Parliament hears names of 74 Australian women murdered in the last year
Ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women tomorrow, Labor MP Sharon Claydon has introduced a motion.
Claydon says she reads a list of the Australian women who have lost their lives in the last year. She reads out their names to the chamber.
Every year I read this list in the hope it will be the last, heartbreakingly that day has not yet come. Today as we being the 16 days of activism we must recommit ourselves to ending this national emergency of violence against women and children.
Following Claydon, the opposition leader, Sussan Ley, calls out the women’s names as well.
She says it takes a “horrific event to force us to reckon with the scale of the challenge this list of women represents”.
These names are women, women taken from us, mothers daughters sisters friends, these women have been identified by the Red Heart campaign.
These names should echo through this building and echo across our country, 74 women have been killed in Australia since last time this year, 74 … How do we maintain the rage? How do we cut through, how do we overcome the fatigue? … We must continue to shine the light.
Key events
Elective surgeries disrupted in Darwin after cyclone damaged roof of Royal Darwin hospital
A couple more updates on Tropical Cyclone Fina from the NT chief minister, Lia Finocchiaro.
She says the cylone has caused a “small disruptions” to elective surgeries in Darwin. On Monday, 10 surgeries were postponed and six are expected to be impacted on Tuesday.
A section of the roof at Royal Darwin hospital collapsed on Sunday, with water flowing into the wards. Finocchiaro says power was briefly affected by no one was hurt:
It would have been absolutely awful if that had impacted people.
No staff, no patients were injured. We were able to very quickly isolate the area from power so that it wasn’t a risk for anyone.
Finocchiaro says it is too early to estimate the costs of the clean-up.
NY residents affected by cyclone may be eligible for support
The federal minister for emergency management, Kristy McBain, says some NT residents affected by Tropical Cyclone Fina may now be eligible for government support:
There will be personal hardship payments available for people in those seven local government areas, as well as a range of low-interest loans and freight subsidies for primary producers and additional assistance for not-for-profits for any assets that they may need replaced.
McBain says eligible adults can receive up to $611, while children can access $309.
Chief minister says NT focused on ‘getting back to business’ after cyclone
The Northern Territory’s chief minister, Lia Finocchiaro, has thanked people for listening to warnings from authorities about the dangers posed by Tropical Cyclone Fina:
Right around the top end and in our remote communities, there is debris everywhere, including downed power lines. So we continue to ask people to exercise caution, but move freely about their day to do what they need to do.
We are really focused on making sure that the territory gets back to business as usual as fast as possible.
We’ve seen a number of shops and government services reopen and, of course, making sure that people can go about their day safely.
Jordyn Beazley
Brittany Higgins’ former boss to have her case heard in 2027
The former boss of Brittany Higgins will have her case again the commonwealth go to trial in March 2027.
Fiona Brown, the former Liberal staffer and chief of staff of Linda Reynolds, is suing the government over allegations her workplace failed to protect her by breaching her general protections after Higgins made her rape claim against former staffer, Bruce Lehrmann.
Brown appeared in the federal court on Monday before Justice Nye Perram for a case management hearing. Perram set down the hearing for her case from 29 March to 23 April 2027.
Brown was a witness in the defamation trial brought by Lehrmann against Lisa Wilikinson and Channel Ten after he claimed he was defamed by a rape allegation made by Higgins on Ten’s The Project. Justice Michael Lee found on the balance of probabilities that Lehrmann raped Higgins.
Centre for Public Integrity’s chair warns proper scrutiny needed on EPBC deal
The Centre for Public Integrity’s chair, Anthony Whealy, has raised concerns about the government’s push to strike a deal on EPBC reforms.
Whealy is concerned any deal struck this week may not be properly scrutinised by parliamentary inquiries:
Government is in desperate negotiations with the Coalition and the Greens to push through the seven EPBC reform bills.
This would occur before parliament has had a proper chance to consider them – and before the Senate environment and communications committee has even finished its extensive public consultation.
Indeed, to achieve passage of this bill, the government would have to suspend the Senate’s standing orders.
