Key Points
- Optus CEO accused of “putting ducks in order before alerting government of major outage”
- Baby Priya’s bill passes parliament to protect paid parental leave after bereavement
- Arsenal leads English Premier League scoreboard, Manchester City in second spot
TRANSCRIPT
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson Young has condemned the CEO of Optus at a parliamentary inquiry, which is examining the telco's triple zero outage linked to three deaths.
A committee hearing today has revealed that senior management failed to inform the minister or the regulator, ACMA, about the outage until 2:30pm the next day.
That was after fatalities had already occurred.
Ms Hanson-Young has accused Mr Rue of being more concerned with protecting the company than informing the government of the severity of the failure.
"You were too busy putting your ducks in order, telling your board what was going on, contacting your executives, making sure your companies ducks were in order."
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A bill that bans employers from cancelling workers' paid parental leave due to stillbirth or the early death of a child, has passed the Senate.
The bill is named after baby Priya, who died 42 days after her birth.
Her mother's employer of 11 years subsequently cancelled her pre-approved paid parental leave, and she had to negotiate a return-to-work timeline while still grieving the loss.
Employment and Workplace Minister, Amanda Rishworth, says she hopes the bill will not only guarantee grieving parents' right to access their parental leave, but also help create a more compassionate working environment in Australia.
"This is a good day for parents, and I hope it not only gives people right in this circumstance but brings out of the shadow our conversation about stillbirth and earth death (of a child)."
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South Australia's government has opened a ballot for a cashback program that authorities hope will boost businesses impacted by the algal bloom.
The ballot will select a group of South Australian diners for the Summer Plan Dining Cashback program, to be used when they spend money at seafood retailers and coastal hospitality businesses.
The first ballot draw will give out 60,000 cashbacks, with over 265 businesses across the state participating in the program.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas says the initiative will help the hospitality sector to remain resilient.
"50,000 vouchers a month, 300,000 vouchers throughout the cause of daylight saving, will really stimulate a lot of people to go and enjoy our coastline and support businesses that support South Australians in and around summer on our coast."
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Donald Trump has doubled down on a threat to take military action in Nigeria but the West African nation is playing down the possibility.
In the latest development, presidential adviser Daniel Bwala has said his government is familiar with Mr Trump's personal style on social media, and therefore don't take his warning of sending U-S troop to Nigeria literally.
“We don't take (his comment on social media) literally because we know Donald Trump thinks well of Nigeria. Donald Trump was the first American president to lift the embargo on the sale of arms, use the executive order, and then authorise the sale of arms to Nigeria in 2017 or so when he came.”
Nigeria says it would welcome the U-S support for fighting Islamist insurgents as long as its territorial integrity is respected.
The country of more than 200 million people and around 200 ethnic groups is divided between the largely Muslim north and mostly Christian south.
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Researchers at the University of Queensland have developed Australia's first national guideline on managing the aftermath of a concussion.
The University says that around 240,000 people in Australia and New Zealand require medical attention for concussions every year, at an estimated annual cost of $100 million.
Professor Karen Barlow is a paediatric neurologist who has led the development of the national guideline.
She says many GPs are confident in diagnosing concussions but may not feel the same when it comes to managing the care.
"What these guidelines do is they give us a roadmap for what the GP can do. How do they assess tools that they need to assess them, what are the diganoses could be clouding the issues, and what they can do to help."
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To sport and in football,English Premier League leaders, Arsenal, have extended their advantage with a 2-nil win against Burnley.
First-half goals from Viktor Gyokeres [[yaw-keh-ress]] and Declan Rice were enough to make it nine wins in a row for the Gunners and put further distance between them and the chasing pack.
Meanwhile, Manchester City have comfortably beat Bournemouth 3-1 and provided the perfect response to last week's defeat at Aston Villa, a win that moves them into second place in the league table.
But Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, says the team has a lot of work to do yet.
"There are just 10 games, still 28 to play - many, many things are going to happen. It is important to be close and feel that the team is better and better."
