Health News at Your Fingertips

Timor-Leste’s parliament has passed a resolution calling for Australia to drop the prosecution of Bernard Collaery. The resolution, passed on Tuesday with cross-party support, also called for Witness K’s conviction to be quashed, according to local media.

Collaery, a former lawyer who represented intelligence officer Witness K, is facing potential jail time for his role in exposing a 2004 operation to bug the government offices of Timor-Leste during negotiations to carve up the resource-rich Timor Sea.

Alliance Against Political Prosecutions co-convenor Kathryn Kelly said the resolution was a “significant event”. Kelly said:

It is clearly not in the national interest for the prosecution to continue if this is the Timor-Leste government’s view.

The development comes amid new claims that former Australian foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer privately boasted in 2000 that Timor was an “open book” to Australia. According to an affidavit filed by Philip Dorling, a former adviser to the shadow foreign affairs minister, Laurie Brereton, Downer said:

You know. There’s not much back there [in Dili] we don’t know. We know what they’re saying about Laurie. They’re an open book to us.

Collaery’s case is also back before the ACT supreme court on Wednesday, where the parties are continuing to argue over secrecy issues. The attorney general, Michaelia Cash, wants to hand a judge super secret evidence, which Collaery himself would not be able to see, to justify why Collaery’s trial should be held partially behind closed doors.

Earlier we reported on some amendments Labor is seeking, to amend the statements of belief clause and beef up protections in the Sex Discrimination Act.

Labor’s shadow cabinet also wants:

• Anti-vilification provisions – because as Tony Burke has argued publicly – the bill in its current form doesn’t prevent people being abused in public for their religion.
• No discrimination in provision of aged care services by religious organisations.

But it’s important to ask: and then what? Will Labor insist on the amendments and vote against the bill if they don’t succeed? Or is it more a case of (as my colleague Amy Remeikis would say) bitch and fold?

Guardian Australia understands that Labor’s shadow cabinet agreed to insist on these amendments in the Senate. However, Labor’s final position will be decided by the caucus. There may be some who want to insist on these in the house, there may be some who want to wave it through both houses.

Also – earlier we reported that shadow cabinet wanted to protect teachers and students, on sexuality and gender identity. We now understand this amendment will only protect students, not teachers.

Labor’s shadow cabinet has been meeting since 8am to discuss the religious discrimination bill, and related amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act.

Guardian Australia understands that one of the options presented to the meeting by the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, is to move amendments:

• Removing the controversial statements of belief clause, that provides that statements grounded in faith or non-belief do not infringe other discrimination laws (including state laws); and
• Increasing protections in the Sex Discrimination Act to protect students on grounds of sexuality and gender identity

This was only described as an option – either because anything agreed in shadow cabinet will need caucus approval when it meets at 10:15am, or because there are other options still under consideration including amending the statements of belief clause rather than removing it entirely.

We’ll bring you more as we have it.

Victoria’s opposition leader, Matthew Guy, says he will cooperate with police, who are investigating images of his MPs not wearing masks inside parliament yesterday.

He told reporters:

Whatever comes comes, [we] will obviously deal with that and cooperate with any questions that are put to us. But I say this again, these rules are confusing, mask mandates in non high-risk settings should be a thing of the past. It is time for all of us to move on.

Guy says several MPs were drinking coffee as Essendon legend Kevin Sheedy gave a motivational speech to the Liberal party room ahead of the 2022 state election.

Some took their masks off for the photos with Sheedy, he said.

Like any law abiding citizen who wants to do the right thing, if we’ve made a mistake then of course we’ll do the right thing.

In October 2021, Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, was fined $400 for twice not wearing a mask outside parliament.

At the time, Andrews told reporters if he was not fined he would donate $400 to charity.

Guy has offered to do the same.