Latest news with #Gadigal
ABC News
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Are we ready for EP drop of the year?
In this week's edition of the podcast we share big exciting Home & Hosed news, plus the best 5 songs of the week. Oh! Daisy prove just why they are one to keep an eye on in 2025, Zion Garcia is gearing up to drop EP of the year, Lucy Sugerman released a track that quite literally stopped the entire Unearthed team in their way this week, Dyan Tai chats to triple j's very own Tiffi and you'll be introduced to one of the most gripping debut uploads from Plain Jane. Presenter: Claire Mooney Produced by: Claire Mooney The Unearthed Podcast is an ABC podcast, produced by triple j. It is recorded on the lands of the Gadigal and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders past and present. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the land where we live, work, and learn.
ABC News
5 days ago
- Politics
- ABC News
What binds us together as Australians?
The Prime Minister says our cultural diversity is a strength and calls for "progressive patriotism". But global turmoil is making it's way to our shores in the form of demonstrations and violence on our streets. What does the future hold for the ties that bind us together? And what IS progressive patriotism anyway? GUESTS: Prof, the Rev Peter Kurti, Director, Culture, Prosperity & Civil Society program, Centre for Independent Studies. His recent paper is The Ties That Bind: Reconciling value pluralism and national identity Dr Yassir Morsi, Lecturer, Aboriginal studies, La Trobe University, Author: Radical Skin, Moderate Masks: De-radicalising the Muslim and Racism in Post-racial Societies Dr Chloe Patton, Lecturer, RMIT. Research spans sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, and intersections of gender, race, identity and representation. Author: Visualising Young Muslims in the West This program is recorded on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and Naarm
ABC News
13-07-2025
- ABC News
Inside the classrooms full of misogyny and abuse
Sydney Pead: Teenagers influenced by the so-called manosphere are bringing the misogyny they absorb online into the classroom. It's forcing some female teachers to leave the profession entirely. Today, the ABC's Siobhan Marin on her Compass investigation into where these disturbing ideas are coming from and how we can pull teen boys out of the rabbit hole. And a warning, this episode includes some confronting accounts of behaviour in our schools. I'm Sydney Pead. On Gadigal land in Sydney, this is ABC News Daily. Sydney Pead: Siobhan, for a long time now, we've been hearing about the manosphere and how this online content is impacting teens, especially teenage boys. And while it all starts online, it's ending up in classrooms where teachers are at the coalface. And you've been investigating this and hearing some horrific stories from teachers. What have you found? Siobhan Marin: Well, in the last year or two, I started coming across more and more anecdotes from teachers who were saying that they were experiencing quite extreme misogyny in the classroom. This is not taking their authority seriously. This is making sexualised moaning sounds. This is calling them all number of names under the sun. So I wanted to dig into this issue. And as such, I've been able to speak with teachers, both primary and high school around the country. And the answer is, it's shocking. One in particular said she was reading a creative writing essay from a year nine student and it described an act of gang rape against her. You know, another teacher, she was substituting in a class. It was a year 11 class. A boy asked to go to the bathroom. And then at this point, there were actually phones in the classroom. And a girl says, Miss, he's just posted on Snapchat. He's wanking over you. And that teacher just said to me, I felt so paralysed. I'd never felt scared in a situation before. But you hear those words in your workplace and you're still meant to have a level of composure. Sydney Pead: You spoke to a teacher called Meg. Can you just describe her experience? Siobhan Marin: Yeah, so Meg is the primary school teacher who's been called unfathomable names by kids as young as kindergarten. She's had kids sort of refer to their genitalia and sex acts. Meg, teacher: I definitely felt kind of a bit scared, like a bit like, how do you know that? How at 10 do you feel so confident to be able to say that to an adult in a school context? Siobhan Marin: It's really overwhelming. And yeah, if it's coming from a kindergartner, that's one thing. But if it's coming from a 10 or 11 or 12 year old boy who's already gone through puberty, that can actually be quite intimidating, even if you're in primary school. Sydney Pead: So confronting and just so hard to imagine dealing with that in your workplace from children. And as you say, it's not your normal teenage backchat, right? So how are teachers dealing with it? Siobhan Marin: We are seeing teachers decide to quit, some of whom have only been in the profession for a few years. I spoke to a former teacher, Holly Cooper. She