Australia

North Turramurra: Southern Cross Care aged care home ordered to address key compliance failures

A shocking report card has laid bare a string of compliance failures at one of the north shore’s largest aged care homes. The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission has found Southern Cross Care North Turramurra Residential Aged Care was failing to maintain four compliance standards after an inspection of the 113-room facility in September. The audit report revealed the ...

Read More »

Here’s how the government wants to fix Australia’s ‘broken’ migration system

Labor’s superannuation tax changes are a low-risk plan for repairing the budget — and an important political turning point After nearly four years in a small target crouch, nursing the bruises and fearing the ghosts of 2019, Labor poked its nose above the tax reform parapet this week. The superannuation tax increase announced this week is modest, even timid, compared ...

Read More »

Prime Minister warns of gaps in nation’s defence capability in key speech

Anthony Albanese will use a key speech to forewarn of “gaps” in Australia’s defence capability and lay the groundwork to bolster defence spending and boost ties with the US in the May budget. The Prime Minister will outline the government’s national security priorities and confirm the release of the unclassified outcomes from the defence strategic review. In an address to ...

Read More »

Here’s how the government wants to fix Australia’s ‘broken’ migration system

Australia must shift away from “permanently temporary” migration, and seize the opportunity provided by skilled people already here and abroad, the home affairs minister says. Clare O’Neil has called for an overhaul of Australia’s migrant system, making it easier for skilled migrants to arrive to plug worker shortfalls, and for talented international students to remain in the country for the ...

Read More »

Hundreds of thousands want to “swap” the date’ and work on Australia Day

Hundreds of thousands of workers across the public and private sectors will be given the option to work on Australia Day instead of celebrating the public holiday as the national debate intensifies about the appropriateness of celebrating the 1788 arrival of the first fleet. Woolworths, which employs 160,000 people across the country, has told its staff they can choose to ...

Read More »

Albanese shies away from gambling reform as NSW wages war on pokies

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has refused to consider a nationwide shake-up to the gambling sector and has insisted protections around poker machines are a matter for the states, as reforms to minimise problem gambling dominate the lead-up to the NSW election on March 25. NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet confirmed on Wednesday that a Coalition cashless gaming card plan would impose ...

Read More »

John Ray Bayssari to appeal jail sentence over airport gangland brawl

A married father-of-four jailed over his involvement in a brutal gangland brawl at Ballina airport has engaged two prominent Sydney lawyers in a last-ditched bid to avoid prison. Alameddine crime clan associate John Ray Bayssari, 31, was handed a 12-month jail sentence in December last year after pleading guilty to a single count of affray over the February 2021 melee, ...

Read More »

Minor fines waived for safe drivers under Premier’s election pledge

NSW Labor has described the Coalition’s promise to wipe minor fines for good drivers as the “world’s fastest U-turn”, a day after the government criticised Labor’s plan to reward safe motorists by returning their demerit points. Labor leader Chris Minns also wouldn’t rule out adopting Premier Dominic Perrottet’s policy alongside his party’s pledge to reimburse drivers a demerit point every ...

Read More »

Australia’s economy recovered in 2022, will it crash in 2023?

Despite the odds, Australia largely withstood the global economic hurdles of 2022. But as the global slowdown worsens, it will be difficult not to get dumped by that wave. Despite large parts of the country starting this year under an Omicron COVID haze, the past 12 months delivered many surprises to the upside. Unemployment has hovered around 3.5 per cent ...

Read More »