Victorian Deputy Premier Jacinta Allen tipped to replace Daniel Andrews; NDIS Minister responds to footage of children with autism being pinned to the ground by service workers; And in sport, the Wallabies sink to an all-time low in the world rankings at 10th place.
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TRANSCRIPT
- Victorian Deputy Premier Jacinta Allen tipped to replace Daniel Andrews;
- NDIS Minister responds to footage of children with autism being pinned to the ground by service workers;
- And in sport, the Wallabies sink to an all-time low in the world rankings at 10th place.
Victorian Deputy Premier Jacinta Allen is tipped to be the most likely contender to replace Daniel Andrews, following his resignation as premier.
Ms Allan is so far the only candidate to come forward before a meeting of Labor's caucus today at noon.
Political analyst Paul Strangio from Monash University says Daniel Andrews leaves office as a "titan" of Victorian politics.
He says while the Andrews government had its share of controversies, including the cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games, Daniel Andrews will be remembered as a progressive premier whose social reforms and massive infrastructure programs transformed Victoria.
"So I think in those two areas, infrastructure and social reform will be his major legacies. Some would argue there's a darker side to his legacy and that is a democratic deficit in things like the tight centralisation of power in Victoria and the politicisation of the public service."
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Footage of children with autism being pinned to the ground by multiple NDIS service workers has been described as "shocking and confronting" by the federal minister.
NDIS Minister Bill Shorten says the practice is unacceptable and he is seeking an explanation after the video was broadcast on the ABC's 4 Corners program.
The vision shows a child with autism being pinned down by six workers as part of a therapy program in Melbourne that was funded by the NDIS.
Mr Shorten spoke with ABC Radio this morning.
"I found the footage shocking and confronting, it's unacceptable. There is no set of circumstances which permits what we saw, in my opinion ... I certainly don't think there's any place in the sector for people running this program."
While the NDIS commission says the controversial program had stopped in 2021, the ABC reported it was still running several months later.
Mr Shorten says the department is seeking information about whether the program was allowed to continue.
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says states and territories should conduct their own inquiries into their handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Prime Minister has defended the decision for a federal inquiry into the pandemic to not examine state lockdowns or border closures, which has attracted criticism.
The 12-month inquiry, which was announced last week, will look at federal government decisions around vaccinations and treatments, as well as assistance for Australians abroad and financial support.
Mr Albanese tells ABC Radio the actions of state and territory governments would be outside the scope of the federal inquiry.
"This is a commonwealth government inquiry, and it will examine the way that the Commonwealth interacted with states and territories, it's an independent inquiry. What it won't do is look at decisions that are solely the decision of state governments. You would need effectively nine different inquiries, because each state did some things that were very different."
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Police drug-detection dogs incorrectly detect illicit substances on people three-quarters of the time, prompting questions about their use as the music festival season begins.
New South Wales Police search figures show the dogs scored an average success rate of just 25 per cent during the last decade.
Of the more than 94,000 general and strip searches undertaken from 2013 until June 30 this year after a drug dog detection, nearly 71,000 yielded no illicit drugs, according to figures released to Greens MP Cate Faehrmann.
Scott Weber is Chief Executive Officer at Police Federation of Australia.
He says many of the negative results are actually positive results.
"I've done numerous dog operations and know they'll be next to a young person and they'll detect and we won't find any drugs on them but if they've had cannabis, it can stay in their jeans for weeks even if they're washing it three or four times. So those false negatives that are sometimes discussed are not false negatives, they are positives."
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The hits have kept coming for the Wallabies at the Rugby World Cup in France with the team sinking to an all-time low in the world rankings at 10.
Following their record 40-6 loss to Wales in Lyon, which all but ended their hopes of reaching the quarter-finals for the first time in history, the Australians have dropped one place on the rankings.
Eddie Jones's men have traded places with new No.9-ranked Argentina, who are coached by ex-Wallabies boss Michael Cheika.
With Argentina picking up 1.72 points for their scrappy 19-10 win over Samoa and Australia losing two-and-a-half points in their heavy defeat, the teams have swapped rankings with Wallabies in 10th for the first time since the rankings were introduced.
