source : the age
Australians living with disabilities have slammed a huge overhaul of funding that would give a single minister the power to cut support as they see fit.
People have been given just over a fortnight to respond to laws which would deliver the largest ever cuts to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Disabled people are at risk of losing their independence and enjoyment as a result, a senate inquiry into proposed changes (below) was told on Tuesday.
The Albanese government maintains the cuts are needed to curb a $50 billion spending blow out in the scheme. About $11 billion of the $16.6 billion savings forecast for 2029/30 will come from eligibility changes, including more detailed assessments, modelling from the Grattan Institute shows.
Another Liberal Party representative has joined calls for a preference deal with One Nation, after the right-wing party overtook the governing Labor Party as the most popular one in Australia, according to a recent poll.
Speaking on Sky News, Victorian senator Sarah Henderson deflected the suggestion that One Nation’s popularity reflected anger with the Coalition instead of the government.
Like Opposition Leader Angus Taylor earlier today, Henderson blamed this phenomenon on Labor’s budget and the perceived broken promises, and that the Coalition was simply collateral damage.
“It’s indicative that Australians have had enough, and boy oh boy, are they angry in Victoria,” Henderson said of her home state. “This is a state mired in crime, corruption and economic incompetence.
“I believe we do need to do a preference deal with One Nation, and we shouldn’t apologise for it. We are aligned on a single mission, and that is to get rid of the worst government we have seen in this country in living memory.”
A deal to rescue iconic retailer Barbeques Galore from administration has collapsed, with up to 500 jobs to go as the group synonymous with Australia’s barbecue culture prepares to shut its remaining company stores in the coming weeks.
The government continues to face criticism over its planned overhaul of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and accusations that it hasn’t adequately consulted the people due to be most affected.
The changes, announced in last month’s budget, are aimed at curbing spending on the $56 billion scheme, and could see hundreds of thousands of people currently receiving support removed from the scheme.
A three-day inquiry into the proposed changes began in Melbourne today, and has received thousands of submissions.
Dr Monique Ryan, a Melbourne teal MP who was previously on parliament’s NDIS committee, told ABC News she thought the government was violating the ethos of the NDIS: “Nothing about us without us.”
Staying with Environment Minister Murray Watt on ABC News, and he was asked about Liberal president and ex-prime minister Tony Abbott endorsing the idea of the Coalition swapping preferences with One Nation.
Abbott told The Australian Financial Review today “it makes sense for parties of the right to preference each other just as parties of the left have always done”, comments echoed by Opposition Leader Angus Taylor later in the day.
But Watt said there was a difference between Labor and the Greens swapping preferences and the right-wing parties doing the same.
“No one is suggesting there is any prospect of the Greens party winning anywhere near the kind of seats that One Nation is potentially going to gain,” he said.
Australia’s Environment Minister Murray Watt says his government is aware of the impacts the boom in data centres is having on the environment and water availability, and are working to mitigate this.
Speaking on ABC News, Watt was asked what impact the new environment laws passed last year – and gradually being implemented – would have.
He said they would apply to data centres the way they would any other project.
“Whether it be a data centre, a mine, a wind farm, a housing development, if that project is likely to have a significant impact on one of the matters that we regulate at a federal level, then that project needs to be referred for a federal assessment and approval to make sure that environmental impacts are managed, mitigated, and offset,” he said.
“We are now following through in work that we’re doing with states and territories around managing the energy and water use of those data centres.”
US President Donald Trump renewed his claims of momentum toward ending the conflict with Iran, after brokering a halt to hostilities between Israel and the Islamic Republic and easing tensions that had threatened to derail broader peace efforts.
“We’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal,” Trump told reporters in New York.
“We could have at least an idea one or two days from now.”
The US president spoke hours after Iran and Israel agreed to halt strikes on each other following a flare-up that saw both countries launch waves of ballistic missiles.
Scientists in Sydney say they have found an unlikely way to make our shots of espresso cheaper and less energy-intensive to brew.
Academics at UNSW’s school of chemical engineering used ultrasonic sound waves – pulses at frequencies higher than what human ears can hear – to create espresso-strength coffee.
Their research, published in the Journal of Food Engineering, involved using room-temperature water rather than boiling water to create the final product, which they said reduced the energy required to make espresso by up to 75 per cent.
And according to lead researcher Dr Francisco Trujillo, the ultrasonic coffee performed just as well as the standard boiling-water brew when subjected to blind taste-testing.
Electrification and clean energy have been highlighted by the Australian leader of international climate negotiations as a prominent green group demands progress on a fossil fuels transition.
Energy and climate change minister Chris Bowen has used his opening speech at the mid-year climate talks to highlight the “fragility of fossil fuel supply chains”.
“In a world of geopolitical uncertainty and energy disruption, the transition is not a risk,” he declared in Bonn, Germany, the long-time home of the intersessional United Nations climate summit.
“It is the solution and an immense opportunity.”
The Reserve Bank’s next interest rate move is more likely to be down than up, economists at National Australia Bank say.
NAB has joined Commonwealth Bank and ANZ in forecasting the cash rate to stay on hold at 4.35 per cent for the rest of 2026, having previously predicted one more hike in August.
Westpac is the last of the big four banks to maintain its rate rise call, with two more hikes pencilled in for the year.
Recently released GDP data and NAB’s business survey, published on Tuesday, showed momentum in the economy has slowed, NAB’s chief economist Sally Auld and head of Australian economics Gareth Spence said in a research note.
