TRANSCRIPT
- Peter Dutton describes the government's plan to cap international students as a mess
- Scientists record substantial coral losses on the Great Barrier Reef
- Italy returns to the Billie Jean King Cup final
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Opposition leader Peter Dutton has described the government’s international student cap bill as a mess.
Labor's contentious bill has hit a major roadblock, with the Coalition and Greens uniting in opposition.
The federal government hoped to bring temporary migration numbers back to pre-pandemic levels by limiting the number of international students able to start study in Australia to 270,000 next year.
Mr Dutton is yet to announce his party's own policy but has vowed to make deeper cuts to immigration.
"We believe that the number of international students is too high, we think the government has created an onshore disaster in terms of the number of people who are applying for protection. People are doing that, we are told, because it is a low application fee and it means that people will not have their matters resolved for about seven years. So you get work rights for seven years which is why the figures are blowing out because when people are at the end of their student courses, they're not leaving."
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A parliamentary committee has recommended social media users be given the power to alter, reset or turn off algorithms.
But, it has stopped short of recommending a ban on under-16s accessing social platforms.
Federal Member for Newcastle, Sharon Claydon, says the committee also wants social media platforms to provide greater privacy protection.
"Whilst a lot of people think that their use of social media is free, the real danger there is that when you think that product is free, it is because you have become the product for big tech. They're interested in your personal information and harvesting that to on sell.
The committee's findings come as the government moves to introduce legislation to ban under-16s accessing social media before the end of the year.
Representatives from the Australian Child Rights Taskforce are calling for a parliamentary committee to scrutinise the bill.
Lucy Thomas, a member of the task force, says the ban does not address the complexity of social media.
"For every young person that faces significant harm online, there are many more who experience social media as a lifeline. For so many, digital participation is a vehicle to express themselves, access mental health support, be able to build community, find identity affirmation, particularly those from already marginalised communities."
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Substantial coral losses on the Great Barrier Reef of up to 72 per cent have been recorded following extensive bleaching and natural disasters last summer.
The Australian Institute of Marine Science has revealed the damage following in-water surveys of 19 reefs between Lizard Island and Cardwell in north Queensland.
The analysis found substantial losses of coral cover on 12 of the 19 reefs.
The surveys are part of a long-term monitoring program across different reefs.
Richard Leck, Head of Oceans at the World Wide Fund for Nature Australia, says the Great Barrier Reef is fast approaching a tipping point and urgent action is needed.
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Tens of thousands of people have come together in the New Zealand capital Wellington, in one of the biggest demonstrations the country has ever seen.
They're protesting against a bill currently before the country's parliament that seeks to reinterpret the Treaty of Waitangi.
The bill is never expected to become law.
But it has become a flashpoint on race relations and a critical moment in the fraught 180-year-old conversation about how New Zealand should honour its promises to Indigenous people when the country was colonized – and what those promises are.
Māori Party MP Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke says the world is looking to New Zealand as an example.
"We will never ever have to decide who can mess with our rights and our sovereignty as an Indigenous people here in Aotearoa we are the king makers we are the sovereign people of this land and the world is watching us here.”
The gathering in Wellington is the final stretch of a week-long protest, culminating in a march through the city streets to Parliament.
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Italy have ousted Poland in a thriller to reach the Billie Jean King Cup final for the second successive year.
Olympic champions Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani saved three set points in the first set in Malaga, Spain.
Later, they fought back from 5-1 down in the second set of the deciding doubles against Iga Swiatek and Katarzyna Kawa to claim a 7-5 7-5 win and clinch a 2-1 semi-final victory.
The pair will now try to go one better than last year, when they were beaten in the final by Canada.
