Shadow energy minister says system in ‘dire trouble’ – as it happened

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Australia needs more gas supply on east coast, Albanese says

Anthony Albanese is speaking to the ABC from Devonport.

We’ll work those issues through with Aemo.

We need more gas supply. We announced our future gas strategy a short while ago because we understand that we need more supply. Gas has an important role to play in manufacturing in particular. But also in providing firming capacity for the renewables rollout.

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University of Sydney orders students protesting in support of Gaza to leave after almost two months

Spokesperson says ‘the encampment has taken over this shared space to the exclusion of others’

The University of Sydney has ordered students protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza to leave a controversial encampment that has been on the campus since April.

A university spokesperson said on Friday that it had told the encampment’s leadership “we require them to vacate the encampment to allow other students to use the space”.

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Australia politics live: RBA governor still confident economy will slow without stalling; no-confidence vote for embattled Townsville mayor

Council passes unanimous motion of no-confidence in its mayor Troy Thompson. Follow the day’s news live

Australia’s existing submarines won’t get Tomohawk missile upgrades

Australia’s existing Collins-class submarines will not be fitted with Tomahawk cruise missiles as part of work to extend their life before the Aukus submarines come into service.

For instance, we will consider whether tomahawk missiles can be fitted to the Collins-class submarines.”

The government has also received advice from Defence, in consultation with the United States, that adding Tomahawk cruise missile capability to the Collins class submarines is not viable and does not represent value for money.

The Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines Australia will receive in the early 2030s will come with the Tomahawk as standard equipment. Tomahawk cruise missiles will also be used by Navy’s Hobart class destroyers and the government has agreed in-principle to fit the Hunter class frigates with Tomahawks, subject to a feasibility study. [end quote]

NDS agrees with the government that managing the sustainability of the NDIS is critical — the community expects no less. We need fundamental and systemic reform, and that must be accompanied by proper resourcing for sector transformation.

The system is broken. Training, supervision and retaining highly skilled practitioners to provide quality care is essential, but not adequately covered in the current funding model.”

A continuation of previous workforce trends showing that workforce issues in the disability sector have become entrenched.

The disability sector continues to rely heavily on casual disability support workers, who have a very high turnover.

The biggest variation this year was a in proportion of permanent employees who work full time – with the number of full-time employees growing by 10%, the highest in close to a decade.

Conversely, part-time employment dropped to 70% this year. The increase may be related to the current cost-of-living crisis.

Turnover continued the upward trend growing to 24% this year, while permanent staff turnover jumped to 16%, the highest it has been since this survey began. These figures represent a churn of almost 16,500 individual employees leaving their jobs and over 19,000 new appointments over a one-year period.

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Australian universities rise in world rankings but experts warn international student cap could hurt ‘cutting-edge’ status

University of Melbourne reaches new high of 13th while University of Sydney and University of NSW also in top 20 of QS rankings

Australian universities have improved their global rankings despite warnings that a proposed international student cap on the horizon could dissuade thousands from applying at the country’s institutions.

The chief executive of Universities Australia, Luke Sheehy, is due to say in a speech on Wednesday that Australian universities face a collective shortfall of more than $500m this year as a result of already existing visa rule changes and “policy chaos” – and this could claim up to 4,500 jobs.

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Pro-Palestine protesters at ANU move campus camp by 50 metres ahead of noon deadline

University dramatically escalated its response to the on-campus occupation on Monday, demanding protesters vacate their site in the centre of campus

Student protesters in Canberra have moved their pro-Palestine encampment to a new location after police demanded they pack up by noon on Tuesday.

Protesters at the Australian National University voted on Monday night to relocate their camp 50 metres down the road, saying they had engaged in good faith. But they condemned what they called “reckless and unjustifiable intimidation tactics” from the university.

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Potentially habitable planet size of Earth discovered 40 light years away

Queensland- and Scotland-based PhD students co-lead team celebrating ‘Eureka moment’ spotting Gliese 12b

An Australian university student has co-led the discovery of an Earth-sized, potentially habitable planet just 40 light years away.

