Category: Australian News

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the incidence and severity of perinatal depression and anxiety. Since March 2020, the number of new callers to the Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia (PANDA) helpline has doubled. 43% of all calls to the PANDA helpline come from Victoria.
The Morrison Government is supporting expectant and new parents providing $13.6 million through our $43.9 million Perinatal Mental Health and Wellbeing Program to extend vital national perinatal mental health services.
Almost 100,000 Australian parents are affected by perinatal depression and anxiety each year. One in 10 women experience this while pregnant and one in seven in the year after birth. Men can also experience perinatal mental illness, with about one in 10 expectant and new fathers experiencing depression, anxiety or other forms of emotional distress.
Callers to the helpline are also presenting with more intense and enduring mental illness with call times rising from 15 to 30 minutes prior to COVID-19 to 30 to 45 minutes.
In May our Government provided $320,000 additional funding for the PANDA helpline and in September a further $350,000 in funding to ensure that the helpline is able to meet the increased demand from parents impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in Victoria.
The $13.6 million in additional funding will ensure that PANDA and other key national programs will continue to support women and their families affected by perinatal mental illness, or experiencing grief after the death of a child during this challenging period.
Dedicated perinatal mental health support, perinatal loss and bereavement peer support, and perinatal mental health promotion and training will be delivered by trusted organisations right across Australia. This will complement the work being done by Primary Health Networks in ensuring tailored local mental health services are available on-the-ground in every community.
The new program will extend funding for existing national perinatal mental health and wellbeing services including:

• PANDA’s National Perinatal Anxiety and Depression helpline
• Red Nose’s helpline and peer support
• Sand’s helpline and peer support
• the MumSpace website (www.mumspace.com.au) which hosts the MumMoodBooster treatment program and the MindMum smartphone app

This funding builds on the $1.3 million delivered to Sands Australia for an intensive support service to families affected by stillbirth, as well as $3 million for national education and awareness programs to demystify stillbirth and reduce its incidence announced last year.
The Morrison Government continues to prioritise better mental health for all Australians, with an unprecedented $5.7 billion to be spent on mental health in 2020–21.

The Australian Government is ensuring the mental health and wellbeing of young people remains a priority during a challenging time.
Today marks National headspace Day – an initiative aimed at helping youth take small steps every day to improve their mental health.
Minister for Health, Greg Hunt and Minister for Youth and Sport, Richard Colbeck, encouraged young people to take time out for themselves.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the lives of young people across Australia,” Minister Hunt said.
“Whether you are struggling to focus on study, have lost a job or finding it difficult to connect with others – there are professional teams and services like headspace available to offer support.”
There are currently 124 headspace services in Australia and many are planning headspace Day events and celebrations.
Since 2006, headspace has provided more than 3.6 million services and supported more than 626,000 young Australians to strengthen their wellbeing and manage their mental health.
In 2019–20 alone, headspace supported nearly 130,000 young people.
In 2020–21, the Government is providing over $130 million to support headspace services across Australia, and has also committed to expand the headspace network to 153 services by 2022.
Minister Colbeck said every year one in four young Australians experienced mental health issues.
“More than ever many young people are facing family or relationship conflict, a disconnection from study and work, financial stress and social isolation,” he said.
“During times like these, focusing on the everyday things that support a young person’s wellbeing helping them form healthy habits, develop resilience and manage stress or anxiety.
Minister Colbeck said the Government was also committed to ensuring the mental health of young people is maintained through provisions from the 2020-21 Budget.
“The Australian Government has invested an unprecedented $5.7 billion in mental health support in 2020-21 alone,” Minister Colbeck said.
The support builds on the ongoing work to develop a whole-of-government National Youth Policy Framework to inform how policies and programs support young Australians and improve their lives.
For more information on the headspace Day and how to be involved, along with digital wellbeing kits, visit www.headspace.org.au.
Follow headspace on social media and share your favourite tip using #headspacetips and #headspaceday.

