QLD LNP leader tells convention ‘adult crime, adult time’ for children guilty of serious offences
Andrew Messenger
David Crisafulli has told the Queensland NP convention that the party would treat children guilty of offences like murder and stealing cars as adults in sentencing.
If you murder someone, that’s an adult crime; Adult time.
If you wound someone, adult crime, adult time.
If elected in October the party plans to legislate laws cracking down on youth offenders before the end of the year.
Crisafulli said children guilty of breaking into a home, manslaughter, serious assault, grievous bodily harm, and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle would also be treated as adults under the laws.
He said “consequences” for serious crimes needed to be “severe enough to deter”.
We must send a strong and clear message, and we are doing that today. The generation of repeat untouchables must end.
In Queensland, judges are required to give adult murderers a life sentence.
Key events
Police have fatally shot a Townsville man after he allegedly threatened officers with a knife.
It is alleged a 46-year-old man from Cranbrook attended the Kirwan Police Station at 10pm on Saturday night and threatened officers with a knife.
Police officers shot the man who died a short time later.
The incident is being investigated by the ethical standards commitment with oversight by the crime and corruption commission.
Police are expected to speak to media about the incident in Townsville at midday.
Melbourne Water borrows money from Victorian government to pay back said government
Melbourne Water has had to borrow additional money from the Victorian government to pay back a bigger land tax bill.
The strange set of circumstances were reported in The Age after being revealed in a records request by the Victorian opposition.
Melbourne Water reportedly asked to borrow an extra $55.3m that was forecast in the state budget. The government-owned corporation pays about $28m a year in land tax to the state government.
The situation puts the government entity in the curious situation of having to borrow money from and pay interest to the government in order to cover a tax levied by that same government.
Deaths of three children in Sydney house fire being treated as domestic-related multiple homicide
Det Supt Danny Doherty from the Homicide Squad says police are treating a house fire that killed three young children as a domestic-related multiple homicide.
A 28-year-old man has been arrested after police say he allegedly sought to stop first responders from entering the property when they sought to rescue those inside.
A 10-month-old girl and two boys, aged two and four, died.
A nine-year-old girl and three boys aged 11, seven and six were treated at the scene by NSW Ambulance Paramedics and have been taken to Westmead hospital in stable condition.
The children’s mother, 29, has been taken to hospital for smoke inhalation.
Doherty says the man, the father of the children, is currently in hospital under guard, where he is in an induced coma after being treated for a smoke inhalation.
At this stage it does appear that the 28-year-old man is responsible for multiple deaths of young lives that have been tragically taken away.
The man was not known to police or before the court for any matter.
Fire and police were called to the scene six minutes after receiving calls to Triple 0 and fire trucks were on sites within 15 minutes.
Acting Supt Jason Pietruszka says police were “very heroic” as they tried to enter the property along with a neighbour.
Those actions as well saved further life from being lost.
Pietruszka described the deaths as “devastating” and that it will deeply affect the “close-knit community”.
It’s devastating. There is no other word for it. It’s completely and utterly devastating for people who know the family, who go to school with the other children that live within that.
Investigations are underway.
QLD LNP leader tells convention ‘adult crime, adult time’ for children guilty of serious offences
Andrew Messenger
David Crisafulli has told the Queensland NP convention that the party would treat children guilty of offences like murder and stealing cars as adults in sentencing.
If you murder someone, that’s an adult crime; Adult time.
If you wound someone, adult crime, adult time.
If elected in October the party plans to legislate laws cracking down on youth offenders before the end of the year.
Crisafulli said children guilty of breaking into a home, manslaughter, serious assault, grievous bodily harm, and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle would also be treated as adults under the laws.
He said “consequences” for serious crimes needed to be “severe enough to deter”.
We must send a strong and clear message, and we are doing that today. The generation of repeat untouchables must end.
In Queensland, judges are required to give adult murderers a life sentence.
Police give update on Sydney house fire that killed three children
New South Wales police are giving an update on a fatal house fire in Sydney’s west that killed two boys, aged two and four, and a 10-month-old girl.
For more on this story, read the report here:
Inside the renewable energy resistance in regional Australia
In a packed community hall in regional Queensland, a calamitous story is being told. Australia’s east coast is bulldozed into the ground. Rural towns are wiped off the map. Supermarket beef mince hits $60 a kilogram.
The orator is one of the loudest campaigners against Australia’s renewable energy rollout, Katy McCallum.
“Where do you think we are going to be in another 10 years if there’s no farms left? What are we going to eat?” McCallum tells the gathering at Kilcoy, a small town 85km north-west of Brisbane. “We’re going to be starving,” replies someone from the crowd.
The script is well rehearsed. In the last 12 months, McCallum and Jim Willmott, the chair of Property Rights Australia, have delivered the rousing PowerPoint presentation to about 40 community groups in this patch of regional Queensland. She has spoken at anti-renewable rallies in Brisbane, Sydney and out the front of Parliament House in Canberra. This is my third time hearing the spiel.
For more on this investigation into the anti-renewables movement in rural Queensland, read the full story by Aston Brown:
LNP leader to outline vision to ‘revitalise’ Queensland
LNP leader David Crisafulli will pitch his vision of a better Queensland to voters as he bids to end nine years of Labor rule in the upcoming state election.
Crisafulli will deliver a speech to the party faithful at the annual LNP state conference on Sunday to spruik his party’s policies 111 days out from the 26 October poll.
The issues he is expected to target include cost of living support, budget restraint and investing in law and order.
Labor’s management of youth justice and crime has also been under the spotlight as crime rates spike within the state.
Crisafulli has signalled his government would remove detention as a last resort for youth offenders and put the rights of victims ahead of the rights of offenders in sentencing provisions.
In health, the LNP leader has promised to make hospital data go live within 100 days of winning government, with federal opposition leader Peter Dutton attacking the state government’s record on Saturday.
Four years ago, the term ambulance ramping didn’t really register with the Queensland public, and yet today, ambulance ramping is at a record 45 per cent.
In his address, the opposition leader endorsed Crisafulli as a thoughtful and practical leader who had a demonstrated plan to “end Queenslanders’ despair” with a vision to revitalise the state.
Dutton said that both federal and state LNP parties were in a strong position to win government, but the leaders disagreed on his policy of building reactors to supply nuclear energy.
Crisafulli has repeatedly said nuclear energy isn’t part of his party’s plans despite the federal coalition’s promotion of the technology.
– AAP
‘Really offensive, David’: Faruqi denies exploiting Gaza tragedy
Faruqi is also asked about protests that have involved paint sprayed on the war memorial and the protests outside the prime minister’s office, where staffers claim to have been “spat on”.
She says she does not know about allegations of assault, but says “people do have a right to go outside the prime minister’s office and request that he meet them.
The prime minister should just meet them rather than blaming those who are protesting a genocide.
Speers then asks Faruqi: “Are you exploiting the tragedy in Gaza for political gain?”
Faruqi: “I find that … I’m sorry to say, but really offensive. Really offensive, David.”
Speers: “This is what the prime minister and the foreign minister constantly accuse; I’m just asking you, do you?”
Faruqi:
I know they are saying that. They are accusing us of causing division, and like I said earlier, that is gas lighting, raising an issue that thousands upon thousands of Australians … And it’s not just Muslims, it’s not just Arabs. I can tell you, I get it if someone in my community gets in touch with me every single day. And I’m not exaggerating to say how grateful they are for the Greens for being their voice on the ground.
Speers: “Do you feel any responsibility to dial down the temperature on this?”
Faruqi:
You were talking about this earlier on social cohesion and how I find that also kind of very weird that here we have two major parties who, right at this time, are dog whistling on migrants, and on international students. Which is really harming and hurting the community to stand there and say – oh, we need social cohesion. You know the message that the community is getting is? You should shut up. You have no right to talk about this – that’s what social cohesion is about. Shutting up people who are saying things that the government doesn’t like. That’s not good enough. That is not good enough. We should have a voice. And people are even more angry now – the only voice in the Labor party, who has kind of spoken out against this issue, has been treated the way that Senator Payman has been treated.
‘People are really angry’ over government’s Gaza response, says Faruqi
Faruqi says she would support a call to end the practice of starting Senate sessions with the Lord’s Prayer.
I would like to get rid of it, because you know, so many people of different faiths from all over the world live in this country. And that is not representative.
Speers then begins asking Senator Faruqi about recent protests and the various levels of Greens support for such actions; Faruqi is asked whether the Green’s support a recent protest at Parliament House, which Speers describes as a “breach of security”, and other protests at the prime minister’s office.
We’re not encouraging any protests that are violent. And I think that it was a bit rich of the prime minister to say that unfurling a banner from the top of the Parliament House was somehow not a peaceful protest. It was a peaceful protest.
Faruqi says it is necessary to “put this into perspective”.
People are really angry. People have been very angry for months and months. Their government, their prime minister, people who they voted for, who they thought would represent them, have not represented them. Have not even listened to them. Have not even spoken to them.
Muslim community should run own candidates, says Faruqi
Faruqi says Muslim voters have been “ignored” in Australia that their views overlooked.
Politicians [in] both the old parties have for years, decades, used us as tokens, as photo opportunities at religious events but have never actually deemed to address the issues that affect the communities.
She says it is a reaction to this situation is for the community to begin to run their own candidates.
Faruqi says she understands Payman’s situation ‘far better than most’
Faruqi says she has been in touch with Senator Fatima Payman.
I’ve been in touch with Senator Payman over the past few weeks and also before that. I think being the other brown Muslim woman in that Senate, I can understand far better than most what Senator Payman has been going through.
Faruqi says that “throughout my political life, I have been a target of Islamophobia” and that she has been “vilified for strong positions that I have taken”, which means she can understand what Senator Payman is going through.
Faruqi says she did not encourage Payman to join the Greens:
There has been a denial of an agency. And again, again, that comes down to how Muslim women are stereotyped in this country. How they are boxed into this person who can’t make up their own minds. You know, that they are led by someone else – someone else forced them to do this. Someone else forced them or encouraged them to make a decision that they wholly made by themselves. Senator Payman, as far as I can see it, made this decision on her moral compass, following her moral compass, listening to the community, and actually looking at what the situation in Israel is at the moment. That’s it. And you know, I’m very proud of her as another Muslim woman for standing strong on her convictions.
Future of Hamas and Palestinian statehood separate issues, says Faruqi
Faruqi – in her first appearance on ABC Insiders – is repeatedly asked by host David Speers “Do the hostages need to be released” and “Do you think Hamas should dismantled?”
Faruqi has called for the recognition of a Palestinian state and has made the point that the future of Hamas is a separate issue from Palestinian statehood and self-determination.
Who will dismantle it? It is up to the people in Palestine and that region to make sure that people can live in peace, but I will say this again – at the moment, only some people in that region have the rights that every human deserves.
Faruqi says Hamas is listed as a terrorist organisation, and the Greens have made no demands to change that designation.
Greens to continue pressure on government to recognise Palestinian state: Mehreen Faruqi
Deputy Greens leader Senator Mehreen Faruqi says the government is “kicking the can down the road” on recognition of a Palestinian state and that the Greens will continue to pressure the Labor government to “act in a way that actually makes a difference”.
We have a situation here where Israel who, and I will say that, who has slaughtered 40,000 Palestinians over the past nine months. And then we have the situation where Palestinians are being denied that same right. Let’s bring that to an equal footing. Then talk about peace. Let’s do something to stop the slaughter.
Indigenous excellence celebrated at NAIDOC awards
The achievements of 10 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been recognised in the 2024 NAIDOC awards, including one women’s lifetime of advocating for the health of her people.
The awards, held each July and this year in Adelaide, recognise the contributions of First Nations people in their communities and celebrate Indigenous excellence.
They are presented by the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee.
Aunty Dulcie Flowers has spent her life advocating for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s health and has received the National Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her accomplishments.
Indigenous Australians minister Linda Burney congratulated each of the winners, who were chosen from a field of 28 finalists.
This year’s theme, ‘Keep the Fire Burning! Blak, Loud and Proud’, is fitting for all the winners. You are courageous, you are inspiring, and you are brilliant.
This NAIDOC Week is an opportunity for all Australians to come together to celebrate 65,000 years of culture and shared history.
The NAIDOC person of the year is Aunty Muriel Bamblett, a Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung, Taungurung and Boon Wurrung Elder.
As the chief executive of the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency since 1999, Bamblett has advocated for Indigenous children to be raised within their own culture.
– AAP
PM ‘didn’t overreact’ on Payman exit: Shorten
Daniel Hurst
Federal government services minister Bill Shorten has backed Anthony Albanese’s handling of caucus solidarity rules after the first-term senator Fatima Payman quit the Labor party.
Payman resigned from the party on Thursday, saying she was leaving with a heavy heart but a clear conscience after she viewed the government’s response to the bloodshed in Gaza with indifference. She had previously been suspended from Labor’s federal caucus after she warned she might cross the floor a second time to support immediate recognition of the state of Palestine.
Shorten, the minister for the NDIS and a former Labor leader, said in an interview on Sky News this morning:
I think the prime minister has tried to handle this in the very best way possible. He didn’t overreact. He hasn’t under reacted. I thought the suspension was the right way to go. It was saying: ‘you are welcome Fatima, and let’s give you a bit of time and space to work it through’. Clearly that’s not where her head was at – she’s walked. I don’t think there’s anything else the prime minister could have done, frankly.
Asked about reports that Payman had taken informal advice from the controversial political strategist Glenn Druery, Shorten said:
The Senate is littered with people who have taken advice from Glenn Druery. Sometimes they get up, ultimately they flame out. I’m not going to give Fatima Payman advice. I hoped that she wouldn’t leave – I’m disappointed, but that’s her call.
Mehreen Faruqi to appear on Insiders
Deputy Greens leader Mehreen Faruqi will be speaking to ABC Insiders host David Speers this morning.
Minister for government services Bill Shorten has appeared on Sky News this morning with the Coalition’s Bridget McKenzie also expected to appear.
We will bring you all the latest as it happens.
Alex de Minaur ‘relieved’ over easy Wimbledon ride
Alex de Minaur has declared he’s a lucky man after his comfy armchair ride into the second week of Wimbledon.
The Australia No 1 eased into the second week of the grass-court grand slam for just the second time, after needing just two straight-set wins and a walkover to get to the business end of the tournament.
While many rivals, including his fourth-round opponent Arthur Fils, were left with frustrating delays on another rain-interrupted day, de Minaur had the luxury of a relaxing Saturday once his third-round adversary Lucas Pouille withdrew with a stomach muscle injury.
De Minaur said he found out at about 9.15am when he was in the middle of his physical warm-up before going on-court, after the 30-year-old Pouille himself approached him to let him know he wasn’t fit to play.
I think it was a class act by him, letting me know early in the day, especially with the weather forecast showing it could be delayed for a long time.
I’m wishing him a quick recovery. And as for me, I’m probably a little bit relieved. Just because everyone knew the type of day that was coming, that it was going to be a long one and I was able to finish quite quickly.
– AAP
Albanese talks Aukus, energy transition and Gaza and Ukraine conflicts in call with Starmer
Karen Middleton
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has telephoned his incoming British Labour counterpart, Sir Keir Starmer, and congratulated him on what Albanese called “an emphatic victory” in Thursday’s election that saw the Tories swept from office in the United Kingdom.
Albanese told Starmer in the call on Saturday that he looked forward to working with the new British Labour government to grow both economies and advance the global transition to clean energy and the Aukus defence partnership.
Guardian Australia has been told the two leaders discussed the Middle East conflict and resulting humanitarian crisis in Gaza and what was described as Russia’s “illegal and immoral” invasion of Ukraine.
Albanese and Starmer are understood to have been in regular contact in the lead-up to this week’s British election which saw Labour defeat the incumbent Conservative party in a landslide.
The leaders last met in person in London in May last year, when Albanese attended the coronation of King Charles and visited the Aukus submarine facility at Barrow-in-Furness.
Good morning
And welcome to another Sunday morning Guardian live blog.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has called his now counterpart, Keir Starmer, to congratulate him on his sweeping win at the UK election. Albanese told the newly elected Starmer on Saturday that he looked forward to working with him on Aukus and the transition to renewable energy.
The 2024 Naidocawards were held in Adelaide on Saturday night, marking the first major gathering of First Nations people since the voice referendum. Those recognised with awards include Indigenous elder Aunty Muriel Bamblett and Aunty Dulcie Flowers.
I’m Royce Kurmelovs and I’ll be taking the blog through the day.
With that, let’s get started …
