Disability royal commission news updates LIVE:Findings reveal … – The Australian Financial Review

‘Violence, abuse, exploitation, neglect and exclusion’
Labor to establish disability royal commission taskforce
‘We need to do better’
Why challenges are mounting for the Yes camp
Drone strikes and sea attacks: Why Ukraine has a new battle plan
People with disability should be paid minimum wage by 2034
NDIS Minister Bill Shorten is up, responding to the disability royal commission’s final report.
Shorten kicked off his speech with words describing the experiences of many people with disability: “Violence, abuse, exploitation, neglect and exclusion.
“Those five words summarise a lot of experiences of a lot of our fellow Australians who live with disability. So this royal commission, it is literally genuinely a historic moment for Australians [with] disability, and in fact, all Australians.”
He said that as NDIS minister, the federal government would focus on stamping out unethical behaviour by service providers and take “pretty urgent action” when considering the recommendations made in the royal commission report.
In the interim, the federal government was conducting about 60 investigations into potentially fraudulent service providers to protect people with disability but more needed to be done, he said.
“I just want to conclude my contribution by acknowledging the stories of people with disability. We understand that this nation can and should do better. But as much as some of this report makes harrowing reading, and as much as there may be some in the disability sector, we need more done more quickly.”
Many thanks for reading along. That’s a wrap for Need to Know this Friday, September 29.
Here are some of the top stories of the day so far:
Pay disabled workers minimum wage by 2034: royal commission: People with a disability who are in paid employment should receive the minimum wage instead of $2.27 an hour, the disability royal commission has recommended.
BoQ cuts 250 jobs as profit takes a hit: Bank of Queensland has become the latest bank to reduce its staff ahead of revealing its results next month.
Why challenges are mounting for the Yes camp: Polls this week show the Voice to parliament could be set for defeat, setting up the final weeks of the campaign as a heated fight.
The release of the disability royal commission’s findings this morning mark the next phase of advocacy and activity for people with disability, People with Disability Australia president Nicole Lee says.
Here’s what Lee said today:
“It is a day where we reflect on everything that we gave to get that royal commission on the national agenda, the stories that we told, and today’s the day where we look at shifting from the interpersonal violence, the individual experience of violence into the next phase of advocacy and activism.
“Now is the day where we move into the next phase of … advocating for a safer future for the future generations so that they do not live a life that we lived; that they don’t live the exclusion, the violence, the abuse and neglect in the sexual assault, in the murders that our community has lived, and the lives that we have.
“We also want to see a future that is fully inclusive, not more inclusive. We want a fully inclusive future and completely desegregated environment and community. We want to define what segregation means on our terms for our community, not what other people define as a segregated environment.”
Larry Schlesinger
Melbourne developer James Dibble’s Grange Developments has received approval to build the world’s tallest hybrid timber tower, after his C6 apartment building in South Perth was approved by Western Australia’s Joint Development Assessment Panel.
The 191.2-metre, 50-storey structure, designed by architects Elenberg Fraser, will be built at 6 Charles Street near the Perth Zoo, It will be notably taller than Atlassian’s hybrid timber tower in Sydney, which is under construction and set to top out at 180 metres when completed in 2025. No time frame for the construction of C6 has been given.
The world’s tallest completed timber building is Mjøstårnet, a mixed-use tower in Brumunddal, a small town in Norway, which has 18 floors and rises 85.4 metres. Mjøstårnet is built entirely out of timber.
Projected to have a $350 million value once completed, Grange Developments’ South Perth tower will also be one of the first carbon negative residential buildings in Australia, meaning it will suck carbon out of the atmosphere.
C6 will incorporate 7400 cubic metres of mass timber in is construction – equating to more than 40 per cent of the total structure alongside concrete, steel and other materials – and will sequester 10.5 million kilograms of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of 4885 economy-class seats on flights from Perth to London.
Dibble said that taking into account the growth rates of each region of sustainably harvested plantations, the timber needed for the structure could be regrown in less than an hour from just 600 sustainably forested trees, and the seeds for these trees could fit within two cupped hands. “We can’t grow concrete,” he said.
The project will offer 237 apartments and include 3500 square metres of edible, floral and native gardens and 18 square metres of communal space per apartment. All energy will come from renewable sources.
Owners and residents will have access to a fleet of 80 self-driving Tesla cars, helping them reduce their carbon footprints.
“The built environment accounts for 39 per cent of global emissions, and our industry is perilously lagging in innovation to address this global challenge,” Dibble said.
“Our aspiration with C6 is to shift the focus towards a more climate-conscious approach to our built environment, rooted in science and engineering.”
The decision to release the disability royal commission’s findings on a Victorian public holiday was not made by the federal government, Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth says.
“The timing of the royal commission [report’s release] was not a choice of the government. It was really a choice of the royal commission of when they would hand it to the governor-general, and so we have released it quickly so that people with disability, their friends, their advocates and the Australian public can have a good look at it,” Rishworth said.
NDIS Minister Bill Shorten, who represents the Victorian electorate of Maribyrnong, said the timing was not chosen by the government and the press conference was held in Adelaide to ensure they were not speaking in a state where there was a public holiday.
A Commonwealth disability royal commission taskforce will be established to co-ordinate the federal government’s response to the recommendations made in the royal commission’s findings, Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth says.
“The taskforce will be critical in assessing how the individual recommendations are linked together, understanding the broader implications of these recommendations and sequencing the government’s response,” she said.
“This work will be done in close consultation with the disability community and stakeholders.”
While making that announcement, Rishworth said the government would not provide a response to any specific recommendations because it was still considering the final report.
The disability royal commission’s findings have confirmed that Australia needs to do better to include and protect people with disability, Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth says.
“We support its vision of a more inclusive society where violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability is just not acceptable,” Rishworth told reporters.
“The message of this report is clear. We do need to do better.”
Rishworth said it was unacceptable that about 55 per cent of people with disability aged between 18 and 64 had been physically or sexually abused since the age of 15, which was a significantly higher rate than adults without disability in that age group.
The government would seek to ensure the royal commission’s vision of ensuring the rights of people with disability were upheld and people with disability were included across all aspects of society.
Tom McIlroy
Noel Pearson is logging a lot of miles in support of the Yes case for a Voice to parliament. Travelling through airports across the country, the Cape York leader is pleased with his “carousel rate” for winning over voters.
“I’m waiting for the baggage and I’m approached by somebody,” he explained at the National Press Club on Wednesday. “The baggage is falling all over the place, but nevertheless, I’m finding that the conversion rate is better than John the Baptist.”
Pearson strikes a determined tone, but two weeks out from a referendum set to be a milestone in the history of reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, he faces an uphill battle getting the Yes vote over the line.
Surfers in Byron Bay urge a Yes vote ahead of the referendum on October 14. Danielle Smith
Since the referendum was announced in August last year, the Voice has become bogged down in an increasingly acrimonious debate over Indigenous self-determination and the shape of the Australian Constitution, amid political fights and jockeying over legal powers.
The Yes camp believes the Voice is the last best chance to radically change the disadvantage faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, recognising them in the founding document and establishing an advice mechanism to government to improve policy design. But the No camp says the Voice is reckless and divisive, legally untested and a power grab by a select few.
As the clock ticks down to polling day, leading No campaigner Warren Mundine is seeing the polls swing his way. He used his own Press Club address this week to underline that the Yes side had misread the national mood and taken the wrong approach to the historic referendum.
Read more.
AAP
Farming groups have written to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese warning the live sheep export ban will cause “irreversible harm” to agriculture and trade with the Middle East.
Labor pledged at the 2019 and 2022 federal elections to end the trade, but the government has consistently said it won’t happen this term to allow the industry a smooth transition.
The 23 groups, including the Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council, National Farmers Federation, Grain Producers and Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association, want Albanese to reverse his government’s policy.
“Middle Eastern countries reliant on Australian live sheep exports are critical to diversify Australia’s trading partnerships,” the letter states.
“The phase-out policy will jeopardise trade deals Australia is pursuing in the region and will erode our reputation as a reliable economic partner.”
The signatories said there had been a 20-fold increase in two-way investment in the past 20 years.
Labor made the commitment to abandon live sheep exports after 2400 sheep died of heat stress in 2017 while travelling on a ship from Australia to the Middle East.
But the stakeholders argue Middle Eastern markets will turn to other countries that don’t have the same animal welfare standards of Australia.
“If the decision is being made on the grounds of improving animal welfare, the ban will be an abject failure.”
The letter also links the policy to recent dramatic falls in sheep prices across Australia.
The government is awaiting a report from an independent panel set up to deliver the transition. It was meant to report its findings in September, but was granted an extension to October 25.
Hans van Leeuwen
In a single week, Russian Admiral Viktor Sokolov appears to have died and risen from the grave. Or, as the famous quote from Mark Twain has it, rumours of his death were perhaps exaggerated – in this case, by Ukraine.
Sokolov, commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, was probably at the fleet’s HQ in the Crimean port of Sevastopol on Friday, September 22, when two UK-supplied storm shadow cruise missiles evaded Russian air defences and slammed into it.
A Ukrainian drone pilot reaches for a reconnaissance drone in the Luhansk Region, Ukraine. AP
Ukraine’s buccaneering military intelligence head, Kyrylo Budanov, claimed that 16 people had been killed, including Alexander Romanchuk, who heads Russia’s defence of its conquered territory in southern Ukraine. The following Monday, the Ukrainians upped the estimate to 34 dead, and named Sokolov as a prize scalp.
At first, the fabled Russian information machine seemed unready to counter the claim. The next day, though, the defence ministry released silent footage of Sokolov participating in a Zoom-style meeting of military chiefs.
This wasn’t entirely convincing, since staged imagery is a tool of the Kremlin’s trade. In its daily report, the normally ramrod-straight Institute for the Study of War in Washington said with bemused exasperation that its analysts were “unprepared at this time to make an assessment about the authenticity of the Russian MoD’s footage of Sokolov, or about Sokolov’s status on Earth”.
Read more.
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