ADF sent to NSW flood zones

Andy Park: Hello, welcome to The World Today. It's Monday the 26th of May. I'm Andy Park coming to you from Gadigal Land in Sydney. Today, send in the army. How much longer can the ADF be relied upon for ever increasing natural disasters? And one state banned posters of grinning federal election candidates all over the neighbourhood. Could it be a sign of things to come?
Voter: Rather than being really in your face, it was a bit more laid back, I'd kind of say. And, you know, I do think they're kind of a bygone thing and it's nice not to have to waste as well.
Kyam Maher: The majority of feedback that I get and I think most members of parliament get is a welcome relief that we don't see the corflutes.
Andy Park: The Prime Minister has announced further flood support for the mid north coast of NSW, including deploying defence personnel to help with the clean up. Over the next few days, getting food and water into communities cut off by floods will be a major priority. But the Weather Bureau is also warning that more wet weather could hamper the clean up effort. Bridget Fitzgerald reports.
Bridget Fitzgerald: For the second time in four years, Josh Hack has watched his friends and neighbours do their best to manage a devastating flood.
Josh Hack: They'll say they're OK, but they're all broken and they need their help.
Bridget Fitzgerald: The Taree farmer and agronomist says the scale of the flood caught many by surprise.
Josh Hack: We're all planning for the flood. We're all planning for, you know, the worst case scenario, 2021, you know, one in 100 year flood, surely we're not going to get two in four years. So, you know, we planned for that. You know, there's farmers that have done things with infrastructure and stuff since then to try and help plan for that. But unfortunately, this was unplannable.
Bridget Fitzgerald: He's counting his losses, but says he's been lucky.
Josh Hack: It's pretty tough for everybody. And I've been very lucky. Like, I get most of my animals. Yes, I've lost some, you know, and some of the ones that I lost are the ones that were probably in the best spot, but they, for whatever reason, decided to go for a swim, to try to go to a different spot.
Bridget Fitzgerald: In Kempsey, 300 kilometres north of Sydney, restocking critical supplies has been a slow process.
Greg Steele: We just can't get food into them.
Bridget Fitzgerald: Greg Steele is the Kempsey SES unit commander.
Greg Steele: Normally, the resupply wouldn't be quite so difficult. However, we've had a power failure in the CBD, which has obviously spoiled a lot of the a lot of the foods that require refrigeration.
Bridget Fitzgerald: He says work's being done to make sure shops can safely store the supplies. Supermarkets in flood hit towns like Kempsey and Wingham were shut over the weekend, with road closures causing supply delays. Janelle Saffin is the New South Wales recovery minister and minister for the North Coast.
Janelle Saffin: About 12,000 people still remain isolated. So whilst we're going into recovery, there's still a response happening with the SES. There were flood rescues over the last 24 hours. There were 11, 532 calls. So we've got the two things happening at once.
Bridget Fitzgerald: And flood affected communities are set for another wet night. Senior meteorologist Dean Narramore from the Weather Bureau says the rain is more likely to be a frustration rather than a threat.
Dean Narramore: We're only expecting that 10 to 20 millimetres, maybe isolated, 30 to 40 millimetres at most. It's going to move through very quickly, not the hundreds of millimetres that we have seen.
Bridget Fitzgerald: He says strong and gusty winds could cause some property damage and hamper the clean up. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says 70 Defence Force personnel will be deployed to the New South Wales Mid North Coast region.
Anthony Albanese: They will be involved in clean up, in debris removal, in welfare checks and re-establishing critical infrastructure that is so important for these communities.
Bridget Fitzgerald: Anthony Albanese says people in Kempsey, Port Macquarie, Mid Coast and Dungog are eligible for the disaster recovery allowance, which can provide up to 13 weeks of income support. So far, more than 500 properties have been declared uninhabitable. But there are fears thousands more have been seriously damaged or destroyed.
Andy Park: That report from Bridget Fitzgerald and Alison Xiao. The commitment of ADF personnel to the Mid North Coast flood zone doesn't come without risk. Take the 32 soldiers hospitalised after truck rollovers in their deployment to flood affected Lismore in March. The uncomfortable truth is that Australia's renowned voluntary emergency workforce is shrinking, forcing a growing and controversial burden on the Defence Force to respond to ever increasing natural disasters. But is there a third option? Milad Hagani is an associate professor and principal fellow in urban risk and resilience at the University of Melbourne. He joined me earlier. Milad, the SES is stretched and has increasingly come under criticism. How rapidly is Australia's volunteer base to respond to natural disasters and emergencies dwindling?
Milad Hagani: The volunteer workforce across the country is dwindling, basically. And interestingly and coincidentally, last week was the National Volunteer Week in Australia. There are many reasons that have been speculated and documented in relation to this. One is the fact that the current volunteer workforce is ageing and going out of the workforce and they are not being replaced by younger generations. And it is apparent that, for example, the role of volunteering, the issue of volunteering has not been necessarily communicated with the younger generation as a core Australian value. They may not even be aware that their role in emergency services is needed. So that's something that could be done to bridge the gap and send a message across to the younger generations that they can come and replace and have an experience with emergency services, basically.
Andy Park: What are the problems with calling in the army? I mean, some might say we are taxpayers, we pay for them to be ready and that perhaps domestic deployments can act as a sort of training exercise.
Milad Hagani: There are both sides of arguments and they are both valid. And we have seen even some defence personnel sometimes after some of my publications, they contacted me and they said they are willing, they are willing to help in these kind of situations. And if you talk to the local residents, they have mixed views on this. Sometimes they really feel supported by the presence of ADF personnel helping them. However, we need to note that ADF personnel are not necessarily trained for this. It's a resourceful organisation. It's got the required equipment and the personnel. However, it's not necessarily trained for these kind of situations. So it's a mixed view. Some people do see that they are necessary for these kind of large scale emergencies. And some people think that distracts from their core mission, that is defence and getting prepared for military missions.
Andy Park: Supposed to be fair, Disaster Relief Australia will be committing more volunteers than the ADF personnel in this current floods clean up. I mean, the PM paid tribute to the organisation, which is largely staffed by veterans, DRA. He also stopped short of committing to longer term funding today. So is that the new model that will help quieten critics of ADF deployments to tackle domestic natural disasters?
Milad Hagani: I believe it could be. I believe it could be. As you mentioned, the organisation is run by veterans and is growing in terms of numbers. However, at the moment, with the number of volunteers that they have, they cannot necessarily compare in the scale with the workforce of other emergency, more established emergency services such as SES. But however much help they can provide in these kind of emergencies, that is a seal of use and a kind of a guarantee. I think that there are good reasons to invest more in DRA and I think that could be a model for the future.
Andy Park: Milad Hagani, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow in Urban Risk and Resilience at the University of Melbourne. Thank you for your time. My pleasure. On ABC Radio across Australia, streaming online and on the ABC Listen app, this is The World Today. Thanks for your company. Australia's first ban on machetes is set to begin after a brazen and violent daylight gang brawl in a Melbourne shopping centre at the weekend. The Victorian Premier's ban comes after a series of high profile and tragic knife crimes both here and overseas. One victim is campaigning for a complete ban on pointed kitchen knives in the UK. The tip and not the edge of the knife being the most harmful source of her own critical injuries. Kimberley Price filed this report.
Kimberley Price: Crowds of shoppers flee a Melbourne shopping centre on Sunday as a violent brawl unfolds. A man wielding a machete is seen on CCTV lunging towards two people before a shopper called Anthony stepped in to make a citizen's arrest.
Anthony: I saw one of the guys with the machetes just kind of bring it out from his waistband, sort of remove the sheath and then have it in the air and start swinging at it. One of the guys ran towards us into the shopping centre and that's the guy that I tripped over.
Kimberley Price: Two teenagers were arrested at the shopping centre and charged with a fray, intentionally causing injury and possession and use of a controlled weapon, while a 20 year old was seriously injured. It wasn't the only knife related incident in Melbourne over the weekend. On Saturday, Victoria police shot dead a woman after she drove at officers while they were arresting a man allegedly armed with a machete. Today, Premier Jacinta Allan declared Victoria will fast track Australia's first machete ban.
