Now that a New York jury has convicted former President Donald Trump of all 34 felony charges of falsifying business records, the next obvious question is: Can a convicted felon run for president?

Definitely.

A further question is more complicated: Could Trump, as a felon, vote for himself? Probably.

Starting with the easy question …

BREAKING: Donald Trump found guilty in historic trial

Can a convict run for president?

The US Constitution lays out just three requirements for presidential candidates. They must:

• Be a natural born citizen.
• Be at least 35 years old.
• Have been a US resident for at least 14 years.

Trump meets all three requirements. There is, arguably, another criterion laid out in the 14th Amendment, where it states that no one who has previously taken an oath of office who engages in insurrection can be an officer of the US. But the US Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Congress would have to pass a special law invoking this prohibition. That's not happening any time soon.

There is also precedent for presidential campaigns, albeit unsuccessful ones, being mounted from prison cells.

Eugene Debs, the Socialist leader, conducted his 1920 presidential campaign from federal prison in Atlanta, where he was serving a 10-year sentence for sedition. He had encouraged Americans to oppose the draft in World War I.

READ MORE: Will Donald Trump go to jail after being found guilty on all counts in historic trial?

The Supreme Court, in that case, had affirmed his conviction, arguing he was convicted not for opposing the draft but for encouraging people not to comply with it. The decision keeping Debs in jail was written by then-Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes just a few months before Holmes did a famous about-face on free speech that put the US on course for the way we view the First Amendment today.

Thomas Doherty, an American studies professor at Brandeis University, wrote last year about Debs, noting that he remained in prison as votes were cast and counted – he got nearly a million, more than 3 per cent of the vote. Even after the Sedition Act was repealed, Debs was kept in prison. Then-President Woodrow Wilson refused to issue a pardon. Wilson's successor and Debs' rival in 1920, Warren G. Harding, later commuted Debs' sentence in 1921.

And now to the more difficult question …

READ MORE: Donald Trump claims guilty verdict 'rigged' in post-trial outburst

Can a convicted felon vote?

It depends.

Trump's right to vote in Florida in November's election will depend on whether he is sentenced to a term in prison and if he has finished serving that prison sentence by the time of the election.

Each state makes its own rules. Vermont and Maine allow felons to vote from prison. There has been movement in multiple states toward allowing felons on parole to cast ballots.

Trump is now a Florida resident – and Florida voters, in 2018, overwhelmingly backed a referendum to reenfranchise convicted felons. But Republican lawmakers who control the state's government first delayed and then qualified the reenfranchisement by requiring that felons must pay all fines and fees associated with their sentence.

I talked to Neil Volz, deputy director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, an organization that works to help reenfranchise formerly incarcerated people. He predicted Trump will have little problem voting since Florida actually defers to the jurisdiction of a felony conviction as to whether a felon can vote. In New York, after a law passed in 2021, any convicted felon who is not incarcerated is eligible to register to vote.

Read more from the Campaign Legal Center.

Even if the judge ultimately tried to give Trump prison time, it is highly unlikely that Trump's right to appeal his conviction would be exhausted before Election Day. If, somehow, Trump was convicted in one of the two federal criminal cases against him before Election Day, that might be another story.

The are other problems for many post-incarceration felons in Florida, as CNN has reported previously, although they would not apply to Trump. For starters, there is no clearinghouse of data about what fees are required. It has led to confusion and kept many people from voting.

"There are still a lot of people who are confused about their eligibility, and that's why we continue to work with the state and the election professionals to fix the system," Volz told me. "Because people need to know whether they're eligible or not on the front end of the process."

Volz said his group is making progress with the state to make it much easier for people to confirm their eligibility.

Donald Trump is the first former United States president to be convicted of felony crimes but it remains unclear if he will go to jail.

A New York jury has found him guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

Trump is expected to quickly appeal the verdict and will face an awkward dynamic as he seeks to return to the presidential campaign trail as a convicted felon.

READ MORE: Donald Trump guilty in hush money trial

The falsifying business records charges carry up to four years behind bars, though prosecutors have not said whether they intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge — who earlier in the trial warned of jail time for gag order violations — would impose that punishment even if asked.

READ MORE: Donald Trump claims guilty verdict 'rigged' in post-trial outburst

The judge set a July 11 date for sentencing following the jury's verdict.

Dan Horwitz, a defence lawyer who formerly prosecuted white-collar cases for the Manhattan District Attorney's office, told CBS Trump could be sentenced to a period of home detention.

The former president could carry out the sentence outside of New York, for instance, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where New York state would coordinate with Florida's probation department, which would monitor Trump's confinement, Horwitz said.

In the event that Trump is sentenced to jail time, the location would depend on the duration of his sentence.

The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House.

Can a convict run for president?

The US Constitution lays out just three requirements for presidential candidates. They must:

• Be a natural born citizen.
• Be at least 35 years old.
• Have been a US resident for at least 14 years.

Trump meets all three requirements. There is, arguably, another criterion laid out in the 14th Amendment, where it states that no one who has previously taken an oath of office who engages in insurrection can be an officer of the US.

But the US Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that Congress would have to pass a special law invoking this prohibition. That's not happening any time soon.

There is also precedent for presidential campaigns, albeit unsuccessful ones, being mounted from prison cells.

– With Associated Press, CNN

Former US President Donald Trump has been found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in his hush money trial in New York.

The verdict makes Trump the first former US president to be convicted of a felony.

Judge Juan Merchan has set the sentencing date for July 11.

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Outside court, a furious Trump continued his claims that the trial had been "rigged" and accused Merchan of being "conflicted" and "corrupt".

"This was a rigged decision right from day one with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case," Trump said.

He said "the real verdict" would come in on November 5 – the date of the upcoming US presidential election for which Trump is the presumed Republican nominee.

"This was done by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt an opponent, a political opponent," Trump said.

READ MORE: Will Donald Trump go to jail after being found guilty on all counts in historic trial?

Jurors had been on the verge of being sent home for the day when they sent word they had reached a verdict.

Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records at his company in connection with an alleged scheme to hide potentially embarrassing stories about him during his 2016 presidential election campaign.

The charge, a felony, rose from reimbursements paid to then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen after he made a $US130,000 ($195,000) hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims that she and Trump had sex in 2006.

Trump is accused of misrepresenting Cohen’s reimbursements as legal expenses to hide that they were tied to a hush money payment.

READ MORE: Donald Trump is now a convicted felon. Can he still run for president?

Trump pleaded not guilty and contended the Cohen payments were for legitimate legal services.

He has also denied the alleged extramarital sexual encounter with Daniels.

Trump's lawyers previously indicated he would appeal the verdict if convicted.

The falsifying business records charges carry up to four years behind bars, though prosecutors have not said whether they intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge — who earlier in the trial warned of jail time for gag order violations — would impose that punishment even if asked.

The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House.

Trump faces three other felony indictments, but the New York case may be the only one to reach a conclusion before the November election, adding to the political significance of the outcome.

How the trial unfolded

The trial featured more than four weeks of occasionally riveting testimony that revisited an already well-documented chapter from Trump's past, when his 2016 campaign was threatened by the disclosure of an "Access Hollywood" recording that captured him talking about grabbing women sexually without their permission and the prospect of other stories about Trump and sex surfacing that would be harmful to his candidacy.

Trump himself did not testify, but jurors heard his voice through a secret recording of a conversation with Cohen in which he and the lawyer discussed a US$150,000 ($226,147) hush money deal involving a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who has said she had an affair with Trump: "What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?" Trump was heard saying on the recording made by Cohen.

Daniels herself testified, offering at times a graphic recounting of the sexual encounter she says they had in a hotel suite during a Lake Tahoe golf tournament.

The former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, testified about how he worked to keep stories harmful to the Trump campaign from becoming public at all, including by having his company buy McDougal's story.

Jurors also heard from Keith Davidson, the lawyer who negotiated the hush money payments on behalf of Daniels and McDougal.

He detailed the tense negotiations to get both women compensated for their silence but also faced an aggressive round of questioning from a Trump attorney who noted that Davidson had helped broker similar hush money deals in cases involving other prominent figures.

But the most pivotal witness, by far, was Cohen, who spent days on the stand and gave jurors an insider's view of the hush money scheme and what he said was Trump's detailed knowledge of it.

"Just take care of it," he quoted Trump as saying at one point.

He offered jurors the most direct link between Trump and the heart of the charges, recounting a meeting in which they and the then-chief financial officer of Trump Organisation described a plan to have Cohen reimbursed in monthly installments for legal services.

And he emotionally described his dramatic break with Trump in 2018, when he decided to cooperate with prosecutors after a decade-long career as the then-president's personal fixer.

"To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family," Cohen told the jury.

With CNN, AP.

More to come.

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Ticketmaster became the latest major company to fall victim to a data breach, following the likes of MediSecure, ClubsNSW, Optus and Medibank, and it won't be the last.

Cybercrime is the fastest-growing crime with hundreds of millions of dollars lost each year to it, according to the Australian Federal Police.

With that, there is an increasing chance of being caught up in a data breach. Here is how to navigate one, according to a cybersecurity expert.

READ MORE: Chinese national arrested over 'world's largest' cybercrime botnet

How do I know if my information was leaked?

Companies have a mandatory disclosure requirement to inform their customers of a data breach and how they are affected once it has been confirmed, UNSW Institute for Cybersecurity deputy director Sanjay Jha said.

There may be some time, however, until a customer will notice their data has been used as it has to go through a supply chain from distributor to identity thief.

"If it got stolen last night, it's not like everyone this morning will get spam emails," Jha said.

The Australian Cyber Security Centre has listed other warning signs to look out for like:

• a cybercriminal has tried to use your information, for example, to access your accounts, steal your money or extort you
• you start to get more spam calls, emails or messages
• you notice increased communication with companies you have not done business with before

News of Ticketmaster's breach came from a dark web post, in which notorious hacker ShinyHunters claimed he stole 1.3 terabytes of data from 560 million global customers.

The Department of Home Affairs has confirmed it is aware of the cyber incident and is engaging with Ticketmaster.

9news.com.au has contacted Ticketmaster for comment. 

READ MORE: Jetstar cabin crew taken to hospital after 'unusual smell' in plane

What should I do if my data has been hacked?

Jha said the first step is to contact your bank for advice if your credit card has been compromised.

Next, change your passwords. 

Australia's eSafety Commissioner said the strongest passwords are at least 12 to 15 characters long, include symbols and numbers and are unrelated to the person.

Passwords should also be different for each account and portal.

Users are warned not to allow browsers to save their passwords and to log out each time.

"Strong passwords are hard to remember but are hard to be compromised," Jha said.

Australians can also use a questionnaire by the federal government's cyber department to learn what to do if they fear they have been compromised.

Make sure you report the hack online here.

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How do I protect my information from hackers?

Home Affairs advises users to set up multi-factor authentication, install software updates regularly and to create strong passwords.

Jha added tokenisation as a payment method could also help.

Unfortunately, according to the expert, there is "nothing that is entirely safe".

And with technology rapidly evolving, it has become a cat-and-mouse game to keep up with cybercriminals.

"Cyber criminals are becoming smart. They are becoming more and more sophisticated," Jha said.

"Catching one doesn't catch the whole network.

"It's very hard to have a bulletproof system. It's not a simple system anymore, it's a system of systems."

READ MORE: Two more players caught up in alleged A-League bet fix

Jha stressed that organisations have a responsibility to protect their customers' data and should engage in regular and thorough compliance checks. 

Cyber Wardens estimates almost half of all cyberattacks in Australia target small to medium businesses, with the average attack costing the business $46,000.

"If you haven't fortified your digital doors with strong cybersecurity practices, you put yourself at a higher risk for an online attack," the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia chief Luke Achterstraat said.

It's unclear exactly what the image is. A series of tents? Truck beds against a rust orange background? Multi-coloured rectangles?

Mountains are visible in the background, and in the foreground are the following words: "All Eyes on Rafah" — a reference to the southernmost Gazan city that became the centre of war coverage this week, after an Israeli strike on a refugee camp in the city, on what had been labelled a safe zone, killed dozens of already displaced Palestinians.

In the wake of the attack, the aforementioned image has seemingly been everywhere. Likely created using artificial intelligence, the graphic — which is not an actual picture from Rafah or the war in Gaza — has been shared more than 46 million times on Instagram alone.

READ MORE: 'We have nothing': Palestinians living in tents, searching for food

But the picture's popularity has raised questions and critiques on the passivity of the act.

Eyes being on Rafah has not stopped the violence, wrote scientist Ayesha Khan on Instagram. Simply posting an ambiguous graphic is performative, Khan and others have noted.

Still, the post's momentum has continued. Here's where the phrase comes from, where the graphic originated and what it could signal.

Where did 'All Eyes on Rafah' come from?

The phrase "All Eyes on Rafah" has been appearing in various graphics and images associated with the war in Gaza for months and is not necessarily tied to this specific viral image.

It likely originated from comments made in February by Rik Peeperkorn, who leads the World Health Organization's office in the West Bank and in Gaza.

At the time, more than 1.5 million Palestinian refugees, many of whom had been fleeing from the north and the centre parts of Gaza, were crammed into the southernmost city of Rafah, which was also undergoing a wave of Israeli airstrikes — attempts to "hit Hamas terrorists in the area," an IDF spokesperson said.

"All eyes" were on Rafah, Peeperkorn said, a phrase which then became widely used by activists and made its way into graphics, like the one currently going viral.

Instagram credits user shahv4012 as the creator behind the story template, which includes a watermark to the account chaa.my, listed as his second account.

The user behind the accounts did not respond to CNN's requests for comment.

READ MORE: Phone found in search understood to belong to Samantha Murphy

What makes this image so popular?

There are a few aspects of this image that may have contributed to its popularity, noted Faiza Hirji, an associate professor at Ontario's McMaster University who studies race, religion and media.

One is the image's inherent shareability.

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Because it's not an actual image of the violence, it's instead a more "sanitised" rendering, Hirji told CNN, which means there's less risk of social media platforms suppressing it from being shared.

This allows the image to circulate more readily than would actual images of war.

Also, the way the image is being shared on Instagram — with a handy "add yours" feature that allows users to easily repost the image onto their own personal stories — only aids in its viral success.

READ MORE: 'This cannot continue': Wong demands Israel halt Rafah offensive

The easier it is to share, the more likely it is that people will do so.

Still, there's been some criticism of the image.

To understand the graphic, the user would need to have some sense of what is actually happening in Rafah and would therefore know that the image being shared does not actually depict the violence and the scale of destruction taking place.

For some, this could make the graphic more appealing, while others have argued that the image takes away from what is actually occurring on the ground.

"I think for some people, this also causes a kind of discomfort," Hirji said.

"Because you're directing everyone's gaze to an image that doesn't really show the horror of what happens in conflict zones."

READ MORE: Jury sent home for the day without a verdict in Trump hush money case

What does 'All Eyes on Rafah' mean?

Others have pointed out that the image does not actually include the words "Palestine" or "Gaza" — names that have been widely politicised even before October 7.

"Rafah does not have the immediate name recognition for people who haven't been paying attention," said writer Heben Nigatu on X.

"Are people Googling Rafah? Sharing without looking it up?"

Everybody likely has differing motivations behind sharing an image.

For some, sharing the image might be a call for others to investigate what's happening in the region, and in Rafah specifically, Hirji said.

Reposting the image could be a way to say to an audience: "Don't look away. You can't pretend this isn't happening".

Other interpretations are less charitable.

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Take for instance the argument that the graphic is a performative gesture, an image that can't be bothered to show the reality in Gaza with a vaguely political statement stamped atop — not dissimilar to the black squares posted on social media during the racial reckoning of 2020.

But unlike debates about racism in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder, for many people in the West the war in Gaza is not happening close to home.

This could make it difficult for people to feel empowered, Hirji said, in terms of their direct ability to affect the war's outcome.

"I think that many people are powerless and feel that powerlessness," she said.

"Some of it may be performative, but maybe they feel that the only action they can really take at this time is to at least raise awareness.

"And so this notion of 'All Eyes on Rafah,' if it can be a bit informative or educational, then perhaps there's a sense that this is the action they can take."

And still, there are worries of "slacktivism", the notion that all we need to do to change the world is share a single infographic enough times.

"We need far more than performative rallies and symbolic protests that don't aim to disrupt anything," wrote Khan.

"Bearing witness is still a passive act. And we shouldn't coddle ourselves pretending like a post a day … is substantial."

READ MORE: After just two weeks, US-built pier to be removed from Gaza coast for repairs

The phrase itself — keeping "eyes on" a place — inherently prioritises the audience rather than Rafah, creating a distance between the viewers and the victims.

And still, Hirji said, even amid calls to not look away, the world often does so anyway.

"It's important, you could say, that if nothing else, we acknowledge our complicity, or we acknowledge our inaction," Hirji said.

"That's one interpretation."

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But there's another interpretation, too, which could be that audiences are setting themselves up as watchers to this trauma, Hirji noted, becoming both indifferent and inactive.

History and research of past conflicts in parts of the Middle East or the Global South speak for itself, Hirji said — "often so much of what we do is we watch, we judge, we comment", even while not knowing enough about the places we are watching or commenting on.

"And is that also a point that some people are trying to make by having this call out? To say: So we're watching it, now what?" Hirji said.

"What happens after watching?"

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Australia's hopes of hitting its housing targets to address skyrocketing rents and property prices appear to be fading before they've even begun, after the number of homes approved for construction declined last month.

New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed just 13,078 dwellings were given the green light in April, a 0.3 per cent drop from the month before.

The figure is well short of the 20,000 homes that need to be constructed each month if the country is to hit the federal government's target of building 1.2 million new homes in the space of five years, starting in July.

EXPLAINED: Will Australia get anywhere near hitting its housing targets?

Not all approvals end up being built, either – just this week it emerged that work is yet to begin on almost 40,000 projects that have approval, many of which are in Sydney and Melbourne.

Building peak body Master Builders Australia said approvals need to drastically escalate following today's figures.

"The new National Housing Accord kicks off in less than five weeks' time and envisages 240,000 new homes each year," chief economist Shane Garrett said.

READ MORE: Construction of nearly 40,000 homes across Australia in limbo

"However, the past 12 months have seen less than 163,500 new home building approvals across Australia.

"Just 60,600 higher-density dwellings were approved over the year to April. This is the lowest total for any 12-month period since September 2012 almost 12 years ago.

"The challenge is massive, not impossible, but requires a 47 per cent increase in the volume of new home building output."

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The organisation's CEO, Denita Wawn, who previously told 9news.com.au she thought the targets could be hit, said the government needed to address the issues facing the construction industry, otherwise Australians will continue to be hit by surging rents and home prices.

"We have to rapidly increase housing production to reach Housing Accord targets, but some in government have left the handbrake on," she said.

"The hurdles are clear to everyone, approval delays, tradie shortages, material cost inflation, out-of-touch industrial relations changes, inefficient regulation and more.

"We're beginning to sound like a broken record, but the situation is critical. If we don't clear the obstacles stopping builders from getting on with the job, we won't have any hope of reaching the 1.2 million new home target by 2029.

"The community is crying out for more housing supply, but if we don't urgently clear the way for builders to get on with the job, demand will continue to dwarf supply, and Australians will continue to feel the impacts of the housing crisis."

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When former darts world champion Tony David was tearing up his opponents on the global stage he went by the nickname "the deadly boomerang".

But it was blood plasma infected with hepatitis C that David was given as a child in Queensland which almost proved to be the deadliest boomerang of all. 

Decades on from those early transfusions, in 2009, David was near death with stage 4 liver disease. 

READ MORE: As a teen, Charles was given infected blood from a heroin user

"I had collapsed. Doctors basically told me I had about six months to live," David, who is a haemophiliac, said.

His salvation came in the form of a liver transplant, the first of three David has needed to stay alive as a result of his hepatitis infection.

David is one of thousands of Australians who contracted hepatitis C through donor blood in the 1970s to the early 1990s. Others were infected with the HIV virus.

He, like many others, was told he was not eligible to receive any compensation for the infection, or the resulting health problems which almost killed him.

Now, David is speaking publicly about his plight for the first time in order to call for action into Australia's little-known infected blood scandal.

Australian victims are demanding a royal commission to investigate the scandal, an apology from the federal government and compensation.

It follows a damning and extensive inquiry into infected blood donations in the UK, which found the national health service knowingly exposed tens of thousands of patients to infections through diseased blood and blood products, and hid the truth about the disaster.

Last week, it was announced UK infected blood victims will be awarded around A$19 billion in compensation. A British patient requiring a liver transplant is likely to receive between $2.7 million – $3 million.

READ MORE: Britain slammed in inquiry for infecting thousands with tainted blood

"What happened in the UK happened here, too," David said.

"I know many who have died from this and I know what happened to me – they need to have a proper review in Australia. 

"I am still alive to give my account. Yet so many aren't with us and more are suffering with no monitoring and efforts to give them life-saving transplants."

A Senate inquiry was held in 2004 into hepatitis C and the blood supply in Australia.

The inquiry heard Australian Red Cross Blood Service estimates that between 3500 and 8000 Australians were living with hepatitis C derived through blood transfusions, including around 1350 haemophiliacs.

However, Australian victims say they never received the targeted financial assistance or a formal national apology that was promised as a result of the inquiry.

David, who is now 56, was only a newborn baby when his parents discovered something was wrong with his blood.

"My mother and father decided to have me circumcised, and they couldn't stop the bleeding the next day," David said. "They didn't know why."

It was the first of countless trips to the hospital Mr David has made over his lifetime.

As a baby, David's body would swell up with painful bulges and bruises.

In his first few years of his life, Mr David was given frozen blood plasma to help his blood clot.

When David was four years old, a blood test confirmed he had haemophilia. 

He began receiving transfusions of fractionated plasma manufactured by Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL), which was then owned by the federal government.

It was made with blood pooled from thousands of donors, exponentially increasing the risk of infections being passed on. 

Prothrombinex (Factor IX) was hailed as a wonder drug for patients with type B haemophilia like David, and would go on to be his main form of treatment.

Testing for hepatitis C was not introduced for donor blood until 1987 in Queensland, and nationally in 1990.

However, a product information sheet for Prothrombinex, kept by David's mother and dating back to 1973, showed hepatitis infection from plasma was already a known risk to CSL more than a decade earlier.

"Although donors are screened, it is possible that recipients of this product may contract serum hepatitis if the agent responsible for this disease is present in the original plasma," a warning statement read on the sheet.

David said CSL did not do enough to protect patients from the risk of infection from its blood products.

A timeline released in the final report of the 2004 Senate inquiry shows the Australian Red Cross developed heat-treated Factor VIII – the drug used for the most common type A haemophilia – in 1984, as a method to minimise infection. 

However, heat-treated Factor VIII did not become available until 1990, and heat-treated Factor IX – the same drug used by David – was not available until 1993, nine years later.

In Australia, compensation has been limited to private settlements through the Australian Red Cross, or a limited scheme administered by state and territory governments for people infected between 1985 and 1991.

A requirement to trace the infection to one treatment batch, or donor, meant nearly all haemophiliacs were excluded from the compensation scheme, the Haemophilia Foundation of Australia says.

David said he first found out he had hepatitis C through a blood test in 1988 when he was 22. 

"Your world collapses. I was young, I was going to university. I was working a job at the casino – and now I had hepatitis C," he said.

David said he asked about whether he would be eligible for any compensation, but was told he was not, as other markers suggested he had likely been infected before 1985.

A couple of years later, David said his health hit a low point.

"I just could not lift myself off the bed. I was that ill. I had no energy. I was always feeling sick," he said.

It was while he was at rock bottom, and laid up with a bad knee from bleeding episodes, that David took up darts.

"I was sitting in a chair just throwing darts at a board at home, because I couldn't walk for a period of time," he said. 

"I enjoyed playing darts and I was good at it. All of a sudden it was something I could do."

Surprising everyone, David ended up representing Queensland, and then Australia, before becoming the first Australian to win a world darts championship in 2002.

"It was just hard determination. I wasn't gonna let it stop me," he said.

Last week, 9news.com.au reported on the case of Charles MacKenzie, who was infected hepatitis C in 1988 from blood donated by a former prisoner and heroin user. 

MacKenzie and his advocacy group Infected Blood Australia are calling for a royal commission into Australia's tainted blood scandal.

Queensland LNP Senator Gerard Rennick has been supporting Australian infected blood victims and said he was shocked by the "callous disregard" shown to them.

In a letter to Health Minister Mark Butler, Rennick called on the government to acknowledge the plight of Australian victims.

"Considering that the UK inquiry has resulted in an unequivocal apology to victims by the UK Prime Minister, along with comprehensive compensation, I ask that the Australian Government delivers both an apology and compensation to victims of infected blood here in Australia," Rennick wrote.

Butler declined to provide a comment to 9news.com.au.

A spokesperson for Australia's Department of Health said the findings of the UK Infected Blood Inquiry were specific to circumstances in the UK.

"Transfusion-transmitted infections that occurred in the late 1970s and 1980s pre-dated the introduction of the first-generation hepatitis C antibody test," the spokesperson said, adding Australia was one of the first countries in the world to start using the test.

"The Australian Government contributes to the Hepatitis C Litigation Settlement Schemes managed by state governments, who were responsible for regulating the blood supply prior to 1991."

A spokesperson for Australian Red Cross Lifeblood also said last week: "We know the UK inquiry will remind people of a similar time that has had a long-lasting impact on many families in Australia and in countries around the world."

"We understand the pain it has caused, and our thoughts are with those affected and their loved ones."

Australia implemented a hepatitis C test as soon as it was available, the spokesperson said.

Contact reporter Emily McPherson at emcpherson@nine.com.au

Severe thunderstorms predicted for parts of Auckland this evening.