What we learned on 27 May:
And that’s where we will leave it for tonight. You can keep up to date with everything happening around the world with our global live blog. Here’s a quick rundown on everything that happened today:
- A 30-year-old Queensland man died of Covid-19, the youngest person to die of the virus in Australia. The state’s premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said the coroner would investigate the death. The man had been displaying Covid-19 symptoms in the week leading up to his death, but had many other health complications. Australia’s deputy chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, said the case “shows that there is community transmission of some sort”.
- The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, announced a 12-month wage freeze for public servants in line with decisions made in other jurisdictions. She said the freeze was “about saving livelihoods, saving jobs and saving lives”.
- The Western Australia premier, Mark McGowan, called for better state-federal communication after six Covid-19 cases were confirmed among the crew of a ship which docked at Fremantle. McGowan admitted there were “errors made all around”.
- Cedar Meats, the Melbourne abattoir at the centre of a Covid-19 cluster, will restart operations, including processing, on Thursday. About 300 staff are expected to return to work.
- During an interview on the ABC, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, refused to guarantee workers would be better off as a result of the so-called Accord 2.0, saying that was what he “wanted” to see.
- After a two-year investigation, the AFP announced it will not lay charges against the News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst.
- The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, said people would continue working from home “for all of June” after the state recorded eight new cases of Covid-19.
Updated
The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, with his daily Covid-19 dashboard. There are currently 12 active cases of the virus in WA.
This is our WA COVID-19 update for Wednesday, 27 May 2020.
— Mark McGowan (@MarkMcGowanMP) May 27, 2020
For official information on COVID-19 in WA, visit https://t.co/rf5avDmtmZhttps://t.co/p7ro095PGe pic.twitter.com/wnwJPjfXAO
Updated
Good evening and welcome to the Guardian’s live blog after dark (it is not called that. Sorry. That is not a thing).
A little earlier the South Australian premier, Steven Marshall, defended a decision by health officials in the state to allow a British woman into South Australia to visit a dying relative after she later contracted Covid-19.
The woman was one of 22 people given exemptions to travel into the state in the past two months, despite its border closure. Marshall said on Wednesday that she had quarantined after arriving in Australia, and had tested negative while in isolation.
She then travelled from Victoria to SA, but returned a positive swab soon after flying into Adelaide on the weekend and has now been returned to quarantine.
Marshall defended the decision to allow her into the state, saying authorities have “got to have a heart”.
Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said the woman was among 22 people from overseas given exemptions to come to SA on compassionate grounds.
About half of those were to attend funerals and the rest to visit a close dying relative.
Spurrier said in any situation there was some risk, and her team would now review its processes.
“I think this is very consistent with what we’ve done over the past two and a half months,” she said.
“We haven’t had a problem (until now), though we’ve now found we have a case.
Updated
Thanks for your company and correspondence this afternoon, I’m handing you over to the estimable Michael McGowan. You’re in good hands, make sure you wash yours.
The bushfire royal commission this afternoon heard of two missions to endangered species from bushfires – the Wollemi pines in NSW and the “brown and drab” and “quite secretive” eastern bristlebird in far eastern Victoria, near Mallacoota.
The Guardian has previously reported on the mission to save the critically endangered (and secret) Wollemi pine population in the Blue Mountains from the Gospers Mountain megafire this summer.
The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service director, David Crust, said the operation – which involved winching people in to hand operate an irrigation system around the ancient trees and two days of water-bombing along the cliffs edge – prevented the fire from getting into the canopy of the mature pines, although some juvenile pines appear to have been lost.
“If the canopy had burned the results would have been catastrophic,” he said.
Crust said it would take five years to see the full impact of the fire on the mortality rates of the pines.
In Victoria, the royal commission heard, a team of 11 scientists and zoologists from Melbourne Zoo flew in to Mallacoota in January to catch an insurance population of 15 endangered eastern bristlebirds, whose only population in Victoria is just on the other side of Lake Barracoota. There are only 2,400 eastern bristlebirds in the wild and about 140 in the Howes Flat population near Mallacoota.
They caught the birds, described by the ecologist Dr Rohan Clarke as ground-dwelling weak flyers that were “relatively cryptic” animals with a “loud and distinctive metallic call” using mist nets and bluetooth speakers.
One speaker would be set up to play the eastern bristlebird’s call and then, when it sounded as if the real birds had approached the speaker, the sound would be remotely switched to a second speaker, which would draw the birds into the path of the fine cotton net.
The fire stopped on the edge of the Howes Flat habitat, but another bristlebird population a short distance away, crossing the border with NSW, appears to have been destroyed.
Updated
An Australian trial of two experimental drugs to treat Covid-19 is under review after the World Health Organization halted all its trials involving hydroxychloroquine due to concerns about its efficacy and safety.
A final epistle from Josh Taylor at the bushfire Senate committee hearing ...
The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet faced questions at the Senate committee hearing on the 2019-20 bushfires over whether the prime minister, Scott Morrison, had been adequately briefed about the bushfires during the fire season last year.
PM&C hadn’t provided verbal or written briefings to him while he was in Hawaii from 15 to 21 December (he cut his trip short by two days), but that doesn’t rule out the possibility that PMO was updating the PM on the situation.
The department secretary, Phil Gaetjens, told the committee that the PM was in Australia when the fires in Victoria, NSW and South Australia flared up in late November, and back when the state of emergency declarations were made in four states on 30 December, so it was incorrect to say he was absent during the crisis.
“I don’t think it’s a correct interpretation to say that the prime minister was not here in the crisis,” he said.
Gaetjens himself was on leave for half of December, he told the committee.
The department confirmed that before Morrison left on holidays in Hawaii he was “very well informed” about the bushfire situation via a series of teleconference meetings with the head of Emergency Management Australia and others in November.
“It seems to me that what you were telling us is that he would have had considerable knowledge about how extreme the crisis was and what was unfolding, yet he still decided to go off on holidays,” the Greens senator Janet Rice replied.
Updated
And if you haven’t seen this already, you should really check out the 750kg kookaburra sculpture created by a Townsville man during lockdown.
Dr Farvardin Daliri, an academic and artist, unveiled the huge bird this week on the streets of Brisbane, and will soon take it north to the Townsville cultural festival.
While we can only endorse the creative and community-minded use of time in lockdown, the laugh does sound slightly maniacal.
Updated
Covid commission chair Nev Power to face Senate committee
Nev Power, the chairman of the government’s coronavirus commission is to be questioned by a Senate committee next Wednesday.
The National Covid-19 Coordination Commission is tasked with looking into options to recover from the coronavirus-induced economic meltdown and has so far said gas is the way to go.
It’ll be a chance for senators to ask Power, a former chief executive of mining company Fortescue Metals, about his conflict as interest as the deputy chairman of WA gas field developer Strike Energy.
As Guardian Australia reported on Saturday, Power has “stepped back” from his Strike role and won’t be attending board meetings.
The manufacturing taskforce advising the commission has been particularly enthusiastic about gas, proposing in a secret report revealed by Guardian Australia that the government underwrite a massive expansion of the domestic gas industry, including by helping open new fields and building hundreds of kilometres of pipelines.
Updated
The plan for a ‘trans-Tasman bubble’ to allow Australians and New Zealanders to travel between the two countries could be presented to both governments as early as next week, and could be operational by September, the expert working group behind the proposal has said.
