News live: NSW to make legal move on privatised hospital; Israel boasts ‘close collaboration' with Australia
Update:
Date: 2025-06-19T20:27:55.000Z
Title: NSW government moves to end partnership deal over Northern Beaches hospital
Content: The Minns Labor government is arming itself with new powers to terminate the public-private partnership (PPP) with bankrupt Northern Beaches hospital operator Healthscope in the event that it cannot reach an agreement.
The government announced today it would introduce amendments to a private member's bill brought forward by the member for Wakehurst, Michael Regan, next week so it could – if required – terminate the Northern Beaches PPP contract.
This follows the appointment of receivers to the parent entities of Healthscope, which the NSW government considers a default under the contract.
Healthscope has argued that the termination would be ' voluntary' and would attract compensation as set out on the contract. The government said this would run to hundreds of millions of dollars.
'This is not a decision we take lightly,' the NSW treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, said.
But we are now in a position where the Liberals' privatisation mess means Healthscope's receivers are negotiating the future of the Northern Beaches hospital.
While an agreed exit from this failed PPP contract remains my preference, I must ensure the government has the right to step in and protect the Northern Beaches community from this dragging on.
Update:
Date: 2025-06-19T20:27:02.000Z
Title: Welcome
Content: Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I'm Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then Nick Visser will be in the hot seat.
Israel's deputy foreign minister told the ABC's 7.30 last night that her country had 'a very close collaboration' with Australian security agencies. However, when pressed on the question she did not elaborate on whether that included sharing intelligence about Iran's nuclear program. More coming up.
The Minns Labor government is arming itself with new powers to terminate the public-private partnership (PPP) with bankrupt Northern Beaches hospital operator Healthscope in the event that it cannot reach an agreement. More coming up on that too.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
24 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Malarndirri McCarthy urges states to remove hanging points from Australia's prisons
Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains names of Indigenous Australians who have died. This story contains descriptions of self-harm and some readers might find it distressing. The minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, says she has raised the presence of hanging points in prisons 'directly' with her colleagues after a Guardian Australia investigation last week. In a five-month investigation of 248 hanging deaths spanning two decades, the Guardian found that 57 inmates had died using hanging points that prison authorities and state governments knew about but failed to remove. The hanging points often remained despite repeated suicides and explicit coronial recommendations that they be removed, in one case allowing 10 hanging deaths from a single ligature point at Brisbane's Arthur Gorrie prison over 20 years. The death toll from continued inaction on obvious hanging points has prompted outrage from families of the dead, justice reform experts, Indigenous leaders, and the federal government, which has now twice publicly called on states and territories to do better. The deaths disproportionately affect Indigenous Australians, largely due to the failure to reduce overrepresentation in prison populations, a key recommendation of the 1991 Aboriginal deaths in custody royal commission. On Friday McCarthy said the federal government was taking the issue 'quite seriously' and urged the states and territories, who have responsibility for correctional facilities, to act. She was asked whether known hanging points could be removed by the end of the year. 'I certainly have raised it directly with my colleagues,' she told the ABC. 'We are very serious, not just about this one issue of hanging points, Sally. We do not want to see further deaths in custody.' McCarthy was speaking shortly before a meeting of the joint council on Closing the Gap, which she said would discuss Aboriginal deaths in custody after the deaths of two men in police custody in the Northern Territory. 'The gathering today of First Nations Indigenous affairs ministers … is testament to the fact that this is an incredibly important issue. And Australians need to see action, and this is what we're doing.' Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Her comments follow public criticism of the inaction from the federal attorney general, Michelle Rowland, who told the Guardian this week that the ongoing death toll from known hanging points was unacceptable and 'deeply concerning'. 