found that there were certain boys in her classroom who completely wanted to undermine her. Holly Cooper, former teacher: I remember the distinct moment that I thought, this is different. I was teaching a year eight class; geography and a boy in the class said to me, what do you think about third wave feminism? Do you agree that it's a failure? Siobhan Marin: And they were sort of throwing these questions, just wanting to break her. Things like, hey, miss, the gender pay gap doesn't exist. Right. Sort of baiting her for a response. Holly Cooper, former teacher: And then it just ended up being a thing of like, will you prove it? So I said, OK, so apart from everything else that I was doing with all of the marking and the lesson planning and everything, I was trawling through, you know, all of this data just to prove a point because it was just going to be, well, miss, she's just making up lies, basically, like women are running the world. Like we know that this is true. Sydney Pead: And these are sort of direct talking points that we see from these online manosphere influencers, aren't they? Siobhan Marin: Yes, exactly. And in that instance, it was a few years ago and Holly worked out that these boys watching videos from an extreme far right sort of commentator, Milo Yiannopoulos, who used to be very popular on YouTube and other platforms. But sadly, a lot of boys and young men are being told through these influencers that either gender equality shouldn't exist or that it's tipped the other way and women have all the power. Sydney Pead: As well as that, it's impacting the teenage girls, these boys' peers, like they're in the firing line for this sort of behaviour as well. Siobhan Marin: So I spoke with a high school student that we're calling Sarah. We've changed her name, her voice and de-identified her. But she said that in her school there was a Snapchat group that boys in her grade were sexualising girls, rating them, comparing their different bodily parts and also taking photos of girls in the classroom. 'Sarah', high school student: They would take photos of girls' arses when they would go up to ask a teacher a question or write something on the board and they would have their phones underneath the table. It just made me very, very angry to know that they thought that was OK and that they thought they'd be able to get away with it. Sydney Pead: OK, Siobhan, let's look at how these boys are falling down this rabbit hole, which is leading to this behaviour in schools. You spoke with a 26-year-old man, Jefferson, and he knows exactly how this happens because he used to be just like this. Tell me about that. Siobhan Marin: Yeah, exactly. Jefferson opened up about his own experience as a teenager. He felt super self-conscious, as a lot of teens do, and he found himself looking online for advice. Jefferson: Like how to talk to girls, how to be desirable, how to make people want you and stuff like that. And you find these male influencers who say that they do want to help. Siobhan Marin: And sometimes the advice can be helpful initially, like eat healthy, clean your room, go to the gym. But then soon the algorithm starts changing and you get sent different messages. Jefferson: And it goes down those rabbit holes and it starts going into like, it's not your fault. It's like it's other people's fault. It's society's fault. It's women's fault. And then it's also your own fault, because if women don't want you, then it's because you're a beta, you're not manly enough. You're too much of a nice guy. Siobhan Marin: Jefferson said it really started shifting his views about women and his relationships with women. He was just seeing them as opportunities to have a romantic partnership and not just, you know, recognising them as a human or a potential friendship. Sydney Pead: And you've also been speaking with a youth educator, Daniel Principe. He spends a lot of time with teens and he's not surprised that we're seeing what's happening online exported into the classroom, right? Siobhan Marin: Yeah, exactly. So Daniel's work is really important because he's going into schools and he's sort of saying, hey, boys, are you being served this content? Daniel Principe, youth educator: Who has seen something on socials where a man or a group of men are telling a woman or a group of women, get back in the kitchen, go make me a sandwich. Who's seen that in their social media? Siobhan Marin: They all put their hands up. You know, the year eights, the year 11s and 12s that I got to film with. They're seeing really problematic stuff. They're not necessarily searching for it. And yeah, sometimes some of the kids might be like, oh, it's just a laugh or, you know, I know it's stupid, but there are other boys that it might implant in them in a different way. Research around the world has shown that if you log onto a social media site as a teenager, you're quite likely to be sent problematic content, you know, quickly. Daniel Principe, youth educator: I don't think we should be surprised if these attitudes then leak out in what some boys do, because that is the diet that they've been served up. These toxic voices who sadly the algorithms obviously send more content to. Siobhan Marin: And the problem there is that adults and parents aren't seeing the same content because we're not being delivered that same algorithm. These billion and trillion dollar industries, big tech, are weaponising this content and targeting young men, teenage boys, because they can make money off it. They can grab their attention, keep them there for longer, send them down a rabbit hole and ultimately profit. And it's an issue that's obviously playing out across the world where we're seeing it spoken about a lot from the e-safety commissioner here in Australia. But I think many governments and societies don't know what to do, don't know how to rein in big tech in this regard. And we can't necessarily blame them for being given all of this material, being bombarded with problematic narratives about masculinity and the opposite sex. But obviously we want parents and societies and schools and politicians to be providing a safety net and critical media literacy so that when the boys do see this type of content, they can straight away think, oh, well, I know that this is just stupid and they're trying to weaponise beliefs and profit off of me. Sydney Pead: Teenage boys in particular can be so vulnerable to this kind of thing because, as you say, if they're suffering from low self-esteem or, you know, they're looking for guidance, they're really susceptible to this sort of messaging. Siobhan Marin: Exactly. Exactly. And it's such a complex issue. Sarah, the high school student that we spoke to, makes the point that, yeah, when it comes to gender-based violence or discrimination, it's not all men, but it's enough men. And so we need to focus on who are overwhelmingly vulnerable. Overwhelmingly the victims, which is women. But then also, you know, there are another perspective that we cannot alienate boys and make them feel bad about masculinity. Not the problematic aspects that they might be sold on social media, but masculinity in general. We can't make them feel bad about that because if we do, we risk them going further into the manosphere and looking for that validation that these really toxic content creators are offering to teenage boys and young men. Sydney Pead: Well, Jefferson, who we heard from, he managed to pull himself out of this rabbit hole. So how did he do that? Siobhan Marin: For Jefferson, it was his sister who played a really big role. Thankfully, they had a close relationship and he was talking to her about relationships and why don't these girls like me and maybe I need to be less of a nice guy. And his sister just said blatantly, that's dumb. Jefferson: She would just catch me saying really stupid shit. Like if I spewed back the talking points that I was given, she wouldn't give ground, essentially. I'd used to go to her for dating advice, I guess. And I'd say things like, maybe I should just be a little more mean. It's just like, what are you talking about? Siobhan Marin: And so he started having this unravelling of such beliefs. And in the process, you know, it came around to see that these content creators who were spreading misogynistic sort of stuff were making him feel terrible. This misogynistic movement online is filled with hate. That's how it flourishes through telling young boys that they've got a clear enemy, which is women and society at large. Jefferson: You have a lot of people out there who probably love you. A lot of people out there who probably want to see you become a better person. And hate's just not the way. Hate's just not the way to do it. Sydney Pead: Okay. So Siobhan, after all your conversations, what is your message to parents? What do they need to understand about what their children are going through and how hard it is to stop this cycle? Siobhan Marin: Oh, it was really sobering. I think it's just checking in on your kids and having a frank dialogue and saying, look, I'm not here to judge you. I just want to know what you're seeing online, what you're exposed to and what sort of messages your friends are saying in the schoolyard as well. Do you hear these kind of things? Do you hear misogynistic jokes or rape jokes? And how do they make you feel? I think the kids need these multiple touch points and reminders of how they can navigate this complex world that they didn't be asked to be born into. They didn't ask for social media to have such dominance in their lives. Perhaps things will change with the social media ban, but we know that kids are very resourceful. It's not a simple answer. And I think big tech has a lot of responsibility to carry. But, you know, it's going to be human to human interaction that really supports boys and girls in dealing with this sort of content and the ideology that is spreading. Sydney Pead: Siobhan Marin is a presenter on Compass and host of the Quick Smart podcast. You can watch her Compass episode on ABC iView. This episode was produced by Kara Jensen-Mackinnon and Adair Sheppard. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sydney Pead. ABC News Daily will be back again tomorrow. Thanks for listening.
ABC News
09-07-2025
- Automotive
- ABC News
Will Musk's new 'America Party' take down Trump?
Sydney Pead: After spending hundreds of millions of dollars to help put Donald Trump in the White House, Elon Musk is launching his own political party. Musk says his America Party will challenge the status quo that he believes is bankrupting the United States. Today, political scientist Geoff Kabaservice from the Niskanen Center on what the party could stand for and who might vote for it. I'm Sydney Pead, on Gadigal land in Sydney, this is ABC News Daily. Sydney Pead: Geoff, Elon Musk did a poll on his platform X and 65% voted yes to create the America Party. He says it's formed to give you back your freedom. So there you have it, Geoff, easy as that. Geoff Kabaservice: Yes, with Elon Musk, he only has to will it and it exists. So people who followed the Trump-Musk drama will know that they fell out rather violently a few weeks ago and were slinging insults at each other on social media. News report: The president, who reportedly plans to sell the red Tesla he bought in a show of support for Elon Musk, has now described his former first buddy as a man who's lost his mind. Geoff Kabaservice: But then Musk had actually been quiet for a bit, probably on the advice of his boards of directors. But then on the 4th of July, America's Independence Day, he came out with his proposal that there be a third party, which presumably he would fund with great generosity. And this would be a major change to the American political system. And the X voters voted and they said by a two to one margin, they wanted him to go forward. So he's vowed that he will. Sydney Pead: And this is a new direction for Musk's foray into politics. Back in May, he exited the Trump administration after spearheading the cost-cutting department of government efficiency, DOGE. The wheels did start to come off a little when Musk began to criticise Trump's spending plan, Trump's big, beautiful bill. Can you tell me about that? Geoff Kabaservice: Yes. Well, before it had that label, Musk had actually called the bill a disgusting abomination. And in fact, you know, it is quite a profligate spending bill for a Republican party that still likes to think of itself as the guardian of the fisk. It will add at least $3 trillion to the deficit. And this at a time, of course, when interest rates arereasonably high, and this actually will not have a good impact on the American economy or the situation for businesses. However, the budget bill is also notable in the sense that it's in some way a very un-Trumpian piece of legislation. It actually makes savage cuts to government spending programmes that actually do support quite a lot of voters in Trump's base, relatively poor, working class voters. So this actually has real potential to split the party. And maybe that's the subtext to Elon Musk's proposal to start a third party and also punish Republican legislators who voted for this bill. Sydney Pead: Yes. Well, there was plenty of shots fired between Trump and Musk over this bill. Even at one stage, Trump was musing on the possibility of deporting Elon Musk, which is extraordinary. Geoff Kabaservice: Yes, yes. I mean, Trump says a lot of things that perhaps he doesn't necessarily mean, but he certainly does have a bit of a handle from which to jerk Elon Musk around because Musk's companies get quite a lot of government subsidies and Trump has mused about taking those away. You know, something about the overall incoherence of Musk's political position, I think, is revealed in the fact that he is, after all, the head of Tesla. And most buyers of electric vehicles are actually Democrats. Trump's one big beautiful bill actually makes savage cuts to anything resembling green energy. So he actually has a very credible threat to do away with government subsidy of Musk's companies. Sydney Pead: Okay. So in the wake of this fallout, Elon Musk announces on X that he's going to start a new political party. Donald Trump is not happy about this. He says it's ridiculous and Musk has gone completely off the rails since departing the White House. Donald Trump, US President: I think it's ridiculous to start a third party. We have a tremendous success with the Republican party. The Democrats have lost their way, but it's always been a two party system. And I think starting a third party just adds to confusion. It really seems to have been developed for two parties. Third parties have never worked. So he can have fun with it. But I think it's ridiculous. Sydney Pead: Let's take a look now at the America party. Musk claims that the US currently has a uni-party system and that the Republicans and the Democrats are in essence the same. So what is his alternative? We know he wants to slash debt. What else would this party stand for? Geoff Kabaservice: So, you know, I think most Americans would find the idea that the Republicans and Democrats right now at this moment are the same to be bonkers. They're probably farther apart than they've been in decades. However, Musk is probably correct that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have much credibility when it comes to balancing budgets. I actually believe that we now spend more on the interest on the debt in any one given fiscal year than we do on all of our national defence spending. So it actually is a very serious problem and he's not wrong to want to address it. But the problem is, of course, that Musk is all over the map in some sense in terms of his own politics. He's alienated Democrats because of the DOGE actions that he undertook to to really attack and undermine government. And he also holds a lot of positions that Democrats don't like. He's actually a very strong supporter of the Second Amendment to bear arms, for example, which is less popular now than it's ever been, perhaps, in the Democratic Party. But on the other hand, his war with Trump has shown that he's alienated a large segment of MAGA's party as well. And they're not fiscal conservatives at heart, most of his populist supporters. So it's not quite clear what Elon's proposed constituency for this new American party might be. Sydney Pead: Well, just on that, what about his potential voters? He's very polarising. Do you think he attracts people who are attracted to his celebrity or is it his political ideology that's attractive? Geoff Kabaservice: It's a good question about what accounts for Musk's popularity and how that might translate into electoral terms. I mean, it's often said that the new currency in America when it comes to elections is attention. And he's certainly shown that he can get quite a lot of it. But on the other hand, really, he is actually even less popular right now in most polls than Donald Trump himself. So it's not quite clear what he has in mind with this venture. Sydney Pead: And you mentioned Trump's MAGA base just before. How much of that Make America Great Again voter base would Musk be able to bring along, do you think, to the American party? Geoff Kabaservice: Well, now we get into some trickiness here. In Washington, D.C., you can actually run into a lot of libertarians. And I would generally put Musk in the libertarian camp. But as it happens, only about 4% of the American electorate would answer to that description. Most Republicans are fiscally and socially conservative. Most Democrats are fiscally and socially liberal. But there would be perhaps some possibility to wean away some part of the MAGA base. And of course, third parties tend to run on anti-establishment energies. So, again, possible that Musk could be that kind of anti-establishment figure who might attract some kind of electoral support. Sydney Pead: There are already a number of other minor political parties in the U.S. The Libertarian Party is the third biggest. And there's also the Greens, which is smaller still. But they're not overly popular. So, so far, none have managed to break that two-party dominance in the U.S., right? Geoff Kabaservice: You know, it's very difficult for people not in the United States, not familiar with our political system, to understand how dominant the two-party system is. Sometimes it makes sense to call it a duopoly. And in fact, the last third party to actually succeed in becoming a major party was the Republican Party itself back in the 1850s. There are just many, many ways in which the American system is set up to systematically disadvantage third parties and prevent them from breaking through to major party status. Sydney Pead: Okay. But as we know, Musk has seemingly bottomless pockets. So is his ability to bankroll this venture, would that change the game for him? Geoff Kabaservice: Well, probably not, to be honest. Because, you know, it's actually often crossed the minds of various rich people that there ought to be a third party, preferably helmed by themselves, to bring wisdom and rationality to the American political system. Donald Trump himself actually flirted with this idea back in 2000 when he sought the nomination of the Reform Party. But actually, Trump had a much better perception of the American system by 2016 when he realised that far better than starting a non-viable third party would be to actually take over one of the two existing parties, which he did to great effect. You know, it is possible that Musk could actually choose to make a big political impact through some other vehicle than the one he's talking about right now. The elections that really matter in this country at the level of Congress are primary elections, which are typically closed to only members of either the Republican or the Democratic Party. They tend to be very low turnout elections in which some amount of money in advertising could have a significant impact. And if Musk really wanted to punish the Republicans who had voted for Trump's one big, beautiful bill, he would fund primary challengers within the Republican Party itself. But what he said is he actually wants to create this third party that would challenge both Republicans and Democrats. And that's a much, that's a much bigger reach. Sydney Pead: Much more ambitious. Musk did post that part of his strategy would be to