Australia news LIVE: David Stratton dies; Albanese, Chalmers react to leaked treasury document; Hamas denies praising Australia's Palestine recognition decision; Watt protects salmon farming in Tasmania
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5.08pm
Bail denials trigger juvenile jail rise
By Jack Gramenz and Alexander Darling
Almost 10 classrooms worth of children are in jail in NSW, alone as bail changes trigger a sharp increase in custody numbers.
NSW Premier Chris Minns defended his bail changes on Thursday as data showed more than 230 children were in NSW jails in June.
That figure was 34 per cent higher than two years earlier, the state's crime statistics bureau said.
It reversed a trend of declining numbers of jailed children, the bureau's executive director Jackie Fitzgerald said.
The majority of jailed children have not been convicted, with only 66 in custody due to sentencing.
More than 70 per cent are on remand while they go through the court process.
But the increase is not necessarily driven by laws placing additional tests on bail, suggesting access to bail has tightened.
'It seems to be beyond just the offences that were targeted or the particular circumstances that were targeted under the legislative change,' Ms Fitzgerald said.
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The state government has limited access to bail for children aged 14 and over accused of break-and-enter and motor vehicle theft offences while bailed on similar charges.
Bail for accused domestic violence offenders has also been restricted.
In Victoria, the state government announced changes to it bail laws in March following some high-profile offences.
Parts of the reforms were introduced later so that the state could hire extra corrections staff to cope with the expected influx there.
With AAP
4.59pm
'These are not new ideas': Opposition says Labor supporting ideas it opposed at election
By Alexander Darling
Staying with Afternoon Briefing, and the opposition has had its say on that leaked Treasury document suggesting what the outcomes of next week's productivity roundtable should be in advance.
'I think it's very curious that two of the Treasury ideas were ideas that we had at the last election,' said Shadow Minister for Housing and Productivity, Senator Andrew Bragg, when he went on the show.
'That tells you that the central agency thinks that coalition policy ideas are credible.'
'In fact, the government said during the last campaign that changing the National Construction Code was a bad idea and, in fact, Ed Husic said that it would result in there being bad houses or shoddy housing in Australia.
'So, there was a reason this was our policy - because we knew there was a lot of red tape in the housing sector. And in relation to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, we also had a policy there to remove some of the red tape and to get the approvals moving.'
'These are not new ideas. These are ideas that Labor would have known about last term. But instead of actually helping housing, in the last term, they put in place lots and lots of red tape.'
Bragg also wouldn't be drawn on whether he still supported the opposition's pledge from this year's election campaign, to cut new migrants by 100,000 people a year. Host Patricia Karvelas noted Shadow Home Affairs Minister Andrew Hastie reaffirmed his support for this target last week.
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Herald Sun
32 minutes ago
- Herald Sun
Steve Price: Brad Battin needs to show some Jeff Kennett showmanship
Filling in on 3AW back in the early 1990s I upset Premier Jeff Kennett so badly he stormed into my office and demanded an apology. My crime was replacing Kennett, on air, with Opposition Leader John Brumby. Jeffrey was on holiday but guarded his regular weekday half-hour spot on the Neil Mitchell show like it was one of his children. The Premier was a lot more volatile back then, during his eight-year reign in the top job, and to say we almost came to blows is not an exaggeration. The pair of us have laughed about it subsequently. He was also, prior to defeating Labor's Joan Kirner in 1992 as Victoria wore the 'rust-bucket state' tag, an exceptional Opposition Leader. John Cain Jr, the predecessor to Kirner, and Labor had driven Victoria into the ground and Victorians were fleeing in great numbers to places like Queensland. Back then the Herald Sun ran a page one that was just black, signifying how bad things had got in the state. Basically, a funeral notice. Kennett was like a dog attacking a bone and he was a daily presence in media whether it was on AW with Mitchell, arguing with the ABC or shovelling dirt at journalists when he finally became premier. Hardly a night passed without Kennett appearing on the nightly news. Kennett was a showman admired and despised in equal parts. Compare that brand of retail politics from a career advertising man with the bland versions of Opposition Leaders Victoria has had to endure through the tortured decade of Labor leaders Daniel Andrews and now Jacinta Allan. Think about this — the Victorian Liberals have been through