'The attorney general strongly encourages state and territory governments to review their practices and continue to work toward effective solutions that ensure the safety and dignity of all Australians in the justice system,' she said. The Indigenous leader and former senator Pat Dodson, who helped lead the 1991 royal commission, has also described the failures as 'totally unacceptable'. Guardian Australia found deaths were continuing to occur from known hanging points in every jurisdiction in the country. In New South Wales, the Guardian found 20 hangings from ligature points that were known to authorities but not removed, including three from a set of bars in the Darcy unit of Silverwater prison in Sydney. One of those deaths was that of Gavin Ellis, who suffered a psychotic illness and was a known suicide risk, having attempted to hang himself twice in the first three days in custody. He was then not seen by a mental health clinician or reviewed by a psychiatrist for long periods before his death, and was sent into a cell with a ligature point that had been used by another inmate to hang himself two years earlier. A third inmate used the same hanging point after Ellis's death. The state government will not say whether the bars have now been removed from Darcy unit cells. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion The toll in NSW also includes the 2017 death of a young Indigenous man, Tane Chatfield, who died by hanging at Tamworth prison. In his case, the coroner told the NSW government to audit the prison for additional hanging points. It did so but said it could find none to remove. An independent inspection of the prison less than 12 months later found 'multiple' hanging points in Tamworth's cells, including ones that had purportedly been removed. 'When they said to us that they were going to deal with the hanging points … You think, 'OK, so no other family's going to go through this,'' his mother, Nioka Chatfield, told the Guardian. 'It's like they just pick your hopes up and they just shatter you.' The Guardian Australia investigation found 14 deaths from known hanging points in South Australia and seven in Western Australia. In Queensland, it identified 13 deaths from known hanging points, many of which were from a similar set of exposed bars to those used repeatedly at Arthur Gorrie prison. Deaths continued for years after the state government was told to 'immediately' act to remove the bars, or make them inaccessible, at Borallon and Townsville prisons. The issue of hanging points is described by experts as a 'proximate' issue in deaths in custody. Research suggests removing obvious hanging points is effective in reducing deaths but cannot be considered in isolation. The deaths investigated by the Guardian, like that of Ellis, often involved failures in providing mental health treatment and assessment, gaps in the broader mental health system, and problems with information sharing and cell placement. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support; or Mensline on 1300 789 978 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636; International helplines can be found at
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
HECS repayment changes in Australia as government slashes loans by 20 per cent
Anthony Albanese 's government will cut 20 per cent off all student loan debts, wiping around $16billion for about three million Australians. The policy - central to Labor's re-election campaign - is now set to be backdated to June 1, with the Greens expected to back Labor's legislation in the Senate during the next sitting of Parliament in coming weeks. Under the plan, a graduate with an average student debt of $27,600 will see their loan reduced by $5,520. Albanese's proposed reform would apply to all Higher Education Loan Program, vocational education and training student loans, Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans and other income-contingent student loans. 'Our whole nation benefits when we make it easier for people to access education. This is about opening the doors of opportunity – and widening them,' he said when announcing the plan. The reforms would also raise the threshold for repayment from $54,453 to $67,000 for the 2025-26 financial year, and lower the rate to be repaid. For someone on a middle income of $70,000, this will mean they will pay around $1,300 less a year in repayments. Education Minister Jason Clare said the cuts to student loans could be the first piece of legislation that Labor introduces when Parliament returns on July 22. How much your student debt will be wiped by is revealed in the table above 'The legislation will cut 20 per cent off your student debt and backdate it to 1 June, before indexation was applied,' Mr Clare said. 'This is a game-changer for the more than three million Australians with a student loan.' After the legislation is passed, the tax office will apply a one-off 20 per cent reduction to a student loan - without borrowers having to do a thing. This 20 per cent reduction will be calculated based on the amount of your HELP debt as at 1 June 2025, before any indexation is added. The government will notify you when the changes are implemented, and balances can be checked via myGov. The gap between the newly discounted repayments, and what tertiary institutions charged the students, will be funded by taxpayers and government borrowing. This builds on a $3billion policy introduced last year, which links student debt indexation to the lower of the wage price index or the consumer price index. Without it, graduates could have faced another steep increase, like in 2023, when indexation soared to 7.1 per cent - up from 3.9 per cent the year before - adding $1,759 to the average student debt of $24,770. The Higher Education Contribution Scheme in 1989 replaced the old system of free university education that had existed since 1974. Graduates pay a higher proportion of their salary on their student debt the more they earn, rising from one per cent under the existing $54,435 minimum repayment threshold to 10 per cent for those earning more than $159,664. Labor was re-elected in a landslide in May, and claimed three inner-city seats in Melbourne and Brisbane from the Greens that have a higher proportion of university students, including that of former leader Adam Bandt.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Trial reveals flaws in tech intended to enforce Australian social media ban for under-16s
