There is a large group in Australia's housing crisis that often gets less attention. They are not homeless. They are not homeowners. They are renters in the middle. They may be working full-time, studying, raising children, caring for parents or saving for a deposit.
Amid the noise and spectacle of budget week, one significant policy change has slipped largely under the radar. Health Minister Mark Butler introduced changes that, if passed by parliament, will tighten access to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – After three years as a prisoner in Beijing, Cheng Lei is busy rebuilding her life. She’s written a memoir and a play, tried her hand at stand-up comedy and is pursuing her career as a journalist.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – A shark fatally mauled a diver off an Australian tourist island on Saturday, police said. The 38-year-old man had been spearfishing with a friend when he was attacked on a coral reef off Rottnest Island near Australia’s southwest coast, Western Australia Police Sergeant Michael Wear said.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – One of Ukraine’s largest drone strikes on Russia killed at least four people, including three near Moscow, and wounded a dozen others, local authorities said Sunday. Debris fell on Russia’s largest airport without causing damage.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) – Australia identified a neo-Nazi network as the second organization being banned under its new law criminalizing hate groups and support for them. The group, formerly known as the National Socialist Network and sometimes called White Australia, said it would disband after the government in January passed the law allowing certain organizations to be banned.
Angus Taylor might have reckoned he and the opposition are in such deep doo-doo that he might as well throw everything at Thursday night's budget reply. The result was a mixed bag. The promise to index tax brackets is a bold reform that can't be faulted in principle, although it would come with a big eventual cost.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has committed a Coalition government to phase in income tax indexation under a "tax back guarantee" that he says "will fully protect all taxpayers from inflation". In his budget reply on Thursday night, Taylor described the plan, which would cost $22.5 billion over the forward estimates, as "generational tax reform".
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – Six passengers from a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak arrived Friday in Australia for a quarantine expected to last at least three weeks. The Gulfstream long-range business jet carrying them from the Netherlands landed at RAAF Base Pearce outside the Western Australia state capital, Perth.
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