Summary
That interview with the prime minister is where we will leave things this evening. Here are today’s key events:
- The government announced a set of national principles for how schools should respond to Covid-19, but states and territories will make decisions on schools in their jurisdictions and you should follow the advice of your home state.
- Scott Morrison said it would be at least four weeks until restrictions could be eased.
- Morrison announced three things that need to be in place before restrictions can be eased. They are increased testing, better contact tracing (likely through an app) and local response capabilities – the ability to lock down localised areas using multiple agencies, such as the Australian Defence Force.
- The attorney general, Christian Porter, announced the government would reduce the consultation period for changes to enterprise bargaining agreements to 24 hours. Labor, the Greens and unions are opposed.
- Parliament will return for a trial week in May.
- Morrison said some election promises would need to be reconsidered because of the costs to the economy and the government of the Covid-19 response.
- Elective surgery suspensions will start to be lifted next week.
- The government reinstated its commitment to the World Health Organisation, citing its work in the Pacific.
Stay safe and well and we will see you again tomorrow.
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Sales asks about a bailout for the airlines. Morrison doesn’t directly answer the question:
Of course we want to see two viable commercial airlines in Australia. I’m concerned about all those jobs. Jobkeeper is there to protect 6 million jobs. The government has been clear about our support for jobs. We are not going to get in the way of a market commercial solution to that issue in Virgin. And there are many things going on there.
Secondly, we’re going to make sure anything we do in this space, like in other countries, we would do it on a sector-wide basis. We have clear principles here. What’s very important is that we don’t get in the way of a commercial solution.
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Morrison is asked about the health risks based on age groups, with Sales pointing to higher rates of death among people aged in their 70s and 80s.
She asks Morrison if he is concerned that people under the age of 50, who are bearing the brunt of the economic upheaval, could rebel against the restrictions. He says:
I can assure you no one wants these restrictions in any longer than they have to be in. It’s one of the reasons we don’t go for that complete eradication strategy. A, it’s very elusive. And the costs to those livelihoods are very significant, with no real clear additional benefit, at least from the evidence we’re getting at the moment.
He says it’s about striking a balance. “You can win the health war and lose the economic war, but you’ve got to deal with both of them at the same time.”
Morrison warns that without getting in place the health protections the government announced earlier today – increased testing, more contact tracing and local responses – there is a risk the outbreak becomes worse again.
Look at New York, London, Spain, all of those places – that could be Australia. We should not kid ourselves – the success we’ve had at the moment protects us from ending up where they are right now. If you don’t keep it under control, it will get away from you quickly and then you’ll have to lock down even harder and the economic cost will be even worse.
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Sales turns to schools and asks if there is any reason schools should not be re-opened sooner rather than later.
Morrison says there has been confusion on this issue because of the different levels of risk to children and their teachers.
For adults the risk is different. Where are the adults at risk? They’re at risk when they’re with each other. Teachers are more at risk in the staffroom than they are in the classroom. The other place they’re at risk is during school drop-off and pick-up, where there might be groupings of parents That needs to be better arranged.
Morrison he says appropriate protections can be achieved and tells people to listen to decisions made by premiers in their individual states.
When I can send my kids to school and get taught in a classroom face to face, that’s what I want my kids to do.
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Morrison says a tracing app that could be used to trace contacts with confirmed Covid-19 cases is not yet ready to go.
He says he would like to see it ready in the next two weeks.
I’d like to see it ready in the next fortnight. I indicated that the other day. The technical side of it has been going well.
There are a lot of issues we still have to resolve for its use in Australia and the privacy issues are paramount amongst that. The attorney general is spending a lot of time on that at the moment. But the purpose of this tracing app is pretty straightforward.
Morrison says that right now, contact tracing is based on close contacts being tracked down by teams of public health workers.
What you can do with technology, with a permission-based app, is where two of the phones that have downloaded the app are in contact with each other for a period of 15 minutes or more, then those numbers can go into secure encrypted location, not in the phones, not available to either of those users.
That can be unlocked where someone has been identified as having contracted the virus and that’s been identified by a medical professional. And then in that case the medical authorities have the numbers and they can get in contact and that can be done very quick.
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Morrison talks about the possibility of broader “surveillance-type” testing as the next possible phase of the government’s response.
You need to know where it might break out. That is another level where we are beyond no.
We have one of the best testing regimes in the world and have had for many weeks. The level of accuracy we’re getting and how many cases we have of what we believe is out there is one of the highest in the world.
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Sales asks if authorities are working based on a number of cases that they think Australia’s health system could reasonably tolerate per week.
Morrison says no. He says they are focused on keeping the rate of transmission below a score of 1.
And that’s where we currently are right now. We’ve been now in each state, except for Tasmania now, for over a week. And what’s important over the next few weeks is we keep it in that level and that we build up three things. First of all, we need to have an even broader testing program.
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Scott Morrison is being interviewed on the ABC’s 7.30. Leigh Sales has asked him to describe the government’s overall strategy when it comes to Covid-19. He says:
It’s called the suppression strategy. That was the advice from the medical expert panel again today. And I think that summarises it well.
What you need to do is all of those things, but you need to have in place an economic support package which enables you to do that and keep people with income, so you’ll be able to work through the suppression strategy and be able to bring the economy up more strongly to be in a position where you can both suppress the virus and, at the same time, have enough activity in the economy that supports people’s incomes.
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Another ICYMI from this afternoon. My colleague Naaman Zhou has written about plans to test all crew stranded on the Ruby Princess for Covid-19 within 48 hours.
A NSW Health spokesman said crew members who were asymptomatic had not been tested previously because that “can often lead to false negative results”. But that would now be changed to test everyone.
The spokesman said:
Crew members have been tested progressively, beginning with those who first developed symptoms.
Testing on people with no symptoms of Covid-19 can often lead to false negative results. For this reason, NSW Health only tests people with symptoms such as fever, sore throat, a dry cough or other respiratory symptoms.
[But] in order to gain a better understanding of whether crew were developing immunity, we have expanded testing. Over the next 48 hours we expect all crew who have yet to be tested – as they are currently asymptomatic – to have been tested for Covid-19.
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The Canberra Times has published this story earlier today about the ACT’s efforts to triple its intensive care beds as part of its Covid-19 response.
The newspaper reports a senior health official told an inquiry today that meeting that target was proving difficult because of challenges accessing vital equipment such as ventilators.
Government to pay airlines to continue domestic flights
Scott Morrison’s government has agreed to pay airlines to keep what’s described as a “minimal domestic schedule” of flights in the air.
The move means Virgin Australia, which is under intense financial pressure and had grounded its fleet, will resume flying tomorrow and continue the routes for at least the next eight weeks.
“The minimal domestic schedule will enable Virgin Australia to reinstate some of its stood-down flight, cabin and ground crew, along with other operational team members,” the airline said in a statement.
It is understood bigger rival Qantas, which has been considering closing some flights because they are running at less than a third full, has also been funded under the program.
Details of the total cost and scope of the program weren’t immediately available but announcements by the government and Qantas are expected this evening.
Virgin Australia said that it would use the money to fly between capital cities and regional centres.
Service frequencies range from seven return flights a week on popular routes including Melbourne-Sydney down to just twice a week for routes such as Perth-Kalgoorlie.
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AAP is reporting a passenger on a Qantas flight from Sydney to Brisbane on Monday was infectious with Covid-19.
Queensland Health warned other passengers of the diagnosis by text and then a phone call before directing them to self-quarantine in an email on Thursday.
The flight, QF520, arrived at Brisbane domestic terminal early on Monday afternoon.
“A person on this flight was infectious with Covid-19,” the Queensland Health email said. “You may be at risk of becoming unwell from exposure until midnight 27th April, 2020.”
Queensland Health did not answer questions and instead referred AAP to its “contact tracing alerts” web page.
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Scott Morrison outlined this afternoon the three conditions that need to be met before Australia’s social distancing restrictions can be eased. If you missed it, you can catch up with this short video.
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And in some Covid-19 but also non-Covid related news, you might have missed this story earlier today about the statutory review of Australia’s environmental laws.
This is a major independent review of Australia’s conservation act that happens once every 10 years. Six major environment groups want completion of the review delayed because of the back-to-back bushfire and coronavirus crises, as well as the departure of the environmental law specialist from the government’s expert panel.
Adam Bandt has now commented on the government’s decision to reduce the consultation period for enterprise bargaining agreements to 24 hours.
This looks like an attempt to use a temporary emergency to remove workers’ long-term rights. Greens will seek advice whether this change is disallowable when Parl returns soon for the session flagged by PM today. https://t.co/NpRpzb5zMF
— Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) April 16, 2020
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The Financial Review has published this story about some modelling for the Institute of Actuaries that suggests the number of coronavirus cases in Australia could be higher than official figures. Their results suggest as many as 20,000 cases.
The chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, has told the AFR the modelling is unlikely to be correct.
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In Queensland’s daily update, the state says it will launch a jobs portal aimed at helping those who are out of work due to the Covid-19 crisis.
The state’s treasurer, Jackie Trad, said Queenslanders looking for work could upload information on their skills and work experience to jobsfinder.qld.gov.au to be matched to available jobs and free online training courses.
Queensland recorded five new cases of Covid-19 overnight. There are now 554 active cases in the state, 442 people have recovered and five have died, for a total of 1001 cases.
The state’s chief health officer, Jeannette Young, said the current case numbers were “excellent news” but warned they would get worse when more people returned from overseas. People returning from overseas would go into hotel quarantine.
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Western Australia has published its daily Covid-19 update:
There were three new confirmed cases overnight, bringing the state’s total to 535.
All three cases are in metropolitan Perth. Two cases are related to cruise ships, one from the Artania and one from the Costa Victoria. One case is still under investigation.
Contact tracing is under way to ensure all close contacts are notified and advised of the requirement for them to self-isolate.
There are currently 33 confirmed Covid-19 patients in Perth metropolitan hospitals, eight of whom are in intensive care.
To date, 25,088 Western Australians have tested negative for Covid-19. Of those, 5,279 are from regional WA.
WA has 340 recovered cases.
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I’m going to hand over to my colleague Lisa Cox now. Stay safe and healthy. And have a good night.
Peak body Ai-Group has backed the industrial relations changes that Labor is railing against in the previous post.
In a statement, chief executive Innes Willox says:
A new regulation made today by the Australian government will assist employers and employees to vary enterprise agreements during the Covid-19 crisis. Many enterprise agreements were reached in better times and contain provisions which are impeding businesses in responding to the Covid-19 crisis.
Where changes to an enterprise agreement are agreed upon between the employer and the employees, the new regulation will enable the changes to be implemented without delay.
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Coalition move on enterprise agreements 'will rob workers': Labor
Labor’s industrial relations spokesman, Tony Burke, says the government’s decision to reduce the consultation period for changes to enterprise agreements “will rob workers of an important safeguard that protects their pay and conditions”.
Under this change – announced today without proper consultation with unions – employers will be able to tell their workers about changes one day and then conduct a vote on those changes the next.
In the real world, this is what it will mean: someone will turn up to work in the morning and their boss will tell them they want to make changes to their pay and conditions. That person then does a full day’s work, turns up the next day and is expected to vote.
Burke accused the attorney general, Christian Porter, of undermining the “tremendous goodwill” between unions and employer groups that had emerged during the coronavirus crisis.
The government’s changes reduce the required consultation time from one week to 24 hours.
Burke said: “Labor recognises the need to move quickly to vary awards during the coronavirus crisis in order to keep people in jobs when businesses are doing it tough. But this tips the balance too far in employers’ favour.”
Burke warned that the change applied also to businesses that were doing well in the current circumstances.
Just a few weeks ago the government was insisting there were no unions and employers any more – that we were all on Team Australia. Decisions like this suggest that was just empty rhetoric.
The government should abandon this change.
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The Victorian government is going to set up $24.5 billion in emergency funding over next two years to deal with coronavirus rebuild and recovery. It will need to borrow.
— Richard Willingham (@rwillingham) April 16, 2020
“We are in for hard times” @timpallas says @abcmelbourne #springst
An off-duty Queensland Police Service constable has received a $1,334 fine for failing to comply with a COVID-19 direction issued by the Chief Health Officer.
— Thomas Chamberlin (@TomChamberlin) April 16, 2020
Police allege the officer failed to comply with the social-distancing rules and travelling for non-essential business.
My guest tonight is the Prime Minister @ScottMorrisonMP #abc730
— Leigh Sales (@leighsales) April 16, 2020
Tehan says his 16-year-old daughter agreed to go back to school because she understood it might put the education minister in a difficult situation if she didn’t.
He says: “As I said yesterday, I was going to have a discussion with my daughter and she’s obviously been following this debate closely. And has understood the role that I’ve been playing in saying that schools do remain safe.
“Now there is online supervised learning taking place at her school. And she said to me, ‘Dad, I’m happy to go along. ‘I’ve been watching and following what’s going on and I understand it might place you in a difficult situation if I don’t.’”
He adds: “I must say I was very proud of her in the way she understood the predicament that I was in and was prepared to say that I’m happy to back you and support you.”
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Tehan says that it’s a possibility that parents will not be allowed onto school grounds.
He says: “Obviously the medical experts will provide that advice but it’s very clear that the greatest risk to teachers comes from contact with other adults.
“So every step that can be put in place which limits the ability of parents to interact with teachers and make sure there’s proper social distancing between teachers, obviously would make a lot of sense.”
Does he accept that Victoria won’t reopen schools for the majority of students in term two at all?
Tehan says: “Well ultimately, as the prime minister has made clear, that will be a decision for the premier and the education minister in Victoria. So they’ll continue to look at the situation there and if they think it’s possible to ease restrictions, I’m sure schooling would be one of the things they’d look.”
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Tehan is asked about the “principles” on schools that have come out of national cabinet. Karvelas puts it to him that ultimately states will just go it alone.
“They’re important principles,” Tehan says. “And I think we shouldn’t dismiss them. And the first one is an incredibly important statement and the best way we can educate our children is in the classroom and being delivered by professional teachers.”
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Hello everyone, and thanks Amy. Get well soon. We might start with the education minister, Dan Tehan, who is speaking to Patricia Karvelas on the ABC.
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On that note, I am going to hand the blog over to Luke Henriques-Gomes and take my (non-Covid) cold back to bed.
I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Take care of you.
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As promised, here is that link to the modelling the chief health officer just showed:
Here's the full paper, just released by Doherty Inst: https://t.co/7f9zK7K2ib
— Daniel Hurst (@danielhurstbne) April 16, 2020
What has changed today?
To recap what just happened:
- A set of national principles has been announced for schools to follow (but each jurisdiction maintains control over the decision of how to treat schools; listen to your own state or territory leader about what is happening in your area)
- Three conditions have been set out for restrictions to be lifted:
- More testing, including those without symptoms
- Better contact tracing, including government tracing apps
- Localised lockdown procedures, including the Australian Defence Force
- Parliament will return next month as a ‘trial’ for usual proceedings – not emergency Covid measures
- Elective surgery restrictions may be lifted next week
- Post-restriction Australia will not have the same economic policy settings or election promises as pre-restriction Australia
- Australia has reinstated its commitment to the World Health Organization, citing its work in the Pacific
- Christian Porter has amended a fair work regulation, which allows employers to offer enterprise bargaining proposals for just one day for consideration, rather than a week
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That was quite the hour.
And this is how Christian Porter described it:
The Government has approved a change to the Fair Work Regulations today that will give employers greater flexibility to rapidly respond to the extreme and urgent workplace challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, by reducing the time required for changes to enterprise agreements to be agreed by their employees.
Previously, employers were required to give at least seven days’ notice of any proposed amendment before it could be put to a vote by workers. That time period – known as the access period – will now be reduced to a minimum of one day.
Importantly, employers will still need to meet the essential conditions required under the “genuine agreement” test that is ultimately determined by the Fair Work Commission. This is a safeguard to ensure workers are able to make informed decisions about changes affecting the way they work. Employees will also still be able to vote down a proposed change to agreements.
These changes have also been time-bound and will revert to the usual 7 day period automatically in six months. Having listened to concerns raised by the ACTU, the Attorney-General has also determined to review the operation of the changes in two months to assess whether the system has been operating effectively without misuse. If substantial evidence were to emerge that the changes are not operating effectively, the time period can be altered again at that point of two-month review.
Importantly, the regulation change applies to all businesses with employees covered by EBA’s, including those not eligible for JobKeeper payments.
“These changes are designed to enable companies to deal swiftly with urgent issues that are arising in their workplaces, such as health and safety issues associated with COVID-19,” Attorney-General and Minister for Industrial Relations, Christian Porter said.
“For example, businesses that have urgently needed to divide their workforce up into teams that rotate between working from home and in the office for social distancing reasons, haven’t been able to quickly implement those changes due to the mandatory access period.
“In some cases, delays have been impractical and prevented employers from taking effective steps to improve the safety of their staff, or to ensure their businesses were able to function efficiently during these difficult and fast-changing times.
“These changes are only temporary and will expire in six months, in line with other changes to working arrangements that have been recently adopted, such as the amendments to the Fair Work Act that were necessary to facilitate the roll out of the $130 billion JobKeeper package and I intend to review the operation of the change two months after it becomes effective.”
The ACTU and Sally McManus is not:
“Some employers have not stopped demanding rights be taken off working people. We saw some openly try to force changes to the Fair Work Act that would undermine people’s job security and rights at work in the lead up to Jobkeeper becoming law, those attempts were opposed by the union movement and were rightly refused by all political parties.
“Having been denied a legislative pathway for their power grab those employers, who have not suffered serious downturn, have spent the last week lobbying the government to take away workers’ rights via regulation, they should be condemned, and the Government should stop listening to them.
“By agreeing to these changes Christian Porter would be using his power to abolish rules that protect workers, their job security and their rights at work.
“These changes will allow employers to ram through reductions in pay and undermine job security.
“The current rules ensure workers have adequate time to consider any proposal to change an enterprise agreement, to discuss this with their employer, other workers and to seek advice. This change effectively takes away all these rights leaving workers exposed to employers seeking to exploit the fear caused by the pandemic and to pressure workers into rushed agreements, locking out their access to advice.
“We are already seeing widespread abuse of the JobKeeper system, prior to the pandemic Australian business had an enormous problem with wage theft. We know that, sadly, too many employers will exploit the system if there are no safeguards for working people. The Government needs to stand up to big business and rule out undermining the job security and rights of millions of Australian workers.
“Workers need more protections and safeguards at this time, not less.”
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On that post from Paul Karp a little bit ago, there have been, as you could imagine, mixed responses.
The Business Council of Australia is very happy:
“We thank the Attorney-General for listening and acting on the concerns of our members. Governments, businesses and the union movement are working together with the shared goal of keeping Australians in work and setting the economy up for recovery.
“With borders closed, regular duties changing and normal business hours decreasing, employers need the maximum amount of flexibility to protect jobs, avoid retrenchments and strengthen the Australian economy.
“These common-sense, temporary changes will enable businesses to collaborate with unions and workers to keep people connected to their employers and save jobs.
“For thousands of workers, the changes will mean the difference between keeping their job or losing it because their employer was hamstrung by restrictive, time consuming processes to make necessary and reasonable changes.
“Crucially, this will give businesses the capacity to retain their workers and ease gradually back into production once the recovery begins.
“Large employers who aren’t eligible to claim JobKeeper assistance for their workers will now have room to move and stay afloat. For some businesses this will be even more valuable than a wage subsidy.
“This is a welcome demonstration of the Morrison government’s willingness to listen, respond and prioritise the urgent things needed to keep Australians working and connected to their workplaces throughout this crisis.”
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G20 governments – of which Australia is one – have agreed to temporarily suspend debt repayments for the world’s least developed countries in response to the Covid-19 crisis.
The rationale for suspending repayments is to free up money in these countries to fight the virus. Some 77 countries have had their debts to G20 countries suspended from May to the end of the year, worth about $12bn.
The G20 has also called on private creditors to similarly suspend debt repayments.
“We support a time-bound suspension of debt service payments for the poorest countries that request forbearance,” the G20 said in a statement after finance ministers held an online meeting on Wednesday.
But the debt has not been forgiven, as was being sought by a number of civil society organisations in Australia and around the world.
Dr Luke Fletcher, the executive director of Jubilee Australia said: “The G20’s announcement gives struggling countries some temporary relief, but it will not help countries at risk of a debt crisis in the long term as they will have to pay the money back later.
“To support low-income countries globally to respond to the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic fallout, the G20 needs to move to immediate debt cancellation.”
The executive director of ActionAid Australia, Michelle Higelin, said many countries in the Asia-Pacific and Africa faced a “triple-threat” from Covid-19, an economic recession and the climate crisis.
“Women and girls are already among the most impacted by job losses, increases in unpaid care and inadequate social protection,” she said.
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The rooftop protest at Villawood detention centre – against the risks of Covid-19 within the close and crowded confines of detention – has been ended by armed police.
Three men who had been on the roof of the Blaxland compound since Saturday have been removed from the roof. Refugee advocates say they do not know where they are now.
All other detainees have been transferred from the Blaxland compound to the Hume compound inside the main Villawood detention facility.
But the concerns over the lack of safety for detainees being held at high-risk of coronavirus infection have not been resolved, Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition said.
“Swapping Blaxland for Hume has done nothing to rectify the inherent risk that is associated with the detention environment.
“Everyone in Blaxland could have been more easily and safely released from detention rather than using armed police to end a peaceful protest.”
Doctors have repeatedly said it is not safe for hundreds of people to be held in the close confines of detention, sharing communal spaces and eating together. An open letter protesting ongoing detention of asylum seekers and refugees has been signed by more than 1,200 medical professionals.
The Australian government’s own health department website says people held in detention are at greater risk of contracting Covid-19 and greater risk of a serious infection.
Sarah Dale, the principal solicitor at the Refugee Advice & Casework Service, said the health and medical advice was clear that there was a heightened risk of a cluster in an immigration detention facility.
“At RACS we have spoken to many people in detention, they are scared and they are anxious – they don’t have the option to socially distance when they share rooms with multiple people and see different staff coming in and out of these facilities. It’s the epitome of every situation the government has otherwise advised against.”
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The industrial relations minister, Christian Porter, will shortly announce that he is making a regulation to reduce the mandatory consultation period for enterprise agreement changes from seven days to 24 hours.
What that means is employers can put proposed changes to pay and conditions to their workforce with just a 24-hour deadline to agree or prepare to fight the changes in the Fair Work Commission.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions is greatly perturbed that this eases the way to cuts to pay and conditions.
The regulation is a disallowable instrument, but the Senate is not due to sit until August, quite a long window for employers to seek changes.
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So there you have it – some criticisms, but Australia won’t be walking away from the World Health Organization.
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Scott Morrison defends work of WHO in the Pacific
The prime minister finishes his press conference with a comment on the World Health Organization.
He references his speech last year to the Lowy Foundation, in which he warned of “negative globalism” and says the WHO is one of the organisations he said Australia was reviewing.
He says that review will return soon.
But he adds this:
And while I have my criticisms of the WHO, and they are very valid criticisms, we have to remember it may have had a few poor outings lately but there are also some very important work they have been doing and I will make reference to it.
WHO has responded in our Pacific family to 300 requests from the Pacific, 68 shipments of PPE, 35 deployments to countries assisting Fiji with the testing capability, establishing Covid-19 isolation facilities in Timor-Leste, this is the same grade three there in the summer measles outbreak of last year, the polio outbreak in PNG in 2018 and they do work in the western Pacific on eliminating measles, rubella and tetanus, preventing diabetes and hypertension, maintaining high levels of polio vaccination, the state of essential medicines and vaccines, eliminating mother to child transmission of HIV.
I know they have had their criticism, and it has been quite deserved and we have been frustrated, but they do do important work and they do important here in the Pacific and we will keep working with them, but it won’t be uncritical.”
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Following on from reports, including from Rebekha Sharkie, that employers are trying to keep some of the $1,500 wage subsidy, Scott Morrison says:
That sort of behaviour where it occurs by employers is disgraceful and it’s illegal, and they should be reported to the police and the ATO, to make sure that can be followed up.
It’s not on, it is appalling behaviour. We will move quickly on that.
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On the issue of schools, again, Scott Morrison says listen to your state or territory leader, as they are the ones in charge of that particular jurisdiction:
The principles, I think, set out very clearly what we all agree and what we are working towards.
Parents should follow the instructions that are being provided by state premiers and state education ministers. And for the arrangements put in place if you are going to school in Victoria, there is only one person you need to listen to and that is the premier of Victoria.
Likewise in NSW you should listen to the premier of NSW.
You don’t have a choice to go to Victoria one day and NSW another, even in Albury-Wodonga.
But in the Northern Territory it is what the chief minister has said and they have different arrangements again.
We are a big enough country with very different geographic and different case scenarios occurring in the states and territories for there to be some differences, but those differences I think accord with the principles that we have set out to date.
I think it is very clear that the medical expert advice is children are safe to go to school, but there are issues within each state about the delivery of education, which they are going to take into account, which means that they will be operating on slightly different bases, but consistent with these principles.
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Why is Australia not following New Zealand in an eradication approach?
Scott Morrison:
As we observed today, and Prof Murphy will touch on this, a byproduct of the approach we are taking may well be the case, that could happen.
But the eradication pathway involves an approach which will see even more economic restrictions than are currently in place and that is not seen to be in our view a wise trade-off in how we are managing the two crises that we are facing, the economic one and of course the health one.
We are doing well on the health one and I want to do that on the economic one.
So the suppression strategy which we have been following, we have been following that for about a month, I think that has sat well within the groove of Australia’s ethos and how we live and what we would hope. I think it is rubbing at the edges a bit in parts of the country and that is understandable.
We like our freedoms, we like to be able to do what we want to do. We like having a barbecue, we like going out and we really miss it and we miss our kids being able to get together and go to school and be with their friends, we miss all of them.
The suppression path is the best Australian path. As I have said throughout this, the solutions we are putting in place are the right solutions for Australia.
We are not looking to copy anyone.
We have the right plan for Australia.
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IVF will be considered as part of a loosening of elective surgery restrictions, Prof Brendan Murphy confirms.
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Scott Morrison is asked if the app he wants people to download will involve swapping phone numbers (which the Singapore app, which this one is modelled on, does not) ... and does not seem to rule it out:
The trace app that enables people to elect to do exactly the same thing that you are proposing, the Google and Apple proposal does exactly the same thing, it is just that it is not a consent-based model.
The trace app which has been put in place in Singapore is a consent-based model and the reason we are not quite ready yet is we are still working through ensuring that it meets the privacy protections, which are robust and up to a standard that we believe is necessary for the Australian context, and that is what the attorney general is working on right now.
It is a complex area, but it is a tool that Australia will need to pursue the road out of this that we would like to pursue.
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(Just a reminder that every government can claim record spending on health and education, because both those budgets grow as the population does, and net debt has doubled in Australia under Coalition governments.)
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On debt and deficit, Scott Morrison says:
Debt and deficit concerns me greatly and my concern about debt and deficit is based on the fact that I have been part of the government for six years that has worked incredibly hard to get the budget back into balance and ... a growth in debt reduced from 30% to zero in the space of that six years, so when you go through that process you are particularly sensitive to the issues of increased debt and deficit.
... We will have a plan to deal with it, like we have for the last six years, and I think Australians can take some comfort and confidence from that – that as a government we have already demonstrated our ability to deal with debt and deficit in the past. But you will recall that for almost all of that period of time, this is a time when we went to ... record levels of health and education spending.
This was a time when we went to engage in the biggest recapitalisation of our defence forces and growing us to 2% of GDP in defence spending – that is the highest level we have seen and turns it around from pre-second world war levels when we came to government.
So what we will do is ensure that we will be growing that economy to support our budget and ensure we have the right settings in place to live within our means as a budget to get the debt and deficit under control.
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Channel Seven’s Tim Lester asks whether Scott Morrison is promoting an “aggressive test, trace, isolate” way forward, which the prime minister considers to be “a good summary”.
Updated
You can expect some form of physical distancing rules to remain in place for some time though:
I think it will be some time. I think social distancing, the washing of the hands, the doing of those things, that is what we should do until we find a vaccine. Those sorts of things, the 1.5 metres, being conscious of your distancing, we will live with this for the foreseeable future.
But when it comes to the specific economic restrictions that have been put in place, after the next month then there will be the opportunity to review that and potentially make some changes if we need those other benchmarks.
But within the next four weeks, states and territories that went further than those baselines both in enforcement and with some additional measures of their own, they have indicated today that they will be reviewing those in the meantime.
As I said, next week on Tuesday we will consider the issue of elective surgery, which could see some immediate return in that area, which would be very positive and I have already talked about schools, yes.
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Asked again about the six-month timeframe he has been operating on, Scott Morrison says:
That is the timeframe we have bought through those economic supports, so you have to work backwards from there. There will be, I imagine, baseline levels of restrictions.
That will be changed over that period of time, just like we are saying in about a month from now there will be changes to the baseline restrictions that we put in place a few weeks ago.
That is what I was about to get to. So when we hit a trigger basically on this provision, that statistic, when we get to that and when we have in place the broader testing regime surveillance, the automated contract regime in place, and we have scaled out our capacity to respond to outbreaks, that is what we are looking to do in the next four weeks – build that up and then what the states and territories and ourselves are working on, what you would call high-value, low-risk economic activities, that we will be able to start up more of.
