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Josh Butler

The Australian Electoral Commission has accepted recommendations to abolish the federal seat of North Sydney, formalising a plan set in motion months ago which will see New South Wales lose one seat at the next election.

The AEC announced the redistribution decision this morning, saying they had “carefully considered” a number of objections and feedback on the proposal.

The augmented Electoral Commission has unanimously accepted the Redistribution Committee’s proposed abolition of the Division of North Sydney, to retire the name of the Division of North Sydney and to modify the boundaries of nine of the electoral divisions initially proposed in May 2024,” said presiding member Susan Kenny.

The name “North Sydney” will be “retired”, the AEC said. The remaining 45 electorates in NSW will be retained, but the seat of Cook will now “jointly honour” both Captain James Cook and former prime minister Joseph Cook, according to the AEC’s formal reasoning.

The changes to NSW boundaries and the abolition of North Sydney – held by independent Kylea Tink – means a number of people in that area and surrounding electorates will move into new electorates. The AEC also announced those details today, with new changes to be announced to Berowra, Bradfield, Blaxland, Watson, Robertson, Dobell and others. You can see the full detailed changes at the AEC’s website.

We’re expecting Tink to hold a press conference shortly after 12pm today. An alert from her office says she will “discuss what the decision means for the people of North Sydney and reaffirm her commitment to work tirelessly on the issues that matter most to the people of North Sydney.”

The Australian Electoral Commission has made it official – the electorate of North Sydney will be abolished.

Independent MP Kylea Tink, who holds the seat, will be holding a press conference on the final outcome a little later, but said she would continue “working tirelessly” for the people of her electorate until the next election.

Sarah Basford Canales

Faruqi says leaving sanctions to privilege committee is like putting ‘Dracula in charge of the blood bank’

The final speaker on the independent parliamentary standards commission bill is the Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi.

The Greens senator said the culture in Parliament House needs a “desperate shift” with “hardly a day” going by without “bad or unacceptable behaviour, intimidation, bullying, racism and sexism”.

Faruqi added the conduct she experienced was often “toxic, cutthroat and hyper masculine, whitewashed and exclusionary on multiple levels”. She pointed out that leaving the privileges committee to deal with which sanctions could apply to politicians found to have misbehaved was like putting “Dracula being in charge of the blood bank”.

This is not going to improve public trust or transparency. And on top of this, and I have to point this out, the makeup of the privileges committees, and the complete lack of diversity on those, is a real issue. They are all white. There are no First Nations people, no people of color, no one with disability, as far as I can tell.

So how do we expect trust in decision making and issuing sanctions from committees that are so unrepresentative when it comes to the experience of unacceptable behaviors, of bullying, racism and discrimination that we all want to end?

Sarah Basford Canales

Gallagher says Parliament a ‘very traditional workplace’

The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, says the proposed parliamentary behaviour watchdog will be an “impartial fact finder”. But the minister also acknowledged the Parliament was a “very traditional workplace”. Gallagher:

This is a very traditional workplace in many sense(s), where it was, you know, through Federation and decisions taken by people many years ago about how this building has come to operate and the culture that exists within and I think from my time sitting in parliaments, I have seen a noticeable change in the last two years about expectations of conduct and of responsibility taken as leaders in this place, to make sure that not only do we hold each other to account, but that we look after the people that work in this building, and that this should be the best workplace to work in, acknowledging that it is probably the most unique workplace in the country.

Sarah Basford Canales

David Van – accused by Lidia Thorpe – speaks in support of standards commission

Following Perin Davey’s contribution, the independent senator David Van rises to speak on the proposed Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission (IPSC).

Van said he fully supports the bill and “sincerely wish it had been brought in sooner”.

Senator Lidia Thorpe used parliamentary privilege in June 2023 to accuse Van, then a Liberal senator, of “inappropriately” touching her in a Parliament House stairwell. Van denied the claims, which he described as false, and called for an investigation into the allegations.

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, referred the incident to the parliamentary workplace support service, which acted as an interim body until the IPSC could be established. The inquiry is believed to be ongoing with no outcome yet been made public.

Van told the Senate on Thursday:

It’s important that the processes within it uphold fairness for all involved. We must maintain rigorous standards when handling allegations of misconduct. This will help prevent vexatious allegations and hopefully prevent the political weaponisation of that complaints process. It will also … strengthen the procedural fairness in these complaint processes.

Melissa Davey

Health authorities issue warnings as whooping cough cases rise

Health authorities throughout Australia are urging the community to get vaccinated as whooping cough cases rise.

NSW data published on Thursday shows notifications of whooping cough are at their highest level since 2016, with more than 12,000 cases reported between January and September 2024.

In Victoria, there have been more than 10 times the number of cases in 2024 than for the whole of 2023. There, children aged 9-12 years account for nearly 40% of all notified cases. In South Australia, cases are at a six-year high.

Pregnant women, parents and carers of babies, grandparents and other people in close contact with babies need to be vaccinated to protect babies from severe disease. NSW Health’s director of communicable diseases, Dr Christine Selvey, said vaccination in pregnancy is very important to help protect newborn babies who are most at risk of serious illness from whooping cough. She said:

Free whooping cough vaccines are available for all pregnant women. Pregnant women are recommended to be vaccinated between 20 and 32 weeks of every pregnancy as this enables whooping cough antibodies to be transferred to their unborn baby.”

People with symptoms should contact their GP early. Parents and carers can call healthdirect for advice on 1800 022 222 if they or their child is unwell.

Sarah Basford Canales

Nationals deputy says standards commission is a ‘continuation’ of positive change in Parliament

Returning once again to the Senate, the Nationals deputy leader, Perin Davey, says people need to keep focusing on the “positive things” achieved in Parliament and that workplace culture change is an “evolutionary process”. Davey said:

Unfortunately, we have seen poor behaviour in this place, which, let us not forget, in a sitting week sees around 6,000 people working in this one little anthill here in the middle of Canberra. Six-thousand people in one building.

One thing I would say is I’m amazed we haven’t actually seen more poor behaviour, and that is testament to the fact that people who come in here because they want to see positive change in their communities. So that is not to say that we don’t need what is before us today, because I think today, this is a continuation of that positive change that we are seeing.

The NSW senator acknowledged while the independent parliamentary standards commission was a long time in the making, it was important to get the process right.

The body was one of the recommendations in the 2021 Set the Standard report by former sex discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins.

Sarah Basford Canales

Greens Senator raises concerns over privileges committee

Back to the Senate and Greens senator Larissa Waters is next to speak on the independent parliamentary standards commission. She says it’s the next piece of the puzzle.

Waters, who sits on the crossparty taskforce which oversaw the bill’s drafting, has raised concerns about the fact that politicians on the privileges committee will be deciding on how best to sanction their peers when it comes to more serious misconduct claims. Waters said:

The privileges committee are not trained professionals. They’re politicians. We ask for them to have compulsory trauma training, and I reiterate that anyone who sits on the privileges committee, who will now be in charge of regulating the conduct of MPs behaviour, should have the benefit of trauma-informed training.

The Greens senator also took issue with last-minute amendments made by the government in the House of Representatives on Tuesday. The changes mean members of the privileges committee will also be placed on an IPSC oversight committee and the deputy chair needs to be a member of the opposition – not the crossbench.

The two-party system is on the decline, folks, your vote’s declining, and members of the public actually want to see a more representative parliament. So it’s a bit on the nose that you’re essentially earmarking the chair and the deputy chair position for yourselves. I mean, it’s a bit presumptive, to be honest.