☕️ The festival strip search ruling

It’s time for another riddle: Four cars come to a four-way stop, each coming from a different direction. They can’t decide who got there first, so they all go at the same time. All four cars go, but none crash into each other. How is this possible?

Answer is in the titbit!

“Last time I checked, losing a grand final doesn't make you gay, but being homophobic definitely makes you a loser.”
AFL’s first openly bisexual player Mitch Brown, respocnding to Geelong Cats player Bailey Smith’s Instagram story where he posed alongside captain Patrick Dangerfield, with a caption referencing the 2005 film ‘Brokeback Mountain’, which depicts a gay love story. It comes after the Geelong Cats lost the grand final to the Brisbane Lions on Saturday.

$US22 million
The amount YouTube has agreed to pay U.S. President Donald Trump and others who were banned from the streaming platform after the January 6 riots at the Capitol as part of a settlement. Trump’s account was frozen, which he claimed was censorship.

Jabberwocky [JA-bur-waa-kee]
Definition: Invented or meaningless language.

Sentence: The book looked like jabberwocky to him.

Qualified registered nurses (RNs) will now be able to prescribe and administer medications under new changes that come into effect yesterday.

Under the new rules, RNs can prescribe medications including antidepressants and opioids.

AHPRA, the Government’s health practitioner regulator, has called the move “one of the biggest changes to nursing regulation in decades”.

Previously, prescriptions could mainly only be issued by GPs, dentists, optometrists and some pharmacists.

RNs wanting to prescribe medication will be required to meet certain criteria before applying.

To qualify, RNs will need to show that they have completed three years of full-time clinical experience, pass an approved prescribing education course, and undertake a further six months of supervised clinical practice under a qualified mentor.

RNs will also be required to renew their registrations to maintain their prescribing rights and submit yearly declarations confirming they are meeting professional standards.

The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) Chair Adjunct Professor Veronica Casey said: “More nurses prescribing will give Australians greater access to safe, affordable healthcare and medicines.”

In Australia, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) classifies medicines into 10 categories, known as schedules, based on the level of medical oversight required to use them safely. These schedules also determine how accessible the medicines are to the public.

Under the new prescribing model, qualified RNs will be able to manage Schedule 2, 3, 4 and 8 medicines.

Common painkillers like paracetamol and ibuprofen fall under Schedule 2, while more tightly controlled and addictive drugs such as opioids are classified as Schedule 8.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), the peak education body for the health sector, has raised concerns over the changes.

RACGP President Dr Michael Wright warns “once you have multiple healthcare professionals offering the same services, it reduces the opportunity for coordinated and comprehensive care”.

“We know that fragmenting healthcare has been shown to be less safe and more expensive than models that facilitate continuity of care,” Dr Wright said.

Reporting by Achol Arok.

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The Supreme Court of NSW has awarded a woman $93,000 after police unlawfully strip searched her at a music festival in 2018.

Raya Meredith led a class action lawsuit against NSW Police, arguing they did not have justifiable cause to search her.

A class action is a type of lawsuit where many people are represented by one entity.

The Court’s decision has paved the way for other people to receive compensation for unlawful strip searches.

To conduct a strip search, police officers must reasonably suspect a person of carrying an unlawful item, like drugs.

In NSW, where this lawsuit was filed, police can’t perform a strip search at a festival unless the “seriousness and urgency of the circumstances” make it “necessary”.

During a strip search, an officer cannot search a “person’s body cavities”. Police “must not” ask a person to remove “more clothes” than is “reasonably necessary”. Searches should be conducted in private by a person of the same sex.

This class action was filed with the NSW Supreme Court on behalf of more than 3,000 plaintiffs who were subjected to strip searches from 2016 to 2022.

The lawsuit centred on the experience of lead plaintiff Raya Meredith, who was strip-searched at the Splendour in the Grass festival in 2018, at age 27.

According to court documents, a police officer with a sniffer dog tapped Meredith on the shoulder at the festival entrance and took her to a “makeshift area” nearby.

Meredith told the court the area where she was searched was “comprised of a number of open makeshift cubicles... open in the direction of a screen [that was] approximately 1.5 metres high.”

The area “did not allow [Meredith] privacy” from people entering the festival.

Inside the cubicle, Meredith said she was “forced to remove her top, expose her breasts, and lift them” by a female officer.

She was then instructed to remove her shorts and underwear, and then told to “pull out [her] tampon and show it to the female police officer.”

The female officer “bent down and inspected the plaintiff’s vagina as she pulled on the string of the tampon,” court documents say.

At this point, Meredith said she was told to “bend over with her buttocks facing” the officer.

The plaintiff recalled feeling “disgusted that another woman was putting [her] through this.”

A male police officer then entered the area “without warning,” Meredith said. The encounter lasted about 30 minutes.

No drugs or illegal items were found on her or in her belongings.

The defence lawyers for NSW Police originally argued the strip search was justified because a police dog had made an “indication” towards Meredith. However, they eventually conceded that the strip search was unlawful.

NSW Police also admitted Meredith was falsely imprisoned, assaulted, put in fear and subject to a significant loss of dignity.

NSW Police agreed her suffering was increased by “the unlawful and unjustifiable actions” of the officers.

Supreme Court Justice Dina Yehia awarded Meredith $93,000 as compensation for battery, assault, false imprisonment, and aggravated damages.

Yehia said Meredith would also be entitled to additional damages in an effort to deter police from undertaking similarly unlawful searches in the future. This figure has not yet been calculated.

In her judgment, Yehia made note of the fact that NSW Police had “extended no apology whatsoever” to Meredith.

“The absence of an apology is akin to an own goal,” she said.

The judge found police did not provide sufficient evidence to prove the necessity, urgency and seriousness needed to legally perform the strip search.

She called the training of police officers “wholly inadequate”.

Slater and Gordon, who led the class action alongside the Redfern Legal Centre, said “the implications of these findings alone will likely render thousands of police strip searches of young people at music festivals to be unlawful.”

As for the 3,000 other people who were part of this class action, the court has not yet determined what they will be entitled to, if anything.

Yehia told the court the NSW Government could be liable to pay up to $150 million in damages.

Slater and Gordon said it is urging NSW Police to negotiate a settlement for the remainder of the group.

"If a sensible settlement cannot be achieved, the costs to the State will be far higher.”

The matter will return to court in October.

Reporting by Elliot Lawry.

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This year, the top gong went to the Kārearea, or the New Zealand falcon. A high-speed hunter, the falcon can reach speeds of up to 200km/h.

The competition, run by the independent conservation organisation Forest and Bird, aims to raise awareness about New Zealand’s native species, many of which are endangered. The organisation’s CEO Nicola Toki said it’s important to share these birds with the world.

“Once [people] know their stories, they advocate and they act,” she noted.

Now in its 20th year, the competition received more than 75,000 votes from 123 countries this year. The New Zealand falcon is now one of the few birds to win multiple times, and features on the country’s $20 note.

Want more good news? Sign up to our weekly Good Newsletter here - we promise it’ll make your week better!

Reporting by Anju Dhanushkodi.

They say good things come to those who wait. 

Well, after a decades-long wait, Simpsons fans will have a new movie!

In a post to social media yesterday, 20th Century Studios confirmed the iconic family will be returning to theatres. 

The sequel is set for 23 July 2027, almost 20 years after ‘The Simpsons Movie’.

Reporting by Anju Dhanushkodi.

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Riddle answer: They all made right-hand turns.