NewzIntel.com

Blog

  • MIL-OSI USA: Sorensen Statement on Announced Layoffs at Deere & Company

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Congressman Eric Sorensen (IL-17)

    ROCK ISLAND, IL – Today, Congressman Eric Sorensen (IL-17) released the following statement on the news of an additional round of layoffs at Deere & Company.  

    “Every day, I’m proud to be a Quad Citizen and call this place my home. We have a special way of life here, we take pride in what we do, and how we do it. Deere & Company is part of the fabric of the Quad Cities and the UAW workers who build the Seeders & Harvesters that are used around the world help our community thrive and grow,” said Sorensen. 

    “Today is a hard day for our Quad Cities community and I pledge to do everything that I’m able to support the workers affected by these layoffs. Our Congressional Office has the resources to connect affected workers with services and benefits. We will work hand-in-hand with our partners in the Governor’s Office and UAW to make sure that we do everything we can to support workers.”  

    “Representing our district on the House Agriculture Committee has always been important, and it is clear from today’s decision that now more than ever we need to pass a bipartisan Farm Bill. Critical programs that impact the price of corn and soy are running out of money and need to be replenished and updated. This affects Deere & Company’s production and impacts workers as much as our family farmers. We must get a bipartisan Farm Bill passed, which will open up opportunities for Deere.” 

    “Deere & Company’s annual profits exceed $7 billion. Today’s stock price exceeded $410 per share. C-suite salaries are in the tens of millions of dollars. They can afford to better take care of their workers in John Deere’s hometown.” 

    Congressman Eric Sorensen serves on the House Committee on Agriculture and the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Prior to serving in Congress, Sorensen was a local meteorologist in Rockford and the Quad Cities for nearly 20 years. His district includes Illinois’ Quad Cities, Rockford, Peoria, and Bloomington-Normal. 

    ###

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Strong condemns court ruling to allow non-citizens to vote in Alabama

    Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Dale Strong (Alabama)

    WASHINGTON – Congressman Dale W. Strong released the following statement regarding the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama’s decision to grant injunctive relief and prevent Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen from removing illegal aliens from the state’s voter rolls: 

    “Any non-citizen found voting in a federal election should be prioritized for deportation. I am appalled that the Department of Justice is litigating against states who are working to prevent non-citizens from voting. What we saw today is a continuation of the Biden-Harris Administration’s four-year campaign against the enforcement of our laws. 

    In Congress, Democrats blocked the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote. 

    As Border Czar, Kamala Harris oversaw the worst border crisis in our nation’s history, and now her Administration is blocking states from maintaining accurate voter rolls.  

    The American people are tired of the double talk. The SAVE Act is lying in the Senate awaiting a vote. If the Democrats really believe in securing this election, Chuck Schumer must bring it to a vote immediately and end this madness.”  

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Day drinkers beware, don’t drive

    Source: New Zealand Police (District News)

    Motorists in Northland can expect to be breath tested at any time, day or night, as part of ongoing efforts to clamp down on drink driving in the region.

    Police are especially focused on those people who drink alcohol and drive during the day.

    Northland Road Policing Manager, Inspector Anne-Marie Fitchett, says day drinking and driving is a significant safety issue for Northlanders.

    “We are catching out drivers who are well over the limit at all times of the day, and not just when the sun goes down.

    “Yesterday, a person was stopped at a checkpoint at 9am and blew more than three times the legal limit.

    “Recently, we breath tested a person just before 3pm near a school, and their breath test reading was well over twice the legal limit.”

    Inspector Fitchett says drivers in Northland can expect to see checkpoints anywhere at any time.

    “Make no mistake, these drivers are out there, and we want our communities to know they are putting everyone in harm’s way with this reckless behaviour.

    “As we head to work and school, we are sharing the road with these drivers. 

    “Checkpoints are a vital tool for preventing harm on our roads and apprehending those drivers who put us all at risk.

    “It’s very simple really, if you drink alcohol to excess during the day, or at any other time, please don’t drive. And if you do, expect to be breath tested by Police.”

    ENDS.

    Tony Wright/NZ Police

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Federated Farmers Calls for Fish & Game to be stripped of their advocacy function

    Source: Federated Farmers

    Federated Farmers Southland are calling for the Government to strip Fish & Game of their advocacy function and refocus the organisation on the management of hunting and fishing.
    “Fish & Game are a statutory body but in some parts of the country they’re acting like an environmental activist group,” Federated Farmers Southland president Jason Herrick says.
    “As an organisation they’ve gotten so far away from their core purpose of managing, maintaining, and enhancing sports fish, game birds and their habitats.
    “Farmers are sick of their obstructive behaviour, unnecessary litigation, and anti-farming rhetoric – and so are everyday hunters and fishers who just want to enjoy their sport.
    “Unfortunately, Fish & Game’s advocacy positions, particularly in Southland, are increasingly at odds with the views of most reasonable hunting and fishing licence holders.”
    Federated Farmers say many farmers are keen hunters and fishers themselves, and are more than happy to pay an annual licence fee to support the important work Fish & Game do.
    This includes assessing and monitoring species populations, maintaining and improving habitats, and promoting hunting and fishing activities.
    “All of that good work is completely undermined by the advocacy positions Fish & Game takes, which is why we are asking for that function to be completely removed,” Herrick says.
    “As a farmer, and a fisher, it’s incredibly frustrating to see money raised through a compulsory licence fee used to fund political activism and litigation that I fundamentally disagree with.
    “The issue is that if you want to hunt or fish, you need to buy a licence. You’ve got no choice but to fund their activism and court action – that’s why I no longer fish despite loving the sport.”
    Recent examples include Fish & Game Southland opposing resource consents for things like the opening of the Waituna Lagoon and the extraction of gravel from clogged waterways.
    Fish & Game have also taken unnecessary court action that will require more than 3000 Southland farmers to get expensive resource consents for no environmental gain.
    This has led Federated Farmers Southland to call for a boycott of Fish & Game in the province and for farmers to withhold fishing access across their land.
    “For generations farmers have allowed hunters onto our properties, or for fishers to walk across private land to access fishing spots, as a gesture of goodwill,” Herrick says.
    “Unfortunately, that goodwill has been completely eroded by the political activism of Southland Fish & Game. That’s why droves of farmers are now denying fishing access.
    “While I appreciate this will be frustrating for many of Southland’s fishermen, who are generally very decent salt-of-the-earth people, Fish & Game have left us no other option.
    “We now need Southland’s fishing community to stand with farmers and let Fish & Game know that enough is enough. The obstructive litigation and anti-farming advocacy needs to stop.” 

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Police find firearm following stolen vehicle incident

    Source: New Zealand Police (District News)

    A loaded revolver has been taken off the streets following an incident involving a stolen vehicle near Auckland Airport during the early hours of this morning.

    At about 3am, Police were alerted to a stolen Toyota Hilux travelling along Tom Pearce Drive.

    Counties Manukau West Area Response Manager, Senior Sergeant Steve Albrey, says the Police Eagle helicopter was able to gain observations on the vehicle as it continued along the road before pulling into a nearby premises.

    “Units were able to quickly block in the vehicle and arrest two people,” he says.

    “A search of the vehicle has then located a loaded revolver and a significant amount of cash.

    “We are committed to holding offenders to account for these types of crimes and delivering on our intent to keep the community safe,” Senior Sergeant Albrey says.

    A 29-year-old man will appear in Manukau District Court today charged with unlawful possession of a pistol and ammunition and unlawfully taking a motor vehicle.

    ENDS.

    Holly McKay/NZ Police

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Privacy Commissioner – Police well on the way to compliance; one critical step remains

    Source: Office of the Privacy Commissioner

    The notice was issued to require Police to stop unlawfully collecting photographs and biometric prints from members of the public, particularly young people, and to delete unlawfully collected material stored on their systems, including mobile phones.
    Privacy Commissioner Michael Webster says, “I’d like to acknowledge the significant work Police has done in the past two years to complete most of the notice requirements.
    “I know from their regular reporting that they’ve improved training and now have procedures and policies that help officers understand how sensitive these photos are.
    “I’ve seen that they also know they need to have a clear lawful purpose and rationale to take and retain them and have put guardrails in place to help frontline officers make good decisions about what they collect in real-time.” says the Commissioner. These steps should help ensure that unlawful collection no longer occurs.
    However, ensuring that photos and biometric prints are collected lawfully was not the only focus of the Compliance Notice. Police were also required to find and delete all unlawfully collected material currently stored on their systems. This final important requirement is proving difficult to achieve in practice given the scale and organisation of Police’s information collections. “As a result, we have granted the Police an extension until June 2025 to complete the critical task of finding and deleting unlawfully collected images,” says Mr Webster.
    A key problem is that many images have historically been stored on Police systems without the labels that would allow them to be searched automatically. In these cases, Police can’t tell what an image is of without opening each image file manually, and unless key information has been recorded with the photo it may be difficult know the purpose and rationale for collecting and retaining it.
    It’s like going to the pantry and realising that all the labels and use-by dates have been taken off the cans of food. You can’t tell what something is until you open it and even then, you may not be able to tell if it is safe to use.
    “I am concerned that the current state of Police’s information management systems and the extremely large number of stored images make it very hard to find and delete images in a practical way,” said Mr Webster.
    “These same issues may make it difficult for Police to find and use the information they have collected and retained to fight crime and keep communities safe.”
    “The development and implementation of a digital evidence management system was presented to us as a potential solution to these issues. We are concerned that investment in such a system has not proceeded. Had they had that, Police could have stored and identified photos and linked them to specific cases, which would have also meant staff would have documented the lawful purpose for taking the photo.”
    “I am encouraged that Police are continuing to look for solutions to these challenging issues. Resolving them will be fundamental to public trust and confidence in Police use of personal information and their ability to turn it into actionable intelligence that helps keep communities safer,” said Mr Webster
    About the Compliance Notice to Police
    The December 2021 Compliance Notice was the result of a joint Inquiry by OPC and the Independent Police Complaints Authority into the police practice of taking, using, and retaining photos when they didn’t have a lawful purpose for doing so.
    The Inquiry found that thousands of photographs of members of the public have been kept on the mobile phones of individual officers or, if transferred to the Police computer system, not destroyed when there is no longer a legitimate need for them.

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Northland News – $80,000 funding for council safe boating programme

    Source: Northland Regional Council

    Northland Regional Council’s safe boating programme – ‘Nobody’s stronger than Tangaroa’ – has received $80,000 from Maritime New Zealand’s (MNZ) annual Community Grant funding.
    Maritime NZ provides funding to deliver programmes that aim to reduce fatalities and injuries to people out on the water in recreational craft.
    Council Chair Geoff Crawford says the ‘Nobody’s stronger than Tangaroa’ programme is a multi-faceted approach to safe boating in Te Taitokerau that aims to reduce the number of recreational boating fatalities and incidents by enabling the community to assist in being part of the solution.
    The funding will allow council, which has been running the programme for several years, to once again hire ambassadors to support the delivery of the programme.
    “We will continue to leverage relationships formed by our ambassadors to deliver life jacket hubs as well as a training programme geared towards priority groups who otherwise would be unlikely to seek or have access to such training,” says Chair Crawford.
    These priority groups include males over 45 years-old and Māori, who have been identified by MNZ as being overrepresented in recreational boating fatalities nationwide.
    The ambassadors will deliver key safety messaging, including the importance of wearing a life jacket, carrying two waterproof forms of communication, checking the weather forecast before heading out, and knowing the rules.
    They will also set-up life jacket hubs in remote areas across the region. Since the programme began in 2017, 22 life jacket hubs have been established across schools, marae and clubs, with more than 470 life jackets provided by MNZ and council.
    The hubs are run by the communities who lend the life jackets out as they see fit, the rationale being that the recipients know how to maximise the benefits of the scheme, whether that be lending the life jackets out for just a few hours or longer-term.
    The funding will also allow for social media and traditional advertising, and the programme will be supported by council’s Maritime Officers and Harbour Wardens who will be conducting on-water patrols throughout the peak summer period (Labour Weekend to Easter) to enforce, educate, and achieve better compliance with safe boating rules and bylaws.
    A file shot of Safety Ambassador Dane Karapu and local kuia Ellen Hardiman of Whangaruru’s Tuparehuia Marae Committee with the lifejackets the marae holds for use by local and visiting boaties.

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Allens advises Multiplex on a big year of city-shaping projects

    Source: Allens Insights

    In the latest in a succession of major social and commercial infrastructure projects, Allens has advised Multiplex as Managing Contractor for the Victorian Health Building Authority’s Parkville Precinct Redevelopment – Materials Handling Building Project.

    The Parkville Precinct Redevelopment is an important step in the staged redevelopment of the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Royal Women’s Hospital.

    The redevelopment adds to a run of city-shaping commercial and mixed use residential projects in Victoria and South Australia for Multiplex. In the past 12 months, other project that Allens has advised Multiplex include:

    • Cbus Property’s $1 billion sustainable office tower at 435 Bourke Street;
    • each of Brookfield Asset Management, Citiplan and Journal Student Living’s student accommodation projects at Grattan Street and Market Way (Franklin Street);
    • OSK Property’s BLVD residential tower at OSK Property’s $3 billion Melbourne Square precinct, one of Australia’s largest development projects;
    • Chasecrown’s Parkline all-electric mixed-use luxury apartment complex in Kent Town, South Australia; and
    • City of Adelaide and ICD Property’s vibrant new mixed-use precinct, the expansion of Adelaide Central Market. 

    ‘These projects show that there remains strong private capital appetite for quality social infrastructure and commercial development projects,’ said Partner David Donnelly, who led the Allens team on each of the transactions.

