Health News at Your Fingertips

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 to say one of those people 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.

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 for – or against – modern slavery, and to amend the act, which is actually in Mark Dreyfus’ 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 remove 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.

Penny Wong says there are more people in slavery now than in 2016

The foreign minister Penny Wong is speaking in Adelaide where she and her Indonesian counterpart have been part of the Bali Process Government and Business Forum, which aims to advance ethical business practices.

She’s speaking about what their meeting today has discussed about the state of modern slavery.

This process, ultimately, is about partnership. Regrettably, the work of the Bali Forum remains as necessary as ever.

What we have seen is, if you look at the slavery data, more people in slavery now than 2016, and that is a really sobering thought for all of us.

The value of this engagement was clear to me this morning. We had in 2018, before my time, the business community and governments at the time establish a framework. They called it the AAA framework, and – what is it: acknowledge, act, advance.

And what we had is business leaders and governments talk to the group about what they had done since, and it made me really understand the value of this process, that by coming together and agreeing to voluntarily, what they wanted to do, we saw progress in companies and in jurisdictions around the world. A lot more to do, but it is a really important place for that work to be done.

Victoria’s ambulance response times worsen

Victoria’s ambulance response times have gone backwards, with the highest-priority patients waiting longer for care, AAP reports.

The state’s latest health performance data, released today, showed it took ambulances an average of 9.53 minutes to arrive at life-threatening incidents in the last quarter of 2022.

That was up from the average of 9.03 minutes reported in the October to December period of 2021.

It also took paramedics longer to get to high-priority or code-one incidents, with an average response time of 13.08 minutes recorded in the latest quarter compared to 12.07 minutes a year earlier.

Ambulance services minister Gabrielle Williams said demand for ambulances had been high across the state. She told reporters today:

We saw over 100,000 code one cases responded to and 3,000 calls a day for an ambulance.

We’ve got to remember that much of what we’re seeing is not unique to Victoria. The demand on our system that we’ve been experiencing is global.

There was also a spike in people presenting at the state’s emergency departments, with 452,031 attending hospital in the final quarter of last year.

Despite the surge, average emergency wait times dropped to 20 minutes compared with 23 minutes in the July to September quarter.

Daniel Hurst

Chinese security cameras: attorney general requests advice on whether government-wide ban is required

Returning briefly to the issue of CCTV and other equipment made by Chinese companies Hikvision and Dahua:

So far we’ve had public commitments from both the defence and foreign affairs ministers to remove such equipment from both departments. The government frontbencher Murray Watt, representing Mark Dreyfus in the Senate, also told the upper house yesterday that the attorney general had ordered a broader review that could lead to removal of the equipment from other departments, too:

I have seen the media coverage regarding this issue in the last couple of days. What I can advise the chamber is that the attorney general has requested advice on whether a government-wide ban is required to address protective security risks. Of course, the Albanese government take national security seriously, and we will always act in the national interest.

RBA lifts inflation forecasts in latest economic projections

Peter Hannam

The Reserve Bank’s statement on monetary policy helps us understand a bit more of the reasons the central bank said on Tuesday that further interest rate rises are still to come.

As seen in the revisions since its previous statement in November, the RBA is forecasting underlying inflation will be higher in 2023, albeit only marginally so.

The so-called trimmed mean measure of inflation will be 6.25% by June and 4.25% by December. That compares with 5.5% and 3.75% that it had expected three months ago.

Underlying inflation excludes some of the more volatile price movements to get to a truer view of price pressures than the headline (grabbing) consumer price index.

For the December quarter, the media largely focussed on the 7.8:% CPI number for annual inflation, the highest in 32 years.

The underlying rate of 6.9% got less attention but probably warranted more since it was a record high, more than the 6.5% forecast by the RBA, and more importantly is what the central bank most closely watches.

When you hear the RBA has a 2%-3% target band for inflation the measure they want to see in that mix is that trimmed mean version.

Anyway, the slightly more upbeat view today is that underlying gauge will fall back to 3% by the end of next year (earlier than tipped previously). The CPI version won’t drop to that level until mid-2025, according to the latest projections.

Of course these are all model-based forecasts and include inputs such as the bank’s cash rate reaching “around 3.75% in the second half of 2023”. (We saw in the earlier post that investors are now betting it will top 4%, just.)

Things might not turn out as expected, such as household spending could prove more resilient to the interest rate hikes than currently predicted. (Or it could decline faster.)

And “inflation could turn out to be higher than expected if the high inflation environment leads to greater feedback between wages and prices than has been typical in the inflation targeting era” the RBA said.

As it stands, though, the RBA is not forecasting much of an upswing in wages, with the wage price index continuing to lag inflation (and so real wages continue to sink). The RBA says other incentives, including promotions, will mask the full size of compensation for us toilers.

Nothing too surprising so far. Stay tuned for more.

Greens welcome decision on family reunion visas for refugees who arrive by boat

The Greens have welcomed the government’s decision to scrap ministerial directions that prevent processing of applications for family reunion visas from refugees who arrived in Australia by boat.