Updated
300 staff to resume work at Cedar Meats tomorrow
Cedar Meats, the Melbourne abattoir at the centre of a Covid-19 cluster, will restart operations, including processing, on Thursday. About 300 staff are expected to return to work.
Staff who have been medically cleared to start work attended a return to work information session at Cedar Meats’ Brooklyn site today.
“Our aim is to provide a safe and healthy environment as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The control measures will be regularly updated to reflect changes resulting from government announcements, directions of the Victorian chief health officer and best practices for the sector,” the general manager, Tony Kairouz, said.
Cedar Meats was at the centre of Victoria’s largest Covid-19 cluster, with more than 100 cases traced to it.
Updated
From the Senate committee on the bushfires (and my indefatigable colleague Josh Taylor).
The federal government yesterday claimed around $1bn of the $2bn bushfire recovery fund had been spent so far.
But the Labor senator Murray Watt said only around $529m of that money had actually been spent by the government, with another $471m that had been spent by the states and territories and was in the process of being reimbursed by the federal government.
Watt also raised questions about whether the money had been spent by the agencies in the community, in terms of clearing debris or on mental health counsellors or the other projects the funding was allocated for.
The national bushfire recovery coordinator, Andrew Colvin, said the $1bn was either spent or in the process of being spent.
“That is money that has already been dispensed or dispersed to the organisations that needed it,” Colvin told the committee.
From the commonwealth point of view, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary, Phil Gaetjens, told the committee that once it was out of federal government hands it was deemed spent.
“I think if money is spent from the commonwealth, cash has gone out of the commonwealth system,” he said.
Updated
Paul Kelly on the ‘six sick sailors on board the sheep ship’ – those crew on board the Al-Kuwait which docked in Fremantle.
The six sailors ... are not severely unwell, they are in hotel quarantine, safely for them, safely for the public of WA and the other sailors onboard are being monitored for their own health.
Updated
Kelly has more information regarding the death of a 30-year-old Queensland man who tested positive for Covid-19 after his death.
The man was found unresponsive yesterday afternoon at his home in the small western Queensland town of Blackwater, and could not be revived. He had been displaying Covid-19 symptoms in the week leading up to his death, but he had several other significant health complications. He had had “respiratory illness” for three weeks before his death, Kelly said.
A post-mortem Covid-19 test returned positive.
The man had not travelled overseas, or left Blackwater since February. He had spent most of the last few weeks at home.
There had been no other recorded cases of Covid in Blackwater prior to the man’s death.
Kelly:
This is a terrible tragedy and my condolences go to his wife and other family and friends. It is by far our youngest death so far from Covid-19 and it is a reminder firstly that this is a serious illness and whilst it does affect ... older people and people with chronic illness, it can affect anyone and it can affect people severely.
Kelly said he could not comment in detail on the case, because it was now before a coroner, but that he was concerned by the fact there is no clear chain of transmission to the man’s case of Covid-19.
Yes, that in itself is a concern because it shows that there is community transmission of some sort. [It is] unusual that we haven’t had many people in rural areas in any state and so at this point in the pandemic it is a concern. I understand that he had been sick for some weeks and I guess he hadn’t assumed that it was Covid-19.
Updated
Kelly has urged Australians to get their flu shots.
There has been little influenza this year (aided by improved hygiene practices and social distancing measures), but the deputy chief health officer says vaccines will be vital to keep pressure off public health systems.
There are 18m vaccines available in Australia this flu season (up from 13m last year).
Already this year, 7.3m people have had a flu shot, up from 4.5m all of last year.
Updated
Deputy chief medical officer gives Covid-19 update
Paul Kelly (the deputy chief health officer, not the singer-songwriter, nor the former Brownlow medallist) is on his feet in Canberra, providing an update.
There have been 11 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Australia in the past 24 hours. There has been one more death, in Queensland, bringing the nation’s death toll to 103.
There remain fewer than 500 active cases in Australia, with 30 people in hospital, six of them in intensive care, and just three on ventilators.
Kelly:
We are continuing to do a lot of testing ... over 1.3 million tests in Australia since the beginning of this pandemic and 35,000 tests in the last 24 hours. The positivity rate remains extremely low and this is a good sign that we are picking up cases if they are indeed there.
Updated
Apologies for the brief interruption in transmission there, dear reader. I had my head in another story. Standby for it. Ben Doherty here with you for the afternoon.
A global update from my colleague Helen Sullivan. The news internationally continues to be grim: the total known deaths from Covid-19 around the world has passed 350,000.
Updated
And with that, I will leave you in the very capable hands of Ben Doherty.
He’ll take you through Prof Paul Kelly’s update – hopefully there will be a little more information on the Queensland case, where authorities are still trying to find out how an unwell man who had not left Blackwater in months contracted Covid-19 in a town which had no recorded cases.
At 30, he became Australia’s 103rd death, and the youngest the nation has recorded.
I’ll be back tomorrow – take care of you.
Updated
WA Health authorities will go on board the ship to test the rest of the crew.
Any crew member needing treatment will, of course, receive it.
WA is also upping its allowable elective surgeries to 75% – but hospitals will contact patients to let them know if they are on the list.
WA premier urges better state-federal communication after Al-Kuwait ship cases
The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, is addressing the Al-Kuwait ship issue. He says he was not given the full picture of the situation yesterday and needs to address some matters:
An email was sent from the federal Department of Agriculture to the public health emergency operations centre informing them of three ill crew members with elevated temperatures.
It is important to note here that the same email said there were no concerns for Covid-19 on the ship. There was also no request for assistance at that time.
That email had also been sent after the federal department had already granted approval for the ship to berth in Fremantle. I think this raises some issues that need to be addressed.
This morning I contacted minister Littleproud to discuss the issue and the need to improve communications between all parties.
There have clearly been some errors made all round. We can and must do better and we will. I am disappointed that the email from the federal department on Friday did not raise red flags inside the department of health.
In these times, it plainly should have.
I also think we need to have better and more comprehensive communications with the commonwealth than just an email.
Any report of crew passengers on board ships or aircraft entering this state with Covid-like symptoms must be given the attention it deserves.
We all know that the greatest risk to Western Australia at the moment is from people entering our state from overseas or from interstate.
We have to be more vigilant.
If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is this: we cannot let our guard down when it comes to this virus.
I don’t want our success in controlling the rate of infection to make anyone complacent across Western Australia. If anything, I hope this serves as a wake-up call to everyone. We are not out of this yet.
Updated
Paul Karp has everything you need to know about the AFP decision regarding the (ridiculous) Annika Smethurst investigation.
The AFP won’t be apologising. It also has not concluded its investigation into two ABC journalists who were also raided after publishing an investigation in the public interest.
AFP rules out charges against News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst (or anyone else ie her suspected source) #auspol #auslaw https://t.co/wz0g42uA9t
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) May 27, 2020
The opposition trade spokeswoman and Perth MP Madeleine King has lashed the agriculture minister, David Littleproud, and the Australian Border Force over actions related to the Al Kuwait live-export ship docked in Fremantle which carried six workers that have tested positive to Covid-19.
King was responding to comments from Littleproud defending the response of the Department of Agriculture. He released an email showing the department had sent an email to WA Health on Friday of sick crew members.
