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ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Man who almost lost hand in alleged machete attack gets visa extension
A man who almost lost his hand in an alleged machete attack has been granted a new visa so his medical treatment can continue in Australia. 7.30 can reveal that 33-year-old Indian national Saurabh Anand was granted the visa and is on a pathway to permanent residency after the federal government considered his case on compassionate grounds. Mr Anand survived the incident which allegedly occurred at a shopping centre in Altona Meadows just under a month ago. Five teenagers have been charged over the alleged attack including a 15-year-old boy arrested last Thursday. Mr Anand was facing deportation as his temporary visa was due to expire on August 25. The new visa will allow him to stay for up to two years, but he is also on a pathway to become a permanent resident of Australia. He says his health has been on rapid decline due to the severity of his injuries and pain. "This is a moment where I feel relieved that the government and the community has come together to support me through one of the most horrifying moments in my life," Mr Anand told 7.30. Mr Anand said the decision has rekindled his hope in humanity. Mr Anand and his mother Nitin Anand met with his local MP Tim Watts and Assistant Minister for Citizenship Julian Hill to receive the new visa. In a short meeting at the electorate office of Mr Watts, Mr Hill signed documents which granted the extension. The local MP offered Indian sweets to Mr Anand and his mother following the signing. In a poignant moment Ms Anand then took the sweets and offered them back to the two assistant ministers as a gesture of thanks for their decision. "If you have some I will have some," Mr Watts said to Ms Anand. Documents granting a two-year renewal to his subclass 485 (Temporary Graduate) visa were signed after Mr Anand was briefly taken temporarily into administrative detention to process the claim. Under law, it is an administrative requirement for the short detention period to take place so that the new can be granted. The decision was made under Section 195A of the Migration Act, which allows the minister to grant a detained person a visa if it was in the public interest. Mr Hill told 7.30 he was moved by Mr Anand's case. "It's the right thing to do, but also I'd hope as an Australian that if my daughter or any of our sons and daughters were in a foreign land and had been contributing to that country and ended up in a similar circumstance that another country would treat our sons and daughters as well." His recovery and treatment could take up to 12 months. "I am taking one day at a time, every day gives me a new hope, and this is a new hope for me," he said. "But as of the recovery, both physical and mental, exertion is there. "And it's going to be a long journey. "I'd like to thank everyone who has been supporting me throughout the community." On August 7, following the airing of a 7.30 story about Mr Anand's case in which he and his mother pleaded for help from the government, Mr Anand wrote to the minister seeking "urgent attention" to his case. In the email, he detailed how he was allegedly assaulted and the local medical care required for his recovery. "My injuries were so severe that it took over five hours for surgeons to reconstruct and reattach my left arm and hand, which had been nearly severed," he wrote. "Despite their efforts, I have lost approximately 80 per cent sensation in my left arm, hand, and fingers, and currently suffer from excruciating pain, multiple fractures, severed nerves, tendons, and muscles." Mr Anand has worked as a sales representative during his time in Australia and said that before his attack, he intended to move his career into the field of artificial intelligence. "I have lived in Australia for over seven years," he wrote in his email to the minister. "I have always abided by Australian laws and contributed to the community, "I am the only son of my widowed mother in India, and this incident has left me emotionally and financially devastated. "I place my hope in your compassion and kindness during this incredibly difficult period." Since the alleged attach in July attack Mr Anand has received support and visitation from both sides of politics including Victorian State Liberal MP Moira Deeming. Ms Deeming wrote to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke on August 7 to plead for Mr Anand to be granted a bridging visa. The federal government will now move to grant Mr Anand permanent residency pending character checks and a full process through the Department of Home Affairs. Mr Hill said Mr Anand's work in Australia were key factors in his decision. "He studied a high-quality [degree], a master's at RMIT, and he's worked and contributed to the community," he said. Watch 7.30, Mondays to Thursdays 7:30pm on ABC iview and ABC TV Do you know more about this story? Get in touch with 7.30 here.
