Vegan protests: 'Un-Australian' activists arrested, PM Morrison says - BBC News

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has criticised animal rights activists as "shameful and un-Australian" after dozens were arrested in nationwide protests.

On Monday, activists broke into abattoirs and chained themselves up to protest against the meat industry.

More than 100 protesters also blocked one of Melbourne's main intersections, before many were forcibly removed.

Mr Morrison said the activism was damaging to farmers' livelihoods.

"This is just another form of activism that I think runs against the national interest, and the national interest is [farmers] being able to farm their own land," he told radio station 2GB.

He later called on state authorities to bring "the full force of the law... against these green-collared criminals".

Australia is second only to the US for meat consumption per person, according to the World Economic Forum.

• Which countries eat the most meat?

The nation's livestock industry accounts for more than 40% of its agricultural output.

The protests took place in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland and aimed to raise publicity about animal treatment and the ethics of eating meat.

"We want people to go vegan - we want people to stop supporting animal abuse," one campaigner, Kristin Leigh, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"Animals are suffering in ways that most of us could never imagine. It is not about bigger cages - it is about animal liberation."

• Would you eat slaughter-free meat?

Police said 38 protesters were arrested in Melbourne. A further nine were arrested at an abattoir in Goulburn, 168km (104 miles) south of Sydney, after chaining themselves to machinery.

The Australian Meat Industry Council said butcher shops had been under a sustained "attack" by campaigners.

"This has to stop and stop now. We need to look at the 99% of people in Australia that are looking to and wanting to consume red meat products," said chief executive Patrick Hutchinson.

Global meat consumption has increased rapidly over the past 50 years.

Meat production today is nearly five times higher than in the early 1960s - from 70 million tonnes to more than 330 million tonnes in 2017, according to the Our World in Data project.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-47848674

2019-04-08 08:11:58Z
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Mysterious Marvel Movie To Film In Australia, Might Be Shang-Chi - GameSpot

A new Marvel movie will film in Sydney, though it's unclear at this stage what production it is. A news release from Mitch Fifield, Australia's Minister for Communications and the Arts, and New South Wales Minister for the Arts Don Harwin, confirmed that the "Untitled Marvel Studios Feature Film" will begin production at some point in 2019 in and around Sydney.

The Australian Federal Government put in $24 million from the "Made in NSW fund" to help entice Marvel and owner Disney to film in Australia. Filming will take place at Fox Studios Australia and "other locations" in the country. Disney claimed ownership of Fox Studios Australia as part of its acquisition of Fox.

It's not the first Marvel movie to film in Australia, as Thor: Ragnarok also filmed in the country.

According to Fifield, the new Marvel movie filming in Australia will create 4,700 new jobs and utilise the services of around 1,200 local businesses. In total, Australia is expecting to see "over $150 million of new international investment" related to this decision.

The production of the movie is expected to spend in excess of $100 million in New South Wales and establish as many as 770 jobs for local screen professionals specifically.

"The film needs a large workforce of highly specialised special effects technicians and will also require sophisticated stunts, all of which NSW's incredibly skilled and experienced screen industry can deliver," Harwin said in a statement.

"Marvel Studios thanks the Australian and NSW Governments and is thrilled to be returning to Australia to work with the talented and highly skilled Australian crew, stunt performers, and actors together with the thousands of small businesses across Australia that supply world class equipment, goods, facilities, and services to large budget productions," Marvel Studios vice president David Grant said.

According to Sydney Morning Herald, the Marvel movie shooting in Sydney is Shang-Chi, which would be Marvel's first superhero film starring an Asian protagonist.

The next Marvel movie is the much-anticipated Avengers: Endgame, which will wrap up 10 years worth of MCU storytelling.

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https://www.gamespot.com/articles/mysterious-marvel-movie-to-film-in-australia-might/1100-6466089/

2019-04-08 05:29:00Z
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A new, mystery 'untitled' Marvel movie will be shot in Australia - CNET

Could there be another Thor movie on the way?

Marvel Studios

Thanks in part to a $24 million injection from the Australian Federal government a new, as yet unannounced Marvel movie is set to be shot in Sydney, Australia.

In a release sent by Mitch Fifield, Australia's Minister for Communications and the Arts, and Don Harwin, New South Wales' Minister for the Arts, the movie was simply referred to as an "Untitled Marvel Studios Feature Film".

Production will take place at Fox Studios Australia and other locations in Australia.

