Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 5h

The ALP might as well merge with the Minerals Council of Australia

Miners to get an early look at Labor’s new green laws

Tom Rabe
WA political correspondent
Oct 12, 2025 – 3.26pm

The Albanese government will give mining companies and other stakeholders draft extracts of its environmental protection laws before they go to parliament, as Environment Minister Murray Watt tries to rebuild trust after earlier negotiations on the reforms collapsed in acrimony.

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Axel Bruns @snurb.info · 4h

Precisely. Banning young people from social media just so ill-informed boomers can get over their made-up moral panic simply ends up harming the most vulnerable, for whom social media are a critical lifeline. 👇👇👇

LGBTQIA+ advocates say social media ban will 'cut off' regional queer teens

LGBTIQA+ advocates are concerned the social media ban will have a significant impact on queer youth in regional and remote areas of Australia. They say there are not enough offline, physical supports for these teens to access when the ban comes into effect.

www.abc.net.au

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A Little Thought @alittlethought.bsky.social · 2h

🤯 wow, this is magic!
please share more

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A Little Thought @alittlethought.bsky.social · 5h

TIL: If you find a weather balloon, it may be an emergency.

"Caution If you find a fully or partially inflated weather balloon, call 000 and ask for fire brigade assistance."

Otherwise, you report it online to the BOM
reg.bom.gov.au/other/feedba...

Bureau of Meteorology - Feedback and enquiry form

reg.bom.gov.au

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Dave Earley @earleyedition.bsky.social · 7h

Electricity generated from renewable sources has surpassed the amount of electricity generated from coal in Australia for the first time. www.theguardian.com/...

One Big Chart from @nickevershed.bsky.social

Electricity generation from renewables has overtaken coal for the first time in Australia

Hand drawn graph Showing terawatt hours of electricty generated per month from coal and renewable sources

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 7h

This two-parter below is exactly why it's hard to make clothes in the United States.

Let's look at how much it costs to produce a button-up shirt in the US. 🧵

Someone on Twitter replies to me: "meh. buy american or stfu."

Two hours later, in a separate thread, the write: "$30 for a single button-up is ridiculous unless it is decent quality silk."

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Sophie Labelle @assignedmale.bsky.social · 1d

How the media are gaslighting trans people

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A Little Thought @alittlethought.bsky.social · 1d

Penalties:
Company - $2.2 million pecuniary penalty (131 contraventions of the NDIS Act!)
Director - 10 year ban on certain NDIS activities
2 support workers on duty - 2 year ban on providing NDIS services to ppl with a positive behaviour support plan

A man died due to their negligence

Asher Wolf @asherwolf.bsky.social · 1d

The Federal Court has given a record $2.2 million civil penalty to a (now defunct) NDIS provider, following the death of a 38-year-old Queensland man who wandered onto a motorway www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

NDIS provider fined $2.2m after man killed walking into highway traffic

Proceedings began against the now-defunct provider following the death of a Queensland participant in 2023. The penalty is the highest civil sanction imposed on an NDIS provider to date.

www.abc.net.au

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A Little Thought @alittlethought.bsky.social · 1d

"Aurora staff restricted Mr Gupta's access to the soft drink Pepsi in at least seven occasions and access to television on at least 19 occasions" [...] without being covered by a behaviour support plan"

In his own home! He wasn't allowed to drink what he wanted or even watch tv.

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Antipoverty Centre @antipovertycentre.org · 1d

“Privately, Labor MPs acknowledge there is a need to scrap the entire system.“

As your MP if they’re one of them. And if yes, what are they doing about it?

💜 phonakins 🍉 @phonakins.com · 1d

Yay was kinda quoted in this article by @amyremeikis.bsky.social !
"“Single JobSeeker [payment] just hit $400 a week. Let me know how you’d go if you were getting that little and were randomly not paid.”

www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/politic...

Shame and harm at every JobSeeker turn – and now added AI slop

The system is so convoluted and stacked against people that even if it worked as intended, it would still be not just harmful, but useless.

www.thenewdaily.com.au

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A Little Thought @alittlethought.bsky.social · 1d

Post inspired by this:
"People on welfare don’t have savings, because we don’t let them. You have to draw down on any savings before you are eligible for welfare and then you are paid below the poverty line, so every dollar is already spent before you get it."

www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/politic...

Shame and harm at every JobSeeker turn – and now added AI slop

The system is so convoluted and stacked against people that even if it worked as intended, it would still be not just harmful, but useless.

www.thenewdaily.com.au

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A Little Thought @alittlethought.bsky.social · 1d

Hmm, income tests would still be needed (to determine unemploymentness) and could get complicated.

Let's do away with that too and make it a universal basic income. Very simple to administer!

A Little Thought @alittlethought.bsky.social · 1d

Social security / welfare payments should firstmost be helping people. Not treating them like layabouts and would-be fraudsters.

Mistakes will be far fewer when the system is simpler. But if someone is overpaid, fix it up at tax time.

Outright abusers can still be prosecuted for fraud.

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A Little Thought @alittlethought.bsky.social · 1d

All unemployed people should get payments. No waiting times, savings limit or any of the hundreds of other gotchas. Apply, get paid within days, be able to eat.

Benefits: so many! less stress, find work easier, less bureaucracy, less cost to taxpayer, less healthcare costs, people stay alive!

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A Little Thought @alittlethought.bsky.social · 2d

By February 2025 "92 per cent of Gazan homes had been damaged or destroyed.

The reality of this, for Nour, is heartbreak."

Nour's home lies in ruin. This is how Israel made so much of Gaza unliveable

When 25-year-old Nour imagines herself back home in Gaza City, she remembers the things that made her smile. Now that's all gone.

www.abc.net.au

A Little Thought @alittlethought.bsky.social · 2d

That's not even enough fruit for a piece a day :(
Let alone the recommended 2.

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Tim Lyons @picketer.bsky.social · 2d

Leaving it to the Coroner to do the pill testing seems sub-optimal

Travis Jordan @grugstan.bsky.social · 2d

A young person died just days after the LNP make pill testing illegal.

There’s a good chance that if they could have had these pills tested, they’d be with us all today.

Guardian Australia @australia.theguardian.com · 2d

Highly potent synthetic opioids found in teddy bear-shaped pills linked to a death in Queensland

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A Little Thought @alittlethought.bsky.social · 3d

The NDIA justified the lower support worker hours by saying “you have the capacity to partake in leisure activities of your choosing at home independently such as watching TV, using your phone or reading.”

“My existence doesn’t revolve around sitting in four walls and looking at a TV,” D’Netto says

El Gibbs @bluntshovels.bsky.social · 3d

“It makes you feel like, ‘am I even a human to you guys?’. What’s the point of being here? Will that save your budget?” Kieron D’Netto

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Kieron relies on NDIS after surviving a catastrophic diving accident – but new rules could put his life at risk

Brisbane man is one of hundreds reporting devastating cuts to NDIS plans after rule changes last year

www.theguardian.com

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Antipoverty Centre @antipovertycentre.org · 3d

It is government policy for at least 4% of people to be unemployed at all times.

When there are not enough unemployed people, they punish mortgage holders with interest rate increases until the economy gets bad enough that people start losing their jobs again.

Jeremy Poxon @jeremypoxon.bsky.social · 3d

Labor's employment minister rep admits that payment suspensions "cause harm", but they're "an important part" of the (unlawful) mutual obligations system, because

"At the end of the day we want ppl to get off payments and find a job"

gross 'best form of welfare is a job' stuff from the ALP here

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Nobody Deserves Poverty @nobodyinpoverty.bsky.social · 4d

Hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients lose access to payments every year, and Labor have said they can’t even say if it’s lawful. - @pennyallmanpayne.com

To quote @amyremeikis.bsky.social - SIIIGGGGHHHHHH

live.australiainstitute.org.au/2025/10/aust...

39 minutes ago 11.48 AEDT

SIIIGGGGHHHHHH
Thee has been a lot of reporting on the Deloitte report which was found to have used AI and most of the reporting has focused on that, rather than what the report was actually about.

Which was the Targeted Compliance Framework. You probably know that as mutual obligations. The report was about the issues with the automated system being used to cancel people’s welfare payments. You may remember from episodes such as ROBODEBT and EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO HAS CONTACT WITH THIS SYSTEM TELLING YOU, that this is illegal and this has the potential to cause some pretty major problems for the government. And right now, it is causing major problems for people who are being made to fulfil demands from an illegal and immoral system just to have their below-poverty-line payments reinstated/continue.

That’s a pretty major problem, Australia. And not a new one. The only people benefiting from Australia’s mutual obligation program are the owners of job provider agencies who are paid billions of dollars to set menial and often degrading ‘duties’ for jobseekers to meet so they can maybe continue to pay their rent that week.

So not only is the consulting firm which was paid to do a report into the issues with an automated system which is causing immense harm to jobseekers and returned a report riddled with errors because it used automation to complete that report still getting paid, the government is yet to address the substance of the report.

Greens senator Penny Allman-Payne said

Hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients lose access to payments every year, and Labor have said they can’t even say if it’s lawful.”

These payments can be the difference between food on the table or going hungry. If Labor can’t defend the system they should end the TCF and stop suspending payments immediately.”

Under questioning in senate estimates from Greens senators, Murray Watt has agreed that Deloitte should apologise.

Great.

Let’s see whether the government apologises for keeping mutual obligations and welfare suspensions in place at the later session of estimates which will deal with social services.

Bluesky

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JB_AU @jbau.bsky.social · 3d

$10m of fraud recovered from the Australian “job provider” system in the last 3 years and not one provider removed from the system.

So welfare recipients lose their ability to pay for shelter or food due to other people’s errors, but job providers face no consequences for fraud.

Antipoverty Centre @antipovertycentre.org · 4d

Lmao the employment department has recovered 10.6 MILLION from providers due to fraud tip-offs over 3 years, and not shut down a single provider.

Reminder: They spend 4 BILLION A YEAR on this system, which is about 25% of how much they spend on JobSeeker payments each year.

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Antipoverty Centre @antipovertycentre.org · 4d

The DEWR secretary says it has "no impact at all" when a person has a payment suspension notice if they reverse it in 5 days ... ignoring the extraordinary stress, time wasting and hoop jumping needed to reverse a suspension.

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Anti corruption @againstcorruption.bsky.social · 4d

It really should just be - I lost my job. Ok here are your unemployment benefits and support. Let’s help you

Instead we get this

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Jeremy Poxon @jeremypoxon.bsky.social · 4d

Here is a current DIRECTOR within the Department effectively blowing the whistle to Deloitte that the system doesn't demonstrate "natural justice"

The Robodebt vibes here are off the charts and I'm begging media to cover this

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Jeremy Poxon @jeremypoxon.bsky.social · 4d

What certainly isn't AI is the interviews Deloitte conducted with guilty bureaucrats and executives inside the Department. Here is one of them saying their system disproportionately-incorrectly punishes First Nations people

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