NSW police have said in a statement that the 17-year-old girl who was arrested and the 10-year-old girl who died in an alleged stabbing were known to one another. Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian
NSW police have said in a statement that the 17-year-old girl who was arrested and the 10-year-old girl who died in an alleged stabbing were known to one another. Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian
Prime minister Anthony Albanesebrushed off accusations he lied about the speaking arrangements at a violence against women protest.
Billionaire Clive Palmer is hoping to top up his coffers with the profits from a conference featuring controversial rightwing journalist Tucker Carlson.
Paleontologists say the abrupt extinction of the short-faced kangaroo is a reminder about the importance of protecting the environment.
And Mr Squiggle – the puppet with a pencil for a nose – has a new home in the National Museum of Australia.
We’ll be back here tomorrow morning to keep you in the loop. Until then!
Ten-year-old girl dies after alleged stabbing in NSW
Elias Visontay
A ten-year-old girl has died after allegedly being stabbed by a 17-year-old girl in New South Wales’ Hunter region on Monday.
In a statement, NSW police said that at about 3.45pm, emergency services responded to reports of a stabbing at a home in Boolaroo, approximately 20km west of Newcastle.
Police said:
NSW Ambulance paramedics treated a 10-year-old girl at the scene for multiple stab wounds; however she died at the scene.
Officers from Lake Macquarie police district arrested a 17-year-old girl at the home, and she was taken to Belmont police station and is currently assisting with inquiries.
Military history of Townsville mayor under investigation
The military history of Townsville’s controversial new mayor is under investigation by an independent local government watchdog that assesses complaints about Queensland councillors, Eden Gillespie writes.
Uncle Paul Kabai, from low-lying Saibai Island, said in an affidavit read to the court in Cairns on Monday that he was scared of having to leave his country:
My country would disappear.
I would lose everything; my country, my culture, my stories and my identity. Without Saibai I do not know who I am.
You’ve read the story, now see the video – prime minister Anthony Albanese responds to accusations he lied about requesting to speak at a weekend protest about violence against women:
Anthony Albanese responds to accusation he lied at violence against women rally – video
'Poor Australian' Clive Palmer says he anticipates profits from Freedom Conference with Tucker Carlson
AAP reports that mining billionaire Clive Palmer has revealed he is looking forward to reaping a profit from his national Freedom Conference tour starring rightwing journalist Tucker Carlson.
In a 40-minute press conference on Monday, the former federal politician said Carlson, a former Fox News commentator who continues to argue the 2020 US presidential election was rigged, will not be paid for the series of interviews.
Palmer said he was looking forward to receiving the profits from the tour’s tickets, which start at $200 a head, because he was “needing the money”:
I’m a poor Australian, you know, I can’t cope.
Business is bad in Australia this year, isn’t that right?
That was before the man who is building a life-sized replica of the Titanic said he thought the series, which kicks off in June, said the tour was about free speech and that it “will be a non-profit operation, but I think many profits (will be) made out of it”.
“Freedom of choice or difference of opinion is what we’re really talking about,” he said.
The conference will also include American filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza and Queensland GP Dr Melissa McCann.
But Carlson is undoubtedly the star of the show given his massive profile in the US where he has even been touted as a possible running mate for former president Donald Trump.
Clive Palmer holds a press conference in Sydney today. ‘Business is bad in Australia this year, isn’t that right?’ Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP
Carlson now runs his own media outlet and broadcasts on X, formerly known as Twitter.
While he recently became the first western journalist to interview Russian president Vladimir Putin since the Ukraine war started, he was also roundly criticised for his soft line of questioning.
Palmer will host the series as the lead interviewer, saying he intended to hold Carlson to account on a number of issues:
I’ll be challenging. I’ll have to come up with some hard questions for him.
I’ll be a lot harder on Tucker Carlson, than he was on Vladimir Putin, I promise you that.
Faruqi's racial discrimination case against Hanson is politically motivated, lawyer suggests
Karen Middleton
Pauline Hanson’s lawyer has accused Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi of targeting the One Nation leader with legal action for racial discrimination because she is a political opponent and not because Hanson’s comments telling Faruqi to “piss off back to Pakistan” were any worse than others she had faced.
Hanson’s lawyer Sue Chrysanthou SC put to Faruqi during cross-examination in the federal court this afternoon that she had overlooked what Faruqi acknowledged as examples of racism within her own party, the Greens, but chosen to sue Hanson to make “a political point”.
“You’ve come here to use the witness box as a soap box to give speeches to further your political ends,” Chrysanthou put to Faruqi.
Faruqi disagreed with the proposition.
Faruqi has accused Hanson of breaching section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act with a message she posted on the social media platform Twitter, now called X, on the day Queen Elizabeth II’s death was announced in September 2022. Hanson’s message was responding to one that Faruqi had posted offering condolences to those mourning the Queen but declaring:
I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples.