It's not the first time Marvel has shot a movie here.

"We are very excited to have Marvel return to Australia following the incredible success of Thor: Ragnarok. Securing this latest production will bring over $150 million of new international investment, create 4,700 new Australian jobs and use the services of around 1,200 local businesses," said Fifield.

We could possibly be looking at a fourth Thor movie considering Chris Hemsworth, who is Australian, is the star. Also Taika Waititi is from that neck of the woods, being from New Zealand. That's just a three-hour flight.

Government funding was secured via its Made in NSW fund.

Marvel is, of course, very close to releasing Avengers: Endgame, which will most likely become the highest grossing Marvel movie to date. It's difficult to speculate exactly where Marvel will take the universe after that movie. The only thing we can be sure of, at this point, is there will definitely be more movies.

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https://www.cnet.com/news/a-new-mystery-marvel-film-will-be-shot-in-australia/

2019-04-08 05:04:00Z
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What the Rest of the World Can Learn From the Australian Economic Miracle - The New York Times

Image

CreditIllustration by Alvaro Dominguez; Photographs by Getty Images

SYDNEY — One Saturday in March, in the suburbs north of Sydney, around three dozen people gathered on a lawn outside a smallish two-bedroom apartment.

They were taking part in an idiosyncrasy of the Australian economic system. Here, selling a home tends to be an almost festive gathering, in which potential buyers show up for an auction and neighbors stop by to watch the spectacle — and quietly calibrate how much their own homes might be worth.

On this muggy day, almost all of the assembled crowd turned out to be gawkers; only four people actually raised their bidding paddles at any point. After bidding opened at 750,000 Australian dollars (about $532,000 in the U.S.), the action started slowly. Twice, it seemed to be petering out as the auctioneer, Andrew Robinson, nearly banged his final gavel, only to be extended with one more bid. Finally a young couple whose agent lobbed in a 930,000 Australian dollar ($661,000) offer won the day.

It reflected a wheezing Australian housing market. Prices have fallen since the country’s banks tightened lending standards in mid-2018 and the Chinese government made it harder for its citizens to buy property abroad. Not too long ago, the number of interested parties might have been double.

“Twelve to 18 months ago, it would have sold for 1.1 million,” said Mr. Robinson, with Belle Property, as he packed up his gavel and papers and prepared to head to his next auction on a day he would conduct eight of them. “There was more of a frenzied atmosphere, more people bidding who just didn’t want to lose out.”

I had flown 16,000 miles not to study economic malaise, but its opposite: the remarkable resilience of the Australian economy, which has gone nearly 28 years without a recession. The government, with elections to take place next month, recently announced an expected surplus in the next budget year.

Surely this grand economic success story would hold lessons for the United States and the rest of the world, right?

Yet instead of giddy enthusiasm, what I found in Sydney was a pervasive sense of caution and wariness — and not just involving real estate, though housing does loom large in discussions about the economy. In conversations with Australian businesspeople and college students, economists and government officials, I detected no sense of triumphalism.

An entire generation of young adults has grown up without experiencing a protracted downturn. But in Australia, as I came to learn, nobody really acts as if they’re the stars of an unprecedented three-decade success story. They’re aware that the good times could end. The mood is more practicality than pessimism.

America is on the verge of its own economic milestone: The current expansion is on track to reach its 10th birthday this summer, which would also put it on record as the nation’s longest streak without a recession.

During the decade I’ve spent chronicling that growth as an economics writer, a persistent whisper has been: How long can it go? The run has been uneven, underwhelming and repeatedly on the verge of unraveling, including scary moments in 2010, 2015 and this past December. Seemingly every commentator without a good cliché blocker has referred to it as “long in the tooth.”

Even the language of economics suggests that an end to the good times is inevitable. If you’re going to call it the “business cycle,” things can’t just keep getting better forever. Some of history’s great economic thinkers have theorized that downturns are as essential to the workings of the economy as the seasons are to agriculture.

Is Australia a unique case, a beneficiary of some good economic luck that cannot be replicated in the rest of the world? Or is the nation onto something, and are there lessons in economic policy that are applicable everywhere?

When I landed there in mid-March, in the waning days of the Australian summer, that’s what I hoped to figure out.

Good luck and good policy

Ask Australian economists about this golden run, and almost all will say it has been driven partly by good luck and partly by good policy.

