☕️ Victoria's drug testing plan

Today marks the beginning of the final sitting week of parliament for 2024.

For those not familiar with what a ‘sitting week’ is, it’s when Parliament debates bills and passes laws. Both houses of Parliament – the House of Representatives and the Senate – must vote before a bill becomes a law, so sitting weeks allow the Government to make progress on its agenda.

With an election due before May next year, the Government is trying to rush through many of its bills that have recently stalled in Parliament. Over the weekend, it took its misinformation and disinformation bill off the agenda due to a lack of support in the Senate.

For more on the laws they’re still trying to pass, read TDA’s explainer here.

“Seems like a backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians.”
X owner Elon Musk in a post to his platform responding to the Government’s plan to ban under 16s from social media.

$CA250 ($AU275)
How much the Canadian Government will send to every household that made less than $150,000 in 2023.

1992
Czechoslovakia’s Parliament passed a bill to split into two countries, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

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New Zealand authorities have declared a whooping cough epidemic.

Whooping cough is a highly contagious illness caused by bacteria, which in some cases can lead to severe health complications or even be fatal.

With case numbers steadily growing, authorities said “numbers are now at a level that meets the threshold” for a national epidemic to be declared.

Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, spreads through respiratory droplets from coughing and sneezing, and has an infectious period that can last up to three weeks from infection.

As the name suggests, the primary symptom is a severe cough that produces a distinctive “whooping” sound.

In some cases, the infection can lead to serious health complications, including pneumonia, seizures, and brain damage.

Authorities have confirmed there has been a spike in cases since September.

In the past four weeks, there have been 263 confirmed cases.

According to New Zealand’s Director of Public Health, Dr Nicholas Jones, “the main concern with this epidemic is the risk of severe illness among babies either too young to be immunised or whose immunisations are delayed”.

There have also been high rates of whooping cough in Australia.

This year, Australia has recorded more than 40,000 cases of whooping cough.

Children aged 10 to 14 have been the most affected group, representing nearly 40% of all cases.

Only one in five Australian adults over 50 are up to date with their whooping cough vaccination, while one in four adolescents missed their whooping cough booster shot in 2023.

Thousands of people rallied on the streets of Melbourne on Friday calling for an end to gender-based violence.

Friday’s demonstration followed new details about the alleged murder of 19-year-old Isla Bell in early October. Members of Bell’s family attended the rally.

The rally comes amid national and international developments around gender-based violence awareness.

Last week, South Australia held its first hearings at a Royal Commission into domestic violence. Today, a UN campaign against gender-based violence begins.

Thousands gathered in Melbourne’s CBD on Friday for the Walk Against Family Violence. The walk was organised by Respect Victoria, a family and gendered violence prevention organisation.

Chair of Respect Victoria Kate Fitz-Gibbon said on X: “At least 66 women have been killed in Australia in 2024 allegedly by male violence. This violence is preventable.”

This rally comes after Victoria Police released further details about the alleged murder of Isla Bell last week.

19-year-old Isla Bell was seen on the evening of 4 October leaving her home in Brunswick, according to Victoria Police. The next night, Bell was seen on CCTV entering the apartment of a man named Marat Ganiev.

CCTV footage presented to court last week appeared to show a fight in Ganiev’s apartment on 7 October. Police have alleged the footage shows Bell falling to the ground.

Further CCTV footage appeared to show Ganiev and another man, Eyal Yaffe, moving a fridge out of the apartment on 17 October.

Police allege the fridge was wrapped in plastic. A witness then found the fridge on a street corner and put a bag stored inside it into the rubbish.

Detectives later found the bag at a waste facility. Last Wednesday, Victoria Police said they had found human remains at the facility which detectives believe to be related to Bell’s disappearance.

Police have since charged Ganiev, 53, with murder. 57-year-old Yaffe has been charged with assisting a murder offender.

In South Australia last week, a Royal Commission into domestic, family, and sexual violence held its first public hearings.

The commission heard evidence about the link between housing instability and domestic violence. Hearings also focused on the response from health and legal systems to sexual violence.

CEOs of organisations including Womens Safety Services South Australia and Nunga Mi:Minar spoke at the hearings, alongside representatives from government organisations including SA Health and Police.

Each year, UN Women runs 16 Days of Activism, an international campaign against gender-based violence. It starts on 25 November, which is also the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and ends on International Human Rights Day.

According to UN Women, globally, a woman was killed every 10 minutes by a partner or family in 2023.

This year, Australian advocacy group Our Watch says it will focus on engaging with men to build “a culture of respect and equality” during the 16 Days.

Reporting by Nandini Dhir.

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These images include magnetic, plasma, and UV visions. Scientist Daniel Müller said the images “show the beauty of the Sun's surface magnetic field and flows in great detail.”

Researchers and scientists expect that the data processing of images can now be completed at a faster rate in the future, bringing more high-resolution images to earth.

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

Reporting by Nandini Dhir

If you have a small child, cousin, niece or nephew, you’ll know how much they love shoving little bits and bobs up their nose.

Queensland Children’s Hospital has released its list of top 10 items that get stuck in children’s noses.

It comes from 10 years of emergency department records, reflecting over 10,200 children who have shown up to the hospital since November 2014 with something stuck up their nose.

A number of these items were also frequently found to be swallowed by children who presented to emergency.

Reporting by Nandini Dhir.

Victoria will roll out its first pill test at a music festival this summer.

35,000 people attending Beyond the Valley will have access to the drug-checking service for the first time, as part of the state government’s plans to conduct more trials across Victoria.

Health experts and youth support workers will be stationed at the pop-up pill testing site to analyse drug samples and give advice to young festival-goers.

In today’s deep dive, you’ll hear our chat with Victoria’s Premier Jacinta Allan on the state’s lift-off of pill testing, and why she changed her mind on drug harm minimisation.