Australia news LIVE: Bandt threatens Dreyfus with legal action over Gaza protest comments; NSW premier apologises for criminalisation of homosexuality

Question time kicks off at 2pm in the House of Representatives. Watch the session live here:

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he will not be taking lectures “from the mob who want to preference One Nation” after Nationals Leader David Littleproud asked Labor would put the Greens party last in the upcoming federal election.

The question comes after a political fight erupted from yesterday’s question time when Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton told the House the Greens should not make any remarks that encourage protests to shut down electorate offices because it was anti-democratic to stop the work of elected MPs and their staff.

Today, Greens Leader Adam Bandt escalated the fight by accusing Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus of defaming him and threatening legal action after Dreyfus accused Bandt on ABC of encouraging criminal damage to electorate offices.

Littleproud opened question time this afternoon asking if Albanese will commit to preferencing every Greens candidate last during the next election.

“Those matters are all matters for the organisation of the party that we went through, but we certainly won’t be taking lectures from the mob who want to preference One Nation,” Albanese answers to groans from the opposition.

Penny Sharpe, the leader of the NSW government in the upper house, is delivering a similar apology to the one we heard from Premier Chris Minns earlier this afternoon.

She’ll join Minns in apologising to those who suffered at the hands of laws that criminalised homosexuality.

Watch Sharpe’s apology here:

A council in Sydney’s south-west has shut down a floor of its offices as health officials investigate a cancer cluster among its staff.

Three people working on level six of the Liverpool City Council building have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer in the last five years, the council confirmed in a statement.

The council reported the cluster to NSW Health, which is currently undertaking an epidemiological investigation.

They have also hired a third-party environmental health consultant and relocated current staff to a different floor, although the council believes the cases are unlikely to be linked to the building.

“We have been informed that it is unlikely there is a causal connection between our workplace and the cancer diagnosis,” a spokesperson said.

“Nevertheless, Council takes this very seriously and future action will be based on the results of two concurrent investigations.”

Steve Donley from the United Services Union said the three union members had cancer in their lymph nodes, and there were concerns that something on level six of the building was causing it.

Liberal MP Julian Leeser has spoken in the House of Representatives, saying as a Jewish Australian he is tired of the government and other bodies being “unable to say antisemitism without saying Islamophobia in the same breath”.

Leeser sought to suspend standing orders in the House of Representatives this morning for debate about his private member’s bill which would legislate a judicial inquiry into antisemitism on university campuses.

Leeser said in his speech the inquiry needed to take place before the second semester of university begins at the end of July.

Here’s what Leeser had to say:

As a Jewish Australian, I am so sick and tired of this government, the human rights commission, universities and other bodies in Australia being unable to say antisemitism without saying Islamophobia in the same breath.

It creates some sort of dangerous narrative for our social harmony that suggests a Jewish-Muslim conflict here in Australia when so much of the antisemitism is actually propagated by the militant socialist left.

After the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, there was heightened Islamophobia in this country and no one was saying at that time we can’t mention Islamophobia without mentioning antisemitism in the same breath, but the level of antisemitism at the moment is unprecedented in the history of this country.”

Labor voted against the suspension but not against the bill, adjourning debate to a later date.

Good afternoon, I’ve taken over the controls of the blog from my colleague Lachlan Abbott. Thanks to Lachie for his great work this morning.

There’s a lot of news still to come today, so at this midway point, let’s look back at the top stories we’ve covered so far:

• Greens leader Adam Bandt threatened to sue Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus over what he considers “defamatory statements” made about him and his party amid a heated debate on local protests of the Gaza conflict.
• In business news, Australian tech stocks jumped on Thursday morning, lifting the local share market after the world’s largest technology companies drove US stocks to all-time highs on Wall Street.
• In NSW, Premier Chris Minns issued a formal state apology to those convicted of homosexual acts, days before the 40th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the state.
• In Victoria, the state continues to be captivated by the trial of accused double killer Gregory Lynn, as he enters the witness box in the missing campers trial.
• In global news, a Ukrainian-Russian man has been detained on suspicion of planning a terror attack in France after he was hurt in an explosion in a hotel room just north of Paris.

There’s a little over half an hour until question time, which is sure to be a doozy amid the various tensions in the House, so be sure to stick with us for our live coverage from 2pm.

NSW opposition leader Mark Speakman has joined Premier Chris Minns in apologising to those who were convicted under laws that criminalised homosexual acts between men.

Those sitting in the NSW Parliament’s public gallery included NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb, Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore and former MP Don Harwin.

Speakman said: “Given the freedoms we enjoy across our state today, it’s hard to contemplate now that men in our state were charged, prosecuted and convicted for engaging in consenting sexual relationships.”

“Forty years on, we unite as a parliament in rejecting the notion that the government should be criminalising consensual private sexual activity,” he said.

NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley also addressed the parliament, paying tribute to activists who led the push to change the law. He said before the decriminalisation, 1000 men were convicted every year.

NSW Premier Chris Minns is apologising to those convicted of homosexual acts more than 40 years ago, before the state ended the criminalisation of homosexuality.

Here’s an extract of Minns’ apology:

And here today as a parliament and as a state, as people who want to make good, we’re here to apologise for every life that was damaged or diminished, or destroyed by these unjust laws.

To those who survived these terrible years and to those who never made it through. We are truly sorry. We’re sorry for every person convicted under legislation that should never have existed.

These cruel laws could have been written in a single sentence across 22 words in the Crimes Act. But the real story of the legislation was written through the lives of the people that were targeted.”

Minns recounted the stories of lesbians who were kicked out of home, gay men who were criminally convicted and struggled to get a job and those who were subjected to electric shock therapy.

“Others were given drugs designed to bring on nausea and vomiting,” he said.

“You cannot shock someone out of who they love. And you can’t rewire their basic humanity. One of the great advantages in recent years has been the discrediting of aversion therapy and conversion therapy and other forms of pseudoscience,” Minns continued.

“That argument was made by the gay community, in particular by our colleague, the member for Sydney and as a parliament, we were proud to continue in their footsteps last month by banning conversion therapy in New South Wales.”

NSW Premier Chris Minns is currently delivering an apology to those impacted by laws that criminalised homosexual acts in recognition of the harm done to many.

In NSW, those convicted under the laws, which operated until 1984, faced a 14-year prison sentence for consensual homosexual sex with their partners.

It is two days before the 40th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in NSW.

Those prosecuted under the law have packed in the public gallery.

Speaker Greg Piper acknowledged that not all laws created in the parliament have always been good.

“In fact, some have been horrendously prejudicial,” he said.

The first of three State of Origin clashes on Wednesday evening was the highest-rating television program of 2024 so far.

The match, which saw Queensland thrash an under-manned New South Wales side was viewed by a national average audience of 3.44 million across the Nine Network, 760,000 of those being streamed on digital platform 9Now.

The total reach of the program – meaning those who watched for at least one minute – was 5.31 million according to the latest VOZ report from ratings agency OzTAM.

The numbers fall short of several records set by the Matildas during the Women’s World Cup in 2023, the semi-final match against England attracting an average audience of 7.13 million across Seven and 7Plus.