Derryn Hinch dies aged 82
Derryn Hinch, the former journalist and senator, has died aged 82.
Hinch had reportedly been in poor health since a recent fall.
He was a newspaper reporter before moving into television and radio, perhaps most prominently as a presenter on Melbourne radio station 3AW.
The radio station reported on Friday that Hinch died overnight at home.
One of Hinch’s friends, 3AW host Darren James, told the network on Friday he was “yet to process” the death.
“He messages me every morning … I didn’t get the messages this morning.”
Hinch served as a senator for Victoria in his eponymous Justice party between 2016 and 2019.
He was also well-known for campaigning against paedophiles, and was repeatedly found in contempt for breaching court orders.
Key events
Telstra CEO Vicki Brady faces questions on nationwide outage
Josh Taylor
SA police rule out link between death and Telstra outage
South Australia police have completed an investigation into a death reported by Liberal senator Kerrynne Liddle and ruled out a link to Wednesday’s triple zero outage.
SA police commissioner, Grant Stevens, said it was “incorrect” to report the link between the death and the outage.
He said:
At about 10:00am on 8 July a woman was found unresponsive by her partner. Her partner then contacted a neighbour using his Telstra mobile phone and asked that neighbour to come to his house because that neighbour had [a] medical background.
The person who attended did so immediately, assessed the woman, and then used her Telstra mobile phone to contact triple zero to arrange for an ambulance. Both of those calls went through without any difficulty. The woman was then conveyed to a local hospital where she later passed away.
Stevens said there were no issues in getting through to triple zero and the incident “has put an unnecessary strain” on the family.
This is a tragedy where a family has lost a loved one, and in the ordinary course of events, they would not have had such significant involvement with the South Australia police and … this particular person’s passing would not have been the subject of such significant scrutiny.
Tory Shepherd
Media watchdog’s ‘bizarre limitation’
A “bizarre limitation” on the media watchdog means it can’t investigate complaints about streaming content, the antisemitism royal commission has heard.
Counsel assisting, Richard Lancaster SC, asked the Australian Communications and Media Authority chair, Nerida O’Loughlin, about the different treatment, saying it “seems a bizarre limitation”. O’Loughlin said:
It certainly presents some challenges to us, and I think it also presents some challenges to complainants. We’ve had a range of complaints come to us over the last few years which have been out of our jurisdiction. [It] must be very frustrating for a complainant when they’re proposing to complain about something which is on broadcast on the ABC, where they can come to us [but] it was actually a streamed version of a television program.
The rules applied to broadcasting services should be the same when they are delivered online, she said.
O’Loughlin also said Acma would “revisit” some of their investigations since 2023 and after the deadly Bondi attack to make sure they haven’t missed anything of an antisemitic nature, but also to check on the potential “cumulative nature” of coverage.
Sarah Collard
NT children’s commissioner resigns over child protection changes that remove Indigenous placement principle
The Northern Territory children’s commissioner has resigned over controversial changes to child protection laws, saying the Finocchiaro government had “sidelined” her in going ahead with amendments that are strongly opposed by First Nations organisations, human rights groups and legal advocates.
Shahleena Musk was appointed to the role in December 2023. In a resignation statement posted online on Thursday night, the Larrakia woman said her position was now untenable.
“In particular, I have been unable to support the NT Government’s approach to substantial and wide-reaching changes to child protection laws,” she said.
Read more here:
Telstra could face civil penalties up to $30m, Acma says
Adam Suckling, the deputy chair of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma), said Telstra could face civil penalties of up to $30m over the outage.
“We will be working very hard to hold them to account,” Suckling told reporters.
He went on:
One of the things we are looking at under our investigation is that it needs to ensure that people can get through to triple zero. That includes maintaining their network. So one of the questions we will inevitably look at and ask them about is how they configured their network.
Telstra must ‘face the music’ over outage, minister says
The communications minister, Anika Wells, is speaking about the Telstra outage, saying the company has provided formal notice to the triple-zero custodian that the outage has been fully resolved.
She said all welfare checks that Telstra referred to the state emergency services have been completed, and there were “no adverse outcomes” linked to those efforts.
“That is a huge relief to all Australians. I want to thank those who provided support to those seven individual who did need assistance,” Wells said. “Their quick and diligent work on this occasion may well have saved lives.”
She then moved to terse words for Telstra, saying:
The last few days have been really difficult for many Australians and now that Telstra has resolved its outage, it is time for Telstra to face the music. Telstra has a lot of questions to answer …
Telstra has held special trust from Australians. It has been respected as the premium service. It is an iconic company. It has a rich history. But that trust really stands in peril today. It is going to take Telstra a lot of time and a lot of work to rebuild that trust with Australians.
Derryn Hinch dies aged 82
Derryn Hinch, the former journalist and senator, has died aged 82.
Hinch had reportedly been in poor health since a recent fall.
He was a newspaper reporter before moving into television and radio, perhaps most prominently as a presenter on Melbourne radio station 3AW.
The radio station reported on Friday that Hinch died overnight at home.
One of Hinch’s friends, 3AW host Darren James, told the network on Friday he was “yet to process” the death.
“He messages me every morning … I didn’t get the messages this morning.”
Hinch served as a senator for Victoria in his eponymous Justice party between 2016 and 2019.
He was also well-known for campaigning against paedophiles, and was repeatedly found in contempt for breaching court orders.
Body of missing girl found in bushland near small town in Victoria
The body of a 13-year-old girl who went missing on the weekend has been found in bushland after an extensive search by police, who say the death is suspicious, AAP reports.
Police found the remains in Donald, a small town in rural western Victoria, late on Thursday afternoon. A large-scale search was conducted in bushland after the teen was reported missing on 5 July.
“While the remains are yet to be formally identified, they are believed to be that of the missing girl,” Victoria police said in a statement on Friday.
Detectives from the missing persons squad have launched an investigation into the girl’s death.
Lisa Cox
Julie Collins says first detection of H5 bird flu in local wildlife ‘concerning’ but ‘not unexpected’
Agriculture minister Julie Collins says the first detection of deadly H5 bird flu in a local bird is a concerning but not unexpected development.
The dead greater crested tern was found at Robe on South Australia’s Limestone Coast.
Collins said:
While this, of course, is a concerning development, it is not unexpected and is another sign that our strong biosecurity system is working.
Collins said work had begun to establish the potential pathway via which the bird became infected.
She said the South Australian government was leading the response on the ground by boosting surveillance to determine whether there had been further spread in local wildlife.
Tory Shepherd
Surge in hate on LinkedIn after 7 October
Hateful or derogatory content that had to be removed from LinkedIn quadrupled after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s retaliation, the antisemitism royal commission has heard.
In the second six months of 2023, 26,141 pieces of content in that category were removed. In the first six months of 2024, the number was 105,903.
LinkedIn’s vice-president for legal digital safety, James Patrick Corrigan, told the inquiry the assumption was it had something to do with 7 October.
There was also a big increase in the removal of harassment or abusive content from 250,236 in the second six months of 2024 to 477,339 in the first six months of 2025, but Corrigan said he did not recall the reason for that.
Tory Shepherd
Inquiry hears of X’s ‘shocking disrespect’ for Australians
X (formerly known as Twitter) “shows a shocking disrespect and disregard for the Australian community” by not engaging with the antisemitism royal commission, counsel assisting Richard Lancaster SC says.
Lancaster reminded the inquiry of the evidence it has heard that antisemitic and hate speech spreads on X, including that X had been particularly difficult to work with since Elon Musk took it over.
He questioned whether the social platform still had a social licence to operate in Australia and said there should be regulations for it that can be enforced in Australia. He said:
In Australia, if social media platforms are capable of inflicting harm or are actually inflicting harm upon Australians, the laws of Australia must be capable of securing accountability for those harms.
Lancaster said X had not responded to the evidence provided about it or to the commission’s attempts to contact it. He said:
Although an apparent proponent of unconstrained speech, X has remained silent.
SA confirms first case of bird flu detected in local wildlife
Lisa Cox
The first case of deadly H5 bird flu in local wildlife has been recorded in a bird found on the South Australian coast. We will have more soon from the agriculture minister, Julie Collins.
The bird is a greater crested tern – a common coastal species – and was found at Robe on the Limestone Coast.
Christopher Knaus
Beneficiary of Christian Brothers’ wealth refuses to stand in as defendant for abuse claims
The entity that benefited from vast land and property transfers from the Christian Brothers has refused to volunteer itself to replace the failing Catholic order as a defendant in abuse claims.
The Trustees of Edmund Rice Education Australia will also fight any attempt to force it to replace the Christian Brothers in abuse claims, triggering a legal battle that could reach the high court and will cause further uncertainty for hundreds of survivors.
