Health News at Your Fingertips

Benita Kolovos

Victorian opposition leader, Matthew Guy, has lost a third staff member in eight days.

Sources have told Guardian Australia Guy’s diary manager resigned on Wednesday night.

It follows the abrupt resignation of his director of communications, Lee Anderson, earlier on Wednesday.

Anderson, who had held the position for 12 months, quit after what sources say was a disagreement with Guy’s new chief of staff, Nick McGowan.

McGowan was appointed to the position on Monday afternoon, replacing Mitch Catlin who resigned last week after the Age reported he had proposed to ask a Liberal party donor to make more than $100,000 in payments to his private marketing company for services described as “supporting business interests”.

A man who was hit by a Melbourne train last month has been identified by detectives.

The man is in hospital with serious injuries after he was struck by a train in Brunswick on July 7.

He cannot properly communicate and has no phone, wallet or cards in his possession.

Victoria Police on Wednesday provided a facial composite image to the public with the hope someone could identify him.

Police confirmed detectives have identified the man and said in a statement on Thursday they would not be providing further information “but would like to thank the media and the public for their assistance”.

-with AAP

One person with Covid-19 has died in Tasmania overnight, with the state recording 661 new cases on Thursday morning, 21 people in hospital, and two in ICU.

The royal commission into defence and veteran suicide is expected to deliver its report today outlining issues that need to be addressed immediately by the government.

Chairman, Nick Kaldas, and his fellow commissioners have spent eight months traversing Australia to gather evidence in a series of private and public hearings.

At every turn commissioners have flagged concerns about the urgency of their task, amid an alarming suicide rate among defence members and veterans.

The inquiry has resulted in some startling revelations, including a frank admission by the secretary of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Liz Cosson, of failings so profound the agency was “not fit” for their needs.

Cosson conceded a backlog of 60,000 claims by injured defence members and veterans, which has left some people waiting for years, may have contributed to a spike in suicides.

Thursday’s interim report is expected to recommend emergency measures to begin a wholesale reform of the department’s claims system which has been dysfunctional for decades.

More resources and comprehensive support services for traumatised families of veterans has also been identified as a priority.

– from AAP

Telstra to return $1.9bn to shareholders

Telstra has raised its total dividend for the first time since 2015, returning $1.9bn to shareholders following what chief executive, Andy Penn, says has been the successful transformation of the company.

Penn said Telstra set out four years ago with its T22 strategy to “fundamentally transform the company, to simplify and digitise, to set bold aspirations and radical interventions, and that is what we have done.”

Telstra will pay a fully-franked final dividend of 8.5c per share, from 8c a year ago.

– from AAP

Peter Dutton walks back comments on Taiwan: ‘I respect China’s position’

Paul Karp

The Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, has conceded that he misspoke when he described Taiwan as an “independent country” when commenting on US speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit.

Asked if he had misspoken, Dutton told Radio National: “Yes, I did”, and noted immediately after he had been clear about “keeping the status quo”. “I don’t support the independence or breaking away of Taiwan, I respect China’s position,” he said, adding that he didn’t want conflict involving a population of 26m living peacefully.

Dutton said the Coalition has “strongly supported” the government’s position on China, and although it wants peace to prevail, we’ve “got to be frank” – and “no imagination is required” because the ambassador had set out very clearly the aim to reunify with Taiwan, by force if required.

Dutton rejected Kevin Rudd’s criticism labelling him the architect of Australia’s megaphone diplomacy, and noted that Rudd had described the Chinese government as ratfuckers – although Dutton omitted the expletive after “rat” – over its handling of climate talks.

Treasurer intends to leave stage 3 tax cuts in place

Federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says the government is welcome to suggestions from the upcoming jobs and skills summit but it is committed to delivering stage 3 tax cuts.

Speaking to ABC Radio National on Thursday morning, Chalmers said the government wouldn’t go ahead with the tax cuts if it didn’t think they were necessary.

We intend to leave them in place … we think that there are steps that can be taken now in the tax system particularly in relation to multinational tax avoidance.

That’s where our priorities should be.

– with AAP

Peter Hannam

Energy ministers to meet in Canberra

The electricity and gas supply squeeze that occurred in May and June in eastern Australia thankfully hasn’t been repeated, even with the current flurry of cold and wet conditions across much of the south.

Federal, state and territory energy ministers will meet in Canberra today and tomorrow to discuss what caused the suspension of the national electricity market for nine days in June. The meeting will be the first such meeting in years which will kick off with dinner followed by more formal discussions on Friday.

We looked at what’s expected, particularly the addition of “emissions” finally to the national electricity objective. Heading down that road may lay the basis for a carbon price, at least implicitly.

Environmental concerns had been part of the original design for the market during the Hawke-Keating years but they got scrapped under the Howard government, said Bruce Mountain, the head of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre.

The proposal for updating the NEO has lately been led by the ACT’s Shane Rattenbury and his Queensland counterpart Mick de Brenni. However, it’s also worth noting Lily D’Ambrosio, Victoria’s energy minister, proposed similar changes back in 2016 to both the electricity and gas objectives, but didn’t get sufficient support from counterparts at the time.

D’Ambrosio, though, tells us her state wasn’t deterred, and proceeded to become the first state to legislate a net-zero emissions target by 2050.

Explicitly including emissions in the national energy objectives will provide strategic guidance to new investments to help to achieve net zero at least-cost.

Flagging another issue that will likely be debated at the ministers’ meeting, D’Ambrosio also stressed the need to secure more gas for domestic use rather than export.

It is unacceptable that Australia produces so much gas, yet we have a gas crisis because exporters are making super profits.

We’ll be seeking agreement for [the Australian Energy Market Operator] to have the power to make sure national gas storage facilities have sufficient domestic reserves, and greater market monitoring by the Australian Energy Regulator to stamp out dodgy behaviour that costs households and businesses.

Woodside results are expected to land soon, and may foster more debate about those “super profits”.

Paul Karp

PM and foreign minister have avoided China’s ‘political bait’, Kevin Rudd says

Kevin Rudd also praised the way Anthony Albanese and the foreign minister, Penny Wong, are dealing with the China relationship.

He told Radio National the government has “got the balance right by rejecting China’s list of demands, ignoring it and getting on with the quiet business of de-escalating the relationship”.

Rudd said the pair had avoided the “political bait” of China’s 14 demands, rejecting them on principle. He reiterated the demands “never will be” met by a democratic Australian government and called for “our Chinese friends to move on”.

Asked about Peter Dutton’s comments about appeasement, Rudd accused the Liberal leader of being the “architect of Australia’s megaphone diplomacy to Beijing” that hadn’t solved anything, but rather was aimed at “domestic political posturing”. Rudd also charged the Coalition of failing to stop the lease of the Port or Darwin and to construct submarines.

Paul Karp

‘We’re on a 27-year slide into difficult strategic circumstances,’ Kevin Rudd says of China

Australia’s former prime minister Kevin Rudd has commented on the Chinese ambassador’s warning that Beijing will use “all necessary means” to achieve the reunification of Taiwan.

Rudd said this was the “standard position” from China in the last 25 years but what had changed was Xi Jinping had set a timeframe that reunification should occur by the centenary of the people’s republic of China, 2049. This means “we’re on a 27-year slide into difficult strategic circumstances” for China, Taiwan, the US and its allies, Rudd told Radio National.

The former PM said he was “deeply concerned” about possible use of armed forces in the late 2020s or early 2030s, “when China believes it has a bigger balance of power advantage against the US and Taiwan in that time” and “greater financial and economic resilience against Russia style sanctions”.

Asked about suggestions of re-education camps, Rudd said:

Regarding what China would then do if it was to bring Taiwan forcefully under Chinese sovereignty through military invasion, I think it is inevitable it would use … within Taiwan the same suppression tactics used in the mainland in 1949 and more recently in Hong Kong. That’s why all policy actions by the US and its allies should be directed towards maintaining the status quo over Taiwan, and that means increasing long-term deterrence.

Rudd said the best way to deter China was for the US to supply Taiwan with more weapons to help it achieve a “porcupine defence” and to attempt to “close the military gap” with China in east Asia and the west Pacific.

Asked if the US speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit was a mistake, Rudd said she had the right to visit Taiwan. But was it wise to do so?

He said:

From a Taiwanese perspective, is its own security better or worse after the visit? The analytical consensus here [in the US] is on balance it’s worse because China has been able to war game effectively for the first time what an invasion would look like and change the parameters for possible military action.

The visit also didn’t help the US stabilise its bilateral relationship. Rudd concluded:

Did she have the right? Yes. Was it wise? No.

Australian GPs ‘exhausted’

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners president Adjunct Prof Karen Price says the current generation of GPs are “exhausted” and warns the country doesn’t “have enough future doctors choosing this career path”.

Minister for health and aged care Mark Butler told the Australian Medical Association national conference in late July that the current situation was a “terrifying trend” with not enough future doctors opting for a career in general practice, leaving primary care “in worse shape than it’s been in the entire Medicare era”.

Price said on Thursday morning that the minister was “spot on” and the issue “must be front of mind for the new government”:

If primary care were a patient, it would be in dire need of an urgent trip to an emergency department due to multiple issues not being properly managed over many years.

Medicare rebates for GP consultations haven’t kept pace with the cost of providing high-quality care, and the full impact of the rebate freeze stretching from 2013 to 2019 is still being keenly felt.

Price said Medicare patient rebates had increased on 1 July this year by 1.6% which “equates to 65 cents for a standard consult”.

When you consider the most recent inflation figure of 6.1% and the enormous costs practices are shouldering while managing patients during a pandemic you can see what we are up against.

Guardian Australia has been investigating the difficulty in finding bulk-billing GPs, with the health minister saying the way bulk-billing statistics were put forward by the previous government was misleading.

For more on this story, read the latest report by Guardian Australia reporters Melissa Davey and Stephanie Convery: