Australia news live: Labor rejects Dutton’s latest nuclear power push; robodebt report to be released | Australian politics – Beragampengetahuan

Over 46 days of hearings, the robodebt royal commission heard from politicians, public servants, whistleblowers, advocates and victims about what a judge had already called a “shameful chapter”.

Victims told of financial suffering, mental health effects, and the frustration, anger and hopelessness of coming up against an opaque government system designed for budget savings, not fairness.

The evidence pointed to serious failings and the commission heard claims of possible deception, collusion and cover up within the public service.

When the commission ended its public hearings after five months, Guardian Australia prepared this long-read on how the scandal came to be:

Many of the questions posed here will likely be answered in commissioner Catherine Holmes’s report, delivered this morning.

We’ll have more on this as it unfolds over the course of the day.

Earlier this morning the NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, confirmed the robodebt royal commission’s Justice Catherine Holmes sought an extension to her reporting deadline so she could potentially refer cases to the federal anti-corruption watchdog, which was established a day after the initial reporting deadline of 31 June.

Shorten was asked on ABC TV: “Is it your understanding [that] Commissioner Holmes sought an extension to her reporting deadlines, so she could report once the national anticorruption body was set up and then should have the avenue of potentially referring cases to the anticorruption commission?”

He confirmed: “That is correct, for my understanding.”

The opposition demands the federal government consider establishing a nuclear power network, again – and the federal government rejects the prospect, again.

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, is due to make a speech today that will reportedly say the government is “mesmerised” by alternative energy sources such as solar panels, and should consider building small nuclear reactors, AAP reports.

“If nuclear power is so prohibitively expensive, why are more than 50 countries investing in it, including those with smaller economies than Australia?” Dutton will say, according to the Australian Financial Review.

Conveniently, the energy minister is reluctant to mention the costs of storage and transmission when he talks about renewables being cheaper.

Labor frontbencher Jason Clare said the government does not support nuclear power.

“They cost about $400bn bucks and take years and years to build,” he told Nine’s Today Show.

Follow the money … you can see what’s needed here – as all the old coal-fired power stations shut down, they need to be replaced by something and what the private sector’s doing is investing in the cleanest form of new energy and that’s renewable energy.

You can read more from our foreign affairs and defence correspondent Daniel Hurst:

Paul Karp

Education ministers agree in principle to reform teacher training

Education ministers have agreed in principle to major reforms to how teachers are trained, following the release of the report of the teacher education expert panel.

The panel, led by Prof Mark Scott of the University of Sydney, found that:

Too many beginning teachers have reported that they felt they needed to be better equipped for the challenges they faced in the classroom on starting their teaching careers. Sadly, too many fail to complete their studies or stay in the profession long enough to flourish. Nearly four in 10 [initial teacher education] students leave their course within six years of commencing their degree and around one in five beginning teachers leaves within the first three years of entering the teaching profession.

Federal, state and territory education ministers met on Thursday and agreed to:

• Develop national practical teaching guidelines, and amend accreditation standards and procedures by the end of 2023.

• Ensure core content is embedded in all programs before the end of 2025.

The report made other recommendations including:

• Drawing a stronger link between performance and funding of initial teacher education, including establishing an ITE quality assurance board to monitor the quality and consistency of ITE programs and their outcomes.

• Enhancing postgraduate teacher education for mid-career entrants, including developing and scaling high-quality mid-career programs, such as paid, employment-based pathways

The education minister, Jason Clare, said:

A lot of teachers tell me they did not feel like they were prepared for the classroom when they finished university. That their university course didn’t prepare them well enough to teach things like literacy and numeracy and manage classroom behaviour, and that prac wasn’t up to scratch. This report is about fixing that.”

Scott said:

Teachers have the biggest impact on student learning in the classroom. We want to make sure that all beginning teachers learn and can apply the teaching practices which work best.

The panel’s recommendations will support beginning teachers to successfully transition into the profession and will make them more likely to stay in teaching. The recommendations will make a crucial contribution to addressing workforce shortages.

Melissa Davey

Psychologists warn halving of Medicare sessions has left people struggling

The Australian Association of Psychologists (AAPi) has warned that cuts to the number of subsidised psychology sessions has led to some psychologists reducing the number of Medicare-related clients, despite long waiting lists.

