Muslim teams name for NSW police commissioner to resign
Dozens of Muslim organisations throughout Australia, together with the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Australian Muslim Advocacy Community, the Lebanese Muslim Affiliation, the Muslim Vote and Stand for Palestine have condemned the NSW police disrupting a Muslim prayer and using pressure on the protest in Sydney on Monday.
The teams mentioned in a joint assertion:
What occurred was utterly unacceptable. Cops knowingly intervened in a second of non secular observance, forcibly interrupted prayer and used bodily pressure towards people who posed no menace to public security.
Using pressure towards individuals who had been stationary, peaceable and engaged in prayer can’t be justified by obscure references to public order. Interrupting prayer mid-act demonstrates a scarcity of respect for non secular freedom and raises severe considerations about discriminatory and heavy-handed policing.
In addressing the police actions earlier on the protests, towards the go to of Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, the NSW premier Chris Minns mentioned it occurred throughout “riotous behaviour” however clarified he was not suggesting these praying had been doing that.
The teams have referred to as for an apology from the premier, the police minister and police management and the resignation of the police commissioner “whose management bears accountability for a policing tradition wherein such conduct was permitted to happen”.
They’re additionally searching for an investigation and the law enforcement officials concerned to be held accountable.
Key occasions
Home passes invoice to ascertain Australian Tertiary Training Fee
Issues have been shifting pretty shortly already within the Home this afternoon, which simply began sitting at 12pm, because of all of the occasion room conferences. Over within the Senate, estimates continues to be occurring, and public servants are nonetheless dealing with a grilling.
The Home has simply voted to move a invoice establishing the Australian Tertiary Training Fee (ATEC) which is a physique that will probably be charged with designing college reforms, following the college accord.
The ATEC will even take a look at extra contentious insurance policies just like the Job Prepared Graduates Scheme and potential methods to repair it.
The physique was presupposed to be established final month, however the invoice was solely launched on the final sitting day of final yr.
Coalition calls for presidency to take motion towards Laos over methanol-poisoning deaths
The Australian authorities ought to take stronger motion towards the Laotian authorities over the deaths of two Australian ladies, Sussan Ley and the shadow overseas minister, Michaelia Money, have mentioned.
In an announcement, the pair mentioned the Laotian ambassador must be introduced in to provide a proper rationalization over revelations that employees at a hostel answerable for the deaths of Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles by methanol poisoning have solely acquired fines of A$185.
Ley and Money mentioned Australia makes a “important contribution to Laos by way of our overseas help program and different improvement help”:
A yr in the past we realized the Laos authorities was refusing Australian Federal Police help within the investigation. A yr in the past Australians had been informed by the Albanese Authorities that the matter was in hand.
We now know there was no significant justice for Holly and Bianca, and their households didn’t be taught of those outcomes from their very own authorities however by way of the British lady’s household.
The Albanese authorities ought to remind the Laotian authorities of the vital contributions Australian taxpayers make to key applications in Laos according to the friendship between our two international locations.
Lisa Cox
Local weather teams say huge emitters ought to pay for catastrophe restoration
Local weather teams are calling for a air pollution levy to be paid by main emitting firms, together with fuel and coal producers, as communities are hit by the prices of accelerating global-heating pushed disasters.
Local weather Motion Community Australia (CANA) and Bushfire Survivors for Local weather Motion mentioned knowledge from the Insurance coverage Council of Australia confirmed fires, floods, heatwaves and storms had resulted in about $1.6bn in insured losses in Australian communities this summer season thus far.
The teams mentioned Australia’s greatest emitting firms ought to “pay their fair proportion for the injury now being brought on” by way of a levy that might fund catastrophe restoration in hard-hit communities, adaptation measures, and accelerating the clear power transition.
Jan Harris, the co-chair of Bushfire Survivors for Local weather Motion, misplaced her residence to a bushfire in 2018. She mentioned “it’s households identical to mine who’re shouldering the burden of local weather change and we’re near breaking”.
Barry Traill from CANA mentioned:
Communities are paying for this savage summer season with their properties, livelihoods and, in too many circumstances, their lives … It’s time our parliament made these benefiting from local weather air pollution assist pay for the cleanup and the protections we want.
Penry Buckley
How many individuals attended final night time’s protest in Sydney?
Police have thus far declined to supply an estimate an what number of attended final night time’s protest, though as Guardian Australia has reported, police and organiser estimates can differ significantly.
When the Palestine Motion Group unsuccessfully sought to problem the federal government’s invocation of “main occasion” powers on the supreme court docket this week, organisers mentioned they anticipated about 5,000 individuals to attend the protest at City Corridor sq., which they mentioned had a capability of about 4,500.
The NSW higher home Labor MP Stephen Lawrence who attended the rally, informed the ABC this morning he considered 20,000 to 30,000 individuals had been current, a quantity echoed at a press convention by the Palestine Motion Group and the NSW Greens a short time in the past.
Police have confirmed there have been fees laid among the many 27 protesters arrested yesterday, however are but to determine the alleged offences.
Tom McIlroy
Albanese thanks Labor MPs for self-discipline and ‘dignity’ in partyroom assembly
Anthony Albanese has thanked Labor MPs for his or her self-discipline and “dignity” in current weeks, utilizing remarks to a caucus assembly in Canberra to focus on ongoing instability in Coalition ranks.
The prime minister informed the closed door assembly on Tuesday that Labor should proceed to be “the adults in authorities” because the opposition chief, Sussan Ley, appears set to be challenged inside days.
Albanese mentioned the Coalition was a circus however authorities MPs ought to speak up their file on financial issues, on colleges funding and a brand new settlement with the states and territories to fund hospital companies and the Nationwide Incapacity Insurance coverage Scheme.
Albanese additionally talked about his profitable go to to Indonesia alongside the overseas minister, Penny Wong, final week.
Forward of the Might price range, Albanese mentioned Labor would work to strengthen the federal government’s fiscal place and supply help to households with the excessive cost-of-living, and reminded Labor MPs of the week’s closing the hole report on Indigenous drawback.
He mentioned the annual Closing the Hole assertion could be delivered within the wake of an alleged terror assault towards Invasion Day protesters in Perth on 26 January. Albanese restated his view that it was time to “flip the temperature down” in Australia.
Josh Taylor
A number of mother and father would really like us to ban Roblox, Wells says
The communications minister, Anika Wells, is holding a press convention outlining the federal government’s considerations with gaming platform Roblox.
Wells mentioned she believes “lots of you I believe, like me, had been in all probability disgusted by the truth that youngsters as younger as 4 or 5 are seeing graphic and gratuitous violence on this platform”.
She confirmed she has written to Roblox to hunt a gathering, and requested the eSafety commissioner for some other measures she will be able to undertaken to cease youngsters from seeing any such content material on Roblox. Wells has additionally requested for Roblox to evaluate once more if it must be labeled at PG, given it was final labeled in 2018.
Wells mentioned numerous mother and father wish to see Roblox banned beneath the social media ban, however famous the ban “will not be there to treatment the web, can’t treatment all of the ills of the web and it’s designed particularly to [target] predatory, persuasive algorithms options and capabilities that youngsters expertise”.
Josh Butler
Watt complains about ‘absolute explosion’ of Senate estimates questions
Greens senator David Shoebridge and minister Murray Watt have had a tense stand-off in senate estimates, over the timeliness – or lack thereof – of solutions to questions in regards to the division of residence affairs.
Watt, the surroundings minister, claimed opposition and crossbench senators had been being “excessive” and searching for to “jam up the system” in what number of questions they’re asking at Senate estimates.
Senate estimates all the time will get a bit tetchy, and when ministers or public servants can’t or received’t reply questions on the desk, they’re usually requested to take them “on discover” (to reply later in writing).
Shoebridge was asking the division of residence affairs about earlier questions he’d requested – in regards to the Dural caravan bomb hoax, and the division’s contracting preparations round offshore detention – saying he’d been ready a very long time for responses.
Watt, representing the minister for residence affairs, defined there had been “an absolute explosion of questions on discover” on this parliament and the final one, in comparison with the final time Labor was in opposition, and that Labor had been extra “accountable” with their questions. He claimed the division had responded to about 90% of the questions on discover put to it, and hit again: “Senators have to take some accountability for the sheer variety of questions being requested”.
Shoebridge responded:
These are issues of public curiosity they usually deserve well timed solutions.
Watt:
With respect senator, each senator thinks their questions on discover are important … it takes time to resolve along with the vital work this division does.
Patrick Commins
Gloomy Aussie households ‘bracing for extra fee rises’
Australian households “are bracing for extra fee rises”, in keeping with Westpac’s newest sentiment survey which revealed a deepening pessimism amongst customers.
The temper amongst Australians has soured over the previous couple months as a rebound in inflation sealed the case for tighter financial coverage.
Matthew Hassan, a senior economist at Westpac, mentioned the primary Reserve Financial institution fee hike in over two years “has put renewed strain on funds, dented attitudes in direction of main purchases and raised considerations about medium-term prospects for the economic system”.
Eight in ten respondents mentioned they anticipated the RBA to hike once more within the subsequent 12 months, after the central financial institution lifted its money fee goal to three.85% final Tuesday.
Simply over a 3rd of these surveyed even anticipate mortgage charges to climb by 1 proportion level or extra over the following 12 months – a much more gloomy prediction than the one-and-a-bit RBA fee hikes priced into monetary markets.
Regardless of this charges outlook, Australians are extremely bullish in relation to home value expectations, because the index monitoring this query lifted to a 15-year excessive.
In distinction the “time to purchase a dwelling” gauge dropped to its lowest since late 2024.
Muslim teams name for NSW police commissioner to resign
Dozens of Muslim organisations throughout Australia, together with the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Australian Muslim Advocacy Community, the Lebanese Muslim Affiliation, the Muslim Vote and Stand for Palestine have condemned the NSW police disrupting a Muslim prayer and using pressure on the protest in Sydney on Monday.
The teams mentioned in a joint assertion:
What occurred was utterly unacceptable. Cops knowingly intervened in a second of non secular observance, forcibly interrupted prayer and used bodily pressure towards people who posed no menace to public security.
Using pressure towards individuals who had been stationary, peaceable and engaged in prayer can’t be justified by obscure references to public order. Interrupting prayer mid-act demonstrates a scarcity of respect for non secular freedom and raises severe considerations about discriminatory and heavy-handed policing.
In addressing the police actions earlier on the protests, towards the go to of Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, the NSW premier Chris Minns mentioned it occurred throughout “riotous behaviour” however clarified he was not suggesting these praying had been doing that.
The teams have referred to as for an apology from the premier, the police minister and police management and the resignation of the police commissioner “whose management bears accountability for a policing tradition wherein such conduct was permitted to happen”.
They’re additionally searching for an investigation and the law enforcement officials concerned to be held accountable.
Tom McIlroy
Turnbull stops wanting endorsing Taylor for Liberal management
Malcolm Turnbull has stopped wanting endorsing his former cupboard colleague Angus Taylor for the Liberal management.
In a well-timed go to to Parliament Home, the previous Liberal chief mentioned Taylor ought to entrance up and state his intentions on a potential problem towards Sussan Ley.
“I believe it is very important arise and be counted. This can be a place the place we vote in public,” he mentioned.
If Angus desires to be chief of the Liberal occasion, he ought to arise and say so, and say why, which is strictly what I did within the Senate courtyard almost 11 years in the past.
Requested if Taylor, the shadow defence minister, was match to be chief, Turnbull selected his phrases fastidiously.
He’s completely match to be chief, as a result of the one qualification for being chief of the opposition is to be member of the Home of Representatives.
Angus has slightly unenlightened views on power these days however I keep in mind when he labored for Rod Sims, years in the past, when he was a younger economist at Port Jackson Companions. He was very strongly in favor, and really eloquently in favor, of an economy-wide value on carbon, as essentially the most environment friendly approach to scale back emissions, however I collect he now not shares that view.
‘It’s a tough enterprise’, Turnbull sympathises with the Liberals
Tom McIlroy
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has weighed in on the Liberal management saga slowly unfolding at Parliament Home this week, accusing his personal occasion of abandoning the centre for an ideological “la la land”.
Turnbull was in Canberra to talk about hydro-electricity, however took a sequence of questions in regards to the struggle between Sussan Ley and Angus Taylor for the opposition management.
Requested if a problem towards Ley could be unfair lower than a yr on from the election, Turnbull mentioned politics is a tough recreation.
“Everybody will get handled badly in parliament,” he mentioned. “Look, it’s a tough enterprise.
I sympathise with all of my former colleagues. They’re in a horrible state. The Liberal occasion is dealing with an existential disaster.
Turnbull mentioned the occasion needed to withstand laborious truths about who it seeks to signify.
That is the inevitable consequence for the Liberal occasion of imagining that the aim of politics is to hunt the approval of the Sky Information viewers.
Now that will nicely signify lots of the members of their branches, however it doesn’t signify Australia.
