Voting 101: Should you vote above or below the line this election? Why does it matter?
It's Australia's dorkiest election debate: should you vote above or below the line when filling out the Senate ballot paper? What difference does how you vote actually make — and do you need to number every single box? In this episode of Voting 101, Guardian Australia's Matilda Boseley explains what to do when you're faced with that giant white ballot paper at the voting booth
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘I think you and I are at war': the Australians suddenly united in grief over the Israel-Iran conflict
When Israel triggered a war last Friday after it sent a wave of airstrikes into Iran, Saina Salemi and Oscar were at work in Melbourne, sitting at arm's length away from each other at their desks. Salemi saw the news headline first. She turned to Oscar and said: 'I think you and I are at war.' 'I thought she was kidding,' Oscar, who asked for his last name to not be used, recalled. 'I didn't understand. And then we went to the news, and it had all started, and my heart just sunk immediately.' Salemi, who is 26, moved to Australia from Tehran when she was 7, and Oscar, who is 24 and from Israel, says for the past week they've shared in a grief that feels unending – but there has been a release in sharing it together. The pair became friends when they started work the same day as each other 18 months ago. Since last week, finding out what is happening overseas and if it is affecting their families has become a shared obsession. While sitting next to each other at work, they keep track of the rolling live coverage. Salemi also watches Persian news sources while Oscar watches the Hebrew channels. 'We're translating documents for each other. We're tracking where the missiles are being hit and seeing if they're close to our family members,' Oscar tells Guardian Australia, both he and Salemi speaking on the phone together from their office. 'If we find out information we want the other to know, we text each other, no matter what time of night it is,' Salemi says. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Oscar's parents, who were visiting Israel when tensions flared are – for now – stuck there. Salemi's grandparents, aunts, and uncles live in Tehran. Their shared grief has not just been defined by doomscrolling and sharing news about loved ones. Salemi says their focus is on the civilians suffering and the governments 'making the choice' to continue it. 'My people, Palestinians and Israelis are being used as political shields for geopolitical aims,' Salemi says. Oscar says he is also battling a feeling of guilt, despite having no control over what is going on. 'I really care about her family. I feel so guilty, and even though obviously I'm not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, but nevertheless, it really pains me to just see even more suffering being inflicted.' 'I don't want people to become desensitised to what is happening in the region, and the … scale of pain that is taking place every day. It's getting worse.' By Friday, Israeli strikes on Iran had killed at least 657 people and wounded 2,037 others, according to Washington-based group Human Rights Activists. Of those dead, the group identified 263 civilians and 164 security force personnel. Iran has not given regular death tolls during the conflict and has minimised casualties in the past. In its last update, delivered last Monday, it put the death toll at 224 people and 1,277 wounded. Salemi says she has not heard from her family since the Iranian authorities blocked the internet. 'My auntie woke up in the middle of the night thinking that she was having a heart attack because the initial missile was so close to where she lived,' she says. 'I haven't heard from my family members in 36 hours, and there's a great sense of numbness when you worry that maybe that's the last time you've ever heard from your family members,' she says. Oscar says he sometimes has difficulty reaching his parents by phone to check in on how they are. He struggled with the news that a hospital – where his nan had gotten care once after she had a stroke – had been hit by an Iranian rocket. Salemi says while the bombs are falling from Israel, she also blames the Iranian regime – unpopular among many – for failing to protect its people. She points to there being no bomb shelters for people to turn to and disruptions to internet access that could help in planning escape routes with loved ones. Despite the ruling regime being unpopular, Salemi is frustrated by rhetoric from Israel's president, Benjamin Netanyahu, that Israel could support regime change. 'Regime change in Iran will come internally, at the hands of my own people,' she says. Oscar and Salemi say the war has inflamed the grief they were already feeling for the thousands of people killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza. Oscar said on top of this he is also grieving loved ones that died when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October. Since Israel and Iran began trading strikes, over 100 people in Gaza have been killed while seeking aid. 'The safety of Israel can't come from anything other than peace – lasting, negotiated peace,' Oscar says. 'I want a serious political solution and a lasting peace.' Asked if there is anything they want the Australian government to do, Salemi says it should focus on getting Australian citizens out of each conflict zone. Australia's foreign minister Penny Wong said on Friday there were about 2,000 Australians and their families in Iran and approximately 1,200 in Israel who wanted to evacuate. 'The security situation is obviously very difficult,' Wong said. ' The airspace remains closed.' Oscar says that last Friday, after Israel first struck Iran, he and Salemi sat on the steps outside their work together. They already felt it could be different to the 'tit-for-tat' strikes in past months. 'I remember I turned to her and said, 'when will this end? How much longer does this have to go on?'.'
The Independent
5 hours ago
- The Independent
Republicans weigh Medicaid changes amid ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill's' unpopularity
This week, Senate Republicans released the tax and health care parts for their version of President Donald Trump's desired 'One Big, Beautiful Bill.' But they face a huge problem: The bill is becoming incredibly unpopular. A poll from Ipsos and The Washington Post found that a plurality of Americans oppose the bill, with 42 percent opposing it, 34 percent saying they have no opinion and 23 percent saying they support it. Specifically, they are grappling with the unpopularity of the bill's changes to Medicaid. And it does not show signs of letting up. On Monday, the Senate Finance Committee released the text of its part of the bill. During the debate around the bill in the House, Republicans made it so that able-bodied adults without dependent children would have to work, participate in education or community service for 80 hours a month. Conservative Republicans lobbied to make the work requirements begin in 2026 rather than 2029. The Senate bill goes even further. For one, it lowers the age at which children are considered dependent to 14 years old. That means parents of children older than 14 would have to work to keep their Medicaid. Sen. Jim Justice, a freshman from West Virginia, defended the work requirements. 'Biblically, we are supposed to work,' he told The Independent. 'We have taken the dignity and the hope and the belief away from a lot of people where they are hopeless, they think they can't. ' According to the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, about 29 percent of West Virginians are on Medicaid and 62 percent of West Virginians on Medicaid work either part-time or full-time. It seems Republicans know how politically caustic touching Medicaid might be. Sen. Bernie Moreno, a freshman from Ohio, tore into reporters. 'You guys really need to report it accurately, though, which is we're actually increasing the amount of money we're spending on Medicaid,' Moreno told The Independent this week. 'We're spending more on Medicaid. We're also eliminating the abuse by able-bodied adults, and we're reinstating the fact that Medicaid is for people who need it.' Trump has said he wants the bill done by the July 4th holiday. Earlier this week, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Mehmet Oz, the television host, met with Senate Republicans to discuss the bill. The legislation also seeks to cap the level of provider taxes. To pay for Medicaid, many states levy taxes on facilities like hospitals or nursing homes. This often allows for states to collect the money to receive matching funds from the federal government. Under the proposed bill, states that did not expand Medicaid under the 2010 Affordable Care Act signed by then-President Barack Obama, would be prohibited from raising provider taxes. States that did expand Medicaid would see their provider taxes reduced by 0.5 percent annually until they are capped at 3.5 percent in 2031. 'The provider tax is a way around the match,' Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota told The Independent. 'The whole point is for us to get after waste, fraud and abuse, and the provider tax is a way for states to avoid putting up their share of the match.' Sen. Ron Johnson, a fiscal hawk who has wanted the bill to slash even more spending, went a step further. 'It's legalized fraud, it's not health care,' the Wisconsin Republican told The Independent. 'Why are we paying for taxes reimbursing state taxes and fees? It's absurd.' But the proposal in the bill raised alarm bells for hospitals, since Medicaid accounts for 19 percent of all hospital revenue, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Many rural hospitals also rely on Medicaid given the large number of rural residents who are on Medicaid. Chip Kahn, the CEO and president of the Federation of American Hospitals, said in a statement earlier this week that the Senate text made the bill worse. 'Rural communities across the country will be the hardest hit, with struggling hospitals compelled to face difficult decisions about what services to cut,' he said. 'It's imperative Senators take a detour on this text and reject its deepening of the House cuts already on the table.' But it's not just the hospital lobby that hates the text so far. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, the biggest defender of Medicaid among Senate Republicans, criticized the provisions. 'I'm totally surprised by what they proposed to do on the provider tax I don't know why we would defund rural hospitals to pay for Chinese solar panels,' he told The Independent, referring to the fact that Senate version draws down the renewable energy credits from Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act at a slower pace than the House's version of the bill does. Hawley later said that he spoke with Trump about the subject. 'I think that you know he's he does not want to have Medicaid benefits cut,' Hawley said, adding that Trump doesn't want to see rural hospitals hurt either. But Hawley is not the only Republican worried about the effect on hospitals. Sen. Susan Collins, who faces a tough re-election in Maine in a state Trump lost. 'I'm looking at whether there would be receptivity to a provider relief fund that would be aimed at rural hospitals, nursing homes and community health centers,' Collins told reporters on Wednesday. 'I've not endorsed in any way, a provider tax change.'
South Wales Guardian
6 hours ago
- South Wales Guardian
Trump calls for special prosecutor to investigate 2020 election
'Biden was grossly incompetent, and the 2020 election was a total FRAUD!' Mr Trump said in a social media post in which he also sought to favourably contrast his immigration enforcement approach with that of the former president. 'The evidence is MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING. A Special Prosecutor must be appointed. This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America! Let the work begin!' Mr Trump's post, made as his Republican White House is consumed by a hugely substantial foreign policy decision on whether to get directly involved in the Israel-Iran war, is part of an amped-up effort by him to undermine the legitimacy of Mr Biden's presidency. Earlier this month, Mr Trump directed his administration to investigate Mr Biden's actions as president, alleging aides masked his predecessor's 'cognitive decline'. Mr Biden has dismissed the investigation as 'a mere distraction'. The post also revives a long-running grievance by Mr Trump that the election was stolen even though courts around the country and a Trump attorney general from his first term found no evidence of fraud that could have affected the outcome. The Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity arm pronounced the election 'the most secure in American history'. It was unclear what Mr Trump had in mind when he called for a special prosecutor, but in the event Attorney General Pam Bondi heeds his call, she may face pressure to appoint someone who has already been confirmed by the Senate. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on Friday. The Justice Department has appointed a succession of special counsels in recent years — sometimes, though not always, plucked from outside the agency — to lead investigations into politically sensitive matters, including into conduct by Mr Biden and by Mr Trump. Last year, Mr Trump's personal lawyers launched an aggressive, and successful, challenge to the appointment of Jack Smith, the special counsel assigned to investigate his efforts to undo the 2020 presidential election and his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. A Trump-appointed judge agreed, ruling that then-Attorney General Merrick Garland had exceeded his bounds by appointing a prosecutor without Senate approval and confirmation, and dismissed the case. That legal team included Todd Blanche, who is now deputy attorney general, as well as Emil Bove, who is Mr Blanche's top deputy but was recently nominated to serve as a judge on a federal appeals court.