In a statement published on Friday, AAPi said in the six months since the Medicare sessions were reduced from 20 to 10, psychologists are increasingly reporting their clients are struggling.

Gold Coast psychologist and member of AAPi, Dr Leanne McGregor, works with Indigenous and marginalised young mothers who often cannot afford to pay for sessions and said spacing the 10 sessions out over a year was proving challenging.

She has a waiting list of 10 weeks for her next available appointment and 32 people on her books in line for an earlier appointment.

I sometimes offer my services for free if they are in crisis and at risk.

As a result of the session cuts and the Medicare rebate remaining low, I am now no longer able to take on as many clients.

AAPi executive director Tegan Carrison said the federal government had not provided adequate alternatives since the Better Access psychology sessions were cut. AAPi is urging people to write to their local MP about the issue.

“Alongside the ongoing cost of living crisis, the situation is not going to improve,” Carrison said.

Rafqa Touma

Happy Friday – and thank you to Martin Farrer for manning the blog.

I’m Rafqa Touma, and I’ll be with you on the blog this morning. If you see anything you don’t want us to miss, let me know on Twitter or Threads.

It could be a choppy day on the ASX today after shares on global markets took a bit of a dive on concerns about more rate hikes.

The ASX is currently tracking for a fall of 2.55% according to the futures market.

Overnight the FTSE100 index fell to its lowest point of the year.

Here’s our full story:

City of Sydney tops NSW Homelessness table

Cait Kelly

A recent rise in evictions is sending more people on to the streets, as data from NSW Homelessness reveals the councils struggling the most with the housing crisis across the state.

The interactive Homelessness NSW dashboard is the first of its kind and pulls together 50 data sources, including Corelogic and ABS data, to map localised statistics on homelessness, housing supply, income support payments and domestic violence rates.

It shows the City of Sydney has the most people experiencing homelessness (3,598), followed by Canterbury-Bankstown (2,696) and the Inner West Council (2,551).

The proportion of renter households in rental stress – defined as paying more than 30% of income in rent – is highest in Fairfield (48.2 %), followed by Byron Shire (47.9%), Tweed Shire (45.4%), and Nambucca and Bellingen on the mid-north coast (both 45%).

And the major driver of homelessness has become the housing crisis. Out of the 24,700 clients who accessed specialist homeless services in March, 9,500 listed evictions, followed by 8,000 listing domestic violence and 7,000 listing housing stress as the top reasons they were now homeless.

Homelessness NSW boss Trina Jones said:

This tool does not just show the extent of the state’s homelessness; it shows exactly how much public housing is needed and where and the risk in those areas.

We have the data and solutions; now, we need to act together across all levels of government, community and business to ensure everyone has a safe home and the support they need.

This is the first beragampengetahuan these available data sources have been brought together to show the drivers and experiences of homelessness at the local level.

Welcome

Martin Farrer

Good morning and welcome to the live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer here to ease you into the swing of things before my colleague Rafqa Touma grabs the controls.

The big event today will be the release of the robodebt royal commission report at 11am, followed by a media conference at noon and a chance to ask questions. We’ll have full coverage. We’ll hear from victims for whom today will be at least partly about closure and vindication, and while it could be a day to make former prime minister Scott Morrison squirm, the public service whistleblower who exposed the scheme just wants to make sure it doesn’t happen again. And if you want to refresh your memory, here are six things to watch out for today.

State and territory energy ministers are meeting in Tasmania today to discuss an overhaul of the country’s hydrogen strategy, the treatment of emissions from the Beetaloo gas field and whether to change the treatment of “natural gas” in the national gas law. The ACT energy minister, Shane Rattenbury, will propose the gas law be updated to replace “natural gas” with “fossil gas” or “methane” to more accurately reflect the environmental impact of the fuel. We’ll have more on this story as it happens.

We’ll also be hearing today from our Queensland team at the LNP’s annual conference in Brisbane. One of the main issues expected to be resolved today is the political future of the renegade Liberal senator Gerard Rennick amid a push to remove him from a winnable spot on the party’s Senate ticket.