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  • Let people with disabilities keep more of their pension: Alcott
  • This morning’s headlines at a glance
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Let people with disabilities keep more of their pension: Alcott

In case you missed it, Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott says allowing people on the disability support pension to retain more of their payment as they pick up work is an easy way to get more people into jobs.

The retired wheelchair tennis star yesterday told the government’s jobs summit that about 54 per cent of the nearly 4.5 million people living with a disability in Australia are in the workforce – a participation rate that has not changed in 28 years.

Dylan Alcott at Thursday’s jobs and skills summit.Credit:James Brickwood

“In a time of a pandemic or a natural disaster or recession, whose jobs go first? People with disability’s jobs, and that’s not fair,” he said.

“The time for lip service is over to be honest, because we’ve been getting that for a long time.”

More on this issue here.

This morning’s headlines at a glance

Good morning and thanks for your company.

It’s Friday, September 2. I’m Broede Carmody and I’ll be anchoring our live coverage for the first half of the day.

Here’s what you need to know before we get started.

  • The second and final day of the government’s jobs and skills summit kicks-off this morning. Yesterday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gained broad consensus from unions, employers and state premiers on additional free TAFE places and an increase in migration to solve Australia’s labour shortages. However, business chiefs have urged the government to rule out the “alarming” prospect of industry-wide strikes if it forges ahead with multi-employer bargaining.
  • Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles says he’s looking forward to deepening Australia’s strategic partnership with France after meeting with the country’s defence minister overnight. Relations with France were strained under the previous government after it tore up a multi-billion dollar submarine contract.
  • The NSW government has given rail unions hours to call off all industrial action before it tears up existing labour agreements. Meanwhile, Victoria Police faces a class action over allegations its officers indiscriminately and improperly used capsicum spray to disperse protesters outside a Melbourne mining conference back in 2019.
  • Elsewhere, Queensland is dropping vaccine requirements for staff in private healthcare settings. And the coroner investigating the death of a young girl in Western Australia says the evidence so far suggests nurses are “doing too many jobs for one person to do in a safe and sensible way”.
  • In case you missed it yesterday, the Australian Medical Association has questioned why Australia’s mandatory COVID isolation period has been cut from seven days to five.
  • And in international news, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin has been found dead following what’s been described by local media outlets as a hospital fall. As Rob Harris writes, the man’s death is the latest case of a high-profile business executive dying in mysterious circumstances.
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