/qresearch/ -  Q Research

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Deeming apologises to backers, vows to ‘boot this corrupt Labor Grubberment out’

GEORGIA PALGAN - July 07, 2026

Victorian Liberal MP Moira Deeming has apologised to her supporters for “so many huge distractions” after she made un­substantiated allegations of assault against her colleague Matthew Guy, while urging voters to keep faith in her ahead of the state election.

In a video on her social channels, Ms Deeming said she could not elaborate on her ongoing legal battle against the Victorian Liberal Party, but suggested matters were “being mediated behind the scenes where it should be mediated”.

She responded to negative comments on the post by expressing support for current leader Jess Wilson and saying it was “excruciating” not to be able to defend herself publicly.

“There have been so many huge distractions that have taken away from the work that you as my constituents and Victorians really needed to be done, and I am genuinely so, so sorry that all of these things over the past 3½ years have happened,” she said in the video.

The court action was lodged by Ms Deeming after she made ­assault allegations against former opposition leader Mr Guy that were unable to be substantiated by police, and then defied Ms Wilson’s request to apologise.

A trial, which will determine whether the party can disendorse Ms Deeming ahead of the November state election, is set down for next week.

The action is the third time Ms Deeming has been involved in a legal case against fellow Liberals, after she successfully sued then opposition leader John Pesutto for defaming her over her attendance at a Let Women Speak rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.

She remains an independently represented defendant in a case being brought by five current and former members of the Liberal state executive against the party over the decision to loan Mr Pesutto $1.55m to enable him to pay his legal debts.

Comments flooded Ms Deeming’s Facebook post, with one suggesting they had backed the MP “all the way with the initial incident. However, a public apology for your misunderstanding to Matt Guy was required last week.”

Ms Deeming replied to the commenter: “I hear you – please understand I am not against Jess, believe it or not … It’s excruciating not being able to just defend myself publicly.

“But only Labor wins if I do that right now.”

On Tuesday, Ms Deeming acknowledged the loyalty of supporters who had backed her through what she described as the most difficult and tenuous period of her life, and said their trust remained well-placed.

“For all of you people that have been supporting me, you supported me through the most difficult times … and I have just been so grateful for the way in which you’ve all done that and you’ve put your trust in me and I hope you all know that you can still trust me,” she said.

A caption that accompanied Tuesday’s post read: “Don’t lose hope. Hold steady and press towards the goal. Let’s boot this corrupt Labor Grubberment out of office.”

“The simple fact is that things go wrong in life and you have to just pick yourself up and keep going forward. That’s what I ­intend to do,” she said.

Ms Deeming said she remained committed to the agenda her constituents had elected her to pursue, including fighting union corruption, defending parental rights and child safeguards, and advancing what she described as “actual true equality in the law”.

“That job is still sitting there, it needs to be done, and we have never, ever been so close to being able to get rid of Labor and actually do it,” Ms Deeming said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/deeming-apologises-to-backers-vows-to-boot-this-corrupt-labor-grubberment-out/news-story/126df9ad41e4ba072b34907463846a1b

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1319740489847037

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Teenager accused of terror plot used AI to craft Bondi-inspired massacre stories

MACKENZIE SCOTT - July 09, 2026

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A reclusive teenager accused of planning a terror attack at a Queensland primary school had allegedly used AI to create first-person mass-murder stories, including one inspired by the Bondi Beach massacre.

At a Supreme Court appeal hearing over whether to grant the 13-year-old bail on Wednesday, judge Peter Davis upheld the decision by a Fraser Coast magistrate to deny the boy’s release because of “the unstable nature” of his mental state.

Police allege the boy held neo-Nazi-aligned views, and had a ­hatred of young children, black people, Muslims and Jews.

At 4.37am on April 22, little more than a month after he was alleged to have entered a service station with a knife, the boy was accused of asking an AI program to create a fictional story inspired by Bondi and a Russian school shooting.

“Make me a mass shooting story 18+ kinda like the Bondi beach shooting, but it’s in Qld heavybay (sic) beach when there is a Jewish and blacks festival,” he is alleged to have prompted.

“The mc (main character) shooter is Romolus Vanguard, 19, immigrant from Europe.

“Legal immigrant, moved when he was 11 year old. He is from sebira (sic), dark messy hair, good looking, sharp jawline, tall and skinny like (Crimean school shooter) Vladislav Roslyakov and more he uses a sp-15-tac.

“The POVs (point of view) are just normal Australians on the beach … he also is neo nazi.”

In 2018, 18-year-old Roslyakov killed 20 people at his high school, Kerch Polytechnic College, before committing suicide.

Footage from the massacre event can be found online.

The Maryborough teen, who cannot be identified because of his age, faces one state and one commonwealth terror charge.

He allegedly walked into a ­petrol station on May 28 wearing a lower face covering and carrying a knife taken from the kitchen sink, before threatening the ­attendant. Investigators will allege he also tried to steal a car in order to drive to a primary school and fulfil his plan to kill children, whom he perceived to be easy ­targets.

Police were called to the business and arrested the boy, who allegedly disclosed in an interview that he had wanted to kill people for months and had been inspired by Russian shooters and mass killers who targeted schools.

He was released with a warning under the Youth Justice Act.

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Two days later, counter-­terrorism police undertook a search warrant of the home, seizing three devices. They allegedly found several concerning documents, including a manifesto detailing his alleged neo-Nazi views, a note titled “The Albert Massacre”, seemingly referring to the local Albert State School, and dark web access to firearms and ­illegal weapons suppliers.

Defence barrister Clem van der Weegen submitted that the teenager’s musings were “just dark thoughts” and noted that there was no offence known to law where a person was charged with thoughts or being in conspiracy with oneself. He added that the boy, who had not been to school in two years or interacted with children his own age, is not known to have communicated the so-called plans to anyone else.

Mr van der Weegen previously told the court the boy had locked himself in a bathroom at the service station and had made the threat to harm the man from behind a closed door, allegedly telling arresting officers “he couldn’t do it”.

A series of bail conditions were proposed by the defence that stopped the boy accessing the internet or leaving his home, except to attend medical appointments or programs. He would also wear an electronic monitoring device at all times.

However, Justice Davis rejected the proposal because of the boy’s mental state. The court heard he had previously threatened to shoot his mother and smother his sister with a pillow.

The teen is currently admitted to Brisbane Children’s Hospital for involuntary mental health treatment, with the court hearing he had previously self-harmed.

“The applicant clearly has a mental disorder,” he said.

“It is in this residence that the applicant became a radicalised ­recluse … the evidence shows that his mother is scared of the ­applicant.

“Almost the entire existence of the applicant in the past two years, while in the family home, has involved trawling the internet and developing radical views.”

However, Justice Davis left the door open for bail to be reassessed at a later date, once the boy’s mental state improved.

“At this point there must be an unacceptable risk of the commission of an offence which endangers the safety of the community or the safety of a person and that risk, if it manifests itself, could result in serious harm,” he said.

“Given what appears to be the unstable nature of the applicant’s mental state, the risk cannot be mitigated to a satisfactory level by the imposition of conditions.”

The matter will next be heard on September 15 at Maryborough Children’s Court.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/teenager-accused-of-terror-plot-used-ai-to-craft-bondiinspired-massacre-stories/news-story/1aac4e14f0419d830646f8648faf929e

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‘A different time’: Julia Gillard rows back on her changes to Sex Discrimination Act

JACQUELIN MAGNAY - July 02, 2026

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Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard has rowed back on her government’s controversial changes to the Australian Sex Discrimination Act in 2013, telling an audience at Manchester University: “It was a different time.”

After delivering the Cockroft Rutherford lecture at the university on Wednesday evening, Ms Gillard was asked by an audience member about the issues of gender identity and the fact that, thanks to the changes to the act under her government, women in Australia are no longer defined by biological sex.

Ms Gillard at first claimed the issue wouldn’t be of interest to a British audience, before telling her questioner that the issues “were not raised by anyone (back in 2012, when the legislation came before parliament) because they simply weren’t a matter of public discourse the way they are today.”

“It was a different time,’’ she added. “So it is an error to uplift what we know now and the public discourse now and just putting it down to 14 years ago’’.

The comments were the first recent public utterances Ms Gillard has made about the impact of Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act which was changed in 2013 when she was prime minister. It comes as she has faced a series of protests held by pro-women activists in Britain over the past month highlighting her government’s legislative changes and the deleterious impact they have had on women’s rights.

For many years Ms Gillard has declined to answer “what is a woman?”, instead claiming it was a “gotcha question”. In 2023 this prompted criticism in the Senate by senator Claire Chandler who said Ms Gillard’s dodging of the question “was no game”.

Senator Chandler said the Gillard government’s removal of the definition of a woman from the Sex Discrimination Act had led directly “to some of the most perverse policy decisions Australia has ever witnessed”.

At the time of the changed legislation in 2013, an explanatory Australian government memorandum said the Act would repeal the Act’s statutory definitions of “man” and “woman”, while simultaneously adding new protected attributes of sexual orientation, gender identity, and intersex status.

But by removing the explicit biological definitions of a man and a woman, the Act has since been interpreted by the courts as preferencing gender identity ahead of biological sex.

The issue is central to the Tickle versus Giggle court case where the Federal Court has ruled the Sex Discrimination Act does not confine the legal concept of sex to biological sex and found that Sall Grover’s company Giggle, which was designed for women, had discriminated against trans woman Roxanne Tickle on the basis of appearance.

On Wednesday Ms Gillard said she wouldn’t comment on the court case, which is currently the subject of an appeal.

(continued)

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Outside the Manchester University’s Nancy Rothwell Building, around a dozen pro-women activists protested against Ms Gillard and told audience members that “Julia Gillard is no feminist”.

The activists said Ms Gillard had destroyed protections for women by making biology and sex redundant in Australian law.

In a pamphlet handed out to passersby, the group said the situation in Australia was that women do not have the right to single sex spaces, that it is unlawful for lesbians to hold a public lesbian only event without including men who identify as women and that males who identify as women cannot be excluded from services or spaces for women.

Last month two audience members at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival erected a banner at a panel discussion involving Ms Gillard, which said “Julia Gillard Destroyer of Women’s Rights”. One of the women attempted to ask Ms Gillard about Australian women’s gender-based rights but was cut off by moderator Katya Adler, who said “we are finished”, to some applause from the audience members.

That attempted intervention came two days after a protest was staged outside the Australian High Commission in London in support of Ms Grover, where around 100 people drew attention to Australia’s legal position in relation to women’s spaces. They called for a change to the Act in Australia so that it is similar to the UK Supreme Court ruling that sex is based on biology, not feelings or identity.

Ms Gillard was giving the prestigious Cockcroft Rutherford lecture at the university in her role as the chair of the Wellcome Trust, which awards £111 million to Manchester for scientific research activities.

At the end of the speech Ms Gillard gave some advice to any incoming political leader – without naming Manchester’s own Andy Burnham who is likely to become Britain’s next prime minister- saying “your most precious resource is time.”

She added: “And it can be incredibly easy for your diary to fill in a completely exhausting and spirit-crushing way every day and it not be in the service of having impact or driving your agenda. Ruthless prioritisation of time often does mean you break quite a few people’s hearts about who you see and who you don’t.

“But it’s really important. Complete clarity about a small number of strategic goals that you want to achieve. However long you’re in politics, it won’t ever be long enough to do everything that you would have liked to have done and it won’t ever be enough to fix everything in our world.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/no-public-debate-julia-gillard-rows-back-on-her-changes-to-sex-discrimination-act/news-story/b7115f531f99334e138166ccd3174646

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‘It was a different time’: Julia Gillard remark ignites push on gender law

RACHEL BAXENDALE - July 02, 2026

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Labor faces widespread calls to put biological sex back into the nation’s discrimination laws, after former prime minister Julia Gillard claimed her 2013 gender reforms did not anticipate “a different time” where transgender activists would use them to challenge women’s rights.

Ms Gillard’s comments coincided with Labor and the Greens voting this week to block the introduction of Coalition and One Nation bills to reintroduce definitions of biological sex in the Sex Discrimination Act, preventing them from even being debated.

After delivering the Cockroft Rutherford Lecture at Manchester University on Wednesday evening, Ms Gillard was asked by an audience member about the issues of gender identity and the fact that, thanks to the changes to the Act under her government, women in Australia are no longer defined by biological sex.

The former PM at first claimed the issue wouldn’t be of interest to a British audience, before telling her questioner that the issues “were not raised by anyone (back in 2012, when the legislation came before parliament) because they simply weren’t a matter of public discourse the way they are today”.

“It was a different time,’’ she added. “So it is an error to uplift what we know now and the public discourse now and just putting it down to 14 years ago’’.

The comments were the first recent public utterances Ms Gillard has made about the impact of the 2013 changes, and come as she has faced a series of protests held by pro-women activists in Britain over the past month highlighting the deleterious impact of the reforms on women’s rights.

At the time of the changed legislation in 2013, an explanatory Australian government memorandum said the Act would repeal its statutory definitions of “man” and “woman”, while simultaneously adding new protected attributes of sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status. But by removing the explicit biological definitions of a man and a woman, the Act has since been interpreted by the courts as preferencing gender identity ahead of biological sex.

The issue is central to the Tickle v Giggle court case where the Federal Court has ruled the Sex Discrimination Act does not confine the legal concept of sex to biological sex, and found that Sall Grover’s company, Giggle, which was designed for women, had discriminated against trans woman Roxanne Tickle on the basis of appearance.

Ms Grover, who is appealing the verdict in the High Court, told The Australian on Thursday that Ms Gillard’s comments should prompt action from the government to reform the Act.

“The onus is now on Albanese to do something, and he will regret it if he doesn’t,” Ms Grover said.

“History will judge him. People want this. This is a very easy political win.

“Gender ideology has taken down politicians all over the world. We’re no different here. I think he should show that he is capable of actually listening to Australian citizens and doing something that we want.

“Everybody knows that men aren’t women, including the people that have been involved in doing the harm.”

Ms Grover said there was one defence available to Ms Gillard, which was that parliament “never intended” for the 2013 changes to the Act to infringe upon the rights of women to female-only spaces and services.

“How it was supposed to work was that all existing protections remained, and then you added gender identity in,” Ms Grover said.

“If that was what you were being discriminated on the basis of, you were now protected.

“There’s no evidence parliament intended for there to be an impact on women’s rights, and Gillard should just say it.

“People make mistakes. I would have so much respect for her if she just said, ‘it’s a mistake, let me help you fix it’.”

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Women’s Forum Australia CEO Rachael Wong said Ms Gillard had “effectively acknowledged” that the 2013 changes “had consequences that were never properly debated”.

“But it is not enough to suggest that ‘it was a different time’ and move on,” Ms Wong said.