Parliament hears names of 74 Australian women murdered in the last year
Ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women tomorrow, Labor MP Sharon Claydon has introduced a motion.
Claydon says she reads a list of the Australian women who have lost their lives in the last year. She reads out their names to the chamber.
Every year I read this list in the hope it will be the last, heartbreakingly that day has not yet come. Today as we being the 16 days of activism we must recommit ourselves to ending this national emergency of violence against women and children.
Following Claydon, the opposition leader, Sussan Ley, calls out the women’s names as well.
She says it takes a “horrific event to force us to reckon with the scale of the challenge this list of women represents”.
These names are women, women taken from us, mothers daughters sisters friends, these women have been identified by the Red Heart campaign.
These names should echo through this building and echo across our country, 74 women have been killed in Australia since last time this year, 74 … How do we maintain the rage? How do we cut through, how do we overcome the fatigue? … We must continue to shine the light.
‘We have to get this right’: Pocock seeks EPBC changes
Environment laws must “actually protect nature” says David Pocock, who has 15 changes he wants the government to make on its EPBC reforms.
While the government doesn’t need Pocock’s support to pass these bills in the Senate, the independent has been a loud voice on climate action.
He told ABC TV a little earlier, that the government is in an “awful hurry” to get these reforms out of the way, but they need to be done right.
Things like the exemption from our environmental laws for native forest logging – that clearly has to change. There’s exemptions for land clearing. Those things have to change. You actually have to have an independent EPA that is actually independent. It can’t just be independent by name … we are the world leaders in extinction, we have ecosystems in this country that are on the brink of collapse. And so, as a parliament, we have to get this right.
There’s a longer Senate inquiry that will go through the 1,500-page bill and report back to parliament in March. Pocock says that inquiry will be necessary to dig into the details, but the government doesn’t need it to be complete to pass the legislation.
Helen Haines says repealing net zero would deny the regions a ‘gold rush’ of cash
Regional independent MP Helen Haines – who has been pushing the government to take further action on climate – takes a stand against Joyce.
She says repealing net zero would deny the regions a “gold rush” of cash from renewables projects.
This bill would wipe out almost $10bn in projected payments to farmers, strip $1.9bn from community benefit programs for regional councils and undermine thousands of jobs expected from renewable projects, and there is no alternative proposal – just repeal, rescind, omit.
She points out that Armidale regional council, which is in Joyce’s seat of New England, has already established a multimillion-dollar renewable future fund.
Barnaby Joyce’s repeal net zero bill up for debate
Over in the house, Liberal MP Ben Small is taking up the fight for Barnaby Joyce’s repeal net zero bill.
Joyce’s bill was first introduced before the Coalition came to a joint party position to dump net zero, but agreed to stay in the Paris agreement (which has its own remaining set of questions).
The government has kept putting the bill on the Monday program for debate as a political move to wedge the Liberal party.
Small points out that the speakers for the bill have grown as the Coalition has come to this position.
Slowly slowly and then suddenly, within the Coalition the speakers list on this bill started as something of a renegade action to begin a long and necessary debate on the need to dump Labor’s net zero agenda, especially the taxes, penalties and big government schemes.
We take tax money off a nurse to make a surgeon’s novated lease for his Tesla cheaper.
The government and crossbench have more numbers, however, to keep debating against the bill.
Defence honours bill to be discharged
In the Senate this morning, the government is moving to discharge a bill that would limit the period of time – to 20 years – that a defence act can be honoured or awarded.
There has been heavy criticism of the bill inside and outside parliament, and in the last sitting week, there were moves led by David Pocock for that bill to be discharged.
While time ran out last sitting week, the government has this morning made that final move to have the bill removed. It’s a blow for Labor.
It’s been welcomed by Nationals senator Bridget McKenzie, and Pocock who says:
One of the troubling things about this bill is that there was absolutely no consultation and I thank my Senate colleagues for sending a very clear message to the government that we expect you to go through a process of consultation before you move forward.
Pocock says that through the Senate inquiry process into the bill, just one of the many submissions supported the bill, and that submission was from the Department of Defence.
