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Festival state eyes climate summit amid debt concerns

Festival state eyes climate summit amid debt concerns

Perth Now04-06-2025
A state budget investment will kickstart preparations for Australia to potentially host the world's biggest annual climate change conference.
South Australia's budget, to be handed down on Thursday by Treasurer Stephen Mullighan, will commit $8.3 million for Adelaide to get ready for the UN's COP31 summit.
The federal government has selected Adelaide as its preferred city to host the event, if Australia's bid for the conference is successful.
Analysis shows hosting the event would deliver a potential benefit to SA of $512 million.
The budget will fund significant planning for security, transport and infrastructure at COP31, which Premier Peter Malinauskas said would be bigger than the AFL's Gather Round, LIV Golf, the Adelaide Festival and Fringe combined.
"To deliver it will take a monumental logistical and planning effort … it is vital that we accelerate that effort and that is exactly what the state budget will do," he said.
The budget is the last before the state election in March 2026.
Sweeteners are unlikely with the government already locked into two big-ticket, long-term infrastructure projects: the $15.4 billion Torrens to Darlington tunnels project and the $3.2 billion new Women's and Children's Hospital.
Those projects are the main reason SA's debt is heading towards $46 billion in four years.
Opposition Leader Vincent Tarzia said the government must prioritise cost-of-living relief.
"The Labor government has so far failed to deliver where it's most needed, with South Australians paying record high power bills and struggling with a housing affordability crisis," he said.
"There are practical solutions that the Liberal Party have put forward, including stamp duty relief, reintroducing the home battery scheme and scrapping the GP payroll tax grab."
The government will be expected to respond to calls for increased support for farmers and rural areas, amid the state's worsening drought.
With dams running dry, no sub soil moisture, hay stocks at critical levels and farmers selling livestock, the agricultural sector will be hoping for an increase to the $73 million of support already announced.
The impact on the budget's bottom line of the joint state and federal $2.4 billion support package for the Whyalla steelworks, announced in March, will also be monitored.
The government has already announced $125 million over five years to remove a level crossing on a key northern suburbs thoroughfare, matching a federal funding commitment to the project.
A further $171 million will go towards the expansion of a non-government school loan scheme, to increase eligibility for preschool infrastructure projects before the introduction of preschool for three-year-olds from 2026.
The government will spend $13.9 million over five years to expand the Mental Health Co-Responder Program across Adelaide, in which mental health clinicians are paired with a police officer respond to mental health triple-zero callouts.
A security task force to combat antisocial and violent behaviour across the Adelaide Metro network will also be rolled out as part of a $9.6 million investment in transport safety.
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WHO says malnutrition reaching 'alarming levels' in Gaza
WHO says malnutrition reaching 'alarming levels' in Gaza

News.com.au

time27 minutes ago

  • News.com.au

WHO says malnutrition reaching 'alarming levels' in Gaza

Malnutrition rates are reaching "alarming levels" in the Gaza Strip, the World Health Organization warned Sunday, saying the "deliberate blocking" of aid was entirely preventable and had cost many lives. "Malnutrition is on a dangerous trajectory in the Gaza Strip, marked by a spike in deaths in July," the WHO said in a statement. Of the 74 recorded malnutrition-related deaths in 2025, 63 had occurred in July -- including 24 children under five, one child aged over five, and 38 adults, it added. "Most of these people were declared dead on arrival at health facilities or died shortly after, their bodies showing clear signs of severe wasting," the UN health agency said. "The crisis remains entirely preventable. Deliberate blocking and delay of large-scale food, health, and humanitarian aid has cost many lives." Israel on Sunday began a limited "tactical pause" in military operations to allow the UN and aid agencies to tackle a deepening hunger crisis. But the WHO called for sustained efforts to "flood" the Gaza Strip with diverse, nutritious food, and for the expedited delivery of therapeutic supplies for children and vulnerable groups, plus essential medicines and supplies. "This flow must remain consistent and unhindered to support recovery and prevent further deterioration", the Geneva-based agency said. On Wednesday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the situation "mass starvation -- and it's man-made". - 'Dangerous cycle' of death - Nearly one in five children under five in Gaza City is now acutely malnourished, the WHO said Sunday, citing its Nutrition Cluster partners. It said the percentage of children aged six to 59 months suffering from acute malnutrition had tripled in the city since June, making it the worst-hit area in the Palestinian territory. "These figures are likely an underestimation due to the severe access and security constraints preventing many families from reaching health facilities," the WHO said. The WHO said that in the first two weeks of July, more than 5,000 children under five had been admitted for outpatient treatment of malnutrition -- 18 percent of them with the most life-threatening form, severe acute malnutrition (SAM). The 6,500 children admitted for malnutrition treatment in June was the highest number since the war began in October 2023. A further 73 children with SAM and medical complications have been hospitalised in July, up from 39 in June. "This surge in cases is overwhelming the only four specialised malnutrition treatment centres," the WHO said. Furthermore, the organisation said the breakdown of water and sanitation services was "driving a dangerous cycle of illness and death". As for pregnant and breastfeeding women, Nutrition Cluster screening data showed that more than 40 percent were severely malnourished, the WHO said. "It is not only hunger that is killing people, but also the desperate search for food," the UN health agency said. "Families are being forced to risk their lives for a handful of food, often under dangerous and chaotic conditions," it added. The UN rights office says Israeli forces have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid in Gaza since the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation started operations in late May. Nearly three-quarters of them died near GHF sites.

The moral test for Labor has shifted on Gaza: Words are not enough
The moral test for Labor has shifted on Gaza: Words are not enough

Sydney Morning Herald

timean hour ago

  • Sydney Morning Herald

The moral test for Labor has shifted on Gaza: Words are not enough

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The moral test for Labor has shifted on Gaza: Words are not enough
The moral test for Labor has shifted on Gaza: Words are not enough

The Age

timean hour ago

  • The Age

The moral test for Labor has shifted on Gaza: Words are not enough

Just two months ago, the UN warned: 'Every single one of the 2.1 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip face the risk of famine. One in five faces starvation.' And we know many have been shot by Israeli soldiers while trying to get food. On the weekend, Israel announced it would take steps to restore aid. Sadly, by this stage it is difficult to know with what level of credulity to treat its government's assertions. Israel has long blamed Hamas for looting aid; on Sunday, The New York Times carried a report based on conversations with Israeli military officials: 'the Israeli military never found proof that the Palestinian militant group had systematically stolen aid from the United Nations … In fact, the Israeli military officials said, the UN aid delivery system, which Israel derided and undermined, was largely effective in providing food to Gaza's desperate and hungry population.' This backed reports of a recent American analysis with similar findings. The starvation of the people of Gaza, then, is not an accident; it is not a tragic byproduct of other actions. As de Waal wrote years ago, 'starve' should not be seen as a passive verb. It is something someone does to someone else. And, it follows, something that others permit to be done. Almost a year ago, one Israeli minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said: 'No one will allow us to starve 2 million people, even though that might be just and moral until they return the hostages.' He was wrong. Loading Wong's early call for restraint in Gaza tells us several things. It shows it was possible, at the very beginning, to glimpse some of what was coming. At the same time, Wong's early defensiveness shows how easily participants in public debate – including leading politicians – are able to be knocked off course by efforts to make certain statements unsayable. The conservative press is significant in these efforts; but the rest of the political class, politicians and media, are the ones who allow themselves to be cowed. Israel has achieved as much as it ever will from this war. In the doing, thousands more Palestinians have been killed. Together, these two facts mean that more things are now able to be said. But the moral and practical test for those with influence has shifted. Loading Of course, it's true that Australia can't by itself end the fighting. And it is hard to know what will make Netanyahu listen – or make America behave differently. And it is true, too, that statements can have some effect. The last time famine threatened in Gaza, international pressure led to an increase in aid. Obviously, though, this was only temporary. And that is why it is important to recognise that other options are available to Australia. The UK has now announced it is working with Jordan to deliver aid and will medically evacuate children. France has said it will recognise Palestine as a state, something former Labor ministers Gareth Evans, Bob Carr and Ed Husic are calling for here. On Sunday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made clear that Israel has breached international law. This was a welcome injection of clarity. Still, the test at this late stage is no longer whether politicians can issue damning statements. The only meaningful test left is whether our leaders will do everything they can to stop Netanyahu's Israel from killing any more Palestinians.

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