Australia

Stephen Bear, 27, ‘dating Essex shop assistant, 18’

By Ryan Smith for MailOnline

Published: 19:36 EST, 20 December 2017 | Updated: 19:36 EST, 20 Decemb..

Published: 19:36 EST, 20 December 2017 | Updated: 19:36 EST, 20 December 2017

Earlier this month, it was confirmed that his rocky romance with Charlotte Crosby had come to an end, following a laundry list of ups and downs.

And Stephen Bear, 27, has reportedly already moved on from his failed relationship, with sources claiming that the Ex On The Beach star is now dating 18-year-old shop assistant Elizabeth Randell after meeting her two weeks ago at an Essex nightclub.

A source told The Sun: 'Bear and Elizabeth met when he did a personal appearance at Kosho in Romford – it was a night called Fraternity – and he was sitting at a table and they got talking.

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Moved on? Stephen Bear has reportedly already moved on from his romance with Charlotte Crosby, just weeks after they announced their split. They're pictured together in March

'They stayed in contact and got to know each other and they’ve been seeing each other ever since. She’s even met his mum and dad. Elizabeth is a really nice girl… She’s 18, really good fun and a sweet girl.'

According to the newspaper, the blonde teen has even been given Stephen's blessing to post pictures of them together across her social media accounts.

MailOnline has contacted a representative for Stephen for comment.

As reports swirl about Stephen's dating life, his ex Charlotte – who recently described herself as being on the 'heartbreak diet – is vacationing in Dubai.

Reports: According to The Sun, Stephen, 27, is dating shop assistant Elizabeth Randell, 18

Break: The reports come as his ex took to Instagram to reveal that she was holidaying in Dubai

And on Wednesday, she took to Instagram on Wednesday to share a sizzling snapshot of her body as she lounged on a beach.

The former Geordie Shore star, 27, took a snapshot of herself resting on a sun lounger on the golden shores of the popular tourist destination as she wore a skimpy bronze bikini, in which she displayed her incredibly taut stomach and lean legs.

A day earlier, Charlotte took to the image-sharing app to upload a snapshot of herself sitting in the first class cabin as she made her way over to the United Arab Emirates for her winter sunshine break.

'Let the festivities begin,' Charlotte captioned the picture, as she prepared to take off with In The Style co-founders Jamie Corbett and Adam Frisby.

Sizzling snapshot: On Wednesday, she shared a shot of herself on the beach in a bronze bikini

Tough time: Charlotte Crosby has admitted she's been struggling to eat after her turbulent split from Stephen

Charlotte, who split from her Just Tattoo Of Us co-host for good last month, said her svelte frame is down to the 'heartbreak diet'.

And faced with spending the festive period as a singleton, she confessed that she doesn't like Christmas any more and will 'probably stay in bed all day'.

She told Closer magazine: 'I'm in good shape at the moment as I'm on the heartbreak diet. No Ben & Jerry's or Christmas cake for me – I can't eat.'

Discussing her Christmas plans, she added: 'I'll probably have my family round to my house up in Newcastle. You've got to have family around you at this time of year, haven't you?

'But having said that, I've decided I don't like Christmas. I'll probably stay in bed all day – it's actually just like any other boring day.'

Changing: The reality star been sporting a noticeably more svelte appearance since their split

Former flames: The Geordie Shore star, who split from her Just Tattoo Of Us co-host Bear (pictured) for good last month, said her svelte frame is down to the 'heartbreak diet'

The former Celebrity Big Brother star's comments come after she was spotted passionately kissing Ex On The Beach star Joshua Ritchie at a boxing match at the weekend.

Charlotte confirmed her status as a 'strong and single' woman last month, following her break-up from Stephen.

She and Bear had been plagued by splits in the last few weeks of their 11-month romance, with the duo seeming to split and reunite on several occasions.

However, according to The Sun, Bear insisted their relationship is over for good, as he claimed he is 'free and single' and wants his next girlfriend to be someone who is not in the public eye.

Honest: And faced with spending the festive period as a singleton, the 27-year-old confessed she doesn't like Christmas any more and will 'probably stay in bed all day'

Moving on? Charlotte's comments come after she was spotted passionately kissing Ex On The Beach star Joshua Ritchie (pictured) at a boxing match at the weekend

He said: 'We're just friends, I'm single, she's single, we're just mates and I think that's the best way for now.

