Good morning. Almost half of jobseeker recipients are unable to work full-time due to sickness or disability. Australia is pushing to host the United Nations climate change conference. And final preparations are in place for the Queen’s funeral in London which will be broadcast around the world later today.
Near record levels of people on the jobseeker payment are sick or have a disability, with more than 350,000 people on the dole now unable to work full time. Department of Social Services figures for June reveal 43.1% of people on the jobseeker payment had a “partial capacity to work”, meaning they can only work between 15 and 30 hours a week. Dr Peter Davidson, principal adviser at the Australian Council of Social Service, said 2012 changes to the disability support pension were a big factor in the increased number of people with disability on jobseeker.
Anthony Albanese has described his one-on-one meeting with King Charles ahead of the funeral for Queen Elizabeth as a “great honour”. “I extended my personal condolences to King Charles but also the condolences of the Australian people,” the prime minister said from London on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Victorian government has promised to rebuild a hospital in Melbourne’s east at a cost of more than $1bn and rename it in honour of the Queen if Labor is re-elected in November.
In the UK, about 1 million people are expected to visit the central London area around the royal palaces for the Queen’s funeral. The death of the Queen and coverage of her funeral will top the ranks of the most-watched broadcasts in British television history, while newspaper publishers have seen an unprecedented boost in sales as mourners seek commemorative copies. After she is buried, a new chapter begins: the reign of King Charles III. But what are the steps to get there?
Australia is pushing to host a Cop meeting. If the Albanese government has its way, in two years’ time up to 20,000 people – political leaders, diplomats, lobbyists, activists and professional greenwashers – will spend a fortnight in Sydney (or maybe Brisbane or Melbourne). Labor promised before the election that if it won power it would bid to host a Cop (a conference of the parties to the UN framework convention on climate change). But winning the 2024 climate talks could pressure Australia to double down on its climate efforts.
Australia
The climate firm Labor used to model its policies before the federal election has advised the government to abandon a proposal that could hand free carbon credits to big industrial polluters – warning it could lead to Australia missing its emissions reduction targets.
Higher education debts are now far more likely to affect personal or home loan applications as soaring student debt adds to the skyrocketing cost of living and housing pressures. About 2.9 million Australians currently owe a share of more than $68.7bn under the federal government’s Higher Education Loan Program.
Australia won’t ban Russian tourists from entering the country as requested by Ukraine’s ambassador but is “assessing” whether to reopen the Australian embassy in Kyiv.
Guardian Australia readers have paid tribute to the Queen as somebody who “gave her life to her job”, but many say her death represents an opportunity for Australia to distance itself from an outdated institution.
The world
Hopes that talks between the UK and the EU will resume over a protracted dispute about the Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland have risen after a 45-minute meeting between Liz Truss and the Irish prime minister in Downing Street. The taoiseach, Micheál Martin, was one of five world leaders to have “leaders’ meetings” with the British prime minister before the Queen’s funeral on Monday.
Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, has ruled out a meeting with Joe Biden on the margins of the UN General Assembly this week, saying he saw no “changes in reality” from the Trump administration.
Typhoon Nanmadol made landfall in south-western Japan on Sunday night, with authorities urging millions of people to take shelter from the powerful storm’s high winds and torrential rain.
Recommended reads
The Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate knows what it’s like to be Black and overlooked. In January 2020, an Associated Press photographer cropped Nakate from a picture of youth climate activists at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, leaving her friend Greta Thunberg and three other white young women in the shot. It triggered widespread outrage rightly so, but Nakate regards that very personal experience as a symbol of how the voices and experiences of Black – and Brown and Indigenous – communities are routinely erased. “Africa is on the frontlines but not the front pages,” she says.
Until recently, film-maker Rachel Perkins had never heard the recording of her late Arrernte grandmother, Hetti, speaking about the massacre of her family. Police had shot them at Blackfellows Bones, north-east of Alice Springs, in the late 19th century. But her father, the late Indigenous activist Charles Perkins, had told her about the slaughter. Hettie’s mother had been spared, but her neck was chained for another purpose. “My great-grandmother had been raped and chained to a tree,” Perkins says. It was only when making her ambitious new SBS series about Australia’s frontier wars, The Australian Wars, that Perkins sought out the 1970s recording.
Listen
Many Australians have lost faith in Qantas after months of lost luggage, cancelled flights and slashed operational costs. While the pandemic exacerbated most of these issues, some of the airline’s turbulence started much earlier. Reporter Ben Butler speaks to Laura Murphy-Oates about how the chaos at Qantas unfolded and whether Australia’s national carrier can return to its former glory.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
Ahead of this year’s final on Saturday, Jonathan Horn looks back over 50 years of VFL and AFL to pick the most memorable, heartbreaking and exciting games.
Swooping magpies cause concern for elite cyclists at world championships.
Kenyan Moses Kibet has claimed a historic victory in the Sydney marathon as the top three finishers all bettered the previous fastest time on Australian soil.
Media roundup
Australia will continue sending military support to Ukraine to add to the delivery of armoured vehicles and howitzers but is yet to decide the additional ways to help the country fight the Russian invasion, according to the WAToday. More than one in three Australian office workers would immediately quit their job or start looking for a new one if their employer announced they had to return to the office full time, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
And if you’ve read this far …
Why food is more delicious when you eat with your hands.
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• This article was amended on 19 September 2022. The final photo shows Greg Dear, not Greg Dean as an earlier version said.
