Australia
Button and Diane Powellpark the school bus after three decades
After 30 years Button and Diane Powell have turned off the ignition to their school buses one last time. Two of Nyngan's long serving school bus drivers have hung up the keys to their school runs, after almost 1.5 million kilometers of driving. Mr Powell has driven the school bus to Mullengudery for nearly 30 years, with wife Mrs Powell driving her bus on the Coffils Lane-Pangee Road run for the same time. The pair bought the bus in 1989 becoming Powell's Bus Service, and quickly they became second parents to the school children they have driven too and from school each day. READ ALSO: Mrs Powell finished up her school run on March 16, exactly 30 years on the day she started. “It was an emotional day, the kids said 'when we get to Miandetta can we have a speech?', so I slowed down and as I started to talk I had to pull up because I couldn't see through the tears,” Mrs Powell said. “I couldn't talk but all I said is 'you've all been wonderful and ..

After 30 years Button and Diane Powell have turned off the ignition to their school buses one last time. Two of Nyngan's long serving school bus drivers have hung up the keys to their school runs, after almost 1.5 million kilometers of driving. Mr Powell has driven the school bus to Mullengudery for nearly 30 years, with wife Mrs Powell driving her bus on the Coffils Lane-Pangee Road run for the same time. The pair bought the bus in 1989 becoming Powell's Bus Service, and quickly they became second parents to the school children they have driven too and from school each day. READ ALSO: Mrs Powell finished up her school run on March 16, exactly 30 years on the day she started. "It was an emotional day, the kids said 'when we get to Miandetta can we have a speech?', so I slowed down and as I started to talk I had to pull up because I couldn't see through the tears," Mrs Powell said. "I couldn't talk but all I said is 'you've all been wonderful and there's not much I can say'. "I bubbled all the way home and the only thing I could say to my husband is 'thank you for buying that bus, because I've had a good life'. "I don't cry normally, I'm a hard old bird, but I just said 'thank you'." Looking back over the years, Mrs Powell couldn't pick her fondest memory, saying all the kids she had ride on her school bus were as delightful as each other. "I've been lucky with superb kids, I've never had to go crook on anybody," she said. "They all had their own seats and got on and sat down, it's just been wonderful. "I just don't know what my fondest memory is because they're all good. "You look after them all like your own and I have just thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience." In her thirty years of driving almost 320 kilometers a day, Mrs Powell said she has only had one sick day in her life. "I was only saying the other day I broke my shoulder about nine years ago … and in 30 years that's the only time I've had off," the bus driver said. "I have never, ever had a sick day, it was only that I broke this jolly shoulder and I had to have about six weeks off." She however said she was pleased she could give the children on her run their last Easter eggs. "I have always all these years bought the kids Easter eggs and chocolates at Christmas, and I said to Button 'guess what? I get to give them their last Easter eggs'," Mrs Powell said. "It's just something you do and they get excited." While Langleys have bought the bus and taken it on, Mrs Powell said she and her husband have no plans of leaving town. "I'm not an overseas person, I'm a homing pigeon," she said. "My husband's a clay target shooter and we've got our caravan, I've always gone places with him clay target shooting … I'm just happy to jump in the caravan and go wherever he wants to go. "But we've got our family here … life's pretty simple."
After 30 years Button and Diane Powell have turned off the ignition to their school buses one last time.
Two of Nyngan's long serving school bus drivers have hung up the keys to their school runs, after almost 1.5 million kilometers of driving.
Mr Powell has driven the school bus to Mullengudery for nearly 30 years, with wife Mrs Powell driving her bus on the Coffils Lane-Pangee Road run for the same time.
The pair bought the bus in 1989 becoming Powell's Bus Service, and quickly they became second parents to the school children they have driven too and from school each day.
READ ALSO:
Mrs Powell finished up her school run on March 16, exactly 30 years on the day she started.
"It was an emotional day, the kids said 'when we get to Miandetta can we have a speech?', so I slowed down and as I started to talk I had to pull up because I couldn't see through the tears," Mrs Powell said.
"I couldn't talk but all I said is 'you've all been wonderful and there's not much I can say'.
"I bubbled all the way home and the only thing I could say to my husband is 'thank you for buying that bus, because I've had a good life'.
"I don't cry normally, I'm a hard old bird, but I just said 'thank you'."
Looking back over the years, Mrs Powell couldn't pick her fondest memory, saying all the kids she had ride on her school Read More – Source
Australia
Australia election: Why is Australia’s parliament so white?

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.
Australia
Chinese healer Hong Chi Xiao has manslaughter charge overturned and will face new trial

A western Sydney “slapping therapy” practitioner who was found guilty of the manslaughter of a six-year-old diabetic boy and sentenced to 10 years in prison has had his conviction overturned and will face another trial.
Hong Chi Xiao appeared in Sydney’s Court of Criminal Appeal on Wednesday.
Mr Xiao was extradited from London to Sydney in 2017 to face charges more than two years after the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, died following a series of workshops held in Hurstville in April 2015.
The boy’s parents attended the conference where the self-proclaimed Chinese healer showed a “disdain for Western medicine”.
Mr Xiao allegedly advised the parents to stop their son’s insulin injections and blood glucose tests.
A Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) investigation found that Mr Xiao told the boy’s parents that slapping therapy “could heal all diseases, including diabetes, and that no medication was required because insulin could be generated” through the treatment.
He also allegedly recommended the six-year-old boy stop eating for three days and only drink water or a “ginger date drink”.
Slapping therapy, also known as paida lajin, advocates the slapping of skin to release toxins from patients.
The boy became visibly ill over several days and began vomiting a black substance, but Mr Xiao allegedly told the boy’s mother that his body was adjusting to the “self-healing process”.
He began having seizures and was rushed to St George Hospital, where he died.
The NSW Coroner found the treatment directly caused the boy’s death on April 27, 2015.
A District Court jury found Mr Xiao guilty of manslaughter for breaching the duty of care he owed the six-year-old boy through gross negligence.
He was handed a sentence of 10 years with a non-parole period of 7½ years in December 2019.
District Court Judge Garry Neilson said Mr Xiao showed “no signs of true remorse”.
Mr Xiao launched an appeal against his conviction, claiming inconsistencies in the evidence and that Judge Neilson told the jury that there was “no defence” during the trial.
Tim Game SC told the court that Judge Neilson did not summarise the defence case and did not give enough evidence to the jury to make a sound decision.
After a short adjournment, Justice Derek Price, Justice Ian Harrison and Justice Mark Ierace granted the appeal and quashed Mr Xiao’s conviction.
However, he will have to face a fresh trial in front of a new jury.
Mr Xiao will face the Sydney District Court on March 11 for mention.
He has been permanently banned from practising medicine by the HCCC.
The boy’s mother, father and grandmother were also initially charged over his death, but they were found not guilty and acquitted.
Mr Xiao has been in prison since his arrest in 2017 but has long rejected criticism that his techniques endanger lives.
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