However, King has accused the Department of Agriculture of sending the “pretty breezy” email to a “generic” email address of WA Health hours before the scheduled docking, and said the worker should have phoned the information to make sure it had been received.
The WA state government claims to have only learned of the sick crew members by word of mouth days later. All crew remain on board the vessel at Fremantle, except for the six positive workers who were taken to a hotel for quarantine on Tuesday.
King told The West Australian’s online radio show:
How the minister can sort of handball off responsibility, Mr Littleproud, just beggars belief. And it might not be his department’s responsibility at the final call but it is border force’s responsibility and it looks to me from the documents I’ve seen that the only department that didn’t go on board the ship at some point is Australia’s border force. So what are they doing? Their job is in the name, right. Where are they? They are absent.
I take the minister’s point and I’ve heard his interviews on various platforms, and when he said the agriculture department aren’t medical doctors. Sure, I get that, no one expects them to be. But ministers and departments can talk to one another and talk to one another a bit better than what was, on the face of it, a pretty breezy email to a generic email account.
How you can send an email to a generic email address four hours before a ship is meant to dock in Fremantle, a large population centre, and expect it all to quickly happen over here in four hours. I mean that’s a bit unbelievable as well. Again, I just don’t know where Australia’s border force is in all of this ... There’ll be a few allegations thrown around about who got an email and who didn’t, but for God’s sake can someone please pick up the phone and let someone know when they think there’s a problem.”
The ABF released a brief statement on Wednesday, saying that the group “completed all customs and immigration related clearances”, and deferred further questions to the WA Health department.
Updated
South Australia will be moving into its stage two of restrictions relaxation on 1 June, but the fitness industry, which had been hoping for a reopening, is not entirely happy.
The 20 people, 1.5 metres apart limit means gym classes are restricted to 10 people, so for those who have a F45 gym or something similar, the relaxation isn’t exactly a return to normal.
To adhere to the limits, people will have to book in for training.
Just a reminder that things are not ‘returning to normal’ even if some parts of normal life look like resuming.
Updated
Things are not looking rosy for the Australian National University. It has published a series of questions and answers detailing the challenges it faces with a $100m shortfall:
How long do we expect to be in this financial position?
There are a number of factors that contribute to our financial position that are outside our control. These include international travel restrictions, government policy and funding, and demand for higher education around the world.
These challenging financial circumstances are expected to last for at least the next two years. The impact on ANU was slightly cushioned by the progress we have made to achieve a truly diverse student cohort and we are continuing with that work.
When will everything return to normal?
We don’t expect to ever return to business as usual pre-Covid, but the founding principles of ANU and our community spirit remain. We will continue to adapt, and we must be willing to be both innovative and measured in this uncertain time.
Does this mean there will be job losses?
Staffing is our biggest expense. As per the vice-chancellor’s message, we will do everything we can to explore voluntary, rather than involuntary measures, and we are absolutely committed to ensuring ANU continues to deliver its mission and is prepared for the years ahead.
The vice-chancellor, college deans and portfolio heads will need to make resourcing decisions that reflect the nature of our financial position and our ability to continue to deliver world-class research, education and evidence-based public policy outcomes.
To ensure the university operates efficiently and effectively, it regularly reviews all its operations and colleges and portfolios will continue to do so as part of this process.
Updated
My guest tonight is the Attorney General Christian Porter #abc730
— Leigh Sales (@leighsales) May 27, 2020
While Australia is looking to reopen and legal cases are being threatened in a bid to force state borders to reopen, it is worth looking to South Korea, which was one of the nations pointed to, repeatedly, as handling the Covid crisis well.
It has had its biggest spike in new cases – 40 – in 49 days. Schools in the Republic of Korea go back today as well.
It’s a reminder that until there is a vaccine, we won’t get a handle on this virus.
Updated
AAP also has an update on measures to help Crown Resorts staff:
The 11,500 workers stood down at Crown Resorts amid the coronavirus pandemic will have access to a hardship fund supported by their union.
The gaming company on Wednesday said workers in financial hardship would be able to apply for discretionary funds from Friday.
Crown Resorts cut 95% of its workforce after coronavirus restrictions were put in place across Australia.
The United Workers Union’s national secretary, Tim Kennedy, said these are the type of initiatives needed from big employers to support staff during this crisis.
The hardship fund comes after Crown had already implemented other measures such as a two-week special payment and $1,000 for casuals.
“We have deep gratitude to our employees for their understanding and commitment during this uncertain time,” Crown’s chief executive officer, Ken Barton, said.
Updated
At one point in his evidence, Mullins was asked by the One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts to provide links to papers, not just SBS, ABC and the Guardian, proving an “empirical” link between climate change and the bushfires.
Mullins asked whether he had to respond to Roberts’ assertions, and said he had read Roberts’ website and found it “concerning and muddled”.
“I don’t think there would be any purpose in me trying to convince you ... on the settled science and it is settled. I am at a loss to know how to deal with your assertion. It was not a question.”
He said he was retired and didn’t have time to “deal with denialists who don’t accept settled science”.
Updated
The former NSW fire chief Greg Mullins, who now is part of a group of former firies concerned about climate change, has appeared before the first hearing of the Senate committee examining Australia’s bushfire season over the new year.
Mullins recounted how he and other former emergency service chiefs were unable to get a meeting with the prime minister last year about concern about the pending fire season.
He says the request they made included funding for aircraft, and better access to the Australian Defence Force to assist in fires (as eventually happened).
Eventually he got a meeting with the disaster management minister, David Littleproud, and the emissions reduction minister, Angus Taylor, in early December, but he said at that point it was too late.
He said based on the prepared lines Littleproud and Scott Morrison put out after the event, it appeared little more than a “tick the box” meeting.
He said it would have made a difference if he’d been able to get a meeting well before December.
“I think it would have made a material difference had we been listened to earlier.”
Mullins also said he was prompted to speak out because when he was a fire chief, he said he was often spoken to by senior officials and politicians against speaking about climate change. He said the current fire chiefs are “gagged” by the view that public servants should not speak about politically contentious issues.
“I was spoken to by my minister at the time and some officials at the time, I was told it was not my job and just stick to fighting fires,” he said.
“I’ve had a number of discussions and it’s clear. It depends on what party is in power in which state and territory.
“Generally they’re told to steer away from policy issues that are contentious.”
Mullins said it was “rubbish” to say that a reduction in hazard reduction was the fault of “greenies” or national parks, because the window to do hazard reduction had been reduced in the past few years. In NSW in particular, hazard reduction was done by volunteers, who can usually only do weekends, meaning finding a suitable weekend was even harder.
Updated
AAP has an update on the Victorian courts:
Victorian courts are looking for a way to bring back jury trials, postponed because of coronavirus.
Criminal trials in the supreme and county courts have been cancelled because of Covid-19, but work is under way to bring them back.
“That planning includes making sure they can accommodate physical distancing requirements and have spaces in which jurors, in particular, feel safe and comfortable,” a supreme court spokeswoman told AAP on Wednesday.
The courts are consulting with lawyers about the arrangements.
The state government has passed legislation allowing criminal trials to be heard by a judge alone, but that requires the agreement of judges, prosecutors and the accused.
The supreme court justice Paul Coghlan flagged earlier this month that jury trials could resume as early as August.