The luck part can’t be minimized. Beneath the ground of large stretches of Australia are the iron ore and coal that have been the raw materials behind China’s long economic boom. Above ground lies the wheat and cattle that have helped feed China’s rapidly growing middle-class population.

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A commuter on a ferry in Sydney last month.CreditRyan Pierse/Getty Images

China’s growth, in other words, has created a tailwind that has boosted Australia’s economy for much of this period. And if the Chinese economy ever truly tanks, even the most skilled policymakers in Australian will have a hard time preventing a recession.

But China’s gravitational pull can explain only so much. For one thing, other countries nearby have had recessions, some severe, in recent decades. And there are a long list of policy choices that enabled the long Australian boom even as otherwise similar economies sank.

One episode is particularly telling. In 1997, an East Asian financial crisis walloped the economies of countries like South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia. These nations were major buyers of Australian exports. The value of the Australian dollar started to fall on global currency markets, putting the expansion at risk only six years in.

On the other side of the Tasman Sea, New Zealand’s central bank responded to the same problem by raising interest rates. After all, a falling New Zealand dollar indicated a lack of confidence in the currency and implied that inflation would soon rise.

At the Reserve Bank of Australia, by contrast, officials concluded that the falling value of the Australian dollar reflected shifting economic fundamentals that were ultimately healthy — part of how the Australian economy could adapt to faltering demand from East Asia.

Rather than raise interest rates to try to prevent a falling currency, they viewed a falling currency as the key to navigating the peril — by making Australian exports more competitive in the United States and Europe, for example.

“The government was uncomfortable if the exchange rate went too low, because it looked like a sign of no confidence,” said Malcolm Edey, who was the central bank’s head of economic research at the time. “We had a good monetary framework in place, we stuck to it, and we didn’t panic when the exchange rate moved around along the way.”

Sure enough, New Zealand fell into recession in 1997 and 1998, while Australia endured only a period of subpar growth. Good policy, it turns out, has a way of creating good luck. And it wasn’t the only time.

Boring banking and avoiding the global financial crisis

If you had looked around the world circa 2006, you would have seen a number of countries where housing prices had soared into potential bubble territory, including the United States, Britain and Australia.

But two years later, while the United States and Britain were in a severe recession and financial crisis, Australia experienced only a single quarter of contraction. Why the difference?

The answer seems to be how the financial industries of those countries were structured and regulated. To understand that better, I sought out a tutor, one who turned out to have an unlikely background: David Morgan, a former child actor and professional Australian Rules Football player who later became one of the country’s leading bankers.

After a wave of deregulation in the 1980s, Australian banks took on ever-more-risky lending, especially for commercial real estate, and got into new business lines overseas in which they had no obvious competitive advantage. When that asset bubble popped and a recession arrived, the banks came near failure, and there was a wholesale firing of top bank executives.

It was a matter of “going through the furnace, and coming out tempered by experience,” said Mr. Morgan, who was chief executive of Westpac, one of Australia’s major banks, during the crisis. “We were adamant that we would go into the next shock with the least risk and the most resilience, and would not engage in any more offshore frolics.”

The banks — with prodding from regulators — reformulated themselves to take a more conservative and domestically focused approach to lending. After that near-death experience, there remained the “Big Four” banks that together control about 80 percent of deposits; they are not allowed to merge with each other.

The banks also did not engage in the kind of expansionist strategy that had gotten them in trouble in 1991. They did not open huge offices in Hong Kong, London or New York, nor get in the business of creating the complex mortgage securities that were the nexus of the financial crisis.

Good regulation was part of it. “They were good quality regulators; the public sector was getting good people,” Mr. Morgan said. Both major political parties have tended to be tough on banks, and there is a single powerful regulator rather than a patchwork of them as in the United States.

But just as important was the sense among bank leaders that they would need to be ready when the next downturn came.

It’s not as if Australia’s banks are perfect actors. A royal commission established to examine the industry found widespread misconduct, including abuses of customers, in a report issued this year.

But they have focused on lending to Australians, especially for home mortgages, and held those loans on their own books. No doubt Australia has missed out on some opportunities by not hosting the big, complicated banks that operate worldwide and do more sophisticated forms of finance. Sydney does not have the concentration of high-paying finance jobs that London and Hong Kong do.

But having a conservative, domestically focused, highly concentrated banking system meant that Australia wasn’t stuck importing other countries’ financial contagions when crises hit.

