Senator Fatima Payman quit Labor to sit as an independent after being suspended from the party earlier this week for crossing the floor to back a Greens motion to recognise Palestine.
Parliament House security arrangements are being reviewed after four protesters managed to climb onto the roof and unfurl pro-Palestine banners at the same time as climate protesters glued themselves to bollards in the building’s Marble Foyer.
In NSW, Sydney University has imposed tough new conditions on campus protests in a major crackdown that limits student and staff action on the back of the controversial pro-Palestinian encampment.
In Victoria, energy distributors could be forced to compensate customers who lose power, after a report into recent storms that cut off more than half a million homes in the state warned companies need to be pushed into better maintenance.
In Queensland, Bruce Lehrmann has been committed to stand trial after being accused of consoling a woman he allegedly raped before allegedly doing it again.
In Western Australia, a police officer has told a coronial inquest it was “instinct” that caused him to shoot a mentally-ill Indigenous woman in 2019 after she was found walking alone along a street with a knife and pair of scissors.
In business news, the Australian sharemarket jumped 1.1 per cent today after Wall Street continued a record-breaking rally.
In world news, the United Kingdom will vote in a long-awaited election while Australia sleeps tonight. The ruling Conservatives are expecting a flogging, but the scale of the defeat may not be known until mid-Friday morning, Australian time.

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6.19pm on Jul 4, 2024

Payman says PM’s office planted seed for crossing floor, backtracks on intimidation suggestion

By Lachlan Abbott

Independent senator Fatima Payman says the prime minister’s office planted the seed that led to her crossing the floor to support a Greens motion to recognise Palestine and backtracked on earlier remarks suggesting Anthony Albanese intimidated her.

Speaking to journalist David Speers on ABC TV this evening, Payman maintained she had no thought of leaving Labor when she met with so-called “preference whisperer” Glenn Drury weeks ago.

“That meeting was just a preliminary meeting to discuss options to talk about what’s to come, or perhaps the lay of the land,” Payman said, adding she had met with a variety of political groups and operatives.

“I had done my research about crossing the floor because that was during estimates, a week prior, the prime minister’s office had reached out to my office asking if I was going to cross the floor. I didn’t think that that was an option because I had abstained previously. And it wasn’t until that seed was planted, that I started thinking about what it meant to cross the floor.”

Payman was then asked about her suggestion the prime minister had intimidated her on Sunday when the pair met at The Lodge.

Senator Fatima Payman leaving The Lodge on Sunday afternoon after being suspended from caucus.James Massola

Here’s a little of the exchange:

Speers: “You told the ABC’s RN Drive program today, ‘it felt quite intimidating to be there with the Prime Minister and his chief of staff – you know, two big blokes, I guess, and just me’. You told the press conference this afternoon, though, that you wouldn’t characterise it as intimidating. So which was it?”

Payman: “It may have been incorrect of me at the RN Drive to consider it as intimidating, but it felt quite confronting. Maybe that was the correct word because I wasn’t expecting that I was going to be indefinitely suspended. I didn’t know what the nature of this conversation was going to be, but in no way, shape or form have I characterised it as bullying, or there being any physical form of intimidation. Again, you know, there’s age gaps, but also just the level of experience. And I mean, if anyone gets pulled into their boss’s office, there is that little bit of fear – to a certain extent – not knowing what the outcome is going to be.”

Speers: “Is that politics though?”

Payman: “Mean, it definitely is, and you’ve got to have thick skin for this game. So I’m not going around saying that, you know, this is something that I’m going to pursue … No, it was not intimidating, it was confronting. But it was a necessary discussion that needed to be had. And I respect the prime minister and know that he’s got some important decisions to make.”

The newly independent senator said she still needed to research and hear from Western Australians before she voted on some issues she was less familiar with. “I have not sought to lay out my policy platform really. Like, it’s all very new,” she said.

