Sydney school closes as quarantine hotel managers set to appear before Victorian inquiry. Follow live
12.21am BST
That storm did quite a bit of damage in Melbourne and Victoria last night. We were already feeling a bit fragile down here – losing three people to falling trees is very tough.
There are also a lot of trees down.
Talk about a close call. #Melbourneweather #storm pic.twitter.com/hAX8GluP6Q
Huge Squall line (100km + long) just hitting Melbourne. 80km/h wind gusts.#melbourneweather pic.twitter.com/bvG47fGgIP
Related: Melbourne storm: three killed, including four-year-old boy, by falling trees
12.15am BST
The acting immigration minister, Alan Tudge, was on ABC News Breakfast earlier talking about the government’s plan for free English language classes, which he will formally announce at the press club today.
In essence, we want to get more people to have basic English. There is probably about a million people in Australia now who can’t speak the language, or not very well at all. That has implications for their opportunities to get work but equally, it has implications for our social cohesion and for full participation in our democracy.
We are overhauling the program which is going to mean that from today, every single person in Australia, whose English is poor, is going to be able to access additional English language classes to get themselves up to that basic English level and that means they have got the best chance of getting a job.
We know that the more distance your native language is from English, or from European languages, the harder it is to learn it. You may need a couple of thousand hours if you’re from an Asian language, compared to another European language. We want to take that cap off.
Continue reading…Sydney school closes as quarantine hotel managers set to appear before Victorian inquiry. Follow live 12.21am BSTThat storm did quite a bit of damage in Melbourne and Victoria last night. We were already feeling a bit fragile down here – losing three people to falling trees is very tough.There are also a lot of trees down.Talk about a close call. #Melbourneweather #storm pic.twitter.com/hAX8GluP6QHuge Squall line (100km + long) just hitting Melbourne. 80km/h wind gusts.#melbourneweather pic.twitter.com/bvG47fGgIP Related: Melbourne storm: three killed, including four-year-old boy, by falling trees 12.15am BSTThe acting immigration minister, Alan Tudge, was on ABC News Breakfast earlier talking about the government’s plan for free English language classes, which he will formally announce at the press club today.In essence, we want to get more people to have basic English. There is probably about a million people in Australia now who can’t speak the language, or not very well at all. That has implications for their opportunities to get work but equally, it has implications for our social cohesion and for full participation in our democracy. We are overhauling the program which is going to mean that from today, every single person in Australia, whose English is poor, is going to be able to access additional English language classes to get themselves up to that basic English level and that means they have got the best chance of getting a job.We know that the more distance your native language is from English, or from European languages, the harder it is to learn it. You may need a couple of thousand hours if you’re from an Asian language, compared to another European language. We want to take that cap off. Continue reading…