What we learned today, Tuesday 15 March
That is it for today, we are going to put this blog to bed. Thank you for spending the day with us!
Before we go, let’s recap the big stories:
- Three people are dead and multiple are missing after a boarding house fire in the Sydney suburb of Newtown. Police are treating the fire “as a murder”.
- The federal environment minister has no duty of care to protect young people from the climate crisis when assessing fossil fuel developments, the federal court has ruled. The students say they are devastated.
- The Victorian health minister, Martin Foley, says the Omicron subvariant is “slowly asserting itself” and will soon be the dominant strain in Victoria.
- Australia’s cruise ship ban is to end on 17 April.
- Two people have been charged over alleged threats made against Labor senator Kristina Keneally.
- NSW recorded 10,689 Covid cases and six deaths, Victoria had 7,460 new cases and four deaths, Queensland had 10 Covid-related deaths, Tasmania had 1,376 new cases, Western Australia had 5,377 cases, South Australia recorded three Covid deaths and 2,380 new cases, and the Northern Territory had 295 new cases.
We will be back tomorrow – until then, stay safe.
Updated
A Queensland parliamentary committee has opposed a proposal to lift the age of criminal responsibility to 14 but recommended working with other states to aim for 12. AAP reports:
Queensland should work with other states and territories to consider raising the criminal age of responsibility from 10 to 12, but not pass a bill to increase it to 14, a parliamentary committee says.
After a series of hearings investigating whether the state should increase the age to 14 as proposed by a Greens bill, the committee’s report said “there is more work to be done” before any reform.
But the recommendation goes against the majority of submissions and witness testimony, the Greens MP and member for Maiwar, Michael Berkman, said in his dissenting report.
On any given day during 2021, there was an average of about five children aged between 10 and 13 in police watch houses, 76% of whom were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, the report tabled on Tuesday says.
“Queensland’s current minimum age of criminal responsibility has had devastating effects for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people,” the Queensland family and child commissioner, Natalie Lewis, told the committee.
“They enter earlier, stay longer and exit the system under positive circumstances far less often.”
But vulnerable children in regional Queensland typically don’t have access to other support services, the Queensland Police Union president, Ian Leavers, says.
“It is really saddening to me that in areas where our First Nations children are there are no services or no facilities to take them to,” he told the committee.
Updated
