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Greta Thunberg to face court for protest at oil terminal
By Caitlin Fitzsimmons
In international news, as wildfires ravage Greece, climate activist Greta Thunberg is set to appear in court today.
She faces a charge of disobeying police at a protest in southern Sweden last month.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg at a climate change conference in Bonn, Germany last month.Credit: Getty
Local newspaper Sydsvenskan reported that Thunberg and other activists were detained after they stopped traffic in the oil terminal of the port in Malmö on June 19.
Thunberg was charged because she refused to comply with police orders to leave the scene during the protest, according to Swedish Prosecution Authority spokeswoman Annika Collin and a statement from prosecutors.
Prosecutor Charlotte Ottosen told the newspaper that the crime of disobedience is typically punishable with fines.
Thunberg inspired a global youth movement demanding stronger efforts to fight climate change after staging weekly protests outside the Swedish Parliament starting in 2018.
In Australia, Blockade Australia activists have also targeted ports over the past few months, mainly targeting coal exports.
With AP, AAP
War Memorial installs plaques noting ‘gravity’ of Ben Roberts-Smith defamation case
By Natassia Chrysanthos
The Australian War Memorial has installed plaques next to displays honouring disgraced former soldier Ben Roberts-Smith that say the museum is considering what further content should be added to the exhibits after a landmark defamation case found he was a murderer and war criminal.
The Australian War Memorial has installed plaques at the Ben Roberts-Smith display.
Signs featuring a statement by War Memorial Council chair and former Labor leader Kim Beazley have been included next to two displays in the museum after Beazley last month confirmed Roberts-Smith’s uniform, medals and portraits would remain in place despite the court ruling.
According to photos supplied to and verified by this masthead, the plaques read:
The memorial assists in remembering, interpreting and understanding Australia’s experience of war and its enduring impact. This includes the causes, conduct and consequences of war.
The memorial acknowledges the gravity of the decision in the Ben Roberts-Smith VC MG defamation case and its broader impact on all involved in the Australian community. This is the outcome of a civil legal case, and one step in a longer process.
Collection items relating to Ben Roberts-Smith VC MG, including his uniform, equipment, medals and associated artworks, are on display in the memorial’s galleries.
We are considering carefully the additional content and context to be included in these displays. The memorial acknowledges Afghanistan veterans and their families, who may be affected at this time.”
Treasurer announces record surplus, new Productivity Commission chair
By Rachel Clun and Caitlin Fitzsimmons
Circling back to federal political news, and Treasurer Jim Chalmers has announced the government would deliver a record surplus of just above $20 billion for the last financial year.
Chalmers also announced Chris Barrett would be the next chair of the Productivity Commission, taking over from Michael Brennan in September.
Jim Chalmers and Chris Barrett, the new chair of the Productivity Commission.
Chalmers said Barrett has been tasked with renewing the commission as part of the government’s shake-up of the country’s major economic institutions.
“Chris’s appointment recognises that if we want to build a stronger economy, then we’ve got to build stronger economic institutions, and that means renewing and refocusing and revitalising the Productivity Commission,” he said.
But the appointment will be heavily scrutinised by the Coalition, with shadow treasurer Angus Taylor saying the Coalition was not consulted.
Read the full report by Rachel Clun.
John Farnham cancer-free a year on from surgery
By Angus Dalton
Australian singer John Farnham is cancer-free and “doing fantastic” after recovering from a 12-hour surgery in August last year to remove a cancerous tumour from his mouth, along with part of his jaw.
The 74-year-old music legend’s son, Robert Farnham, shared the news today during an interview on Seven Network’s Sunrise to promote the TV release of the documentary John Farnham: Finding the Voice.
John Farnham and Olivia Newton-John at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.Credit: Fairfax
“Cancer is a terrible, terrible thing. It’s his time to walk that road, but he’s cancer free,” the singer’s son said.
“He’s doing really, really good. He sings at home again, the whole thing.
“Just the other day he was walking around with his cane and did a little bit of a dance, which was pretty fabulous. He is walking with his dog a lot. He is really, really happy.”
At the time of Farnham’s mouth cancer diagnosis Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wished the singer a fast recovery.
“All Australians love John Farnham,” Albanese said. “John Farnham has been and continues to be a great Australian. He has not only provided entertainment for Australians over many decades, he also has been a contributor to the nation.”
Succession: WA’s iron ore heirs face off in court showdown
By Jesinta Burton
To Western Australia and a much-anticipated courtroom drama.
More than 30 lawyers have filled a courtroom remodelled for the long-awaited showdown between the rich-lister descendants of West Australian mining pioneers Peter Wright and Lang Hancock as the trial over their most lucrative find begins.
Lawyers for Wright Prospecting, billionaire Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, her children Bianca Rinehart and John Hancock and the heirs to the estate of often-forgotten prospector Don Rhodes assembled in WA’s Supreme Court for the first day of hearings.
The descendants of mining pioneers Lang Hancock and Peter Wright have been pitted against each other for decades.Credit: Graphic: Stephen Kiprillis.
While Rinehart and the multibillionaire heirs to the Wright fortune were notably absent, including Wright’s daughter Angela Bennett, and his late son Michael’s billionaire children Leonie Baldock and Alexandra Burt, the gallery was brimming with advisers for both camps.
At the heart of Wright Prospecting’s 2010-launched claim is that both parties were supposed to share equally in the spoils of any “Hanwright” partnership assets developed, including the sprawling Hope Downs tenement Hancock Prospecting now co-owns with operator Rio Tinto.
Wright Prospecting’s lawyer Julie Taylor spent today poring over 50-year-old documents and letters unearthed between Hancock and Wright showing their substantial investment into securing rights to the Hope Downs tenements.
Former top bureaucrat Kathryn Campbell resigns following robo-debt royal commission
By Angus Thompson
Former top bureaucrat Kathryn Campbell has resigned from her $900,000 AUKUS role after damning findings were made against her by the robo-debt royal commission.
The Department of Defence issued a statement today confirming it had accepted Campbell’s resignation, effective from last Friday.
“Defence will not provide further comment on this matter,” the statement reads.
Kathryn Campbell, the secretary who developed and rolled out the robo-debt scheme, has resigned from her highly paid government job.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Campbell was suspended from her AUKUS advisory role on July 10, three days after royal commissioner Catherine Holmes released her findings into the former Coalition government’s unlawful welfare crackdown.
The royal commission found Campbell, the head of the former department of human services from 2011 to 2017, kept the true nature of the income-averaging scheme secret when advising cabinet because she knew Scott Morrison – at that time the social services minister – wanted to pursue the program.
It also found Campbell deliberately instructed her own legal team to discontinue a request for legal advice on the scheme and that she shelved a damning $1 million audit by PwC into the welfare crackdown, just as it was about to finish because she feared its contents would be damaging.
Campbell went on leave shortly before the findings were delivered.
Indigenous push for Truth with new website
By Caitlin Fitzsimmons
In case you missed it, a new Australian history website has launched, called Towards Truth.
Professor Megan Davis with members of the Referendum Working Group in March.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The project, which aims to document all the laws and policies that have affected First Nations people since white colonisation, is a collaboration between the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and the UNSW Indigenous Law Centre led by Professor Megan Davis.
Towards Truth starts by examining NSW history based on the archives of the colonial and state parliaments, but the ambition is to make it national. The site so far includes research on laws affecting child removals, Aboriginal languages, water rights, citizenship and court appearances.
It’s not always what you expect – as I reported on the weekend, the site highlights some surprising titbits, such as the arguments of the white dissenters back in 1915 and 1940.
The federal government has committed to implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full. This is behind the government’s promise to hold a referendum on a First Nations Voice to parliament later this year.
The Uluru Statement called for Treaty and Truth as well as Truth.
Davis said Truth was about a more inclusive version of Australian history that centred Aboriginal dispossession, including in the school curriculum.
Street artist set to complete Free Assange mural in Sydney
To Sydney, where imprisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been immortalised in a city graffiti mural in a bid to boost awareness of his long-running fight for freedom.
The mural, sprayed on the side of a building on George Street in Haymarket, shows a bronze-faced Assange above the words “#Free Assange”.
A mural depicting Julian Assange on the side of a building in Sydney’s CBD.Credit: AAP
Street artist Scott Marsh, best known for controversial murals of former prime minister Tony Abbott, is due to complete the work tomorrow.
Assange, wanted in the United States over the release of US military records and diplomatic cables in 2010, has been held at London’s Belmarsh Prison for more than four years as he fights extradition.
Previously he spent seven years taking refuge inside London’s Ecuadorian embassy.
Assange supporters see his prosecution as a politically motivated assault on journalism and free speech, while the US says the release of the documents put lives in danger.
Marsh said he created the work, which has the backing of Assange’s family, after following the high-profile activist’s saga for years.
“This story needs to be in the front of every decent Australian’s mind and I hope this mural can help re-insert his story into the Australian zeitgeist,” Marsh said.
“The hourglass is running out for Julian’s hope for freedom.”
AAP
Victorian government to pay $2200 per adult for public tower lockdown
By Caitlin Fitzsimmons
To Victoria, where the state government has agreed to pay $2200 to each adult caught in a snap lockdown of public housing towers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was already known the state government would pay total compensation of $5 million, though it has refused to apologise.
A class action was brought against the state in 2021, after about 1800 adults and 751 children were locked inside nine public housing towers in North Melbourne and Flemington from July 4 to July 18, 2020.
A public housing tower in North Melbourne during a sudden lockdown in 2020.Credit: Penny Stephens
Residents in the towers, who were not given any notice or warning before being locked inside their homes for two weeks, claimed they were falsely imprisoned by the government and were threatened with physical harm if they tried to leave.
The government’s lawyers told the Supreme Court today each adult will receive $2200 and each child $1130.
Government barrister Georgina Costello, KC, said the settlement did not mean the state would admit to any fault.
“The towers lockdown was an emergency response that was lawful, necessary and proportionate ... for the purpose of protecting the lives of tower residents,” she told the court.
With AAP
Barbie and Oppenheimer smash Aussie box office records
By Caitlin Fitzsimmons
I was one of the droves of people who donned a pink blouse and went to see Barbie on the weekend.
I enjoyed the movie, but the best part was seeing audiences back out at the cinema. It felt like the old days when movie releases were a big deal.
Margot Robbie as Barbie in a scene from the movie.
My local was one of those doing a roaring trade in “Barbenheimer” – a double bill of Barbie and Oppenheimer (or Oppenheimer and Barbie, depending on what order you wanted to watch it).
Garry Maddox and Karl Quinn report that Barbie was easily the biggest release in Australia this year, and has done $21.5 million in local box office takings since the previews on Wednesday. Worldwide it took $501 million.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer opened strongly with almost $260 million worldwide.
Distributor Universal Pictures, which released both films in Australia, said the two movies resulted in a record Australian box office for both a Saturday ($11.1 million) and a Sunday ($10.5 million).
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2023-07-24 07:05:50Z
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