The Guardian - China-Australia politics live no vote came from grievance camp Labor MP says trade minister to urge China to review wine tariffs

The parliament sitting has begun.

Members of the crossbench call for ‘urgent whistleblower protection reform’

Independent MP Helen Haines and members of the crossbench including Andrew Wilkie, Zoe Daniel and Greens senator David Shoebridge are demanding an “end to the prosecution of whistleblowers and for urgent whistleblower protection reform”.

Haines, Wilkie, Daniel and Shoebridge will be joined by:

• Russell Wilson - director, Transparency International Australia

• Peter Greste - executive director, Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom

• Rawan Arraf - executive director, Australian Centre for International Justice

• Hadi Marifat - director, Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization

• Kieran Pender - senior lawyer, Human Rights Law Centre

In their call.

Shane Howard, the frontman of Australian band Goanna, who wrote the 1982 hit Solid Rock, Sacred Ground has returned his Order of Australia medal following the referendum result.

Howard wrote to the governor general to say he “no longer [has] faith that our nation will achieve meaningful truth-telling and justice with our First Peoples”.

I respect the democratic result but fear that Australians have missed an important historical moment of destiny.

At this point in history, I can’t be proud of my nation and I feel honour bound to return my Order of Australia Medal.

Howard said that when he wrote the song, “I wanted us to address the fundamental lie at the heart of our national story. I dreamt of a country respectful of our ancient history and honest about our modern history. I wanted to be proud of my country.”

He said he was troubled over the rise of misinformation:

I’m also deeply troubled by the way our First Peoples, our brothers and sisters, our friends, have been so belittled, with such pernicious vilification, in the interests of political power. It’s neither generous nor decent.

… I love my birth country deeply but until we loose(sic) our colonial shackles, engage in Treaty-making with our First Peoples, commit to truth-telling about our history and embrace a post-colonial Republic, I cannot be proud of my nation.

In other EV news, there is this from Elias Visontay:

Benita Kolovos

Vic government to introduce bill to make non-fatal strangulation an offence

The Victorian government is set to introduce a bill to parliament today that would make non-fatal strangulation an offence.

The Crimes Amendment (Non-fatal Strangulation) Bill 2023, to be introduced to the lower house on Wednesday, follows research that found someone who survives non-fatal strangulation by a current or former partner is seven times more likely to be seriously injured or murdered by that partner.

The reforms will create two offences. The first is an offence of intentional non-fatal strangulation, which does not require proof of injury will carry a maximum five-year prison term.

A second more serious offence of non-fatal strangulation where a perpetrator intentionally causes injury, will be created with a maximum penalty of 10 years.

A consent defence will be available for the first offence for people who provide affirmative consent to non-fatal strangulation during sexual activity and no intentional injury has occurred.

Attorney-general, Jaclyn Symes, said the reforms have been developed to better protect victim-survivors, including those who may not sustain any visible injuries, and to hold perpetrators to account who use strangulation to exert power and control over their family member.

She said:

Non-fatal strangulation is rarely an isolated event. Instead it often reveals an ongoing and escalating pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour – especially when it occurs in family violence circumstances. We’ve listened to the concerns of those families affected by these acts of violence and the bill will make this behaviour clear for what it is – controlling, dangerous and unacceptable.

High court decision today on EV driver tax

Electric and hybrid vehicle drivers will learn from the high court today how they could be taxed –whether the states can do it, or whether it is just the domain of the federal government.

Two Victorian EV drivers took the case to the courts after the Victorian government imposed its zero and low-emission vehicles road user charge.

It’s all over who can use the road user charge – and it has wider implications than just Victoria, given other states have indicated they will be introducing a similar charge. If the high court rules it is the federal government’s responsibility, then that makes things a little more complicated.

Paul Karp will have you covered on that.

Emily Wind

Let’s take a look at some of the bushfire warnings across the state currently:

In New South Wales, the Willi Willi Road bushfire near Kempsey is at advice level, downgraded from watch and act yesterday. It has burnt more than 22,300 hectares and is yet to be contained.

A local property owner died on Monday night amid the bushfire, with police believing he had been attempting to create a fire break. There are also unconfirmed reports of multiple properties being lost:

Three other bushfires across the state remain at alert level.

In Queensland there are multiple warnings in place for Deepwater in the Gladstone Region, with locals being warned it is not safe to return if they left.

Last night around 9.30pm, residents were warned by the QFES to leave immediately.

According to the latest update firefighters are working to contain the fire, with firefighting aircraft helping ground crews.

Daniel maintains Israel’s right to respond in a very ‘carefully calibrated way’

Q: Is your position based on reflecting your community’s view?

Zoe Daniel:

In part, but really, I mean, I’m a humanitarian.

But I’m also a realist.

And my position from the beginning of this has been that Israel would respond and did have the right to respond.