Matthew Guy twice, Michael O'Brien, John Pesutto and now Brad Battin. Talk about navel gazing and self-destruction. Surely it can't be that hard to find a suitably aggressive, media friendly alternative to two of the most despised political leaders we have ever experienced. It hasn't happened and as steady a hand as he has been, Brad Battin is just not cutting through. Let me prosecute the case that it's not entirely Battin's fault. I'm currently presenting the Peta Credlin Sky News TV program five days a week for five weeks. This week we contacted the Opposition Leader's office to request a live on-air chat about a loosening of the laws around self-protection if someone breaks into your house in the middle of the night armed with a machete. The response from his media team was to suggest we talk instead with David Limbrick of the Libertarian Party. Offered a prime-time spot to prosecute the case that Premier Allan was ruling over a state of lawlessness so bad that people were arguing we should be able to arm ourselves with baseball bats and fight back, instead we were pushed towards an Independent, not even a Liberal. This was not an isolated case, indeed last week we asked the same office to interview Battin about Jacinta Allan's vote grabbing delusion that she would legislate to make it law you can work from home two days a week. Same response. Sorry, Brad's not available. I was prompted to check when the last time Victoria's Opposition Leader had appeared on Sky's top rating four day a week Credlin show and found, according to our records, it was five weeks ago. I present the Friday version of Credlin and can't remember the last time he appeared with me either. Now Battin and his team can choose to appear in the media and with whomever they choose. But to suggest he has a high profile as Opposition Leader is ludicrous. Most Victorians would struggle to even name him. It's a problem the conservative side of politics, both state and federal, struggle with. The NSW Liberal Opposition leader is a bloke called Mark Speakman who as late as this week was facing a leadership challenge over a net-zero bungle. In South Australia a bloke even I have never heard of leads the Liberals – Vincent Tarzia. Vincent took over after former leader David Speirs was forced to resign after pleading guilty to two drug charges and a video showed him snorting a substance from a plate. The best known Liberal Opposition leader in Australia would be WA's Basil Zempilas, who has been in the job five months. Basil, of course, is best known for his football commentary on the Seven Network not for his politics and he leads a team of just seven members of the lower house. Then of course we have the newly minted Federal Liberal leader Sussan Ley who when a poll was taken to identify who she was by showing members of the public a photograph of her, not one person knew who she was. One thought she was Gina Rinehart another a bank executive and to be fair not everyone knew who even Anthony Albanese was. Liberals around the country are searching for leaders that can connect with wider Australia. Ley deserves her shot at the top job and given the Coalition will be in Opposition for the next four years she has plenty of time to get known. Brad Battin doesn't have the luxury of time with a state election just 14 months away and Victorians deserve better than an alternative Premier being hidden away. Unlike most state and federal politicians, he has a work history as an ex-police officer and prison guard – ideal for prosecuting the case in a lawless state overrun by violent crime. Someone needs to tell him to accept every media opportunity offered to him. He should take a leaf out of Kennett's playbook where he insisted on live in-person interviews so he couldn't be edited. Victoria had and still has a love-hate relationship with our most successful recent Liberal Premier, but one thing is for sure you couldn't ignore him. So, media savvy was he that after being confronted by a barbecue wielding union protester out the front of the old AW studios in Bank St he made one more big demand. He asked us to install a landline into his office to conduct live interviews from there. We did it only to regret the decision as Jeff kept dialling in to go on air like some sort of media commentator. At least Victorians knew who he was. Dislikes • Convicted drug and gun criminal Snoop Dogg as the Grand Final entertainment – how does that fit the AFL's family image. • Anthony Albanese promising to recognise a Palestinian State. • Cowardly masked neo-Nazis marching through Melbourne in the dead of night. • ACTU pushing for a four-day week at Canberra's economic roundtable next week. Likes • Reserve Bank cut interest rates for the third time this year. • EV drivers look like being slugged a road user tax – about time. • Ageless Magpie Scott Pendlebury at age 37 going around next year. • Donald Trump doing what our leaders should do cleaning up Washington DC of homeless criminals and drug dealers. Steve Price Saturday Herald Sun columnist Melbourne media personality Steve Price writes a weekly column in the Saturday Herald Sun.