Jacinta Allan: We must never let the places where we gather, the places where families come together to meet, to shop, to enjoy the peace of their weekend become the places we fear.
Kimberley Price: It will be illegal to sell machetes in Victoria from midday Wednesday. The government says the move is an attempt to dry up the market before a ban on possessing the weapons comes into effect in September.
Jacinta Allan: This comes also off the work that is being done to provide Victoria police with expanded knife search powers, which has seen a record number of these dangerous weapons being seized and taken off the streets.
Kimberley Price: The Australian Bureau of Statistics says knives were the most common weapon used in homicides between 2010 and 2023. Recent high profile incidents like Sydney's Bondi Junction shopping centre stabbing where seven people were killed underline the danger. As authorities hold inquiries into these deadly incidents, overseas, Leanne Lucas, who survived the Southport stabbing in England last year where three children were killed at a dance studio, wants to see an end to the sale of pointed kitchen knives.
Leanne Lucas: I feel like I've just had my eyes opened to the dangers of how domestic tools can be weaponised and the fact that they're so readily available. A safer option is to go for a curved or a blunt tip knife that reduces that risk of the kitchen knife being used ever as aa weapon.
Kimberley Price: Dr Vincent Hurley is a criminologist at Macquarie University and former New South Wales police officer. He welcomes the Victorian government's ban, but argues it doesn't go far enough.
Vincent Hurley: If you go back and look at graffiti about two decades ago, state governments decided to put spray cans behind grills in hardware stores to stop graffiti. If governments were serious about knife crime, then they would put behind grills, machetes, axes, tomahawks and all these sharp implements. They would do what they did with the gun buyback scheme 20, 30 years ago after Port Arthur, where they would pay people to hand in axes, machetes, zombie knives and things like this. Together, those two things would be an excellent suggestion to try and reduce knife crime. It would have to make a difference.
Kimberley Price: Dr Hurley believes Leanne Lucas's campaign could prevent some crime, but it wouldn't stop people from accessing other bladed instruments.
Vincent Hurley: Knife crimes account for most deaths in Australia against violence against women and machete attacks like this. It is the idea that they are so easily accessible that they are a weapon of convenience. Anyone can purchase them.
Kimberley Price: Victoria Police continue to investigate Sunday's shopping centre incident, while the state inquest into the Bondi Junction stabbing attack remains ongoing.
Andy Park: Kimberley Price there. Household power bills are set to rise about to 9 per cent from July for some, following a pricing decision by the Australian Energy Regulator. For more on this, business correspondent David Taylor joined me earlier. David, what is the default market offer and how will it change from July 1?
David Taylor: Well, Andy, I'll hit you with some jargon first up. The Energy Regulator has released its final determination for the default market offer for electricity prices for next financial year. So the default market offer is a price for electricity for customers on standing offers. So not negotiated contracts with their providers. Most households and businesses, Andy, are on standing offers. It's basically what you get when you call up or sign up for a deal. From July 2025, residential customers on standing offer plans will experience increases of half a per cent to 3.7 per cent in southeast Queensland, 2.3 per cent to 3.2 per cent in South Australia and 8.3 per cent to 9.7 per cent in New South Wales. And Andy, small business customers on standing offer plans will experience increases of 0.8 of 1 per cent to 8.5 per cent. And there's a big range there because, Andy, it depends on the region that you're in.
Andy Park: So why is this safety net energy price for households and businesses increasing?
David Taylor: Well, simply because the cost of making or producing the energy has gone up, especially in New South Wales. Now, Clare Savage is the chair of the regulator that's made this decision. It determines prices for New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia. She says it was a difficult decision to make and many factors determine an energy bill, including the cost of making power.
Clare Savage: Retailers, the people who sell it to you, they buy forward contracts in there against sort of spot prices in the market. And those forward contracts have been higher. And some of that's to do with less reliable coal plant that's been running in New South Wales. So it can fall over sometimes and drive big price spikes. 9.7 per cent, yes, is the worst case scenario. But what we want to see customers doing is out there looking for the best deal. Some of the cheapest plans in the market can be between 18 and 27 per cent below the default market offer. So shopping around is a great strategy.
