Author: admin

Labor has announced today it will support a Royal Commission into veteran suicide.
Official figures released last week showed a disturbingly high rate of suicide among current and ex-service men and women – with more than 400 deaths since 2001.
This Australian Institute of Health and Welfare research indicated that suicide rates for current and former Defence personnel compared to the rest of the Australian population are higher than ever.
Australia can no longer tolerate this senseless loss of life.
This is nothing less than a crisis and as a nation, we need to do all we can to tackle this.
Labor believes the best way to do this is through a thorough and comprehensive Royal Commission.
We are calling on the Morrison Government to do the right thing by our ex-service men and women, and establish a Royal Commission into veteran suicide as soon as possible.
This will help to shine a light on the issue, investigate why so many of our veterans are taking their own lives, and determine what measures are needed to stop these tragic deaths.
The terms of reference should include serving men and women, their transition from active service back to civilian life, and their ongoing circumstances.
The men and women who serve our country deserve our gratitude and respect, and we owe it to them to have a comprehensive examination of how we can reduce, and hopefully eliminate, these tragic numbers.
Their deaths are heartbreaking and cause immeasurable loss and grief for their loved ones left behind, their local communities, and indeed the nation.
We know many veterans and veterans’ families have been calling for this for some time now – they want to prevent future suicides and other families from suffering in the way they have.
And we have listened to courageous advocates like Julie-Ann Finney, whose son David took his own life in February this year after a battle with PTSD.
Labor Members of Parliament have met with Ms Finney and she has made a strong case for a Royal Commission.
We want this to be a bipartisan effort – we want to work with the Government, the Parliament and the veteran community and do all we can to address the scourge of veteran suicide.

The Greens urge the Government to use the parliamentary break to amend the serious problems in the proposed religious discrimination laws.

“This is a chance for the Prime Minister to fix the obvious flaws in the Bill which allow for harmful discrimination,” Greens Justice spokesperson Nick McKim said.
“But it’s no secret that some church groups want to be allowed to discriminate even more than they were already being offered.”
“As drafted, the Bill undermined state and Commonwealth discrimination protections for women, people with disability, senior Australians and LGBTIQ+ people.
“We will be watching this very closely because the danger here is that the bill will come back worse than it already was.”
Greens LGBTIQ+ spokesperson Janet Rice said:

“I’m relieved the Bill won’t be introduced to Parliament this coming week. The current draft is a Trojan horse for hate, designed to make discriminating against LGBTIQ+ people legal.”

“The Greens support legislation that protects the rights of people to hold and practice their religious beliefs, but this must not come at the expense of LGBTIQ+ people and other minorities.”

Our Government is strengthening Australia’s response to the threat of foreign interference with a new taskforce to disrupt and deter anyone attempting to undermine our national interests.
The number one priority of our Government is to keep Australians safe which is why we’re investing $87.8 million for a new Counter Foreign Interference Taskforce. It highlights our focus on stepping up our efforts as the threats to Australia evolve.
The Taskforce will work in to the National Counter Foreign Interference Coordinator that we established last year in the Department of Home Affairs and expand the resources the Coordinator has at their fingertips. It will be led by a senior ASIO officer and bring together a new team of Australian Federal Police investigators and representatives from AUSTRAC, the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Geospatial Intelligence Organisation. The Office of National Intelligence will also support the Taskforce.
This is a boost to our ability to discover, track and disrupt foreign interference in Australia.
The increase in intelligence collection, assessment and law enforcement capabilities will help turn more intelligence assessments into operational disruptions to better protect Australians from foreign interference.
The new dedicated capability of the Taskforce will also increase the collaboration and streamline the decision-making between agencies, and strengthen Australia’s analysis of the sophisticated disinformation activities happening across the world, particularly against democratic processes and elections.
Importantly, this investment will deliver a new capability without detracting from agencies’ continued and necessary efforts on other security challenges.
Today’s announcement builds on the $38.8 million we’ve invested since 2018‑19 to counter foreign interference, which includes establishing a Foreign Interference Threat Assessment Centre in ASIO and funding to support criminal prosecutions under new foreign interference offences.
We have already taken significant steps to strengthen Australia’s capacity to defend against foreign interference, including through the package of legislation introduced in 2018.
We will continue to take strong action to deter acts of foreign interference as the threat evolves, defend against them when they occur, and uphold our laws.