☕️ Payman quits Labor

As this newsletter goes out, polls are closing in the UK for the general election.

It’s very likely that by the end of the day, the UK will have a new Prime Minister.

Keep an eye out throughout the day for updates via TDA!

“Heat is the number one weather related killer in the United States. By this weekend, it is VERY LIKELY that we add to that statistic if preparations are not taken seriously.”
The U.S. National Weather Service’s office in San Francisco in a post to X ahead of “potentially historic and deadly heat event” coinciding with the fourth of July long weekend.

$US14.4 million ($AU21m)
How much Microsoft will pay to settle a lawsuit brought by workers in the U.S. state of California. The workers claim the tech company denied them raises and promotions because they took parental and disability leave.

1996
Dolly the sheep became the first mammal to be cloned.

Former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann will face trial on rape charges in a Toowoomba court.

Lehrmann is accused of two counts of sexual assault dating back to October 2021 in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.

Under Queensland law, media outlets were initially prevented from naming him as the suspect, but the state’s top court allowed his name to be published last year.

A magistrate has now decided there is enough evidence for the charges to be heard in a court trial.

Last month, Lehrmann appeared in a Toowoomba court for a committal hearing — when a magistrate considers whether there is enough evidence in a case to support it going to trial.

Media were not allowed to attend that hearing due to the nature of evidence being presented by the complainant.

Today, Magistrate Mark Howden ruled a trial will proceed.

Lehrmann hasn’t entered his plea to the rape charges yet, but his lawyers have indicated to media he will plead not guilty.

Last year, Lehrmann launched defamation proceedings over an interview broadcast on Ten’s ‘The Project’ in 2021, in which former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins alleged Lehrmann raped her in Parliament House in March 2019.

In April, Federal Court Justice Michael Lee found even though Lehrmann was identifiable, the claims made that Higgins was raped by him were, on the balance of probabilities, true.

In May, Lehrmann filed an appeal of this judgement.

1800 RESPECT: 1800 737 732

Reporting by Lucy Tassell.

WA Senator Fatima Payman has quit the Labor Party.

Last week, Payman went against the Government to vote on a motion about recognition of the state of Palestine. This is called ‘crossing the floor’. The Labor Party has strict rules restricting its members from taking this kind of action.

Following the motion, Payman was “indefinitely suspended” from official party business like meetings and committees. The Senator said she felt “exiled” by her party.

Fatima Payman became one of the youngest members of Parliament in 2022 when she was elected as a Labor Senator, aged 27.

Payman is the first member of Parliament who wears a hijab.

In May, she went against the Government’s official position when she proclaimed the war in Gaza was a “genocide”.

Last week the Greens presented a motion calling on the Senate to “recognise the State of Palestine” as a matter of urgency.

While her party was against it, Payman voted in favour of the motion — ‘crossing the floor’.

The Government unsuccessfully tried to make changes to the motion, qualifying that it would recognise a Palestinian state “as part of a peace process in support of a two-state solution and a just and enduring peace”.

Payman was allowed to remain in the Labor Party after the motion.

However, she was suspended from federal Labor “meetings and processes” after an appearance on the ABC last weekend. Speaking on Insiders, Payman said she would cross the floor again if a similar motion was moved in the future.

This week, Payman issued a statement to say she was reconsidering her Labour future.

On Thursday she announced she would quit the party.

In an address on Thursday afternoon, Payman confirmed she has quit Labor and will now sit on the crossbench as an independent Senator.

Payman announced her resignation from the Australian Labor Party “with a heavy heart but a clear conscience.”

She added that she was “deeply torn” over the decision but said she did not believe her principles “align with those of the leadership of the Labor Party.”

Reporting by Harry Sekulich.

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A project led by Charles Darwin University and the Australian National University captured a world first recording of a Pygmy blue whale nursing her calf underwater in Timor-Leste.

Evidence around where blue whales reproduce and how they interact with their calves has remained largely ‘unknown’ in the scientific community, until now.

Reporting by Lucy Tassell.

The TDA office momentarily paused work this week to find out who the fastest typer in the team is.

Coming out on top of the Ten Fast Fingers test was Nish, our developer and coding king with 96 words per minute (WPM).

Credit has to be given to Sera and Zara, who rounded out the top three on 93 and 92 WPM respectively.

I’m not asking for people’s star signs anymore — give me your WPM.

Reporting by Nandini Dhir.

Move over four-day work week - Greece has just announced a six day working week. The European country has passed a new labour law to address its shrinking population and skills shortage. Some workers in certain industries in Greece have now had an extra eight hours added to their week.

Staff can choose how they work this extra time, and will be paid a 40% overtime bonus for the additional hours. Unions in the country have warned the move could lead to lower productivity and possible exploitation of workers.