As it happened: Majority back Voice to parliament; Labor expected to introduce federal ICAC legislation this week

Well, that’s all from us today. It has been a busy 12 hours in Australia, but if you’re only just tuning in, then here are the biggest headlines from today:

• The national integrity commission will have the power to investigate anyone who tries to influence public officials into engaging in dishonest conduct, in a pivotal step to capture “third parties” in the reform when it is introduced to parliament on Tuesday.
• Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has confirmed almost 3 million Optus customers had significant amounts of personal data stolen in last week’s massive cyberattack, as she flagged introducing big fines for future large data breaches and an overhaul of the nation’s data retention laws.
• Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney has foreshadowed the government will overhaul outdated laws governing how to hold referendums before the national vote on whether to enshrine a Voice to parliament in the Constitution.
• Some of the world’s largest companies including Apple, Amazon and Facebook and Instagram owner Meta will come under the microscope of a parliamentary inquiry into big technology that will have a particular focus on corporate power and advertising targeting children.
• In Victoria, Premier Daniel Andrews has announced that the family of Uncle Jack Charles has accepted the offer to honour the actor, musician, potter, performer and activist with a state funeral on Tuesday, 18 October.
• In NSW, sewage will be tested or poliovirus following the detection of the virus in London and New York, where an unvaccinated man in his 20s was paralysed by poliomyelitis in July.
• And internationally, the lawyer for an Australian surfing and diving instructor caught bringing drugs into Bali says police are “slowly moving away” from the suspicion that he was a dealer.

That’s all from me, Broede Carmody will be back with you bright and early tomorrow to take you through the news of the day.

NDIS Minister Bill Shorten has opened the door to a potential expansion of the national disability insurance scheme to support people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is believed to affect one in 20 children.

Shorten has asked the National Disability Insurance Agency “to give me more advice about diagnosis for ADHD in terms of eligibility for NDIS”, saying neurodivergence was “an area where the eligibility requirements are not always clear”.

NDIS Minister Bill Shorten is seeking advice on a potential expansion of the scheme’s eligibility.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Advocates are pushing for the neurodevelopmental disorder, which results in poor concentration and control of impulses, to be added to the list of primary conditions eligible for NDIS support.

“There are tens of thousands of people [with ADHD] who are on the scheme who are diagnosed with autism as their primary condition,” the minister told reporters in Canberra on Monday.

Any expansion of NDIS eligibility will expose the federal government to criticism from the opposition, with the scheme’s cost already expected to blow out by $8.8 billion to $40.7 billion in 2024-25.

Read the full story here.

The Australian sharemarket has started the week in negative territory, shedding 1.6 per cent in a broad sell-off that inflicted heavy losses on the energy and minerals sectors.

The ASX200 on Monday closed 105.3 points weaker to 6469.4, a three-month low. Energy stocks shed 6.12 per cent, while mining stocks dropped about 5 per cent as commodity prices drifted lower.

Healthcare company Nanosonics gained 4.7 per cent; IT provider Megaport moved up 3.62 per cent; and biotech heavyweight CSL pushed up 2.4 per cent, as the healthcare sector outperformed the market.

Costa Group slumped 14.17 per cent after the shock departure of its CEO; Whitehaven Coal dropped 14 per cent as investors cooled on coal’s outlook; and Link fell 9.7 per cent after pulling the plug on a proposed acquisition.

Mining and energy stocks led a broad sell-off on the Australian sharemarket, while the pound and Euro crashed to record lows as the prospect of further interest rate hikes and a US recession spooked investors.

Read the full wrap here.

In state news, sewage in NSW will be tested for the poliovirus after it was detected in London and New York, where an unvaccinated man in his 20s was paralysed by poliomyelitis in July.

NSW Health said it was working with Sydney Water to roll out testing “as soon as possible”.

NSW’s wastewater will be checked for poliovirus after it was detected overseas.

“NSW Health convened an expert panel last week, which included experts from Victoria, to consider the value and parameters of wastewater surveillance to help detect other infectious diseases, including poliomyelitis, caused by the poliovirus,” a spokesperson said.

“While there is currently no indication of polio infection in NSW, as a precaution NSW Health is developing a wastewater surveillance for poliovirus, building on the success of the SARS CoV-2 wastewater surveillance program.”

It’s been 50 years since Australia’s last locally acquired polio case. WHO declared the disease had been eradicated from Australia in 2000 and childhood immunisations levels are at 95 per cent.

Read the full story here.

Kyiv, Ukraine: An overnight drone strike near the Ukrainian port of Odesa sparked a massive fire and explosion, the military said Monday, hours after the United States vowed to take decisive action and promised “catastrophic consequences” if Russia uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky surrounded by UN officials and various ambassadors in Odesa last month.Credit: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office

The airstrike was the latest in a series of drone attacks on the key southern city in recent days. This one hit a military installation and detonated ammunition when it struck. Firefighters were struggling to contain the blaze, the Ukrainian military’s southern command said.

Concerns are growing that Russia may seek to escalate the conflict once it completes what Ukraine and the West see as illegal referendums in parts of Ukraine under its control.

The voting, which ends on Tuesday, happened after thousands of residents had fled and has included images of armed Russian troops going door-to-door to pressure Ukrainians into voting. Russia is widely expected to declare the results in its favour, a step that could see Moscow annex the territory and give it the pretext to seek to defend it as its own territory under the Russian nuclear umbrella.

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, made clear that Russia would pay a high price if it made good on veiled threats to use nuclear weapons in the conflict.

“If Russia crosses this line there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia. The United States will respond decisively,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

AP

Singapore/Jakarta: The lawyer for an Australian surfing and diving instructor caught bringing drugs into Bali says police are “slowly moving away” from the suspicion that he was a dealer.

Jeff Walton, 51, was apprehended with eight grams of heroin and 0.34 grams of methamphetamine when he arrived at Denpasar airport from Vietnam earlier this month and has since been held in custody by the Indonesian National Narcotics Agency (BNN).

Australian Jeff Walton has been arrested in Bali for allegedly attempting to smuggle heroin and methamphetamine to the island.Credit: Nine

Under Indonesian law, the trafficking of more than five grams of illicit drugs in non-plant form can carry the death penalty or up to life in prison.

Walton’s lawyer Edward Pangkahila said on past experience the amount of drugs he was found with was unlikely to result in the top tier of punishment.

Read the full story here.

Parliament has begun an inquiry into the power of big technology companies in Australia, with a focus on children’s safety and whether major platforms like TikTok, Facebook and Google have too much power.

The Economics References Committee, which is chaired by Liberal senator Andrew Bragg, will conduct the inquiry and report by the end of parliamentary sittings next year.

Liberal senator Andrew Bragg.

“The major technology platforms have amassed more power than any other corporations in recent history,” Bragg said. The “big five” international Big Tech platforms “have more power than the railroads and oil tycoons of the Gilded Age”.

Bragg said Australia should not descend into protectionism, but there needed to be more scrutiny of whether the platforms were using their power in ways that benefited the country.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has a similar long-running inquiry. The previous government repeatedly took aim at large technology companies while the Albanese government has not been quite as outspoken, but has still moved to review alleged data harvesting by TikTok and WeChat.

Heading up to Queensland now, and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced a $766 million project to build Australia’s largest publicly owned wind farm in a push to reboot the state’s energy policy.

The project in the South Burnett, north-west of Brisbane, will include up to 150 turbines and potentially generate enough electricity to power 230,000 homes.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced a $766 wind farm project.

“It will also create around 200 jobs during construction and 15 ongoing jobs when operational,” Ms Palaszczuk said on Monday.

“It’s investments like this that will ensure we deliver on our net-zero ambitions and our promise to Queenslanders to become a global renewable energy superpower.”

The project is about 30 kilometres south-west of Kingaroy in the state’s Southern Queensland Renewable Energy Zone.

AAP

A group of eight Torres Strait Islander people have made international legal history after the United Nations Human Rights Committee found that the federal government has violated its human rights obligations to them through climate change inaction.

The landmark decision was delivered by the committee late last week and agreed with a complaint first filed by the group in 2019. The complaint was the first legal action brought by climate-vulnerable inhabitants of low-lying islands against a nation state.

Saibai Island’s $24 million sea wall was breached less than six months after its completion. During storm surges, the sea sluices under homes.Credit: Justin McManus

Yessie Mosby, a Kulkalgal man and traditional owner on the island of Masig, said he was delighted that Torres Strait Islander voices and concerns were being heard around the world through the case.

“Climate change affects our way of life every day. This win gives us hope that we can protect our island homes, culture and traditions for our kids and future generations to come,” Mosby said.

Read the full story here.

Newly elected Bennelong MP Jerome Laxale says Australia needs to go further in reducing emissions than its legislated 43 per cent target.

The Labor MP representing Sydney’s lower north shore urged the government against delivering the talking points of big emitters in response to the climate crisis.

Newly elected Bennelong MP Jerome Laxale. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“While I’m incredibly proud to be in the parliament that has finally taken action on climate change, I know that the science tells us that we need to go further,” Laxale said, adding he wanted to use Labor’s “precious time” in government to drive emissions reduction beyond the legislated target.

“This isn’t a small ask, but it is so very achievable. As we did during the pandemic, on climate change and emissions reduction, we need to trust the experts, and we need to trust the science.”

The speech comes after both houses legislated the government’s climate change legislation, with the government confirming following crossbench negotiations the target would be a “floor, not a ceiling.”

He also used his first speech to call for a national conversation about the Commonwealth funding of public schools. Public funding for private, and often prestigious schools has increased over the past decade.

“The best education should be available at all schools, public or private, and to that end, Commonwealth funding must be fair, and it must have strings attached. Instead, we now have public schools that are scrambling to fix old toilets where some private schools are scrambling to build new pavilions,” Laxale said.

“I find this to be unfair, unsustainable and not in the national interest.”