What’s making news today
Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of national news for this Friday, October 16. Here’s what is making headlines today.
In case you missed it, yesterday was a packed day in Canberra.
- Communications Minister Anika Wells introduced the government’s digital duty of care bill to parliament. She revealed the reforms would capture US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform and unveiled a list of online harms proscribed under the legislation.
- Health Minister Mark Butler brought the Albanese government’s private health insurance rebate bill back to the Senate after the Coalition and Greens joined forces on Wednesday to block the legislation. Labor could lose up to $1.6 billion in budget spending to secure a deal with the Greens after the party doubled down on their rejection of the bill.
- Greens leader David Shoebridge addressed the media to respond to allegations published in this masthead against senator Jordon Steele-John. Shoebridge said Steele-John would take leave from the party, while the WA Greens conduct an independent inquiry. Steele-John has rejected all the allegations.
- Overseas, the Vatican says Pope Leo has resumed work from the hospital as doctors say his lung recovered well from surgery. The pontiff’s lung cancer diagnosis was revealed earlier this week.
- And the Trump administration has abandoned its plan to livestream the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan following extensive backlash.
Wells says transgender ‘debate’ not to be policed in bill
Communications Minister Anika Wells says gender “debates”, including around transgender rights, will not be policed under Labor’s digital reforms, but could not provide more clarity on how the government would determine what constituted a hostile attitude towards women.
She said debate around transgender issues would not be captured by the legislation, but content that displays a hostile attitude towards women would.
“A hostile attitude example that I used at the National Press Club is material that says to young boys that consent doesn’t matter,” the minister told ABC’s 7.30 last night.
But she could not provide further clarity on the scope of the definition, and said the eSafety Commissioner would produce and publish regulatory guidance that would determine whether the intent of online content was hostile.
“The reason that that provision is in the bill is because we had more than 20 women’s groups and teachers, teachers’ coalitions from across the country ask us to incorporate that because they’ve noticed that young boys coming through the education system have these hostile attitudes,” Wells said.
“The regulatory guidance that was published around what reasonable steps were for the social media minimum age, that’s similarly going to be instructive for how big tech has to assess the risks on its platform against that detail.”
Labor could lose half its savings in private health compromise with Greens
Labor could be forced to forfeit up to $1.6 billion in budget spending that had been earmarked for aged care to land a compromise deal on its contentious private health insurance changes.
The Greens doubled down on their rejection of Health Minister Mark Butler’s bill yesterday, saying they would not pass laws scrapping the Howard-era private health insurance bonuses for over-65s unless pensioners were ringfenced from the changes.
Butler announced before this year’s budget that he wanted to get rid of more generous private health insurance rebates for 3 million older Australians. That $3 billion saving would be redirected to aged care, including 5000 extra beds, as the system deals with growing demand.
However, Butler was dealt a blow on Wednesday when the Coalition, Greens and crossbench teamed up to knock the government’s bill out of the Senate because it would saddle 1.5 million pensioners who have private health insurance with extra costs and force others onto the public health system.
What’s making news today
Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of national news for this Friday, October 16. Here’s what is making headlines today.
In case you missed it, yesterday was a packed day in Canberra.
- Communications Minister Anika Wells introduced the government’s digital duty of care bill to parliament. She revealed the reforms would capture US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform and unveiled a list of online harms proscribed under the legislation.
- Health Minister Mark Butler brought the Albanese government’s private health insurance rebate bill back to the Senate after the Coalition and Greens joined forces on Wednesday to block the legislation. Labor could lose up to $1.6 billion in budget spending to secure a deal with the Greens after the party doubled down on their rejection of the bill.
- Greens leader David Shoebridge addressed the media to respond to allegations published in this masthead against senator Jordon Steele-John. Shoebridge said Steele-John would take leave from the party, while the WA Greens conduct an independent inquiry. Steele-John has rejected all the allegations.
- Overseas, the Vatican says Pope Leo has resumed work from the hospital as doctors say his lung recovered well from surgery. The pontiff’s lung cancer diagnosis was revealed earlier this week.
- And the Trump administration has abandoned its plan to livestream the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan following extensive backlash.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