    ‘We have loved partnering with Multiplex for the long term. Not only does it provide scale and efficiency benefits for Multiplex, but it provides invaluable learning opportunities for our lawyers at all levels,’ said Managing Associate Ben van Weel.

    Allens has also advised Multiplex on numerous critical infrastructure projects in recent years, including the New Footscray Hospital PPP, Frankston Hospital Redevelopment PPP, GLM 2 Social Housing PPP, the Western Sydney Airport Terminal and National Resilience Centres in Victoria, Queensland and WA.

    Allens legal team

    David Donnelly (Partner), Ben van Weel (Managing Associate), Ashleigh Blumor (Senior Associate), Tom Bleby (Associate), Soha Refaat (Associate), Lana Yang (Associate), Lisa Wang (Associate), Roberta Hernandez (Lawyer), Harrison Philp (Lawyer), Penny Hollingdale (Lawyer)

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Events – Zero Waste Summit focused on waste and climate solutions

    Source: Zero Waste Network

    The national Zero Waste Summit in Wellington on 18-20 November will zero in on practical solutions to waste, plastic pollution and wider ecological crises.

    A public event on Monday night, Zero Waste Solutions to Planetary Crises, will be facilitated by veteran broadcaster, Kim Hill.

    It will feature two panels with experts and politicians speaking to a range of promising zero waste solutions. These include Bottle Deposits, Product Stewardship, the Right to Repair, using organic waste to restore degraded soils, and a Global Plastics Treaty. False solutions such as incineration, that we must avoid will also be discussed.

    MPs from across the political spectrum will get a chance to respond to the information raised by the panel of experts and to outline their policy positions. This public event has been organised in collaboration with the Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance thanks to the support of Re.Group.

    “We all know we need to reduce waste. But it’s the upstream impacts of overconsumption that are the most critical right now: climate change, ecosystem damage, biodiversity loss, pollution and human health impacts.” says Sue Coutts from the Zero Waste Network.

    “To fix these problems we need to go up the supply chains and to put in place practical policies that solve our waste problems for once and for all. This will be the focus of discussions at the summit and we will be looking to our political leaders to implement some real solutions.”  

    The Summit is hosted by the Zero Waste Network Aotearoa. This three day event includes keynotes, panel discussions, and site tours exploring all aspects of zero waste from source reduction and redesign, to repair, recovery, repurposing and recycling. Special thanks to Rothbury Insurance and Wellington City Council for their sponsorship of the Summit.

    “People working on zero waste projects across the country will come together at the Summit to talk about the challenges, the practical solutions we are already delivering, and what we can all do to significantly expand our impacts.”

    “We’ll also be walking the talk, with all catering being provided according to zero waste practices, by local businesses and organisations thanks to the support of Reuse Aotearoa who are sponsoring the zero waste catering during summit day sessions.

    Panel discussions will consider social and economic dimensions, including social justice, sustainable financing for zero waste business models, the growth of zero waste towns, cities and regions, and practical tools and strategies for ensuring the wellbeing of those who work at the frontlines of resource recovery.

    Full information and tickets are available at https://www.summit.zerowaste.co.nz/

    More about us and our sponsors

    The Zero Waste Network is a membership organisation with 120+ members across the country who work towards Zero Waste with their local communities, providing practical resource recovery and behaviour change services. One of these members is Para Kore which is a network in its own right.  Our members employ 1,239 people who work in resource recovery and environmental education. Collectively we recover 29,000 tonnes of material each year and feed $88 million dollars back into local economies through our enterprises.  

    Aotearoa Plastic Pollution Alliance is a collaborative forum of researchers, educators, artists, activists and community leaders working to prevent plastic pollution in Aotearoa, Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, and beyond.

    Reuse Aotearoa is an organisation dedicated to building the momentum to grow and strengthen reusable packaging systems in New Zealand, through evidence-based research, advice and workshops. 

    Wellington City Council are working to implement their zero waste strategy 

    Re.Group are a recycling and resource recovery company specialised in designing, managing and operating resource recovery facilities and systems for a waste less society.

    Rothbury Insurance helps protect the assets of over 53,000 Kiwis and businesses, from Cape Reinga to Bluff.

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Retirement Village Residents – Pleasing but slow progress in ensuring viability of retirement village industry

    Source: Retirement Village Residents Association

    The Government appears on the right track in signalling changes to better balance the needs of residents of retirement villages and operators and ensure this critical industry remains viable.
    “We welcome the direction of travel for future reform following the review of the industry carried out by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development,” said Carol Shepherd of the Retirement Villages’ Residents’ Council (Council), a newly formed body established to advocate for those living in retirement villages (see background below).
    The next stage of the review including key priorities for further work was announced by Ministers yesterday. This includes the intention to bring new legislation to reform the Retirement Villages Act to Parliament in the next term.
    “The Council has advocated for legislative change to provide improved consumer protections for residents and ensure the industry is sustainable so this is much needed, albeit slower progress than we would have wanted.
    “The country faces big challenges in this sector with the population of villages set to more than double from 50,000 residents today within the next 20 or so years.
    “It is pleasing that the Government has recognised the need to balance the needs of residents and the need for a sustainable industry. As our population grows and ages, residents need to have choices, their assets need to be better protected and the industry must be able to provide affordable options.
    “Specifically, the Council is pleased the Government has decided to look at options for incentivising or requiring early capital repayments when residents move out of a village.
    “This has been a big issue for residents. They quite rightly want their capital returned to them or their families quickly and interest should be paid as well if the process takes too long.
    “The Council also welcomes the intention to prioritise work on better managing complaints and disputes and who should pay for the maintenance of operator-owned chattels and fixtures. These are also areas of great concern for residents.
    “The Council looks forward to working with the Government on the next stage of the review to ensure changes that benefit residents,” said Carol Shepherd.

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Soaring benefit sanctions push more into poverty

    Source: Green Party

    Sanctions on beneficiaries have sky-rocketed since the Coalition Government came to power, pushing more families into poverty.

    “This heartless Government has more than doubled benefit sanctions, stripping people of their dignity and ability to put food on the table,” says the Green Party’s spokesperson for Social Development and Employment, Ricardo Menéndez March.

    “People deserve to live in dignity, they deserve to be supported in times of need. We can afford to look after one another, all that is missing is the political will. 

    “Families living in poverty deserve more than smoke and mirrors from Louise Upston who is refusing to address child poverty while introducing more ways to push beneficiaries into hardship.  

    “Benefit sanctions for missing an appointment have almost tripled. This is quite clearly not about supporting people into work but depriving people in need of the means to survive. 

    “The Government has turned its back on our communities in need, adding fuel to the fire when it comes to growing inequality and widening poverty. 

    “The Prime Minister may be ‘wealthy’ and ‘sorted’ but a lot of people out there are struggling. It is time he woke up to this reality and started doing something about it.  

    “A Green Government will overturn this cruel system of sanctions that only makes life harder for beneficiaries and their whanau. 

    “We would instead guarantee liveable incomes for all, and provide tailored support to connect people to employment that provides secure hours, decent wages and helps them meet their aspirations,” says Ricardo Menéndez March.

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: International Energy Agency issues wake-up call on climate action

    Source: Green Party

    Today’s report from the International Energy Agency highlights how far this Government’s actions are dragging us backwards in the fight against climate change. 

    “Luxon’s decision to pour fossil fuel on the climate crisis fire actively undermines not only energy security and resilience, but a climate-safe future,” says Green Party Co-Leader and spokesperson for Climate Change Chlöe Swarbrick. 

    “Today the International Energy Agency issued its annual energy outlook with the key message: energy security and climate action are inextricably linked. 

    “The IEA have once again underscored that efficient, cleaner energy systems reduce energy security risks. 

    “Unfortunately, we have a Government operating in half-truths, weaponising the energy crisis created by reliance on fossil fuels and incentivised by profit-at-all-costs to somehow justify reinforcing and worsening those very settings.

    “The Prime Minister and his Government have tied themselves in knots with the tentacles of the fossil fuel industry, lifting the oil and gas ban, tearing through pristine biodiversity with more coal mines and opening our shores to LNG imports. These actions actively undermine a clean, green transition which is not only critical for a stable climate, but a resilient energy system too.

    “A better world is possible. Affordable, more reliable, renewable and resilient energy distribution is possible. Communities across Aotearoa New Zealand want and deserve it. The Greens will continue to fight to deliver that future owed to all of us,” says Chlöe Swarbrick.

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Governor Polis Issues Executive Order to Memorialize Verbal Disaster Declaration that Provided Resources for Recent Pearl Fire

    Source: US State of Colorado

    DENVER – Today, Governor Polis issued an Executive Order to memorialize the September 16  verbal declaration of disaster emergency to provide support and resources in response to the Pearl Fire in Larimer County. The Executive Order also memorializes the Governor’s verbal authorization to employ unarmed Colorado National Guard members, if needed, to coordinate fire suppression response, consequence management, mitigation, and recovery efforts. As of September 30, 2024, the fire was 95% contained and burned 128 acres. No structures were destroyed during the fire.

    ###
     

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Ray White Oakleigh faces court action for alleged misleading practices

    Source: Government of Victoria 2

    Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV) is taking Ray White Oakleigh and estate agent Nick Strilakos to the Federal Court for alleged misleading and deceptive conduct and making false and misleading statements in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.

    CAV’s Underquoting Taskforce investigated the agency and estate agent after receiving multiple complaints from prospective buyers.

    CAV alleges that Ray White Oakleigh advertised properties at prices well below their market value in at least 11 property sales across Melbourne’s southeast, in Rowville, Mulgrave, Bentleigh East, Oakleigh South and Blackburn South from February 2022 to November 2023.

    In most of these cases, after entering into agreements with sellers, the agency subsequently dropped their estimated selling prices and then advertised the properties at those lower prices. The properties then sold for prices well above the advertised price ranges.

    Ray White Oakleigh agents also sent messages to each other indicating they believed properties would sell for considerably higher prices and in some cases, taking bets or guesses on the higher price.

    In 7 of the 11 cases, the vendors agreed to pay the agency a low flat commission, typically between 2.2 to 2.5 % of the sale price, up to the vendor’s reserve. If the sale price went above the reserve, the agents would be paid a much higher rate of 22 to 25 % of the sale proceeds above the reserve. The vendors typically set their reserve prices in line with the lower estimates.

    CAV is seeking declarations, pecuniary penalty orders, adverse publicity orders and orders that the agents establish compliance and training programs.

    Penalties for making a false or misleading statement in relation to land under the Australian Consumer Law are up to $2.5 million for an individual and $50 million for a company.

    CAV Director Nicole Rich said the Federal Court action serves as a warning to real estate agents that deceptive conduct has no place in Victoria’s real estate market.

    “Underquoting is an unfair practice that can mislead prospective buyers into spending time and money on properties that were always outside their budget and can distort the market.”

    “While prospective purchasers are more likely to report suspected underquoting to us, it is very concerning to see that underquoting practices may also deceive vendors and leave them significantly out of pocket.”

    “It is critical that estate agents act in the best interests of the clients who trust them to sell their properties. This case raises serious new concerns about the impacts of underquoting.”

    “Our underquoting taskforce was recently made permanent in recognition that there is more for us to do. We continue to take a zero-tolerance approach to detect and stamp out underquoting for good.”

    CAV encourages anyone buying or selling a property to report any concerns about underquoting or deceptive practices in property sales on our website through our dedicated complaints webform.

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Interview with Nick Bryant, RN Drive, ABC Radio

    Source: Australian Treasurer

    NICK BRYANT:

    So, with the cost of living biting and a national election looming, the federal government is threatening to ban debit card surcharges from the start of 2026, a plan which has been slammed on the other side of politics. Stephen Jones is the Assistant Treasurer. Stephen, welcome back to Radio National Drive.

    STEPHEN JONES:

    Good to be with you, Nick.

    BRYANT:

    The RBA reckons Australians are losing about a billion dollars a year to surcharges. Take me through what the government is proposing and what it would look like in practice?

    JONES:

    Well, this is understandably in response to consumers saying, ‘why am I having to pay money to access my own money to pay for a cup of coffee or a grocery – a basket?’ That’s a pretty reasonable concern by Australians. The plan, we want to ensure that we remove those surcharges, but we want to do it in a way that doesn’t lump the cost of that on small businesses, a simple ban on its own would mean that small businesses are picking up the tab. So, we’ve got to go upstream to look at that whole network of charges that is leading or ending in a small business and their customers. So, it’s the banks, it’s the card service providers, Visa, Mastercard, EFTPOS, but it’s also the payment systems operators. So, we’ve got to look at all of that, untangle it, work out what a reasonable cost for providing those services is, and ensuring that Australians aren’t being slugged by these unreasonable surcharges just to access their own money.

    BRYANT:

    This would only apply to debit cards, but a lot of people use their credit cards to pay for things. Why not have those surcharges go as well?

    JONES:

    Good point. Around about 90 per cent of the exchanges that we’re talking about are done on a debit card, particularly for younger Australians who are more likely not to have a credit card. They might have a buy now, pay later account and a debit card, but more and more people are using debit cards for their day‑to‑day retail transactions. So, the case is cut and dried in this area. Credit products are a little bit different and are treated differently, always have been. So, the biggest part of the big problem is the debit cards, where people are being slugged a surcharge to use their own money, many times in instances where they can’t get the cash out or they can’t use it.

    BRYANT:

    Now, the Head of the Commonwealth Bank basically said during parliamentary proceedings or in this parliamentary committee, that this issue was being infused with populist politics, that the bank’s payment operations are actually making a loss. So, is this performative politics? Is this a bit of bank‑bashing?