5.50pm on Jul 4, 2024

AFP confirms criminal probe into alleged improper awarding of contracts

By Angus Thompson

In breaking news, the Australian Federal Police has confirmed a criminal investigation is underway concerning allegations the force improperly awarded contracts to private companies controlled by former senior special forces veterans.

An AFP officer has been suspended with pay following suspicions over his handling of contracts and the national corruption watchdog has also been called in.

AFP leadership faced questions about the investigation during a Senate committee hearing on Thursday afternoon.

AFP deputy commissioner Krissy Barrett confirmed to Greens senator David Shoebridge “part of the investigation is in the criminal space”.

She did not say how many officers were being criminally investigated.

Asked whether any contracts had been suspended as a result of the investigation, Barrett said she would take the question on notice.

5.34pm on Jul 4, 2024

Indigenous truth-telling commission sent for review

By Dominic Giannini

A proposed truth and justice commission to aid Indigenous reconciliation will go under the federal parliamentary microscope.

The Greens have pushed the government to move on enacting other elements of the Uluru statement after the failure of the Voice to parliament referendum last year.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart from Indigenous leaders in 2017 called for a truth-telling commission and a treaty.

Labor has been largely silent on how it plans to implement the rest of the statement after the referendum to enshrine an Indigenous advisory body in the constitution failed.

Today, the government supported the Greens push to send the minor party’s private members bill to a parliamentary inquiry.

But the Coalition opposed scrutinising the bill, saying the push for a truth telling commission wasn’t consistent with the vote of the Australian people.

“This house should be focused on delivering real outcomes for our most marginalised people,” Liberal senator Jonno Duniam said.

AAP

5.23pm on Jul 4, 2024

Federal environment watchdog laws pass House of Representatives

By Andrew Brown

A national watchdog will set its sights on businesses found to have spoilt the environment in breach of federal laws after legislation setting up an Environment Protection Agency passed the House of Representatives today.

The agency would target offences to do with hazardous waste, sea dumping, air quality and wildlife trafficking, and have the ability to impose fines of up to $780 million for serious intentional breaches.

The national body would be able to issue stop-work orders and audit businesses to ensure they comply with environmental laws.

The suite of reforms would require environmental progress to be “nature positive”, the first time any country has legislated the term.

5.11pm on Jul 4, 2024

Shorten ‘disappointed’ Payman ‘sees the grass is greener elsewhere’

By Lachlan Abbott

Former Labor leader Bill Shorten is disappointed Fatima Payman resigned from Labor earlier today, saying “the party is bigger than any of us.”

Speaking on ABC Afternoon Briefing moments ago, the NDIS Minister said he was also sad Payman had left.

NDIS Minister Bill Shorten.Alex Ellinghausen

“We’re all charismatic, exciting and very interesting people, but we get elected because we’ve got Labor next to our name,” Shorten said. “I’m disappointed that having been elected under the Labor flag, she sees the grass is greener elsewhere.”

Shorten said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave Payman the benefit of the doubt by not immediately expelling her, per Labor convention, for breaching party rules and crossing the floor to support a Greens motion to recognise Palestinian statehood.

“I think he’s handled a very difficult situation in a pretty sophisticated, emotionally intelligent way,” Shorten said.

Independent senator Fatima Payman (right) sitting on the crossbench in the Senate this afternoon with Tasmanian senator Tammy TyrellJames Brickwood

“She feels strongly on Palestine. We all want to see the tanks out of Gaza. We all want the violence to stop. I want the hostages back. It’s not the issue. She didn’t want to agree with the rules that she’d signed up to. The prime minister gave her time and space. She’s walked.”

Shorten later said: “Fatima Payman is smart ... so I’m not going to bag her.”

The spotlight was on Fatima Payman this afternoon as she announced her Labor resignation.James Brickwood

But the senior Victorian MP suggested Payman should resign from the Senate altogether to give West Australians the Labor senator they elected.

“I’m not going to put pressure on her. But if I was elected as a Labor candidate in Maribyrnong – which I am – and I chose to no longer be in the Labor Party, I would probably think that in the case of the voters who voted for me, it’s a Labor seat, it’s not a Bill Shorten seat,” he said.

“But that’s me and my seat. People can make up their own minds.”

4.47pm on Jul 4, 2024

Smallest ever baby blue whale captured on camera off WA

By Nyk Carnsew

A baby whale photographed off the West Australian coast could be the youngest member of its species seen in Australian waters.

Thought to be only weeks old, the pygmy blue whale calf spotted with its mother by a wildlife photographer on May 23 is believed to be the smallest ever observed.

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The calf was about a third of the size of its mum, about six metres long, whereas the previous smallest calf sighted was about half its mother’s size.

Fully grown pygmy blue whales are typically about 21 metres long.

4.20pm on Jul 4, 2024

Weary Gazans on the move again amid ‘endless cycle of death’

By Raja Abdulrahim

Jerusalem: An evacuation order by the Israeli military this week covering roughly a third of the Gaza Strip came as people there are less and less equipped to handle repeated forced displacements, after nearly nine months of war that have left tens of thousands dead and injured and put the territory at risk of famine.

The order, which the United Nations has estimated affects about 250,000 people, was the largest since October, when about 1 million residents of northern Gaza were told to flee their homes, the organisation said this week.

“It’s an endless cycle of death and displacement,” said Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for the main UN agency that aids Palestinians, UNRWA, in voice messages from central Gaza.

“People express here that they are losing hope, they are losing the willpower, faced with another forced displacement and absolutely no certainty of safety.”

Read the latest news about the conflict that sparked Fatima Payman’s Labor split here.

4.13pm on Jul 4, 2024

AFP boss reveals how parliament protesters slipped past security

By Angus Thompson

Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw says protesters used diversionary tactics at Parliament House this morning to allow the pro-Palestinian demonstrators to get onto the building’s roof.

Kershaw told a Senate committee on Thursday afternoon that a separate group made false reports of protests happening elsewhere to send police away.

“There are some actual deliberate actions this particular group has taken … to use diversionary tactics to move very, very quickly,” he said.

Asked how the protesters got on the roof, deputy commissioner Krissy Barrett said they breached the fence at the top of the grassed area on the side of the building “and were able to get over the fence, triggering an alarm”.

Liberal senator James Paterson said the upside down red triangle displayed at the bottom of one of the banners was a symbol of the al-Qassam brigades of Hamas, and asked whether that would be investigated as the use of hate symbols using recent legislation passed in federal parliament last year.

“It definitely will be in terms of hate symbols and other offences that are available to us,” Barrett said.

4.06pm on Jul 4, 2024

Ex-Labor senator denies ‘preference whisperer’ meeting indicates long-planned rebellion

By Olivia Ireland

Senator Fatima Payman strongly denies one meeting with former preference whisperer Glenn Druery implies her departure from Labor has been a calculated plan over the past month.

Labor members told this masthead they believe Payman has been plotting this for a month when she first spoke out for Palestine and crossed the floor.

Payman told Sky News she denies this was the case.

“When I said that I intend on staying as a Labor Party member, that holds true. I did not think about leaving the party or exiting or making a show of it,” she said.

“Obviously, I’ve crossed the floor and I knew and understood that this could lead to my expulsion … so the community members in Sydney who organised this meeting with Glenn Druery invited me to come along. This was just a discussion

“I’m going into this meeting, I’ve heard of Glenn Druery because obviously coming from WA he got Wilson Tucker elected on like, 98 votes with preference deals. So like, everyone knows Glenn Druery in WA and so when this came up as an opportunity to talk to somebody who is a political strategist.

“I’ve had so many conversations, this was just one.”

As it happened: Fatima Payman quits Labor; Pro-Palestine protesters arrested after climbing Parliament House

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