“You can’t intentionally remove the definition of woman from law and then act surprised when that has grave consequences for women and girls – including in prisons, sport and other sex-segregated settings.

“As a legislator, Gillard had a duty to consider the ramifications of the laws she was passing.

“The most powerful thing she can do is acknowledge she made and mistake and call on her party to fix it.

“Yet this week, Labor and the Greens blocked two bills that would have restored sex-based protections in the Act, once again putting ideology above the rights and safety of women and girls.”

Former Family Court judge Catherine Carew KC – who has argued that it was “an extraordinary overreach” for the Federal Court to find in Tickle v Giggle that the ordinary meaning of “woman” includes a biological male who merely identifies as a woman – said that while Ms Gillard “may be able to claim plausible deniability” on the impacts of the 2013 amendments, “there can be little doubt that the bureaucrats behind the amendments knew exactly what they were doing”.

“It is a timely reminder that people in positions of power in government and institutions need to take back control, as they are ultimately responsible,” Ms Carew said.

“For too long now bureaucrats, particularly in the human resources sector, promote ‘ideology’ to the ultimate detriment of the vast population.

“Diversity and inclusion sounds benign, but it is often anything but, as women in particular have found.”

Opposition legal affairs spokeswoman Michaelia Cash said Ms Gillard had “belled the cat”, and the Albanese government “should listen”.

“Nobody could foresee in 2013 that we would end up in the mess we are in at the moment,” Senator Cash said.

“The bill I introduced in the Senate yesterday, which was blocked by Labor and the Greens, would fix this issue once and for all, giving biological women the rights they deserve without taking away any other protections which currently exist in the Act.

“It is an absolute disgrace the Albanese government will not even allow this issue to be debated. The Prime Minister has betrayed millions of Australian women and girls and needs to be held to account.”

A One Nation spokesman said issues of women’s rights had been specifically raised when the Gillard government, with the support of the Coalition, changed the law.

“They were raised in the report on the bill made by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, tabled in June 2013,” the spokesman said.

“One Nation has not only been twice blocked from amending the SDA to reflect biological reality. We have tried to move Senate inquiries into the sharp rise in Australian children presenting with gender dysphoria and being treated at gender clinics, the silencing of health professionals like (Queensland psychiatrist) Dr Jillian Spencer, the findings of the Cass Review in the UK, and other related matters.

“Labor, the Greens, crossbenchers and members of the Coalition have blocked each of these inquiries.”

A government spokesperson said Labor remained “committed to eliminating discrimination against women and ensuring that everyone receives the protection of the law, regardless of their sex or gender identity”.

“Every individual is entitled to respect, dignity and the opportunity to participate in society and access the services they need,” the spokesperson said.

“The federal Sex Discrimination Act 1984 prohibits discrimination on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status in a range of areas of public life. That is appropriate.

“The Act has had bipartisan support under successive governments – both Liberal and Labor.”

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Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody – who has described attempts to reintroduce biological definitions to the SDA as a “retrograde step” – did not respond to a request for comment.

Greens LGBTIQA+ spokesman Nick McKim said: “The Greens will never apologise for standing up for the rights of trans people, who are coming under sustained attack from the toilet police, wannabe genital inspectors and their fellow travellers in the hate media.”

On Wednesday Ms Gillard said she wouldn’t comment on the Tickle v Giggle case, with the appeal under way.

Outside Manchester University’s Nancy Rothwell Building, around a dozen pro-women activists protested against Ms Gillard and told audience members “Julia Gillard is no feminist”.

The activists said Ms Gillard had destroyed protections for women by making biology and sex redundant in Australian law.

In a pamphlet handed out to passers-by, the group said the situation in Australia was that women do not have the right to single-sex spaces, that it is unlawful for lesbians to hold a public lesbian-only event without including men who identify as women, and that males who identify as women cannot be excluded from services or spaces for women.

Last month two audience members at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival erected a banner at a panel discussion involving Ms Gillard, which said “Julia Gillard Destroyer of Women’s Rights”.

One of the women attempted to ask Ms Gillard about Australian women’s gender-based rights but was cut off by moderator Katya Adler, who said “we are finished”, to some applause from the audience members.

That attempted intervention came two days after a protest was staged outside the Australian high commission in London in support of Ms Grover, where around 100 people drew attention to Australia’s legal position in relation to women’s spaces.

They called for a change to the Act in Australia so that it is similar to the UK Supreme Court ruling that sex is based on biology, not feelings or identity.

Ms Gillard was giving the prestigious Cockcroft Rutherford lecture at the university in her role as the chair of the Wellcome Trust, which awards £111m ($215m) to Manchester University for scientific research activities.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/it-was-a-different-time-julia-gillard-remark-ignites-push-on-gender-law/news-story/b4d05c2c99aea9d6aaf48f452ccb5299

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University leaders called to royal commission over campus antisemitism crisis

NATASHA BITA - July 10, 2026

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Sydney University, Melbourne University, Monash University and the Australian National University have been called to give evidence to the Royal Commission’s on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion next week.

The lived experiences of antisemitism and its impacts on Jewish students and academics will be examined during the fourth block of hearings, which starts in Melbourne on Monday.

Royal Commissioner Virginia Bell will inquire into the universities’ responses to combat the antisemitism that was experienced by staff and students.

Most of Australia’s sandstone city universities hosted protests and student encampments in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, and Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Gaza.

The University of Sydney – where anti-Israel activists have targeted Jewish students and academics – revealed on Friday that it had been called to appear before the commission.

“To assist with its important work, the university will appear before the royal commission,’’ it told staff in a statement.

“We have made important progress over the last two years but we know our work is not yet finished. We will continue to engage openly and constructively with the royal commission and listen to our community. Antisemitism has absolutely no place at the University of Sydney, or in society.’’

Masked protesters have interrupted lectures by Jewish professors at the University of Sydney, including its director of European Studies, Professor Peter Morgan, who was left “shaking’’ after the infiltrators shouted at his students and refused to leave the lecture theatre in a 2024 incident.

The university sacked a staff member last year after she was filmed ranting at Jewish students celebrating the religious festival of Sukkoth, calling them “depraved’’ and “disgusting’’.

The University of Melbourne confirmed the royal commission had called its interim vice-chancellor, Professor Glyn Davis.

“The University of Melbourne is part of the national process to reflect, mourn and seek a renewed sense of trust and belonging for all,’’ a spokesperson said.

“We reaffirm our commitment to a safe, inclusive and supportive environment for all and acknowledge the important work of the royal commission. As a diverse university community, we must come together and stand united in our continued efforts to eradicate hate and discrimination in all forms.’’

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A Monash University spokesman confirmed that vice-chancellor Professor Sharon Pickering had also been called to give evidence.

The university – named after eminent World War I general Sir John Monash, a Jew who founded the Zionist Federation of Australia – was the site of some of the biggest anti-Israel protests in 2024.

Pro-Palestine activist Mohammad Sharab was filmed swearing at Jewish students on campus in May 2024 that “Israel is a terrorist state and Zionism is a terrorist entity – now get your phone and f*ck off’’.

Macquarie University – which set up “safe rooms’’ for Jewish students – is not scheduled to give evidence next week but has already provided written information to the royal commission. “Macquarie University respects the significant work of the (royal commission) and has submitted documentation requested by the royal commission,’’ a spokesman said.

ANU– which refused to take action against a student who used an online meeting to make gestures that Jewish classmates interpreted as a Nazi salute and Hitler’s moustache – confirmed that it would also give evidence.

“The university can confirm that interim vice-chancellor Rebekah Brown and acting provost Joan Leach have been called to appear,’’ a spokesperson said.

University of Queensland – where a student urinated on a Jewish academic’s desk, protesters flew an Islamic terror flag and antisemitic stickers were plastered on campus – said it had not been called.

Members of the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism, known as 5A, will give evidence of “normalised and deeply embedded antisemitism on campuses’’.

“Many Jewish staff and students conceal their identities for fear of discrimination, retribution or exclusion,’’ 5A CEO Alisa Pincus said on Friday.

“Intervention by university leaders is the rare exception, leading to a climate in which hostility, intimidation and the use of antisemitic tropes have become normalised.’’

Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, asked former Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor Emeritus Professor Greg Craven to report on universities’ actions to stamp out antisemitism.

In an interim report in May, Professor Craven found that Jewish academics were being “targeted and silenced’’, and he exposed ongoing intimidation of Jewish staff and students.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/university-leaders-called-to-royal-commission-over-campus-antisemitism-crisis/news-story/cc401a6b4125b58714e5a06e3699b44e

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‘Baby killer, genocide supporter’: Jewish student describes ‘exhausting’ life on campus

Michael Bachelard - July 13, 2026

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A Jewish student was called a “baby killer” and “genocide supporter” on a prestigious Australian university campus by people taking part in the country’s longest-running university encampment in 2024.

Appearing as part of a two-week block of hearings in Melbourne for the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, the student, Liat, was granted partial anonymity and was the first of a number of lived experience witnesses who will not be fully named.

Commissioner Virginia Bell said the hearings were taking place in Melbourne because it was the location of Australia’s largest Jewish population.

Liat on Monday described experiencing a “low-level hum” of antisemitism on campus before October 2023, but said that after the Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza, a sense of “pervasive fear” had developed. She told the royal commission she felt the need to hide her identity, to the extent of not using her real name when ordering coffee.

Living as a Jew at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra had been “exhausting”, Liat said, and passing the encampment, which was set up in the middle of the campus, was a daily ordeal.

“I felt very physically unsafe when people would laugh and leer at me and say, ‘Look at the baby killer, look at the genocide supporter’,” she said.

Liat, who acts as a spokesperson for the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, said she helped organise a counter-protest on campus where a man approached, despite a heavy security presence, and performed a Nazi salute.

After October 2023, the student, who told the commission she was a Zionist, said she lost the vast majority of her non-Jewish friends.

She said one friend told her: “You’re of Israeli heritage, you can’t possibly be my friend.”

In the magazine welcoming students produced by the ANU student association, a line included said: “Zionism is a far-right political project, and the state of Israel is run by war criminals and proponents of genocide”. Liat told the royal commission the statement “portrays Jews as uniquely and distinctly bloodthirsty and murderous” and was an antisemitic trope.

She said she also felt unwelcome when, in a meeting of the student association, fellow students voted to remove a reference that condemned Hamas as a terror organisation.

Bell said on Monday lived experience witnesses would not be cross-examined on their evidence.

In other evidence, a tutor and PhD student at the University of New South Wales told the commission that in 2024, four students had performed the Nazi salute towards him in his classroom, and again in the corridor outside the business lesson.

As the grandson of Holocaust survivors, he said, “when someone does a Nazi salute to me, it feels like they want to kill me”.

When the man complained to the university, he said the response was inadequate. Initially, he was told the students would be given a verbal reprimand and reminded of university policies, and it was only after he reported the incident to police that the students were suspended for two weeks.

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Dr Andy Smidt, a speech pathology academic formerly at the University of Sydney, said it was “really difficult to do your job” during the pro-Palestinian protests and encampment on campus.

“If the Jews on campus, primarily as the Jews in Australia do, identify with Israel as part of who they are, then any attack on Israel is an attack on the Jews,” she told the commission.

“And so it’s not about conflating. It’s about the fact that they are connected. They’re undeniably inextricably connected.”

Introducing the hearing, Zelie Heger, SC, the counsel assisting the commissioner, said Australian universities carried a “profound duty of care to ensure that everyone feels safe, respected and included”.

Heger acknowledged institutions faced challenges in balancing different rights and freedoms and that, “it’s not always easy to discern when legitimate expressions of opinion cross the line into antisemitism or other forms of racism”.

“Nevertheless, the difficulty of striking that balance cannot be used as an excuse for inaction,” she said.

The hearing comes after the Albanese government’s announcement on Sunday that it would compel all universities to apply clear definitions of racism, including antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Aboriginal racism.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the government would not mandate any current working definition, such as the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, and universities would be able to design their own or adopt credible definitions.

Universities will also be required to file annual reports to the regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency.

Universities Australia, the sector’s peak body, last year drafted a new definition of antisemitism, and it was endorsed by 39 of its members. The government said campuses would not have to be compliant until January 1, 2027.

Burke said he had used the definition in visa cancellations “to test where there might be an allegation that there’s antisemitism involved”.

Education Minister Jason Clare said the tertiary regulator needed “more teeth, more powers” and should be able to issue fines when institutions fail to act.

“The regulator, at the moment, if it wants to fine a university, needs to go to court,” Clare said. “I figure that that’s not the right approach, and so we’ll introduce legislation to give the regulator more powers over the coming months.”

Speaking after giving her evidence, Liat agreed with the government’s decision to require universities to define antisemitism.

“I don’t think any of these people want to be antisemitic, and if you have a tool – whether that’s a definition or a policy – that tells you how not to be hateful towards a group of people, I see no reason why you wouldn’t want to use that,” she said.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/baby-killer-genocide-supporter-jewish-student-describes-exhausting-life-on-campus-20260713-p60es6.html

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ISIS-linked Australian woman Hodan Abby was enforcer of Sharia law in Syrian camp, ABC told

Stephanie March - 13 July 2026

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It would come as a silent threat in the middle of the night - a niqab and a knife - left outside a tent in the squalid, prison-like detention camp housing Islamic State-linked families in Syria.

The message for the occupant was simple: wear the black veil preferred by the Islamic State (IS), or else.

This is one of the not-so-subtle acts in support of IS ideology that Sydney woman Hodan Abby is alleged to have been behind during her years in the Kurdish-run detention camp, al-Roj, in north-east Syria, the ABC can reveal.

She is the last known Australian IS-linked woman in Syria and was issued with a temporary exclusion order (TEO) in February, barring her from returning to Australia.

That order was later revoked, and she was issued a return permit last month.

A security source from within the camp - who doesn't want to be named - but who dealt directly with Hodan Abby - described the Australian as a cunning, threatening figure and the "driving force" behind many of the problems in the camp.

According to the security source, Ms Abby acted as what they called a "Sharia judge", or an enforcer of Sharia law, arranged marriages for IS women over the phone, and bribed other women in the camp with charity money to win their loyalty.

Some of her alleged actions landed her in trouble with camp authorities - the source said Ms Abby admitted to taking instructions and orders from IS commanders in Idlib and Jarabulus and passing them on to others within the camp. The security source said they oversaw Hodan Abby's two stints in the camp "prison" in 2021 and 2022.

The ABC understands that in these camps, intelligence officers conduct interrogations and detain individuals periodically, and the prison is an informal detention facility with no formal jurisdiction or judicial proceedings.

Devoted 'by choice'

Former US diplomat, Peter Galbraith - who has spent decades helping rescue IS-linked children from north-east Syria - said his sources in the camp also describe Ms Abby as an IS "true believer".

"She is known in the camps to the people I'm in touch with, and they say that she was very radical," he told the ABC.

"She would try to enforce Islamic dress, that she made people - along with another woman - go to their tents [and] make them repent any supposed sins they committed, to say the Shahada [Islamic declaration of faith]," he said.

His source alleged that an ideological disagreement with another camp resident led to violence.

"In 2021, she allegedly hit a woman with a hammer," he said.

His source also said she spent a lot of time talking online to IS men to solicit donations from them.

He said his contacts said there was no evidence that Ms Abby was coerced into following IS ideology in the camps.

"There are a number of women in the camps, of course, including the women that I talk to, who have renounced ISIS - they no longer follow the ISIS dress code, and they can function in the camp.

"The women who are still devoted to ISIS are doing so by choice, and they can be a threat to other women in the camp," he said.

Connections to the highly radicalised

The camp security source who spoke to the ABC also said Ms Abby was "very close" to a family which includes Khadra Essa - a Dutch-Somali woman who the US State Department said "advocated the use of violence and encouraged other ISIS members to conduct attacks in multiple countries". The State Department has put a USD$5 million bounty on her head.

Essa, also known as Umm Qaqa al-Somali, is accused of being the chief Sharia instructor of an all-female fighting battalion that formed in Raqqa in 2016 called the Nusaybah Katibah (ISIS-NK), and is trained in using weapons, explosives, and carrying out suicide operations.

"Additionally, she has taught ISIS extremist ideology that justified suicide operations and killing of civilians and has recruited new members for ISIS," the State Department said.

Essa is most well-known for her role in allegedly hiding two US-born children who had been taken to the self-declared IS caliphate by their mother, who died in an air strike.

"In 2019, she held US siblings Yusuf and Zahra Shikder and took them to an undisclosed location in Syria after their mother died during a military strike against ISIS forces," the State Department said.

Mr Galbraith has been looking for Yusuf and Zahra but said they have "simply disappeared".

"Radical ISIS women hid other people's children to keep them from going to families who might be unbelievers," he said.

"Keeping children in miserable conditions and away from their families is yet another example of the cruelty of ISIS and its adherents. Cruel to the families and cruel to the children," he said.

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Khadra Essa is also the sister-in-law of Australian doctor Tareq Kamleh, who travelled to Syria to join IS. He took the name Abu Yousef al-Australie but was dubbed "Dr Jihad" by the media. He worked in paediatrics in Raqqa and appeared in two IS propaganda videos. It's believed he was killed in Syria in 2018.

Several years ago, Mr Galbraith discovered Kamleh's wife and the sister of Khadra Essa - Umm Yakeen - was hiding a US-born child whose mother had died in an air strike. Mr Galbraith managed to get the child repatriated to her extended family in America.

"The Essa family not only adhere to an extreme form of ISIS ideology, but they are participants and significant actors in crimes that are part of ISIS, that is to say, kidnapping and hiding children among other things," Mr Galbraith said.

It's not clear when all allegations about Ms Abby's time in the camp occurred or if they are reflective of her most recent behaviour and views.

"Being held in a closed detention camp since 2019 has a very different experience on different women who have been held there," Devorah Margolin, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said.

Dr Margolin has been tracking the detention of people linked to the Islamic State since 2017.

"Some came in extremely radicalised by the Islamic State, having been bought into the ideology, and the longer they were in detention, the more they saw that the Islamic State was not coming for them, the more disenfranchised they became," she told the ABC from Washington DC.

"Others felt the experience that their countries of origin were leaving them in these detention camps, not repatriating them, was enough of a radicalising factor."

As of March this year, the US State Department reported that 2,454 people remain in the al-Roj camp, with most being foreign nationals.

Dr Margolin said in more recent years, security problems that had long existed in the larger al Hol camp began to appear in the much smaller al Roj camp.

"It includes policing of other women, hurting and beating other women, it includes things such as attacking Syrian Democratic Forces that are running the camp and NGOs and creating almost no-go zones in the camp that security and NGO workers were not able to access because those allied to the Islamic State were creating their own communities in the camp," she said.

Return permit issued

The ABC previously revealed that Hodan Abby is alleged to have been known as Umm Osama in the so-called IS caliphate and allegedly abused a Yazidi girl who was enslaved in her home for several months in 2016.

Ms Abby was forbidden from returning home earlier this year after the Home Affairs Department issued her with a temporary exclusion order (TEO), designed to prevent someone who poses a terrorism or security threat from returning to Australia.

Last month, she was issued a return permit. It’s believed she is still in Syria with her daughter, who reportedly has shrapnel injuries and needs surgery that she has been unable to get abroad.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the agencies under his portfolio know where she was but would not elaborate on the details.

"Having seen some people who returned be arrested on arrival at the airport, she'd be weighing up the different things that she's done and would be making a decision as to whether or not she, in fact, ever returns," he told ABC News Breakfast.

Donald Rothwell, an international law expert at Australian National University, said these latest allegations likely informed the government's decision to issue the TEO, and could form the basis of charges against Ms Abby.

"One can only speculate at the moment as to what those charges could be, but the Commonwealth criminal code under Australian federal law creates a raft of offences generally within the category of a crime against humanity, which would fall into some of the categories that have been alleged with respect to Hodan Abbey's conduct," he said.

Mr Burke did not rule out charges being laid.

"Our agencies continue to build evidence," he said.

"Sometimes people have been arrested at the airport.

"Sometimes, as you've seen as well, we've continued to collect additional evidence after their arrival and arrests have happened later."

The ABC has contacted her family and lawyers for comment, but has received no response.

The AFP has said they have "no comment" when asked if they are aware of the allegations or have plans to charge Ms Abby.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-13/australian-is-hodan-abby-inside-al-roj-camp-syria/106895922

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Police investigating Andrew plan to talk to Virginia Giuffre’s family in US

Thames Valley police want to speak to relatives about her allegations of sexual assault against Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

Josie Ensor and Fiona Hamilton - July 10 2026

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Detectives investigating Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor are preparing to travel to the United States to speak with the family of his accuser Virginia Giuffre, The Times has learnt.

Thames Valley police want to talk to relatives of Giuffre, who died in April last year, about her allegations of sexual assault against Andrew.

Andrew’s former role as a trade envoy is at the centre of Thames Valley’s investigation into alleged misconduct in public office after revelations in the mass dump of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the paedophile financier.

However, detectives have issued a wider appeal for information and are also assessing allegations that another woman was sent to the UK in 2010 by Epstein for a sexual encounter with Andrew at Royal Lodge. Andrew has always denied wrongdoing.

After he was arrested on his 66th birthday Giuffre’s family issued a statement thanking Thames Valley and saying that “our broken hearts have been lifted at the news that no one is above the law, not even royalty”.

It is understood detectives are planning to visit Giuffre’s brother and sister-in-law, Sky and Amanda Roberts, in the coming weeks. It will not be a formal interview as they are not considered direct witnesses to the allegations. However, the family are in contact with detectives and revealed they would be visiting the US soon. Thames Valley have already sought files in the case from the Met, and are likely to speak with Andrew’s former protection officers.

In 2022, Andrew paid a £12 million settlement to Giuffre, who claimed he sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was 17. Andrew denied wrongdoing and said he did not remember meeting Giuffre.

She killed herself in April last year aged 41. Her family were disappointed by the Met’s failure to carry out a full inquiry into her allegations, but believe that Thames Valley have been “very proactive”.

It is unclear whether Thames Valley has received the required permission from US authorities to travel and conduct interviews.

Sky and Amanda Roberts will seek a meeting with the new prime minister during a trip to the UK later this year.

Millions of documents were released by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) that suggested Andrew forwarded confidential government itineraries and commercial reports to Epstein.

While those documents will be crucial for any prosecution, The Times understands that the DoJ has still not released material from the Epstein files to British police.

That is despite a trip to Washington in March by Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, who pressed for the release of unredacted exchanges. The Met is investigating Lord Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the US, for alleged misconduct in public office. Mandelson denies wrongdoing.

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The Met interviewed Giuffre in July 2015 after she made complaints of trafficking for sexual exploitation by Epstein, who died in his prison cell in New York four years later, and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. However, the force did not launch a full-blown investigation, saying there was no allegation of criminal conduct against any UK based-citizens, and that any investigation into human trafficking would be largely focused on activities outside the UK and perpetrators based overseas.

The Met has reviewed the case on a series of occasions including late last year, months after Giuffre’s death, and its position remains unchanged. Thames Valley police officers are understood to be seeking records in relation to its interviews and decision-making process.

Andrew’s royal protection officers could be approached given they stayed with him at properties owned by Epstein and were instructed to provide security at his New York home, according to the Epstein files.

Thames Valley has been clear that its investigation is not limited. Detectives are still assessing allegations that a woman was trafficked to the UK by Epstein for a sexual encounter with Andrew before she was given a tour of Buckingham Palace. Her lawyer has given a statement to police but she has not been interviewed. There have been reports she has decided not to pursue a formal criminal complaint, citing fears over loss of privacy and unwanted publicity.

In an appeal in May, Oliver Wright, assistant chief ­constable at Thames Valley, said that there were a “number of aspects of alleged misconduct that the investigation is ­examining”.

He added: “Misconduct in public office is a crime that can take ­different forms, making this a complex investigation. We are committed to conducting a thorough investigation into all ­reasonable lines of inquiry, wherever they may lead. We encourage anyone with information to get in touch.”

Andrew has been contacted for contact. Thames Valley said it cannot go into specifics of its investigation but it was following “all reasonable lines of inquiry”.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/royal-family/article/andrew-mountbatten-windsor-us-virginia-giuffre-fgdc6xd0s

Derryn Hinch, the 'human headline', former senator and broadcaster, dies aged 82

Melissa Brown - 10 July 2026

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Derryn Hinch, the outspoken - and at times controversial - broadcaster and former senator, has died aged 82.

The barnstorming journalist was known for his distinctive broadcast style, honed over decades in the media, as well as his law-breaking crusades to expose sex offenders that earned him several stints in jail.

His death was confirmed on-air on his former radio station, 3AW.

The ABC confirmed the former senator had died in his sleep this morning.

Former colleague Peter Ford told 3AW Hinch was an important figure in the history of the radio station.

"It is one of those moments when you think that was an extraordinary life and career," he said.

"It's an amazing story of somebody who, as a young guy in rural New Zealand, had dreams of getting into journalism and slowly but surely, boy, did he do that.

"Apart from having a really good journalist's mind for a story, he knew how to write a story, how to present a story … he knew a good yarn when he heard it.

"Now that wasn't to say, of course, that he wasn't provocative; he stirred the pot a lot, he upset people a lot, and he saw that almost as being validation of doing his job well."

Denis O'Kane had a long working relationship with Hinch since the late 1970s , and remained close friends with him over the decades.

He told 3AW that he saw Hinch recently.

"Derryn hadn't changed, a lot of fun, serious guy to a lot of people but also when you're out with him, he was so much fun," he said.

"A great man … and we love him very much."

Loud and opinionated from the start

In early 2025, Hinch was sitting in a cafe in Melbourne when he was approached by a woman.

She wanted to read his 2010 autobiography about his then 50 years in the media, Human Headlines, but her local library had a waiting list to borrow it.

The conversation made Hinch realise how many more chapters needed to be added to his life story.

"I've had a little bit transpire - been to jail, been a senator, so a few things have happened," Hinch told the ABC at the time.

Born in New Zealand, Hinch began his long career at The Taranaki Herald in 1960, at the age of 15.

Just a few years later, he moved to Australia, taking on the police round at The Sun newspaper in Sydney.

Over the next six decades, he landed roles in nearly every arm of the media … and often told people he was sacked from "16 or 17" of them.

His time working for Fairfax in New York in the late 1960s and 70s was noted in a speech delivered by his contemporary, Ray Martin, at Hinch's 2018 induction into the Australian Media Hall of Fame.

Martin revealed that Hinch's trademark style of being loud and highly opinionated was established early in his career.

"He flaunted more company credit cards and pulled off more front-page scoops than any other compatriot," Martin told the ceremony.

Martin recalled being taken to task by his own ABC editors for not having as many contacts inside the UN as Hinch, or the same headline-grabbing quotes from within its corridors.

"Whenever I challenged the veracity of some of those diplomatic sources - as I occasionally did - Hinch's retort would be to ask somewhat rhetorically, 'Listen, did your story lead the bulletin? Did it make the front page of the First Edition? No? Well, end of section, Sunshine.'"

From fame to infamy

While in the US, Hinch provided live commentary of the Apollo 11 launch for Sydney radio station 2GB in 1969.

A snippet of the broadcast was replayed during an interview with ABC Radio Melbourne breakfast hosts Sharnelle Vella and Bob Murphy.

"That still gives me goosebumps when I hear that," he told the pair.

"I was a real radio rookie. I was a print journo. It wasn't a bad way to start my radio career, though."

Over the decades, Hinch drifted in and out of talkback radio in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide - including ratings-winning slots on 3AW.

He appeared as a panellist on the TV talk show Beauty and the Beast, hosted The Midday Show on the Nine Network and, in more recent years, was a commentator for various news programs on Seven and Sky News.

But it was his eponymous current affairs shows on Seven and Ten that made Hinch one of the most recognisable faces on television in the late 1980s and 90s.

He was equally known for his unabashed opinions and his catchphrases - "That's life" and "Shame, shame, shame" - which were most famously parodied by Steve Vizard on the comedy show Fast Forward.

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He also became infamous for flouting contempt-of-court laws regarding sex offenders, which saw him convicted three times.

He was fined and jailed for 12 days in 1987 for identifying paedophile Catholic priest Michael Glennon while a criminal trial was pending.

He spent five months in home detention in 2011 for breaching suppression orders over two other offenders.

A few years later, he opted to spend 50 days in prison rather than pay a $100,000 fine for airing details about the criminal history of Adrian Ernest Bailey, the killer of ABC employee Jill Meagher.

Hinch claimed the public's right to know about sex offenders was more important than laws of contempt and sub judice.

Looking back on his time on the inside, he told triple j Hack: "People get it too cushy in jail. I had more quality meat in the week than most pensioners would get in the month.

"Judges and magistrates are out of touch with community expectations on sentencing."

Social justice issues were of such importance to Hinch that he decided to enter politics at the age of 72.

A public sex offender register was one of the key platforms of his campaign when running for the Senate.

He was successful, serving from 2016 to 2019.

The oldest first-time senator, he was credited with the introduction of a new law restricting the overseas travel of convicted paedophiles.

He was also instrumental in relaxing the rules around the types of photos the media could take in the Senate, even though he himself had been photographed asleep in parliament.

He formed his own political party, the Derryn Hinch Justice Party, with his candidates winning three seats in the 2018 Victorian election.

The party advocated for tougher sentences for sexual and violent offences.