    JONES:

    Absolutely not. And as I said in response to your earlier question, it’s not just the banks, it’s the card providers, the system providers such as Visa, Mastercard, EFTPOS, they’ve got charges in the system. It’s the payment network systems who run the rails around which our payments run throughout the country. Most of them not known to everyday consumers, but they’ve got charges in the system as well. So, it’s about untangling all of that. We’ve got the Reserve Bank looking at what it actually costs to run those rails, to run those charge systems, and what is being passed on to the consumer and where the excessive charging is. Job of work between now and Christmas. We’ll get the results of that, we’ll move on that early in the year – new year – and giving the whole system clear signal from the 1 January 2026. If they haven’t moved on it, we will.

    BRYANT:

    Now, the Opposition has been critical of your proposals. Here’s what the Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, had to say today.

    [Excerpt]

    PETER DUTTON:

    This is actually a plan for a plan. I mean, this Prime Minister always promises but never delivers. And we’re very happy to look at anything the government’s going to propose. It’s not an announcement, it’s just that they’re looking at it and it could come in, in 2026. Australian families need help now from this government. And instead of making good decisions, the government’s made bad decisions.

    [End of excerpt]

    BRYANT:

    I mean, he’s got a point, hasn’t he? This is a plan for a plan. It’s what Donald Trump had in that debate, a concept for a plan.

    JONES:

    Peter Dutton’s got no plan for the economy and no economic policies. He had 9 years to do something about this. It wasn’t a priority for him then. It wasn’t a priority for any of the 3 years when he had my job. It wasn’t a priority for any of the 9 years when he sat around the cabinet table. And now he’s criticising the government for wanting to do something which needs to be done. We’ve got a clear process for dealing with it. It’s not populist; it’s about ensuring we do the right thing, which is about ensuring we take all the evidence. We ensure that we don’t have any unintended consequences, such as having small business pick up the costs for a ban on surcharging. So, we’ll do it in the right way. We’d expect Peter Dutton to support it because it’s in the interests of consumers. But we remember that he’s voted against every single measure that we’ve put in place to provide cost‑of‑living relief for Australians. Whether it’s energy bill relief, whether it’s provisions which enable workers to get better pay rises, whether it’s medicines relief. In every opportunity Peter Dutton has had to vote in favour of cost‑of‑living relief for Australians, he’s done the opposite.

    BRYANT:

    If you just join me here on Radio National Drive, I’m speaking with the Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones, about the government’s promise to crack down on debit card surcharges. There is a process underway. You’re waiting for the Reserve Bank to finish its review into retail payments regulation. They’ve been waiting for you to pass legislation to provide them with more powers, which is now stuck in parliament. You’re saying this change won’t happen until 2026. People are hurting now. Why can’t this be expedited?

    JONES:

    Well, it can be expedited if the Opposition votes for the bill, which is before the Senate right now. That’s available for them to do that. They’ve said they’ll oppose it. They can vote in favour of the bill, the payment systems reform bill, which is in the Senate now, and that would give the government the additional powers. At the moment, those powers sit solely with the Reserve Bank of Australia. We’ve given a pretty good indication about what we’ll do as a government. Of course, the bloke who wants to be the alternative Prime Minister for Australia could announce his policy, but he hasn’t.

    BRYANT:

    And let’s talk about the man who is the Prime Minister at the moment. There has been a lot of talk today about the PM’s new luxury ocean view home he’s bought on the Central Coast in NSW. Isn’t this a bit tone‑deaf at the time of a cost‑of‑living crisis ahead of what will surely be a cost‑of‑living election and in the middle of the housing crisis? The optics of this just aren’t very good.

    JONES:

    Look, the PM and his fiancée Jodie are planning to get married next year. They wanted to buy a place in the area where Jodie grew up and 3 generations of her family live, and I think they’re entitled to do so. The housing that we’re focused on is our housing program, our plan to build new homes to ensure that we have a roof over the head of every Australian. We’ve got legislation before the parliament which is being blocked by the Coalition and the Greens. They should get out of the way and enable that to occur so we can help everyday Australians, through our Help to Buy Scheme, get access to the housing market. This is the housing issue that everyday Australians are focused on and it’s the focus of our government.

    BRYANT:

    Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones, thank you for joining me on Radio National Drive.

    JONES:

    Good to be with you.

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: $18 million funding for recreational fishing programs a win for fishers

    Source: New South Wales Department of Primary Industries

    16 Oct 2024

    The Minns Labor Government has today announced more than $18 million of funding for world-class programs to boost recreational fishing across the State.

    The Government’s commitment to making recreational fishing more accessible to everyone and ensuring its continues to contribute to the local economies of communities around NSW is being realised with today’s announcement.

    This investment in recreational fishing includes:

    • $5 million for recreational fishing enhancement and improving access
    • $3 million for Fishcare Volunteers, schools education,  fishing workshops and communication with recreational fishers
    • $3 million for research and monitoring programs
    • $3 million for detecting and preventing illegal fishing and protecting fisheries resources
    • $2 million to restore and improve fish habitat
    • $2 million for a digital and over-the-counter licence payment system.

    In 2023/24, more than 400,000 recreational fishing licences were issued, with revenue from these sales flowing into the Recreational Fishing Trusts and then back to fund programs and projects that support and grow recreational fishing activity and the environment for vibrant fish habitats.

    Some of the key programs for NSW approved for funding in 2024/25  include:

    • Deployment of additional Fish Aggregating Devices along the coast
    • Two new Offshore Artificial Reefs to be constructed and deployed in 2025
    • Fish stocking, to boost stocks of native fish, salmonids and marine species
    • Fishing workshops and Try Fishing Sessions for the community delivered by DPIRD
    • Fishcare Volunteer Program so volunteers can help run or participate in fishing workshops, surveys, school incursions and community fishing events
    • Habitat Action Grants and Flagship Habitat Grants to improve fish habitats

    Funding for these programs is reviewed by the Trust Expenditure Committees and the Recreational Fishing NSW Advisory Council, before going to the Minister for approval.

    In addition, last month the NSW Government announced that 24 projects that applied for grants from the Recreational Fishing Trusts in 2024/25 have received funding of $1.8 million.

    Minister for Agriculture and Regional NSW, Tara Moriarty said:

    “Recreational fishing is fun for families and good for small local regional businesses and that is why the Minns Government is keen to make good investments in programs and infrastructure that will ensure this activity can be sustainably ongoing.

    “As well as enhancing fishing, many of these programs help drive economic growth in the regions through fishing tourism and business opportunities, while also providing significant ecological and productivity benefits.

    “This year our world-leading fish stocking program has seen over 5.3 million freshwater and marine fish stocked into NSW waterways, providing a boost to recreational fishing, conservation outcomes, employment and local economies.

    “Fishing enhancement programs like the Offshore Artificial Reefs and fish attraction devices (FADs) deliver quality sportfishing opportunities and are a popular drawcard for locals and tourists alike.

    “To ensure that our fishing stocks and habitats are not depleted or over fished we also invest in compliance and administering fishing rules so that a small number of bad actors are not ruining it for everyone else.”

    Chair of Recreational Fishing NSW Advisory Council (RFNSW), Professor Johann Bell said:

    “It’s great to see the money raised through the recreational fishing licence fees going back to the programs that support recreational fishing across the State.

    “These wide-ranging programs will continue to roll out significant benefits for the sector and ensure quality fishing opportunities in NSW into the future.”

    MEDIA:
    Alastair Walton | Minister Moriarty | 0418 251 229

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Economy – Transmission of monetary policy to financial conditions: A speech by RBNZ Assistant Governor Karen Silk

    Source: Reserve Bank of New Zealand

    16 October 2024 – A speech will be delivered by Assistant Governor Karen Silk at the Citi Australia and New Zealand Investment Conference in Sydney, Australia.

    Financial conditions are significantly influenced by monetary policy settings and are therefore something that we monitor closely. The banking system is a key channel through which monetary policy settings influence financial conditions in New Zealand.

    Specifically, monetary policy affects bank funding costs and, in turn, the lending rates banks offer. This impacts the amount of money that households and businesses have to spend and shapes their inclination to save and invest.

    During the post-COVID period, tight monetary policy settings implemented to reduce inflation have made financial conditions more restrictive. This has contributed to a weakening of aggregate demand in the economy and increased our confidence that consumer price inflation is moving sustainably back to its target mid-point of 2%.

    However, the ongoing effects from the monetary and fiscal policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which significantly increased liquidity in the banking system, have supported lower bank funding costs. This has impacted the extent to which banks have increased their lending rates.

    The upshot of this is that financial conditions were less restrictive during the recent tightening cycle for the same level of the Official Cash Rate (OCR) when compared with previous cycles. However, through ongoing monitoring we have been able to identify and factor this into our decision-making to ensure that financial conditions have been where we needed them to be to achieve our monetary policy objectives.  

    As liquidity is being drained from the banking system, bank funding conditions have been normalising towards their pre-COVID state. Over time, this is likely to influence the amount of decline in bank lending rates, even as wholesale rates fall, as banks seek to maintain their net interest margins.

    The factors discussed in this speech are important for understanding the effectiveness of monetary policy transmission, but there are many others that are considered in monetary policy decision-making. While we remain confident that inflation will converge back to the 2% target midpoint in the medium term, we will continue to assess and respond to the risks arising from broader economic conditions to manage inflation back to this level.
     
    More information

    Read the related Bulletin here: https://govt.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=bd316aa7ee4f5679c56377819&id=b1b3bdc72d&e=f3c68946f8

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Jokowi was once seen as Indonesia’s ‘new hope’. Instead, he leaves a legacy of democratic backsliding

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edward Aspinall, Professor in Southeast Asian Politics, Australian National University

    As Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo (Jokowi) prepares to leave office, Indonesia is still routinely lauded as one of Asia’s most important democracies. Jokowi was first elected, in 2014, on the promise of breaking with the old Jakarta elite and making government more responsive to ordinary people.

    He was backed by many ardent supporters of Indonesia’s Reformasi movement. This movement had brought down the authoritarian leader, Suharto, in 1998 and pushed a transition to democracy in the years that followed.

    But Jokowi has overseen a serious period of democratic backsliding.

    Democratic decline

    Under his watch, the Indonesian government has hobbled democratic control institutions. This includes Indonesia’s once-lauded Corruption Eradication Commission, abbreviated as KPK.

    Security agencies such the army and the police have begun to resume a political role.

    The government has banned major Islamic organisations.

    Civil society groups speak of a dramatically narrowed civic space. They complain, for example, about the government’s increasing reliance on the Electronic Information and Transactions Law to prosecute critics of the government for defamation and its growing willingness to use violent means to respond to protests.

    Jokowi’s opponents in the political elite are routinely investigated for corruption and other alleged wrongdoing.

    In last February’s presidential election, there were widespread reports the police and other agencies were pressuring community leaders to mobilise the vote for Jokowi’s preferred candidate, Prabowo Subianto.

    How and why does Jokowi leave this legacy?

    How did a man who was once seen as a “new hope” for Indonesian democracy end up here?

    The answer is part of a global story that has become broadly familiar in recent years.

    These days, it is generally not unelected coup leaders who destroy democracy. Experiences like those of Thailand and Myanmar in recent years are, happily, no longer typical.

    Instead, elected populist leaders hollow democracy out from within. They do so by hobbling institutions, such as anti-corruption commissions, which are meant to check executive power.

    Jokowi has, in my view, followed this pattern.

    Unlike many populists, Jokowi never peppered his early speeches with angry denunciations of his opponents as traitors. He never tried to whip up vitriol against vulnerable minorities.

    Instead, he positioned himself as a leader who was uniquely able to understand and to embody the aspirations of ordinary people.

    His trademark campaign method was known as blusukan. He would drop by unexpectedly at a marketplace, for example, to chat with ordinary people about prices and other everyday matters.

    Jokowi has positioned himself as a man of the people.
    BahbahAconk/Shutterstock

    A former mayor, he was interested in the nitty gritty of governance, such as how to improve transport services or upgrade parks. He was less interested in “abstract” notions like human rights.

    The implications of this philosophy only became apparent after Jokowi was elected president.

    He retained his belief in his own unique ability to understand the aspirations of ordinary citizens, which had been long neglected by elite politicians.

    He maintained a single-minded focus on what ordinary Indonesians wanted – improved living standards and better social welfare. And he used polls to regularly monitor public opinion.

    For Jokowi, maintaining popular support and satisfying public demands was the essence of democracy. He was not interested in institutions that place limits on governmental power, which are arguably just as important to a functioning democratic system.

    For example, his government enacted legal amendments that significantly weakened the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

    Late last year, the Constitutional Court – headed by his brother-in-law – changed the the rules on candidate age limits to allow Jokowi’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, to stand for the vice presidency. Many Indonesians viewed this as a transparent – and successful – attempt to manipulate a key control institution for the purpose of maintaining Jokowi’s dynastic grip on power.

    Even so, as Jokowi leaves office, he does so a very popular politician.

    Prabowo as president

    Jokowi hands power to a man with an even more chequered democratic history.

    Prabowo Subianto is a former general with a record of alleged human rights abuses dating back to the late Suharto period. (Although, like other senior military officers accused of responsibility for the Suharto regime’s well-documented record of human rights abuses, he was never convicted of any crimes). Prabowo was close to the heart of that regime: indeed, he used to be Suharto’s son-in-law.

    Prabowo has promised he would provide the strong hand the country needed.
    Algi Febri Sugita/Shutterstock

    Prabowo has since reinvented himself as a fun-loving grandfather figure and Jokowi’s greatest fan, capitalising on the president’s own popularity.

    In fact, Prabowo used to be among Jokowi’s greatest rivals before becoming his defence minister in 2019.

