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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Josh Taylor, Naaman Zhou and Ben Doherty

Third federal politician tests positive and all Australian cricket cancelled – as it happened

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We are going to wrap this up (again). But before we go it must be said – thanks for reading, tomorrow is another day (and another blog).

We’ll leave you with the latest from Guardian Aus, summing up another extraordinary day.

That DFAT late evening missive will likely have a lot of people rethinking plans and making a few urgent calls. There was some sense of urgency in the statement and that will no doubt filter down to travellers.

AAP has just filed its take on what was a surprise late evening announcement.

Australians are being urged to fly home as soon as possible to avoid being stranded overseas due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Travel advice issued on Tuesday evening by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Australians should return home before the virus caused more borders to close.

Travellers are also being urged to reconsider their need to go overseas.

“If you’re already overseas and wish to return to Australia, we recommend you do so as soon as possible by commercial means,” the advice read.

“You may not be able to return to Australia when you had planned to. Consider whether you have access to health care and support systems if you get sick while overseas.”

From midday on Tuesday Australians were no longer able to travel to Europe, with an initial EU ban in place for 30 days.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is meeting the national cabinet on Tuesday evening, with new precautionary measures likely to be announced on Wednesday.

Anthony Albanese is reacting.

As some people are pointing out – it seems most of the world is a no-go zone now:

Updated

Dfat advises Australians abroad to return home

The foreign affairs department has told Australians via its smart traveller website that they should consider returning home if abroad given the ongoing uncertainty about whether people can still travel.

“We now advise all Australians to reconsider your need for overseas travel at this time,” Dfat says.

“If you’re already overseas and wish to return to Australia, we recommend you do so as soon as possible by commercial means.

“Regardless of your destination, age or health, if your overseas travel is not essential, consider carefully whether now is the right time.”

Given more and more countries are closing their borders or introducing travel restrictions, Dfat advises travel is complex and difficult and people may not be able to return to Australia when they need to.

“If you decide to return to Australia, do so as soon as possible. Commercial options may become less available,” Dfat says.

Dfat says it is issuing this advice because there may be a higher risk of contracting Covid-19 overseas, in airports, during long-haul flights, and the health care systems of other countries might not be able to support foreigners.

Australians returning from overseas will need to quarantine themselves for 14 days.

Updated

Summary

Here’s a rundown of what happened today:

  • 438 coronavirus cases in Australia in total, and five deaths (for more see the chart at the top of the blog).
  • The ASX closed up 5.8% for the day after the horror day on Monday.
  • NAB’s big Melbourne office at 700 Bourke Street was evacuated after one staff member tested positive for coronavirus.
  • Qantas cut international flights by 90% until at least the end of May.
  • Parliament to sit next week with only 90 MPs and 54 senators - the others will be paired.
  • The Liberal senator Andrew Bragg tested positive for coronavirus – and chaired a committee after transmission, forcing at least two other senators into quarantine.
  • NSW announced a $2.3bn stimulus package including $700m for healthcare funding and waiving payroll tax liability for businesses with payroll of up to $10m.
  • Tasmania announced a $420m stimulus package including waiving payroll tax, liability and one-off payments of up to $1,000 for those who have to quarantine.
  • New Zealand announced a $12bn stimulus package including payments for workers required to isolate.
  • More than 100 doctors and dentists are stranded on a cruise ship off the coast of Chile after that country banned ships from docking.
  • 2,500 doctors have written to Australia’s health minister, Greg Hunt, calling for the government to ramp up its response.
  • No Australia-wide schools closure but numerous independent schools and universities were switching to online teaching.
  • The independent MP Zali Steggal postponed her climate action bill.
  • The federal court, high court, NSW local court and a number of other courts announced shutdown plans.
  • Music festival Groove in the Moo cancelled and Splendour in the Grass delayed until October.
  • Bunnings cancelled sausage sizzles for the month.

Here’s the chart of coronavirus cases state by state from Nick Evershed:

State-by-state coronavirus cases

Updated

The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, says the Queensland government is concerned about the impact the downturn will have on casual workers, and calls on the federal government to support them.

Updated

NRL players are being told to avoid contact with people as much as possible outside of training and games.

NRL officials met with the health minister, Greg Hunt, today about what the best strategy for its players should be amid the pandemic.

One idea reportedly being considered is for players to stay home when not training or playing, and non-essential staff told to work from home.

Rabbitohs players have reportedly been told not to go out to restaurants and cafes.

Updated

More on the WA cases, via AAP:

Three healthcare workers returned to work in Perth after contracting coronavirus overseas, with one of them completing several shifts at an aged care facility before prompting a lockdown.

An Aegis Aged Care Group spokesman told AAP the man worked at a transition facility in Bayswater before returning positive test results.

He was among 10 cases confirmed on Monday, when the facility was close to its capacity of 30.

“We are working closely with the Department of Health to ensure that all relevant tracking is taking place for all who may have had any contact with the staff member,” a company statement read.

“No other Aegis facility is affected by this single COVID-19 case and we are maintaining our already strict infection control protocols.”

The spokesman said no residents were currently showing any symptoms.

The two other infected healthcare staff work at Joondalup private hospital, and the state health minister, Roger Cook, said operator Ramsay Health Care would comment further.

Special testing arrangements have been introduced for healthcare workers with fever or flu-like symptoms.

Updated

Victorian police say it’s unlikely incidents at supermarkets in Rosebud or Brunswick today were in relation to panic buying.

Updated

The University of Sydney will stop face-to-face teaching from 23 March and move to online course delivery.

Students will be advised of arrangements soon.

The university says units with labs, studios and other practical course components will also have online or remote arrangements put in place, or suspended until later in the semester or year.

The only exception will be for some clinical placements and workshops, but social distancing measures will be put in place. There’s more detail on that here.

Updated

Queensland update:

There were 10 new cases of Covid-19 recorded in the state on Tuesday, taking the total to 78, including three on the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

The new cases include:

  • A 50-year-old woman on the Sunshine Coast
  • A 35-year-old woman in Brisbane
  • A 59-year old woman in Brisbane
  • A 71-year-old woman in Brisbane
  • A 60-year-old man in Brisbane
  • A 28-year-old woman on the Gold Coast
  • A 62-year-old woman in Brisbane
  • A 64-year-old man in Brisbane
  • A 35-year-old man in Brisbane
  • A 50-year-old woman in Townsville

Queensland Health says those confirmed cases remain isolated and nine patients have since recovered. Contact tracing is still under way.

Updated

Tasmania announces $420m stimulus package

Tasmania also announced its stimulus package today.

People in the state required to self-isolate will receive one-off payments of up to $1,000 under the $420m package.

Interest-free loans will be provided to the hospitality, tourism, seafood and exports sector for a total of up to $20m.

Payroll tax will be waived for the remainder of the year, and there will be $1m for frontline worker accomodation, and $1m for mental health organisations.

Tasmania has recorded seven cases of coronavirus so far.

Updated

Bunnings sausage sizzles have also been cancelled, according to 7News.

The hardware outlet will donate $500 gift cards to community groups that have their sizzles cancelled over the next month.

Updated

A student has tested positive for coronavirus at the University of Technology Sydney.

The university says 27 students and one staff member have been identified as coming into contact with the student while on campus on 12 March. They’re being contacted and will be supported with self-isolation for 14 days.

UTS had already announced yesterday that its lessons were paused while working to move to face-to-face delivery of classes that allow for social distancing from next Tuesday.

NSW Health has advised to keep the campus open in the meantime.

Updated

Sheldon and McAllister said they are seeking advice from health authorities while in isolation, and will follow the advice of the authorities.

Updated

What we know as of 6pm AEDT

Here’s a short rundown of what’s happened today:

  • 438 coronavirus cases in Australia in total, and five deaths (for more see the chart at the top of the blog).
  • The ASX closed up 5.8% for the day after the horror day on Monday.
  • NAB’s big Melbourne office at 700 Bourke Street was evacuated after one staff member tested positive for coronavirus.
  • Qantas cut international flights by 90%.
  • Parliament to sit with only 90 MPs and 54 senators.
  • The Liberal senator Andrew Bragg tested positive for coronavirus – and chaired a committee after transmission.
  • NSW announced a $2.3bn stimulus package including $700m for healthcare funding and waiving payroll tax liability for businesses with payroll of up to $10m.
  • New Zealand announced a $12bn stimulus package including payments for workers required to isolate.
  • More than 100 doctors and dentists were stranded on a cruise ship off the coast of Chile after that country banned ships from docking.
  • 2,500 doctors have written to Australia’s health minister, Greg Hunt, calling for the government to ramp up its response.
  • No Australia-wide schools closure but numerous independent schools and universities were switching to online teaching.
  • The federal court, NSW local court and a number of other courts announced shutdown plans.
  • Music festival Groove in the Moo cancelled and Splendour in the Grass delayed until October.

Updated

Independent schools are pushing ahead with plans to close. Via my colleague Michael McGowan:

Dozens of independent schools across Australia are going ahead with shutdowns as the New South Wales teachers union warns it is “impossible” for them to practice social distancing measures recommended by the government.

On Tuesday, Pymble Ladies College in Sydney joined dozens of private schools in Victoria when it announced it would move to online classes from Thursday.

While the school’s campus will remain open for students whose parents cannot stay home, the school will move online for the final two-and-a-half weeks of the term before reviewing the decision.

Principal Kate Hadwen told the Guardian there was “no way” the school could continue to operate while adhering to the government’s advice about social distancing.

“There’s simply no way we can manage that from a classroom perspective day to day,” she said.

While the school has not had a student or staff member test positive for Covid-19, Hadwen said staff had been working around the clock since the beginning of the term to prepare for a possible shutdown and was now in a position where it felt confident it could deliver online classes.

“One of the things that was playing on our mind is that every day we’ve got people in our surrounding community being tested and of course it’s only a matter of time before there’s a positive result, we know that’s the reality,” she said.

“We want to be in control of this and we’re taking away that risk from our community knowing it’s only a matter of time before we get a positive result for a student or staff member.”

Pymble joins dozens of private schools in Victoria which have made the same decision – including Geelong Grammar, Melbourne Girls Grammar, Yarra Valley Grammar, Xavier College, Ballarat Grammar and Haileybury.

A number of Australian courts have suspended jury trials or in-person hearings in response to the coronavirus. Here is a national roundup of the changes announced:

  • High court: no sittings in Canberra or in circuit until the end of June. Judgements will continue to be delivered and special leave applications will be heard as necessary.
  • Federal court: all listings that require in-person attendance have been vacated until 30 June, unless specifically and individually excepted by the court. The court is examining its capability to hear matters via video link.
  • Supreme and county courts of Victoria: suspended all new jury trials.
  • Magistrates court of Victoria: operating as normal.
  • Victorian civil and administrative tribunal: staggered start times, increased use of video link.
  • Coroner’s court of Victoria: non-essential hearings suspended this week.
  • Supreme and district courts of Western Australia: new jury trials suspended until the end of May.
  • Supreme and district courts of Queensland: new jury trials suspended for the immediate future. Other hearings at Queensland courts continuing as normal.
  • Supreme and district courts of New South Wales: new jury trials suspended for the time being.
  • NSW local court: appearances by people in custody via video link; first hearings via email; guilty pleas from unrepresented people may be entered via email or post; almost all administrative matters to be dealt with via email.
  • Supreme and district courts of South Australia: all new jury trials suspended for 14 hours on Monday, with a final decision to be announced on Tuesday.
  • Supreme court of Tasmania: jury trials suspended until next Monday, when it is anticipated new health and safety measures will be in place.
  • Magistrates court of Tasmania: operating as normal.

Updated

More sport cancellations: Football Federation Australia has advised the suspension of all sanctioned grassroots competitions for the next four weeks.

That includes all matches and training sessions, effective from midnight tonight.

“Our decision today follows extensive discussions with all of Australia’s nine State and Territory Member Federations, taking into consideration the latest feedback from all levels of the football community,” the FFA CEO, James Johnson, said.

“We are also taking into consideration the ongoing response by both the broader international and Australian communities which is evolving almost on an hourly basis now.”

Earlier this week, FFA gave the green light to the weekend’s W-League grand final and the remaining six rounds of the A-League, although both will be played behind closed doors.

Updated

We’ve done a quick check since the Liberal senator Andrew Bragg confirmed a positive diagnosis of the coronavirus and it seems he chaired a hearing of the Senate economics legislation committee on 9 March – a few days after the wedding where he picked up the illness – with Senate colleagues including Rex Patrick, Jenny McAllister and Tony Sheldon.

I had a brief conversation with Patrick a few moments ago and he’s confirmed he’s well, but he says he intends to self-isolate and get a test to ensure he hasn’t picked up coronavirus.

The Centre Alliance senator is currently in a car heading to Adelaide, and has cancelled a flight he intended to be on.

I’ll try to reach the others to check on their welfare.

The committee was examining Treasury Laws Amendment (Your Superannuation, Your Choice) Bill 2019.

There were a stack of witnesses in giving evidence that day.

According to the program there was:

  • The Financial Services Council
  • The Australian Council of Trade Unions
  • Super Consumers Australia
  • The SMSF Association
  • UniSuper
  • The National Tertiary Education Union
  • Industry Super Australia
  • The Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees
  • Treasury

Updated

More than 100 Australian doctors and dentists are stuck on a cruise ship off the coast of Chile after the country implemented a ban on cruise ships docking over the weekend.

They were there on a conference and a trip to Antarctica.

I’m told they are in good spirits.

Updated

The South Australian Department of Health and Wellbeing says there are now 32 cases in SA after two men tested positive on Tuesday.

The two men are a man in his 30s who travelled from Germany, and a man in his 60s who came from the US, and was also in close contact with another confirmed case.

A total of 636 people were tested across five test sites in SA yesterday, with a total of 2,510 people in total tested.

A new regional Covid-19 clinic has also opened at Mt Barker District Soldiers’ Memorial hospital.

Updated

An update on the situation with the federal court:

The federal court has announced that all listings that require in-person attendance, including mediations and listings relying on a video link from court premises up until 30 June are vacated.

Parties with listed hearings up to 30 June will be contacted by the court directly about the need for the matter to proceed and how that might be possible.

Updated

A press release from Victoria’s health department says 23 new cases of coronavirus were confirmed on Monday, bringing the total number of
cases in that state to 94.

The new cases include 11 men and 12 women, with people aged from early 20s to mid-60s. Of Victoria’s confirmed cases 63 infections were acquired overseas or through close contact with known, confirmed cases.

There are two cases that may have been acquired through community transmission. Currently seven people are recovering in hospital. More than 14,200 Victorians have been tested to date.

Victoria’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, on Tuesday recommended the closure of Toorak primary school for 14 days as a precaution after a staff member at the school tested positive.

The health advice remains that mass school closures are not needed at this time, Sutton said, who added there would be more cases to come in Victoria.

“We are reviewing this rapidly evolving situation daily and will continue to provide up-to-date information to the community,” Sutton said.

The department said extensive testing had shown that people who passed through places where there was a confirmed case had “an extremely low risk of transmission and are not currently recommended for testing”.

The Victorian Department of Health and Human Services has a hotline for public coronavirus information: 1800 675 398.

Updated

ASX closes up 5.8% for the day

The Australian stock market has surged back to close up 5.8% for the day, bouncing back after its worst fall since 1987 on Monday.

Futures markets are pointing to a strong day ahead for US markets, but they have become a less reliable indicator than usual amid intense volatility on global bourses.

The Australian market’s extraordinary rebound on Tuesday was led by mining stocks that have been battered by the Covid-19 outbreak, but banks, other financial stocks and supermarkets also soared.

Grocery wholesaler Metcash was the biggest gainer, skyrocketing by 27%.

Airline stocks were smashed as flag carrier Qantas slashed its flights. Qantas dropped 5.3% while rival Virgin Australia plummeted 8.7%.

Tuesday’s gains aren’t enough to claw back many of the extraordinary losses experienced by the market over the past three weeks, including Monday’s 9.7% tumble.

The coronavirus rout means gains since October 2016 have been wiped out.

Updated

The former PM Kevin Rudd has long been critical of the government’s response to coronavirus. He’s on ABC TV right now, and he says it is too slow.

“My argument would be that I have observed in Australia that we have had, for example, us not leading the public policy debate internationally, but following and often following slowly,” he said.

“We have seen that in terms of the absence of any public information campaign, we’ve seen it through confusing messages on social distancing and public events.”

Updated

On the new cases in WA:

The education minister, Dan Tehan, is being pressed by the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas on school closures: is there a point in time at which school closures, whether they be mass or targeted, will be inevitable?

Tehan: “Ultimately in the end that will be a decision for the medical experts. They will make that and then advise government accordingly. So that decision hasn’t been made, but as we’ve seen across the globe, some countries have moved in that direction and taken that decision, some countries haven’t. We will be guided by the medical experts.

“They’re looking at what has occurred in other countries and what the consequences have been around those decisions. They will then use that expertise as well as the expertise they’re putting in place regarding pandemic planning, that they’ve been doing and watching the spread of the virus. They will make decisions accordingly. Contingency plans are being put in place.”

Tehan adds that there are flow-on effects for after-school care that need to be considered, as well as a combination of health and workforce issues.

Updated

NAB's large office evacuated in Melbourne after coronavirus case confirmed

National Australia Bank’s large office at 700 Bourke Street, Melbourne was evacuated after a staff member in the building tested positive for coronavirus.

A bank spokesman said thousands of people normally work in the building just near Southern Cross train station but about half were already working from home due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

A staff member who worked on the ground floor tested positive on Tuesday afternoon.

The building has been closed to be cleaned and should be reopened by the end of the week, he said.

This includes the bank branch on the ground floor.

All staff not already working from home were sent home this afternoon, the spokesman said.

He declined to say whether the chief executive, Ross McEwan, was in the building at the time it was evacuated.

Updated

Close to 2,500 doctors have written to the health minister, Greg Hunt, asking for immediate action on containment of coronavirus, Melissa Davey reports.

“Many of us are in contact with colleagues in Italy, Spain and France and they are begging us to learn from their mistakes,” the letter states.

“With access to intensive care the death rate from COVID19 is likely less than 1%, but in an overwhelmed system without access to intensive care the death rate approaches 4%.”

Updated

Nine News reports one of the Western Australian healthcare workers to test positive for coronavirus is an aged care worker in Bayswater. They reportedly tested positive after travelling home from Hawaii.

Updated

My colleague Nick Evershed has made this chart that shows the spread of coronavirus state by state:

Australian coronavirus cases chart

Updated

My colleague Christopher Knaus has a report that medical groups are concerned about a lack of supply of personal protective equipment amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The RACGP president, Dr Harry Nespolon, said the reports were “hugely concerning” for GPs, who were on the frontline attempting to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Some of them are frustrated and the RACGP is listening,” Nespolon told the Guardian. “We will stay on top of this because shortages of masks, gowns, gloves and eyewear are unacceptable at any time.”

Nespolon said the federal government’s decision to open up the emergency stockpile and secure an additional 54m face masks was welcome, but that “we are not out of the woods yet”.

Third Australian politician tests positive for coronavirus

The Liberal senator for NSW, Andrew Bragg, has tweeted he has tested positive for coronavirus after attending a wedding on the south coast of NSW.

He follows the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton (who is now isolated at home), and LNP senator Susan McDonald.

Updated

Macquarie University is suspending face-to-face and online classes from midnight tonight until Monday 30 March, after a student tested positive to Covid-19.

The university has told students that the campus has been “intensively cleaned” overnight, and NSW Health has advised the rest of the campus is safe to return to normal.

All teaching is paused until next week to allow the university to transition to online delivery.

The break that had been set down for 13-26 April will now be a regular study period, except for the 13 April public holiday.

All non-essential university events from 23 March to 18 April have been cancelled or postponed, and April graduation ceremonies have been cancelled, and graduates will be graduated in absentia and refunded fees for graduation.

Updated

Woolworths has confirmed that a staff member at its Rosebud store in regional Victoria was the victim of an alleged assault on Wednesday.

The man, aged 37, was collecting trolleys in the car park of the Rosebud West store just before 12.55pm today when he was approached by another man and stabbed in the lower body, Victoria police said.

The store has been closed and photos on Facebook show police tape across the entrance. Police arrested a 25-year-old man over the incident an hour later.

John Di Tirro, the general manager of Woolworths Supermarkets Victoria, said: “There is no place for violence like this anywhere in our community. Our thoughts are with our team member and his loved ones at this difficult time and we’ll be offering them our full support.”

The store has deployed security guards and will offer staff at the store access to counsellors.

There is no suggestion at this stage that the incident was connected to panic shopping, but it comes amid a very difficult few weeks for supermarket staff – a large number of whom are teenagers – who have been abused at their workplace because of circumstances beyond their control.

Be kind to retail staff. It’s not their fault that the pasta sold out.

Updated

The latest venture into the brave new world of live-streaming-in-the-age-of-coronavirus-shutdown is none other than Chris Martin, the frontman of Coldplay who had already put a hold on all touring until they could find a sustainable way to do it.

Martin is the curator – and inaugural act – of new online festival the Solidarity Sessions: Together, At Home, in which artists will be performing for their fans, over Instagram, from home.

Martin offered up a half-hour concert, featuring Coldplay hits and a David Bowie cover which has already been watched by 585,000 people. The festival is happening in partnership with the World Health Organization, and intends to raise awareness for their new Solidarity Response Fund. John Legend is next on the lineup.

In related news: if you’re not already following his hilarious partner, Chrissy Tiegan, on Twitter, you should be.

Updated

The peak body for lawn bowls, Bowls Australia, has recommended the immediate suspension of all lawn bowls events.

The sporting body is not in control of local and state competitions, but is putting out the recommendation for clubs and competitions.

Earlier today, Rowing Australia also cancelled its upcoming Australian Masters Rowing Championships, to be held in Tasmania at the end of April.

Updated

The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, who contracted coronavirus, has returned home and is spending time with his dog.

“Thank you for all the kind messages, I’m feeling much better,” he said.

Updated

Deakin University in Melbourne will pause all in-person teaching as of tomorrow for 10 days.

In an email to staff sent today, the vice-chancellor, Iain Martin, announced that “all face to face teaching is paused effective tomorrow until the 27 March”.

“The university is now moving to increased cloud delivery of teaching,” a separate email said. “All classes must be ready to be taught online by Monday 23, face to face seminars with online capability must be ready to be taught online Monday 23.”

Classes that are not able to be taught online will be paused, until they can be.

“All [non-online] seminars will be paused and further advice will be provided no later than Friday March 27. The faculty needs to prepare alternative delivery of this content and be prepared to recommence teaching effective March 31.”

Updated

Crown is the latest large corporation to announce it will provide 14 days additional sick leave for any of its staff who are affected by coronavirus, regardless if they work on full-time, part-time, or casual contracts. The additional leave will be available to people who get Covid-19 themselves, have to isolate because they come into close contact with a known case, or are caring for a family member.

Crown has 18,500 employees in Australia, and Crown Casino is the largest non-government single-site employer in Australia. The Crown Resorts chief executive, Ken Barton, said he hoped that the new leave policy would “alleviate some of the anxiety we know our employees, as well as many Australians, are naturally feeling right now”.

However, Crown hasn’t shut down all its gaming floors – only closing every second poker machine a few days ago.

Updated

In a unanimous joint judgment, the chief justice, James Allsop, and justices Susan Kenny and Alan Robertson have ruled against a petition claiming Josh Frydenberg is ineligible to sit in parliament.

This is the key reason they gave:

Our view in summary is that not only has the petitioner failed to prove that any obligation of allegiance was at any time owed by Mr Frydenberg to Hungary, but also that the evidence is sufficient to conclude that upon leaving Hungary in 1949 the Strausz family lost or renounced any citizenship of Hungary and were stateless. There is no evidence whatsoever that somehow the political changes nearly two generations later, in 1989, had any effect upon that legal reality as it existed in and after 1949.

The judges summarised the petitioner’s argument as a claim that Frydenberg had a “shell” citizenship passed to him at birth “capable of revivification into full Hungarian citizenship by the political transformation of Hungary with the end of Communist rule”.

Nice try, they said:

If we may say so, the argument as to the revivification of a “shell” of citizenship is an imaginative one, displaying a creative fineness of distinction, which may be, or may have been, seen as appropriate in some legal contexts. Such an approach is inappropriate here. We are dealing with proof of a status of citizenship of those leaving totalitarian Hungary to whom those in power stated, with the authority of the ruling Communist party: leave, as class enemies of the people, with no right of return.

In conclusion:

In these circumstances we find the petitioner has not proved that Mr Frydenberg was a Hungarian citizen in 2019 and was not eligible to be elected to parliament in that year. Indeed, we conclude that Mr Frydenberg has proved that he was not, and never has been, a citizen of Hungary. That conclusion is confirmed by the contemporaneous view of the current government of Hungary.

Updated

And here’s the Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau, working from home:

Updated

And a final question for Greg Hunt. He is asked whether people should stop visiting their elderly relatives.

“I think what is being considered here is to make sure that there is access – but limited access,” he says.

Updated

No byelection for Josh Frydenberg

Josh Frydenberg has escaped a byelection in his seat of Kooyong after the federal court found he was eligible to sit in parliament.

The treasurer’s eligibility was challenged in the federal court by a Kooyong constituent, Michael Staindl, who alleged he was disqualified under section 44 of the constitution because he is a citizen of Hungary, which Frydenberg denied.

The federal court dismissed Staindl’s petition and ordered him to pay costs.

Updated

Hunt says that the government is currently using the South Korean estimate for the fatality rate of Covid-19. That is 0.87%.

Other fatality rates are higher, but those are in countries where fewer cases have been identified due to less testing, he says.

“In many less-developed health systems they have not bee nable to detect and identify all of the cases, so that the real death rate may be somewhat lower,” he said.

“The South Korean death rate, when last I looked, was about 0. 87%. And we think of any of the countries that have significant outbreaks, they probably have the most sophisticated analysis. That’s a guide. But as the disease progresses, we will all globally have better figures.”

Man reportedly stabbed at Woolworths store

In what appears to be a severe escalation of the supermarket wars, a man has been airlifted to hospital from the Victorian town of Rosebud after he was reportedly stabbed at a Woolworths.

Ambulance Victoria said paramedics were called to an incident in Rosebud, which is 88km from Melbourne on the Mornington Peninsula, at 12.55pm and treated a man in his 30s for “upper body injuries”. He was taken by air ambulance to the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne and is in a serious but stable condition, paramedics said.

Neither paramedics nor Victoria Police — who asked Guardian Australia if we calling about the Rosebud incident almost before we’d stated our name — have provided any more information at this stage.

Updated

Hunt is asked if Australia will follow the UK in requiring people over a certain age to stay at home and isolate.

He says there will be more advice coming on this in the next 24 hours.

“We’re looking at receiving additional advice in relation to the elderly, aged care homes and indoor mass gatherings over the course of the next 24 hours. I believe they’ll be providing information to the national cabinet, which is meeting this evening.”

Updated

Amid reports of shortages of key components in testing kits, Hunt says “we are testing at one of the highest rates of any country in the world”.

“We actually have one of the most advanced testing regimes in the world,” he says.

He says there will be a major announcement in the next 24 hours about how many test kits Australia has.

So far, 30,000 tests have been completed, and Hunt says that tally will significantly increase when the latest data comes in in the next 24 hours.

Updated

Hunt says 230,000 new P2 masks have arrived in Australia today and they will be given to hospitals to support the testing process.

He also says the government “will now move to the next stage of our provision of telehealth services”. He flags an expansion for telehealth capacities for midwives for example.

He also says he has spoken to the Doherty Institute and the University of Queensland about their work on developing a vaccine.

These are “very, very important developments where Australia is helping to lead the world”.

Updated

375 confirmed cases in Australia

The health minister, Greg Hunt, is speaking now. He confirms there are 375 confirmed cases in Australia now.

Updated

The coronavirus outbreak has been bad for James Packer’s casino business, Crown Resorts, which has closed every second poker machine to keep gamblers at a distance from each other.

But it’s also given Crown some distance of its own from a NSW inquiry into its suitability to hold a casino license. Public hearings, which had been due to hear from Crown’s legal boss, Joshua Preston, on Wednesday, have been deferred “to a date to be fixed”, the NSW Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority said.

The hearings had already been delayed after Hong Kong casino group Melco, which had been planning to buy 20% of Crown, took unsuccessful legal action to stop the inquiry looking at legal documents.

Updated

Bowen also says that Scott Morrison’s announcement yesterday about changes to parliament was made without consulting Labor.

I understand that the prime minister made some unilateral announcements as to how parliament works without any consultation with the Labor party. That’s been fixed and Mr Morrison and Mr Albanese had a conversation.

Updated

Bowen says that local medical equipment manufacturers may need to step up, given that a lot of equipment is made in China.

“Not just China, but a lot of medical equipment is also made in Italy,” he tells reporters.

“There’s masks made in Wuhan. A lot of equipment is made in Italy and around the world and there are some international shortages, no doubt about that. And it’s a reasonable point, that if there are Australian manufacturers who can step up, they need to and the government needs to work with them.”

Updated

The shadow health minister, Chris Bowen, is also speaking now about the importance of testing amid our earlier reports of shortages of key components in testing kits.

“Testing is vital,” he says. “We know from those countries that are succeeding in containing, turning around and stopping this virus taking hold, that widespread testing is important.

“Who to test should be based on the very best medical advice. It cannot be driven by any shortages. The decision about how many tests to apply should only be driven by one factor – how many people need them?”

Bowen says “the government has indicated to us that they’re working on some plans with testing”.

Updated

Albanese said he had “constructive discussions” with Scott Morrison about the changes to parliament – where now only 90 MPs out of 151 will attend next week.

He reveals: “Priority would be given for leave and pairing arrangements for people who were more susceptible to viruses, if I can put it that way.”

He is also asked if the government should bail out the airlines.

“What should happen is that charges, such as air services fees, departure fees, should in my view be waived for a period of time for all of the airlines in a comprehensive way,” he says. “For a nation like Australia, an island continent, the airline industry is particularly important for us.”

Updated

Hi all, it’s Naaman Zhou back on the blog.

The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, is speaking now about the changes to parliament sitting and the government’s stimulus package.

Updated

Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman, Kristina Keneally, says casual Australian Border Force staff will now be given coronavirus sick leave if needed.

Updated

The Victorian health department says it has no current plans to defer non-urgent outpatient services in response to the coronavirus.

Guardian Australia asked the state health department about this last Thursday, and received a response from a department spokesman this afternoon.

Coincidentally, we’re sure, the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, was asked about this in question time today and said: “We will get to a stage where all elective surgeries will be cancelled.”

Deferring non-urgent elective surgery and deferring outpatient services is part of stage three of the Covid-19 pandemic plan for the Victorian health sector.

This is what the Department of Health and Human Services told us:

“Deferring non-urgent activities such as outpatient appointments is part of our pandemic plan, however we are not yet at a stage where we need to consider this option.

“We are not aware of outpatient services being cancelled due to coronavirus (Covid-19) at this stage.”

Updated

Tenants Victoria and the Victorian Greens are joining calls from Acoss and others to suspend evictions from rental properties until this crisis is over.

The Tenants Victoria CEO, Jennifer Beveridge, said they were already receiving calls from people being evicted.

“We have been contacted by people being evicted right now by landlords, real estate agents and through the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (Vcat) continuing to make possession orders.

“This not only puts these individuals and families at risk, but it puts us all at risk as well.”

Tenants Victoria has called on the state government to order Vcat to stop issuing possession orders and to start talking to the real estate industry about a path forward.

Updated

Researchers at the University of Queensland could begin clinical trials on coronavirus sufferers – using HIV and malaria tablets – in Australian hospitals by the end of March.

The trials would be based on test tube results that showed the drugs had effectively treated infections of the Covid-19 virus.

Prof David Paterson from the University of Queensland’s Centre for Clinical Research told Sky News the drugs were already licensed for use in Australila and had “a good safety record”:

This is not a new vaccine that has to be developed from scratch. So we’re finalising the protocol of how we’re going to do it right now, it will go to hospital ethics committees hopefully by Friday and hopefully by the end of next week we will have our first patients enrolled.

How quickly the study gets finished will depend on how many patients we see but it could be as soon as three months that we know which of these treatments – the HIV drug, the malaria drug or the two put together – is actually the best.

What we want to do is we want to get in early, as soon as a person is diagnosed in hospital with a case of Covid-19, and we want to stop them going down that path that leads them to an intensive-care unit admission ... and unfortunately death.

Updated

A Senate of 54

We’ve established the House will sit for a few days next week with a complement of 90 MPs.

In the Senate, it looks as thought the magic number will be 54 from the major parties. There will be 11 pairs each. It’s not clear (at least to me) what will happen with the 14 crossbenchers – whether they will come or have a separate arrangement for who attends and who doesn’t.

An important consideration in negotiating these arrangements is the requirement to maintain an absolute majority in both chambers, should that become necessary.

An absolute majority in the House is 76 and it’s 39 in the Senate.

Having an absolute majority is a requirement for some votes, but in this instance, we are talking about absolute majorities by consent. The government and Labor would need to agree to supply the requisite number of votes to achieve the required majorities.

People are also signalling it will be a very short sitting next week – perhaps only Monday and Tuesday, on current indications.

Updated

The Australian Council of Social Service has written to the prime minister with a list of recommendations for how to support and protect the community in the middle of this crisis.

The requests include:

  • A second stimulus package
  • A further $750 payment for families whose primary income is social security
  • An increase in Newstart and Youth Allowance by at least $95 a week, permanently
  • Extending business-related stimulus to the community sector and not-for-profit organisations
  • A second stimulus package targeted at community services
  • A community sector roundtable
  • A government response to the requests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations
  • Removing obligations for face-to-face reporting for social security and justice compliance obligations, noting that internet access is also an issue for these groups
  • Remove travel requirements for people trying to get to essential services, where possible
  • Government ministers to write to utility companies and rental services and ask for financial relief for customers including no disconnections, pausing debt collection and legal proceedings, and waiving penalty and late fees and interest charges
  • Boost Centrelink staff
  • Addressing misinformation online
  • Removing Newstart and other payment waiting periods
  • Guaranteed two weeks’ paid leave for workers
  • The $750 not quarantined on cashless welfare cards
  • Cancel all robodebts

Updated

Stimulus packages announced by New Zealand and France over the past day provide a guide to what the Australian government needs to do in its second stab at a coronavirus stimulus package.

At 4% of gross domestic product, New Zealand’s package is more than three times as big as the 1.2% injection Scott Morrison announced last week.

The package unveiled by France overnight was 10 times the size of Australia’s, at 12% of GDP.

In the Australian context, this means that to match New Zealand the total amount of government spending would need to increase from the $22.9bn announced last week to about $76.3bn.

To match France, Morrison would be looking at a whopping $229bn.

Updated

WA premier’s Mark McGowan, has told banks, local government and landlords to play their part over the next few months. Not forcing people into bankruptcies, not evicting people, and not increasing rates and fees on households for the next year.

Updated

The trade minister, Simon Birmingham, is on the Gold Coast and has been holding a door stop.

He’s asked whether the government will consider bailing out Qantas and Virgin, and he says the airlines have not yet sought a bail-out, and have entered the crisis in a strong financial position. But acknowledges the need to keep the sector viable:

But of course there are uncertainties ahead in terms of the depth, duration and scale of the crisis we face. That’s why government will continue to work with the airlines but, as I said before, having a strong airline sector in Australia in the future is not negotiable,

We have to make sure that they are not only strong today, but strong in the long-term because, when we hit that recovery phase, we need the airlines to be able to scale up again quickly too.

Updated

Hi, it’s Josh Taylor here taking over the blog for the next hour.

There are some changes planned for the local court in NSW.

The new measures include:

  • Visitors who are not involved in proceedings should stay away from court complexes.
  • Wherever possible all appearances by persons in custody are to be by audiovisual link. Magistrates will not issue orders requiring the physical presence of a person in custody before the court.
  • List matters that are pending before the local court but aren’t listed for hearing or sentence can be dealt with electronically.
  • The first return date in matters where the defendant is not legally represented may also be dealt with by email. It must state clearly the reason they are requesting an adjournment.
  • Defendants who are unrepresented and wish to enter a plea of guilty can notify the court by email or by post.
  • A legal representative or unrepresented defendant may advise the court by email or by post if they have entered a guilty plea.

In relation to domestic violence proceedings, the court will NOT REQUIRE the attendance of a protected person in respect of any application brought by police for a domestic violence order unless they are fixed for hearing.

As for civil proceedings, notices of motion and the review list will be conducted by teleconference without the need for the legal practitioner to appear. Any argument by a party is to be limited to no more than 15 minutes.

The state coroner will contact families in relation to arrangements that may need to be made for pending inquests or fire inquiries.

The hearing of matters in the small claims division of the local court will take place by teleconference.

The local court has set aside October to catch up on backlogs.

The state debt recovery office has agreed not to list any traffic matters in the local court between 1 July and 1 October.

Updated

We’ve had more in the way of (inevitable) festival cancellations and delays this morning.

The regional music festival Groovin’ the Moo has announced its April and May tour won’t go ahead as a result of the government’s crackdown on large public gatherings, while the Sydney Opera House has announced the cancellation of all public performances until 29 March.

In a statement, the Sydney Opera House said: “The Opera House was built to serve the community and it is our responsibility to take all necessary steps to ensure the safety of everyone on site and to protect members of the public by limiting the spread of COVID-19.

“Patrons affected by the cancellations in the Joan Sutherland Theatre, Drama Theatre, Studio, Playhouse and Utzon Room will be contacted in the coming days to organise refunds.”

Meanwhile, the organisers of the Splendour in the Grass in Byron Bay have decided to delay the festival until October. The four-day music and art festival usually runs in July, but organisers said that “in these unpredictable times” they had decided to push the dates back.

The said the headliners Flume, the Strokes and Tyler, the Creator “have all confirmed their attendance for these new dates alongside most others”.

“As this is moving quickly and we work through the detail there will be some programming changes but we are confident that rescheduling to October – a one-off spring edition of Splendour – is the best way to ensure we present the Splendour experience you all know and love.”

Updated

One third of MPs staying away from parliament

Only 90 MPs will come to Canberra next week for parliamentary sittings to pass the government’s $17.6bn stimulus package in response to the coronavirus.

Before an expected further crackdown on large group gatherings aimed at slowing the spread of the disease, the Coalition and Labor have agreed to limit the number of MPs coming to Canberra.

Under the arrangement, which was thrashed out between Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese in a phone discussion on Tuesday morning, 30 pairs will be agreed between the two parties, meaning 60 of parliament’s 151 MPs will stay in their electorates.

It is unclear how each side will decide which MPs come to Canberra and which will stay in their electorates. The move comes after the presiding officers of parliament announced a range of measures to limit the number of visitors to capital hill, including restrictions on sponsored pass holders, and the closure of public galleries. It is also unclear what arrangements will be put in place for the Senate, with discussions between the two parties still ongoing.

Updated

In the AFL, Collingwood’s captain, Scott Pendlebury, has declared himself clear of having coronavirus. He was tested this week after developing flu-like symptoms.

Updated

New Zealand announces $12bn stimulus package

New Zealand’s government has announced a spending package equivalent to 4% of the country’s GDP in an attempt to fight the effects of Covid-19 on the country’s economy, in what ministers called the most significant peacetime economic plan in the country’s modern history.

“This package is one of the largest in the world on a per capita basis,” Grant Robertson, the finance minister, told reporters at New Zealand’s parliament on Tuesday.

The NZ$12.1bn NZD (A$12bn) stimulus includes covering wages for people who are required to self-isolate but cannot work from home, or those caring for relatives who are sick with the virus – even if they are not sick.

Businesses hard-hit by the virus – experiencing more than a 30% decline in revenue compared with last year – will be eligible to receive wage subsidies to keep paying staff.

Full-time workers will receive $585 a week under the scheme – now set to end on 30 June – with $350 paid to part-time workers.

Those required to self-isolate or care for someone who is sick will receive the same amount.

Robertson said the stimulus package totalling 4% of New Zealand’s GDP was bigger than Australia’s (2.2%), Britain’s (0.6%), Ireland’s (0.9%), or Singapore’s (1.3%).

New Zealand has only eight confirmed and two probable cases of Covid-19. But a decision to impose strict travel restrictions on Saturday – requiring almost all travellers arriving from anywhere to self-isolate for 14 days – is expected to wreak havoc on business, especially in the country’s tourism sector, which is New Zealand’s biggest export earner.

Updated

All public service casual employees will get paid sick leave after pressure from the Community Public Sector Union.

The CPSU made the announcement today:

The Australia Public Service Commission has responded to this pressure, and extended its APS-wide directive to include casual staff.

As of today, casuals who are required to self-isolate due to Covid-19 exposure, or who contract Covid-19 will now have access to the paid leave, just like permanent staff.

But there are still over 23,000 public sector labour hire and contractors that are not covered by this announcement. The CPSU is calling on the Morrison Government to ensure these workers have access to the paid leave if they are affected.

CPSU’s national secretary, Melissa Donnelly, said: “People shouldn’t have to choose between staying at home and paying the rent.”

Updated

High court suspends full-bench hearings

The high court has issued the following statement:

Following the adoption of policies restricting travel and meetings and remote workplace arrangements it has been decided that the High Court of Australia will not be sitting in Canberra or on circuit in the months of April, May and June. The question of future sittings will be reviewed in June. The Court will continue to deal with special leave applications including hearings as necessary at individual registries and will hear any urgent matters that may arise by video link between registries and Canberra.

Does this mean no court sittings at all? No.

The court can still:

  • Hear special leave applications – either by determining them on the basis of written submissions, or hearing oral argument by video link.
  • Deliver judgments in cases already heard (such as George Pell’s appeal) – that only requires two judges to sit, and can happen anywhere in Australia.

Updated

Yesterday we told you that nearly 100,000 people had applied for a postal vote in the upcoming Queensland local elections. That was of Friday night.

Now that has risen to more than half a million applications – after the deadline passed on Monday midnight.

The local government minister, Stirling Hinchliffe, said 160,000 of those applications had been made in the final 24 hours, AAP reports.

Updated

Natasha Fyles, the NT health minister, has confirmed that no testing for Covid-19 is available in Alice Springs.

“Presently, it [testing] is being done in Darwin only. But that is something that I’m acutely aware of and the Department of Health has put out to get additional testing resources, specifically for Alice Springs, because we believe it would be beneficial to be able to test in both Darwin and Alice Springs.”

On Friday the chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, penned a letter to doctors flagging “extreme pressure” on testing kit supplies. Fyles did not specify exactly how many people have been tested in the NT, but said “it’s in the tens”.

The NT has only one confirmed case of Covid-19, a 52-year-old tourist who remains in quarantine. The government is advising all remote community residents to return home.

“We will waive the costs of getting people home and, in terms of those payments, those one-off payments, I do understand that they will go through the basics card,” Fyles said.

Updated

All cricket cancelled at all levels

All cricket in Australia has been cancelled, including the Sheffield Shield final, with NSW declared champions.

“Cricket Australia has today announced the cancellation of the Marsh Sheffield Shield final and recommended that all cricket played within the community is ceased for the remainder of the 2019-20 season in response to the global coronavirus pandemic,” a statement read.

NSW were awarded the title after leading the Sheffield Shield competition through nine rounds having won six, lost two and drawn one. Their nearest rivals Victoria had posted just three wins.

Another major sporting event has been postponed, with the big boxing match between Jeff Horn and Tim Tszyu, scheduled for 22 April, called off. The fight in Townsville could be rescheduled later in the year.

“We’ve just come to the decision in the current climate of where things are with the coronavirus that it was in the best interests of everyone to postpone, call off a super fight and look to see how we can potentially do it in the future,” Rose told AAP.

NSW announces $2.3bn stimulus package

Dominic Perrottet is speaking now, announcing the details of the state’s economic stimulus package to cope with the impact of Covid-19.

The NSW treasurer says there are “two components” to the package. The first is $700m for healthcare funding. The second is for businesses, which includes waiving payroll tax liability for businesses with a payroll of up to $10m.

Perrottet says the $700m increase is the equivalent of 75% of the yearly health budget.

We are waiving a payroll tax liability for businesses. That’s an average saving of $15,000 and that will be through the June quarter ... We’ll increase the payroll tax threshold from $900,000 to $1m. That’s 2,000 small businesses that will no longer have a payroll tax liability as a result of this change.

This is an unprecedented response to an unprecedented situation ... but if we need to do more, we will do more.

Updated

The virus continues to impact the world of sport with the World Surf League the latest global competition to announce more cancellations. Upcoming events at Bells Beach in Victoria and Margaret River in WA have been put on hold given the threat of Covid-19, meaning there will be no action on the world’s premier surfing tour until June at the earliest. The season opener on the Gold Coast had already been cancelled last week.

The Melbourne indie rocker Alex Lahey has written an open letter to Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, asking for support for the music industry during the spate of mass cancellations.

“I work full time as an independent touring artist, proudly representing my country and my state nationally and internationally,” Lahey writes.

“I have worked hard my whole life to get to the point where I can live off the money I earn playing my music. Up until I was able to earn enough to live off my music, I worked as a media monitor for a number of years at the Department of Premier and Cabinet in Victoria.

“Now, I employ a number of local musicians … and have a brilliant local team who depend on me to provide them with a modest income. Nevertheless, we live from gig to gig.”

Lahey writes that artists and their teams are not covered by the government’s already announced stimulus package.

“During the recent devastating bushfire season, I and many other entertainers rallied and worked hard to raise money for those affected ... The Victorian arts community has proven its ability to support others in trying times and giving to those in need. Under the current global circumstances, it’s the arts community that is suffering and in need, and we need your support.”

Updated

The Adelaide Festival Centre – the city’s main venue for performing arts – will be closed until 30 April.

That includes “all theatres, venues, bars and the box office”, organisers said. The venue hosts the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, State Opera of SA, the Australian Dance Theatre, the State Theatre Company of SA and more.

“Ticket-holders will be contacted directly and refunds for cancelled performances will be processed automatically,” the venue said. “Patrons who have already purchased tickets for performances will be notified via SMS or email and will receive a full refund.

The centre’s CEO and artistic director, Douglas Gautier, said: “Above all, we are concerned for the safety of patrons, artists, staff and volunteers – and their families.

“The arts unite and sustain us all and we look forward to welcoming everyone back to Adelaide Festival Centre as soon as it is safe to do so.”

Updated

Zali Steggall postpones climate change bill

The independent Warringah MP Zali Steggall has just announced that, due to Covid-19, she will postpone the introduction of her climate change bill to parliament.

The bill was due to be introduced next Monday.

The private member’s bill is modelled on the UK’s 2008 Climate Change Act and would set a bar of net zero emissions by 2050.

“It is right that this emerging health crisis take precedence at this time,” Steggall said. “Our leaders need to focus on best preparation and response ... given the situation, I have decided to defer presentation of the climate change bill.

“The climate change bill campaign will remain active and I will be continuing my discussions with all sides of politics about how we achieve a sensible plan for the future.”

Updated

Hi all, it’s Naaman Zhou here, taking the blog for a bit.

Here’s an update on the latest testing results from NSW.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has updated its advice for pregnant women.

The college says there is a lack of detailed information about the impact of Covid-19 infection on pregnant women and their babies.

The pregnancy advice is therefore also based on learnings from influenza infection, and also the medical response to the Sars epidemic in 2003.

“Some babies born to women with symptoms of coronavirus in China have been born prematurely,” the college states.

“It is unclear whether coronavirus was the causative factor, or the doctors made the decision for the baby to be born early because the woman was unwell. Newborn babies and infants do not appear to be at increased risk of complications from the infection.

“At the moment there is no evidence that the virus is carried in breastmilk and, therefore, the well-recognised benefits of breastfeeding outweigh any potential risks of transmission of COVID-19 through breastmilk.

“Pregnant women are advised to avoid all non-essential overseas travel.”

Updated

Markets open in Australia

The Australian stockmarket has risen more than 1.6% at the opening bell, defying the strong lead set by a crash overnight in the US.

The ASX is still down by about 30% since the coronavirus crisis started hitting markets about a month ago, and the extreme volatility we’ve seen in recent days means there’s no guarantee the relief will last.

Australian companies rushed out waves of bad news before the market opened, with the flagship carrier Qantas saying it would cut international flights by 90% and domestic ones by 60%.

The move, which will ground about 150 aircraft including almost all the airline’s long-haul fleet, is the latest reaction in an industry put under extreme financial pressure by the coronavirus crisis.

The Australian government has not ruled out a bail-out for the industry.

Elsewhere, the soft-drink manufacturer Coca-Cola Amatil canned its profit forecasts, Auckland airport cancelled its dividend, the property developer Sunland called off a $60m share buyback program and Crown Resorts extended the closure of every second poker machine to its Burswood casino.

Updated

More details on the Qantas cuts.

The topline is that international routes (for both Qantas and Jetstar) will be cut by 90% until at least the end of May. Domestic capacity will be reduced by 60%. These cuts will be phased in by the end of March.

In its update for the Australian Stock Exchange, Qantas said:

The route-by-route detail of these changes across Qantas and Jetstar is currently being worked through and will be announced in coming days.

Despite the deep cuts, the national carrier’s critical role in transporting people and goods on key international, domestic, routes will be maintained. This includes using some domestic passenger aircraft for freight-only flights to replace lost capacity from regular scheduled services.

Qantas’s fleet of freighters will continue to be fully utilised.

For the airline’s 30,000-strong workforce:

The precipitous decline in demand and resulting cuts to flying mean that the Qantas Group is confronted with a significant labour surplus across its operations.

Travel demand is unlikely to rebound for weeks or possibly months and the impact of this will be felt across the entire workforce of 30,000 people.

For customers (apologies, lots of detail to follow, but it’s important):

Customers with existing bookings on any domestic or international flight until 31 May 2020, who no longer wish to travel, can cancel their flight and retain the value of the booking as a travel credit voucher. This needs to be processed by 31 March 2020.

Customers who make a new domestic or international booking and later decide they no longer wish to travel, can cancel their flight and retain the value of the booking as a Qantas travel credit or Jetstar travel voucher. This applies to bookings made from 10 March 2020 until 31 March 2020 for travel before 31 May 2020.

To access this offer:

• Qantas customers should visit Manage Booking on Qantas.com, select ‘Cancel’ and then ‘Voucher’.

• Jetstar customers should go to Manage My Booking on Jetstar.com.

If flights were booked through a travel agency or third-party website customers will need to contact them directly to make changes to their booking.

It’s not always possible to do it online, but try not to call the Qantas call centres if it can be avoided. Huge demand. Long wait times.

Updated

Qantas to cut international flights by 90%

Qantas has announced it will slash its international flights, cutting international capacity by 90% until at least the end of May as demand plummets.

Domestic capacity will be cut by about 60%.

The airline said:

  • This represents the grounding of around 150 aircraft, including almost all of the group’s wide-body fleet.
  • Previously announced cuts in place from end-May through to mid-September remain in place and are likely to be increased, depending on demand.

Its chief executive, Alan Joyce, will receive no pay for three months.

Updated

We are hearing that Qantas is massively reducing its flights until the end of May. Details to follow.

Updated

There’s a lot of information here, but for those interested to read it, this is the World Health Organization’s “Key Messages and Actions for COVID-19 Prevention and Control in Schools”.

Updated

Western Australia needs more doctors, nurses and medical scientists.

The state’s health minister, Roger Cook, has announced that the WA government has launched a recruitment drive to bolster the state’s health workforce:

Starting tomorrow, advertisements will run in metropolitan and regional newspapers as well as industry publications calling for clinical staff to join the health system.

This will be followed by a second wave of recruitment to attract other professions including allied health, patient support and critical hospital administration roles.

The drive is part of a range of measures to enhance WA’s preparedness for the expected increase in Covid-19 cases.

Prospective staff are being offered immediate starts and flexible working hours.

Staff being sought in the first recruitment wave includes registered, clinical and enrolled nurses, assistants in nursing, senior medical practitioners, general practitioners, junior doctors medical scientists and technical assistants with clinical laboratory experience.

The adverts, which are scheduled to run for several weeks, reveal opportunities for full-time, part-time, casual and sessional work, with positions available across metropolitan and regional WA.

Updated

Australia responds ...

Amazing laugh that bloke has ...

Updated

A Vitamin B-inspired recovery, perhaps?

Reckless Vegemite applicator and actor Tom Hanks has reportedly been released from a Gold Coast hospital after being quarantined with coronavirus.

His wife, Rita Wilson, remains in isolation after also testing positive to the virus last week.

Hanks is in Queensland filming a Baz Luhrmann biopic about Elvis Presley. Production has ceased for two weeks but he is not believed to have infected any other cast or crew.

Wilson, who is a singer-songwriter as well as an actor, recently performed in Brisbane and Sydney.

Hanks issued a statement last Thursday saying he and his wife had gone to hospital after feeling rundown.

He said they would comply with all Australian health restrictions relating to the virus.

While in hospital Hanks tweeted his gratitude to the medical staff caring for them.

The post, which included a photo of two pieces of toast smothered in Vegemite, sparked a furious social media debate about the correct amount and application of the popular spread.

Wilson asked Twitter to help her compile a music playlist for those in isolation, calling it “Quarantunes”.

Updated

As finance minister, Mathias Cormann, warns that the government can’t save every business and every job, the tourism minister, Simon Birmingham, has said that the continued presence of major airlines in Australia is “not negotiable” as they will be needed to help the tourism sector recover and maintain regional connectivity.

Birmingham told Sky News he had spoken to Qantas and Virgin and “both assure me at present of their viability” because they have “significant cash reserves” despite being under “immense pressure”. He noted that the airlines had wound back their flights and he anticipates further “tough decisions” about putting off workers.

But Birmingham said airlines would play a “critical part” in an economic recovery, so the Australian government needed “to make sure those airlines are there for the recovery phase”.

The minister has travelled to Cairns and is now on the Gold Coast, meeting tourism operators who feel “the viability of their business is threatened” because they are “heavily reliant on international visitation as part of that visitor mix”.

He said:

The impact and scale of this has got more severe as the last week has gone on. Increased travel restrictions have a profound impact as all parts of the Australian tourism industry foresee they won’t have any significant level of international visitation.

Birmingham said the government wanted to “ensure we maintain the viability of core businesses” for economic recovery on the other side of the crisis.

He also foreshadowed social security measures for employees who were laid off as a result of the downturn, such as ensuring the “process of accessing Newstart occurs as quickly as possible”.

Updated

The irrepressible Ben Butler on the limited levers the Reserve Bank can pull to un-stick the economy. The RBA has already cut rates hard, and will probably do so again, and it is now eyeing quantitative easing: printing more money.

Updated

Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art will close from Wednesday 18 March “for the foreseeable future”.

Mona’s founder, David Walsh, characteristically grandiloquent and cryptic all at once, compared the fight against Covid-19 to a chess game:

The precautionary principle requires me to identify those outcomes and respond to them, rather than to the more probable outcomes that are tolerable. Good chess players play like that: they don’t plan for mistakes from an opponent; instead, they prepare for the best move that the opponent can make.

So let’s play chess against our formidable opponent. Covid-19 could be an airborne pathogen (WHO didn’t think so as of 28 February, but the science isn’t settled); it could become more virulent (viruses sometimes become mixed through swapping material in a host with multiple infections); it could rapidly mutate as does influenza, which would mean that each season you could get a variant of it (doesn’t seem to be happening – there are only two very similar strains); it could cause permanent damage to health (the Hong Kong Hospital Authority observed significantly reduced lung function in two out of 12 “recovered” patients); and a sufferer could infect before he or she is symptomatic or if she or he is asymptomatic (one or both has been observed in people returning to Frankfurt from Wuhan).

If any of those Covid-19 scenarios become true, or is even possible, a great deal of hardship is worth tolerating to contain it. Even if Covid-19 just went on its irksome way as a granny-killing hyperflu, we’d have to take extreme measures. Each scenario is possible, and the evidence suggests a couple of them are likely. It will keep killing, and it will be extremely difficult to manage on a case-by-case basis, so Covid-19 must be checkmated.

Indeed ...

Updated

Parliament will resume next week, with it most pressing task to consider and legislate the government’s $17bn stimulus package.

But even before that one is passed, the government is already telegraphing a second stimulus package, aimed, Katharine Murphy tells us, at businesses at acute risk of collapse because of Covid-19’s spread.

Two people who won’t be in parliament are the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, and the Queensland LNP Senator Susan McDonald. Both have been confirmed as having Covid-19 and are in isolation.

Updated

On ABC TV, the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, gave a few more details about the focus of a second stimulus package:

Well, you know, clearly when it comes to sectors in the economy, tourism and hospitality sectors are very much on the frontline. There are others.

The not-for-profit sector obviously also are facing significant challenges.

There are a whole series of Australians at the lower-income end that are facing particular challenges, those Australians who are likely to lose their job over the coming weeks and perhaps months will need appropriate levels of support so that we can come back stronger and better on the other side.

These are the things that we’re currently working through.

Cormann suggested the government wants to “to channel those workers who have less work for a company like Qantas, but might be able to do more work for companies like Coles and Woolworths as we are working through the transition”.

Asked about moves in the US to advise against gatherings of more than 10 people, Cormann replied:

In the US, it’s somewhat more advanced than in Australia.

The benefit we have is to be able to observe what is happening in some of these other jurisdictions and what works and what doesn’t work.

We’ll continue to rely on the medical advice and we’ll make decisive judgements, as appropriate and as required, in the context of the medical advice being put forward.

Updated

I’ve just caught up again with Lynette and Lorraine, this time on their way out of the shops.

Unfortunately they did not manage to get the main thing they came for.

“No frozen vegetables,” Lorraine says.

“Empty. Nothing. We got everything else but no vegetables.

“There’s also hardly any meat out. I don’t think they’ve restocked. I think that’s why they’re closing early tonight.

It was a good experience, they say, but they won’t be coming back too soon.

“I think it’s going to be worse tomorrow.”

Shirley Zhen is also waiting outside. She’s here helping her 75-year-old neighbour, Susanna Cheung.

Susanna can’t drive so Shirley gave her a lift.

It was “terribly” busy, Susanna says, and she didn’t get everything she wanted. But she says it’s a good measure.

“Every time the pensioners go in all the young men and women have got it all already. This is a very good gesture and attitude to open even an hour for the pensioners.”

Updated

Australian markets set to fall further

The Australian market lost nearly 10% yesterday, and the futures index suggests it will fall further – perhaps another 4% today.

It has been a cataclysmic day on global markets. In the US, Wall Street endured its worst day since the crash of 1987, the Dow tumbled by almost 3,000 points – its biggest points fall ever – slumping 13% to 20,186.

President Donald Trump warned America could slide into recession.

London’s FTSE 100 hit an eight-year low, finishing at its lowest point since November 2011.

Stocks in Germany tumbled by 5% and there were losses of 8% in Spain, 6% in Italy and 6% in France. Asian stock markets had plummeted earlier, with Japan’s Nikkei down by almost 2.5%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng by 3.7%.

All of this is bad news for Australia’s markets, which will open in a couple of hours. From AAP:

Investors are bracing for another wild day on the share market after US equities tanked overnight following the worst loss in history for Australian stocks.

The SPI200 futures contract was down 209 points, or 4.14%, at 4839 points at 0700 AEDT on Tuesday, suggesting Australia’s volatile market will plunge at 1000 AEDT.

NAB’s morning call note says global markets were far from impressed with measures to counteract the economic impacts of the coronavirus on Monday – despite the Fed Reserve cutting interest rates by a full 1%, and the return of quantitative easing.

Global markets plunged overnight with the Dow Jones down 10%.

Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX200 finished down 537.3 points, or 9.7%, at 5,002 on Monday, eclipsing an 8.3% drop back on October 10 2008, during the height of the global financial crisis.

The dive put the index back to levels last seen in April 2016.

The ASX200 has lost 30.5% of its value in three and a half weeks of tumultuous trading since February 20.

The Aussie dollar was buying 61.24 US cents at 0700 AEDT on Tuesday, up from Monday’s 60.96 US cents, which was its lowest level against its US counterpart since 2003.

Updated

The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, has spoken to Radio National about the second wave of economic stimulus, promising it will be unveiled before parliament returns next week and will contain measures for workers and vulnerable groups, not just affected industries.

Cormann said the second wave would be “appropriate, proportionate and scaleable” and would help “various sectors in the economy that are particularly impacted” and aim to “maximise the recovery and bounceback on the other side”.

Asked about workers who may lose their jobs, particularly casuals, and measures to help them pay rent, Cormann said:

We are very seriously considering what appropriate supports we can provide, particularly to the most vulnerable in our community and specifically those that are most severely impacted. This is going to be a tough period, there will be a strong recovery on the other side.

Cormann refused to say how big the second stimulus will be, or to rule specific measures in or out.

He also played down suggestions that between 50,000 and 150,000 Australians could die of coronavirus, based on scenarios outlined by the deputy chief medical officer, Paul Kelly.

Asked if these were the government’s numbers, Cormann said:

Well no. Firstly ... it’s not a forecast, it’s not a prediction. The deputy chief medical officer was asked a hypothetical question in relation to a hypothetical.

The government’s plan is to slow the spread of the virus so we save lives. We won’t be able to stop the virus spreading but we can slow it down and we will ensure a more constant flow of patients into hospitals and we can appropriately prioritise our most vulnerable patients.

Updated

Outside Ashfield Woolworths, Adriana, 40, is a carer. She’s here shopping for her father.

“He’s in hospital now,” she says.

“He’s just had prostate cancer removed, and he’s coming home today. So he’s been in there for two weeks, he can’t walk properly and he’s 76 years old.

“[I’m after] toilet paper! It’s a joke. I’ve been looking for two weeks for toilet paper ... I’ve shopped here all my life.”

She says she’ll be doing a lot more in future as well.

“I do the shopping for them, so I’ll be back here. I always shop here. We’ve lived here all our life.

“I didn’t think it would be this busy here. We were here early, there were about 80 people. There’s now probably about 300 or 400.”

Shirley Gibbs, 83, says her morning has been “very satisfying”.

She’s here with her husband David, 80. The pair do all their own shopping, with no helpers, for themselves and their cat, Mergie.

“We had to buy paper towel, mainly essentials. Cat food. Kitty litter, Cup a Soup, long-life milk,” she says.

The wait for them wasn’t too bad, because they were here at 6.40am, they say. But “we can’t find hand sanitiser”.

Mergie will be happy. “He is very very spoilt,” they say.

“He eats a lot.”

Shirley Gibbs, 83, outside Ashfield Woolworths for the dedicated elderly shopping hour
Shirley Gibbs, 83, outside Ashfield Woolworths for the dedicated elderly shopping hour. Photograph: Naaman Zhou/The Guardian

Updated

The national peak body for homelessness has urged the federal government to make emergency payments to casual and contract workers who lose income during the Covid-19 pandemic, to prevent a “tsunami of homelessness”.

Jenny Smith is the chair of Homelessness Australia.

Tens of thousands of Australian households have lost the wages they need to pay their rent because of the mass cancellation of events and requirement on growing numbers of people to self-isolate or quarantine.

To avoid this crisis of lost wages quickly translating into a tsunami of homelessness, the federal government must immediately provide people with emergency payments so they can keep a roof over their head and food on the table.

The reality is that if you can’t go to work or your shifts are cancelled and you’re a casual or contract employee, then you won’t get paid. And if you don’t get paid, then you can’t pay your rent.

The median weekly rent in Sydney is $540, and in Melbourne is $430. Newstart payments are only $279.50, plus rent assistance of $69. Even with the government’s stimulus support of $750, people will barely be able to keep the wolf from the door for a fortnight.

The impact of the pandemic on workers is well outside ordinary labour market conditions. This is an extraordinary event that needs extraordinary leadership and action by the federal government to protect the safety and wellbeing of Australian families.

Updated

Total confirmed cases in Australia rise to 379

A little before 8am this morning, the total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 was 379.

There have been five deaths.

State totals:

NSW: 171

Victoria: 71

Queensland: 69

South Australia: 30

Western Australia: 28

Tasmania: seven

ACT: two

Northern Territory: one

Updated

There’s a huge line here at the Ashfield Woolworths in Sydney, on the first day the supermarket chain is running a dedicated hour for elderly and disabled people to get essentials before shelves empty.

Doors opened at 7am and it’s now 7.30. The line is moving but there are still hundreds of people slowly shuffling in.

Lynette, 72, and Lorraine, 70 are here together with two targets: meat and frozen vegetables.

“We’ve tried coming all different times of the day and if you’re not here you miss out,” says Lorraine, who is on the aged pension. “And this way hopefully, we’ll get what we’re after. And it’s not just toilet paper! It’s other products as well.

“I want to get some meat – but even that is short – washing-up detergent and some frozen vegetables.”

“Frozen vegetables, you can’t get any,” says Lynette.

Xu, who also declined to give her last name, says she is here just to get the household essentials. “Things so I can stay at home for two weeks,” she says.

Toilet paper is what she’s running out of. She’s told Guardian Australia she’s only been able to buy two rolls previously.

Updated

There is an immense amount to read on Covid-19, from all over the world.

If it all feels like information overload, get the Full Story here: Guardian Australia’s podcast. (Today, you even get to hear me muttering from underneath a blanket in my makeshift studio in my laundry.)

Updated

Earlier we reported the comments of the World Health Organization’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He urged countries to test all suspected cases, and said: “We have not seen an urgent enough escalation in testing, isolation and contact tracing, which is the backbone of the response.”

The most effective way to prevent infections and save lives is breaking the chains of transmission. And to do that you must test and isolate. You cannot fight the fire blindfolded. And we cannot stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected. We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. Test every suspected case.

This has been a problem for a lot of countries, including Australia, as the supply of testing kits starts to run low. There is a global shortage of some of the critical elements of the testing kits, in particular the reagants used to extract nucleic acids from swabs taken from potential coronavirus patients.

The shortage was first publicly reported on Friday. My colleague Christopher Knaus had more yesterday.

There are efforts under way to urgently ship a new form of coronavirus test to Australia that could deliver results within three hours.

Updated

Updated

For an international update on the coronavirus response, read my colleague Kevin Rawlinson’s comprehensive summation.

Globally there are now more than 175,000 confirmed cases and more than 7,000 deaths. In Italy, the death toll continues to rise, now above 2,000.

The head of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said countries had not sufficiently escalated testing, isolation or contact tracing, “the backbone of the response”.

“The most effective way to prevent infections and save lives is breaking the chains of transmission. And to do that, you must test and isolate. You cannot fight the fire blindfolded. And we cannot stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected. We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test. Test every suspected case.”

Updated

This morning is the first day of a dedicated shopping hour in supermarkets for elderly Australians. Elderly Australians have reported difficulty obtaining essentials and are also at greater risk of serious illness if infected. Stores around the country have restricted 7am to 8am for older shoppers.

Updated

360 Covid-19 cases in Australia, with five deaths

Good morning this Tuesday, 17 March. Ben Doherty here, working from the self-isolation of home – (I’m well, thank you) – with rolling updates of the coronavirus response in Australia.

The prime minister has warned Australians’ way of life is going to be significantly altered for at least six months, as parts of the country are forced to shut down to combat the coronavirus spread.

States and territories have declared public health emergencies, giving officials greater powers to detain people or restrict movements.

The federal government is also working on a second stimulus package to shield Australia’s economy through the shock of Covid-19’s impact.

The total number of cases in Australia has reached more than 360, while the deaths of a 77-year-old and 90-year-old take the toll to five.

The country’s deputy chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, said 80% of cases of Covid-19 would be mild and not require hospitalisation.

Anzac Day services and marches have been cancelled in NSW, Western Australia and Tasmania, with other states reviewing their commemorations, while some schools around the country are planning to close.

Non-essential gatherings of more than 500 people have been banned, all people arriving from overseas must quarantine themselves for 14 days, and cruise ships are barred from Australian ports for at least 30 days.

Updated

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