And if what Hamas did in Israel happened in Australia, Australia would feel the right and the need to respond.

But that has to be done in a very carefully calibrated way. And again, I’ll come back to that a first example, bombing hospitals if that’s what’s happened, killing civilians and indeed from the Hamas perspective, using civilians as human shields, Israeli or Palestinian, is outside the international rules of war and must stop.

Was Zoe Daniel surprised that Kylea Tink and Sophie Scamps took the position they did in supporting the Greens amendment?

I hadn’t spoken to Sophie about it. I had spoken to Kylea quite a bit about it ahead of that amendment. We sit next to each other in the chamber. And I have a large Jewish community in my electorate, and you know, I’ve been talking to and interacting with my community a lot, understandably, over the last couple of weeks.

Kylea has a different community and therefore she took a different position, and that’s what independents do.

‘There’s no rift among the teals’ on Israel and Palestine, Daniel says

Why did Zoe Daniel not support the Greens amendment?

Because the amendment that was put forward by the Greens was going to cancel out the section of the bipartisan motion that was put forward by the government and the opposition, saying that Israel had an inherent right to defend itself.

And, you know, I mean, I’ve said repeatedly in this interview that I think Israel does have the right to defend itself within the parameters that I’ve mentioned.

So it would have been therefore very inconsistent of me to to vote for that motion.

I would say to that, you know, the media loves to talk about rifts and conflict and so to see opposition, I note Peter Dutton was running around yesterday suggesting that, you know, all the teals voted for this amendment, which wasn’t true.

But also, there’s no rift among the teals and indeed, there can be a rift in a party that’s not a party. We’re independents. We vote according to the needs of our communities and our conscience.

Zoe Daniel continues:

I was a foreign correspondent for almost 30 years, you know, I’ve seen the aftermath of conflict. I’ve been there. I’ve seen those bodies, have seen those refugee camps, I have seen the years of recovery and in communities that have been hit by conflict.

There has to be a very careful stepping through of this within the rules of war and the the international order.

Q: A former Israeli peace negotiator this morning was on our program and told us the Middle East was ‘on the brink of Hell’. Is Australia a true friend of Israel if we don’t urge restraint?

Zoe Daniel:

We had the foreign minister urge restraint, I think in the first 24 hours and she had to wind that back because of accusations of wanting to restrict Israel’s right to self defence.

I think cool heads should prevail.

And I say that with sensitivity to people in my community, and particularly the people of Israel, who would argue that there has to be retaliation for what Hamas did.

And that’s why I’ve always said that Israel has a right to self defence but again, not if that means indiscriminate killing of civilians.

And the thing is that this will spill over back into Israel. So the security of the Israelis and the Palestinians is intertwined. And indeed, the entire region could blow up.

The official death toll in Palestine is almost at 3000 people.

Zoe Daniel continues:

I feel deeply for the people in my community, the Jewish people who’ve been directly affected by the Hamas attacks on Israel.

But also there are more than 2 million civilians in Gaza, and Palestinian civilians are not Hamas.

This is a really challenging needle to thread for the Israeli government. And I very much hope that they’re considering that very carefully as they move forward.

Bombing hospitals is not ‘within the rules of war’, independent MP Zoe Daniel says

Goldstein independent MP Zoe Daniel is speaking to ABC radio RN Breakfast this morning, where she has been asked about her position on Israel and Palestine.

Daniel was a longtime foreign correspondent for the ABC, including in the Middle East. Daniel did not join with the Greens or her fellow teal independents Kylea Tink or Dr Sophie Scamps and independent MP Andrew Wilkie in attempting to amend a motion condemning Hamas’ attack on Israeli citizens to also denounce “war crimes perpetrated by the State of Israel”.

Asked about the hospital strike in Palestine, where at least 500 people are believed dead, but authorities warn the death toll could rise to over 1000, Daniel says:

I know there’s conjecture about who’s to blame for this. I would say that if this is a deliberate bombing of a hospital, that’s a war crime.

I’ve been very clear in my position in regard to the response from the Israeli government to what was a terrorist attack by Hamas, which is a terrorist organisation.

And that is that Israel has a right to self defense within the parameters of the international rules of war.

Bombing hospitals, bombing civilians, withholding humanitarian supplies are not within the rules of war.

So we will wait for the evidence to stack up on this particular incident but I think if nothing else, it proves that the situation will spiral out of control without some very calibrated thinking.

And that has the potential to undermine security not only across the region, but also across the world with five eyes partners overnight warning of potential higher risk of terrorist attacks in all countries as a result of these tensions, so actions and language has to be very carefully framed.

The IDF has blamed a failed Palestinian rocket for the strike. Palestinian officials have continued to blame the IDF.

Marion Scrymgour said she will continue to work for her community, to address their concerns.

I am looking forward to going back out and saying we have to build this country into a better country. I look forward to making sure that Aboriginal people take their rightful place in this country.

Scrymgour says she is aggrieved by Senator Price and Senator Thorpe’s actions on voice

And then Marion Scrymgour moved to some other people in the parliament:

I do feel aggrieved and disappointed about a couple of things. I feel aggrieved that Senator Price and Senator Thorpe have each purported to speak on behalf of First Peoples communities in Lingiari, when the overwhelming yes result shows that their views have been totally rejected in those communities.

I feel aggrieved that Senator Price suggested, most insulting at all, that Aboriginal voters in the bush should not have been given how-to-vote cards when approaching a polling booth, while triumphantly embracing the no vote cast by untold thousands throughout the country who were assailed by no campaigners outside the polling booths, through social media and text messages with claims that a vote for the voice was a vote for reparations; or that the UN would be taking over; or that they would lose their backyards.

I was even told a young man was voting no because black men rape their child every night.

Marion Scrymgour:

With the failure of the referendum, we are stuck with a Constitution built on a deliberate plan for exclusion and discrimination by way of race, which still retains a race power rather than a mechanism for recognising the special relationship the commonwealth government must have with its First People as a result of the way this continent was colonised.

That is something which we are all going to have to accept and do our best to work around going forward. Returning to where I started, although this is called a grievance debate speech, and although others have claimed that the yes case agenda was all about grievance, grievance is not what motivates me in trying to advance recognition to make this a better and more united country.

The same goes for millions of Australians, including Indigenous Australians, who voted yes.

The grievance camp were in fact the ones who were directed to vote no. And many of them did.

Marion Scrymgour:

I said I would mention what led us to the referendum, and I think it is important to say a few words on that before the caravan moves on.

Before he became a senator, my friend Patrick Dodson, a great Australian, worked with other advocates for constitutional reform and developed a proposal to remove section 51(xxvi), the race power, from the Constitution and replace it with a provision that would enable the commonwealth government to make laws for the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander First Peoples.

This would shift us from the colonial preoccupation with race to an acknowledgement of the need for recognition of the special place in our country of our First People.

That proposal was rejected by the so-called constitutional conservatives, who said they were concerned that it would be a trojan horse for a bill of rights.

At the dialogues leading up to Uluru, all our First Nations delegates discussed and finally settled on the alternative option of recognition through a voice.

Bush voted for recognition and ‘I’m committed to making it mean something’, Labor MP says

The MP continued:

The bush voted for that recognition to be confirmed and advanced through a voice which would be drawn from and feed back to those many First People communities.

This is what we call substantive recognition.

I’m committed to making the vote for substantive recognition in the bush count, for it to mean something.

That won’t be by way of the Australian Constitution; I’ve heard the voice of many non-Aboriginal voters in my electorate as well, and I must also represent them in relation to this matter.

But there are other possible pathways and options, which will be the subject of discussion when I go back out bush to talk to my people and their communities in coming weeks and months.

First Peoples in Lingiari ‘overwhelmingly voted yes’, Scrymgour says

Marion Scrymgour:

In my part of Australia, in Lingiari, I believe we have moved beyond the terra nullius view.

I’m not just talking about my Aboriginal constituents when I say that, but it is primarily my Aboriginal constituents I am thinking of now as we consider the way forward from here, because these things primarily concern them.

First Peoples who have survived the relatively recent history of colonisation in Lingiari include the Tiwi—my people—Yolngu, Mirarr and Jawoyn at the top; the Arrernte, Luritja, Warlpiri and Pitjantjatjara down the bottom; and so very many in between.

They overwhelmingly voted yes to the proposition of recognition.

In the context of Lingiari, the proposition of recognition is the proposition that the various Lingiari First Peoples were here before the sometimes desultory and sometimes brutal attempts to progress white settlement and control of the northern frontier; that they are still here now trying to exercise self-determination on their traditional country; and that respect is due to them as custodians of the land and culture which they look after not just on their behalf but also, in the way they see it, on behalf of all Australians.

‘The terra nullius view … is alive and well’, Labor MP says on referendum failure

Marion Scrymgour:

In contrast to that, over recent weeks throughout this country there has been, at times, a belligerent chorus of ridicule and derision from a surprisingly large number of people directed at Welcome to Country ceremonies.

That chorus has included people elected to work in this building. Underlying the ridicule and derision has been a view about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their place in this nation.

The views of ‘Let’s pour scorn on Welcome to Country’ is in effect saying that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders may well have been here before colonisation, but that shouldn’t give them any ongoing or contemporary rights and status as first peoples—whether in relation to their traditional lands or anything else.

‘We’re all the same now,’ they say. ‘We’re all Australians, and I’m buggered if I’m going to ask permission or be treated as a visitor in any corner of Australia. I belong here just as much as them.’

That is basically the terra nullius view, and it is alive and well. This referendum has revealed some fault lines, and we are going to have to address them.