Category Archives: Australian education

Attorney general considering releasing full robodebt report – As it happened

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Mark Butler flags importance of an Australian CDC in future pandemic responses

The federal health minister, Mark Butler, spoke to ABC News Breakfast this morning, after the Covid inquiry report was released yesterday.

Currently, we’re the only developed country that doesn’t have that single authoritative body that can provide to governments and communities about an evidence-based approach to pandemic response and to other communicable diseases. So that is the foundation on which we build a system to respond to the next pandemic - because there will be a next one – much more effectively than we did to Covid.

We all remember just how incredibly difficult and challenging it was, how it affected every aspect of our lives. And in terms of how the government worked during that period of time – we worked with those public health experts and advisers. Our focus was very much on the health and wellbeing of our community, particularly the vulnerable members of our community who were most at risk.

This was a deadly disease. We saw, particularly overseas, it killed so many people. So we were focused on a public health response – a public health response that was focused on supporting the health of our community, and also too understanding the significant additional supports that we needed to provide to small businesses to support them during this incredibly difficult time.

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Australia news live: PM to announce clean energy projects; property market losing heat but prices still going up

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Anthony Albanese to launch schemes in NSW and Victoria today; Domain says rate of price increases is cooling. Follow today’s news headlines live

Bowen derides Coalition’s ‘nuclear fantasy’

Chris Bowen, minister for climate change and energy, is speaking on ABC Radio National this morning.

If I was the energy minister of another country, I would consider the opportunities that I had in that country – but a country saying to Australia, with our excellent renewable resources, that we should go down the nuclear road when we have no nuclear industry, no nuclear expertise of the scale that we would need for a nuclear power industry, is like us going to Finland or Scandinavia and saying, ‘Listen, we know [you have] a lot of snow, but you should really try beach surfing.’ It just doesn’t make any sense.

We have to play to our strengths in Australia, and we have the best renewable resources in the world, and the opposition wants to stop us using them, and in turn, keep coal in the system for longer. They’re quite explicit about that while we wait for this nuclear fantasy to come on board. That would be terrible for emissions and fatal for energy reliability.

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Diverse sexuality reported by more than one in 10 Australian high school students

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Authors of study that found 12% of year 8 pupils identify as gay, bisexual, pansexual or asexual say results highlight ‘urgent need’ for support services

More than one in 10 Australian teenagers identify as gay, bisexual, pansexual or asexual, a survey of high school students has found.

Researchers surveyed 6,388 year 8 students between 2019 and 2021, finding that 12% of the teens reported diverse sexualities, while 3.3% identified as gender-diverse.

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Former Sydney schoolboy wins $1.2m in damages after bashing by gang of 12 students

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Court finds Fairvale high school failed duty of care in case of 14-year-old boy who was assaulted in 2017

A student subjected to an unprovoked and lengthy bashing by 12 of his classmates has been granted $1.2m in compensation.

The student at Fairvale high school in western Sydney was 14 years old when the other students prevented him boarding a bus on 16 October 2017.

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WiseTech shares surge after CEO stands down – as it happened

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Dutton and Shorten weigh in on Queensland state election

The federal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, and the NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, both spoke with the Today show earlier from Queensland, before the election.

He’s focused on the issues which affect Queenslanders: housing, health, cheaper transport and of course tackling youth crime. So we’ll find out soon enough who’s going to win.

The fact is that it’s time for a change in Queensland and law and order is out of control.

Well, yes, he did. He did three days ago and, despite that, the government’s scare campaign continues.

The scare campaign on a sensitive issue that has been run, quite frankly, crosses the line, and we’re better than that as Queenslanders … There won’t be changes to abortion laws and Queenslanders need to know that.

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Albanese rejects China’s claim that Australia plagued by ‘systemic racism’ – as it happened

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The Rail, Tram and Bus Union of NSW (RTBU) conducted a five-minute work stoppage early this morning, which is leading to delays across the network.

Sydney Trains says this has led to minor delays and “larger than normal gaps in services may be experienced”, according to an alert:

Trains stops and platforms may change at short notice and some trains may be cancelled. Extra travel time may be experienced in some cases and you may need to change to continue your trip.

The action was set to happen in select locations across the network to ensure we could ramp up stoppages whenever needed.

The rail agencies continue to bargain in good faith with the Combined Rail Unions for a new enterprise bargaining agreement. Sydney Trains are working to minimise the disruption to commuters as much as possible.

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Thorpe rebuffs Indigenous leaders’ criticism of protest – as it happened

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More on news media bargaining code and funding of media publishers

One of the committee’s key recommendations was a digital platform levy on companies like Meta and Google, which some have described as a tech tax to fund public interest journalism.

So in parts of Europe, for example, there’s a 2% digital services tax. You could look at a public interest journalism levy.

The issue that we have fundamentally here is the … offshoring of the digital platform’s profits, where currently they pay very little tax because they argue that they don’t operate in Australia, even though they’re getting this enormous profit yield of the advertising on their platforms. So that’s another thing that has to be resolved within legislation in order to impose a tax.

But simply imposing a tax and feeding [it] into media organisations … won’t fix the issue if Meta continues to deprecate news content – that is, reduce the exposure of news content to its consumers.

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Thousands greet royals at opera house – as it happened

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The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has been speaking with ABC RN about a range of issues – including Lidia Thorpe’s actions at King Charles’ parliamentary reception yesterday.

Dutton argued that “sometimes people make it all about themselves, and I think that’s what yesterday was.” He said it “didn’t advance anyone’s cause” and “add[s] to the self promotion … that she seeks.”

The vast majority of people have been very welcoming the king’s visit, and I think it’s been an opportunity to underscore the stability in our democracy, our rule of law, separation of powers, all of those institutions that we inherited from our British heritage.

That’s part of the success story of our country, and it’s a good reminder during his visit [that] if we change it, I think we want to be very careful about the system we’re changing to and whether or not we would be a safer, more secure, community and environment for decades to come or not.

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Australia news live: Bondi beach reopens after tar-ball pollution; tornado warning for Victoria

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Waverley council says no remaining evidence of the debris could be found at Bondi, Bronte and Tamarama beaches. Follow today’s news live

Max Chandler-Mather continued, and told ABC News Breakfast:

I would argue in this instance in the context of one of the worst housing crises we have seen in generations … now is precisely the time where we need more than tinkering around the edges and we need substantial change.

There is a building consensus we need to scrap these tax handouts. Increasingly the biggest barrier is a prime minister [who has just] gone through multiple days of scandal for buying another property and being a property investor.

So I think there’s a real moment here the government should seize to make real substantial change to the lives of hundreds of thousands of renters, and the bottom line is the Greens are ready and willing to work with Labor to do it.

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Australia news live: Queensland LNP candidate alleges he was assaulted; Sydney Harbour Bridge closed after fatal crash

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New polling from the Australia Institute shows that Australians view the supermarkets as “public enemy No 1” in the cost of living crisis.

The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work surveyed 1,014 voters, and 83% said supermarkets deserve some blame – or a great deal of blame – for the soaring cost of living.

Australians are pointing the finger squarely at supermarkets as public enemy No 1 in the cost-of-living crisis … More people blame supermarkets for the cost-of-living crunch than governments or banks.

The public’s appetite for increased supermarket competition is unmistakable. Nearly two-thirds of voters see it as crucial for alleviating cost-of-living pressures … There’s likely to be political rewards for taking actions that increase supermarket competition.

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Rio Tinto praised for ‘breaking ranks’ to back revamp of environment laws – as it happened

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Queensland leaders to lock horns again in election debate

After their deputies traded blows, the Queensland premier and opposition leader are set to face off again ahead of the state election, AAP reports.

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Australia news live: Hanson-Young calls for investigation of live music ticketing allegations; culprit flees botched ram raid with arm on fire

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The federal government has announced targeted financial sanctions and travel bans on five Iranian individuals it says is “contributing to Iran’s missile program.”

A statement from the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said Iran’s missile program “poses a material threat to regional and international security”, with the 1 October attack on Israel a “dangerous escalation that increased the risk of a wider regional war.”

Australia will continue to hold Iran to account for its reckless and destabilising actions.

We’re holding ministers accountable when the premier of Tasmania refused to. This project – for people who don’t know – is $500m over budget, five years delayed.

It’s a completely debacle. Someone needed to take responsibility. The premier [was] saying he wouldn’t do that, the parliament decided it would act and, at the last moment, the deputy premier resigned.

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Steven Miles bats away accusations of pinching policies from Greens ahead of Queensland polls opening

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State premier announces free state primary school lunches at campaign launch after revealing plan for state-owned health clinics

Premier Steven Miles has warded off allegations of plagiarism from the Greens for a signature free school lunch policy announced at Sunday’s election campaign launch.

The Labor leader promised a free lunch for every Queensland state primary school student, the day before polls open in the state’s election. It came just a day after he unveiled a policy of state-owned, privately run GP clinics.

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Australia politics live: Richard Marles tells question time ‘I feel very sad that events have got to where they have’ after chief of staff’s bullying allegations

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The opposition communications spokesperson, David Coleman, is speaking to ABC radio RN, criticising the government’s legislation designed to keep the NBN in public hands.

He is having trouble saying whether the opposition will support the bill, or whether a future Coalition government would want to sell the NBN.

We’re not going to just sort of immediately jump at some silly theatrical statement from the government. The adults in the room will review this in a normal way.

We’ve got no intention of changing the ownership structure of the NBN. Nobody does. And frankly, because the NBN is going so badly, there’s not exactly a lineup of people [wanting to buy it].

Parents are crying out for a degree of certainty, they’re crying out for government guidance, a lot more rule that people can follow. That doesn’t mean there won’t be challenging but at least provides a starting point for parents. It gives them a tool about how to address this and parents who have gone through all this and all the pain that social media can place upon their children, they’re the ones I think are the most powerful advocates for this reform.

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Record $8m compensation for victim of paedophile teacher at infamous Victorian public school

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Former Beaumaris primary school student will receive biggest known payout by a state government to a sexual abuse survivor in Australia

A sexual abuse survivor from an infamous Victorian public school will receive a record $8m settlement from the education department, and the state government could be on the hook for more compensation.

The former student was sexually abused at Beaumaris primary school by Darrell Ray, one of four paedophiles who taught at the school in Melbourne’s south-east in the 60s and 70s.

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Revealed: University of Sydney spent millions more on consultants than repaying wages of casual staff

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Greens say revelations a ‘damning indictment’ that speak to a ‘broken governance culture’ at prestigious universities

The University of Sydney has spent millions of dollars more on external contractors and consultants – including PwC – for calculating and administering liability for wage underpayments and a review of its systems than it has paid out to staff, answers provided to the Greens have revealed.

In the answers to supplementary questions, provided to chair of the New South Wales education committee, Greens MLC Abigail Boyd, it was revealed the university had repaid 514 casual staff a total value of $2.8m as of last month, while across all “remediation work streams”, it had paid 10,692 professional staff a total value of $17.4m.

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Students moved to rented office building in response to overcrowding at Melbourne public school

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Victorian government defends ‘temporary’ campus for University High year 9 pupils amid increase in enrolments

Victoria’s education minister has defended a decision to move hundreds of students from an overcrowded inner-Melbourne high school into a rented CBD office building, describing it as a “temporary” solution.

University High School’s principal, Ciar Foster, wrote to parents on Monday to inform them that due to “a significant enrolment increase in recent years” a temporary campus would be established at 399 Lonsdale Street under a seven-year lease agreement.

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Rally organisers and police reach agreement – as it happened

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The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, is speaking with ABC RN from New Zealand where he is meeting with regional counterparts.

Asked about the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, and whether “ceasefire negotiations in Gaza are now dead”, Marles said the “continued violence in the Middle East is obviously giving rise to enormous threat to civilian life”.

I think the international community is desperate to see an end to this violence, and certainly that’s how we’re exercising our international voice.

Israel has a right to defend itself. Every country has a right to defend itself, and to do so in a proportionate way. That said, we are calling for a ceasefire, along with the United States, along with other members of the international community.

The continued violence in the Middle East is giving rise to … unacceptable numbers of civilian lives lost, and the ongoing violence is a threat to civilian life. And we, along with international community, urge an end to this.

We have [been protesting for] 51 weeks in a row, [and it’s been] absolutely peaceful. Millions of Australians have come out, it’s not provocative at all.

What’s provocative is the fact that our government isn’t listening to tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of Australians, who have signed petitions, called their MPs, have done everything they’re supposed to do within this democratic framework to say ‘enough’ …

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Canberra Liberal apologises for writing book that paints rosy colonisation picture and skips frontier wars

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One exercise in History of Australia, a student workbook and teaching manual, asks pupils to discuss how Aboriginal people were ‘blessed’ by the British coming

Peter Cain, the ACT’s shadow attorney general, has apologised “wholeheartedly” for a 2002 workbook he wrote which does not mention the frontier wars and paints a rosy picture of how Christian settlers helped First Nations peoples.

In History of Australia, a student workbook and teacher’s manual published by Light Educational Ministries, Cain wrote that when the British arrived, “some were afraid of the Aboriginals; some treated them badly”.

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Australia news live: Miles promises state-owned power company for Queensland; NSW police arrest woman following Sydney protest rally

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Children’s commissioner to address National Press Club today on youth justice

The children’s commissioner, Anne Hollonds, is due to address the National Press Club today on a new report calling for an overhaul of Australia’s approach to child justice.

That kind of slogan really is trying to show that ‘we’re really tough up here, we’re going to be tough on crime’. And what our report shows is that that approach, that traditional approach in this country, hasn’t worked and and that basically it’s evident that we’ve misunderstood the nature of the problem we’re trying to solve. We know that toughening up the justice system doesn’t actually prevent crime by children.

The idea that the states and territories could fix this on their own has been misguided, we need to work together on it.

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