The latest national news update from the National Indigenous Radio Service.
Violence outside WA court over boy’s death
Calm has been restored to the streets of Kalgoorlie overnight after 12 police officers were injured in clashes with protestors as tensions flared over the death of a 14-year-old Aboriginal boy.
A 55-year-old man was due to appear in Kalgoorlie Courthouse yesterday morning charged with manslaughter, but an estimated crowd of about 200 protesters disrupted proceedings outside.
Police say the boy was riding a stolen motorcycle before a crash involving the bike and the accused man’s utility in bushland off Clancy Street in Boulder.
One officer required stitches while five police cars and a nearby business were damaged. Glass windows at the court house were smashed. The accused man, who cannot be named, eventually appeared in court and was remanded in custody to appear in Stirling Gardens Magistrates Court in Perth via video link later today.
Abuse focus on NSW Catholic authorities
A public hearing into the response of Catholic authorities to reports of child sexual abuse in NSW’s Maitland-Newcastle region is expected to get underway today.
The response to allegations levelled at Father Vincent Ryan and Marist Brothers Francis Cable and Thomas Butler will be investigated by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, a hearing which is expected to run for at least eight days.
The investigation into the region’s Catholic authorities is the royal commission’s 43rd case study and comes the day after the end of two extra days of evidence into responses by the Newcastle Anglican diocese. That Anglican hearing is expected to resume in November.
Man dies in head-on collision with truck
A head on collision between a truck and a car in a southeastern Queensland has left a man dead.
The 58-year-old man died when the vehicle he was driving collided with a truck in Mount Perry on Tuesday afternoon. The occupants in the truck were unhurt.
New national cancer register planned
A new national cancer screening register is planned to replace eight separate state and territory cervical cancer registers, and an outdated and fragmented bowel screening system.
Health Minister Sussan Ley says that will save more lives through increased detection, treatment and prevention.
Ms Ley will introduce the National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016 in the House of Representatives on Wednesday morning.
She said cervical cancer claims the lives of 250 women a year despite being one of the most preventable of cancers. Eighty per cent of women with cervical cancer have either not been screened or have not had regular screening.
Pressure mounts on NSW health minister
More scandals uncovered from inside the NSW health system have increased pressure on embattled minister Jillian Skinner.
Already in the firing line over a baby gassing tragedy at the Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital and a chemotherapy crisis at St Vincent’s Hospital, Ms Skinner’s department admitted to more major bungles yesterday.
It was revealed during a budget estimates hearing that the bodies of two babies, one that was miscarried and one stillborn, were confused at the Royal North Shore Hospital in late 2015.
Both of the babies were cremated after the identity mix-up, despite the family of one child requesting a burial. Premier Mike Baird us standing by his health minister.
High Court to unveil Baden-Clay’s fate
Australia’s highest court is expected to answer the question, once and for all: did Gerard Baden-Clay mean to kill his wife Allison?
The five-judge bench of the High Court is due to hand down its highly anticipated decision at 10.15am today in Canberra.
The Queensland DPP successfully launched a bid to have the case considered by the nation’s highest court after a shock decision by the state’s Court of Appeal to substitute it for manslaughter last December.
The High Court can dismiss the appeal, in which case prosecutors and Baden-Clay’s lawyers will have 14 days to lodge arguments ahead of his re-sentencing for manslaughter.
Alternatively, the court can allow the appeal and reinstate his murder conviction. A third option of a retrial theoretically exists but is considered highly unlikely.