“Your attitude appalls and disgusts me,” Hanson posted, referring to Faruqi’s tweet:
When you immigrated to Australia you took every advantage of this country. You took citizenship, bought multiple homes and a job in parliament. It’s clear you’re not happy so pack your bags and piss off back to Pakistan.
In the federal court today, Faruqi has described Hanson’s tweet as racist and said it had prompted a barrage of other abusive messages and caused her severe distress.
“I understood this to be particularly pointed at me, that I don’t have the same rights to have the same benefits that Australia offered every other citizen of this country,” Faruqi said.
Chrysanthou accused Faruqi of hypocrisy, saying she had already received a barrage of criticism of her initial tweet before Hanson had posted her quote-tweet in response.
Chrysanthou also said Faruqi had continued to make public comments about colonialism since Hanson’s tweet, despite arguing before the court that it had caused her serious hurt and led to “self-censoring and self-doubting”.
“I always think carefully when I make public comments but when it gets to a state where it’s actually stopping you from doing your job, then I do feel that is self-censorship which has been forced on me because of the racism that was targeted towards me [by Senator Hanson],” Faruqi said.
Chrysanthou put it to Faruqi that there was no racial comment in Hanson’s tweet.
“It’s pretty clear when you are referring to Pakistan that you are referring to a brown person who is a Muslim,” Faruqi replied.
Chrysanthou asked Faruqi if she had ever heard the phrase “bite the hand that feeds you”. Faruqi said she had. She said Hanson’s tweet was a version of “go back to where you came from”.
“What I understand from this tweet is that Senator Hanson has targeted me with a racial slur which has a very long history in this country and in other countries,” Faruqi said.
Casino operator Crown Resorts is cutting about 1,000 jobs as part of a major overhaul it has blamed on weak economic conditions.
The cuts represent about 5% of its 20,000-strong workforce. Crown, owned by US private equity giant Blackstone, operates casino complexes in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
“The challenges at Crown reflect greatly reduced foreign tourism, a sharp decline in local workers in the city centres, and restrictions on gaming play in Sydney and Melbourne,” Crown chief executive Ciarán Carruthers said.
“This was a difficult decision, but we are focused on repositioning the business for long-term success.”
Casino operators in Australia have been grappling with a series of inquiries and related operational restrictions due to widespread misconduct.
Tourism from China, an important market for Australian casinos, has also not returned to pre-pandemic levels, while the number of city workers remains muted due to flexible work arrangements.
Queensland university students join Gaza war protests
Students at the University of Queensland have become the latest to set up a permanent encampment on campus to protest the war in Gaza.
Hundreds of university students marched on the uni’s Boeing research and technology Australia centre on Monday, issuing demands that the university kick the engineering firm out.
Protesters claimed researchers at the centre develop technology like the scramjet which can also be used for military purposes.
They’ve set up about 15 tents and plan to continue a rolling protest in the great court, where they plan to sleep tonight. Organisers said the protest will continue “indefinitely” until their demands are met.
Senator Penny Allman-Payne and former mayoral candidate Jono Sriranganathan were among the Greens figures to attend the rally.
Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown – whose Ryan electorate covers UQ – said she didn’t mind if the rally disrupted studies at her alma mater.
It may well disrupt the university, but it’s fantastic, just to foreground this issue. And to make sure that every person who comes to the university actually witnesses this.
Bob Brown to fight forestry protest trespass charge
Veteran environmentalist Bob Brown has pleaded not guilty to a trespassing charge stemming from an anti-forestry protest in southern Tasmania, AAP reports.
Dr Brown is accused of remaining inside a logging coupe in the Styx Valley on 19 February. The 79-year-old former Greens leader appeared briefly in Hobart magistrates court today, entered a plea of not guilty and had his bail continued.
Fellow activist Colette Harmsen also pleaded not guilty to one count of trespassing from the same protest. The pair will next appear in court on 5 July ahead of an expected hearing.
“We’ve pleaded not guilty because we’re not guilty,” Dr Brown said outside court, accusing Tasmania’s major parties of backing “outrageous misuse” of state forests.
We’ve got government backing a job-losing industry and environmentalists backing job-gaining industries and the beauty of Tasmania.
The leaders of the government and the opposition ... I’m very happy to take them out there.
Former leader of the Greens Bob Brown. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
A third activist, Syed Ali Imran Alishah, has pleaded guilty to one court of trespassing relating to the 19 February protest. He also pleaded guilty to trespassing after illegally remaining on land in the Styx Valley three days earlier and was listed to face a disputed facts hearing on Monday.
Alishah has been in custody since being arrested at the protest and conducted a hunger strike in prison.
