Health News at Your Fingertips

Natasha May

It is a case that captured the attention of Australia and the world, with all the hallmarks of a great mystery novel. A body on the beach. Slumped against the sea wall, the man is well dressed but no one can identify him.

A scrap of paper in a foreign tongue is found inside his pocket – the words “tamám shud”, meaning “it is finished” in Persian. The paper is traced to a copy of an ancient poem, the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, in a book containing a secret code and the phone number of a young nurse living close by where the dead man was found on 1 December 1948.

For 73 years, the unknown man has been referred to by the beach where he was found, Somerton, just south of Adelaide, allowing the tantalising threads of the “Somerton man” mystery to spin out, resulting in elaborate theories. Some believed Somerton man was a Russian spy, or a spurned lover who fathered the child of the young nurse.

This week Prof Derek Abbott of the University of Adelaide claimed to have identified Somerton man as Carl “Charles” Webb, a 43-year old engineer from Melbourne who wrote poetry and “seems to be a bit of a loner”.

For more on the latest developments in the mystery of the Somerton man, read the full story by Guardian Australia rural network reporter Natasha May.

ACT budget to focus on health and housing

The upcoming ACT budget will look to tackle social infrastructure with pre-budget announcements focusing on housing and health.

The territory’s Labor-Greens government has announced $37.5m for mental health services such as perinatal mental health screening, enhancing perinatal, infant and child mental health and expanding the childhood early intervention team.

A record amount of land is also due to be made available by the government over the next five years to help tackle housing affordability in the capital.

The government is planning for an increase of 30,000 dwellings in the time frame as the ACT’s population is predicted to eclipse 500,000 by the end of the decade.

Funding for the renewal of public housing stock and the construction of more properties marked as rentals has been slated as well.

There is also more than $13 million in additional support for alcohol and drug services, spanning rehabilitation, family and carer support and specialised treatments.

It comes as the ACT opened Australia’s first static drug testing site under a pilot program.

The 2022-23 budget will be handed down on Tuesday.

– from AAP

Here are the latest coronavirus numbers from around Australia today, as the country records at least 41 deaths from Covid-19:

ACT

• Deaths: 0
• Cases: 556
• In hospital: 163 (with 1 person in ICU)

NSW

• Deaths: 5
• Cases: 10,993
• In hospital: 2,265 (with 66 people in ICU)

Northern Territory

• Deaths: 0
• Cases: 236
• In hospital: 56 (with 0 people in ICU)

Queensland

• Deaths: 0
• Cases: 4,655
• In hospital: 762 (with 28 people in ICU)

South Australia

• Deaths: 9
• Cases: 2,364
• In hospital: 346 (with 11 people in ICU)

Tasmania

• Deaths: 0
• Cases: 649
• In hospital: 150 (with six people in ICU)

Victoria

• Deaths: 21
• Cases: 7,115
• In hospital: 768 (with 43 people in ICU)

Western Australia

• Deaths: 6
• Cases: 3,252
• In hospital: 415 (with 14 people in ICU)

Nine people with Covid-19 have died in South Australia overnight, with the state recording 2,364 new cases on Sunday morning, 346 people in hospital, and 11 in ICU.

Western Australian teachers, nurses, police officers, cleaners and public servants have been offered a 6% wage rise over the next two years as a buffer to rising inflation, AAP reports.

The Western Australia government has increased its pay offer for 150,000 workers to three per cent annually for the next two years, along with an additional $2,500 cost of living payment.

Premier Mark McGowan said in a social media post on Sunday the move was in response to peaking inflation and would cost the budget an extra $634m over the next four years.

Given the current economic climate we’ve listened and reviewed our wages policy.

This is a reasonable and generous policy, but also responsible in these volatile economic times.

The changes will immediately flow through to industries that have already accepted the government’s previous 2.75% pay increase offer, including teachers and public hospital doctors.

Some workers’ wages will be boosted more than the three per cent annual rate, with a patient care assistant who earns just over $55,000 a year set to effectively get a 7.5% wage rise over the first year.

Perth’s consumer price index jumped 1.7% in the June quarter, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data, pushing its annual inflation rate well above the national average to 7.4%.

Health workers and other WA public servants were lobbying for a pay rise above 2.75%, with some holding stop-work meetings outside Perth hospitals in recent weeks.

Hundreds of school administration, leadership and support staff will be hired in New South Wales to help under-pressure teachers, AAP reports.

More than 200 new administrative positions will be trialled from term four to assist public school teachers with tasks including data entry, paperwork, and co-ordinating events and excursions.

Thousands of teachers walked off the job in late June over wages and conditions, with the NSW Teachers Federation describing the state government’s three per cent pay increase offer as an insult.

The NSW education minister Sarah Mitchell said the new roles will reduce the administrative burden on teachers and open doors to people wanting to re-enter the workforce or upskill.

Our teachers are skilled professionals and their time is precious. However, they are stretched across too many non-teaching and low-value activities.

Running a modern-day school is complex. We need to look at the work staff do in schools and think differently about how it gets done.

She said recruitment had started for 780 assistant principal positions.

The strike on June 30, just a day before two weeks of holidays, was the third in six months.

Chalmers wants to see ‘strong and sustainable’ wage growth

Sky News has run an interview with the treasurer Jim Chalmers from late last week, where Chalmers was asked about Labor’s position on wage growth amid the high inflation the nation is experiencing.

Chalmers:

I think all of our team understands that we do want strong wages growth, but we want it to be sustainable. You know, I don’t hear anybody in our team calling for exorbitant wages growth. What people really want to see is something that’s strong and sustainable at the same time and enduring.

And there is a high level of understanding not just in our side of the parliament, but I think in the Australian community that one of the problems we’ve had with our economy for the best part of a decade now is those stagnant wages. We’ve got real wages going backwards quite considerably at the moment, unfortunately. And so our job is to see that inflation moderate, do our bit on the supply side in particular, but also to get those real wages growing again.

I think it’s in the interests of all Australians that as we rebuild this economy after this difficult period that sustainable wages growth is part of the story. And that means productivity is part of the story. It means investing in the future of our economy, strong and secure well-paid jobs is a big part of our agenda. Because what we want to see is these wage increases to continue to endure, and to be responsible and sustainable at the same time.

The Reserve Bank of Australia is on track to lift interest rates again this week, adding to the cost of servicing mortgages and loans.

The central bank’s board will meet on Tuesday to discuss the state of the economy after new inflation data was released last week.

The consumer price index rose at an annual rate of 6.1 per cent in the June quarter, the fastest yearly growth since 2001.

It was followed by a 5.6 per cent lift in the Producer Price Index, which measures wholesale costs for Australian businesses, on Friday.

Now, the RBA must factor the increases into its monetary policy efforts to push the rate of consumer price growth back to its preferred target band of two to three per cent.

The urgency for action increased after Treasurer Jim Chalmers gave an economic update to federal parliament, warning inflation was still rising and would likely peak in the December quarter at 7.75 per cent.

The consensus of financial market economists is for the RBA to raise the cash interest rate, for the fourth time in a row, by 50 basis points to 1.85 per cent.

A 50 basis point rate increase will see the average mortgage holder on a variable interest rate paying an extra $610 per month to service their loan compared to four months ago.

-From AAP.

NT records no new Covid deaths

No people with Covid-19 have died in the Northern Territory overnight, with the state reporting 236 new cases on Sunday morning, 56 people in hospital, and none in ICU.

Six people with Covid-19 have died in Western Australia overnight, with the state reporting 3,252 new cases on Sunday morning, 415 people in hospital, and 14 in ICU.

The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, has released a statement on the death of Archie Roach.

It was with great sadness I learned yesterday of the passing of Gunditjmara and Bundjalung man Archie Roach and I offer my deepest sympathies to his family.

For many Australians, Archie was their first exposure to the horrors of the Stolen Generations.

His voice, his music and his story came out of trauma and pain.

His powerful songs also brought people together. They provided strength and still serve as a source of healing – putting into words what was unspeakable.

We are all so sad about his passing.

Archie’s songs will live forever – etched into our 65,000+ history – and he will be remembered as one of the early Aboriginal artists to bring our music into the mainstream.

Archie was one of our nation’s greatest songmen and truth-tellers and we have lost a giant of the Australian music industry and of our mob.

Vale Archie.

Eden Gillespie

Police Facebook group belittled domestic violence victims

Queensland police are investigating social media posts on a private Facebook group for law enforcement personnel that belittled domestic violence victims and implied officers purposefully avoid responding to such incidents.

The posts were made at the same time as public hearings in a commission of inquiry into Queensland police responses to domestic violence have unearthed numerous allegations of a misogynistic culture within the service that has repeatedly failed women.

Guardian Australia has seen several offensive posts published on the Facebook group, which proclaims to be a space for current and former Australian law enforcement officers.

A Queensland member of the group uploaded a photo ranking domestic violence allegations from “dogshit” or “very poor quality” to “bullshit” or “not true” and “batshit – insane”.

The group member said the photo could be used when describing “the parties involved in the 10th DV [domestic violence incident] of the night”, with the post attracting dozens of “likes” or laughing emojis.

For the detail on this story read the full report by Guardian Australia Queensland state reporter Eden Gillespie.

Covid deaths nearing 12,000

Australia’s daily Covid-19 death tallies are spiking, pushing the nation closer to chalking up 12,000 total virus-related fatalities.

The nation has recorded three straight days of 100-plus deaths related to the virus.

Another 27 have been reported so far on Sunday in Victoria, NSW and Tasmania – taking Australia’s total toll across the pandemic to 11,832 – along with 18,108 new cases.

– From AAP

No one with Covid-19 has died in Queensland overnight, with the state recording 4,655 new cases on Sunday morning, 762 people in hospital and 28 in ICU.

No one with Covid-19 has died in Tasmania overnight, with the state reporting 649 new cases on Sunday morning, 150 people in hospital and six in ICU.

ACT records no new Covid deaths

No people with Covid-19 have died in Australian Capital Territory overnight, with the state reporting 556 new cases, 163 people in hospital and one in ICU.