The Government last week approved $2.5 billion in taxpayer funds to bail out the mining giant’s aluminium smelter near Newcastle. When the Government this week received an application from a women’s shelter for $2,500 in assistance, there was a mix-up. theshovel.com.au/2026/08/17/w...

Women’s Shelter Accidentally Receives $2.5B After Government Misreads It As “Smelter” — The Shovel

A women’s shelter in NSW has received an unlikely injection of funds, after the Albanese Government mistook it for an aluminium smelter run by Rio Tinto.

theshovel.com.au

New minimum standards for food delivery workers come into effect today. It will see about 250,000 workers access better pay, and personal accident insurance cover.

Here's what is changing about how food delivery workers are paid

New minimum standards for food delivery workers come into effect today. It will see about 250,000 workers access better pay, and personal accident insurance cover.

abc.net.au

Victorian labour hire companies that house migrant workers in substandard accommodation will risk losing their licence under changes aimed at protecting vulnerable workers.

Licence loss, fines for companies hosting migrants in shoddy housing

Victorian labour hire companies that house migrant workers in substandard accommodation will risk losing their licence under changes aimed at protecting vulnerable workers.

abc.net.au

Folks: here's a meaty long read for you on how Australia's data centre industry lobbied (successfully) to kill regulations that would force them to cover their new demand with renewables And how (this is spicy) the desire within some climate/energy spaces to see data centres as 'cleantech' helped

How Australia’s data centre lobby is winning its fight to to freely pollute

Data centre greenwashing is getting worse, alongside the tech industry’s hunger for fossil fuels. Why help them?

ketanjoshi.co

No idea why the Sydney Morning Herald is calling this a "sleeper" issue. The science has been in for decades and residents & activists banging the drums as loudly as they can! www.smh.com.au/environment/...

‘Little by little cities will have to recede’: Coastal flooding is the sleeper climate issue

Up and down the NSW coast, suburbs and townships are built on low-lying land around coastal lagoons, lakes and estuaries. Sea level rises will make some areas uninhabitable.

smh.com.au

There’s a vocabulary reserved for the poor: “blowouts,” “handouts,” “unsustainable.” There’s no equivalent vocabulary for the $16.3bn a year flowing to mining and gas companies — even as it grows faster than NDIS spending. blakandblack.com/2026/08/15/t...

There's a question about what sex you were assigned at birth, then a question about which gender you identify as now. May confuse a few oldies, but bound to enrage the terfs. Lol.

ABC News Bot (unofficial)@abcnewsbot.bsky.social · last mo.

Census 2026 is here. This is the lowdown on how it works and whether there is a fine for not completing the form.

In related news, ex WA Labor premier Mark McGowan met with ALP national secretary Paul Erickson in Canberra this week. McGowan "consults" for APM, a private equity-owned JSP which makes about $600 million a year from Labor's privatised employment system. It's ALP mates all the way down.

Penny Allman-Payne@pennyallmanpayne.com · last mo.

Labor is firing back up its cooked welfare penalties system despite multiple findings of illegality and dysfunction and no evidence those problems have been fixed. And who's administering these penalties? The profiteering providers generating investor returns from human misery.

The government's Smart Rental Bonds scheme is now live, but currently it is only available in the Parramatta, Penrith and Central Coast local government areas. The system is being introduced a year later than expected and it won't be free to use Renters will have to pay a $25 application fee

New rental bond scheme starts today in NSW, but only in select suburbs

The NSW government's portable rental bond system starts today and will cost renters who want to use the online service $25.

abc.net.au

“This is what happens when governments treat climate change as a construction project instead of a policy failure.” Noa Wynn on how Australia’s sunniest city is quietly running out of water

Perth's reservoirs are near empty: how Australia's sunniest city is quietly running out of water - Overland literary journal

We have built our cities on the quiet delusion that a turning tap is an infinite resource. We plant green lawns around our houses and water public parks in the middle of summer. As long as the water f...

overland.org.au

The environmental group Disrupt Burrup Hub (DBH) said a recent legal win against fossil fuel giant Woodside shows that corporate power can be curtailed. www.greenleft.org.au/2026/1459/ne...

Disrupt Burrup Hub welcomes WA Supreme Court ruling against Woodside

The WA Supreme Court has disallowed Woodside's demand for more information on Disrupt Burrup Hub activists, prompting one to say it should serve as a warning to corporations to think twice before abus...

greenleft.org.au

I want to see a future where younger generations will be able to enjoy their Land without needing to fight profit-hungry governments and resource-thieving companies.

Today is International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. On this day we are meant to be celebrating the achievements of First Peoples around the world. But for so many of us, our lives are spent resisting colonial powers.

An excellent article by Tiffanie Turnbull, BBC, about Australia's extinction crisis and what can and must change. "It's like being a doctor and seeing all these sick people in the community and you know how to fix them, but no one will let you do that." - me www.bbc.com/news/article...

Australia is the planet's extinction hotspot, but one animal offers a glimmer of hope

The country is home to some of the world's most unique species - but it is losing them at an alarming rate.

bbc.com

NSW to send paramedics not police to some mental health emergencies after multiple deaths

NSW to send paramedics not police to some mental health emergencies after multiple deaths

Mental health experts to triage triple zero calls, but not all of the changes will be implemented 24/7 or statewide New South Wales will send specialist nurses rather than police to some mental health emergencies after the state announced long-fought-for reform in the wake of multiple deaths at the hands of police. Rose Jackson and Yasmin Catley, the mental health and police ministers, announced on Thursday a statewide change to how triple 0 calls are triaged, with a new team of mental health experts assessing mental health calls 24/7 in a bid to provide better support. Continue reading...

theguardian.com

Crikey@crikey.com.au · last mo.

Opinion | "You should care about your freedom to express your view on whatever political topics are important to you," @marquelawyers.com.au writes. www.crikey.com.au/2026/07/30/i...

Excellent work from the nurses union!

Dr Blair Williams@blairwilliams26.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Want to dissuade people from voting PHON? Then link her to Trump: #AusPol

Labor saddles the country with highly enriched nuclear waste makes Australia a nuclear target, cuddles up to Trump, puts militarism before hospitals, abandons our sovereignty, builds public housing for US marines and welcomes US nuclear armed subs and bombers. It is sickening!

Family violence advocates call for greater awareness of adolescent violence in the home and more specialist support after a 16-year-old Perth boy was charged with murdering his mother and attempting to kill his sister.

Advocates warn of escalating adolescent home violence after Perth alleged murder

Family violence advocates call for greater awareness of adolescent violence in the home and more specialist support after a 16-year-old Perth boy was charged with murdering his mother and attempting to kill his sister.

abc.net.au

“The community” is a neutral concept at its best, at its worst it’s leveraged as a mechanism of social control similar to the way the concept of “the church” is in other social circles.

As temperatures continue to rise, improving the energy performance of our homes is becoming increasingly urgent. We support calls for stronger minimum energy efficiency standards for social housing in all states and territories, alongside increased federal govt investment to retrofit existing homes.

People living in social housing shouldn't have to endure dangerously hot homes. This story and study reinforces what Better Renting and our partners have been saying for years - the quality of our homes has a direct impact on our health, wellbeing and energy bills.

WoodCIDE's nuisance SLAPP suit against activists FAILS Supreme Court Justice Matthew Howard: "I find that [Woodside's] evidence and submissions do not rise above mere conjecture or speculation" Best thing Woodside can do for society is wind up their health-, climate- & environment-harming business

ABC News Australia@news.abc.net.au · 2mo ago

Woodside Energy fails in court bid to force activists to hand over stink-bomb plans

Sydney social housing experiencing extreme heat due to lack of standards, study says

Mark's home gets so hot he has to replace his TV

A new study led by Western Sydney University researchers has found a lack of thermal safety standards in social housing is leading to tenants being exposed to unsafe extreme heat events. 

abc.net.au

Jan Harris has spoken up in The Guardian about watching the wildfires overseas from her home in rural NSW. After losing her home to bushfire, Jan knows better than anyone what the people impacted will now be facing. Support survivors everywhere - Add your name: bushfiresurvivors.org/declaration

Judgment in the appeal of Pauline Hanson v Mehreen Faruqi will be handed down by the Full Court of the Federal Court in Sydney on Monday 27 July, 2.05pm, livestreamed on the court's YouTube channel. This is Hanson's appeal against the finding that she breached s18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Healthy diet too expensive for one in three people globally, UN report finds www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Healthy diet too expensive for one in three people globally, UN report finds

Global hunger declined for the third year in a row in 2025 but experts call for action to bring down costs of fruit, vegetables and dairy as report shows 2.69bn people can’t afford to eat well

theguardian.com

Did you see this? Home Affairs has denied a visa to the ex-ASIO source who tried to warn about the Bondi gunmen. This is a deeply political decision, and now the Royal Commission may never hear his evidence. It looks like a stitch up by those who don't want this on the record.

Absolutely huge turnout for striking school staff

Agreed. I don’t like the United States, I hate the stupid attitudes that seem to be normative among its internet users, but I know too many kind and good US Americans to believe that being from there means you ontologically have all of this coming.

Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Bisexual of the Blade (Alt-text or DIE)@shengokai.blacksky.app · 2mo ago

Tbh, I feel the same way about “Americans deserve this” as I do about “red states deserve this.” Both are wrong headed sentiments that really should be prompting self reflection.