Social Affairs
Daily Telegraph
Early Childhood Australia chief executive Samantha Page said all children should be able to attend childcare at least two days a week – even if their parents are out of work or too poor to pay a gap fee. “It is a complicated system and out of pocket costs are genuinely too high for some families,’’ she said.
SBS
More than 40 per cent of Australians who received emergency support from the Salvation Army have been forced to skip meals over the past year to make ends meet, a new report from the aid organisation has revealed. Meanwhile, the number of people seeking assistance from the Salvation Army increased six-fold between November 2020 and January this year, according to the survey released on Wednesday.
Croakey Health Media
In response to rallies across the country protesting its approach to women in the wake of allegations of sexual abuse and harassment at the heart of Parliament, the Federal Government handed down a special Women’s Budget Statement in the 2021-22 Budget. It promises a $3.4 billion investment so Australian women can be safe from violence, economically secure, realise their potential and enjoy good health. However, while significant funding has been committed to support women’s safety, detailed analysis by women’s and social services organisations has found the Budget will not significantly improve economic security for low-income women or deliver on the need for structural and cultural change.
InDaily
Labor this week said it would scrap the government’s Cashless Debit Card program and “consult with communities on a localised approach to addressing employment issues”. The Cashless Debit Card is managed by private company Indue. The federal government previously paid Indue up to $10,000 per card for the program, while the Australian Council of Social Services last year said initial card trials cost taxpayers $18.9 million, of which $10 million went to the card operator.
The Guardian
The Uluru Statement from the Heart has been awarded the Sydney peace prize for 2021 four years after it was written, with organisers saying time is up for the government to take action on the landmark statement. The judging panel said the Uluru statement was a “powerful and historic offering of peace” that was crucial to the “healing within our nation”, but had not yet been acted upon.
ABC News
The images of Murray cod gasping for air on the riverbank put a national spotlight on the water crisis in far western New South Wales. But it also highlighted an important, yet under-reported, flaw in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan: its failure to recognise the rights of Indigenous people in water management.
The Guardian
The federal government will speed up its reporting on Aboriginal deaths in custody, following sustained criticism that it is taking too long to produce information which could drive policy reform, as required by the royal commission more than 30 years ago. The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) told Senate estimates yesterday it will now report every six months, a major change that officials admitted “was an improvement” on its past performance.
ABC News
For the past eight years, students at St Patrick's School have been taught the local Aboriginal language in a bid to bring back an endangered dialect once on the brink of extinction. With high rates of engagement, the program has been hailed a success and is now being used as a blueprint for other outback schools.
ABC News
Four descendants of survivors from the Cootamundra Girls Home are featured in a new short film created by the Coota Girls Aboriginal Corporation.
ABC News
For more than five decades the blood of thousands of Indigenous Australians was held without consent at a major university. Now, their descendants are reclaiming their DNA. A memorial honouring the return of blood samples from the Galiwin'ku community has been unveiled in Canberra. Their ancestors' samples were among 7,000 being held at ANU in Canberra Aboriginal communities want more control over how their heritage is managed by institutions, an expert says.
Trigger warning (racism and violence)
The Guardian
Sky News Australia’s YouTube channel has published more than 9,000 comments mostly celebrating and mocking the shooting of a Black Lives Matter activist in Britain who is fighting for her life. The racist and violent comments, which could be described as hate speech, appear below a short video news report uploaded on Monday about the activist Sasha Johnson. Johnson remains in a critical condition after sustaining a gunshot wound to her head in an incident in south London.
SBS
The Murri Court in Brisbane, in partnership with Carers Queensland, is helping Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander defendants access the support they need to stop re-offending, including from the NDIS - and it's working.
SMH
The chief executive of a disability service provider that tried to evict a client says the action was taken because the client’s sister – who made several complaints – risked damaging the organisation’s reputation, the disability royal commission has heard. Sunnyfield Disability Services chief executive Caroline Cuddihy fronted the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability in Sydney on Wednesday after two days of testimony from family members of Sunnyfield clients.
SMH
The mother of a disabled man who was allegedly punched and kicked by his support worker in his care home says she lost trust in the staff and feared for her son’s life, the disability royal commission has heard. Carl*, 24, is blind and has a severe intellectual disability and lives with two other residents in the care home in western Sydney, operated by Sunnyfield Disability Services.
SMH
A Perth family’s attempts to penetrate the secrecy surrounding the public school system’s role in managing their son’s mental distress before he took his own life will be heard before the Supreme Court. Cohen Fink was in year 12 at Warnbro Community High School when he suicided on June 4, 2019; a week after his mid-year Australian Tertiary Admission Rank exams. Almost two years to the date of his death, his parents Chris and Pamella Fink are still searching for answers after being forced to use Freedom of Information laws to discover the “administration errors” that led to Cohen missing out on the help he needed at school.
Daily Telegraph
Schoolchildren at risk of bullying and self harm are now being red flagged by sophisticated artificial intelligence software which allows teachers to spy on what students are typing online. The uptake of the new technology comes as school cyber security experts report a surge in problematic behaviour from sexting to online bullying this year following the Covid-19 school shutdown. The software was developed by Australian company Saa¬syan and uses artificial intelligence to identify words in emails, online chats and Google searches to alert teachers to students who may be suicidal or cyber-bullying others.
The Guardian
Brittany Higgins’ partner has trashed a report that declined to find the prime minister’s office briefed against him, and warned he and Higgins won’t be intimidated or silenced. David Sharaz, a journalist and former public servant, has described the report by John Kunkel as an exercise in “PMO staffers protecting themselves” after Morrison’s chief of staff concluded he was “not in a position to make a finding that the alleged activity took place”.
ABC News
Sydney entrepreneurs are helping sick in regional India by sourcing ventilators and oxygen. Other Indian expats have been running grassroots fundraising campaigns. Millions in donations have been collected by major charities.
SMH
Major reforms for the $3.1 trillion superannuation sector could be delayed if the federal government fails to either drum up support from crossbench MPs or significantly change the legislation to scrap powers letting the Treasurer intervene in funds’ investment decisions. The Your Future, Your Super regime is expected to start on July 1, but the government is struggling to get enough votes in the House of Representatives to ensure a smooth passage to the Senate. Crossbench MPs including Craig Kelly, who left the Liberal party in February, and Bob Katter have raised concerns about the new ability for the government to veto funds’ spending decisions and the implications of “stapling” workers to their funds.
News.com.au
A Bill aiming to provide women with safe and private access to abortion health services has been reintroduced in Western Australia’s parliament after the legislation failed to pass the upper house before the state election. The Public Health Amendment (Safe Access Zones) Bill provides for 24/7 safe access zones, which will also include any area within 150 metres of the boundary.
The Age
A new report from the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman raises concerns about telcos irresponsibly promoting or selling products and consumers unknowingly signing up for products or services they do not need. It also sounded the alarm on advertising not covering key terms, and online information being difficult to find and understand. The watchdog received more than 127,000 complaints about Australian telcos last financial year, a number Ombudsman Judi Jones describes as “the tip of the iceberg”.
Economy
ABC News
Australia's central bank is "grappling" with questions about risky first-home buyers and a strong increase in home loans, according to meeting notes and internal discussions about the nation's white-hot housing market. The documents, obtained from inside the Reserve Bank of Australia using the Freedom of Information (FOI) process, reveal senior staff hold concerns the HomeBuilder program may not have created new investment but simply brought demand forward.
AFR
Solid growth in construction work in the March quarter will slightly bolster next week’s economic growth figures, with residential building leading the rise supported by record low borrowing costs and government stimulus. Overall construction increased 2.4 per cent to $52 billion in seasonally adjusted terms, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, with building work lifting 2.5 per cent and engineering work lifting 2.2 per cent.
Climate and Energy
SMH
Ross Garnaut has slammed the federal government’s $600 million backing of a new gas-fired plant as a “waste of money” and likened it to the exercise of burying money and asking the unemployed to dig it up as a way of keeping them productive. The eminent Australian economist and author of the Garnaut Climate Change Review made the comments to opposition climate spokesman Chris Bowen and former Labor candidate Sam Crosby on their podcast Rekindling Hope.
SMH
Australia’s two largest power suppliers, AGL and Origin Energy, are being forced to confront accelerating changes sweeping the market as the nation’s transition to renewables is declared the fastest in the world and new technologies reshape customer demands. “The predicted ‘energy future’ we have been preparing for ... is no longer in the future,” said Jon Briskin, head of retail at power giant Origin. “It’s here and now.”
News.com.au
Victoria has become the first state in Australia to tax electric vehicle drivers after the legislation passed through parliament on Tuesday night. The Andrews government’s electric vehicle tax passed without amendment in the upper house and will mean electric vehicle drivers will pay 2.5 cents for every kilometre travelled from July 1. Despite strong opposition from the Victorian Greens party, the Bill passed 19-14.
The Canberra Times
The world's largest electric bus manufacturer is prepared to offer the ACT government a "circuit breaker" deal which will take the territory's highest-emitting diesel buses off the road by October, and deploy 30 of the world's most proven electric buses as immediate replacements. The government is currently in a slow "market sounding" phase to replace 90 of its oldest diesel-powered buses on its fleet. No public tender has been issued yet.
Politics
SMH
Labor campaigners are calling for an urgent change in the party’s direction to address household concerns about costs and wages, adding to fears the party is “sleepwalking” to a federal election loss. In a warning to Labor leader Anthony Albanese, local party figures in the NSW Hunter Valley said the party’s loss at a state byelection last Saturday was a sign of a national challenge in winning back blue-collar voters.
SMH
A Senate committee has called on the Australia Post chair to resign and demanded that Scott Morrison apologise over the treatment of the former managing director Christine Holgate. The communications minister, Paul Fletcher, should also be referred to the auditor general for investigation over his “instruction” to the Australia Post board that it stand Holgate aside, according to the Senate’s environment and communications references committee.
ABC News
The Greens have urged the federal government to block the nation's public wealth investment fund from tipping more money into companies they slammed as linked with fossil fuels, the Myanmar military and childlike sex dolls. In a scrutiny hearing in the federal parliament, Queensland senator Larissa Waters grilled Future Fund head Raphael Arndt on the body's $3.2 million investment in Adani companies, including Adani Ports. Adani Ports last year won a tender to build and operate a port in Yangon, Myanmar's capital, on land controlled by the country's military.
AFR
Federal Labor will fast-track its position on the stage three income tax cuts in a bid to end both internal unrest and attacks from the Morrison government. A week after shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers reaffirmed the opposition was in no hurry to conclude its pre-election position, the party’s leadership group, in a meeting this week, changed tack.
The Australian
Labor is moving closer to supporting Scott Morrison’s $17 billion-a-year stage three tax cuts and will not seek to permanently entrench the Low and Middle Income Tax Offset if it wins the next election. The Australian can reveal the opposition will not repeal the legislated $130 billion final stage of tax cuts for middle- and high-income earners, with a final policy expected within months.
The Australian
Finance Minister Simon Birmingham says Australians can “trust” the government not to turn around and implement a 2014-style cut and slash budget should they be re-elected. Under questioning during a senate estimates hearing in Canberra on Wednesday, Senator Birmingham said the government would not “flick the switch” to the second stage of the government’s medium-term fiscal strategy, which focuses on stabilising debt and deficits by growing the economy.
AFR
Maverick MP Craig Kelly said he wanted mining magnate Clive Palmer’s financial backing for a legal challenge to Facebook’s ban on him as well as to help fund his long-shot re-election campaign. Mr Kelly said he would not stand under the banner of Mr Palmer’s political movement, the United Australia Party, but recontest his seat of Hughes as an independent.
Opinion
Jimmy Thomson | AFR
When Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced proposed spending of just under $125 million on social housing in the recent Federal budget, the apparent largesse was greeted with unrestrained scepticism rather than unbridled joy Labor immediately countered with an offer of $10 billion to go into social and affordable housing, should it emerge victorious from the next election. Sharp-eyed institutional investors are looking at existing projects and snapping up under-sold apartments in single buildings. Meanwhile voices ranging from housing charities to the Australian Council of Social Service decried the government’s budget allocations as woefully inadequate.
June Oscar | SMH
In 1988, when prime minister Bob Hawke sat at Barunga in the Northern Territory, a political commitment was made to a treaty. We had promise that this process could soon take shape. And so the decade of reconciliation began with so much potential. The Reconciliation Act was passed, we had Mabo, terra nullius was condemned as fiction, the Bringing Them Home report on the separation of Indigenous children from their families was released, and my position – the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner – was given the task of reporting on the state of reconciliation and driving Australia towards substantive equality.
Richard Denniss | The Guardian
As a rule of thumb, it’s good economics and good politics to tax the things you want less of and subsidise the things you want more of. That is why the Australian government raises so much tax from alcohol and tobacco, and why the Victorian government’s electric vehicle tax is the dumbest idea since Tony Abbott made the Queen’s husband a knight..
Madeleine King | AFR
The rest of the world is moving inexorably to net zero emissions by 2050. More than 120 countries, including 70 per cent of our trading partners, have already committed to this. Australia is the only developed country yet to act. The movement is backed by international investors. If Australia continues to ignore the reality of climate change, we risk being boycotted by global capital.
John Kehoe | AFR
Not many politicians will admit it before the next federal election, but it is inevitable that taxes will rise in coming years to pay for the financial hangover of COVID-19. Well after the “temporary” fiscal stimulus fades, Treasury’s long-term budget projections show that government spending will remain elevated at above 26 per cent of gross domestic product and revenue will be about 24 per cent of GDP in five to 10 years from now. That 2 per cent of GDP fiscal shortfall equals at least $40 billion a year in today’s dollars.
The AFR View
The Australian Financial Review agrees with Labor’s Chris Bowen that there is no business case to justify the Morrison government’s move to build a taxpayer-funded gas power plant in the Hunter Valley. Such investment decisions should be made by the private sector, and underline the lack of a market framework to drive Australia’s energy transition. But the opposition energy spokesman has pushed his attack on the government’s “technology, not tax” approach to climate change too far by opposing an expansion of the mandates of Australia’s clean energy bodies.
SMH Editorial
NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman announced this week a change to the law to give a clearer definition of what counts as consent in cases of sexual assault, or rape. It might make only a small difference to the number of convictions but it is still a very important reform.
The ACOSS Daily Bulletin is a wrap of relevant media articles and opinion pieces.
It also includes a list of relevant reports, research, inquiries and consultations.
Inclusion of items in the Bulletin should not be seen as an endorsement by ACOSS of views expressed.
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