Andrew Messenger
Queensland parliament holds minutes’ silence for Bondi bloodbath victims
Queensland parliament has held a minutes’ silence for the victims of final yr’s bloodbath at Bondi, on its first sitting day of the yr.
The premier, David Crisafulli, moved a movement that the parliament “convey its deepest sorrow” for the bloodbath, condemn antisemitism and categorical its admiration and gratitude for the heroism of those that responded to the capturing.
Crisafulli mentioned the assault, on 14 December 2025 “will without end be remembered as one in all our nation’s darkest days” and was “an act of terror pushed by antisemitism”.
“Hatred, concern and extremism must not ever be allowed to fracture the values that bind us. Queensland is a various state. Our energy comes from this variety; individuals of various backgrounds, beliefs, cultures, identities they usually select to dwell right here,” Crisafulli mentioned.
Nobody ought to should second-guess their place primarily based on religion; no-one.
My message to Queensalnd’s Jewish group is – you matter, that is your house. We’re decided you could go and worship, you’ll be able to go to high school, you’ll be able to go to the retailers, to college, with out wanting over your shoulder.
Each occasion leaders learn out the 15 names of the individuals who had been killed within the assault and vowed to do all the pieces they may to stop it taking place once more.
All MPs then stood for a minute to recollect their lives. The federal government is anticipated to introduce laws allowing the attorney general to ban slogans – together with pro-Palestine phrases similar to “From the river to the ocean” and “globalise the intifada” – later in the present day.
Confrontation between Greens MP and NSW police commissioner
Penry Buckley
NSW Greens higher home MP Abigail Boyd, who has alleged she was assaulted by police at yesterday’s protest, has simply confronted the NSW police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, at NSW parliament. Lanyon was giving a press convention alongside the premier on yesterday’s protest a short time in the past.
The interplay was witnessed by media retailers who had come down from the press convention, together with Guardian Australia. Boyd, who posted an image of herself within the neck brace this morning, has alleged she was pushed and shoved by police on the protests final night time, regardless of telling them she was a member of state parliament.
“It’s not OK,” mentioned Boyd, after describing her alleged assault to Lanyon.
“Are you cheerful for me to get a police workplace to come back and communicate to you?” mentioned Lanyon.
We’ll take it significantly.
NSW Greens MP says group can now not belief police to deal with protests
Following Chris Minns, pro-Palestinian protesters are addressing the media this morning, and say the NSW police can now not be trusted to cope with peaceable protests.
Greens MP Sue Higginson says NSW police created a “literal strain cooker” by surrounding protesters from with the ability to disperse.
There’s a massive a part of NSW now that doesn’t, can’t and shouldn’t belief the NSW police beneath the present NSW premier to have the ability to cope with … peaceable protests
What we noticed final night time was a monumental failure. You solely have to have a look at what occurred. The police created a literal strain cooker. They surrounded individuals at City Corridor. There have been no secure avenues of dispersal.
Higginson says she has requested the Regulation Enforcement Conduct Fee to ascertain an investigation.
She says there was no “compromise” and no motion from police.
I believed we’d by no means return to this [as in] 1978 when a state and police thinks they will suppress, oppress and management a mass peaceable motion.
I handled law enforcement officials final night time who I do know themselves had been shocked at what occurred and that a few of these law enforcement officials had been emboldened …
Impartial MP says protests had been ‘completely foreseeable’
The unbiased MP Zali Steggall says final night time’s protests had been “completely foreseeable” and that any situations of extreme police pressure should be investigated.
Steggall informed Sky Information she understands that Jewish Australians are feeling susceptible and that Palestinian Australians are additionally feeling damage and offended on the “continued killing of harmless civilian lives”.
Host Laura Jayes, pushes Steggall on whether or not phrases like “globalise the intifada” are damaging. Stegall says:
I don’t dispute that it’s damaging, however what I’m actually dissatisfied that at no level am I listening to something in relation to what’s to occur to the Palestinian individuals. We’re seeing in the present day the announcement that the Israeli authorities has additional handed legal guidelines to legalise taking occupied [Palestinian] territories.
It was completely foreseeable, contemplating the final two years and the problems and the injury this has been social cohesion, that occasions like final night time had been going to occur.
Why are we having the chief of a overseas state right here inflicting social disruption and impacting our social cohesion … inviting the top of one other state that has extremely foreseeable penalties on our social cohesion is one thing the prime minister ought to have taken a lot better care in contemplating.
