Category Archives: Australia news

Australian aged care providers accused of ‘crying poor’ to lobby for government funding

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Analyst suggests some in the industry are misleading the public about their financial position to demand higher fees

Australia’s aged care industry has been accused of misleading the public about its finances, with analysis revealing one of Australia’s biggest providers recorded significant earnings and acquisitions last financial year, despite reporting a loss.

The sector has pointed to data from accounting firm StewartBrown showing 70% of providers are running deficits to lobby for more federal funding, but industry analysts say it is an unreliable reflection of the sector’s financial performance.

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War of words: Australia can expect a hostile response from China to strategic defence review

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Experts say Australia should look beyond criticism that is largely for domestic Chinese consumption and engage on a broader level

Australia’s strategic defence review, to be made public on Monday, is likely to spark a hostile response from China and set off a new round of claim and counterclaim about the precarious relationship between the two countries.

Sir Angus Houston, the former head of the Australian military who led the review with the former defence minister Stephen Smith, said when it was launched last year the strategic circumstances were “the worst I have ever seen in my career and lifetime”.

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Australia’s farmers call for backup plan after GPS tractor-steering system fails

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A satellite that issues a correction signal to most Australian farm machinery went down this week, leaving farmers in the lurch

Mobile internet coverage could help farmers whose tractors stalled due to a satellite outage this week – but phone coverage is so patchy in regional Australia that many will remain stalled.

The British-owned Inmarsat I-4 F1 satellite, which supports the GPS systems in agricultural machinery from brands including Ag Leader, Case, John Deere, and Trimble in the Asia-Pacific, was down for 12 hours this week, causing a flurry of concerned calls from Australian farmers. Most modern tractors rely on GPS for automatic steering. The satellite enables guided accuracy and self-drive within two centimetres for tasks such as sowing crops.

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Emily Middleton is a journalist in Gilgandra, NSW

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Larger-bodied airline passengers forced to pay for two seats prompts calls for clearer anti-discrimination laws

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Advocates say rules for ‘guests of size’ are inconsistent across Australian aviation, generating anxiety and unfair costs for those affected

Larger-bodied passengers are being forced to buy two seats to fly on some airlines, raising discrimination concerns from advocacy groups who argue scientific understanding of obesity has evolved beyond viewing the condition as a lifestyle choice.

Budget international carrier Scoot has added a note about its policy to its website’s booking page, warning that “if you are a guest of size who requires 2 seats … fares and fees for 2 guests apply”. The note says: “Failure to do so may result in you being denied transportation.” But the airline does not state who would be considered a “guest of size”.

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‘Simply the greatest’: comedians pay tribute to ‘genius’ Barry Humphries

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Ricky Gervais, Rob Brydon and Matt Lucas among those paying homage to the Dame Edna Everage star who has died aged 89

Comedy stars from around the world have paid tribute to the late Barry Humphries, hailing him a “true great”.

Humphries, best known for his character Dame Edna Everage, died in hospital in Sydney on Saturday aged 89.

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Albanese to welcome Chris Hipkins amid migration overhaul – as it happened

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Anthony Albanese hails discovery of Montevideo Maru shipwreck after 80 years. This blog is now closed

Deer populations surge to pest level, experts say after animal crashes into home

Experts say deer populations are surging across Victoria, which may explain the incident on Thursday in which a deer crashed into Alexander Hill’s Alphington home in Melbourne’s north-east after the animal spotted itself in a window and thought it was another deer.

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NSW police search for mother after newborn baby abandoned in Sydney’s west

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Police believe Blacktown location where baby was found was chosen at random and mother had no connection to the property

The discovery of a baby girl abandoned in Sydney’s west has sparked a search for her mother.

Emergency services were called to a home in Blacktown about 2.40pm on Friday, NSW police said.

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Montevideo Maru: wreck of ship sunk in Australia’s worst maritime disaster found after 80 years

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About 1,060 WWII prisoners died when the ship, which has now been found in the South China Sea, was sunk by an American missile in 1942

The wreck of a ship caught up in Australia’s worst ever maritime disaster has been found 4,000 metres under the sea, 80 years after it was torpedoed by an American submarine.

The Montevideo Maru, discovered off the coast of the Philippines, sank with about 980 Australian troops and civilians on board – almost twice as many Australians killed than during the Vietnam war.

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UN refugee chief condemns Australia’s offshore detention regime and slogans like ‘stop the boats’

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Exclusive: Filippo Grandi praises Australia’s refugee reset but is ‘very upset’ by UK moves to mimic its offshore detention policy

“Myopic” policies of deterrence, and slogans like “stop the boats” are ineffective in addressing the movement of asylum seekers across the world, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees Filippo Grandi has said, in a major speech urging greater cooperation between nations.

Speaking at the University of Melbourne’s Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, Grandi said: “Far too often, rich countries have a myopic approach to global forced displacement and population movements, focusing overwhelmingly on border controls.”

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Youpla profits surged after it was approved for federal government’s automatic payments system

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New data reveals the scale of how many Indigenous people were impacted by the disgraced funeral fund

New data has revealed disgraced funeral fund ACBF-Youpla’s profits skyrocketed by tens of millions of dollars after the company was approved for the federal government’s automatic payments system Centrepay.

ACBF-Youpla collapsed in March 2022 leaving thousands of Aboriginal people, some of them elderly and in palliative care, without the means to pay for funerals. Families resorted to crowdfunding and some were forced to leave their loved ones’ bodies in the morgue while they raised the funds.

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ACCC to probe whether banks use saver’s profession to determine interest rate

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As part of inquiry into pricing practices, consumer regulator will assess the criteria banks use when making rate decisions

The competition regulator will test whether banks and other lenders use a person’s profession, or other demographic information, to determine what savings rate they receive, amid growing concerns over pricing practices.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has opened its inquiry into retail deposits for submissions, and will assess the criteria banks use when making rate decisions.

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NSW’s most popular holiday spots divided over limits on Airbnb rentals

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Not all councils agree on best way to tackle homelessness caused in part by popularity of short-term rentals such as Airbnb

Councils responsible for some of New South Wales’ most popular tourism destinations are urging the incoming Minns government to give them the power to further restrict short-term holiday rentals.

In December, the Byron shire council, which has the highest rate of homelessness in the state outside Sydney, voted in favour of introducing a 90-day cap on some short-term holiday rentals in an effort to generate more long-term rental supply.

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Australia’s boom in record shops: ‘Our regulars are high school kids who can stream stuff for free!’

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With revenue from vinyl sales nearing $37m in Australia last year, new retailers explain why they opened record stores post-Covid

Joshua Hodson-Smith spent much of the pandemic listening to an obscure record called Panther Phobia, by Memphis band Tav Falco. It was the mix of swampy blues and dark poetry on tracks like Cockroach that seemed to capture the mood of endless lockdowns. And after dabbling in selling records online, Hodson-Smith finally quit his warehouse job to open Footscray Records last July.

“With the virus, no one knew what was going on. I hated work and wanted out of a bad situation,” he says. “I’ve been collecting records for years and so I just went for it. There was no real plan. I looked for a spot and then leant in. It hit me the day I signed the lease – I knew it was suddenly real.”

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Labor promises to ‘grab this opportunity’ to become renewable energy superpower

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‘To see this at the heart of government planning is an overwhelming relief,’ Energy Council says, while investors warn of impact from US energy package

The Albanese government has promised to “grab this opportunity” to become a renewable energy superpower after holding a high-level roundtable with major banks, financiers and investment managers.

The Friday roundtable in Brisbane comes after the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said on Monday that next month’s federal budget would see major investments in “cleaner and cheaper” energy.

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New Zealanders to gain faster pathway to Australian citizenship under major changes to immigration rules

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In a move that restores reciprocity to rights of expats, about 380,000 New Zealanders living in Australia will no longer have to become permanent residents first

About 380,000 New Zealanders will gain the right to apply for Australian citizenship without becoming permanent residents first, under sweeping changes restoring reciprocity to the rights of expats of the two countries.

On Saturday the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, and immigration minister, Andrew Giles, will announce the changes ahead of a visit by New Zealand prime minister Chris Hipkins.

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Australia to dramatically scale back spending on infantry fighting vehicles in major defence overhaul

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The move aims to free up funding for the government to accelerate and expand other projects

Australia is set to dramatically scale back the number of infantry fighting vehicles it buys for the army as part of a defence overhaul to be announced on Monday.

The army had planned to acquire up to 450 infantry fighting vehicles, at a cost of up to $27bn, to replace Australia’s Vietnam war-era armoured personnel carriers.

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Indigenous voice: Coalition digs in on ‘lack of transparency’ claim despite Labor releasing legal advice

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Advice from solicitor general rebuffs no campaign’s central claim that the voice would clog up the courts

The Coalition is still accusing the Albanese government of a “lack of transparency” on the Indigenous voice referendum, despite the release of advice from the nation’s top legal adviser.

The government released a legal opinion on Friday from solicitor general Stephen Donaghue, saying that the voice wouldn’t clog up the courts or slow down government decision making – rebuffing a central claim of critics and the Coalition.

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Advice on voice a ‘cynical political tactic’ to confuse voters, Coalition claims – as it happened

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Ed Husic says board appointments alone won’t guarantee RBA diversity

The ministry for industry, Ed Husic, says he believes new appointments to the RBA board alone isn’t enough to bring diversity to the central bank – he says there need to be “deeper structures” put in place.

As a government, I can give you this assurance. We do like to take into account people’s views from different vantage points. I do think it is important that where decisions have an impact – not just in terms of investors or industry but the people that work in them or the broader community – I think it’s a healthier decision …

Some people will fix on ‘well, someone should have a seat at the board’ for that to occur and I understand why they’ll make those arguments. I’m not necessarily convinced that that specifically guarantees that will occur, just having one person on the board. There need to be a lot deeper structures for people to have that sense that they’ve had a say and that they can have an ability to influence and inform decision making.

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Lachlan Murdoch drops defamation proceedings against independent Australian publisher Crikey

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Move comes days after Fox reached a $US787.5m settlement with the voting equipment company Dominion in a separate defamation lawsuit

Lachlan Murdoch has dropped his defamation proceedings against the independent Australian media company Private Media, the publisher of Crikey.

The Fox Corporation CEO said he was ending the case in light of the settlement in the US of the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News.

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Emissions from WA gas project with world’s largest industrial carbon capture system rise by more than 50%

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Chevron development off Pilbara coast was approved on condition the company store about 4m tonnes of CO2 a year

Emissions from Chevron’s Gorgon gas development off Western Australia have increased by more than 50% despite it being home to the world’s largest industrial carbon capture and storage system.

There has been a sharp drop in the amount of CO2 stored underground at the liquefied natural gas plant over the last three years, data released by Chevron showed.

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