During the global financial crisis, Australia suffered from plummeting demand for its products. But a nicely designed fiscal stimulus — combined with a falling Australian dollar and an assist from aggressive stimulus by China — helped the country regain its footing rapidly and avoid the mass economic pain found in so much of the world.

The pessimism of 2019

If there’s anyone you would expect to be bullish, it might be the young adults entering the work force, who have never lived through a recession. But among them — as with other Australians who don’t occupy the halls of government or financial power — you find angst and uncertainty rather than boom-time optimism.

“I think there will be a recession within the next 10 years,” said George Ye, 25, who is studying for a master’s degree in data science at the University of Sydney. “I feel like sentiment is, we might have gotten to a peak. Things have gone so well for so long that the things we need to buy are getting more and more expensive,” especially housing. “I think the generation of people born 10 years prior to me are much more confident than I am.”

“I’m pessimistic,” said Freya Zemek, 24, an employee at the university. “I think we’re probably looking at a recession in 2020. Consumer confidence isn’t very high. The signs aren’t looking great, and I think it’s the sort of tightrope situation where we could be next for a recession. It’s only a matter of time. Nothing goes on forever.”

Housing especially seems to be in the opposite of a sweet spot. It’s still too expensive, especially in booming Sydney and Melbourne, for young people. Yet the prices are well below those from a couple of years ago, leaving recent buyers sitting on paper losses.

But just maybe, the contrast between a pessimistic mood and a long record of economic success isn’t as contradictory as it may seem.

Are recessions really necessary?

In November 1990, the Australian treasurer (and later prime minister) Paul Keating described a painful downturn then underway as “the recession we had to have.”

His point was that excesses in a lending and credit boom, combined with high inflation, meant that the Australian economy needed the wrenching experience of a downturn to rid itself of those excesses. It was also a horrible political gaffe, a comment that went over poorly in a country then burdened with an 11 percent unemployment rate.

But the question of whether he was right is profound — one that economists can still debate.

Image

At a house auction in Sydney. This is the typical way a home is sold in Australia: It is marketed for a few weeks, then registered bidders gather to make an offer.CreditNeil Irwin

The great economic thinker Joseph Schumpeter argued that recessions served an essential purging mechanism enabling a society to become richer over time. Through business failures, capital is redeployed to emerging high-growth industries. In this thinking, recessions play a cleansing effect, clearing the way for the future.

Hyman Minsky, another 20th-century economist, argued that long periods of financial stability could breed complacency: The longer a nation goes without a downturn, the more risky behavior will build up in the economy, making the eventual downturn worse.

Those theories sound plausible. Data to support the case is a little harder to find. In fact, there is some evidence that recessions actually cause lasting damage to a country’s economic potential — that they hurt, rather than help — by thrusting people out of the work force unnecessarily and causing their skills to atrophy. Research shows that people who enter the work force during a recession take a hit to their earnings even decades later.

There have also been long periods when the Minskyite story has seemed not to apply, notably in the decades after World War II in the United States.

“I think Australia’s experience shows that you don’t need recessions to clean out the system, but it does show that what you need is strong, clear policy settings from governments,” said James Pearson, the chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “There is a risk, and I think we’re seeing it in Australia today, that a prolonged period of economic growth without recession can lead to complacency both among policymakers and the electorate.”

But that brings us back to the slowing housing market, and the general sense of pessimism that sneaks into conversations about the economy in Australia, especially among the young.

Maybe the real reason Australia has made it so long without a downturn is an absence of complacency. No one is brimming with overconfidence that all is well and always will be.

“What has happened in the last 27 years is a series of shocks, each of which, thanks to policy and luck, we were able to overcome,” said Stephen Grenville, the former deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia and now a fellow at the Lowy Institute. “That’s the nature of the economy we’re in now — an economy with shocks plus flexibility.”

It isn’t the absence of bad stuff happening in the economy that has kept Australia growing for so long. It is the nation’s economic flexibility and policymakers’ rejection of complacency.

So maybe the pessimism isn’t a paradox at all. And maybe we would be more worried about Australia’s economic future if house prices had kept soaring toward unsustainable highs, or if young people had made economic decisions with a sense of reckless invincibility and engaged in borrowing and spending behaviors accordingly.

The Australian experience is evidence that the “business cycle” is a misleading way to think about economic growth. Recessions aren’t like thunderstorms, an inevitable, random event that may be violent but provide much-needed water to crops.

Maybe recessions are more like car crashes. They may never be completely eliminated, but making the right choices can make them rarer and less damaging when they do happen.