Greens immigration spokesperson senator Nick McKim said it would address “one aspect” of a “humanitarian crisis deliberately created by bipartisan immigration policies”.

These discriminatory and unfair directions … have seen families unnecessarily separated for more than a decade. However, this decision alone is not enough to resolve the broader issues facing refugees and people seeking asylum in Australia.

Many of these refugees have suffered trauma and abuse, and the government must provide adequate support to help them heal and rebuild their lives. We now need to ensure that these family reunion visa applications are processed without delay.

McKim also urged the government to deliver its election promise to abolish temporary protection visas and provide a pathway to permanent residency for refugees and asylum seekers currently in Australia.

Penny Wong on Chinese surveillance cameras: ‘We are removing them’

Daniel Hurst

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, says she has asked her department to accelerate the replacement of Chinese surveillance cameras in the wake of media reporting this week.

The Liberal party frontbencher James Paterson this week publicised figures breaking down the use of Hikvision and Dahua devices including CCTV equipment by government department. Figures published by the Australian said 28 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade sites used such equipment. Paterson called for an urgent plan “from the Albanese government to rip every one of these devices out of Australian government departments and agencies”.

The government has accused the opposition of politicising the issue (given that the cameras have not suddenly been installed since the change of government, and some concerns were raised as far back as 2018).

Wong told ABC Adelaide today:

We are removing them. I’ve asked my department to accelerate the replacement of these cameras, the defence minister has asked Defence to make sure they’re removed and replaced. So I think this can be resolved. The advice to me is that they’re not connected to the internet, so there’s minimal security concerns, but obviously given what has happened in other countries, it’s probably a good idea to do it … Obviously there was a decision made to remove them, and I’ve asked that that be accelerated.

Wong said it was important to “decide as a country where you’re going to source certain equipment from, where you’re going to source some of the things you use, and where there are, where it’s important to make sure you take a very cautious approach, that’s what we should be doing”.

Late night a spokesperson for China’s foreign affairs ministry, Mao Ning, warned Australia against “erroneous practices of over-stretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to discriminate against and suppress Chinese companies”. Mao added:

We hope the Australian side will provide a fair, just and non-discriminatory environment for the normal operation of Chinese companies and do more things that could contribute to mutual trust and cooperation between our two countries.

Severe thunderstorms and heavy rainfalls are predicted in Queensland, NSW and Tasmania today.

The bureau of meteorology is also concerned the storms could lead to more flash flooding for Queensland and NSW.

Caitlin Cassidy

WA’s Curtin University plans real wage cuts for staff

Curtin University staff will vote today on a proposed enterprise agreement labelled “insulting” by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU).

The proposal would provide staff 2.2% annual pay increases over the next five years – a real wages pay cut when factoring in inflation, which was 8.3% in Perth’s last quarter.

The university’s pay negotiations with the union were abandoned after reaching a stalemate. The NTEU is calling on staff to reject the offer, with voting to run from today until 16 February.

NTEU Curtin University branch president Scott Fitzgerald said the university posted a surplus of $113.2m in 2021, the most recent reporting period.

It’s clearly not a case of the money not being available.

WA has just seen the largest cost-of-living rise in Australia yet management is offering a real wages pay cut that will put staff under enormous pressure. Staff at Curtin can’t afford a cut at a time when inflation continues to smash household budgets.

This offer is an insult to the hard work staff at Curtin put in every single day.

NTEU national president Dr Alison Barnes said it was “extremely disappointing” senior management were making a “conscious decision” to try to cut real wages.

Curtin staff have the power to send a message to universities all around WA and Australia – workers deserve fair pay rises, especially at a time when profits are soaring at so many campuses.

In December, University of Newcastle staff overwhelmingly voted no to a proposed enterprise agreement following stalled negotiations with unions. It offered staff a 9.5% salary increase over three years amid other limited concessions.

Housing advocates call for Queensland rent hike limits

Advocates are calling for rent increases in Queensland to be tied to inflation plus 10% and limited to one per year amid a housing crisis, AAP reports.

The Queensland Council of Social Services and Tenants Queensland say the state government must intervene in the private rental market to help people struggling to meet the cost of living.

The two advocacy groups say Queensland has the highest rental inflation in Australia, with median rents rising 80% in Gladstone, 51% in Noosa and 33% on the Gold Coast since 2018.

Brisbane house and unit rents have also jumped 33% and 23%, respectively, since the pandemic began.

QCOSS chief executive Aimee McVeigh said restricting rises to inflation plus 10 per cent at most each year would protect about 30% of Queensland’s population, who are currently renters.

She said today:

With tens of thousands of Queenslanders experiencing housing insecurity who are not eligible for social housing, we also urgently need rental reform to stop more Queenslanders being forced into homelessness.

The housing crisis is happening amidst a broader cost-of-living crisis and the Queensland government must intervene urgently, so people on low incomes do not bear the brunt of inflation.

Cyclone Gabrielle

A tropical cyclone Gabrielle update from Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino: