Australia’s first Indigenous treaty passes
Benita Kolovos
Australia’s first treaty with traditional owners has passed the Victorian parliament to cheers and tears in the public gallery.
After two days of debate in parliament’s upper house this week, the statewide treaty bill passed 21 votes to 16 just before 9pm. After the bill passed without amendment, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags were unfurled from the public gallery and the Labor, Greens, Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice party MPs who supported the bill turned around to applaud.
It establishes the First Peoples’ Assembly as a permanent representative body to provide advice to government, under a new statutory corporation called Gellung Warl.
Gellung Warl will also include a truth-telling body, to be known as Nyerna Yoorrook Telkuna, and an accountability body, known as Nginma Ngainga Wara. The latter will ensure the government upholds its commitments under the national agreement on closing the gap.
It makes Victoria the first state in the country to adopt voice, treaty and truth – the three pillars of reform requested in the 2017 Uluru statement from the heart.
Key events
Does the Albanese government have a transparency problem? – Full Story podcast
A report by the Centre for Public Integrity has accused the Albanese government of
“leaning into a culture of secrecy”. Labor’s record on transparency also featured in parliament this week after independent ACT senator David Pocock led a revolt against the government for failing to produce a key report into “jobs for mates”.
Bridie Jabour talks to the editor, Lenore Taylor, and the head of newsroom, Mike Ticher, about whether the Albanese government is failing to live up to its own expectations on transparency.
Listen here:
Cait Kelly
Potential law allowing Centrelink payments to be stripped criticised as ‘shocking overreach’
Proposed laws allowing Centrelink payments to be stripped from those evading arrest while accused of serious crimes would be a “shocking overreach of police powers into the social security system”, welfare advocates warn.
The amendment to the income apportionment bill, added by Labor this week during parliamentary debate, would mean police officers would have the power to request the cancellation of Centrelink payments to those accused of a “serious violent or sexual offence” when an arrest warrant had been issued.
Some advocates and social security legal experts, including the Antipoverty Centre, the Council of Single Mothers and their Children, the Anti-Poverty Network South Australia, the Australian Unemployed Workers Union and Everybody’s Home have said the amendment represents punishment without conviction and blurs the separation of powers.
The Anglicare Australia executive director, Kasy Chambers, said the proposal was “completely at odds with the principles of fairness and justice” and called on the government to scrap the amendment. Chambers said:
This is a shocking overreach of police powers into the social security system. We’ve seen too many times what happens when governments rush through changes without thinking through the consequences. Robodebt should have been warning enough.
Krishani Dhanji
At least 30 Coalition MPs and senators gathered for net zero meeting
The Coalition net zero meeting is about halfway through now – it started at 8am and is expected to run for three hours.
Here’s how it’s been taking shape.
It’s been called a “listening” meeting, so those in the room are given up to five minutes to say their peace about the Coalition’s energy policy and are expected to stay to hear the others.
It’s been organised by a joint Coalition backbench committee – led by Liberals Jane Hume and Simon Kennedy – but we’ve been told that so far no Nationals are in the room. The Nats federal council meeting is on this weekend, so at least a few of them are travelling for that.
Who’s in the room? I’m told there’s at least 30 people – and a broad mix of members including former energy minister Angus Taylor, moderate Maria Kovacic and conservative MP Tony Pasin.
Five-year-old girl riding scooter dies after being hit by ute in Sydney
A five-year-old girl has died after she was hit by a car in Sydney’s north-west yesterday.
NSW police said the young girl was riding a scooter on a footpath in the suburb of Rouse Hill about 3.45pm. She was allegedly hit by a Toyota HiLux ute and emergency services were called.
Paramedics treated the girl at the scene before she was taken to the hospital in a critical condition, where she later died.
The driver of the vehicle, a 42-year-old man, was taken to the hospital for mandatory testing. A crime scene has been established and an investigation is ongoing. No charges have been laid.
Josh Butler
Maria Kovacic says Coalition must ‘have a pathway to reduce our emissions’
Maria Kovacic said net zero was “an outcome of the policy and we have to have a pathway to reduce our emissions and ensure that Australians have a clean and reliable energy grid. And that includes looking at gas and renewables, obviously, and we can also look at a pathway to unlocking nuclear technologies.”
Kovacic, asked if that should include a hard target for 2050 emissions, responded:
We’re still discussing that but thank you so much.
Tim Wilson, another moderate, said the party should be focused on “how do we get to net zero price increases and of course net zero outages”. He told Channel Nine’s Today show:
When Australians go and flick the switch on to walk into a room they want to know that the power’s going to turn on but, more important, they’re going to be able to afford the bill at the end of it and so that’s going be our focus.