During a bail application for Biannca Edmunds, who is charged with murder and due to stand trial in early August, he admitted “it won’t be easy” but said there’s no reason it couldn’t go ahead.
He said juries could be used while maintaining social distancing, but noted that might not even be required by August.
The county court has previously said September would be the earliest it would schedule trials to resume.
Updated
The public sector union has demanded the Australian Taxation Office reconsider new plans to close one of its offices in Geelong.
It is understood 121 people work at the site and it is likely there would be significant job losses if the closure goes ahead.
Beth Vincent-Pietsch, the CPSU’s deputy national secretary, said: “The CPSU is calling on the government to reconsider the closure of the Geelong ATO office.
“Now is not the time to be cutting jobs from anywhere, but regional centres in particular. The ATO needs all staff on deck to assist with the recovery from the economic impact of Covid-19.”
Staff were today told the ATO intends to close the site due to decreasing staff numbers over several years.
The site lease is due to expire June 2021, although no closure date has been announced and the ATO maintains it has not formally decided to close the office.
Staff have been told their positions will be considered on a case-by-case basis but there would be no ATO jobs available in Geelong.
Employees could apply to move to another ATO office, or apply for a transfer to another APS position.
But Vincent-Pietsch said the ATO should consider remote work opportunities if the closure was “about saving on lease arrangements”.
The ATO was approached for comment.
Updated
Spare a thought for the partner of the 30-year-old man who was found to have Covid-19 after he had died – they have been placed into isolation at the Rockhampton hospital as they are showing symptoms of the virus as well – which means they cannot receive any physical comfort from their loved ones over their loss.
Updated
Christian Porter says it is “too early” to say whether there are communication breakdowns between federal and state agencies after the Al Kuwait:
I think it’s a little bit too early to assess that. I think there are known protocols here. At the federal level, particularly inside the Department of Agriculture, we do not do medical assessments of crew. We have a responsibility when we become aware to notify state authorities there may be an issue in respect to the health of crew, that’s what we did. There may have been some views put yesterday that didn’t happen, but it did happen. The federal authorities notified their state counterparts, just as they should do, just as the process should work. I’m not quite sure why it was the case a statement was made that it didn’t happen because it did happen.
Updated
Christian Porter is addressing the media now, including about the Al Kuwait:
Australian Border Force insisted yesterday it didn’t know about health issues onboard the Al Kuwait on Friday, the day the ship docked. Now ABF has admitted it was told on Friday pic.twitter.com/BmyBD3djJZ
— Jacob Kagi (@kagij) May 27, 2020
This carries the risk of becoming a massive problem:
Breaking: a staff member at Rydges on Swanston has tested positive to Covid19 - where returned international travellers are staying.
— Laurel Irving (@laurelirving7) May 27, 2020
Updated
The bushfire royal commission is looking at the impact of fires on threatened species today.
It heard that 377 of Australia’s 1,800 nationally listed threatened species and ecological communities had an overlap of at least 10% of their range with areas affected by bushfire, and 49 species or communities lost more than 80% of their known range.
Threatened species commissioner Dr Sally Box said the “entire range of some species was burned”.
To figure out the impact on threatened species, Box said, the federal environment department had to cobble together a national indicative aggregate fire extent dataset, using information that was either publicly available or made available by states and territories. Some of that data is known to be of “low accuracy”, she said, because different jurisdictions use different mapping methods.
Box also said that advice to state governments on bushfire preparedness, like the impact that hazard reduction burning may have on a threatened species, comes from documents including recovery plans.
You may recall that in 2018, Guardian Australia’s environment reporter Lisa Cox revealed that less than 40% of nationally listed threatened species in Australia actually had a recovery plan in place, and many are out of date.
Box said that while an expert panel had been established to examine the specific impact on threatened species of the 2019-2020 bushfire season:
In terms of preparedness, I think that the main advice for species in terms of what are the threats and what are the activities that are required to manage those threats, that advice really sits in recovery plans and … formal documents.”
Earlier, the first assistant secretary for biodiversity and conservation in the federal environment department, Emma Campbell, said that threatened species recovery plans were a “key document” for determining fire management, although she noted that “some of them are relatively out of date”.
Updated
The AFP will be addressing media at 1.30pm – they’ve advised it will be to “discuss the finalisation of the investigation involving News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst” and that “no charges will be laid”.
However – the AFP have not yet confirmed whether this means ONLY that no charges will be laid against Smethurst; or whether they are ALSO ruling out charges against her suspected source of leaked material revealing plans to extend ASD’s spying powers.
The announcement also does not relate to the separate investigation into the ABC’s reporting of the Afghan Files.
Updated
There will be a national Covid update today (they are no longer daily) happening at 3.30pm with deputy chief medical officer, Professor Paul Kelly
AFP won't lay charges against News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst
This really should never have reached anywhere near this stage
#BREAKING The AFP will not lay any charges against News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst, after the investigation into leaked classified documents she used in an article @abcnews @politicsabc #auspol
— Matthew Doran (@MattDoran91) May 27, 2020
It’s the only acceptable decision - but press freedom in this country has taken more than a few hits and really needs addressing.
Updated
As Calla Wahlquist continues to cover the busfire commission
#BushfireRC day three is focusing on the impact on threatened species.
— Calla Wahlquist (@callapilla) May 26, 2020
The first witness is Emma Campbell, the head of the biodiversity conservation division of the federal department of agriculture, water and environment.
As always you can watch here: https://t.co/HF62t961YN
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences has released its Stocktake of Fire in Australia’s forests, 2011 to 2016. (So it doesn’t include the 2019/20 climate fires)
Principal forest scientist Dr Steve Read said fires were getting more intense, and more frequent:
The fire regime, that is, the frequency, intensity, seasonality and spatial pattern of fire, determines both the short-term and the long-term impacts of fire on forests.
There is a distinct north-south divide in the fire regime experienced by Australia’s forests.
Unplanned fires in forest in northern Australia are more frequent and occur over greater areas. Planned fire in northern Australia is also extensive, and generally of lower intensity and earlier in the dry season than unplanned fire.
Unplanned fires in forests in southern Australia are less frequent than in northern Australia, but can be much more intense when they occur, and in some years (such as 2019–20) cover large areas. Planned fire in southern Australia generally occurs in small, discrete areas.
There are different environmental and social impacts resulting from fires in forests in northern and southern Australia, and different management challenges.”
Updated
The Jobmaker plan at this stage, is to develop a plan:
Our JobMaker plan is ambitious because it has to be. We’re going to get Australians back into jobs and restore the country’s finances. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again, together. https://t.co/syGKyVA1qi
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) May 27, 2020
It is worth pointing out that the Queensland Labor government put a freeze on public servant wages a little over a month ago (which included health and education workers)
The Premier has just confirmed a public sector wage cut - what a way to thank the heroes who risked their lives & served society during COVID-19. Why is she still spending $1.5 billion to move the Powerhouse? Why an $87,000 pay rise for the Police Commissioner at the same time?
— Jodi McKay (@JodiMcKayMP) May 27, 2020
Stephen Jones reports the latest APRA report looking at the quarterly performance of regulated super funds shows funds were hit with a -3.3% loss n the first quarter of the year – the worst quarter on record.
This is a double whammy for the 1.4 million workers who withdrew their money at the bottom of the market under the government’s early access scheme.
For most super fund members the March quarter drop is a only paper loss.
Superannuation is a long term investment so over time, funds can be expected to recover before most members access their accounts.
Tragically this won’t be the case for the 1.4 million workers who instead of receiving timely government support resorted to accessing their retirement nest egg. For these workers who withdrew their money at the bottom of the market the loss was crystallised the moment they withdrew funds from their account under the Government’s early access scheme.
The hardest hit were young people.
Updated
Gladys Berejiklian:
As a state, we cannot continue to lose thousands of workers every month. We cannot continue to have households living under the fear – not just of being able to pay their bill, but whether they keep their family home.
And unfortunately, that’s the conversation being had in too many households across the state.
And that’s why, as a government, it’s up to us to demonstrate leadership.
To bring everybody together, and to make decisions that we think are in the best interests of the community. And that’s why today, the treasurer and I are announcing that over the next 12 months, there will be no pay increases for people who work in the public service.
There are 410,000 employees in the New South Wales public service, of which the Treasurer and I are, too.
And none of us, nobody, will be getting a pay rise from this period onwards for the next 12 months as agreements come up.
Now, the reason for this is that every spare dollar we have and every dollar we don’t have, we need to spend in health and also in jobs and job security.
That is the priority. Keeping people in jobs who are in jobs at the moment. And we’re also today, giving this announcement, and giving an assurance to every single public servant that during the course of this 12 months, nobody will be forced out of a job in the New South Wales public service.
All 410,000 employees will have the choice to remain in the New South Wales public service.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for literally hundreds of thousands of employees who don’t work for the New South Wales government.
And today’s announcement is about keep all of our employees safe. Keeping all of our employees in jobs.
Every single one of them. But also, making sure that we can support all of our citizens throughout New South Wales in the best way possible.
Updated
Gladys Berejiklian:
Today is not about managing the budget. It’s not about managing the economy.
It’s all about saving livelihoods, saving jobs and saving lives. That’s what this is about. And a government in our shoes, I think, would do the same thing.
And I am urging everybody to come together. Please, let’s not descend into the normal political talk that we have. Let’s not descend into the normal obstacles that are faced when governments try to do the right thing.
I’m calling everybody to come together to support the government in this.
As difficult a decision as it is, and of course, we’ll have every opportunity to negotiate with all of our stakeholders once the agreement, once the 12-month period is completed.
Updated
NSW public servants to have 12-month pay freeze
Gladys Berejiklian is announcing a 12-month pay freeze for all NSW public servants.
This is in line with what other jurisdictions, including the commonwealth and the Queensland government, have done.
Updated
One of this country’s greatest and ironclad political minds, Kerri-Anne Kennerley, somehow managed to out Joe Hildebrand Hildebrand himself on Studio 10 this morning, when she gave the prime minister this question:
I can’t imagine how frustrated you have been, as an elected prime minister, putting out a plan for what has been an enormous crisis in this country and in the world. And then having individual states not toe the line. So let’s just pretend, for instance, I’m Annastacia Palaszczuk and Daniel Andrews. What do you want to say on the QT to me, or to both of those premiers?
To which the prime minister said:
Well, look, first of all, I don’t think that we should overstate this. I mean, by and large, the states and territories have worked incredibly well through the National Cabinet process. I mean, we have countries of just equal sophistication to ours, developed economies, good health systems, and they have had death rates a hundred times and more what Australia has had. So let’s not just brush aside that. That has been the product of people working together, and particularly states and territories working together with the federal government. Now, on this issue of internal borders, that is not something national cabinet ever agreed was something that was required.
That is something that individual states have done off their own back. Now, I’m optimistic that will get sorted out, and I think that it is in the interest of jobs for it to be sorted out. At the moment, they will announce their timetables, but I wouldn’t overstate it in terms of the level of working relationship between the states and territories and the commonwealth. I mean, by and large, that’s worked very well.
The expectation that they’re going to agree on everything, and states and territories aren’t going to take unilateral decisions on some things, I think is unrealistic. I mean they’re sovereign states and they’ll make their own calls.
But I was just going to say – they’ve got to be accountable for it, though. There is no medical advice that we received nationally.
The conversation then naturally moved on to Tina Arena and the NRL. As you would expect.
Updated
He then had a chat to Hamish Macdonald on ABC RN radio, which included this exchange:
Macdonald:
...The point that Sally McManus has made this morning is that it’s the insecurity of those people’s employment leading into this crisis that has left them in that position. And so that if we are to find a way forward, there must be some more certainty, some more safeguards around their employment to ensure that we don’t end up with these huge unemployment numbers.
Porter:
Well, and that’s got to be something we will talk about.
But I think that you might be slightly misrepresenting my good friend Sally McManus because what has caused the problem that we’re in is something beyond our control.
I mean a pandemic swept around the world, was prevented from doing monstrous health harm in Australia and causing what could have been the type of deaths we’ve seen per capita in the UK and Italy and the Government’s response to prevent those deaths at a state and federal level was to have to restrain certain sectors of the economy which has caused enormous economic damage to the economy which now has to be repaired. So I think the reason why there is …
What a time we live in. The man whose main job to date has been to smashing up unions in question time now publicly declares the ACTU head to be his “good friend”.
Christian Porter, who has to come up with these answers by September, had a chat to Melbourne ABC radio this morning. He described the roundtable chats as:
Well, I think it’s sort of more targeted in the sense that we’re trying to reach agreed solutions to known problems. And you’ve just mentioned one with enterprise bargaining which has really, sort of, gotten itself into a position where it’s not a useful increase or a productivity, where people find it’s clunky, slow. And the number of enterprise agreements has declined steadily overtime, so that’s a known problem.
How we define casual employment is a known problem. The complexity in some of the Awards, particularly those that deal with key industries, hospitality for instance, is a known problem. Now, people will have different views about how to solve those problems, but we want to get everyone in a room, talk through those views and alternative ways to solve those problems, and try and actually produce solutions to known problems that can weather a parliamentary process and actually increase job growth in Australia after COVID-19, where we face the biggest economic challenge of our lives.
Just a reminder from a walk through Canberra this morning that ‘Arts’ didn’t even make it into the name of the department. No wonder an $111 billion industry is so easy to overlook... pic.twitter.com/PolGS1FZbz
— Laura Tingle (@latingle) May 27, 2020
Victoria reports eight new Covid-19 cases
There have been eight more people in Victoria who have been diagnosed with Covid-19 in the last 24 hours.
Four have come from routine testing, and one is still under investigation.
Daniel Andrews says there are no plans to have the state return to its usual work patterns any time soon:
I do again want to reiterate for all Victorians who have been working from home, if you have been working from home, you must continue to work from home for all of June.
Now, that may change beyond June but at this stage, the about literally hundreds of thousands of Victorians returning to office blocks, returning to work in a physical workplace as opposed to continuing their at-homework.
It stands to reason.
Logic tells you if that many people are crammed in on public transport, pressing lift buttons, sharing spaces across the workplace across the workday, then all that will do is pose an unacceptable risk and potentially see the transmission of the virus and see so much of our hard work undone.
No one wants that.
Updated
You can find all your Covid international news, here
Scott Morrison’s merry-go-round of morning media appearances, talking up the coming IR roundtables (we just LOVE a roundtable in this country) included this exchange with Sabra Lane on ABC radio, which covers what I was talking about earlier – this process is not the Accords, because the government has nothing to offer:
Lane: Under the 80s Accord though, the prime minister, the government offered workers family payments, child care, the introduction of Medicare in exchange for restricted wage demands. What can the government bring to the table this time?
Morrison: Well, the people coming to the table, as I said, are employees and employers. The government is bringing people together.
Lane: And the government is empty handed?
Morrison: No. What I’m saying is that this isn’t some reheat of a process done by a former Labour government. It’s not an Accord. It’s a new process. It’s about bringing people together to see what they can agree on in areas like how we deal with casualisation and full time work, how we can ensure that people get paid properly, how we can ensure on new sites that people will invest money in creating jobs because they can get some certainty over what the workplace arrangements will be. This is about employers and employees working together.
I’m not sure you can call a complete overhaul of Australian society, (which also led to a Labor government embracing neo-Liberal policies) a “process” that you could “reheat”, but the prime minister is very adept at weaponising words to suit a message. It’s also not a new process to “bring people together”, but expect to hear a lot about how this is ‘groundbreaking’ in coming months.
My somewhat cynical prediction is that it won’t lead to anything, but the government will blame that on unions not ‘dropping their weapons’, but we’ll see I guess.
Updated
The agriculture minister continues:
Again, no-one left the ship. Anyone that went on the ship was in protective clothing.
It wasn’t until the Sunday that Australian Border Force as I understand also became concerned about consultation with the captain, as well as the department of infrastructure with the captain, Australian Border Force through a third party agency notified them of their concerns about people presenting themselves with symptoms, that again, that agency notified the public health emergency operations centre in Perth.
The same protocol that the department of agriculture took two days earlier. It wasn’t until the Monday in which health officials from WA boarded the boat and started to test.
Now, those are the facts that have been put before me by my department.
I have emails to ensure my department have acted within the protocols set out by the states, even with the Artania, as I would say the WA government handled magnificently.
We have not deviated from that.
Can I just say it’s important as political leaders, we appreciate those men and women that have put themselves out there, and I will end on this - particularly for those biosecurity officers in my department.
David Littleproud is having none of the blame for the live export ship, the Al Kuwait, docking in Fremantle, with suspected Covid cases on board.
The WA government says they were given no warning about the Covid risk, although health protocols were still carried out. Littleproud says that’s not true:
With respect to the Al Kuwait boat, it’s important we put some facts on the table.
Some real facts.
The first two important facts, no-one has left the boat without medical attention being provided them. Beforehand. We have undertaken all the quarantine protocols and isolation. No-one went onto the boat unless they were wearing protective equipment.
Everyone who has come into contact with the Al Kuwait has undertaken that.
It’s important to understand the department of agriculture has a role to play and it’s important we put the facts on the table and work through them calmly.
On 20 May, the ship’s master notified the department of agriculture that three of their crew were in fact feeling ill. But they did not have a temperature, did not have symptoms of COVID-19.
That was logged. In fact, our departmental personnel have checked that the ship’s log to ensure that is the case and we continue to work through that.
From then on, as the boat came in, and was docked on 22 May, at 10:39, we notified WA health, in fact, their public health emergency operations centre, we had been notified less than an hour earlier there had been someone that presented themselves with symptoms of COVID-19.
It is not for the department of agriculture to make medical assessment. We look after plants and animals.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary, Sally McManus, has explained that unions are taking part in IR consultation because they want to hear what employers and the government have to say, arguing unions lose nothing by keeping an open mind because the government could always “do it on their own anyway”.
Indeed, the attorney general, Christian Porter, was already consulting on changes.
She told Radio National:
“All the things they’re talking about they were examining anyway. The only difference now is we’re at the table. In the end they may try to put [reforms we disagree with] through the Senate – they will – and if we disagree with them, we’ll fight them.”
McManus suggested unions believe changes could be made to the bargaining process – but did not give much ground on workers being left worse off.
She said:
“Bargaining is on the table and the bargaining process. There is a lot of discussion around the idea there are too many hoops [to get an agreement approved]. We’ve got some sympathy for that – there are five barriers for employers and 16 for working people when they bargain.”
But the sorts of changes the ACTU has pushed for is industry-level bargaining or multi-enterprise bargaining, which McManus returns to by suggesting a bargaining system that “suits all those small workplaces like childcare centres where enterprise bargaining is beyond reach”.
Asked if any worker should be worse off, McManus replied:
“The principle that bargaining is about improving conditions – and yes, [improving them] for everyone – is a good one.”
But McManus suggested the evidence requirements to show everyone is better off could be made more efficient, if unions and employers have already reached agreement on a workplace pay deal.
She said it was “absolutely” fundamental that nobody is worse off, promising “we’re always going to have [workers] back”. “We’re never going to go into negotiations and see them go backwards, lose pay and conditions.”
Updated
Anthony Albanese:
The fact is, there’s a problem in the economy which is wages, wages have been stagnant.
That is a problem for the national economy.
And one of the things we know is that every time this coalition government has engaged in industrial relations, what they call reform, it has been aimed at driving down wages and conditions for working people.
Every time.
And the fact is that they have been engaged in that process and it shouldn’t have taken a pandemic for the government to say that unions and business should have common interests, and that they do in fact have common interests.
Workers have an interest in employers and businesses being profitable.
Scott Morrison says all sides need to “put down their weapons” as the nation attempts IR reform, which has raised some eyebrows, given the concerted campaign the Coalition has conducted against unions for the past six or seven years.
Anthony Albanese isn’t impressed (that is saying it mildly)
What they’ve done is establish working groups.
This government has been in office for seven years.
And for seven years what they’ve done is denigrate workers organisations, attack trade unions, and said that they’ve been a promoter of conflict.
They passed the ensuring integrity bill through the House of Representatives last year without allowing a single word of debate.
Not one word.
Unprecedented. Since Federation. That that would occur. But it occurred on the last sitting day of 2019.
Since I’ve been the leader of the Labor party, I, on the day I was elected unopposed as leader, one year ago to the very day today, one of the first things I said, was that Australians were suffering from conflict fatigue.
One of the first things I said was consistent with what I said for years previously, that business and unions have common interest.
There should be nothing remarkable about that statement. It’s something I put into practice as well as a minister in the former Labor government with the creation of organisations like Infrastructure Australia, with the creation of organisations like the major cities unit and others to drive change through the agenda, to get people sitting around a table and talking about that change.
It’s something I’ve always conducted myself in, it’s something that Jim [Chalmers] and I have been participating in meetings, not just with the ACTU, but with the Business Council of Australia.
Since I became the leader of the Labor Party. Yesterday, I had a round table that was scheduled some time ago with the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
It’s something that we do on a regular basis. It’s not a front page story because it’s what we do.
Unlike Scott Morrison, where it is remarkable that he’s prepared to talk to a worker.
Updated
The Queensland’s man death takes the nation’s total to 103.
At 30, he is one of the youngest Australians to have died of the virus.
He had several underlying health complications, but it is unsure where he had contracted the virus.
Queensland's seventh Covid death recorded
So to recap, a 30-year-old Queensland man has tested positive for Covid after his death.
His partner returned home from work in the small western Queensland town of Blackwater at 4.30pm and found the man unresponsive.
An ambulance immediately responded, but the man could not be revived and was declared deceased at the scene.
The man had been displaying Covid symptoms in the week leading up to his death, but had many other health complications
A post-mortem Covid test returned positive and authorities were alerted around 11pm on Tuesday.
There had been no other recorded cases of Covid in Blackwater prior to the man’s death.
The man had not travelled overseas, or left Blackwater since February.
He is believed to have spent most of the past few weeks at home.
Contact tracing is under way.
All residents of Blackwater are being urged to get tested if they are showing any signs of the virus. Testing units have been set up in the town.
The man’s partner is showing Covid signs and has been isolated.
The emergency service workers who responded to the man’s death have also been isolated.
Updated
The man’s partner returned from work yesterday at about 4.30pm and found him unresponsive.
An ambulance was called immediately, but he was declared dead at the scene.
The Queensland chief medical officer, Dr Jeannette Young, says the man is believed to have spent most of his time at home while he was ill, but had not travelled overseas, and had not left Blackwater since February.
That’s part of the reason the contact tracing team are now urgently working to see where he may have contracted the virus.
Queensland health minister Steven Miles says authorities were made aware of the man’s post-mortem result at around 11pm:
This does appear to be Queensland’s seventh COVID-19 related death.
We have deployed public health experts and additional contact tracing resources from Brisbane to Blackwater today. The case will now be referred to the coroner and we expect a post-mortem will be conducted.
We have set up additional fever clinics that will be ready and operational in Emerald and in Blackwater shortly and we urge anyone, anyone in Queensland, but particularly anyone in Blackwater, who is suffering symptoms to please go and get tested.
This message is particularly important for all the blokes out there.
I know that men sometimes fob off their illnesses, they don’t go and get medical assistance, but it’s incredibly important right now that anyone with symptoms goes and gets tested.
It appears this gentleman who has passed away was ill for some time.
And did not get tested. And so I want anyone, anyone in Queensland, who is unwell, to go and get tested today.
Especially if they’re from Blackwater or been in Blackwater.
Blackwater, in the Queensland central highlands, had not recorded any cases of Covid prior to this man’s death.
Health authorities have set up a fever clinic. The man’s partner is also showing Covid symptoms now, and has been isolated, as have the emergency services staff who responded to his home, following his death.
The Queensland health minister, Steven Miles, says the man tested positive for Covid after his death:
The news today is absolutely tragic and while we are working to finalise all of the facts, we’re sharing with you today what we know.
Late yesterday afternoon, the Queensland ambulance service was called to a home in Blackwater, there they found a man who was deceased, he was later tested for COVID-19 and that test was positive.
The paramedics and police officers who attended the scene are now in quarantine and we thank them for the assistance they provided to this man and his partner.
Of course our thoughts are with a Queensland family that today will be grieving. This does appear to be Queensland’s seventh COVID-19 related death.
30-year-old Queensland man tests positive for Covid after his death.
Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says a man from Blackwater, who was showing Covid symptoms, as well as suffering from other illnesses, has died overnight.
The coroner is investigating.
Palaszczuk:
He’s a 30-year-old man and the coroner is investigating the death.
He was showing symptoms prior to his death but also had other illnesses that [health minister] Dr Young will talk about.
He positive at the post-mortem and his partner is now sick with symptoms.
And she has been transferred to the Rockhampton Hospital where she’s being isolated and further tests are being done. Blackwater has never had a case of COVID before.
Contact tracing is extensively underway. The police and ambulance officers who attended the scene are also now in quarantine.
And Dr Young can also provide further details and measures being undertaken in Blackwater.
If anyone is sick in Queensland, please stay home. Do not go to work.
But also too, if you’re showing any symptoms I urge you to go and get tested.
There will be fever clinics set up at Blackwater and also at Emerald and if anyone has any flu-like symptoms, we urge you in these two communities to please go and get tested.
So, once again, we extend our condolences and it’s a timely reminder for all Queenslanders that - this COVID is real, it’s out there, and it has impacts on Queenslanders and in this case, we have lost another Queenslander today.
Updated
The deans of the nation’s university business schools say the government needs to act to stop universities from “being damaged irreparably”.
The president of the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC), David Grant, has laid out six issues which the council says needs to be addressed urgently:
1. The need to fund more domestic places so young people, and the thousands of other Australians whose jobs have disappeared, have tertiary education as a viable option. Past recessions have shown that, as unemployment rates soar, those who cannot earn enrol to learn.
2. The proposed “safe corridors” to bring international students into Australia needs to be implemented as soon as is safely possible so there is at least some chance of international students getting to Australia and clearing quarantine for the second part of this year. Failure to do this swiftly will add to the devastation of our international education, which contributed $40 billion to our economy each year before COVID-19.
3. International students, who are already in Australia, should be supported and encouraged to remain here. Community groups, state and local governments and have stepped up to support those who have been hard hit by job losses and exclusion from JobSeeker and JobKeeper. They do however need practical, ongoing help, coordinated at the national level that shows how we value them for their contributions to the Australian economy.
4. Cuts of up to 21000 jobs are underway as universities yet the Federal Government has ensured that universities – unlike other large businesses and some private universities – are ineligible for the JobKeeper subsidy. This does not make sense.
5. Researchers urgently need government assistance to ensure that they can continue and not waste work already done. Many research projects have already been suspended.
International researchers, who are very important to the sector, may not return to Australia to finish their work. Much of the $4.7 billion that universities put into research each year has been funded by revenue from international education. That revenue has now evaporated from a sector that is likely to take years to recover.
6. There is a need to re-start infrastructure projects that have been suspended as universities try to stop their financial haemorrhaging. The Victorian Government has allocated $350 million, which will greatly assist universities with capital projects in that state, but what about the rest of the nation?
Updated
Hundreds of masks and plastic containers have washed up on Sydney’s eastern beaches overnight. It’s believed to be contents of some of the 40 shipping containers that fell off Singaporean cargo ship APL England on Sunday.
Coogee locals have begun trying to clear the debris this morning. “The beach looked like a rubbish tip,” said Aliy Potts. “I’ve been trying to clean things up this morning. I’ve got a two rubbish bags full already.”
Updated
Angus Taylor has used the 2020 Australian Energy Statistics to push the government’s case for more gas
This latest data also demonstrates the continuing importance of coal and the significant and growing reliance on gas to back our significant renewable capacity.
Gas is flexible and provides the dispatchable capacity we increasingly need to balance intermittent renewables and deliver a secure, reliable and affordable electricity system to power our homes, businesses and industries.
This has never been more important – particularly as we begin our recovery from the impact of the COVID19 pandemic.
This is why the Australian Government believes a gas-fired recovery will drive jobs and economic growth.
We now need state and territory governments to do their part to unlock more gas for the domestic market and encourage investment in reliable generation which will put downward pressure on wholesale prices.”
Well whisk me round and call me hollandaise, I wonder why *thinking face emoji*
Oh look – renewable energy use continues to grow.
Angus Taylor has released the latest energy use data, including that coal underpins 56% of Australia’s energy use, because of course it does, because we can’t work out a transition plan:
The 2020 Australian Energy Statistics for electricity generation cover all electricity generation in Australia, including by power plants and by businesses and households for their own use.
The new data shows 21 per cent of Australia’s electricity came from renewable energy last year, up from 19 per cent in 2018.
The largest increase in renewable generation was in large-scale solar, up 135 per cent, followed by small-scale solar, up 25 per cent, and wind generation up 19 per cent.
Gas-fired generation also grew to account for 21 per cent of Australia’s total generation. This was driven largely by growth in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.
The data also demonstrates the importance of coal-fired generation, which continues to be an essential part of Australia’s energy mix, representing 56 per cent of total generation in 2019.
The dataset is available here.
It is worth mentioning that Noel Pearson’s Cape York Institute has begun an education campaign, using the messaging group favoured by conservatives, Crosby Textor, to try and get the First Nations’ From the Heart campaign back in front of people, as well as explain what the Uluru Statement from the Heart actually means.
But it is also absolutely worth mentioning that a very big part of the reason they have to do that, is because leaders and MPs, such as Barnaby Joyce, almost immediately muddied the statement, by claiming it would create a “third chamber of parliament” – something it never set out. Joyce has since admitted he was wrong, but the damage has been done.
And there are still MPs in the government, sitting in parliament, who walked out as the National Apology was being delivered by Kevin Rudd. Scott Morrison wants consensus among Indigenous leaders before moving forward with any proposal, but there is not even consensus in the government party rooms.
Indigenous people should not have to be doing this work. That’s our job. We’ve been the hold up.
Updated
Something which has been pushed to the side (and not just because of the Covid crisis) is Indigenous recognition.
Before the pandemic, the government had already abandoned plans to enshrine an Indigenous voice in the constitution.
Now, we barely hear of it at all.
Linda Burney spoke to the ABC about that this morning:
I have great fears that it won’t happen. I’m very proud to be part of a party, the Labor party, that supports the Uluru Statement in its entirety. And that is constitutional recognition, agreement making or treaty making, and of course truth-telling. I think that the prime minister ruling out constitutional reform is going to be on the wrong side of history. And he still has a chance to make it a reality. We cannot go backwards in this country, and it is really at the behest of the prime minster and the government to make that referendum happen in this term. If we don’t, we miss an enormous opportunity. But Labor stay committed.
Updated
One thing you’d have to give the government is they’re very clear-eyed about the prospect all this IR reform chat will go nowhere.
Attorney general Christian Porter told Radio National if you don’t swing at the ball you can’t hit a boundary.
On Channel Nine’s Today program, Scott Morrison responded to the Darryl Kerrigan suggestion (tell him he’s dreaming) thus:
Well look, perhaps I am. Perhaps I am. But you have got to in this circumstance. Because the country is up against a massive challenge. If that dream involves people might work together in workplaces to create jobs and secure better incomes for people into the future and we come out of this crisis as strong as I believe we can, then that is a dream worth having.”
Morrison also implicitly told the unions they were dreaming by trying to bring political debates about extending unemployment benefits (jobseeker) and wage subsidies (jobkeeper) into the IR reform process.
He said:
Well, that is not part of the discussions. What they are talking about is five key areas. I will be really quick to explain them. The whole issue of casuals and full- time work. The awards ... the enterprise bargaining system, ensuring people get paid properly and compliance. Those investments on new sites that they can go ahead. They are the five areas they are working on. That’s where I have asked them to come together. The government will be considering those other broader issues as we go to the budget later this year and of course in the months ahead. Now we want to focus on what is happening in the workplace itself and how we could make those businesses work better so they can create more jobs and people can have greater certainty of employment in their conditions.”
Updated
I know that this new IR process is being described as the ‘Accords 2.0’ but let’s remember this latest round of reform talks has a September deadline.
The original accords began in 1983 and continued until John Howard called time on them in 1996.
So not exactly the same then.
Plus, the OG accord was about restricting wage demands, in exchange for things like Medicare.
We don’t have the same set of playing cards.
PM can't guarantee no worker won't be worse off under proposed IR reforms
Perhaps the highlight of Scott Morrison’s round of interviews was the exchange with the ABC AM’s Sabra Lane about whether he would guarantee workers would be no worse off after this IR process.
He said:
We’re getting workers and employers together, their representatives, we’re getting them together in a room to work out how to get their enterprises and workers in a stronger position …
This is a process that will flow through – we’re getting people together to agree, to work together, so we’re looking to people agreeing to what goes forward … This is a process that wants to see workers better off, this is a process that wants to see employers better off, businesses better off. But most importantly this is about more jobs.”
Wants to see – but no guarantee. When Lane noted it was a simple yes or no, Morrison replied:
The problem with that position – and this has been the problem with the industrial relations debate for all time is it quickly descends into these sorts of issues and we need to get past all that, past the point it has turned into black and white discussions … We can’t have those old debates any more, and it’s the same for where the coverage of these issues comes from – that only gets in the way of people getting jobs.”
Updated
The Northern Territory government is hinting it could reopen its borders by August.
Western Australia is taking it on a month-by-month basis, but Western Australians seem quite happy to have cut the east off, at least at this stage, so there isn’t quite as big a push there to bring down the border blocks.
South Australia is also taking it on a month-by-month basis, but having a Liberal premier (as opposed to the other closed states) has also meant there isn’t quite the same amount of pressure. Simon Birmingham has done most of his OPEN THE BORDERS QUEENSLAND posturing, from a state which also has closed borders, but that never seems to get addressed.
Queensland has also said it will look at its border closure on a month-to-month basis, but probably won’t be reopening any earlier than July.
We’ll have more of an idea from that state on Sunday, when the latest loosening of the restrictions is announced.
But the main reason Queensland is under the microscope is because there is a state election in that state in October.
Updated
Pauline Hanson has issued an “ultimatum” to Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to open the borders by 4pm tomorrow, or she is off to the high court.
Cool beans.
You read that right – One. Million. Dollars.
Updated
Scott Morrison has been riding the morning interview circuit HARD this morning.
We’ll bring you the highlights in a bit.
Good morning
Welcome to today’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic in Australia.
Staff and residents at an aged care centre in Melbourne’s inner east are undergoing further testing for Covid-19 after two workers at the facility contracted the virus. Two staff members at Lynden Aged Care in Camberwell were confirmed as having the illness on Tuesday, the health department said in a statement.
A resident at the same facility tested positive earlier this month when they went to hospital for an unrelated procedure.
Meanwhile, federal and state tensions are once again flaring after a live export ship was allowed to dock at Fremantle Port, despite Covid-19 concerns for the crew.
As AAP reports:
Fremantle Port workers boarded a live export ship before a Covid-19 outbreak was confirmed, and there are concerns they and their families have been exposed.
Six of the 48 multinational crew have since tested positive to the virus.The federal department says it had been told three of the crew were ill, but none of them had elevated temperatures or Covid-19 symptoms before their arrival.
It only learned crew members had fevers when they landed and immediately notified the WA health department, it said.
No crew members were permitted to disembark and all federal department staff who attended the vessel wore full personal protective equipment.The state government said its public health emergency operations centre received an email on Friday morning informing it three ill crew members had a temperature.
But it explicitly stated no concern for Covid-19 on the vessel and no respiratory illness present, along with making no request for assistance.
We’ll bring you all the days events as they happen, live. You have Amy Remeikis with you for the bulk of the day.
Ready?
Updated