Shishir Dholakia, a PhD candidate in astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland, is part of an international team that published the discovery in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Australia politics live: Ed Husic says Coalition position on ICC arrest warrants is ‘staggering’; Plibersek in rogue microphone mishap during Sky News interview

Labor minister says Peter Dutton’s opposition ‘wants to pick what law and order it’ll follow’

Ed Husic details government’s new battery strategy

The industry and science minister, Ed Husic, has been speaking to ABC RN about the government’s newly unveiled national battery strategy. As Karen Middleton reports, the strategy is aimed at turning Australia from a “dig-and-ship” economy that sells off its critical minerals into a powerhouse manufacturer of better and safer renewable energy storage.

China is obviously the biggest producer [and] a lot of countries are recognising that their dependency on that concentrated supply chain isn’t in [their] national interest longer-term. If there are disruptions to that supply, either accidental or otherwise, we’re left vulnerable and these are in terms of the batteries themselves – they’re complex in nature. It’s also driven by software, so we need to have safe and secure batteries, energy storage systems, longer term.

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Dutton won’t rule out a Coalition government quitting ICC – as it happened

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Chris Bowen says nuclear energy is ‘slow, expensive and risky’

Chris Bowen is also asked about the latest CSIRO report released today, showing electricity from nuclear power in Australia would be at least 50% more expensive than solar and wind.

CSIRO and Aemo have looked at large-scale nuclear for the first time. It finds that that would be far more expensive than renewables, despite claims from the opposition – quite inappropriate attacks on CSIRO and Aemo from the opposition, that they hadn’t counted the cost of transmission. The cost of transmission and storage is counted, and still renewables comes out as the cheapest.

And of course, CSIRO points out that nuclear will be … very slow to build. So nuclear is slow and expensive and is risky when it comes to the reliability of Australia’s energy system.

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Pro-Palestine protesters vow to rally as La Trobe joins universities enforcing encampment ban

La Trobe on Friday followed Deakin in issuing a formal directive for protesters to end their encampment

Pro-Palestine students and staff at La Trobe University have called the university’s directive to end their sit-in an “attack on free speech”, and vowed to rally against the encampment crackdown until management meets their demands.

La Trobe University on Friday followed Deakin University in issuing a formal directive for protesters to end their encampment on the Bundoora campus, amid a wave of student pro-Palestine sit-ins across the nation.

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University of Melbourne and protesters fail to resolve deadlock as pro-Palestine camp ends at Monash

Encampment at Arts West building continues as tensions simmer at other university campuses

Pro-Palestine protesters and University of Melbourne administrators remain in a deadlock despite a warning that police could be called to enter the campus at any time.

As tensions simmer between university administrations and student activists across the nation, those camped inside the Arts West building have defied the University of Melbourne’s demands and the threat of police intervention.

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‘Crossed a line’: students threatened with police action over pro-Palestine sit-in at University of Melbourne

University of Melbourne cancels classes as activists at Deakin defy directives on encampments

Students occupying a University of Melbourne building have been threatened with “disciplinary action and police action”, as at least three other universities seek to crack down on pro-Palestine encampments.

In a video released more than 24 hours after activists “crossed a line” by starting a sit-in at the Arts West building, the University of Melbourne’s deputy vice-chancellor, Prof Michael Wesley, said management’s patience was “now at an end”.

Wesley said some protesters could be disciplined under the university’s codes of conduct and may face police action.

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ANU warns of potential breaches if pro-Palestinian encampments aren’t dismantled

Comes after Deakin University similarly requested that student protesters remove camps

The Australian National University has become the second to request pro-Palestine students disband their on-campus encampments, as the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) backed the protesters.

On Wednesday morning, a small group of students attended a meeting with management at the ANU in Canberra, where they said they were advised to disband their camps by Friday or risk breaching the university’s code of conduct.

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Deakin University requests dismantling of pro-Palestine encampment as protesters pledge to stay

Deputy vice-chancellor says Victorian university wants to ensure ‘safety, security and amenity of all campus users’ but protesters say request is ‘Orwellian’

Deakin University has become the first education institution in Australia to request students dismantle their pro-Palestine encampment, but protestors have vowed they will “not be moved”.

