Health News at Your Fingertips

Here’s a bit more background on Shayla Phillips’ disappearance before she was found alive and well this afternoon, from AAP:

About 100 people have been involved in the frantic search for Shayla Phillips in southern Tasmania for the past three days.

Shayla was last seen about 2.30pm on Wednesday near Stormlea Road in Stormlea, wearing pink leggings, a cream top, and gumboots.

She has spent two nights in the remote area where temperatures dropped to 11 degrees.

Police say she had been playing outside with dogs from a neighbouring property.
When her mother went to check on her after about half an hour, Shayla and the dogs were gone.

One of the dogs was found about 7pm on Wednesday, 800 metres from where Shayla was last seen.

Police did not believe there was anything suspicious about the disappearance and there was no person of interest.

Significant resources, including thermal imaging drones and sniffer dogs from Victoria Police, were involved in the search operation.

We’ve confirmed four-year-old Shayla Phillips has been found alive and well.

Tasmania Police released this statement:

Police can confirm 4-year-old Shayla Phillips has been safely located a short time ago, in bushland near Halls Rd, Stormlea.

She has been taken to hospital for medical assessment.

Further details will be provided when available.

She went missing on Wednesday afternoon in the Stormlea area on the Tasman Peninsula. Tasmania Police used divers, drone operators and investigators as well as the Westpac Rescue Helicopter to try to locate her in the previous two days.

The ABC is reporting four-year-old Shayla Phillips has been found alive and well after she went missing on Wednesday afternoon from Southern Tasmania.

We are just looking to confirm now.

New Zealand’s defence minister Peeni Henare is up next, and says New Zealand is similarly concerned over the draft agreement between the Solomon Islands and China.

He says NZ was not aware of the deal, and says New Zealand, like Australia, has a defence force presence on the Solomon Islands. He says the deployment has been extended for the next few months.

Henare is meeting today with his Australian counterpart, Peter Dutton, and he says that security in the Pacific is an important topic of discussion.

He said:

I think the most important thing to me as Minister of Defence for the New Zealand government is to have a wider context and a wider view of security in the Pacific, and this is one of the matters that I am looking forward to discussing with Minister Dutton very shortly, and it’s something that we have made a priority in New Zealand and we will look towards the security across the entire Pacific and the Solomon Islands plays a key part.

He says he also wants to compare notes with Dutton about the defence force response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and also how to regenerate the workforce.

Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Zed Seselja is on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing and is asked about the reports of a security deal between China and the Solomon Islands.

He says the Australian government is “obviously concerned by the words in the draft agreement” and these concerns are being raised with the Solomon Islands, but he says the Australian government is working very closely with the Solomon Islands government.

He says the Australian government doesn’t “see a role for an authoritarian regime to be obviously coming in to a security environment” in the Pacific region.

That is something that is very important to Australia, to our interests but to the interests of the broader Pacific.

He disagrees that Australia has been “outfoxed” by China.

I don’t think you should draw that conclusion. As you say, it is a draft agreement and they will be discussions taking place between our government, the Australian government and Solomon Islands government and amongst Pacific counterparts, the Pacific family.

As I say and I will repeat, the Pacific family comes together in these circumstances. We work well together. We don’t see the need in a security environment to go beyond that and I think it does potentially have implications and we will see significant pushback in the region I think.

Police are moving in on the Blockade Australia climate protesters at Port Botany in Sydney.

Reports say a man has climbed up a 40-metre-high crane.

My colleagues Melissa Davey, Stephanie Convery and Emma Kemp have published this excellent feature this afternoon on the AFL’s study on concussion and brain injury that never saw the light of day.

On the topic of defamation law, during the hearing on the government’s proposed changes to defamation law to make the page or group administrations safe from liability over defamatory posts made by third party users, Meta was asked by Liberal senator Hollie Hughes about whether it complied with Australian court orders for the information of users on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp.

In a response filed last week, Meta has revealed that in the 2020 and 2021, Meta received three court order requests for user data, including one for a defamation case, and in all three cases, basic subscriber information was provided.

Top defamation lawyer Sue Chrysanthou, who spoke against the proposed legislation earlier this month, said in a written follow up statement that anonymous users on Twitter and Facebook are less likely to be subject to defamation action.

She says regarding Twitter, the nature of the platform is the identity of the tweeter is central to the publication.

Generally, no one pays any heed to anonymous Tweets; and anonymous Tweets will not feed automatically into many people’s Twitter feeds (due to lack of followers).

On Facebook, she says posts are rarely anonymous – “people usually post to let their views be known to those who know them”

Where anonymous posts occur on Facebook pages maintained by large organisations (eg the media Facebook pages involved in [the Voller case]), the natural (and sufficient) response is to pursue the media organisation, rather than the individual “troll”.

She says regarding Instagram “anonymity is the antithesis of nearly most activity on this platform.”

Chrysanthou says tweets and Facebook posts have often been the subject of concerns notices and defamation proceedings, but they’re rarely brought against anonymous accounts, where they might be for Google reviews, because of the reputation damage associated.

Labor MP Andrew Leigh says he was granted a personal protection order this week by the ACT Magistrates’ Court.

He says he won’t go into the details but “people should be aware of the way the environment is changing for MPs. Never imagined this when I got into politics in 2010.”

It comes a day after two men were charged over alleged threats made against WA premier Mark McGowan and his family.

Labor’s shadow foreign minister Penny Wong says Labor is “deeply concerned” about reports of a new security agreement between the Solomon Islands and China.

She said:

Such an agreement would have serious implications for Australia and for our shared region.

It also raises serious concerns about the Morrison government’s Pacific step up.

Australia should be the partner of choice for our Pacific partners to address shared challenges.

The Morrison government needs to explain the implications of the reported arrangement and how it plans to respond.

Labor is seeking a briefing on these matters.

Labor respects the right of the people and the government of the Solomon Islands to make sovereign decisions about its security.

The Pacific family has shown we can provide effective and sustainable support to the Solomon Islands in times of need – and we hope to see this continue.

South Australia has reported 4,549 new Covid-19 cases and four deaths, including a man in his 30s.

There are 157 people in hospital, including six in intensive care.