Health News at Your Fingertips

Caitlin Cassidy

La Trobe students waiting months for on-campus housing bonds to be returned

Students at Melbourne’s La Trobe University are still waiting for their bond payments to be returned months after vacating their rooms, with some saying they are more than $1,000 out of pocket.

At least 22 on-campus tenants have contacted the student union to say they have not received their bonds back despite returning forms as early as November last year according to the student union president, Monika Galovic, who is among the students waiting for payments.

La Trobe’s on-campus accommodation is run jointly with private company UniLodge, which is responsible for issuing bond payments. It states on its website that all bonds cover a month’s worth of rent and will be returned within 21 business days of the contract end date.

While the contract is confidential, UniLodge is in control of issuing bond payments. The company has student housing at 110 sites across Australia and New Zealand, with assets estimated at $1bn.

Galovic said some students have been asked to pay their 2023 bond of around $1,000 while still waiting for their 2022 bond to be returned.

Students who were hoping to find a new place to rent are unable to without the bond money. We have no tenant rights because we’re not considered tenants … there’s a complete lack of safeguards in place.

University accommodation isn’t covered by the Residential Tenancy Act, meaning the usual legislative avenues, including launching a complaint with Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (Vcat), aren’t available to students.

In mid-January, La Trobe sent a mass email to students blaming the delay on a computer issue and confirming the bonds would be returned in February.

A spokesperson for La Trobe said UniLodge made the university “aware of a delay” with processing bond payments and the “unforeseen technical error” had now been fixed.

They said:

All affected students will receive payment on 10 February.

More on search and rescue team heading to Turkey

Jeremy Stubbs, chief superintendent at Fire and Rescue NSW, has given a bit more information about the multi-agency team of 72 search and rescuers who left for Turkey this morning to aid efforts in the recovery from Monday’s earthquake:

We have teams and an incident management team which includes members from health, police, fire rescue in New South Wales and ACT as well as Dfat personnel and national emergency management agency personnel.

That multi-agency team is all about supporting people in the field.

We have four teams who work 24 hours around the clock to rubble piles, searching for persons who they can support and again helping that community of Turkey to return to normal.

Who is Sharn Coombes?

If the name Sharn Coombes rang a bell in Murph’s earlier post on the names being floated for preselection as the Liberal candidate in the Aston byelection, she was the Australian Survivor runner up in 2018 as well as being a criminal barrister.

Coombes lost favour with the Survivor jury when she was questioned about the role she played when her ally Matt was voted out, which she said “was a bad decision, the whole thing went pear-shaped”.

When she then returned in All Stars, Survivor Wiki fandom informs me that she was determined not to repeat her old mistakes so she remained “fiercely loyal” to “power player David Genat” and once again was runner-up because “the jury found David’s gameplay much more bold”.

She also holds the record for most challenges won in a single season of Australian Survivor.

Daniel Hurst

Birmingham calls for ‘strong action’ on climate change

The opposition’s Senate leader, Simon Birmingham, has called for “strong action” on climate change and greater certainty for business over the long term, days after Guardian Australia revealed internal divisions over the Coalition’s strategy.

Katharine Murphy reported on Wednesday that Liberal moderates Paul Fletcher and Birmingham had pushed back against a decision to oppose the Albanese government’s planned overhaul of the safeguard mechanism during shadow cabinet deliberations over the past fortnight.

She reported that she understood Birmingham told shadow cabinet colleagues that opposing the crediting reform was both bad policy and bad politics, given the rout of Liberals in city electorates in the election last May. He also made the point the Coalition’s opposition would make it harder for businesses to comply with more ambitious reduction targets.

Birmingham was asked during an interview with Laura Jayes on Sky News today whether he supported calls to block changes to the safeguard mechanism (ie the Coalition’s policy). He did not deny the reports and went on to emphasise the need for long-term certainty (long-term certainty is no doubt helped by having bipartisanship on climate policy):

Well, I’m not going to go into shadow cabinet conversations in detail. Look, I want to see and it’s well and truly on the public record, that I want to see strong action in relation to climate change. I think it’s in Australia’s interest for us to try to have greater policy certainty in the long run there.

There are elements of the safeguard mechanism for which, in terms of the proposed reforms by the government, in which I have concern that the uniform application of reductions at a linear drop-down rate applied consistently essentially to all companies, all sectors, does present concerns for those who have high levels of trade exposure, does present concerns for some of those sectors where the technology to reduce their emissions profile just isn’t possible yet.

So I don’t think the government’s got this perfect or got it right by any means. But I do also think that we need to be making sure that we are as a country leading in terms of our work around emissions reduction, that we are as a parliament trying to provide greater certainty for Australian business for the long run, and that we should be using mechanisms that don’t put greater burden on taxpayers, but do try to achieve positive outcomes.

Government to finalise energy relief plan by mid-year

A reporter asks Chalmers about why the energy relief plan is taking so long when the prime minister Anthony Albanese had indicated it would be finalised by around April.

Chalmers:

We’ve been saying for some time in response to issues raised by the states themselves that this relief is expected to flow closer to the middle of the year.

I’ve been saying for some time that this will be a centrepiece of the budget that I hand down in May. This is absolutely crucial cost-of-living relief and we want to see it flowing as soon as possible.

We have responded to issues raised by the states and territories about needing to take the time to sort out the implementation issues to make sure that we get all of that sorted so that we can get relief into people’s hands as soon as possible.

The conversation today was about a number of those implementation issues. There are still some issues to be ironed out but we have responded to concerns raised by the state since Christmas. That the best time for this to roll out would be closer to the middle of the year that has been their view and it is our view as well, and we are working on that timeframe as I have been saying for some time.

Chalmers has also met with his state counterparts and says “really important progress” has been made on issues including energy, housing, population, and women’s economic participation.

There is much more that we agree on as the local government, State Government, Commonwealth government than we disagree on.

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, is speaking in Logan south of Brisbane following the statement released by the Reserve Bank:

This government’s energy plan is all about taking some of the sting out of the energy prices and some of the edge off inflation in our economy and the independent Reserve Bank says that they expect that it will.

Inflation is the biggest challenge in our economy and it is the biggest focus of the Albanese government.

We are not surprised but we are very pleased to see that the independent Reserve Bank has said today that our energy plan it will have exactly the consequences and the impact that we want it to, in taking the edge off some of this inflation in our economy.

Our energy plan is all about making life a bit easier for families and pensioners, for small businesses and the independent Reserve Bank has said today that they leave that it will.

Daniel Hurst

Wong assures Indonesia over Aukus: ‘Australia has no intention of ever seeking to be nuclear-armed’

Penny Wong says Australia wants to be “very transparent” with Indonesia and other countries across the region about its plans for nuclear-powered submarines under Aukus.

The foreign affairs minister was asked during a press conference in Adelaide about her Indonesia counterpart, Retno Marsudi, saying she has used their talks this week to ask Australian to be open about its plans.

Wong replied:

We want to be very transparent, not just with Indonesia but the region.

Wong said Aukus was a partnership with the US and the UK focused on technological collaboration, but it was more than just the nuclear-powered submarines, which has attracted the most attention.

Wong added:

I understand, given Indonesia’s history, why they want us to be transparent about that nuclear propulsion. It is a new capability for Australia. It is not a new capability, obviously, globally but it is a new capability for Australia, and I have said that Australia is, first, we are strong supporters of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). We have an impeccable record when it comes to our compliance with the NTP. We will continue to have a record of that standing and we will work with the International Atomic Energy Agency to make sure that we maintain that high standard, gold standard, of transparency and compliance.

Secondly, we do want to be transparent with the region, and we will be.

And, third, and just to reemphasise this, and Indonesia and others are completely aware of this, nuclear propulsion does not equal nuclear-armed. Australia has no intention of ever seeking to be nuclear-armed.

Wong was asked to give an update about the Australian citizens who were in Turkey during Monday’s earthquake.

We have Turkish Australians who are there.

I note, I had previously talked about four who were unaccounted for.

I am pleased I can say one of those Australians in the region is accounted for and safe.

Two people are unaccounted for.

One person has been reported as having died in these earthquakes.

We are working to confirm those reports, and I extend my condolences, and a consequence of those reports, I extend to all those waiting for news my sympathy and expression of support. Not just personal but on behalf of the government of Australia.

Penny Wong ‘hopeful’ anti-slavery laws can be strengthened

Wong is now taking questions, and is asked about what are the solutions to modern slavery. She says she is hopeful domestic legislation will be strengthened to put greater onus on both government and business to ensure that Australian supply chains are free of the “taint” of modern slavery.

The main thing we can do is to strengthen our domestic legislation and to improve and strengthen the Modern Slavery Act.

We announced in the election campaign a range of policies, the appointment of an ambassador against modern slavery, and to amend the act, which is actually in Mark Dreyfus’s portfolio, so he’s got responsibility for it now, and my recollection is that there is a review under way about how we implement that strengthening.

In opposition we moved amendments to that legislation to strengthen it and I am hopeful that we will see a stronger piece of legislation which will put a greater onus on all of us – government and business – to make sure that our supply chains are clean, are free of slavery.

Because nobody wants to make money out of slavery, and no one wants to enable profit from it by what we purchase. So that means we have to know as consumers that what we are buying is free of that taint.

Business needs to know their supply chains are free of that taint and government needs to know the regulation we have put in place will enable that to occur.

Wong says there is “never” enough done to end slavery.

It is never enough until there is no one in this world who is working in those sorts of conditions, but there has been more done in the last few years than I thought, and that is pleasing.