Australia

Peter Mac

Twenty-seven asylum seekers in Melbourne’s Broadmeadows detention centre have ended a ten day hunger strike after finally having been given official reasons for their indefinite detention.

The men belong to a group of 55 men, women and children, who have been held captive in detention centres for up to four years. They include people from Iran and Myanmar (formerly Burma), but most are Sri Lankan Tamils.

Help!
What's the point of having NDIS funded domestic assistance if I am cut off the DSP and don't have a house?
If I am cut off DSP and moved to Newstart I will be unable to afford medications essential to life and I will die, perhaps after an extended expensive process of brain death.
I have conditions that can't be rehabilitated.
What's the point of a rehab plan?
What's the point of a return to work plan if there is no job and no ability to do a job properly or consistently?

A report released today by Anglicare Australia has found it is becoming almost impossible for people on welfare to afford to rent a home.

The welfare group surveyed more than 56,000 rental properties across the country and found less than 1 per cent of those properties were affordable for people on government benefits such as Newstart, parenting payments, the aged pension or disability support pensions.

Four Corners ran a segment on Monday 22nd April called "Who's Cheating Whom" exploring the use of performance enhancing drugs in Australian sport. During the show, the Four Corners reporter asked an Athletics Australia athlete manager, Maurie Plant, about an event 13 years ago in which Mr Plant had asked heptathlete called Jane Flemming to provide a urine sample to substitute for javelin thrower's Sue Howland's sample for a drug test. When the reporter asked Plant to comment about this, Plant becomes defensive, refuses to answer, and walks out on the interview.