Australia news live: two people rescued from yacht off NSW; tens of thousands still without power in Victoria | Australia news

Hazard reduction burns to be conducted across NSW in coming days

The New South Wales RFS has flagged a number of hazard reduction burns over the coming days, with favourable weather conditions forecast.

This includes in Ku-ring-gai, the Blue Mountains, Hawkesbury, Hornsby, Canterbury-Bankstown and more. You can view the full list on its website here.

Young Queenslanders anxious, exhausted, stressed: research

More than half of young Queenslanders are feeling stressed and anxious with health experts warning the sharp mental health decline is a result of social media, AAP reports.

Research by Health and Wellbeing Queensland revealed that nine in 10 people aged between 14 and 25 have experienced a negative change in their wellbeing in the past year. Young people report feeling more stressed and anxious, having lower energy than usual, putting on weight and feeling less resilient.

Over half of the 1424 young Queenslanders who were surveyed felt tired for no reason and that everything was an effort over a four week period. It also found one in 10 felt depressed all the time.

The research suggested increased stress and poorer diets may be negatively impacting the mental health of the younger generation. Women and girls aged 14 to 25 are also more likely to experience poorer wellbeing impacts.

The state’s chief health officer, John Gerrard, told ABC Radio that the mental health trend is a public health crisis.

This looks exactly like an epidemic where a virus was introduced into young people in 2010 around 2010 and it has been spreading ever since. It looks exactly like an epidemic.

Gerrard blamed social media as the instigator in the decline of mental health among young people and said action needs to start now.

Dental in Medicare would save Adelaide families thousands: Greens

The Greens say that according to new data, making dental part of Medicare would save South Australian families thousands of dollars a year as soon as 2025.

In a statement this morning, the Greens outlined these savings:

• Putting dental in Medicare would save the average South Australian up to $978 in the first year, and up to $10,817 over a decade;

• An SA family with 2 kids would save up to $2,656 in the first year & $29,423 over the decade

• Across the state, patients would save up to $1.6b a year, $17b over the decade

• Experts say the benefits of free dental have significant flow-on health benefits.

The data is based off analysis of a national survey of adult oral health, the child dental benefit scheme, and veterans dental scheme data, the Greens said.

South Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who is running for re-election in the state, said that putting dental into Medicare would be a key priority “in the likely event of a minority Parliament next year.”

Our state is struggling with the cost of living and people shouldn’t have to put off getting their teeth fixed because it’s too expensive. You shouldn’t need a credit card to get your teeth fixed – it should be covered by Medicare. This is smart, fair and good for Australia’s health.

Just circling back to the power outages in Victoria:

Powercor says its network now has just 370 customers offline, and that it has restored power to more than 100,000 customers.

All of those 370 are expected to be back on today, it said.

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Two people rescued from yacht being transported to Sydney for medical assessment: AMSA

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has also released a statement after two people were safely rescued from a yacht on the state’s south coast (we had more on this just earlier in the blog, here).

An AMSA spokesperson confirmed the vessel was the Spirit of Mateship, and that the two people on board were being transported to Sydney for medical assessment.

AMSA said seas have been four to five metres high, with up to 60km/h winds.

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We need to be thinking about ‘a range of perils’ leading into fire season, minister says

Just circling back to the interview with emergency management minister Jenny McAllister on ABC RN.

Asked about the government’s priorities leading into the into the new fire season, the minister said “we actually need to be thinking about a range of perils”.

Fire is one of them. But we are, of course, thinking about the cyclone season, and we’re thinking about the risk of severe storms, like some of the rain and flooding that we’ve seen in recent days.

We’re going to get updates in the next couple of weeks on a range of different perils from the authorities, and we’ll also be working with our state and territory partners, NGOs and business, actually, to start preparing ourselves together for the circumstances we expect to face.

McAllister said ensuring better coordination between agencies has been a “significant focus for the government,” when asked about lessons learned from the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires.

Continuing on from our last post, here is the full list of affected routes, as per Transport for NSW:

• Berowra to City via Gordon

• City to Berowra via Gordon

• City to Emu Plains or Richmond

• Emu Plains or Richmond to City

• City to Parramatta or Leppington

• Parramatta or Leppington to City

• City to Liverpool or Lidcombe via Bankstown

• Liverpool or Lidcombe to City via Bankstown

• City to Macarthur via Airport or Sydenham

• Macarthur to City via Airport or Sydenham

• Hornsby to North Shore via City

• North Shore to Hornsby via City

Delays to Sydney train services due to person near tracks

Two people safely rescued from yacht at Nowra

No requests yet for federal recovery assistance after wild weather, minister says

The minister for emergency management, Jenny McAllister, is speaking with ABC RN about the extreme weather events across Australia’s south-east over the past week.

Asked if she has received any formal requests for federal assistance with the recovery yet, McAllister said not yet – but “that’s not unusual.”

We’ve been in regular contact at an agency level with the authorities in Victoria, NSW and Tasmania. I’ve personally been in contact with my ministerial counterparts. Their focus, understandably, has been on response, on managing these conditions as they’ve unfolded for some of these communities.

Thoughts will turn today and in the coming days [to] recovery, and we’d expect to start hearing from our counterparts about any measures or assistance they might require from us at that time.

Attorney general working with state counterparts on youth justice issues: Chalmers

Jim Chalmers was also asked about the second death of a teenager in youth detention in less than a year. The Aboriginal teenager died at Banksia Hill in Western Australia after calling out from a cell prior to his death.

The Children’s Commissioner has asked the government to form a taskforce with other Australian governments around the country to look at what’s going on in justice systems (you can read more in yesterday’s blog here). Will this be considered?

Chalmers responded:

Obviously, these are the sorts of things that are in the domain of the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus. Obviously, incredibly concerning what we saw in detention over on this side of Australia. And I think in an ongoing way, the attorney general works with state attorney generals and others to do that. But I don’t want to front run that. Obviously that will be something that Mark is working through with his state colleagues.

‘Important we speak plainly about economic challenges’, treasurer says

The treasurer said that higher rate rises are not the only driver of people’s economic pain, also pointing to volatility around the world.

But Jim Chalmers told ABC News Breakfast it is “important that we speak plainly about our economic challenges”.

And one of the challenges that people have, particularly people with a mortgage, is that interest rates have gone up. That’s put extra pressure on people and slowed our economy. I don’t think that it is a controversial point to make.

Chalmers responds to opposition criticism on RBA comments

Q: The opposition says you’re dodging responsibility by not taking joint responsibility for the government’s economic decisions alongside the RBA’s independent decisions. Is that fair?

Jim Chalmers responded, “of course not.”

The [opposition wants] higher interest rate, because they think that the more people are hurting, the more it will suit their political objectives. And we should see their commentary in that light.

We’re in the third year of a three-year parliamentary term and they still don’t have any costed economic policies and they don’t have any economic credibility. They say all kinds of things. They’re not my focus. My focus is on the cost of living pressure that people are under right now…

Peter Dutton’s focus is on dividing people, and I think that that is what this commentary of the last couple of days has shown again.

Treasurer flags ‘soft and subdued’ economy in tomorrow’s GDP figures

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, was also up on ABC News Breakfast this morning. He was asked for his predictions ahead of the latest GDP figures being released tomorrow.

He said most economists are expecting the figures to show an economy “which is soft and subdued.”

We’re not expecting lots of growth in the June quarter … But really, what we’ve got here is a combination of global economic uncertainty combining with higher interest rates and persistent price pressures here in Australia. Those things are combining to slow our economy quite substantially, we expect. And we’ll learn more about that tomorrow.

Chalmers was again asked about comments he made on Sunday – that the RBA was “smashing the economy” with its rate rises – and he defended this as being “entirely consistent with things that I’ve been saying for some months.”

I think that it would be a bit strange, frankly, if the treasurer of Australia couldn’t point to the sorts of things that are slowing our economy.

Tasmania ‘not out of the woods yet’, premier says

The Tasmanian premier, Jeremy Rockliff, just spoke with ABC News Breakfast about the weather situation still impacting the island state.

He said it’s been a “very worrying time for people in Tasmania”, with winds up to 187km/h at its peak, as well as flooding around the Derwent River:

It appears that flood levels are easing, which is good … But I have to say that we’re at field capacity. The ground is saturated. So any drop of rain, of course, can add to that.

Rockliff said about 20,000 connections were still without power – about 600 jobs TasNetworks would need to respond to.

So not out of the woods yet. Still a lot of work to do [with] roads damaged, trees over powerlines. It’s been quite a destructive few days. But, of course, Tasmanians always dig deep, as indeed all Australians do in these times of adversity, and today is no different.

The premier said he has heard from PM Anthony Albanese, who offered his support.