In today's headlines, Kīingi Tūheitia passes away aged 69, Auckland University stand-off takes dramatic turn and volunteers gear up for Daffodil Day.
A first-term Liberal MP will quit the New South Wales Parliament in Australia after being hit with a string of charges relating to an alleged assault on a teenage boy in 2017.
Member for Pittwater Rory Amon – who was also a party spokesman on youth issues – wasarrested on Friday morning at Manly Police Station and charged with 10 offences.
They include five counts of sexual intercourse with a person over 10 and under 14, two of attempting sexual intercourse with a child over 10 under 14, two of indecently assaulting a person under 16 and committing an act of indecency with a person under 16.
State Liberals moved swiftly after news of the charges became public, with Opposition Leader Mark Speakman demanding Amon’s resignation from the party and Parliament.
The 35-year-old immediately quit the party and tendered his resignation as an MP to the Parliament’s Speaker, Speakman said in a statement.
MP Rory Amon will quit the NSW Parliament after being hit with a string of child-sex charges.
“The charges laid against Rory Amon are extremely serious … the alleged conduct strikes at the heart of the standards expected of MPs,” the Liberal leader said.
“While Mr Amon is entitled to the presumption of innocence, a criminal trial will be some time away and in the meantime, the citizens of Pittwater are entitled to have a member of Parliament who can discharge their duties in the community fully.”
Detectives started an investigation in June 2022 after reports of an alleged sexual assault in Mona Vale, which is within Amon’s electorate on Sydney’s northern beaches, five years earlier.
They were told a teenage boy had been sexually assaulted by a man known to him.
A strike force was set up in March 2023, the same month as the state election took place.
Amon was granted police bail with strict conditions and is scheduled to face court for the first time on the charges on September 18.
However, lawyers for the first-term MP fronted Manly Local Court on Friday after lodging an application to have his identity suppressed, a bid they later abandoned.
Amon had been quick to rise in the Liberal Party and was immediately placed in Speakman’s leadership team after his election.
His posts included stints as shadow assistant minister for youth, infrastructure, and transport and roads.
He narrowly scraped over the line to win the northern Sydney seat – long coveted by the Liberals – just beating teal challenger Jacqui Scruby with just over 50% of the two-party preferred vote.
He served as a Northern Beaches councillor between 2017 and 2023 before entering state politics.