None of the candidates were successful in the 2022 Victorian state election, leading to him dissolving the party, which he described as "one of the saddest moments of my life".

Through sickness and in health

Hinch wrote more than a dozen books, and revealed in 2025 that he was indeed working on those additions to his autobiography.

Among the memoirs and tell-alls were guides to everything from winning the board game Scrabble to coping with grief, heartbreak and illness.

On the last two subjects, he was well versed.

The marriage equality supporter was wed five times, including to theatre, TV and film actor Jacki Weaver, with whom he appeared in the film clip for John Farnham's hit song You're the Voice.

In an ABC interview, he recalled an amusing encounter with the young actor who played the couple's daughter in the video clip.

"When I was campaigning for the Senate, a woman walked up to me and said, 'Oh Derryn, hi. I'm your daughter!' which is what you don't need to hear when you're on the campaign trail," he laughed.

It was while he was a senator that Hinch had one of several medical scares, suffering a brain injury after falling from an Uber in Melbourne.

A revelation that he had consumed two glasses of wine before the incident attracted some criticism, as Hinch had been the recipient of a liver transplant in 2011 after being diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and inoperable liver cancer.

"I drink occasionally, and I'm not stupid," he told Sky News at the time.

"You've got to live your life."

His contemporary, Ray Martin, provided what could be considered the last word on Hinch's six decades in the media while inducting him into the Australian Media Hall of Fame in 2018.

"Senator Derryn Hinch has been a colourful, megaphone-campaigning, ground-breaking journalist. He has always pursued the story as ambitiously and doggedly as the headline. He has long been amongst the very best tabloid reporters in Australia, a special skill that should be recognised and rewarded. He has also consistently been on the 'decent' side of most public debates.

"Derryn Nigel Hinch truly deserves the accolades. He is a legend of Australian journalism."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-10/derryn-hinch-obituary-media-broadcaster-former-politician/105893604

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-10/tributes-for-derryn-hinch-after-his-death/106902058

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He wasn't perfect, but Derryn Hinch confronted sexual abuse when others turned a blind eye

Russell Jackson - 11 July 2026

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It was a classic Derryn Hinchism: "Who's looking after the children?"

Verbose? Certainly. Self-aggrandising? Perhaps a little. But when Hinch first started asking it in the 1980s, too few others who possessed the megaphone of mass media seemed to give a single damn.

With Hinch's death on Friday, a large and remarkable chunk of Australia's tabloid media history died with the "Human Headline". Obituarists will grapple with a confusing legacy but permit me the personal perspective of a present-day journalist who recently had a meaningful opportunity to reappraise Hinch's efforts for sexual abuse survivors.

A few years ago, when ABC Investigations started unravelling the horror story of the Victorian Education Department's multi-decade cover-up of rampant child sexual abuse, we were stunned to realise that a scandal so widespread and devastating could have passed with so little media attention.

Thanks to a series of government inquiries, we now understand it as a crisis to rank with the worst excesses of the Catholic Church: for decades, sexually abusive teachers were shuffled all over the state rather than being sacked and reported to police; for decades, the government effectively covered it up; for decades, the reputation of the school system was put ahead of child safety, and the societal consequences were disastrous.

But before all that, a most glaring question had presented itself: if so many people had known this human tragedy was unfolding in plain sight, why had nobody in the media shouted it from the rooftops?

Actually, we were amazed to discover, one man had: Derryn Hinch.

A scenario that seemed too crazy to be true

During our investigations, a former detective in one of Victoria Police's nascent child protection units told us that due to the 12-month statute of limitations to press charges against offenders in the 1980s, not to mention the inaction of the education department, he and colleagues often felt powerless in their attempts to take down sexually abusive government school teachers. In such situations, he said, their last resort was Hinch.

Which is how readers of The Sun newspaper were greeted one Saturday morning in June, 1990, by a blistering Hinch editorial that began: "I want to accuse some of the top echelon of the Victorian Education Department of negligence."

Decades before the inquiries, long before anyone else cared, Hinch explained a scenario that seemed too crazy to be true: in the full knowledge of the Victorian government, the principal of a primary school in Melbourne's western suburbs had been allowed to sexually abuse children for an entire decade. This was despite a written warning from Victoria Police that he was a danger to children.

The rampant, decades-long sexual offending of Braybrook Primary principal Richard "Dick" Ross is now a notorious case in Melbourne legal circles. His crimes have cost the Victorian government many millions of dollars in compensation payouts to survivors.

But even 36 years on, the specifics of the case as outlined in Hinch's article still have the power to stun.

"[Ross] pleaded guilty in court this week to charges of sexual penetration of a child under the age of 16 and indecent assault," Hinch wrote.

"Apparently a lot of people knew he was a perv - including the Education Department. But year after year, nothing was done about it.

"His offences against children - the ones he pleaded guilty to - happened since 1980. An important date because the Education Department - the supposed protector of your children during school hours - knew about his habits in February 1981.

"They knew because a senior police officer wrote to the department and explained in explicit detail what the headmaster of the school had been up to in 1980."

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For Hinch, Richard Ross's prosecution and sacking from his job had been far too long coming and the affair was not without its own complications for Hinch and Pamela Graham, a reporter on Hinch's eponymous TV program.

Their stories had commenced six months earlier, but rather than serving as a clarion call to other media outlets who should have followed them up with vigour, they resulted in Hinch and Graham being lashed: the Australian Journalists Association ethics committee fined Graham $500 for her methods in obtaining the original story in 1989.

Without such fearless reporting, Ross undoubtedly would have gone on abusing children. Even with it in the public domain, the opportunity to confront the full horror of the Victorian Education Department's system of cover-ups was inexcusably missed.

It was, Hinch later told us, a case of weary rivals saying: "it's just Hinch being Hinch". There are former journalists of Hinch's vintage who now grimace to consider it.

Age did not quell Hinch's sense of injustice

Whatever one might think about Hinch's propensity to shoot his mouth off before thinking, or his reckless and often counterproductive forays into vigilantism, his willingness to stand up for society's most vulnerable clearly derived from a strong and unwavering moral conviction.

When ABC Investigations sat down with him to talk about the Richard Ross case, not even the passage of 35 years had quelled Hinch's sense of injustice. An old, ill and quite frail man by then, he still bristled with anger and outrage as he recounted the story. In my head, I can still hear him berating the faceless bureaucrats: "It was an absolute disgrace!"

Had he screwed a few things up along the way? Undoubtedly, Hinch said. We told him that some survivors of Paul Bussey, another sexually abusive Victorian government schoolteacher, still lamented Hinch's decision not to blur their faces in a TV story about Bussey's crimes.

Hinch said he could understand where they were coming from. During his childhood in New Zealand, Hinch suffered sexual abuse himself - an episode he later recounted in his memoirs, and whose specifics seem a kind of template to his career. Hinch's parents found out almost immediately, believed him and with a fury that clearly lingered in his subconscious, chased his abuser out of town.

Hinch, we must now assume, learned that even if those who harm children are sometimes destined to evade the law, the rest of us should not give up the fight to expose their wrongdoing. A Melbourne lawyer once said that Hinch had never turned down an opportunity to appear in court on behalf of a survivor of sexual abuse.

Who's looking after the children? Say what you like about him, but Derryn Hinch tried.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-11/derryn-hinch-pursuit-of-justice-over-child-sexual-abuse/106902540

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In a court document, the AFP said they wanted to name Tait to help parents identify the last 22 children in the files, using swatches of clothing patterns and distinctive items.

“Whilst it is likely that some victims may never be positively identified due to the nature of the images … there are some images where I consider that a level of public outreach could assist in positively identifying additional victims,” AFP Commander Brett James wrote in the document.

James said the AFP wanted to release “sanitised images” on a website along with a list of the centres where he worked, to identify the children.

“(Two images) depict a puffer vest with a distinctive dinosaur pattern and a pink and gold backpack,” James wrote.

The unique items could be recognised by parents, who could come forward to police, detectives hope.

Police want to establish a local contact point which would allow parents to easily get information about the case and contact detectives with information.

Tait launched an eleventh-hour bid to keep his name secret one day before the order expired. The case returned to Parramatta Local Court on Monday for a hearing into whether the order concealing his identity should be made permanent.

Tait argued his right to a fair trial would be put at risk if his name was released in connection with the allegations.

But this masthead’s executive counsel, Larina Alick, told the court that the sheer numbers of alleged victims and centres in Operation Moonbi has made it impossible to keep the man’s identity secret.

“The accused’s name and workplaces are already not a secret, there has been disclosure by the AFP to 121 families in the local community,” Alick said on Monday.

“The idea this is somehow a secret to be protected is not true. The social media posts indicate this is the worst-kept secret in that community.

“Of course people will talk.”

Alick said identifying the workplaces, but not the man himself, would cast aspersions on all male staff in the centres.

“They will all be accused of these very serious offences, including the other men who work there … all of those men become ‘the accused’ if we can’t name this man,” Alick said.

Judge Stuart Devine was “not convinced” that media publication of the allegations against Tait would prejudice a jury when it comes to trial.

Further, Devine said, it was significant that the AFP needed to identify Tait’s workplaces publicly to carry on their investigations.

“In this case the applicant’s evidence has not persuaded me,” Devine said.

“I do not accept publication of the accused[’s] name and workplaces will cause incurable prejudice … to the contrary I find a NPO would frustrate attempts of the Australian Federal Police.”

Furious parents over the last fortnight have fired off emails, DMs and formed social media groups urging for the man to be publicly identified.

Some parents were at the hearing on Monday, eager for the name to be released.

One former employer also released a statement saying they wished Tait would be named, so they can properly address the fury from parents.

The AFP’s lawyers warned the court the investigation would be “prejudiced” if the names are kept secret any longer, because they will prevent the public from helping.

“The AFP should have the opportunity to identify the remaining potential victims,” the AFP’s lawyer said.

“The AFP’s approach is not to name the target of the investigation. The difficulty is identifying the places at which he worked will essentially identify him … It’s an all or nothing situation.”

AFP Acting Commissioner Luke Needham alleged that Tait shared abuse material overseas on three occasions during the “horrific” offending.

“The abuse of trust we allege has occurred is devastating and will have lifelong ramifications for victims and their families,” Needham told reporters after the court hearing.

“As a parent myself, I’m acutely aware of how distressing this news is.”

The AFP set up a similar contact point after asking a court to lift a suppression order over confessed childcare paedophile David James, to identify the centres in which he had worked.

This masthead was in that case also aware of James’ identity and fought to have the order lifted only once investigators had reached out to directly impacted parents.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/revealed-accused-sydney-daycare-paedophile-who-abused-more-than-150-children-20260629-p60aum.html

https://www.afp.gov.au/news-centre/media-release/victims-notified-local-contact-point-established-sydney-childcare-worker

https://www.afp.gov.au/news-centre/community-information/operation-moonbi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df-jxV_Mz5M

>>24824608

Childcare centres where alleged abuser Hamish Tait worked ban men from toileting duties

CLAREESE PACKER - July 13, 2026

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Four of the childcare centres where one of Australia’s worst alleged child abusers is accused of carrying out his alleged crimes have barred male educators from toileting and bathroom duties.

Hamish Tait can now be unmasked as the childcare worker facing 329 charges relating to the alleged sexual abuse of more than 136 children after a Sydney court overturned a suppression order on Monday.

Mr Tait, aged 35, is accused of carrying out the alleged abuse between 2009 to 2025 across multiple childcare centres in Sydney’s northwest.

A full list of the early childhood learning centres Mr Tait worked at or visited over the 16-year period has been released by the Australian Federal Police. It indicates he allegedly abused children at four Fit Kidz Learning Centres at Box Hill, Putney, Rouse Hill and Warrawee.

Fit Kidz has since banned male educators from toileting and bathroom duties across all of its centres unless they have received written consent from parents, according to a statement on the company’s website last week.

The move is a precautionary one and there is no allegation that those male educators engaged in wrongdoing.

“Philosophically this doesn’t always sit well, but for now, and the foreseeable future, we have our males on stand down from bathroom and toileting since last year,” the statement read.

Phones that were kept in the centres to take photos have also been taken out, with the company issuing an apology and rejecting accusations swirling on social media that it had tried to “cover up” Mr Tait’s alleged offending.

“The devastation caused by this situation is difficult to put into words, and our thoughts remain firmly with the children, families, educators and wider community who have been impacted,” the apology read.

“Regardless, a number of these alleged offences have occurred on our watch, and we are profoundly sorry.

“Nothing is more important to us or more sacred to our contract with our parents than to keep children safe in our care. It is utterly sickening and absolutely devastating to us and our entire team.”

The company rejected allegations aired on social media that it had tried to help “cover up” Mr Tati’s alleged abuse, explaining it had no involvement in orders made by a court that prevented Mr Tait’s identity from being revealed.

The statement said the company had “never had any interest in protecting a person whose (alleged) actions have caused such profound harm to so many”, asking people to let facts guide any criticism of the centres.

“There has been no cover up! And contrary to a persistent theme online – nobody is protecting the alleged offender,” the statement read.

It’s understood a series of social media posts were made about Mr Tait and his work history over the last year despite a court order prohibiting the publication of his identity.

Grim search for 22 alleged childcare victims.

The AFP has identified 136 alleged victims from 121 families across Sydney, but there are a further 22 potential victims investigators are trying to identify.

All the alleged victims were either preschool or primary school aged, with AFP Acting Commander Luke Needham calling the alleged abuse “devastating”.

“All I can say is we never gave up, and we never will.”

Mr Tait now faces a total of 329 charges after he was hit with more than 100 fresh charges last week, making him one of the country’s worst alleged child abusers.

He had fought to keep his identity suppressed, but a judge on Monday ruled in favour of the AFP, prosecutors, and the media who had all opposed his bid for secrecy.

Mr Tait came to the attention of the AFP in June 2025 after they were alerted by the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children that child abuse had allegedly been uploaded online.

More than two million files were seized from the man’s devices during a search warrant, with a large volume of CAM allegedly found.

The AFP further allege Mr Tait shared child abuse material overseas on three occasions, but Mr Needham said there was no evidence to suggest he had uploaded anything to the dark web.

Most of the alleged offending occurred in NSW, however Mr Needham said there was some “limited offending” in another state.

(continued)

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The AFP have listed all of the early childhood education facilities Mr Tait worked at or visited on their website for the taskforce Operation Moonbi, which includes a series of Fit Kidz learning centres.

The website also includes advice on support services and who to contact should people require further assistance.

“There are 22 victims who we are yet to positively identify and that’s why I would point the community to our website … We would ask the community to consider what they might be able to share with the AFP which we hope goes some way in assisting us in identifying those other 22 (alleged) victims,” he said.

“As a parent myself, I’m acutely aware of how distressing this news is.”

Some of Mr Tait’s alleged victims could now be adults due to how far back the alleged abuse spans, Mr Needham said.

