Hillcrest tragedy: operator cleared of criminal charge

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13 hours ago

Samantha Donovan: Hello, welcome to PM. I'm Samantha Donovan, coming to you from the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation in Melbourne. Tonight, the operator involved in the jumping castle tragedy in Hillcrest, Tasmania, found not guilty of a criminal offence. Also, Australia weighs up letting more American beef into the country to avoid Donald Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminium. And a Japanese spacecraft's attempt to land on the moon ends badly.
Alice Gorman: What we have to keep in mind, I think, is that failure is more common than success on the moon. All of the early missions sent to the moon, they all crash landed.
Samantha Donovan: In Tasmania, the families of the six children killed in the 2021 jumping castle tragedy have been shocked by a magistrate's finding the castle's operator was not guilty of a criminal offence. Rosemary Gamble had faced a charge of failing to comply with a health and safety duty. Three other children were injured when wind tossed the castle into the air at an end-of-year celebration at Hillcrest Primary School near Devonport in the states north. Bec Pridham reports.
Bec Pridham: It was an emotional day in the Devonport Magistrates' Court. Three and a half years in the making. Magistrate Robert Webster delivered his verdict in the case against castle operator Taz-Zorb before a room packed with grieving family and friends of the deceased and injured. He ruled he was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the company's guilt. The prosecution had argued that owner operator, Rosemary Gamble, failed to adequately secure the castle and had only pegged it down at half of the eight anchor points. But the defence had argued nothing could have changed the outcome because of the freakish nature of the wind, which an expert called a dust devil. Magistrate Webster ruled while Ms Gamble did fail in some parts of her duty, she could not have prevented the tragedy. In his ruling, he said.
Magistrate Robert Webster (voiced): Ms Gamble could have done more or taken further steps. However, given the effects of the unforeseen and unforeseeable dust devil, had she done so, that would sadly have made no difference to the ultimate outcome.
Bec Pridham: Addressing reporters outside the court afterwards, one of Ms Gamble's lawyers, Bethan Frake, read a statement on her behalf, acknowledging the impact of the tragedy.
Bethan Frake (for Rosemary Gamble): I realise these scars will remain for an extremely long time, likely forever. There are no words to describe how I have felt ever since the tragic incident took so much away from so many people and left nothing but heartbreak and emptiness in its place. I'm a mother. I can only imagine the pain that other parents are living with each and every day because of this terrible thing that happened. Their loss is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
Bec Pridham: Families of the children who died say they're devastated by the verdict.
Andrew Dodt: I've been broken for a long time and I think I'm going to be broken for a long time.
Bec Pridham: That's father Andrew Dodt, whose son Peter died.
Andrew Dodt: But I thank you for walking the path with us. It was a very long path and I think we've still got a long way to go.
Bec Pridham: Mother Georgie Burt, whose son Zane Mellor died, says she's deeply disappointed in the Tasmanian justice system.
Georgie Burt: This outcome does not reflect the weight of our loss nor the reality we live with every single day.
Bec Pridham: There's still a coronial inquest to go ahead and families have also launched a class action against the state of Tasmania and Ms Gamble.
Samantha Donovan: Bec Pridham reporting there. And staying in Tasmania, the political situation there remains unclear this evening after the parliament passed a motion of no confidence in the Liberal Premier, Jeremy Rockliff, yesterday. The motion was brought forward by the Labor opposition leader, Dean Winter, who'd raised concerns about Mr Rockliff's management of the economy and infrastructure and his plans to sell off state assets. Plenty of Tasmanians rang in to ABC Radio today with their thoughts on the situation.
Opinion: This is not in the interests of the people of Tasmania.
Opinion: Yes, I certainly do. What an election. I like that way. It's my choice. It's not their choice who does what. I'd want to change the government.
Opinion: I think they've been disgraceful.
Opinion: I'd like to see a change of government, but I'd like to see the stadium continue.
Opinion: The amount of money that would be swallowed up in a stadium would fund our health, our decrepit health system for months. That's it, money gone.
Opinion: If we go to an election, the one thing I'd really say is I hope the Premier is not part of that election. He was the one that had the no confidence vote against them. He should have the dignity to resign.
Opinion: My vote would support the candidate who doesn't support the stadium. I feel we've got far greater pressing needs at the moment. I've been on the public housing list for two years and there's over 5,000 people waiting and it's growing daily.
Samantha Donovan: For the latest on the political situation in Tasmania, I spoke to the ABC's state political reporter, Adam Langenberg. Adam, is another election in Tasmania now inevitable?
Adam Langenberg: Not inevitable, Sam, but everyone in the political sphere here says it's the most likely scenario. People I've been speaking to today say, you know, 75 or 80% likelihood that we head to an election. Of course, there are other scenarios that can play out. The governor can ask another Liberal MP to try and form government. That's something that the party room has not backed in. They say they'll back Jeremy Rockliff to the hilt and it's either an election or the governor tries to ask Labor to form minority government. That's something the Greens here have said they're open to working with Labor, but Labor leader Dean Winter, who moved this no confidence motion, he says under no circumstances will Labor govern with the Greens. So, it's a standoff and means that everyone thinks the most likely scenario is that election, which won't be called until at least Tuesday, if it does happen.
Samantha Donovan: Adam, why is Tuesday the significant day?
Adam Langenberg: Well, that's because Tasmanian Parliament needs to be recalled so a supply bill can be passed. The Tasmanian Parliament was in the middle of debating the budget, which hasn't passed. It means the Tasmanian public servants won't be paid after August. What that means is if there's going to be an election, there won't be a supply bill passed until well after that. So, there needed to be a mechanism to get them paid in the short term and that's what the supply bill is. And then after that, the Premier will go to the governor and ask for an early election.
Samantha Donovan: Do you think the Labor leader, Dean Winter, fully appreciated what he was setting off with this no confidence motion?
Adam Langenberg: That he didn't is an argument that's been prosecuted by the Liberals all week. They say they were just trying to change the Liberal leader and that's not something that they would tolerate. But Labor insists they meant what they did. They knew there were lots of scenarios. Maybe their preferred one might have been for Jeremy Rockliff just to have resigned. Well, they say they knew when they moved this motion, the consequences of it, and that it could mean that we head to an election and they were OK with that. Dean Winter has said repeatedly that he can't sit idly by and let Premier Jeremy Rockliff ruin the state. That's his argument. That debt and deficit are heading the wrong way in Tasmania, that the government can't manage major infrastructure projects, that it's going to sell off government businesses and the state can't afford it. So, Dean Winter says he knew full well what he was doing and now it's up to Tasmanians.
Samantha Donovan: Adam, if there is another election, do you think Tasmanian voters are going to punish Labor for sending them back to the polls?
Adam Langenberg: Well, Dean Winter's got five weeks or six weeks, depending on how long things take to get underway, to convince Tasmanians that it was the fault of the Premier that we're heading here. This is an argument that he's been making already, that the Premier didn't have the supply and confidence agreements he needed to be able to govern and Labor was just doing what any good opposition should do and holding the government to account. That's an argument he's going to have to make to try and win over Tasmanians. Now, we know that some of the party's biggest vote winners, historically, might not contest this time around. Rebecca White in Lyons has already gone to the federal parliament. It looks like Speaker Michelle O'Byrne in Bass might not contest the election. There's two big vote winners for Labor out of the picture, if that eventuates. So they've got their work cut out for them in growing from 10 seats that they hold currently, let alone getting to the 18 required for majority government. But, yeah, a big task in selling to Tasmanians exactly why they've done what they've done. That's something that's sort of got lost in the noise of the last two days because it's just truly remarkable to see a Premier ousted in the way that he has been.
Samantha Donovan: The backers and fans of the long-awaited Tassie AFL club are worried it might fold because of this economic turmoil, even before it really gets off the ground. What's the worst-case political scenario for the Tassie Devils club?
Adam Langenberg: I think the club will be hoping that there isn't a minority situation where the only way that one of the major parties can form government is in a coalition with an anti-stadium group of independents or the Greens. Because the first thing on their list when they're looking to form government will be, please don't build a stadium in Hobart. That's a reality that the club is really, really concerned about. Now, Labor have already said that they will not drop the stadium and not drop their support for the club going forward. And the Liberals have said the same thing. But in the harsh reality of post-election, when you need to trade to form power, what happens? And that's a real concern for football fans and the football club. And only time will tell exactly how that works out.
Samantha Donovan: Adam Langenberg is the ABC's state political reporter in Tasmania. The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has ruled out easing restrictions on American beef imports as he prepares to meet with Donald Trump to negotiate a possible exemption to his tariff regime. Australia has a ban on imports of some US beef to prevent the spread of disease. And farming groups argue it's necessary to protect the nation's multi-billion-dollar beef industry. Gavin Coote reports.
Gavin Coote: As Donald Trump continues his agenda of putting tariffs on both friends and foes around the world, Australia is still exploring ways to get an exemption. A key bargaining chip is beef imports from the US into Australia. Currently, they're heavily restricted due to concerns about disease. President Trump singled out those restrictions in his so-called Liberation Day speech in April.
Donald Trump: Australia bans, and they're wonderful people and wonderful everything, but they ban American beef, yet we imported $3 billion of Australian beef from them just last year alone. They won't take any of our beef. They don't want it.
Gavin Coote: While Australia lifted its ban on US beef imports in 2019, exporters have to prove the cattle were born, raised and slaughtered in the States. Now Australia is reviewing whether to permit cattle originally from Mexico and Canada that end up in America. Largely, it's about trying to convince the US to drop tariffs on Australian steel and aluminium. But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who will meet Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G7 summit later this month, says he won't trade away the nation's biosecurity.
Anthony Albanese: If things can be sorted out in a way that protects our biosecurity, of course, we don't just say no. We don't want imports in here for the sake of it. But our first priority is biosecurity, and there'll be no compromise on that.
Gavin Coote: Despite this assurance, even the prospect of a review has worried some, including Nationals leader David Littleproud.
David Littleproud: You shouldn't cut a deal at any cost, and particularly the cost of Australian biosecurity. This will decimate the agricultural sector if we blink and allow President Trump to be able to roll over us and our biosecurity standards. They are the best in the world. They have protected us.
Gavin Coote: One of the cornerstones of Australia's biosecurity is what's called traceability. In Australia, all cattle and sheep are required to have an electronic tag that can tell you exactly what farm it's come from and what feedlot it's been to before being slaughtered. Agricultural analyst Andrew Whitelaw from episode3.net points out US supply chains don't have this requirement.
Andrew Whitelaw: So in the US, they don't trace them. So you don't actually know if that beef that you buy is US beef, Canadian beef, or Mexican beef. And there are quite a few animal health diseases and viruses in Mexico that are screwworm is one of them, and that we don't want in this country. And because we can't trace it, we can't bring them in. But it's not banned. They just have to actually have strong biosecurity protocols that we have in Australia and most of places like Europe.
Gavin Coote: And Andrew Whitelaw argues there's good reason why Australia takes its biosecurity so seriously. Definitely,
Andrew Whitelaw: if we look at things, let's say just food and mouth disease is a good example, or African swine fever are two prime examples of this, that meat, even cooked meat, can contain a virus, which then can be transferred to an animal. So if we look at, say, the UK, back when I was a kid, we had the food and mouth disease outbreak, which was caused by scraps of food being fed to pigs in a farm that were affected with food and mouth disease. The pigs then were then spreading the disease amongst themselves. They then got moved around, and then that disease transferred throughout the UK to the animal herd, and it caused something in the orders of billions of dollars, or billions of pounds in damage, and caused years and years for the UK to recover, for the UK's agricultural system to recover.
Gavin Coote: Even if the rules were changed, there are serious doubts US beef would be able to compete in the Australian market. John McKillop chairs the Red Meat Advisory Council.
