Category: Australia

Lib ban on trans drugs just the start |The Australian

A pledge by Western Australia’s Liberal leader to ban the use of puberty blockers in children could be the start of a nationwide political battle on the issue, with party leaders in other states confirming they were scrutinising practices in the wake of a landmark United Kingdom review.

Libby Mettam on Monday declared that the Liberal Party, if elected, would ban the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatments and surgical intervention for children under 16 for the purpose of gender transition.

She said her decision was based on the recent findings of the UK Cass Review – handed down this month – which recommended the National Health Service exercise “extreme caution” in prescribing masculinising or feminising hormones to under-18s.

Around 100 children a year are treated by WA’s Gender Diversity Service, according to data tabled in state parliament, and the youngest child to receive treatment last year was 10.

A spokesman for Queensland’s Liberal National Party said the party was very cognisant of the concerns around the “questionable practices” around gender services in the state.

The Queensland government earlier this year launched a review into the state’s Children’s Gender Service, which treats around 1000 patients a year, after several pediatricians called for a moratorium on gender treatments on children.

Source: Subscribe to The Australian | Newspaper home delivery, website, iPad, iPhone & Android apps

Bail authority previously ignored changes for sexual assault offences

On Wednesday, Minns announced a two-pronged response following Ticehurst’s alleged murder by a former partner, Daniel Billings, who had been released on bail just weeks ago after he was accused of sexually assaulting her.

As well as ordering an urgent review into the adequacy of bail laws from Crown Advocate David Kell SC, Minns said the Bail Act Monitoring Group – made up of a series of government agencies such as Corrective Services NSW and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions – would look at “operational” aspects of the laws governing bail.

Minns conceded the 28-year-old mother of one was failed by the state’s justice system, admitting his government had “serious questions” to answer after her alleged murder by a former partner who was already on bail for serious alleged offences.

But the Bail Act Monitoring Group previously reviewed bail in relation to sexual violence offences without recommending any changes to the law.

While the full review was never made public, at the time the Bail Act Monitoring Group admitted NSW Police were “of the view that overall the recommendations do not go far enough to address the issues identified through the course of the review”.

Billings had been charged with three counts of sexual intercourse without consent, four counts of stalking and harassment, two counts of damaging or destroying property and one count of animal cruelty.

Court records show Dubbo Local Court registrar L. Cusack placed him on an interim apprehended violence order and released him on $5000 bail on April 6. The bail decision was later continued by a magistrate in Parkes Local Court.

On Wednesday Minns conceded the use of local court registrars was an issue of “resourcing” for local courts in regional areas, particularly on matters heard on weekends.

He said it was a “very reasonable question” to ask whether registrars – who are not judicial officers – should be making bail decisions on serious alleged crimes.

Source: 12ft

The five demands of the No More national rallies happening this weekend

Rallies calling for government action on violence against women are happening in a dozen locations across the country over the weekend.

The No More National Rally Against Violence, starting in Ballarat this Friday at 5pm, was organised in response to the targeted attacks on women in Bondi Junction on April 13, as well as the concerning growth of gender-based violence in Australia.

Just 17 weeks into the year, 25 women have been killed in 2024 at the hands of male-perpetrated violence, according to Destroy the Joint’s Counting Dead Women.

Sarah Williams, founder of advocacy organisation What Were You Wearing, is the woman behind it all. She, along with several other organisations, have developed five key demands for action to come from the No More national rallies.

(1) Declaration of national emergency

(2) Media regulation on publishing images of victims

(3) #BelieveMe: Mandatory victim blaming prevention training

(4) Alternative reporting options; DFV specialist courts

(5) Better funding

he No More national rallies are happening in 12 locations this weekend. Williams calls on everyone, especially politicians and including men, to attend.

  • Ballarat, VIC: Friday 26th April 5pm @ Bridge Mall – Town Hall
  • Newcastle, NSW: Friday 26th April 6pm @ Newcastle Museum – Nobby’s Foreshore
  • Sydney, NSW: Saturday 27th April 1pm @ Belmore Park Haymarket – Hyde Park
  • Adelaide, SA: Saturday 27th April 11am @ Parliament House
  • Melbourne, VIC: Sunday 28th April 10am @ State Library – Federation Square
  • Bendigo, VIC: Sunday 28th April 11am @ Rosalind Park
  • Geelong, VIC: Sunday 28th April 11am @ Market Square Mall
  • Coffs Harbour, NSW: Sunday 28th April 11am @ Coffs Jetty Foreshore
  • Perth, WA: Sunday 28th April 12pm @ Forrest Pl – Parliament House
  • Sunshine Coast, QLD: Sunday 28th April 11am @ Foundation Square – Cotton Tree Park
  • Brisbane, QLD: Sunday 28th April 11am @ King George Square
  • Canberra, ACT: Sunday 28th April 2pm @ Parliament House

Source: The five demands of the No More national rallies happening this weekend

Two people want to share the job of MP for Higgins. Is it constitutional?

