Key Points
- Robodebt victims welcome settlement of second class action claim against government
- Pressure on the Federal Government to further expand seniors home care scheme
- Australia’s athletic championships line-up is revealed
TRANSCRIPT
The federal government has agreed to pay victims of the Robodebt scheme $475 m in additional compensation to settle a second-class action.
In a statement Attorney General Michelle Rowland noted the royal commission's description of the Coalition-run scheme as crude, cruel, traumatising, and illegal.
She says that "settling the claim is the just and fair thing to do".
Speaking alongside lawyers from Gordon Legal, which ran the class action, Robodebt victim Felicity Sutton said she is happy with the outcome.
"Even though what happened to us was unfair, unjust, cruel, torturous and inhumane, we didn't retaliate in kind. We used the legal system for what it's there for, and justice prevailed, and for the first time, I think in my whole life, I can say that there was a bit of fairness, not just justice in our system. Often, you can't leave those two terms together, when it comes to the law, but today felt fair."
Hundreds of thousands of Australians were affected by the illegal and automated scheme, which saw welfare recipients hounded to repay debts they didn't owe.
Today's agreement ends an appeal to an earlier settlement, of more than $112 million, sparked by fresh evidence uncovered in the royal commission.
The $475 million payout could grow to $548 million once legal fees and administration of the scheme are factored in.
---
War veteran Ben Roberts-Smith's last bid to challenge the defamation ruling against him has been rejected by the High Court.
In 2023, then-Federal Court justice Anthony Besanko ruled in favour of Nine newspapers - finding that on the civil standard of proof [[the balance of probabilities]], Roberts-Smith was complicit in the murder of four unarmed prisoners, while deployed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.
Earlier this year in May, a panel of three Federal Court judges upheld that court ruling.
In his application to the High Court, lawyers for Ben Roberts-Smith argued that the evidence laws should have been more strictly applied.
The High Court has refused to grant special leave to hear the appeal - and it has ordered the former soldier to pay the newspapers' legal costs.
---
The Greens say they will keep pushing the government to release more home care packages for older people, after the government brought forward its timeline this week.
Health Minister Mark Butler had said additional packages would be held until November but released 20,000 this week in the face of a concerted cross-party campaign.
Last week, a Senate inquiry heard more than 121,000 people are waiting to be assessed for in-home support, with more than 87,000 recipients approved and on the official waiting list.
The Coalition and independent MP David Pocock have also pushed for more home care packages to be released.
Greens spokesperson for older people, Penny Allman-Payne, has welcomed the change, but says it's not enough.
"Some people are waiting years to get the care that they need, and we know that five thousand people in the last year have died waiting for care. The government, over the next 12 months is going to be releasing 83,000 home care packages. It's a start, and we welcome the fact that 20,000 more packages are going to be rolling out immediately, but I think everybody knows now that this is not even close to addressing the scale of the problem."
---
Leaders in the Australian-Indian community are calling on Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to apologise for falsely claiming that Labor is deliberately encouraging Indian migration to boost their election results.
The firebrand senator made the comments on Wednesday, and has since walked them back, but refuses to apologise for the incendiary claims.
The President of the Council of Indian Australians, Shail Wadhwa, says his community deserves an apology.
"Having this statement by Senator price is really not helping. Actually, it's making the community more divided. So she should be, I think, showing some facts and figures before making such comments which divide the community further. And I guess, the wider Australian-Indian Community expect she should be apologising to the community."
Senator Price's comments come after anti-immigration rallies swept the country on Sunday, with neo-Nazis featuring prominently at several demonstrations.
---
Earlier, Senator Price backed the rallies, which have been broadly condemned across the political spectrum.
"The protests that took place on the weekend, one, I'd say first and foremost, they weren't necessarily protests. This was a pro-Australia march, because for so long, Australians who are proud to call themselves Australian have been under attack, particularly by the left, and have been told that we are a racist country, and this has been brewing for some time, this sentiment has been brewing and what happened was the quiet Australians came out and decided to be loud."
---
Six medalists from the Paris Olympics and the very best of a promising next generation, will headline a record Australian team for the upcoming world athletics championships in Tokyo.
Reigning Olympic pole vault gold medalist, Nina Kennedy, and high jump gold medal favourite, Nicola Olyslagers, are among the biggest names in a star-studded squad of 88 athletes.
Building on a strong performance at last year's world juniors, 17-year-old sprint sensation Gout Gout will step up for his debut senior global championships in the 200 metres.
The Australian team for the event in September is even larger than the 86-strong track and field outfit which wore the green and gold on home soil at the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
