SYDNEY — The south-eastern Australian state of New South Wales will need thousands of new teachers to meet burgeoning demand in the next decade as student numbers in public schools surge, the state’s teachers’ union has said. A union-commissioned report by education economist Adam Rorris found at least 11,000 new teachers need to be recruited by 2031, as the state deals with record enrollment growth. The number of new teachers required rises to almost 14,000 if the student-teacher ratio is lowered to the national average, the research released on April 20 reveals. New South Wales Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos said the state already had more…
Author: zenger.news
SYDNEY — A Sydney high school teacher who had denied engaging in sexual acts with a student has now pleaded guilty to three charges of intercourse with a 14-year-old boy. Monica Elizabeth Young, 24, was due to face a seven-day trial in September 2021 after being accused of meeting the student at his workplace and other locations in mid-2020. But on April 20, she pleaded guilty to three counts of having intercourse with the 14-year-old between June and July 2020, in aggravating circumstances as he was under her authority. The fresh indictment was handed up to Judge Kate Traill in Sydney’s…
KALBARRI, Australia — West Australians affected by Tropical Cyclone Seroja will receive help with their power and water bills as the massive clean-up effort continues. About 4,100 homes and businesses remain without power after the storm caused widespread damage across the state’s Mid West and Wheatbelt regions. More than 875 buildings have received damage, and 32 have been destroyed, including 23 homes. The state government has announced electricity and water relief for people in the impacted area, which spans 700 kilometers (435 miles) long and 150 kilometers (93.2 miles) wide. The Services Department of the Australian government started a recovery plan to…
BILOELA, Australia — A family of Tamil asylum-seekers removed from the Australian state of Queensland in the town of Biloela three years ago are “struggling and coping” in immigration detention. Priya, Nades, and their two young daughters have been held on Christmas Island since August 2019 as the government tries to deport them to Sri Lanka, despite a community campaign to let them stay. Labor senator Kristina Keneally is among those who have spent years calling for the family to be released. Senator Keneally has spent the past four days with the family, who have been detained for more than 1,000 days. She tweeted about her…
CANBERRA, Australia — Governments worldwide took on eight years’ worth of borrowing in 2020 to tackle the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, as per the data compiled by a global investment management firm. And while Australia’s sovereign debt jumped by more than AUD 210 billion ($164.02 billion) in 2020, its ratio of debt to gross domestic product remains among the lowest in the developed world. Janus Henderson Investors‘ sovereign debt index, released on April 19, placed Australia 13th in the global public debt standings with AUD 1.02 trillion ($0.80 trillion) in debt. This equates to approximately AUD 40,000 ($31,242) per…
MELBOURNE, Australia – Australian state Victoria’s acting premier James Merlino has slammed the federal government’s new videos on consent and respectful relationships, describing them as “confusing”, “cringeworthy”, and “terrible”. James Merlino, on April 20, called for the federal government to pull all content featured on ‘The Good Society’ website, which launched last week. “I was pretty disappointed. It was confusing. It was cringeworthy, and it just did not hit the mark,” Merlino, who is also the state’s education minister, said. “The feedback I’ve heard from students is they’re confused about what it’s even trying to say. It’s a fail, and…
MELBOURNE, Australia — A former Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) pilot who fostered a child and fundraised for hospitals is behind bars over his failed plan to fly 180 kilograms (397 pounds) of ice to Australia. Hugh Gorman, 75, is also a decorated volunteer firefighter. He and his co-conspirator Peter Caluzzi, 61, met as Freemasons more than a decade ago. They had long marriages, children, and solid and stable jobs. But motivated by financial gain, they became tangled up in an intercontinental drug plot to traffic 180 kilograms of ice to Melbourne, with a street value of up to AUD 118 million ($90.9…
CANBERRA, Australia — Veterans are hopeful a royal commission into suicide can shed light on the problem and lead to better services. Prime Minister Scott Morrison, on April 19, released draft terms of reference for a royal commission, which will run alongside the work of the interim National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide Prevention. Nathan Bolton, a special operations engineer deployed twice to Afghanistan, said the announcement provided hope for future prevention and support. “I acknowledge my fellow veterans whose lives have been lost to suicide, those who suffer suicidal distress and post-traumatic stress disorder, and their families, friends, and…
SYDNEY — Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said his government’s May 11 budget will serve as “stage two” of its post-coronavirus recovery plan, following the 2020 budget handed down in October. In a speech to the Business Council of Australia on April 19, Morrison said the pandemic and associated government initiatives such as JobKeeper had not changed his government’s desire for business-led economic growth. He said the May 11 budget would retain a “clear focus” on low taxes, deregulation, “sensible” industrial relations policy, and open trade. The Australian economy has recouped some 85 percent of its losses caused by…
CANBERRA, Australia — An Australian blood bank is reconsidering a ban on receiving donations from those in the United Kingdom during last century’s “mad cow disease” epidemic. Lifeblood, a branch of the Australian Red Cross, currently does not accept blood from anyone in the U.K. for six months or more from 1980 to 1996. The Australian Red Cross, formally the Australian Red Cross Society, is a humanitarian aid and community services charity in Australia. At the time, there was a large outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in European cattle, with most cases of the human variant — Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) — identified…