The Federal Government says 80 people have been released from indefinite immigration detention, Optus CEO to front senate inquiry into nationwide outage, and in Rugby, Melbourne enlist an AFL Premiership sports psychologist to address Super League woes.
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TRANSCRIPT
- The Federal Government says 80 people have been released from indefinite immigration detention.
- Optus CEO to front senate inquiry into nationwide outage.
- And in Rugby, Melbourne enlist an AFL Premiership sports psychologist to address Super League woes.
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The Federal Government says 80 people have been released from immigration detention after the High Court found indefinite detention was unlawful.
Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has revealed the government was prepared for Wednesday's decision and dozens of people on appropriate visa conditions had already been released.
The reversal of a two-decade-old decision was delivered in the case of Rohingya man from Myanmar who faced the prospect of detention for life because no country would resettle him, due to a criminal conviction for child sex abuse.
At the time of the decision, there were more than 90 detainees in a similar situation to the plaintiff and another 340 in long-term detention.
The Opposition's immigration spokesman Dan Tehan says the government needs to say more about the people who have been released so far.
"The public needs to know and the public wants to know, what is the government doing to keep them safe, what are the character grounds that these people were being held on, and what are they doing to liaise with state and territory police."
Mr Giles has told A-B-C Radio community safety is the government's priority, and those released would be required to regularly report to Australian Federal Police, Border Force and any other relevant bodies.
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Hamas officials have rejected claims from the Israeli military that they refused 300 litres of fuel from Israel intended for use at the struggling Al-Shifa Hospital.
In a statement, Hamas says they are not associated with the Al-Shifa Hospital management, which they claim is operated by the Palestinian Health Ministry, a division of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority and one of Hamas' political rivals.
This comes as the Al-Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals in northern Gaza have closed to new patients, with staff saying Israeli bombardment and a lack of fuel and medicine mean those already being treated may die.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society says Al-Quds "is no longer functioning" and the World Health Organisation says Al-Shifa is "not functioning as a hospital anymore."
Al-Shifa Hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya has told Al Jazeera Israeli officials had reached out to him with an offer of 300 litres but the supplies were in a dangerous area and short of the 8,000 to 12,000 litres required to power the hospital every day.
United States national security adviser Jake Sullivan says the U-S government is attempting to ensure tens of thousands of civilians sheltering in these hospitals are not caught in the crossfire.
"We do not want to see a firefight in a hospital where innocent people, helpless people, people seeking medical care are caught in the crossfire."
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A senate inquiry will look into the Optus outage which saw millions of customers unable to access phone and internet for several hours, with hearings beginning this week.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who will chair the inquiry after moving for it in Parliament following last week, says the company's CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin will front the inquiry this Friday.
More than 10 million Optus customers and businesses were affected last week when an outage prevented people from connecting to the internet or making or receiving calls, including landline calls to Triple Zero, taking more than 12 hours to resolve.
Hanson-Young says the inquiry will seek to find out the cause of the outage and how to prevent future outages, as well as why Optus kept the government and customers "in the dark" on the day.
"Australians deserve better, and they need to know that when they have to access their bank, when they have to be able to call emergency, when they need to be able to do their business via their phone and internet, that they can trust that they have a reliable service."
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In Rugby Union,
Melbourne have enlisted an AFL premiership sports psychologist to address their Super Rugby Pacific shortcomings and help their Wallabies players deal with the fall-out from their World Cup disappointment.
Psychologist Andrew Waterson, who was part of the Melbourne Demons' AFL flag success in 2021, has joined the Rebels to support players including Wallabies playmaker Carter Gordon and new signings such as Taniela Tupou.
Coach Kevin Foote is hoping the Rebels can recover mentally from close games which proved costly to their finals hopes, while also supporting Wallabies players who were part of Australia's worst-ever World Cup campaign.
The Melbourne side have narrowly missed the Super play-offs in a number of seasons, only participating in finals once, in 2020, in a domestic format due to COVID-19 restrictions.