Technology to check a person's age and ban under 16s from using social media is not 'guaranteed to be effective' and face-scanning tools have given incorrect results, concede the operators of a Australian government trial of the scheme. The tools being trialled – some involving artificial intelligence analysing voices and faces – would be improved through verification of identity documents or connection to digital wallets, those running the scheme have suggested. The trial also found 'concerning evidence' some technology providers were seeking to gather too much personal information. As 'preliminary findings' from the trial of systems meant to underpin the controversial children's social media ban were made public on Friday, the operators insisted age assurance can work and maintain personal privacy. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email The preliminary findings did not detail the types of technology trialled or any data about its results or accuracy. Guardian Australia reported in May the ACCS said it had only trialled facial age estimation technology at that stage. One of the experts involved with the trial admitted there were limitations, and that there will be incorrect results for both children and adults. 'The best-in-class reported accuracy of estimation, until this trial's figures are published, was within one year and one month of the real age on average – so you have to design your approach with that constraint in mind,' Iain Corby, the executive director of the Age Verification Providers Association, told Guardian Australia. Tony Allen, the project director, said most of the programs had an accuracy of 'plus or minus 18 months' regarding age – which he admitted was not 'foolproof' but would be helpful in lowering risk. The Albanese federal government's plan to ban under 16s from social media, rushed through parliament last year, will come into effect in December. The government trial of age assurance systems is critical to the scheme. The legislation does not explicitly say how platforms should enforce the law and the government is assessing more than 50 companies whose technologies could help verify that a user is over 16. The ABC reported on Thursday teenage children in the trial were identified by some of the software as being aged in their 20s and 30s, and that face-scanning technology was only 85% accurate in picking a user's age within an 18-month range. But Allen said the trial's final report would give more detailed data about its findings and the accuracy of the technology tested. The trial is being run by the Age Check Certification Scheme and testing partner KJR. It was due to present a report to government on the trial's progress in June but that has been delayed until the end of July. On Friday, the trial published a two-page summary of 'preliminary findings' and broad reflections before what it said would be a final report of 'hundreds of pages' to the new communications minister, Anika Wells. The summary said a 'plethora of options' were available, with 'careful, critical thinking by providers' on privacy and security concerns. It concluded that 'age assurance can be done in Australia'. The summary praised some approaches that it said handled personal data and privacy well. But it also found what it called 'concerning evidence' that some providers were seeking to collect too much data. 'Some providers were found to be building tools to enable regulators, law enforcement or coroners to retrace the actions taken by individuals to verify their age, which could lead to increased risk of privacy breaches due to unnecessary and disproportionate collection and retention of data,' it said. Sign up to Afternoon Update Our Australian afternoon update breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion In documents shared to schools taking part in the study, program operators said it would trial technologies including 'AI-powered technology such as facial analysis, voice analysis, or analysis of hand movements to estimate a person's age', among other methods such as checking forms of ID. Stakeholders have raised concerns about how children may circumvent the ban by fooling the facial recognition, or getting older siblings or parents to help them. Friday's preliminary findings said various schemes could fit different situations and there was no 'single ubiquitous solution that would suit all use cases' nor any one solution 'guaranteed to be effective in all deployments'. The report also said there were 'opportunities for technological improvement' in the systems trialled, including making it easier to use and lowering risk. This could include 'blind' verification of government documents, via services such as digital wallets. Corby said the trial must 'manage expectations' about effectiveness of age assurance, saying 'the goal should be to stop most underage users, most of the time'. 'You can turn up the effectiveness but that comes at a cost to the majority of adult users, who'd have to prove their age more regularly than they would tolerate,' he said. Corby said the trial was working on risks of children circumventing the systems and that providers were 'already well-placed' to address basic issues such as the use of VPNs and fooling the facial analysis.
