Two members of Malcolm Turnbull's extended family are being named as potential contenders in a race for a NSW seat in the Senate, while Victorian Liberal Sarah Henderson is the favourite for a similar contest in Victoria.

Mr Turnbull's son-in-law, James Brown, was named by several Liberals on Monday as an option for the key position in the upper house, to be made vacant later this year following the appointment of Arthur Sinodinos as Australia’s next ambassador in Washington.

But Mr Turnbull's brother-in-law, Michael Hughes, is also being put forward by Liberals as a possible choice because of his long years of service to the party, including as treasurer of its NSW division.

Other contenders for the NSW seat include Dallas McInerney, the chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW, Warren Mundine, who ran for the marginal seat of Gilmore on the state's south coast at the May 18 election, and Richard Shields, one of the candidates who came close to gaining the pre-selection for Mr Turnbull's former seat of Wentworth in Sydney's eastern suburbs last year.

Advertisement

With a highly contested seat up for grabs, party members also said the field could include heart surgeon and professor Michael Feneley and the former mayor of Liverpool, Ned Mannoun.

Loading

The selection of a new senator is at an early stage, given Senator Sinodinos is not expected to be formally appointed to Washington until much later in the year, and there is time for many others to put themselves forward and others to withdraw before any formal preselection.

The list of potential candidates also includes one woman, Mary-Lou Jarvis, who is the president of the Liberal Women's Council and a vice-president of the party's state division.

Captain Brown, who is married to Mr Turnbull's daughter, Daisy, is the president of the NSW RSL and served in the army in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Solomon Islands.

He is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Sydney after working as a research fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy and the university's United States Studies Centre.

Mr Hughes, who is the brother of Mr Turnbull's wife, Lucy, is a Sydney stockbroker and businessman who has been involved in the Liberal Party since he was a teenager. He, Lucy and their brother Tom jnr are the children of Tom Hughes, who was a federal Liberal MP for nine years, attorney-general in the government of John Gorton, and later a prominent Sydney barrister.

Loading

Replay

Replay video

While there was speculation that former army general Jim Molan might also be a candidate, his fate is yet to be determined by the counting of the votes from the May 18 election, in which he was fourth on the Coalition's Senate ticket.

Senator Molan, whose term expires on June 30 if he is not re-elected, offended some within the Liberal Party by running a “below the line” campaign asking people to give him their votes rather than following the official Coalition ticket.

The Victorian Senate race follows Mr Morrison's announcement that former communications minister Mitch Fifield would take up the position of ambassador to the United Nations in New York later this year.

Loading

Senator Fifield and Senator Sinodinos are yet to resign from the upper house but are expected to do so later this year, once their diplomatic posts are officially confirmed.

Ms Henderson, a former assistant minister, last week conceded she had lost the seat of Corangamite at the election but she is highly regarded and is seen as the favourite to replace Senator Fifield.

Others named by Liberals as potential choices for the seat in south-west Victoria include Kate Ashmore, who ran for the seat of Macnamara in Greater Melbourne, and Steve Martin, who ran for the seat of Indi in north-east Victoria at the federal election.

Click Here:

Small businesses are calling for reform in the wake of new research showing less than 1 per cent of unfair dismissal claims were backed by the industrial umpire.

The Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association claims small businesses are incurring significant financial and time penalties contesting unfair dismissal claims at the Fair Work Commission that rarely succeed.

During the first three months of this year the commission received 3583 applications for unfair dismissal with less than 1 per cent resulting in findings of unfairness by the commission.

The Small Business Unfair Dismissal Code applies to businesses with fewer than 15 employees and gives special treatment to small businesses including an inability for employees to claim unfair dismissal in their first 12 months in a job or to dismiss an employee summarily for misconduct.

Advertisement

Of the applications studied 3180 were settled during mediation or conciliation, 6 were withdrawn, and 172 were finalised by a decision of the commission with the remaining 225 presumably still in the system, and yet to be finalised.

ACAPMA chief executive Mark McKenzie said while the results of mediation or conciliation were confidential it is clear the code needs to be reformed.