    In previous elections, Prabowo presented himself as a firebrand populist who angrily denounced his opponents for allegedly selling Indonesia out to foreigners. He promised he would provide the strong hand the country needed to become truly great.

    We don’t know yet what kind of president Prabowo will be. His early political socialisation, as a leading elite figure close to the heart of the Suharto regime, suggests his instincts are likely to be deeply authoritarian.

    He inherits from Jokowi a country in which democratic institutions have already been seriously undermined, and a series of lessons in how to weaken them further.

    Edward Aspinall has received funding from the ARC and DFAT.

    – ref. Jokowi was once seen as Indonesia’s ‘new hope’. Instead, he leaves a legacy of democratic backsliding – https://theconversation.com/jokowi-was-once-seen-as-indonesias-new-hope-instead-he-leaves-a-legacy-of-democratic-backsliding-237319

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Great Oregon Camp-In Activities

    Source: US State of Oregon

    he Great Oregon Camp-In offers Oregonians a chance to dedicate a few hours or a couple of days working on their emergency plan. It is a time to practice day-to-day activities as if a large disaster has occurred. Whether you’re just starting your preparedness journey, or you’ve been doing this awhile, the Great Oregon Camp-In is for everyone.

    Emergency planning starts with a simple conversation. Make sure everyone in your household knows basic, essential details:
    Where to meet:     Choose a meeting spot for your family. Take a walk together from your kids’ school and from your house to the meeting location, so that everyone is familiar with the route.
    Primary contact:     Identify a point of contact. This should be a person out of town (if possible) who will be less likely to be affected by a large disaster and can act as an information hub for your household. This person should know their role, and everyone in the family should have that person’s contact information memorized.
    Alert subscriptions:     All adults should be subscribed to http://www.oralert.gov and have Wireless Emergency Alerts activated on their cell phones.

    Following these three steps can set you on the path to success after a disaster. If you’re ready to take your preparation a few steps further, check out the activities below that can help you and your community be better prepared to respond in emergencies. We also have an article on Making Preparedness Fun offering kid-friendly tips, and the Red Cross has an entire website Prepare with Pedro that will help you make the Camp-In fun.

    Here are some additional activities you can do during the Camp-In:
    Download the Be 2 Weeks Ready toolkit and complete Unit 2, Activity 6: Build Your Emergency Plan on page 45.
    Talk to your neighbors about your different plans, and how you can work together during a disaster.
    Identify and walk to an emergency meeting place away from your home.
    Prepare a go-bag for everyone in your family, (including your pets) – include an extra pair of shoes and clothes you won’t miss and customize them with comfort items.
    Store copies of legal identifications, medical insurance cards, prescription RXs, immunization records, mortgage paperwork, homeowner/renter’s insurance, emergency contacts, birth certificates, marriage certificates, and any other legal papers like wills or power of attorney—in a waterproof container in your go-bag.
    Create an inventory of your belongings for insurance purposes using Unit 2, Activity 7: Catalog and Insure Belongings on page 55 in the Be 2 Weeks Ready toolkit.
    Identify an out-of-area contact, make sure everyone has their number memorized, and call them to let them know they are part of your emergency plan.
    Practice how you will evacuate your home and make any necessary changes.
    Sign up for emergency alerts at Follow Oregon Emergency Management on social media:
    Facebook: Oregon Department of Emergency Management
    X: OregonOEM
    Instagram: @oregonoem
    Threads: @oregonoem
    Follow Take inventory of your emergency supplies and identify any gaps.
    Set up a “campsite” inside your home, with blankets, pillows, and other supplies.
    Cook meals using a camping stove or grill or prepare no-cook meals.
    Practice using your emergency radio and add extra batteries to your kit.
    Learn how to shut off utilities in your home (please, do not turn off your gas unless absolutely necessary).
    Play games, read books, or do other activities that don’t require electricity.

    A prepared household is a resilient one, and every effort you make strengthens your ability to respond to whatever challenge the future may bring. As you participate in the Great Oregon Camp-In, share your activities on social media using the hashtag #GreatOregonCampIn2024.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: Government accepts MediShield Life Council’s recommendations to enhance MediShield Life scheme, Government support more than offsets premium increases

    Source: Asia Pacific Region 2 – Singapore

             The Government has accepted the MediShield Life Council’s recommendations for the MediShield Life 2024 review. The recommendations will enhance the MediShield Life scheme, to better protect Singaporeans against major health episodes that result in large medical bills. They will also enable Singaporeans to afford new types of care. The changes will be implemented progressively from April 2025.

    2.     To support the enhancements to MediShield Life, premiums will need to increase, starting from April 2025 upon policy renewal. The total premium increases will amount to $1.8 billion over the next review cycle of three years. To help Singaporeans manage the premium increases, the Government will provide an additional $4.1 billion in support measures, comprising $3.4 billion in MediSave top-ups and $0.7 billion in premium subsidies for the next three years. 

    3.     For the great majority of Singaporeans – more than nine in ten – the additional MediSave top-ups, and premium subsidies and support, will more than offset the premium increases over the next three years.

    MediShield Life Council’s recommendations

    4.     There are a few key considerations in this review. First, as a national health insurance scheme, MediShield Life was designed to fully cover nine in ten subsidised bills in public healthcare institutions, with the deductible and co-insurance covered by patients’ MediSave. However, rising medical bills have eroded the coverage of the existing claim limits, and MediShield Life currently fully covers just under eight in ten subsidised bills. 

    5.     Second, there has been an increased shift in healthcare delivery from hospitals to the outpatient, community and home settings, which MediShield Life mostly does not cover. Finally, advances in medical technologies have resulted in new, potentially life-saving therapies, such as Cell, Tissue, and Gene Therapy Products (CTGTPs), which MediShield Life also does not cover.

    Enhancements to benefits and revisions to scheme parameters

    6.     With these factors in mind, the MediShield Life Council has recommended the following changes to the scheme, after considering both the need for better coverage and the impact on premiums. 

    a. Increase claim limits and refresh scheme parameters. This comprises:

    i. Increase in existing inpatient and day surgery claim limits to fully cover nine in ten subsidised bills. For example, the daily claim limits for the first two days of a normal ward stay will go up from $1,000 to $1,630. The daily claim limits for Intensive Care Unit ward stays will more than double, from $2,200 to $5,140. 

    ii. Increase in the policy year claim limit from $150,000 to $200,000, to provide greater assurance for patients with exceptionally large bills. 

    iii. Increase in the inpatient deductible by up to $1,500, to keep coverage focused on larger bills and moderate the extent to which premiums need to increase.

    iv. Revision of the pro-ration factors for private unsubsidised bills, to prevent cross-subsidisation of private bills by subsidised bills. 

    b. Enhance outpatient coverage significantly. This comprises:

    i. Refresh of outpatient claim limits to fully cover nine in ten subsidised bills. For example, the claim limits for kidney dialysis will increase from $1,100 per month to $1,750 per month.

    ii. Expansion of coverage to new outpatient treatments and home-based medical care, to enable access to more convenient care options beyond the traditional hospital setting. One such treatment is the repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation used to treat depression.

    iii. Introduction of a new outpatient deductible of $500 per year, to keep coverage focused on larger bills and moderate premium impact.

    iv. Decrease in co-insurance for outpatient treatments – from a flat 10% to a tiered structure ranging from 3% to 10% – to be consistent with how co-insurance is computed for inpatient bills and make larger outpatient bills more affordable.

    c. Expand coverage to high-cost treatments that are clinically effective and cost-effective, to improve affordability and access. This covers two areas: 

    i. CTGTPs that have demonstrated the potential to treat cancers and serious diseases effectively. 

    ii. High-cost drugs for blood conditions and conditions with childhood onset. 

    Adjustment to premiums

    7.     With higher claims and expansion of coverage, premiums will need to increase. The Council has worked with the scheme’s actuaries to determine the premium adjustments needed to ensure the scheme remains sustainable. Older Singaporeans in particular, will see larger increases. Hence the Council has recommended several measures to cushion the premium increases: 

    a. Cap the total premium increase at 35%, and phase in the increases evenly over three years, from April 2025 to March 2028. With this, premiums will increase by an average of 22% per policyholder by the end of the third year. This can be funded through a one-off release of capital from the MediShield Life Fund. Due to the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s adoption of the Risk-Based Capital Framework 2, there is a change in the MediShield Life Fund’s risk model which will enable some excess capital to be released, so as to cap the total premium increase at 35% and phase it in evenly. The Fund will remain in a healthy position after this release of capital. 

    b. For the Government to consider:

    i. Enhancing existing premium subsidies to provide more assistance to the lower- and middle-income groups. 

    ii. Providing MediSave top-ups to support Singaporeans through the Pioneer Generation, Merdeka Generation and Majulah Packages. This will be especially helpful to Singaporeans with low MediSave balances, such as homemakers and informal workers. 

    iii. Providing premium discounts to policyholders who lead healthy lifestyles, such as exercising regularly and going for recommended health screenings. 

    Government accepts the recommendations, adjusts MediSave withdrawal limits accordingly 

    8.     The Government has reviewed the Council’s recommendations on the MediShield Life scheme and agrees that these will ensure that MediShield Life continues to provide adequate and meaningful protection to Singaporeans. 

    9.     The Government will also adjust the MediSave withdrawal limits so that patients can use MediSave to cover the co-insurance and the revised deductibles. 

    10.     The revised MediShield Life benefits and MediSave limits will be implemented progressively from 1 April 2025, together with the first phase of the increase in inpatient deductible. The outpatient deductible will be introduced on 1 January 2026, followed by the second phase of the increase in inpatient deductible on 1 April 2027. All other changes will be made progressively from 1 April 2025 onwards. Please refer to Annex A for details of changes to MediShield Life claim limits and MediSave withdrawal limits, and Annex B for bill examples that reflect the changes to the MediShield Life scheme.

    Government provides premium subsidies and MediSave top-ups, which will more than offset premium increases

    11.     The Government accepts the Council’s recommendation to release capital from the MediShield Life Fund to cap and phase in the premium increases. This will require a release of around $600 million from the Fund, and will not affect the scheme’s ability to meet its claim obligations. 

    12.     In addition, over the next three years, the Government will provide an additional $4.1 billion in premium support measures, which will more than offset the cumulative $1.8 billion increase in additional premiums over the next three years. The offset package comprises:

    a. Increases in premium subsidies, including enhancements to means-tested premium subsidies amounting to $ 0.7 billion. The Government will increase premium subsidies by five to ten percentage points for lower-income and middle-income Singaporeans in older age groups. From 1 April 2025, they will be able to receive premium subsidies of up to 60%, from up to 50% today.

    b. Additional MediSave top-ups of $ 3.4 billion. The Government will:

    i. Increase annual MediSave top-ups for the Pioneer Generation. The Government will increase this annual top-up by up to $300, bringing the maximum annual top-up to $1,200. Under the Pioneer Generation Package, those who are above the age of 90 in 2025 will continue to have their MediShield Life premiums fully covered by these annual MediSave top-ups and their existing special subsidies, while younger Pioneer Generation seniors will continue to see about two-thirds of their premiums covered. 

    ii. Enhance the one-time Majulah Package MediSave Bonus. The Majulah Package was announced in August 2023 to provide greater assurance over healthcare costs for seniors, including Young Seniors in their 50s and early 60s. Under the Majulah Package, the Government announced that Singaporeans born in 1973 or earlier will receive a one-time MediSave Bonus of up to $1,500. This MediSave Bonus will be enhanced by $500. The MediSave Bonus will be paid in December 2024. 

    iii. Provide an additional MediSave Bonus for Young Seniors and the Merdeka Generation with lower MediSave balances. Recognising that some Young Seniors and Merdeka Generation seniors born between 1950 and 1973 (inclusive) may not have been able to accumulate enough savings in their MediSave account, the Government will give a further MediSave Bonus of $500 in 2025 to help cover the rise in premiums for those with low MediSave balances. 

    iv. Enhance the one-time Budget 2024 MediSave Bonus. At Budget 2024, the Government announced that Singaporeans born between 1974 and 2003 (inclusive) will receive a one-time MediSave Bonus of up to $300. This MediSave Bonus will be enhanced by $200, and will be paid in December 2024. 

    v. Increase MediSave Grant for Newborns. From 1 April 2025, the Government will increase this grant from $4,000 to $5,000. With the increase, a Singapore Citizen newborn’s MediShield Life premiums will continue to be fully covered up till age 21.

    c. Expansion of Additional Premium Support amounting to $80 million. Additional Premium Support is for Singaporeans who are unable to afford their MediShield Life premiums after premium subsidies, and have limited family support. The Government will expand the eligibility criteria to cover more lower-income Singaporeans.

    13.     The package will offset the cumulative increase in MediShield Life premiums over the next three years for almost all ages and income levels.

    14.     No one will be denied coverage due to an inability to pay their premiums. Please refer to Annex C for details of the Government’s premium support measures, Annex D for details of the revised premiums, and Annex E for household archetypes and worked examples.

    Redemption of premium discounts using Healthpoints

    15.     The Government also agrees with the Council’s recommendations to offer premium discounts for those who lead a healthier lifestyle. This can be done through the Health Promotion Board’s (HPB) Healthy 365 programme, which already awards Healthpoints in exchange for rewards.

    16.     In support of Healthier SG, policyholders aged 40 and above may redeem MediShield Life premium discounts via HPB’s Healthy 365 app, at a conversion rate of 150 Healthpoints to $2, higher than the regular conversion rate of 150 Healthpoints to $1. To earn Healthpoints, they can participate in healthy lifestyle programmes and challenges on the Healthy 365 app, or enrol with a Healthier SG clinic and complete the first Health Plan consultation. For instance, an individual who, on average, does 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity almost daily for the entire year, could redeem $80 worth of discounts off his or her MediShield Life premiums.

