Health News at Your Fingertips

Australian among dead in Ireland petrol station blast

Cait Kelly

An Australian father is among the ten people killed during a blast at a petrol station in Donegal county, Ireland.

James O’Flaherty, 48, originally from Sydney, was killed in the blast which happened at the service station in Creeslough, a small village in northwest Ireland on Friday.

A death notice for O’Flaherty said he is survived by his wife Tracey and son Hamish. A funeral will be held in St Mary’s Church in Derrybeg on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was working with local authorities.

“The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is aware of reports an Australian has been killed in an explosion at a petrol station in the Irish county of Donegal,” the spokesperson said.

“We are working with local authorities and stand ready to provide assistance. Owing to our privacy obligations we are unable to provide further details.”

The cause of the explosion is under investigation.

Apple agrees to more talks over staff pay and conditions

Tech giant Apple has agreed to two more meetings with unions and retail staff over a proposed enterprise bargaining agreement, and will give the unions 72 hours notice before opening up the EBA to be voted on by staff.

The negotiations between the unions and Apple were due to end on Friday, but the company has agreed to hold two more meetings on Tuesday and Thursday this week, and won’t open voting on the agreement to staff until at least Monday next week, the Australian Services Union and SDA told Guardian Australia.

You can read our earlier report on the state of the negotiations here:

With that, I will pass you into the thrillingly capable hands of Josh Taylor.

I just typed “enjoy your weekends” before realising it’s Monday afternoon, so have a good one regardless. He’ll be with you for the rest of the evening.

New South Wales water police have rescued a stranded yacht after a 15-hour operation under “severe conditions” off the NSW north coast.

About 12pm yesterday, emergency services were called to reports a Queensland yacht was in trouble about 50 nautical miles off the coast near Kingscliff.

Officers attached to Tweed Heads water police located the yacht, which had a shredded mainsail and no engine power, with two men – aged 56 and 61 – onboard.

About three hours later, police began towing the yacht under extreme conditions, which led to the tow line breaking multiple times.

Due to safety concerns, police couldn’t pass through the Tweed Bar and instead towed the yacht toward Southport in Queensland, where they eventually arrived about 6.30 this morning.

One of the police officers was taken to Tweed Heads Hospital in a stable condition suffering dehydration, exhaustion and a back injury sustained during the rescue. The two yachtsmen were uninjured.

Euabalong in western New South Wales is experiencing major flooding.

In Greater Newcastle, Fire and Rescue NSW is attempting to contain a fire at a home in Lake Macquarie.

National vacancy rates have hit a record low as affordability starts to impact rent hikes, CoreLogic’s quarterly rental review – released today – has found.

It shows the national rental index had its smallest monthly increase this year, up 0.6% in the month to September and 2.3% over the September quarter, a 60 basis point decrease on the three months to June (2.9%).

The quarterly trend in national rental values is now 70 basis points below the recent peak rate recorded in May (3.0%).

CoreLogic research analyst and report author Kaytlin Ezzy said there had been “unprecedented” growth in rental values in the past few years.

We saw rents fall marginally over the first few months of Covid, but since August 2020 national dwelling rents have surged almost 20%, equivalent to a weekly rent rise of approximately $90 per week.

Initially driven by a reduction in the average household size, the continued upswing in values is likely now predominantly being driven by the strong return of overseas migration, coupled with extremely tight rental supply.

Ezzy said the easing in rental growth was a little surprising, particularly given such low vacancy rates.

The slow down in the rate of rental growth may suggest an increasing number of prospective tenants are starting to come up against affordability constraints.

As high non-discretionary inflation, along with increasing rents, put additional stress on a renter’s balance sheet, it is likely a growing number of tenants look to reform larger households or find more affordable rental options in an attempt to reduce costs.

In the quiet afternoon lull, a deeply cursed Sorted article has placed the Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book by Pamela Clark and Maryanne Blacker 17th (!!!) in a list compiling the nation’s best cookbooks.

If my childhood memories attest to anything it’s that nothing will come close to the joy of novelty birthday cakes prepared with misshapen love.

ABC editorial director Craig McMurtrie to leave broadcaster

Amanda Meade

A member of the ABC’s leadership team, editorial director Craig McMurtrie, has announced he will leave the ABC in January after 30 years.

The former Washington correspondent and deputy news director is responsible for the ABC’s editorial policies and representing its journalism at Senate estimates.

A US correspondent for a decade, McMurtrie started as a cadet on Radio New Zealand in 1980 and joined the ABC in 1991.

He told staff in an email:

I’m grateful for all the opportunities I’ve had – as a reporter in the Sydney newsroom, on state-based 7.30, as a national correspondent, in the frenetic Canberra Parliament House bureau, on postings to Washington, as a member of the news executive and as part of the ABC leadership team.

Thank you to my fellow directors on the executive management team and to the ABC’s leaders – Senate estimates endurance champion David Anderson and the peerless Ita Buttrose.

Daniel Hurst

Wong says trust between Quad partners ‘deep and firm’

A journalist asked about India’s dependence on Russian military equipment and whether its stance was holding back the Quad, which brings together Australia, the US, Japan and India.

Wong said the Quad was functioning “extremely well” and the level of strategic trust and strategic consistency among the Quad partners was “deep and firm”.

Jaishankar reiterated India’s stance that the Quad is primarily focused on the Indo-Pacific (ie not Ukraine) because that was the region where the convergence among Quad partners was particularly strong.

He said India had a longstanding relationship with Russia that had served its interests, and that India had acquired Soviet and Russian-origin weapons “because, for multiple decades, western countries did not supply weapons to India and in fact saw a military dictatorship next to us as the preferred partner”. (That was a reference to Pakistan.)

