Australia news as it happened: Canberra reacts to Israel’s Gaza takeover plan; Erin Patterson’s next court dates locked in; Nine wins landmark defamation lawsuit

It seems that even in the 1910s, customer politeness was a most valuable commodity to retail workers.

Incidentally, here is what Bourke Street looked like back then.

For more on this, read this week’s report by our city editor Cara Waters.

Serious concerns about the transparency of the ex gratia payment process would persist until governments handed over powers to the courts or released reasons for their decision, he said.

“It seems only fair and reasonable and sensible that the decision maker would issue reasons explaining why they arrived at a particular figure,” Tierney told AAP.

“State and commonwealth legislatures should look very seriously at implementing Human Rights Acts so that courts can be empowered to properly review these situations.”

Folbigg was jailed over the deaths of her four children before being freed in June 2023 after new scientific evidence cast reasonable doubt about her convictions.

Minns said Folbigg’s lawyers were free to sue the government if they felt the offer was inadequate, but he wouldn’t budge without a court order.

“There’s no future action that cannot be pursued by Ms Folbigg or her lawyers,” he said on Friday.

NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley’s office declined to comment when asked whether it would release the reasons for the decision.

Despite his former client’s success, Tierney said Folbigg would struggle to appeal against the offer she received on Thursday.

“If there are no reasons issued by the decision maker, then it’s very difficult to attack the decision that’s been made,” the lawyer said.

Unlike court-run compensation claims, which have precedents, ex gratia payments are one-off matters and are a decision of state cabinets.

Arguing about the viability of a $2 million payment in a state budget of billions of dollars was “a little trite”, Tierney said.

Against the NSW annual budget of $128 billion, the amount offered to Folbigg represents about 0.0015 per cent.

Opposition Leader Mark Speakman said the government’s offer was unfair and far too low.

AAP

Directly after Thistlethwaite on the show was opposition home affairs spokesman Andrew Hastie, who was adamant that “there’s been a lowering of English proficiency for migrants to this country”.

“The question for the home affairs minister is, ‘What is going on?’” Hastie said.

“Labor has let in 1 million people over a two-year period, the highest by 70 per cent for any two-year period in our nation’s history.

“The Australian people are feeling the pressure from this immigration under Labor. We’re seeing it through the housing demand crisis, young Australians are locked out of homes, they’re finding it very hard to get a rental or buy a property, our hospitals and roads are congested and there’s social cohesion issues

“The Albanese government needs to explain its immigration policy and lowering this English proficiency standard is one such explanation we all deserve.”

“This is the same bridge our lord mayor refused to light in the colours of the Palestinian flag, denying solidarity to a grieving community,” the group said.

In response, Crisafulli said: “Police will assess the application independently based on community safety but shutting down a city is no way to endear Queenslanders to your cause.”

The new events being planned follow Sunday’s march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge by what police estimate was a crowd of 90,000, and organisers put at 200,000 to 300,000 people.

Protests are also planned for Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide and Perth on August 24.

Read more here.

“The Palestinians have to determine their own future, but Hamas has to be removed from power as well.”

Australian Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni said the Albanese government must go beyond “flimsy acts of diplomacy” to prevent a takeover of Gaza.

“There can surely be no remaining pretence that Israel is doing anything other than permanently erasing Gaza in order to occupy and annex it,” he said.

“Gaza has already been occupied, besieged and bombed by Israel for decades.

“What is happening now is the final stage of ethnic cleansing and the world is enabling it.”

The Israeli government has said it wants total victory in its war with Hamas, which attacked the nation’s south on October 7, 2023, killing about 1200 people and taking 251 hostages.

Israel’s retaliatory assaults have killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Almost 200 people, nearly half of them children, have reportedly died of starvation.

AAP