Carlton coach Michael Voss accuses media of bullying after Elijah Hollands incident
Embattled Carlton coach Michael Voss has defended his staff and accused the media of bullying as the spotlight intensifies on the club for allowing Elijah Hollands to play last week during a mental health episode.Hollands behaved erratically in the match against Collingwood and is now in hospital, and speculation has focused on how Voss’s staff had allowed the young player to take the field given his struggles were obvious even from the stands.Fronting a large press pack on Thursday at Princes Park ahead of Saturday’s match against Fremantle, Voss said he wanted to respect the AFL’s investigation into the club’s actions on the night and “we accept that we need to look at process”.But he said that in a “complex situation that has history and background” his staff deserve praise.“I’m proud of my people, and the process itself will take care of itself, and we need to put our support behind that,” he said.
“We’ve unfortunately rather than make this a private challenge, we’ve made this a public event,“The commentary, the conversation, the ball-by-ball play, we’ve unfortunately made it that, and in some ways – I’ll be really honest – it’s felt like bordering on bullying,”When asked to clarify who was being bullied, Voss was explicit,“I think our people are being bullied, and I think [the media] bully for outcomes, and all I’d just say is that we need to take into consideration the people who are involved in this,” he said,“I mean, this impacts families.
”He said the media commentary had been jumping to conclusions.“Rather than show compassion and empathy through a really difficult situation, [the media] are being really judgmental with knowing little facts, without understanding history and background, and [they] have drawn [their] own outcomes.”When Hollands spoke two years ago of his personal challenges it was a “significant” moment, Voss said, adding “the last couple of years haven’t been smooth sailing for him or us.”The coach said he had not spoken to Hollands directly in recent days, instead communicating with his family.Voss maintained he and the club were committed to maintaining the privacy of the player.
“You can have your commentary, that’s what [the media] do,” he said,“What we are charged to do is ensure that we maintain the privacy of the player, and if that means that there’s judgment in behind that towards me, and there’s a few bullets that need to come our way, well we’ll take it,“We’ve all been impacted in some way, as families and you individually, maybe there’s a few here that have struggled with some mental health in recent times, maybe it’s been a family member, maybe it’s been a friend, maybe it’s been a loved one,“And all I just ask is … ‘what would you want right now?’ And that’s all we ask,”In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, Lifeline on 13 11 14, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978.
In the UK, the charity Mind is available on 0300 123 3393 and Childline on 0800 1111.In the US, call or text Mental Health America at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.
UK undershoots annual borrowing target by £700m
The UK government budget came in below its annual borrowing target by £700m, official figures show – but the Iran war is likely to blow a hole in Rachel Reeves’s carefully calculated fiscal “headroom” over the coming months.The government borrowed a net total of £132bn for the financial year ending in March, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. This slightly undershot the £132.7bn that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had forecast just last month.The total was £19
Sainsbury’s boss urges government to help ease rising energy costs for food producers
The boss of Sainsbury’s has called on the government to help ease the rising cost of energy for farmers, food producers and retailers caused by the conflict in the Middle East to prevent further price rises.Simon Roberts, the chief executive of the UK’s second largest grocer, said: “The single biggest thing the government could do to keep prices down is to make sure energy prices for the industry are not rising faster.”Referring to the expansion of support on bills for energy-intensive UK businesses announced by the chancellor last week, Roberts said: “Some sectors have seen those reliefs and it is now time to look at what’s possible in food [growing], manufacturing and retailing.”He said Sainsbury’s had not yet had problems with the availability of food, and that was being helped by the UK entering the season in which more food is home-grown. The growing season is in full swing in the UK but that takes a lot of energy to produce,” he said, highlighting the cost of heating polytunnels to produce fruit and salad vegetables, higher fuel costs to transport food from farms to shops, and the cost of running refrigerators
Iran war pushing up till price of some drugs by up to 30%, pharmacies warn
The war in Iran has pushed up the price of widely used medicines in England, including painkillers and hay fever medication, leading pharmacists have warned.Community chemists are charging customers 20-30% more for paracetamol than they did in February, according to the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), and many have run out of certain strengths of aspirin and co-codamol.Over-the-counter prices for cetirizine tablets, a common hay fever medication, are also estimated to have risen 20-30% in the same period.The jump in petrol and diesel prices since the war began nearly eight weeks ago has increased manufacturing and transport costs for medicine suppliers. These have fed through to pharmacies, which are paying 40-50% more to order in stock
Yes, retail investment needs a boost – but the squirrel looks too tame | Nils Pratley
Red squirrel characters have a history in the public information game. Older UK readers may recall Tufty, who taught children about road safety in the 1970s. His chum, Willy Weasel, regularly got knocked down by passing cars but clever Tufty always remembered to look both ways.Now comes Savvy Squirrel, who, with backing from the chancellor and a multi-year lump of advertising spend from the financial services industry, will try “to drive a step-change in how investing is understood, discussed and adopted”, as the blurb puts it. In translation: don’t squirrel everything away in a boring cash Isa but try taking an investment risk or two if you value your long-term financial health
Capital gains tax changes are on the table, and yet Armageddon has not arrived. Has the tide on housing turned at last? | Greg Jericho
A funny thing happened on the way to the budget: changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing, which had for years been a no-go zone, are now looking likely.One of the first times I wrote about negative gearing was in 2015 when I covered the then treasurer Joe Hockey appearing on Q+A. He said negative gearing was needed because when the Hawke government scrapped it in the 1980s rental prices rose.He was wrong (and to be honest, this was not unusual – a lot of my columns back then involved arguing Joe Hockey was wrong). While rental price growth went up in Sydney and Perth, it didn’t in Melbourne, Brisbane or Adelaide
Middle East war ‘could wipe out 75% of chancellor’s budget headroom’; UK inflation climbs to 3.3% – as it happened
Oil prices have gone back above $100 a barrel again.Reversing earlier declines, Brent crude is now 2.1% ahead at $100.57 a barrel, after Iran seized two ships in the strait of Hormuz, tightening its grip on the strategic waterway. Overnight, Donald Trump extended the two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran, until Tehran comes up with a peace proposal
Tesla reports mixed financial results as Musk pivots automaker to AI and robots
What is Mythos AI and why could it be a threat to global cybersecurity?
‘Get back to work’: Amazon faces fresh scrutiny over workplace safety record
Anthropic investigates report of rogue access to hack-enabling Mythos AI
AI hallucinations found in high-profile Wall Street law firm filing
‘An element of exploitation’: the world of TikTok child skincare influencers