Australians urged to search for ‘better deals' as energy prices set to soar
The Australian Energy Regulator announced significant power price increases across New South Wales, South Australia, and south-east Queensland, driven by rising wholesale and network costs.
New South Wales is set to see the highest hike, while consumers are urged to shop around for better deals as default offers may not reflect the best market prices.
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ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
The future is uncertain for South Australia's major disability employment provider. What does it mean for those it supports?
Twenty years ago, the Clarke family took their son Ryan along to his first day of work. "We were probably more nervous than him," Ryan's dad, Gerry Clarke, said. "Ryan adapts well to most things. He loved it since day one." Ryan, who lives with Down Syndrome, has worked in packaging at South Australian disability employment provider Bedford ever since. The 39-year-old said he has met his best friend and girlfriend at Bedford and enjoyed going every day. But now, the job he loves — along with those of many other South Australians living with disability — is at risk, following the news that Bedford is set to enter administration. That thought has been something Mr Clarke "can't even comprehend". "It's just such an important part of his [Ryan's] life and the life of 1,400 supported employees," he said. Mr Clarke described Ryan as a "loyal worker" who attended Bedford four days a week. "It's more than a workplace, it's like a family. They care for each other. They support each other … it's a unique environment." Mr Clarke said Bedford had helped Ryan in numerous ways over the decades. "Ryan's growth, his learning and development, his maturity, the social skills he's developed [at Bedford] … is just amazing," he said. Mr Clarke said while he was in "shock and disbelief" at the news that Bedford may go into voluntary administration, he hoped the organisation, state, and federal governments would "find a way" to ensure it was not lost. "We're hopeful a solution will be found," he said. Over in Port Lincoln, Bronwyn Warland feels the same, saying she was also "really shocked" at the news, but "hopeful for a positive outcome". Her son, Lakota, attends Bedford twice a week, going grocery shopping and cooking meals for others. "He loves it there, he views it as his work," she said. "He is non-verbal, so he uses sign language and he signs every morning that he's off to work, and he's so proud to be going to work like his mum and dad and sister." She said attending Bedford had benefits for both Lakota and the wider family. "For him, it's given him a purpose. When he was at school, he got up and went to school every day. When that finished, it was sort of an unknown and then Bedford was available," she said. She said if Bedford were to close, it would be "catastrophic for the whole of South Australia". "There's so many families that would be affected," she said. "The clients themselves, that's their outlet, their social gathering. It would mean that they would be very isolated, they would be staying at home more." She said the effects would be more strongly felt in regional areas like Port Lincoln. "There isn't very many options in our rural areas … Bedford's been around in Port Lincoln for years and years, and provided an amazing service for our disability community," she said. Ms Warland said Lakota enjoyed the opportunity to "get out and about" in the community through Bedford, and had developed a "lot of camaraderie" with a "really good bunch of people". "In the morning, he has his work bag, he hops into the back of the car and I'm driving him and he taps me on the shoulder about 20 times on the way and signs, 'work, work work' with a big smile on his face," she said. "He's really excited to be going to work. Bedford offers supported employment opportunities in areas ranging from hospitality, gardening, laundry and manufacturing, with a workforce understood to be numbering 1,650, including those it supports as well as other employees. Its website states it has grown to become the second-largest employer of people with disability in Australia, and the largest in South Australia, with 22 locations, and it has operated for 80 years. In addition to supported employment, Bedford also has a residential service accommodating about 50 people living with disability. Sky Harvey has worked in packaging at Bedford for nearly nine years and said she had made "heaps of great mates" through her work. She had hoped to make it to a decade of working at Bedford, but was now uncertain about the future. "Bedford is quite important to me. I nearly made up to nine years and I wanted to make my 10, but I don't know if I can quite make it there yet or not," she said. Bedford had issued a statement on Thursday evening saying that it expected to enter voluntary administration on Sunday; however, on Friday — following a crisis meeting with the state government — its board chair said it was hopeful of a "pathway forward" whilst acknowledging