What we learned, Friday 21 June
And that’s where we’ll leave you this evening. Here’s just a snippet of what we’ve learned today:
Anthony Albanese said Peter Dutton’s nuclear power announcement “doesn’t stack up”.
The minister for the Pacific, Pat Conroy, has admitted Australian funding for a Pacific NRL team is “not about sport” but is intended to serve Australia’s national security interests, at a time of intense competition with China for influence.
Smaller publishers in Australia are already feeling the effects of a potential ban of news on Facebook and Instagram, a joint select committee on social media and Australian society heard.
The Victorian Greens blasted the state Labor government over a memorandum of understanding with Israel’s defence ministry to capitalise on “global tensions” and countries wanting to “protect their national interests”.
WA Nationals MP Louise Kingston stunned the state’s Legislative Council by resigning with a tearful statement alleging she had been the victim of “relentless bullying and harassment” by the leader of the party.
An Australian is among hundreds of people who have died at the Hajj pilgrimage amid soaring temperatures in Saudi Arabia.
Thirteen people have been arrested in connection with a $10m illicit tobacco network after WA police seized 5.9m cigarettes, 1.4 tonnes of loose tobacco, $1.7m in cash and 41,000 vapes.
Prosecutors will use material gained in phone taps in their case against four teenagers charged with terrorism offences after a bishop’s stabbing.
The energy market operator has warned of “potential risks” for gas shortages in southern states, but the federal government says the gas market is functioning “exactly as it should”.
Thanks so much for your company today.
Updated
Phone taps to be used against alleged teen terrorists
Prosecutors will draw on material from phone intercepts in their case against four teenagers charged with terrorism offences after a bishop’s stabbing, a court has been told.
Assyrian bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel and priest Isaac Royel were stabbed during a livestreamed sermon at a western Sydney church in April.
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with committing a terrorist act over the stabbing at Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley, which police allege was religiously motivated.
Six more teenagers, allegedly connected with the accused stabber, have also been charged with terrorism offences, including conspiring to engage in preparations for a terrorist act and possessing or controlling violent extremist material.
Four of those accused attended Parramatta children’s court on Friday, when their lawyers agreed to an eight-week adjournment to give time for prosecutors to compile and hand over their full brief of evidence.
The court heard that telephone intercept, body-worn camera footage and CCTV footage had still not been handed over to defence counsel.
Police had already completed a review of the four accuseds primary communications devices and were still going through their secondary devices, the prosecutor said.
The matters will return to court on 16 August.
The terror arrests came after a joint counter-terrorism team involving 400 police officers undertook 13 raids at several homes across Sydney in response to the Wakeley attack.
The stabbing also led to violent riots around the church with those in the angry throng demanding that the alleged teenager stabber, who had been subdued inside the place of worship, be handed over to the mob outside.
Police have charged 30 individuals in relation to the riots.
Updated