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Anti-migration co-ordinator's wealthy property family
EXCLUSIVE One of the co-ordinators of a series of anti-immigration protests planned across Australia comes from one of the nation's wealthiest property development families, it can be revealed. Hugo Lennon – who goes by the online persona 'Auspill' – is encouraging Australians to come out en masse on August 31 in protests to 'end mass immigration' – which he says is to blame for the nation's housing crisis and skills shortage. However, can reveal Mr Lennon is the grandson of Tony Lennon, the former chairman of Perth-based Peet Limited, one of Australia's largest real estate development companies, worth approximately $800 million. The development mogul's wealth is now estimated at $350m to $500m, with Tony listed in WA's 50 richest list on multiple occasions. The 82-year-old retired from Peet last year, however, retained his shareholding of the company of more than 20 per cent. Mr Lennon's father Anthony is still with the company as a non-executive director on the board. Both Tony and Anthony have been contacted for comment from In his most recent video, Auspill tells his followers to 'Save the date for August 31 to save Australia'. 'So no doubt by you've heard by now about August the 31st, and if you haven't, on that date Australians will be marching for an end to mass immigration. They will be marching for Australia,' Mr Lennon states. 'Because the majority of Australians want to see the end of mass immigration. 'The truth is, Australia have been ignored on immigration for a long time and that's gonna come to an end because on the 31st Australians will voice this majority opinion.' There is also no suggestion that Hugo Lennon's other family members share his views. In a statement to a spokesman for Peet Limited denounced Mr Lennon's opinions. 'Creating inclusive, diverse communities where everyone belongs is a core value for Peet,' the company said in a statement. 'Peet does not share the views expressed by this individual, and we do not condone his actions or commentary.' The protests are being organised by the group 'March For Australia' – whose Facebook group was being moderated and administrated by Mr Lennon's 'Auspill' account. His account name has been removed from the page since being contacted for comment by Mr Lennon told his account was removed as March for Australia did not want to be 'connected to any one name and thus any one set of politics'. He outlined that he was assisting with 'certain technical systems and back-end infrastructure' for the rallies as well as providing 'occasional logistical support in online co-ordination'. 'The reasons expressed by MFA are broad, they reflect the organisers' and supporters' diverse political backgrounds,' Mr Lennon told 'Concerns around mass immigration include housing shortages, demographic change, infrastructure strain, environmental impacts, water supply shortages and fractured social cohesion.' Flyers and videos promoting the rallies have gone viral on TikTok and X in recent days, sparking division online. Rallies are set to be held in Hobart, Darwin, Townsville, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide from 12pm to 2pm local time. Exact locations are yet to be announced. The event is being promoted by a number of far-right and white nationalist accounts on social media, however, Mr Lennon told his followers the protest will be 'peaceful'. On Tuesday, the March for Australia page put out an 'urgent press release' clarifying they were not affiliated with 'White Australia'. 'March For Australia began as a grassroots, organic effort to unite Australians around a common cause – ending mass immigration,' the social media post from March for Australia stated. 'We respect those foundations and recognise that our cause finds support from Australians from a diverse range of political backgrounds. 'Any attempts to hijack March For Australia for other issues, or to make it about any one group, are not in the spirit of the movement that we have taken custody of. 'We will assemble peacefully, to defend our flag, our people and demand an end to mass immigration.' As of March 13, neither NSW Police nor Queensland Police had received any notice of an intention to hold a 'public assembly'. It comes after a separate event in which around 100 masked neo-Nazis marched through Melbourne's CBD in the early hours of Saturday morning, carrying a sign reading 'White Man Fight Back'. The National Socialist Network event sparked outrage from Jewish groups, as the Victorian government pledged to introduce new laws giving police powers to 'unmask cowards at protests'. The high life of the Lennons Hugo's sister Eliza, a lawyer from Melbourne, makes no secret of the Lennon family's wealth, regularly posting family snaps from luxury locations and red carpets. However, she also makes known her disapproval of her brother's views. 'My brother's opinions are not mine,' her TikTok bio states. Her brother appears rarely on her social media feeds as opposed to her parents and grandparents. In one TikTok video, Eliza, who is also a keen golfer, features her multimillion-dollar grandfather in a 'fit check' with the pair kicking their feet up to show off their outfits.
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
What is productivity? It's one of the biggest topics at this week's round table
The Albanese government's "economic reform round table" will be held in Canberra this week, from Tuesday to Thursday. "Productivity" is on the agenda for the second day. What is productivity? Why is it important? Why are policymakers worried about it? It's a major topic that impacts everyone. When we hear the word "productivity," our eyes can glaze over, but we're talking about something profound. At its heart, productivity is about doing more with less effort to improve everybody's lives. For example, imagine someone hands you a shovel and asks you to dig a long trench from one end of a football field to the other, to lay some underground cables. How long would it take you to dig the trench? (And what would it do to your hands and back?) Now, instead of a shovel, let's say they give you an excavator. The difference in your "output" and the ease with which you could complete the task would be dramatic. It would see a huge improvement in your productivity, and it would be thanks to the investment in machinery and the improvement in the state of technology you had at your disposal (shovel vs excavator). Modern society has been built on constant productivity improvements. They make it much easier and faster to do things compared to the past. That has a deeply personal impact on everybody's lives — it's about our time, and improvements in our lifestyle and material prosperity. Over time, productivity growth can lead to lower prices for goods and services, higher profits for businesses, higher wages for workers, and stronger economic growth. A few years ago, the Productivity Commission explained things this way: "The number of hours a person needs to work in order to buy particular goods has fallen dramatically," it wrote. "In 1901, it would have required