Victorian judge bans niqab in court's public gallery

A Victorian judge has banned a woman whose husband is facing terrorism charges from wearing a niqab in court, saying it posed a potential security risk.

The woman applied through her husband’s lawyers to wear the face veil, which she said was a “a fundamental way in which she observes her faith”, while sitting in the public gallery to support him through the six-week trial.

She said she had been permitted to wear the niqab during a committal hearing in the magistrates court and was willing to show her face to security guards manning the metal detector and weapons check at the court entrance to verify her identity.

But the supreme court judge Christopher Beale said the risk of a mistrial or other incident caused by “misbehaving” in the public gallery would be heightened if a person could not be instantly identified because their face was covered, and ruled that the risk outweighed the infringement upon the woman’s right to freedom of religious expression.

“Deterrence, identification and proof are all served by a requirement that spectators in the public gallery have their faces uncovered,” he said in a decision handed down on Monday.

Beale said lawyers for the accused had indicated there were other women who would also wear niqabs in court if permission were granted, which would further confuse identity issues because “such dress tends to be very similar”.

Lawyers for the woman argued that she did not pose a security risk and would abide by all court orders, but Beale said the stress felt by people accused of serious crimes was often shared by family members and that “as a consequence of that stress, incidents happen from time to time in court”.

“Australia is obviously a multicultural society and I agree that religious dress should be accommodated as much as possible, but the right of religious freedom and the right to participate in public life are not absolutes,” Beale said in his decision.

He said the Victorian charter of human rights recognised that rights “may be subject to limitations which can be ‘demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom’”.

Lawyers for the woman said there was an implied right of wear a veil when not giving evidence, citing a number of cases in Commonwealth countries.

Those cases generally concerned whether a person was able to wear religious facial coverings while giving evidence and did not contest a person’s right to wear religious attire when not on the stand. Among them is a ruling by the New South Wales court of appeal concerning a civil damages trial against NSW police, which upheld the trial judge’s ruling that the complainant could not wear her niqab while giving evidence.

“A requirement that spectators have their faces uncovered is not to force anyone to act immodestly,” Beale said. “First, the exposure of one’s face in a courtroom cannot reasonably be viewed as an immodest act: subjective views to the contrary cannot rule the day, or the management of a courtroom.

“Second, if someone feels strongly that it would be improper for them to uncover their face in court, they can choose not to attend.”

He said the trial could be livestreamed to another room in the court building to allow the woman to follow it if she chose not to remove her veil.

The Victorian equal opportunity and human rights commissioner, Kristen Hilton, said religious and cultural rights were protected under Victorian law, and that those rights also applied in a courtroom.

“Victorian law is clear that when courts are acting in an administrative way – such as making decisions about procedure in the courtroom – they must consider and act compatibly with human rights,” Hilton said.

“The law allows for restrictions on human rights, such as restricting a person’s right to observe their religion or culture through what they wear, but limits are only justified where there is clear evidence the limit is reasonable.”

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'Absolute prize': Why selective schools are eclipsing private schools

Because they are more selective.  Private schools cater for a wider ability range

Selective schools have overtaken private schools as the state's most advantaged, with schools such as Normanhurst Boys and Hornsby Girls now eclipsing elite colleges such as St Ignatius, Barker and Ascham.

More than half of the state's top 20 most socio-educationally advantaged schools are now state selective because they are the "absolute education prize" for parents, a report from the Centre for Policy Development has found.

Securing a selective school spot requires such investment of time and money that almost three quarters of their students come from the highest quarter of socio-educational advantage, and only two per cent from the lowest.

But their popularity has come at a cost; researchers also measured the wider ''brain drain'' when new selective schools were established, and found that results and enrolments at neighbouring suburban schools fell.

The report, part of a series on equity in schools, argues that selective schools were designed to cater for all high achievers but are now dominated by the children of parents with the resources to pay for things like coaching.

"It reflects the ferocious competition to get into these schools," said co-author Christina Ho. "They are public schools, you wouldn't expect to see them at the top of these advantage lists. It doesn't seem possible for them to be eclipsing private schools.