Australian Greens Disability spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John said today it was unacceptable that the Attorney General would not introduce privacy protections to the Disability Royal Commission, garuanteeing witnesses confidentiality beyond the life of the Commission, until mid-next year.
“This is a simple legislative fix that would be universally supported by the Australian Parliament, and the Attorney General has had at least 8 months to get it done! There is simply no excuse for forcing disabled people to wait any longer to feel safe to tell their stories,” Steele-John said.
“I have a bill before the Senate right now which could be passed in the upcoming November sitting.
“The Attorney General knows full well that his failure to act urgently is an impediment to the Royal Commission; the deliberate and ongoing delay amounts to a moral obstruction of justice.
“To be able to properly investigate violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect the Royal Commission must be able to protect witnesses including, and especially, disabled people and other individuals who want to blow the whistle on institutions, service providers and government agencies.
“Disability Royal Commission Chair Ronald Sackville AO QC wrote to the Attorney General in February formally asking him to change the law, and in the Royal Commission’s second progress report, released earlier this month, the Chair dedicated an entire section (page 37) to the limitations this issue was placing on the scope of the Royal Commission.
“So many people in our community have lost all faith in the system because of the violence, abuse, exploitation or neglect they, or their family, have suffered; they want to know that it is safe to tell their stories.
“By delaying these important privacy protections until mid-2021 the Attorney General is impeding the ability of the Royal Commission to do its job and he is failing disabled people.”

Australia is about to undergo a public transport revolution.
Over the next two decades, our governments will invest billions of dollars in ne public transport dollars in new public transport projects.
There’s the Western Sydney Rail, the Melbourne Metro, Brisbane’s Cross River Rail, the Perth Metronet, the Melbourne Airport Rail and Canberra’s Light Rail.
Then there is the Inland Rail freight link from Brisbane to Melbourne.
It is anticipated that at least 11,000 new rail cars will be required in the three decades leading up to 2053.
This presents a real challenge.
But it is also an opportunity.
We should build the new trains here in Australia, creating jobs for Australians and developing our heavy manufacturing expertise.
I was shocked to hear recently NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian say were can’t build trains in Australia.
We are no good at it, the Premier said.
This is nonsense.
Australians can build trains.
Downer EDI has been building them at its factory in Maryborough, Queensland, since the 19th century.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has just announced they will be building trains for the Queensland rail network, providing jobs into the future.
We can also build trains in Newcastle, Dandenong, Ballarat, Bendigo and Perth.
Yet, like Premier Berejiklian, too many Coalition state governments so lack ambition for local manufacturing that they buy rolling stock overseas.
We have seen several cases where overseas products have arrived unfit for purpose.
We’ve seen that with trains built overseas 20cm too wide for the Blue Mountains line in NSW.
Last week I visited Varley Group in the Hunter Valley.
There, workers are fixing rail wagons built in China that need structural modification before they can be used here.
If we had just built them here, none of this would have been required, saving costs, creating jobs and building our skills base.
It’s a no-brainer.
That’s a why a Labor government will create a National Rail Manufacturing Plan to ensure that, wherever possible, we build the trains we need here, rather than offshore.
This plan will be a blueprint for co-operation between governments, businesses and unions in the national interest when it comes to buying trains.
It would ensure that more trains are built in Australia by local manufacturing workers and that every dollar of federal funding spent on rail projects goes towards creating local jobs and protecting our rail industry.
It would also ensure that Australian products, like steel, were used in the production.
Our plan will focus on investment in research and development, so that as we build trains here, we are developing our capacity to reduce costs and improve quality.
We would also ensure that while building the trains, we train apprentices so they have skills to take the heavy manufacturing sector forward into the future.
Key features of Labor’s plan include:

• Establishing the Office of National Industry Co-ordination to audit the adequacy, capacity and condition of passenger trains nationally;
• Reinstating the Rail Supplier Advocate — abolished by the Coalition in 2013 — to help small and medium-sized enterprises identify export opportunities and link with government buyers;
• Establishing a Rail Industry Council to prevent the loss of more jobs and address the need for more local research and development.

If we get it right, we can also create certainty for manufacturers by ironing out the peaks and troughs in market demand through better co-ordination between state governments.
If every state government orders a new fleet of trains at the same time, local industry cannot deliver.
Better co-ordination of tenders would allow for a steady stream of work that could sustain and indeed grow the local industry.
Our National Rail Industry Plan has potential to help revive Australian manufacturing.
According to the most-recent census, between 2011 and 2016, the number of jobs in Australian manufacturing fell by 24 per cent to about 680,000.
The expansion of rail provides a chance to reverse this trend and create thousands of new, well-paid jobs, including apprenticeships for young people.
And if we can focus on existing rail manufacturing hubs, many of these jobs will be in regional Australia.
In the 21st century, there are two sure-fire ways to generate economic growth — investing in infrastructure to lift capacity and boost productivity, and investing in people through education and training.
A National Rail Manufacturing Plan can address both.

Following Standard & Poor’s (S&P) reaffirming its AAA credit rating today, Australia remains one of only nine countries around the world to hold a AAA credit rating from all three major credit rating agencies.
Despite a once in a century pandemic, which “wreaked havoc on the global economy and government balance sheets around the world”, S&P has reaffirmed Australia’s AAA credit rating following the release of the Morrison Government’s Economic Recovery Plan to create jobs and secure Australia’s future.
In its report, S&P notes that the Morrison Government’s “balance sheet was strong before the pandemic” and that “Australia’s budget improved in recent years on the back of tight fiscal discipline, strong labour market conditions, and high commodity prices.”
S&P further states that “Australia’s typically strong fiscal performance remains a credit strength for the rating” and that “Australia’s economy is beginning to recover from its first recession in almost 30 years” and will “rebound strongly once borders open”.
Today’s decision by S&P is a further vote of confidence in the Morrison Government’s response to the health and economic crisis caused by COVID-19. The record levels of economic support we have provided has helped save 700,000 jobs.
The Government has been able to do this because we entered this crisis from a position of economic strength and had brought the Budget back to balance for the first time in 11 years. This gave us the fiscal firepower when we needed it most.
Our economic support has been provided in a temporary, targeted and proportionate manner. By doing so we have protected the structural integrity of the Budget, with over 90 per cent of the spending committed in response to the crisis occurring over the next two years.
There is still a long way to go in recovering from this health and economic crisis but the Australian economy is fighting back with around 60 per cent of the 1.3 million people who lost their job or were stood down on zero hours in April now back at work.
Next calendar year, the economy is forecast to grow by 4.25 per cent, and unemployment to fall to 6.5 per cent by the June Quarter 2022. Our economic and fiscal strategy sets out the path to grow the economy, stabilise debt, and then reduce it over time.
Consumer confidence increased 11.9 per cent in October, the largest increase in a Budget month on record since the series began in 1974 with Westpac Chief Economist, Bill Evans, commenting that it was “an extraordinary result” and that “such a development must be attributable to the response to the October Federal Budget.”
The Morrison Government’s Economic Recovery Plan is focused on job creation, rebuilding our economy and securing Australia’s future.

The Greens condemn the Morrison Government for failing to include a gender lens in the Budget, instead leaving it to a non-profit women’s organisation to do their homework for them.
“Women are once again mopping up after the Morrison Government by applying a gender lens to the Budget, something which should have been done by government itself,” said Greens Leader in the Senate and spokesperson on Women, Senator Larissa Waters.
“The National Foundation of Australian Women’s analysis released today unsurprisingly finds that when you don’t apply a gender lens to budgeting, women miss out.
“NFAW found that by investing in the care economy – increasing employment and wages in the childcare, aged care and disability sector – GDP would increase by 1.64% by 2030 and women’s workforce participation would be turbo-charged.
“This follows earlier analysis by the Australia Institute showing that more jobs would be created for both men and women if the government invested in health and education rather than championing male-dominated fields with the blokey recovery we have seen proposed to date.
“The 2020 Budget is bad for women. It has no new money for childcare, housing or frontline domestic violence services, the tax cuts are worth twice as much for men as women, and the women’s economic security statement is a mere 0.04% of the Budget.
“The embarrassing government talking points trying to claim roads as a win for women is reminiscent of Tony Abbott citing his top achievement as Minister for Women being repealing the carbon price so women would pay less when ironing.
“The Budget disproportionately helps men in a year that has disproportionately disadvantaged women, perhaps because only one woman sits on the Expenditure Review Committee.
“There has been no Women’s Budget Impact Statement since Abbott axed it in 2014, and this year a hastily patched-together Women’s Economic Security statement was released three hours after the Budget. Women are an afterthought to this government and it shows,” concluded Senator Waters.

The Greens have condemned the Government’s reintroduction of the discriminatory remote work-for-the-dole scheme Community Development Program (CDP) that disproportionately impacts First Nations peoples.
“It’s very disturbing to hear anecdotal claims from employment providers saying that the increase to income support is leading to more drinking and anti-social behaviours”, Greens spokesperson on Family and Community Services Senator Rachel Siewert said.
The increase in income support has lead to people being able to feed their families, buy essential items and pay bills.
Government should be investing in addressing the barriers people face to employment such as poverty, housing and ill health, particularly for young people who have a higher probability of being penalised.
There clearly need to be more in jobs creation in remote communities, particularly in the care economy.
The CDP program is a top down punitive approach that is not even close to being in line with closing the gap objectives of self-determination and community control.
CDP cannot continue to keep running as it was before its suspension as part of the response to COVID19.
It is a punitive and discriminatory program that sees work-for-the-dole participants, who are largely First Nations peoples having to do work hours and have participation requirements that are far higher than those in the Jobactive program.
Why should people in remote regions, the vast majority of whom are First Nations peoples have to be subjected to a work-for-the-dole scheme that is far harsher and more punitive than their city counterparts.
We need employment and support programs designed and led by First Nations peoples and they have to be funded for the long term. CDEP should never have been dropped in the first place.
APONT has put forward an employment model that has been ignored by the Government.
The Government’s own 2019 evaluation of the program articulates what is well known, that First Nations peoples are more likely to be penalised and are penalised more often than their city counterparts.
CDP has to go.

The Morrison Government is funding the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH), the nation’s largest health survey, for another three years.
Partners in the ALSWH, the University of Queensland and the University of Newcastle, will receive more than $8.58 million over the next three years. This funding boost complements the Australian Government’s commitment to provide ongoing funding for this important project.
Since 1996, the Government has funded the ALSWH to enable it to continuously collect important data on women’s health status and trends from across the nation.
The Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, said, “For a quarter of a century, the ALSWH has played a leading role in nurturing our understanding of how health issues impact on the everyday lives of women, how women negotiate these issues, and the ways in which women engage with the health system.
“The study has been integral in guiding national approaches to developing services and supports that are tailored to women’s needs, and provide the best means of realising improved health outcomes for women, at all stages of their life.
“The new funding will allow the study to continue to fulfil this important function at a time where improvements in the women’s health space are being prioritised in response to the National Women’s Health Strategy 2020-2030.”
The Minister for Women, Marise Payne, said, “The views of everyday women have never been more valuable. Having such a robust and internationally renowned mechanism for informing national policy on women’s health is incredibly important.
“The study follows more than 57,000 women who are broadly representative of the entire Australian population, spanning four generations.
“The three original cohorts were women born in the years 1921-26, 1945-51 and 1973-78. A new cohort of more than 17,000 women born in the years 1989-95—who were then aged 18 to 23 years old — was added in 2013.
“As well as continuing the study, the additional funding will finance a project to improve the representation of women from South East Asia, North East Asia, and Southern Asia. This will focus on women in the two younger cohorts, who are currently aged 25 to 31 years old and 42 to 47 years old.”
ALSWH’s methodology is internationally renowned and assesses:

• Physical and emotional health—including wellbeing, major diagnoses, symptoms.
• Use of health services—GP, specialist and other visits, access, satisfaction.
• Health behaviours and risk factors—diet, exercise, smoking, alcohol, other drugs.
• Time use—including paid and unpaid work, family roles and leisure.
• Socio-demographic factors—location, education, employment, family composition.
• Life stages and key events—such as childbirth, divorce, widowhood.

Data from the study is also made available for national and international research use. Since the study began, it has been used in more than 800 scientific publications.
During 2020, the ALSWH has conducted a series of surveys and reports on women’s experiences of COVID-19. They include information on living arrangements during the pandemic, involvement in paid work and home-schooling, and general health and wellbeing.
This information will be beneficial in assessing the impacts of COVID-19 on Australian women.

The Commonwealth DPP’s decision to rule out charges against ABC journalist Dan Oakes is welcome but the lengthy ordeal should never have arisen in the first place, the Greens say.
Greens spokesperson for Media and Chair of the Senate Inquiry into Press Freedoms, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said:
“This case was designed to have a chilling effect on the media by a secretive government.
“Mr Oakes’ reporting was always in the public interest and the fact it’s taken so long for the AFP and CDPP to reach this conclusion highlights our laws are broken and need fixing.
“Journalism is not a crime. We need a Media Freedom Act to ensure no journalist is treated like this ever again.”
Senator Hanson-Young said she is pushing ahead with introducing a Media Freedom Act to the Parliament.
The Media Freedom Act that Senator Hanson-Young will introduce will:
• Ensure a contested warrants process, where law enforcement would need to apply to a judge to search a media outlet or access a journalist’s metadata;
• Protect whistleblowers by introducing a public interest defence;
• Put the onus on prosecutors to disprove public interest rather than journalists to prove it;
• Overall, enacts shield laws to protect journalists from being forced to reveal their sources.
“A contested warrants process would mean police can’t just raid a news outlet’s premises or the home of a journalist like we saw in the Smethurst and ABC raids. There would be checks and balance and consideration of what is in the public interest,” Senator Hanson-Young said.
“Journalists should not be charged for doing their jobs full stop. They should not have their homes raided. They should not be intimidated or threatened. They should not be attacked by the government for reporting what is in the public interest.
“Whistleblowers who speak truth to power must be better protected, it is essential for an accountable and transparent democracy, and to protect the public’s right to know.”

Greens Foreign Affairs spokesperson Senator Janet Rice said Morrison’s delay in getting stranded Australians home is unacceptable and has called on the government to urgently increase federal resources to boost quarantining capacity across the country.
Senator Rice said:
“Morrison has finally acted in announcing an expansion to quarantine facilities at Howard Springs, but it has taken him too long, and the solution is nowhere near good enough.
“While the Prime Minister has been gallivanting around Queensland on the campaign trail, almost 30,000 Australians have been waiting anxiously to find out when they’ll be able to see their families again.
“The Government’s delay has been devastating for Australians and their families stuck overseas. Over and over again we have heard heartbreaking stories of Australians who are separated from their children, from the medical care they need and from their jobs.
“The fact that tens of thousands are still waiting to get home is an indictment on Morrison’s inaction.
“The Greens have repeatedly said that most Australians wanting to come home can’t wait until the end of the year – they are desperate and fearful of yet again having flights cancelled. Not only that, as the virus continues to impact travel in other countries, getting home could become even harder for many.
“The Morrison Government urgently needs to increase federal resources to boost quarantining capacity across the country. Only then will Australians be able to get home when they need to and at reasonable cost.
“With transport networks all across the world in disarray, the government must also provide assistance for Australians to reach the point of departure. Otherwise, many would-be travellers could be watching a crucial lifeline leave without them.”