TRANSCRIPT
- Australia's energy regulator predicting electricity prices could fall
- A journalist arrested covering the latest siege of a hospital in Gaza
- A new study has found many rental homes are "barely habitable" in summer
The Australian Energy Regulator has announced draft prices that could see some customers paying less for power.
The prices are essentially a cap on how much retailers can charge customers on their default plans in New South Wales, South Australia, and parts of Queensland.
The regular says it expects price changes for all residential and small business customers on standard retail plans to be less than the rate of inflation.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen says its positive news.
"After the world's biggest energy crisis in 50 years, energy prices are stabilising and there's a downward trend. Now there's a long, long way to go. But this is encouraging us. Encouraging for those small businesses and families who will receive lower energy bills as a result."
_
The Coalition says it does not believe former Prime Minister Paul Keating should meet with China's foreign minister when he visits Canberra tomorrow.
SBS understands that the Chinese government requested Mr Keating meet with Wang Yi in the official's first visit to Australia in seven years.
But the opposition's foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham says the request is problematic.
He says the former Prime Minister is a vocal critic of Australia's foreign policy and approach.
"In a free country like Australia of course people are able to meet with others, and people of dissenting opinions... However, I think we have to be clear here that Paul Keating has been a very loud critic of Penny Wong and the Albanese government, and it is quite pointed and somewhat insulting for the Chinese embassy to have sought a meeting with such a loud critic."
_
A promised review into the strip-searching of children by police in New South Wales has not stopped the practice continuing.
A Redfern Legal Centre report has revealed that more than 1,500 children have been subjected to invasive searches by police since 2016, about 220 every year.
The report says strip searches have become routine and often don't meet the required legal thresholds - but have lasting impacts, including trauma, shame, embarrassment, and fear of police.
Premier Chris Minns says the government wants to have a review but has maintained to Channel 9 it's a difficult area of law - and that if young people aren't doing the wrong thing they would not have anything to worry about.
"Ultimately the decision by NSW Police, particularly around music festivals, goes ahead so that as young people in particular don't take illicit drugs and it doesn't lead to an overdose death at music festivals. Police are caught in a really difficult situation because obviously there's a coronial inquiry, there's a devastated family after an overdose death. It'd be far better if these illicit substances weren't taken before people entered these music and rock festivals."
_
Concern is growing for a journalist who has reportedly been arrested at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, which Israel has again targeted with airstrikes and tanks.
Al-Jazeera reports its correspondent, Ismail al-Ghoul, was severely beaten before being dragged into a truck by Israeli soldiers.
The Committee for the Protection of Journalists, a non-profit organisation promoting press freedom, has called for the immediate release of Mr al-Ghoul and other journalists at the site.
The organisation's Jodie Ginsberg says it's an unacceptable attack on the press.
"Journalists play an essential role in a war. They are the eyes and the ears that we need to document what's happening. And with every journalist killed, with every journalist arrested, our ability to understand what's happening in Gaza diminishes significantly."
_
A new study has found many rental homes are "barely habitable" in summer, with temperatures hotter inside than out.
Tenancy group Better Renting says it's tracked temperature and humidity in 109 rental properties over the summer, finding that tenants in New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia had an average median temperature above 25 degrees.
Its survey has found that across Australia, homes were hotter inside than out about eight hours a day, typically being over 3°C hotter indoors when it was hot outside.
Better Renting's Joel Dignam says the situation is often worse for regional renters.
"For one the market is often tighter still. There's far fewer options and it's harder to find somewhere else to go to, harder to start again if you need to... And in addition to those tight rental markets of course you've often actually got more extreme temperatures in some parts of regional Australia."
