In an extraordinary sitting of the county court of Victoria, chief judge Peter Kidd sat and delivered a detailed sentence to George Pell for the five counts of child sexual abuse he had been found guilty of. Melissa Davey tells David Marr why this was a ‘masterclass’ verdict and brings us the personal accounts of those harmed by Pell’s crimes.
Gatton, Beaudesert and Archerfield among towns with record-breaking maximum temperatures for the month
Multiple Queensland heat records have been broken for March, with some areas recording temperatures of more than 10 degrees above their average maximum.
Highs of 40C or more in the state’s south-east were recorded for the first time in March, with the town of Gatton reaching 40C on Monday and 41.1C on Tuesday, about 11 degrees above its average maximum temperature for the month.
Continue reading...Users in Australia, the US, Europe and Asia report problems with various applications for several hours
Google has been hit by outages in a host of countries around the world, with users reporting issues with Gmail, Google Drive, Hangouts and Google Maps for several hours.
Various websites that track Gmail problems and outages, showed a spike in users reporting problems with the email service from about 1pm AEDT (2am GMT).
Continue reading...Chief judge calls Pell’s crimes ‘breathtakingly arrogant’ as he sentences Pell to six years in jail, with non-parole period of three years and eight months
• George Pell sentenced to six years in jail – live updates
Cardinal George Pell may spend at least three years and eight months in jail after being convicted of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in 1996, with the judge describing his offending as “brazen and forceful” and “breathtakingly arrogant” because he believed the victims would never complain.
The 77-year-old was sentenced to six years, with a non-parole period of three years and eight months.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Civil liberties experts sound alarm, saying ‘police have given us no reason to trust that they can investigate themselves impartially’
Queensland is poised to repeal the police disciplinary system established after the landmark Fitzgerald corruption inquiry, prompting concerns from civil liberties experts that the proposed changes have “fundamental” flaws.
Legislation to establish a new police discipline system was tabled in the state parliament last month, after years of pressure from the influential Queensland police union. The bill has bipartisan support and will likely pass later this year.
The police union president, Ian Leavers, has hailed the demise of “the old punitive police discipline system” established in 1990, in the immediate aftermath of the Fitzgerald inquiry.
The new system encourages the use of “management strategies” rather than formal sanctions for police misconduct and misbehaviour. Officers can no longer have their salary reduced. Complaints are to be “streamlined” to ensure they do not take longer than 12 months.
Related: Queensland police accused of 'whitewash' over investigation into shredded rape file
Continue reading...The reckoning for this failure will come at the next election. And it can’t come soon enough
For all the skittishness of Australian politics through the years of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments there’s been one factor that has been remarkably consistent.
Amid leadership coups, cultural offensives and the revolving door of energy policy acronyms, the Australian public has remained steadfast in its belief that more needs to be done to address climate.
Continue reading...Trevor Salvado, 60, and Jacinda Bohan, 58, had not been seen since leaving a caravan park in Bright on Friday morning
A Melbourne couple who went missing while bushwalking in Victoria’s alpine region have been found safe and well.
Trevor Salvado, 60, and Jacinta Bohan, 58, were found by a kayaker just after 11am on Tuesday at Buffalo River.
Continue reading...Former trade minister delivers scathing criticism of Coalition colleagues for souring relations
The former trade minister Andrew Robb, who took an $880,000 job with a Chinese company as soon as he left parliament, has blasted his former party room colleagues and Australia’s security agencies for creating a “toxic” relationship with China.
Robb confirmed he had left Landbridge, which holds the lease over the Darwin port, late last year, after a health precinct project he had been working on was rejected by Beijing.
Continue reading...Farmers say change ‘a good first step’ but separate agricultural visa still needed
Australia’s visa rules have been relaxed to make it easier for farmers to hire skilled workers.
Farmers have described the changes as a good first step but warned they are unlikely to dampen calls from the sector for a separate agricultural visa because labour shortages are mainly in lower skilled harvesting roles.
Continue reading...Former university vice-chancellor was backed by prominent conservatives including Mathias Cormann
Celia Hammond has been named the Liberal party’s candidate for Curtin, the safest blue-ribbon seat in Western Australia held by the former foreign minister Julie Bishop.
The former University of Notre Dame vice-chancellor, who was backed by prominent conservatives including the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, was preselected at a meeting on Sunday as the candidate for Curtin to fill the seat Bishop has held for two decades.
