Tassie penguins affected by worms

Tasmania is famous for its wildlife; wombats; Tassie devils and even little penguins.
But in Burnie, on the state's north coast one wildlife carer has noticed a concerning issue with these beloved birds.
An increasing number are affected by worms and it's impacting their health and giving insights into their changing environment.

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ABC News

an hour ago

• ABC News

Telstra tower upgrades touted as 'safety issue' by locals in southern Queensland town

A mobile outage caused by 5G upgrades to a Telstra base tower has left many in the Western Downs hub of Dalby in Queensland unable to make or receive calls, texts, or access the internet. Locals have called it a safety issue, while businesses and medical carers have been at a standstill. The town with a population of more than 13,000 people was warned of the disruption last Wednesday via text. Residents like Craig Tobin say the outage, expected to last for up to two weeks, is a "disgrace". "I drove out of Dalby last night until I got signal because my family in Brisbane, elderly parents, didn't know why I didn't have reception for days," he said. "I can't believe people are saying: 'Ah well, we just don't have phones for up to two weeks.' Telstra's regional general manager, May Boisen, said connections like NBN, satellite internet or landline, and calls through wi-fi — as well as other telco providers — have been unaffected. But the impact on locals has been significant. "I have three Telstra devices; I have no signal on all of them," Mr Tobin said. "I've been using my Telstra hotspot at home for my wi-fi … I'm not hooked into the NBN yet, as I moved into my house four weeks ago and am waiting for it to be put on." Dalby Chamber of Commerce's Anna Story said it was a "massive" safety issue and was impacting businesses. Aged care facility BlueCare said staff were unable to give or receive calls from clients, and carers were unable to access client details. "Clients' safety is impacted as we are unable to call them or their family members to see if they are OK," a spokesperson said. "Staff are at risk if something happens to them and they can't call for help. The care provider had purchased an Optus service to work around the problem. Smaller businesses have also vented their frustrations. "I'm so cranky," hairdresser Mel Drier said. "It's been a real mess around for me and has severely impacted my business. "I had a client who cancelled, but I didn't know that because I had no service … I'm having to write down names and numbers and wait until I get home to contact my clients later at night." Many businesses are using cash only, including a medical practice and a local cab company. Demand on the network was growing by 30 per cent year-on-year, according to Telstra. Ms Boisen said the lengthy upgrades and outages were a necessity. "For those that are technically minded, it's actually like a six-sectored mobile base station, which is a big base station," she said. "I'll give you an example. My husband is a diabetic. I don't need the landline, but I have it because mobiles will go down, and we do need to repair mobile base stations. "If we misunderstood what our customers were wanting to use our network for, then we wouldn't be upgrading our network." Triple-0 calls are diverted through other providers' mobile towers, even when called from a Telstra phone. Any calls that have not connected through will be investigated by Telstra. Services are scheduled to come back online progressively by Monday. Full mobile coverage is expected to be impacted until June 30.

ABC News

3 hours ago

• ABC News

NDIS pricing changes 'incredibly cruel' says remote mobile therapy provider

Allowance cuts to the National Disability Insurance Scheme could see therapists forced to cancel their programs or charge clients more, according to a regional physiotherapist. The NDIS released its annual pricing review last week, revealing a reduction in the hourly rate for certain allied health therapies from July 1. The travel rates charged by allied health professionals will be cut by half. Helen Lowe is the director of Through Life Physio in Warragul, about 90 minutes south-east of Melbourne. She said the changes had come as a "complete shock" and would directly impact rural and regional therapy providers and their clients. An NDIS spokesperson said the changes brought the prices paid by NDIS clients into line with those paid through other schemes like Medicare or private health insurance. But Ms Lowe said the services provided to NDIS participants cost more because they were more complex and required longer appointments compared with standard physiotherapy services provided to regular patients. By benchmarking costs against standard therapy services, Ms Lowe said the NDIS had "simply done the maths wrong". She said allied health professionals working on NDIS cases were already underpaid compared to others, and for her business the changes would result in a loss of $34,000 a year. Keryn Smith is a Warragul resident living with an acquired brain injury. She has been working with Ms Lowe for 13 years, and in that time she said she had been able to regain some control and function over her muscle movements and balance. Using a walking frame she is now able to walk with slight support. "Physio changed my life," she said. Ms Smith said she too was disappointed about the changes to physiotherapy pricing, which could mean she has to reduce the amount she undertakes each week. "I'm p*ssed off. Physio has been important, [but] the NDIS thinks physio is unimportant," she said. "If I didn't have physio I couldn't live here by myself."' Ms Lowe's business employs eight practitioners who travel around West Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley, visiting clients at schools, kindergartens and in their homes. She said travel was essential for the team. "To do good disability physiotherapy you need to go where people are, not just bring them into your comfortable clinic," she said. She believes many allied health businesses in rural and regional areas would simply cancel appointments if they were unable to bear the new costs. She is now struggling to make a choice — charging a gap fee to NDIS clients that they will need to pay out of their own pocket, or face losing more than $30,000 a year. She said she was unable to absorb the cost through her business and clients with disability on limited incomes would be unable to pay any extra. "It's such an insult to us as practitioners that the NDIS thinks this is OK, and it is incredibly cruel on NDIS participants," Ms Lowe said. Gippsland Disability Advocacy chief executive Leanne Wishart said NDIS participants living in regional, rural and remote Gippsland already faced additional disadvantages due to their distance from services. Already she knows of a provider who has notified its clients that it will no longer be able to provide services to them due to not being able to recoup the costs. She said it was likely other providers would follow suit. "Effectively this creates an even greater inequity in access to NDIS services and breaches the rights of people with disability living in regional, rural and remote areas to have equal access to services," Ms Wishart said. "It's outlined in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the United Nations Rights of Persons with Disabilities." In a statement, a spokesperson for the National Disability Insurance Agency said this year's pricing review had been benchmarked with fees paid through Medicare, private health insurance and other government schemes. "In some cases, the data showed NDIS price limits significantly exceeded the market rate by up to 68 per cent," the spokesperson said. They added that participants had told the NDIS that "excessive travel claims" ate into their plans. "For participants living in remote areas, therapists can receive a 40 per cent above rate price for services and this loading is 50 per cent for therapy provided in very remote areas."

