Government stalls debate over GPS trackers

Focus on reef funding

LABOR is ramping up pressure on Malcolm Turnbull to appear before a Senate inquiry into a $444 million grant given to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. The inquiry wants to know why the Government granted the six-year funding stream to the small not-forprofit foundation in a meeting that lasted less than an hour.

“We are asking the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to appear before the inquiry. We have written to him – we have respectfully asked for his participation,” Labor Senator Kristina Keneally said. NEW laws that could have resulted in GPS trackers being placed on notorious sex offenders like Robert John Fardon have been delayed in State Parliament.

Labor on Tuesday passed its own changes to police laws that mean child sex offenders face reporting conditions all their life and five years’ jail for any breaches.

The Palaszczuk Government at the same time blocked what the LNP argued was its tougher proposed legislation, the Protecting Queenslanders from Violent and Child Sex Offenders Amendment Bill, for 24 hours. Labor used its numbers in the House after Question Time yesterday to defer all debate on that Bill for up to six months.

The Opposition said Labor’s legislation would allow Fardon to be released unsupervised into the community on October 3, should an appeal to continue his supervision order fail.

Shadow attorney-general David Janetzki said the Government was treating victims and Parliament with contempt.