☕️ New hate speech laws pass Parliament

A very big happy birthday to Zara, TDA’s co-founder. May your day be filled with schnitzels and lots of reading about politics.

"I'm excited because it's the biggest game of my life, you know, and having the president there - it's the best country in the world so it'd be pretty cool."
NFL player Travis Kelce on U.S. President Donald Trump becoming the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl this weekend. Kelce’s team (the Kansas City Chiefs) will be facing the Philadelphia Eagles.

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The number of seasons the price of general admission tickets to AFL matches at the MCG and Marvel Stadium has remained the same. As part of the sport’s commitment to keep AFL accessible to fans, the league announced prices for general admission will remain at $27 for adults, $18 for concession and $5 for children under 14. Kids under four go free.

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Lindy Chamberlain, accused of murdering her baby Azaria whilst camping at Uluru, was released from prison after serving three years, due to new evidence. Chamberlain had always maintained that she had seen a dingo take Azaria from their tent whilst she was sleeping.

Australian authorities have contained a recent outbreak of avian influenza (‘bird flu’).

The virus spreads predominantly among birds, including chickens and ducks, impacting supplies of eggs and meats.

On Thursday, Agriculture Minister Julie Collins confirmed there have been no new detections of bird flu since July 2024.

However, she warned of a different bird flu strain killing animals overseas.

Bird flu is a potentially deadly illness that impacts bird populations around the globe.

Last year, parts of Australia were hit by a strain of bird flu called ‘H7’.

This strain has a high ‘pathogenicity’ (ability to cause disease). It is lethal in birds and can cause severe illness in humans, although animal-to-human transmission is rare.

Bird flu was detected at 16 Australian farms and properties last year: eight in Victoria, six in New South Wales, and two in the ACT.

The last detection occurred in July 2024.

Large populations of chickens and other birds were quarantined and culled in order to contain the virus.

One person was infected with bird flu overseas and treated in Australia. They have since fully recovered.

Collins said Australia has now officially eradicated the H7 strain of bird flu.

However, Collins said Australia “cannot be complacent” due to another variant “rapidly spreading” overseas.

The H5 variant has spread across Africa, Asia, Europe, North, and South America since 2020, killing millions of chickens. In 2024, there were 66 confirmed cases in humans in the U.S.

Reporting by Harry Sekulich.

Australians convicted of displaying a terrorist symbol in public will spend at least a year in jail, under a new law passed in Parliament on Thursday.

The Government passed new hate speech legislation with the support of the Coalition, after accepting its amendments to mandate prison time for certain offences.

The law also upgrades the penalties for verbal abuse based on race, disability, or sexual orientation.

Here’s what you need to know.

Last year, the Government announced it would introduce legislation to create criminal penalties for hate speech, beyond the civil penalties that currently exist.

The legislation outlaws acts “threatening force or violence” against those “distinguished by race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, disability, nationality, national or ethnic origin or political opinion”.

There have been a series of antisemitic attacks on buildings across Australia in recent months.

This includes the firebombing of a synagogue in Melbourne, the burning of a childcare centre in Sydney near a synagogue, and antisemitic graffiti across these cities and Perth.

Last week, police confirmed they were investigating a caravan filled with explosives in Sydney’s north-west, in relation to an alleged planned antisemitic attack.

On Thursday, Labor and the Coalition voted to amend the Government’s bill to introduce mandatory minimum sentences for a range of hate-related crimes.

This is where a person convicted of a crime must serve a specified length of time in jail.

Crimes with mandatory minimum sentences include displayed a Nazi symbol (12 months) and financing terrorism (three years).

The Government has faced questions over why it agreed to the Coalition’s changes.

Senior Minister Murray Watt said: “There is a very serious problem in the country at the moment around antisemitism, and we think it’s in the community’s interest to act as quickly as possible to pass this legislation”.

The Law Council of Australia said that despite its concern about antisemitism in Australia, the Government should “not adopt measures that risk serious injustice”.

Independent MP Zoe Daniel said introducing mandatory sentencing was an “overreach” of the Parliament’s powers, and voted against the amendment introducing it.

She said the courts should decide punishments, not politicians.

Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi said that unlike the judicial system, “politicians are not in a position to understand the individual circumstances of each case.”

Reporting by Harry Sekulich.

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🍊Trump's order to ban trans women from women's sports.
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🍊 The NFL is coming to Australia. But to which city?
🗞️ Also in the Sport Newsletter: surfing, hockey, and more…

In a world first, scientists at the University of Queensland produced a kangaroo embryo through in vitro fertilisation (IVF). While kangaroos aren’t endangered, it’s hoped the process can be applied to other species for conservation practices. Researchers said they’re refining their techniques to safeguard the genetic future of native marsupials - which have the highest rate of mammal extinctions.

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

Reporting by Emma Gillespie.

The NFL – the professional football league in the U.S. – is coming Down Under.

The first regular season NFL game to be played in the Asia-Pacific is scheduled for the MCG in 2026.

One of the teams will be the LA Rams, while the other is TBD.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said: "Expanding to Melbourne, Australia… underlines our ambitions to become a global sport and accelerate international growth.”

Reporting by Rosa Bowden.

U.S. President Donald Trump has announced plans for an American “take over” in the Gaza Strip. The proposal, which would move around two million Palestinians to other countries, has drawn criticism from world leaders and the United Nations. In today's deep dive, we’ll unpack what Trump said, what the international reaction has been like, and whether or not his plan could, or will, actually happen.