Category: Australian News

It has been three years since the Disability Royal Commission (DRC) handed down its recommendations, yet experts say only 3 – 7% of reform recommendations have been implemented. The evidence for reform remains strong. For example, the employment rate for people with disability sits 26 percentage points below the employment rate of non-disabled people.
The DRC ran 2019 – 2023 and made comprehensive recommendations across a wide range of areas such as education, employment, housing, health and justice.  While there have been some moves towards reforms, including law reforms, the vast majority of recommendations remain unimplemented.
Professor Alastair McEwin AM was one of the six Commissioners who led the DRC and says extensive consultation was completed as part of the DRC but now the recommendations need to be implemented.
“Thousands of Australians with a disability shared their experiences with the DRC. The focus now should be on ensuring that these contributions lead to meaningful and lasting change rather than becoming another report on the shelf,” he said. “Change only comes when people continually push for it. So, I am calling on all levels of government and institutions to champion that change.”
Prof McEwin is Professor of Practice in Disability, UNSW, working with the Pro Vice-Chancellor Inclusion and the Director, Disability Innovation Institute.  Based on his experience as Commissioner, he brings his expertise to influencing and developing policies and practices for greater societal inclusion of disabled people. 
The Commonwealth Attorney General has reviewed the DRC recommendations on reforming the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and draft legislation is now being considered.  However, many other areas are far from reform. The 56% employment rate of disabled people has hardly changed in decades compared to the 82% employment rate for non-disabled people in employment.
Only around 34% of Australians with disability have completed Year 12 or equivalent, compared with around 66% of Australians without disability.
Prof McEwin said the recommendations focused on a wide range of public policy areas and yet public debate has tended to focus on NDIS.
“Inclusion extends well beyond the individualised disability funding approach that the NDIS provides,” he said.  “Equal access to education, employment, transport, housing, health care and community participation all contribute to an inclusive society.”
Prof McEwin will be hosting a variety of events at UNSW’s Diversity Festival this month, including a panel discussion called, Do Disabled People Really Belong In Our Community? Joining him will be Megan Spindler-Smith, Acting CEO of People with Disability Australia (PWDA), and Emma Bennison CEO of Disability Advocacy Network Australia (DANA). They will tackle the implications of changes to the NDIS and the 2026 Federal Budget, including what they may mean for inclusion and belonging in the community for people with a disability.

The Victorian Greens say Labor has brought international shame on Victoria after the United Nations warned its plan to demolish and privatise all 44 of Melbourne’s public housing towers could violate the human right to housing.

The Greens say the extraordinary UN intervention exposes Labor’s housing agenda for what it is – evicting public housing residents, ripping communities apart, bulldozing public homes and carving up valuable public land for private development in the middle of a housing crisis.

After years of Labor dismissing residents, ignoring advocates and refusing to justify why every tower must be demolished, the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing has now condemned the lack of meaningful consultation and warned the demolitions could make Victoria’s housing crisis even worse.

The Greens say that Labor’s plan is an international human rights disgrace and that Premier Ben Carroll needs to finally admit it and scrap this plan that’s been a total disaster from day one. 

Victorian Greens housing spokesperson, Gabrielle de Vietri: 

“Labor should be utterly ashamed. Their attack on public housing has now become an international human rights disgrace.

“Labor has become the party of bulldozers, evictions and privatisation.They have treated public housing residents as disposable and public land as something to be carved up for developers.

“In the middle of the worst housing crisis in generations, when people are sleeping in cars, rents are crushing families and tens of thousands of Victorians are waiting desperately for a public home, Labor’s answer is to destroy public housing.

“The Greens will stop Labor’s demolition agenda, keep public housing land in public hands and build the tens of thousands of public homes Victoria desperately needs.” 

Concerns are being raised that Labor Premier Chris Minns’ response to recent murders from organised crime will do more to erode civil liberties than stop organised criminals, following an announcement today of tougher criminal penalties for children and young people and a $15 million investment in phone-cracking technology.  

Greens MP, solicitor and spokesperson for Justice Sue Higginson said, “This is the Chris Minns law and order spin formula that we have seen since he came to power. The only thing this Premier seems capable of doing in response to horrific criminal behaviour is erode civil liberties, increase police powers and lock up more children and young people. 