In trying to learn the lessons of Australia, that may be the biggest of them all. There will always be bad things that happen in an economy. The best way to keep them from causing the mass pain that accompanies a recession is to combine sound policy, a flexible and dynamic economy and — perhaps most important — just the right amount of fear.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/upshot/australia-lessons-economic-miracle.html

2019-04-06 09:02:03Z
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Australia Has Passed a Sweeping Law to Punish Social Media Companies for Not Policing Violent Content. Here's What to Know - TIME

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2019-04-05 20:34:36Z
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USA takes Australia for a 5-3 ride - Stars and Stripes FC

Starting XI: Alyssa Naeher, Crystal Dunn, Becky Sauerbrunn, Abby Dahlkemper, Emily Sonnett, Lindsey Horan, Julie Ertz, Rose Lavelle, Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan, Tobin Heath

One of the most frustrating things about seeing a midfield lineup like Horan, Ertz, and Lavelle is that it should be exciting. Those are three exciting, talented players, who seem like they should combine well to cover the midfield defensively and offensively. But instead, thanks to whatever is going on in USWNT camps, it looks like a midfield being yanked around by an invisible hand that is particularly mean. Is Julie Ertz a DM? Maybe! What is a DM anyway? It’s really more of a nebulous concept than a concrete position with defined responsibilities, or so you might think watching the first half of USA vs Australia.

Okay, let’s backtrack a little. The game opened up in a fun back-and-forth, with teams looking for quick transitions. The US often hit the ball long out of the back to bypass Australia’s tough midfield, with Dahlkemper often picking out her targets well enough to create a chance. But it became apparent very quickly that the weak spot that Australia wanted to probe was on the US’ right, where Emily Sonnett had her hands full with Lisa De Vanna. Crystal Dunn didn’t have the easiest time either; if she tried to push high, Australia looked to exploit the space behind her, forcing Horan to drop quickly to cover the space.

Still, the defensive long balls paid off in the 14’ as Dunn served one over, hit a good bounce, and found Alex Morgan. Morgan bodied Clare Polkinghorne off the ball, cut Alanna Kennedy to find the space between the CBs, and hit a shot with her non-preferred right foot. Not only did it make it 1-0, but it was Morgan’s 100th goal total for the United States. No toe pokes here for Morgan’s century of scoring.

Australia fought back right away, engaging in a tense back-and-forth through the midfield that saw the Americans trying to play out of pressure and find Rapinoe and Heath wide and Australia trying to bypass

The US tried to mitigate the pressure by winning the ball higher through Rapinoe and Morgan, but their pressure wasn’t the most consistently effective against Australia’s back line. Lindsey Horan looked rusty too, losing balls off of some rough touches. Ertz and Lavelle both pushed high under the forwards, with Lavelle trying to act the playmaker here and there, but Ertz was a positional liability, though obviously she’s been told not to sit strictly in a DM role but try to add to the high attacking pressure. That led to the first Australia goal, as Ertz got bypassed, leaving pristine field for the Australians to swarm through as they ran at the back line. Sonnett stayed pinched in way too close to Dahlkemper, giving De Vanna plenty of space to shoot and make it 1-1 in the 29’.

The US had some more good chance in the last 15 minutes of the half as they tried to work the wide areas then cut in and pick out a target. There were also some individual efforts - Horan had a shot from range that looked like it might dip under the bar and forced Williams to tip it over in the 34’, while Lavelle had a clever look at the low far post that once again pulled a big save out of Williams. But the US also continued to get pushed out of the center of the field, although the adapted reasonably well to that with their long range service. When you have someone with Dahlkemper’s accuracy, that’s not necessarily the worst contingency plan.

#USWNT's first-half touches vs Australia.

- Almost a third of them in the attacking third (94 of 301).

- Fewer than a quarter of them (72) in the center third of the field (vertically) pic.twitter.com/DjLHEHGhT6

— Paul Carr (@PaulCarr) April 5, 2019

The half ended at 1-1, with no real sense of momentum for either team. Australia picked it up in a hurry as the second half started, though. The US brought Sam Mewis on for Rose Lavelle, although Mewis promptly had the kind of slip that sometimes happens in games, which combined with the defense once again backing off too much, gave Caitlin Foord room to shoot and put Australia in the lead 2-1 in the 47’.

But then it was Tobin Heath’s turn in the 53’, drawing level at 2-2 with a fantastically simple header.

