The Queensland Government will supply free support for homeowners and builders amidst the impacts of rising prices and material shortages.

The Accelerated Builder - Consumer Dispute service will give frustrated people access to professional mediators in an effort to help them complete their homes.

This service comes as the COVID-19 pandemic has meant global supply chains are struggling, but the state’s housing demand has increased.

Australian researchers are calling on Facebook to better regulate hate speech in the Asia Pacific region.

A study funded by Facebook found the platform does not have adequate mechanisms to combat discrimination from proliferating on its service.

Professor Katharine Gelber from the University of Queensland, co-author of the study, says Facebook “does not have enough local contextual knowledge or input, and secondly relies on a single definition globally to flag hate content.”

Visa applicants with permanent medical conditions or disabilities will no longer have their applications assessed in terms of their lifetime care cost.

The migration requirement, resulting in rejection of Australian visa applications of more than 15 people with disabilities or illnesses, has been relaxed by the government.

Prior to July 1st, the policy underpinning the requirement set the threshold for significant cost at $40,000.

This has now been increased to $49,000.

Oxygen shortages have resulted in the death of 33 patients at Dr Sardjito General Hospital in Yogyakarta city in Indonesia. 

Public hospitals in Indonesia's main Island of Java are being pushed to the brink as the highly infectious Delta Variant causes a dramatic spike in cases and strained medical resources.

Health authorities are blaming distribution problems but Sulung Mulia Putra, an official at Jakarta's health agency, says the shortages were temporary and due to distribution issues that were being resolved.

The Queensland government has proposed a $14 million overhaul to keep the Wivenhoe Hydro Power Station pumping cleaner, cheaper energy.

Minister for Energy, Renewables and Hydrogen, Mick de Brenni, says that Wivenhoe is a valuable and reliable power station, particularly in light of the recent incident at the Callide-C Power station in May.

Mr de Brenni says, “Wivenhoe is the jewel crown of Queensland’s publicly-owned energy storage fleet and maintaining it will be critical to achieving our renewable energy target.”

Cairns police officers are running a program for mentoring young Indigenous women.

This Cairns branch of project “Booyah”, a Queensland police youth mentoring program, is different to most as it is an all-female run and focused branch.

The Cairns team run a 20 week program that aims to help disadvantaged youth gain the skills and qualifications to become employable.

Australians will now be prompted to include traditional place names when addressing letters and parcels, after a community campaign.

The new Australia Post packaging will include a dedicated spot where customers can choose to include the First Nation country, just above the street address on a letter or parcel.

It will be phased in as stock becomes available, as part of NAIDOC week this week.

The National Disabilities Insurance Scheme Agency has released a paper which highlights the long history of people with disabilities not being supported to make decisions for themselves. 

People with disabilities are left out of making decisions about their lives, with the National Disability Insurance Scheme admitting that it relies on others to make decisions on people's behalf.

The NDIS agency is seeking feedback concerning their new policy to ensure participants of NDIS can play a bigger role.

In Australia, six in ten women of colour have experienced discrimination associated with their identity, such as their sex, religion and or ethnicity.

A nationwide survey of women of diverse cultural backgrounds revealed that more than half of culturally diverse women faced discrimination at work in relation to their identity.

Pilar Cassat, Chair of Women of Colour Australia says, despite widespread discourse on diversity and inclusion, women of colour continue to experience unequal discrimination in employment places.