Category: Australian News

Young Australians will be inspired to dream big and consider a space career, with the launch of the Australian Space Discovery Centre in Adelaide.
Located in the innovation precinct of Lot Fourteen, the Australian Space Discovery Centre will showcase hands-on interactive space exhibits and provide practical advice for those wanting to pursue a career in the growing space sector.
There is also a state-of-the-art Mission Control Centre on site, which will simultaneously inspire people who visit, while also making it easier for local start-ups to control satellites and space missions.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Australian Space Discovery Centre will be the number one place to visit for those interested in Australia’s space industry.
“The Australian Space Discovery Centre will be the go-to destination for curious minds to learn about the wonders of space and to see themselves as part of Australia’s space story,” the Prime Minister said.
“But the Discovery Centre isn’t just for the young and the young at heart – the cutting-edge Mission Control Centre will enable our local space businesses to track and control their very own missions and satellites, providing critical new capability here on home soil.”
South Australian Premier Steven Marshall said the Australian Space Discovery Centre and Mission Control cemented South Australia as the space capital of Australia.
“The Federal Government has an ambition to grow the size of the Australian space economy to $12 billion by 2030 and create an additional 20,000 jobs,” said the Premier.
“South Australia will lead this charge – and that’s a coup for our state. Young South Australians should have stars in their eyes.”
Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Christian Porter said the exciting national facilities are an investment in Australia’s future – including future jobs in space and other industries.
“Careers in space aren’t all about being an astronaut. From manufacturing, to engineering, space medicine, geology, AI and computing, there are thousands of opportunities being created in this rapidly-growing sector – and we want to inspire the next generation to consider one of these exciting jobs,” Minister Porter said.
Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts Paul Fletcher said that space was at the heart of a 10-year agreement to grow Adelaide as an innovative and vibrant city.
“The Adelaide City Deal sets out a plan to boost the economic and social vibrancy of Adelaide. The Discovery Centre and Mission Control Centre at Lot Fourteen will be an important part of this plan,” Minister Fletcher said.
Head of the Australian Space Agency Enrico Palermo said the Mission Control Centre was part of the Agency’s Space Infrastructure Fund, targeting investment in common-user platforms to allow Australian businesses and researchers to focus on space-related solutions.
“We are establishing infrastructure for critical space flight and engineering capability. Companies and researchers at university will be able to utilise the Mission Control Centre for pre-flight testing, launch support, as well as communications during flight,” Mr Palermo said.
The Australian Space Discovery Centre will open to the general public in May following rigorous testing with community groups and other organisations throughout April. The Centre is being delivered in partnership between the Australian Space Agency and Questacon.
Since 1 July 2018, the Morrison Government has invested over $700 million into the Australian civil space sector as part of our goal to triple the sector’s size to $12 billion and create up to an extra 20,000 jobs by 2030.

The Greens say the Prime Minister’s reshuffle is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic and won’t fix entrenched cultural and systemic issues in parliament or improve the lives of Australian women.
Greens leader in the Senate and spokesperson on women Larissa Waters said:
“A whole one additional woman in Cabinet will not change the rank and sexist culture in this government, the Liberal Party, or the parliament.
“How is it possible that after all that has happened over the past few weeks, Christian Porter and Linda Reynolds remain in the Cabinet? If the PM thinks moving Porter to a different ministry will make Australian women forget the allegations against him he’s reading us wrong, again.
“The PM has shown that once again, his priority is to his mates, not women or victims and survivors of violence.
“If the PM was serious about fixing the culture in parliament he would appoint a Cabinet of 50% women, and ensure that it also reflected the diversity of our community by including people of colour and people of differing abilities, races and religions.
“The newly announced Cabinet taskforce on women’s equality, safety, economic security, health and wellbeing should start with reinstating the women’s budget impact statement axed by Tony Abbott in 2014. For decades prior to that the statement had applied an essential gender lens on all budget decisions.
“That taskforce should also implement all 55 of the Respect@Work recommendations, fully fund frontline domestic violence and sexual assault services, legislate to end the gender pay gap, strengthen sexual harassment laws, make early childhood education free, build enough social housing and fund and resource compulsory whole-of-school consent training in all schools nationwide.
“These are practical and material steps that this government can be taking right now to end gender inequality, stop gendered violence and improve the lives of all Australian women.
“We need more action and fewer press conferences.”

