Federal politics: Anthony Albanese brushes off US request to increase defence spending — as it happened
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has brushed off a US request for Australia to significantly increase defence spending.
It comes off the back of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asking Australia to lift its defence spending to 3.5 per cent of its gross domestic product "as soon as possible".
Take a look back at the day's developments below.
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West Australian
an hour ago
- West Australian
Emma Garlett: No amount of money can heal the wounds of Stolen Generations
For decades, West Australian children were taken from their families, for no reason other than their race. These were the Stolen Generations — thousands of Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their homes, denied access to their mothers and fathers, their communities and their culture. They were stolen, and they were stolen from. They were robbed of the basic right to live with their loved ones. The impact from that injustice has rippled out for generations. And now, the WA Government has put a dollar figure on their suffering. Under a redress scheme announced by Premier Roger Cook during Reconciliation Week, surviving members of the Stolen Generation are eligible for a one-off payment of $85,000. Mr Cook said the payments were an acknowledgement of a great injustice. 'It acknowledges the Stolen Generations era represents a sorrowful and shameful part of our history, and recognises that it has caused cycles of disadvantage and intergenerational trauma,' he said. 'No amount of money could ever make up for the experience of Stolen Generations members and their families, and the ongoing effects on people's lives.' He is right that it is inadequate. Australia's median annual income is about $72,500. In return for lifetimes of trauma and suffering, victims will receive a little over a year's wages. What of those Stolen Generation members who are no longer living? They receive nothing, their families receive nothing. Intergenerational trauma is exactly that: intergenerational. The death of a person who was stolen doesn't end the suffering. It continues in their own children and grandchildren, handed down through families. It almost seems convenient that we should wait so long to repay the victims of direct government action and then give no heed to the impacts the stolen generations had on their families. That said, there's no way money could ever heal those wounds. Instead, the Government needs to step up on other initiatives which will help to acknowledge the sins of the past and make real steps towards reconciliation. Labor has said it intends to 'partner with Aboriginal stakeholder organisations to develop measures for healing and truth telling'. When it does so, these healing and truth telling measures need to be enshrined in law. They need to be locked in, made more difficult to abolition should a future government have a change of heart. Emma Garlett is a legal academic and Nyiyaparli- Yamatji-Nyungar woman
The Australian
3 hours ago
- The Australian
New treatment allows cancer patients to avoid going under the knife
You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback. You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Australian hospitals have adopted a new combination chemotherapy for bladder cancer that has brought remission rates to 60 per cent, taking patients out from under the knife. A blend of the drugs Gemcitabine and Docetaxel has seen patients sidestep side effects while cutting rates of surgical bladder removal since being trialled at Monash Health in 2023, with the treatment now available to hospitals. Hailed as a means to 'change the whole protocol for the treatment of bladder cancer', the combination takes medications already made affordable by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to an eligible population of thousands of patients. The drugs are referred to collectively as Gem-Doce. It represents the first non-surgical alternative in bladder cancer treatment since the decades-old introduction of tuberculosis drug Bacillus Calmette-Guerin, for which supply is volatile. Retired teacher Alan Feher, 72, was a successful recipient of the combination therapy after he was diagnosed with aggressive bladder cancer. He had been late to catch his cancer, given he is colour blind and missed the most obvious symptom of blood in his urine. He was also misdiagnosed with an enlarged prostate in 2018 before landing on the true cause of his symptoms. 'It's quite by accident that the process started because I was mainly concerned about prostate cancer, and didn't have much idea about bladder cancer,' he said. 'The biopsy showed two things: that it was a non-invasive bladder cancer, and it was also high grade. 'The urologist said it was normal to remove the bladder and the prostate … that's looking at quite radical surgery, which would have meant having some kind of a bag hanging off of my body, where the kidneys redirected outside of my body … I nearly fainted when I heard that.' Facing the prospect of surgery, his entrance into the 2023 drug trial led him into remission. Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand president Damien Bolton welcomed the successful combination therapy, pointing to rising death rates from bladder cancer as an indication of how necessary new treatments were. Its lethality has risen in line with Australia's ageing population. Weranja Ranasinghe. Picture: Monash Health Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand president Damien Bolton. 