Last month, the Christian Brothers declared it was going broke and could no longer meet the compensation claims of survivors in court. The religious order has a shocking record of clergy abuse and is facing hundreds of current and future abuse cases estimated to be worth $774m.
In the past decade, it has transferred vast and wealthy tracts of land, school buildings and homes to another entity, the Trustees of Edmund Rice Education Australia, for nominal amounts of $1. Edmund Rice Education Australia now runs former Christian Brothers schools and is named after the founder of the Christian Brothers, Edmund Rice, but maintains it is independent and unrelated to the Christian Brothers.
Survivors, fearing they will be left without proper compensation when the Christian Brothers order fails, are seeking to transfer their claims to Edmund Rice Education Australia.
The first case to attempt to do this, brought by two abuse survivors in Victoria, appeared in the Victorian supreme court on Friday. Their case is being closely watched by other survivors in Victoria and interstate.
The court heard the Trustees of Edmund Rice Education Australia did not consent to being made the proper defendant to the survivors’ claims. They are also likely to oppose a push to have the court appoint them as defendants. That will require a hearing in August, which will consider the relationship between the Christian Brothers and Edmund Rice Education Australia.
The court heard the case was highly complex and had “high court written all over it”, indicating a protracted and costly court battle.
The matter will return to court next week and a hearing is likely to take place in early August.
Press Club bills GetUp over Hanson stunt
Tom McIlroy
Canberra’s National Press Club has sent a bill for more than $2,400 to the activist group GetUp, covering damage caused during a speech by One Nation’s leader, Pauline Hanson, last month.
The club wants GetUp’s David Sharaz to pay for the damage caused by the installation of a banner that was lowered mid-speech attacking Hanson for her opposition to a pay increase for low-paid workers.
A police investigation into the incident is still under way.
Capital Brief reported this morning that Sharaz has been told he is “not welcome in the club at any time in the future”. He has received a bill for $2,116.40 for damage to a light box and $500 for removal of the screen installed without permission. Fees for Sharaz’s cancelled membership have been refunded.
GetUp said the invoice from the club had been incorrectly made out to Sharaz rather than to the organisation.
GetUp has already taken responsibility for the action at the National Press Club.
We note that the invoice issued from the NPC is addressed directly to an individual, not to GetUp itself.
While there is an investigation underway, it would be inappropriate to comment further.
Listen: ‘The risks and rewards of the PM’s podcast era’
Anthony Albanese offered an unequivocal apology this week after making an off-colour comment about Kylie Minogue while playing a ‘shag, marry, date’ game on a podcast.
In this week’s Full Story podcast (newsroom edition), Josephine Tovey speaks with Patrick Keneally, Gabrielle Jackson and Josh Butler about what the prime minister’s latest podcast appearance says about an increasingly fractured media landscape.
How a throwback to 2006 took down Telstra’s national phone network
My colleague Josh Taylor has a deep dive on the issue that threw Telstra’s networks into chaos this week. You can read it here:
Caitlin Cassidy
Australia’s sandstone universities to appear before antisemitism royal commission next week
The University of Melbourne (UoM) and the University of Sydney have confirmed they will be among a group of higher education providers to appear before the royal commission on antisemitism and social cohesion next week.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the UoM said it had “fully engaged” with the royal commission and would appear at the Melbourne hearing alongside “several other” universities.
The University of Melbourne is part of the national process to reflect, mourn and seek a renewed sense of trust and belonging for all … As a diverse university community, we must come together and stand united in our continued efforts to eradicate hate and discrimination in all forms.
A spokesperson for the University of Sydney said: “We fully support and are cooperating with the Royal Commission.
Alongside the rest of Australia, we were horrified by the terror attack at Bondi which struck at the heart of Sydney’s Jewish community … Since the disbandment of the protest encampment on campus two years ago, we have taken definitive action including instigating a formal review and introducing significant reforms. We’ve seen the number of complaints related to antisemitism decline substantially from students, but we know there is still work to be done.
Guardian Australia understands the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) will also appear at the block of hearings, as will student groups. The peak body for the sector, Universities Australia, has not been requested to appear.
Telstra CFO grilled over compensation and executive bonuses
Telstra’s CFO, Michael Ackland, was asked about compensation again, but says customers will need to rely on normal processes.
Brady was also asked if any Telstra executives would forgo their bonuses.
Our focus right now has been on getting the issue fixed, making sure all of our customers are back up and running, and then making sure we get the investigation done.
We, again, have very clear processes and governance when it comes to bonuses and remuneration. That process will happen and it will be overseen by our board.
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