John McKillop: We don't really see the US as being a major threat to us. Even if you went before those bans were imposed in 2002, the most Australia imported from the US was 210 tonnes. I'll put that in contrast to the 394,000 tonnes we exported to the US last year. You know, it's a little bit like trying to think that you're going to suddenly export gas to Qatar. You know, it's fanciful. You can't, the economics wouldn't work, and the volumes wouldn't work. You know, and if you can compete in our markets, then come and do it. But, you know, I can't see much coming into the US other than for novelty values. You know, there may be butcher shops that want to run a US prime special for a little while. And, but, you know, their product is no better than ours. And at a 64, 65 cent dollar, I can't see how they're going to compete with us.
Gavin Coote: The US has imposed tariffs of 50% on Australian steel and aluminium, and a blanket 10% tariff on other products.
Samantha Donovan: Gavin Coote reporting. This is PM, I'm Samantha Donovan. You can hear all our programs live or later on the ABC Listen app. Well, as most observers predicted, the relationship between the American president, Donald Trump, and tech billionaire, Elon Musk, has blown up in spectacular fashion. After rising tensions between the pair over a big spending bill that Mr. Musk believes will blow out the nation's debt, he's now alleging the president features in the so-called Epstein files, the dossiers the late sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, kept on the rich and powerful as leverage. Isabel Moussalli reports.
Isabel Moussalli: From Seattle, Washington to Austin, Texas, Americans aren't surprised by a bit of fallout between their president and the world's richest man.
Opinion: Yeah, they're two very different guys that I think it was doomed from the beginning.
Opinion: Looks like a lot of petty fighting, a lot of male hubris just out on display.
Opinion: How fast it's going downhill, it is pretty impressive, but yeah, it's not surprising in any form.
Isabel Moussalli: During the US election campaign, tech billionaire Elon Musk was right by Donald Trump's side, even donating more than $250 million to his campaign. Then after the victory, President Trump gave Elon Musk a controversial role, running the Department of Government Efficiency, with the aim of slashing trillions of dollars from government spending, mainly by cutting jobs. Last week, he left that role and has been criticising the president's signature bill, which is forecast to increase government debt. But the feud may go deeper.
Emma Shortis: There has been some suggestion that it goes back to a briefing on China that Elon Musk was scheduled to go to in the Pentagon that Trump was deeply uncomfortable with and that the two clashed over that, over access to power.
Isabel Moussalli: Dr Emma Shortis is the Director of International and Security Affairs at the Australia Institute.
Emma Shortis: The Trump administration is also backgrounding that Elon Musk is upset that Trump's so-called big, beautiful bill takes away tax breaks and subsidies for electric vehicles, which of course will directly affect Elon Musk's companies. But look, I think more broadly, it is a fairly straightforward clash of enormous male egos.
Isabel Moussalli: President Trump has now expressed he's disappointed by Elon Musk's stance.
Donald Trump: Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we're well anymore. I was surprised because we had a wonderful send-off. He said wonderful things about me. Couldn't have nicer, said the best things. He's worn the hat. Trump was right about everything. And I am right about the great, big, beautiful bill.
Isabel Moussalli: And he said Elon Musk's EV subsidies should be removed. Now there has been an even more dramatic escalation. Mr Musk took to his social media platform, X, to say the following, "'Time to drop the really big bomb. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they haven't been made public. Have a nice day.'" This relates to long-running speculation about the evidence gathered on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In 2019, he was arrested on sex trafficking charges, but took his own life in prison. Many court documents have been made public while others have remained sealed. And some suggest that's been done to cover up some of Epstein's high-profile associates.
Emma Shortis: Trump had suggested really that he would release the so-called Epstein files, which have evidence about what went on in Epstein's kind of empire, I suppose. And those documents have not been released. And Elon Musk has tweeted overnight that the reason they haven't been released, he's alleging the reason they haven't been released is because Trump is named.
Isabel Moussalli: Mr Musk didn't provide any evidence for his claim that Donald Trump is named in the Epstein files. So is his latest statement based on fact or fiction?
Emma Shortis: Of course, I think without having seen the documents, that's difficult to say. I think it's unlikely that Trump isn't named, that at some point in those files, there had been widespread suggestions that he has been, because of course, those powerful circles in New York of moneyed Democrats and Republicans are very small and Epstein moved across all of them. So it would be almost surprising if Trump wasn't somehow named or associated with Epstein, but the allegation is a very serious one given what Epstein himself is accused of doing.
Isabel Moussalli: Professor Gordon Flake from the Perth US Asia Center doesn't believe this latest controversy will have a big impact on President Trump.
Gordon Flake: We have been told probably literally hundreds of times that this is going to be something that moves the dial on Donald Trump and it never proves to be true. I mean, what would not have thought that somebody had been convicted with 34 felony accounts would be, you know, it would turn to the presidency. So I'm a little bit sceptical that something like this is gonna fundamentally change the debate around Trump or the Trump presidency.
Isabel Moussalli: As for the relationship between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Professor Flake believes the back and forth criticism will continue to flow and continue to distract from serious policy issues.
Samantha Donovan: Isabel Moussalli , over the years, many attempts to land a spacecraft on the moon have failed. Japanese company, iSpace, tried to land an uncrewed vessel on the moon two years ago, but it crashed during the landing. Now it appears the company's second attempt has ended the same way. Elizabeth Cramsie has more.
Elizabeth Cramsie: If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. It's a useful motto, but for the second time now, Japanese company, iSpace, has failed to land on the moon.
Takeshi Hakamada: In conclusion, we have not achieved the landing. So in that regards, you can say we failed.
Elizabeth Cramsie: That's Takeshi Hakamada, the CEO and founder of iSpace. Two years ago, iSpace's first attempt ended in failure when its spacecraft crashed into the surface of the moon. This second uncrewed lander was aptly named Resilience. But in a media conference today, Mr Hakamada once again had to apologise to everyone who contributed to the mission.
Takeshi Hakamada: This is the second time that we were not able to land. So we really have to take it very seriously.
Elizabeth Cramsie: The suspense had been building as the lander approached the moon and prepared to land. Up until that point, the mission had gone well, but communications were lost less than two minutes before the scheduled landing. Ryo Ujiie is the Chief Technology Officer.
Ryo Ujiie: Based on the fact that the speed of the lander was not reduced enough, I think it's appropriate to think it is crashed.
Elizabeth Cramsie: Associate Professor Alice Gorman is from Flinders University in Adelaide.
Alice Gorman: I'm very sorry that they weren't successful. It would have been an amazing mission. But what we have to keep in mind, I think, is that in some ways failure is more common than success on the moon.
Elizabeth Cramsie: She says while moon landings have been achieved before, they haven't gotten any less difficult.
Alice Gorman: People remember the successes like the Apollo missions. They don't remember the failures. And with the Apollo missions, I think we were extremely fortunate. So the President of the United States had speeches prepared if the astronauts all died. That was the real possibility. And they didn't, and that's extremely fortunate. But then there was a period after Apollo of about 50 years where people just weren't sending missions to the moon. So a lot of that continuity of knowledge was lost.
Elizabeth Cramsie: She says there's multiple challenges in a moon landing and it's more difficult than other planets.
Alice Gorman: There's no atmosphere. But what that means is that a spacecraft can't use parachutes to slow its speed down when it's coming out of orbit. It has to rely on engines. In the case of the iSpace lander, the information it was getting about its distance from the surface wasn't happening fast enough. So it's kind of out of sync with the little rocket thrusters. So it just went, poof, down it went. There's no air to slow it down.
Elizabeth Cramsie: Professor Gorman says every crash is a learning opportunity.
Alice Gorman: You learn something about your systems, your engineering. You learn something about the lunar surface, the lunar atmosphere. So it's not entirely useless. It's just not what people were hoping for.
Samantha Donovan: That's Associate Professor Alice Gorman from Flinders University, Elizabeth Cramsie, reporting. And that's PM for this week. PM's producer is David Sparkes. Technical production by Joram Toth, David Sergent and Nick Dracoulis. I'm Samantha Donovan. PM will be back on Monday evening. Just a reminder too, the podcast of the program is available on the ABC Listen app. I hope you have a safe and happy weekend. Good night.