Australia’s Right to Disconnect laws are less than six months old.

They give workers the right to reasonably refuse calls, texts and emails from their boss outside normal work hours.

Given how new these laws are, there’s not yet much data available to measure their success … in terms of dollars and hours saved, or the mental and physical health benefits to workers. 

Some unions and academics suggest they have, at least, provided greater awareness and communication between employees and employers about hours/expectations/pressures … and that payment for hours which used to be performed for nothing has provided much-needed cost-of-living relief for families. 

The Australia Institute will publish an updated report later this year on how many hours of unpaid overtime the average worker performs in Australia.

The most recent data, released in November ahead of Go Home On Time Day 2024, and captured just after the laws came into force, found the average worker was doing five weeks’ unpaid overtime a year,  which was costing employees a total of $91 billion annually.

The laws are due to be expanded to small businesses (fewer than 15 workers) in August this year. 

But will the Right to Disconnect even exist by then?

One year ago today, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton told Andrew Clennell in a Sky News Sunday Agenda interview he’d repeal the Right to Disconnect laws, if elected.

We’re not sure if it was a thought bubble in response to a tough interview question (like when he pledged to hold a second voice referendum, which he walked back a few days later) – we’ve hardly heard a peep from the coalition on this subject since.

Peter Dutton (and all the audacity) is now speaking on the Closing the Gap update.

“To understand history is to appreciate that no country has an unblemished past. What distinguishes Australia from many other countries, is that among our overwhelming achievements as a nation, we do not shy away from our dark chapters. We’ve accepted those chapters, apologised for them, and continue to learn from them. The sign of a mature nation is one which embraces and tells its history in the round, its successes and shortcomings alike, by remembering historical wrongs rather than dropping them down the memory pole. We equip future generations with the knowledge that helps those mistakes being made.”

He is now speaking about the National Apology to the Stolen Generations, which he walked out on. Dutton has previously apologised for walking out and said he walked out as he did not support token gestures, but wanted concrete action.

The concrete action being the Voice referendum which was worked on for years by First Nations’ communities. Which Dutton destroyed.

Dutton then gathers even more of the audacity to quote from Rudd’s apology speech:

‘For us, symbolism is important, but unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong. It’s not sentiment that makes history. It’s our actions that make history’. The substance Prime Minister Rudd referred to was to Close the Gap. The latest Closing of the Gap annual report provided to the Coalition a few hours ago reinforces that the current approach is not working.

As the Prime Minister stated, only five of 19 socio-economic targets are on track. Australians do want to see better outcomes. People do want to see practical solutions which make a tangible difference to the lives of disadvantaged Indigenous Australians. Australians want to see changes on the ground for those indigenous communities where safety, housing, health, education and employment are critical issues, but by maintaining the status quo, we will not bring about the drastic improvements we will yearn for.

Gee. If only there were some sort of Voice to do just that.

Greens senator Dorinda Cox will chair the senate committee on measuring outcomes in First Nations communities, with a priority of investigating why four of the 19 Closing the Gap targets are going backwards.

Just five of the targets are on track to being met.

Senator Cox said the latest Productivity Commission report into Closing the Gap targets “continues to tell the story most mob already know and experience daily”:

What’s not written here is that the lack of action on these targets are continuing to keep First Nations people out of schools, out of hospitals, out of workplaces, and in detention centres and putting our people in early graves. These attitudes empower state violence against our people and ensure we do not get justice.

As portfolio holder, and through my role as the Chair of the Select Senate Committee on Measuring outcomes for First Nations communities, we will look closely at how we can strengthen the accountability mechanisms for implementation of the Closing the Gap agenda and will hear directly from grassroots communities their solutions to some of the poorest socio-economic outcomes in the country.”

The Greens have also pledged to priorities First Nations’ justice in any future hung parliament.

Greens leader Adam Bandt said there had been no clear plan for First Nations’ justice since the Voice referendum was lost:

Australia needs a pathway to implement the Statement from the Heart in full. In the next Parliament, the Greens will put our bill to establish a Truth and Justice Commission to a vote. 

It’s time to make real progress on Truth-telling, Treaty and empowering First Nations decision making. Telling the truth about the history of violence and dispossession will help empower First Nations communities so we can move forward together as a country.”

New commitments for 2025 include:

• Reduce the costs of 30 essential products in more than 76 remote stores to help ease cost of living pressures and improve food security in remote communities.
• Build a nutrition workforce in remote communities by upskilling up to 120 local First Nations staff in remote stores.
• Roll out new laundries or upgrade existing facilities in 12 remote First Nations communities, to help improve long-term health outcomes.
• Strengthen the Indigenous Procurement Policy to boost opportunities for First Nations businesses to grow and create jobs.
• Increase opportunities for First Nations Australians to buy their own home and build intergenerational wealth through a boost to Indigenous Business Australia’s Home Loan Capital Fund.
• Establish a place-based business coaching and mentoring program for First Nations businesswomen and entrepreneurs.
• Increase the availability of culturally safe and qualified mental health support including scholarships for up to 150 First Nations psychology students.
• Continue to deliver critical prevention, early intervention and response services to address family, domestic and sexual violence in high need First Nations communities.
• Extend the Territories Stolen Generations Redress Scheme for an additional two years to support Stolen Generations survivors.
• Continue digitisation of at-risk audio and video collections held by First Nations broadcasters and community organisations by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

Here is what the government said it did to help meet the Closing the Gap targets in 2024:

• Commenced the new Remote Jobs and Economic Development Program, which will create up to 3,000 jobs in remote communities over three years.
• Expanded the Indigenous Rangers Program to create 1,000 new jobs, including 770 positions for First Nations women.
• Released the First Nations Clean Energy Strategy, to maximise the nation-wide potential for First Nations people to benefit from the clean energy transformation.
• Introduced legislation to expand the role and remit of Indigenous Business Australia to boost First Nations economic empowerment.
• Built more than 200 new homes in remote communities in the Northern Territory as part of our 10-year goal to halve overcrowding.
• Expanded access to affordable PBS medicines for more First Nations people.
• Opened the first of up to 30 dialysis units in regional and remote locations so First Nations people can receive treatment closer to home and on Country.
• Welcomed over 300 enrolments in the First Nations Health Worker Traineeship Program.
• Significantly increased funding for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services and Family Violence Prevention Legal Services to help more women and children escaping family, domestic and sexual violence.
• Established a dedicated National Commission for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People, to address the over-representation of First Nations children and youth in out-of-home care and detention.
• Invested in 27 community-led justice reinvestment initiatives in First Nations communities across Australia.
• Expanded the Connected Beginnings program to 50 communities, supporting more First Nations children to thrive in their crucial early years.
• The 2025 Implementation Plan outlines our strategy for the year ahead, focussing on easing cost of living pressures and improving food security in remote communities, delivering the next steps of our economic empowerment agenda, and continuing to improve outcomes for First Nations people.

The prime minister is making a ministerial statement to the house, giving the annual update on the Closing the Gap statement.

He includes a reminder that Peter Dutton walked out of the National Apology:

“On Wednesday, it will be 60 years since the start of the Freedom Ride, a bus journey through regional New South Wales opened our eyes wide to the discrimination against indigenous Australians led by Charles Perkins. It was a turning point in our self awareness as a nation. That was the beginning of the possibility of something better. I note that it was controversial at the time.

On Thursday, it will be 17 years since Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered the apology to the Stolen Generations. Again, that was something, an event that in some people’s minds, was controversial. But one which was, indeed, a moment of unity for the nation. It was a day of catharsis that held the promise of a fresh start.“

The Labor government is introducing changes to allow for easier background checks for any Australian wanting to access the US’s global entry program system, which allows for faster processing through US ports:

When implemented, the GEP will allow Australians access to expedited immigration and
customs channels when entering the United States. Australian citizens accepted into the
GEP are still required to meet any visa (or other immigration) requirements imposed by
the United States. The GEP is not a reciprocal program between Australia and the USA.
Australia’s participation in the program does not provide any equivalent benefit for USA
citizens traveling to, or arriving in, Australia.

In order to access the GEP, Australia has to do background checks of any Australian wanting to apply for the program. That means some changes have to be made to AusCheck (the body which does these background checks) to expand what they can look into it.

You can read more about that bill, here.

The Werribee byelection result shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has been watching what has been happening in Victoria, separate to the nation. Queensland Labor faced a similar thumping in two byelections it held before the state election (losing a heartland seat and just holding on to the other) but managed to claw back support. (It is also worth noting the record low voter turn out in Werribee and the issue both major political parties have with inspiring voters in the first place).

From a federal perspective, the Liberals are now trying to remind people that elections are not a popularity contest – that is because while Anthony Albanese isn’t loved, he also isn’t hated and in focus groups, is seen as more likable than Peter Dutton.

That’s part of the Labor strategists calculations for the election – that an election campaign will put Dutton under the media pressure he has so far largely avoided, and therefore will reveal more of who he is and remind the electorate why they haven’t exactly warmed to him:

The Labor government really want you to take note of the health funding boosts it has made in recent days, as well as think about what a Coalition government might do with it, with a parliamentary motion put forward by Robertson MP Gordon Reid (also a ER doctor) asking the house to debate:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges that the Government is building Australia’s future by building a stronger Medicare with:

(a) free Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, so that you and your family have access to bulk billed health care when you need it; (b)cheaper medicines, cutting the cost of prescriptions; and (c)the largest investment in bulk billing in Medicare history, which is restoring bulk billing after ten years of cuts and neglect;

(2) expresses its concern at the Leader of the Opposition’s record as Health Minister when he: (a)tried to end bulk billing by making patients pay a tax every time they see a General Practitioner; (b) cut $50 billion from public hospitals; and (c) was voted worst Health Minister in the history of Medicare by Australian doctors; and

(3) further acknowledges only the Government can be trusted to protect and strengthen Medicare.

But the debate seems to have been set up for Bennelong MP Jerome Laxale to lay down this line: “two great things were born in 1983; Medicare and me”.

Here’s another tidbit to come out of David Pocock’s senate estimate questions from last week

Last year there was quite a stir when it was revealed that Japan on-sells Australian gas for profit and political influence in Asia.

Estimates from our friends at IEEFA, based on official Japanese figures, suggested that Japan on-sold more gas than it bought from Australia, raising questions about why Australia would expand fossil gas supply for Japan, let alone give it away royalty-free.

Senator Pocock put this to the Department of Industry, who tried to fob him off with an answer that basically amounted to “it’s all too complicated for you, Senator”.

The former Wallaby captain was having none of it, saying “I don’t think anything you’ve said means that it isn’t true.” BAM!

The Department took it on notice and pointed to a footnote in the Japanese data that there could be some double counting in Japan’s estimates of on-selling. Instead of Japan on-selling more gas than it imports from Australia (approx. 30 million tonnes per year), the Department says:

“Alternative reputable evidence such as Kpler shipping data suggests that the volume of LNG, from all sources, on-sold by Japanese companies to third party countries during the same period was 16.7 Mt.”

Great, so Japan might not on-sell all the gas that Australia sells it (mostly royalty and petroleum tax-free), just half of it.

Exactly where the “evidence” from Kpler is and what exactly it says might be a question for next estimates!