Optus ‘lawyering up’ a poor look, assistant treasurer says

Optus should focus on helping customers who had their personal data leaked in a major breach rather than briefing lawyers before a potential class action lawsuit, a government minister says, AAP reports.

Assistant treasurer Stephen Jones today labelled the move of Optus parent company Singtel to pre-emptively engage lawyers as unfortunate and making a bad situation worse.

His comments came amid reports tens of thousands of Australians had registered their interest in potential class action suits against Optus over the cyber attack.

Legal firm Slater and Gordon, which is taking expressions of interest in one legal action, said the impact of the hack was being felt far and wide, including by domestic violence survivors and stalking victims.

Singtel representatives told the Singapore stock exchange on Monday any class action would be “vigorously defended”, prompting Jones’ rebuke.

Jones told reporters:

Frankly, I think the Australian people want to see Optus deal with the crisis instead of engaging and briefing lawyers.

Their No 1 priority should be communicating with the customers and ensuring them that they have put every step in place to ensure that the bad situation, which resulted from their botch-up with the data handling, isn’t made worse by having that lead to fraud and misuse of that data now.

The personal details of more than 10 million Optus customers were exposed in the data breach, with up to 50,000 Medicare records and 150,000 passports compromised.

Jones said only a collaborative approach could see the crisis dealt with effectively:

Yes, we want [Optus] to pay for passports because the costs are going to be incurred immediately … yes, we want you to pay for licences, because people are queuing up and having to pay for a licence replacement.

We’re not talking about lawyering up, we’re not talking about any of those liabilities, we’re talking about it quite sensibly.

Key events

Raising of Warragamba Dam declared critical state significant infrastructure project

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet says the Warragamba Dam wall will be raised by 14 metres and that the project will be a critical state significant infrastructure project.

Perrottet said:

This declaration reinforces that raising the dam wall is the most effective long-term flood mitigation strategy to help protect residents of the Hawkesbury-Nepean.

This region has been hit by floods and we are committed to progressing this important project to make sure residents have genuine flood protection into the future.

Perrottet declares the raising of the Warragamba Dam as a critical state significant infrastructure project. He says the wall will be raised. pic.twitter.com/IUrEnJsH98

— Tamsin Rose (@tamsinroses) October 4, 2022

“It’s going to be a difficult week”: Perrottet ahead of predicted flooding

Guardian Australia’s NSW state reporter Tamsin Rose is at a press conference NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is holding at Warragamba Dam.

Benita Kolovos

Benita Kolovos

Victorian government promises new biomedical research facilities

The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, is this morning announcing an investment in biomedical research facilities, as part of the government’s $6bn redevelopment of Melbourne’s medical precinct.

The investment, in partnership with the University of Melbourne, will include fit-for-purpose sites to attract more studies and clinical trials and training facilities for healthcare workers.

Andrews said:

Our vision for this project doesn’t stop at new and upgraded hospitals, we’re also developing some of the best medical research and education precincts in the world – and all of that means the very best of care for Victorians.

Here’s more about the redevelopment from yesterday:

Power out after South Australian storms

More than 5,000 properties across South Australia remain without power and roads are closed after a night of heavy rain and strong winds, AAP reports.

SA Power Networks says there are more than 60 outages, mainly across metropolitan Adelaide, but also in the Barossa Valley.

Extra crews have been mobilised to restore services to affected properties as soon as possible.

Authorities are also dealing with fallen trees across a wide area, with the State Emergency Service handling close to 400 incidents from Tuesday to Wednesday morning.

SA police say the main road between Kingscote and the Penneshaw ferry on Kangaroo Island is flooded.

Just before 4am on Wednesday, a car trying to navigate the water became stuck but the driver was rescued without injury thanks to a passing motorist.

The road is expected to remain closed for up to 12 hours but a detour to the ferry, which brings goods and traffic from the mainland, is available.

Kingscote recorded the heaviest rainfall total across the past 24 hours with 36 millimetres, while Adelaide had more than 10mm.

The Bureau of Meteorology said the rain would continue to track to the east on Wednesday, with winds easing to about 15km/h.

However, more showers were forecast for Thursday and Friday.

The SES said the risk of flooding in the state’s mid-north had reduced, including concerns around Port Augusta and Port Pirie.