Alleged child abuser loses secrecy bid

Mr Tait is facing more than 160 counts related to allegations he produced child abuse material (CAM) and 46 allegations he used a child under the age of 14 to make CAM.

The remaining charges include a series of accusations that he sexually touched children aged under 10, filmed a person in a private act without consent, filmed a person’s private parts without consent, and used a carriage service to make child abuse available.

His identity had been subject to a temporary suppression order originally sought by the AFP to protect their investigation, however the agency fought against Mr Tait’s bid for an extended order which would have kept his identity a secret.

Mr Tait’s lawyers argued naming him and his former workplaces could prejudice a potential jury or juries and suggested the AFP could pursue other options in seeking to identify further alleged victims without naming Mr Tait.

The AFP in turn argued its ongoing investigation could be prejudiced if an order were to be made, and authorities should have the opportunity to identify any remaining potential victims.

Judge Peter Feather ultimately ruled against Mr Tait, telling the court his evidence “has not persuaded me”.

He rejected submissions that the publication of his name would incurably prejudice and hinder the administration of justice against Mr Tait.

“I find to make a non-publication order would frustrate the investigative attempts of the AFP which is part of the proper administration of justice,” Mr Feather told the Parramatta Local Court on Monday.

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said she was “deeply sickened and heartbroken” by reports of the alleged abuse.

“My thoughts are with all the victims and families who have been affected,” Ms Rowland said in a statement posted on social media.

“Every child and young person has the right to be safe, and parents should be able to drop their children off at childcare without fear for their safety.

“Child sexual abuse is an abhorrent crime, and anyone who has committed such vile acts must face the full force of the law.”

Minister for Education Jason Clare said “not enough has been done in the past to keep our kids safe”, but that “that’s now changing” while speaking generally on Monday.

The government is investing half a billion dollars to support safety reforms across the childcare sector, and have passed legislation to allow funding to be cut from centres that aren’t up to scratch.

“This is not the end. It’s just the start. The terrible truth is this work will never end,” Mr Clare said while speaking generally.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/breaking-news/sydney-childcare-worker-facing-329-allegations-of-child-abuse-as-police-hit-him-with-more-than-100-new-charges/news-story/cc52d36f5585b3cda19dad2e88990d4b

https://www.afp.gov.au/news-centre/media-release/victims-notified-local-contact-point-established-sydney-childcare-worker

https://www.afp.gov.au/news-centre/community-information/operation-moonbi

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The contact point received about 40 calls within hours of Tait’s identity being reported on Monday afternoon.

Politicians, parents and those who knew Tait reacted with shock as news spread of the allegations against the veteran day care worker.

One mother said she recognised Tait’s photograph in this masthead on Monday evening.

“I read it and was absolutely stick to my stomach – shaken to my core,” she said.

“As a parent, you put your trust in them and only to find out, years later, that he could be a paedophile? Devastating.”

The woman, who spoke anonymously, said parents felt Tait was “brilliant” in the years he taught their children.

“I was glad my daughter had a male childcare teacher, he was very personable, the kids seemed to love him and feel comfortable around him,” she said.

“This feels like a breach of trust. It’s completely unexpected.”

The mother is now considering reaching out to the AFP to get a definitive answer to a harrowing question – was her child one of the 22 unidentified youngsters allegedly filmed by Tait?

Online, hundreds more parents and teachers feared the same.

“Unfortunately, Windsor Preschool has been listed as one of the 62 Early Childhood Education facilities that it has been alleged Hamish Tait worked at or attended,” the preschool wrote online.

“There were no children in attendance and he did not have access to photos of any children.”

Another woman who worked with Tait urged people to reach out to the AFP.

“I worked alongside Hamish when I was 17 years old. I was completely unaware he had been jailed for the past year,” she wrote this month.

“My heart goes out to all families and [alleged] victims whose lives have been affected because of this man.”

Federal Attorney-General Michelle Rowland, whose community extends into Sydney’s north-west, where Tait was allegedly most active in his abuse, said she was “sickened and heartbroken” by the news.

“Every child and young person has the right to be safe, and parents should be able to drop their children off at childcare without fear for their safety,” Rowland said.

“Child sexual abuse is an abhorrent crime, and anyone who has committed such vile acts must face the full force of the law.”

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said the government was investing half a billion dollars to lift standards and safety across the centre.

It will include a national register for childcare workers and trialling CCTV in centres, along with banning workers’ personal phones.

“Not enough has been done in the past to keep our kids safe,” Clare said in a statement.

“This is not the end. It’s just the start. The terrible truth is this work will never end.”

Parents who believe their child had contact with Tait are being urged to reach out to the AFP’s contact point on (02) 9765 1000, from 7am to 7pm AEST.

Australian Federal Police - Operation Moonbi

https://www.afp.gov.au/news-centre/community-information/operation-moonbi

https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/police-fear-worst-day-care-paedophile-targeted-remote-indigenous-community-20260714-p60f4z.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvQ5PjdzWl0

>>24820726

‘TikTok dances in the car parks of Auschwitz’: Universities slammed at royal commission

Michael Bachelard - July 14, 2026

When Paris Enten went to Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic with her peers at university in 2024, she wasn’t there for a European summer holiday. She was there to better understand her beloved grandmother’s Holocaust experience – but she says her fellow students from Monash University did not feel the same way.

“People were doing TikTok dances in the car parks of Auschwitz and concentration camps,” Lenten told the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion on Tuesday.

“People complained about having to go to visit camps and ghettos where people were mass slaughtered because it was too early in the morning; they were still hungover … People made comments to the effect of, ‘Well, Jews weren’t really the main victims of the Holocaust,’” Enten said.

“If you’re going to be giggling in the Auschwitz car park, you’re not a friend to Jews.”

On the second day in Melbourne, Commissioner Virginia Bell heard a string of stories from staff and students on Australian university campuses, along with deep dissatisfaction about how institutions dealt with their complaints.

Professor Steven Prawer told the commission he was left fearful after a group of masked people occupied his office, and those identified ultimately had their punishments overturned.

A registered interpreter, who was given the pseudonym ACK, told the commission they had been forced to translate someone at a university saying in class, “Hitler didn’t have anything against Jewish people, he just didn’t want them to suffer”. ACK told the commission nobody in the classroom responded.

President of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students Jeremy Suss said of universities: “We’ve seen them minimise … they discredit reports of incidents. Their instant incident reporting mechanisms drag on for months … reporting of racism, reporting of harassment feels like it goes nowhere.”

Lenten said she had felt ostracised a number of times at Monash University because of her identity as a Zionist Jew.

The law student said that when taking a flyer from a left-wing activist on a refugee issue, she mentioned she had visited a kibbutz in Israel and was told, “we’re an anti-Zionist organisation”. Members of the group then started chanting slogans at her, and one activist said: “We won’t stop until people like you are kicked off campus”.

When she signed a petition for women’s rights after the US Supreme Court overturned the Roe v Wade judgment in 2022 – a year before the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza – an activist scratched her name out because she was Jewish.

“I think there was a crisis of antisemitism on campus already in 2021,” Lenten said.

After the Holocaust trip, she said she became what she described as “clinically traumatised”.

“I would hear people laughing in the street and for a split second assume they were laughing at me because for so much of the trip I was being laughed at, and my family was being laughed at,” she told the commission. “It took a really long time for me to return to a normal state.”

Speaking to reporters after providing evidence, Lenten said: “I started university incredibly naive, incredibly excited to meet people and to make friends … I was a happy-go-lucky kid.

“By the time I ended, I was jaded and traumatised and untrusting and very deeply angry and scared. And just a very different person.”

For Professor Steven Prawer, the University of Melbourne’s campus protest became deeply personal in 2024 when about 20 masked intruders occupied his office and told him he was guilty of genocide.

The physics professor recalled chants the group made that day, including: “‘Prawer, Prawer, you can’t hide. You’re guilty of genocide.’”

They also left behind an inverted red triangle – often used to denote terror organisation Hamas – and a message saying, “Your work will break your soul before it breaks the resistance.”

“Clearly, this was a highly personal attack,” Prawer said. “‘Break your soul’ is … not generic. It’s not a generic chant.”

Prawer said he was targeted by protesters because he had done work with the Commonwealth’s Defence Science and Technology Organisation and, separately, with a PhD program involving the Hebrew University in Israel.

However, he said these two projects had not been related, and protesters had conflated them to target him, a visible, kippah-wearing Jewish Zionist on campus.

(continued)

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The incursion into his office occurred about a year after the October 7 attack, where he walked in and found protesters wearing keffiyahs over their faces as makeshift masks.

“This is a classic terrorist pose,” Prawer told the commission.

“For the benefit of those who never experienced that, it’s a little bit like being in a bank and someone walking in with a balaclava over their head … I had no idea at that stage if it was a protest or if it was a terrorist attack.”

Prawer said that while the university’s response had initially been strong, he later became deeply disappointed with its handling of his complaints.

Months after the incursion, the institution identified four students involved and charged them with misconduct. However, Prawer said the university did not to tell him who they were. When two of the students were expelled, and two were suspended for a year, he was also not told.

“I didn’t hear about it because the university process is so opaque that they don’t make any announcements … But the students, or the four students, were outraged that they had been penalised, so they publicised it,” explaining how he came to learn of the action taken.

He said 150 university employees and affiliates had signed a petition saying the sit-ins were a legitimate form of protest and by punishing students, the University of Melbourne was violating academic freedom.

Several months later, the academic board overturned the student expulsions, and the two were instead suspended for a year.

“I still don’t know who they are, and I think for my protection also, I should know who these people are,” Prawer said. “Their suspensions will end in a week’s time, and I will have no idea if they’re on campus.”

The other intruders “got off scott-free”, Prawer said, and “must be having a giggle about how they’ve managed to remain here and managed to intimidate a professor without any consequences”.

In addition to the incursion, the words “Death to Israel. Death to USA. Death to Steven Prawer” were graffitied on a noticeboard – something the professor said left him and his family in fear of their lives, and significantly bumping up their vigilance at work and at home.

The University of Melbourne issued a statement on Tuesday saying it acknowledged the “significant impact” on Prawer and his family, and that it was providing him with ongoing support. Its interim vice-chancellor, Glyn Davis, will appear at the royal commission later this week.

Another academic, La Trobe University professor Dennis Altman, said he had been surprised by the focus on university protest, and how little talk there had been in the royal commission so far – which began on May 4 in Sydney – about neo-Nazis.

“I was surprised how little attention many of the people who talk about antisemitism have given to the rise of neo-Nazis,” Altman, a Jewish son of Holocaust survivors, told journalists on Tuesday after his appearance.

“If there’s one thing that scares me most as a Jew, it is the sight of 20 or 30 young men in black, obviously thirsting for some sort of attack,” he said.

“I think there is a real need for us to be much more aware of that, and perhaps less concerned about isolated incidents within universities.”

He also called for more discussion between sides.

“I think there are real problems in the way in which the Jewish community, which is clearly better able to work the system than Palestinian Australians … that the Jewish community seems to be making so little attempt at outreach and discussion with Australian Palestinians and Muslims.”

Jeremy Suss told the commission that after the Bondi Beach terror attack on December 14, 2025, where 15 Jews were killed at a Hanukkah event, student groups had shared images from the scene with “political slogans overlaid”.

“It’s cruel,” he said. “It’s a callous thing to do, and I was deeply shocked that student groups would do that.”

He also said that when Jewish students organise parties on campus, there is a risk of them being disrupted by protesters.

“We’ve seen people … finding out that it’s Jewish and sneaking in to then scream at people and berate them. And people are really nervous to go to a party,” he said.

Suss was also highly critical of institutions, saying: “I think that many universities have the tools to solve a lot of these issues and I think a lot of the time we’ve seen them delay.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/your-work-will-break-your-soul-professor-describes-masked-campus-protest-20260714-p60f2w.html

>>24820726

‘It’s a form of intimidation and unacceptable’: Vice-chancellor grilled on student protesters

Michael Bachelard - July 15, 2026

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The pro-Palestinian protest encampment at the University of Melbourne made it the least popular campus in Australia, its interim vice-chancellor has conceded, but says that was not enough to shut down the protest.

Professor Glyn Davis was the first of three university leaders to give evidence at the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in Melbourne on Wednesday, where he was taken through the chaotic on-campus incidents of 2024, when Israel’s war on Gaza was in full swing.

Under questioning, Davis defended the university’s actions in allowing the encampment to proceed, and its handling of Professor Steven Prawer’s office being invaded.

The commission also heard on Wednesday from the vice-chancellors of Sydney University and the University of NSW.

Sydney University Vice Chancellor Mark Scott used his appearance to apologise for his light-touch approach to a two-month pro-Palestinian encampment on his campus in mid-2024 and the harm it caused.

“I can see that our Jewish students and staff paid the price for that as the encampment dragged on, and I am sorry to them that it took that long for us to get it done, and I’m sorry we did not keep them more closely engaged and listen more intently to them as it was going,” Scott told the commission.

In a sometimes feisty encounter, Scott had to fend off criticisms that his campus remains unsafe for Jewish staff and students.

Melbourne University’s Davis, who was not in charge during the protest period, told Commissioner Virginia Bell that when encampments on the south lawn had been set up in early 2024, the university’s approach was to allow the protests as long as they did not present a threat to safety.

“There were constant discussions between the university security team and the leaders of the encampment and that was a shared objective,” Davis said.

He said the large presence of protesters in a high-traffic area of the campus, the “chants and singing and waving of banners”, and regular marches towards the central administrative building “made people nervous about their safety … [and] whether they’re welcome on campus”.

This was reflected in surveys which include a measure of student satisfaction with their time on campus.

“We got in 2024 our worst-ever scores, the worst in the sector … and I think students used that measure to tell us they were unhappy with what was going on,” Davis said.

Even so, the right to protest was upheld.

In early May 2024, the University of Melbourne received a letter from the deputy commissioner of Victoria Police asking it to “carefully consider the risks of whether to allow” a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus.

The letter read: “We assess the presence of permanent encampments, and any increase in size in those encampments, will likely lead to significant public safety risks.”

The atmosphere had changed, Davis said, when protesters occupied the Arts West building, erecting 20 tents with 50 protesters in residence in early May 2024.

Then-vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell ordered they leave the university grounds and warned that if they did not, they would be charged with trespassing. Still, the protesters stayed.

“There was significant damage to the building,” Davis told the commission. “There was damage in the adjacent building … people were coming in at night, red paint through the library.”

On May 22, 2024, the protesters and university negotiated an end to that protest. The university agreed to publish a list of its defence collaborations, yielding details of agreements with Boeing Aerostructures and Lockheed Martin, among US Defence Department collaborations worth $15.4 million.

Challenged by counsel assisting the royal commission Zelie Heger about whether it was appropriate for the university to negotiate with the protesters, Davis said: “The university was very clear … that this was unacceptable behaviour.”

He added: “On the other hand, the university does not have a police service, doesn’t have its own enforcement. Security guards who work at the university are not empowered to move people on – certainly are not empowered to arrest people for breaking the law. And only Victoria Police can decide that something is trespass.”

Davis said it took four police officers to forcibly remove one protester.

In response, the university changed its bylaws, which included an order that camping was not allowed on campus, and outsiders could not protest at the university.

(continued)

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Davis was also quizzed about the incursion into the office of Professor Steven Prawer, who appeared at the commission on Tuesday, where he recounted the moment he found about 20 masked pro-Palestinian protesters inside his office chanting, “Prawer, Prawer, you can’t hide. You’re guilty of genocide”.

Davis revealed on Wednesday the protesters had gained access because a new swipe card access point was being installed in response to earlier targeting of the professor.

“The only reason they got into the building was because the doors were open, so security people could put the security changes in place,” Davis said, adding, “life is full of ironies”.

Davis agreed the incursion was unacceptable, but pushed back against the professor’s complaint that the university had not kept him abreast of their investigation into the incident.

Though four students were identified and suspended in relation to incursion, Prawer said he still did not know their identities and was in fear because he could unknowingly encounter them on campus.

Davis told the commission that privacy and confidentiality were key to Melbourne University’s complaints process.

“We do not provide names of students to anybody in the process, and we do not publicise the outcomes of the process. There is no press release,” Davis said.

“Steven Prawer spoke eloquently yesterday about why he was distressed by that decision by the university. I can say it wasn’t made lightly. There was a whole set of internal processes to grapple with that question about whether to breach that principle in his case, and in the end, [the decision] was not to do so, and that was just a difficult, on-balance decision.”

Lawyer Gabi Crafti, who represents seven mainstream Jewish communal organisations, cross-examined Davis about a practice among some students during the height of the protests, where students would enter lectures before “inviting classes to vote on matters connected with the Middle East conflict, with the voting then being photographed or recorded” and put on social media.

Davis agreed this was clearly unacceptable.

“You’re filming people without their permission, but you’re also identifying people who don’t vote for your proposition, and you’re putting it on social media. So it’s a form of intimidation and unacceptable,” he said.

Rachel Doyle, representing the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, asked the vice-chancellor whether anyone had complained about antisemitism during the encampments.

“I’m not aware of any complaint of antisemitism in either,” Davis replied.

Doyle then addressed the broader questions about freedom of speech in the classroom.

“Have you read or heard of criticisms by lecturers in your law school that they’re concerned that their teaching and study about Israel in international law classes is at risk of being, and has been, criticised as being inherently antisemitic?” Doyle asked.

“I’m aware in general terms, but not of specific concerns,” Davis replied.

“It’s an interesting question across the campus where we teach around conflict in the Middle East. People tend to come to those classes with strong views, and it’s not uncommon to get criticism of those courses.”

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/it-s-a-form-of-intimidation-and-unacceptable-vice-chancellor-grilled-on-student-protesters-20260715-p60fep.html

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>>24665967 (pb)

Rayann El Houli: Court hears ISIS bride’s alleged lessons in slaying ‘disbelievers’

MOHAMMAD ALFARES - 14 July 2026

An accused Australian ISIS bride seeking freedom on bail had allegedly filmed herself training her toddlers how to use a rifle and demanded they show her how jihadist fighters “slaughter” an infidel.

The disturbing clips were not aired in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court because playing the footage would have distressed the 34-year-old accused, Rayann El Houli.

Instead, Ms El Houli teared up as harrowing transcripts of the videos she allegedly captured in Syria were read aloud.

She faces charges of being a member of a terrorist organisation and entering a declared conflict zone after allegedly fleeing Melbourne to join the caliphate in 2014.

Magistrate Brett Sonnet is expected to hand down his final decision on her release next week.

The court heard that over a two-year period, Ms El Houli allegedly recorded her young children being exposed to violent extremist media.

In one video from May 2015, Ms El Houli allegedly captured herself quizzing her eldest child – who was an toddler at the time – about Islamic State fighters while jihadi chants played in the background.

According to court transcripts, she asked the child who the “mujahidin” were and what happens to “disbelievers”.

When the child did not initially answer, Ms El Houli prompted them multiple times until the child repeated: “In the hellfire.”

In another video recorded in March 2016, Ms El Houli’s children – then aged just 2 years and 9 months, and 1 year and 9 months – were shown watching an ISIS media production. The footage featured a French jihadist singer and a commentator threatening to “fill your streets with terror” in the West.

During the screening, Ms El Houli’s youngest child was allegedly filmed raising her index finger in alignment with the commentary, before the accused asked: “What does the Mujahid do to the infidel?”

Raising the index finger in Islam is a gesture known as Tawhid, which signifies the indivisible oneness of God.

Only days later, Ms El Houli allegedly filmed her eldest child playing with a toy rifle. In the recording, she coached the toddler on how to hold the weapon like a “fighter” and asked: “Did you see how the Mujahideen kill the Kuffar (infidels) with the knife? Look at me. How did they slaughter them with the knife?

“Look at me, how do they slaughter the apostate? Show me how.”

According to police, Ms El Houli initially travelled to the conflict zone in September 2014 with her first husband, Allak Hamad, who was pictured carrying an automatic assault rifle before being killed in early 2015.

Ms El Houli then chose to enter into two more marriages with known Australian ISIS militants – Abdulkadehr Assaad (who was also killed) and Mohammed Noor Masri (whom she later divorced in an ISIS sharia court).

Police search warrants executed on Ms El Houli’s family in Australia further uncovered photos from 2018 showing an AK-47 automatic assault rifle left unsecured, leaning against a wall directly next to a bed where her young children slept.

Following the military defeat of the caliphate in 2019, the accused and her children spent more than six years interred in Syria’s Al-Hawl displaced persons camp before being smuggled into Lebanon and eventually returned to Australia in late 2025.

The AFP are fiercely opposing bail, stating she is an unacceptable risk to public safety and noting that since her return to Melbourne, Ms El Houli has flatly refused to participate in the government’s Counter Violent Extremism counselling program.

But as she shed tears in court on Tuesday, her high-profile defence lawyer Peter Morrissey SC told the court his client was no threat to the community.

“The risk alleged in this case is not a catastrophic risk,” Mr Morrissey said, highlighting a 10-year gap since the initial offending began.

Mr Morrissey, who successfully bailed former ISIS bride Kawsar Abbas last month, had painted a picture of a naive 21-year-old mother who “took the Kool-Aid” under strict “marital coercion” from her husband.

He argued that Ms El Houli was never an extremist “preacher” and has already suffered heavy consequences.

If Mr Sonnet grants bail next Monday, Ms El Houli is prepared to accept stringent conditions, including zero contact with individuals of concern to the police, and will reside under the supervision of her mother, who dialled into the courtroom.

Prosecutor Andrew Sprague argued that the volume of evidence comfortably proved Ms El Houli’s ideological alignment with ISIS and vehemently opposed bail.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/court-hears-accused-isis-bride-quizzed-toddler-about-killing-disbelievers/news-story/66e8a072885afd9d1b6bc926a2c3f437

>>24820676

Victorian Liberals to reject Moira Deeming’s last-ditch plea to mediate dispute

ANTHONY GALLOWAY - 15 July 2026

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The Victorian Liberal Party will reject Moira Deeming’s last-ditch bid to mediate her dispute after she argued she was being punished for following the party’s internal complaints process, amid conflicting accounts over who leaked her complaint against former opposition leader Matthew Guy.

Ms Deeming on Wednesday released a 12-page statement she had sent to the party’s state executive, proposing the matter be resolved through a joint statement acknowledging that Mr Guy’s actions were intended only as “a friendly gesture”, while affirming that she had acted “honestly, privately, in good faith and in accordance with the Liberal Party’s established processes”.

The party moved to disendorse Ms Deeming after she refused to apologise for making assault allegations against Mr Guy that were unable to be substantiated by police.

Ms Deeming on Wednesday told The Australian she “only refused to apologise for two things – making a fraudulent bad faith police complaint and leaking this to defame him”.

CCTV of the incident on May 23 showed Mr Guy – who vehemently denies any wrongdoing – putting his right arm across Ms Deeming’s shoulder during a conversation.

Multiple senior Victorian Liberal Party sources confirmed to The Australian that the party would proceed with Ms Deeming’s disendorsement and Friday’s one-day Supreme Court hearing, at which she is seeking orders preventing the party from taking that action.

Liberal leader Jess Wilson said on Wednesday “the matter is before the courts and it’s not appropriate to comment at this time”.

In her statement to state executive members, Ms Deeming said she was making inquiries into “how my private internal complaints to senior members within the Liberal Party came to be provided to Mr Guy, and from Mr Guy to journalists, while a police investigation was active”.

“Those enquiries are ongoing. The state executive should not act until all the facts are established,” she wrote.

Ms Deeming’s complaint, together with the CCTV footage, was first reported on June 24 by several media outlets, including The Australian.

But senior Liberal figures, who were not authorised to comment publicly on the complaint, said it is their understanding the complaint first reached the media through individuals with whom Ms Deeming had shared its contents, rather than through Mr Guy.

They said Mr Guy sought access to the CCTV footage from the May 23 Macedonian community function only after becoming aware of the complaint.

Ms Deeming disputes that account, saying in her statement that “I did not leak the story, brief journalists, or disclose my complaint. I had not even seen the CCTV footage until it appeared in the media”.

Ms Deeming alleged Mr Guy provided CCTV footage and excerpts of her confidential complaint to journalists while the police investigation was under way, and said she has sought legal advice into how her private communications became public.

Mr Guy was contacted for comment.

She doubled down on her accusation that she was “grabbed, held and pulled with force that caused me pain and distress” by Mr Guy during a Liberal Party event in May and subsequently sought to resolve the matter privately through senior party figures.

Ms Deeming said disendorsing her would set a dangerous precedent by discouraging party members from making confidential complaints.

“You may soon be asked to consider revoking my endorsement as the Party’s number one candidate for the Western Metropolitan Region, less than five months from the election,” she wrote.

“This decision extends well beyond my own endorsement. It will also establish an important precedent about whether party members may safely use our confidential complaints processes without fear of political reprisal.”

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Ms Deeming said she was instructed by the party to report the matter to Victoria Police in accordance with the party’s complaints policy after officials determined the incident involved physical contact.

She maintains her police statement was deliberately restrained and “does not contain the word ‘violent’ or ‘violence’ nor attribute malicious intent to Mr Guy”, arguing she simply reported what she believed had occurred.

“I cannot apologise for using the party’s confidential complaint processes,” she wrote.

The statement also detailed Ms Deeming’s previous experiences of sexual assault and PTSD, which she argues are relevant to understanding her reaction to the incident, together with what she describes as years of hostility from within the Liberal Party following her dispute with former leader John Pesutto.

She outlined a series of previous clashes with Mr Guy dating back to 2022, including claims she was excluded from campaign events and targeted during internal party disputes.

She also released a letter from Victoria Police to her lawyer Tim Houweling, confirming “a decision was made not to charge”.

Ms Deeming is arguing that a decision “not to charge” differs materially from Victoria Police’s original statement that “no offence was detected”.

At a press conference last month, Mr Guy said “there is no ambiguity, I did not do what’s alleged”.

“The CCTV proves this. It did from the start, and Victoria Police agree,” he said.

“Moira Deeming owes me a public apology.”

Describing the incident, Ms Deeming alleged Mr Guy “grabb[ed] hold of me firmly around the back of my neck and shoulders, gripped me painfully, and pulled me diagonally forward and downward towards him”.

She said the interaction caused panic and distress, adding: “No matter what Mr Guy thought he was doing, or why, the fact is that he subjected me to painful and forceful physical contact without my consent.”

The statement concludes with an appeal for unity before the November election, urging party leaders to resolve the dispute through confidential mediation rather than disendorsement and proposing a joint statement that would acknowledge Mr Guy intended only “a friendly gesture” while affirming that she acted “honestly, privately, in good faith and in accordance with the Liberal Party’s established processes”.

In a cover letter attached to the statement, Ms Deeming said she had the “legal and moral right to make good faith, confidential complaints internally and externally about unwanted, inappropriate, painful physical ‘grabbing’ of my body by men known to be hostile to me in this party”.

“On principle and out of necessity, I will defend myself against this disendorsement,” she said.

“That the Liberal Party would seek to disendorse me without any reasonable grounds, after having already allowed injustice, is disgraceful.

“And to triple down on such egregious institutional failures, five months before an election as though it were in ‘the best interests of the party’ could only prove the critics right about ‘who’ and ‘what’ the Liberals really stand for.

“I ask you to consider the attached statement and mediation proposal.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/moira-deemings-lastditch-plea-to-mediate-dispute/news-story/001159327e05b45d3a3d4f60e4535aed

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Joe Courtney: Donald Trump too soft on China’s Pacific missile launch

JOE KELLY - 15 July 2026

Joe Courtney, the key champion for AUKUS in the US congress, says that Donald Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio should have more forcefully condemned China for launching a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile in the South Pacific.

Mr Courtney, the Democratic co-chair of the bipartisan Friends of Australia Caucus, made clear the value of the landmark AUKUS agreement was in providing deterrence in the Indo-Pacific against a more aggressive China.

He said there was “no question that five years ago there was a recognition that the capacity of the Chinese Navy … really screamed out for countries and allies like the US, Australia (and) the UK to really come together and bring all their strengths to really balance the security environment and fundamentally restore real deterrence.”

Leaving the Australian American Leadership Dialogue in Pentagon City in Northern Virginia on Tuesday, Mr Courtney said China’s missile launch deserved the “strongest condemnation in terms of how disruptive and dangerous” it was.

The representative for Connecticut’s second congressional district expressed disappointment the reaction was limited to a brief State Department statement from spokesman Thomas Pigott warning that China’s “opaque nuclear weapons build-up” was “of great concern to the region and the world.”

Mr Courtney criticised Beijing for conducting the launch “with no warning” along with the “fecklessness of this administration in terms of just the hot and cold communication that comes out.”

“I think if you look at the National Defence Strategy that they put out there where China’s placement was right at the top, it just confounds me that they (the Trump administration) are that passive,” he said.

The launch of the missile by China on Monday July 6 came after Australia signed a far-reaching military alliance with Fiji that could be joined by other island nations.

The landmark Veitacini Treaty – also known as the Ocean of Peace Alliance – commits both nations to come to “act to meet the common danger” if either is attacked.

It marks Fiji’s first defence alliance and Australia’s fourth alongside its pacts with the US, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

The treaty also has a provision allowing other Pacific nations to sign up to the agreement of the original signatories. So far, New Zealand and Tonga have been flagged as possible additions.

A spokesman for the State Department told The Australian that Washington “welcomes recent Australian agreements with Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and other Pacific Island countries to expand development co-operation and strengthen security ties.”

“As a nation with deep ties to the Pacific, we continue to engage closely with Pacific Island countries, Australia, and other allies and partners to ensure the region’s security, stability, and prosperity.”

Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Courtney said he would have “absolutely” liked to have seen a stronger response from Mr Trump and Mr Rubio to the launch of the Chinese missile.

He would have liked the administration to more clearly identify the missile launch was taking place “in a part of the world that has a really pretty dark history in terms of nuclear testing.”

Mr Courtney also said that it really called into question China’s sincerity when it came to its rhetoric about maintaining peaceful coexistence with its neighbours.”

Chinese media outlet The Global Times defended the test as “both necessary and restrained”, warning countries in the region to “accept and get used to” China’s nuclear program.

Anthony Albanese said the firing of the missile was a “provocative act by China which does destabilise the region.”

“In particular, we point out that it is standard procedure for tests such as this … to be given 48 hours notice. This was not done on this occasion.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/courtney-trump-too-soft-on-chinas-pacific-missile-launch/news-story/400edb3edb58c68a6e5f573fa484b10d

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WA project approval seals Trump’s critical minerals pact

Michael Philipps - July 15, 2026

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A major WA project set to provide around 10 per cent of the world’s demand for gallium has been given the green light, marking a major development in the critical minerals pact signed by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Donald Trump last year.

Bauxite miner Alcoa is set to construct and manage the operation at the site of its Wagerup alumina refinery in the south west of WA after a final investment decision was made with the backing of three nations.

Australia, Japan and the United States will support the construction of the project in a bid to strengthen critical mineral supply chains between the countries.

The international support has allowed Alcoa to officially kick off the project, which was identified as a priority under a framework to secure supply in the mining and processing of critical minerals signed by Albanese and Trump last year

Production capacity is anticipated to be 100 tonnes per annum, representing about 10 per cent of the global demand for the critical mineral, which is used heavily in the manufacturing of electronics, including semiconductors.

Global supply of gallium is currently highly concentrated, but the mineral can be extracted during the bauxite-to-alumina refining process, meaning the material would come from Alcoa’s strip-mining venture in WA’s Darling Scarp.

Antimony, gallium and rare earths have been flagged as the first three minerals to be focused on under the $1.2 billion strategic reserve for critical minerals, with the Australian government identifying them as crucial to clean-energy and high-technology manufacturing, as well as advanced military equipment.

However, the process by which gallium will be extracted by Alcoa has raised eyebrows, especially given its tie-in with existing strip-mining operations in Perth’s northern jarrah forest.

Conservation Council of WA executive director Matt Roberts said the deal struck between the US and Australia highlighted that government support, funding and trade agreements were increasingly focused on defence – “not the energy transition that was pitched to Australians ahead of the last election”.

Roberts said the federal government had more than 15 years to take action on Alcoa’s clearing, which is currently operating under a “national interest” mining order exemption as its operations in WA are assessed.

He said the company was now allowed to continue bulldozing the forest under the “halo” of a critical minerals deal, on the eve of “tougher” new environment laws coming into effect.

“This exemption to support the gallium deal does nothing to protect the environment here in Western Australia, but it does demonstrate the federal government’s willingness to advance the interests of foreign powers and corporations,” Roberts said.

“There is no tenable excuse to support increased bauxite mining from an environmental perspective. Alcoa’s operations are pushing the Northern Jarrah Forest and the threatened species that rely on this habitat to the brink of extinction.”

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Australia’s financing is being provided through Export Finance Australia under the Critical Minerals Facility.

Resources Minister Madeleine King said Alcoa’s move would build supply chains that bolstered global technology, defence capability and economic security.

“Our national security and the security of our partners is built on the back of our resources sector,” she said.

Trade Minister Don Farrell said the investment marked a major step forward in securing resilient supply chains.

Alcoa president and chief executive William F Oplinger said the final investment decision reflected a shared commitment by governments and industry to strengthen critical mineral supply chains among partners.

“The project underscores the strategic importance of Western Australia and the role Alcoa’s operations play in delivering critical materials essential to the global economy,” he said.

According to Alcoa, when compared to the existing refinery, it will be a relatively small plant occupying less than 2 per cent of the overall refinery footprint.

Five production trains will be built in a phased manner and in an enclosed shed. The plant will be connected to the existing refinery with process liquor pumped to and from it.

Ion exchange technology will be used to extract the gallium from the refinery’s process liquor. According to Alcoa, ion exchange is considered a safer, cleaner and more efficient process than some other gallium extraction methods.

It is the second project for which government support has enabled a final investment decision following on from the US-Australia framework, with Arafura Rare Earths able to confirm its decision to ramp up operations in May.

https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/wa-project-approval-seals-trump-s-critical-minerals-pact-20260715-p60fk7.html

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University defends action on alleged Nazi salute, pro-Palestine encampment

Michael Bachelard - July 16, 2026

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When Monash University vice chancellor Sharon Pickering first heard students were planning a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on her campus in April 2024, she was on a flight stopover at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.

“Fortunately, I had Wi-Fi,” she told the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion on Thursday. “I sat in the lounge at JFK, and I watched the police come onto campus at Columbia [University], and I watched what happened. I needed to get home.”

On the fourth day of the commission’s scrutiny of Australian universities, Pickering’s evidence suggested she did things differently to some of her colleagues.

When she became aware non-students were on campus in the 40-tent encampment – and at pro-Israel counter-protests – Pickering had them removed using existing powers to get police to issue exclusion orders.

Monash set up CCTV cameras, and Pickering declined to negotiate directly with the protesters, insisting they go through the democratically elected student union –which they did not do.

When she saw an Instagram post saying “Zionists are not welcome on campus” she judged it was a “watershed” – that the words of the protest had moved from simply causing “offence … to real harm”.

The university made it clear to protesters in a statement that it would “not tolerate thinly disguised antisemitism”.

When it came to the controversial chants of “globalise the intifada”, and “from the river to the sea”, Pickering, a criminologist by training, said she had sought advice, then issued a warning to protesters that they faced investigation and possible sanction if they used them.

“There had been increasing, what I’m calling the atmospherics of hostility on campus, and we needed to calm things down,” Pickering told the commission on Thursday.

“What you’re contending with is, where are the justifiable limitations in a real community with real people, not as a legal abstract argument.

“The encampment had brought a level of hostility that was unacceptable … so we worked really hard with student organisations, the police, with our community … We did not seek to use any special powers. We simply used the policies and procedures that we had.”

Other vice chancellors from Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra who provided evidence to the commission this week have been more equivocal, saying a commitment to academic freedom had made a crackdown difficult, and they had wanted to avoid conflict with protesters.

University of Sydney vice chancellor Mark Scott, who apologised to Jewish staff and students, said on Wednesday that because the chants did not break the law, the issue was “hard for us to deal with”.

He also admitted he did not know whether non-students had been protesting on his campus.

Monash’s campus’s encampment lasted 17 days – compared to 110 days at the Australian National University (ANU) and 56 days at the University of Sydney.

Professor Rebekah Brown, the interim vice chancellor of the ANU, apologised to Jewish staff and students in her evidence.

“Jewish students and staff have an absolute right to feel safe, respected and heard on our campus, and I’m sorry that they didn’t,” Brown told commissioner Virginia Bell on Thursday.

“I’ve committed in my role, as long as I am the interim vice chancellor, to do better.”

Brown said she had been “very moved … very affected” by the evidence of former ANU student Liat, who gave evidence this week that she had felt unsafe when being taunted as a “baby killer” and “genocide supporter” during the encampment that ran between April and August 2024.

An expert on psychosocial hazards later told the university its encampment, Australia’s longest, “could lead to serious injury”.

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Under questioning on Thursday, Brown agreed that freedom of academic expression meant nobody had a right not to be offended. However, she said the university had not acted as well as it should have.

It had since upped the strength of its policies on psychosocial risks, was implementing an antisemitism policy and rolling out training, Brown said.

Though she had not been vice chancellor at the time, Brown agreed there “had been failures” with how ANU handled the protests in mid-2024.

Brown’s evidence came after the ANU’s acting provost, Professor Joan Leach, said the encampment was not broken up earlier because of a fear it would cause US-style violent confrontations with students.

Leach told the royal commission only one student had been disciplined as a result of the encampment, and not for antisemitism. She also related how students who appeared to mimic a Hitler moustache and a Nazi salute on a student livestream had been cleared in an internal investigation.

Asked about the encampment, Leach said the students were directed twice in May 2024 to disband for health and safety notices. They did not.

It was almost two months later, on July 23, 2024, that university authorities cut power to the site for reasons of electrical safety.

Despite a number of complaints from Jewish students that they felt unsafe on campus, particularly due to chants, the protest did not move until August 17, 2024.

Leach said the “images of students being pulled by police off campuses” in the US had been “very much on people’s minds”. The university wanted to bring the encampment to a close “peacefully, without violence, and with some agreement with the students”.

“In hindsight, that might appear naive or inadequate, but I do believe at the time there was a hope that the encampment could be brought to a peaceful end,” Leach said.

In the end, the university agreed to publish on its website details of investments it had with defence manufacturing firms.

During the protest period, the ANU Students’ Association held a notorious meeting in which Jewish students proposed that Hamas be condemned as a terror organisation.

During the meeting, allegations were made that a student performed a Nazi salute, and that another made a gesture indicating a Hitler moustache.

Leach told the royal commission an investigation cleared both students.

One student, Leach said, was found to have been using her finger to cover a facial feature they were uncomfortable with – “not a moustache gesture but a gesture this student commonly made in multiple contexts in multiple events”.

The alleged Nazi salute was not fully visible on the video, Leach said, and it was “very, very difficult to discern exactly what was going on”.

Both students were cleared, but the findings were not communicated to the Jewish students involved. The Jewish students did not find out the result of the investigation until the university revealed them at a Senate estimates hearing.

After the encampment at ANU, eight students were charged with misconduct because they had disobeyed university directions. None was charged over allegations of antisemitism and Leach told the royal commission seven of the eight were cleared.

The university has since begun a review into student conduct rules, and has prohibited tents and banned sleeping on campus.

Yasser Bakri, a lawyer representing the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, put to Leach that the university had acted poorly towards a Palestinian student during the encampment.

Bakri said the student applied for special consideration because multiple members of her family had died in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.

The course co-ordinator told the young woman she needed to provide a death certificate for every member of her family killed for the extension to be considered, Bakri said.

“After those death certificates were procured, which was very difficult given the circumstances in Gaza, the student was then told to obtain a notarised translation for the death certificates,” Bakri said. The lawyer said the entire process took the student more than a year.

Leach agreed that, if true, the university should do better.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/university-defends-action-on-alleged-nazi-salute-pro-palestine-encampment-20260716-p60fre.html

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Moira Deeming drops court bid against Victorian Liberals; party set to disendorse MP

ANTHONY GALLOWAY - 16 July 2026

The Victorian Liberal Party will move to disendorse MP Moira Deeming within days after she dropped her Supreme Court action against the party.

Ms Deeming announced late on Wednesday night she was withdrawing her injunction against the party’s move to revoke her preselection and now wanted the state executive to review her proposal for mediation which includes a joint statement between her and former leader Matthew Guy.

The party moved to disendorse Ms Deeming after she refused to apologise for making assault allegations against Mr Guy that were unable to be substantiated by police.

While a new meeting of the state executive has not yet been scheduled, it is understood it will meet within days to disendorse Ms Deeming. Senior sources told The Australian the party will not agree to her mediation proposal.

The move will end years of turmoil between the Victorian Liberals and the upper house MP since entering parliament in 2022.

Ms Deeming was expelled from the parliamentary party in May 2023 after her attendance at a pro-women rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis. She then successfully sued then-leader John Pesutto for defamation and was readmitted to the party room.

But her allegation that Mr Guy assaulted her at a community event on May 23 was met with widespread anger within the party months out from the November election which polls show leader Jess Wilson is in a position to win.

CCTV of the incident on May 23 showed Mr Guy – who vehemently denies any wrongdoing – putting his right arm across Ms Deeming’s shoulder during a conversation.

In her statement on Wednesday night, Ms Deeming said the injunction against the party had “achieved exactly what it was intended to achieve”.

Ms Deeming said she was overseas and unwell when the story broke and “jet-lagged and unwell when the disendorsement meeting was called”.

“The injunction gave me time to recover, review all the facts, learn the difference between a headlock and a collar-tie grip, and gather my thoughts,” she said.

“Now that I have provided the state executive with my statement and a mediation proposal, I have withdrawn the injunction.

“The state executive, having all the evidence before them, can now decide whether or not to pursue mediation or reconvene to disendorse me.”

From the beginning of the saga, Ms Deeming said she had progressed the issue “in good faith, respected the confidentiality of all involved, submitted myself to the instructions and policies of the party and obeyed the law rather than run it through the media”.

Earlier on Wednesday Ms Deeming released a 12-page statement she had sent to the party’s state executive, proposing the matter be resolved through a joint statement acknowledging that Mr Guy’s actions were intended only as “a friendly gesture”, while affirming that she had acted “honestly, privately, in good faith and in accordance with the Liberal Party’s established processes”.

But she also said she was continuing to inquire “how my private internal complaints to senior members within the Liberal Party came to be provided to Mr Guy, and from Mr Guy to journalists, while a police investigation was active”.

“Those inquiries are ongoing. The state executive should not act until all the facts are established,” she wrote.

But senior Liberal figures, who were not authorised to comment publicly on the complaint, said it was their understanding the complaint first reached the media through individuals with whom Ms Deeming had shared its contents, rather than through Mr Guy.

They said Mr Guy sought access to the CCTV footage from the May 23 Macedonian community function only after becoming aware of the complaint.

Mr Guy has been contacted for comment.

At a press conference last month, Mr Guy said “there is no ambiguity, I did not do what’s alleged”.

“The CCTV proves this. It did from the start, and Victoria Police agree,” he said.

“Moira Deeming owes me a public apology.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/moira-deemings-lastditch-plea-to-mediate-dispute/news-story/001159327e05b45d3a3d4f60e4535aed

https://x.com/MoiraDeemingMP/status/2077356932785230255

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New Australia-Indonesia security pact prepares nations for blockade threat

DIAN SEPTIARI - 16 July 2026

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Indonesia and Australia’s new Treaty on Common Security could prove critical in helping the two nations prepare for future regional security threats - including potentially crippling shipping blockades, assistant foreign minister Matt Thistlethwaite said during a three-day visit to Jakarta.

Speaking at the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI) this week, Mr Thistlethwaite said the recent disruption to global shipping through the Strait of Hormuz had shown how quickly maritime chokepoints could affect global trade, a scenario once deemed improbable in our own region but now increasingly plausible.

“Imagine a blockade to the north in the Natuna Sea,” he said, referring to the Indonesian waters that sit at the southern edge of the South China Sea, where Beijing’s sweeping “nine-dash line” overlaps with the exclusive economic zones claimed by several Southeast Asian countries.

“A year or so ago, most people would have said, ‘Well, that’s never going to happen. That’s unrealistic’. Given what’s happening in the Strait of Hormuz at the moment, not so remote anymore.”

Indonesia is not a claimant to the disputed Spratly Islands, but China’s claims overlap with waters around the Natunas, leading to repeated confrontations between Chinese vessels and Indonesian maritime authorities.

Mr Thistlethwaite said any disruption to shipping around the Natuna Sea would have severe economic consequences for both Indonesia and Australia.

“There is a realisation now in both of our nations that we share a common interest as middle powers working together on the stability and peace of our region,” he said.

“Ahead of us is a more unstable geostrategic balance as great powers increasingly engage in a contest of power and influence. The largest and most rapid military build-up since World War II is happening right here in our region.”

The implications of that were made “clear and real last week when a submarine-launched ballistic missile test splashed down in the Pacific”, he added, referring to China’s firing from a nuclear-powered submarine of a long-range warhead near Tuvalu.

Mr Thistlethwaite’s remarks offer one of the clearest explanations yet from an Australian official of the strategic thinking behind the Australia-Indonesia Treaty on Common Security, or Jakarta Treaty.

The assistant foreign minister said the treaty not only committed the leaders of both nations to meet and talk regularly about shared security threats, but would also facilitate deeper and broader security co-operation, including through earlier military exchanges to build strong and lasting relationships among younger officers from both militaries.

Asked whether Canberra was encouraging Jakarta to adopt a similar strategic assessment of China, Mr Thistlethwaite averred, instead emphasising Australia’s reliance on Southeast Asia for trade and energy supplies.

“We’ve relied in recent times on the goodwill and the good economic partnerships that we’ve had with Southeast Asian nations,” he said.

Open and free shipping lanes and freedom of navigation were “vitally important to both of our countries”, and principles both governments were committed to upholding through the Jakarta Treaty, he added.

The landmark security pact was signed during Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s two day February visit to Jakarta, marking a new high point in the bilateral relationship that has weathered ups and downs in recent decades.

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Indonesia has long maintained it has no overlapping maritime claims with China, and that Chinese incursions near the Natuna Islands stem solely from Beijing’s expansive “nine-dash line,” which Jakarta does not recognise under international law.

But that position appeared to shift in late 2024, when President Prabowo Subianto and Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a joint statement acknowledging “overlapping claims” in maritime areas _ language that surprised analysts because it departed from Indonesia’s longstanding diplomatic position.

The question of freedom of navigation through Indonesia’s own archipelagic straits was also briefly and controversially raised in April when the country’s finance minister suggested imposing shipping tolls could be a handy source of revenue for the cash-strapped administration, before being quickly shot down by Indonesia’s foreign ministry.

Asked about the previous proposal to charge ships transiting the co-managed Strait of Malacca or other Indonesian straits, Mr Thistlethwaite said discussions with Indonesian officials had reaffirmed both countries’ commitment to freedom of navigation and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The two governments remained committed to maintaining “free and open shipping” and upholding those principles through their co-operation, he added.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/new-australiaindonesia-security-pact-prepares-nations-for-blockade-threat/news-story/815eccec3275f054673b775faf4aaf3d

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China insists it has ‘no geopolitical intent’ after missile sparks Pacific fury

AMANDA HODGE - 16 July 2026

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China has moved to mend fences with Pacific island nations a week after sparking regional fury by firing a dummy warhead from a submarine into regional nuclear-free waters, insisting it has “no geo­political intent” in the Pacific and does not seek to make it a “sphere of influence”.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the remarks during a meeting late on Tuesday with his Solomon Islands counterpart Rick Houenipwela, dispatched to ­Beijing in the wake of Prime Minister Mathew Wale’s “strong protest” on behalf of Pacific Island nations.

Mr Wale has made little secret of his anger at China’s missile test, fired within hours of Australia and Fiji signing a landmark defence agreement, calling the launch “a provocative act” and warning Beijing: “Be our friend, but don’t threaten us.”

Regional analysts say his remarks are likely the tip of an iceberg of Pacific concern over China’s actions, given a growing well of distrust of Beijing that has led to high-level regional bilateral agreements with Australia from the Puk Puk treaty with PNG, Nakamal agreement with Vanuatu, Vuvale Union and Oceans of Peace Alliance with Fiji, and pacts with Tuvalu and Nauru.

Beijing clearly knows it has ground to make up in its “permanent competition” with Australia for diplomatic supremacy across the region.

It also knows it is in danger of losing influence in the Solomons – previously its most reliable ­Pacific partner – after China-sceptic Mr Wale took office in May and announced an intention to strengthen ties with Australia.

China’s pitch as a “no political strings attached” alternative underwriter of Pacific Islands’ security and prosperity was already looking dubious before it gave less than two hours’ notice of its intention to fire a missile into ­waters covered by the Treaty of Rarotonga – an action Beijing called a “routine part of China’s annual military program” but which sparked protests from Australia, the US, Japan, New Zealand and nine Pacific island nations.

Yet at Tuesday’s meeting, its top envoy appeared stuck in a loop of the same old talking points; the Pacific Island nations are no one’s “backyard”, China does not seek “spheres of influence”, Beijing has “no geopolitical intent” in the region.

“China’s co-operation with Solomon Islands is free of political conditions, does not impose its will on others, and does not issue ‘empty promises’,” said Mr Wang in a Chinese readout of Tuesday’s meeting with Mr Houenipwela.

No explanations were offered for why China ignored standard protocols for ballistic missile testing – including at least 48 hours’ notice – or why it chose to launch inside a designated nuclear-weapons-free zone within hours of Australia and Fiji signing a defence alliance.

Nor were there any substantive sweeteners offered to its most reliable Pacific Island nation partner to match Australia’s recent rails-run of diplomatic achievements.

“In many ways China is its own worst enemy in terms of its ham-fisted diplomacy,” says Mike Hughes, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Defence Strategy program. “China has for half a decade at least chastised Australia to our Pacific Island partners over AUKUS supposedly violating the Treaty of Rarotonga – which is nonsense – but the great irony is they’re now testing an ICBM whose sole purpose is to draw nuclear weapons into the South Pacific,” he added.

(continued)

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Mr Hughes said China would still be “reeling” from Mr Wales’s ascendancy to the prime ministership, given his promise to review the secretive security agreement signed in early 2022 that prompted such alarm in Canberra and Washington. “The Solomons really was the jewel in the crown for the realising of China’s intent for the region. To have lost it so quickly and suddenly, with Mathew Wale coming out all guns blazing about resetting the bilateral relationship with Australia, will be seen as a massive setback.”

Still, he said, it would almost certainly learn lessons from its mistakes and come back stronger, given China’s interests in the ­Pacific “were enduring as long as they have this intent to reshape global order”.

Lowy Institute acting Pacific Islands program director Oliver Nobetau said Tuesday’s China-Solomons’ meeting was notable for the fact it delivered “nothing of significance” to challenge Australia’s run of diplomatic and security wins.

“What would have been a good show of faith was some language that could denote an apology, that it was not their intention to cause concern, but we have not seen anything of that regard,” he said.

While last week’s missile launch was undoubtedly a self-inflicted diplomatic injury for China, it was also a sobering reminder of its rising military capacity and reach.

The question now is whether that will hamper Australia’s regional diplomatic achievements or accelerate them.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/china-insists-it-has-no-geopolitical-intent-after-missile-sparks-pacific-fury/news-story/fb0861939b52a474e8ee59b2690d0ad9

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China’s ambassador Xiao Qian to depart Canberra after memorable diplomatic stint

WILL GLASGOW - July 15, 2026

After a memorable four-and-a-half-year stint, Xi Jinping’s man in Canberra is packing his bags. You read it here first.

Ambassador Xiao Qian arrived in Canberra in January 2022, with five months left of Scott Morrison’s prime ministership.

It was a time when Australians had huge anxiety about China’s military build-up and its increasingly bullying behaviour in the region – all made worse by Australia’s economic co-dependency with its biggest security threat.

None of those fundamentals have changed: Beijing still causes Australia’s defence planners and security officials more grief than the rest of the world combined, while China remains by far the biggest customer of Australian exports.

But the surface of the relationship is much smoother now than when Ambassador Xiao moved into China’s huge embassy compound in Canberra.

After Anthony Albanese’s election in May 2022, a switch was flicked in Beijing. Within months, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his Australian counterpart Penny Wong – the first ministerial engagement between the two countries since Xi ordered Australia be put in the back corner of China’s diplomatic freezer in 2020.

Two and a half years later, by Christmas 2024, live Australian lobsters were again allowed to clear China’s customs department. The return of that trade marked the end of China’s trade coercion campaign, which at its peak spanned Australian goods worth $20bn a year.

In-between, Cheng Lei was released from her Beijing prison cell and, in August 2024, I was credentialed to be based in China, ending a four-year unofficial black-listing of Australian journalists.

Xiao was there through it all: sometimes smiling and purring about Gough Whitlam, sometimes threatening violence if Australia didn’t watch itself around Taiwan, sometimes fulminating about what would follow if the PM delivered his election commitment to end Chinese company Landbridge’s ownership of the Port of Darwin, and most recently telling off ASIO head Mike Burgess for suggesting China was behind “so-called interference in Australia”.

These and many more happy memories will be discussed at his Canberra farewell party, a knees-up with Chinese characteristics now less than a fortnight away.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/margin-call/chinas-ambassador-xiao-qian-to-depart-canberra-after-memorable-diplomatic-stint/news-story/b468724d5044ce146a9cf398aeb36cc7

https://qresear.ch/?q=Xiao+Qian

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China’s next Ambassador to Australia is expected to be a ‘wolf warrior’ diplomat as Xiao Qian exits Canberra

Departing Ambassador Xiao oversaw a stabilisation of rocky relations between Australia and China, but that’s about to change.

Andrew Greene - 16 July 2026

Beijing is widely tipped to revert to so-called “wolf warrior” diplomacy with Australia by soon dispatching a more assertive ambassador to Canberra to manage the increasingly tense strategic relationship between both nations.

Current Ambassador Xiao Qian, who has served in Australia for more than four years, will be formally farewelled later this month by other members of Canberra’s diplomatic corps during an event to be held at the Chinese embassy.

Since arriving in early 2022, Ambassador Xiao has overseen a stabilisation of relations between Australia and China which hit rock bottom when Beijing imposed crippling trade sanctions against the Morrison government during the COVID pandemic.

Numerous diplomatic figures have told The Nightly they are now expecting veteran Chinese Foreign Ministry official Liu Jinsong to soon be announced as his replacement, but the appointment has not been officially confirmed by Beijing.

Within five months of his arrival to Canberra as China’s ambassador, Anthony Albanese defeated Scott Morrison to become Prime Minister after vowing to restore relations with Australia’s largest trading partner.

Soon after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his Australian counterpart Penny Wong for the first ministerial level engagement between both two countries since relations sourced over the Morrison government’s call for a COVID inquiry in 2020.

By late 2024, China had officially ended all trade sanctions imposed by President Xi Jinping’s administration when restrictions on Australian exports of rock lobsters and beef were finally lifted.

Over recent weeks however tensions between China and Australia have resumed, particularly after the People’s Liberation Army-Navy fired a nuclear-capable missile into the Pacific Ocean earlier this month.

In early July Ambassador Xiao also launched a furious attack on ASIO and other Western intelligence agencies, accusing them of fabricating spying claims against his nation while denying that Beijing engages in foreign interference.

Last weekend diplomatic tensions over China’s growing strategic reach were again ignited, this time by the 10-year anniversary of an international legal ruling against Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Another recent test to emerge in the fickle and fractious relationship between the Albanese government and the rising superpower is a proposal by Taiwan to establish a new unofficial consular presence in Western Australia.

Earlier this month The Nightly revealed that China’s embassy in Canberra had launched a strong protest with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to oppose the additional “Taipei Economic and Cultural Office” in Perth.

Ambassador Xiao’s widely tipped replacement Liu Jinsong currently serves as the head of the foreign ministry’s department for Asian affairs and was previously posted to Thailand, Japan and the United Kingdom.

Last November a video released by Chinese state media, which spread quickly online, showed the senior diplomat glaring down at his Japanese counterpart, further inflaming tensions between Beijing and Tokyo.

Japanese media reports have also credited Mr Liu with being instrumental in defusing tensions between Beijing and Tokyo after a heated disagreement over remarks by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi about Taiwan in December last year.

National security figures have over recent weeks also privately speculated that relations with China are heading in the direction of the lows experienced during the Morrison government, saying they believe “wolf warrior diplomacy” is returning.

In keeping with recent practice, China’s embassy in Canberra declined to comment on Ambassador Xiao’s departure, and his likely replacement, when contacted by The Nightly.

While China prepares to replace its ambassador to Canberra, the United States is yet to fill its top diplomatic post in Australia since the departure of former envoy Caroline Kennedy who departed shortly after Donald Trump’s election win in 2024.

In April President Trump nominated conservative Republican David Brat as the next ambassador to Australia, but his confirmation for the diplomatic posting has not yet been completed.

https://thenightly.com.au/politics/chinas-next-ambassador-to-australia-is-expected-to-be-a-wolf-warrior-diplomat-as-xiao-qian-exits-canberra-c-22576924

https://www.facebook.com/japandailydotjp/posts/a-viral-video-circulated-by-chinese-state-linked-media-claimed-japanese-diplomat/1318259873676997/

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AFP detective acting inspector Emmanuel Tsardoulias says the unique items could be recognisable.

“Every image may contain a clue that helps identify a child,” he said.

“Our victim ID team is tenacious; they’re committed and will stop at nothing to identify children or victims of child sexual exploitation.”

Six further alleged victims have been identified since Tait’s name became public on Monday, Tsardoulias said.

“The impact on these families can’t be understated. It’s a really tough time for them.”

More than 300 calls have been made to the AFP’s dedicated local contact point.

While much of Tait’s alleged offending occurred in Sydney, multiple alleged victims have also been identified in South Australia, Tsardoulias said.

Parents who believe their child had contact with Tait are urged to contact the AFP on (02) 9765 1000, from 7am to 7pm AEST.

Operation Moonbi: AFP releases images to assist with victim identification

https://www.afp.gov.au/news-centre/media-release/operation-moonbi-afp-releases-images-assist-victim-identification

https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/photos-released-in-search-for-alleged-victims-of-worst-day-care-paedophile-20260716-p60fps.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpepm2ZL2lM