Nathan Ferguson, a long-haul truck driver, has been sentenced to three years and three months in prison for transporting $13 million in cash during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The money was discovered in a water tank and sports bag in Ferguson’s truck. He had previously received special permission to enter the state days earlier, claiming on his G2G application that he was transporting essential freight.
During his sentencing in Perth District Court on Tuesday, Ferguson’s lawyer said he had been in a “deep financial hole” when he accepted the job to transport what he thought was $6 million in cash.
However, he said his client was nothing more than a courier in what was described as an unsophisticated money laundering attempt.
State prosecutors could not say where the money had come from, only that it was proceeds of organised crime.
The cash seizure was one of the biggest in Australian history.
Turning to the courts now and the two eldest children of Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart have been lashed by the WA Supreme Court over the “grossly disproportionate” resources devoted to their failed bid for legally sensitive files it ruled should remain top secret.
John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart had taken to the court demanding 82 documents their billionaire mother insisted were protected by legal professional privilege.
The pair, who have been locked in a bitter battle with their mother over assets left behind by their pioneer grandfather Lang Hancock, believed the files may aid their bid for ownership of Rinehart-led Hancock Prospecting’s sprawling Hope Downs iron ore deposit.
There are an estimated 8000 teachers striking in East Perth today for the first time in more than a decade.
A no-confidence motion against a Pilbara councillor who made headlines last month for his glowing praise of Russia’s elections has fallen flat.
Town of Port Hedland councillors gathered for a special council meeting on Monday night to vote on the motion of no confidence against councillor Adrian McRae.
McRae travelled to Moscow at his own expense earlier this year as part of an international delegation to scrutinise the Russian elections, which delivered President Vladimir Putin 87.8 per cent of the vote – the highest-ever result in Russia’s post-Soviet history.
The Port Hedland councillor then appeared in a video on Russia’s Channel One State News congratulating Putin on his landslide victory, and later defended the elections as “ridiculously transparent”.
However, the motion was unsuccessful, with a majority of councillors backing in McRae, six votes to three.
McRae would have remained in council even if the motion had been successful, as there are no powers available to councils to remove councillors from office under the Local Government Act.
Defending his trip earlier this month, McRae said Russians were proud of their democracy, and that he worked as a scrutineer alongside representatives from US congress and cosmonauts from the International Space Station.
A handful of suburbs have had near-negligible rent increases in the past five years and some even recorded price drops, despite Australia’s widespread rental crisis.
Perth upmarket suburb Churchlands is a surprise inclusion on the list.
According to Domain, the middle-ring suburb’s median rent has dropped to $700 a week, down 12.5 per cent compared to a year ago.
Meanwhile, a rental affordability snapshot report, released by Anglicare today, showed there is not a single property for rent in WA that someone on Jobseeker or Youth Allowance could afford, with Perth’s average rent price reaching a record high of $650 a week.
WAtoday education reporter Holly Thompson is on the ground with thousands of teachers marching across Matagarup Bridge, rallying for better wages and conditions.
Teacher Rebecca Roberts is there with her 10-year-old son, who is one of 33 students in his class.
“We’re all pretty tired and overworked,” she said.
“I think the last few years with the teacher shortage has really shown that teachers need to be valued and looked after, and we haven’t been historically, so I think people have just had enough.”
Another teacher, who didn’t want to be named, said people were leaving the profession in droves due to the increased pressures, with only one in four from her university cohort still teaching.
“[The government’s] not listening, they’re not being respectful, which is what we teach in the classroom, so that’s why we’re going to stand up,” she said.
But Education Minister Tony Buti said the strike was unnecessary and premature.
“We have been bargaining in good faith and have made an offer that would provide more money for teachers, improve conditions and provide more support for them in the classroom,” he said.
The current pay offer is an 11 per cent pay rise over three years. Teachers want a 12 per cent increase over two years.
WARNING: This story may be distressing to readers, and contains references to suicide.
Turning now to Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney, who is speaking about a 10-year-old Indigenous boy who took his own life while in state care in Western Australia.
The child, who cannot be named for legal reasons, died on April 12, while under the care of the Department of Communities.
The boy was just 10 years old.
Burney said it was a tragedy, and a confronting issue for all Australians, but she was reassured that the WA government was taking it incredibly seriously.
“The point for me is the work needs to be done particularly at the federal level in terms of keeping children safe … the number of Aboriginal children in care is growing and that must be arrested,” she said on RN Breakfast.
She said there absolutely has to be a greater focus on prevention and stopping Aboriginal children being taken from their families.
But the minister said from July 1 the government planned to appoint the country’s first-ever Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Commissioner.
