A daily five minute news wrap for English learners and people with disability.
Welcome to SBS News in Easy English, I'm Kerrin Thomas
++
The Greens say the government has more questions to answer about its plan to deport those who overstay their visa, in a proposed migration crackdown.
Labor's plan involves hiring 100 new compliance officers and freeing-up 250 beds in immigration detention, as well as potentially re-purposing a 100-bed quarantine facility near Melbourne Airport used during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Greens Senator David Shoebridge says Labor has rejected suggestions its plan to detain overstayers is comparable to ICE-driven crackdowns in the United States.
But he says if Labor doesn't want to be seen as copying the hardline US approach, it should avoid using the same methods.
"We know that when they open these detention centres, when they put the extra 100 Home Affairs officers in their uniforms and send families and kids into these detention centres, we know who is going to run them: MTC, a US international prison company... Before 2015, there were programs that actually stopped overstaying. And it didn't involve two burly blokes turning up and taking you to a private jail. It involved sending a caseworker in, understanding why people were overstaying."
++
Queensland has declined to follow the lead of the New South Wales government in allowing people with small amounts of cannabis in their system to drive.
Legislation lifting a ban on medicinal cannabis patients has passed the New South Wales parliament, allowing motorists on an unrestricted licence to drive as long as they are enrolled as a registered medicinal user and have proof of a valid prescription.
But Queensland has approved tougher penalties for drivers with a drug present in their blood or saliva, saying the change was based on expert evidence around road safety.
In a video posted to social media, Jacqueline Verne from the Legalise Cannabis Queensland party says this is not true, and the vote will make life harder for medical cannabis patients in regional and rural areas who cannot access public transport.
"The government claims this legislation is based on crash data. If they used the evidence to double the penalties, why are they withholding that data from the public? Show us the data. Because this looks less like road safety and more like punishing patients first, then hiding the evidence until after the law has passed."
++
A livestream video has been set up at a remote waterhole in the Northern Territory, for viewers to watch wildlife in real time.
Researchers at Charles Darwin University and N-T Parks and Wildlife have set up the camera at a pool on a temporary stream in the Watarkka National Park in central Australia, 350 kilometres southwest of Alice Springs.
Professor of Freshwater Ecology, Jenny Davis, says viewers can watch as the waterhole changes throughout the day and across the seasons as dingoes, kangaroos, birds and other animals drink, catch prey or use the stream as a path when the water dries up.
She hopes the livestream will give viewers an appreciation for the outback at the remote escarpment.
++
That's the latest SBS News in Easy English.