'One way we can hold back and hopefully cure bladder cancer is not by having a big operation to remove your bladder and give you a stoma, or by having chemotherapy and radiation which have serious toxicities, but by putting different anti-cancer agents into the bladder, and this combination … Gem-Doce, is a huge step forward for that,' he said. 'Since the time of Covid, there's been a shortage worldwide of BCG … in Australia, like many countries around the world, we've had to ration our use. 'Now with Gem-Doce, you've got the ability to reserve BCG for when it's most needed, and you've got another viable alternative.' Professor Bolton said he hoped, pending the therapy's success, it would be adopted into recommended treatment guidelines. Annually, more than 3000 Australians are diagnosed with bladder cancer, most aged over 50. An aggressive cancer, it disproportionately affects men. In isolation, Gemcitabine and Docetaxel are poor treatments for bladder cancer; when administered together, 60-69 per cent of patients respond positively. A simultaneous European study has reported a 79 per cent high-grade disease-free survival rate and 73 per cent overall disease-free survival rate. Monash Health study lead Weranja Ranasinghe said the therapy would take patients out of palliative care. 'This new treatment provides an excellent alternative for these patients with good tolerance and durability. The other advantage is that these agents are widely available and affordable,' Associate Professor Ranasinghe said. 'The new treatment, Gem-Doce, is (using) established chemotherapy medicines and administering them sequentially into the bladder is shown to be effective in about 60 to 69 per cent of patients who don't respond to BCG treatment or who want to preserve their bladder.' Read related topics: HealthVaccinations
ABC News
5 hours ago
- ABC News
Telstra fined for disruption to emergency call service used by people with hearing, speech impairments
Telstra has again fallen short of regulator standards and community expectations in providing access to emergency services. The telco giant has paid a penalty and agreed to launch an independent review after it mistakenly disabled its connection to an emergency call relay service, which is used by people with hearing or speech impairments. In a life- or property-threatening time-critical emergency situation, Australians should contact triple-0 (000) — or, if they are using a type and listen or teletypewriter (TTY) device, they can dial 106 to be connected to police, fire or ambulance services. An Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation found the 106 emergency call service number was inadvertently made unavailable for 12 hours and 46 minutes between July 5 and 6 2024, following a server migration process. TTY is a text-based communication method for individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing or have speech impairments, allowing them to communicate via typed text over a phone line. A relay officer reads out the text a person types into their TTY device to an emergency operator. ACMA says it takes any disruption to an emergency call service very seriously, given there could be devastating consequences for members of the public. "This mistake could have contributed to very serious harm if someone who relies on this service had needed emergency assistance but was unable to get through," ACMA member and consumer lead Samantha Yorke said. "Fortunately, the records show no one attempted to use the 106 service for an emergency during the time the service was disabled." Under emergency call service rules, carriers must maintain the proper and effective functioning of their networks and facilities that are used to carry emergency calls. An analyst has raised concerns about the repeated failure of Australia's largest telecommunications providers to meet basic consumer needs. In December 2024, the ACMA imposed a $3 million penalty on Telstra after an investigation found 473 breaches of emergency call rules when Telstra's triple-0 call centre experienced a disruption for 90 minutes. "We've now had two major emergency service failures from Telstra in under a year," telecommunications consultant Paul Budde said, describing the incidents as "warning signs that core infrastructure is being compromised". Telstra has given the ACMA a court-enforceable undertaking to improve its relevant change management processes. It has also engaged an independent reviewer to look at the range of operational arrangements that support reliable delivery of the 106 emergency call service. "For years, Telstra has tried to position itself as a high-value tech company rather than a reliable utility," Mr Budde said. "But you can't build a shiny digital future on crumbling foundations. Telstra has also paid a penalty of $18,780, the maximum the ACMA could impose under the circumstances. Mr Budde said it was "pocket change" for the telco. "We need penalties that actually hurt — or better yet, incentives that reward doing the right thing." Optus was penalised a record $12 million by ACMA in late 2024 for a November 2023 network outage that caused considerable disruption to emergency call services. Telstra has committed to an independent review of its systems and says it will implement any reasonable recommendations of the review, develop and provide staff training and report regularly to ACMA on its progress implementing these undertakings. In a written statement, a Telstra spokesperson told the ABC that while no emergency calls failed during the disruption on July 6, 2024, the Telco understands the "critical importance of maintaining reliable emergency call services and the potential consequences of any disruption." 'We fully accept the findings of the ACMA and have committed to an independent review of our change management processes and operational arrangements to ensure such a mistake doesn't happen again,' the spokesperson said.