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On his own children’s return to school, Scott Morrison says:
In relation to my own kids, I want my kids to go back to school and be taught in a classroom by a teacher.
That’s what I want to see happen, when a school in New South Wales that they go to can deliver that for them and I will happily have them back there in a heartbeat, that’s what I want them to do. I don’t want them to go and sit at a school hall and look at the internet, I want them to go to school and be taught by a teacher in accordance with one of those principles, and when that’s on offer I will have them there in a heartbeat.
Whether they are sitting in a school hall or sitting at home at the moment, the outcome will be the same. I would prefer for my own children, as I was having them attend school up until the last week before school break because internet arrangements they put in place meant there was no difference between them at school and learning in the classroom.
Regretfully, they were no longer getting classroom teaching at that school. That’s what I’d like to see happen again.
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Asked about his mentions in Malcolm Turnbull’s book, Scott Morrison says:
I am not interested in any distractions, I’m interested in the health and well-being of Australians.
He adds that is what he would imagine people would expect him to say.
Updated
There’s another reminder that states and territories are in charge of the schools, regardless of what the federal government might want.
Asked to talk to his post-restriction Australian economic policy settings comment again, Scott Morrison says:
It would be premature to speculate at this point – the advice from the governor and the advice from Treasury is we couldn’t expect the high levels of growth to continue with the same policy settings. That is something we will examine very closely and I will do it with the states and territories because they have a big role to play with all of this.
One of the big things the transport and infrastructure ministers are meeting with, led by the deputy prime minister, is how we can get some of these projects going again, one of the parts of the economy not affected was the construction sector, it has not been closed down.
I want to see more roads fixed, bridges built, I want to see those things happening now.
New Zealand did shut down that sector. It will be good for unemployment if that can be done in a Covid-19 economy. That is one of the things transport ministers are working on at this very moment.
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There is another question on whether or not the government will be bailing out Virgin.
Scott Morrison:
I will give the same answer I have given to this question each and every time. That is, as a government, we appreciate the value of two competitive viable airlines in the Australian economy.
We are in a very unusual place at the moment, but that is a good outcome to have in the Australian economy, that any responses the commonwealth government will have will be done on a sector-wide basis, and that’s the way we will continue to pursue those issues.
I’m aware that there are many market-based options that are currently being pursued, and I would wish those discussions every success.
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The govt slides on effective reproduction number (Reff) for each state, @AmyRemeikis pic.twitter.com/XIQ0EsSjKD
— Daniel Hurst (@danielhurstbne) April 16, 2020
Will trans-Tasman travel resume anytime soon? New Zealand’s deputy prime minister says he would like to see it happen, but Scott Morrison says it’s still a way off:
We are aware of their interest in that, it has not got much beyond that.
New Zealand has been in a state of even more extreme lockdown, that has been their process.
So we are aware of that but we are not at present contemplating any border changes at the moment.
We will work closely with New Zealand – we have all along – and our measures have largely mirrored each other. New Zealand decided to go a lot further but I note the outcomes we are getting are actually on a per capita basis better than what is happening in New Zealand – that is not a criticism, that is just to say we managed to get as good if not a better outcome.
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What did Scott Morrison mean when he said election promises would be “reconsidered”?
I was talking about general policy settings at a state and federal level.
On the other side of this virus and leading on the way out we are going to have to have economic policy measures that are going to have to be very pro-growth, that is going to enable businesses to employ people, that will enable businesses to invest and businesses to move forward.
Our government sees business at the centre of the economy. We do not see government as the centre of the economy.
In the middle of an emergency crisis such as this, of course the government to protect our sovereignty must step in with these emergency services, but going forward we need to see a revitalisation of the private sector economy and that means we need policy settings in both the state and federal levels to encourage that growth and that employment and investment, and there will be an opportunity I think for federal and state governments to work together initially and potentially beyond as part of a national cabinet process to do that.
Now, the federal government is doing its thing with a budget in October, and the states will do what they need to do, but there was a very clear message from the advisers, particularly Dr Lowe, that if you think we can grow the economy under the old settings then we need to think again.
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The modelling, which we will link to, is what the chief medical officer says is helping to inform the measures Australia is using:
So what we are showing here is the measures that are being used to monitor the outbreak on our real Australian data, the measures that we’ve got to reassure us that our public health surveillance is good and our response measures are good. But as I said earlier, our public health response has to get even stronger if we are going to be able to relax distancing and take us through this pandemic with the least amount of social disruption but the best possible public health control.
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Prof Brendan Murphy is leading the slideshow Daniel Hurst was talking about there.
He led into it by talking about why the restrictions have to be carefully lifted, and not just thrown off at once:
Today we have 6,457 cases. Unfortunately 63 people have lost their lives due to Covid-19. We’ve got 42 people still on ventilators across the country. We’ve got to remember that there are some people who suffered greatly with this disease. As the PM said, our numbers are looking very encouraging at the moment.
We’ve had less than 50 cases a day over the last few days. Many of those cases are returned travellers or contacts, but, as before, there are small numbers of community-acquired cases where a source is not known.
As I have said on many occasions, this disease can spread rapidly undetected very easily and we’ve seen that in other countries of the world.
In fact we have seen a small outbreak in north-west Tasmania recently where very rapidly a large number of cases appeared over the course of a few days. It has been expertly handled by the Tasmanian health authorities in an exemplary way of bringing an episode under control.
But as the PM has said, if we relax the distancing measures that are stopping or reducing that community transmission, that will inevitably lead to some more outbreaks of community transmission.
Unless we are prepared as a nation to detect those outbreaks really early and get on top of them and control them and isolate the cases and quarantine the contacts, we could end up with large community outbreaks that could lead to situations like we’ve all seen every night on the nightly news in high-income countries with good health systems like the USA and the UK.
Updated
According to slides handed out to journalists at today’s media conference, Australia is estimated to be currently detecting approximately 92% of all symptomatic cases, while each state and territory is individually estimated to be detecting over 80%.
The slides argue that Australia has one of the highest reported detection rates globally.
The high detection rate doesn’t mean the outbreak is out of control in Australia, just that we don’t seem to be missing symptomatic cases.
The Doherty Institute is currently working on the next phase of modelling using Australian data to work out the current state of the epidemic, which will be known as “nowcasting”. This new work will include rolling “forecasts” to estimate what might happen with the outbreak over the coming fortnight.
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Scott Morrison on schools:
The health advice has been consistent that for children schools are a safe space.
Where the confusion arises is that for teachers they are more likely – teachers are more at risk in the staff room than they are in the classroom when it comes to how the health advice plays out, and the impact of this virus on children as opposed to teachers.
That means that we need to have proper arrangements in place for teachers and other staff in schools obviously to protect their work environment, but at the same time that doesn’t lead to the same rules applying for students because they have a different level of risk.
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Scott Morrison:
The more we keep it under control, the more we all enlist in the sorts of things we need to do to help those who are tracing the virus and identifying it and reacting to it if there are outbreaks, well, the more we might be able to at some point turn to easing those restrictions.
We have stayed ahead of it, we’ve got to keep ahead of it, we can’t allow our patience to wear off.
I know it’s a very anxious thing for Australians. When they see the really good result they go, can’t we all just go back to how it was? None of us would like that more than any of us here.
But let’s look to the experience of what happened overseas. If you ease off too quickly, too early, then you end up making the situation even worse and I don’t just mean in the health terms.
If you move too early and the health response gets out of control, then the economic consequences will be even worse. We need to keep it finely balanced, that is what we are seeking to do.
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Scott Morrison announcements
That was quite the 15 minutes.
What have we learnt?
- Restrictions to remain in place for at least another four weeks, but easing is on the agenda.
- The government wants increased testing – including those with no symptoms – as well as large-scale contact tracing (downloading the app) and localised lockdown ability to be put in place, before restrictions are loosened.
- Parliament may return next month.
- Post-restriction Australia does not include election promises.
- Schools have been given seven national principles, as the federal government pushes a return to on-site learning.
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Parliament likely to return next month
In line with Australia being ahead of where it was predicted to be, given the success (so far) of the lockdowns, Scott Morrison says he anticipates regular sittings of parliament returning next month.
We will be seeking – and I will be raising this with the opposition at our regular meeting with the opposition and the government this evening – that we will be looking to have a trial week of parliament in May and that would be returning to the normal business of parliament.
That would not be the parliament coming together to consider necessarily Covid-19 related measures but if they do need to be considered, of course they can be, but we want to send a very clear message that we are well ahead of where we thought we might be at this point and that would mean that we might be able to – I would say will be able to – having the parliament meet again on a regular basis, but obviously we just need to trial how that is going to work.
We will have to work obviously within the arrangements that we were able to establish a few weeks ago.
There are a lot of logistical issues we have to run through, there are not a lot of flights at the moment, which will make it difficult, but there are also some border closure issues for a number of states which also have to be resolved and I am sure we will be able to deal with that through the national cabinet as well.
It is important that parliament goes about that work and we are in a position to do so, so I look forward to parliament being able to resume and continue to do the legislative work that it does.
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On the six-month timeframe the government has been using, Scott Morrison says don’t expect everything to be back to anything approaching what you knew as normal any time soon:
Finally, on the issue of the health issues, on six months, we have often talked about what is the six months, went does it start and when does it end?
This is the June and September quarter.
I have always considered the six months, the period in which we have been operating and will operate these lifeline measures in the economy, which is jobseeker with the jobseeker supplement, and jobkeeper, they run for the six-month period, we have bought that time to find the road out.
Whether we do what no country has at this point, but this is our goal, to make sure we can get the economy at a level which would not require those extreme levels of income supports, and the economy would be able to support people on those incomes into a self-sustaining way. We have bought that time for six months and we intend to use that wisely. We would expect there would be restrictions running over that entire six-month period but the degree of those and how much they can be relaxed or changed over that period, that would depend on the circumstances, the health and economic advice at the time.
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But the restrictions that are in place will stay in place for at least another month:
We want to be very clear with Australians, baseline restrictions we have in place at the moment, there are no plans to change those for the next four weeks.
In terms of states that have gone beyond the baseline restrictions – that includes how they may be enforcing measures, there are some restrictions put in place for some states and not others – those states will take the advantage over the next couple of weeks and they will make their own decisions whether they want to change any of those arrangements on their own circumstances. I would refer you to individual states and territories where they may choose to do that over the next three weeks.
One of the areas we will consider is the issue of elective surgery – there is more work to do that, we will consider that next Tuesday.
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And Scott Morrison on that third condition – localised lockdown ability:
The third area is we need a local response capability.
And we are seeing this in part right now for north-western Tasmania, where we have an outbreak, Australian Defence Force ... are working together with state authorities, have been moving very quickly to contain that outbreak. And there will be other outbreaks, in other parts of the country, and in all states and territories we need that ability to move very fast to be able to lock down an outbreak where it occurs and make sure it does not transmit more broadly within the community, we are going to move to an environment with fewer restrictions, then you need these three things in place, and national cabinet agreed today we will use the next four weeks to make sure we can get these in place, and the baseline restrictions that have been set, some weeks ago, will remain in place until we can achieve those three goals.
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Scott Morrison on the second condition – increased contact tracing/downloading a tracking app:
... Making sure we have an even greater tracing capability than we have now.
I want to commend the state governments, this has been the really heavy lifting they have been doing over the last several weeks, and really boosting capability of tracing cases.
They are a team of Sherlock Holmes out there at the moment and they are doing a fantastic job on tracking down these cases.
We need to lift that to an industrial capability and do that using technology and we need to do that as soon as we possibly can, and we will be needing the support of Australians.
If we can get that in place, get the tracing capability up from where it is, that will give us more options and Australians more freedoms.
Updated
Scott Morrison on the first condition, of more testing:
So beyond those who are symptomatic, if we are to move to a different phase when it comes to the restrictions, we need an even broader testing regime than we have at this point.
Now, we have one of, if not the most, extensive testing regimes in the world today.
But we need to do even better than that to make sure that we can have greater confidence that when we move to a lesser restriction environment we can have confidence we can identify any outbreaks very, very quickly and respond to them.
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The three things which need to be in place for restrictions to be lifted
Scott Morrison says there are three main conditions that need to be in place before the governments will look at lifting restrictions:
1. Increased testing.
2. Better contact tracing “lifted to an industrial capability” - ie, they want you to download the app.
3. Local response capabilities – the ability to lock down localised areas, which include multiple agencies, like the ADF.
Updated
Scott Morrison:
Turning to the health issues considered today, we remain [optimistic] after receiving advice again on what we describe as the suppression phase – we are not in an eradication mode or where we see herd immunity approach, these are not the approaches we are following in Australia, we are not at the Sweden end or the New Zealand end when it comes to how we approach things.
Our data and information shows that in that phase we are doing relatively very well, especially over countries that are using even more extreme forms of lockdown.
But we can’t overstate the success, there is a high number of internationally acquired cases, and that means that we need to look at the numbers in that context, but it is pleasing to know, it is estimated more than half of those who have contracted the coronavirus in Australia have overcome it, and that is also good news, in terms of the actual number of people currently suffering from the coronavirus.
Updated
So it looks like the economic ‘snap back’ is on the back burner for some time now.
Up until now, the government has been determined to keep a ‘business as usual’ on its election promises stiff upper lip.
That is no longer the case.
Which means anything the Coalition went to the election on is now up in the air.
Updated
We noted today’s unemployment rate showed only a modest change from the figures for February but as we all know those figures were largely based on the middle of March and that was in particular before you put in place the restrictions across the economy towards the back end of March, and while that figure is welcome we know that is the best figure we will see for some time.
We know what the end expected impacts will be on employment and from the figures you have seen released from Treasury, and the RBA have similar views as we have also seen in some of the IMF reporting as well, and so that is a figure we can note but it is not one we could expect to be held going forward, and in saying that we do need to prepare ourselves as a country for some very sobering news on the economic front in months ahead.
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The national cabinet has agreed on a set of “national principles” on school education when it comes to handling the Covid-19 issue. In short, leaders emphasise the value of providing education within classroom settings, but acknowledge that it is up to state and territory governments and the non-government school sector to make operational decisions.
There is also a need for schools to offer teachers and staff a safe working environment.
The full list of principles is as follows:
1. Our schools are critical to the delivery of high quality education for students and to give our children the best possible start in life. Our education systems are based on the recognition that education is best delivered by professional teachers to students in the classroom on a school campus.
2. It is accepted that during the Covid-19 crisis, alternative flexible, remote delivery of education services may be needed.
3. Our schools must be healthy and safe environments for students, teachers and other staff to ensure the effective and efficient delivery of education to students.
4. State and territory governments and non-government sector authorities are responsible for managing and making operational decisions for their school systems respectively, subject to compliance with relevant funding agreements with the Commonwealth.
5. Decisions regarding the response to Covid-19 in the schooling sector must continue to be informed by expert, official, national and state-based public health and education advice, consistent with these national principles.
6. All students must continue to be supported by their school to ensure participation in quality education during the Covid-19 crisis.
7. The health advice consistently provided by the AHPPC is that attendance at a school campus for education represents a very low risk to students.
The advice also notes that appropriate practices must be employed at schools, like at other workplaces, to provide a safe working environment for school staff, including teachers, and that the specific AHPPC advice regarding school campuses should be followed.
Election promises need to be 'reconsidered'
This is the first time Scott Morrison has admitted that the policies he took to the election can’t stand up in a post-Covid Australia:
They also highlighted, though, the need to make sure on the other side of the virus, as we make our road out, that any sense of business as usual when it comes to the policy framework we had at the election will need to be reconsidered on the other side.
To make sure we can achieve growth that will be necessary for our economy to get people back into work, economy back on track, it will be a different world on the other side of the virus and there will be many challenges, and the national cabinet has a very good appreciation of this, and there has been some talk about its role on the other side of the virus, and that is a discussion for another day.
But between now and as we continue to work through the impact of the virus, the national cabinet will have on its agenda the types of things and policy measures take together, working at federal and state level to make sure we can give our economy every support and more importantly every freedom to be able to get on and see businesses grow on the other side.
Updated
Scott Morrison:
Our intention has now been turning to the road out, having worked through the road in.
That road to recovery on the other side as well.
Importantly today at national cabinet we received quite extensive briefings from the governor of the Reserve Bank and the secretary of Treasury, Dr Kennedy.
At those briefings it was reinforced again to the national cabinet on a point that we strongly concur with the need to synchronise our health and economic responses to the virus. We must consider these responses conjointly.
We must understand the impact of each, whether that’s in the modelling work we’re doing, with responses and measures we are putting in place, this has to be considered together and understood together.
Updated
This press conference is going to be, as reported, on schools.
Updated
Scott Morrison press conference
Scott Morrison is at the podium:
#LIVE: Update following today's National Cabinet meeting https://t.co/vg7CrQsAqP
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) April 16, 2020
Let the preamble begin.
Updated
Michaelia Cash has released her official statement on today’s jobs figures:
While these figures exceeded all market expectations for the month of March and saw the creation of 5,900 jobs, the data only represents the early impacts of COVID-19. The Government expects the unemployment rate to rise over the coming months.
Importantly, whilst Treasury modelling forecasts unemployment to peak at around 10 per cent, the Morrison Government’s $320 billion support package including the $130 billion JobKeeper payment has meant that we will avoid much higher levels of unemployment.
The Minister for Employment, Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash, said that while today’s ABS figures are beginning to reflect the negative impact that COVID-19 is having on the labour market, it is important to note that Australia entered this crisis from a position of economic strength and record employment. Since the Government came to office in September 2013, more than 1.5 million jobs have been created.
Updated
Immigration detention centre protest reportedly ended
The Refugee Coalition Action group has reported the Villawood immigration detention protest has ended:
The protest was ended some time after all detainees have been transferred from the Blaxland compound to Hume compound inside the main Villawood detention facility.
There had been no announcement of the transfer, before armed police entered Blaxland around 10.30 this morning, and all detainees were locked down inside Blaxland.
The whereabouts of the three rooftop protesters is not known.
The three detainees began their protest on Saturday 11 April.
The concerns over the lack of safety for detainees being held at high-risk of coronavirus infection have not been resolved.
The prime minister will be joined by the chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy – it is looking more like that will be happening at 2.30pm now.
There will be a slideshow, apparently. I imagine this will show some of the ‘road map’ conditions for loosening restrictions, but it could also be a ‘look how well we have done’ story, to go along with a 40-minute preamble to whatever the new announcement is.
Updated
Presented without comment:
Once again, Malcolm sanitises the truth. I was much more graphic in my response than this. 🙂 pic.twitter.com/UDkdtUS7Uj
— Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) April 16, 2020
Updated
And here are one of the reasons questions are rightly being raised over the contact tracing app the government wants Australians to download:
Stuart Robert's explanation of the coronavirus app is that you swap phone numbers with everyone you're near.
— Josh Taylor (@joshgnosis) April 16, 2020
No thank you please. pic.twitter.com/egnlQsqCI3
It doesn’t seem like anyone is completely sure of how it would work. Because either it swaps phone numbers, which is different to the explanations which have been given so far, and Stuart Robert has let the tidbit drop, or it doesn’t actually swap phone numbers and the minister doesn’t actually know how it works.
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Further to some of the issues that asylum seekers and refugees under Australia’s care are experiencing is this statement from the Public Health Association of Australia:
We want the government to provide asylum seekers and refugees with access to healthcare and to move people out of crowded detention facilities and into appropriate accommodation where social distancing can be maintained,” said Professor Jaya Dantas, Convenor of the International Health Special Interest Group of the PHAA.