    17.     This programme will commence in the third quarter of 2025, and will run as a pilot for three years. The Government will review the outcomes of the pilot before deciding whether to make it a permanent feature of MediShield Life. 

    Pilot financing framework for CTGTPs

    18.     While CTGTPs have the potential to transform healthcare and treat serious diseases, they have high upfront costs. Without financing support, patients may not be able to access these potentially effective treatments.

    19.     However, such financing must also be designed in a sustainable manner given the high cost of CTGTPs and uncertainty around their longer-term effectiveness. Hence the Government has introduced a pilot financing framework to focus support only on CTGTPs that have been assessed to be both clinically effective and cost-effective. The first CTGTP to be listed on the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) CTGTP list is tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah), for the treatment of relapsed/refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Over time, more CTGTPs will be added to the list.

    20.     Since 1 August 2024, eligible patients who require the use of CTGTPs that are included on MOH’s CTGTP List have been able to receive means-tested subsidies of up to 75%, capped at $150,000 per treatment course, at public healthcare institutions. 

    21.     From October 2025, the Government will also extend MediShield Life and MediSave coverage to CTGTPs on MOH’s CTGTP List. Given the high costs of CTGTPs, MediShield Life and MediSave limits will be sized to fully cover two in three subsidised patients initially. Please refer to Annex F for details. 

    22.     The Government thanks the MediShield Life Council for the significant time and effort they have committed to review MediShield Life. We note that the Council has carefully considered all aspects of the scheme, and engaged many Singaporeans and stakeholders for their input along the way. The Council’s recommendations strike a good balance between providing greater protection for Singaporeans against large medical bills and keeping premiums affordable and sustainable. 

    MINISTRY OF HEALTH 

    15 OCTOBER 2024

     

    Annex A

    Changes to MediShield Life Claim Limits and MediSave Withdrawal Limits 

    Table A-1: Revised MediShield Life claim limits and MediSave withdrawal limits for treatments currently covered by MediShield Life

     

    Table A-2: MediShield Life claim limits and MediSave withdrawal limits for
    new treatments to be covered by MediShield Life 

     

    Annex B

    Bill Examples Incorporating MediShield Life Scheme Changes

    Illustration 1: Higher payouts for subsidised patients seeking inpatient care

    Illustration 2: Higher payout for subsidised patient seeking dialysis treatment

     

    Annex C

    Details of the MediShield Life 2024 Review Premium Support Measures

     

    Table C-1: Summary of the Premium Support Measures

     

    Table C-2: Enhanced Means-Tested Premium Subsidies for Singapore Citizens

     

    Table C-3: Additional Merdeka Generation Subsidies

     

    Table C-4: Pioneer Generation Special Subsidies and MediSave Top-Ups

    Table C-5: Revised Majulah Package MediSave Bonus

     

    Table C-6: Additional MediSave Bonus

     

    Table C-7: Revised Budget 2024 MediSave Bonus

     

    Table C-8: MediSave Grant for Newborns 

     

    Annex D

    Revised MediShield Life Premiums

    Table D-1: MediShield Life Premium Schedule for Singapore Citizens in 2025
    After Phased Increase

    Table D-2: MediShield Life Premium Schedule for Singapore Citizens in 2027
    After Increase Has Been Fully Phased In

    Annex E

    Household Archetypes and Worked Examples

    The following figures illustrate the premium impact on various groups.

    Illustration 1: Mr A 

    • Single Merdeka Generation (MG) senior, 67 years old 

    • 2-room HDB 

    • Per capita household income of $1,000 monthly 

     

    Mr A would enjoy means-tested subsidies of 40%, additional MG subsidies of 5%, and support to phase the increase evenly over the next three years. 

    Note: Figures in brackets refer to the increase in premiums using 2024 as the base year. Cumulative increase over 2025 to 2027 refers to the sum of the figures in brackets. 

    After subsidies and phasing, Mr A’s cumulative net premium increase over 2025 to 2027 of $109 will be fully offset with the enhanced MediSave Bonus of $1,250 under the Majulah Package. 

    If he has a low MediSave balance, he may also be eligible for the additional MediSave Bonus of $500 in 2025 which could further help him pay his annual premiums and other healthcare expenses. 

     

    Illustration 2: Mrs B

    • Single Pioneer Generation (PG) senior, 87 years old

    • 2-room HDB

    • No household income

    Mrs B would enjoy special PG subsidies of 59% and an annual PG MediSave top-up of $700. She would also receive support to phase in the increase evenly over the next three years. As a younger PG, she will continue to see at least two-thirds of her premium covered. 

    Note: Figures in brackets refer to the increase in premiums using 2024 as the base year. Cumulative increase over 2025 to 2027 refers to the sum of the figures in brackets.

    After subsidies and phasing, Mrs B’s cumulative net premium increase of $574 will be fully offset with the enhanced MediSave Bonus of $1,250 under the Majulah Package. 

    Any remainder could be used to further help her pay her annual premiums and other healthcare expenses.

     

    Illustration 3: Mr and Mrs C 

    • MG senior couple, 67 years old

    • Private residential property

    • Per capita household income of more than $3,600

    Mr and Mrs C would enjoy MG subsidies of 5% and support to phase in the increase evenly over the next three years. 

    Note: Figures in brackets refer to the increase in premiums using 2024 as the base year. Cumulative increase over 2025 to 2027 refers to the sum of the figures in brackets.

     

    After subsidies and phasing, Mr and Mrs C’s cumulative net premium increase of $758 will be fully offset with the enhanced MediSave Bonus of $2,500 (i.e. $1,250 each) under the Majulah Package which they will both receive. 

    Any remainder could be used to pay for their annual premiums and other healthcare expenses. 

    Illustration 4: The D family 

    • Grandfather and grandmother (both 67-year-old MGs) 

    • Husband and wife, 42 years old, both working

    • Primary school-going daughter and son

    • 5-room HDB 

    • Per capita household income of $2,500 monthly

    The D family would benefit from means-tested subsidies of up to 35%, additional MG subsidies of 5%, and support to phase in the increase evenly over three years. 

    Note: Figures in brackets refer to the increase in premiums using 2024 as the base year. Cumulative increase over 2025 to 2027 refers to the sum of the figures in brackets.

    After subsidies and phasing, this family’s cumulative net premium increase of $722 will be fully offset with the enhanced MediSave Bonus of $3,500 which the grandparents (i.e. $1,250 each) and parents (i.e. $500 each) will receive, and the MediSave Grant for Newborns which the children had received previously. 

    Any remainder could further help the D family to pay their annual premiums and other healthcare expenses.

     

    Annex F

    Details of CTGTP Pilot Financing Framework

    Illustration 1: Reduced out-of-pocket cash payment for subsidised patient

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: DOORSTOP INTERVIEW BY MR ONG YE KUNG, MINISTER FOR HEALTH, AT THE MEDISHIELD LIFE 2024 REVIEW, 11 OCTOBER 2024

    Source: Asia Pacific Region 2 – Singapore

    Appreciation to Council
             I want to first thank the MediShield Life Council for working so hard. I think they did a very thorough analysis and came up with very comprehensive recommendations. I want to thank Mrs Fang Ai Lian and the team for their contributions. Also not forgetting the Secretariat, who has been working very hard for over one year to support the Council. 
    2.     Let me just go through some salient points of this package of measures, which I think is quite a significant one.
    Package of Measures in a Glance
    3.     Number one is to recognise the rising healthcare costs. In particular we are most concerned about unexpected health episodes that require you to stay in hospital for a long time, maybe even in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Some unfortunate things happen, and you chalk up a big bill that is unexpected. And that bill is rising and therefore we are increasing the claim limits for such bills. 
    4.     It is quite a significant increase. For two-day normal ward charges, the claim limits have gone up from $1,000 to about $1,600 – a 50 percent increase. The increase for ICU is significant. It does not happen very often but should it be needed, daily claims have gone up from $2,200 to over $5,000 or more than double. So it is a very good safety net and peace of mind. 
    5.     The second salient point is outpatient treatment. That is also rising, and I think it is hurting the pockets of patients, so we are also raising the claim limits for outpatients. In particular, one area we are quite concerned about is kidney dialysis. The costs have been going up. If nothing is done, it is only a matter of time before kidney dialysis patients have to pay cash out of their own pockets for dialysis. So we are increasing the claim limits from $1,100 per month to about $1,700 per month.
    6.     Third area is out-of-hospital bills. One major trend in healthcare is that more and more treatments are done outside the hospital, in the community and home settings. We are increasing coverage for such treatments, such as wound dressing, and treatment for depression. This is being done for the first time and some of the services that are done in home settings are now also covered.
    7.     Number four is technological advances. New and novel drugs, such as cell, tissue, gene therapy products (CTGTP), can be very expensive, but they are breakthroughs. They are one-time expensive treatments that promise to cure severe diseases like cancer. If we do nothing, chances are, in time only the rich can access these treatments. So we need to bring some of them into both our subsidy as well as MediShield Life framework. 
    8.     We have done so for subsidies, provided they are proven to be clinically effective and cost-effective. So just very few drugs but it is a starting point. Today we agree with the recommendations of the Council to also bring these same drugs into the MediShield Life framework. That way, at least for these drugs, all Singaporeans can access them.
    9.     Number five is that we are increasing the deductibles. I think it is necessary to do that because that way, we focus the resources and help on the bigger bills which is what we are most concerned about. Your smaller bills will rise a little bit, deductibles will go up, but you can pay for it with MediSave. 
    10.     And finally, the Council recommended that with all these changes, strengthening of the claim system and the safety net, premiums will have to go up by quite a significant number. But we should have a comprehensive package of measures to support these increases so that the great majority of Singaporeans can continue to pay for these increases using their MediSave and they do not have to come up with cash from their own pocket. 
    11.     We agree with that, and we are doing so. If we take the cumulative increase in premiums across the population, it is $1.8 billion. We have come up with a package that costs $4.1 billion over the next review cycle, which is about three years. So the package far exceeds the increase in premiums. Therefore, in other words, we are taking this opportunity to also build up the MediSave balances for Singaporeans. 
    Support Package 
    12.     What is this package? Let me elaborate. There are two parts to this. 
    13.     Out of this $4.1 billion, $700 million or $0.7 billion, is to increase MediShield Life premium subsidies. Another $3.4 billion is for MediSave top-ups. So added together, it is $4.1 billion.
    14.     First on the $700 million of MediShield Life premium subsidies. This will be focused especially on those who are older. The increase is about 5 to 10 percentage points. In the past, the maximum subsidy was 50%, meaning 50% of premiums is subsidised, paid for by the government. That will now increase to 60%, so it will help many people and cost us $700 million.
    15.     The MediSave top-ups are much more complicated. What we have done, actually is quite a long exercise. Essentially, we identified every single MediSave Life top-up initiative and tried to strengthen every one of them. Why did we do it that way? I think by so doing, we try to cover as many age groups as possible, practically all age groups. So what are they? 
    16.     Let me start with the oldest which is Pioneer Generation (PG). As you know, PG can get MediSave top-ups every year throughout their life. For the older PG who are 90 years this year, born in 1934 or earlier, they will have top-ups that will basically offset all the premium increases. Their top-ups are enough for them to pay their MediShield premiums throughout their lives. For the younger PG, their top-ups will be sufficient to cover two-thirds of the premium increases. 
    17.     At last year’s National Day Rally, then-Prime Minister Lee announced the Majulah Package. Basically for all those born in 1973 or earlier – that means it covers PG, Merdeka Generation (MG), as well as the new term, Young Seniors who are in their 50s and 60s – will receive MediSave top-ups. For this whole group, the MediSave top-ups will be enhanced by $500. In the past, the MediSave top-up was $1,500 maximum. Now, the maximum goes up to $2,000.
    18.     Third, within a subset of this group, there is a group which is born between 1950 and 1973. These are the MG, as well as the young seniors. They, unlike the PG, do not have any more MediSave top-ups. So, some of them, because of their work history, do not have sufficient MediSave balances. So, for this group we will do something extra for them – an extra $500 per person.
    19.     Number four, at Budget 2024 this year, Finance Minister and current Prime Minister announced that a younger group born between 1974 and 2003 will get MediSave top-ups. We will enhance their MediSave top-ups by another $200. For this group, their premiums are not as high because they are relatively younger, so their top-ups are less.
    20.     Finally, newborns get a newborn grant of $4,000. The newborn grant will be enhanced to $5,000, so this is sufficient to pay for their MediShield Life premiums up to the age of 21. 
    21.     So, this is the package that we are putting out – $4.1 billion over the next few years. 
    Encouraging Healthier Lifestyles
    22.     The Council has always recommended that we should encourage Singaporeans to lead healthier lifestyles. This year, they went a bit further. Since we have Healthier SG, they asked why not link the two together.
    23.     It makes a lot of sense, because adopting a healthier lifestyle is something we can choose to do. We can do more exercises, eat healthy, sleep better, quit smoking, sign up for Healthier SG and go for regular screenings. All these are within our control, and if we do them, we get a discount on our MediShield Life premiums.
    24.     We decided to try this out. After all, many Singaporeans have already joined the Health Promotion Board’s Healthy 365 programme to collect Healthpoints.
    25.     From the third quarter of 2025, we will start to allow Singaporeans 40 and above to use their Healthpoints and convert them to discounts or deductions in MediShield Life premiums. 
    26.     We will work in a fairly favourable conversion rate. All in all, this means that if you are someone who is quite active, who exercises for about 30 minutes every day, you should have enough Healthpoints to receive a discount of about $80 per year off your annual MediShield Life premium. For a young person, this discount is slightly less than or almost half of their premium. So this is the whole package. 
    Multiple Layers of Safety Net
    27.     It has been many months in the making. Late last month, I announced the change in our effective date of the change in our subsidy system.
    28.     Essentially we are changing the per capita household income (PCHI) thresholds, such that more Singaporeans are eligible for higher subsidies. 1.1 million Singaporeans will benefit. 
    29.      Today, we are strengthening our MediShield Life system as well as the MediSave system. This is our classic S+2M framework. We are strengthening both and it is very important that these two safety nets work hand in hand.
    30.     There are many countries that focus a lot on subsidies. When you focus a lot on subsidies, it is funded by taxation. When funded by taxation, things tend to be cheap or free and this causes excess demand, so waiting time becomes very long in the hospitals and the clinics. While it is very affordable, it is not very accessible. 
    31.     Then there are other countries who focus a lot on insurance. Insurance has much less of a problem of excess demand, because when you fall sick, you have to file a claim, and there is a certain discipline in the application process around it. It is accessible, but, if you do not have insurance, it is not affordable. So all countries, in the end, realise you have to have both subsidy and insurance. 
    32.     That is what we have done. S+2M has worked well for us and we will continue to improve our system. 

