VIDEO: Violent confrontations are escalating at community pools
But incidents involving verbal and physical confrontations are rising, and so are concerns about how to keep a mostly young workforce of lifeguards safe. Norman Hermant and Lucy Kent report.
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ABC News
20 minutes ago
- ABC News
Distress rates from school bullying higher than COVID times, with children as young as 10 facing online and in-person abuse
Warning: This story contains discussion of suicide. School bullying has reached devastating new peaks in Australia, with figures showing rising rates of children as young as 10 expressing serious emotional distress following online and in-person abuse. Crisis counselling service Kids Helpline is sounding the alarm, with its data showing a rising proportion of calls from children aged 10 to 14 who are experiencing bullying and having thoughts of suicide. While health data indicates these thoughts very rarely translate into actions, Kids Helpline chief executive Tracy Adams said they were a key measure of mental health. "[What] we are really seeing over the last five years is significant growth in the level of distress and it's actually higher levels of distress among our younger children," she said. "The nature is now online and offline. So young people are still being physically assaulted, they're still being verbally abused. They're also being isolated and we're seeing that play out in the online environment as well." It coincides with the latest release of data from the landmark Australian Child Maltreatment study that shows more than one in four (28.7 per cent) adults reported being bullied at school, and these rates were not improving for each new generation. The new data is backed by figures from the office of the eSafety Commissioner, which show school-age cyberbullying complaints surged 456 per cent in the past five years — from 536 to 2,978 — and in 2024 nearly half of reports involved children under the age of 13. The office said it was increasingly dealing with deepfakes involving pornographic depictions of classmates or teachers that it must refer to the Australian Federal Police (AFP). The AFP's Centre to Counter Child Exploitation reported a 27.7 per cent rise in reports from the commissioner relating to child image-based abuse, sextortion and cyberbullying in the two years to 2024 from adults and minors. Charlie Ford was just 10 years old when she was first bullied through school messaging apps. By the time she was 13, it had escalated to threats of physical violence, exclusion at school, and gossip being spread over social media videos. At one point, her mother, Serena Ford, said she overheard school friends telling her daughter on a video chat to self-harm. When she spoke to the girls, it was met with verbal abuse. Over time, Charlie said her mental health declined significantly, and she would try to escape the car on the drive to school. "I didn't really want to go to school because of all the threats," she said. "I'd be hearing things from people and that would just make me break down in tears." Serena said it was devastating to watch the spark go out of her once bright little girl. "I had nights where I had to sleep with her because she was just so upset," she said. But after reaching out for help, Charlie got support, and the 16-year-old is now enrolled in distance education. In February, the federal government launched an Anti-Bullying Rapid Review, with findings due to be handed down later this year just as the social media ban for under 16s comes into effect. Co-chair Dr Charlotte Keating said they had received more than 1,600 responses from schools, teachers, parents and young people from around the country. "We've been tasked with putting together potential models for what a consistent national standard could look like to respond to bullying in schools," she said. Serena Ford said each time Charlie moved schools, the institutions' investigations were slow and protracted, and their responses ineffective. "They just kept putting it on Charlie as in, 'she is the problem; she needs to be more resilient'." At one point the family were threatened with breaking the law for not sending Charlie to school but were given no help to find her an alternative place. Serena said schools failed to acknowledge the overlap between schools, friendships and technology. "They told me that 'it's happening outside of school, so it's not their problem'." Ms Adams said their figures indicated Australia was not getting its anti-bullying policies right. In 2024, Kids Helpline received more than 3,500 calls and online contacts about bullying alone. The proportion that involved a child experiencing bullying and having thoughts of suicide was higher than at the peak of COVID lockdowns, which was a "critical mental health concern". "When we see levels of distress to the nature that Kids Helpline is getting, we see tragic consequences," she said. The latest release of data from the Australian Child Maltreatment study also raised questions about the country's responses to school bullying. The study of 8,500 Australians found despite at least two decades of extensive anti-bullying policies in schools, there was "no meaningful change" in the number of people experiencing bullying in their childhood over the past five decades. Lead author Dr Hannah Thomas, from the University of Queensland, said childhood bullying had been linked to higher rates of depression and other mental illness. "Those mental health harms happen not only just during childhood, but they tend to follow people into adulthood as well," she said. The study did find the duration of the bullying was shorter among the most recent generation of 16 to 24-year-olds. Dr Thomas said this suggested some anti-bullying policies "might be working". The Australian Child Maltreatment Study found the main reason people were bullied was because of their height or weight, followed by race or ethnicity, disability, sexuality and gender identity. Kids Helpline said reports to their counsellors suggested bullying happened both in-person and online and could range from physical assault to the use of anonymous online comments. New technologies were compounding the problem, according to the experts. The eSafety Commissioner's office said cyberbullying reports included sending hurtful messages, sharing embarrassing photos, spreading gossip, exclusion from chats and catfishing. "We're not teaching young people to deal with differences with kindness," Ms Adams said. "We see adults behaving poorly online. So we have to ask ourselves, as adults, are we role modelling?" Ms Adams said amid the troubling figures Kids Helpline was hopeful about a rise in young people seeking help. "We've got to continue to promote the strategies that young people have available," she said. Charlie and Serena said they were speaking out because they wanted young people to have more education about how to interact and more support for parents to get their children help. "I really want to make a change because nobody deserves to be treated the way I was treated," Charlie said.