laser focus on just two or three Senate seats and eight to 10 House districts. So if he was able to do that, what kind of impact could that have on the two major parties? Geoff Kabaservice: Well, I think the key word that you just used there was if. I mean, this is a pipe dream that goes back a long way. The idea being that in a very narrowly divided Congress, all you have to do is get a handful of bipartisan centrist legislators and they can form a bloc who can act as kingmakers in deciding whether to accept or reject any particular legislation. But the chances are very good that it'll come to nothing, even with somebody with as deep pockets as Elon Musk behind it. Sydney Pead: Okay. And Elon Musk, of course, was not born in the US, so he could never be president, right? But could the American Party run a candidate for president in 2028? Geoff Kabaservice: You know, anything's possible. But the very last presidential third party candidate to win any electoral college votes, which again, you can't win the election without those, was George Wallace running with the American Independent Party in 1968. I think he got 46 electoral votes, something like 13.5% of the popular vote. They can make some impact, but I don't think that's what Elon Musk has in mind with his grand plans for a third party. Sydney Pead: If a third party candidate doesn't win, can they still swing the vote there away from those two major parties? Geoff Kabaservice: You know, what third party candidates for president who are the most successful can do is cast doubt on the perceived legitimacy of the winner. But I think more than that, the third party candidate, if it's successful enough, can indicate a degree of dissatisfaction on the part of a significant segment of the population, with the establishment of both parties, with the absence of issues that are perceived to be very important for at least some segment of the population. And that can in turn impact the politics of the two established parties. Sydney Pead: Well, it is easy to be a bit dubious about Musk's moves, but overall, is competition in politics a good thing for the system? Good for democracy? Good for voters? What do you think? Geoff Kabaservice: If you ask voters, poll after poll for at least the last 25 years has determined that a majority of them do want or say they want a viable third party, and typically they feel that the two parties are too extreme. However, when they're actually given a chance to vote for third party candidates, they typically don't. But, you know, I remember from my historical training that Richard Hofstadter, the historian, said in 1955 that third parties are like bees. Once they have stung, they die. And I think what he was getting at was that sometimes there can be significant issues that aren't addressed by either of the two major parties. And in 1992, when Ross Perot was running for the presidency, he was running against the debt and deficit, somewhat along the lines of what Musk says he would like his third party to do. And he got 20% of the vote, which is not nothing. And that actually did very much impact the direction of Bill Clinton's presidency, because Clinton concentrated much more on balancing the budget and reinventing government than perhaps he would have if not for that kind of populist stimulus. So it's possible that Musk's project actually bear some political fruit. It just wouldn't accrue directly to his political party. Sydney Pead: Lastly, how bad do you think this could be for Donald Trump? Because to have Musk drawing not only attention away, but money? We know he spent more than a quarter of a billion US dollars helping Trump get into the White House in 2024. How big a difference could this make to the Republicans? Geoff Kabaservice: I don't think the Republican strategists that I know are taking this threat by Musk all that seriously at this point. If he were to actually shift his strategy toward mounting primary challenges in Republican districts, then they would take him very seriously indeed. But just the idea of a sort of third party defined by Elon Musk, hostile to Donald Trump, but also hostile to the Democrats, I don't think there's much of a fear on that account. And most Republican strategists that I know also are basically counting on Elon Musk dropping this once there's sufficient opposition from his boards. When Elon Musk made his announcement, the response of the markets was to actually drop Tesla stock by 7%. And Tesla stock overall is down 40% from its peak in December. So, you know, Musk has a lot of money, but the people he answers to on the boards of his company don't want him to keep losing money indefinitely. And I think that's definitely what they fear would emerge from this kind of political adventure. Sydney Pead: Geoff Kabaservice is a political scientist from the Niskanen Center, a centre-right think tank based in Washington, DC. This episode was produced by Kara Jensen-Mackinnon, audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I'm Sydney Pead. ABC News Daily will be back again tomorrow. Thanks for listening.
ABC News
07-07-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Easy ways to obtain a medical certificate for sick or carer's leave
Winter has well and truly arrived — and so has cold and flu season — meaning some of us may need time off to care for ourselves or a loved one. Workplaces often require evidence for sick or carer's leave, so what are your options for getting that? According to the Fair Work Ombudsman, an employer can ask an employee to provide evidence showing they took leave because they were: Unable to work because of illness or injury, or Needed to provide care or support to an immediate family or household member because of illness, injury or an emergency This can be for as little as one day or part of a day off work, and an employee who does not supply documentation may not be entitled to be paid for their sick or carer's leave. However, Shae McCrystal, professor of Law at the University of Sydney Law School, on the traditional lands of the Gadigal people, says medical evidence is not always required for personal leave, and employees should familiarise themselves with their workplace's enterprise agreements and industrial awards. The Fair Work Ombudsman says: "While there are no strict rules on what type of evidence needs to be given, the evidence has to convince a reasonable person that the employee was genuinely entitled to the sick or carer's leave." Visiting a fully bulk-billing doctor for a free consultation is an efficient and cost-effective way to get a medical certificate. However, recent surveys by ABC News and the Royal Australian College of GPs show fewer than 10 per cent of GPs exclusively bulk-bill patients, with average out-of-pocket costs to see a GP ranging from about $40 to $55. Securing a GP appointment at short notice can also be difficult, especially for Australians living in regional and remote areas. Booking a telehealth appointment can be a convenient way of securing a medical certificate, particularly if you are physically unable to get to a doctor or cannot secure an appointment. These appointments are offered via video or phone, and patients who use a telehealth service are generally directed to a short questionnaire and then assessed by an Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency-approved health practitioner. Costs of telehealth consultations can vary, with some costing less than $20, but according to Queensland Health, a telehealth appointment "should cost the same as an in-person appointment". Pharmacists can also issue absence-from-work certificates for a range of minor ailments within the scope of their practice. The cost of a pharmacy-issued absence-from-work form usually ranges from $20 to $35 for a single-day certificate, and Pharmacy Guild of Australia's Victoria vice-president Anthony Tassone says they can be issued for illnesses such as cold and flu, diarrhoea or migraines and severe headaches, for example. "[Illness where] they're not well enough to work, but it should resolve soon," Mr Tassone says. The Fair Work Ombudsman says statutory declarations are also an acceptable form of evidence for sick or carer's leave. Although there is no cost involved in getting a statutory declaration (stat dec), it has historically involved downloading and printing the form, filling out facts that you declare to be true and accurate, and having the document signed by a witness such as a justice of the peace. However, under legislative changes that came in early 2024, it is now possible to make commonwealth stat decs using your Digital Identity by creating a myGovID and attaching it to your myGov account. Australian National University professor of law and regulation Veronica Taylor says digital and paper stat decs "have exactly the same effect".