several months of work to afford a new bike, but today it requires less than a day of work for a basic model. "[And] these falling costs understate the increased quality of most goods available now compared to what was available at Federation — even the lowest-quality bicycles produced now are much safer and easier to use than their 1901 versions. "[And] more significant for many people are the goods that are cheaply available now that had not been invented at Federation. "Antibiotics, for example, have lowered the mortality from infectious disease from about 30 per 10,000 people in 1907 to 1 per 10,000 people in 2017, all at a fraction of the price." It published a table with more examples to illustrate its point: This is another area where our eyes can glaze over, so we don't want to get bogged down here. But there are two main ways to measure productivity. As the Reserve Bank explains: The RBA has produced this handy little graphic to help us visualise what they're talking about: Yes. There are quite a few challenges. But it depends on the nature of the "economic activity" you are trying to measure. For example, it's far easier to measure the productivity of a manufacturing facility than a childcare worker. How do you measure a childcare worker's "output" when their job is to care for babies and toddlers? What about teachers? Nurses? Police? In the terminology, "non-market" industries are notoriously difficult to measure when it comes to productivity. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) doesn't even provide estimates for multi-factor productivity (MFP) for our three non-market sector industries: public administration and safety, education and training, and healthcare and social assistance. The non-market sectors are characterised by providing goods and services that are either free of charge or heavily subsidised, and are not primarily driven by market forces. The ABS only provides MFP estimates for the 16 "market" industries in our economy that produce goods and services that are sold at market prices, because their output is much more easily measured. But even then, when you run your eye down the list of those 16 industries in the table below, you can see how it might be much easier to measure productivity in some market sectors than others. It's why the growth of the "care economy" in Australia is presenting unique problems for policymakers. As more and more workers enter the "non-market" industries of childcare, aged care, and healthcare, the area of the economy where "productivity" is much harder to measure is growing. But when the Productivity Commission recently tried to estimate non-market "labour productivity" for the three non-market sector industries, by using gross-value added and hours worked, its estimate showed a steep decline over recent years. It found that labour productivity for the "whole economy" has barely risen over the past decade, when averaging labour productivity in the market and non-market sectors combined. Why is productivity growth so slow in Australia at the moment? Why has business investment declined? Lots of people are trying to answer those questions, and there are probably many causes. Participants at the productivity round table will discuss them this week. But here's an interesting hypothesis. In early 2023, Ken Henry, a former treasury secretary (2001 to 2011), gave a speech to the Tax Institute titled "The need for ambitious tax reform." In that speech, Dr Henry said part of the answer to our productivity problems comes from the fact that Australian policymakers mishandled the mining boom of the early 2000s, and we're now living with the consequences. He said if we had properly taxed the super profits of the miners in the early 2000s, we could have used that revenue to re-invest in non-mining parts of Australia's economy to lift non-mining productivity, but we didn't. And now that the mining boom is over, we're left with a hollowed-out economy with woeful rates of productivity. Dr Henry said, historically, much of Australia's productivity growth had been driven by "capital-deepening" (that is, higher capital per worker), thanks to a strong rate of business investment. But two centuries of capital-deepening have stalled. He said Australia has unfortunately experienced "capital-shallowing" in the 21st century, with declining physical investment in the non-mining sectors and more and more non-mining capital heading overseas. He said the positive terms-of-trade shock, caused by soaring commodity prices linked to the China boom, had pushed Australia's dollar higher earlier this century. The strong appreciation that followed in our real exchange caused a "profound loss" of international competitiveness for Australia's trade-exposed industries. He said that pressure could have been released with a resources super profits tax or something similar, with the money reinvested in non-mining parts of the economy to boost productivity there, but it didn't happen. Instead, he said Australian governments just "let it rip." "The collapse in the non-mining investment rate is remarkable," he said in his speech two years ago. "The financial mirror image of declining physical investment and capital-shallowing is that, in recent years, we have recorded net capital exports on the balance of payments. "Many commentators appear to believe that we have become a net capital exporter merely because superannuation has boosted household saving. But I would argue that we are exporting capital because Australia has become an increasingly unattractive destination for doing business, in the eyes of foreign investors and Australian savers alike. "It is truly extraordinary that this country, which stood to gain the most, should be suffering capital-shallowing, and should be a net capital exporter, not withstanding a historic mining boom," he said. Also in 2023, the RBA's Jonathan Hambur and the e61 Institute's Dan Andrews released a paper suggesting another reason why productivity growth may have slowed in Australia. "We find evidence that increasing market power [of powerful companies] has played a role, muting incentives for better firms to invest and grow their capital stock," they wrote. "This finding complements earlier work that found declining competition had limited incumbent firms' incentives to reallocate labour to more productive firms and to innovate and adopt technologies. "It reinforces the need to understand why competitive pressures may be declining, and whether that reflects competition policy or other frictions that prevent new firms from growing and challenging incumbents." Last month, the Productivity Commission supported that thesis, warning that Australia's 21st-century economy is dominated by powerful firms that are extracting above-normal profits from the system, and their power is growing. It said those firms are extracting "economic rent" from our economy, which means they're charging higher prices and collecting higher profits from a lack of competition, and it's crippling investment (and undermining productivity growth) elsewhere in our economy. It said that if we wanted to reform our tax system, we should focus on that issue.
