Victoria significantly pulls back on its plan to phase out gas home appliances
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AU Financial Review
2 hours ago
- AU Financial Review
Parliament Day 1 was touching and funny. Enjoy it while it lasts
The pomp and ceremony of the opening of the 48th Parliament on Tuesday was full of contrasting moments. Some were symbolically important, like Victorian Labor MP Josh Burns and NSW Labor MP Ed Husic being sworn in together, the first on the Torah and the second on the Koran.
Sydney Morning Herald
2 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Government all at sea on toxic algae bloom
The Albanese government's refusal to declare South Australia's algae bloom a natural disaster is a curious echo of Scott Morrison's feeble excuse that he did not hold the hose during the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20, a comment that both captured federal inaction in the face of catastrophe and helped torch his career. Four months ago, an algal bloom primarily caused by the microalgae Karenia mikimotoi was spotted in the waters off the Fleurieu Peninsula south of Adelaide, and has spread west to the Yorke Peninsula and east into the environmentally sensitive Coorong and across the mouth of the Murray River. Thousands of kilometres of South Australian beaches have been littered with dead sharks, rays, fish, dolphins and seals. Tourism has been devastated and the fishing industry is reeling. There are concerns, too, that prevailing currents could carry the bloom into Victorian or West Australian waters. Going down 20 metres beneath the waves, the algae bloom is already almost double the size of the ACT and may be the biggest to hit Australia's coast. The South Australian government, scientists and environmental groups called for help early, but Canberra remained distracted by the federal election until this week, when federal Environment Minister Murray Watt announced a $14 million assistance package, but resisted calls to declare a natural disaster. Watt admitted the bloom was a 'very serious environmental event' but it was wholly within South Australian-controlled waters and therefore did not meet the definition of a natural disaster. 'The Commonwealth natural disaster framework considers events like floods, cyclones and bushfires to be natural disasters, and if they are declared as such, they attract a range of funding,' Watt said. These are nearly always land-based natural disasters, and while past governments thought the sea out of bounds, climate change and pollution suggest the definition needs updating. Such blinkered vision no longer passes the pub test. Imagine the uproar if a similar-sized toxic algal bloom hit Sydney's beaches, with the carcasses of fish and marine animals lining the sand and people prevented from going into the water. Scientists believe the bloom may have resulted from a combination of nutrient-rich water from 2022 floods that flowed through the Murray-Darling system, the current SA drought, and a marine heatwave last September that pushed sea temperatures 2.5 degrees above normal. Loading While the funding announced by Watt is welcome, most of it will probably go towards helping fishers and tourist operators, with money for research a distant afterthought. While coral reefs attract attention and funding, researching the algae bloom in the Great Southern Reef system along the bottom of Australia is expensive science, not least because of the depth of the water.
Sydney Morning Herald
3 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Paula wanted to travel with her guide dog, but Uber drivers kept cancelling
Uber is trying to wash its hands of a discrimination case led by a blind customer who claims trips with her guide dog are routinely cancelled, with the ride-share giant arguing it can't answer for its drivers' behaviour because they are contractors, not employees. Paula Hobley launched proceedings in the Federal Court against Uber this year, alleging that between March 2021 and November 2022, she had 32 trips cancelled after drivers matched to her booking saw a note that she was travelling with her assistance dog, Vonda, and refused to pick her up. The Victorian woman claims the behaviour amounts to a breach of anti-discrimination laws because of her disability. She took legal action after initially making a complaint against Uber at the Human Rights Commission, where the matter could not be resolved through conciliation. Uber insists it has not breached anti-discrimination laws. Central to Uber's argument is its claim playing down responsibility for its drivers because they are contractors, not employees. The group has argued this across a range of legal questions such as employee wage deals, working conditions and instances of driver misbehaviour. In its defence submitted to the Federal Court, Uber maintains it is not a company that provides transport services, but rather, a technology company that provides users with access to its smartphone application, which matches them with and facilitates payments to drivers, who are independent contractors. Uber argues that any alleged refusal of service is a question for the independent drivers, not Uber, which cannot control which jobs independent drivers on its platform accept. Uber argues it never refused Hobley its services, in that her access to the Uber app was never cut off. Loading 'Drivers are the ones who choose whether to accept, ignore or decline trip requests... [Uber] does not have control over a driver cancelling an accepted trip request,' Uber said in its defence. It said it 'denies the allegation' that it ever assigned a driver to Hobley's trip request or to any customer. Uber also said while it denied it had engaged in any discrimination, any such discrimination would not be unlawful because avoiding it 'would impose an unjustifiable hardship' on the company. Uber does not detail what the hardship would be.