'I'm just not ready to date at the moment, to sit next to anyone and start talking to them, or start ringing people up and asking to do something. The next girlfriend I have, I'd like to be someone that no one knows.'

The couple hit a crisis after the former scaffold worker was pictured heading home from a Halloween party with a mystery brunette in tow, amid claims of a reconciliation with Charlotte.

Charlotte's roller-coaster romance with Stephen seemingly came to a screeching halt in October and had appeared to be acrimonious at first, with the couple being plagued by 'cheating' claims and Charlotte feuding with Bear's family on Twitter.

Struggling: She told Closer magazine: 'I'm in good shape at the moment as I'm on the heartbreak diet. No Ben & Jerry's or Christmas cake for me – I can't eat'

Family affair: Discussing her Christmas plans, she added: 'I'll probably have my family round to my house up in Newcastle. You've got to have family around you at this time of year, haven't you?'

In the past: Charlotte confirmed her status as a 'strong and single' woman last month, following her break-up from Stephen

They were then seen 'kissing' and reportedly 'spent the night' together following the MTV EMAs held in November, but their reunion allegedly got off to a bumpy start with the duo becoming embroiled in 'screaming matches' before getting close again.

An onlooker told The Sun: 'Charlotte and Bear were all over the place. One second they were kissing, cuddling and laughing, and the next they were having screaming matches.'

Romance first blossomed for the pair early last year while presenting their joint MTV series Just Tattoo Of Us.

Since their split, it has been confirmed that Bear has left Just Tattoo Of Us and will no longer present the show alongside Charlotte, with Scotty T stepping in to replace the star for its third series.

No more: Romance first blossomed for the pair early last year while presenting their joint MTV series Just Tattoo Of Us (pictured on the show)

Replaced: Since their split, it has been confirmed that Bear has left Just Tattoo Of Us and will no longer present the show alongside Charlotte, with Scotty T stepping in to replace the star for its third series

Original Article

Daily Mail

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Australia

Saudi women in Sydney: Sisters’ bodies lay undiscovered for a month

Australian police are baffled after the bodies of two Saudi women, believed to have lain undiscovered for a month, were found in a Sydney apartment.

Sisters Asra Abdullah Alsehli, 24, and Amaal Abdullah Alsehli, 23, were found dead on 7 June in separate beds at home in the suburb of Canterbury.

Police, who were called to the property for a welfare check, said the women are believed to have died in early May.

But despite “extensive inquiries”, they still do not know how or why.

The sisters moved to Australia from Saudi Arabia in 2017 and may have sought asylum, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Police refused to confirm this, saying they do not comment on residential status.

A human rights organisation said it should be established whether the women fled Saudi Arabia because of domestic violence or harsh laws governing women. However, there is no evidence this is the case.

Police said they had been in contact with the women’s family, which is assisting them with inquiries.

Lina al-Hathloul, head of monitoring and communications at Saudi human rights organisation ALQST, said it “would not be the first case” of Saudi women who were killed abroad after fleeing domestic violence.

“There are no protections for women who are victims of domestic violence in Saudi Arabia, so they flee abroad,” she told the BBC.

She added: “I’m not saying that is the case here, just that we need a thorough investigation. It is frustrating not to have any information.”

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, there had been signs that something was wrong.

Last year, the women told their building manager they thought someone was tampering with their food deliveries, the paper reported.

A plumber who visited the apartment also said he believed there was “something mysterious” going on, and that police had been called in the past over concerns for the women.

New South Wales Police issued a renewed plea to the public on Wednesday, saying “any piece of information” could be the key to solving this case.

The local community is close-knit, police said in a statement, asking anyone who may have known or seen the women to come forward.

A report from Australian current affairs programme Four Corners in 2019 found 80 Saudi women had tried to seek asylum in Australia in recent years. Many of them were fleeing male guardianship laws.

Read from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-62331116

Australia

Australia election: Why is Australia’s parliament so white?

Australia is one of the most multicultural nations in the world, but it’s a different story in the country’s politics, where 96% of federal lawmakers are white.

With this year’s election, political parties did have a window to slightly improve this. But they chose not to in most cases, critics say.

Tu Le grew up the child of Vietnamese refugees in Fowler, a south-west Sydney electorate far from the city’s beaches, and one of the poorest urban areas in the country.

The 30-year-old works as a community lawyer for refugees and migrants newly arrived to the area.

Last year, she was pre-selected by the Labor Party to run in the nation’s most multicultural seat. But then party bosses side-lined her for a white woman.

It would take Kristina Kenneally four hours on public transport – ferry, train, bus, and another bus – to get to Fowler from her home in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, where she lived on an island.

Furious locals questioned what ties she had to the area, but as one of Labor’s most prominent politicians, she was granted the traditionally Labor-voting seat.

Ms Le only learned she’d been replaced on the night newspapers went to print with the story.

“I was conveniently left off the invitation to the party meeting the next day,” she told the BBC.

Despite backlash – including a Facebook group where locals campaigned to stop Ms Kenneally’s appointment – Labor pushed through the deal.

“If this scenario had played out in Britain or the United States, it would not be acceptable,” says Dr Tim Soutphomassane, director of the Sydney Policy Lab and Australia’s former Race Discrimination Commissioner.

“But in Australia, there is a sense that you can still maintain the status quo with very limited social and political consequences.”

An insiders’ game

At least one in five Australians have a non-European background and speak a language at home other than English, according to the last census in 2016.

Some 49% of the population was born or has a parent who was born overseas. In the past 20 years, migrants from Australia’s Asian neighbours have eclipsed those from the UK.

But the parliament looks almost as white as it did in the days of the “White Australia” policy – when from 1901 to the 1970s, the nation banned non-white immigrants.

“We simply do not see our multicultural character represented in anything remotely close to proportionate form in our political institutions,” says Dr Soutphomassane.

Compared to other Western multicultural democracies, Australia also lags far behind.

The numbers below include Indigenous Australians, who did not gain suffrage until the 1960s, and only saw their first lower house MP elected in 2010. Non-white candidates often acknowledge that any progress was first made by Aboriginal Australians.

Two decades ago, Australia and the UK had comparably low representation. But UK political parties – responding to campaigns from diverse members – pledged to act on the problem.

“The British Conservative Party is currently light years ahead of either of the major Australian political parties when it comes to race and representation,” says Dr Soutphomassane.

So why hasn’t Australia changed?

Observers say Australia’s political system is more closed-door than other democracies. Nearly all candidates chosen by the major parties tend to be members who’ve risen through the ranks. Often they’ve worked as staffers to existing MPs.

Ms Le said she’d have no way into the political class if she hadn’t been sponsored by Fowler’s retiring MP – a white, older male.

Labor has taken small structural steps recently – passing commitments in a state caucus last year, and selecting two Chinese-Australian candidates for winnable seats in Sydney.

But it was “one step forward and two steps back”, says party member and activist Osmond Chiu, when just weeks after the backlash to Ms Le’s case, Labor “parachuted in” another white candidate to a multicultural heartland.

Andrew Charlton, a former adviser to ex-PM Kevin Rudd, lived in a harbour mansion in Sydney’s east where he ran a consultancy.

His selection scuppered the anticipated races of at least three diverse candidates from the area which has large Indian and Chinese diasporas.

Party seniors argued that Ms Kenneally and Mr Charlton – as popular and respected party figures – would be able to promote their electorates’ concerns better than newcomers.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese also hailed Ms Kenneally as a “great Australian success story” as a migrant from the US herself.

But Mr Chiu says: “A lot of the frustration that people expressed wasn’t about these specific individuals.

“It was about the fact that these were two of the most multicultural seats in Australia and these opportunities – which come by so rarely – to select culturally diverse candidates were squandered.”

He adds this has long-term effects because the average MP stays in office for about 10 years.

The frustration on this issue has centred on Labor – because the centre-left party calls itself the “party of multiculturalism”.

But the Liberal-National government doesn’t even have diversity as a platform issue.

One of its MPs up for re-election recently appeared to confuse her Labor rival for Tu Le, sparking accusations that she’d mixed up the two Asian-Australian women – something she later denied. But as one opponent said: “How is this still happening in 2022?”

Some experts like Dr Soutphommasane have concluded that Australia’s complacency on areas like representation stems from how the nation embraced multiculturalism as official policy after its White Australia days.

The government of the 1970s, somewhat embarrassed by the past policy, passed racial discrimination laws and “a seat at the table” was granted to migrants and Indigenous Australians.