Pro-Palestine camps have spread to universities in every state in Australia after beginning at the University of Sydney almost three weeks ago. Last week, Victoria police wrote to university vice-chancellors requesting greater powers to shut down the encampments, adding that if they were allowed to keep growing there was a “strong likelihood of violence occurring between protest and counter-protest groups”.

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Peter Dutton compares ‘river to the sea’ chants at pro-Palestinian protests to Hitler

Opposition leader’s comments ‘a very bad faith’ reading of protestors’ chant, Jewish Council of Australia says

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has compared chants at pro-Palestine university protests to the ideology of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, in comments labelled “deeply offensive” by a prominent Jewish group.

Tensions are brewing over pro-Palestine encampments at universities across Australia, with leading universities writing to the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, for legal advice on whether protesters’ chants were in breach of federal law.

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Australian universities reject calls for police to break up Gaza protests

Group of Eight chief says campuses don’t want to see ‘escalation’ like what is occurring in the US

Vice-chancellors have rejected calls to shut down the pro-Palestine encampments at Australian universities, saying campuses don’t want to see an “escalation” of the kind that is happening in the US.

A snap meeting was held on Thursday between the Group of Eight (Go8) vice-chancellors, the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) and the secretary of the education department to discuss the safety of students and staff amid the protests.

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Majority of university chiefs in Victoria earn over $1m despite budget woes

Federal government vows crackdown as institutions increased their vice-chancellor’s salaries amid job losses in the sector

More than half of Victoria’s vice chancellors are earning annual salaries of more than $1m, new data reveals, as the federal government vows to to crack down on excessive senior university pay packages.

The 2023 annual reports of Victorian universities, lodged on Wednesday, revealed six of Victoria’s eight vice-chancellors had their salaries boosted last year, including separate rises of more than $50,000.

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Australia politics live: Toyota boss says fuel efficiency standard ‘not a car tax’ as Labor defends secrecy around bill

Follow the day’s news live

Renewed push to scrap activity level requirements for childcare subsidies

There was a lot of disappointment last budget when the government did not scrap the activity test as a way of making early child education more accessible and universal.

Zoe Daniel MP, Member for Goldstein

Georgie Dent, the CEO of the Parenthood

Sam Page, the CEO of Early Childhood Australia

Kate Carnell, the former Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman and former ACT chief minister

Natalie Walker, the deputy chair of Goodstart Early Learning

Sue Morphett, a businesswoman and the former president of Chief Executive Women

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Monash University criticised over $127,000 farewell party for vice-chancellor while students ‘sit on the floor’

The university held the lavish event at the NGV for Margaret Gardner, now the governor of Victoria

University executives who spent more than $127,000 on a lavish sendoff for a departing vice-chancellor have been labelled out of touch.

Monash University threw the flashy party at the National Gallery of Victoria for Prof Margaret Gardner, now the governor of Victoria.

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Lowering cost of higher education critical to meeting Australia’s skills shortage, report warns

Universities accord also urges government to dramatically scale up access to higher education for disadvantaged groups

Access to higher education among disadvantaged Australians must be dramatically scaled up and the financial burden of studying eased if the country is to meet acute skills shortages, a major report has found.

The highly anticipated universities accord final report, being released by the education minister, Jason Clare, on Sunday, was expected to lay out the blueprint for the tertiary sector over the coming decades.

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Academics in US, UK and Australia collaborated on drone research with Iranian university close to regime

Exclusive: work by researchers from western universities and counterparts at Sharif University considered potentially ‘very dangerous’ by experts

Academics in the UK, Australia and the US collaborated on research related to drone technology with an Iranian university that is under international financial sanctions and known for its close ties to the military, the Guardian can reveal.

The collaborative research was described by one security expert as having direct military applications, while another called it potentially “very dangerous”. Iranian-made drones have been responsible for a number of deadly attacks in the Ukraine and Middle East conflicts, and their development is known to be a top priority for the government in Tehran.

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