Paramedics at Sydney church faced ‘heinous’ hostility and danger, minister says
NSW Ambulance commissioner Dominic Morgan this morning advised that paramedics who attended the scene at the Wakeley church stabbing and riot came under direct threat.
At one point, he said, some were unable to leave the church for three and a half hours. He said that staff described the scenes as terrifying and violent.
Health minister Ryan Park spent the morning meeting with healthcare workers across the city, including at Liverpool emergency department – which briefly last night went into partial lockdown.
Park said:
The scenes from Wakeley last night were incredibly disturbing. This is yet another instance in which our brave paramedics have thrown themselves into chaos and danger to provide lifesaving care and treatment.
The hostility unleashed upon them is particularly heinous and completely unacceptable.
As Health Minister my focus right now is on the safety and security of our health workers and the people they are caring for.
NSW knife laws may change as 16-year-old alleged attacker at Assyrian church had previous knife offence
Elias Visontay
The New South Wales government will consider strengthening knife laws after it became apparent the 16-year-old alleged to have committed a stabbing attack at an Assyrian church had been charged with a knife possession offence late last year and was on a good behaviour bond when he committed Monday’s terror incident.
New South Wales premier Chris Minns confirmed the teenager had been found in possession of a flick knife at a train station in November last year, and that a magistrate had placed him on a good behaviour bond over the incident earlier this year.
Minns also confirmed the boy had been found with a knife at school in 2020.
Minns told Sydney’s 2GB Radio:
Part of the reason the commissioner for police made a terrorism designation investigation at 1.30 this morning, was because of the person of interest’s history as well as the motives associated with moving to the venue, the church, and some of the rhetoric that is alleged to have used on scene before the alleged offence.
Minns, asked if knife laws should be strengthened in NSW after the incidents at the church and Bondi Junction in recent days, noted rules had already been tightened following the murder of a paramedic in recent months, but said he was open to exploring reforms.
I’m not prepared to rule anything out right now, obviously when people are being killed and you’ve got a situation where a knife is being used, then it would be irresponsible not to look at.
Minns said that as a result of the attack, communities in western Sydney were on high alert for the potential for “tit for tat” retaliations.
He said:
It’s a combustible situation and I’m not gonna sugarcoat it.
BoM declares an end to El Niño as odds tilt towards La Niña's return
Peter Hannam
The Bureau of Meteorology has just declared that the El Niño event of 2023-24 is over, with conditions in a key region of the equatorial central Pacific returning to “neutral”.
The so-called El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a major climate driver globally, and when it is in the El Niño state, eastern Australia tends to be drier than normal (at least going into summer).
Globally, there’s also a bump up in temperatures, contributing to the hottest year on record for 2023 (with climate change also pushing up the background readings).
BoM notes:
International climate models suggest ENSO is likely to continue to remain neutral until at least July 2024.
It’s increasingly looking like we’ll get the flipside of an El Niño, the La Niña phase, by spring if not sooner.
We should be cautious, though, that predictions at this time of year are less accurate than at other times ... so don’t ink in the forecast just yet.
Climate models, though, are pointing to a La Nina forming, perhaps by September. (There is an autumn 'predictability barrier' - so forecasts need to be taken with some caution.) pic.twitter.com/KGQf79muMT
For Australia, a La Niña typically increases the odds of above-average rainfall for much of the country.
If a La Niña develops, it would be the fourth in five years, and the first time we’ve had recorded three La Niña, with an El Niño, and another La Niña in sequence.
It’s worth highlighting, as BoM does, that global sea surface temperatures (SSTs) have been the warmest on record for each month between April 2023 and March 2024. April 2024 looks like extending that run of records.
Why does that matter? Well, given such unprecedented warmth, it’s also possible that past results aren’t necessarily a good guide for the future. Climate change can throw up surprises, in other words.
Facebook and X ordered to remove church stabbing content
Josh Taylor
Facebook’s parent company Meta and X/Twitter have been issued with notices to remove violent and distressing videos posted online of the stabbing of prominent Orthodox Christian leader Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at his church in Wakeley in Sydney’s west on Monday evening.
The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, told reporters on Tuesday that notices to remove within 24 hours what had been deemed to be class 1 material, that is “material depicting gratuitous or offensive violence with a high degree of impact or detail” to be removed from X and Meta, with the companies facing potential fines if they fail to comply.
The notices relate to Emmanuel’s alleged stabbing by a 16-year-old on Monday evening during Emmanuel’s mass, which was being live-streamed.
Inman Grant said:
While the majority of mainstream social media platforms have engaged with us, I am not satisfied enough is being done to protect Australians from this most extreme and gratuitous violent material circulating online. That is why I am exercising my powers under the Online Safety Act to formally compel them to remove it. I have issued a notice to X requiring them to remove this content. A legal notice will also be sent to Meta this afternoon, and further notices are likely to follow. I will not hesitate to use further graduated powers at my disposal if there is noncompliance.
Comment has been sought from Meta and X. Inman Grant said the quantum of the fines sought could depend on the gravity of the non-compliance. She said more removal notices to other platforms could be issued.
Notices have not been issued in relation to the Bondi Junction Westfield stabbings imagery, which has continued to circulate on social media since Saturday.
National eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, speaks to the media during a press conference. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP
Search for Australian-Singaporean couple in Taiwan suspended
Helen Davidson
Taiwanese authorities have suspended the search for an Australian-Singaporean couple still missing after a massive earthquake hit the area where they were hiking.
Neo Siew Choo and Sim Hwee Kok are thought to have been walking the popular Shakadang trail inside the Taroko national park in Hualien when a 7.2 magnitude quake hit the county shortly before 8am on 3 April.
Authorities said 17 people were killed, most inside Taroko national park. On Saturday afternoon the body of a truck driver surnamed Hsiao, was found in another part of the park. Hsiao, Neo and Sim were the last three still missing.
Search and rescue teams had been scouring Taroko gorge searching for missing hikers and tourists but on Sunday the Hualien County fire department stopped the search out of safety fears for crews. Almost two weeks after the earthquake, aftershocks have continued and landslides remain a significant danger. The previous day a search crew had narrowly avoided being hit by a landslide, but survived by jumping into the river at the base of the gorge, local media reported.
On Sunday morning family members of Neo and Sim and rescue workers gathered at a bridge near the Shakadang trailhead to hold a soul-calling ritual, to pray for the missing couple to find their way home and rest in peace. Local media said the family had expressed thanks to the crews for their efforts, and hoped the search could resume later when it was safer.
We hope that Hualien can be rebuilt as soon as possible so that more people can experience the beauty of Hualien and feel the warmth of the people in Hualien.
On Tuesday Taiwan’s ministry of interior said early assessments put the cost of rebuilding the park and its infrastructure at NTD$1bn ($47.8m).
Rescuers searching at the Taroko national park after an earthquake in Hualien. Photograph: CNA/AFP/Getty Images
ABS reveals how Australian generations spend their leisure time
New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals how different generations spend their downtime – with those over 75 spending the most time watching TV, and gen Z spending the most time playing video games.
The data found that across the population (of those aged over 15), people spend roughly 17% of their day on leisure activities. The interwar generation (over 75) spends the most time on leisure (25% of any given day) and millennials the least (13%).
In every generation men spent at least 30 minutes more time on leisure than women, the data found, with gen Z having the largest difference between the sexes. Millennial women spent the least amount of time on leisure of any demographic.
TV habits have well and truly changed between generations – 96% of the interwar generation said they watch television for leisure, compared to 63% of gen Z.
Gen Z and millennial participation in video games was higher than the other generations, but the gender difference is quite large. 17% of millennial men play video games, compared to 6% of millennial women, the data shows.
47% of the interwar generation said they read for leisure, significantly more than baby boomers who are next in line at 30%. Although just 10% of gen Z men say they read for fun, they spend the most time reading, at an average 2h 46m a day.
New data shows Australians leisure patterns across different generations. Photograph: Witthaya Prasongsin/Getty Images
Dutton says bipartisanship 'important' after Sydney church stabbing
Asked if there are any specific federal laws he believes need to be changed in relation to knife crime, Peter Dutton said there would be discussions around this but his view is “there are none that are obvious”.
We are willing and we stand ready to support the government. I think the offer of bipartisanship support at the moment is important.
I have expressed that in my letter to the prime minister today that we stand shoulder to shoulder with the government to provide reassurance to the Australian public at the moment who, off the back of Bondi, what we saw in western Sydney and what the Jewish community is experiencing at the moment, I think people would expect us to take that stance and we do.
Commitment to rewrite national environment laws further delayed
Lisa Cox
The Albanese government has further delayed a commitment to rewrite Australia’s failing national environment laws.
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, said the government would introduce legislation in coming weeks to create two previously announced bodies – an Environment Protection Agency and a second organisation called Environment Information Australia, which will provide public data on ecosystems, plants and animals.
But a commitment to introduce laws to address Australia’s extinction crisis, including new national environmental standards against which development proposals would be assessed, has been pushed back to an unspecified date.
The delay is likely to spark accusations that the government has broken a promise to deliver substantial environment reform in one package.
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
Plibersek had initially promised new laws – initially in draft form for public consultation, and then to parliament – last year. Speaking in 2022, she said the laws were “broken” and the government would act in 2023 to introduce national environmental standards, speed up decision-making and improve trust and integrity in the system.
But in a statement today, she said key reforms recommended by a 2020 review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – including national standards focused on better outcomes for nature – had been deferred to a “third stage” of legislation.
She said the third stage of the government’s “nature positive plan” would involve the government releasing a “comprehensive draft” of new environmental laws for public consultation.
When I first announced the nature positive plan, I said it would take a bit of cooperation, compromise and common sense to deliver. That’s exactly how we’re approaching the rollout.
Tension hangs in the air in Wakeley, around the Assyrian Christ the Good Shepherd church that was the site of a stabbing attack last night.
Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was attacked at a service last night, sparking a riot in surrounding streets, with neighbours telling me they feel shaken.
Dharma Nand lives across the road from the church and said he was terrified at the crowd’s violence last night:
We heard a commotion around 7pm last night and we came out to see what was going on. We saw so many people just rushing up to the church.
At first they were standing and shouting but soon it became overcrowded and people were surging at the fence and at the walls – they wanted to get in.
They were parking in my driveway, parking anywhere and just rushing to the church, trying to get in. The police tried to hold them back and things got nasty.
Nand said he was even considering moving because of the violence and said he was feeling shaken by the whole incident.
Other neighbours refused to speak, shutting the door and asking reporters to get off their lawns as they watched police continue their investigation in the church.
Wendy, who asked for her surname to be withheld, lives up the road from the church and said she heard the commotion but stayed indoors to protect her children. She said they could smell the pepper spray and could hear people screaming.
It was terrifying and very loud. We stayed inside and tried to watch from the balcony but the smell of pepper spray became overwhelming.
The roads became blocked by the crowds very quickly. No one could get in or out. They kept chanting ‘let him out’ and yelling at police to allow them to enter the church.
Bruce Lehrmann withdraws from ‘Restoring the Presumption of Innocence’ conference
Tory Shepherd
Bruce Lehrmann has pulled out of a conference called “Restoring the Presumption of Innocence” the day after Justice Michael Lee found that, on the balance of probabilities, he raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.
The sponsors, Mothers of Sons, said Lehrmann “decided not to appear”. They posted on Facebook:
He is being subject to extremely aggressive pursuit by the media and is concerned that his participation may threaten the audience, jeopardise this important event, and distract from its main purpose.
Bettina Arndt, who describes her work as “denouncing feminism and advocating for men’s rights”, is organising the conference along with Australians for Science and Freedom (ASF).
Bruce Lehrmann leaving court yesterday. Photograph: Don Arnold/Getty Images
In promotional material shared by Arndt before the trial, Lehrmann is described as the “poster boy for trial by media” who has “endured years of having his reputation trashed”.
ASF comprises people who “objected to the government’s response to the pandemic”, that material said.
The conference is sponsored by Mothers of Sons, who describe themselves as a group of women whose “sons have faced extraordinary ordeals in our unjust, anti-male legal systems and workplaces”.
They said the conference would go ahead with an alternative presenter:
[While] ensuring that the Lehrmann case still receives appropriate attention at the conference as a powerful example of trial by media undermining the vital legal principle of the presumption of innocence.
There was already a petition to cancel the event, which is scheduled for 1 June at a mystery location in Rushcutters Bay. Tickets are $110 for ASF members and $132 for non members.
Supermarkets inquiry threatens to hold Woolworths CEO in contempt
Jonathan Barrett
An Australian parliamentary inquiry has threatened to hold Brad Banducci, the chief executive of Woolworths, in contempt for repeatedly refusing to answer questions about the company’s profitability.
The Greens senator Nick McKim, who is chairing the Senate inquiry into supermarket practices, ordered a short suspension in the hearings this morning after telling Banducci he may be held in contempt:
I also feel compelled to advise you that that opens up a range of sanctions, personal sanctions that can be applied against you, if that’s what the Senate decides to do.
McKim said a person found to be in contempt could be subject to a penalty of up to six months’ imprisonment.
Earlier, we reported that faith leaders had backed a joint call for unity after last night’s stabbing incident in western Sydney.
Here is the full statement from NSW faith leaders, authorised by Dr Rateb Jneid – president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils – and sheikh Riad El-Rifai, from the National Grand Mufti of Australia.
We represent community leaders from our communities.
We are united in calling for calm in response to the events at Wakeley [yesterday] evening.
We reject violence in all its forms.
We are calling on our communities to extend our message of care and compassion to all.
We have trust in our first responders and confidence in their work.
We’re calling on everyone to act with kindness and respect for each other.
Now is the time to show that we are strong and united as a NSW community.
Translation of video taken during alleged stabbing incident
Mostafa Rachwani
In a video shared via private WhatsApp groups, the alleged attacker is seen being held on the ground inside the church, surrounded by people.
Amid the chaos, the alleged attacker can be heard speaking. He allegedly says in Arabic:
If he [the bishop] didn’t get himself involved in my religion, if he hadn’t spoken about my Prophet, I wouldn’t have come here.
If he just spoke about his own religion, I wouldn’t have come.
The video reportedly shows the mayhem that followed the attack, with people in bloodied clothes walking around as the alleged attacker is held against the ground.
It is unclear who was holding him down and why, or if there were any authorities present at the time.
Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, who has a popular online presence, has previously criticised Islam and the Prophet Muhammad in public sermons.
Asio head says Wakeley incident ‘does appear to be religiously motivated’
Asio boss Mike Burgess was next to speak and said Asio’s role in the investigation is to support NSW police:
It does appear to be religiously motivated but we continue our lines of investigation.
Burgess said Asio would “look at individuals connected with the attacker to assure ourselves there’s no one else in the community with similar intent”:
At this stage, we have no indications of that. But it’s prudent that we do this to determine there’s no threats or immediate threats to security. At this time, we’re not seeing that.