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Minister Rishworth interview on the Newschat on the Today Show

    Source: Ministers for Social Services

    Program:

    Today Show

    Interviewer:

    Sarah Abo

    E&OE TRANSCRIPT

    Topics: Cost of living; Prime Minister’s property; Housing; Rent to Build Scheme; Help to Buy Bill; Debit card surcharges, ABBA concert.

    SARAH ABO, HOST: Welcome back. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is defending his decision to purchase a $4.3 million beach house in Copacabana on the NSW Central Coast. Joining us to discuss today’s headlines is Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth and Nine News and 3AW presenter Heidi Murphy in Melbourne. All right, ladies [Copacabana by Barry Manilow plays]. Sing it. Come on, Amanda. It’s nice for some, isn’t it?

    SARAH ABO: Are you gonna be invited over or what, Amanda?

    HEIDI MURPHY, JOURNALIST: Can’t wait for that first party. Yeah Amanda, can we all come?

    AMANDA RISHWORTH, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: It’s bringing back a lot of memories from, you know, some bad wedding that I went to.

    SARAH ABO: We’ve all heard it at a bad wedding, haven’t we? All right, but seriously, Amanda, is this purchase completely okay or is it completely tone deaf?

    AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, first, I’d say it’s entirely a matter for the Prime Minister and his fiancé. He wouldn’t be the first politician, or indeed person, in Australia to buy and sell property. But, you know, when we look at the issue of concern around getting access to housing, it is a big issue and that’s why our Government has made a real focus on it. That’s why we have legislation in the Senate at the moment talking about a shared equity scheme so more people can buy property and that’s being blocked by the Liberals and Nationals and the Greens. So, we have a very big housing agenda, more social, more affordable housing.

    HEIDI MURPHY: Amanda, Amanda, you’ve undermined it. But you’ve undermined it entirely.

    SARAH ABO: It’s a total stalemate. And especially now. I mean, some people in your own ranks are calling this Albo’s Hawaii moment.

    AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, I would say again, plenty of, whether they’re politicians or ordinary people, buy and sell property in Australia. I’m not sure that the Australian people want us talking about politicians and their private properties. They want us to be getting on and doing the job.

    SARAH ABO: Exactly, but you are, this is the point. We are talking about it Amanda because of this decision that he has made.

    AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, we want to get on and do the job…

    HEIDI MURPHY: [Interrupts] But we can’t pretend the PM is just any other, any other Australian. He is about to wage a campaign in an election on housing affordability and cost of living. He is not just any ordinary Australian. A $4.3 million house purchase stinks.

    SARAH ABO: And that’s the thing, isn’t it, Heidi? I mean, you know, you talk about that cost of living crisis. The Government can’t get that housing bill that Amanda’s talking about through the parliament for whatever reason, it’s not getting through. There are 1.2 million homes that are apparently going to be built by 2029, but we need some 80,000 extra tradies here to actually build them. And yet, amidst all of that, the Prime Minister is splashing out. The leader of this nation.

    HEIDI MURPHY: I mean, good luck to him. I hope he enjoys the home, but he cannot stand in front of an open microphone in front of a voter and say, I understand the cost of living crisis. I understand how housing affordability is affecting you. You’ve undermined any message to the outer suburbs and to people trying to get into the housing market, I reckon.

    SARAH ABO: Do you see that point, Amanda?

    AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, no, I don’t accept that point. I think you have to judge us by the actions that we’ve taken in public policy, and that is doing the largest rent assistance increase in the last 30 years, $32 billion to build more social and affordable homes. Our Rent to Build Scheme, which is about building long term rental accommodation, our Shared Equity Scheme, I mean, we, through our actions, through our policy, whether it’s what we did with tax cuts, whether it’s what we did when it came to energy bill relief, our actions are demonstrating we understand cost of living, at the same time delivering budget surpluses that are putting downward pressure on inflation, so we’ve got to look out our policy.

    HEIDI MURPHY: But the PM’s actions, his personal actions, are saying something else, aren’t they?

    AMANDA RISHWORTH: Like I said, he’s not the first person in Australia to buy and sell property.

    SARAH ABO: I know, but Amanda, I think, look, I think we can all agree that the rules are different for a sitting Prime Minister, especially when it comes to a housing crisis that works experiencing this country. Let’s move on. Small businesses are pushing back on the Government’s plan to ban debit card surcharges. Concerned they’ll be the ones to absorb the extra costs. Amanda, businesses say it’ll end up costing them and their customers more. Is this a bit short sighted by the Government?

    AMANDA RISHWORTH: What we’re saying, firstly, is our immediate action is to get the ACCC to have a crackdown on surcharges. But I think many ordinary Australians would be really frustrated at the fact that when they use their own money, including a debit card, they get charged a surcharge and there’s no way out of it. And that is really unfair for many people, there’s circumstances where you have to pay with your debit card and you can’t pay any other way and you get hit with those surcharges. So, this is about looking at this in terms of competition, about what are the profits being made here by the banks, by the card owners, and making sure that it’s a fair for consumers?

    SARAH ABO: All right, let’s hope it doesn’t get passed on to consumers. Just finally, Melbourne Lord Mayor hopeful Aaron Wood has pledged $10 million to help bring ABBA’s spectacular 3D virtual concert to Docklands. Heid, do you reckon it’ll work and Amanda, will the Federal Government show them the money, money, money they need?

    HEIDI MURPHY: We so want this show in Melbourne. We’ve been trying for it for a while. I think we’re competing with Sydney, maybe a few other cities. I can’t quite remember where it’s gotten to, but any money we can put towards it. It’s by all accounts a phenomenal show.

    SARAH ABO: Amanda, will the Federal Government help out here? Make it happen?

    HEIDI MURPHY: Come on, come on.

    AMANDA RISHWORTH: I can’t make any commitments on this, but what I would say is I think this would be a real coup for the country to have a show like this.

    HEIDI MURPHY: Especially for Melbourne.

    AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, I’d like it in Adelaide personally, but not sure we quite get over the line for that.

    HEIDI MURPHY: We’ll share the love.

    AMANDA RISHWORTH: A lot of people love ABBA.

    SARAH ABO: Absolutely they do. Thank you both so much for joining me today, appreciate it.

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Economy – The cost of living crisis is coming to an end, with inflation close to 2%. We’re back in band – The cost of living crisis is coming to an end, with inflation close to 2%. We’re back in band – Kiwibank

    Source: Kiwibank
    Pay rises are finally running above inflation. The cost of living crisis is coming to an end, slowly.  It may not feel like it, yet, but inflation has eased, and will ease further.

    *       The RBNZ engineered a long, harsh recession in order to get inflation back within its 1-to-3% target band. They focus on the 2% mid-point.  And we’re close… very close.  At 2.2%, inflation has fallen from a rapid peak of 7.3%.

    *       The RBNZ can declare victory in the war on inflation. And they have acknowledged the success, with rate cuts.

    *       There is more disinflationary pressure in the pipeline as the economy continues to operate below its productive capacity. Tradables is the reason we have returned to 2%. And the eventual normalisation in domestic price pressures is why we see 2% sustained in the medium-term. It’s the two phases of 2%. Phase 1, imported. Phase 2, domestic.

    *       The light at the end of the tunnel is burning brighter. Cost pressures are easing. Great news for businesses and households, and interest rate relief is coming thick and fast. Policy settings are still restrictive, but more interest rate cuts are coming. Falling inflation, and falling interest rates will help household budgets, and business opex.

    The good news – deflationary pressures are becoming more broad based.  There were more goods and services recording declines in prices. And there were fewer goods and services recording hikes in prices. 
    The bad news – there’s still some very chunky prices hikes in council rates and insurance premiums to pay. The $5 fee for prescriptions also hurt.

    Importantly, core inflation recorded a 1% gain on the quarter, and eased to 3.1% over the year.  

    Beneath the surface, there was some (welcomed) weakness in housing related costs.  Despite a sharp 12% increase in council ratees over the quarter, lower labour costs and cheaper materials costs helped on the construction front.

    Earlier this year, we had forecast inflation falling back within the RBNZ’s 1-3% target band in the September quarter – but only just (2.8%) given the persistent strength in domestic inflation. While that remains the case, inflation has now fallen to 2.2%. And we still have cheaper imported prices to thank for bringing inflation closer to the RBNZ’s 2% target.

    The two phases of deflation.

    The first phase is the deflation of prices for imported goods.  Known as tradables inflation, imported prices are falling, and are DOWN -1.6% over the year. Imported prices peaked at a whopping 8.7%, and have fallen swiftly with the decline in global inflation rates.

    The second phase is the deflating of domestic prices. Domestic inflation is a slow-moving beast. The good news is that it is moving in the right direction (south). Non-tradables prices have eased from 5.4% to 4.9%. It’s fallen some distance from the 6.8% peak, although it is still sitting high above the long-term average (~3%).

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI United Nations: Financial support for women’s health: UNFPA and Charité present new “WomenX Collective” programme in Berlin

    Source: United Nations Population Fund

    UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, launched its new  “WomenX Collective” programme at the World Health Summit in Berlin on October 15, in conjunction with the opening of its first hub office in a global network of centres specializing in the promotion of women’s health, especially sexual and reproductive health, in the German capital.  

    The Berlin office will be run in cooperation with Charité – Universitätsmedizin and the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH). With their new partnership, UNFPA and Charité aim to promote women’s health, particularly in middle and low income countries and to address the lack of solutions and financial resources in this field.  

    “Every minute, at least two women die globally from breast or cervical cancer or from  pregnancy-related complications due to inequitable access to healthcare,” says Dr. Natalia Kanem, Executive Director of UNFPA. “Through the WomenX Collective, UNFPA and  Charité aim to help bring innovative health solutions to underserved communities, closing  the health gap for women worldwide.” 

    Initial financing commitments in place 

    With initial funding commitments from international donors, including the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), Organon & Co., as well as a donation from Deutsche Postcode Lotterie, the WomenX Collective programme aims to raise at least  $100 million in catalytic investment by 2030 to support women’s health projects, scale innovative solutions locally and promote these solutions across sectors. This has the potential to avert more than 10.4 million unintended pregnancies, 3.2 million unsafe abortions, and 21,000 maternal deaths. With the network of hub offices, the programme aims to bring together experience and technical expertise from different countries and regions, as well as modern  technologies and sustainable financing. The office in Berlin will be followed by a hub in Nairobi in 2025. 

    To mark the opening of the hub office and the ceremonial signing of the partnership between UNFPA and Charité, partners of the WomenX Collective programme will be joined by Dr.  Bärbel Kofler, Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister for Economic  Cooperation and Development, as well as representatives of the German healthcare sector  and stakeholders from the Global South.  

    Additional quotes from participating organisations: 

    “The investment in women’s health is convincing with numbers: Through new, women-centred evidence-driven investment opportunities, we want to show that for every euro invested, a dividend of over 7 euros is possible by 2030″, says Dr. Nigina Muntean, Chief of  Innovation at UNFPA. “By investing in women’s health and fostering innovation, we can unlock significant economic returns and ensure advancements reach those most in need.” 

    “Women’s health is still under-researched and under-funded,” says Prof. Dr. Heyo K.  Kroemer, Chairman of the Board of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and partner of the  WomenX Collective initiative. “We are convinced of the collaborative and integrative approach of WomenX, so I am pleased that Charité can make a contribution here. In order to  address women’s health in a sustainable way, we need strong partnerships with institutions  from the global North and South.” 

    “We are delighted to welcome the WomenX Collective programme under our roof and to  contribute to the success of this important project,” says Prof. Dr. Christopher Baum, Chairman of the BIH Board of Directors at Charité and Chairman of the Translational Research Department at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. “WomenX Collective aims to  leverage proximity to innovations and experts and Berlin features an outstanding ecosystem of health and innovation.” 

    “The opening of UNFPA programme in Berlin in partnership with the Charité/BIH offers an  opportunity to intensify the diverse initiatives in the field of women’s health and to make this  even more effective,” says Prof. Dr. Jalid Sehouli, Medical Director Department of Gynecology including center of oncological surgery (Campus Virchow Klinikum) and  Department of Gynaecology (Campus Benjamin Franklin). 

    About UNFPA:  

    UNFPA is the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. UNFPA’s mission is to  deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young  person’s potential is fulfilled. UNFPA calls for the realization of reproductive rights for all and  supports access to a wide range of sexual and reproductive health services, including  voluntary family planning, quality maternal health care and comprehensive sexuality  education.

