☕️ Prince Harry's settlement, explained

PSA that Triple J’s Hottest 100 is tomorrow - also known as the “world’s biggest music democracy”.

Based on what the TDA team listens to in the office everyday, our picks are:

Have a great weekend!

"The time has finally come! Putricia has started to bloom.”
Botanic Gardens Sydney in a post to X regarding the Corpse Flower blooming for the first time in 15 years. The flower has been nicknamed 'Putricia' for its putrid smell.

8.2 tonnes
The amount of cocaine police seized in Colombia, considered one of the largest seizures ever made in the country. The drugs were found in sacks of mineral fertilisers intended for shipment to Europe.

1935
The first canned beer went on sale, in the U.S. state of Virginia.

Around 200 psychiatrists were expected to resign from NSW’s public health system this week.

NSW Mental Health Minister Rose Jackson said around 100 of these resignations have been withdrawn or delayed.

Jackson said the Government and the doctors’ union would meet with the state’s workplace umpire in March.

The union, called the Australian Salaried Medical Officers’ Federation of NSW (ASMOF), said it wants to sit down with the State Government before then.

Last week, the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists confirmed more than 200 had submitted resignations to NSW Health, “citing safety concerns”.

Around 140 psychiatrists in the public system resigned in NSW in 2024.

These mass resignations come amid an ongoing dispute between the ASMOF and the State Government.

The union is calling for a pay increase and for the Government to address the high vacancy and low retention rates of psychiatrists.

ASMOF has been asking for an immediate 25% pay increase to bring NSW psychiatrists’ wages in line with other jurisdictions. It’s also calling on the Government to deal with the workforce’s decreasing numbers.

The NSW Government has offered a 10.5% pay increase, which includes 1% superannuation, over three years.

It’s also offered a 10% ‘onerous’ allowance. This is a payment psychiatrists can apply for when they have worked excessive hours.

ASMOF executive director Andrew Holland told TDA: “The pay increase isn’t just about accounting for 40 hours a week of work but for the excessive additional hours [psychiatrists] work.”

Holland said further details on the 10% onerous allowance are yet to be provided, but “it’s an acknowledgment from the Government that there’s a problem.”

On Tuesday, Jackson said 205 psychiatrists intended to resign in recent weeks.

Of these, 25 had “rescinded” their intention to resign, and a further 81 psychiatrists had “delayed or suspended their resignation,” Jackson said.

This means around 100 psychiatrists are set to resign from the public workforce this week or next.

Locums are health professionals – in this case psychiatrists – who temporarily fill job vacancies.

NSW Health Deputy Secretary Matthew Daly said on Tuesday that “in an ideal world” 200 locums would replace 200 resignations “but the workforce just doesn’t exist anywhere in the country.”

Holland said locums are an “unsustainable” and “unaffordable” solution to filling the vacancies in psychiatry, particularly long term.

ASMOF and the State Government are now preparing for a five-day hearing with the Industrial Relations Commission beginning on 17 March.

Holland said ASMOF are reaching out to the NSW Government to hold negotiations ahead of the hearing to try come to an agreement.

Reporting by Nandini Dhir.

Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has agreed to settle a lawsuit against a UK newspaper group over alleged phone hacking.

The Duke alleged that journalists at News Group Newspapers (NGN) repeatedly hacked his phone between 1996 and 2011 and published stories based on the information they gathered.

NGN, owned by Australian mogul Rupert Murdoch, offered a “full and unequivocal apology” and “substantial damages,” but did not legally admit fault.

Here’s the story so far.

NGN is a newspaper publishing company, part of Rupert Murdoch’s corporation News Corp. In the 2000s, two of its papers – The Sun and News of the World (NOTW) – were involved in a phone hacking scandal.

In August 2006, a journalist and a private investigator at NOTW were arrested for hacking the phones of members of the Royal Family. Both were convicted and jailed.

The hacking involved a technological loophole allowing access to other people’s voicemails.

In July 2011, The Guardian published an investigation alleging NOTW staff hacked the voicemail of a missing teenage girl in 2002, giving her family false hope she was still alive by deleting messages.

NOTW was shut down within days of The Guardian’s report. The editors of NOTW and The Sun, Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to hack.

Coulson was found guilty of organising phone hacking, while Brooks was acquitted and continues to work in a senior role at News Corp.

At a public inquiry into UK press ethics, Murdoch said hacking was “a lazy way of reporters not doing their job.”

In 2019, Prince Harry launched a lawsuit against NGN over the hacking, which he alleged occurred from 1996 to 2011.

The Duke also alleged NGN orchestrated a cover-up of their behaviour.

According to court documents, Prince Harry alleged he signed a “secret agreement” in 2012 that stopped him from suing until years later, on the condition that News Group Newspapers would eventually either admit to the actions or settle the case with an apology.

In a statement, News Group Newspapers (NGN) said that “without any admission of illegality,” it apologised for the “phone hacking, surveillance, and misuse of private information” carried out by its employees.

The company acknowledged the “distress caused to the Duke and the damage inflicted on his relationships, friendships, and family.”

The newspaper group also stated it would offer “substantial damages” to Prince Harry.

The Duke has previously alleged his mother, Princess Diana, was also hacked by NGN and other newspapers.

Diana died in a car accident in Paris in 1997 while being chased by photographers.

In its apology, NGN acknowledged the impact of the “extensive coverage and serious intrusion into his private life, as well as the private life of... his late mother, in particular during his younger years.”

Last year, Prince Harry won a phone-hacking case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), alleging that his privacy had been breached by journalists phone-hacking him.

In recent years, MGN has settled over 600 phone-hacking claims, but maintains there is “no evidence” that Prince Harry was ever a victim of said practices.

Reporting by Achol Arok.

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🍊 Ice hockey goalie concedes goal after an unusual distraction.
🍊 Aussie tennis players break a 58-year drought.
🍊 Sydney Thunder set up an all-Sydney BBL Challenger Final.
🗞️ Also in the Sport Newsletter: soccer, a random fact and more…

The latest report from climate think-tank Ember Energy found solar panels generated 11% of the European Union’s electricity in 2024, compared to coal-burning plants, which generated 10% of the EU’s annual energy. The European Electricity Review also shows gas power generation declined for the fifth consecutive year. Collectively, renewable sources generated 27% of the EU’s power grid in 2024, led by wind and solar, as the region becomes less reliant on fossil fuels.

Want more good news? Sign up to our weekly Good Newsletter here - we promise it’ll make your week better!

Reporting by Nandini Dhir.

One person’s trash is another’s treasure… like this 2,000-year-old marble statue found in a garbage bag!

According to Greek federal police, a 32-year-old man handed the statue in to authorities after finding it in a black bag near some bins.

An archaeologist brought in by police to examine the statue dated it to the Hellenistic period (323 BC to 31 BC).

The statue is now being handed over to the country’s culture ministry ‘for safekeeping and evaluation.”

Reporting by Nandini Dhir.

This week, a group of researchers have called for doctors to stop using the Body Mass Index, or BMI, to define obesity.

It's a measurement system that's been around since the 1830s, but now experts say it might be doing more harm than good. In today's episode, we break down why this matters and what could replace it.