Category Archives: Anthony Albanese

Government urged to split IR bill to help low-paid people now – as it happened

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Migration system review will focus on process

For those wondering, here is a little more detail on the migration review Clare O’Neil announced this morning.

Accessed the name, date of birth, address, phone number and email address for around 9.7 million current and former customers and some of their authorised representatives. This figure represents around 5.1 million Medibank customers, around 2.8 million ahm customers and around 1.8 million international customers.

Did not access primary identity documents, such as drivers’ licences, for Medibank and ahm resident customers.

Medibank does not collect primary identity documents for resident customers except in exceptional circumstances.

Accessed Medicare numbers (but not expiry dates) for ahm customers. 

Accessed passport numbers (but not expiry dates) and visa details for international student customers.

Accessed health claims data for around 160,000 Medibank customers, around 300,000 ahm customers and around 20,000 international customers.

This includes service provider name and location, where customers received certain medical services, and codes associated with diagnosis and procedures administered.

Additionally, around 5,200 My Home Hospital (MHH) patients have had some personal and health claims data accessed and around 2,900 next of kin of these patients have had some contact details accessed.

Accessed health provider details, including names, provider numbers and addresses.

Did not access health claims data for extras services (such as dental, physio, optical and psychology).

Did not access credit card and banking details.

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One thousand residents urged to evacuate as central west braces for flood peak – as it happened

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Pregnant woman and midwife among 10 rescues in NSW town of Forbes. This blog is now closed

Victorian Labor lead narrows in polls in lead-up to state election

The Victorian election race appears to be tightening three weeks out from polling day, with Labor in danger of slipping in to minority government, AAP reports.

The AMA analysed the documentation these media reports relied on and, like the department, found nothing – not a skerrick of evidence – to support the claims made in headlines splashed across some news organisations.

The AMA has acknowledged consistently that while some fraud does occur, the vast majority of doctors are doing the right thing. And we have seen the mental toll these reports have taken on Australia’s doctors.

The minister has again highlighted the impact of years of cuts and neglect of Medicare, and, while this latest review may identify potential savings that could be made, what Medicare really needs is genuine reform and an injection of new funds.

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US group campaigning against Australia’s reversal of recognition of West Jerusalem as Israeli capital

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StandWithUs places ad in the Weekend Australian and asks readers to email Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong about issue

A US-based pro-Israel group has launched a campaign against the Albanese government’s decision to revoke recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital – and now plans to expand its operations in Australia.

But the campaign has sparked accusations that the Los Angeles-based organisation was “trying to trick the Australian government into thinking that the only way to be pro-Israel was to follow the Trump playbook”.

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Treasurer says gas review likely to result in mandatory code of conduct as energy costs soar

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Government has also not ruled out using threat of export limits to guarantee more domestic supply, Jim Chalmers says

The Albanese government will toughen gas market regulation and intends to make the industry code of conduct mandatory, with the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, also not ruling out export limits or cash handouts as soaring bills put pressure on household budgets.

On Sunday, Chalmers signalled a review, announced in the budget and being conducted by the competition regulator, would likely include mandatory price regulation and a requirement for “meaningful offers” to domestic consumers.

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Coalition attacks repatriation of women and children from Syria – as it happened

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A further 40 who remain in Syria are expected to be returned in two separate repatriations in coming weeks. This blog is now closed

Victorian flood risk persists with downpours ahead

Persistent rain may cause more flash flooding across Victoria over the long weekend as the state braces for possibly its coldest Melbourne Cup Day in nearly three decades, AAP reports.

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Australia news live: Noel Pearson says ‘racism will diminish’ with Indigenous recognition; energy ministers to look at gas price cap

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In his Boyer lecture, Pearson said Australia’s ‘terrible ideology of the denial of recognition’ needs to end. Follow the day’s news live

Perrottet calls for greater infrastructure funding

Perrottet also used the press conference to call for greater infrastructure funding for NSW from the federal government, as he has done many times in recent weeks.

There are other states who aren’t doing the heavy lifting, and I say to them, start building as much as we are in our great state.

We should continue to get more funding from a commonwealth government. I’m always going to stand up for the people of NSW.

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Federal budget 2022 reply speech live: opposition leader Peter Dutton to respond to Labor’s October budget – latest updates

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Leader of the opposition to give his reply to the treasurer Jim Chalmers’ first budget. Follow the day’s news live

The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi will give notice of a private senator’s bill she will introduce today aiming to halt the indexation on student loans and increase the repayment threshold to above the median wage.

Faruqi says it is one way which would help ease the cost of living burden on people with student debt:

Student debt is no small problem. About three million people in Australia have the burden of student debt.

At a time when the cost of living is biting hard, governments can no longer ignore the student debt crisis and its impacts.

What we have said all the time is that we want wages to grow, and we want them to stay growing. Not to have a short-term growth and then have at the expense of potentially higher unemployment.

So that’s the first thing. The second thing is we’ve got to get an IR system that drives productivity. That’s not about working harder for less, it’s about working smarter. It’s about creating the environment where people use new technology, where they innovate, where they share ideas, where they open new markets, where they have more skilled people.

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Government to crack down on NDIS provider fraud amid warning scheme will soon cost $50bn annually

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Bill Shorten says $126m earmarked in Labor’s October budget will help protect national disability insurance scheme ‘from crooks’

The federal government is creating a “fraud fusion taskforce” to try to claw back nearly $300m from national disability insurance scheme providers, amid warnings the NDIS could cost more than $50bn annually within four years.

The new body, which will replace the existing NDIS fraud taskforce, will target “fraud and serious non-compliance” with the help of law enforcement, regulatory and intelligence agencies.

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Australian budget forecasts heavy hit to economy due to floods and disasters

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Estimates growth will lose about quarter of a percentage point during the current quarter, or about $5bn in economic activity, because of flooding

The increasing frequency of weather disasters will take its toll on the economy in the near term and force the government to fork out hundreds of millions of dollars to build resilience for more to come.

As Australia endures its third La Niña event in as many years, the budget estimates growth will lose about quarter of a percentage point during the current quarter, or about $5bn in economic activity, because of the flooding across the country’s south-east.

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Labor hints at more controls on energy sector – as it happened

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We will be breaking into the political coverage today to keep you updated on the floods as well:

Overnight, residents of the north west NSW town of Narrabri have been ordered to evacuate due to flooding, with the SES issuing the warnings for the town’s industrial and residential areas.

The rivers are very, very full and, of course, our dams are mostly at full capacity at present. So, even the smallest rainfall can cause an elevated risk of flash flooding and riverine flooding. We will see rivers decline, but the risk is real.

We are bracing for another wet weather system into the state on the weekend.

He is a friend of Australia as the UK is a friend of Australia. We congratulate him on his elevation to the Prime Ministership. The UK, like Australia, has no shortage of challenges and no shortage of economic challenges.

So, we wish Rishi Sunak well. Some of us had the opportunity to work with him briefly when we first came to government. I was able to exchange messages with him when he was unsuccessful in the last leadership ballot. I think it says something about his commitment and his persistence, the way that he conducted himself in the interim. I don’t think it’s insignificant that a country like the United Kingdom has its first Prime Minister of colour.

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Lidia Thorpe to refer herself to privileges committee over relationship with ex-bikie

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Greens senator’s move heads off hostile referral by Coalition over possible perceived conflict of interest due to former role on law enforcement committee

Greens senator Lidia Thorpe will refer herself to the Senate privileges committee for possible investigation of her previously undisclosed relationship with former bikie leader Dean Martin.

Thorpe will write to the Senate president on Monday assenting to an inquiry into the possible perceived conflict of interest arising from the relationship due to her former role on the joint law enforcement committee.

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Australia will join Biden’s global pledge to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030, Albanese confirms

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Funding of more than $3bn will support agricultural methane reduction, clean tech initiatives and the commercialisation of seaweed feed supplement

The Albanese government has confirmed it will join Joe Biden’s global pledge to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030, as the prime minister warned climate change is increasing the frequency of Australia’s extreme weather events.

Guardian Australia revealed in June that Labor was considering signing the pledge, and the climate change minister Chris Bowen confirmed on Sunday Australia would be joining more than 100 other countries by making the commitment in the run-up to United Nations-led climate talks in Egypt next month.

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SES urges residents of several NSW areas to evacuate – as it happened

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Flood waters in Victorian border towns reach record levels as residents of several NSW towns are urged to evacuate. This blog is now closed

Taylor: potential inflation decrease ‘a good thing’

Taylor is now discussing inflation and says the Coalition believes inflation will be down to 2.5% in the next financial year according to Labor’s forecasts.

I’ve got to say many of the investments I’ve seen out in regional New South Wales have added to productivity, very significant impact.

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Australia and Japan sign new security deal; flood waters peaking in northern Victoria – as it happened

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Volunteers place 195,000 sandbags in and around Echuca, which could reach devastating 1993 flood levels. This blog is now closed

Australian ultrarunner on pace to break daily marathon world record

Did you know that you have the genes to be a long distance runner?

If you go back to our early genetics, basically, everyone has the genes to be a distance runner. Back 50,000 years ago, our survival depended on us being able to walk and jog long distances to be able to get food, and catch animals.

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Anthony Albanese and Japanese PM Fumio Kishida sign new agreement to boost security and energy ties

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The updated security agreement aimed at sending a message to China will see Japanese troops train with their Australian counterparts

Japan and Australia will boost their security and energy ties as the prime ministers of both countries spruik the need for peace in the Indo-Pacific.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, met in Perth on Saturday at an annual Australia-Japan leaders’ meeting.

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Severe weather warning for NSW and Victoria – as it happened

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Victoria is expecting the worst flooding from Sunday as NSW braces for more extreme weather. This blog is now closed

Plibersek is asked to explain a little bit more about the funding. Labor pledged a similar amount before the election, so is this new money?

This is additional because it’s in our first budget, so it’s delivering on the promise we made.

We agreed with that billion dollars of spending and we’re saying that’s not quite enough.

We need to spend $1.2bn over coming years and it’ll mean things like a new research centre in Gladstone, employing scientists to do really critical work on coastal ecosystems.

Well, it means that we can do important projects like stabilising riverbanks, replanting mangroves, reed beds and seagrass meadows to improve the water quality that’s coming from the land into the reef.

It means that we can work with traditional owners who are controlling crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks.

Together we hope to these measures can start to turn around the health of the reef, it is a still a beautiful natural wonder of the world. We’ve got a little bit of a breathing space in the last couple of years. We’ve seen some of those corals come back because we’ve had cooler weather and we need to build on that to protect and restore.

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Albanese government to give $900m budget boost to Pacific countries

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Funding will help tackle poverty and shore up security in the region and make Australia ‘more influential in the world’, Penny Wong says

The Albanese government will increase aid to Pacific countries by $900m as it declares next week’s budget will deliver the biggest rise in Australia’s official development assistance in more than a decade.

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, will announce the extra funding during a speech in French Polynesia on Friday, arguing the budget will be “a major step toward the goal of making Australia stronger and more influential in the world”.

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Australia news live: PM calls for explanation on Lidia Thorpe’s undisclosed relationship; WA closing Covid PCR testing sites

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Greens leader Adam Bandt asked senator to step down from leadership team due to error of judgment. Follow the day’s news live

SES Victoria’s Tim Wiebusch is speaking with ABC News about the Victorian floods.

In Echuca, where the Murray River is sitting at 94.4 metres above sea level, Wiebusch says:

It’s a very slow, creeping rise that’s occurring there on the Murray downstream of Barnham, through Echuca. And at this stage, the Bureau is still wait indicating that we could see a peak of around 95 metres, which means a that it will be above the October 1993 flood level. So it will really come down to a matter of centimetres as we’ve seen in a number of other locations. Significant volumes of water coming into the Murray, both from the Victorian northern rivers but also the southern rivers in New South Wales.

Nearly 200,000 sandbag have now been used in and around Echuca to try to protect properties or get it ready for protection. And then to the downstream communities from there, over the coming days and weeks.

What people can expect to see on Tuesday night is an improved budget position over the next couple of years. But after that, when the budget assumes commodity prices go back to more normal levels, and when some of these structural pressures, these spending pressures, make a big impact over the latter years of the forward estimates and into the medium term, and that is not covered by this temporary near-term increase in commodity prices.

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Australia and Japan to share intelligence on China in security deal, ambassador says

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In interview with Guardian Australia, Shingo Yamagami also hints Australia is likely to be invited to G7 summit in Hiroshima

Japan and Australia will share intelligence assessments about China’s military buildup and intentions under a security deal to be signed by the two prime ministers this weekend.

Japan’s ambassador, Shingo Yamagami, also hinted that Australia was likely to be invited to the G7 summit in Hiroshima next year, saying its participation would be a “natural” step at a time of worsening tensions in the region.

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Australia news live: Victoria on flood alert; Labor announces biggest energy investment since Snowy Hydro

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Communities in Victoria are on high alert with evacuation warnings in place for towns along the river. Follow the latest news

Dave Sharma, the former Liberal MP for Wentworth and former Australian ambassador to Israel, has followed Bowen on ABC Radio.

Sharma has issued the following statement criticising the government on its reversal of the recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel:

Penny Wong has failed to articulate any national interest reason for this change in policy.

In withdrawing recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, she is not only damaging a relationship with a close and trusted partner, but she is at odds with many of Israel’s Arab neighbours, such as the UAE, who are pursuing closer relations with Israel in order to promote regional peace and stability.

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