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TRANSCRIPT
- In this bulletin;
- Julian Assange to find out if he can appeal extradition in London tonight;
- The government rushes immigration laws through Parliament ahead of High Court ruling;
- And in Surfing, Kelly Slater hits the waves at Bells Beach for the Rip Curl Pro.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will find out if he can appeal against his extradition to the United States tonight.
Mr Assange is facing criminal charges in the US relating to the WikiLeak's release of confidential military records.
If extradited, Mr Assange faces up to 175 years in prison.
Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham says he supports the processes in place in the UK.
"I trust the British justice system. Our own justice system was built upon the fundamentals of the British justice system. Yes, Mr. Assange's case has gone on for a long time, but the reality is it has gone on for a long time, in part, thanks to the many many years he spent in the Ecuadorian embassy, the various appeals process that he's totally entitled to pursue, but which have also added to the length of the proceedings."
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The government will push more immigration detention laws through Parliament ahead of the looming High court decision on an indefinitely detained refugee.
Labor faces another challenge from the High Court as an Iranian citizen known as ASF17 is making a legal bid for freedom.
The Albanese government has made attempts to send the man back to Iran where he faces the death penalty for being bisexual.
If the High Courts earlier ruling that deemed indefinite detention illegal is expanded to those who refuse to co-operate with the Australian authorities, the Iranian man could be released alongside other refugees.
The government has been attempting to pass legislation to pre-empt the April 17 decision since Friday.
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Nationals leader David Littleproud says he is looking to his coalition partner, the Liberals, for support in passing legislation that would prevent supermarket giants from having so much power.
Without support from the government, all of the private members bills into weakening the food retailers duopoly are moot as they can't get through the house, where the government has the numbers.
The Greens and the Nationals have been in talks about the matter but have diverging views on how to deal with the issue.
Nationals Leader David Littleproud says he's been looking at the Greens proposal and agrees with its intent.
"But there is serious design deficiency in it that could have unintended consequences in actually not increasing competition. While we agree with the intent, I've struck is an agreement with the Liberals last night to take to our party room this morning, is the design between Angus Taylor and myself of a power, divestiture power, but also bringing into that the grocery codes of conduct and making sure that the dairy and horticultural codes of conduct are respected and becomes part of that and that's why this is a complex policy issue."
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A New York appeals court has agreed to hold off the collection of former President Donald Trump's more than $694 million civil fraud judgement on the condition that he pays $267.8 million in the next ten days.
The order is a significant victory for the former president and if paid will pause the collection and prevent the state from seizing the Republican nominees assets while he appeals.
Mr Trump says the case should have been brought against him years ago, blaming the timing of the trial on election interference.
“This is a case that could have been brought three and a half years ago, and now they're fighting over days, because they want to try and do it during the election. This is election interference. That’s all it is. Election interference and it's a disgrace. We will obviously be appealing. But this is a pure case of voter intimidation and election interference, and it shouldn't be allowed to happen. This case could have been brought by the D.A. [District Attorney], but they didn’t want to bring it, because they said they have no case and then they bring it anyway."
The order will also pause other aspects of the ruling which barred Trump and his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr from serving in corporate leadership for several years.
—
To surfing now,
Multiple world champion surfer Kelly Slater as well as up to sixteen Australians are set to take on the waves at Bells Beach today as the Rip Curl Pro gets underway.
Clean surf in the four to six foot range has greeted competitors this morning as 11 time world champion Slater possibly surfs for the last time at Bells.
Australia's defending champion Ethan Ewing will also go up against fellow countryman George Pitt and South African Matthew McGillivray in heat five.
Slater spoke to reporters from the World Surf League after winning his heat this morning.
"Feeling pretty good. A little time off for me and I actually worked on boards and this is the board I was kind of working on. Same when I wrote a Cura you might see a couple ways I got, we were talking about it before but it's no it's a Mike Woo design and my buddy Trinko in Hawaii finished it off for me. And then Steve Ikener glassed it up in a couple of days for me. So just last second, I was able to get him before flying Australia."