David Taylor: Clare Savage there. And one thing that Clare Savage hasn't mentioned is, of course, the cost of finance for these energy companies to produce the energy, because they obviously have to finance the way they do business. Rising long term interest rates, therefore, are also a big part of this story. Tim Buckley is a director of Clean Energy Finance.
Tim Buckley: It's complex. Energy is complex. There are four key components, network costs, wholesale prices, retail costs. All of those have gone up significantly across the board. Interest rates are up. So network costs are up. Unfortunately, the network exists for 50, 60, 70 years. The grid transmission poles and wires, they're there for 50, 60, 70 years. So we're exposed to long term interest rates. And there's also a slow delay in getting that through. So interest rates were in a 60 year down cycle until three years ago. They've been going up. This, unfortunately, is the inevitable delayed work through of long term interest rates going up.
Andy Park: Clean Energy Finance Director Tim Buckley and David, when hearing prices are rising, many might be concerned it's bad news for inflation. Could that be the case?
David Taylor: It could be. But we have found, Andy, that energy prices are very political. And in terms of headline inflation, the Treasurer and Treasurers across state and capital territories have decided to offer rebates. So we'll have to wait for political decisions on the back of this independent regulatory decision. But so far, history shows that big price changes like this don't impact long term inflation.
Andy Park: David Taylor. If there's a young person in your life with ADHD, you'll know that diagnosis can take years and cost thousands of dollars in specialist bills. And it's not just young people either. Now, New South Wales is to allow GPs to diagnose attention deficit hyperactivity disorder without a referral. Angus Randall reports.
Angus Randall: When mother of seven Neridah Armstrong sought treatment for her son Andrew, who has ADHD, she faced lengthy wait times to see a specialist.
Neridah Armstrong : You have to get a referral from your GP. You have to send it off to a practice. They decide whether or not they want to see you. If they don't, you're back to your GP and you continue that cycle until you find somebody that's actually willing to take you on.
Angus Randall: She eventually found treatment for her son, but says others haven't been so lucky.
Neridah Armstrong : He knows a lot of people that have actually stopped treatment, don't take their medication.
Angus Randall: The New South Wales government has announced GPs will soon be able to diagnose ADHD and prescribe some medication once they've completed special training. The government's funded 1000 training spots, meaning one in 15 GPs across the state could gain this accreditation. Ryan Park is the state's health minister.
Ryan Park: When people are waiting up to two years to get a diagnosis and then ongoing treatment, it's my responsibility and the mental health minister's responsibility to make sure that we're looking at ways to reform that system.
Angus Randall: The move is backed by the Royal Australian College of GPs. Dr Rebekah Hoffman is chair of the New South Wales and ACT division.
Rebekah Hoffman: They won't have to go back to the paediatrician or the psychiatrist for their routine medication on an ongoing basis. The GPs that will want to do this training are the ones that already work in this space.
Angus Randall: It's a condition that the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says affects around 7% of children. There's no test for ADHD. It's up to the doctor to make their diagnosis based on an assessment of the patient and information from the family. Dr Rebekah Hoffman insists GPs will have the time and training to make the right decision.
Rebekah Hoffman: It is a really difficult diagnosis to make and it's not one which GPs will be making haphazardly. It's something that I completely agree isn't going to happen in a 15 minute consult and the GPs that already work in this space are doing the 60 to 90 minute consultations in line with what's happening with psychiatrists and psychologists to make these diagnosis.
Angus Randall: The Royal Australian College of Physicians, which represents paediatricians, says it wants to work with GPs but diagnosing ADHD should remain specialist led. Dr Nitin Kapur is the college's head paediatrician.
Nitin Kapur: It's unclear what training is being proposed here first of all and ADHD is not a single diagnosis. It co-occurs with developmental, behavioural and other mental health conditions and these can include anxiety, depression, trauma, learning difficulties and a short course. And we don't even know what we're talking about that the GPs do will probably not do justice and will likely result in misdiagnosis.
Angus Randall: Queensland GPs have been diagnosing and prescribing ADHD medication in children since 2017 and WA brought in similar reforms earlier this year. Dr Chris Soo is a Gold Coast GP specialising in ADHD. He says GPs are already offering many specialist services so this would be no different.
Chris Soo: GPs do like vasectomies. GPs work in vein clinics and skin cancer and learn to diagnose those sorts of things. General practice is its own specialty these days.
Angus Randall: He hopes the New South Wales rollout will be smoother than Queensland's.
Chris Soo: When Queensland brought it in, they brought it in and then basically didn't tell GPs about it or anybody about it. And I do a lot of advocacy work and people all around the country very senior, very high up in ADHD advocacy have no idea that. So Queensland GPs are actually allowed to totally initiate, diagnose and do everything for like any patient below the age of 18. And then no one got told about the regulation, didn't promote it, nothing. It's almost like they went, you can do it but maybe you shouldn't. It's great that they're being funded to do training because the whole system works better if clinicians get good training.
Angus Randall: The state government says New South Wales GPs could be managing ongoing prescriptions for ADHD patients within months and assessments for children could start from early next year with adults to follow soon after.
Andy Park: Angus Randall there. Well a sausage sandwich, a core flute in a public school. These are the very symbols of a federal election here in Australia. But in one state, one of these election essentials has been absent. Coreflutes or posters of grinning politicians were in fact banned on public roads and infrastructure in South Australia. Could this be a precedent that other states and territories follow? Luke Radford reports.
Luke Radford: A sea of colours and slogans as far as the eye can see is a surefire indicator that it's election time. But in South Australia, political core flutes have been restricted to just private property and these voters don't miss them.
Voter: Rather than being really in your face, it was a bit more laid back, I'd kind of say. And, you know, I do think they're kind of a bygone thing and it's nice not to have the waste as well.
Voter: I thought it was really good.
Voter: I was pleased not to have the coreflutes.
Luke Radford: Coreflute election posters were banned from public roads, trees and telegraph poles last year to reduce waste and remove unsightly clutter. Initially proposed by the Liberal Party, it gained bipartisan support from the Labor Government. South Australia's Attorney General, Kyam Maher, says it's been a big win.
Kyam Maher: The majority of feedback that I get and I think most members of Parliament get is welcome relief that we don't see the coreflutes, you know, the vigil pollution.
Luke Radford: While both the punters and pollies are glad they're gone, the state electoral commission has found one downside. After a recent by-election, it found 27 per cent of surveyed voters reported the absence of coreflutes made them less aware the poll was happening. Mick Sherry is the SA electoral commissioner.
Mick Sherry: It doesn't mean that those particular electors weren't aware of the by-election by many other sources of information that we provide. It was just the fact that the coreflutes weren't there in their eyes that created a lack of awareness.
Luke Radford: It's worth noting that this was at a by-election, which typically have less media attention and lower turnouts than general elections. In fact, the federal election body, the AEC, told the ABC it's not worried. A spokesperson pointed out that the percentage of people voting in South Australia has actually gone up slightly since the last election. Some experts have concerns, like Australian National University lecturer Dr Andrew Hughes, who says the lack of coreflutes may benefit major parties over smaller groups and independents.
Andrew Hughes: They are so supportive of coreflutes. They see them as really critical tools, not just for awareness raising of their profile and their party, but also because it levels the playing field. And it's the one area where they can actually spend the same as a major party candidate and therefore be competitive on.
Luke Radford: He also says coreflutes play a role in increasing awareness that an election is on.
Andrew Hughes: And it's a common finding I have here in Canberra as well and people I've spoken to across the nation again. It's a very common finding that people aren't aware of elections being on sometimes unless they see coreflutes up and then they start to look into the election itself a bit more closely. The implication, though, is on 27 percent of people, if they don't vote, for example, they vote informally or they don't participate and engage in democracy, then it's a weaker democracy we have overall.
Luke Radford: Despite Dr Hughes' concerns, these voters still support the ban.
Voter: There's enough news and, you know, social media about elections being on.
Voter: I think you'd have to be living under a rock not to know about it.
Voter: I think social media was really good for replacing that, actually.
Andy Park: South Australian voter Lily ending that report by Luke Radford. And that's all from the World Today team. Thanks for your company. I'm Andy Park.

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