Lidia Thorpe puts forward motion on ‘shameful’ deaths in custody numbers
Sarah Basford Canales
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe has put forward a motion in the Senate this morning, extending sympathies to the families of the 17 First Nations people who have died in custody this year, including 24-year-old Walpiri man Kumanjayi White who died in May after being restrained by officers at an Alice Springs supermarket.
Labor and the Greens have agreed to pass the motion acknowledging White’s death while extending its sympathies to the families of the 602 Indigenous deaths in custody since the release of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
The motion also called on all parliamentarians to work constructively together to address the over-incarceration and deaths of First Nations people in custody.
While moving the motion, Thorpe said:
These are not just statistics. They are sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, cousins, siblings, grandchildren – lost to a system that continues to harm our people … This motion is about preventing that pain from continuing. It’s about doing what we can, here and now, to ensure that Kumanjayi’s death is not just another entry in a long and shameful list. It must be a turning point.
Thorpe also spoke of the impact on her family after the death of her cousin, Joshua Kerr, a 32-year-old Yorta Yorta and Gunaikurnai man who died in custody in August 2022.
The motion this morning coincides with the release of the latest Closing the Gap report, which revealed only four of 19 targets were on track to be met by 2031. The 2023-24 data showed the national rate of Indigenous youths in detention had increased compared with the previous year.
Key events
The issue of CCTV will be discussed at the next meeting of state, territory and federal education ministers.
Clare says there are key questions on how that data will be used or stored, which will be addressed at that meeting in August.
The last thing you want to do here is create a honey pot for bad people. So where does the [CCTV] data get stored? How does it get used? I’m on the record saying that I think it has real value in potentially deterring bad people from doing bad things. I think it also has real value for police in being able to use that in their investigations. That’s after – after the fact, though. If it can deter, that’s good.
Asked about the Hecs legislation, and the push from the Greens to go further to wipe Hecs debt completely, Clare says it’s not just a one-off cut, and the reforms change the structure of how the debt is paid back for all students.
The legislation increases the salary threshold for those paying student debts back, meaning graduates on lower salaries won’t have to begin paying their debt back until later, or will pay back less until they earn more.
Instead of paying back around about $1,900 once they hit $70,000, it’s about $450 … When you’re on $70,000 and might be renting, that money matters, that money counts. That helps you to pay for rent, pay for food, pay for public transport.
This was a recommendation of the Accord. It was a recommendation of a bloke named Bruce Chapman who for those who don’t know was the architect of Hecs back in the ‘80s. And he says that this is perhaps the most important change to the Hecs system in 35 years.
‘There is a mountain of work to do’ to fix childcare: Clare
Clare says again that this legislation is only the start of reforms that governments – federal, state and territory – need to do to fix the system.
The impact of the legislation, Clare says, should be to raise the standards of centres, not to force them shut, at a time when the government is also trying to boost the number of children accessing early childhood education.
Clare says there’s already a list of providers prepared, that the government could take action against – but he won’t yet reveal who’s on it.
I won’t expand on that today. I will have more to say on that when the department publishes that list. First, the bill needs to pass the parliament, then it needs to receive royal assent. But I have directed my department to be ready to act swiftly. I’ll have more to say next week.
Hecs cut ‘promised and delivered’ says education minister
The education minister, Jason Clare, is speaking to the media, after the passing of the government’s Hecs bill through the Senate.
We promised it and we’ve delivered.
Young Australians don’t always see something for them on the ballot paper, but they did this year.
Clare says the debt relief will be backdated to 1 June this year, before indexation was applied.
He also says he’s hopeful the childcare legislation will be passed in the Senate before question time today.
Here’s a video of Lidia Thorpe moving the motion earlier this morning:
Josh Butler
Thorpe urges PM to use Garma festival speech to commit to deaths in custody royal commission recommendations
Independent senator Lidia Thorpe has called on Anthony Albanese to use his speech at the Garma festival to implement the recommendations of the deaths in custody royal commission.
Albanese will travel to the Northern Territory this weekend for the important Indigenous cultural and community festival. He will make a speech at the event, which is often where federal leaders commit to new policy and stances in Indigenous affairs.
Speaking after her motion on deaths in custody was passed by the Senate, Thorpe told a press conference that she hoped Albanese would use Garma to commit to taking more federal action on hanging points and other concerns in prisons.
No one’s had oversight of those recommendations for two decades, since the demise of Atsic. They’ve been sitting there for two decades. No one gave a damn that deaths in custody was still happening, so oversight and action on implementing the remainder of those recommendations, removing hanging points would be great.
We know that there’s been hanging points that have been used 20 times. The prisons know. The cops know. The governments know, yet they allow people to continue to take their lives in known hanging points. A recommendation from the royal commission is to remove them, to provide mental health services, to allow communities to self determine their own solutions.
So it’d be great if the prime minister took it seriously and not just rock up [to Garma] to see culture on display.
Labor’s Hecs debt bill passes the Senate
The government’s Hecs debt bill has passed parliament, a key promise of the federal election.
The Greens tried to move several amendments to the bill, but the government wouldn’t support them.
Ultimately the bill passed without amendments – it’s the first bill to pass in the new term – supported by Labor, the Greens, independents including David Pocock, Tammy Tyrrell and Fatima Payman.
Coalition senators abstained from voting, and three One Nation senators voted against the bill.
Lidia Thorpe introducing her motion into the Senate this morning
Thorpe’s motion expressed sympathies to the families of the 17 First Nations people who have died in custody this year, including 24-year-old Walpiri man Kumanjayi White, and to the families of the 602 Indigenous deaths in custody since the release of the 1991 royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody.
The motion was supported by Labor and the Greens.
Patrick Commins
RBA deputy governor says consumer price figures ‘very welcome’
The Reserve Bank’s deputy governor, Andrew Hauser, says yesterday’s consumer price figures were “very welcome”, in a further signal that the central bank has gained some comfort with the trajectory of inflation and that it will cut rates next month.
Inflation dropped to 2.1% in the year to June, while the RBA’s preferred underlying measure fell to 2.7% – which Hauser said was in line with the bank’s forecasts.
Still, Hauser also flagged that the central bank was in no rush.
Our strategy for some time is to set interest rates to bring inflation back sustainably – that’s an important word – to the midpoint of the 2-3% target range, and to do that through a policy that is gradual, considered, measured.
Financial markets are pricing in a rate cut on 12 August and another by the November board meeting.
Jim Chalmers on morning TV refused to comment on likelihood of a rate cut next month.
I try not to make predictions about decisions that the independent Reserve Bank will take about interest rates, but I’m really pleased that inflation has come down so substantially.
It’s a powerful demonstration of the progress that Australians have made together in the fight against inflation.
Labor votes against Greens amendment to early childhood bill
The Senate has now moved to the early childhood bill the government has said it wants to be passed this week (ie today).
The Greens are trying to move an amendment to the bill that would note “the need for broader reform” to make early childhood education universal, and calls on the government to establish an independent national Early Childhood Education and Care Commission.
Labor votes against it with a handful of Liberal senators.
They’ll now continue debating – the minister, Jess Walsh, is currently answering questions on the bill in the chamber – before they vote on the bill.
Lidia Thorpe’s condolence motion passes in Senate
Lidia Thorpe’s condolence motion extending its sympathies to the families of the 17 First Nations people who have died in custody this year, including 24-year-old Walpiri man Kumanjayi White, who died in May after being restrained by officers at an Alice Springs supermarket, has passed in the Senate.
Tears as Marion Scrymgour says deaths in custody ‘catastrophic for my communities’
The Labor member for Lingiari, in the Northern Territory, Marion Scrymgour, is tearing up in the chamber, as she also speaks on Aboriginal deaths in custody.
She says two of the First Nations people who have died in custody this year have been from the area that she represents.
This issue weighs heavily on me. As an Aboriginal person from the Northern Territory, these deaths have been catastrophic for my communities. As a mother, as a grandmother, these deaths have weighed heavily on my communities.
I hear their calls for justice, Speaker.
After Kumanjayi Walker’s tragic passing in Alice Springs during Naidoc, I called for the investigation with minister McCarthy to look into his death and to have suitably qualified and authorised professionals from outside the Northern Territory police. We didn’t take that decision lightly, we did it because of the systemic racism and the issues between our Northern Territory police and Aboriginal people.