there was "a lot of work to be done" over the weekend. The chair, Janet Miller, said there were a "few things at play" that had led to Bedford experiencing a "cashflow problem". "There is the sustainability of the NDIS model for supported employment, there is the strategy we've embarked upon to transition those supported employees into open employment, and those businesses not getting the traction within the time we expected they would," she said. Federal Health and NDIS Minister Mark Butler said Beford was one of "thousands of organisations providing NDIS services", and he "can't think of another organisation that has got itself into the position that Bedford management has". "I think it's quite clear that Bedford has tried a number of frankly quite different ways to diversify its financial base and that hasn't worked for them," he said. Ms Miller said Bedford had created three social enterprises to transition people into open employment, rather than supported employment, following recommendations made by the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. Ms Miller said setting up the social enterprises required a "significant investment in working capital" and because "the return hasn't been there as quickly as we had hoped, that's impacted the working capital that's been available to provide support to those businesses". Mark Butler said he was "deeply, deeply worried" for the South Australians living with a disability "for whom Bedford is a lifeline." "Most other jurisdictions have a number of different supported employment providers, so if one got into difficulty, it would be relatively easy to see people transferred to other providers. "Bedford is so big in South Australia … that if it does go under, some of the NDIS services will be relatively straightforward to redeploy to other providers, but the supported employment opportunities will be very difficult to transition because of the sheer scale of it." South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas echoed Mr Butler's concerns, saying Bedford's role in South Australia was "unique in comparison to its counterparts in other jurisdictions". "Bedford is a major employer of people in supported wages in South Australia, whereas in other jurisdictions, particularly on the eastern coast, we see more than one player within the market," he said. "That is not true here in South Australia. "There are a couple of large players rather than a whole suite of different players, so it isn't easy to see a situation where Bedford goes into liquidation and all of a sudden those people get picked up overnight in other opportunities — that's an unlikely sequence of events." Mental Health Coalition of South Australia board president and Skylight Mental Health CEO Paul Creedon said if Bedford were to close, those it employed could lose their "strong networks and friendships", as well as a loss of independence and "sense of autonomy". "Employment is a significant thing that gives them some sense of self, some sense of identity, that is taken away too easily when this sort of thing happens," he said. Mr Creedon said a closure would also directly affect families and carers who may lose a source of respite. "If your son or daughter, brother or sister is now in their 30s, 40s or 50s and employed at Bedford and all of a sudden they're no longer employed at Bedford and [don't] get the services that are associated with that … those parents who are in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and all of a sudden they're having to care for someone." Janet Miller said she was "very concerned" about the impact the current uncertainty was having on the people Bedford supports. Discussions will continue over the weekend between state and federal governments, Bedford, its bank, and potential administrator McGrathNicol. Peter Malinauskas said the state government was "able to put some financial support on the table to see if we can't buy some time" ahead of the board's deliberations regarding administration on Sunday, but also said he did not "want to just sign a blank cheque". "We want to invest, we want to support, we want to contribute to the cause of Bedford's ongoing operations, but we have to make sure it's with a clear focus of a sustainable future," he said. "Now, if that can't be achieved, then we have to find an alternative option and that is to support those workers in the event that administration is entered into, which is ultimately a decision exclusively for the board of Bedford." On a federal level, Mark Butler said it was "not the position of government to hand taxpayer funds" to the management of an organisation that had "got their organisation into this level of financial strife". But he said the state government had held a "productive meeting" with Bedford that, if all went well, would "buy us some time" and "arrest the immediate crisis". "To ensure that those South Australians can turn up to work on Monday, most importantly, but also buy us some time to get to the bottom of what has happened here and to work out whether there is a way to get this South Australian icon back on track."