Of course people care deeply about emissions but they want to make sure we get the price right, they want to make we have a reliable system and then they’ll be supportive of lower emissions too.
Josh Butler
Coalition MPs meeting to discuss net zero
Coalition MPs are meeting to discuss net zero and energy today, as the opposition remains tied in knots over its climate plans. We’re told there won’t be a formal final position on net zero today – it’s a meeting of backbenchers and leader Sussan Ley is visiting Tomago today instead – but it’s likely to result in some arguments.
Liberal senator and moderate Maria Kovacic said this morning that the meeting “won’t be any different from any of our other backbench meetings”. She said:
This is something that Sussan Ley, our leader, has determined we need to do in terms of all of the policy areas and we’ll have a strong discussion, as we always do. And it’s important that all MPs and senators are able to ventilate their views on all policy areas.
Kovacic said she thought Australians wanted the Liberals “to have a credible climate policy. I think it’s important that we understand that net zero, in itself, is not a policy.”
There is a view among some inside the Liberals that they could move away from explicitly sticking to the idea of net zero by 2050 but instead endorse an emissions reduction policy that would have similar goals.
Children’s commissioner says reforms ‘very much’ the beginning
Hollonds added that she did not believe policy and accountability settings in government were right yet to best protect children in childcare. She told RN while it was “great” to see strong leadership from the government and states to address failings in childcare reform, “this is very much just the beginning”.
She said:
The truth is that, when it comes to children’s issues, we are sidelining them. And children often themselves say they feel invisible and can’t get the help that they need from service systems that are primarily geared towards protecting the adults, not the children in their care.
You know, we’ve got this mess of laws and policies and fragmented regulatory systems. And as I said, we saw that they’ve protected the adults, not the children. I think government actually does need help and that’s why I’m supporting the calls for an independent national childcare commission that would oversee the industry and design that childcare system that we want to see in the future.
National children’s commissioner says work still needed to fix ‘accountability gaps that are obvious wherever we look’
Anne Hollonds, the national children’s commissioner, spoke to RN Breakfast this morning on the eve of finishing her five-year term in the role.
Hollonds said her tenure had been marked by a difficulty getting “attention to the needs of our most vulnerable children”, adding the federal government had taken a “hands-off posture” that was no longer working to tackle policy challenges. She said:
I think there’s a growing recognition that the old ways of thinking about how we deal with child safety and wellbeing is no longer working and that we need to work together across the federation.
Hollonds said she believes there should still be a federal minister for children, saying it was a “top priority” moving forward to “fix the accountability gaps that are obvious wherever we look”.
Police to drain dam in ongoing search for missing SA child Gus Lamont
South Australia police will continue their search for four-year-old Gus Lamont today.
Officials said the search will involve draining a large dam on the rural property, about 600 metres from the homestead where Gus was last seen. He has been missing since 27 September.
The dam is about 4.5 metres deep and was previously searched by police divers in the early days of the effort but draining will allow for a more comprehensive search to be completed. Police said the draining is being carried out to rule out the possibility Gus may have drowned.
Authorities are also continuing aerial imaging of an area out to 10km from the homestead. That effort is expected to take several weeks.
Krishani Dhanji
Zali Steggall to host climate roundtable today
Independent MP Zali Steggall will host a roundtable meeting at Parliament House in Canberra today with Climate Change Authority boss and former NSW Liberal treasurer Matt Kean as the Liberal party holds a forum for backbenchers to discuss the federal party’s future energy policy.
Steggall is also pushing for the government to spend $4bn each year – or 0.25% of GDP – on climate adaptation.
The member for Warringah has already been calling for a national adaptation framework and resilience plan to deal with the impacts of climate change.
The government’s own climate risk plan painted a bleak picture and found climate driven natural disasters are already costing the economy $40bn a year.
In a statement, Steggall said:
Australia must move rapidly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But we must also prepare for the disruptions to come. Climate adaptation is an insurance policy for Australia’s future. By implementing this plan, the Albanese government can build the resilience our communities and economy desperately need.
Sarah Basford Canales
Australian teachers losing collective billions in unpaid work each year
Teachers in Australia are losing more than $11.5bn a year in unpaid work, a Parliamentary Library analysis commissioned by the Greens has revealed.
The analysis, which assumes teachers work a median of 50 hours a week but are paid for just 38, found more than 320,000 full-time teachers across the country worked about $36,000 a year in extra unpaid hours, or almost a third of their average salary.
