Evacuation due to failing dam in Echunga, South Australia
Natasha May
Dipping out of politics for a moment for an emergency warning in South Australia:
A dam is failing in the Adelaide Hills town of Echunga with locals evacuating under an emergency warning.
The South Australian SES (State Emergency Service) issued a Dam Failure Emergency Warning this morning, with residents told to relocate outside the warning area.
David O’Shannessy, a spokesman for the SA SES told Guardian Australia that the Echunga dam’s wall has been compromised because a combination of conditions from recent wet weather with the dam full and the ground sodden.
O’Shannessy said that there are 60 properties in the warning area, which are a combination of some homes and businesses.
Key events
The Royal Australian College of GPs is sounding a very loud alarm about the crisis impacting GPs – if you think it’s hard to get in to see a doctor now, if things don’t change, it’s about to get even harder. And in some areas, particularly regional Australia, impossible.
The college’s president Adj. Professor Karen Price says “unless things change, more and more practices will face the impossible decision of hiking fees for patients or closing up shop.”
“Just 13.8% of future doctors are choosing general practice as their career and sourcing and retaining GPs has now become the highest priority challenge reported by practice owners in 2022,” she said.
“The disrespect and disinvestment in general practice has had predictable and shameful effects.
“Government can help secure the future of the GP workforce by immediately boosting investment in general practice care so that it is put on a more sustainable, long-term financial footing. This will help ease the pressure on vulnerable patients, their GPs, and general practice teams. Proper resourcing will help attract more future doctors to the profession and make sure all patients, including those in remote and rural areas, get the care they need when they need it.”
What would help? Lifting some of the administrative burden and doing something about the Medicare rate freeze.
General practice is at breaking point, and something needs to be done immediately to avoid Australia running out of GPs. The @RACGP has called a General Practice Crisis Summit in Canberra on 5 October to tackle the most pressing issues affecting patient care. #RACGPSummit2022
— Royal Australian College of GPs (RACGP) President (@RACGPPresident) September 26, 2022
Evacuation due to failing dam in Echunga, South Australia
Natasha May
Dipping out of politics for a moment for an emergency warning in South Australia:
A dam is failing in the Adelaide Hills town of Echunga with locals evacuating under an emergency warning.
The South Australian SES (State Emergency Service) issued a Dam Failure Emergency Warning this morning, with residents told to relocate outside the warning area.
David O’Shannessy, a spokesman for the SA SES told Guardian Australia that the Echunga dam’s wall has been compromised because a combination of conditions from recent wet weather with the dam full and the ground sodden.
O’Shannessy said that there are 60 properties in the warning area, which are a combination of some homes and businesses.
Optus data breach replacement documents
Back on the Optus data breach, most of the states are coming to the party and allowing people who have been identified as part of the data breach to get a new licence (and number) without having to wait until they are a victim of fraud.
In NSW you can get a new digital licence pretty much immediately, and a card will follow.
Victoria and Queensland are also allowing the change, as is South Australia.
Western Australia is a little more complicated – you get a licence number for life there, so there isn’t an easy solution as yet. And the ACT hasn’t shifted as yet – you have to prove identity fraud before you can get a new card.
So what about passports? Well that’s a work in progress. It looks like something will be moving there very soon, but the sticking point is the cost, with a push for Optus to pay.
Passage is not assured
The main sticking point in the integrity commission legislation (which we haven’t seen as yet) is the threshold for public hearings.
The Coalition seem happy where that threshold has landed, which gives the government an option to pass it in the Senate without the Greens and the cross bench.
But the Coalition hasn’t committed to passing it. Which means at the moment it is wide open. Plus, there is still the committee review to come, which could change things again.
So at the moment, everyone is still a player.
Greens have concerns about anti-corruption public hearings
Over on ABC radio RN, Greens senator David Shoebridge says the Greens have been in good faith negotiations with the government, but they have concerns with the threshold for public hearings.
We had the previous Morison government wanting it all to be in secret, the initial discussions and communication we’d had with the Labour government was that that they weren’t going to go anywhere near that, they were going to adopt a much more discretionary test. But in the last 24 hours, we’ve seen … the Labor government go back towards something much closer to Morrison’s model and that is that is not good for fighting corruption.
One of the best ways of fighting corruption is openness … sunlight is a great disinfectant when it comes to public corruption.
Sally McManus at press club
Sally McManus will be at the press club today. The union leader has been pushing very hard for wage growth, which has been invigorated by the jobs summit, so expect her to go hard on that.
Good morning
We’ve made it to the last day of the make-up sitting – after this, the MPs won’t be back in Canberra for a month when they’ll return for the budget.
So it’ll be a big day with lots to get through. After all, budget week makes it hard to get clean air for anything other than the budget, so if you want a song and dance over what you’re doing, you’ve got to get in before or after.
The prime minister is back from Japan, just in time for the government to introduce the national anti-corruption commission legislation. It’ll be the first time a major party has introduced legislation for a federal Icac (the crossbench, especially Helen Haines tried). The Morrison government “tabled” its exposure draft but never actually introduced legislation into the parliament.
After it’s introduced, the bill will go straight to a committee for review, where the high threshold for public hearings is expected to get a workout – so far, from what’s been released, it’s the most controversial part. But we’ll find out more when it’s officially introduced – and Paul Karp will be all over that like me on cake.
Cost of living will also dominate the parliamentary group chat (question time) with the fuel excise pause expiring at 11.59pm. Will there be queues for petrol today? Probably not. Fuel is already expensive. But from tonight it will increase by what the ACCC thinks should be, on average, by 25 cents a litre. Still, it will come as a shock for a lot of people to see petrol jump up overnight and add fuel (if you like) to the fire for the government to do something on the cost of living. We know that the government is planning a “bread and butter” budget (the opposition is repeating the line it’ll be all Australians can afford boom tish – because struggling to make ends meet is apparently pun worthy) so there won’t be a lot of planned relief. But fuel is something everyone can see going up. The excise pause was always due to expire tonight – that’s what the previous government set – and Jim Chalmers has been making the argument that to extend it will cost $6bn. It’s still going to hurt though.
We’ll cover all the day’s events – and reactions – so thank you for joining us . You have Sarah Martin, Paul Karp and Josh Butler on deck, and Mike Bowers is off his project and back where he belongs – walking the hallways and getting into mischief for you. You’ve got Amy Remeikis on the blog for most of the day.
Ready? It’ll be a four-coffee day, minimum, over here, so let’s get into it.