"But among middle class families they have become the absolute education prize. Families begin planning years in advance. Tutoring begins in early primary school, costing thousands. If you don't start planning early, you jeopardise your chances.

"Those resources are not available to most families. That's how you end up with this concentration of [advantaged] families."

The socio-educational score of a school looks at the education and occupation of its students' parents.

The report also looked at selective schools' impact on suburban high schools by studying the opening of four partially selective schools in Sydney's south-west in 2010, namely Bonnyrigg, Prairiewood, Moorebank and Elizabeth Macarthur.

Between 2005 and 2017, the number of HSC ''distinguished achievers'' rose at those selective schools. At Moorebank, the proportion rose from 13 per cent to 28 per cent. But neighbouring high schools experienced no increase or a decrease.

In some cases, their number of high achievers halved. Enrolment dropped, too.

Co-author Chris Bonnor said the loss of high achievers to selective schools made neighbourhood schools less desirable. "They lose enrolments, they lose those aspirant students that make up [more challenging] classes," he said.

A teacher from one of the south-west Sydney schools affected, who wanted to remain anonymous, said the impact on her school had been stark. "We used to be able to say to parents, 'we can help your children get really good results'," she said. "We can't say that any longer."

The NSW government is reviewing the selective school and primary school opportunity class tests amid concerns that wealthy families are gaming the system by engaging tutors for their children.

A department spokesman said the final report would be released later this year.

But Dr Ho said the review was "tinkering around the edges of the admissions system," and called for bigger changes. "We have the means, the technology, and the model that could inform a much more far-reaching review of selective schools so we don't have this segregation of students," she said.

Mark Jordan's two children, Sophia, 15, and Bill, 12, both attend the partially selective Sydney Secondary College Balmain Campus. Bill might have attended a private school if he didn't get into Balmain, and did some coaching ahead of the entrance test.

With the money he has saved on private school fees, Mr Jordan invests in extra coaching. "We spend about $1800 [a year]. It's not a small amount of money but it's a lot cheaper than private school fees."

''We've noticed less diversity than we expected,'' Mr Jordan said. ''So we think the entry process could be unfair."

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Why more Kiwis are deported from Australia than any other group

No mystery.  Kiwis can come here without checks -- so their crooks come too

NEW Zealanders are being deported from Australia in huge numbers, and it’s becoming huge problem for both countries.

“WE DON’T want you here, the broader community doesn’t want you here.” That was the message from an Australian Federal Police superintendent to motorcycle club members when a notorious New Zealand-born bikie was arrested for his bikie links in 2015.

The visa of Aaron Joe Thomas Graham was cancelled and he was set to be deported back to New Zealand.

The situation has become a familiar one in recent years. More than 1300 Kiwis have been deported from Australia in the past three years, with another 15,000 set to be sent back over the next decade.

In last night’s Foreign Correspondent, journalist and former Wallaby Peter FitzSimons goes to New Zealand to see how deportation has affected the relations between the two countries.

“I wasn’t on criminal charges … but I was still treated as a prisoner who has committed a crime,” Ko Haapu, a former New Zealand soldier turned motorcycle gang member and deportee, told FitzSimons.

In the program titled “Don’t call Australia home!” FitzSimons found that under the changes to the Migrant Act, “just being a member of a bike gang, an organisation suspected of criminal behaviour, was enough to get Haapu deported on “bad character” grounds even though it’s not illegal in Western Australia to belong to one.”

Since the Migration Act was amended in December 2014, it gave powers to Australia’s Department of Home Affairs to together with Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton the ability to cancel the visas of people who could pose a risk to the community or that they’ve deemed are not of “good character”.

Peter FitzSimons talks to deportee KO Haapu. He fought in the NZ army in Afghanistan against the Taliban, after settling in Perth he joined the Rebels motorcycle gang. Source: ABC
Peter FitzSimons talks to deportee KO Haapu. He fought in the NZ army in Afghanistan against the Taliban, after settling in Perth he joined the Rebels motorcycle gang. Source: ABCSource:Supplied

It gives coward punchers, drug dealers and violent offenders a one-way ticket to their home country — anyone with a criminal record who isn’t an Australian citizen can now be deported.