Perth Now
2 hours ago
- Perth Now
Hidden issue fueling Aussie crisis
Jim Chalmers says it's 'not surprising' Australia's birth rate has slowed given the 'financial pressures' on families, however, he has rejected calls to bring back the Costello-era $3000 baby bonus in favour of 'better, more enduring ways to support parents'. The comments come ahead of Labor's highly anticipated Economic Reform Roundtable, which will bring business and unions groups to Canberra for three days of intensive discussions on how to lift Australia's sluggish productivity rate. 'It's not surprising that the birth rate has slowed given the pressures on people, including financial pressures,' he told NewsWire. 'We want to make it easier for them to make that choice. If they want to have more kids, we want to make it easier for them to do that, and that's what motivates a lot of our changes.' NED-14018-How-Australias-birth-rate-has-fallen However, as Australia struggles to boost the economy, and in turn raise wages and living standards, it's also contending with a sluggish birth rate of 1.5 births per woman, which is under the 2.1 figure needed to sustain population growth. Boosting productivity was also essential to ensuring that Australia's ageing population could weather economic headwinds, the Treasurer said. 'Now, the reason why the productivity challenge is important to this is because our society is ageing, and over time, there will be fewer workers for every person who's retired,' he said. 'We need to make sure that our economy is as productive as it can be, as strong as it can be to withstand that demographic change, which is going to be big and consequential.' Treasurer Jim Chalmers said boosting productivity was essential to help Australia weather an ageing population. NewsWire/ Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia Mr Chalmers also spurned calls from former Liberal prime minister John Howard to resurrect the $3000 baby bonus cash incentive bought in by his treasurer Peter Costello in 2004. The Queenslander's parliamentary colleagues have advocated for other measures to spur a baby boom, including Nationals senator Matt Canavan's proposed $100,000 loans for first-time parents to buy their first home. Parliament's maverick father of the house Bob Katter also proposed incoming splitting for parents so they paid less overall tax. For example, a household where two parents earn a combined income of $150,000 pays about $10,000 less tax than a household with a single worker pulling in $150,000. Instead, Mr Chalmers said Labor's supports were 'more enduring,' pointing to policies like guaranteeing three days of subsidised child care for families earning less than $533,280, increasing paid parental leave to 25 weeks, and paying super on government-funded parental leave to tackle the gender superannuation gap. The decline in birth rate. Source: Supplied Credit: Supplied 'That policy from a couple of decades ago was a one-off payment, and we found ways to support parents which is meaningful and enduring, not one off. That's the main difference,' he said. 'Our political opponents … haven't said how they would fund that, how they would pay for that, whereas we've been carefully budgeting all this help for parents in our budgets and providing that in an ongoing way. 'We're always in the market for ideas about ways to support families. We've got all this cost-of-living help rolling out, (like) all the childcare changes. All of that, I think, demonstrate a willingness on our part to support families (in making) decisions about whether they want to have kids or have more kids.' Mr Chalmers says the 'generational anxiety' plaguing Australia youth simultaneously contending with rising house prices and inflation will also be a touchstone ahead of the economic reform roundtable, which at one point was called the productivity roundtable before it was quietly changed. He concedes productivity can 'sound like a cold lifeless piece of economic jargon' but explains the metric is 'about efficiency' and 'about how we make our economy stronger to deliver for more people so that they can earn more and get ahead and be better off'. Australia's birthrate has fallen below the 2.1 births needed to sustain Australia's population. Jason Edwards/ NewsWire Credit: News Corp Australia Generational equality has also fuelled some of the roundtable's more controversial submissions, including the Australian Council of Trade Unions' call to limit negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions on just one property by the next five years, and teal Wentworth MP Allegra Spender's overhaul of the tax system that she says is overly reliant on income taxes. The ACTU has also reiterated calls for a four-day work week, while the Productivity Commission irked business bodies with calls for a new 5 per cent cash flow tax and a road user charge to ensure EV drivers, who skip the fuel excise, also contribute to road upgrades. How to best handle the opportunities posed by artificial intelligence, while mitigating the risks and job losses, will also be debated on day two; however, Mr Chalmers is quietly optimistic. 'I think one of the big challenges, broadly, but especially for young people, is how they adapt and adopt technology, so a big focus will be how do we skill people up to use artificial intelligence so that it's it works for them, not against them, particularly in the workplace,' he said. Mr Chalmers will use talks to create consensus on what he says is the 'most transformative influence on our economy and our lifetime', and while he doesn't want to pre-empt decisions, education settings and regulation will likely be immediate action points once talks end on Thursday. '(AI) has to change the way we think about skills and capabilities, and I'll work closely with colleagues in the education portfolios, the industry portfolio and elsewhere to make sure that we've got the settings right,' he said. 'Whether it's regulation, whether it's education, in a whole bunch of areas, governments have to catch up and keep up with the accelerating pace of technological change.'