"From ACAPMA’s experience, the vast majority of the matters subject to mediation and conciliation result in either the employee withdrawing the application after mediation, or the employer deciding to make a modest ‘go away’ payment – rather than go through the stress and expense of fighting the claim in the commission”, Mr McKenzie said.

Of the 172 cases brought before the commission 32 cases (or 19 per cent) were resolved in favour of the employee.

This was similar to previous years with 15 per cent resolved in favour of employees in 2018 and 17 per cent in 2017.

Loading

Of the cases 79 were dismissed by the commission as 'without merit' while 32 were dismissed for being legally invalid due to the claims being lodged ‘out of time’, the case being a genuine redundancy, or the case being ineligible on other technical grounds.

Mr McKenzie said given the significant financial and time penalties associated with preparing a defence against an adverse dismissal claim, the high number of cases that were dismissed by the commission suggests that the current operation of the code is imposing unnecessary costs on small business owners.

"That is to say nothing of the stress involved in defending these actions and the fact that they often result in the business owner losing sight of their small business and suffering other financial consequences," Mr McKenzie said.

A spokesperson for the commission declined to comment on the calls for reform.

"Many matters are resolved by agreement between the employee and the employer at conciliation, others are resolved by the applicant withdrawing their application, and applications may be formally dismissed for example where it is found to be outside the commission’s jurisdiction," the spokesperson said.

Anthony Massaro from law firm Russell Kennedy said it is likely a "significant proportion" of the 3180 settled claims would, or might, have been successful at arbitration.

"If an employer knows that there were problems with the dismissal, and the employee is not asking for a significant amount of money, then in most cases the matter settles," he said.

"Obviously, there are frustrating situations where a seemingly merit-free claim can proceed because there is minimal prospect of an adverse costs order at the end of it. At the same time, any alteration to the system needs to take into account that the entire purpose of the system is to ensure that certain employees have a channel to contest unfair decisions. If the system is too discouraging, it fails."

Follow MySmallBusiness on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Click Here:

Fantasy and science fiction currently make up a disproportionate amount of the world's biggest mainstream films and TV shows, from Game of Thrones to The Avengers: Endgame. And while most can trace their inspirations back to legendarily geeky sources, like Lord of the Rings and Marvel Comics respectively, their popularity has also led to something of a revival for the king of all nerdy past-times.

Dungeons & Dragons has never gone away but it now has more global players than ever, spurred not only by the general fantasy renaissance but also its explicit inclusion in shows like Community and — most recently — Stranger Things.

As a storytelling game, D&D has long appealed to writers and creators, and so has often inspired or appeared in film, TVs and music. Yet the growth the game is currently seeing is unmatched, even compared to its '80s heyday, according to Dungeons & Dragons creative director Mike Mearls.

"I think what might be different this time is that we're really seeing D&D break into more mainstream culture. We're getting more people now who 10, 20, 30 years ago we would not have thought of as gamers, people who were sort of outside that sphere of geekdom," Mearls says.

Click Here: Advertisement

"As geek culture is becoming demystified by the internet, you have so many people who grew up loving comics, loving science fiction and fantasy, and they're now the ones crafting mainstream entertainment, and they're bringing that stuff and placing it in the mainstream. We're seeing a lot of people now who [in the past] would never have been exposed to D&D."

And it's not just retro-inspired TV shows like Riverdale bringing the game to new audiences through their screens. D&D's personality-driven and performative aspects have seen it become a hit on live-streaming services like Twitch, where viewers have watched for a combined total of more than 1.5 billion minutes.

There are of course also countless video games inspired by D&D, but the reason they haven't supplanted the original comes down to the social dynamics of the tabletop game. The ability for players to create the experience and set the pace and rules even as they play through is D&D's defining feature, and the reason it's such a natural way to frame stories about groups of friends on a fantastical adventure, like Stranger Things.

And it seems that inspiration goes both ways, with Wizards of the Coast (the Hasbro-owned creative force behind Dungeons & Dragons) recently announcing a D&D starter kit themed after the Netflix show. The set gives players access to an original adventure designed to resemble the one played by Stranger Things' main characters, and although it offers something new for seasoned adventurers Mearls says it's also specifically targeted at those who may be interested in discovering the game after watching the show.

"One of the design directives was to make a single adventure you could play in a couple hours, that would give you a nice broad, diverse array of the different set of challenges that you might encounter in a game of Dungeons & Dragons," he says, adding that the door is open for further adventures and campaigns that draw on pop culture.

"I like to say that every generation gets the Dungeons & Dragons that they need. The game has to evolve, we can't get too focused on what we did in the past. And I think part of that is finding more ways to appeal to a larger and larger audience."

The integration of a $7.3 billion new metro line into Sydney's broader rail network passed its first test on Monday despite a greater number of commuters than expected riding on the driverless trains.

A day after about 140,000 people hopped on board for the first time, attention turned to how the system would handle high commuter volumes during the morning peak, especially at pinch points such as Chatswood and Epping stations.

About 21,000 people travelled on the Metro Northwest line between 4.45am and 10am on Monday, which was higher than government expectations of up to 17,000 passengers.

Half of the commuters using the 36-kilometre line from Rouse Hill to Chatswood on Monday morning travelled to destinations along the north-west corridor, instead of switching to other services to get into central Sydney.

Advertisement

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the 21,000 people who had travelled on the metro trains on Monday morning had exceeded her expectations.

"People have confidence in the system and are using it," she said.

Figures show Chatswood had the highest number of people (9425) using their Opal cards to tap off between 4.45am and 10am, followed by Macquarie University (5875) and Epping (2368).

Platform crowding was greatest at Epping during the morning peak, partly because an escalator funnels passengers to the centre of a platform.

Some commuters have been startled by metro trains slightly overshooting station platforms, and then reversing to line up carriage doors with the and glass-screen platform doors.

But Transport Minister Andrew Constance said the trains were "doing exactly" what they should. "The train is designed to make sure the doors align," he said. "It's a matter of seconds [to line up the doors]. That is the same with every system around the world."

With an initial frequency of a train every five minutes during peak periods, the metro line can carry about 17,000 passengers an hour. The frequency during the morning and evening peaks will rise to four-minute intervals in about six weeks.

While each driverless metro train will initially have at least one staff member on board, Rail, Tram and Bus Union state secretary Alex Claassens said he was concerned that the workers would be removed in the "very near future".

"We’ve long held real concerns about the Sydney Metro system," he said.

But Transport for NSW secretary Rodd Staples said the automated trains were built to operate successfully without a customer service attendant on board each train.

"While we bed the system down, we will have a customer attendant on board until we are comfortable," he said.

Asked when that was likely to be, he said: "We will wait and see."

Mr Staples said one of the lessons from the opening of the line on Sunday was that it took too long to remove a train from service after it suffered a door fault at Macquarie Park.

Loading

"But once [the line] started moving, the power of the system became obvious because we added more trains quickly. When we had that fault with the doors at Macquarie Park, we had 12 trains on the system. We inserted another three to four trains to clear the waiting customers," he said.

Epping resident Julia Hood gave the thumbs up to the new metro services on her first ride on Monday morning, saying the driverless train she rode on to get to Chatswood was smooth, quick and easy. "Once it goes all the way to the city it will be better," she said.

Other commuters were equally impressed. Paul Nijjar caught a metro train for the first time from Bella Vista on Monday morning. "It was awesome. It’s up there with Japan now," he said.

Mr Nijjar said it used to take about an hour and 20 minutes to get to work at Rhodes, but the new line meant it should be less than an hour. "It’s a huge difference," he said.

Sydney Trains chief executive Howard Collins said Chatswood and Epping stations were busy during the morning peak but passengers switched between metro and Sydney Trains services relatively smoothly.

"We are really pleased with the service and the loadings on the trains," he said.

Click Here:

Growing numbers of people are being diagnosed with cancer, but the good news is your chances of survival are getting significantly better, the latest Cancer Institute NSW report shows.

As our ageing population swells, so do absolute numbers of cancer diagnoses and deaths across the state, the Cancer Control in NSW report shows.

Loading

Replay

Replay video

This year, 47,526 people will be diagnosed with cancer in NSW and 15,501 will die from the illness.

But cancer mortality rates are falling with rising rates of early detection and better access to treatment.

Advertisement

The cancer death rate is projected to drop from 148.7 per 100,000 this year to 144.2 per 100,000 in 2021, the report, released on Tuesday, said.

Survival rates were on the rise for all nine major cancer types included in the report.

"Prevention campaigns, cancer screening participation, access to services and new emerging therapies have all helped contribute to an overall reduction in mortality rates," said David Currow, chief cancer officer and chief executive of the Cancer Institute NSW.

"Tackling fatalism is crucial," Professor Currow said.

"The really important message is that if you are diagnosed in 2019 with cancer in NSW, you will get some of the best outcomes in the world and, if you're worried about it, please see your doctor."

Loading

Following a federal election that underscored the inequity of cancer treatment in Australia, the report confirmed significant disparities in cancer incidence and survival depending on the type of cancer and where patients live.

Between 2010 and 2014, more than nine in 10 breast cancer patients (90.6 per cent) were alive five years after they were first diagnosed in NSW; the highest of any state and territory.

NSW also had the highest five-year survival rate for melanoma skin cancers at 93.9 per cent. For bowel cancer, it was more than 70 per cent.

Yet roughly four in five people with lung or liver cancer died within five years. For stomach cancer, it was two in three.

Pancreatic cancer had the highest death rate, with 12 per cent of patients living five years after being diagnosed with the notoriously aggressive and hard-to-detect disease. But this figure was a hard-fought improvement.

"I remember attending a national think tank in 2012 where the thought of getting into double-digit survival [for pancreatic cancer] seemed a faint hope," Professor Currow said.

"We need to keep this in perspective, these are people's lives we are talking about … but we are seeing a real and sustained shift," he said.

Loading

Replay

Replay video

But there was much more work to be done to redress the "unwarranted variations" in diagnosis and survival rates between local health districts, Professor Currow said.

Loading

Lung cancer death rates – intrinsically linked to disadvantage and smoking – were significantly higher than the state average in the local health districts of South Western Sydney and Western NSW and low in the more affluent districts of Northern and South Eastern Sydney.

Western NSW had the highest smoking rate in the state, more than 2.5 times the rate of Northern Sydney with the lowest rate of 9.5 per cent.

Northern and South Eastern Sydney had some of the highest rates of breast cancer, for which – at a population level – social advantage is a known risk factor.

The Central Coast, Mid North Coast and the Hunter New England districts had some of the highest skin cancer death rates, while Sydney, Northern, South Western and Western Sydney districts have some of the lowest in the state.

Meanwhile, bowel cancer rates were high in the Hunter New England, Central Coast and Mid North Coast and Murrumbidgee districts where the retirement population was booming.

The report also showed an uptick in people taking part in national screening programs.

Breast cancer screening participation ranged from 44.8 per cent in Far West NSW to 61.8 per cent in Hunter New England in 2016-2017.

Statewide, 55.9 per cent of women aged 20 to 69 had been screened for cervical cancer between July 2015 and June 2017, almost 63,000 more than were screened from 2010 to 2012.

NSW had the second-lowest participation rate for the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program in Australia (after the Northern Territory) of 38.2 per cent, but it had risen from 31.8 per cent in 2012.

The report also showed the number of enrolments in cancer clinical trials across the state had more than doubled in just four years to 3924 patients. That's nine enrolments in clinical trials for every 100 people newly diagnosed with cancer.

Click Here:

Sydneysiders will have their first water restrictions imposed in almost a decade to help stem a rapid decline in the city's reservoirs amid the state's ongoing drought.

The Berejiklian government decided to bring forward the level 1 curbs to June 1, or about two months earlier than would be triggered under the Metropolitan Water Plan.

The formal trigger for such restrictions is when dam levels hit 50 per cent. On Tuesday, they were at 53.5 per cent and losing 0.5 percentage points per week, according to WaterNSW.

Sydney Water have said the city's dams have fallen faster over the past two years than during the Millennium Drought, with inflows at levels not seen since the 1940s.

AdvertisementLoading

The water restrictions will target outdoor water use, although the government is also planning to encourage the public to save water where possible.

Fines for breaches are expected to be $220 for individuals and $550 for companies – with a three-month grace period to allow people to adjust.  About 75 per cent of Sydney Water's output goes to residential users.

The first stage of water curbs will seek to mandate the so-called Water Wise Rules that have been voluntary to this point, according to the Metropolitan Water Plan. These include requiring all garden hoses to have a trigger nozzle or other attachment that permits an instant on-off use.

Lawns and gardens should also not be watered between 10am and 4pm to limit evaporation losses.

Sprinklers and watering systems will also not be permitted, except for drip-irrigation systems or automated watering systems with controllers that automatically limit usage based on soil moisture and weather conditions.

Residents will also not be allowed to hose hard surfaces like paths and driveways, except for health and safety reasons or in an emergency.

Residents can only wash vehicles, boats and buildings with a bucket, a hose fitted with a trigger nozzle or high-pressure cleaning equipment, and those seeking to fill a new or renovated pool will need a permit if it contains more than 10,000 litres of water.

Exclusions for level 1 restrictions include bore water use and where there is "no practical alternative".

Loading

Other exclusions include households laying fresh turf with watering permitted for a week after installation. Professional gardeners – who often work through the day – will be able to apply for exemption permits.

The restrictions are coming into force even as the Sydney Desalination Plant ramps up towards full capacity. It was restarted last year after repairs following a tornado strike in 2015, and is producing about 850 million litres a week. a spokesman said on Saturday.

At full capacity, the plant will supply 250 million litres of drinking water daily, or about 15 per cent of Sydney's needs.

While not a direct proxy for the city's catchments, Sydney has been particularly dry for the past two months.

Observatory Hill has had no rain in its gauge since May 6 and may not get any until Saturday.

Rainfall since the start of April has been just 25.8mm, trailing only 1888 as the driest spell for those two months in Sydney in records going back to 1858, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

The bureau’s winter outlook is for conditions that favour below-average rainfall across most eastern Australia, including in the region around Sydney.

Those seeking to be excluded from the water restrictions can phone Sydney Water on 13 20 92 or email [email protected].

More to come

Click Here:

You've probably never heard of David Briggs. But you've very likely heard of Newspoll. That's the opinion poll that Malcolm Turnbull formalised as the benchmark of prime ministerial performance.

Remember? Tony Abbott had to go when he "lost" 30 in a row. Then, eventually, Turnbull himself had to go after he "lost" 38 of them.

Briggs is the man behind the poll. So that made him, in effect, the arbiter of whether Australia's leaders were seen to be succeeding or failing. He was the spokesman for the jury, as well as the judge, in the courtroom of Australian politics. All it took to finish the process was the executioners in the party caucuses to deliver the punishment.

But Briggs is much more than Newspoll, published by Rupert Murdoch's The Australian. He's also the man behind the YouGov Galaxy polls published by Murdoch's tabloid papers. And he's the man behind the exit poll conducted for Nine at the federal election.

Advertisement

Beyond his polling for media outlets, Briggs this year was also the pollster for the Labor Party. Taken together, this made him by far the most influential and important pollster in the land, the narrator of the Australian political story.

He also got the election result wrong. And because he got it wrong, all his clients got it wrong. That included the Labor Party which, to the end, thought it was cruising to victory two weekends ago.

So when I phoned Briggs last week and asked him how he was doing, I wasn't surprised when he replied "shithouse". He made no attempt to gild the lily. "It's very sad," he said.

He was also as bewildered as everyone else as to how his polls had consistently pointed to a Labor win. "Our final poll of the 2016 election campaign was the most accurate there has ever been," he said, when measured against the actual result.

"We used exactly the same methodology for this election that we used in 2016. Since I started at Newspoll in 1985, there hasn't been this style of disaster. Australia has been well served." Till now. He had already begun a post-mortem examination of the Newspoll poll data.

Briggs points out this election had some unique features. Clive Palmer's $60 million ad campaign, for instance, which was more than double the sum spent by the two main parties combined. We might ask what effect that had, Briggs says, but "it still doesn't explain why we were overstating Labor's vote by 3 to 4 per cent."

How did one pollster reach such a position of dominance? Through the quality and consistency of his results. Other polling companies always cast a nervous eye at his results as they published their own. Clients went to Briggs because of his reputation.

The long-time Labor pollster John Utting was quick to ask whether Briggs was guilty of a conflict of interest. He pointed out that Briggs' company, Galaxy YouGov Research, presented itself as an "honest broker and dispassionate observer" while at the same time it was "intimately involved in Labor's campaign." This, said Utting, "beggars belief."

Briggs has two responses. First: "It's not a conflict of interest. All our clients want the same thing. They all want accurate information. We were doing our best for all our clients." And second, he discounts Utting as a fair-minded critic: "It's sour grapes from someone who lost the contract" as the quantitative pollster for Labor.

Loading

But if this were only the story of the failure of Briggs' polling constellation, the problem would be easier to isolate. In fact, all the major published polls were wrong, and wrong in the same way.

The Essential poll published by The Guardian and the Ipsos poll published by The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review, consistently pointed to the same outcome – a Labor victory.

There were variations in the detail. For instance, the Ipsos finding of a very low Labor primary vote turned out to be exactly and uniquely right. But in the election-deciding measure, the two-party preferred share of the vote, all the pollsters indicated Labor would win with 51 or 52 per cent. In the event, it was the Coalition that won 51.6 per cent. Labor lost with 48.4 on the count so far.

This was an industry failure. Like Briggs, the Ipsos pollster, Jess Elgood, is baffled. "We treated and presented our data identically to the 2016 election," she says.

As for the reason for the clustering of the various polls around the same – wrong – conclusion, she points out that Ipsos has been unafraid to publish "outlier" results, even though it has been criticised for doing so. She has no explanation for the clustering in the final polls: "I think it's far too early to say." Ipsos, like all the others, is doing its own introspection.

All the pollsters could take shelter under the defence of margin of error. All polls are just estimates of a larger reality, and all are published with the note that they have margins of error of 2 to 3 per cent. But all the pollsters reject this as a cop-out. All recognise that they have a duty to do better.

"For me," says Elgood, "this is a lesson in caution." That should be the lesson for the country at large. The betting markets are often cited as a better indicator. They were spectacularly wrong-footed in this election too. The theory that punters are smarter than pollsters is now a dead letter.

But other indicators gave contrary signals. Ipsos conducted mid-campaign focus groups for this newspaper that pointed to a lack of appetite for change of government, and the main front-page news report began: "Uncommitted voters know about Labor's plans for new taxes but have heard almost nothing about the promised benefits, in a sign of potential trouble for Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's election prospects."

Our reporters on the road, testing opinion the old-fashioned way, also reported the lack of appetite for change of government, the scepticism about Labor and Bill Shorten. Opinion polls conducted in individual key seats also proved to be more useful indicators than national averages, although polling a meaningful number is a big and expensive exercise. The political parties poll around 20 each to map their battles.

But because of our long conditioning to the pseudo-scientific infallibility of the opinion polls, the country allowed alternative data points to be pushed aside. The pollsters need to address their problems. And the rest of us need to recover our common sense.

Peter Hartcher is the political editor.

Click Here:

A member of the Comancheros and four other men have been arrested in connection with the death of a man who was shot multiple times outside a home in Sydney's west.

Emergency services were called to Meridian Place at Doonside about 7.30pm on Monday after reports of a shooting.

Loading

Replay

Replay video

NSW Ambulance paramedics treated Craig Anderson, 51, who had suffered several gunshot wounds, but he died at the scene.

Investigators say that Mr Anderson, who was known to police, had been in a dispute with one of the men over something trivial.

Advertisement

"The personal nature of this has been escalating for some time," Detective Superintendent Scott Cook told reporters on Tuesday.

"It's not clear what the dispute was over."

Police comforted several people at a house in Meridian Place on Monday who appeared highly distressed.

"Many" neighbours called police after hearing gunshots, Det Supt Cook said.

A crime scene was established, and officers from Blacktown Police Area Command and State Crime Command’s Homicide Squad commenced inquiries.

Click Here:

An hour after the shooting, five men, aged 44, 29, 28, 27, and 22, were arrested after vehicle stops in the St Marys area, police said in a statement on Tuesday.

Police seized four cars and one firearm found in a vehicle.

The 44-year-old and 28-year-old man were taken to St Marys Police Station and the other three were taken to Penrith Police Station. They all continue to assist with inquiries. No charges have been laid.

"Murder is not acceptable in New South Wales," Det Supt Cook said.

"It's not tolerable. This is bad behaviour, not sophisticated organised crime."

How easy is it for anyone to become homeless?

To be an intelligent, kind, articulate person and one day find yourself sleeping on the streets?

Just ask Rachel, 37, who grew up in a middle class house in Melbourne’s north-eastern suburbs, and who now sleeps in parks at night.

‘‘I didn’t think that I would end up here at all,’’ she says. ‘‘It didn’t take much.’’

Advertisement

It also happened to alleged murder victim Courtney Herron, who was from a loving family and went to the exclusive Genazzano College in Kew as a teenager and yet due to a complex set of circumstances, found herself homeless at age 25.

Ms Herron’s plight, and her death, her battered body found in Royal Park in the inner suburb of Parkville, on Saturday, did not surprise Rachel*.

‘‘It’s not uncommon that [homeless] people would get bashed ,’’ she said.

Rachel feels society is getting more violent ‘‘and we don’t understand what compassion is anymore’’.

Loading

She says many of today’s homeless are women, although there is ‘‘a smidge more men’’.

But it is more dangerous for women.

In the past, Rachel spent many nights in Melbourne’s CBD but ‘‘you sleep with one eye open,’’ she says.

A drunk might throw water on you, and you can’t get warm or dry. A year ago, in a lane off Flinders Street, she was kicked and punched in an altercation. She says when you don’t sleep, the next day you’re so tired you look like you’re on drugs, and the police can move you on.

These days, Rachel spends only the days in the CBD, holding a sign that asks not for cash but for a job, be it mowing or dog walking.

‘‘I’m busting to go back to work. I have got a little bit of work from this sign. I did a lady’s ironing and a bit of gardening, odds and ends. But I’d do factory work or retail, or whatever.’’

At night Rachel retrieves her bedding from a railway locker and she and a male friend head out of the CBD. They take the train to Box Hill or Balwyn, where they sleep in a park, preferably in a rotunda, or under a tree; somewhere ‘‘as dry and as warm as I can get it to be’’.

Rachel wants us to challenge the stereotypes of the homeless. ‘‘A lot of us are here because it’s a crappy situation we’re in, and we’re trying to get out of it.’’

Fifteen years ago, Rachel’s mother became ill, suffering seven strokes. As a loving daughter, Rachel looked after her, for which she received a carer’s pension.

Loading

When her mother died two years ago, age 60, Rachel did not have work experience to find a job. Without a job, she couldn’t afford rent. Within six months, she was evicted.

She now sees that ‘‘it really is a fine line, between having somewhere safe to call home, and being out here’’.

According to the Council to Homeless Persons, 24,817 people were homeless on census night 2016, and 10,432, or 42 per cent of those, were female.

CHP chief executive Jenny Smith said there are no one-bedroom rentals anywhere in Victoria that a single woman on Centrelink can afford.

Click Here:

‘‘Even rooming houses and most share houses charge rents in excess of 50 per cent of people’s incomes,’’ Ms Smith said. ‘

‘‘So if you lose your job, or you have to move out of your rental, and you’re on a low income you can very quickly find that there is nowhere to turn.

