Australia news live: high court rules in favour of indefinite immigration detention; publisher of banned book to offer free download

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High court delivers judgment in the case of ASF1. Follow the day’s news live

Penny Wong is speaking on RN Breakfast now. Right off the bat she was asked by Patricia Karvelas if the Australian government will support admitting Palestine as a full member of the UN at a vote later today.

Wong begins with a preamble about Australia’s support for a two-state solution, then says:

We will consider the final resolution that comes before the General Assembly. Obviously, countries are still negotiating texts.

I don’t want to speculate about our vote … I think an abstention generally means you can agree in part with the resolution but not with sufficient, not with all of it, or not with a sufficient extent of the resolution for you to vote for it, so it can send a message that whilst you don’t agree with it in full, you’re not going to stand in the way.

I understand that question … I understand questions from those who don’t want us to deal with it at this time. I think one of the things we are aware of, and thinking about, is the timing of the situation on the ground. We know Hamas is still holding hostages. We want to look at the wording of the resolution to make sure we are being responsible, that what we commit to we are obliged to and look to the UN Charter and the resolution would have to be consistent with the charter. And of course it was with our partners, but your listeners, what I would say to them is Australia does support a two-state solution.

You’ve spoken to me many times over the years, Patricia, and you know I always try and bring a more nuanced discussion about what is really happening rather than getting drawn into the end the hard edges of the debate. Unfortunately, in this country, we seem, we see too much of this discussion, which is looked at by those who basically say you’re either with us or against us. And everything is black and white and simple. Regrettably, that is not what is happening in the Middle East. And regrettably, that is not how we should be looking at this.

The board finds that both posts violated the Coordinating Harms and Promoting Crime rule that prohibits content “advocating, providing instructions for, or demonstrating explicit intent to illegally participate in a voting or census process.

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Flights cancelled and tourists stranded as Air Vanuatu put into voluntary liquidation

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Troubled airline had earlier cancelled flights to Australia and New Zealand, citing ‘maintenance’ requirements

The Pacific Island country of Vanuatu has put its national carrier Air Vanuatu into voluntary liquidation, after it cancelled flights to Australia and New Zealand, leaving tourists stranded.

The airline had cited extended maintenance requirements for its aircraft when it cancelled its flights through to Sunday.

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Win for Albanese government as high court rules indefinite detention legal in non-cooperation cases

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High court dismisses challenge from Iranian asylum seeker, ruling that detention is lawful if non-citizens refuse to cooperate in deportation process

Indefinite immigration detention is lawful if non-citizens’ lack of cooperation has frustrated efforts to deport them, the high court has held in a major win for the Albanese government.

On Friday the high court delivered judgment in the case of ASF17, an Iranian asylum seeker who refused to cooperate with efforts to deport him because he “fears for his life” because he is bisexual, Christian, and a Faili Kurd.

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Australia urged to boost Antarctic science and use second ship to increase number of voyages

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Senate inquiry finds axed scientific programs, toxic workplace culture and a trouble-plagued icebreaker among problems

The Australian government should consider introducing a second ship to increase the number of voyages to the southern continent to significantly boost Antarctic science, a cross-party parliamentary committee has recommended.

The Senate inquiry into the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) found axed scientific programs, a toxic workplace culture and a trouble-plagued icebreaker were some of problems stemming from failures in the division’s funding and governance model.

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Flawed immigration detention risk assessment tool can’t be upgraded as ABF data ‘riddled with errors’

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Exclusive: One detainee recorded as being involved in ‘over 3,000 incidents’ in a year – an ‘incredibly unfeasible’ scenario, FOI documents say

The secretive risk assessment tool used in Australia’s immigration detention centres could not be replaced by a better model due to insufficient data collection by Australian Border Force, documents reveal.

The security risk assessment tool is meant to determine whether someone is low, medium, high or extreme risk for escape or violence. It calculates risk ratings based on factors including pre-detention history and episodes that can occur in detention, such as possessing contraband or refusing food or fluids.

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Trial of pilot Greg Lynn begins over alleged murders of Victorian campers Russell Hill and Carol Clay

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Lawyers to open their case after Lynn, 57, pleaded not guilty to murdering Russell Hill and Carol Clay

Prosecutors will outline their case against an airline captain accused of the double murder of Russell Hill and Carol Clay at a campsite in Victoria’s alpine region.

Greg Lynn, 57, pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and a jury has been empanelled in Melbourne’s supreme court ahead of trial openings on Friday.

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Family of US airman killed by Florida police dispute sheriff’s narrative

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Relatives of Roger Fortson say deputies went to wrong unit and killed Fortson, as sheriff releases body-camera footage

The family of a Black US air force airman who was fatally shot by deputies who burst into his apartment in the Florida Panhandle said Thursday that they want to correct a false narrative put forth by authorities about the encounter that led to his death.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family of Senior Airman Roger Fortson, said Fortson had not known it was sheriff’s deputies who were breaking into his apartment – “his castle” – and that he grabbed his “legally owned firearm” to protect himself.

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Coldplay and Sting call for release of Toomaj Salehi, Iranian rapper sentenced to death

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Leading cultural figures including Margaret Atwood sign statement in support of rapper who criticised Iranian regime

More than 100 figures from the worlds of music, culture and human rights activism – including Coldplay and Sting – have signed a statement calling for the release of the Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi who has been sentenced to death in Iran after protesting in support of women’s rights.

The 33-year-old, who was a vocal supporter of the Women, Life, Freedom movement in Iran was sentenced to death by a court in the city of Isfahan on 24 April, according to his lawyer.

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Adapted NHS bowel cancer test developed for blind and partly sighted people

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Accessible screening tool piloted by NHS England includes braille instructions and a better guide for stool sample

Thousands of blind or partly sighted people could find it easier to participate in bowel cancer screening from home owing to a new NHS tool aiding accessibility.

The standard test used to screen for bowel cancer requires an at-home stool sample in a tube, which is sent off and examined for any possible cancer signs.

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Unrwa Jerusalem HQ closed after ‘Israeli extremist’ arson attack

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Agency chief says compound has suffered a number of attacks with the lives of UN staff ‘at a serious risk’

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has temporarily closed its East Jerusalem headquarters after “Israeli extremists” set fire to the perimeter following weeks of repeated attacks.

“This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the Unrwa headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem,” the head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, said on X, lamenting that it was the second attack on the compound in a matter of days.

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‘We will fight with our fingernails’ says Netanyahu after US threat to curb arms

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Israeli prime minister says country can ‘stand alone’ and cites the ‘heroism and arms embargo’ of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war

Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will stand alone and “fight with our fingernails” in defiance of US threats to further restrict arms deliveries if Israeli forces proceed with an offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was speaking on Thursday after Israeli and Hamas delegations left the ceasefire negotiations in Cairo.

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Israel qualifies for Eurovision song contest final despite protests

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Thousands had marched against the country’s inclusion in Saturday’s final but Eden Golan’s entry was voted through

Israel has made it through to the final of the Eurovision song contest, setting the stage for a tense and politically charged event in Malmö on Saturday.

At Thursday’s second semi-final in Sweden’s third largest city, viewers from the competing countries backed the Israeli singer Eden Golan as one of the 10 entries to progress.

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‘It wasn’t a big deal’: secret deposition reveals how a child molester priest was shielded by his church

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Lawrence Hecker pleaded the fifth 117 times as he detailed how the Catholic church protected him for more than two decades after he admitted to molesting children

Longtime New Orleans Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker received a special honor from the Vatican nearly 25 years ago despite having confessed to molesting children. Then, for another two decades, church leaders in the city strategically shielded him from law enforcement and media exposure – while also providing him with financial support ranging from paid limousine rides and therapeutic massages to full retirement benefits, according to his own, previously unreported testimony.

A sworn deposition Hecker gave in private in 2020 shows exactly how high-placed Catholic church officials in New Orleans let him keep his elevated position for years, even after they had been advised to oust him from the clergy and – much later – publicly acknowledged that he was a child predator.

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‘We were encouraged to be with younger boys’: breaking down a child molester priest’s secret testimony

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In unearthed deposition, Lawrence Hecker pleaded the fifth 117 times, but still provided damning details of decades-long predatory behavior

The Guardian and CBS affiliate WWL Louisiana have obtained a long suppressed, eight-and-a-half-hour deposition of a 92-year-old Catholic priest charged with physically overpowering and raping a boy in a New Orleans church in 1975.

Taken in 2020 as part of a civil lawsuit demanding damages from him and the church, clergyman Lawrence Hecker provides in the deposition the most complete account yet of how the US’s second-oldest archdiocese spent much of its recent history taking extreme measures to keep the public from finding out about his abusive past. The questioning – which the church has fought in court for years to keep hidden – also reveals steps the city’s last four archbishops took to help him avoid accountability for decades.

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Jim Chalmers flags cost of living help for job seekers in federal budget

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‘There is more than one way to help people who are on income support,’ treasurer says when suggesting rebates and concessions could be boosted

The federal government is poised to expand rebates and concessions available to job seekers in next week’s federal budget, which is also expected to increase rent assistance.

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has confirmed that Tuesday’s budget will not increase the jobseeker payment but suggested it would boost concessions linked to social security payments, among a suite of measures designed to offer cost-of-living relief without pushing up inflation.

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Taylor Swift debuts new tracks as she returns to The Eras Tour

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Pop star thrills Paris crowds with songs from newest album The Tortured Poets Department

Taylor Swift has added her newest album, The Tortured Poets Department, to an already packed setlist as she returned to The Eras Tour after a two-month break.

Swift had described TTPD as “new works reflecting events, opinions and sentiments from a fleeting and fatalistic moment in time – one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure”. In Paris on Thursday night she put it more succinctly: “Female rage, the musical.”

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Starmer to rip up Rwanda scheme and fund new anti-smuggling unit

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Labour leader to promise to divert £75m to fund specialist force against smugglers using counter-terror powers

Keir Starmer will promise to rip up the government’s Rwanda scheme and divert £75m to fund hundreds of new specialist officers to tackle people-smuggling with new counter-terror powers.

At a speech on Friday in Dover – the home of Natalie Elphicke, who defected to Labour this week after criticising Tory failures on border security – the Labour leader will call the government’s plan “an insult to anyone’s intelligence” and say “the gangs that run this sick trade are not easily fooled”.

Create a new post of border security commander to oversee the unit, working across Europe and with multiple agencies on enforcement and intelligence.

Recruit hundreds of additional special investigators, intelligence agents and cross-border police officers.

Expand stop and search powers for use against those suspected of people-smuggling.

Use Serious Crime Prevention Orders, enforced on terrorists pre-conviction, to shut off the bank accounts and internet access of suspected smugglers.

Extend seizure warrant powers normally reserved for terrorism to include organised immigration crime.

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Starmer’s Home Office immigration plan does not answer call for safe routes

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Plans for head of border security with access to home secretary will not satisfy all critics of Labour’s immigration policies

Keir Starmer’s border plans, announced after a giddy week of political triumphs, attempt to address some of the deep structural problems within the Home Office.

Paid for with £75m from the existing budget for the Rwanda scheme, the plans echo recommendations handed to Priti Patel two years ago: employ a single border security head who is given direct access to the home secretary.

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Biden officials propose denying some migrants earlier in asylum process

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New rule would restrict access sooner for people deemed to pose ‘national security or public safety risk’

The Biden administration on Thursday proposed a new rule that it said would streamline asylum processing at the southern border by quickly denying certain migrants deemed to “pose a national security or public safety risk”.

The proposed rule would allow immigration officials to reject and deport migrants who are already ineligible for asylum at an earlier stage in the process, a change administration officials said would enhance national security and save taxpayer dollars.

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