Sir Keir Starmer likely to be Downing Street's next occupant - Britain's Labour Party on track for a landside election win as Rishi Sunak's Conservatives face political oblivion; Emergency funds needed as rising costs force disability services to turn away vulnerable customers; and more than 100,000 homes lie vacant across the country - could they help us solve our housing crisis?
Credits
Sabra Lane: Good morning. Welcome to AM. It's Thursday, the 4th of July. I'm Sabra Lane coming to you from Nipaluna, Hobart.
It might seem bizarre in the middle of a housing crisis, but recent estimates show there are more than 100,000 unoccupied homes in Australia. That's why local councils want more power to stop property owners leaving homes vacant and derelict. Business Editor Michael Janda with this report.
Michael Janda: On a bustling street in the trendy inner Sydney suburb of Newtown sit neighbouring terrace houses, boarded up with skeletons of their balconies removed and holes in the roof visible through the gaps where windows once existed.
Damien: Well I've been here for 25 years, since 1999 and it's been like that. Actually it's been worse than this since then.
Michael Janda: Local resident Damien points to a ladder leaning against one of the houses.
Damien: Just recently I've seen people doing a little bit of work to it. They've given it a bit of a coat of paint.
Michael Janda: Speaking to other neighbours and looking at property records, these homes appear to be owned by a man in his eighties, who bought them around four decades ago. But they're not the only homes sitting empty, according to figures published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the very first time last year.
Duncan Young: Both electricity data and the government records seem to suggest that about 1.3% of all residential dwellings in Australia are inactive. That's between 100 to 140,000 dwellings.
Michael Janda: Although Duncan Young from the Bureau warns the data collected in mid 2021 might not completely reflect the current situation.
Duncan Young : 2021 was a bit of a different year for Australia with the impacts of COVID-19, which impacted for international borders and also domestic movement.
Michael Janda: Vacant dwellings are enough of a problem that Linda Scott, the President of the Australian Local Government Association, says many of her members want the power to do something about them.
Linda Scott: The state government could examine giving councils the power to charge higher rates for vacant properties.
Michael Janda: Or like the Victorian government, they could introduce their own taxes on vacant properties. Professor Cathy Sherry, who teaches property law at Macquarie University, says Victoria's not alone.
Cathy Sherry: San Francisco has introduced an empty property tax, Ireland has one, the United Kingdom has one, France, Spain.
Michael Janda: She says state governments have the legal power to pursue even more radical solutions to force derelict or long-term vacant properties and empty lots into use.
Cathy Sherry: The state government absolutely can acquire land for any purpose it wants. It will pay compensation under the Just Terms Act.
Michael Janda: But as with Victoria's vacant property tax, any such moves will face stiff opposition from the property lobby. Tim McKibbin is the Chief Executive of the Real Estate Institute of New South Wales.
Tim McKibbin : It becomes very difficult I think when the government starts to impose on somebody what they can and can't do with the property.
Michael Janda: Cathy Sherry says the law has always limited private property rights.
Cathy Sherry: There's reluctance to interfere with anything that is seen as compromising people's ability to build wealth from residential property. The problem with that is when you build wealth, it always has to be at somebody else's expense.
Michael Janda: At the moment, renters and aspiring homebuyers appear to be paying that price.
Sabra Lane: Michael Janda there.
A bad culture that's made Australia a haven for white collar crime. That's one of the startling findings from a 20-month Senate inquiry into the corporate watchdog ASIC, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Inquiries recommended the agency be split into two, with one to better focus on protecting consumers and the other agency to take more companies to court. Peter Ryan is our senior business correspondent and we spoke earlier. Peter, the corporate watchdog ASIC has been under fire for years despite occasional hard-fought victories against corporate criminals. What makes this report so different?
