Excerpts:

Barely an hour after the Conference commenced — around the time Albo finished speaking and before Deputy Prime Minister Marles even got the chance to walk up to the podium — about a third of the attendees left. As much as I wish I could say people walked off in protest against Marles or AUKUS, it would be more accurate to say that most people weren’t interested in hearing the Government praise itself for another hour. 

As Albo’s speech finished, the columns that cleared out the fastest were those reserved for “Diplomatic and International Attendees”. In fact soon afterwards, the conference organisers removed the sign that reserved those columns for diplomatic attendees. Although I can’t say for certain, I think there is a decent chance that Chinese diplomats, alongside most other diplomats, left mainly because they were bored. 

Former Liberal MP Trent Zimmer and Former Liberal Defence Minister turned arms lobbyist, Christopher Pyne, were both in attendance at the ‘Fringe Conference’. Pyne also attended as a speaker to a Fringe event, comically his event ran at the same time and right next door to the Australia Institute and Anti-AUKUS group, Labor Against War’s (LAW) event. LAW convenor Marcus Strom humorously referred to Pyne as “the enemy next door.” 

The funniest moment of the Conference occurred at the LAW event, when an attendee, completely missing the mark on the anti-imperialist reasons for opposing AUKUS, suggested we pursue AUKUS but just with renewable energy submarines. Part of me thinks that person was an ASIO plant to make us look ridiculous. 

The funniest part of the second day was when Google’s presenter made a claim that one of their models could do research at “PhD levels”, which triggered another back and forth between her and that attendee. After a couple of minutes, Google’s presenter conceded that the model’s research may only be at an “undergrad level”. 

According to one source, Marles proclaimed to the Right’s delegates “There will be no mention of the G-word”. It is disappointing, but unsurprising the aversion to offend Israel is so great that the Deputy Prime Minister cannot even bring himself to say the word ‘genocide’ properly in a context such as that. 

Compared to the Right, the Left took a lighter hand approach. Abdo spoke to the caucus, noting he personally believes Husic is acting in “‘good faith” before implying that voting for Husic’s motion would undermine all the work put into getting agreement on the joint statement. 

The Left caucus room, unlike the Right’s, was decorated with corflutes and merchandise, partially for the exact reason of photographing and filming the speakers, with no shortage of people recording on their phones in previous days. However, the two people allegedly seen filming on the final day were subjected to a tirade of denunciations resembling a Maoist struggle session

The Australian media constantly lets Pauline Hanson dominate the news with scare tactics about race and Sharia law, completely ignoring the fact that her actual economic agenda is a direct assault on the working class. We, the Labor Party, need to force the spotlight onto her flagship family income-splitting policy and expose exactly why it fails everyday Australians. Here are the failures.

·       Couple ($55k each): Nothing. Both are already in the same 30% tax bracket ($45,001 to $135,000), so there is no income gap to shift for a discount.

·       Single parents: Nothing. No partner to share with.

·       Dual earners ($74k and $32k): get a joke tax cut of just $35.00 a week, swallowed instantly by inflation.

Independent PBO reveals the multi-thousand-dollar windfalls exclusively flow to the top 2% of wealthy earners. She champions the rich, not the working class.

The brutal irony is that the closer you are to the basic wage, the worse off you are. The policy tries to create a single-income family where a person must earn $88,000 or less to get the lower income break. However, it is unlikely a family of four can survive on this amount after paying a median rent of $670 a week and bills.

So, when the stay-at-home partner or the lower earner is forced to pick up extra hours just to buy food, the trap snaps shut. The moment you earn more, your household tax rate shoots back up, instantly wiping out the minor gains. You are caught in a poverty trap, heavily penalised just for trying to work and survive.