Asylum seekers and refugees are a Covid-19 high risk group with limited access to health services in Australia. These groups are unable to practice self-isolation and social distancing as they live in crowded conditions with shared sanitation facilities. Those living in detention facilities in Nauru and PNG face the additional burden of being detained in countries with poor health systems. Detention facilities and crowded accommodation do not allow for appropriate infection control.
There are 1,440 people in detention facilities in Australia of which 72 are women, 5 are children and 1,363 are men[i]. There are another 388 people in offshore detention on Nauru (205) and PNG (183)[ii].
An equitable and humane public health response that supports asylum seekers and refugees during the Covid-19 Pandemic is essential for their health and wellbeing, but it is also important to reduce risk to the wider community. Another important reason is to prevent detention facilities from becoming clusters for Covid-19 transmission, through detainees, staff, other service providers and visitors resulting in community spread.”
Asylum seekers and refugees have minimal or no access to Medicare and may not be able to access appropriate information and health services because of poor health literacy, lack of interpreters, fear of arrest and costs.
Updated
And you’ll hear from the prime minister at 2.15, now that national cabinet has broken (for the day, not as a unit).
Updated
You’ll no doubt hear more about both the schools issue and the contact tracing app, tonight
My guest tonight is the Prime Minister @ScottMorrisonMP #abc730
— Leigh Sales (@leighsales) April 16, 2020
National cabinet is ticking along.
The big issue still seems to be schools and how the states should go about reopening them. The health advice panel says, as it has the whole time, that it is OK to reopen schools. The states, led by Victoria, which is the strongest on this, says that goes against the limit on gatherings – not just inside the classroom, but what is happening outside, during pick-up and drop-off.
Don’t be surprised if the contact tracing app is also pushed more, as part of the conditions needed to be in place for the restrictions to be lifted.
For it to work, the government wants at least 40% of the population to take it up. It will be able to tell the government who you have been in contact with, or near, if someone tests positive.
As with everything though, that comes with a lot of privacy issues. How much are you willing to trade off?
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G20 nations have decided to allow developing nations to suspend debt repayments, as the globe attempts to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
But that doesn’t mean repayments to private banks have to stop. And there is, as several advocacy groups have pointed out today, no plan for long term debt relief.
ACT Health has released its update:
There have been no new cases of Covid-19 recorded in the ACT in the past 24 hours. The ACT’s total is still 103.
A total of 79 cases have recovered from Covid-19 and have been released from self-isolation. This is more than three quarters of the ACT’s confirmed cases.
There are currently two (2) Covid-19 patients in Canberra hospitals. The remainder are isolating at home with ACT Health support.
The ACT has recorded three (3) deaths.
The number of negative tests in the ACT is now 6,516.
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Asked about some of the stories of employers who are attempting to hold back some of the $1,500 wage subsidy, Michaelia Cash said eligible employers “must” pass on the full amount to their employees.
Let us make this very, very clear: as an employer if you qualify for jobkeeper, you must - I underline “must” - pass on the full $1,500 benefit to the employee.
Updated
Michaelia Cash is the latest “bright side of life” fan today, pointing to the strong participation rate in the unemployment figures, which surveyed the workforce before the Covid-19 impact to the economy.
Updated
Well, this doesn’t seem the best option
SA Premier won't rule out privatising 'world-class' coronavirus testing agency https://t.co/lUfa2BstEb
— ABC Adelaide (@abcadelaide) April 16, 2020
Riot police enter Villawood detention centre
Australia’s immigration detention centres have been largely forgotten during this crisis. But detainees remain scared.
AAP has this report:
Riot police have entered western Sydney’s Villawood Immigration Detention Centre to stop a protest by detainees concerned about a Covid-19 outbreak in the facility.
Three detainees in the centre’s Blaxland compound have been holding a rooftop protest since Saturday while others remain on a hunger strike demanding Covid-19 virus testing and the release of detainees, according to the Refugee Action Coalition.
“Other detainees in Blaxland have been locked in their rooms,” the Refugee Action Coalition said in a statement on Thursday.
The riot squad are on the scene with police working with Australian Border Force to control the situation, a NSW Police spokeswoman told AAP.
Updated
Brendan O’Connor says it is “important to note” that today’s unemployment figures are “not a reflection” of the Covid-19 impact, but a “reflection” of what were issues in the economy before the pandemic hit.
With New Zealand looking to slightly wind back its restrictions (mostly to the restrictions Australia has now) and Australia working on its roadmap out of its restrictions (I am a person who now types words like “roadmap” unironically) cartoonist David Squires has taken a look at what normal life might look like:
Updated
Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie says the government needs to set up a hotline for employees at risk of being exploited by employers under the wage subsidy scheme.
That follows a call to her office from an employee who said their employer offered them their job back - but only if they gave the employer $600 of the $1,500 subsidy provided by the government.
The employee quite rightly refused and the employer was no longer willing to file the jobkeeper paperwork with the Australian Tax Office, all the while being quite unpleasant and intimidating throughout the process.
This is unacceptable behaviour. During this time of crisis, when the power imbalance between employee and employer is more marked than ever, vulnerable employees need a dedicated hotline to seek advice about their rights and their responsibilities.
People can contact the Fair Work Ombudsman but there is no dedicated phone line for these unusual employment circumstances.
The government says this is an economic crisis as well as a health crisis, and it certainly is, so Australians need a dedicated hotline that deals solely with the intricacies of the jobkeeper scheme.
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Penny Wong spoke to ABC Adelaide radio this morning, where she was asked about whether or not China should be reopening its wet markets (wet markets is an all-encompassing term for a fresh food market. Australia’s farmers’ markets or fish markets would be considered ‘wet markets’. The issue has been about the (much rarer) markets in some parts of China that sell wildlife, or slaughter onsite).
Host: Should China be reopening its wet markets?
Wong: I think we all can agree that this can’t happen again. And China has to ensure that there are appropriate protections in place, and there is appropriate transparency.
Host: You’re satisfied that they’re there?
Wong:
I don’t think there’s sufficient transparency at the moment. I think that we do need China to ensure it demonstrates to the world that the risks that are associated primarily with wildlife being available in some markets are dealt with.
There should be a ban on that.
I would make the point that I know that the federal government’s been critical of the WHO about this, but I’m not sure that the World Health Organization’s position on these issues was sort of faithfully represented by Scott Morrison.
I think the WHO has been pretty clear about its concerns about wet markets and more importantly, its concerns about trading wildlife.
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As reported yesterday, NSW has joined the states which have expanded testing to anyone with symptoms, as it looks to assure itself community transmission is under control:
The more we test, the more we can control the spread. Thank you to everyone who responded to our call to get tested. Anyone in COVID-19 hotspots & feeling unwell with a fever & cough, should go to a local COVID-19 clinic or their GP for testing. More info: https://t.co/ma3omVTHNF pic.twitter.com/awyFDp7kRg
— Gladys Berejiklian (@GladysB) April 16, 2020
Labor’s First Nation caucus has released this statement, following the first meeting yesterday of its First Nation ministers and shadow ministers to discuss the issues facing Indigenous Australians under the Covid-19 crisis:
Labor First Nations ministers and shadow ministers held an historic first meeting yesterday to discuss issues confronting Indigenous Australians as the nation responds to the Covid-19 pandemic:
Indigenous Australians are particularly vulnerable to serious infection from Covid-19 due to higher rates of chronic illness.
The meeting was hosted by federal Labor’s First Nations Caucus Committee and chaired by senator for the Northern Territory Malarndirri McCarthy.
Some of the key issues identified in the discussion included:
Ensuring food security, particularly for remote communities;
Enforcing strict border controls;
Ensuring public health information is effectively communicated to First Nations communities; and
Personal protective and other medical equipment for Aboriginal community controlled health organisations.
There was strong agreement from the meeting that government and communities remain vigilant and disciplined, with consensus that current controls and restrictions protecting First Nations communities should not be wound back under the current circumstances.
These meetings will coordinate and optimise Labor’s response to the impact of Covid-19 on First Nations people nationally.
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While we are on that data, it is worth taking a look at the underemployment rate as well:
The trend monthly underemployment rate increased 0.1 percentage points to 8.7 per cent in March 2020, and increased by 0.4 percentage points over the past year.
So even before the economic impacts of Covid-19 were felt, underemployment was nearly at 9%.
That’s people who wanted more work, or more hours, but couldn’t get them.
That’s a pretty big issue as the economy continues to contract. Because it shows there was a lot of stress in the labour market *before* the lockdowns, despite the comparatively 5(ish)% unemployment rate (which is still 700,000 people who couldn’t find work).
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Unemployment figures out for early March
The ABS has released the unemployment figures – but they only take in early March, so the figures only show a small uptick – 0.1% – in the unemployment rate, bringing it to 5.2%.
But that is BEFORE the major restrictions shut down entire industries virtually overnight.
That has led to this note from the chief economist, Bruce Hockman:
Today’s data shows some small early impact from Covid-19 on the Australian labour market in early March, but any impact from the major Covid-19 related actions will be evident in the April data.
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Jacinda Ardern says stage three lockdowns mean continuing to act “like you have Covid” and “those around you have Covid” to “keep your bubble safe”.
For those interested, you’ll find more information here.
It looks as though NZ will begin to reduce its restrictions next week but plans on spending quite a bit of time in level three, as it seeks to eliminate the virus entirely from its islands.
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New Zealand is continuing with its elimination strategy.
Jacinda Ardern says the country is working towards returning to a level three lockdown – which means “expanding bubbles” but not opening borders.
It is now in level four, which is pretty much a complete lockdown, but is setting out the conditions for level three, which sounds a lot like what most of Australia is under right now.
More than 60 academics from Auckland University’s School of Population Health have just made an affirmation to @jacindaardern and @AshBloomfield that they back NZ’s current elimination strategy. Here’s the list pic.twitter.com/yIrzcXm4PP
— Jamie Morton (@Jamienzherald) April 16, 2020
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Peter Dutton also tells Ray Hadley that while he “can certainly understand why President Trump has done what he has done” when it comes to cutting the US contributions to the World Health Organization, Australia relies on the WHO to help support the Pacific, and won’t be following suit.
But he says where the WHO’s position is compromised “I think it’s entirely appropriate that we call them out”.
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The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, has been given a clean bill of health by Queensland Health, a month after contracting Covid-19. Which is good to hear.
He was back on Sydney radio 2GB for his weekly chat with Ray Hadley, where he was asked about Malcolm Turnbull’s upcoming book, A Bigger Picture.
Nothing like a former prime minister’s memoir after a leadership coup to cut through a concentrated news cycle.
You can read some takeaways from the book, here, in this report from Katharine Murphy.
Dutton wished Turnbull “all the best in his retirement” and says he is not interested in getting into a “tit-for-tat” (Turnbull is reportedly not overly complimentary about Dutton’s leadership ambitions in his tome, but hey – at least it let the home affairs minister “smile” a bit more with the Australian public.)
“I really am very grateful everyday that Bill Shorten is not the prime minister of this country,” says the man whose inability to count kicked off the whole leadership coup, which ended with Scott Morrison as prime minister.
You can imagine what Hadley, who was never Turnbull’s biggest fan, has to say about the book.
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The government is also establishing 83 mobile testing sites for Indigenous communities.
The sites will be equipped with rapid testing kits, to ensure results are received as quickly as possible for some of Australia’s most vulnerable communities.
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Greg Hunt spoke to Sky News this morning about the national cabinet’s position on schools:
The advice of the medical expert panel, and this is based on evidence from around the world, is that schools are safe for children. There’s very, very little evidence of transfer from student to student amongst school children.
But equally, and this is what national cabinet is considering, to make sure there are the safeguards and, in particular, the confidence for teachers and parents during drop-off. So, the safety of children is very well established and that’s just absolutely paramount.
But we also want to make sure that there are the safeguards and the confidence for the teachers – our amazing heroic teachers, in just the same way that our nurses and our doctors are frontline – we want to make sure that they have the confidence that everything’s being done to protect them.
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It is national cabinet meeting time, so it will be a bit quiet for the next hour or so as the state and territory leaders join that teleconference with their national counterparts.
Because I keep getting messages about this, for any Americans who are still not across it, or for those who have been paying more attention to someone on social media then their lessons on the Australian constitution, the national cabinet is part of the federation, featuring democratically elected leaders.
We have had a version of it for a long, long time. Every time we talk about Coag, the Council of Australian Governments, it’s the same principle – state and territory leaders, discussing funding agreements with the commonwealth. In this case, it is state and territory leaders, discussing funding agreements for a public and economic health crisis, and making sure everyone at least has the same information.
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For those asking, we don’t have the latest Victorian figures yet, because of an IT upgrade.
But Jenny Mikakos says the trend seems to be heading in the right direction.
She says she is “relatively optimistic” that stage four restrictions won’t be necessary. But there will be no change to Victoria’s restrictions over the next month.
That is in line with its stronger message on schools – “if you can learn from home, you must learn from home”.
But, as in other states, schools remain open for parents who cannot keep their children at home.
The states are also working to provide vulnerable students with laptops and sim cards, to help with at-home learning.
In Victoria, 30,000 devices have been loaned out.
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Marise Payne is continuing diplomatic talks to get back home the Australians who are stranded around the world.
Talks with the US have focused on stopovers. Which has been a very important part of the puzzle in the repatriations, given all the border closures.
Wonderful discussion with Australian Foreign Minister @MarisePayne today about productive U.S.-Australia cooperation to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. #Australia has been key to getting #AmericansHome, both from Australia and from around the region. #mateship
— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) April 15, 2020
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Just five* Queenslanders tested positive for Covid-19 yesterday – and the health minister, Steven Miles, says the state has maintained its high level of testing.
That brings Queensland’s cases to 1,001.
(*Three cases from yesterday have been found to not be positive, and have been removed from the previous total.)
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The NSW chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, says the state is moving towards anyone with mild symptoms being eligible for Covid-19 testing.
“We will get to the point where the general population needs to get tested,” she said.
“As I’ve indicated the disease can often be very mild, so I would also like to extend my appreciation for those that have heard the message and actually come forward with often very minimal symptoms that actually helps us with containment and identifying those clusters.”
There are now large areas in Sydney and across regional NSW where testing is available for any symptomatic person.
The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, today urged everyone who interacts people a large number of people as part of their work and are experiencing symptoms to get tested. This appears to be an extension of current guidelines.
“I stress, if you happen to work in any industry where you’re in contact with a lot of people, especially if you’re looking after vulnerable people, please do not hesitate to come forward and get tested, even if you don’t live in those suburbs that you’ve identified.”
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Crown stands down 95% of workforce
The March unemployment figures are due in about an hour.
But the bad news keeps coming – Crown resorts have now stood down the vast majority of its workforce.
As AAP reports:
Crown Resorts has stood down 11,500 of its employees because of the coronavirus restrictions affecting its casinos in Melbourne and Perth, but it still will pay shareholders their interim dividend.
The gaming company said it had made an ex gratia payment of two week’s salary to full-time and part-time workers and given $1,000 to eligible casual workers, while chief executive Ken Barton and other senior managers have taken a 20 per cent temporary pay cut.
Crown said it was in a strong financial position, with about $500 million in cash and the ability to borrow more than $1 billion.
It will pay its interim dividend on Friday.
At 1015 AEDT on Thursday, Crown shares were down 2.4 per cent to $8.06, in line with the broader market.
It is Victorian health minister o’clock.
Jenny Mikakos says Victoria’s preparations to boost its health system capacity are coming along nicely.
World Vision’s acting chief executive, Graham Strong, has also slammed the US decision to defund the World Health Organization, saying the impact to developing nations will be huge:
“This is the worst possible time to cut funding [to WHO] because we don’t know the potential impact of COVID-19 in low-developing and vulnerable communities that don’t have the circumstances for people to socially-distance, or provide adequate health support to their people.
“WHO provides the vital [health cluster] mechanism that is needed to respond to such crises.
“Any cut to funding will limit the humanitarian community providing what is needed on the ground to combat the worst pandemic in a century, COVID-19.
“And bear in mind, WHO isn’t just dealing with COVID-19, but a range of other diseases, such as polio, measles, malaria, Ebola, HIV, TB, malnutrition, cancer, diabetes and mental health, among others.”
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Aged care worker did 'nothing wrong', Gladys Berejiklian says
Gladys Berejiklian, speaking on the Anglicare Newmarch aged care outbreak, which has now seen nine residents and six employees infected, says the staff member who was first diagnosed as being Covid-19 positive did “nothing wrong”.
The woman was not believed to have been displaying symptoms and got tested after learning she had been in contact with someone who was Covid-19.
The NSW premier says the worker is very upset over her inadvertent role and did everything right.
A reminder that the virus continues to impact people in different ways, which is why any lifting of restrictions has to be done carefully and in a controlled way.
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While authorities have been rightly concentrating on public health risks, they are also attempting to keep an eye on mental health, with both federal and individual state packages designed to let people know they are not alone in feeling a particular way – isolation is particularly difficult for people who may have an anxiety disorder, or who are living alone, blocked from the usual social supports that help keep their mental health afloat.
There are services, such as Beyond Blue, which can help.
There is also an online school mental health program available at Open Parachute, for anyone with teens who might need some more guidance.
You can also see your doctor via a teleconference appointment if you don’t want to head into a physical office.
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The ADF is part of the clean-up of the Tasmanian north-west hospitals that have been closed because of Covid-19 cluster.
Two hospitals have been closed, and won’t be reopened until they have been specially decontaminated.
That is still expected to take some time.
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Little bits and pieces of other news are beginning to make their way back into the public consciousness, including the journalist Annika Smethurst’s high court case, which found the warrant used to raid her home was invalid, but was split on what the AFP could do with the materials it seized.
(Paul Karp has covered the case here.)
The Law Council of Australia has responded to the case outcome, rightly pointing out the issues with Australia’s public interest journalism protections:
Pauline Wright:
The Law Council remains concerned about the adequacy of public interest protections where warrants authorise investigative action involving journalists and media organisations, whether they are suspected of having committed an offence or whether they are simply third parties who may be in possession of information.
The law continues to leave journalists and media organisations exposed to possible police investigation and prosecution.
The Law Council believes that any similar case in the future could be avoided through law reform measures to protect and recognise the importance of public interest journalism and to incorporate greater accountability mechanisms. Protections might include contested hearings, the involvement of a Public Interest Advocate to test the warrant process and a requirement that warrants may only be issued by a judge of a superior court of record.
Australia’s media is critical to holding government and its agencies accountable for their actions and scrutinising the exercise of power. Transparency and accountability lead to better decision-making and a stronger democracy that protects rights and freedoms and upholds the rule of law. This case is a reminder of the ongoing vulnerability of public interest journalism within the current legal framework.
We will continue to call for stronger protections to provide an essential balance in the face of the extensive powers Australia has given our law enforcement and security agencies.
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Shares in Virgin Australia have been suspended from trade as the grounded airline desperately seeks a bailout.
The stock went into a trading halt two days ago but has so far been unable to secure a lifeline amid furious political debate over whether it should be rescued by the government.
“Whilst this consideration and these discussions have continued over the last two days including discussions which remain confidential and are incomplete, the company is not presently in a position to make an announcement to the market with respect to these matters,” Virgin Australia told the exchange on Thursday morning.
As Guardian Australia has reported, options under consideration include putting the company into administration.
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Most of these seem legit to me. But I’m not a cop. Just the daughter of one, which means I’ve trotted most of these out whenever I was caught sneaking out of the house.
🦠 Thread: Corona excuses 🦠
— Jamie McKinnell (@jamie86) April 15, 2020
Here are some of the reasons people have tried to give in NSW for being out before being fined $1k:
- Two hour phone conversation on the beach
- Sick of being at home
- went to see a friend for relationship advice
- Went for Maccas
- Killing time
- Wanted to chill out
— Jamie McKinnell (@jamie86) April 15, 2020
- Wanted to hang out
- Buying smokes
- Going swimming without swimming gear
- Bored
- Helping a mate fix a bike
- Sightseeing 120km from home
- Got kicked out of a party
Peter Gutwein says Tasmanian schools will be open after the Easter break but it is the same story – schools are open but at-home learning is available.
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It is Tasmanian premier press conference o’clock.
Peter Gutwein says four more people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the state’s north-west.
He says he has been “shocked” by social media comments criticising north-west health workers, and tells people to cut it out.
That would be the rumour that the north-west outbreak came after health workers attended what Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, described as an “illegal dinner party”.
But Gutwein says there has been no evidence in the contract tracing that any such dinner party occurred and Murphy apologised for passing on the rumour.
The story seems to have become a part of an urban legend and Gutwein has spent a big chunk of last week and this one debunking it.
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Peter Dutton told 2GB last week there is an AFP taskforce which is meant to be looking into attempts to defraud the government’s stimulus payments.
The AFP couldn’t tell us anything about the taskforce, other than it is talking to other agencies, but surely this would be covered?
An employee let go 3 weeks ago was contacted by former employer today offering #JobKeeper but only if she gives them $600 of her payment. She refused, employer no longer willing to file paperwork. We need a hotline for employees pressured to commit such fraud. #auspol
— Rebekha Sharkie MP 💧 (@MakeMayoMatter) April 15, 2020
The corporate regulator says it intervened to stop the corporate bookie Sportsbet offering bets on the stock exchange because of “concerns that the bets constituted a financial product that Sportsbet was not licensed to offer”.
“The product was consequently withdrawn,” the Australian Securities and Investments Commission said this morning.
This appears to conflict with Sportsbet’s previously reported reasons for pulling the bets – a fortnight ago Nine Newspapers said the company blamed a “lack of interest”.
Sportsbet had offered the bets in an attempt to fill the gap left by professional sports being cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Asic said: “Sportsbet identified to ASIC challenges in implementing its control framework in the current environment, with many staff working remotely.” It warned companies that they needed to make sure their compliance frameworks could cope with the crisis.
In other coronavirus business news, Australia’s fifth-biggest bank, Bendigo and Adelaide, withdrew its profit forecast, and the toll road operator Transurban said traffic volumes were down 5% or 6% in the three months to the end of March.
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So the message for schools across the country is mostly the same as it was for the end of term one.
If you are able to keep your kids at home, you can do so. If you can’t, you can send them on-site.
This will be the message until at least the middle of term two.
James Merlino echoes Daniel Andrews from yesterday, that the schools are safe – which is why they are all open – but that having 1 million students return to school, including having their parents gathering outside schools for drop off and pick up, goes against the Victorian health advice.
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Victoria’s education minister, James Merlino, says school attendance at government schools was 3% yesterday, which was the first day of term two.
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On schools, here is what we know so far:
NSW schools are open for essential workers and parents with no choice, with distance education/virtual learning the main go, at least for the first few weeks of term two, with a return to on-site learning to be discussed.
Queensland schools are open but pupil-free until at least 22 May, when the state will reassess.
Northern Territory schools remain open, with virtual learning on offer for those who wish for it.
Victorian schools are open but pupil-free – at-home learning is preferred. This is likely to be the case until term three.
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NSW lays out return-to-school plan
Gladys Berejiklian has given a small hint about NSW’s school plans.
The national cabinet (Coag with a fancy name) will talk about how to return school attendance to normal when it meets today.
Queensland has laid out a distance learning/on-site for essential workers plan until at least 22 May (the first five weeks of term two).
Berejiklian says NSW schools will look the same for the first few weeks of term two, but she is working towards a normal term three.
We envision the school term will be exactly the same as what the end of term one was like, however from week three of term two, there will be more face-to-face contact for students.
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More indications of how long this is going to roll on: more than 600,000 Australians have registered to withdraw money from their superannuation funds.
If you don’t think that is going to have a roll-on effect when people go to retire, you haven’t been paying attention.
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The ABS should be delivering the March unemployment numbers today.
We know they are not going to be good. We all saw the queues outside Centrelink offices. That was only a month ago and there are still people struggling with the system.
The ABS counts anyone who works an hour a week as “employed”. Keep an eye on the underemployment numbers, which were already not great before coronavirus hit. That is where some of the real pain will be felt – people just not able to get enough hours.
As this rolls on and the economy contracts, you’ll also see people give up on trying to find work – those who just fall off the grid.
This is the first page in what is going to be a very, very difficult chapter in Australia’s economic history.
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Everyone is coping with the restrictions and isolation life in their own way, and you’ll find no judgment here.
But for anyone who may have found themselves reaching into their pantry a little more than usual, the Conversation has an article on the comforts of comfort foods that you might find interesting.
But seriously – whatever gets you through. You do you, boo.
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The states are also beginning to roll out the next stage of their own stimulus packages: infrastructure.
Gladys Berejiklian says NSW will be bringing forward regional infrastructure projects. Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced a contract for M1 work and Daniel Andrews has made some level crossing announcements.
Looking at the IMF analysis, as well as the Treasury modelling, there is going to have to be a lot of things built over quite a long period of time as well as ongoing stimulus from the federal government to keep the Australian economy afloat.
Which is also going to mean there will be no “snap back”. Particularly for the most vulnerable Australians, who previously were forced to live on $40 a day.
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Gladys Berejiklian (must be close to 8am, I only tell time by daily press conferences and phone battery percentage these days) says just 11 New South Wales residents tested positive for Covid-19 overnight.
That comes as testing rates went back to 3,000, which is the good news – transmission rates aren’t increasing even with wider testing.
Five of the new cases came from the Anglicare Newmarch aged care home, where a worker tested positive. That brings that cluster to 15, including nine residents.
Nineteen people are still on ventilators in NSW and 26 people are receiving intensive care.
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The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi says while some of the states have come to the table with some positive steps for residential tenants, the piecemeal approach is not in the best interest of those renting. The Greens want the federal government to step up:
Measures across the board are still skewed towards landlords and leave renters behind. Leaving negotiation up to individual landlords and their tenants makes the most vulnerable tenants open to exploitation at a time when they need security and certainty.
This power imbalance between landlords and tenants will further entrench inequality post-pandemic. This is the time to ensure a better deal for renters and the dignity of a secure home for everyone.
Renters need confidence that if they ask for a rent-free period or for rent reductions now, they won’t be faced with rental hikes or a big debt to pay later when the pandemic is over. We need a nationwide rent freeze so no one is left behind now or later.
The federal government has really failed here. They must immediately step up. We need an increase and expansion of Commonwealth Rent Assistance payments. The government needs to bring big banks to the table, and direct them to provide mortgage relief, with no interest accrual, a ban on foreclosures and a freeze on owners’ credit ratings.
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A group of Australian professors have come together to protest against the US decision to defund the World Health Organization.
This is part of the letter the group have written:
The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is a huge threat to public health. This is predominantly because the virus knows no geographic or political boundaries, its mode and rapidity of spread is being investigated in real time during the epidemic, and this poses completely new challenges to health systems. Governments are implementing control measures at different stages and attempting as best they can to communicate the risks of transmission, even though these messages (and the underpinning evidence) changes from week to week.
In this context, it is particularly distressing that the USA has abruptly ceased their funding to the World Health Organization (WHO). It is true that the USA is the leading contributor to WHO, but to remove this funding suddenly and in the middle of a pandemic seems rather callous and introspective. This seems to have been a random decision on the part of the US government, with no thought for its global consequences.
If we don’t work together in addressing Covid-19 its impact will be much greater and longer-lasting, resulting in sustained morbidity and mortality, prolonged economic recession, and a breakdown of trust and communication among nations. This single action by the US government will have dire consequences and must be reversed.
Updated
Good morning
With Australia still in the suppression stage and looking at how it will begin to lift physical distancing restrictions, our view has turned to the rest of the world.
Scott Morrison has pointed to what is happening in parts of Europe and the US as an example of how the virus could have spread without the restrictions.
Australia’s two main political parties have also said they won’t be following the Donald Trump to halt funding to the World Health Organization.
The former prime minister Kevin Rudd had a few things to say about the Trump reaction, which he called a “lunatic decision” in an op ed in the Economist.
Rudd, who is part of a group of former global leaders who make suggestions on how the world could be run, says Germany, France, Britain and Canada should come together to defend institutions such as the WHO.
As AAP reports:
[Rudd] suggested the bloc of countries, which could also include Singapore and the European Union, be dubbed the M7 and “become the thin blue line that, for the interim at least, protects us against an increasingly anarchic world”.
Rudd did not include Australia.
“They could start by issuing an immediate joint statement that together they will now fill the funding gap left by the lunatic decision by Mr Trump to axe America’s financial contributions to the WHO,” Rudd wrote.
The M7, “given that Sino-American relations are beyond the control of any of us,” would form a core group of constructive powers to reform, fund and politically defend WHO, the World Food Program, the Food and Agricultural Organisation, UN High Commissioner for Refugees and WTO, he said.
Meanwhile, schools will be on Australia’s national cabinet agenda once again as the Morrison government attempts to convince the states to start planning for full on-site attendance. That is not a change in position – that is what Morrison has always wanted. He just lost the battle with the states the first time round. Let’s see what happens now that he can point to the curve actually flattening.
We’ll have that, and everything else that happens today. You have Amy Remeikis with you for most of the day. Ready? Let’s get into it.
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