ABC News

4 hours ago

• ABC News

Calls for support as Latrobe Valley power workers continue to die from asbestos exposure

Like many men of his generation, Mick Tomkins does not like to make a fuss. The 73-year-old enjoys meeting up with a group of mates to swim at the nearby Traralgon pool most mornings, before a coffee and a chat about the footy. But, like many men of his generation, Mr Tomkins is also living with the insidious legacy of being a power station worker in the 1970s, after being diagnosed with terminal mesothelioma last year. "It was a bit of a shock," he said. Mr Tomkins was just 20 years old when he first took on a role as a subcontractor, helping build the new W station at Yallourn. For the young sheet metal worker, it was the prospect of high-paying work that would support his family. "That construction was an area I really didn't want to go into, but I had a wife and a couple of kids, so I had to get work and they paid very well out there," he said. The power industry was booming, with Mr Tomkins joining around 1,000 other contractors onsite at the time. What workers did not realise was that their job exposed them to asbestos on a daily basis. "The laggers would go in and put the insulation on the pipes, and we would come in and coat them with sheet metal," he said. "Most of that insulation was fibreglass, but then we had sectional asbestos over the pipes. It would not be until 50 years later that Mr Tomkins and his family would discover the damage caused by this exposure. In 2003, after a series of court cases, asbestos was banned in Australia. More than a decade ago, Mr Tomkins and his family started to monitor his condition by getting regular lung compression testing. Then, about three years ago, Mr Tomkins said he started to develop a cough that would not go away. He would soon not be able to walk to the front gate. A CT scan and a biopsy would later confirm Mr Tomkins had mesothelioma. For the stoic father and grandfather, the news, while devastating, was not unexpected. "I didn't panic. In some ways, in the end, I'd sort of half expected it because of the cough," he said. For Pauline Tomkins, Mr Tomkins' wife of 54 years, and their family, it was confirmation of the worst kind. "We just all went quiet, and I just kept looking at the floor," she said. "It was always in the back of my mind, but the trouble is when it is said to you." A 2009 study by Monash University found that former power workers in the Latrobe Valley were contracting mesothelioma at a rate seven times the national average. The proliferation of asbestos among Latrobe Valley workers prompted an apology from the then Victorian premier John Brumby at a regional sitting of the 56th parliament at Monash University's Gippsland Campus on October 15, 2008. "On behalf of the Victorian government and the community, I want to say sorry and to express our regret for the pain and the suffering felt by some former power industry workers and their families where that was caused by asbestos exposure at the former SECV … It is unacceptable that any person, through the course of their work, is exposed to what we now know is a deadly substance," Mr Brumby said. For Vicki Hamilton, the CEO and secretary of the Asbestos Council of Victoria (better known as GARDS), the ongoing legacy of illness for the Latrobe Valley hits close to home. Ms Hamilton lost both her father and grandfather to asbestos-related disease, and said despite the high profile nature of asbestos cases, many people mistakenly believed the challenges were behind them. "I get a couple of calls a month at least from people who know that they're sick and they are going to see a doctor," she said. Ms Hamilton said 140,000 workers were exposed to asbestos between the 1920s and the 1980s. "That affected a whole community, and every person, every second or third person in the Latrobe Valley knows somebody who has an asbestos-related disease," she said. The Asbestos Council formed part of a state government task force established in 2019 to review how asbestos was managed in the Latrobe Valley. In 2022, the task force made 21 recommendations to minimise the risk and harms of asbestos exposure. The recommendations included establishing a statewide centre to manage all asbestos queries, developing targeted awareness campaigns, and mandating training for the handling and removal of asbestos. However, no recommendations had been implemented when the work of the task force culminated in March 2023. Ms Hamilton said more needed to be done as workers continued to come forward with diagnoses. "I'm very lucky, the state government just helped to fund me for part of my money because, without that, we would have been looking at closing within 12 months because that's about the only money we have left." A Victorian government spokesperson said the government was working to prevent or minimise risks associated with asbestos. "Actions underway to address the harmful legacy of asbestos and prevent asbestos-related diseases in Victoria include raising awareness of asbestos risks, prioritising and coordinating the removal of asbestos from Victorian government buildings, establishing convenient disposal points and strengthening compliance and enforcement," the spokesperson said. With legal help, Mr Tomkins was able to make a claim for compensation against his former employer's insurance company. Now, he and his family are taking each day as it comes. Mr Tomkins is balancing his life with treatment, and so far has found success with immunotherapy to keep his cancer under control. "We just take each day now as we go and just do what the doctors say," Mr Tomkins said. "I don't look like I'm dying, do I? "I've had a life, but you know I'd like to still have a longer life actually."