Notorious Russell Street bomb-accused Craig Minogue has refused to give a DNA sample to police after being charged with abducting and raping two women in the 1980s, while his alleged accomplice has failed to front court.

Police will apply to the court to force Mr Minogue to provide a sample after charging him and Peter Komiazyk, who was acquitted of the 1986 Russell Street bombing, over the rapes in 1985 and 1986.

The two men are accused of committing a brutal assault on a 19-year-old woman in Nunawading the night before the bombing, which killed Constable Angela Taylor, 21, and injured 22.

The alleged victim was inside the Russell Street police complex giving a statement when a bomb, concealed in a Holden Commodore parked outside the building, exploded around lunchtime on March 27, 1986.

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Mr Komiazyk, who used to go by the name Peter Reed, refused to face Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday where prosecutor Stephen Devlin said police were assessing information from phone taps.

He and Mr Minogue are also accused of forcing a young woman into a car on Chapel Street, South Yarra, and raping her on November 22, 1985.

Police allege both women were showered after they attacked, and then dumped in streets near where they were abducted.

Both men face 38 charges including abduction by force and aggravated rape.

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Mr Komiazyk faced court on Thursday night and was refused bail.

He was due to return to court on Friday, but his lawyer told the court he had asked to remain in his cell.

The 61-year-old appeared bloodied and bruised when he fronted court in a ripped T-shirt on Thursday night.

He was arrested by Special Operations Group officers on Thursday outside his psychologist’s office in Kalorama, in the Dandenong Ranges.

Police told the court on Thursday night the rape cases were reopened in 2017 following a breakthrough with DNA evidence.

They also allege Stanley Brian Taylor, who was jailed over Russell Street bombing, was also involved in the 1986 rape. Taylor died in jail in 2016.

Mr Komiazyk's lawyer, Steven Pica, raised concerns on Thursday night over the way his client was arrested, and told the hearing his client's car windows were broken and his vehicle was rammed before he was taken into custody.

Mr Komiazyk lives on a disability pension and cares for his 13-year-old son, his lawyer said.

Police last month made a fresh call for information over the attacks and offered a $350,000 reward for information.

The victim of the Nunawading attack, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was walking on Ashwood Drive about 9.30pm on March 26, 1986.

She was heading to her boyfriend's parents' house when she was dragged into a car containing four men.

She was threatened with a knife, blindfolded and gagged, before being driven a short distance to an unknown property and sexually assaulted.

The teenager was dumped under a parked car on Mariana Avenue in Ringwood East around midnight.

The victim in the South Yarra attack was an 18-year-old schoolgirl who selling flowers on Chapel Street.

About 10pm, she was allegedly dragged into a car on Bray Street, blindfolded and gagged before being taken to an unknown property and sexually assaulted.

She was dumped on Yarra Boulevard in Richmond about 1am the next day.

The incident had a profound impact on the victim's life. She died aged 41 in 2008.

Mr Minogue will return to Melbourne Magistrates Court on June 14.

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The Morrison government wasted little time putting the heat back on the energy sector after its election victory, committing to hardline interventionist action designed to reform and punish the power industry.

Analysts have already called the Coalition's win "a negative” for energy companies, and warned it could make power prices more volatile.

The energy stoush began in 2017, when AGL reaffirmed its intention to close its Hunter Valley-based Liddell coal-fired power station in 2022, raising fears it could create an energy shortage similar to the experience after the closure of Victoria's Hazelwood power station earlier that year.

This drove energy prices to record highs and ignited a battle between AGL and the government to extend the life of the Liddell power plant to keep the lights on.

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As part of this battle, the Morrison government set out a raft of new policies before the election to lower historically high power bills and prevent energy shortages.

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The proposed measures included giving the government power to break up energy companies found to be behaving poorly in the market and force them to sell off assets to reduce their footprint; the creation of a new, fixed basic electricity price for households not already on a discount offer; new safety nets to remove energy companies' ability to charge consumers excessive late fees, and a new reference price to compare discounts offers.

