Monday, July 27, 2020
Thousands underpaid workers compensation
An investigation into workers’ compensation schemes has uncovered tens of thousands of underpayments in New South Wales and “immoral and unethical” conduct in Victoria. A joint investigation by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and ABC TV's Four Corners found as many as 52,000 injured workers in NSW have been underpaid up to $80 million in compensation for loss of wages, with the scheme referred to the NSW anti-corruption authority. Whistleblowers also detail a lack of transparency in awarding contracts by the NSW workers’ compensation scheme manager icare. In Victoria, external insurance agents were given incentives to terminate coverage for injured workers. The problems across both schemes have resulted in delays and denials of medical treatment for workers.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews on Sunday announced the state had recorded 10 Covid-19 deaths in the space of 24 hours, on the deadliest day of the pandemic so far. Victoria also identified another 459 new cases of the virus in the state. The youngest of the deaths was a man in his 40s, with seven of the fatalities linked to aged care facilities. There are 228 Victorians in hospital, 42 of whom are in intensive care. Victoria conducted 42,573 tests yesterday, breaking its record for the most tests conducted in a single day. NSW recorded 14 new cases, with health authorities revealing a staff member at a second Thai Rock restaurant in Sydney tested positive for the virus. NSW Health urged anyone who attended the Thai Rock restaurant at Potts Point for two hours or more between July 15 and July 25 to get tested and self-isolate.
Black Lives Matter rally organisers have offered to call off Tuesday’s unauthorised Sydney protest if the New South Wales premier asks SafeWork NSW and the director of public prosecutions to investigate the death of the Aboriginal prisoner David Dungay Jr, reports Guardian Australia. On Sunday the Supreme Court of NSW declared Tuesday’s rally a prohibited public assembly. The court acknowledged that there had been no confirmed case from a rally on June 6, but determined that the risk had since increased due to elevated community transmission in recent weeks. Protest organisers are appealing the court decision.
A group of nine children and a driver were rescued from a bus trapped in floodwaters in Newcastle on Sunday afternoon. The State Emergency Service used an inflatable boat to rescue the group. SES unit controller Ian Robinson said the organisation had six calls for flood support at 4pm, which increased to 73 by 5.30pm. The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning for locations that could include Newcastle, Gosford, Sydney, Wollongong, Nowra and Batemans Bay. The low pressure system, which is deepening off the NSW north coast, is projected to move south in the coming days.
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This week
What led to Victoria’s extraordinary shutdown
The Andrews government cannot identify any legislation it needed to override, but experts say that is the point.When Daniel Andrews signed a declaration for a state of disaster in Victoria at 1.43pm on Sunday, it was a part of a final salvo in a battle to control a resurgent and invisible enemy.
Super funds transformed by Liberal ideology
The Morrison government’s superannuation changes risk turning the scheme into ‘privately funded unemployment insurance’.
Opening the Ghislaine Maxwell files
New files ordered released in the Ghislaine Maxwell case reveal the depth of her involvement in child sex-trafficking offences that implicate Prince Andrew, the former leader of the US senate and others.
Murray–Darling could need Reserve Bank-style regulator
As the ACCC hands down its interim report on the Murray–Darling water markets, one architect of the current system says a Reserve Bank-like body is needed to manage the rights.
Wiradyuri conceptual artist Amala Groom
For Amala Groom, making art is a collaboration between herself and her Wiradyuri ancestors. Drawing on her history and culture, as well as her legal training, she seeks to subvert the colonial project. “Colonialism affects all of us … To be change agents we have to be inclusive, and Aboriginal culture is inclusive.”
Policing as part of the national psyche
There are two striking aspects of Australia’s response to coronavirus: the first is that it’s being increasingly led as a police issue, and the second is that this is happening while the rest of the world works to reform and curtail police powers. As other democracies talk about abolition, we’re sending armed officers into housing blocks and calling it public health.
Morrison backtracks on WA border closure
Scott Morrison keeps misreading the mood of a nation gripped by fear. Nowhere is this more obvious than his now-abandoned legal case against state border closures – or, to be more precise, against the lockouts in the Labor-governed states of Western Australia and Queensland. The Liberal-governed states of Tasmania and South Australia escaped his censure.
It was quite something to tune in to the first episode of Bunter and Georgina Downer’s geopolitical podcast, where they discussed the recent AUSMIN meeting, the upcoming United States presidential election and the future of war. Father and daughter get along famously as they take us on a wide sweep through the trickiest global thickets, with memos about Condoleezza Rice’s determination to play golf, China’s dominance in the rare earth market, Joe Biden’s “flaky” interviews, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, fishing quotas in British waters and Russia’s anti-satellite rocket program.
Andrew Bolt has made a career finding vulnerable people and devising new ways of punishing them. When you consider this, his views on the elderly are not surprising, just inhumane. Bolt doesn’t want the old to die, but he believes we overstate the tragedy of their deaths. “Note: 40 per cent of aged-care home residents die within nine months. The average stay is just under three years,” he writes. “So Victoria’s bans are doing huge damage to – essentially – save aged-care residents from dying a few months earlier.” Quixotically, the column is titled “How to save Victoria from the coronavirus”.
Could Adani drop its Qld mine and head to NSW?
As fossil fuel prices collapse, there is growing speculation that Adani might throw in its Carmichael operation to buy BHP’s massive Mount Arthur thermal coalmine instead.
Pandemic and inequality keys to November poll
Presidential candidates adjust convention plans due to Covid-19. US death toll passes 158,000. Democrat Joe Biden has lead in latest polls.
As a dark comedy about self-absorbed millennial killers, Search Party focuses heavily on the lies that bind. In doing so, it also tells a lot of insightful truths.
Bill watches Joyce gather the kids for a photo. He’s seated on the front lawn, next to the overgrown bougainvillea, an oxygen tank by his side, tubes to his nose. He watches Joyce arrange the children – their adult daughters who both turned up in striped jumpers and jeans. The two of them are laughing about the coincidence. Ratty sneakers too, which can apparently be edited out on the computer. Would a dress have killed them? But he should be kind. Mel and Jennifer kissed him fondly, and Jennifer even slipped him a half-pouch of Drum. Luke, always the youngest child, is doing that funny thing where he picks up one of the small children and plays them like a guitar. It may be their last photo, although nobody is saying that.
The beverage director for Andrew McConnell’s restaurants recommends her current favourite drops.
In August 1981, MTV began its very first broadcast with which song?
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