Healthcare funding skewed to focus on treating rather than preventing illness, GPs warn

As mentioned in the last post, general practice leaders are meeting in Canberra for an emergency summit organised by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP). Its president Adj Prof Karen Price had this insight about the structural problems facing general practice:

The problem is healthcare funding in Australia is skewed to focus on treating illness, rather than preventing it. This is despite all the evidence showing investment in primary care saves lives, improves health outcomes, and is much more cost effective.

We also have a funding divide in our country, with the federal government responsible for general practice and the states and territories responsible for hospitals and tertiary care. This results in cost-shifting, care-shifting, fragmentation and waste, and it urgently needs an overhaul.

GP crisis summit begins in Canberra

The Royal Australian College of GPs is today convening an emergency summit in Canberra to save the sector it says is facing an uncertain future.

It comes after the Australian Medical Association yesterday released a seven-point plan to revitalise general practice, tackling financial sustainability, the viability of general practices outside capital cities and making general practice more attractive for young doctors.

Today is the big day. We are convening a crisis Summit in Canberra to devise a strategy to save a sector facing an uncertain future. I will be holding a press conference at Old Parliament House at 8 15am to talk about why this couldn’t come at at a more important time. #GP

— Royal Australian College of GPs (RACGP) President (@RACGPPresident) October 4, 2022

RACGP president Adj Prof Karen Price said the crisis summit was bringing together leaders from general practice, nurse groups, local health and workforce agencies, patient groups, universities and government to collaborate and put forward meaningful solutions to the problems facing general practice:

Without decisive action, we will see more practices close their doors across Australia, more people struggle to access a GP, and bulk billing will continue to collapse – which will result in more patients delaying care and health conditions deteriorating.

We are in this crisis because Australia’s general practice system has been stripped of funding and support for decades. The Medicare freeze had a devastating effect on healthcare in Australia. Today’s Medicare patient rebates don’t come near to reflecting the cost of delivering high-quality care in communities across, which is why we are seeing the decline in bulk billing.

The lost decades of underfunding have also led to the GP workforce shortage … Just 13.8% of future doctors are putting general practice as their first preference career, and recruiting and retaining GPs has become the biggest challenge reported by practice owners in our 2022 Health of the Nation report.

Price said the sector was struggling as healthcare funding in Australia is skewed to focus on treating illness, rather than preventing it.

See also  Amazon’s No. 1 best selling robot vacuum is 39% off for spring cleaning

Price said the summit will examine the key issues that need to be addressed, including exploring different funding models, and that the solutions from the summit will be released in a white paper in coming weeks.

Optus ‘lawyering up’ a poor look, assistant treasurer says

Optus should focus on helping customers who had their personal data leaked in a major breach rather than briefing lawyers before a potential class action lawsuit, a government minister says, AAP reports.

Assistant treasurer Stephen Jones today labelled the move of Optus parent company Singtel to pre-emptively engage lawyers as unfortunate and making a bad situation worse.

His comments came amid reports tens of thousands of Australians had registered their interest in potential class action suits against Optus over the cyber attack.

Legal firm Slater and Gordon, which is taking expressions of interest in one legal action, said the impact of the hack was being felt far and wide, including by domestic violence survivors and stalking victims.

Singtel representatives told the Singapore stock exchange on Monday any class action would be “vigorously defended”, prompting Jones’ rebuke.

Jones told reporters:

Frankly, I think the Australian people want to see Optus deal with the crisis instead of engaging and briefing lawyers.

Their No 1 priority should be communicating with the customers and ensuring them that they have put every step in place to ensure that the bad situation, which resulted from their botch-up with the data handling, isn’t made worse by having that lead to fraud and misuse of that data now.

The personal details of more than 10 million Optus customers were exposed in the data breach, with up to 50,000 Medicare records and 150,000 passports compromised.

Jones said only a collaborative approach could see the crisis dealt with effectively:

Yes, we want [Optus] to pay for passports because the costs are going to be incurred immediately … yes, we want you to pay for licences, because people are queuing up and having to pay for a licence replacement.

We’re not talking about lawyering up, we’re not talking about any of those liabilities, we’re talking about it quite sensibly.

Severe weather warning for north-western Victoria

David Pocock wins athlete of the year at inaugural BBC Green Sport awards

Former Australian Rugby Union captain and current ACT senator David Pocock has won the athlete of the year award at the BBC’s first Green Sport awards.

The award category recognises a professional sportsperson who has “advocated for, raised awareness of, or instigated action on environmental and/or climate change issues in the past 12 months”.