Continue reading...Barrister says he has been unable to convince Melbourne Savage Club to allow female members
The Greens candidate Julian Burnside has resigned as a member of an exclusive all-male Melbourne social club, after being questioned about it during an appearance on Sky News on Friday night.
The human rights barrister and candidate for the federal seat of Kooyong declared that “same-sex only clubs are a relic of the past” on Saturday, and said he was resigning from the Melbourne Savage Club – which describes itself as “one of Australia’s oldest private members’ clubs”.
Continue reading...Are the banking royal commission and slow wage growth signs of a backlash against the economic philosophy of neoliberalism? Bernard Keane, political editor at Crikey, joins Katharine Murphy to dissect how the cyclical nature of neoliberal economics has led to its failures
Continue reading...Australian government to investigate claims French-owned Ibis Styles in Alice Springs reserved poorest accommodation for Indigenous visitors
The international hotel giant Accor has launched an investigation into allegations that staff at one of its Australian hotels have been segregating Aboriginal guests in lower quality rooms.
The French multinational company said on Friday it was “extremely saddened and disappointed” at the revelations, which were reported by the ABC’s Background Briefing program.
Continue reading...EPA chief says new regulations are needed to meet Paris targets, putting future LNG projects under threat
Western Australia’s environmental protection authority has announced tough new measures aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions from large projects.
The EPA, which works independently and makes recommendations to the WA government about whether new developments should be granted environmental approval, said on Thursday it was setting a “higher bar” for how it would assess the impact of major projects on the climate.
Continue reading...The opposition’s plan to allow open up sexual health services to more women raises key questions about access, cost and state laws
Labor has announced a national sexual and reproductive health strategy to improve access to contraception and abortion. A major plank of this policy is to “support all women to access termination services in public hospitals”, raising a number of crucial questions:
Continue reading...Many MPs are exasperated with Michael McCormack and despairing about where they have washed up post-Barnaby Joyce
In practical terms it’s a strange thing to demand – calling on the leadership to pass a package that has no obvious prospect of passing the parliament without amendment in the time left available.
But six Queensland Nationals have elected to put the boot into their leader, Michael McCormack, for failing on two fronts: failing to pressure the Liberals to pass the so-called “big stick” package, which they believe will lower power prices, and failing to sign up to new taxpayer-backed investments in power generation. For most Nationals north of the New South Wales border, that means new coal generation.
Continue reading...PM hints it is possible asylum seekers with serious medical emergencies will still be treated in Australia
Scott Morrison has indicated it is possible that asylum seekers with serious medical emergencies will continue to be treated in Australia, while taking a pool of reporters to Christmas Island to showcase the facilities the government has reopened at an estimated cost of $1.4bn over four years.
The prime minister led reporters on a tour of the Christmas Island facilities on Wednesday. When pressed about why he was on the remote island, with reporters in tow, for what was self-evidently an expensive public relations sortie, Morrison declared it was “important for Australians to know this facility is up to the job”.
Continue reading...Minister declared mobile office’s remodelling but there is no record of required repayment of gift’s value
Labor has accused Peter Dutton of breaching ministerial rules by failing to pay taxpayers for the value of his mobile office caravan’s refurbishment, gifted to him by a business in north Brisbane.
In May 2017 Dutton declared that Kedron Caravans had refurbished the caravan’s interior, but the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has revealed he is not among those who paid for gifts valued over $300 in 2017.
Continue reading...The refugee advocate sets up a four-way contest with the treasurer, Liberal-turned-independent Oliver Yates and Labor
The human rights lawyer and refugee advocate Julian Burnside will run as the Greens candidate for Kooyong at the next election.
In a statement that appeared in Nine newspapers and the Australian on Tuesday the prominent barrister said he would take on the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, in the blue-ribbon Liberal seat because he believes the “political system is broken”.
Continue reading...Clare Linane, whose husband Peter Blenkiron is a survivor of clerical child abuse, writes in response to Andrew Bolt’s defence of George Pell
I am a Ballarat local who has been living with the aftermath of child sexual abuse for many years. My husband, Peter Blenkiron, is a survivor of clergy abuse at 11-years-old. You met him whilst in Rome three years ago.
I am compelled to write to you after you expressed your opinion that George Pell has been falsely convicted.
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