Can the job of being a federal member of parliament be shared by two or more persons? Two prospective candidates for the inner-Melbourne federal seat of Higgins, Lucy Bradlow and Bronwen Bock, have announced that they will run as job-sharing independent candidates. They say they will “work week-on, week off, with a handover at the end of each week”. Is this legally and constitutionally valid?

Bradlow and Bock claim “there are no legal barriers to the inclusion of two candidates in either the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act or the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918”. They argue the Constitution permits parliament to change the number of members of parliament, and does not specify a particular number of members per seat.

They conclude that “the only possible barrier to two people running to represent the same electorate is that previous candidate nomination forms for the House of Representatives […] only allowed space for the entry of the name of one candidate” and the form should be “updated” to allow two or more names to be entered as “the candidate”.

In 2015 in the United Kingdom, two Green party candidates sought to job-share. They took legal proceedings against the electoral officer who rejected their nomination. They argued references in statutes to a “candidate” and “member” in the singular should be interpreted as including the plural, and the law had to be interpreted in a manner consistent with the European Convention of Human Rights.

The High Court of England and Wales rejected their argument. Justice Wilkie pointed out that job-sharing by members of parliament would give rise to many difficult practical and conceptual problems, and these were not something a court was equipped to deal with or should determine through statutory interpretation. It was a matter for parliament to resolve, not the courts.

The same point should be made here in Australia. If job-sharing for members of parliament is desired, then at the very least this should be the subject of proper consideration and legislation by parliament to make the system workable.

[Ed: If there is a will, there is a way]

Source: Two people want to share the job of MP for Higgins. Is it constitutional?

Bondi Junction attack: Women are sick of being afraid | The Saturday Paper

How could anyone stab a nine-month-old baby?

Why would a man target women going about their business in a shopping centre?

The man stabbed to death four other women – a university student, an artist, an architect and mother of two, an ecommerce assistant who was happily planning her wedding. Tragically, a 30-year-old refugee working his first day shift as a security guard at the centre was also killed.

Most of the people injured and hospitalised in the attack were also female, prompting the commissioner of New South Wales Police Force, Karen Webb, to say it was “obvious” the offender targeted women and avoided the men.

What was obvious to the most senior police officer in the state had not been so plain to armchair detectives, who jumped to incorrect conclusions about the offender’s motivation – that he was an Islamic extremist; that he was a young Jewish man, wrongly identified in media.

There was also, later, a focus on the perpetrator’s mental health – he’d been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

The mental health system in this country has been beset with problems for years, but as Professor Patrick McGorry, who has worked with people with schizophrenia for three decades, told the ABC’s Rafael Epstein, people with this diagnosis are less likely to commit acts of violence, not more.

Further, we typically don’t see acts of mass violence being perpetrated by mentally ill women.

Extreme acts of violence of any type perpetrated by women are extraordinarily rare.

On the other hand, our nation’s memory is stained by horrific attacks by male perpetrators – from the Bourke Street Mall car killings, to the Lindt Cafe siege, to Port Arthur, to the Hoddle Street massacre, to the Belanglo State Forest backpacker murders and now Bondi Junction.

Regardless of the sex of the victim, Australian Bureau of Statistics research shows 95 per cent of Australians who experience violence suffer at the hands of a male perpetrator.

When women are angry, or isolated, or depressed, or distorted by extremist ideology, or mentally ill, the statistics show that, overwhelmingly, they don’t resort to violence.

It is only if men take the burden of male violence away from always being a problem for women, if they look into their hearts and acknowledge there is a problem, that we will ever move forward.

Source: 12ft

Brisbane State High School: Girls are left too scared to go to the toilet after female-only bathrooms are converted into a unisex block – with boys ‘loitering outside and urinating in sanitary bins’ | Daily Mail Online

Prestigious co-ed Brisbane State High School recently converted its P Block of female-only toilets to accommodate for either sex.

Since then, male students have been accused of intimidating female classmates outside the  unisex block and urinating over toilet seats and sanitary bins, the Courier Mail reported.

The decision to change the bathroom’s gender restrictions is required by the state’s Department of Education and Queensland Human Rights Commission.

Source: Brisbane State High School: Girls are left too scared to go to the toilet after female-only bathrooms are converted into a unisex block – with boys ‘loitering outside and urinating in sanitary bins’ | Daily Mail Online

What implications does England’s review of trans healthcare have for Australia? | Health | The Guardian

Chaired by paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, the review was commissioned by England’s National Health Service (NHS) in 2020, with the final report published in April 2024.

