NSW police to march in Sydney Mardi Gras parade, but not in uniform
The NSW police commissioner Karen Webb has put out a statement saying that the Mardi Gras board has reached an agreement with NSW police “that will allow NSW Police to march in this year’s parade”.
Police have agreed not in march in uniform, in consideration of current sensitivities. I am delighted that our LGBTQIA+ officers, as well as our other police who are allies and supporters, will be allowed to march this year as they have done for the past 20 years.The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is an important event on the NSW Police calendar and as Commissioner, I am committed to continuing to strengthen the relationship between my organisation and the LGBTQIA+ community.
I thank the Mardi Gras Board for the cordial discussions over the past few days.
Key events
Josh Taylor
The assistant treasurer and minister for financial services, Stephen Jones, has said the government does not accept Meta’s claim that it could not prevent scam victims being scammed further.
Earlier today we reported Meta’s comments on the government’s proposed mandatory scams framework and claims from Facebook’s parent company that the code would duplicate regulation and parts of it would be impossible to implement, given scammers tend to move between platforms and services.
Jones told Guardian Australia the policy was designed to get banks, telecommunications companies, and digital platforms to work together to stop scammers across the board and protect people from falling victim.
We’re on everyone with every designated business to remove egregious content and if they don’t, and someone loses money as a result, fines and liability will follow.
He said he didn’t buy into Meta’s argument and it wasn’t good enough:
The biggest IT companies in the world say ‘we don’t know how to do anything about this?’ Come on. I’m not buying it, the government is not buying it.
He said the government will consider the issues raised as part of the consultation process, but he said he had not identified any obvious problem with the framework as drafted.
Mostafa Rachwani with you this afternoon, to take you through the rest of the day’s news.
With the parliament day beginning to get a little dry, I will hand you over to Mostafa Rachwani who will take you through some of the other news of the day.
A very big thank you to everyone who joined us again today. We’ll be back with more Politics Live tomorrow morning. Remember – take care of you. Ax
NSW police to march in Sydney Mardi Gras parade, but not in uniform
The NSW police commissioner Karen Webb has put out a statement saying that the Mardi Gras board has reached an agreement with NSW police “that will allow NSW Police to march in this year’s parade”.
Police have agreed not in march in uniform, in consideration of current sensitivities. I am delighted that our LGBTQIA+ officers, as well as our other police who are allies and supporters, will be allowed to march this year as they have done for the past 20 years.The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is an important event on the NSW Police calendar and as Commissioner, I am committed to continuing to strengthen the relationship between my organisation and the LGBTQIA+ community.
I thank the Mardi Gras Board for the cordial discussions over the past few days.
Caitlin Cassidy
Department of Education secretary comments on proposed Australian Tertiary Education Commission
Secretary of the Department of Education, Tony Cook, said he was confident the Australian Research Council (ARC) would still have a central role if the commission was taken up, pointing to current legislation in the Senate addressed at reforming the body.
[The commission] will have a role around pricing, funding, and there will be an intersection with research and teaching [however] … the legislative responsibilities of the ARC board will continue … I’m not concerned for ARC.”
But he conceded the proposed Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) could reduce the role of the Department of Education in tertiary education.
We can’t have duplication if the commission was established – fundamentally you can’t have two bodies doing the exact same thing. Potentially it would be an advisor to the government on higher education … [the department’s role] could shift.”
Cook said there was a possibility the commission could be partially or fully composed of Department of Education employees, while an alternate model would appoint experts on short rotations, unlike the public service.
Sarah Basford Canales
Perin Davey says she would welcome random breath testing for politicians
The Nationals deputy leader, Perin Davey, has appeared on Sky News this afternoon where she again defended her apparent slurring and stumbling at a Senate estimates hearing earlier this month.
To recap, Davey admitted to having two wines before appearing but insists she was not inebriated. In the days following the public reporting of the incident, she said she had speech challenges due to a medical incident that occurred five years ago.
Upon watching the footage, Davey said she “did not see a drunk person”, she “saw a passionate person”.
The Nationals frontbencher then turned her ire towards the media, who she accused of being discriminatory.
The media are effectively saying, ‘If you have a speech impediment go home, don’t bother running … ’
Davey also accused journalists in the press gallery of drinking alcohol at National Press Club lunches and then returning back to Parliament House to file their stories.
I’m happy to say I probably shouldn’t have had a couple of glasses of wine and I’m also very happy to say that I will be far more aware in the future.
Davey said she would also welcome random breath testing for politicians within parliament.
I think I’m one of the few politicians who’s actually said if they’re going to do it, bring it on. I don’t have to worry about that.
Here is how Mike Bowers saw question times.
Andrew Giles has a young daughter and therefore has not escaped the Taylor Swift friendship bracelet curse. Pretty sure his says “Shake it off”.
Here, Tony Burke plays the role of an early night, while the prime minister plays me, doom scrolling until 3am.
Peter Dutton giving Dan Tehan tips on how to look and sound angry, we assume.
Peter Dutton meets a fan
Caitlin Cassidy
Proposed tertiary commission could become a ‘monster’, analyst warns
A leading higher education analyst has warned a proposed tertiary commission could become a “monster” that drastically overreaches into the sector if proper safeguards aren’t implemented.
The Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) was a key recommendation of the University Accords report, designed as an independent statutory authority that would advise the federal government on funding policies, pricing and other matters.
The architect of the accord, Dr Mary O’Kane, said the body would act as a safeguard mechanism to prevent successive governments from winding back reform.
But ANU professor of higher education Andrew Norton told a Universities Australia summit on Wednesday that he had serious concerns about the proposal, pointing to the lack of higher education expertise in Australia and little transparency over who the board would be composed of.
The risk is over-intervention. The Liberal party of the 80s or 90s wouldn’t like the interventionist approach, but now there’s distrust, they may well go for it.
If you don’t want this to overreach, don’t set it up in the first place … it may well be a monster by the time it’s legislated and has a fixed view from someone of what it should look like.”
Asked if he had more hope or fear about the key reform, he replied: “Fear.”
Continued from previous posts:
Like my son Josh, I was brought up in the system. I was taken at the age of two and raised by 100 staff. So I never knew a mother’s love or what love was. I was never shown how to be a mother. Because of that, I couldn’t take care of my son.
The day I told Josh about this, at first, he didn’t comprehend it. He came back a week later and said, ‘mum, I don’t blame you any more.’ The both of us broke down crying. He said ‘now I understand’.
Josh entered the system as a baby. 32 years later, that system took him from me forever.
His children will now grow up without their father, their trauma will be their dad died crying out for help as prison staff ignored him. This is the trauma the system creates. That flows through families, from generation to generation. It’s the chain reaction that starts when our kids are taken from us, and ends with more black deaths in custody, more kids without parents set on the same path.”
Thorpe continue:
With nearly 600 black lives taken since the 1991 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, governments still refuse to implement its recommendations, or the recommendations of the 1997 Bringing Them Home report, but you still have sorry day and have your morning tea.
Not one person has ever been held responsible or accountable for one black death in custody. In this country. Not one person. When does it end? 97% of us you wiped out. What are you trying, to wipe the rest of us out? How many more babies do we have to lose in the system for things to change? Josh loved his family. Every time he got of custody, he would come straight home to sit down with us have a yarn. Now whether we get justice or not, he’s not coming home. If we get justice for Josh, it will make history. And hopefully change history’s course.
But we can’t have a government like we have today, who continues to wave the Aboriginal flag and wear your Aboriginal flag on your T-shirts and your Aboriginal flag earrings and all your designs when you don’t care about the amount of children in the system, you don’t care about deaths in custody, your own attorney general said to me during the referendum, just be happy I gave you one recommendation of counting the bodies coming out of these prisons. He wanted us to be grateful for counting in the real time deaths in the custody. Shame on you, Labor, and shame on the native police.
Lidia Thorpe speaks about her cousin’s death in custody
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe has delivered the speech she attempted to make in the adjournment debate last night (when the Senate descended into confusion over speaking times).
Last week the coronial inquest into the death in custody of my first cousin, Josh Kerr, finished. On the weekend, Donnas Kerr, Josh’s mum, published a heartbreaking piece about Josh in the Saturday Paper.
I want to share some of her words with you and I encourage you to go and read the full piece.
The last time I saw my son Josh, he was in shackles. He was let out of prison to attend his uncle Bruce’s funeral. After the service, as I walked him back to the police van, he stopped to cuddle everyone, I thought is he gonna say goodbye to me or what?
Before he got in the van, he turned to me. I love you, mum, he said. I love you too, son, I said. I will see you when you come out. Yes, mum, I will come home. We have the biggest cuddle. Those were our last words.
Everybody Josh met he touched. He and his sisters Maggie and Pat had a strong bond. They would sit down for hours just yarning. He adored and doted on his children, he was a social butterfly made for life and he loved his art.
When my son Josh was born, I was young and living in crisis accommodation at Margaret Tucker hostel. I kept him for eight months, as long as I could. He went into the out of home care system. It ripped out my heart.
One day when he was older he came to me, he was hurting and angry I wasn’t there to raise him. I told him the reason. I wasn’t brought up with a mum and dad, Josh, I told him, I was part of the Stolen Generation.
(continued in next post)
Benita Kolovos
Mehreen Faruqi urges Labor MPs against attending iftar dinners: ‘We will not be taken for granted and used as photo opportunities during Ramadan’
Greens deputy leader Senator Mehreen Faruqi says Labor MPs shouldn’t show up to community iftars, after members of the Muslim community rejected invitations to premiers’ iftar dinners in New South Wales and Victoria.
Both the Australian National Imams Council (Anic) and the Islamic Council of Victoria (ICV) have told Guardian Australia they will not attend the annual events, with the latter calling for Victorian premier Jacinta Allan’s first iftar as premier to be cancelled altogether.
The groups both cited frustration with Labor governments over their response to the war in Gaza.
Faruqi said Labor MPs should “think twice” about showing up to community Iftar dinners.
She said in a statement:
If Labor won’t listen to the Palestinian and Muslim community then their empty iftar tables will mimic their hollow response … We will not be taken for granted and used as photo opportunities during Ramadan by the very same politicians who have failed to even condemn Israel. If Labor politicians won’t show up for us now at a time when everyone is grieving, then they better not show up at our iftars either.”
The chamber has moved on to Bob Katter’s matter of public importance debate:
“The government’s failure to reign in the power of the supermarket duopoly and the necessity for legislating the regulation of food retailing.”
He is no longer dressed as a giant inflatable pink pig.
This man has been in parliament for 40% of the time since federation.
Adam Bandt claims PM misrepresented him over public housing
Question time ends.
Adam Bandt stands up to say that he was misrepresented by Anthony Albanese last night in a speech:
Last night in an extraordinarily misleading speech, the prime minister misrepresented me three times.
First, he said that I opposed investment in public housing. The Greens in fact secured investment in public housing and are calling for more.
Secondly, the prime minister said the following: “The member for Melbourne told the House: North Melbourne’s and Carlton’s towers will be the first to go. People will be kicked out of their homes within the next few years. It is wrong to destroy these vibrant and diverse communities. The people there have a right to a home – a public home.”
The prime minister then misrepresented me and misled the House by going on to say: “That sounds OK except that there is no one there because they’re derelict.”
In fact there are thousands of people living in those towers and the Victorian Labor government wants to demolish the homes of thousands of my constituents in public housing in North Melbourne and Lygon Street in Carlton, with 33 Alfred St in North Melbourne listed as the first to go.
Thirdly, in claiming that I was incorrect, the prime minister told the house that “What we’re doing … is upgrading them into more homes for public housing” and “people who live in public housing should live in quality public housing”, which he said I disagreed with.
In fact, Labor has made no commitment to move these residents into public housing, just as I said. In fact, Victorian Labor has said they want non-government and private sector development on the land.
In misrepresenting me, perhaps the prime minister made a new guarantee to Melbourne public housing residents …
He is made to sit down by Milton Dick (who often does this when MPs say they have been misrepresented, because under the standing orders you can say you were misrepresented and how, but not really do a speech).
Peter Dutton joins with that:
I want to commend the minister for the work that he’s undertaken and pledge bipartisan support on this very important issue. We have spoken a lot in this place over the years about the incidents, the occurrence of sexual assaults in society.
We have an absolutely zero tolerance for the sexual assault of any person but particularly in an environment where students are vulnerable because of the confined living arrangements as the minister rightly points out, and the fact that universities are engaged in a productive way is to their credit, but a lot of work has to happen and quickly. And the Coalition will pledge our support without condition to the minister in his endeavours in this regard.
And Anthony Albanese:
Can I firstly, perhaps, thank the leader of the opposition for his comments, and for the bipartisan support but I’m sure will come from all members and senators in this House.
Can I acknowledge the grassroots movement, as the minister did, for people who, from my time on campus, have been drawing attention to these issues for many, many decades.
Can I congratulate the minister for actually, for acting on this report. It is something that he has brought up in other forums that we don’t talk about.
He has been very, very strong on this. The advice is so clear. What has been happening up to now is a real disincentive for women to be able to freely move around our universities and our educational system and the victims can have an impact that lasts for the rest of their lives … Those of us who are in a position to advocate important change will do so now as a result of this report.
Continued from previous post.
Jason Clare:
They’re also places where people live. Where you could live in the same student accommodation as the person who assaulted you.
The universities accord called this out in their interim report last year as an area where urgent work was needed.
And a lot has happened since then. A working group made up of commonwealth, state and territory governments have come together and to act.
And last Friday I announced that we will establish an independent national student ombudsman.
It will have the power to investigate complaints, the power to bring parties together to resolve issues, and the power to make recommendations on what actions universities should take. If universities don’t act, the power will be there to hold them to account.
As minister, I will also be responsible to report to the parliament on the number and types of complaints and the actions that universities take.
Mr Speaker, can I thank the member for Chisholm who has argued for this. Can I thank you the many members of the crossbench, both in this House and in the Senate who have advocated for this.
And most importantly can I thank Sharna and Renee and Camille and Dr Alison Henry and everyone that they represent, who have fought for this for years.
On the weekend Sharna said after 50 years of student-led advocacy, we’ve finally gotten reform. It’s coming now.
Because of Sharna and people like her.