‘‘You might couch surf for a while until you wear out your welcome, or stay in a rooming houses. But rooming houses are often dangerous and women are particularly vulnerable, so then they end up on the street.

‘‘That’s why we need the Victorian government to deliver at least 3,000 new units of social housing each year and the federal government to more than match that effort.’’

Last January, in response to a public outcry over the number of rough sleepers on Melbourne streets, the government released a plan to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.

It included almost $20 million for outreach teams across Victoria that can approach rough sleepers directly to offer support. Another $9 million was spent on six teams of housing workers to support people once they move into social or public housing, and $13 million for 106 accommodation units and onsite support.

But while homelessness services welcomed these initiatives, safe and affordable housing is so limited that workers are often only able to refer people to motels and rooming houses. The social housing wait list is more than 80,000 people long.

A person with drug and alcohol issues, who is escaping family violence or has been repeatedly homeless can be placed on a ‘‘priority’’ list. But the average wait time for priority cases is currently 10 months.

*Not her real name.

Latrell Mitchell's "mad battle" with Will Chambers typified NSW's coming of age this time last year.

Mitchell, the game's hottest young talent, was just 20 years old when he made his Origin debut alongside 10 others rookies. Chambers, a player 10 years his senior, was the ultimate Queensland warrior.

When they met for the first time in the middle of the MCG, Mitchell did not take a backwards step.

Six weeks later, Mitchell had stamped himself as the game's best centre.

Advertisement

He dominated Chambers at every turn and as NSW begin their preparations for next Wednesday's series opener, he told the Herald he intends to do the same again this year.

"If he’s on the right going up against me, that’s cool. It’s a mad battle. I love going up against Willy," Mitchell said. "He makes me a better player."

Click Here:

Personal battles with his opposite number in the centres have driven Mitchell to lofty new heights in the 12 months since making his Origin debut.

He relishes the one-on-one nature playing in the centres provides, desperate to win the individual battle if it means his team will succeed.

Making the battles personal have occasionally pushed the hottest young talent in the game over the edge but more often than not, it brings out his very best football.

"If I’m opposite a centre, I want to dominate him," Mitchell said. "It’s about making sure that he knows if I’m on my game he needs to be on his game and vice versa. If they have a centre that is playing good, I want to make sure I’m on my game.

"I want to be defending well and then attacking them when I can. That’s why I like playing in the centres."

After a "long" 11 week stint to start the season, Mitchell arrives in NSW camp eager to leave the off-field distractions which have plagued his year to date at the door.

By his own admission, his form has been a touch patchy. Unstoppable one week, average the next.

Loading

"It’s been a long 11 weeks of footy. Coming in here and taking things up another level, it’s going to be pretty good. I’m pretty keen," Mitchell said. "I’m in and out a bit, I think. I had a few average weeks at the start of the year and then I came into my own footy.

"But then I’ve gone back to square one a bit. I’m just trying to stay in the moment, that’s the key for me. Just enjoying it. Even though we have lost our last two, I have really enjoyed playing.

"I’ve had a lot of things going on. It’s been tough. But I really enjoy coming in here and enjoying that."

Mitchell admits there is something about the environment coach Brad Fittler creates which helps him thrive.

Loading

Perhaps it is the no phone policy, a ploy to cultivate the bond held by all players involved.

"It’s really good to get away from that and get to know the boys," Mitchell said. "We leave them in our rooms. It’s a long walk [laughs] but it’s good. I like when Freddy gets the boys together and not having any phones is a really good thing."

Or perhaps it is simply the stage itself. Mitchell seems to save his best football for the matches where all eyes are on him. They were this time last year and they will be again next Wednesday.

"Last year we created something special," he said. "For the boys that have come in, they’re coming into an environment that’s pretty packed.

"We patched things up from the past and now we have to keep going now. We want to create more memories.

"I just want to go out there and play my footy and enjoy being in that arena again."