Victorian response to truth-telling report ‘reads like it was slapped together overnight’: Aboriginal Legal Service
Adeshola Ore
The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (Vals) has slammed the state government’s response to a report by the Indigenous-truth telling commission into reform to overhaul the child protection and criminal justice systems.
The Victorian government has handed down its response to a report by the Yoorrook justice commission. The government has supported four of the report’s 46 recommendations in full, while 24 have been accepted in principle.
Another 15 recommendations are under consideration, including establishing an independent police complaints body.
Vals says the government’s response is “unworthy of the heart wrenching truths” the inquiry heard.
In a statement, Nerita Waight, the chief executive of Vals, says it is “so disappointing” the government did not develop a “more detailed response” that supported all the recommendations in full:
We have waited over 210 days for the Victorian government to respond to the Yoorrook for justice report and it reads like it was slapped together overnight.
Key events
Australian humanitarian agencies have endorsed a joint statement condemning the rising aid worker death toll in Gaza following the Israeli airstrike that killed seven people working for the World Central Kitchen.
Caritas Australia, Oxfam Australia, Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA, Save the Children Australia, ActionAid Australia, Plan International Australia, Care Australia and the Australian Council for International Development urged the federal government to use all diplomatic means available to ensure Israel complied with international humanitarian law – including support for a permanent ceasefire.
The bodies said at its “most basic level”, humanitarian law demands “rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access, freedom of movement for humanitarian workers, and the protection of civilians including medical and aid workers”.
It also demands the protection of refugees, prisoners, the wounded and sick.
Caritas Australia CEO Kirsty Robertson said inside Gaza, civilians were experiencing “suffering on a mass scale”.
The psychological toll of this conflict is set to leave an unprecedented and tragic legacy on Gaza’s young population, over half of whom are under 15 years old. Protecting humanitarians as they try to alleviate some of this suffering is the bare minimum that we should expect as international community, and a human family.
Josh Butler
Aged care peak body welcomes reform delay as chance to ‘get this right’
Continued from previous post:
The Aged & Community Care Providers Association (ACCPA) has welcomed the opportunity to provide continued input into the act.
Tom Symondson, the CEO of the industry peak body, says it is a “chance to usher in a new era to reform our aged care system”:
We need to make sure that the legislation, which will likely govern the aged care sector for the next 30 years, is not rushed. We need to get this right.
We of course want to see the legislation passed and implemented as soon as practical. But this allows more time to engage meaningfully with older people, the community, the sector and other stakeholders.
It is far more important that the legislation and associated requirements be passed when it is ready, than passed to meet the 1 July date.
Josh Butler
Aged care reforms potentially delayed past 1 July commitment
Aged care minister Anika Wells says the government is taking more time to consider a new Aged Care Act, potentially pushing out the 1 July timeline that had previously been committed to.
The minister says the major new reform is one that “we must get right”. The government now doesn’t expect to have the act, updating laws from 1997, passed before 1 July – but is confident that the reforms will be made public later this year.
It’s understood that public comments on drafts and consultation sessions had been more fulsome than expected. Combined with only four parliament sitting weeks until July, including one week for the budget, it’s unlikely the major reforms will be passed before that time.
In a statement today, Wells thanked “the older people, their families and carers, workers, advocates and aged care providers who shared their feedback on the draft new Aged Care Act”.
We heard strong feedback that the proposed new Aged Care Act is a once in a generation opportunity for systemic reform that we must get right.
The government is now considering the extensive and valuable feedback to refine and finalise the draft legislation before it is introduced to parliament. We will update the commencement date of the legislation following these updates and before the bill is introduced to the parliament.
The minister said the government is “committed to working with all members of parliament to implement these reforms”.
A travel company and a Melbourne school have been charged over the death of a student who became unwell on a school trip.
Lachlan Cook, 16, a student at Kilvington Grammar, suffered diabetes complications during a trip to Vietnam in September 2019 and later died in a Melbourne hospital. His death was found to have been preventable by a coroner in 2023.
A court previously heard the boy had been self-managing his type 1 diabetes when he fell ill and was taken to hospital 24 hours after first showing symptoms.
On Wednesday, it was revealed WorkSafe has charged both the school and travel company.
World Travel Expeditions has been charged with three counts of failing to ensure that persons other than employees were not exposed to health and safety risks under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
The regulator alleges the company failed, so far as was reasonably practicable, to reduce the risk of illness or death to participating students, including those with diabetes.
The school is also facing one charge under the health and safety law.
– AAP.
NT announces funding for additional police recruitment
The Northern Territory government has announced funding to recruit an additional 200 police officers in a bid to “deliver more police on our streets than ever before”.
It comes midway into a curfew in Alice Springs preventing young people from leaving their homes between 6pm and 6am that has been criticised by the Northern Territory Police Association (NTPA) as possibly being unlawful.
The 200 extra officers will be recruited over the next four years, in addition to the current target of 1,642 officers in the Northern Territory police force.
The chief minister, Eva Lawler, said the investment in new police was the biggest commitment by any government in the Territory.
Nothing is more important than keeping Territorians safe – and that’s why my government will deliver more police on our streets than ever before.
