What we learned: Friday 7 June
With that, we will wrap the blog for the evening. Have a lovely night, and stay safe and dry out there. Here were today’s major developments:
Rain is easing in New South Wales however communities are still under flood watch and being prepared to evacuate, particularly around the Hawkesbury Nepean region at North Richmond, after 160mm was observed across the valley in the 24 hours to 9am.
A federal court has ruled against a decision blocking access to early robodebt documents drafted under the former Coalition government, as part of one man’s long-running fight to shed light on the scheme’s origins.
The immigration minister, Andrew Giles, has signed ministerial direction 110, saying in a statement – “a new, revised direction to strengthen the consideration of community safety in Australia’s migration system”.
Bird flu – the same high pathogenicity strain that has been kicking around for weeks – has been detected at a fifth poultry farm in Victoria. The H7N3 strain, first detected at a Meredith egg farm on 22 May, has been detected at another property within 5km of the original infection site.
Laura Jones has won the $100,000 Archibald prize for her portrait of Tim Winton. Some 1,005 entries were submitted this year, with 57 finalists.
In Queensland, three additional MPs – including the health minister, Shannon Fentiman – have been referred to the parliamentary ethics committee over a May question time stoush.
And a second person has been charged over the alleged arson attack on YouTube comedian Jordan Shanks-Markovina’s home nearly two years ago.
Updated
ASRC says ‘senseless’ new ministerial direction will harm families
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre says Labor’s ministerial direction 110, signed today, is a “rushed” and “senseless” decision that will harm families and communities.
The new direction replaces direction 99 and serves as guidance for decision-making authorities who are weighing up whether to refuse or cancel people’s visas. It will come into effect on 21 June.
The direction also amends previous clauses about how decision makers consider the length of time a person has spent in Australia, including whether a person has lived in Australia since they were a child.
Hannah Dickinson, ASRC’s principal solicitor, said the federal government’s response was “reactive, ill-considered, and deeply damaging”.
Decisions under these directions will expose people and their families to unimaginable harm: it is appropriate and necessary that their circumstances be taken into account, and that due care is exercised in law-making.
The new direction is out of step with community expectations. It disregards the concerns of family violence experts that directions like these expose victim-survivors to further harm. And it jeopardises the integrity of critical decisions that irreversibly impact families and communities.
Updated
