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.
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
‘Anti-government’ ideology behind alleged Windang terror attack: police

Police have charged a man with committing an act of terrorism after he allegedly armed himself with two large guns and fired at members of the public before barricading himself inside a shop south of Sydney last year.
It is the first time an individual who is alleged to have “an ideologically motivated violent extremist ideology” has been charged with committing a terror attack in Australia, AFP Assistant Commissioner Scott Lee told reporters on Wednesday. He added that the alleged attack was consistent with the current terror threat from “lone wolf” actors with “mixed ideologies”, which boil down to being anti-government.
The “frightening” incident unfolded on a Sunday morning on the main street of Windang, near Wollongong, on November 28. Police responded to reports that a man armed with two firearms had fired at vehicles and pedestrians before entering a dive shop on Windang Road.
Video taken by bystanders showed a man clad head-to-toe in black and carrying a large gun appearing to take shots outside on the quiet shopping strip.
It’s alleged that, after entering the dive shop, 40-year-old Simon Fleming barricaded himself inside and briefly held the store owner hostage while an employee managed to escape. The owner of the store was later released uninjured.
Local police – assisted by heavily armed tactical officers, negotiators, the bomb squad and the dog unit – established a perimeter at the scene and, following negotiations, the man surrendered. He was arrested about 10.30am and taken to Lake Illawarra police station where he was charged with six offences. Nobody was hurt in the incident.
As part of ongoing investigations, a crime scene warrant was executed at a home at Windang, where several items, including firearms, knives and electronic devices, were seized for further examination.
Police said he was found to be in possession of several documents containing extremist ideologies and a willingness to commit violent acts.
The NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team – made up of members from the Australian Federal Police, NSW Police, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the NSW Crime Commission – subsequently began an investigation into the man’s activities, under Operation Bletsoe.
On Wednesday, Mr Fleming appeared via audio-visual link at Wollongong Local Court where the new charge of engaging in a terrorist act was laid.
The maximum penalty for the offence is life imprisonment.
Speaking with reporters in Sydney on Wednesday, NSW Police Counter Terrorism and Special Tactics Commander, Mark Walton, said the alleged incident is consistent with the current “probable” security threat posed by “lone actors, and particularly people with an ideology, and mixed ideologies”.
Assistant Commissioner Walton said those ideologies can range from white supremacy to anti-vaccination, but underpinning most, currently, is anti-government ideology.
He urged the community to continue to be vigilant and report suspicious activity to police “so that we can continue to be successful and intervene in matters of risk before they move into matters of violence”.
While “it’s fine for people to have their own views”, Assistant Commissioner Walton said, the “exponential consumption of these ideologies on the internet” is increasing the likelihood of their proponents turning to violence.
Commissioner Lee also urged people “who have got insights into their family members” to come forward if they suspect radicalisation and enable police to intervene. He said police would “act where we can to support those individuals to disengage them from further radicalisation”.
The lone wolf threat is “further exacerbated by the global narrative that continues to be shared on online environments, and how that either directs, inspires or influences individuals within our country,” he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also contributed, “where we have individuals in the community who are physically and socially isolated, or they spend a lot of time in the online environment.”
Commissioner Lee also stressed that police “target criminality regardless of the background of the perpetrator. We target criminal activity, not ideologies or backgrounds.”
Investigations by the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team are continuing, but police said there was no ongoing threat to the community relating to this investigation.
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