But critics say this has led to an Australia where multiculturalism is celebrated but racial inequality is not interrogated.

“Multiculturalism is almost apolitical in how it’s viewed in Australia,” Dr Soutphommasane says, in contrast to the “fight” for rights that other Western countries have seen from minority groups.

What is the impact?

A lack of representation in parliament can also lead to failures in policy.

During Sydney’s Covid outbreak in August 2021, Fowler and Parramatta electorates – where most of the city’s multicultural communities reside – were subject to harsher lockdowns as a result of a higher number of cases.

How will things change?

Liberal MP Dave Sharma, the only lawmaker of Indian heritage, has said all parties – including his own – should better recruit people with different backgrounds. He called it a “pretty laissez-faire attitude” currently.

Mr Albanese has urged Ms Le to “hang in there”, insisting she has a future.

But more people like Ms Le are choosing to speak out.

“I think I surprised a lot of people by not staying quiet,” she told the BBC.

“People acted like it was the end of my political career that I didn’t toe the party line. But… none of that means anything to me if it means I’m sacrificing my own values.”

She and other second-generation Australians – raised in a country which prides itself on “a fair go” – are agitating for the rights and access their migrant parents may not have felt entitled to.

“Many of those from diverse backgrounds were saying they felt like they didn’t have a voice – and that my case was a clear demonstration of their suppression, and their wider participation in our political system.”

She and others have noted the “growing distrust” in the major parties. Polls are predicting record voter support for independent candidates.

“This issue…. matters for everyone in Australian society that cares about democracy,” says Mr Soutphommasane.

“If democratic institutions are not representative, their legitimacy will suffer.

Read from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-61432762

Australia

Scott Morrison effectively ditches his promise to establish a federal anti-corruption commission

Scott Morrison has effectively abandoned his promise to establish a federal anti-corruption watchdog, confirming he would only proceed with legislation in the new parliament if Labor agreed to pass the Coalition’s heavily criticised proposal without amendments.

Morrison pledged before the 2019 election to legislate a federal integrity body in the parliamentary term that has just ended. The prime minister broke that promise, failing to introduce his own proposal before the 46th parliament was prorogued.

On the hustings on Wednesday, Morrison was asked – given his previous undertaking to create the body – whether he would promise to put his proposal to a vote in the next parliament in the event the Coalition won the 21 May election.

Morrison declined to make that promise. “Our position on this hasn’t changed,” the prime minister said. “Our view has been the same – when the Labor party is prepared to support that legislation in that form, then we will proceed with it.”

The prime minister has attempted to inoculate himself from criticism about breaking an election promise by saying he tabled the integrity commission proposal in the parliament.

Tabling an exposure draft, which is what the prime minister did, is not the same as introducing finished legislation to the House of Representatives or the Senate that is then debated and voted on.

As well as repeatedly fudging what happened in parliament, Morrison has also created the impression the proposal can only proceed if Labor agrees to its passage without amendments.

All governments routinely introduce legislation for debate without any undertaking that it will be passed by the opposition. Labor favours a stronger model than the Coalition’s proposal.

Morrison’s lack of urgency on the issue created tensions within government ranks. Late last year, the Tasmanian Liberal MP Bridget Archer crossed the floor to support independent MP Helen Haines’ bill to establish a federal integrity commission. Archer accused the government of “inertia” over the issue.

At that time, Archer said she was “perplexed” at her own government’s failure to release a revised bill almost three years after it was promised before the last election.

While Morrison clearly wants to move on from the issue, he will face renewed pressure from crossbench independents if the coming election is close enough to deliver a hung parliament.

A number of independents running against Liberals in metropolitan seats have made it clear that establishing a credible national integrity commission will be a key demand in the event any new government – Liberal or Labor – is seeking agreements for confidence and supply.

Haines blasted Morrison’s comments on Wednesday. “Mr Morrison broke an election promise to introduce an anti-corruption commission and his pathway to creating one is still as vague as it was in the last parliament,” she said.

The crossbench independent said it was “nonsense” for the prime minister to claim that he could not proceed unless Labor agreed with the Coalition’s proposal without seeking any amendments. “It would appear we are in the same void as we were before,” Haines said.

Read from:https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/13/scott-morrison-effectively-ditches-his-promise-to-establish-a-federal-anti-corruption-commission