Category: Australian News

A Shorten Labor Government will create 50 permanent full time Department of Human Services jobs to benefit the South Coast region including in Nowra, Ulladulla and Batemans Bay.
These 50 new, secure jobs will inject up to $3.6 million into the local economy each and every year.
It is a further example of Federal Labor’s commitment to the decentralisation of Commonwealth Government service delivery.
The 50 jobs will include local service delivery and call centre roles that will provide support for people across Australia.
Regional centres like Nowra have been ignored when it comes to decentralising Government service delivery.
The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has turned its back on Gilmore, with a campaign of cuts to Centrelink and Medicare that are leaving Nowra residents waiting longer to receive support.
Medicare and Centrelink services help the Nowra and surrounding communities when they need it the most – when people are sick, processing aged care pensions, child care support, disability support pensions and carers allowance payments.
These jobs will improve access to Medicare and Centrelink and reduce waiting and processing time for older Australians – important services that have been left to deteriorate under the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government.
Income support is complex and that’s why it is important there are properly trained and permanent staff who are familiar with the personal circumstances facing income support recipients.
There are 27,700 age pensioners in Gilmore, who have faced lengthy phone wait times to Centrelink and for their pensions to be approved. There are also nearly 6000 recipients of Carers Allowance, over 7000 recipients of a Disability Support Pension and over 10,000 recipients of Family Tax Benefits in Gilmore – who will all benefit from the increased support as a result of these jobs.
The truth is Centrelink is in crisis under the Morrison Government. It’s under staffed and under resourced.
The Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has cut and outsourced over 2,700 staff from DHS and Centrelink and cut thousands of public sector jobs in regional Australia.
These cuts have coincided with increased Centrelink phone wait times, and income support recipients being pushed to the edge of poverty waiting months for their payments.
These roles will be permanent and full time and staff will be properly trained to assist Australians on income support.
Labor can afford this because we have made the tough decisions to make multinationals pay their fair share of tax and will close tax loopholes used by the top end of town.
We will also clamp down on blowouts in spending on contractors and consultants, and unnecessary and unreasonable travel.
Labor is focused on more jobs and services for Nowra and the South Coast region – we’re listening to the local community and making the investments needed to build a stronger local economy and create genuine job opportunities.

Labor reiterates our call on Thailand to release Hakeem Alaraibi and return him to his family in Australia.
We remain deeply concerned by Mr Alaraibi’s ongoing detention in Thailand and the continuing threat of his extradition to Bahrain.
Senator Wong has raised Hakeem’s case directly with the Ambassador of Thailand and called for his release and return to Australia.
Labor also urges the Prime Minister of Thailand to exercise executive discretion in this case – a discretion that both Thailand’s office of the Attorney-General and the prosecutor have confirmed is allowed under Thailand’s Extradition Act.
Thailand is a good friend of Australia’s. We are confident the Thai people and Government understand the concern so many Australians have for the welfare of a person to whom we have offered sanctuary, and permanent residency.
We wish to thank all those showing their support for Hakeem, including the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, other governments, Mr Alaraibi’s local community in Melbourne and in particular Mr Craig Foster, the Football Federation of Australia, and the broader football community.

The Australian Greens have today released draft terms of reference for a federal Royal Commission into the Murray Darling Basin.
“We know our river is under extreme stress. Fish are dying and people are without clean water to drink. A Royal Commission is clearly warranted. It must be far reaching, take into account the effect the Plan has had on environment and river communities, and include the impact of climate change,” Greens environment and water spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.
“Corporate and political interests have corrupted the Murray Darling Basin. The plan meant to end the water wars and strengthen our most important river system has failed.
“The Murray Darling Basin Authority has been steered towards political and corporate interests, and Australian taxpayers can have little faith that it is doing what it is meant to do.
“The health of river has long since ceased to be a priority, which both the South Australian Royal Commission and the Productivity Commission Report have showed. This has adversely effected regional communities who are watching their river die before their eyes, while governments continue to use drought as a scapegoat.
“South Australians are sick of being blamed for what is mismanagement of the system upstream. I will unashamedly stand up for my state and for a healthy Murray Darling Basin above all else.
“The South Australian Royal Commission was hampered by the Commonwealth, and the other Basin States refusal to participate. Ministers past and present and government agencies were stopped from giving evidence. We need a federal inquiry to hold people to account and drive the reforms we so urgently need.
“In the meantime we need to urgently lift the freeze on water buybacks and get some environmental flows back into the river system. Saving this river is not going to be easy, but if we continue with business as usual it will die. There are no jobs, no river communities and no agriculture on a dead river.
“I will be reaching out to my colleagues ahead of the next sitting of Parliament to discuss these draft terms of reference. If we are to get this river system on track to full health, we need a solution that is supported across party lines, one that leaves no stone unturned.”
Terms of reference

             (1)  The Commission must inquire and advise the Parliament in relation to the following matters:

                     (a)  any misconduct relating to, or affecting, the management of the Basin water resources;

                     (b)  the legislative and administrative framework for implementing, managing and enforcing the Basin Plan;

                     (c)  the impact that the implementation, management and enforcement of the Basin Plan has had on the environment, agriculture and communities that rely on the Basin water resources;

                     (d)  the suitability and effectiveness of the existing legislative and administrative framework for the management of the Basin water resources, including any adverse effects that framework has had on the management of the Basin water resources (whether or not those effects are the result of misconduct);

                     (e)  the allocation of funds by the Commonwealth and the Basin States to implement the Basin Plan, and the impact of funded projects (including water buybacks and efficiency measures) in facilitating environmental watering in the Murray-Darling Basin;

                      (f)  the likely impact of climate change to the Basin water resources, and any appropriate measures to take to adapt those resources in light of that impact;

                     (g)  any matter reasonably incidental to a matter mentioned in the above paragraphs.

             (2)  Without limiting paragraph (1)(a), misconduct includes any conduct of a person or body (whether or not a public agency):

                     (a)  that adversely affects, or that could adversely affect, either directly or indirectly, the honest or impartial performance or exercise of a public agency’s functions or powers; or

                     (b)  that constitutes or involves an offence against a law of the Commonwealth or a law of the State; or

                     (c)  that constitutes or involves a contravention of a civil penalty provision under a law of the Commonwealth or of a State; or

                     (d)  that would attract any other penalty under a law of the Commonwealth or a State, including a breach of a standard or licence condition; or

                     (e)  that constitutes or involves breach of trust, fraud in office, nonfeasance, misfeasance, malfeasance, oppression, extortion or imposition.

             (3)  The Commission is not required to inquire, or to continue to inquire, into a particular matter to the extent that it is satisfied that the matter has been, is being, or will be, sufficiently and appropriately dealt with by:

                     (a)  another inquiry or investigation; or

                     (b)  a criminal or civil proceeding.

             (4)  In inquiring and advising in accordance with subsection (1), the Commission may give priority to matters which, in the Commission’s opinion, have greater potential for harm.

Australian Greens Disability Rights spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John has welcomed Prime Minister Morrison’s commitment to funding paralympic sport, but said that the funding was ever in question is just another example of government playing politics with disabled people.
“The Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) had to put in a submission – which was way back in October last year – requesting funding for the Tokyo 2020 campaign and the long-term sustainability of grassroots disabled sport in Australia,” Steele-John said.
“Why was this funding ever even in doubt? The Olympic team recieve hundreds of millions of dollars every four years and even more is dumped into Australian sport, yet the APC have to put in a submission just to get a single cent!
“It’s great that Scott Morrision has announced today $12 million for the APC, but I’m disappointed that this essential – and frankly bare minimum – funding has come in the form of an election promise.
“If the Prime Minister was truly committed to advancing paralympic sport, and opportunities for disabled people in sport, then he would have made the commitment back in October. Once again, this is a government playing politics with disabled people as it continues to do with a Royal Commission into the violence, abuse and neglect of disabled people in institutional and residential settings.
“When it comes to a major international sporting event like the paralympic games, certainty is everything in the planning process and 5 months is a bloody long time!
“The Australian Greens made a commitment to fund the $15.85 million asked for as soon as we met with representatives of the APC back in October. Proper funding goes part of the way towards bridging that gap, ending discrimination and helping more disabled Australians get into sport!”

Reports of more rare and endangered birds being exported to Germany and into the hands of a convicted criminal must be investigated urgently, the Greens say.
“The Federal Government should never have given permits to allow the trade of rare and endangered birds with a person convicted of fraud and kidnapping. It must be investigated and exports of rare and endangered birds must halt,” Greens environment and trade spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.
“The Environment Department has some serious questions to answer. The fact that this export permit has not been cancelled since this trade was exposed is an appalling oversight of the Department. I will be using estimates hearings in two weeks to probe how on earth this happened and what the Department and the Minister are going to do to fix it.
“The Morrison Government cannot be trusted with the preservation or restoration of our environment. Our beautiful, rare, endangered wildlife should not be traded for profit, they must be protected here in Australia where they belong.
“We need an urgent independent inquiry into how these rare and endangered birds have ended up in the hands of a convicted criminal in Germany.”