“Under the Minns Labor Government police have been given increased powers, the number of kids and young people in prison has increased at record rates, and more people are being arrested and incarcerated than ever before. This approach has failed to stop recent criminal murders or address the causes of organised crime, and the exact same law-and-order approach will simply keep failing,  

“If we are investing $15 million to hack more phones and give police further access to messages, images, location markers and other sensitive information, we must also increase the independent oversight to safeguard against improper use of this invasive technology. This announcement comes amidst increasing community concern about Cellebrite, the Israeli spyware firm run by ex-IDF soldiers who provide phone-hacking technology to police, 

“The Premier’s ‘adult crime, adult time’ rhetoric helps no one, and appears to be a shameless attempt to beat One Nation in a race to the bottom based on zero evidence, 

“We need targeted and evidence-based solutions to combat organised crime developed in consultation with experts, not an escalation from Chris Minns’ media unit. We need to take serious action on social media algorithms, drug law reform, systemic disadvantage and inequality and diversion and rehabilitation for children engaged in criminal behaviour. Instead, we are locking up kids and expanding state surveillance,” Ms Higginson said.  

Labor has covertly extended the life of its racist and failed compulsory income management regime today, joining with the Coalition to kill off a Greens attempt to put an end to this cruel program.

In April 2022, federal Labor made an election commitment to scrap compulsory income management. Two elections in, and Labor has instead extended compulsory income management indefinitely. The Government also refuses to release the documents from the apparent consultation they’ve been conducting since 2023.

The Greens’ disallowance, moved by Senator Allman-Payne, sought to oppose the Social Security (Administration) Legislation Amendment (Income Management and Enhanced Income Management) Instrument 2026 (the Instrument). Labor’s Social Services Minister, Minister Tanya Plibersek, registered the Instrument on 24 June 2026 which removed the self-repealing clauses for four income management determinations that Labor made in 2023, effectively extending compulsory income management indefinitely.

Senator Allman-Payne is chairing the current Community Affairs References Committee’s review into the Instrument. As of 7 September, the majority of the submissions to the committee oppose the deeply unfair and targeted compulsory income management scheme and call for a transition to a voluntary system. 

Greens spokesperson on Social Services, Senator Penny Allman-Payne:

“Labor has today extended a failed, racist and coercive policy indefinitely, despite pledging to abolish it.

“Labor won’t release their own consultation because it’ll tell them what they already know: that compulsory income management doesn’t work, that it harms people, and that it must be abolished and replaced with a truly voluntary system.

“Compulsion, fear and racism should never be part of a genuine safety net. Social security must instead champion equality, human rights and the right to choose what income management works for you.” 

Labor is now openly divided over Australia’s failed tobacco excise regime, with NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns calling for the tobacco tax to be cut while Anthony Albanese continues to stick his head in the sand.

Speaking on Sky News this morning, Premier Minns said the current tax settings were not working and were helping fuel the illegal tobacco market.

Asked whether he still supported cutting tobacco excise, Mr Minns said:

Chris Minns: “Yes, I think it’s perversely driving a situation where you’re seeing more people not less people smoking because they’ve got access to readily available cheap cigarettes. It’s in the black market, it’s being organised by criminals, it’s not working. It’s the opposite of the intended policy.”

Mr Minns went further, saying the current tax settings were making it harder for police to permanently shut down organised crime gangs.

Chris Minns: “If the demand is there as a result of the tax settings it’s very difficult to do it permanently.”

The comments expose a deepening split within Labor after the Prime Minister repeatedly refused in Parliament yesterday to answer questions about organised crime and refused to rule out cutting tobacco excise.

Now the Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino has joined them.

In a trainwreck interview on Sky News this morning, Mr Mulino admitted he did not know about a reported tobacco-related firebombing in his own electorate.

Pete Stefanovic: “Wasn’t there another firebombing in your own electorate on the weekend?”

Daniel Mulino: “Look, I don’t know about that.”

When asked directly whether the Government could guarantee it would not cut tobacco excise, Mr Mulino also refused.

Pete Stefanovic: “But can you guarantee that you will not cut the excise down?”

Daniel Mulino: “No, so we’re not getting into rule-in, rule-out games on this.”

The contrast could not be clearer.

Chris Minns can see the current system is failing. Police can see it. Communities dealing with firebombings and organised crime can see it.

Anthony Albanese refuses to see it.

Australia’s illicit tobacco market has become a serious organised crime problem, with gangs making an estimated $4.1 billion to $6.9 billion and using the proceeds to fund drugs, scams, money laundering, extortion and violence.

At the same time, tobacco excise revenue has fallen from around $16 billion in 2019-20 to around $8 billion, while organised crime collects billions instead.

Coalition analysis shows that if the average of the six excise write-downs since Labor’s first Budget update is repeated at the December MYEFO, tobacco excise revenue would fall to zero by 2029-30.

Anthony Albanese needs to stop pretending the current policy is working and start listening to his own Labor Premier.

The Coalition has a plan to smash the business model of organised crime by cutting tobacco excise by 80 per cent, backing it with stronger law enforcement and driving consumers away from the illegal market.

You do not smash organised crime by protecting its business model. You destroy the business model.

The Albanese Government is taking the next step following its world leading social media age ban to ensure Australians have more choice online, with draft legislation for the Digital Duty of Care released today for targeted consultation.

These new laws will put the onus on digital service providers to provide a safe online environment, setting minimum standards for the features and tools they use.

This will include an Australian first, “My Feed, My Way,” initiative which will give Australians control over their social media algorithms.

Social media platforms will be required to send a notification to new and existing users offering them a choice over their default feed.

Users can choose to opt in to having their default feed include personalised content recommended by the algorithm. Alternatively, users can opt out of personally recommended content in their default feed and see the friends and creators they choose to follow.

This will give Australians greater choice over their platforms and what they see.

Further, digital services like online games, apps and AI chatbots will be required to protect under 18s from design features that have negative behavioural impacts, like addictive features or those that can have an effect on a young person’s self-esteem.

They will also be required to protect under 18s from harmful content like: 

• content that promotes, encourages or accelerates eating disorders
• content that promotes hostile ideas about women and gender equality
• pornography
• content that glorifies crime or life endangering stunts
• content that causes serious mental health distress, including abuse and bullying.

Australians will benefit from better protection from seriously harmful and illegal content across digital services, and social media users will be afforded more choice.

The draft laws provide eSafety with the power to issue removal notices for nudify apps or websites, and streamline the child cyber-bulling and adult cyber abuse schemes to enable eSafety to deal more quickly with this harmful material.

Digital platforms will be required to document the measures taken to address identified risks of harm to Australian users and ensure these measures remain effective over time.

Failure to comply with the Duty of Care could attract penalties of up to $109.2 million, with the independent eSafety Commissioner responsible for compliance and enforcement.

The Government is seeking feedback from digital platforms, industry bodies, civil society organisations and advocates on the draft laws, with legislation to be introduced to Parliament this year.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

“This is not about giving government control, it is about giving people control.

“Today we are releasing the government’s approach to give Australians choice over their online experience, “My Feed, My Way.”

“Australia is leading the world with our social media age ban and online safety approach.

“This work has been led by parents and advocates and we have backed them. We will continue to do so.”

Minister for Communications Anika Wells

“Just as we have basic safety standards for cars, toys or food, the duty of care applies basic standards for the online products we use every day.

“The duty of care goes beyond social media to ensure children are protected from harmful content and features, including on chatbots and gaming platforms, apps and messaging platforms.

“It will also give parents the tools they need to keep their family safe online.

“When it comes to social media, Australians over the age of 16 will be able to opt in or opt out of the algorithm easily. The duty of care will require platforms to give users over 16 choice on what feed they see when they open the app – and to respect that choice.

“The digital duty of care will ensure online service providers – including some of the most powerful companies in the world – step up and do more to keep Australians safe from harm on their platforms.”

Family First National Director and NSW Legislative Council candidate Lyle Shelton is calling for Wear It Purple Day to be removed from Australian schools, saying classrooms—particularly primary classrooms—are no place for promoting radical LGBTQA+ sexual and gender-fluid ideology to children.
 
The call follows The Daily Telegraph’s report today that veteran ACT public school principal Janelle Rowe was driven from a 34-year teaching career after a bitter disciplinary dispute that began after she resisted promoting Wear It Purple Day at her primary school.
 
Mr Shelton said Ms Rowe should be applauded for putting the best interests of children and the rights of parents first.
 
“Janelle Rowe should be regarded as a hero for having the courage to say what countless Australian parents are thinking: four-year-olds do not need LGBTQA+ sexual and gender concepts introduced to them at school,” Mr Shelton said.
 
“If I’m elected to the NSW Parliament next March, I will introduce legislation to remove gender fluid and LGBTQA+ sexual indoctrination of children from schools,” Mr Shelton said.
 
“Schools should teach children to treat every person with dignity and respect and should have zero tolerance for bullying.
 
“But that does not require schools to promote harmful ideas about sexuality and gender identity to infants and primary-school children.
 
“Wear It Purple Day should be banned from Australian schools, not the brave teachers who call it out.”
 
According to The Daily Telegraph, Ms Rowe sought to replace Wear It Purple Day with Bullying No Way Week, which she considered a more age-appropriate and inclusive approach to addressing bullying.
 
Ms Rowe told the newspaper that matters surrounding sexuality and gender for children aged four to 12 belonged primarily with parents and families, rather than teachers.
 
The newspaper reported that after Ms Rowe resisted the event she was called into head office, faced concerns about her professional performance, was placed under supervision and was directed to celebrate Wear It Purple Day.
 
Her lawyer, Human Rights Law Alliance managing director John Steenhof, told the Telegraph that documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws contained highly positive assessments of Ms Rowe’s previous performance, including descriptions of her as “outstanding” and “highly capable”.
 
Mr Shelton said the case raised serious questions about ideological conformity within education bureaucracies.
 
“A principal with 34 years of experience should be free to say that sexual and gender ideology is inappropriate for four-year-olds without fearing for her career,” Mr Shelton said.
 
“Parents send their children to school to learn literacy, numeracy, science, history and the other foundations of a good education—not to have schools insert themselves into deeply personal questions of sexuality and gender identity.
 
“Respecting people who identify as LGBT does not require schools to teach children that sex is fluid or that gender identity can override biological reality.
 
“Children should be protected from adult ideological battles, not recruited into them.
 
“Education ministers across Australia should act. Keep Wear It Purple Day out of schools, restore parental primacy and allow teachers and principals to concentrate on educating children.
 
“Sadly the education unioss has ceased to be an employee representative body and become an activist organisation because it’s refusing to stand up for a member in a fight with the department.”

I am pleased to announce Natasha Stott Despoja AC has been appointed Deputy Commissioner of the independent Defence and Veteran Service Commission (DVSC) to lead the inquiry into Military Sexual Violence as recommended by the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.

As a former Royal Commissioner for South Australia’s Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence, Ms Stott Despoja is exceptionally well credentialed to lead work to better protect ADF members from the threat of sexual violence.

Ms Stott Despoja served as Australia’s Ambassador for Women and Girls from 2013 to 2016 and she continues to be a leading international voice for the prevention of sexual violence.

The Inquiry responds to Recommendation 25 of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, which heard extensive, harrowing evidence from serving and ex-serving ADF members of the impact of sexual violence. 

Those who wear our uniform might expect to face threats to their safety on the battlefield, but never from those whom they serve alongside.

The Inquiry will begin later this year and run for around 12 months, with a final report to be made public. 

Terms of Reference can be found at: www.dvsc.gov.au/resources/military-sexual-violence-terms-reference. 

As the Military Sexual Violence Inquiry Deputy Commissioner, Ms Stott Despoja will convene and preside over hearings, and engage with a wide range of stakeholders, witnesses and officials. This includes those with lived and living experiences around military sexual violence.

The Inquiry will make recommendations to improve prevention and early intervention, protections for victim-survivors of military sexual violence, ensure perpetrators are held to account and advance a victim-centric approach within the ADF. Consistent with the DVSC’s role as an oversight body, the Inquiry will not investigate or make recommendations about specific cases of sexual violence, current or historical.

