TRANSCRIPT
- Kamala Harris and Donald Trump make their final pitch to voters ahead of the election day eve
- New concerns on immigration detention after senate estimates heard Palestinian man had his visa revoked onshore
- An AFL umpire was suspended after dressing up as Osama Bin Laden at the end of season event
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On the final day ahead of voting in the US Presidential election, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are delivering their final rallies to key battleground states.
The 2024 election campaign, which has seen a felony trial, an incumbent president pushed off the ticket and multiple assassination attempts, now sees candidates in their final push across the key swing states.
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is spending the day in Pennsylvania, with a late night rally in Philadelphia that is expected to include Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga.
Before heading to Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris promised a rally in Michigan that she would be turning the page on a decade of fear driven politics.
"Well, you all know what we say: we are not going back. We are not going back. We are not going back because ours is a fight for the future. And it is a fight for freedom."
Speaking to a rally in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump says he should have never left the White House in 2020.
"We had the best economy ever. We had the wall. We had everything. I built over 500 miles; they don't even talk about the wall. But we had the best border. The safest border. I won't pull down my world's favourite chart because I don't want to waste a lot of your time. But my world's favourite chart, done by the border patrol. It said we had the safest border in the history of our country, the day that I left. I shouldn't have left. I mean honestly."
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All eyes are back on Australia's indefinite detention policy, after the senate heard a Palestinian person was in detention after their visa was revoked on character grounds.
The Department of Home Affairs confirmed over three thousand Palestinians fleeing Gaza have been granted visas since October 2023.
Department officials reveal the person in detention already had his visa before it was revoked onshore.
Last year, the High Court ruled that indefinite immigration detention was unlawful.
It overthrew previous judgments that allowed the government to indefinitely detain asylum seekers who have no immediate other country to go.
Liberal Senator James Patterson has raised a question to Home Affairs Secretary Stephanie Foster and First Assistant Secretary of Immigration Compliance Michael Thomas during the senate estimates.
He asked whether the situation of the Palestinian man could trigger the High Court Ruling.
James Patterson: "They would have to be released to the community, wouldn't they?"
Stephanie Foster: "Senator, we will be speculating about that. We don't know the circumstance."
James Patterson: "Well it's not speculation."
Michael Thomas: “They may wish to depart voluntarily, for example, to a country that they have a right to entry too, or they may not want to."
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ASIO's chief says Australia has faced nine terror-related incidents in 2024, but none link directly to Middle Eastern events.
Director-General Mike Burgess reports that while Hamas' attack on Israel and Israel's retaliation have heightened the security climate, there is no evidence of a connection between the Gaza conflict and incidents in Australia.
Religiously motivated violent extremism forms much of ASIO's workload, but Mr Burgess clarifies this refers to extremists with a distorted view of Islam, not the Islamic faith itself.
Of the nine incidents, one-third were religiously motivated, with the rest linked to racist, nationalist, or mixed ideologies.
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Queensland Premier David Crisafulli is defending his decision on discontinuing the Truth-telling inquiry.
The newly elected Liberal Premier has been criticised by First Nations groups and Stolen Generation survivors for pausing the state's truth-telling inquiry.
Mr Crisafulli also says he hasn't spoken to Josh Creamer, who chairs the inquiry.
However, he says his government will be soon announcing policies that benefit Indigenous people in Queensland.
"We campaigned and said that we wouldn't be progressing with that, but I didn't use inflammatory language, I didn't seek to divide. We explained our reason behind it, and I will be having more to say in the weeks to come about some of the things we will be doing for Indigenous Queenslanders."
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An AFL umpire has been suspended after he dressed up as Osama Bin Laden at the end of season event.
Leigh Haussen, who became the AFL umpire in 2017, has umpired 147 games since then.
Mr Haussen was seen in the costume at a private function the day after the grand final in September.
In a statement, the AFL says the event was for AFL field umpires, and its theme was characters from the 2000s.
Mr Haussen also apologised in a statement, saying he "never intended to offend anyone".
