Australia news LIVE: PM says he would dump ex-prince Andrew from line of royal succession; Bondi royal commission commences today
Police, state health watchdog alerted to complaints against endometriosis doctor
By Liam Mannix and Henrietta Cook
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan says accusations a gynaecologist performed unnecessary surgery on women over a number of years have been referred to police and the state’s healthcare watchdog. Safer Care Victoria will now sit on the review panel into the Epworth hospital’s governance over the allegations against Dr Simon Gordon, the state government said today.
This masthead this month revealed Gordon was under investigation by the national medical regulator over allegations he performed unnecessary endometriosis surgeries on women, including removing their ovaries and uterus, despite no clinical evidence justifying the procedures.
Gordon, who retired from the Epworth late last year and surrendered his medical registration last month, denies the allegations.
Allan, who has been diagnosed with endometriosis herself and struggled to access treatment, described the allegations of unnecessary surgeries as heartbreaking.
Her remarks come after an ABC Four Corners investigation into Gordon aired last night.
The Epworth has launched an independent inquiry into the allegations and law firms are considering a class action after being approached by more than 120 women.
‘Opposition criticising processes they set up’: Mulino
By Emily Kaine
Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino says the government is operating within the law as it faces criticism over its handling of the return of a cohort of IS brides and their children.
“What I’d say here is that the federal government is operating under laws that the previous government established, and we’re doing so on the advice of national security agencies.
“So look, I do find it a bit rich the opposition criticising processes that they set up. And of course, we always have to be careful how much information we disclose about individual cases,” Mulino told Sky News this morning.
The government maintains it is not repatriating the cohort, but has issued passports to the citizens as required by Australian law.
Young Australians calling for tax ‘revolution’, says top tax expert
By Shane Wright
Young Australians aren’t about to storm the Bastille, but one of the nation’s top tax experts has warned that without change to the tax and benefits system there may be some calling for a revolution.
Giving evidence to a Senate inquiry into the capital gains tax, Australian National University’s Bob Breunig said there was growing inequality, particularly within the current generation, between those with rich parents and those without.
Breunig, pressed on the history of income and land ownership, dipped into the days that eventually led to Napoleon.
“That is the trajectory that we are on. I don’t think we’re back to pre-French revolution times but but I’m worried about that,” he said.
“We often frame the equality problem as an intergenerational, kind of an old versus young, problem which it’s not really.
“If you’re a young person and your parents have a lot of assets, those assets will eventually come to you.
“The real inequality is between people in the same generation, those who have assets and those who don’t.”
Breunig said older Australians had enjoyed a much larger increase in income over recent decades, largely because of the lift in asset prices.
He said better targeting of government handouts should be examined.
“It’s not that we should be punishing old people. We all want to live in a country where old people are rich,” he said.
“Let’s target assistance to those people who really need it.”
Community safety, children Allan’s priorities if IS cohort resettle in Victoria
By Emily Kaine
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan is holding a press conference in Melbourne and has been asked about the return of a cohort of 34 Islamic State-linked women and children amid reports that a majority of the Australian citizens will be seeking to resettle in Victoria and NSW.
She said her priority was ensuring members of the Victorian community who had fled the terror group were safe and free from persecution.
“Community safety is my framework in engaging in these discussions because I can understand whether it’s the Assyrian, the Lebanese, Middle Eastern Christian communities who have fled this evil regime … they’ve come here because we are a safe place for them to raise their family, to live peacefully, to practise their faith without persecution.
“I can understand for these communities that this is a very, very difficult time, which is why I make a commitment to these communities ... that I’ll not play politics with this issue. I will support their safety, their right to practise their faith freely, but also to work carefully and closely through this issue because community safety must come first,” Allan told reporters.
Allan also said governments should give special consideration to the wellbeing of the children of these IS brides.
“When it comes to talking about the children of these individuals, we do have to give special consideration of the wellbeing of those children, their education, their healthcare, through that frame of being concerned about and having that priority of community safety for all Victorians,” she said.
Twenty-three of the IS-linked cohort of Australian citizens being detained in a Syrian internment camp are children.
Nick Reiner pleads not guilty to murder of parents
By
Nick Reiner, the troubled son of slain Hollywood filmmaker Rob Reiner, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges stemming from the fatal stabbing of his parents in their home last year.
Seated behind a glass partition dressed in brown prison clothes, his head shaved and beard closely cropped, 32-year-old Reiner appeared alert but spoke little during the arraignment proceeding except to answer “yes” when asked if he agreed to waive his right to a speedy preliminary hearing.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Theresa McGonigle set April 29 as the date for the preliminary hearing, in which prosecutors present evidence intended to show probable cause for proceeding to trial.