They were introduced after the government dumped its own energy and emissions policy aimed at driving down both power prices and greenhouse gas levels, the National Energy Guarantee (NEG).

Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor also made an ambitious pledge to slash wholesale prices – what generators charge retailers for electricity – by up to a quarter.

Energy providers called many of these rules market-wrecking actions, particularly the forced divestment power, known as the government’s ‘big stick’.

'Big stick' prevails

The government had managed to get most of these new rules underway ahead of the election, apart from the ‘big stick’. Most should come into force on 1 July.

With pre-election polls predicting a Labor victory, the energy industry had begun planning for a Bill Shorten government, expecting many of the Coalition's harshest policies to be dropped.

Instead, it found itself blindsided by the Coalition victory and the realisation its harsh interventions would be implemented.

The big power companies swiftly urged Prime Minister Scott Morrison to drop these policies, hoping to reset the relationship with the government and move beyond the antagonism that had plagued the energy debate over the last three years.

To no avail: The government renewed its hardline approach to the industry on Wednesday, focusing on energy giant AGL, and threatening tough action against power retailers.

Jack de Belin's co-accused faces being stood down from a bush competition as soon as next week after the Country Rugby League agreed in principle to adopt a policy similar to the NRL's no-fault stand-down rule.

The CRL board met on Friday and agreed to draft a new edict which will give them the discretion to stand down players accused of serious crimes until the judicial process has run its course. The policy will be used on a case-by-case basis.

It will pour over the wording of the NRL's no-fault stand-down rule – which withstood a Federal Court challenge from Dragons forward de Belin – before formalising its own policy.

It's likely to mean Callan Sinclair, who has also been charged with aggravated sexual assault, is likely to be the first bush player to be subject to the rule. Sinclair and de Belin have both pleaded not guilty to their charges.

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"We're going to check what the wording is with the NRL as we've agreed to adopt the policy," CRL chief executive Terry Quinn said. "It will likely happen next week and we want it to happen as quickly as we can."

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While de Belin trained for months in the hope of returning to the NRL before his Federal Court verdict, Sinclair made a low-key return earlier this season for the Shellharbour Sharks in the group 7 competition on the NSW south coast.

He was chosen in the Norway squad for a World Cup qualifier in London earlier this month. He was one of only two Australian-based players included in the Norwegian squad.

But under Sinclair's bail conditions he was forced to surrender his passport and unable to apply for a new one, meaning he was denied the chance to represent the tiny rugby league nation, which is bidding for inclusion in the 2021 tournament.

Sinclair is eligible for Norway because of his grandfather's heritage.

De Belin faces the prospect of being sidelined from the NRL until well into next year after his expensive legal bid to quash the no-fault stand-down policy was rejected by Justice Melissa Perry.

St George Illawarra coach Paul McGregor was hopeful de Belin was going to be cleared in time for the Dragons' clash against the Knights in Mudgee last week.

Sinclair's own court case will again appear before Wollongong Local Court next week.

Both he and de Belin were granted bail when charged after a complaint over an alleged incident inside a Wollongong apartment in December last year.

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Arts leaders are demanding a long-term vision from Canberra in the wake of the Morrison government's shock re-election.

Those who work in the visual and performing arts say the recent election campaign was dominated by tax reform, leaving little air-time for the specific issues plaguing their industries. A key concern was that the Liberal Party's campaign website did not contain a comprehensive arts policy.

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Instead, the Coalition courted votes off the back of grants to live music venues. There was also a promise to help fund an Adelaide-based Aboriginal Art and Cultures Gallery, as part of a string of measures aimed at boosting tourism.

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In contrast, the Labor party pitched several arts policies to the Australian public. Its suite of commitments included a $37.5 million boost to grants provider Australia Council and $8 million to help establish a new First Nations theatre company. During the campaign, former opposition leader Bill Shorten claimed arts policy was "not an add-on" for his side of politics.

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Now that the Coalition has remained in power, arts leaders say the government has an opportunity to show it has a long-term plan for arts and culture. When the Abbott government came to power in 2013, it scrapped Labor's Creative Australia policy, and a big-picture strategy for making Australia's cultural industries more sustainable hasn't existed – at least publicly – since.