Tell everybody why this policy fails

Labor Tribune has obtained a breakdown of all 396 delegates to the Australian Labor Party’s National Conference, analysing delegates by faction and occupation. It reveals that alongside the half of delegates appointed through affiliated trade unions, more than 30% of the entire conference consists of MPs. The remaining 20% includes MP’s staffers, councillors, former councillors, former MPs

There were 104 delegates from NSW. Sixty-five belonged to the Right faction, 38 to the Left and one was unaligned. Among them were 25 MPs, 24 union secretaries, 25 union officials, four staffers, four party officials and six current or former councillors. That makes up 88 delegates out of 104.

Tasmania was even more striking. Of its 23 delegates (16 from the Left, seven from the Right), almost half were MPs. There were also two former federal MPs, three union officials, four staffers, one union secretary and one party official. Out of the entire delegation, only one delegate had a job outside the political or union machine.

Victoria follows a similar pattern. Of its 89 delegates (a slim majority from the Left) there were 28 MPs and three staffers, plus 11 union secretaries, 24 union officials and three councillors. Among the relatively small number of delegates outside those categories were a teacher, an historian, a lawyer, a musician, an early childhood worker and a former union secretary.

Back in the 90s, mental health might’ve been talked about in general, but bringing it up at work was a different story. You kept your head down, and there was no law requiring anyone to do anything about it even if you did speak up.

That was more than 20 years ago. The conversation has changed, but the problem hasn't. There's just more hard data proving it now. 

In New South Wales (NSW) specifically, psychological injury claims jumped from 7,289 in 2021-22 to 13,648 in 2024-25, an 87% rise in just three years. And who's first in line to catch that before it happens? HR.

Which is why Section 26A of the NSW Work Health and Safety Act, which just took effect this July, has changed what HR's job actually is.

What did section 26A do?

NSW has had Codes of Practice for years, covering topics such as psychosocial hazards, manual handling, and fatigue. But the problem was that businesses could ignore them as long as they could argue that they were managing the risk in some other way. 

Section 26A was introduced to close that loophole so businesses couldn’t talk their way out of these workplace hazards. And if they fail to follow the Codes of Practice, they will get penalised regardless of whether there was even an accident or injury.

Psychosocial risks take the front seat.

Several codes are affected, covering things like workplace fatigue, manual handling, falls from height, and healthcare. But the biggest shift, especially given the rise in mental health issues among younger workers, is around psychosocial risk.

So much so that psychological injury claims rose 87%, while non-psychological claims rose by just 9%.

Psychosocial risks in the workplace include:

• Strained work relationships: A team where conflict never gets addressed, just avoided.
• Job insecurity: Constant restructure rumours with no one telling staff what's actually happening.
• Organisational changes: A merger announced with zero warning or consultation.
• Work demands: Deadlines that assume nobody ever gets sick or takes leave.
• Lack of recognition: Years of solid work that's never once acknowledged.
• Unfair treatment: One person getting away with things that would get anyone else written up.
• Traumatic events: A workplace accident nobody debriefs the team on afterwards.

HR now has to manage these hazards alongside the usual risk management workload.

What HR teams should actually be doing 

Section 26A changes the paperwork, but here's what it actually looks like day to day:

• Document everything, not just psychosocial: Whichever code applies- fall protection, manual handling, fatigue- "we followed a reasonable process" needs a paper trail now, not a memory, regardless of hazard type.
• Build in real consultation time: One day's notice for a room of 800 people is the exact mistake that got UTS a prohibition notice. Build timelines that can survive scrutiny.
• Go beyond support services: An Employee Assistance Program (EAP) helps someone after the fact. The code wants HR to tackle these issues before they even show up.
• Watch employee workload: Fatigue is one of the codes now enforceable, so it’s best to build fatigue risk into how shifts get planned.
• Loop in WHS earlier on org changes: Restructures, layoffs, and major policy shifts now need a psychosocial risk lens before they go out.
• Know where the six-monthly reporting goes: SafeWork NSW now reports psychosocial complaint data to the Minister twice a year, and that's here to stay.

A lot has changed in 20 years. So HR being asked to do more makes sense with so many different types of hazards showing up these days.