From bushfires and decreasing air quality to flooding and erosion, climate change is threatening our relationship with nature, and people with disability are being disproportionately impacted.

Financial and domestic abuse survivors say the way Centrelink assesses benefit payments for people in a relationship makes it harder for women to leave dangerous relationships.

Of course the NDIS ‘costs’ the government a lot of money – but that is what money and governments are for! Spend my taxes on someone who needs it * Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published * Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints Continue reading...

Patients like Mary feel ‘embarrassed’ when they can’t afford to pay for care, as experts lament a ‘system without guardrails’

It’s hard to overstate the potential dangers of replacing discretion with algorithms in a system as consequential as the national disability insurance scheme Never again. That was the resounding message delivered via the robodebt royal commission from the thousands of Australians whose lives and livelihoods were upended by the cruellest experiment in bureaucratic automation the country has ever seen. Now, with plans under way to automate the calculation of individual NDIS support plans, it appears we’ve reached new heights of institutional amnesia. Once again, vital lifelines to support will be placed at the mercy of automated systems. Only this time, the mechanisms for review and redress will be vanishingly thin. Continue reading...

Climate activists from the Rising Tide organisation have stopped coal ships from reaching Newcastle port – for a day or two. What’s their real objective? * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Annabelle* knew before she paddled into the world’s largest coal port that she might be arrested. The 71-year-old arrived in Newcastle on Sunday with thousands of others to join Rising Tide, one of Australia’s largest annual climate protests. After a signal was given that a coal ship was coming, she entered the port in a kayak with hundreds of others. She managed to paddle beyond yellow buoys that marked the start of a zone the Minns government created for the duration of the protest – which gave police additional powers to arrest people. The police floated on boats just inside the zone, ready to pluck anyone out of the water who might defy their direction to turn back. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Legislation would prohibit deferrable, irreversible procedures until child can give informed consent, bringing state in line with ACT * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Victoria will become the first Australian state to ban unnecessary surgeries on intersex children, with legislation to be introduced to parliament to ensure procedures are deferred until patients are old enough to consent to them. The health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, will on Tuesday introduce the health safeguards for people born with variations in sex characteristics bill, which if passed would prohibit deferrable, irreversible procedures and treatments on intersex infants and children until they can provide informed consent. Continue reading...

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A group of Jewish organisations has labelled Envoy Jillian Segal's "Antisemitism Report" an attack on Australia's “democracy” and “freedoms”, and say it must be rejected.