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Greens employment and industrial relations spokesperson Adam Bandt MP today welcomed Labor’s announcement that it would establish a new small claims tribunal to enforce orders for the payment of wages. Mr Bandt noted this announcement follows his own announcement that the Greens will establish and resource a $20 million dedicated Wage Theft Unit within the Fair Work Ombudsman tasked with identifying, investigating and prosecuting cases of underpayment and wage theft. Mr Bandt also called on Labor to go further in lifting the minimum wage.
“The systematic underpayment of hundreds of thousands of low paid workers has to stop,” said Mr Bandt.
“In the fast food sector alone, some estimates have placed yearly losses at more than $300 million.
“Labor’s announcement of a new body to tackle wage theft is an important step in the right direction, but we need to work out how the situation got so dire in the first place.
“We’re glad Labor accepts the minimum wage is too low, but the next government must back the Greens’ push to lift the minimum wage to at least 60% of the median wage.
“The Greens will move in the Senate to amend Labor’s IR laws to lift the minimum wage to 60% of the median wage.
“The Greens will ensure that when the next government’s industrial relations reforms reach the parliament, they tackle the critical issues, like wage theft and low pay, at the heart of our industrial relations laws.”

It’s the social justice and equity issue the major parties aren’t talking about with their various marketing slogans featuring “a fair go”. And that is having a home, one of the most basic human needs.
While we talk about housing or shelter as a human right, as we should, people crave not just bricks and mortar but the sense of place and belonging. It’s why homeless people gather. Sure there’s safety in numbers when sleeping rough but we need each other and want to be together with others. Surely that is fundamental to a fair go.
These days we – and our governments – are increasingly failing each other and a crisis is upon us. More people than ever sleep rough, in train station tunnels, in parks and cars, on a revolving series of friends couches and floors even on beaches if they can. Over 120,000 Australians – the population of Darwin – are trapped in this needless hell. Increasingly these forgotten people are women and children. Youth homelessness is also on the rise. This escalating but largely invisible human tragedy has caught up significant numbers of military veterans. In this, one of the wealthiest countries on earth.
Disgracefully, Australia has no overarching program for preventing, reducing and dealing with the effects of youth homelessness. And we lag behind our global wealthy nation peers, many by some distance in addressing this tragedy of national neglect.
Once considered to be an inner city problem, homelessness is spreading into our outer suburbs and country towns. Homelessness is no longer rare but shamefully and sadly, close to it being a new, very wrong kind of normal.
The Together Party’s founder and Senate Candidate Mark Swivel grew up in inner Sydney and nearby beaches, familiar with homeless folk in Kings Cross, Woolloomooloo and at the backs of Eastern Suburbs beaches.
“These days I run Barefoot Law, a community legal clinic in Mullumbimby near Byron Bay, a town that now has the most expensive real estate in the country now with a median house price of $987,500,” he said. “Yet down the road we have a serious problem with housing affordability, rental stress and homelessness. For me homelessness is not abstract, I see it every week with our clients, many of whom have mental health challenges, little or no work, in lives torn about by on-going domestic violence. The results being that many of them have no home.”
Swivel singles out the chronic need for emergency housing for women escaping domestic violence and aggressive men, some of those with mental health issues
“One client Bill sleeps in his van in a car park on an isolated road. He has bi-polar disorder and struggles to keep a job or a spot in a share house going,” Swivel says. “He often smokes pot to manage his anxiety but ends up getting into minor scrapes around town. Nothing major but enough to see Bill in the local court and having regular run ins with the cops.”
“We got him back to the mental health team at the hospital who delivered proper treatment, and we helped keep him out of jail. But the fundamental problem is that Bill still didn’t have anywhere stable to live. In a competitive market for emergency accommodation, blokes can be a long way down the list. Bill still struggles and not having a home aggravates his condition.
“Homelessness is primarily related to poverty but not always,” Swivel said, noting that thousands of traumatised veterans come home to no home. “Yet we can find tens of millions of dollars to redevelop our National War Memorial.”
Homelessness should not be the new normal, or just part of somebody else’s life. The solution is not more CEO sleep-outs to raise awareness of the problem; while admirable, the problem has only increased since. It is government that must take an active role to build social and community housing.
Our governments have sold off housing commission properties en masse and not replaced them. We have half-baked under funded band-aids for the homeless when we really need major surgery in the form of an ongoing sustainable commitment to more public housing.
That’s why Together has earmarked $250 million in its Alternative Budget for social housing. The richest 10% of Australians who get tax breaks from negative gearing need to pay their share, countless millions that can be spend on social housing for our most vulnerable instead of beach houses for the well-heeled and inner-city high rises for middle class landlords to rent to young people who cannot afford a home.
The great Australian homeowner irony is that during the last generation property developers have grown rich, as have so many regular Australian homeowners due to the housing boom. Yet all the while the ranks of the homeless in our streets and towns have swelled. There is something very wrong with this picture.
Homelessness is a growing blight on our nation. Whoever is elected as the new government and must begin dealing with this issue from day one with policies to lead us back to an Australian when homelessness was rare and not the inevitable result of policy neglect an d bad decision making that has made poor use of our shared assets and resources.
Together is a new party but not a niche party and has a comprehensive policy manifesto https://thetogetherparty.org.au/manifesto.

Australia has regularly styled itself as a creative nation. Yet it ironically turns to a well-worn sporting metaphor to make the point that as a country it “punches above its weight” in film, visual arts, literature, any number of musical genres including rock and roll, opera and even country.
Australia spends precious little on the arts: less than $1.5 billion per year. It’s a pittance and is the result of poor government, poor finance and poor business. Together believes the arts must play a leading role in our society and not be an underfunded policy extra.
Australia’s artists shine on the world stage thanks to the likes of Bangarra Dance and Back to Back Theatre. We have a growing role call of Hollywood royalty both in front of and behind the camera. Our opera singers perform at the world’s most storied opera houses. Several Australians are nominated for this year’s Tony (Broadway) awards. Our rock and pop artists top charts and sell out stadia Then there is ­­­Circus Oz, Circa and their soaring offshoots, multiple Booker Prize winners. It continues…
Most of these artists benefited from public funding for development, production, touring, education and support. Arts funding is an investment in the health of our society, in our culture and a national sanity check.
Together welcomes and supports Labor’s new arts policy. Its aims are laudable, especially in supporting indigenous art, companies and artists, diversity in the arts and by restoring much needed funding to the Australia Council after thoughtless, or even deliberately damaging cuts.
But Labor’s answers are too pat with too little extra funding and muted, timid ambition. Together believes that in the context of responsible budgeting Australia can and must be bold by doubling the annual allocation to the budget to $3 billion per year. Anything less is tinkering around the edges of a worn and outdated model.
Our key investments would include:
$500m per year in small arts organisations and individual artists, to overcome the bias towards funding established institutions and artists
$250m per year in touring capacity so Australian artists can connect with audiences here and overseas
$250m in infrastructure for indigenous visual artists and indigenous arts administration
Reinvestment of $250m in film for kids because that is where culture and identity take root – we must tell our own stories to our children.
$250m to support our music industry and festivals. We need to keep not just our cities and venues open, but our music culture in the regions
Significant investment in the brave new world of digital arts both for digital creation techniques and emerging art forms, and using technology to enable distribution for audience expansion.
Together’s initiatives are not unfunded pipe dreams. They can be fully funded by trimming our expenditure on submarines and other major defence contracts that has seen this country’s military spend go close to doubling the GSP percentage outlaid by Japan, Germany and New Zealand, as well as an overdue audit of massive outsourcing contracts for consultants in the public sector. An additional $1.5 billion per annum is more than manageable in a federal budget of $500 billion.
It has never been more important to support the arts as our social fabric is tearing, yet it has never been harder for artists to establish a career. The debate around arts policy and funding must be informed by an understanding of how little we invest in the arts, how narrow the spectrum of arts and artist we fund and how much we have to gain by being much more ambitious to promote and engender a collective celebration of who we actually are as a nation – who lives here, how they live and dream and the industries they work in. The rewards will be almost immediate and resonate for generations.
Listening to the current Prime Minister speak, landing on our shores for the first time or watching our election campaign, you would assess that sport in fact is culture. Sport is a big business and pulls in the big bucks in Australia.
Together loves its sport, we admire talented people pushing themselves and their teammates to impressive heights and it is very much part of the complex fabric of our young nation.
The creative arts are also big business and big bucks and most of those benefitting were once small companies or unknown performers who received a boost from the Whitlam government onwards. The arts are terrific for business generally, because the arts create jobs, supports families and communities of artists and there is further economic benefit for businesses that support them.
Yet the context and conversations around the arts has matured and so we say again, its time for the government to step up and meet the challenge that so many of Australia’s competitor nations in the west have been doing for some time now.
The arts collectively provide a pitiless mirror into which a nation can gaze – it helps us understand whether we are heading on the right road or have become lost on a byway to nowhere or worse; whether we are compassionate and encompassing of who we are collectively or whether we have left some of us out of the national narrative.
This is done, as it has been through the course of human history, through theatre of many kinds, film, television, painting, an ever-growing collection of musical genres, sculpture, multimedia performances, games etc. It’s time Australia recognised this history and stepped up to make the arts an integral and non-negotiable part of our journey to a better Australia.
A final observation is worthwhile: nations which are on a solid core of metrics above or at least slightly better than average have a collective tendency to have a vibrant, challenging and throbbing arts sector. This is no coincidence. It’s time for government in Australia to recognise that and act with speed and purpose.
Together is a new party but not a niche party and has a comprehensive policy manifesto https://thetogetherparty.org.au/manifesto.