Reiner faces two counts of first-degree murder in the deadly knife attack on When Harry Met Sally director Rob Reiner, 78, and photographer-producer Michele Reiner, 70, who were found dead in their West Los Angeles mansion in December.
Reuters
PM recalls meeting Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
By Brittany Busch
Albanese said he once met Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor at Buckingham Palace.
“I met him once years ago. I was at the first G20 meeting that was held during the global financial crisis, I think it would have been 2008 or 2009, and there was a reception at Buckingham Palace, and I met him briefly,” Albanese told radio station Nova Adelaide this morning.
“He was in the line of all of the royal family …including, then, of course, Queen Elizabeth. That’s the only contact I’ve had with him,” he said.
“But I think increasingly, you read the stories that have come out associated with the Epstein files, and people are pretty revolted by it now that there is this very serious investigation and his brother, King Charles, has said that the law must take its full course. There must be a full, fair and proper investigation. I think it is appropriate that there be movement on that issue.”
‘Abused that privilege’: Albanese lobbies for UK to dump former prince
By Brittany Busch
The prime minister is doing the talkback radio rounds this morning to discuss his letter to his British counterpart offering Australia’s support for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to be removed from the line to the throne following the former prince’s arrest.
“I reckon that people don’t want this bloke in a line of succession to be our head of state,” Anthony Albanese told Brisbane’s B105.
“This guy’s led an incredible life of privilege, and he quite clearly has abused that privilege in a range of ways that are completely unacceptable,” he said.
“A range of actions have been taken, but I think this is the completion of the process really.”
Albanese said he had also written to Australia’s state and territory leaders, who would need to agree to the removal of Mountbatten-Windsor as eighth in line to the throne.
All 15 Commonwealth realm nations are required to pass laws to make such a change.
Coalition’s new laws draw inspiration from Trump: Wilson
By Emily Kaine
Shadow treasurer Tim Wilson says the Coalition’s calls to enact new laws that would criminalise the actions of anyone helping terror-linked individuals return to Australia take inspiration from US President Donald Trump’s hard-line approach to immigration and border control.
The legislative proposal from Opposition Leader Angus Taylor comes after a cohort of Islamic State-linked women and children attempted to return home last week.
Ben Fordham, 2GB host, asked Wilson how he thought Trump might deal with the issue, saying: “[Trump] wouldn’t be worried about what school are they going to, how are we going to de-radicalise, he’d just be saying, you’re not coming.”
Wilson agreed, and said it was this approach precisely that the Coalition had applied in the drafting of the proposal.
“That’s what we are saying. You shouldn’t be facilitating a pathway for people who pose a risk to the Australian community, who’ve made a choice to go overseas to ally themselves with radical Islamists, to kill other people, to promote the caliphate, and we don’t want people in our country who are actively going to stoke that type of division,” he said.
Of the 34 Australians being detained in an internment camp in Syria, 23 are children, some born inside the camp.
High-speed rail will generate billions in economic activity, says minister
By Emily Kaine
Transport and Infrastructure Minister Catherine King says the Sydney-Newcastle high-speed rail announced this morning will generate billions of dollars for the economy.
“It’s got a positive cost-benefit ratio, which is really important,” she told the ABC.
“The more you build, the more the cost-benefit ratio goes up … What it does is generate over $250 billion of economic activity, 99,000 jobs, potentially 160,000 homes throughout that region as well, and that really important economic activity, particularly for the Hunter, I think, is very much part of the opportunity that high-speed rail presents.”
The first stage of construction will cost about $55 billion, King said, and includes building stations, trains, and establishing an advanced manufacturing facility, with the full Sydney-Newcastle route projected to cost a total of $90 billion.
She said construction was expected to start in 2029.
‘She drew a picture of Rapunzel’: Shoebridge speaks on Syria camp visit
By Brittany Busch
Staying with Shoebridge, the Greens senator has spoken of his time visiting the al-Roj detention camp in Syria last year, as he appealed to politicians to show leadership and protect the 23 Australian children stuck there.
“I’ve met with three of the women, and I met with one of the children, a six-year-old child who spoke with a strong Australian accent, who had spent her entire life in a desert detention camp in incredibly unsafe conditions,” the Greens home affairs spokesman said.
“She sat down in the room with me. She drew a picture of Rapunzel. She drew a picture of roses she’d never smelt,” he said.
“The idea that politicians in Australia would be demonising that child, calling her a threat to Australia, refusing to reach their hand out and help her and the other 23 Australian kids in that detention camp – that’s a gross lack of leadership from our political class to try and dehumanise children and to use children as political pawns in an immigration debate.”