I am honoured the Prime Minster has today appointed me as Attorney General and Minister for Industrial Relations.
As Attorney-General, I will, among many tasks, work closely with Senator Amanda Stoker to finalise the Government’s response to the Respect@Work report.
In my role as Industrial Relations Minister, I look forward to working with all stakeholders to ensure that employers, in particular small businesses, and their employees are given better access to information about their rights and responsibilities. This will help create greater confidence for small business to employ more Australians.
I want to thank my predecessor the Hon Christian Porter MP for his work in the Attorney General and Industrial Relations portfolios.
As Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business I am extremely proud of my record. As Employment Minister, I worked with colleagues to oversee the largest return in jobs, following the short and sharp recession caused by the covid-19 pandemic. I am also proud to have initiated the overhaul and modernisation of our employment services system to create more efficient and better outcomes for job seekers.
It was an honour to serve as Minister for Skills where skills reforms agreed by the National Cabinet have been progressed and I thank my State and Territory counterparts for the constructive way we have engaged on these reforms.
The success of the Morrison Government apprenticeship wage subsidies has seen more than 120,000 apprentices remain in their jobs and created over 100,000 new apprenticeship and trainee opportunities.
Finally, in the Small and Family Business area, I have implemented a number of landmark reforms to support small businesses to prosper, grow and hire more Australians. This includes improving small business cash flow through the Payment Times Reporting Scheme and Procurement Connected Policy and access to finance through the Australian Business Securitisation Fund and the Australian Business Growth Fund.
With these achievements, and a record number of Australians in employment, I believe my successor the Hon Stuart Robert MP will be able to continue to deliver good outcomes for all Australians.
 
Scott Morrison

Under a Greens shared power parliament Australia will strive to generate 700% of existing electricity demand with renewables, Adam Bandt MP has declared, outlining a key electoral policy ahead of the launch of a new policy vision document this weekend.
Part of a pitch to voters in Queensland this weekend, this policy will be a key part of Greens election campaigning in the coming months ahead of the election.
These key policies will be focused on combating inequality, and be central to any negotiation in a power sharing Parliament, which is the most likely outcome after the election, with the Greens in the balance of power in the House and the Senate.
This 700% renewable energy target would have Australia generate all of its domestic electricity needs through wind, solar, and other renewables, with a massive green energy surplus to electrify the rest of our economy, grow energy intensive manufacturing sectors like green steel and aluminium and power new export industries in green hydrogen.
At this week’s Senate Estimates, Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) boss Darren Miller reconfirmed the agency’s assertion that 700% renewables was an achievable goal.
With severe weather events – made more frequent and powerful by climate change – causing death and destruction, the Greens want to make renewables and global heating a significant election issue.
Meeting this 700% goal will require major leadership from the Commonwealth including:

• A $20 billion Grid Transformation Fund starting with implementation of AEMO’s Integrated System Plan
• A major public investment in renewable energy generation and storage in renewable energy zones
• A clean energy and green materials government procurement program and a renewable export strategy.
• An accelerated electrification plan for transport, buildings and industry

Quotes attributable to Greens Leader Adam Bandt:
“At the next election Labor is very unlikely to win majority government in its own right, but with the Greens in balance of power we can turf the Liberals out and take the action voters demand on the climate crisis and economic inequality,” Mr Bandt said.
“700% renewables means not just 100% renewable electricity as we replace coal and gas power stations, but switching transport, buildings and industry to clean energy too, as well as exporting our renewable energy to the rest of the world through renewable hydrogen, solar electricity and green metals.
“In a shared power government, the Greens will push for Australia to generate 700% renewable energy, turning Australia into a renewable energy superpower, exporting clean energy to the world and fighting the climate crisis.
“There’s no time to waste. We are in a climate emergency that threatens to catastrophically overwhelm our society and economy. Under the Liberals, we’re also failing to take advantage of a renewable energy revolution that could create hundreds of thousands of jobs exporting Australia’s sun and wind to power our region with clean, green energy.
“On current trajectories, clean energy exports will eclipse our coal exports to India within a generation. That is $11b by 2040, but it’s still a shade of what’s possible without the Liberals in charge. Imagine what we could achieve if we had a government that wasn’t backed by the fossil fuel industry.
“Over the next decade, we need to rapidly transition our power grid to wind and solar backed by storage, and electrify our transport, industry, businesses and homes to run on clean energy.
“We will attract massive new international investment in clean manufacturing and industries to Australia.
“This clean energy revolution will create hundreds of thousands of well-paid, long-term jobs, enabling workers in fossil fuel industries in QLD and elsewhere to transition and farmers to be paid to farm carbon and protect the land.
“To unlock this revolution the government will need to lead the way with public investment in renewable generation, storage and transforming the power grid.
“Putting in 110% effort to stop the climate crisis is no longer enough. Let’s aim for 700%.”