A re-elected Liberal Nationals Government will invest up to $2 million to urgently address the unsafe water quality impacting Palm Island and examine options for a permanent solution to the issue.
Liberal National Party candidate for Herbert Phillip Thompson said that no Australian deserved to live without access to clean and safe water such as what Palm Island is experiencing right now.
“The water quality issue plaguing Palm Island has been the result of complete and utter neglect and incompetence by the Queensland Labor Government and needs to be urgently addressed.
“Today I am announcing that the LNP will deliver funds to the Palm Island Aboriginal Shire Council for urgent repairs and ongoing maintenance to identify and fix the immediate water quality issue and we will also examine a permanent solution to secure Palm Island’s water.
“This is a solution we have developed in partnership with the Palm Island Aboriginal Shire Council.
“Today’s announcement follows the deafening silence from Bill Shorten’s candidate, Cathy O’toole, who had the audacity to announce a $1.1 million water park for Palm Island but had nothing to say about the water quality issue.
“If Aboriginal people in Herbert needed any evidence of how out of touch Labor is then this is it,” Mr Thompson said today.
Minister Nigel Scullion said that it was extremely disappointing but not surprising that the Morrison Government has to step up to fix this Queensland Labor mess.
“Phillip Thompson is an absolute champion for the Palm Island community – as soon as this issue arose he was on the phone to me immediately to work up an urgent response so that Palm Islanders could have clean and safe water restored.
“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Queenslanders know they have a genuine partner in the LNP who will listen to them, work with them and deliver for them.
Funding for this critical project will be delivered out of existing resources within the $5.2 billion Indigenous Advancement Strategy.
The funding will be provided to Palm Island Aboriginal Shire Council to engage a suitably qualified Indigenous and local firm to deliver the repairs in a timely manner on a value for money basis.

The Morrison Government will commit a further $40 million to improving road safety and traffic congestion on the Bass Highway between Cooee and Wynyard.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said people were sick of sitting in traffic and these local, practical measures would help people get home sooner and safer.
“By managing money and running a strong economy, we are able to invest record funding in road projects which improve the lives of so many Tasmanians in the North-West,” Mr Morrison said.
“We want to end the ‘Cooee Crawl’ by adding new overtaking lanes, upgrading key sections of the Bass Highway while ensuring the future safety of the Cam River Bridge.
“This funding will help North-West Tasmanians gets home sooner and safer.”
Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister Michael McCormack said the Coalition Government had previously funded a $500,000 planning study in response to community concerns about increased travel time and crashes during peak times.
“The Bass Highway between Cooee and Wynyard serves as an important freight route carrying heavy vehicles to and from the Circular Head Municipality, the West Coast, the Port of Burnie and beyond,” Mr McCormack said.
“We will provide $40 million to fund improvements identified in the Study which bust the congestion being experienced by commuters and to guarantee the future safety of the Cam River Bridge.
“In partnership with the Hodgman Government we will implement these improvements to fix the ‘Cooee Crawl’ and deliver relief to motorists who have experienced the growth in congestion on the Highway.”
Tasmanian Infrastructure Minister Jeremy Rockliff has welcomed the Morrison Government’s new funding commitment.
“The Study provides a corridor strategy to deliver these much-needed improvements including better traffic signalisation, new overtaking lanes and junction and bridge upgrades to make the Highway safer and to reduce travel times,” Mr Rockliff said.
“Thanks to the Liberals’ strong economic management, we have seen development in our region and the expansion in the dairy, beef and other agricultural industries.
“This has also brought with it more heavy vehicles on the Highway and the Study has recognised the need for changes and upgrades, so this funding is vital to keep traffic moving.
“Our next step will be to fully brief the two key local councils, Burnie City and Waratah-Wynyard on the Report’s findings and to develop a program to work collaboratively with them to implement the corridor improvements.”
The $40 million investment in the Bass Highway is in addition to the $60 million investment that the Morrison Government has made to the stretch of highway between Wynyard and Marrawah.
In total, the Morrison Government has committed more than $110 million into the Bass Highway.