The analysis’ release on Friday coincides with World Teachers Day and follows a global report finding Australia is among the worst-ranked countries in terms of teacher shortages.
The Greens’ education spokesperson, Penny Allman-Payne, who is also a former teacher, said “it’s no wonder teachers are leaving the profession in droves”.
Our teachers are overworked, undervalued and face increasingly difficult and unsafe conditions in the classroom.
As a public school teacher myself for more than 25 years, I can tell you there is nothing more demoralising for a teacher than feeling like you’ve failed a student because you didn’t have enough time or enough resources.
For most teachers, teaching is a labour of love. But they can’t unlock our kids’ potential while they’re being smashed by pointless admin and standardisation, in a grossly under-resourced system.
Childcare worker charged for allegedly slapping three-year-old in the face
Penry Buckley
A childcare worker has been charged with allegedly assaulting a child at a daycare centre in Sydney’s north-west earlier this week, police say.
In a statement on Thursday evening, NSW police said officers had began an investigation on Wednesday following reports of an alleged assault at a childcare centre in Dundas.
“Police were told the childcare worker – a 43-year-old woman – had allegedly slapped a three-year-old child in the face on Tuesday,” they said.
After inquiries, police attended a home in Dundas about 11.30am on Thursday, where the woman was arrested before being taken to Gladesville police station.
She has been charged with assaulting a school student while at school as well as common assault, and was granted conditional bail to appear before Burwood local court on 8 December.
Josh Butler
Labor MP to shave off his beard in hopes of raising $100,000
One of parliament’s biggest characters, Labor MP Dan Repacholi, is shaving off his enormous beard today in the name of charity.
The member for Hunter, a former Olympian and Commonwealth Games champion in pistol shooting, has worn his long beard for many years but has decided to take it all off in a bid to raise $100,000 for the Mark Hughes Foundation, Royal Flying Doctors Service and CareFlight.
The special envoy for men’s health has raised more than $76,000 so far. He says he will undergo the big shave today at Movember headquarters in Melbourne.
Good morning and happy Friday. Nick Visser here to take over the blog. Let’s dive in.
Benita Kolovos
‘This is a historic moment for our people’, chair of First People’s Assembly says
The premier, Jacinta Allan, said it was the culmination of almost 10 years of work by the Victorian Labor government, which began in 2016. She said:
Treaty gives Aboriginal communities the power to shape the policies and services that affect their lives. This is how we build a fairer, stronger Victoria for everyone.
Ngarra Murray, the co-chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly, thanked MPs who voted in support of the bill:
This is a historic moment for our people. We will tell our children about today, and they will tell their children, passing down to future generations the story of how decades of Aboriginal resilience and activism led to Australia’s first Treaty.
Treaty marks the beginning of a new era, one where First Peoples’ 60,000 years of knowledge and culture is respected and celebrated. It’s an opportunity for all Victorians to acknowledge our shared history, heal and move forward together.
Australia’s first Indigenous treaty passes
Benita Kolovos
Australia’s first treaty with traditional owners has passed the Victorian parliament to cheers and tears in the public gallery.
After two days of debate in parliament’s upper house this week, the statewide treaty bill passed 21 votes to 16 just before 9pm. After the bill passed without amendment, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags were unfurled from the public gallery and the Labor, Greens, Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice party MPs who supported the bill turned around to applaud.
It establishes the First Peoples’ Assembly as a permanent representative body to provide advice to government, under a new statutory corporation called Gellung Warl.
Gellung Warl will also include a truth-telling body, to be known as Nyerna Yoorrook Telkuna, and an accountability body, known as Nginma Ngainga Wara. The latter will ensure the government upholds its commitments under the national agreement on closing the gap.
It makes Victoria the first state in the country to adopt voice, treaty and truth – the three pillars of reform requested in the 2017 Uluru statement from the heart.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the stories you need to get up to speed before Nick Visser comes along to take over.
Coalition MPs meet in Canberra today for their crunch meeting about net zero policy as Sussan Ley tries to steer MPs and senators towards a more centrist position on the issue that has already seen Andrew Hastie quit the frontbench. Meanwhile, independent MP Zali Steggall will host a roundtable meeting with the Climate Change Authority boss and former New South Wales Liberal treasurer Matt Kean. We’ll have more as it happens.
A new study by the Parliamentary Library has found that teachers in Australia are losing more than $11.5bn a year in unpaid work. Based on the assumption that teachers work a median of 50 hours a week, the analysis reckons they are paid for only 38. More details coming up.