Mewis began making up for her earlier slip, trying to take command of the ball and creating possession in dangerous areas, sometimes pulling multiple players, like she did in the 60’ to try and create a chance for Rapinoe. The ball got deflected out but Rapinoe made a meal of it anyway with an incredible goal, finding a little space, then shooting across her body to make it 3-2.

The following gets a little hazy, as there were multiple player and formation shifts with each substitution. Christen Press cameo on in the 64’ for Horan, moving Heath into the midfield in a playmaker position. Rapinoe came off shortly thereafter, although it looked as though she had some kind of calf injury and actually beckoned for trainers, leading to Mal Pugh coming on in the 67’. Pugh scored with literally her first touch of the game, though, arriving late into the box and slipping a nicely-placed ball into the net and making to 4-2.

Possibly Ellis felt comfortable enough at this point to really go for the old razzle-dazzle. She had the team shift in to a 4-1-4-1 with Morgan as the highest player and Press, Heath, Mewis, and Pugh in a midfield line with Ertz sitting solidly at DM. Then came a sub in the 78’ with Tierna Davidson on for Sonnett, prompting Dunn to shift to right fullback so Davidson could take LB. (In the distance: Ali Krieger grinding her teeth?) The night wasn’t over for the defense as Sam Kerr pulled Australia within one in the 81’, rising over Abby Dahlkemper for a headed goal.

Then in the 82’ Allie Long came in for Alex Morgan and pushed Ertz into the back line, with Long now sitting in front of them. The final sub was in the 85’, with Carli Lloyd on for Dahlkemper, now rearranging things into a five-back situation, with Sauerbrunn, Ertz, and Long in the middle and Lloyd and Mewis paired in front of them. If that sounds like a lot of flim-flammery, that’s because it was, and it was kind of a surprising cherry on top of the night that in the last minute of stoppage, Alyssa Naeher booted the ball three quarters of the way down the field, where Pugh picked up a nice bounce and was able to chip Williams to put the game away at 5-3.

That's how you finish it off!

Pugh chips the keeper for her 2nd and the USWNT's 5th goal, with the assist going to Alyssa Naeher! pic.twitter.com/c17L1F3LnN

— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) April 5, 2019

The first half of this game seemed like a proper exercise in a World Cup starting XI, sans Kelley O’Hara, against a tough and organized opponent ready to punish any weak points. The second half felt like GOB from Arrested Development entering to The Final Countdown and presenting a bunch of desperate and unnecessary flourishes to distract you from the trick. Sorry, the illusion - the illusion of a cohesive midfield unit, or the illusion of adequate defensive depth. And yet this wildly talented, incredibly resilient, absurdly fit team may still pull it all off.

Next up:
USA vs Belgium
April 7
9 PM ET / 6 PM PT
ESPN2

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2019-04-05 04:12:09Z
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Australia to hold national inquiry into disability abuse - BBC News

Australia will hold a three-year national inquiry into the abuse of people with disabilities, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced.

In recent years, the nation has been shocked by harrowing cases of abuse and assault in homes and care settings.

Disability advocates say that abuse and exploitation are systemic issues.

Mr Morrison said the royal commission - Australia's highest form of public inquiry - aimed to "establish a culture of respect".

"My government recognises that people with a disability are more likely to suffer abuse, violence and neglect, and exploitation," he told reporters on Friday.

Mr Morrison dedicated the inquiry to Australians living with disabilities, including his own brother-in-law, Garry Warren, who has multiple sclerosis.

"This is so above politics, I can't tell you," the prime minister said, holding back tears.

Push for inquiry

The announcement follows lobbying by Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John, who has a disability and has advocated powerfully for greater action.

In one speech to parliament last year, Mr Steele-John wept as he read the names of 34 people with disabilities who he said had died due to violence or neglect in care settings.

"These are the names that don't get spoken," he said in his address.

A parliament investigation in 2015 found widespread rates of violence against people with disabilities. It recommended the establishment of a more powerful, in-depth inquiry.

The A$527m (£286m; $375m) royal commission will hold public hearings around the country, and is currently scheduled to hand down its findings in April 2022.

However, Mr Morrison said the inquiry would have "no limits" on its scope and it could be extended beyond three years if required.

He said the government had already received more than 3,000 responses - about a third from people with disabilities - as it sought to determine the terms of reference.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-47822604

2019-04-05 01:25:32Z
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