ABC News
3 hours ago
- ABC News
In its car-manufacturing heyday, Australia made Citroëns, Minis and Mercedes-Benzes
When the final Commodore SS-V rumbled off Holden's Elizabeth production line in South Australia on October 20, 2017, it closed the book on 120 years of large-scale auto manufacturing in Australia. The story of the Aussie-made car was most famously headlined by such celebrated names as Monaro, Torana, Falcon and Charger, along with familiar ones like Camry and Magna. But it was a story that also included machines often dismissed as foreign, welded and bolted together in places like Heidelberg (in Melbourne, not Germany) or Enfield (in Sydney, not Britain). French Citroëns, Renaults and Peugeots were assembled by Australian workers in Australian factories. So were German Volkswagens and Mercedes-Benzes. Even the comparatively less well-known Studebakers, Ramblers, Singers and Triumphs were built here in Australia as car makers sought to get around tariffs on fully imported vehicles designed to protect Australian industry. Among these local "foreign" cars were specials unique to Australia, such as the Citroën ID19 Parisienne — a simplified version of the brand's famous DS model. Melbourne Citroën enthusiast Ferdi Saliba, who owns a black ID19 with a striking red interior, said many of his car's admirers were surprised it was essentially Australian rather than French. "I recently returned from a 5,000-kilometre trip in the car to Maryborough in Queensland for a Citroën meeting," Mr Saliba said. The ID19 was built in Heidelberg by a company called Continental & General from parts mostly produced in France but with some uniquely Australian touches. To simplify production, and to save money, the ID19 had a traditional manual transmission (instead of the complex semi-automatic in foreign Citroëns), no power steering and locally sourced vinyl trim. It shared its assembly line with Peugeots and Studebakers well into the 1960s. Curiously, the simplicity of these Australian Citroëns (and their rarity) make the ID19s highly sought after by modern collectors. "There aren't that many left in good condition." Another Australian car maker, Australian Motor Industries, assembled Triumphs, Ramblers and Mercedes-Benz cars in Port Melbourne in the 1950s and 1960s from complete knock down (CKD) kits, comprising components delivered from suppliers worldwide. The Benzes included flagship models such as the sophisticated 220S Ponton. Newcastle Benz enthusiast Ian Hemphill admitted he got a kick out of telling other Mercedes owners his was not put together in Stuttgart. "People are always surprised to hear that this flagship Mercedes, the first of the S Class series, was actually assembled in Melbourne," Mr Hemphill said. Volkswagens weren't merely assembled in Clayton, they were truly Australian-made cars, put together with Australian-made panels and parts between 1960 and 1967 before the brand reverted to CKDs in the late 1960s and early 70s. Club VW editor Phil Matthews said older members of the official Australian Volkswagen car club were mostly aware of the brand's local history but younger enthusiasts were often very surprised. "Aussie VWs of the 1960s were quite different from their German, American and British cousins," Mr Matthews said. "In June 1954, Martin and King Pty Ltd of Clayton, Victoria, a railway carriage manufacturer and car body works, began assembly of the first VW CKD packs. "The Menzies government protected the local car industry with a new 30 per cent tax hike on fully imported vehicles so there were plans to add as many Australian-made parts as possible. "By 1959 VW ended importing CKD kits as full-scale manufacturing began at Clayton [of] up to 90 cars per day with up to 75 per cent local content." Competition from other brands (including Mini) and an inability to update new models out of Germany saw Volkswagen revert to assembly of CKD kits in 1968. Nissan (then branded as Datsun in Australia) bought the Clayton plant in 1975, building its own cars alongside the Volkswagens and Volvos, the three brands' cars even sharing the same paint palette. Hillmans, Hunters and Singers, meanwhile, were once built in the Melbourne suburb of Noble Park until 1965. Goggomobil Darts were made in Punchbowl, Sydney, from 1959 to 1961. Ultimately, the comparatively small size of the Australian domestic car market and the high cost of manufacturing compared with many countries in Asia, combined with a steady reduction in import tariffs, doomed the Australian-made and assembled car. Brands like Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Chrysler and Ford maintain a strong sales and engineering presence in Australia long after car assembly ended here. Ford Australia has a Regional Product Development Centre at the site of its former factory in Broadmeadows in Melbourne's north. This centre developed the Ford Everest mid-size SUV, built in Thailand and sold throughout Asia. Others brands have disappeared entirely. All that remains of a national car manufacturing industry that once produced hundreds of thousands of cars, utes and SUVs each year, and which ranked in the top 10 car makers worldwide in the 1970s, are a handful of small-scale vehicle producers, defence vehicle manufacturers, and heavy vehicle brands (including: Kenworth, Mack and Volvo) which still assemble trucks in Australia. Among the scores of brands and models once assembled in Australia are many rarely thought of as Aussie cars: Citroën built a modified version of the classic DS in West Heidelberg, Melbourne, from 1960 to 1966. Nissan and Datsun-branded models were assembled in Sydney then built at Clayton, Melbourne, between 1960 and 1992 in the factory previously owned by Volkswagen. The famous Dart was developed in Australia and produced by Buckle Motors in Punchbowl, Sydney, from 1959 to 1961. About 700 were built. Rootes Australia was an affiliate of Rootes Group in Britain, which produced Hillmans, Hunters and Singers from CKD kits in Port Melbourne from 1946 until 1972. Australian Motor Industries assembled several Mercedes-Benz models from 1959 until 1965 in Port Melbourne, including the top-of-the-range 220S. Production of the Mini began in Enfield, Sydney, in 1961. An Australian Mini Cooper S won Bathurst in 1966. Production ended in 1978. Peugeot 203s were assembled in Sydney and Melbourne from 1953, along with the 403, 404 and 504 models. The 404, 504 and 505s were built alongside Citroen and then Renault models in Heidelberg. Various Rambler models were assembled by Australian Motor Industries at Port Melbourne between 1954 and 1978, well after the brand was retired in the United States in 1969. Renault bought Continental & General's Heidelberg factory in 1966, building Renault 10, 12, 16 and 18 model cars there until 1981. An American brand built first in Sydney and then in Heidelberg until 1966. Clayton was home of Volkswagen production from 1960 until 1976. Volkswagen was Australia's third-largest producer in the early 1960s behind only Holden and Ford. The Swedish brand assembled cars alongside Volkswagens and Nissan-Datsuns at Clayton from 1972 until 1988, and still builds trucks in Wacol, Brisbane.
ABC News
5 hours ago
- ABC News
Clive Palmer's Mineralogy and Queensland Nickel Group say data stolen in cyber attack
The personal details of Clive Palmer's employees and associates, including bank records, may have been compromised during a ransomware cyber-attack last month. The data breach encompassed Mr Palmer's political parties and 11 entities associated with the entrepreneur and politician including Mineralogy and Queensland Nickel Group. A statement posted to the Mineralogy and Queensland Nickel websites said the breach extended to Waratah Coal Pty Ltd, Central Queensland Coal, Gladstone Pacific Nickel Limited, Palmer Coolum Resort, Blue Star Line, Palmer Motorama, Ausface, Drewmaster Pty Ltd, and Zeph Group entities. "The data records potentially include all emails to and from the Mineralogy and Queensland Nickel Group entities including their attachments," the statement read. Mineralogy and Queensland Nickel said they had secured systems and reported breaches to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and the Australian Signals Directorate. Monash University cybersecurity expert Professor Nigel Phair said people associated with Mr Palmer's companies and political parties will not know if their data has been affected. "Once it's out there in the world the cyber criminals will use it for a variety of mechanisms," Dr Phair said. "We've really got no power in this, we can just be hyper-vigilant." It remains unclear whether any compromised data had been published by cyber criminals. Mineralogy and Queensland Nickel Group entities have been contacted for further comment. Dr Phair said unsophisticated cyber attacks on corporates had become too common. Dr Phair said Australia had enough legislation to hold corporates to account when data was not secured adequately. "We just need the legislation policed," he said. "The Australian Information Commissioner operates a notifiable data breach scheme, and they've got penalties including enforceable undertakings and in some cases fines of up to $50 million. "We haven't seen any fines handed out to organisations yet so it would be good to see a lot more of that happening." The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner said it was focused on ensuring all individuals were notified. An Australian Federal Police spokesperson said the AFP had not received a report of a crime in relation to the matter.