Australia will deploy a team of specialist drone operators to contribute to Nepal’s search and rescue effort and boost our humanitarian support package following the catastrophic floods.

The team, including members of Fire and Rescue New South Wales and the Queensland Fire Department, will depart in the coming days as part of a 15-person Disaster Assistance Response Team. They will use advanced drone technology to provide rapid mapping and imaging to support Nepali authorities’ search operations.

In response to Australia’s ongoing offers of assistance, the Government of Nepal has now requested this support. We stand ready to provide further search, rescue and recovery assistance.

The latest deployment is in addition to the 19 Australian personnel already dispatched to Nepal to support the crisis response, including consular and humanitarian officers, Australian Federal Police and Defence personnel.

38 Australians remain unaccounted for. Australian officials are working closely with authorities in Nepal and China to support efforts to establish their whereabouts and provide assistance to their families.

The conditions facing search and recovery teams remain extremely challenging. Communications are difficult, infrastructure has been destroyed and many areas are still difficult to reach.

Australians have responded to the disaster in Nepal with extraordinary generosity, with over $4 million donated to the Emergency Action Alliance that is providing critical support for recovery efforts.

In response, the Australian Government will provide a further $3 million to match public donations.

This contribution will enable the delivery of vital shelter, water, sanitation and healthcare, as well as providing children with desperately needed temporary learning spaces.

It brings the Australian Government’s ongoing humanitarian support package to a total of $11 million.

Australians wishing to donate can visit emergencyaction.org.au.

Our thoughts remain with all those waiting for news of family and friends, and with the search and rescue teams working in extraordinarily difficult circumstances.

The Australian Government continues to do everything we can to confirm the welfare of those who remain unaccounted for and support their families and loved ones.

The eighth and final hearing of the Greens-led Senate inquiry into intergenerational housing inequity, held in Canberra today, heard evidence that the big four banks are big winners in the housing crisis while renters and first homebuyers lose out.

The committee heard that rent is outpacing wage growth, with many more people renting today than 30 years ago because it takes much longer to save for a deposit. 

It also heard that the big four banks made over $30 billion dollars in net profit in the last financial year (CBA $11 billion, Westpac $6.9 billion, NAB $6.759 billion, ANZ $5.9 billion).

Over the life of an average 30 year owner-occupier mortgage, the big four banks make nearly $229,000 in profit.

The Greens say the banks are doing well at everyone else’s expense and that’s on Labor.

Greens spokesperson for finance, housing and homelessness and Senator for South Australia, Barbara Pocock:

“Despite house prices coming down, the housing market is still cooked – because Labor’s still putting corporate profits ahead of renters and first homebuyers. We heard today how the big banks are making billions off the housing crisis, while homeowners and renters lose out.

“While people with a mortgage are facing yet another rate rise, and rents keep soaring, the big banks aren’t feeling the pain.. The big four banks – CBA, NAB, Westpac and ANZ – made a profit of $30 billion dollars in the last financial year. 

“Meanwhile renters across the country face astronomical rent prices and low vacancy rates, with many renters just one rent hike away from losing everything. Because renters don’t have a buffer, they are the buffer for landlords. That’s why the Greens have been calling for rent caps to protect renters from unfair rate hikes. 

“What stands out in this inquiry are the numerous layers of housing inequity, both intergenerational and intragenerational, and how governments just don’t care about renters and the growing number of people sleeping rough.

“The housing system we have, created by successive Labor and coalition governments, was deliberately designed to benefit corporate greed, the banks, property developers and investors, not ordinary people simply trying to get by.

“A 4% fall in house prices is very little comfort to a first homebuyer. It is nowhere near enough when we look at the long trajectory of a 400% increase in house prices in so many Australian cities and regional towns in the last 30 years.  

“Tax changes alone were never going to cut it. Labor needs to take on corporate greed in the housing market by taxing big corporations, build more public homes like Australia used to, and end grandfathering for wealthy property investors.

“Millions of households are doing it tough, while the banks profit on the housing crisis, and Labor is making it worse.” 

Public hearing link