Jaishankar continued:

So I think we all, in international politics, deal with what we have. We make judgments, judgments which are reflective of both our future interests as well as our current situation. And my sense is, in terms of this current conflict, like every military conflict, there are learnings from it. And I’m sure my very professional colleagues in the military would be studying it very carefully.

The SES has warned major flooding is again occurring at already hard-hit Warren, 120km north-west of Dubbo.

At Gunnedah in north-east NSW, the Namoi River has reached the moderate flood level of 7.6m and is expected to hit major flood level overnight.

Daniel Hurst

Wong and Jaishankar discuss Ukraine

India’s external affairs minister, Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, confirmed the war in Ukraine was one of the topics on the agenda during his meeting with his Australian counterpart, Penny Wong.

When asked whether India would support a UN general assembly resolution, to be debated this week, that declines to recognise Russia’s purported annexation of four Ukrainian regions, Jaishankar said:

Well, you know, as a matter of prudence and policy, we don’t predict our votes in advance. Having said that, you also know that we have been very clearly against conflict in Ukraine. We believe that this conflict does not serve the interests of anybody, neither the participants nor indeed of the international community. And as a country of the global south, we have been seeing firsthand how much it has impacted low-income countries, the challenges that they are facing in terms of fuel and food and fertilisers.

Jaishankar noted that India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, told Vladimir Putin at a recent summit that this was “not an era of war”.

A conflict today in some corner of the world can have a very profound impact on everybody across the world. And I think that continues to guide our thinking.

Wong did not answer directly whether Australia had encouraged India to vote in favour of the UN resolution on Ukraine, rather than abstain as it has done in previous votes.

She said:

Well, I’ll reiterate again Australia’s condemnation of Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine. And reiterate the view that we’ve expressed publicly that the annexations, so-called sham annexations, or sham referenda and the annexations, are illegal. And we remain remain of the view that Russia’s invasion is illegal.

In relation to India, I would indicate again that we welcomed prime minister Modi raising his concerns with Mr Putin in September, I think it was, and as Mr Prime Minister Modi has told Mr Putin, this is not the time for war.

In Victoria, the Greens are pushing to “legalise it” and tax cannabis in a similar manner to alcohol ahead of the state election.

Greens MP for Brunswick Tim Read announced the plan today, which the party says could help raise $1.21bn in revenue over 10 years.

Daniel Hurst

Penny Wong: Australia’s relationship with India is ‘a critical part of shaping the region we want’

The foreign affairs minister was addressing the media alongside India’s external affairs minister, Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, after their meeting in Parliament House in Canberra (they were due to have lunch shortly afterwards to continue the discussion).

Wong said it was an “excellent discussion” and Jaishankar had “great insights about the region and the world”.

She said Australia and India shared a region – the Indo-Pacific – and an ambition for that region “being stable, prosperous and respectful of sovereignty, where countries are not required to choose sides, but make their own sovereign choices”.

Interestingly, amid increasing strategic competition between the historically dominant US and a rising China, Wong said:

We don’t want to see any one country dominating, or any country being dominated. We both recognise our region is being reshaped, economically and strategically. And I think our partnership is a demonstration that we understand that this period of change is best navigated together.

Wong said Australia and India would continue to deepen their relationship, including by expanding their diplomatic footprints in each other’s countries.

Jaishankar said expanding the diplomatic footprint was “in our mutual interest”. He described the meeting as a “very useful, very productive, very comfortable discussion”. It was the latest of numerous meetings between the pair since the change of government, as they “really work to strengthen our bilateral relations and see how we can shape a better region”. He said the trade deal signed under the former Coalition government was getting closer to ratification:

We are very encouraged to see that the economic cooperation and trade agreement that was finalised earlier this year is moving towards its ratification and entry into force. That’s a very good development. We also note that steps are being taken to amend the double taxation ordinance agreement because that was also a bit of a challenge to growing our business.

New Guardian Australia podcast

If you missed it over the weekend, a new podcast series starring Ben Doherty has been introduced on Guardian Australia’s Full Story. It’ll be live from 17 October, and the teaser is well worth a listen.

Australia’s most decorated living soldier, Ben Roberts-Smith, is suing three of the country’s most trusted newspapers for defamation over articles he says falsely accuse him of war crimes. Whatever the outcome, the ramifications will be immense for public interest journalism, Australia’s military and the man venerated as a modern-day war hero.

Increase in psychological injury claims through NSW workers’ compensation scheme to be examined by parliamentary inquiry

The move comes amid claims the increase threatens icare’s sustainability, AAP reports.

The upper house committee on law and justice will hold a hearing on Monday, when representatives from multiple unions and professional alliances will give evidence, followed by SafeWork NSW directors and executives from the State Insurance Regulatory Authority (Sira).

A review of Insurance and Care NSW (icare), led by Robert McDougall KC, followed allegations aired on the ABC’s Four Corners in July 2020 that workers claiming psychological injury were being pushed to return to work.

McDougall noted Sira had confirmed the practice did not appear to be systemic or widespread. In icare’s submission to the committee, it says mental health is “the single greatest challenge to the sustainability of our workers’ compensation schemes”.

Employers are now needing to care for workers whose mental health is not at optimal levels. It requires a change in how we think about people with mental health issues and an understanding of the important role leaders play in setting a positive workplace culture. To put it simply, we all need to listen and care more.

The hearing comes after finance minister Damien Tudehope announced four existing claims service providers would have their contracts extended for 10 years from January, while two new providers would join the scheme.