16 News

A Shorten Labor Government will reverse Scott Morrison’s $323,000 cut to Foodbank.
Foodbank is a food relief organisation that puts food on the table for hundreds of thousands of Australians in need – many of them children.
The organisation provides 67 million meals a year to charities across the country, as well as more than 1,750 schools. They are Australia’s largest food provider to schools for breakfast programs.
Foodbank does an extraordinary job partnering with the food and grocery industry to recover excess or unsaleable products that can be delivered to Australians in need. They work hard to distribute food and groceries with a value of more than $200 million.
They do not need much support from government, nor do they ask for much.
However, they rely on a relatively small amount of funding from the federal government to ensure there are no gaps in their supply of essential food items each day.
The Liberals’ cut puts Foodbank’s Key Staples Program at risk, which helps provide more than $8 million worth of essential food items for Australians.
This cut comes just six weeks from Christmas, and will be delivered during the holiday period – a difficult time for many vulnerable families.
The Government’s cut will have a major impact on Foodbank’s supplies, and risks compromising their ability to distribute emergency food relief during natural disasters.
It could mean that charities have to cut the number of meals they provide each day, vulnerable families miss out on groceries they rely on, and kids miss out on breakfast at school.
This is all about priorities. The Liberals care more about a tax giveaway to the big banks than helping Australians in need.
Labor urges Scott Morrison to acknowledge his government has made a big mistake and reverse this decision. This is not an issue to be stubborn and arrogant about.
If Mr Morrison refuses to reverse his cut, a Shorten Labor Government will.
Labor will make sure our charities have the resources they need to support our fellow Australians, especially children.

More Paralympic athletes will be given the opportunity to train at Essendon Football Club’s world-class home base, The Hangar, with a Shorten Labor Government to invest $4 million to support the expansion of disability sport programs.
The Essendon Football Club has established a successful partnership with the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC), enabling Paralympic athletes to use the facilities throughout the year.
Labor’s investment will strengthen this partnership with the construction of wheelchair-accessible dormitory accommodation, improving access to facilities at The Hangar for athletes with disabilities, reducing APC program operating costs and providing new opportunities for disability sport participation, and talent identification activities.
The accommodation will support national wheelchair basketball, rugby and table tennis programs and also enable national camps for summer Paralympic sports including football, volleyball, boccia, goalball.
More than 160 additional para-sport athletes will be able to participate and the dormitories will also support multi-sport Para talent development and wheelchair Aussie rules camps.
This investment supports Essendon’s expansion of The Hangar, with new and enhanced facilities and a dedicated space for the APC Sport Hall of Fame to showcase the history of the Paralympic movement in Australia.
This builds on Labor’s record of supporting Paralympians and disability sport access.
In Government, Labor invested $6 million in the ground-breaking partnership between Essendon and the APC, which has seen the club provide the APC with administration, training and recovery facilities at no charge.
This partnership has enabled the APC and partner para-sports to deliver more funding directly to programs supporting Australia’s elite and aspiring athletes with disabilities.
Labor has today committed to invest in further strengthening that partnership, to improve and increase the resources available to Australia’s para-athletes.
Labor’s investment will mean current and future generations of para-sport athletes have access to the world-class facilities and support that matches their world-class talent.

The latest scorecard from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency shows an alarming continuation of the gender pay gap that won’t be closed for decades, Greens spokesperson for women, Senator Larissa Waters said.
“We’ve still got a 16.2 per cent gap in what men and women get paid – it’s clearly still far better to be a bloke in this country when it comes to salary,” Senator Waters said.
“There has been a small, welcome decline overall, but the fact men still earn $25000 more every year on average than women is outrageous.
“There is no good reason for that and the only explanation for it is sexism.”
Senator Waters said the report shows while more employers are conducting pay gap analyses, more than 40 per cent are still not following them up with action.
“The WGEA needs to be given more teeth to force employers to plug the ‘action gap’ once they realise they have a pay gap,” Senator Waters said.
“The Greens’ bill to ban ‘pay gag clauses’ which are used to disguise the gender pay gap would also help, as would our plans to encourage more men to take parental leave, boost women’s financial security and make workplaces more family friendly.
“We need leadership on this issue but instead we have a PM who hasn’t said a word on gender quality, not even on the epidemic of domestic violence which is killing more than one woman a week.
“If Mr Morrison can’t stand up for 50 per cent of the population he has no place being Prime Minister. He should stop delaying his inevitable sacking by the Australian people and call an election.”
There is however a growing increasingly vocal argument that the so-called gender pay gap is simply an invention of those trying to advance their political careers making use of the women’s movement. Other spokes people point to the “lazy” choices that women make during their career and the failure of many women to achieve academically at the same level as men as the real cause of pay disparity. The people pushing this agenda would have women who have both not achieved at the same level paid the same automatically and those who choose family time over their career the same. Put simply women often get paid less because they often work less.
 

Funding cuts to Foodbank are cruel and will be a significant blow to Victoria’s regional communities doing it tough and suffering through drought, say the Greens.
“These cuts are unnecessary and cruel, and they will have a significant impact on people who are struggling in Victoria’s rural and regional communities,” said Senator Janet Rice, Australian Greens agriculture and rural affairs spokesperson.
“We have a government that is going around spruiking how much it’s doing for drought-affected farmers and communities, at the same time they’re slashing funding to Foodbank, which provides 67 million meals per year.”
“More than 1.5 million people living in remote and rural regions have experienced food insecurity in the last twelve months.”
“The reality of these cuts is that people will go hungry.”
“With 3 million Australians categorised as having very low food security, the government should be doing all it can to support programs like Foodbank, not cutting its much-needed funding.”
“It’s coming up to Christmas and families will be going hungry. Where is the Prime Minister’s Christmas spirit?”

The ACCC has instituted Federal Court proceedings against Productivity Partners Pty Ltd, trading as Captain Cook College, alleging systemic unconscionable conduct in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.
The ACCC alleges that from 7 September 2015, Captain Cook College removed consumer safeguards from its enrolment and withdrawal processes for online courses to improve its financial performance.
“We allege that Captain Cook College engaged in systemic unconscionable conduct designed to maximise profit at the expense of their students,” ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said.
“We are very concerned by Captain Cook College’s decision to make process changes that we will submit removed consumer safeguards. We allege that this significantly reduced the College’s ability to detect misconduct by its sales agents and assess a consumer’s suitability or participation in the course they had been enrolled in.”
“We further allege that the removal of consumer safeguards increased the number of students that Captain Cook College enrolled and who remained enrolled, allowing the College to increase VET FEE-HELP payments from the Commonwealth,” Ms Court said.
Approximately 5,500 affected consumers whose enrolment was processed during the period from 7 September 2015 have VET FEE-HELP debt, totalling over $60 million. Around 98% of those 5,500 consumers failed to complete any part of the course they were enrolled in, and around 86% never even logged in to their online course.
In these proceedings, it is also alleged that Captain Cook College made false or misleading representations, engaged in unconscionable conduct and failed to provide unsolicited consumer agreement protections in its dealings with four individual consumers.
The ACCC has also alleged that Ian Cook (former Captain Cook College CEO), Site Group International Limited (Site, the parent company of Captain Cook College) and Blake Wills (former COO of Site) were knowingly concerned in Captain Cook College’s systemic unconscionable conduct.
“We will not hesitate to take appropriate action against businesses and executives who treat consumers unconscionably in breach of the Australian Consumer Law,” Ms Court said.
The ACCC is seeking pecuniary penalties, declarations, corrective notices, adverse publicity orders, finding of fact orders and orders requiring the implementation of a consumer law compliance program, as well as costs. The ACCC is also seeking orders disqualifying Ian Cook and Blake Wills from managing corporations.
Consumers with concerns about their VET provider can contact the VET Student Loans Ombudsman atwww.ombudsman.gov.au/vslo(link is external) and complete the online complaint form.