The Greens will today announce key election policies, including a ‘billionaires tax’ to help fund genuinely free public schools, dental into Medicare and a job for everyone who wants one.
With the party considering an election in November of this year still a possibility and a minority parliament the most likely outcome, Mr Bandt will push for a tax on billionaires & corporate super profits as part of dealings with a future shared power government.
Leader Adam Bandt, Greens Deputy Leader and Senator for Queensland Larissa Waters and local Greens candidate Max Chandler-Mather will speak with voters in Griffith today about how the policies will reduce inequality and improve their lives.
The policy is part of the Greens’ ‘Fight for the Future’ plan being launched today, a vision statement for the next decade that outlines 15 key policies the Greens will take to the upcoming election, including:

• A treaty with First Nations people
• A billionaire’s tax and a corporate super profit tax
• A Jobs and Income guarantee
• Bringing dental and mental health into Medicare
• Restoring fee free education to public schools, universities and TAFE
• A goal of 700% renewable energy, creating a jobs bonanza in renewables exports

The Greens will aim to win 3 new Senate seats and will target up to nine Liberal and Labor lower house seats at the next election, including Griffith, with success in any seat strengthening the Greens’ balance of power position and the likelihood of a minority government after the next election.
The Greens will seek to elevate economic issues as part of their campaign to win lower house seats, attributing their continued success in Melbourne and recently in the state seat of South Brisbane (which sits within Griffith) in large part to providing a clear progressive alternative on issues like schools, healthcare and jobs.
A 6% annual wealth tax on billionaires will help fund genuinely fee-free public schools, free dental care by getting dental into Medicare and a ‘jobs and income guarantee’, which will lift the Jobseeker rate above the poverty line to $80 a day and fund government employment programs.
With two million people without jobs or enough work, the jobs and income guarantee will ensure that everyone who wants a secure and well paid job will get one working on exciting, planet-saving, nation-building programs in industries that will tackle the climate emergency and build a more creative, inclusive and caring society.
The Parliamentary Budget Office has concluded that the billionaire’s tax will raise over $40b in the next ten years, a figure that could be higher if billionaires could be pursued for the full entrant of their wealth.
Quotes attributable to Adam Bandt MP, Leader of the Australian Greens:
“The next election will be closer than people think. At the last election, Australia was only 828 votes away from a minority Parliament. At the next election, people can kick the Liberals out and put the Greens in balance of power in both Houses of Parliament, where we will push the next government to go further and faster on tackling inequality and the climate crisis.
“In balance of power, the Greens will make billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share of tax to help put dental into Medicare, get rid of public school fees and give a decent job to everyone who wants one on planet-saving, nation-building projects.
“The Liberals are turbocharging inequality and the Labor Party’s national conference is sounding the retreat on big reforms.
“Billionaires and the big corporations have been buying influence over the Liberal and Labor parties with political donations, which is how they avoid paying tax, keep wages low, send their profits offshore and keep on polluting.
“While everyone else has been doing it tough during the pandemic, the billionaires have been making out like bandits.
“If we want to fight inequality and the climate crisis, we need to tackle the wealth and power of the billionaires and the big corporations and make them pay their fair share.”
Quotes attributable to Senator Nick McKim, Greens Economic Justice spokesperson:
“Billionaires massively increased their wealth during a pandemic, while hundreds of thousands of people lost their job or had their hours slashed at work.
“They have amassed truly obscene amounts of wealth, often through companies that have plundered our natural environment and made the climate emergency worse.
“The very least they can do is start paying their fair share of tax.”

Find out more about the Greens’ plans:

• greens.org.au/future
• greens.org.au/taxthebillionaires

There is new hope for thousands of Australians living with breast cancer, lung cancer, osteoporosis and asthma with landmark new and amended medicines listings on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) from 1 April.
Breast cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer death in Australia and the second most common cause of death from cancer among women. In 2020, it was estimated that over 19,900 new cases of breast cancer were diagnosed.
From 1 April, Kisqali® (ribociclib) is having its listing expanded on the PBS to be used in combination with Fulvestrant Sandoz® (fulvestrant) for patients with hormone receptor positive (HR+) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 negative (HER2-) unresectable advanced or metastatic breast cancer.
Without the PBS subsidy, around 1,600 patients might pay more than $50,000 per course of treatment. Instead they will now pay $41.30 per script or $6.60 with a concession card.
Fulvestrant Sandoz® (fulvestrant) is also being made available on the PBS for the first time as monotherapy for those women in need of this targeted treatment on its own, for the treatment of hormone receptor positive (HR+) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 negative (HER2-) advanced breast cancer.
Without the PBS subsidy, over 100 patients might pay more than $7,900 per course of treatment.
Lung cancer is also one of the top 10 most common cancers in both men and women in Australia.
To support over 130 Australians with previously untreated squamous Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer, we are extending the listings for Opdivo® (nivolumab) and Yervoy® (ipilimumab) plus chemotherapy. Patients could otherwise pay over $100,000 per course of treatment without subsidy.
Around 2.7 million Australians live with asthma with many of them suffering from severe asthma. They experience episodes of wheezing, shortness of breath, coughing, chest tightness and fatigue caused by the widespread narrowing of the airways.
We are extending the listing for Dupixent® (dupilumab) which will provide a new treatment option to around 1,700 Australians suffering from uncontrolled severe eosinophilic or allergic asthma per year. Australians with these severe forms of Asthma will save around $20,600 per year through this PBS listing.
Atectura Breezhaler® (indacaterol + glycopyronum + mometasone), will provide a new treatment option for other severe forms of asthma for over 80,000 Australians suffering from this chronic disease with patients saving around $400 per year through this PBS listing.
We are also listing Evenity® (Romosozumab) on the PBS for the first time, for the treatment of severe osteoporosis in patients, providing relief to over 2,800 Australians. Patients may save around $6,300 per course of treatment.
Without these subsidies many Australians would be out of pocket thousands of dollars per treatment, instead, for all of the medicines listed or extended on April 1, patients will only have to pay $41.30 per script of $6.60 with a concession card.
Each of these listings has been recommended by the independent Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee.
Since 2013, the Australian Government has approved over 2,600 new or amended listings on the PBS. This represents an average of around 30 listings or amendments per month – or one each day – at an overall investment by the Government of $13 billion.
The Government’s commitment to ensuring that Australians can access affordable medicines, when they need them, remains rock solid.

Australia’s COVID-19 vaccination program is well under way, with more than 500,000 Australians receiving a free jab as part of the Phase 1 rollout.
There have been more than 507,000 vaccines at the close of business on Friday. 329,000 vaccines have been administered in state and territory vaccination clinics, 97,000 vaccines have been administered in general practices and more than 80,000 aged care residents have been vaccinated.
Our GP’s have played a vital role in this expansion and have not only been vaccinating over the week, but many practices are continuing to vaccinate on Saturday and Sunday this weekend.
Over 1,100 general practices, GP-led respiratory clinics and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services are already providing vaccinations to people eligible in Phase 1b.
This will grow to a broad national footprint of more than 4,000 general practices by the end of April. These will be complemented by more than 100 Commonwealth Vaccination Clinics and more than 100 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled Health Services.
The roll out for the next week and further expansion is now well underway. The first of the 50 million Australian made CSL doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine have already been distributed and will now be distributed on an ongoing basis.
As part of our Vaccination Strategy, Australia placed an absolute priority on sovereign domestic vaccine production at CSL in August last year.
That decision has ensured that Australia is one of the few countries with strong, clear domestic supplies going forwards.

Australian Greens Housing spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has said that eviction moratoriums are ending today in NSW, and on Sunday in Victoria and WA, and that renters in numerous states are facing uncertainty, mounting debt and homelessness.
Senator Faruqi said:
“We must extend eviction bans until the government has a plan for rental debt relief. Without one, our government is condemning countless people to homelessness.
“It’s unrealistic to assume that people, facing a decrease in JobSeeker and still recovering from a pandemic, will be able to afford extra rent on top of their basic necessities.
“According to Equity Economics, there will be a nine per cent national rise in homelessness this year, and double that in New South Wales. The government must act now.
“Without a plan for rental debt relief, ending eviction moratoriums means one thing and one thing only – worsening the homelessness crisis.
“This is more proof that homelessness is not inevitable, but a deliberate choice by our neoliberal government.”

Australian Greens Anti-racism spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has said that numerous investigations published today by ABC, Nine and Guardian Australia on far-right and neo-Nazi organising have underscored the need for urgent action to tackle the violent far-right.
Senator Faruqi said:
“These investigations are disturbing but not surprising. We know that the far-right is organising in Australia, and has links to international extremist groups. But the government has its head in the sand.
“This makes ASIO’s decision to back away from the term ‘right-wing extremism’ look even more naive and absurd.
“Far-right groups are on the march and trying to recruit across the country, including by appealing to anti-lockdown sentiments. Some of these groups and individuals openly praise the Christchurch terrorist and are rabidly Islamophobic and antisemitic.
“There must be a zero tolerance approach. Laws on extremism and hate speech must be enforced and strengthened. Governments must unambiguously commit to anti-racism. Community programs to counter the far-right require significant investment. There is no time to waste.”