News.com.au
6 hours ago
- News.com.au
Four injured as citizens pursue man through Sydney hardware store in wild chase
Dramatic footage has emerged of a wild chase through the streets of Western Sydney that began with a crash tackle in an attempted citizen's arrest, and involved a hacksaw, butcher's knife and an allegedly stolen hire truck, before ending in heavy morning traffic on the motorway. The ordeal began at a petrol station in Austral on Monday where CCTV captured two locals - dressed in black in the vision above - closely trailing a 51-year-old man dressed in blue. They're seen walking slowly until the man in blue approaches a corner and legs it away from the others. The two locals give chase and one of them manages to tackle the man in blue to the ground in the carpark of a nearby Mitre 10. He isn't able to restrain the man for long, however, and he is seen entering the hardware store. Inside, the man in blue allegedly used a hacksaw to injure two employees and one of the locals who had been pursing him from the start. According to 9News, the locals had been following the man as they suspected him of stealing from businesses in the area. One of the locals, who was allegedly sliced across his ear, is again seen on CCTV when he exits the Mitre 10 and is handed a large knife from the butcher shop at the other end of the carpark. The knife was not used however, as the 51-year-old used the intervening time to escape out the rear exit of the Mitre 10 and allegedly steal a hire truck. According to police, a third hardware store employee was crushed between two trucks when the vehicle was allegedly stolen. That employee was treated by paramedics and taken to Liverpool Hospital. Police were informed of the alleged theft and picked up the pursuit after officers sighted the truck at about 8.50am and followed it onto the M4 Motorway. The Mitre 10 truck was also fitted with a GPS tracker, making the man's movements easy to follow. In the end, heavy traffic proved to be the man's downfall and he was arrested and taken to Blacktown Police Station.
SBS Australia
8 hours ago
- SBS Australia
'You can't erase history': Labor to keep Latham party room portrait, with added disclaimer
A picture of former Labor leader Mark Latham will keep hanging in the party's caucus room as he faces domestic violence allegations. Latham is accused by his former partner Nathalie Matthews of a "sustained pattern" of abuse. Latham strongly denies the untested claims made in a civil court apprehended violence order application by Matthews, saying he has "broken no laws". Calls have grown since the allegations were raised for his official portrait in Labor's federal party room to be removed. But a Labor caucus meeting on Monday was told a "unanimous consensus position" had been reached where the photo would remain, but with a caption providing context. The words will read: "In 2017 Mark Latham was expelled from the Australian Labor Party and banned for life. His actions do not accord with Labor values and fail to meet the standards we expect and demand." Latham sits as an independent in the NSW upper house and faces calls to resign over sexually explicit messages allegedly sent to his former partner while sitting in the chamber of parliament. Portraits of former federal Labor leaders John Curtin, Frank Forde, Ben Chifley, Kim Beazley, Simon Crean and Mark Latham in the Labor caucus room. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas The decision to add context to Latham's portrait was the right one, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said. "It's finding the balance, you can't erase history, we can't pretend he wasn't our leader, he was and so there he sits in the leaders' timeline," she told reporters in Canberra. "But it's a recognition ... his behaviour and attitudes don't reflect the modern Australian Labor Party." Gallagher said the wording allowed people to feel something had been done. "It will exist there forever on our leaders wall," she said. "It's a pretty strong statement." Latham lost his bid for the nation's top job at the 2004 federal election to former Liberal prime minister John Howard. The campaign was marked by his aggressive handshake with Howard outside the ABC's radio studios on election-eve. The infamous episode was largely blamed for his election defeat and delivered the Howard government a fourth term. The Federal Court in 2024 ordered Latham pay independent NSW politician Alex Greenwich $140,000 in damages over a homophobic social media post.