The review found the evidence base underpinning medical and non-medical interventions for children and young people with gender dysphoria must be improved and that the NHS should exercise “extreme caution” in prescribing masculinising or feminising hormones from 16 years old.

Guardian Australia understands neither New South Wales or Victoria have plans to make changes to puberty blocker prescribing or accessibility as a result of the Cass review.

Victoria’s health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, said: “Our gender clinics offer some of the most vulnerable young people in our community the support they deserve – we’re fiercely proud of the important work they do.

A spokesperson for the federal health minister, Mark Butler, said clinical treatment of transgender children and adolescents is a complex and evolving area in which longer-term evidence to inform treatment protocols is still developing.

“The clinical care pathways are different in the UK from Australia,” the spokesperson said. “The provision of public gender services to young people in Australia is led by the states and territories, who are responsible for the relevant services.”

The Queensland health minister, Shannon Fentiman, said the state’s Children’s Gender Service “is considered one of the best in the country, and continually reviews its models of care to ensure it is based off the best available evidence”.

The NSW health minister, Ryan Park, said trans and gender-diverse healthcare is a complex and evolving practice area.

“NSW Health continues to monitor developments in the evidence to ensure the care we provide remains consistent with national and international best practice,” he said.

[Ed: What will it take to stop this lunacy??]

Source: What implications does England’s review of trans healthcare have for Australia? | Health | The Guardian

$25m settlement proposed for ‘one size fits all’ breast augmentation surgery class action – Lawyers Weekly

After a seven-year legal battle, an Australian cosmetic surgery clinic has settled a class action against it for $25 million following allegations of patients experiencing punctured lungs, seizures, and ongoing issues as a result of botched breast augmentation surgery.

In a class action first launched against The Cosmetic Institute (TCI) in 2017, thousands of group members have received a proposed settlement notice of $25 million.

The case was originally scheduled for a hearing in the Supreme Court of NSW on Monday (15 April), but the parties reportedly reached a last-minute settlement agreement.

The surgery, which was advertised at the time as a boob job for the “cost of a cup of coffee a day” and allowed payment plans of $20 a week, cost $5,990 total and included the cost of the implants, surgery, hospital and anaesthetic fees as well as GST and follow up appointments.

However, the class action alleged that inadequate infection control procedures were used and that there was no capacity to access emergency assistance during the procedure. TCI Parramatta and TCI Bondi were also alleged to be unlicenced and unable to legally administer general anaesthesia.

The class action also alleged that TCI did not inform patients of potential risks around the “one-size-fits-all” procedure and engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct.

Of the settlement, $10 million – subject to court approval and requested by law firm Turner Freeman, which represented the plaintiffs – will go towards legal fees, disbursements and settlement administration costs.

The 12 lead plaintiffs will receive $2.8 million collectively, with payments ranging from $120,000 up to $370,000. The rest of the settlement will be divided between the other group members, with approximately 1,000 registered so far.

Source: $25m settlement proposed for ‘one size fits all’ breast augmentation surgery class action – Lawyers Weekly

REVEALED: THE PENTAGON’S INFILTRATION OF AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES – Declassified Australia

Over a 17-year period, the US Defense funding to Australian universities has jumped from $1.7 million in 2007 to $60 million annually by 2022, the year after the AUKUS agreement’s surprise announcement. The funds are backing expanded research in fields of science that enhance US military development and the US national interest.

Between 2007 and 2024, the University of New South Wales received the highest amount of funding, an extraordinary $72 million.

The University of Queensland received the second-highest amount at $60.5 million and the University of Melbourne came in a close third with $60.4 million.

Australia’s premier Group of Eight Universities (Go8) received $202.1 million between them, being 79 percent of the total funding.

In many of these arrangements, the US Defense Department provided funds to major defence companies which were then used to subcontract universities for defence and intelligence-related research.

rce: REVEALED: THE PENTAGON’S INFILTRATION OF AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES – Declassified Australia

NSW barrister sexually harassed law students – Lawyers Weekly

Charles Waterstreet, a barrister who does not currently hold a practising certificate, breached the Uniform Barrister Rules by sexually harassing a law student who worked for him, a woman who interviewed for a job with him, and a legal assistant in an elevator.

Although the conduct amounted to unsatisfactory professional conduct – and professional misconduct when taken together – the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) declined to find Waterstreet is not a fit and proper person to engage in legal practice.

Senior member Harry Dixon and general member Mary Bolt said the conduct was a “product of Waterstreet’s then undiagnosed, and therefore poorly controlled, bipolar II disorder, in combination with being an expression of some of his personality traits”.

Source: NSW barrister sexually harassed law students – Lawyers Weekly