Independent ACT senator David Pocock
Independent ACT senator David Pocock. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

The BBC say it was awarded to Pocock for his work leading the The Cool Down initiative that resulted in more than 300 athletes writing an open letter to the Australian government encouraging for bolder climate action.

It also noted his historic election as the first independent senator for the Australian Capital Territory and the “first sportsperson to transition into politics on an environmentally focussed platform”.

Pocock said:

On climate change, I’d probably say to people get involved. Rather than getting cynical and checking out, get involved, find people in your school, in your neighbourhood who are interested in doing something. Act locally, but then also push your local politicians and your national politicians to get going. We don’t have any time to waste and I think it’s really exciting what we can actually build together.

An honour to be named @BBCSport Green Sport Award Athlete of the Year.

Sport has the power to help shape our future. Excited to see the work of so many athletes and sporting organisations now working to tackle the big issues we face. https://t.co/9f5rLjtKz9

— David Pocock (@DavidPocock) October 4, 2022

Ed Leigh, a judge for the award, said:

It is clear that David Pocock’s environmental convictions form the core of who he is. His actions show that he is willing sacrifice his sporting legacy in order to raise awareness of climate change. He was for me, by far the most inspirational candidate who fearlessly used his sporting profile to further the environmental agenda.

Victorian Coalition pushes $10bn roads upgrade

A $10bn upgrade to Victorian roads will fix potholes and broken road surfaces across the state if the opposition wins the November election, AAP reports.

The Liberal and National parties say they will put the sum into road maintenance funding over the next 10 years to create safer roads.

The plan includes an audit of all state-managed roads and a review of construction standards to increase accountability of VicRoads and contractors.

Opposition leader Matthew Guy said the multibillion-dollar plan would ultimately save lives:

The Liberals and Nationals will deliver better roads through billions of dollars in investment to ensure everyone can get to work and crucial appointments, safely and on time.

Safe roads save lives. Roads budget cuts have never made sense as we watch our road network fall into a state of disrepair.

Opposition roads spokesman Danny O’Brien said a road upgrade was long overdue:

The Andrews Labor government has neglected Victoria’s road network, ignoring the genuine concern of road users across the state, in both the city and the country.

Hearings begin today for inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children

The first public hearings are being held in Canberra for an inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children.

I’m in Canberra today as Deputy Chair of this committee for our important first public hearing of an inquiry into Missing and Murdered First Nations Women and Children. https://t.co/rCe3GYV6QK

— Senator Nita Green (@nitagreenqld) October 4, 2022

At the time of the announcement of the inquiry Greens senator Lidia Thorpe spoke about the disparity between how Australia regards violence against Indigenous women and children and non-Indigenous women and children:

When a white woman dies, or a white woman is murdered, it’s a front page. There’s rallies.

When a black woman dies, when a black woman is murdered, you don’t hear about it.

You can read more about the inquiry from my colleague Sarah Collard:

See also  BMW X5 M, the restyling in action between the curves of the Nurburgring

Lismore ice-cream factory to be rebuilt

In good news for the flood-ravaged town of Lismore, the ice-cream factory which locals told Guardian Australia is “the beating heart” of the town will be saved.

Dairy giant Norco will spend more than $59m rebuilding its flood-damaged ice-cream factory in the NSW northern rivers, three weeks after standing down workers, AAP reports.

Then PM Scott Morrison inspects flood damage at the Norco factory in Lismore in March
Then PM Scott Morrison inspects flood damage at the Norco factory in Lismore in March. Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP

The factory, which sits on the banks of the Wilsons River in South Lismore, was forced to close after the catastrophic February floods, leaving more than 200 workers uncertain of their future.

Chief executive Michael Hampson says 105 staff had been stood down from the farmer-owned cooperative because there was no work for them during the rebuild. He told ABC TV today:

Lismore is the home of Norco, we’re founded in the Lismore region and we’ll be able to get this manufacturing facility back up and running and invite our people back to work here to make Australia’s best ice-cream.

The company aimed for production to gradually resume from April, with workers returning progressively over months as various lines came onboard, he said.

The factory would be rebuilt on the original site, with key equipment to be lifted above 15 metres as well as the addition of mezzanine areas. Hampson said:

Lismore is a town that’s had 100 floods. This factory has survived 100 of them.

The one that it didn’t was the mega-flood that we had in February which is a one-in-500 year event.

The dairy cooperative announced on Tuesday it would rebuild the factory with $34.7m from a federal and NSW government flood package, along with $11m from an outstanding 2019 grant from the state’s regional growth fund.

The company said it would contribute more than $59m to the rebuild, estimated to total more than $100m. Hampson said:

Norco will be taking on a greater level of risk, something we’re prepared to do in order to safeguard jobs, support other small and medium businesses in the region, and offer a sense of hope to a community of people who have already endured so much.

Norco stood down workers last month, saying the $34.7m grant from state and federal governments was not enough to save the factory. The layoffs prompted three unions to meet Norco management, urging certainty for staff.

The Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union’s Justin Smith said workers should receive voluntary redundancies and a guarantee their jobs would be available when the factory reopened.

A spokeswoman for the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union said yesterday there had been no further updates on the future of the Norco workforce.

Optus details haven’t yet been used by fraudsters, Equifax CEO says

After its massive data breach, Optus last week announced it would be offering affected customers a 12-month subscription to the credit reporting agency Equifax. The CEO of that organisation, Melanie Cochrane, was on ABC Radio this morning talking about the arrangement.

Has Equifax found any stolen information being used by hackers?

Not directly, but we are continuing to focus very heavily on looking at additional fraud and monitoring and seeing unusual activity in people’s credit profiles.

So while we can’t directly correlate that back, or we have not got evidence of that yet, we’re fairly certain … there will be increased fraud. And we all need to work together as an industry, work with the credit providers, work with agencies, etc, to come together to protect our community.

Cochrane could not give any further details who is eligible to the free subscription to Equifax:

Optus is deciding and rolling out that program now. They’re offering the service to those most impacted. I don’t have the details of the breakdown of the 2m documents, etc.

They’re already contacting customers now and proactively offering them this service.

But the company had its own data breach in the US in 2017. How can Australians have confidence in the company?

It’s incredible the scale of things you learn when you have been through a major breach … we now have a security standard that is one of the highest in the industry. In fact we are now advising to the FBI.

Josh Butler

Josh Butler

Albanese shares health kick tips

Prime minister Anthony Albanese has denied getting botox in his face, putting his smoother complexion down to cutting out bread and eating two boiled eggs for breakfast in the morning.

The PM gave a quick morning FM radio interview to Nova, where hosts Fitzy & Wippa asked about a Daily Mail article headlined “Botox, fillers or just clean living? Albo debuts a fresh new look”, which spoke glowingly of him “sporting a smoother complexion and a more youthful skin texture”.

The article quoted a cosmetic expert who freewheeled some musings about whether 59-year-old Albanese could have had laser procedures, injectables or other skincare. But Albanese flatly denied those suggestions:

I think whoever wrote that article has been having botox in the wrong place … they’re in real strife.

His story of being involved in a serious car crash in January 2021 is well-known, an accident he credits with starting a health kick that cut down carbs and alcohol, leading to him losing 20kg. Asked on radio for his top weight loss tip, Albanese said: “Don’t eat the bread.”

He added:

Just this morning I had two boiled eggs for breakfast. It keeps you going until lunchtime.

Albanese dialled in to the show to discuss his appearance at a Nova charity cricket game next week, which will be held at Kirribilli House in Sydney. NSW premier Dominic Perrottet is also to join the game.

Archbishop to talk climate in Australia

Climate change and Indigenous reconciliation are expected to be on the agenda as Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby visits Australia, AAP reports.

The Anglican church leader has arrived for a two-week tour which will formally begin today with a welcome reception and First Nations cultural introduction in Perth.

Welby will also be introduced to members of Perth’s Sudanese community and meet with mining magnate Andrew Forrest. The pair have collaborated on efforts to eradicate modern slavery through Forrest’s Walk Free foundation.

Having declared that Anglicans have a sacred duty to protect the planet, the archbishop will meet people across the country affected by climate change.

He will speak to Torres Strait Islanders struggling with rising sea levels during a visit to Thursday Island and meet victims of catastrophic flooding in northern NSW.

The archbishop, who says he is committed to a “journey of understanding and healing with Indigenous people”, is expected to discuss reconciliation with First Nations groups.

He will meet with Kabikabi and Gurang-Gurang elder and Anglican pastor Ray Minniecon in Sydney before heading to Cairns to ordain two Indigenous women as priests.

The primate of the Anglican church of Australia, Archbishop Geoff Smith, urged believers ahead of the visit to “draw strength from each other as we confront the imperatives of our time”:

In a world plagued by division it is good to be reminded of our common values and to cement the ties of the Anglican Church of Australia with Anglicans around the globe.

The archbishop will be in Australia until 14 October.




Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *