AU Engine

Source: Mental Health Australia

One of the icons of Sydney Harbour, the Freshwater-class ferry Narrabeen is coming back into service today following a life-enhancing refurbishment.

The Narrabeen re-enters service on the F1 Circular Quay – Manly route ahead of what is expected to be a record summer on the Harbour for ferry patronage.

A restoration and refurbishment has given the classic Manly ferry a new lease of life that will see it operate for another five years before its next major docking.

The Narrabeen can carry up to 900 passengers per trip and its return will allow the Freshwater to enter dry dock at Garden Island for repairs to continue the renewal of the Freshwater-class vessels.

Read the full media release here (PDF, 86.23 KB).

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

NT Police are calling for information in relation to a large disturbance that occurred in Parap yesterday afternoon.

Around 1:45pm, the Joint Emergency Services Communication Centre (JESCC) received a report that two security guards had been assaulted by a group of up to 20 people in Summerville Park, Parap. It is alleged some members of the group were armed with bottles and sticks.

Police attended and two adult males were arrested but subsequently released pending further investigation.

Both security guards were injured, with one suffering suspected fractures. They were conveyed to Royal Darwin Hospital by St John Ambulance for treatment.

Anyone with information, or who witnessed the incident, is urged to contact police on 131 444. Please quote reference P25279927. Anonymous reports can be made through Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or via https://crimestoppersnt.com.au/.

Source: Murray Darling Basin Authority

ANDREW CLENNELL: Well, joining me live from Sydney is Education Minister Jason Clare. Jason Clare might start with you on this Barnaby Joyce defection.

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Good morning, mate.

CLENNELL: What would you think of him running for One Nation or even leading One Nation?

CLARE: Oh, let’s wait and see. You know, if Barnaby’s retiring, can I wish him well and his family well. Politics is a tough old business and we’ve seen that. Barnaby and I have known each other for a very, very long time. We consider each other mates. Thank God there were no iPhones in the early 2000s, otherwise there’d be some pretty shocking footage of the two of us singing karaoke together. But if he’s retiring, let me wish him well. Obviously, not just the National Party, but the Liberal Party too, are in a world of pain here at the moment. They need to work out whether they want to be Howard or Hanson. They’ll eventually work this out. They always do. The job of the Labor Party, the job of the Government is to ignore all of this and just focus on our job of governing Australia and making decisions in the national interest. 

CLENNELL: Do you think it’s a tenable situation for Barnaby Joyce to stay in the National’s party room while he’s flirting with going to One Nation?

CLARE: Mate, that’s not a question for me. That’s a question for David and for Barnaby. They’ll make those decisions. My job, our job, is to focus on Australians and do our job. Make the decisions like the ones that I’ve announced just in the last 24 hours or so in education that are focused on Australian parents and Australian children.

CLENNELL: I’ll get to them Jason Clare, but I need to ask you about this White House visit of the Prime Minister first. It’s been a while coming. How are you expecting it to go?

CLARE: I think it’ll go very well. I think it’ll be a very positive meeting. You know, the fact is, Australia and America have been great mates for a very long time. Through thick and thin, we’ve worked together and fought together, what, more than 100 years? And the relationship between our two countries is built on shared values, common interests. Different presidents and Prime Ministers of different political parties have worked together over a long, long period of time. I don’t think this will be any different. You’ll have a bird’s eye view of it, mate. I think you’re on the plane with the PM today. You’ll be in the room where it all happens. But I’m very confident that this will be a good meeting.

CLENNELL: What can you tell us about the critical minerals deal Australia is looking to strike with the US.

CLARE: Not much, I don’t know much about it. Even if I did, I probably couldn’t tell you. But as you know, they’re called critical minerals for a reason. They’re the sorts of things, along with rare earths that you need for everything from a mobile phone to an electric car or for military weapons, for defence equipment. These are important. It’s why the world wants them and we’ve got them. We want to work with likeminded countries around the world to help to extract them and refine them and process them. I think Don was on the show last week and he was talking about the work that we’re doing with the EU on that and the work he’s doing with the US. We want to work closely with the US on this.

CLENNELL: You do have an interest as Education Minister with the trading relationship with China, however. Do you think any such agreement could endanger that relationship?

CLARE: I don’t think so. You know, we’re in favour of free and fair trade. China is our biggest trading partner. The US is our greatest and most important ally. A big part of our responsibility as a mature government is to work with both nations in Australia’s interest.

CLENNELL: What should Australians think about the Government handing over $1 billion here and there for the AUKUS agreement?

CLARE: Well, this is again in Australia’s interest, national security, the security of the nation. There’s nothing more important than that. But AUKUS is a deal which is not just in Australia’s interest, it’s in America’s interest as well. It’s in the interest of the Poms. That’s why in the review that the UK government did, they reached the conclusion that it was in their interests and I’m pretty confident that the US will find the same. Three nations working together on national security, I think is in the interest of all of us.

CLENNELL: Donald Trump does have a crack at Anthony Albanese here. Is it a problem for the PM or perhaps not? Given the attitude to Mr Trump from some parts of the Australian electorate.

CLARE: I doubt that’s a problem. I think most Australians understand the importance of the relationship between America and Australia, our most important ally. America and Australia aren’t the same. We’re not the same countries. We’ve got different views on different things. Medicare, gun laws are good examples of that. But we’ve got more in common than we have that separates us or divides us. We’re two countries based on the same essential values, the same focus on liberal democracy, the same interests in the world. And it’s those sorts of values and those sorts of interests that will drive the conversation and the relationship between President Trump and Prime Minister Albanese.

CLENNELL: I see your former boss from a way back, Bob Carr, suggested Anthony Albanese should suck up to Donald Trump. Do you think that’s good advice?

CLARE: It’s not about that. It’s about having a mature, professional relationship, working on areas where you can agree. And there is so much where Australia and America can work together.

CLENNELL: I wanted to ask now about the superannuation tax back down by Jim Chalmers during the week being made to push it out when the PM was on leave. It’s a bit humiliating for the Treasurer, isn’t it?

CLARE: No, this is really about making the superannuation system, universal superannuation, something the Labor Party is incredibly proud to have created, making that system better and fairer than it is today. This decision means that I think about 1.3 million Aussies will retire with more super because of this decision than they otherwise would. And a couple of thousand Australians that are sitting on a mountain of money, more than $10 million in their super, will have their concessions reduced a bit. So, more Aussies retiring with more and it’s better for the budget. I think it’s a good policy outcome.

CLENNELL: Now, you’ve announced a number of measures out of the Education Ministers meeting, as you alluded to. One of them is to address bullying and a suggestion teachers have to act on it within 48 hours. How is that going to be enforced? How do you intend to make a real difference to bullying there?

CLARE: Well, the key here is what different state governments around the country do to help us to implement this. They run the schools, they employ the teachers. But what parents are telling us is the faster you act, the better. If you can act in the first one or two days after a complaint’s made, then you can nip this in the bud and you can really make a difference. You know, just to, I guess, give people watching a bit of perspective. Somebody said to me the other day, look, shouldn’t kids just harden up a little bit? Take a spoonful of cement. I’ve got to tell you, mate, bullying today isn’t what it was when we were at school in the 80s or the 70s, or the 90s. It’s different today. And that’s partly because of the Internet. It’s not just people yelling at each other in the playground or stealing lunch money. It’s what people are writing and saying and posting online, day or night. Everybody can see it. And artificial intelligence makes this even worse. It supercharges all of this. We’ve seen that with people cutting and pasting faces, putting it on naked bodies and then sending that round to kids at school. And on Friday, I learned – I didn’t know this before, but it terrifies me. We heard that artificial intelligence or AI chatbots are now bullying kids as well, telling them they’re losers, telling them to kill themselves. There’s been examples overseas of kids killing themselves because of this. So, this is no longer just kids bullying kids, this is AI bullying kids. And we’re seeing in the most heartbreaking, awful, terrifying circumstances, kids taking their own lives. So, if we can act earlier, that will help. If we can give better tools for teachers, that’ll help as well. But I’m not naive to think that you can end this entirely. There’s always been bullies, there always will be, there’ll always be bullying in schools, and it’s happening outside of schools as well. But schools are places where we can take some action and that’s what this is about.

CLENNELL: What forums are these occurring in, the so-called AI bullying? Is it the social media apps that you’re looking to ban under 16s on, or is it through messaging services as well, which you’re not banning?

CLARE: Yeah, it’s – so, it’s both. The two big ones at the moment are TikTok and Snapchat. The eSafety Commissioner briefed us on this on Friday when Education Ministers met. She said they’re the two big ones where a lot of online bullying is happening at the moment. And so the action that we’re taking that starts on 10th December will help a lot of young people there. But it’s not just there, it’s on messaging services as well. It’s on those AI chatbots that I described as well. So, the action that we’re taking to delay people who are under the age of 16 accessing social media until they’re a bit older is going to help here. But it’s not the only thing that we need to do. And that’s why, based on the evidence, we’re saying that if schools act earlier, then there’s more that we can do to help young people that are impacted by this. It affects not just their mental health, but it can also affect how they’re going at school. If you’re being bullied at school, you’re more likely to fall behind at school and you’re also more likely not to turn up to school at all.

CLENNELL: What impacts do you think the social media ban will have for kids who are now between 12 and 16 and use the apps? Does the government have any strategies for how to wean teenagers off this addiction and replace it with activities? Or is it all down to parents to deal with?

CLARE: No, it’s not down to parents at all. I’m one of those parents. My big guy’s a little bit younger than that. But I get how difficult this is for parents right now. The acid needs to be put on the companies, not parents. Parents are grappling with this right now with young people on social media. The tech companies know who is using, who are using their platforms. They are able to assure themselves of their age and they can take action to deactivate those accounts. Look, again, mate, I’m not naive. There’s always going to be young people who get around this. There’s young people who drink grog today who are under the age of 18, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have laws that say that you can’t sell alcohol to people under the age of 18. And the same will be the case here. There’ll be young people that’ll attempt to get around it. 

CLENNELL: Sure.

CLARE: But instead of putting the pressure on – 

CLENNELL: I guess my question, Jason Clare is, does the Government have any advice once it implements the ban, to parents of this aged teenager, on how to communicate it and cop any backlash in relation to it?

CLARE: Yeah, yeah, it’s a good question. If you’re a mum and a dad, a mum or a dad, you’re going to be wanting that sort of information. And Anika Wells and the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, are producing and preparing materials along with the advertising campaign which I think kicks off this weekend to support mums and dads, but not just parents, schools as well. And they provided us with some of the material they’re going to be providing to principals and teachers over the next few weeks. Because this is a big change. It’s huge. And it’s really going to impact, in particular, the young people you spoke about who are under 16 and are using social media at the moment will see the impact not just at home, but will see it in our schools as well. But I think if you ask most people, they’ll say, look, this is in the public interest, this is going to help our young people. And I also think if you ask people who are 16 and 17, maybe, rather than people who are 14 and 15 today, they’ll say this is a good thing, too. That the algorithms that social media use now are more aggressive and more sophisticated today than they were even a couple of years ago. And it can just suck kids into a hole that they can’t get out of, doom scrolling for hours, just keep feeding them the same information and it’s not helping our kids, that’s for sure. That’s why I suspect Australia won’t be the only country that does this.

CLENNELL: A recent report had more than half of the students, more than 50 per cent of the students of Sydney University, one of the most prestigious sandstone universities in Australia, being international students. How is this acceptable? What are you going to do about it?

CLARE: Well, international education is important for Australia. It helps, it provides investment in Australia, money to Australian businesses. It’s also valuable because if international students come to Australia and fall in love with Australia, they’ll take that love for Australia back home with them. And in the world we live in, that’s important. But there’s nothing more important for Australian universities than educating Australians. That’s why we’ve made it very clear that we’ve got to set international student numbers at sustainable levels. We reduced them last year. We want to make sure that growth is done in a managed way, and you can see that through the allocations that we made this week, which are focused at regional universities. We don’t want it just to be the big universities that benefit from international students, but smaller regional universities that benefit as well.

CLENNELL: Are you going to bring down that number? Is it your intention for Sydney University to have more than 50 per cent of students being local students?

CLARE: Well, it should be more than 50 per cent of students at universities being local students. It’s one of the reasons why we didn’t allocate more international student numbers to Sydney University. But it’s also because we’ve said to universities, if you want additional international students allocated to your universities, then we need to see evidence of two things. One, that you’re building more housing because we need more housing. But two, that you’re diversifying so that international students aren’t just coming from one country, but they’re coming from a number of different countries around the world. In particular Southeast Asia, which is where Australia is doing a lot of work to build strong relationships. You mentioned the trip that the Prime Minister is making to the United States, but shortly thereafter he’ll be at the ASEAN meeting in Malaysia and the APEC meeting. The work that Australia does with our Asian neighbours is critical here, and the work that we do in international education to make sure that students are coming from a number of different countries is very important as well.

CLENNELL: Just finally and briefly, you’ve now got Julian Leeser as your Opposition opponent. He looks like he’s going to concentrate on the issue of anti-Semitism on campuses. Are you planning more measures to address that?

CLARE: Well, can I just say, I’ve got a lot of respect for Julian Leeser. We’ve worked together in different areas on different things and he’s a fine parliamentarian. Likewise, Jonathan Duniam, who was in the portfolio briefly before Julian, and I think Jono’s on the program next, is a great human being, a very smart person who lent his intellect to this portfolio area. So, I’m looking forward to working with Julian. The fact is anti-Semitism is a poison. And we’ve seen plenty of evidence of that – in the lifetime of our grandparents we’ve seen what it can do – but only in the last few weeks in the UK. I’ve made it very, very clear to Vice-Chancellors that their top priority must be to implement their codes of conduct to make sure that students are safe. But not only that, I’ve made the decision and had the Parliament agree to establish a National Student Ombudsman. So, there is a proper independent complaint system when the system lets them down. And in addition to that, I formed the view that the tertiary education regulator, TEQSA, doesn’t have the powers that it needs to be able to act where universities aren’t acting in the public good. And that’s why there’s work going on right now on the tools that TEQSA needs to be able to act here and elsewhere, where university governance isn’t up to scratch. At the moment they basically have a sledgehammer in one hand, they can shut a university down, or a feather where they can tell them that they’re not doing the right thing. They need better tools here to be able to act. And I’m hoping that I’ll be able to bring forward legislation to improve and strengthen the powers of the tertiary education regulator next year.

CLENNELL: Jason Clare, thanks so much for your time. 

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

The Northern Territory Police Force has arrested four adult offenders in relation to a disturbance that occurred in Nightcliff yesterday morning.

Around 8:25am, the Joint Emergency Services Communication Centre (JESCC) received a report that a security guard was being assaulted by four offenders in a supermarket carpark on Dick Ward Drive.

Two 34-year-old females, a 56-year-old male and a 58-year-old male had allegedly become involved in an altercation with a male cleaner inside the premises.

When a male security guard attempted to move the group away from the area, the female offenders allegedly attempted to punch him, before one of the females and the 56-year-old male produced large sticks from a bag and assaulted him with them. The two other offenders allegedly physically assaulted the security guard and threw objects at him.

With the assistance of the cleaner, he was able to move the offenders away from the premises, during which the cleaner was allegedly pushed and shoved.

Casuarina police attended and all four offenders were arrested.

They were charged with offences including Assault a Worker, Armed with an Offensive Weapon, and Engage in Violent Conduct. They were all bailed to appear in the Darwin Local Court on 4 November.

Neither victim suffered injuries during the incident.

Anyone with information is urged to contact police on 131 444. Please quote reference P25279724. Anonymous reports can be made through Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or via https://crimestoppersnt.com.au/.

Source: Mental Health Australia

A surge in bicycle traffic across Sydney Harbour is expected in coming months, with the Harbour Bridge cycleway ramp build entering the home stretch to completion.

The 170-metre ramp to the Bridge cycleway will significantly improve bike access, ending the challenge faced by cyclists who have for five decades pushed their bikes up 55-steps to make it to the cycle path which links Milsons Point to Millers Point.

A ramp will open up the Harbour crossing to many more people, including older cyclists and those with heavier e-bikes who currently struggle to get them up the stairs.

Read the full media release here. (PDF, 104.46 KB)

Source: Mental Health Australia

The Transport Management Centre (TMC) has reopened after a $10 million transformation to boost its capability to manage traffic flow and incident response.

The most significant upgrade to the TMC since it opened in 1999 ahead of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, the ten-month project means the Eveleigh facility is now a future-proofed hub designed to keep NSW moving.

When it opened, the TMC managed around 70 incidents a day. Now, 26 years later, it handles upwards of 700, coordinating rapid response across roads, the transport network, using traffic lights, a network of cameras, variable message signs, traffic response crews and tow trucks. It also coordinates replacement services and major events transport.

Read the full media release here (PDF, 161 KB).

Source: Murray Darling Basin Authority

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Well, thanks very much for coming to Bankstown this morning. Yesterday Education Ministers met in Queensland. We focused on a lot of really important issues. This gives me a bit of an opportunity to give you a bit of a briefing on the things we discussed and the decisions we made. 

First and foremost, we were briefed on the childcare safety reforms that we announced in August of this year and advised that those reforms are on track. That includes the rollout of the CCTV trial in the next few weeks, also the testing work in December on the new Educator Register, as well as the development of mandatory early educator training that will roll out in February next year. 

We also focussed on the next stage of reforms to school education. This year we signed agreements with every State and Territory to fix the funding of our schools and to tie that to real and practical reforms in the classrooms. 

But yesterday we focussed on the next stage of reforms, and that includes a decision yesterday in principle to establish a new Australian Teaching and Learning Commission. That’s a body that would bring under one roof the work of ACARA, that focuses on curriculum, and on NAPLAN the, testing program at the moment, but also AITSL, that are responsible for teacher standards, as well as AERO, that independent important body responsible for expert evidence about what works in the classroom. And ESA, that’s responsible for the tools and technology that we apply in the classroom. 

We agreed that if we get the design of this right, it will be bigger and better than the sum of its parts, help us to implement the big reforms that we’re all committed to to lift standards right across the country, and help to ensure that more young people finish high school. And not just that, potentially this is a body that can help us to implement the reforms we need in our universities, the initial teacher education degree, the degree that you do if you want to become a schoolteacher, and we’re making significant reforms to that degree. This new body can help us in the implementation of that as well. 

Yesterday we also agreed to make some keyhole surgery to the curriculum, starting with maths, and starting with the first three years of maths, from kindergarten to prep to Year 1 and Year 2. 

Getting maths right is critical, having a basic grasp on maths is really important for work and for life and for setting you up for the future, and it’s important that we get the curriculum right and get the materials for teachers right so they teach it in the right order. 

Maths is really sequential. You’ve got to learn it in the right order, and if you don’t understand the basics, the fundamentals, then you get lost, and you can’t catch up, and teachers and principals have told us that the current curriculum is a bit too complex, others have told us they need more tools to help them to teach it in the right order. 

And so on the advice of ACARA, we’ve made the decision yesterday to ask them to scope out a review of that curriculum and to come back to us with a plan about how to do it when we next meet in February. 

Yesterday we also looked at the next step of reform in higher education, and we were briefed by Melinda Cilento, the Chair of the Expert Council on University Governance, and today we’re releasing the report of that Expert Council on University Governance. 

I think anybody that’s looked at this will know that university governance at the moment is not up to scratch. If you don’t think it’s up to scratch you’ve been living under a rock the last few years. And what this report does is set out some principles that all universities should meet, and if they can’t meet them they’ve got to explain why not. And we will, as an Australian Government, implement those principles in law and require universities to report to the Tertiary Education Regulator every year on “an if not why not” basis. If you’re not implementing them, then why not? 

We also are making reforms in law to improve the accountability and the transparency of our universities, to help make sure basically that they meet the sort of expectations that the community expects, that students expect, that the staff who work at our universities expect. 

And yesterday we also made the decision that we will get the Remuneration Tribunal to work with us to set a framework for the salaries of university Vice-Chancellors. 

Now that’s before we get to the important issue of bullying in our schools, and the social media changes for under-16-year-olds that come into place in just a couple of weeks’ time. 

Yesterday we were briefed by Anika Wells, the Communications Minister, and Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner on the work that they are doing to prepare the country for those changes that will come into effect on the 10th of December. 

They also briefed us on some materials that they’re going to provide teachers and schools to help them with the implementation of this report, because inevitably, the impact of these changes is going to be felt in our schools as well. 

We made a very important decision yesterday around bullying in our schools. I think this is something that mums and dads across the country all worry about. It’s getting worse, not better. It’s different than it was when we were kids, when we were at school. Now a lot of it happens online. What Anika and Julie were telling us yesterday is that most of the bullying’s happening through TikTok and Snapchat, so the changes we’re making to social media will help; getting kids off TikTok and Snapchat will help, but it’s not the only place where kids are bullied day and night. You know, we heard about message apps and messaging services that can be used as means to humiliate and hurt other children. 

We heard – I heard for the first time yesterday the impact that AI chatbots are having in this area as well. I don’t know if you guys have heard this before, I haven’t, that AI chat bots are now bullying kids, it’s not kids bullying kids, it’s AI bullying kids; humiliating them, hurting them, telling them they’re losers, telling them to kill themselves. 

I can’t think of anything more terrifying than that, than AI telling kids to kill themselves; we’ve heard stories overseas of kids doing that. That’s what we’re up against. That’s why I say this is getting harder and harder, AI is supercharging this problem. 

I’m not naive enough to think that you can end bullying. There’s always been bullies, there will always be bullying. And now it’s just not happening in the playground, it’s not push and shove in the ground or stealing lunch money, it’s so much more insidious than that, and it happens day and night, and everybody can see it. 

It helps explain why some children, heartbreakingly, are taking their own lives because of it. That’s why we’ve got to take it so seriously. 

Parents told us that the key thing we can do is get their schools to act more quickly. That in too many cases it’s taking too long to act, and that if you take action within the first 48 hours, then it can help to nip this in the bud. And that means digging into the situation, talking to the kids, finding out what happened and taking action to stop it, but also talking to the parents of the kids, the mums and dads, whose child is the victim of this, but also the mums and dads of who’s the alleged bully. 

What we also heard from the review is that we’ve got to provide teachers are more tools to help them to manage this and tackle this, and tools for mums and dads too. 

There’s a lot of great programs out there at the moment, a lot of great policies in our schools that are being implemented at the moment. Ministers agreed yesterday we’ve got to put them all in the one place online so schools can access them and decide what works for them. 

But we also agreed that mums and dads need a bit of help too. And so we’ve agreed that we’re going to use $5 million to develop some resources for them too; basic information to tell mums and dads, if the school tells you that your son or daughter’s being bullied, here’s some things that will help you. And if the school rings you and tells that your son or daughter is the bully, that they’re the one that’s alleged to have done these awful things, here’s some things to help you, so you can help your son or daughter to change their behaviour to make our kids safer, and our schools safer. 

So really important discussions and decisions by Education Ministers yesterday. We agreed to get our departments to develop an implementation plan of how we do all of this, and I’ll report back as to when we meet again next, in February next year. 

Happy to take some questions. 

JOURNALIST: Minister, I was just speaking to Kelly O’Brien, the mother of a child that has passed away. She thanks you personally for the work that you’ve done. Do you have a message for her, and secondly, it might seem obvious, but why is that 48 hours so important? 

CLARE: There’s nothing I can say that’s going to fill the hole in Kelly’s heart or Mat’s heart, they lost the most important thing in their life, their little girl, their precious little girl. You know that hurt it was so big, and it hurt so much that she made that tragic decision to take her own life, and you can’t bring her back. 

What we can do is to still listen to her and what she said to us. She asked us to act. She asked the kids to be upstanders, not bystanders, to look after each other, to help each other. And it’s not just Kelly and Mat, it’s other mums and dads who’ve told us the sooner we act the better. 

So this is not about punishing schools or calling schools out, it’s about saying here’s the standard. If we do this, then we can really make a difference and we can help children like Charlotte. 

JOURNALIST: A lot of this strategy is predicated on children being safe and comfortable enough to file a report. What’s the strategy for helping many of the kids who are too ashamed or too afraid to report these incidents? 

CLARE: Yeah. You’re right, we need children to feel confident enough and safe enough to say to their teacher, to say to their principal, “This terrible thing has happened to me, and I need you to take action”. I see it in our schools all the time, I see from the little fella behind the TV cameras making a noise at the moment, but I do think that our schools are doing a better job than they did when we were kids. 

Our kids today know the word “bullying”, and they know the values of their school and how, if something’s wrong, they should walk away or they should go see the principal or go see the teacher and call it out. 

I think things have improved in that regard over the last 20 years. What’s harder today, what’s worse today is the technology that makes it so much easier to hurt people. Young people ‑ older people do this too ‑ there are some things that you wouldn’t say face-to-face to somebody, whether it’s in the playground or at work that you’ll say to somebody anonymously online designed to hurt them or humiliate them, and it’s not just you seeing it, it’s the whole world seeing it, and that’s what makes this so much more insidious today than when we were kids. 

There’s a lot more work that we’ve got to do here. First, we’ve got to call it out, then we’ve got to develop a plan for how we implement it, and then the hard work begins about helping to make sure that it’s not just some schools that meet that standard but all schools. 

JOURNALIST: I won’t jump ahead [indistinct] but you talked about the hard work of how we [indistinct] so how do we enforce something like this? 

CLARE: Look, it’s not about enforcement so much, it’s not about punishing schools, it’s about recognising best practice and encouraging all schools to meet it. I’m very conscious as the Australian Education Minister that I don’t run schools, I don’t employ teachers. This is only going to work if all schools and all school systems think this is the right thing to do and it will work. So ‑‑ 

JOURNALIST: If I can, what’s the incentive then?

CLARE: I’ll tell you what the incentive is: looking after our kids. Everybody that becomes a teacher wants our children to be safe, to be happy, to learn and to thrive. We know that the sort of bullying I’m talking about, whether it’s in the playground or online, hurts our kids, and it can lead to really serious mental health challenges. 

Now that in turn can lead to children falling behind at school, their academic results suffer, it can also lead to children not turning up to school at all, and in the most awful situations it can lead to children taking their own life. That’s the incentive to act, for all good people to act. 

I got the impression yesterday that every Minister and every Director-General of every department gets this and wants to act. The evidence tells us that ‑ we’re releasing the report today, have a good look at it – the evidence tells us, the earlier you act the better. 

In too many tragic examples that I’ve seen, schools took two or three or four weeks to act. If we take initial action in the first two days, chances are we can nip this in the bud and help to save young lives. 

JOURNALIST: I appreciate the good faith effort here that’s being undertaken, and in theory I understand the system. You just mentioned that teachers are an important part of the system. Teachers are also telling us that they’re incredibly strained and that we’re adding to their workload, with a tipping point, counting down 48 hours to file reports for each of these many incidents. Aren’t we over-straining – aren’t we overworking teachers, and the fact that they are being strained as a resource, doesn’t that risk the system’s value? 

CLARE: This is not about adding workload to teachers. I get it more than anybody how overworked our teachers are. This idea that teachers start at nine o’clock in the morning and finish at three is rubbish. Any mum and dad knows that, as Minister, I know that too. I also know that bullying’s happening right now in our schools, and it’s impacting our schools. It makes it harder for teachers, it has a real impact on the kids and on the teachers too, and if we act early and nip it in the bud, that’s going to help our teachers. 

The teachers have told us flat out, “We need better tools, we need more support, can you build this into our professional development”, so, for example, on the student days off, for example last Monday here in New South Wales, so the pupil-free days when teachers get together and do their professional development, build that into the training we get there. Put all the best practice on a one-stop-shop website that you can look at and use, but also for people who are at university now training to be a teacher, one of the things we talked about yesterday was building it into the degree. 

We’re changing the degree so it’s more focussed on teaching children how to read and write and to manage disruption in the classroom. But we also agreed yesterday that as serious as this is, it demands being of part the curriculum in our university degree as well. 

JOURNALIST: Can I quickly ask about the AI threats, that’s ‑ I’ve never heard that before, that’s quite shocking. How do you manage something like that, where it’s not even a person, it’s AI? 

CLARE: Yeah. Glad you said that ’cause I hadn’t heard that either, and my jaw dropped when I heard this yesterday, the eSafety Commissioner briefed us on this, and of all of the terrifying things I’ve heard in this area, this is the worst. The idea that it can be an app that’s telling you to kill yourself, and that children have done this overseas terrifies me. 

And I know in Australia we’re lucky to have an eSafety Commissioner who’s taking the action that she is to try to stop and eliminate these sorts of threats. It doesn’t exist in other parts of the world, but the planet’s getting smaller, an app that’s developed on the other side of the world can hurt a child here in Australia, and that’s why we’ve got to take this seriously. 

JOURNALIST: While we’re on the subject of AI, the ABC reported yesterday, and this is not the first incident that this new form of bullying is occurring, where there’s students uploading photos of female students into AI, declothing and sharing, which seems to be a new front in this bullying kind of issue. How are we preparing to deal with new forms of bullying that we don’t actually know yet? How are we creating a proactive approach to this? 

CLARE: Yeah. You’re talking about these Nudify apps, where a student will crop the face of one of their friends —

JOURNALIST: That’s correct. 

CLARE: — or one of their teachers, superimpose it on a naked body, and then send that to the world. Can you think of anything more humiliating and hurtful than that; can you imagine the impact that that’s having on young women across the country? It leads to some young female teachers quitting the job that they love. 

New South Wales has taken some action in terms of legislation there. The Communications Minister has flagged work that she is doing in this area too so that we stop these Nudify apps getting on to the app store in the first place. There’s more work that we need to do there. 

What Anika told us yesterday and what Julie Inman Grant told us is that this is a dynamic area, this is changing all the time. It’s one of the reasons why the social media reforms are dynamic, the type of platforms that are going to be the subject of the legislation will change based on what they do. 

But likewise here, we need an eSafety Commissioner that can pounce on new things that are hurting our children. That’s what she’s doing here. The job will never ever finish, because there will always be people coming up with some app or some piece of technology which they think is fun, but hurts our kids. 

JOURNALIST: In the New South Wales example that I referred to, it wasn’t a victim, but one of the male students who had received these images who reported the incident. It makes me wonder, under this new national strategy, what work is being done so that other witnesses report the incident, kind of taking care of the burden away from the victim. Has that been addressed in the strategy? 

CLARE: That will be something that we’ll look at in the context of the implementation. I talked about upstanders, people who are prepared to stand up, not walk past the problem. It sounds like from what you’ve just told me that’s a good example of that, where someone has seen something that’s hurt their friend and they’ve reported it. 

That helps to take the pressure off the victim to be the person to say, “Something terrible’s happened to me”, somebody else stands up, and is a good person, and says “This has happened, can you please make sure that it’s taken down”, that it’s taken off the Internet, or that action is taken by a school to help out. 

If we leave this just to children who’ve been bullied themselves, then we’re not going to be as successful as we need to be. We’ve got to look out for each other, more now than ever. 

JOURNALIST: Yeah. This is from Tim Lester at the Seven parli office.  

CLARE: I know Tim. 

JOURNALIST: I know you know Tim well. He says, Barnaby Joyce is widely reported to be considering One Nation, a strong Opposition is important to our system. Does the fracturing on the other side of politics worry you? 

CLARE: Look, I try not to get distracted by this. What’s going on in Barnaby’s mind or Pauline’s mind is a matter for them. If they want to get together, really, that’s up to them. But the Opposition’s in a world of pain at the moment, they’ve got to decide whether they want to be Howard or Hanson, that’s the bottom line. 

I figure they’ll eventually work it out, they’ll eventually get their act together, but I’m not getting distracted by this. The Albanese Government’s not getting distracted by any of this. We’re focussed on the Australian people in doing our job. What I’m talking about today, all of the things that we agreed to yesterday I think is evidence that we’re focussed on the Australian people, not this sort of rubbish. 

JOURNALIST: That’s all of my questions. 

CLARE: Okay. Thanks guys, I appreciate it. 

JOURNALIST: Thank you.

Source: Murray Darling Basin Authority

DAVID WOIWOD: Well, any family of a child who has faced bullying knows the debilitating and sometimes catastrophic impact it can have. The Albanese Government has been under pressure to take action and overnight announced $10 million and a new national plan.

MONIQUE WRIGHT: Now, $5 million will go to a national awareness campaign, $5 million towards new resources for teachers, students and parents, educating them on how to deal with bullying and how to be a – quote – “upstander”. And the Federal Education Minister, Jason Clare, joins us now.

Hello, Jason. Good to see you. Ok, let’s unpack this a little bit so we can understand it better. Under this plan, schools should respond within two days. So, what keeps them to that timeline and what sort of response are you talking about?

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Well, what parents told us. We commissioned a big review here and talked to parents about what’s working and what’s not. And mums and dads told us that often it takes just too long for the school to act and that the earlier we act, the more chance we’ve got of nipping this in the bud and stopping the bullying from happening.

I think this is something that every mum and dad worries about. I know I do. And the terrible truth is it’s getting worse, not better. The internet is a big part of that. It’s not just push and shove in the playground today. Bullying can follow you all the way home and you can get bullied day or night, and anyone can see it. It’s worse than that. AI is supercharging this problem. We heard stories yesterday from the eSafety Commissioner, not about children bullying other children, but AI chatbots, artificial intelligence, bullying other children, telling them they’re losers, telling them to kill themselves. We heard stories about children overseas killing themselves because artificial intelligence told them to. So, that’s how terrifying this is. And what parents have told us is we think action needs to be faster within the first two days for action to be taken by the school to get to the bottom of what’s happening, to take action to stop it. And that involves not just talking to the children at the school, but also talking to the mums and dads, to the parents of the victim of the bullying and the parents of the child that’s doing the bullying. And the sooner we act, the better. But what teachers told us is they need help too. There’s a lot of great programs out there that are being run by some schools. We’re going to put them all online so all schools know where to go to get best practice, but also to develop some more tools for teachers, and, in addition to that, some tools for parents – because if you’re the mum and dad who gets a phone call and you’re told your child’s been a victim of bullying, or if you’re a mum and dad who’s told your child’s the bully, they’re telling us we need to know what to do next.

WOIWOD: Minister, yes, so this timeline has now been sped up just a couple of days, as you point out. But that doesn’t mean that the bullying will actually stop. So, what in this $10 million will actually get us there?

CLARE: Yeah. And mate, I’m not naive about this. There’s always been bullies, there’ll always be bullying. And as I just said, a lot of this is now happening not in the playground, it’s happening online. But schools are places where we can take action to try and address this. And so what we’ve said is this is the standard, two days. The sooner you act, the better. And Ministers agreed yesterday that we need to develop an implementation plan that will kick off in February about how we implement this. Part of it is that two-day rule, part of it is bringing all of the best programs together in one place. But we also agreed yesterday that this needs to be part of teachers’ professional development; those pupil-free days where teachers sit down and work together to get ready for school. And in addition to that, that we should make it part of the course at university. So, when someone’s training to be a teacher, in addition to the changes we’re making to help them teach children to read and to write and to manage disruptive classrooms, that we also give them better tools when they’re training about how to deal with bullying and other harmful behaviours at school.

WRIGHT: Absolutely. And trauma response training is very specialised. But Jason, I’ve got five teachers in my family, they are pushed as it is. So, anyone that knows a teacher knows that there’s already so much pressure on them. It sounds like we’re loading it up more. 10 million bucks, 5 million for an awareness campaign and 5 million to have online resources. It’s great. But how are you going to ease the pressure for them in the classroom to enable them? Are they going to be more student-free days? How do you physically do this and educate them?

CLARE: Yeah, and believe me, this is not about trying to load up or add work to teachers because they’re already overloaded. The truth is bullying’s already happening. We know it’s there. It’s affecting kids at school. It means not just the mental health challenges that some children are facing, but it also means children are falling behind because they’re affected by this at school, or that some children aren’t at school at all. The better we tackle it the easier we are going to make it for teachers to do what they came to school to do which is to teach children. So those resources we think will help, but there’s a lot of other things we need to do to reduce workload for teachers. One of the other things we discussed yesterday are the changes we need to make to the curriculum. We agreed yesterday to look at the maths curriculum for the first three years at school to make it simpler and to provide more materials, more support for teachers to make sure that they have the help they need to teach maths in the right order so kids learn the basics when they’re really little, that’s just another example of the work we’re doing to try and help our teachers.

WRIGHT: And also teaching kids to be upstanders and not to walk past the behaviour. Jason Clare, thank you very much.

WOIWOD: Thanks, Minister.

CLARE: No worries, thank you.

Source: Murray Darling Basin Authority

ALISON PIOTROWSKI: More now on the sweeping reforms coming to every Australian school and this is all part of a major bullying crackdown.

TIM DAVIES: Yeah. Under the changes, schools will have 48 hours to act on complaints and teachers will receive specialised training. For more, we’re joined by Education Minister Jason Clare. Minister, nice to see you. A lot of welcome changes here, but when can parents actually expect to see them rolled out?

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Well, I think this is something that every mum and dad worries about when your children go to school, that they’re going to be bullied. And the truth is, it’s not like it was when we were at school. A lot of bullying now happens online on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. So, the changes that we’re making to crackdown on social media for young people under the age of 16 that start on the 10th of December will really help, but it’s not going to do everything. And that’s what this plan’s about. Parents have told us that they think it’s really important that we nip this in the bud where there’s a complaint that bullying has happened at school, that the school needs to take action within the first 48 hours to get to the bottom of what’s happened and to take action to stop the harm from happening. And that involves talking to the children, but it also involves talking to the mums and dads, the parents of the child that’s been bullied and the parents of the child that’s been doing the bullying. So, we want that to happen, and we want it to roll out as quickly as possible.

PIOTROWSKI: This all sounds really promising, Minister, but teachers have so much on their plates, they have such a heavy workload. Who’s going to be responsible for training teachers? How is that going to work?

CLARE: Yeah, you’re right. Hopefully what this does is help our teachers. We’re going to allocate $5 million to provide some tools for teachers. While parents have told us they want action earlier, parents have, sorry, teachers have told us that they need the tools and the training so that they can do the job properly. There’s a lot of great plans and programs that are already out there that are being used by some schools. We’re going to put all of those online in a hub so that schools can go to one place to get the best tools and the best programs to roll out in their schools. But we’re also going to provide more resources, not just for teachers, but for parents too. So, if you’re a mum or a dad and you’re told that your child’s being bullied at the school, there’ll be resources for you about what to do. But also, parents who have been told by their school that their child is the bully are asking us, what do I need to do as a mum or a dad to take action at home to make sure that it doesn’t happen again as well. So, we want to provide resources for them too.

DAVIES: What implications are there for children in terms of punishment if they are bullying other students? I know we’ve got a lot of training happening here for the adults. What about the kids and the ones that are bullying others?

CLARE: Well, it can involve suspension, it can involve expulsion in the most extreme circumstances. Hopefully what happens here is that if you act early, you can stop the harm from repeating, you can stop the action from reoccurring. We know that if kids are bullied, massive mental health issues, but not just that. It can mean that children fall behind at school. It can sometimes mean that children don’t turn up to school at all. So, that’s why we’re taking this action. It’s really serious for our kids. We heard yesterday when we were briefed, all Education Ministers, by the eSafety Commissioner, that this has got to the point now where it’s not just kids bullying other kids. Artificial intelligence means that we’ve got AI chatbots out there now that are bullying other children, telling them they’re losers, telling them to kill themselves. We’ve had cases overseas where children have killed themselves because an AI chatbot has told them to do that. I don’t think I’ve heard anything as terrifying as that. That’s why we’re taking this as seriously as we are. I’m not naive. I’m not assuming that there’s never going to be bullies or that we can stop bullying entirely. A lot of it doesn’t happen at school. But schools are places where we can act. And so we’re trying to set in place some standards, some rules and some tools to help, to take action to help our kids.

PIOTROWSKI: Alright, Minister, let’s move on. The troubles for the Opposition keep on coming. I wanted to find out, what do you make of Barnaby Joyce’s possible move to join forces with Pauline Hanson and One Nation?

CLARE: I don’t know what’s in Barnaby or Pauline’s head. You know, if they get together, that’s a matter for them. The Liberal Party and the National Party are in a world of pain at the moment. I’m not going to get distracted by that. Our job is to focus on the things that matter for mums and dads that are watching right now, things like taking action to protect our kids that are bullied at school. But not just that. The other big issue we focused on yesterday when Education Ministers met was about how we fix the curriculum, particularly for the teaching of mathematics for kids in primary school, those first three years of prep or kindy in year one and year two. We made the decision yesterday that we think work needs to be done on the maths curriculum. Maths is so important for success in life and the first three years of maths are critical to make sure that you get the basics. And so we made a decision yesterday to do work on that part of the curriculum. So, that’s an example of what we’re doing. We’re focused on the things that matter. We’re not focused on the what’s going on with Barnaby or what’s going on with Pauline.

DAVIES: Yeah, well, that action on bullying certainly can’t come fast enough. Minister Jason Clare, we appreciate your time on Today. Thank you.

CLARE: Cheers.

Source: New South Wales – News

Just after 2.40pm today (Saturday 18 October), police and emergency services were called to Gorge Road after reports of a crash involving a car and motorcyclist.

Major Crash officers are attending the scene.

Road closures are in place.

Please avoid the area if possible.