To protect Australia and our national interests, the Morrison Government is building a stronger Defence Force by restoring Defence funding to 2 per cent of GDP by 2020-21 and investing over $200 billion in military capability over the decade. We have taken the important decision to ensure that planning and funding includes not only equipment such as aircraft or ships, but also enabling infrastructure such as runways, wharfs and ICT systems through an Integrated Investment Program (IIP).
Assistant Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon David Fawcett, and the Liberal Candidate for Spence, Kathleen Bourne, today visited key capability works being delivered at RAAF Base Edinburgh and were briefed on planned construction contained in the IIP.
RAAF Base Edinburgh is the centre of our nation’s flight test centre, military intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and electronic warfare capabilities, and is also the home of Army’s 1st Armoured Regiment and the 7th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment.
“The Morrison Government is currently investing $448 million across ten major capital infrastructure projects in South Australia occurring in Cultana, Woomera, Port Wakefield, Adelaide and here in Edinburgh.
“Through the successful implementation of the Local Industry Capability Plan, the majority of sub-contract packages have been awarded to businesses within the local Adelaide metropolitan area.
“Today Kathleen and I have visited two key infrastructure projects being delivered here in Edinburgh.
“The AIR7000 Phase 2B Maritime Patrol Aircraft Replacement Facilities project being delivered by the Managing Contractor, Lendlease, due for completion in 2020, is seeing more than 83 per cent of the work amounting to $241.8 million of work being done by local contractors.
“Defence’s Explosive Ordnance Logistics Reform program being delivered by the Head Contractor, St Hilliers, again due for completion in 2020 and is seeing 97 per cent of the work amounting to upwards of $12 million being done by local contractors.
“The Morrison Government remains committed to the security of our nation and will further develop our key capabilities here at Edinburgh over the immediate future.
“The proposed AIR555 Phase 1 and AIR7000 Phase 1B projects aimed at enhancing our military intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and electronic warfare capabilities will see an investment of $517.7 million in new facilities at Edinburgh, Townsville and Tindal, with work being completed by 2024.
“The proposed Edinburgh Defence Precinct Mid Term Refresh project will see upwards of $99 million invested in ensuring that the Edinburgh Defence site meets the needs of our new military capabilities, with this work to be completed in early 2022.
“Importantly, through the Coalition’s successful implementation of the Local Industry Capability Plan initiative, founded on feedback from regional businesses, most of this construction work will be tendered for in a way that local companies can bid for and win work – thus delivering value for money and local benefit”, Minister Fawcett said.
Kathleen Bourne observed that “this is yet a further example of the Morrison Government’s demonstrated commitment to the security of our nation being undertaken in a manner that sees the benefits of such investment flowing through to our local businesses and communities, particularly here in Spence”.

Senior Australians are being urged to take up the free enhanced influenza vaccinations available through the Government-funded National Immunisation Program (NIP) as notification rates for the disease soar, compared with last year.
“This flu season has begun and we know older Australians are especially vulnerable,” said Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Ken Wyatt AM.
“In April, there were more than 13,400 confirmed cases of influenza, compared with the five-year average of 1,935 for the month.
“Of the 54 Australians who have died from influenza so far this year, 42 have been aged 65 and over.”
Senior Australians continue to experience a high burden of disease with 75 per cent of influenza-associated deaths in 2018 occurring in people aged 65 years and older.
“It is critical to be immunised against influenza, as the virus mutates year to year” said Minister Wyatt.
“To protect senior Australians, we are making 3.8 million doses of the enhanced vaccine recommended by medical experts for people over 65 years available which is enough for more than 90 per cent of the 65 and older age group.
“This vaccine is specifically targeted, offering the best protection for those aged over 65 years of age.”
Australians eligible for a free flu shot include those aged 65 years and over, all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 6 months and over, and people aged sixth months or older with certain medical conditions which put them at risk of severe influenza.
Pregnant women are also eligible for free flu vaccination which is safe to receive at any stage of pregnancy, to protect both mother and baby.
So far this year, more than 11.4 million doses of the seasonal influenza vaccines have been released for the Australian 2019 influenza season.
“Getting immunised against influenza is easy, through your doctor or local pharmacist,” Minister Wyatt said.
“Last year a record 11 million Australians got a flu shot and I hope everyone joins in and we reach another record this year.”
Through the National Immunisation Program, the Morrison Government provides vaccines at no cost to eligible Australians including children, adolescents, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, pregnant women, and people over 65 years – including those who are residents of aged care facilities – against 17 vaccine-preventable diseases.
In 2018, our Government invested $430 million in vaccines and activities which boost immunisation through the NIP.
A vaccination program to protect against meningococcal ACWY has been added from April 2019, through a $52 million investment from the Morrison Government.
For more information on influenza vaccination and other immunisation see the Department of Health website at: www.health.gov.au/immunisation

A Shorten Labor Government will deliver the single biggest federal investment in a public transport project in history, with a $15 billion, 15 year investment in Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop.
This election will be a choice between a united Shorten Labor Government which will build the essential transport infrastructure Melbourne needs, or more of the Liberals’ cuts and chaos.
We need real change, because more of the same isn’t good enough.
Premier Daniel Andrews announced the Suburban Rail Loop project last year. It will be a 90 kilometre rail ring around Melbourne’s suburbs, with 12 new underground stations connecting the city’s major train lines.
Suburban Rail Loop will be a game changer for Australia’s fastest-growing city. It means faster travel times and more jobs for Victorians.
It will allow passengers to move between Melbourne’s suburbs without the need to go via the central business district, making public transport much quicker and more convenient.
Planners expect the new network will attract 400,000 passengers a day and take 200,000 cars off Melbourne’s roads.
This investment will be delivered over 15 years. It includes the previously announced $5 billion investment in the Melbourne Airport Rail Link and is in addition to $300 million already allocated by Labor to support the development of the business case and progress planning work for the Suburban Rail Loop.
The new investment means that when construction is ready to go in 2022, a
Federal Labor Government will have the funds in the budget to help get it started.
Melbournians expect their Federal Government to support the Suburban Rail Loop. If you don’t back the Suburban Rail Loop, then you’re not backing Melbourne.
Only Labor will build Suburban Rail Loop – a Victorian Labor Government and a Federal Labor Government.
Federal Labor’s commitment to work with the Andrews Labor Government on the Suburban Rail Loop is part of our plan to increase investment in public transport around the nation.
This investment means the Andrews Government will have a real partner in Canberra, so they can get on with delivering the pipeline of transport infrastructure that Victoria needs.
Despite Victoria being home to one in four Australians, the Liberals and Nationals in Canberra have slashed the state’s share of the federal infrastructure budget to as low as seven per cent.
As Treasurer, Scott Morrison cut Victoria’s schools and hospitals, and as
Prime Minister he’s refusing to give Victorians their fair share of infrastructure funding.
Scott Morrison and the Liberals in Canberra are anti-public transport and
anti-Victoria.
End the chaos. Vote for change. Vote for Labor.
Labor can pay for this commitment to the Suburban Rail Loop because we are closing unfair loopholes for multinationals and the top end of town.
Federal Labor’s investment in the Suburban Rail Loop is part of our infrastructure plan for Melbourne, which also includes:

• $2 billion to help deliver the Metro Tunnel.
• Building Victoria’s first fully separated high-speed busway from Doncaster Road to Hoddle Street as part of a $2 billion commitment to the North East Link project.
• More than $1.5 billion to upgrade key roads across Melbourne’s northern and south eastern suburbs.
• $475 million for public transport solutions to serve the needs of
  Monash University and employment precinct.
• $225 million to fast-track the Frankston to Baxter Rail Upgrade.
• Funding for Park and Ride commuter parking upgrades for railway stations across the Melbourne network.

Funding for this commitment has been included in Labor’s Fair Go Budget Plan, available at http://www.alp.org.au/labors_fiscal_plan