five minutes to say their peace about the Coalition’s energy policy and are expected to stay to hear the others.
It’s been organised by a joint Coalition backbench committee – led by Liberals Jane Hume and Simon Kennedy – but we’ve been told that so far no Nationals are in the room. The Nats federal council meeting is on this weekend, so at least a few of them are travelling for that.
Who’s in the room? I’m told there’s at least 30 people – and a broad mix of members including former energy minister Angus Taylor, moderate Maria Kovacic and conservative MP Tony Pasin.
Five-year-old girl riding scooter dies after being hit by ute in Sydney
A five-year-old girl has died after she was hit by a car in Sydney’s north-west yesterday.
NSW police said the young girl was riding a scooter on a footpath in the suburb of Rouse Hill about 3.45pm. She was allegedly hit by a Toyota HiLux ute and emergency services were called.
Paramedics treated the girl at the scene before she was taken to the hospital in a critical condition, where she later died.
The driver of the vehicle, a 42-year-old man, was taken to the hospital for mandatory testing. A crime scene has been established and an investigation is ongoing. No charges have been laid.
Josh Butler
Maria Kovacic says Coalition must ‘have a pathway to reduce our emissions’
Maria Kovacic said net zero was “an outcome of the policy and we have to have a pathway to reduce our emissions and ensure that Australians have a clean and reliable energy grid. And that includes looking at gas and renewables, obviously, and we can also look at a pathway to unlocking nuclear technologies.”
Kovacic, asked if that should include a hard target for 2050 emissions, responded:
We’re still discussing that but thank you so much.
Tim Wilson, another moderate, said the party should be focused on “how do we get to net zero price increases and of course net zero outages”. He told Channel Nine’s Today show:
When Australians go and flick the switch on to walk into a room they want to know that the power’s going to turn on but, more important, they’re going to be able to afford the bill at the end of it and so that’s going be our focus.
Of course people care deeply about emissions but they want to make sure we get the price right, they want to make we have a reliable system and then they’ll be supportive of lower emissions too.
Josh Butler
Coalition MPs meeting to discuss net zero
Coalition MPs are meeting to discuss net zero and energy today, as the opposition remains tied in knots over its climate plans. We’re told there won’t be a formal final position on net zero today – it’s a meeting of backbenchers and leader Sussan Ley is visiting Tomago today instead – but it’s likely to result in some arguments.
Liberal senator and moderate Maria Kovacic said this morning that the meeting “won’t be any different from any of our other backbench meetings”. She said:
This is something that Sussan Ley, our leader, has determined we need to do in terms of all of the policy areas and we’ll have a strong discussion, as we always do. And it’s important that all MPs and senators are able to ventilate their views on all policy areas.
Kovacic said she thought Australians wanted the Liberals “to have a credible climate policy. I think it’s important that we understand that net zero, in itself, is not a policy.”
There is a view among some inside the Liberals that they could move away from explicitly sticking to the idea of net zero by 2050 but instead endorse an emissions reduction policy that would have similar goals.
Children’s commissioner says reforms ‘very much’ the beginning
Hollonds added that she did not believe policy and accountability settings in government were right yet to best protect children in childcare. She told RN while it was “great” to see strong leadership from the government and states to address failings in childcare reform, “this is very much just the beginning”.
She said:
The truth is that, when it comes to children’s issues, we are sidelining them. And children often themselves say they feel invisible and can’t get the help that they need from service systems that are primarily geared towards protecting the adults, not the children in their care.
You know, we’ve got this mess of laws and policies and fragmented regulatory systems. And as I said, we saw that they’ve protected the adults, not the children. I think government actually does need help and that’s why I’m supporting the calls for an independent national childcare commission that would oversee the industry and design that childcare system that we want to see in the future.
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