    About Charité:  

    Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, a cutting-edge medical institution, is a leader in  diagnosis and treatment, with a special focus on severe, complex, and rare diseases and  health conditions. A medical school and university medical center in one, Charité has earned  an outstanding reputation worldwide, combining first-class patient care with excellence in  research and innovation, state-of-the-art teaching, and high-quality training and education.  At Charité, people and their health come first. Charité is dedicated to transformative  translational research, applying the very latest scientific findings to prevention, diagnostics,  and treatment and harnessing clinical observations to develop new lines of research and  scientific questions. Charité’s foremost goal is to actively help shape the medicine of the  future, all with one aim in mind: improving patients’ lives and quality of life.  

    With more than 100 departments and institutes spanning four campuses and 3,293 beds,  Charité is one of Europe’s largest university medical centers. At Charité, the areas of  research, teaching, and medical care are closely interconnected. Averaging about 23,500  across the entire group of companies, Berlin’s university medicine organization remained  one of the capital city’s largest employers in 2023. Last year, Charité provided care for some  138,000 inpatients and day case patients and about 788,000 outpatients. There are 9,879  students enrolled in medicine, dentistry, health care sciences, and nursing programs here, at  one of Germany’s largest medical schools. https://www.charite.de/en/ 

    About the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité:  

    The mission of the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) is medical translation:  transferring biomedical research findings into novel approaches to personalized prediction,  prevention, diagnostics and therapies and, conversely, using clinical observations to develop  new research ideas. The aim is to deliver relevant medical benefits to patients and the  population at large. As the translational research unit within Charité, the BIH is also  committed to establishing a comprehensive translational ecosystem – one that places  emphasis on a system-wide understanding of health and disease and that promotes change  in the biomedical translational research culture. The BIH was founded in 2013 and is funded  90 percent by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and 10 percent by  the State of Berlin. The founding institutions, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Max  Delbrück Center, were independent member entities within the BIH until 2020. Since 2021  the BIH has been integrated into Charité as its so-called third pillar. The Max Delbrück  Center is now the Privileged Partner of the BIH.

    MIL OSI United Nations News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Grassley Demands VP Harris Own Up for Failures as Border Czar

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator for Iowa Chuck Grassley

    BUTLER COUNTY, IOWA – U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote Vice President Kamala Harris asking questions about the policy decisions she has made in her role overseeing border issues for the Biden administration, as well as the dangerous consequences and crimes that have ensued as a result.

    “Every community is a border community because the Biden-Harris administration has refused to enforce our immigration laws,” Grassley today said of his letter. “The federal government’s number one job is to keep its citizens safe. By reversing the effective border security policies of the Trump administration, the Biden-Harris administration has done the very opposite of protecting American citizens.”

    Grassley on a radio call this morning cited the following actions, among others, the Biden-Harris administration has taken that have weakened U.S. national security and made innocent Americans targets of otherwise preventable crimes: 

    • Ordering the Defense Department to stop building the southern border wall;
    • Blocking $2 billion previously allocated for barrier construction; and
    • Ending the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” program.

    Click HERE for audio of Grassley discussing his letter to Vice President Harris. The full letter is available HERE and below. 

    Vice President Kamala D. Harris

    The White House

    Office of the Vice President

    1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

    Washington, D.C. 20500

    Dear Vice President Harris:

    In one of your first official public appearances, you joined President Biden in the Oval Office when he opined on the Trump administration’s immigration and border policies. President Biden dismissed the previous administration’s policies as “counterproductive to our security,” “harmful,” and a “moral and national shame.” 

    Since your first day in office, you and President Biden have worked to dismantle the Trump-era border policies and halted further construction of the border wall. The presidential proclamation terminating construction read, in part: “It shall be the policy of my Administration that no more American taxpayer dollars be diverted to construct a border wall.” This initiated a so-called “careful review of all resources appropriated or redirected to construct a southern border wall.” By April 2021, the Department of Defense (DOD) announced the cancellation of border barrier projects. In June of the same year, the Biden-Harris administration returned $2 billion to the DOD previously allocated for the purpose of border wall construction. Your administration also initiated a review of the Remain in Mexico policy, which Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Mayorkas subsequently ended in June 2021.

    Meanwhile, every fiscal year throughout your engagements, crossings from Mexico and the

    Northern Triangle markedly exceeded any year of the Trump administration. Despite the stark increase from those nations and many others, deportations and returns overall have decreased as a share of crossings. 

    Now, you are engaging in a numbers racket, telling Americans modest decreases in encounters from soaring, record highs is somehow proof that what your administration has been doing all along is working. It is not. 

    President Biden’s executive order—more than three years after your administration’s reckless reversal of key policies—is an implicit admission that he and you bear ultimate responsibility for this crisis and this disastrous approach. As a result of these slow-walked changes, our national security has been undermined and the safety of our communities has been threatened all across the country. 

    Due to the Biden-Harris administration’s failure to achieve adequate border security, illegal immigrants, including those entering from Mexico and the Northern Triangle, have been able to perpetrate heinous acts against innocent American citizens. For example:

    • On May 14, 2024, an 18-year-old Honduran national, who purportedly entered the United States illegally in April 2022, pled guilty to sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in Waterloo, Iowa.
    • On April 2, 2024, a Honduran national, who was previously convicted of sexual assaulting a woman in Connecticut and deported, was charged for failing to register as a sex offender. He was reportedly able to re-enter the United States undetected by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and subsequently was arrested twice before being charged.
    • On February 25, 2024, a 19-year-old Honduran national was arrested for the alleged rape and aggravated assault of a 14-year-old girl at knifepoint in Louisiana. He entered the United States illegally in October 2023.
    • On May 4, 2024, a Guatemalan national was arrested for allegedly kidnapping and sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl in a van in Palm Beach County, Florida. He reportedly entered the United States illegally in January 2024, was given an immigration hearing date in 2027, and was released by DHS.
    • On June 26, 2024, a Guatemalan national was charged with alleged sexually battery of a 14-year-old girl in Okaloosa County, Florida. He was deported on February 9, 2024, before this incident, but was able to re-enter the United States untraced days later.
    • On May 8, 2024, an El Salvadoran migrant was arrested for allegedly murdering a woman and the malicious assault of two homeless individuals with a baseball bat in West Virginia. He had an extensive criminal history and was in prison in El Salvador for over twenty years for “DUI [driving under the influence], sexual assault/murder, aggravated robbery, and narcotics related crimes.” Law enforcement believes he illegally entered the United States shortly after his release from prison.

    This is just a snapshot from this year alone of the sorts of preventable tragedies, which have become all too common across the United States.

    The Biden-Harris administration’s policies—pulling resources, reversing Remain in Mexico, and stopping wall construction—are largely to blame for our open and unsafe border over the last three-and-a-half years. Because of your actions and inactions, every state is now a border state and every community is a border community.

    Given your role as the leader of engagement with this region, which the media has colloquially dubbed as “Border Czar” or “Root Causes Czar,” I ask that you provide answers to the following immigration and border policy questions by October 24, 2024.

    1. Have you engaged with your international counterparts regarding violence perpetrated against innocent Americans by citizens of their countries? Have you raised this concern with any counterpart(s)? If so, what concerns were raised and when? What was their response?
    2. In light of the Biden-Harris administration’s ending of Remain in Mexico in 2021, what data can you provide suggesting migration from Mexico has been “stemmed” as you were tasked with accomplishing prior to 2024?
    3. In February 2024, the Biden-Harris administration endorsed a proposal that, among other provisions, included a requirement that a few hundred million dollars in unspent funds be used specifically for border wall construction. As noted above, the Biden-Harris administration previously returned $2 billion allocated for the purpose of building a border wall. Did the Biden-Harris administration ever consider reversing course regarding this funding? If not, why not? If so, why has no discernable action been taken to that end?
    4. The Biden-Harris administration has auctioned off some $300 million worth of unused border wall materials for mere pennies on the dollar. Why did the Biden-Harris administration endorse a proposal asking Congress to require them to use hundreds of millions of unspent dollars for border wall construction after deciding to sit on hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of unused supplies instead of building the wall?

    -30-

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI USA: Padilla, Ruiz Celebrate Groundbreaking of Salton Sea Species Conservation Habitat Project Expansion

    US Senate News:

    Source: United States Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.)

    Padilla, Ruiz Celebrate Groundbreaking of Salton Sea Species Conservation Habitat Project Expansion

    WATCH: Padilla highlights Inflation Reduction Act funding for Salton Sea habitat conservationSALTON SEA, CA — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife, and Congressman Raul Ruiz, M.D. (D-Calif.-25) joined federal and state leaders to announce the expansion of a restoration project at the south end of the Salton Sea through the Salton Sea Management Program (SSMP). The event celebrated the groundbreaking of the expansion of the Species Conservation Habitat (SCH) Project after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation awarded California $70 million from the Inflation Reduction Act for the project last December.
    The investment is a portion of the $250 million that Padilla, Ruiz, the late Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Representative Juan Vargas (D-Calif.-52) secured for the SSMP from funds included in the Inflation Reduction Act for drought resiliency. The federal funding commitments were made in the 2022 Commitment to Support Salton Sea Management Related to Water Conservation in the Lower Colorado River Basin Agreement.
    The expansion of the SCH Project represents a multiagency collaboration to address the ecological challenges facing the Salton Sea. The commitments made by the federal and state governments, as well as from regional agencies, will add 750 acres to the project’s footprint. This unprecedented support helps set the current project footprint at nearly 5,000 acres with the potential to expand to around 8,000 acres.
    “As the Salton Sea lakebed recedes, toxic dust is contaminating air quality and threatening the stability of the local ecosystem,” said Senator Padilla. “The $250 million in Inflation Reduction Act funding we secured for the Salton Sea Management Program is essential not only to protect public health in surrounding communities, but to restore the habitat of the abundant aquatic and avian wildlife in the region. Today’s exciting groundbreaking of the Species Conservation Habitat Project expansion will expand critical wetland habitat and improve air quality around the hazardous exposed lakebed.”
    “For years, my constituents have shared their concerns about the harmful impacts of the Salton Sea. As a physician in Congress, I have been committed to addressing this ongoing public health and environmental crisis,” said Congressman Ruiz, M.D. “Thanks to our partnership with the Biden-Harris administration and the $4 billion secured through the Inflation Reduction Act to stabilize the Colorado River Basin, we are bringing vital resources to our communities that will protect the health, environment, and economy of our region.”
    “Our largest project at the Salton Sea to suppress dust and restore habitat is getting bigger,” said Wade Crowfoot, Secretary for the California Natural Resources Agency. “The Biden-Harris Administration and our Congressional delegation delivered major funding to get this done, and it’s another step forward at the Sea. I’m proud of our partnerships and progress, while we all know much more work lies ahead.”
    “It was less than two years ago that we signed a memorandum of understanding for the Salton Sea, and here we are today breaking ground on phase two of the Species Conservation Habitat Project, on the heels of signing the largest water conservation agreement with the Imperial Irrigation District,” said Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton. “We’re grateful to our partners in the State of California, the Imperial Irrigation District Board, and farmers and growers in the Imperial and Coachella Valley for leading the way for the Sea and the Colorado River Basin.” 
    “California’s commitment to protecting the Colorado River by conserving 1.6 million acre-feet under the Lower Basin Plan would not have been possible without the leadership of the Biden-Harris administration and Commissioner Touton,” said JB Hamby, Chairman for the Colorado River Board of California. “Their historic $250 million investment in California’s Species Conservation Habitat — the largest ever for Salton Sea restoration — marks a turning point. Together, these efforts protect both the Colorado River and the Salton Sea.”
    Located at the south end of the Salton Sea, near the community of Westmorland, the project aims to restore ecological value at the Salton Sea and help protect regional air quality by
    Creating a network of ponds and wetlands;
    Providing a habitat for fish and birds that visit the Salton Sea; and
    Suppressing dust within the project area.
    In August, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Imperial Irrigation District agreed to conserve nearly 230 billion gallons of water by 2026, facilitate land access for project implementation, and provide an additional $175 million in federal funding to accelerate California’s Salton Sea restoration efforts.
    Comprised of the California Natural Resources Agency, the California Department of Water Resources, and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the SSMP is implementing a 10-year plan to improve the conditions around the Salton Sea by constructing 29,800 acres of habitat and dust suppression projects while establishing a long-term pathway for the Salton Sea’s success.
    Senator Padilla worked to include $4 billion for drought resiliency and inland waterways, including for projects to address historic drought impacting the Colorado River Basin and Salton Sea, in the Inflation Reduction Act. The $250 million in federal funding Padilla secured for the SSMP allows the Department of the Interior to contribute to vital restoration projects at the Salton Sea, including to expedite existing projects that the State of California and California water users are contributing to, like the SCH Project. Last Congress, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee advanced Padilla and Senator Feinstein’s Salton Sea Projects Improvements Act to give the Interior Department additional authorities to invest in Salton Sea ecological improvement projects and address the public health and environmental crises at the Salton Sea. Padilla also applauded the Department of the Interior last year for awarding approximately $367 million to California partners to protect the Colorado River Basin, including to restore the Salton Sea.
    Additional photos from the event are available here.

    MIL OSI USA News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Interview with Stacey Lee, FIVEAA Afternoons

    Source: Australian Executive Government Ministers

    STACEY LEE, HOST: You know all about the Premier’s plan to ban children under 14 from social media. Well, today the Federal Government has announced that the onus will be on the platforms to enforce this ban. It won’t be up to parents or young people to try and navigate the rules, and they won’t be getting fines and penalties themselves for it. Michelle Rowland is the Minister for Communications and joins me in the studio. Good afternoon Minister. 
     
    MICHELLE ROWLAND, MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS: Hi there, great to be here. 
     
    LEE: Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. So how is this going to be enforced, you know? How’s Facebook and Instagram going to know the onus is on us and we need to make sure we’re doing it? 
     
    ROWLAND: Well, what we announced today are the legislative design principles. The Government has committed to introducing legislation this year to have a minimum age for access to social media. And part of that legislative design is that the onus is going to be, exactly as you say, on the platforms, not on the users. We don’t want to penalise children or parents. We want the platforms to do better, and we’re going to do that in a couple of ways. The first is around incentivising them to create low-risk apps and low-risk spaces that people can access at certain ages. Because we know that some of these platforms, they really are designed to keep people’s eyes on their on the feed, and people doom scrolling; the infinite scrolling that occurs, that screen time addiction is really an issue that impacts not only on mental health, but on physical wellbeing. So, the onus is going to be on the platforms. 
     
    We are going to not have penalties applying to individual users or parents. So, by having higher penalties as well. Currently the Online Safety Act has a penalty regime which really hasn’t been designed to be fit-for-purpose. And when you have fines for these big tech platforms, that are less than $1 million, you really have to …
     
    LEE: A drop in the ocean, really.
     
    ROWLAND: It really is not fit-for-purpose.
     
    LEE: So what will the fines be? 
     
    ROWLAND: We’ve got that under review at the moment, under the Online Safety Act review, that’s being done independently. I’m going to have the results of that in the coming weeks. But I think it’s fair to say that if your listeners think about the fines that go to breaches of competition rules, for example, and other areas of the corporate world, you really need something that is commensurate with the size and is really going to incentivise better practice.

    When you’re talking about social media platforms that have revenues in excess of nations, it really does need to be large to be a good incentive. So we’ll get the advice on that, and we fully intend to act on that.
     
    LEE: Are they multi-millions, tens of millions?
     
    ROWLAND: Well, I think when you start talking percentages of revenues, which is the kind of penalty regime that is in competition law, for example, you start to get a better idea of what we’re talking about here.
     
    LEE: Okay. 
     
    ROWLAND: In Australia we’re fortunate that we do have an existing legislative structure. So what we’re proposing here is an amendment to the Online Safety Act. We’ve got a regulator in the eSafety Commissioner who’s going to provide that oversight. This isn’t a set and forget: we’re going to continue to monitor this as well.
     
    Your Premier, Malinauskas, also made a really useful announcement today about having this kind of training in schools. And the Federal Government really supports that. We’ve got our own initiatives through the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, meaning that schools can access these online tools for media literacy.
     
    Because let’s face it, I’m sure your listeners will agree, there’s no magic pill here. It has to come at a number of angles. It has to come at device management, but also the kind of content that is being pushed and also an educative component. So all these things coming together, I think, are very positive.
     
    LEE: So it sounds like there’s still a lot to be worked out, and it sounds like the review is key to that, because I must admit, when I read the change today, or the announcement today, I looked at it – I had to re-read it and re-read it, and I went, is this a bit of an announcement you make when you really don’t know what announcement to make?
     
    ROWLAND: Well, let’s be clear: we’ve announced that we are going to legislate this year. We are taking solid advice from the experts, and the Summit has been a really good source of that. Because, let’s face it too, there is no single agreement on what an age should be, so there’s going to be disagreement about that. 
     
    But we want the decision we make to be evidence-based. That will be in the legislation. So there is a bit to work through here. But I do want your listeners to understand that this work is ongoing. It builds on a lot of work that’s already been done. But the fact that we are going to introduce legislation this year, I think, gives a really good indication that this is serious reform, and we’re determined to make it happen. 
     
    LEE: Yeah. How would it interact with the State legislation? Of course, Premier Peter Malinauskas has said he wants the ban to be in place for children under 14. What if your review comes back and its children under 15? Where would South Australian kids sit, would it be 15 or 14? 
     
    ROWLAND: It’s a really good question. And I think the good thing about Premiers Minns and Malinauskas, they’ve said they want a national regime here, so they’re willing to look at all the evidence. The French report was very useful in that, in providing a good basis for how this reform could be achieved. But all of us are on the same page here: we all want an age to be specified. It needs to be an age based on evidence. And both premiers have actually said they want a national approach, and I think that’s what all of your listeners want. You don’t want fragmented ages in different States and Territories. It just doesn’t work.
     
    LEE: So it’ll just be the one piece of Federal legislation.
     
    ROWLAND: Correct.
     
    LEE: Okay.
     
    ROWLAND: And both of them have made it very clear that they want the Commonwealth to lead in this area. The Albanese Government is determined to do that.
     
    LEE: What about things like Instagram Teen? They announced that about a month or so ago. The Premier was asked about it on 5AA this morning by our Brekky show, Dave and Will. Here’s what he said.
     
    [Excerpt]
     
    PETER MALINAUSKAS, SA PREMIER: Look, what Instagram are doing there is to their credit, and I think it’s in response to the rising level of concern amongst parents. But what- you know, Instagram is certainly one of the services that is, I think, lined up for an age limit to be applied to them.
     
    [End of excerpt]
     
    LEE: So it’s not really an answer there. But with Instagram Teen, of course, it’s sort of a specific social media account that they want for teenagers. Would that also fall under this? Or would there be a ban that just says no, teenagers aren’t even allowed a teen account of Instagram?
     
    ROWLAND: Well, first we welcome any move by the platforms to make their services safer. And Instagram Teens has been produced coincidentally after the Government announced that we were going to legislate. Whether that’s coincidence or whether that was somehow …
     
    LEE: Maybe they were just planning on doing it anyway.
     
    ROWLAND: Perhaps. But either way, it is a good result. But it doesn’t obviate the need for action in this area. Let’s remember, Instagram is just one platform. It’s not all platforms.
     
    But again, talking about the kinds of exemptions that could apply here, if the platforms are developing low-risk options, that’s what parents want to see. They want to see safer spaces for their kids. We know that we’re on the second generation now of digital natives. Social media is a part of all their lives. It does have some really good qualities, but it’s the harms that we need to deal with. And if we can get low-risk options, then that is a positive thing.
     
    LEE: How far will the legislation go? Because I guess this is dealing with the issue now, and it’s an issue that we’re all in because technology has advanced so quickly. And I didn’t have a mobile phone when I was in primary school and there certainly wasn’t social media, but now kids do.
     
    What about if the legislation is in place, if there is a specific age where it’s banned, if Instagram and then Facebook come out with teen accounts, will you then legislate for, I guess, an off-boarding where the kid turns 18 and then they have complete control of their accounts? Or what happens? When do they transition into being an adult on social media? Is that something you’re looking at as well?
     
    ROWLAND: We certainly are. And by legislating an age, we are thereby saying, look, this is the age where we believe there needs to be some controls. Beyond that age, let’s face it though, you might have your birthday, but the harms don’t end.
     
    The issue is, you will continually be fed content depending on what you’re doing if you reach a certain age. So we’re addressing them at both sides. We’re looking through our Online Safety Act review at recommender systems, for example. I’ve instituted rules about the need to take the best interests of the child into account when apps and other platforms are being designed.
     
    I think the key thing here is to ensure that we don’t have a set and forget. Legislation happens; it’s not job done. There really is going to be an ongoing requirement to monitor this, how it’s working. We’ve now got some of the first data that’s coming in, and your listeners will be familiar with some of this data around some of the correlations between social media use between hospitalisations, eating disorders, for example.
     
    LEE: Eating disorders, yeah.
     
    ROWLAND: This needs to be continually monitored. So, I want to be clear to your listeners, this is not a set and forget. This is something the Government is committed to, ensuring it remains fit-for-purpose. The regulations in place change accordingly with technology, and we can understand whether or not it’s working. But I’ll say this: doing nothing is not an option.
     
    LEE: Okay. And just finally, a timeline. When’s this all going to be in place? When will it be real?
     
    ROWLAND: We’re going to introduce the legislation this year. We hope that it gets support right across the Parliament so it can get through expeditiously and we can have that in place. We’re setting a transition period of a year. But again, as you saw with Instagram Teens, when technology or any industry sees that regulation is on the horizon, it does, in itself, provide an incentive to do better. So, the message to the platforms is: do better. We are going to legislate. But again, we want to incentivise the industry to make sure that they create safe spaces for young people.
     
    LEE: Okay. Well, we’ll see how it goes, Minister. Thank you so much for your time today.
     
    ROWLAND: My pleasure.

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI China: 7th CIIE to offer platform for showcasing Tanzanian goods, services: official

    Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

    DAR ES SALAAM, Oct. 15 — The seventh edition of the China International Import Expo (CIIE) will provide a platform for showcasing Tanzanian products and services to one of the largest consumer markets in the world, an official said on Monday.

    Tanzania’s Zanzibar Minister for Trade and Industrial Development Omar Said Shaaban revealed that 34 Tanzanian exhibitors will attend this year’s CIIE, which will be held in Shanghai from Nov. 5 to 10, to display goods, including agricultural produce, textiles, minerals, handicrafts, and industrial goods.

    “This is not just a journey across the continents, but a leap towards showcasing the vibrancy, richness, and diversity of Tanzania commerce on the international stage,” said Shaaban at a send-off ceremony for the exhibitors at the Chinese embassy in the port city of Dar es Salaam.

    He noted that the exhibits represented not just the diversity of Tanzania’s resources but also the ingenuity and craftsmanship of its people.

    “Through the 7th CIIE, we aim to raise global awareness of the ‘Made in Tanzania’ brand, which reflects the quality, sustainability, and uniqueness of our products,” Shaaban said.

    Speaking on behalf of the exhibitors, Elizabeth Kalambo, chief executive officer of sisal product manufacturer Sisalana (Tanzania) Company Limited, said attending the seventh CIIE will enable them to meet directly with customers and expand new client base in foreign markets.

    Kalambo said that participation in the CIIE has large economic multiplier effects for both China and Tanzania.

    Chen Mingjian, Chinese ambassador to Tanzania, said the CIIE created opportunities for companies and commodities worldwide to “buy globally, sell globally” and effectively promoted the growth of international trade volumes.

    Chen said that over the past six years, over 180 countries, regions, and international organizations have participated in the CIIE.

    “China is facilitating the participation of the least developed countries in the expo by providing preferential treatment in booth construction, exhibit transportation, and personnel reception,” she said, noting that China is Tanzania’s largest trading partner and source country of investment.

    According to the Chinese ambassador, China-Tanzania bilateral trade volume reached 8.78 billion U.S. dollars in 2023, recording an increase of 8.9 percent year on year.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI New Zealand: Celebrate local environmental heroes

    Source: Auckland Council

    The Love Your Place Awards are back for 2024! The awards celebrate volunteers, local community and conservation groups and schools making a difference for the environment in the Waitākere Ranges Local Board area.  

    The biennial awards are funded by the Waitākere Ranges Local Board and organised and hosted by EcoMatters Environment Trust. 

    “This is the fifth time we’ve held these awards, and we’re always inspired by the stories of local environmental champions working to help preserve this very special part of Tāmaki Makaurau,” says Waitākere Ranges Local Board Chair Greg Presland.  

    “We want to celebrate those who are going above and beyond to work for our local environment, so I encourage everyone to nominate their local environmental hero,” Greg adds.  

    People can nominate themselves or others working in the environmental space anywhere across the Waitākere Ranges Local Board area, which stretches from Whatipu, Glen Eden and Titirangi in the south to Waitākere, Swanson and Te Henga in the north.  

    Nominations are open from 1 to 17 November, with winners announced at a special local event early 2025. 

    EcoMatters CEO Carla Gee says the awards have become a much-anticipated local event, celebrating the special relationship people in the Waitākere Ranges have with their local environment.  

    “These are truly heart-warming awards, because they recognise the people who are working in and with our communities to make a real difference.  

    “It’s never been more important to protect our precious natural heritage, particularly in the Waitākere Ranges, an area loved by so many Aucklanders, as the climate crisis continues to threaten biodiversity,” says Carla. 

    The previous awards, in 2022, recognised trailblazers and previously unsung heroes working in predator and weed control, food growing and waste minimisation initiatives. 

    The five award categories are: 

    • Denise Yates Award: for youth (under 18) showing emerging leadership around local environmental issues. 
    • Karaka Award: for a school or school group taking action on a local environmental issue. 
    • Nīkau Award: for a business or social enterprise making a contribution to improve the environment. 
    • Rātā Award: for an outstanding volunteer group or organisation taking action on a local environmental issue. 
    • Kahikatea Award: for an outstanding individual volunteer taking action on a local environmental issue. 

    Nominations are open from 1 to 17 November 2024.

    MIL OSI New Zealand News –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Our Future Health becomes world’s largest research programme of its kind

    Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

    Our Future Health has now reached a critical milestone with over a million people from across the UK having completed all steps of the joining process. This makes it now the largest longitudinal cohort study in the world.

    The programme aims to transform the prevention, detection and treatment of conditions such as dementia, cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke. With eventually up to five million volunteers right across the UK, the goal is to create one of the most detailed pictures ever of people’s health. Our Future Health already has the largest ever number of participants from under-represented groups in a health research programme.

    To coincide with this milestone, the SMC invited Dr Raghib Ali OBE, Chief Executive and Chief Medical Officer of Our Future Health, to brief journalists on the socio-demographic and health characteristics of the first million participants for the first time and the impact such a large and diverse cohort will have on the prevention, detection and treatment of diseases.

    Speakers included: 

    Dr Raghib Ali OBE, Chief Executive and Chief Medical Officer of Our Future Health

    Professor Michael Cook, Executive Director of Science, Our Future Health

    Professor Dame Anna F Dominiczak, Chief Scientific Adviser for Health, Scottish Government

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –