What we learned today, Thursday 15 June
That’s where we’ll leave the blog for today – thanks so much for joining us. Here is a wrap of the day’s biggest stories:
Senator David Van was removed from the Liberal party room amid allegations of sexual harassment made by independent Senator Lidia Thorpe.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton said he made the decision to remove him after further allegations against Van were brought to his attention.
Before this, Thorpe addressed parliament and alleged “one man followed me and cornered me” in a stairwell, and that she had been “inappropriately touched” and “inappropriately propositioned by powerful men” during her time in the Senate.
You can watch her speech here.
Greens senator Larissa Waters stood in support of former party colleague and told the senate that Thorpe’s statement today “reflects what she disclosed to the Greens leadership two years ago”.
Following Thorpe’s speech, Van called for an investigation into her claims saying, “Nothing she has alleged against me is truthful”.
In the senate the Coalition continued its scrutiny of Katy Gallagher and Penny Wong for the third day in a row about their prior knowledge of Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations before they were aired in media.
The ABC political editor Andrew Probyn was made redundant as part of a cull of 120 jobs, before a major restructure of the corporation kicks in on 1 July.
Australia’s unemployment rate fell to 3.6% in May.
It has been a heavy day (and week) of news, so please take care this evening and look after yourself x
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Updated
Catch up on the day’s biggest headlines with this wrap from my colleague Antoun Issa:
