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Liberal senator David Van is speaking to Sydney radio 2GB about independent senator Lidia Thorpe’s allegations in the Senate yesterday.
Thorpe withdrew the remarks to comply with the Senate’s standing orders but said she would be making a statement on the issue today.
Continue reading...Albanese praises ‘courage’ of former prime minister and those affected by Port Arthur massacre
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has praised John Howard’s “courage and determination” to legislate gun control in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre and says a national firearms register would be the “next step” for the reforms that began in 1996.
Albanese will make the remarks at the National Museum on Thursday at a ceremony with Howard and Walter Mikac, who lost his wife and two daughters at Port Arthur. The ceremony will mark correspondence between Mikac and Howard entering the museum’s collection.
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‘We shouldn’t run a running commentary on the cases,’ says Hume
Opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume, appearing alongside Marles on the program, said she believed clarification was still needed:
There is inconsistencies between the reports that we are getting from those text messages and what we are hearing from Labor ministers, and what happened when.
And I think unfolding that, unpacking that, making sure there is some clarification is really important here. Because misleading parliament, misleading the Senate is a big deal, particularly when you rely on the honesty and integrity of ministers and senators, and so there are some questions to be answered here.
Katy has made her position very clear earlier in the week, and she has made clear that she is very comfortable with the statements that she’s made, and that’s the end of the matter in terms of Katy’s position.
Katy is a person of enormous integrity. It is one of my great honours to work alongside her in this government. She does a great job as the finance minister.
Continue reading...NSW police minister hopes coronial investigation sheds light on ‘terrible’ circumstances that led to the deaths of Wayne Smith and son Noah
A firearms licence was reinstated to a man just months before he shot dead his teenage son and himself, in another horrific domestic violence incident that has left a small community in New South Wales reeling.
The bodies of 58-year-old Wayne Smith and 15-year-old Noah were found at their home in Yamba in the northern rivers on Thursday, in an apparent murder-suicide.
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Prime minister pays tribute to Yunupingu
Prime minister Anthony Albanese has paid tribute to the Yolŋu man Yunupingu, one of the most significant Indigenous figures in history and a former Australian of the year, as “an extraordinary leader”.
He was one of the greatest of Australians.
An extraordinary leader of his people, respected right across Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia.
I said to him that I was serious, that we would do it.
Today we mourn with deep love and great sadness the passing of our dearly loved father Yunupiŋu.
The holder of our sacred fire, the leader of our clan and the path-maker to our future.
The loss to our family and community is profound. We are hurting, but we honour him and remember with love everything he has done for us.
We remember him for his fierce leadership, and total strength for Yolŋu and for Aboriginal people throughout Australia. He lived by our laws always.
Yunupiŋu lived his entire life on his land, surrounded by the sound of bilma (clapsticks), yidaki (didgeridoo) and the manikay (sacred song) and dhulang (sacred designs) of our people. He was born on our land, he lived all his life on our land and he died on our land secure in the knowledge that his life’s work was secure.
He had friendship and loyalty to so many people, at all levels, from all places.
Our father was driven by a vision for the future of this nation, his people’s place in the nation and the rightful place for Aboriginal people everywhere.
In leaving us, we know that Dad’s loss will be felt in many hearts and minds. We ask you to mourn his passing in your own way, but we as a family encourage you to rejoice in the gift of his life and leadership.
There will never be another like him.
In time we will announce the dates for bäpurru (ceremonies) that will see him returned to his land and to his fathers. These ceremonies will be held in North Eastern Arnhem Land.
We ask the media to respect our grieving space over the coming weeks as we put together ceremonial arrangements to honour Dad.
Instead of flowers, we invite those of you who were touched by Dad’s fire to share with us your personal recollections and memories of his life. This will lift our spirits.
Retrieved weapons include a Vietnam war-era flamethrower, sawn-off shotguns, rifles, gel blasters and revolvers
More than 17,000 weapons, including a Vietnam war-era flamethrower, were surrendered in the first year of Australia’s national permanent firearms amnesty.
States and territories struck an agreement with the Commonwealth in 2019 to establish an enduring amnesty allowing gun owners to hand in unregistered, illegal, or unwanted firearms without punishment or investigation.
Continue reading...Graham Kent, who investigated the 1987 shooting, says national register stalled because of ‘competitions between jurisdictions’
A former police officer who investigated Melbourne’s Hoddle Street massacre has joined the push for a genuine national firearms register amid concerns about an existing database that experts says is hindered by inconsistencies between jurisdictions.
The deadly shooting of two young police officers and a neighbour on a remote Queensland property last week has sparked renewed calls for an overhaul of Australia’s firearms databases and the creation of a centralised register.
Continue reading...Nicholas Petrovski used his skills to manufacture weapons that in the wrong hands could have caused havoc, court told
A fitter and turner who pleaded guilty to making submachine guns that presented a “catastrophic degree of dangerousness” to the public will spend the next eight months behind bars.
Nicholas Petrovski, 36, pleaded guilty in the Southport District Court on Wednesday to possessing four submachine guns, three silencers and manufacturing weapons.
Continue reading...Pauline Hanson publicly denies the 1996 massacre was a set-up, but the believers have consistently found a home in her party
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has been connected to supporters of the Port Arthur conspiracy theory since before the party was formed in 1997, despite repeated assurances from the Queensland senator that she had never believed the theory.
According to a Queensland political historian, it would take “a lot of good faith” to assume that Hanson has not been aware that those supporting the conspiracy theory had found safe harbour in One Nation over the past 20 years.
Continue reading...One Nation leader tells al-Jazeera reporter there are ‘a lot of questions’ about 1996 attack
Pauline Hanson has implied that the 1996 Port Arthur massacre was a government conspiracy, in comments recorded secretly by al-Jazeera.
Hidden camera footage, released by al-Jazeera as part of the undercover operation that revealed One Nation had sought a US$20m (A$28m) donation from the US gun lobby, showed the party’s leader saying she had “a lot of questions” about Port Arthur.
Continue reading...Al-Jazeera journalist posing as gun campaigner films senior party figures in Washington DC soliciting financial support to help One Nation seize the balance of power
Senior One Nation figures James Ashby and Steve Dickson have been caught seeking millions of dollars of political donations from US gun rights group the National Rifle Association in a bid to seize the balance of power and weaken Australia’s gun laws.
The revelations are contained in an al-Jazeera investigation which used hidden cameras and a journalist posing as a grassroots gun campaigner to expose the far-right party’s extraordinary efforts to secure funding in Washington DC in September.
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