News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
Treasurer Jim Chalmers says ‘not surprising' Australia's birthrate has slowed but rejects bringing back baby bonus
Jim Chalmers says it's 'not surprising' Australia's birth rate has slowed given the 'financial pressures' on families, however, he has rejected calls to bring back the Costello-era $3000 baby bonus in favour of 'better, more enduring ways to support parents'. The comments come ahead of Labor's highly anticipated Economic Reform Roundtable, which will bring business and unions groups to Canberra for three days of intensive discussions on how to lift Australia's sluggish productivity rate. 'It's not surprising that the birth rate has slowed given the pressures on people, including financial pressures,' he told NewsWire. 'We want to make it easier for them to make that choice. If they want to have more kids, we want to make it easier for them to do that, and that's what motivates a lot of our changes.' However, as Australia struggles to boost the economy, and in turn raise wages and living standards, it's also contending with a sluggish birth rate of 1.5 births per woman, which is under the 2.1 figure needed to sustain population growth. Boosting productivity was also essential to ensuring that Australia's ageing population could weather economic headwinds, the Treasurer said. 'Now, the reason why the productivity challenge is important to this is because our society is ageing, and over time, there will be fewer workers for every person who's retired,' he said. 'We need to make sure that our economy is as productive as it can be, as strong as it can be to withstand that demographic change, which is going to be big and consequential.' Mr Chalmers also spurned calls from former Liberal prime minister John Howard to resurrect the $3000 baby bonus cash incentive bought in by his treasurer Peter Costello in 2004. The Queenslander's parliamentary colleagues have advocated for other measures to spur a baby boom, including Nationals senator Matt Canavan's proposed $100,000 loans for first-time parents to buy their first home. Parliament's maverick father of the house Bob Katter also proposed incoming splitting for parents so they paid less overall tax. For example, a household where two parents earn a combined income of $150,000 pays about $10,000 less tax than a household with a single worker pulling in $150,000. Instead, Mr Chalmers said Labor's supports were 'more enduring,' pointing to policies like guaranteeing three days of subsidised child care for families earning less than $533,280, increasing paid parental leave to 25 weeks, and paying super on government-funded parental leave to tackle the gender superannuation gap. 'That policy from a couple of decades ago was a one-off payment, and we found ways to support parents which is meaningful and enduring, not one off. That's the main difference,' he said. 'Our political opponents … haven't said how they would fund that, how they would pay for that, whereas we've been carefully budgeting all this help for parents in our budgets and providing that in an ongoing way. 'We're always in the market for ideas about ways to support families. We've got all this cost-of-living help rolling out, (like) all the childcare changes. All of that, I think, demonstrate a willingness on our part to support families (in making) decisions about whether they want to have kids or have more kids.' Mr Chalmers says the 'generational anxiety' plaguing Australia youth simultaneously contending with rising house prices and inflation will also be a touchstone ahead of the economic reform roundtable, which at one point was called the productivity roundtable before it was quietly changed. He concedes productivity can 'sound like a cold lifeless piece of economic jargon' but explains the metric is 'about efficiency' and 'about how we make our economy stronger to deliver for more people so that they can earn more and get ahead and be better off'. Generational equality has also fuelled some of the roundtable's more controversial submissions, including the Australian Council of Trade Unions' call to limit negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions on just one property by the next five years, and teal Wentworth MP Allegra Spender's overhaul of the tax system that she says is overly reliant on income taxes. The ACTU has also reiterated calls for a four-day work week, while the Productivity Commission irked business bodies with calls for a new 5 per cent cash flow tax and a road user charge to ensure EV drivers, who skip the fuel excise, also contribute to road upgrades. How to best handle the opportunities posed by artificial intelligence, while mitigating the risks and job losses, will also be debated on day two; however, Mr Chalmers is quietly optimistic. 'I think one of the big challenges, broadly, but especially for young people, is how they adapt and adopt technology, so a big focus will be how do we skill people up to use artificial intelligence so that it's it works for them, not against them, particularly in the workplace,' he said. Mr Chalmers will use talks to create consensus on what he says is the 'most transformative influence on our economy and our lifetime', and while he doesn't want to pre-empt decisions, education settings and regulation will likely be immediate action points once talks end on Thursday. '(AI) has to change the way we think about skills and capabilities, and I'll work closely with colleagues in the education portfolios, the industry portfolio and elsewhere to make sure that we've got the settings right,' he said. 'Whether it's regulation, whether it's education, in a whole bunch of areas, governments have to catch up and keep up with the accelerating pace of technological change.'
