Australia news LIVE: People smugglers could exploit visa black ban; Plibersek scales back environment reforms

Network Ten lawyer Justin Quill is speaking on ABC Radio National, after Bruce Lehrmann lost his multimillion-dollar defamation suit against the network and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.

Yesterday, Federal Court Justice Michael Lee upheld Ten and Wilkinson’s truth defence to Lehrmann’s defamation claim over an interview with Higgins broadcast on The Project on February 15, 2021.

Quill said there was a sense of relief when the judge ruled in favour of the network.

He said the judges ruling on what happened on the night “couldn’t have been better”.

“I’ve got to say, his honour’s analysis on the facts and what occurred on that night … couldn’t have been better,” Quill told ABC Radio.

He was asked about the criticism the judge made for intertwining the rape allegation and the narrative of a cover-up.

That was in the context of the qualified privilege defence, he said, which rarely ended with a win for defendants.

“That is more an operation of the way in which the law works, you have the judges and barristers picking apart what journalists did, and didn’t do many months, sometimes years, after the event and then applying this test of reasonableness to the conduct by journalists,” Quill said.

He said it doesn’t necessarily mean the journalism wasn’t reasonable.

“If you just boil it down to its absolute, simplest terms, it couldn’t be unreasonable to publish something that was true, the central allegation,” Quill said.

Lee was satisfied Ten and Wilkinson had proved to the civil standard – on the balance of probabilities – that Lehrmann raped Higgins in the Parliament House office of their then-boss, Liberal senator Linda Reynolds, in the early hours of March 23, 2019.

This is lower than the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt. Lee’s decision does not amount to a finding of criminal guilt.

In NSW, a teenager has been arrested after a church leader and several worshippers were stabbed during a service in Sydney’s west on Monday night, triggering a near-riot which required hundreds of police to bring under control.

Graphic footage captured on a livestream shows Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel speaking at the altar of Wakeley’s Christ The Good Shepherd Church as a male wearing a black jumper walks towards him and pulls out an implement.

As horrified churchgoers scream and run to safety, the male stabs the priest in the chest. The priest then falls to the floor and is stabbed a further five times as worshippers rush towards him and manage to separate the assailant from the priest.

Follow our dedicated live blog here, for the latest updates.

The outback town of Alice Springs is waking from its last night under a youth curfew.

The orders were imposed on March 27 when the Northern Territory government declared an emergency following escalating violence in the Red Centre town.

Despite warnings from legal experts that the curfew was possibly illegal, Chief Minister Eva Lawler extended it for six days until 6am this morning.

Up to an additional 35 police officers will remain in the town, including 10 from South Australia, and government social workers will continue to support families.

“[There will be] six staff every night on the streets in Alice Springs, but it is in those partnerships with the NGOs,” Lawler said.

“There’s a really strong focus on getting every kid in Alice Springs back to school, getting families back out to community so they can get their kids to school as well.”

Under the curfew, children aged under 18 were prohibited from entering central Alice Springs between 6pm and 6am.

NT Chamber of Commerce chief operating officer Nicole Walsh said the curfew had been good for businesses but people were still wary.

“It has certainly been a stopgap … we do get some feedback it has pushed crime into other places,” she said.

The curfew was first imposed after a surge of violence in the town inflamed by the death of an 18-year-old in a car crash in early March.

His death triggered clashes between rival families that culminated in an attack at the Todd Tavern.

Officers made several arrests and seized more than 50 weapons, including spears, axes and clubs.

AAP

Tanya Plibersek is set to release a truncated version of her overdue environmental reforms, moving to establish a new federal watchdog and deferring plans to beef up federal laws to deliver on her pledge to end native species extinctions.

The environment minister promised to bring her “nature positive plan” to parliament by the end of 2023. However, after opposition from the resources sector Plibersek is now set to pursue the reforms in tranches, beginning with a bill to create an Environment Protection Agency to handle development decisions and enforce regulations.

Debate over the government’s promise to reform the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act is heating up alongside the world’s oceans, as a global coral bleaching event is declared on Tuesday by the International Coral Reef Initiative, following widespread damage to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Crossbench senators and environment groups criticised Plibersek’s move, arguing urgent change is needed to stop the continued downward trajectory of Australia’s environment, setting up a political brawl when the government attempts to pass its environment laws in the Senate.

Continue reading about the reforms.

Home Affairs says people smugglers could take advantage of Labor’s bid to black-ban entire nationalities under its deportation bill by telling vulnerable people there is no legal way for them to travel to Australia.

With the government facing another High Court test on Wednesday over whether it can legally detain people who refuse to co-operate with moves to deport them, a Senate inquiry into the government’s latest detention crackdown laws has heard the bill that the government tried to rush through the last sitting of parliament was seriously flawed.

Immigration Minister Andrew Giles’ controversial bill has three main parts: threatening jail time for people who don’t co-operate with their own deportation; revisiting protection findings against people who have fled perilous countries; and blocking people from countries who don’t accept the involuntary return of their own citizens.

“Some people smugglers may seek to use some of the measures in the proposed legislation to market their services to vulnerable potential irregular immigrants, suggesting there is no legal way for them to travel to Australia,” Home Affairs’ submission said in reference to the third measure.

Read more on this issue.

In the US, Donald Trump makes history again this week when the first of his four criminal trials begins in New York.

Trump, in an unprecedented situation for any former or current US president, faces 34 counts of falsifying business records to prevent a sex scandal becoming public as he campaigned to win the White House against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks and kicks off on Tuesday (AEST) when Manhattan prosecutors and Trump’s defence team attempt to whittle down hundreds of people to a pool of 12 impartial jurors and six alternates.

While the former president could try to be excused or waive his right to attend, New York law generally requires defendants be present in court – and Trump is expected to be there to defend himself as he campaigns to return to power. Here’s what you need to know.

Here’s more from our US correspondent. 

Good morning, and thanks for your company.

It’s Tuesday, April 16. I’m Caroline Schelle, and I’ll be steering our live coverage for the first half of the day.

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