Investing more in the Northern Territory police force so they can have the right amount of officers available to combat crime each day is a key plank of my commonsense plan to lower crime.
Daniel Hurst
Jewish community organisations say death of aid workers in Israeli drone strike ‘a tragedy’ but ‘ultimately the responsibility of Hamas’
Jewish community organisations in Australia have responded after Israel confirmed it had killed seven aid workers, including the Australian citizen aid worker Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, in Gaza on Monday.
Earlier, we brought you comments from Australian political leaders, including Anthony Albanese, who said he had used a phone call with Benjamin Netanyahu this morning to express Australia’s anger and outrage and to demand “full accountability”.
The three cars were struck by Israeli drones when they travelled along a route south of Deir al-Balah pre-approved and coordinated with the Israel Defense Forces. The IDF chief of the general staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said today that the strike was “a grave mistake” that “followed a misidentification at night, during a war, in very complex conditions”.
The Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO, Alex Ryvchin, expressed “condolences to Ms Frankcom’s family and all those affected”, saying she was a hero:
Those who voluntarily travel to a war zone to help people in need are heroes. Their deaths are an immense tragedy. We support the government’s call for a thorough and transparent investigation to determine how this happened and ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Ryvchin said casualties caused by accidental fire were “a grim reality of war especially one involving a ruthless terrorist force that uses unlawful and sinister tactics intended to ensnare the civilian population in the fighting and inflict maximum suffering on non-combatants”.
The president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, Jeremy Leibler, said Frankcom was “part of the vital humanitarian resupply efforts by World Central Kitchen” and described her death as “a tragedy”. Leibler added:
The dual tragedy here is that like the innocent Israelis murdered by Hamas on 7 October and the innocent Palestinians since, Ms Frankcom’s death is ultimately the responsibility of Hamas.
Earlier, the relatively new Jewish Council of Australia called on the Australian government to “do everything in its power to stop Israel committing the crime of genocide” and to use “all available forms of diplomatic pressure, including sanctions and travel bans on extremist settlers and those suspected of war crimes”.
Paul Keating welcomes Sam Mostyn’s appointment as governor general
Australia’s next governor general, Sam Mostyn, may be best known as the first woman AFL commissioner and a longstanding gender equity advocate.
But earlier in her career, she was also an adviser to former PM Paul Keating. Keating, who championed the cause to become a republic during his tenure and since, has cast his politics aside to welcome her appointment.
I am certain Samantha Mostyn will bring much credit to the role of governor general.
Coroner tempers hopes for scope of teen’s inquest
An unprecedented inquest for the first juvenile to die in youth detention in Western Australia won’t be a roving royal commission, a coroner says.
Cleveland Dodd, 16, was found unresponsive after harming himself inside his cell in a troubled youth wing of a high-security adult prison in the early hours of October 12, 2023. The Indigenous teen was taken to hospital in a critical condition and later died, causing outrage and grief in the community.
Coroner Phil Urquhart said at the start of hearings in Perth on Wednesday there had never been a similar inquest in WA.
He said it was the first to be held for a young person who had died by “apparent suicide” in a youth detention centre contained in a maximum-security prison built to house adults.
The expedited inquest has also included an unprecedented early level of involvement from the coronial investigators, including examining Cleveland’s cell in Unit 18 soon after his death and supervising evidence gathering.
Despite this, Urquhart said the inquest would be a limited fact-finding exercise and he could not make findings of negligence or guilt for criminal offences.
Cleveland’s mother, Nadene Dodd, said in a statement her family is “still reeling” from the loss:
With each new detail that comes to light about the night he died or about Unit 18 generally, I become more determined to get justice for Cleveland, and for all the other boys sent there.
– via AAP
Jordyn Beazley
I’ll now leave you with Caitlin Cassidy, who will have the blog until this evening. Thank you for following along.
Catie McLeod
NSW Catholic high school teacher charged with having sex with 17-year-old student
A Catholic high school teacher in the New South Wales Hunter region has been charged with having sex with a 17-year-old student following a police investigation.
Police said they arrested the 39-year-old teacher at All Saints’ College in Maitland at the local police station on 28 March. He was charged with nine counts of sexual intercourse with a person under his care.
The teacher was granted conditional bail to appear before Maitland local court at the end of the month, police said.
The man was placed on “administrative leave” last month after being accused of serious misconduct.
More on this story here:
Victorian response to truth-telling report ‘reads like it was slapped together overnight’: Aboriginal Legal Service
Adeshola Ore
The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (Vals) has slammed the state government’s response to a report by the Indigenous-truth telling commission into reform to overhaul the child protection and criminal justice systems.
The Victorian government has handed down its response to a report by the Yoorrook justice commission. The government has supported four of the report’s 46 recommendations in full, while 24 have been accepted in principle.
Another 15 recommendations are under consideration, including establishing an independent police complaints body.
Vals says the government’s response is “unworthy of the heart wrenching truths” the inquiry heard.
In a statement, Nerita Waight, the chief executive of Vals, says it is “so disappointing” the government did not develop a “more detailed response” that supported all the recommendations in full:
We have waited over 210 days for the Victorian government to respond to the Yoorrook for justice report and it reads like it was slapped together overnight.