Peter Ryan: Well, Sabra, for years ASIC has often been accused of being a sleep at the wheel. This is despite 306 criminal charges, 35 criminal convictions and 21 custodial sentences in 2022-23. Even so, this 226-page report by the Senate Economics Committee says ASIC has comprehensively failed in cracking down on corporate wrongdoing. The report has 11 recommendations, the big one calling for the splitting of ASIC into two, one part focusing on companies and insider trading, the other on financial services enforcement. One of the big case studies was the collapse of Dixon Advisory, a financial advice firm. For example, ASIC took two years to settle the Dixon case. The company was penalised $7 million but that fine is unlikely to ever be paid. Committee Chairman Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg says ASIC's failures have facilitated continued corporate misconduct. So some pretty brutal findings. The former ASIC Chairman James Shipton spoke to me from Oxford University and he told me he tried and failed to reform ASIC agreeing with the key recommendations.
James Shipton: I think it's a sobering read and I think the most important point is that there are serious and profound governance issues that really need to be addressed.
Peter Ryan: When you talk about these issues are you referring to cultural problems within ASIC which are getting in the way of it doing the job, being the tough cop on the beat?
James Shipton: What this report has shown is that the governance of ASIC is flawed. There isn't a sufficient ongoing accountability and oversight of ASIC. There never has been and unfortunately some of the initiatives to increase the level of oversight of ASIC have been kneecapped in recent years by successive governments.
Sabra Lane: That's James Shipton, the former Chairman of the Corporate Watchdog ASIC. Peter, as you mentioned the inquiry was led by a Liberal Senator. That probably means these recommendations may not be taken up.
Peter Ryan: Well that's right. The Committee Chairman Senator Andrew Bragg has already been described this morning as a headline grabber. Also Labor members on the committee rebutted some of the report's findings and recommendations saying the report lacks detail on any potential new model for splitting ASIC. Also ASIC itself is playing the report with a dead bat. We asked to speak to ASIC Chairman Joe Lungo but he wasn't talking. However an ASIC spokesperson pointed to a strong enforcement record I mentioned earlier saying ASIC is in court almost every day pursuing wrongdoing and in the last 12 months alone has launched 180 new investigations. Even so, six years since the Financial Services Royal Commission where there were big criticisms of ASIC that it often failed to act fast enough in confronting corporate crime, very big burning issues remain unlikely to be sorted out that go to the deep reform needed at the often maligned corporate regulator.
Sabra Lane: Peter Ryan there.
4.4 million Australians live with a disability and in times of crisis many turn to advocacy services for help. Now more than a dozen of those agencies are calling for emergency funding saying rising costs mean every second person with a disability is being turned away. With major changes likely in the future due to the recent review into the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Royal Commission, they argue demand for their services will grow. More now from National Disability Affairs reporter Nas Campanella.
Nas Campanella: Denise Boyd has spent the last five years supporting people with disability navigate some of their biggest challenges. She's the Executive Officer of advocacy organisation STAR Victoria.
Denise Boyd: We specifically help parents with intellectual disability who've got child protection issues.
Nas Campanella: The service has been running since 1970 and helps around 100 people with disability and their families each year.
Denise Boyd: We also help parents who've got a child with intellectual disability who are struggling to get access to their local government school and have the school provide the reasonable adjustments that's necessary for that child to be included at school alongside everyone else.
Nas Campanella: The organisation helps link families with a specific service or could spend years helping them navigate difficult court matters. But as the cost of living crisis bites, Denise Boyd says organisations like hers are also feeling the squeeze, particularly since funding isn't keeping up with financial pressures.
Denise Boyd: Organisations are going to have to wind back their service or in some cases may need to close down altogether. We've got national data that says pretty much every second person with a disability is being turned away due to the lack of available advocates.
Nas Campanella: Now more than a dozen of these frontline groups, including STAR Victoria, have written to the Victorian Disability Minister Lizzie Blandthorn asking for emergency funding. The sector is about to undergo a huge period of transformation thanks to changes recommended by the Disability Royal Commission and National Disability Insurance Scheme Review. One of the proposals is to set up foundational supports, services run by the states and territories outside the NDIS. Denise Boyd says advocacy would potentially form part of those foundational supports and this funding will help important work to continue.
Denise Boyd: It's a false economy to not provide this transitional funding in this year and risk losing skilled advocates from the workforce.
Nas Campanella: Geoff Smith from the Peak Body Disability Advocacy Network Australia says it's a national issue.
Jeff Smith: We are seeing a situation which replicates what's happening in Victoria where many organisations in the sector are feeling demoralised and at a crisis point.
Nas Campanella: In a statement, a Victorian government spokesperson says it's boosted funding for disability support advocacy groups by 50 per cent over the past five years to help meet increased demand. The Federal Social Services Minister, Amanda Rishworth, says the federal government understands the importance of supporting people with disability to defend their rights and seek advice. It says the Commonwealth has doubled systemic disability advocacy funding and extended targeted funding for Indigenous community advocates to ensure access in remote areas.
Sabra Lane: Nas Campanella reporting there.
As the major political parties bicker over the feasibility of domestic nuclear power sector, Australian miners are accelerating efforts to find and build new uranium mines. Uranium is the base ingredient for nuclear reactors. Investors have steered clear of the commodity in the decade following Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011. But uranium prices and investment have seen a resurgence during the past financial year and miners listed on the Australian Stock Exchange are jumping on too. Jon Daly reports.
Jon Daly: This last financial year has brought about a renaissance for potential uranium miners like John Borshoff. He's the managing director of ASX-listed Deep Yellow Limited, a company trying to start up uranium mines in Africa and Australia.
John Borshoff: Country after country have now moved from a period of four years where our renewables were going to do the trick to nuclear.
Jon Daly: At COP28 late last year, 22 countries pledged to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050. And they'll need a lot more uranium to do it. Spot prices for uranium rose above US$100 a pound in January, a considerable jump from the lows of around US$20 a pound in 2017. Mirroring the recovery in uranium prices, Deep Yellow's share price has risen about 90% in the last 12 months. IG stock market analyst Tony Sycamore says other ASX-listed companies have seen similar interest.
Tony Sycamore: Those stocks have run significantly over the past six to eight months. Investors want exposure to this type of energy.
Jon Daly: So there's one problem for the West's plans for nuclear energy expansion. Russia is the world's biggest supplier of enriched uranium. The US recently passed legislation banning new imports of Russian uranium, coming into effect next month. Deep Yellow's John Borshoff says this creates even more supply issues.
John Borshoff: Now there's even more disruption in supply. And the supply now has to even find more material than if it was a unified global industry.
Jon Daly: In Australia, only a few uranium mines are operating in South Australia. And there's bans on uranium mining in other jurisdictions except the Northern Territory. Mining analyst Peter Strachan says Australian miners are instead looking overseas for that reason.
Peter Strachan: So actually now looking in places like Malawi, in Namibia, in the United States, in Wyoming and in Canada. So the opportunities are going begging.
Jon Daly: Australia's political debate on nuclear is far from settled. But some investors and mining companies are already voting with their feet.
Sabra Lane: Jon Daly there.
Sabra Lane: Britain's Labor Party's on track to win the largest majority of any party in the country's history. That's the prediction of leading polling company YouGov, with voters heading to the ballot box in a matter of hours. Party leaders there have been dashing across the country in a last-minute push for votes. The former Prime Minister's even hit the campaign trail too. Europe correspondent Mazoe Ford reports.
Mazoe Ford: He's watched this six-week campaign from the sidelines, but at the 11th hour, former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson couldn't resist a return to the hustings.
Boris Johnson: None of us can sit back as a Labor government prepares to use a sledgehammer majority to destroy so much of what we have achieved.
Mazoe Ford: The Tories, led by Johnson, won a big majority at the last election, but five years on, those gains are under threat. Every poll predicts a thumping Labor victory.
Tony Travers: They've got elections right in the past, so it will be an epic poll failure by global standards if they were a long, long way out, given what they're showing.
Mazoe Ford: Professor Tony Travers from the London School of Economics says the more interesting contest now is who will be in opposition.
Tony Travers: So we have a sort of rather different version of an opposition, consisting of several parties, no one of which will be massively dominant, it would appear. And that's different, very difficult, different to the dynamics of the House of Commons normally.
Mazoe Ford: Two Tory Cabinet ministers appear to have all but given up. This was Work and Pension Secretary Mel Stride on BBC Radio.
Mel Stride: I totally accept that where the polls are at the moment means that tomorrow is likely to see the largest Labor landslide majority, the largest majority that this country has ever seen. Much bigger than 1997, bigger even than the National Government in 1931.
Mazoe Ford: Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer thinks that sort of messaging doesn't help.
Sir Keir Starmer: It's really voter suppression. It's trying to get people to stay at home rather than to go out and vote. I say if you want change, you have to vote for it.
Mazoe Ford: Outside the UK's third busiest train station, London Waterloo, the commuters AM spoke to were keen to cast their votes.
Voter 1: I think Conservatives have been in power for so long and they've done quite a lot of damage that is quite irreversible.
Voter 2: Come through 14 years of basically self-inflicted damage, yes, I would say. First of all with the austerity that was brought on by the coalition government and then with Brexit. So we're hoping for change.
Voter 3: I'll vote Liberal Democrat because I think they're the most sensible centre party. Although I'm pretty sure Labor will win and we need a change and I'll be perfectly happy with that.
Mazoe Ford: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak isn't giving up though.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak: So if people want lower taxes, they want their pensions protected and they want to prevent a Labor super majority, there's only one thing to do tomorrow and that's to vote Conservative.
Mazoe Ford: A final pitch to hold on to the keys to number 10. This is Mazoe Ford in London, reporting for AM.
Sabra Lane: A group of human rights organisations and legal centres have launched a criminal complaint against online travel website Booking.com, alleging it's profiteering from war crimes by listing holiday homes in Israeli settlements on the West Bank. The group wants Booking.com to ban the listing of settlement properties, claiming it's a breach of human rights. Our Middle East correspondent Allyson Horn reports from the West Bank.
Igal Canaan: Watch your step here. This is the family unit.
Allyson Horn: Igal Canaan is giving us a tour of his holiday rental home, a single bedroom unit with a balcony that opens up to a spectacular view of sprawling desert mountains.
Igal Canaan: And over there of course is Jerusalem, Mount Scopus.
Allyson Horn: This holiday home is inside an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, illegal according to international law. But Igal Canaan says that's a matter of opinion.
Igal Canaan: It's one interpretation of the international law. From our point of view, this area of what you call or maybe people call West Bank is Judea and Samaria, is the original Israel.
Allyson Horn: The Israeli uses online travel platforms like Booking.com to advertise and rent his property to the world. But several human rights groups want the practice banned. They filed a criminal complaint in the Netherlands, the home of Booking.com, accusing the company of profiteering from war crimes. Daan de Grefte from the European Legal Support Centre alleges the listings are in breach of Dutch law.
Daan de Grefte: Any money derived from those settlements is also indirectly derived from those war crimes. Well, Dutch criminal law is very, very clear. It specifies that if you make use of money that you know or should have known is derived from any kind of crime, you're actually guilty of money laundering.
Allyson Horn: Booking.com says it's taking the matter seriously and that it's up to travellers to decide where they want and need to go. But legal officer Daan de Grefte says Booking.com has an ethical responsibility to block the listings.
Daan de Grefte: Booking.com has committed to respecting certain human rights. I think it's very clear that a company cannot be active in Israeli illegal settlements and still not contribute somehow to adverse human rights impacts.
Allyson Horn: Lawyers estimate about 70 holiday rentals are listed within Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Booking.com lists the properties as being located within the Palestinian Territory inside an Israeli settlement, but there's no mention of the legal status. This is Allyson Horn in the West Bank reporting for AM.
Sabra Lane: That's AM for today. Thanks for your company. I'm Sabra Lane.
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