☕️ NSW to change stalking laws

Here is today’s riddle: If you have three, you have three. If you have two, you have two. But if you have one, you have none. What is it?

Answer is in the tidbit!

"No."
U.S. President Joe Biden's response to White House reporters when asked if he thinks Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is "doing enough" to secure a hostage release deal.

20,000
The number of Tasmanians who were still without power on Tuesday. Energy providers said flood waters and power lines were delaying efforts to restore power to all homes impacted by recent severe weather.

2006
Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray barb that lodged into his chest when he went diving.

"If it bleeds, it leads" - That's what generations of newsmakers have always been told and known to be true. Well, we here at The Daily Aus don't accept that. We want to do news differently.

The Good Newsletter newsletter is a new addition to TDA’s content offering, and we need your help getting the word out there.

More than half of Australians support the use of supervised injecting facilities (SIF), according to recent analysis of national health data.

SIFs are hygienic places where a person can inject drugs under medical supervision.

Medical researchers at the Burnet Institute tracked changes in attitudes towards SIFs over two decades, based on survey responses from 22,000 Australians.

Public opposition to SIFs declined by nearly 12% between 2001 and 2019.

According to the Burnet Institute, SIFs are aimed at reducing overdose deaths and “harms related to injecting drug use.”

Doctors at SIFs ask users about what drugs they’re taking and can quickly respond to an overdose if it occurs.

Facilities can also provide mental health support, addiction treatment, and blood testing services.

There are currently two supervised injecting facilities in Australia: one in Melbourne’s North Richmond, and one in Sydney’s King Cross.

Every three years, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (a Government body) holds a national survey asking Australians about their use of alcohol and other drugs, and their thoughts on current drug policy.

Participants are selected to represent a wide variety of backgrounds.

The Burnet Institute’s study analysed the AIHW survey’s results around attitudes towards SIFs. Responses ranged from “strongly support” to “strongly oppose”, with the option to select “don’t know”.

From 2001 to 2019, opposition to SIFs declined by 11.7%. This was influenced by increasing numbers of respondents who said they were either ambivalent to SIFs, or “didn’t know”.

The number of respondents who said they supported SIFs increased by 3.5%.

Australians with university degrees, and those who had reported recent illicit drug use, were more likely to support these facilities.

Respondents from socioeconomically disadvantaged areas and men were less likely to support SIFs.

In a statement, the Burnet Institute said stigma was “a barrier to opening more supervised injecting facilities.”

“Evidence shows governments are more likely to pursue policy options when they perceive public opinion as supportive and our study shows there is public support for supervised injecting facilities,” said Burnet Institute researcher Zachary Lloyd.

The Alcohol and Drug Foundation (ADF) has welcomed the findings, saying that “non-judgmental environments” like SIFs play an important role in preventing fatal overdoses.

“These heartbreaking deaths are mostly preventable and have a ripple effect on the community, with friends and families suffering — we can’t afford to further delay action to reduce these unacceptable numbers,” ADF Policy Manager Robert Taylor said.

Reporting by Achol Arok.

The NSW Government has announced plans to outlaw using devices like AirTags for stalking.

It follows warnings from authorities and advocates about new technology being weaponised to monitor and control partners.

A ban on GPS and/or surveillance devices to stalk someone is one of several proposed reforms in the state.

Other plans include making it easier to change a child’s name to protect them from domestic violence.

Legislation on the reforms is expected to be introduced this month.

Domestic violence awareness groups say using a tracking device to monitor someone’s location can be a form of “technology-facilitated abuse”.

Examples include using a GPS or Bluetooth-enabled tracker with real-time updates, or software installed on a person’s devices.

These devices (e.g. Apple AirTags, Samsung Galaxy SmartTags and Tracker Tile Mate) are commonly used to keep track of keys, luggage, and pets.

In June, the NSW Crime Commission found one in four people who bought certain kinds of tracking devices in the previous 18 months had a history of domestic violence.

In the U.S, three people are suing tech giant Apple over allegations it hasn’t done enough to prevent its AirTags from being used to stalk people.

The NSW Government has proposed changes to the legal definition of “stalking”, to make it a criminal offence to use GPS trackers to stalk people.

Domestic violence prevention organisation Full Stop Australia’s CEO Karen Bevan welcomed the suggested reforms, saying: “Perpetrators develop new and dangerous ways of manipulating technology to intimidate and control victim-survivors.

“Reforms such as this do add more tools to the arsenal of response and ultimately prevention.”

The Government also announced it would introduce other reforms to domestic violence laws, like simplifying the process of changing a child’s name.

In cases where there is a Family Court order to change a child’s name to protect their identity and location, only one parent would be required to approve the change.

Other proposed changes include strengthening penalties for anyone who breaks an Apprehended Domestic Violence Order (ADVO). Breaches of ADVOs would lead to up to five years in jail and $16,500 in fines.

Another reform would allow courts to impose conditions on anyone convicted of a “serious domestic violence offence”, once they’re released into the community.

This could include informing police if they’ve created a dating profile.

The Government has proposed police could ask for this requirement to be extended to a person who has been charged with a “serious domestic violence” offence against a family member or partner, “regardless of whether the person has been tried, acquitted, or had their conviction quashed or set aside.”

Premier Chris Minns said: “Everyone should be able to feel safe in their own home, but all too often for many that is not the case.”

“We know that legislative reform alone will not end the scourge of domestic and family violence, but these laws send an important message that the safety of victim-survivors is the priority of the NSW justice system.”

The Government will introduce the package of domestic violence reforms into Parliament this month.

It will need either the support of the Coalition, or the Greens and multiple crossbenchers, to pass through the Upper House.

TDA contacted the NSW Opposition. A spokesperson said the party was waiting to see the proposed legislation before deciding whether or not to support it.

Reporting by Harry Sekulich.

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Scientists at Melbourne’s Murdoch Children Research Institute, with the support of researchers in the UK, have found a missing puzzle piece in the process of recreating human blood stem cells.

The discovery means researchers will one day be able to create entire blood systems in a petri dish and pave the way for lab grown cells to be used in blood stem cell and bone marrow transplants.

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

Reporting by Achol Arok.

We’ve heard of companies expanding parental leave, introducing mental health leave, and period leave… but have you heard of dating leave?

Whiteline Group, a marketing company based in Thailand, has announced a new type of leave, allowing its employees to take time off for dates.

The idea reportedly came about after an employee said they were too busy with work to date, and the company took it to heart.

The company hopes to improve the mental wellbeing of its workers by giving them paid time off, aka ‘Tinder Leave’, to invest in their love lives.

Would you want your workplace to introduce a similar type of leave?

Reporting by Nandini Dhir.

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Riddle answer: Choice.

This week, X was banned in Brazil due to a Supreme Court decision over what can and can’t be said online.

It is the latest in a string of lawsuits and bad news engulfing X. Although, X itself paints a different picture.

So, about two years on from when billionaire Elon Musk took over the ownership of X, what is happening to it and what does it’s future look like? We’ll take a look in today’s episode.