Esther Anatolitis, the executive director of the National Association for the Visual Arts, said a public roadmap was vital if the Morrison government was serious about jobs and growth.

"Now is the time for the next arts minister to have a really good think about what they'd like their legacy to be," she said. "There are a lot of very serious issues for an industry that contributes $111.7 billion to the economy. We need the government to take us seriously."

Helen Marcou, from Save Live Australia's Music, said the arts sector has been calling for a long-term cultural plan for years in order to get away from "policy driven by election cycles".

"The Prime Minister himself quotes Australian music and is a big fan of [John] Farnham and Tina Arena," she said. "But in order to propel these Australian stories nationally and internationally, we need not just a vision but a long-term investment.

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"If they're good economic managers, as the Coalition professes to be, the sheer economics of investing in the arts makes sense. In Victoria alone, around 16,000 people work in the music industry. This is a growth area we can really invest in."

Near the top of the arts industry's wish-list is to see some funding restored to the Australia Council now that the government is predicting a budget surplus. The council is the government's largest investment vehicle for the arts.

Bethwyn Serow, the executive director of the Australian Major Performing Arts Group, said an Australia Council funding boost will greatly benefit individual artists as well as small to medium-sized arts organisations.

"Now is the opportunity to be on the front foot," she said. "In history past, the Coalition has supported the arts with the formation of the Australia Council. We want some strong, definitive choices moving forward. All of us are saying there needs to be more investment."

Ms Anatolitis said it was dispiriting to see millions of dollars in taxpayer money funnelled towards projects such as the Australian War Memorial expansion while other cultural institutions have seen "funding cuts for years and years".

"The data shows us that more Australians engage in the arts – go to galleries, read a book – than go to sports events," she said. "The reason we need excellent policy is to inspire great work. How is local content on Netflix, for example, protected [with quotas]? How can artists form galleries that sustain themselves? How do kids get great arts education?"

Live Performance Australia's Evelyn Richardson said the government should be looking at ways the arts can help boost areas such as tourism and regional development.

"It's about not just looking at us as a silo industry in our own right, but looking at the relationships with other parts of our society like health and education," she said. "There's a lot more that could be done in terms of joining the dots."

One of the Coalition's perceived strengths from the arts industry's perspective is its apparent willingness to reform visas. After all, the federal government's own inquiry into the local music industry recommended new visa arrangements for touring artists.

"Our arts contribute to tourism," Ms Marcou said. "Being able to export our music and our artists internationally and also work with other countries to tell the Australian story is really important for us. It's time Australia was on the world stage."

Andre Reyes (formerly of Gipsy Kings)
Darling Harbour Theatre, May 19
★★★

Had we come to the right place?

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Dressed for dancing, many of the people milling in the foyer had bought tickets to this show on the promise of “GIPSY KINGS by Andre Reyes”, with the last three words in very small print on the ads.

But the video screens here were displaying the rather less catchy “Andre Reyes (formerly of Gipsy Kings)”.

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It turns out the 51-year-old, who in 2014 left the flamenco fusionists famous for Bamboleo, hadn’t got around to clearing his use of the brand name with his elder brother. Nicolas Reyes remains lead singer of the act spawned by two families of France-based Spanish gypsies in the late 1970s.

The forced change in promotional material meant this 2500-capacity theatre was only two-thirds full. But in the end neither that, nor the fact the voice of the hits was absent, stopped the crowd from moving and hollering their appreciation throughout the two-hour set.

Andre has put together a pretty mean family band of his own, featuring three young relatives on Spanish guitar, backed with keyboard, drums, electric bass and virtuosic percussion from Brazilian Guilherme Dos Santos.

Their music sat somewhere between rumba, salsa and pop, with most of the flamenco element confined to the singing. From opener A tu Vera on, the anguished, earthy ululations of Reyes and sons never stopped packing an emotional punch.

The entire first half was strong, the likes of Gipsy Kings hits Djobi Djoba, Bem Bem Maria and Bailame intoxicating with their multiple layers of rhythm, lightning fretwork from David “Mario” Reyes, and impassioned vocals. It was also a delight to hear Andre channel Julio Iglesias on ballad Un Amor, which got the smartphone torch sway-along that seems to have become obligatory at pop concerts.

The second hour flagged somewhat, the danceable numbers suffering from a saminess in their syncopated bass lines, and guitar strumming patterns that rarely deviated from the rumba style with an open palm slap on the second and fourth beat.

The covers of My Way and Hotel California were inessential, and the same could be said of Jose “Chico” Castillo, a minor Latin pop star of the 1990s who on this night was a portly hype-man and occasional singer.

Charming at first, his cries of "Gipsy Kings!" (he mustn't have seen the legal letter) and insistence that we applaud or clap along to nearly everything became grating.

Not that this audience seemed to mind, especially once the set reached the two songs that make "Gipsy Kings" a name worth fighting for – that explosive earworm Bamboleo, and Volare, the Italian pop staple that is the one cover the Reyes make their own.

Damion Flower may lose his slot in the $14 million Everest as he faces a show cause notice from Racing NSW as to why he should be allowed to continue in the industry while facing drug importation charges.

Flower paid for his slot in full for 2019 and it remains unclear whether he will be refunded that money if he loses the slot. Racing NSW will wait until the outcome of the show cause notice to decide if he can continue as a slot holder from 2020 in its flagship race.

“No matter what the circumstances, Racing NSW will provide due process and natural justice to its participants,” Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’landys said.

“Accordingly, I stress that we are not pre-judging Mr Flower’s case who is entitled to the presumption of innocence and will be given every opportunity to respond to the show cause notice issued by Racing NSW when he is able to do so.

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“However, in the interim, it is critical that the integrity, image and interests of thoroughbred racing in New South Wales be protected which is why Racing NSW has imposed interim conditions on Mr Flower’s participation in the thoroughbred racing industry.

“It is also important that other racing participants that race horses with Mr Flower are not unfairly prejudiced as a result of the charges against Mr Flower.

“The interim conditions have been framed so that those persons, who are not involved and need to be treated accordingly so as they are not disadvantaged due to circumstance beyond their control, can continue to train and race horses."

Flower has been charged with six counts of importing a border controlled substance, cocaine, and Racing NSW moved swiftly on Friday.

"Racing NSW acted immediately to protect the integrity, image and interests of thoroughbred racing by issuing a show cause notice to Mr Flower on that day, which has been served on his representative, requiring him to show cause as to why the provisions of AR23 should not be imposed against him in respect of his ongoing participation in the thoroughbred racing industry," a statement said.

"In this respect, it is important to note that the stand-down conditions under AR23 (which were introduced into the Rules of Racing in October 2013) are intended to protect the integrity, image and interests of thoroughbred racing while charges are being determined against a person and Racing NSW is in no way prejudging the charges against Mr Flower nor interfering with his entitlement to the presumption of innocence."

Until a hearing is held Flower’s horses will be allowed to continue to race but any prizemoney will be frozen and held by Racing NSW or provided to any third party subject to legal requirements, until all charges issued against Flower have been determined.

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Flower’s colours of red with white spots will not be used in races or barrier trials.

Further if Flower is granted bail on the charges he will not be allowed to enter any racecourse or training centre or participate in the preparation for racing or training of any horse.

Opposition transport spokeswoman Jodi McKay has promised to unite the NSW Labor Party and “put people first” if elected to the top job next month.

Announcing her bid for the Labor leadership in her inner Sydney Strathfield electorate, Ms McKay styled herself as someone with “country values” who could broaden Labor’s base across the state.

“I despair that in rural areas across NSW there is a view that if you are unhappy with the National Party, you still can’t vote for the Labor Party,” Ms McKay said.

“I say to rural NSW, if a country kid from Gloucester can stand for the leadership of the Labor Party, then you can vote Labor.”

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Ms McKay grew up in Gloucester on the Mid North Coast of NSW, but left when she was 18 and settled in Newcastle. She was the member for Newcastle between 2007-2011, and held several ministerial roles during the last Labor government, including as the minister for tourism and minister for the Hunter.

After a hiatus, she returned to politics as the Member for Strathfield in 2015, and has served in shadow cabinet since then.

Ms McKay’s nomination sets up a two-horse race for the leadership, after Kogarah MP Chris Minns announced his bid on Thursday.

The successful candidate will be chosen through a month-long ballot process, with the parliamentary caucus and rank-and-file members each having a 50 per cent say.

In a bid to demonstrate her support in the local branches, Ms McKay assembled dozens of grassroots members, many decked out in her red state election campaign t-shirts, to serve as the backdrop as she announced her nomination in Homebush West.

“I’ve always stood up for what is right,” Ms McKay said. “I can also unite our caucus. We have to have a stable and united team if we are to win the election in 2023.”

Ms McKay did not go into detail about her key policies, and said she would consult branch members about “their vision” for their communities.

“I want the party members to tell me what they want to do with the environment and renewable energy, and what they expect us to do around climate change,” she said.

“I want to know what their vision is for education and hospitals. We have to put people first.”

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However, she listed education as her “key” priority, and was critical of the party’s focus on the issue through the prism of infrastructure at the March election.

“We failed to put meat around our argument on schools and hospitals,” Ms McKay said.

“We spoke about demountables, we spoke about air conditioning, we spoke about schools maintenance. We need to do better than that.”

Both Ms McKay and Mr Minns are from the party’s Right, and will spend the next month canvassing support from colleagues, branch members, and unions.

While some Left wing unions have made clear their disdain for Mr Minns, they have stopped short of endorsing Ms McKay.

Other unions, including the Right wing Electrical Trade Unions, Health Services Union, and Transport Workers Union, were struggling to find consensus support for either candidate.

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May has been the month of miracles. This was the way our highly devout Prime Minister described his election victory, which arrived on the back of three years of dysfunctional government and a campaign devoid of policies. It was also the way Tony Costa responded to his victory in this year’s Archibald Prize, for a portrait of artist, Lindy Lee. “Miraculous,” he said.

The word, in both instances, seems well-chosen. I won’t wade into the shallows of politics, but Costa’s win seems one of the least predictable in decades. Because I was overseas during the announcement I didn’t have to take my usual punt, but I wouldn’t have seen this one coming.

I’m pleased for Tony Costa, an underrated artist who is overdue for some attention, but many would probably agree that he is more of a landscapist than a portraitist. As a picture of a person meditating it’s understandable Lee should have her eyes closed, but this is a major drawback in any portrait. To say the eyes are the windows of the soul is a cliche, but close them and the life drains out of a work, the human connection fails and a person becomes an object. It’s as much of a no-no as showing the subject’s teeth, a feature that turns any painting into a happy snap.

In Milan, while the Archibald was being announced, I was looking at the incredible portraits of Antonello da Messina (1430-79), who had the ability to convey a sitter’s entire personality in the curve of a lip or an eyebrow, or the gleam in a pupil. To return to Sydney and be confronted with this year’s Archibald selections was to feel that whatever has been happening in art for the past 400 years, it couldn’t be called "progress".

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Costa’s portrait is also disappointingly schematic, being nothing more than a figure deposited on a ground. Once again I can understand the idea of depicting a meditating figure in the silhouette of a mountain, but it doesn’t make for a challenging composition.

Were there better candidates for the Prize? Yes, but not many, because this is one of the poorest Archibalds in living memory. As has been the practice over the past few years the show is too large, with more than 50 works on display. The idea, presumably, is that profusion adds variety. The reality is that it diffuses interest, as most entries have no hope of winning, while the preponderance of mediocre pictures drags down one’s overall impression of the event.

There are too many teensy-weensy pictures, even though some of the small works, notably Keith Burt’s Benjamin Law: Happy Sad and Angus McDonald’s Mariam Veiszadeh, are accomplished examples of the portraitist’s art. There is a large dose of that nit-picking photorealism that appeals to the public in the most banal way, and irritates the purists who believe a portrait should not be over-dependent on the camera. Exhibit A is Tessa MacKay’s giant-sized portrait of David Wenham which won this year’s Packing Room Prize – a monument to patience and perseverence, but aesthetically inert.

There are ugly, shapeless concoctions by Shane Bowden, Paul Ryan and Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran (who is so much more effective as a ceramic sculptor). Imants Tillers’ All hail Greg Inglis resembles a pin-board rather than a painting. As for David Griggs’ portrait of Alexie Glass-Kantor, it would make a great cover for a psychedelic rock album, but it could be a '‘portrait'’ of almost anyone, or anything. And what was Anh Do thinking when he added bits of meaningless collage to his ragged portrait of George Gittoes “to represent the beauty of art”? Perhaps it was to compensate for the resounding lack of beauty in the bits he painted himself.

Some works are just plain dull. Jordan Richardson’s Annabel Crabb is more like Annabel Drab. When someone works so hard to be a "personality" it seems perverse to pare away all the trimmings. Crabb looks so dazed she may as well be holding a marijuana leaf.

The majority of works in the show inspired nothing more than indifference, for which I’m almost thankful. In a more predictable universe the Prize would have gone to Jude Rae for Sarah Peirse as Miss Docker in Patrick White’s ‘A cheery soul’. It’s not an especially original idea to portray an actor in character (Nick Harding’s winning entry of 2001 showed John Bell as King Lear), but it’s a solid work in which a backdrop of basic black, broken by a thin, reflective shimmer at foot level, feels like a view of the stage from the stalls.

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Clara Adolphs’ double portrait of Rosemary Laing and Geoff Kleem (in their garden) owes an obvious debt to photography, but the artist’s unfussy way with the brush lends both energy and intimacy to the scene. John Beard’s portrait of the late, lamented Edmund Capon betrays a similar debt, but here the paint is applied in minute cross-hatchings that seem like a penance for the Pop simplicity of the image itself. Vanessa Stockard’s romantic, Van Gogh-like portrait of McLean Edwards, is a more flattering likeness than the picture that won Tim Storrier the 2017 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize.

White shells, black heart, Blak Douglas’ portrait of shell artist, Esme Timbery is a large, vividly coloured depiction of a head floating in space. It may not be the ideal thing for the lounge room wall but it’s a skilful, formally inventive work in which the artist has combined several different methods of painting in an image of almost outlandish directness.

Natasha Walsh has also shown imagination in a self-portrait on copper, in which she seems to be sitting in an imaginary chair in the midst of a field. It’s odd to the point of surreality, but far better a controlled experiment than a stroll down the straight-and-narrow, or another blast of vomitous expressionism.

Finally, I’d give the thumbs up to Michael Vale’s Kid Congo on the island of the pink monkey birds – a suitably fantastic tribute to a cult guitarist. It’s an exercise in B-movie gothic that remembers a few points other artists have apparently forgotten. For instance, Vale has taken the time to capture a likeness. He has given us a composition, however bizarre, and he conveys a strong impression of the theatrical nature of a Kid Congo performance. Allowing for the ghouls and pink monkey birds it’s a rather old-fashoned portrait, and all the better for it.

The 2019 Archibald Prize is at the Art Gallery of NSW until September 8.

The daughter of a multi-millionaire Sydney businesswoman says she is "ashamed" of her role in helping her Mexican lover import kilograms of ice into Australia but says she was drawn into it because of love.

Rose Thomas has admitted to aiding and abetting her girlfriend, Norma Zuniga Frias, in importing 15.9 kilograms of pure methamphetamine valued at $14 million in March 2018.

Thomas helped Frias by purchasing backpacks and scales to divide up the drug shipment, which had been concealed inside speaker boxes and stashed at an Airbnb apartment under fake names.

Frias was to be paid $15,000 to receive the packages from a contact in Mexico before the pair were arrested by police in their Marrickville share house.

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At a sentencing hearing in Sydney's Downing Centre District Court on Friday, Thomas – the daughter of online publisher Jackie Maxted – said that as soon as she arrived at the rented apartments in Rozelle and saw the speaker boxes, she was overwhelmed and did not want to be there.

She told the court she had no idea about the quantity or type of drugs being imported and originally thought it was cocaine.

"As soon as I stepped in there, I wanted to leave," she told the sentencing hearing. "I was preparing to tell Norma I didn't want to be there anymore."

Thomas, 26, has been convicted of aiding and abetting an attempt to possess a commercial quantity of an unlawfully imported, border-controlled drug. She has been on $100,000 bail awaiting sentencing and living with her mother at her Bondi home.

Frias, who has pleaded guilty to importing a commercial quantity of methamphetamine, has been in custody since their March 2018 arrest.

"I feel ashamed of having had anything to do with it," Thomas told the court. "I see anything in the drug trade as a completely greedy act.

"It's something that millions or thousands of people lose their lives to every year. It's been horrible on my family and friends and everyone around me."

Ms Maxted told the court her daughter and Frias had been "very happy and in love" at the time of the offence. She said when her daughter came out of prison on bail she was "frail and scared".

"She said that she's extremely disappointed in herself, and bewildered as to why she didn't stop it," Ms Maxted said.

"She wants to get her life back on track, to make amends for the mistakes she's made and live a normal life."

Thomas' lawyer, Phillip Boulten SC, said his client had been drawn into it through love and that "she could barely have done less".

Judge Richard Weinstein said that "in the haze of young love, things are often done which seem absurd after reflection".

Crown prosecutor Robert McCaw said that while he accepted that Ms Thomas' actions were at the "lower end" of this type of crime, a prison sentence with a non-parole period was needed to send a message to the community.

Frias' lawyer, Malcolm Ramage QC, said his client had "lost the lot" and her conviction had already limited "her life dramatically".

She faces deportation to Mexico after she is released.

The pair had become romantically involved after Frias arrived in Sydney in early 2017 on a student visa. She had spent holidays in Tasmania with Thomas and her family over Christmas.

They were "extremely close", Thomas told the court.

"We were inseparable I'd say … I was deeply in love with her. It was my world at that time," she said.

They did not speak during proceedings on Friday.

The hearing is expected to resume on July 12.

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Washington: An altered video of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, slowed down to the point that some social media users think she seems drunk, is spreading online.

A three-minute video from Pelosi's Wednesday remarks at the Centre for American Progress Ideas Conference, where she accused President Donald Trump of a cover-up and indicated that it may be an impeachable offence, was manipulated so her words sounded slurred and garbled. The video, which has 2.1 million views on Facebook and has been shared 45,000 times on that platform,was posted by a group called Politics WatchDog. The video has also made its way onto Twitter and was on Youtube, but has since been removed from that site.

The video has been slowed to about 75 per cent of its original speed, according to the Washington Post, which first reported on the distorted video. The pitch has also been altered after it was slowed down to make it sound more like Pelosi's actual voice.

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Hany Farid, a computer-science professor and digital-forensics expert at University of California, Berkeley, told the Post that there was "no question" the video had been altered and that "it's striking that such a simple manipulation can be so effective and believable to some."

Pelosi and Trump have traded barbs over the past several days after infrastructure funding talks fell apart once the president conditioned further negotiations with Congress on the ending all congressional probes into him, his administration and his finances.

The House speaker has accused the president of being engaged in a "cover-up," adding that he threw a "temper tantrum" at the infrastructure meeting. She has since expressed concern for Trump's and nation's "well-being", Trump on Thursday, US time, called Pelosi a "mess". The President also derided her as "crazy" and said she is "disintegrating."

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Trump late Thursday, US time, also tweeted a separate video of a Pelosi press conference that splices together the times she stuttered or stumbled over words.

"PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE," the President tweeted along with the video clip.

The video was featured on Fox Business' Lou Dobbs show, where political analyst Ed Rollins said he thought the House speaker was getting "worn down."

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