Greens want violence against women declared a national emergency
Greens senator and spokesperson for women, Larissa Waters, wants national cabinet to respond to national rallies at the weekend and declare violence against women a national emergency.
Waters is also calling for the issue to be funded like a national emergency, with “crisis accommodation, frontline prevention [and] support, trauma-informed training for first responders [and] judicial staff”.
Posting to X, Waters said raising the rate of income support would be an “immediate act of prevention”, stating:
60% of single mums have experienced abuse. Without adequate financial support or a safe home to go to, many are forced to choose between staying in a violent relationship or homelessness.
She called for better information sharing, as Queensland premier Steven Miles did earlier this morning, and a national death toll to “keep attention on men’s violence and to encourage reduction of the numbers of deaths”.
These are real, immediate actions that Labor can take at today’s national cabinet meeting to keep women safe. Anything less will be a failure to act on women’s safety.
A woman is being killed every 4 days, twice as many women killed compared to this time last year. Continued underfunding will mean more women will die in this national emergency.
Key events
Government to bring forward legislation outlawing doxxing
The government has also brought forward the reporting date of a review to the Online Safety Act, a year ahead of schedule.
The PM said this is to “ensure we’re keeping up with emerging online threats and harms.”
The government will also bring forward legislation in early August to outlaw the release of private information online with an intent to cause harm – also known as doxxing.
Anthony Albanese is also announcing a suite of online measures to help combat male extremist views about women online.
He said:
When I have spoken to parents around the country, they expressed their concern about the exposure of young boys and young men to violent videos and imagery online and that is something that was mentioned by states and territories when they [discussed] what their jurisdictions were doing.
The government will introduce legislation to ban the creation and distribution of deepfake pornography.
A new phase of the ‘Stop It At The Start’ campaign will launch in mid-June and will run until May 2025, he added:
This new phase will include a counter-influencing campaign in online spaces where violent and misogynistic content thrives to directly challenge the material in the spaces that it’s being viewed.
$925m over five years for Leaving Violence program
The prime minister has announced the government will invest $925m over five years to permanently establish the Leaving Violence program, to be included in the budget.
This will allow “those escaping violence [to] receive financial support, safety assessments and referrals to support pathways”, Albanese said.
Those eligible will be able to access up to $5,000 in financial support.
Everyone needs to work together to address scourge of violence against women, PM says
The prime minister says governments need to act on violence against women, but this is an issue for “the whole of society” as well.
It’s an issue for civil society, it’s an issue for the media, it’s an issue for all of us to work together in the national interest to deal with what is a scourge of violence against women that is having a real impact out there, with one [woman] every four days … losing their life at the hand of a domestic or former domestic partner. This is indeed a national crisis which is why we convened this meeting.
He also acknowledged the impact this is having on children.
Albanese says every state and territory spoke to national cabinet meeting on ending violence against women
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is now speaking to the media after today’s national cabinet meeting.
He said every state and territory jurisdiction spoke about work they were doing around tackling violence against women:
We determined to move forward in a range of ways [with] practical and immediate steps, as well as setting a further meeting for the next quarter to report back on issues including the different systems in states and territories and how there can be more uniformity going forward as well.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is due to address the media soon, following today’s national cabinet meeting. We’ll bring you the latest once that kicks off.
Benita Kolovos
Victorian opposition leader ‘deeply disappointed’ about quarantine charges being dropped
Opposition leader John Pesutto says he is “deeply disappointed” charges have been dropped against the Victorian health department over the hotel quarantine Covid-19 outbreak.
He said:
If this occurred anywhere else in the Victorian community, you would rightly expect that a prosecution will follow … Victorians will never forget the loss of life on such a huge scale at the time.
You can read all the background on this earlier in the blog here.
Greens want violence against women declared a national emergency
Greens senator and spokesperson for women, Larissa Waters, wants national cabinet to respond to national rallies at the weekend and declare violence against women a national emergency.
Waters is also calling for the issue to be funded like a national emergency, with “crisis accommodation, frontline prevention [and] support, trauma-informed training for first responders [and] judicial staff”.
Posting to X, Waters said raising the rate of income support would be an “immediate act of prevention”, stating:
60% of single mums have experienced abuse. Without adequate financial support or a safe home to go to, many are forced to choose between staying in a violent relationship or homelessness.
She called for better information sharing, as Queensland premier Steven Miles did earlier this morning, and a national death toll to “keep attention on men’s violence and to encourage reduction of the numbers of deaths”.
These are real, immediate actions that Labor can take at today’s national cabinet meeting to keep women safe. Anything less will be a failure to act on women’s safety.
A woman is being killed every 4 days, twice as many women killed compared to this time last year. Continued underfunding will mean more women will die in this national emergency.
Benita Kolovos
Colac area health apologises after staff found to have posed as patients during minister’s visit
Colac area health’s interim CEO, Prof Steve Moylan, has apologised after a health department investigation found it had staff pose as “fake” patients during a ministerial visit to appear busier.
You can read the full story on this below, in case you missed it:
Moylan said in a statement:
We are sorry for what occurred in the Urgent Care Centre, it is highly regrettable and we’ve accepted all recommendations from the independent investigation.
Whilst the investigation found there was no impact to patient care, we know the incident posed a potential risk and that’s something we will ensure doesn’t happen again.
Colac Area Health is committed to learning from this incident and to keep building a better health service for our community, including by acting on the recommendations.
Qantas suggests recent system changes may be behind app issue
Qantas says it is investigating whether an issue with their app this morning was caused by recent system changes.
As we flagged earlier, a number of customers have reported being able to see strangers’ data when they logged into their app today. This included people’s name and information, such as upcoming flight details and loyalty points.
In a statement just now, Qantas said:
We’re urgently working to resolve the issue impacting the Qantas app this morning and we sincerely apologise to our customers who have been impacted.
We’re investigating whether this issue may have been caused by recent system changes.
We recommend that customers log out and log in to their Qantas Frequent Flyer account on the Qantas App. Please also be aware of social media scams at this time.
We’ll continue to provide more information as soon as we can.
Benita Kolovos
WorkSafe responds after charges dropped against Victorian health department over quarantine
Following news that public prosecutors have dropped charges against the Victorian health department over its failed hotel quarantine scheme, the state’s workplace safety watchdog has released a statement:
WorkSafe is deeply disappointed by the decision to discontinue criminal proceedings against the Department of Health in relation to the Victorian hotel quarantine program. As an independent regulator, WorkSafe strives to enforce the highest standards of health and safety for workers and the community it serves.
In September 2021, WorkSafe charged the health department with 58 alleged breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act in relation to Victoria’s initial Covid-19 hotel quarantine program, which sparked a deadly wave of the virus through the state.
In March 2023, a magistrate found there was sufficient evidence to support a conviction and the department was committed to stand trial. But earlier this month, the county court ruled evidence given at the judicial inquiry into hotel quarantine was deemed inadmissible.
Following this, the department made an application to have the matter discontinued.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions considered the application and determined that there were no longer reasonable prospects of conviction and discontinued the prosecution.
Cait Kelly
Payments to shareholders from corporate investments grew six times faster than worker pay: Oxfam report
Australian dividend payments to shareholders from corporate investments grew six times faster than worker pay between 2020 and 2023, new analysis from Oxfam has revealed.
Accounting for inflation and through Covid-19, the war in Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis, dividend payments in Australia rose 37%, while average real wages in Australia have fallen by 6%.
This is as Australia’s biggest banks, miners and retailers record sky-high profits off the back of higher prices, supply chain disruptions and the alleged use of price gouging and unfair pricing practices.
Oxfam Australia chief executive officer Lyn Morgain said:
Corporate profits and payouts to rich shareholders have gone into the stratosphere, while wages continue to go nowhere.
Millions of people hold jobs that trap them in a cycle of working hard while still being unable to afford enough food, medicine or other basics. The super-rich don’t amass their mega-fortunes by ‘working’—they extract it from people who do
No corporation should be shelling out to rich shareholders unless it’s paying a living wage to all its workers. Governments must cap payouts to shareholders, support trade unions and legislate for living wages. We should be rewarding work, not wealth.