However in Haapu’s case, he told FitzSimons he wasn’t there on criminal charges. “I was there on immigration which are two different things,” he said.

FitzSimons finds that Australia’s detaining, cuffing and deportation of New Zealanders is riling Kiwis and straining relations across the ditch.

He says there’s real resentment in New Zealand — and that even he’s taken aback by the anger of New Zealanders — from ordinary citizens to political heavyweights — at what they see as a lopsided relationship.

The general consensus is that New Zealanders don’t think they have been treated fairly as a country, with the New Zealand Justice Minister even labelling the policy as a breach of human rights.

“Well we just need to see the evidence instead of the emotions,” Mr Dutton told FitzSimons.

“They’re New Zealand citizens, they’re not Australian citizens. And it’s no breach of human rights, in fact it’s a breach of, ah, civil rights of Australians who fall victims to these criminals and Australia won’t tolerate it.

“It doesn’t matter who we’re talking about. The criteria for us is whether you’ve committed an offence against Australian citizens and that’s the test that we apply.”

Last year, more than 600 Kiwis were deported on grounds of “bad character”.

When confronting Mr Dutton about Haapu’s case, FitzSimons put it straight to the Home Affairs minister. “He was held with no charge, no crime committed,” he said.

“Peter, he was a member of the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang, and we know that they are part of a syndicate which is the biggest distributor of drugs in our country,” Mr Dutton told FitzSimons.

“In fact, this passed through the parliament with bipartisan support. If you’re a member of that gang, you face deportation.”

FitzSimons hit back saying, “You imply a raft of strong allegations, accusations against the fellow that we can’t see.”

“Well, Peter, that happens every day. I mean, there’s intelligence that’s gathered that’s not released for a variety of reasons,” Mr Dutton said.

New Zealand’s Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters recently asked Australia for “a fair suck of the sav, so to speak, where international protocols are observed.”

It was in relation to a 17-year-old boy, the youngest New Zealander to be detained since the special powers came into effect four years ago, who landed himself in a Sydney juvenile detention centre.

His offences had not been disclosed, but his lawyer argued they were “stock standard” and not enough to spark deportation.

When he was about to be released, the boy was instead taken more than 12 hours away to an immigration holding centre in Melbourne and was awaiting deportation since March.

Mr Peters made a direct appeal to Australia to release the teenager saying it was a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and called on the country to live up to its obligations.

“This person is regarded as a child or a minor, and I’m just reminding the Australians — you’re a signatory, live up to it,” Mr Peters told reporters earlier this month. .

“They are clearly in breach of it. There’s no complication. They know that, we know that.

While career crooks are among the deportees, Mr FitzSimons says lesser players have been hit by tougher immigration rules allowing deportation for anyone sentenced to more than a year’s jail — even if it’s suspended.

In the program, FitzSimons discovers change can bring opportunities for some of the deportees.

He tells of how Australia, once the receptacle for Britain’s unwanted convicts, has itself become a player in the exile business.

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Keep Australia’s coal-fired power plants operating, says AEMO report

The nation’s independent energy market operator yesterday called for Australia’s fleet of coal-fired power stations to remain in operation for as long as possible.

Extending the operation of this fleet for as long as they are economically viable represents the “ least-cost option” for the next twenty years, according to the recommendation. It is thought the move would ward off any future price shock, as Australia transitions to a more renewables-involved grid.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack says the report speaks a lot of sense.

“I certainly know that the ACCC report and the AEMO report, they do give hope for investment in coal. Certainly other technologies as well, but coal has to be party of the mix,” he says.

“But we also need to as a nation, know and understand there are some of those coal-fired power stations which could be enhanced, which could be revitalised and expanded. That could also provide a solution if the investment isn’t there for new coal-fired power stations.”

The report and this kind of sentiment is predicted to flare up debate around AGL’s planned 2022 closure of the Liddell power station. McCormack says government should not “ rush in and nationalise things” when it comes to privately operated assets, also reiterating his technologically agnostic stance.

“The ACCC chairman said only last week, that only a technology neutral approach will get prices down. Whenever government prescribes that the technology should be one thing or another, that is when you get higher prices.”

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