TRANSCRIPT:
- Childcare sector reforms to be fast tracked in Victoria;
- Indigenous organisations welcome calls for compensation after the release of the final Yoorook Commission reports;
- Richmond's Tom Lynch suspended for five matches.
A man has been taken to hospital after being injured in severe storm weather in the New South Wales southern highlands.
Police say the 55 year old sustained serious head and torso injuries after a tree fell on his B-double truck in Moss Vale.
He's believed to be in a critical condition.
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The federal government says it will seek new powers to strip childcare centres of funding if they don't meet safety standards.
It follows revelations Victorian police have arrested a childcare worker and laid 70 charges relating to alleged sex offences.
Education Minister Jason Clare says the government has already introduced a ban on the use of personal mobile phones in childcare centres, and changed the rules around mandatory reporting from seven days to 24 hours.
But Mr Clare says they have no intention of stopping there.
"This is serious, and it requires serious action. I was informed about this by the Victorian government a little over a week ago. It's one of the reasons why I put this at the top of the agenda when education ministers met last week."
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Victoria says it will be pushing through a number of its own reforms.
Premier Jacinta Allan has ordered an urgent safety review.
Extra measures like a ban on mobile phone use and professional registration of childcare workers are due to come into force within months.
"Here in Victoria, I won't wait. Families cannot wait. More needs to happen now."
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A US jury has reached a verdict on four out of five charges in the sex trafficking trial of Sean Diddy Coombs.
But it remains unknown if they've decided to convict or acquit.
District Judge Arun Subramanian says he's been told the jury has decided on two counts of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, but have not been able to reach a verdict on the racketeering conspiracy charge.
Mike Sisak from the Associated Press says the judge has instructed the jury to keep deliberating on that final count.
"If the jury reaches a verdict on that count or if they come to the judge and say after many more deliberations they simply cannot reach a consensus, cannot reach an unanimous verdict, then we will find out what their verdict is on those four other counts."
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Venezuela's National Assembly has unanimously voted to declare UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, persona non grata in the country.
The President of the Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, says the parliament has decided on the rare diplomatic designation partly because they argue the UN official has failed to protect the rights of Venezuelan migrants deported by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador.
"Accomplice to murderers, accomplice to kidnappers, and all those who work with him, and let's not return to that office while that garbage is in charge of it."
The parliament's decision is despite Türk recently urging the U.S. to halt deportations of Venezuelans who may be at risk of arrest in their home country, and raising concerns about the lack of due process in mass deportations from the U.S.
Critics say the ire of the National Assembly appears instead to have been energised by Türk's speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva last Friday.
It also comes just days after Türk said his office has documented increasing arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances and torture under President Nicolás Maduro's government.
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A third person has been charged in relation to the alleged murder of 17-year old Pheobe Bishop, whose remains were found in bushland last month.
The 30 year old man has been charged with two counts of accessory after the fact to murder.
Police allege he used Ms Bishop's mobile phone to interfere with the investigation.
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Indigenous organisations have welcomed the Yoorrook Justice Commission's call in their final reports for compensation for Victoria's First Nations people.
Jill Gallagher is the CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation - or Vaccho.
She says reparations acknowledge the economic inequality caused by colonisation, alongside other ongoing damage and trauma.
"We don't have access to the bank of mom and dad to help us with a good start in life. Because when our ancestors, and when I say ancestors, I don't mean three or four generations ago. My mom is still alive and she lived on a mission here in Victoria and she was not allowed to own property. She was not allowed to create wealth for her family."
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To sport,
Richmond forward Tom Lynch has been suspended for five matches for a strike against Adelaide's Jordon Butts on Saturday at the M-C- G.
Lynch failed to convince the A-F-L tribunal to reduce the grading of the impact of his blow.
The 32-year-old's ban is the longest this season, eclipsing the four-game stretch handed to Hawthorn's Conor Nash in April, also for striking.
