Once again, Nick Parmeter is back in to keep you up to date on the week that was, holding down the fort in the newsroom during the final week of Australian Parliament for the year.

On Monday, the US and China agreed at the G20 summit to put a pause on their ongoing ‘trade war’, given the negative effects it has had on international trade. At the summit, Angela Merkel was seen by journalists to be carrying a cheat-sheet on Scott Morrison, given our Prime Minister’s recent appointment to the top seat.

On Tuesday, Arsalan Khawaja, the brother of Australian Cricketer Usman Khawaja, was arrested in connection to what has been described as a ‘terrorism notebook’, which detailed plans to kill Australian Politicians. It is suspected that the notebook was written by Arsalan Khawaja in an attempt to frame a colleague over a personal grievance. Also on Tuesday, the Liberal party passed a motion in effort to prevent another spill, by raising the proportion of support needed to oust party leadership.

On Wednesday, NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller confirmed that Chris Dawson was arrested in connection to the 1982 disappearance of Lynette Dawson. Chris Dawson was formally charged with the murder on Thursday as he arrived in Sydney with Police escort.

Closing the week, Parliament ended for the year, with the government rushing several decisions in order to wrap things up for the year. A critically panned bill on encryption was passed through the senate, whilst it was decided that religious schools will still have the right to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students, at least until parliament resumes debate on the topic in February.