Closing Covid-19 summary for Thursday
That’s the end of our live coronavirus coverage for Thursday 23 April. Thanks from me, Graham Readfearn, and my colleagues Calla Wahlquist and Amy Remeikis, for staying with us through 13 and half hours of live coverage today.
Follow our global live blog here. Here are the main Australian developments from today.
- Australia saw 12 new cases of Covid-19 reported between 3pm Wednesday and 3pm on Thursday. The NT, WA, ACT and SA had no new cases. Victoria had 1 new case, Queensland 2, Tasmania 4 and NSW 5 (and sorry I forgot Victoria’s case in an earlier post!).
- A 79-year-old woman with Covid-19 died at Newmarch House – the fourth death at the western Sydney aged care facility.
- The Ruby Princess cruise ship linked to 10% of Australia’s coronavirus cases left Australia. Some 21 former passengers of the ship have died. The remaining 500 crew are now heading to the Philippines.
- Raelene Castle resigned as chief executive of Rugby Australia. She said “the board believes my no longer being CEO would help give them the clear air they believe they need”.
- Some 456,000 Australians have applied for early access to $3.8bn from their superannuation funds.
- The government will introduce regulations preventing law enforcement and government agencies from accessing data from its planned Covid-19 contact tracing app.
Look after you and everyone else. Cut yourself and others some slack, stick to the rules and we’ll be back tomorrow. Goodnight.
Updated
Senior University of Wollongong staff including vice chancellor Paul Wellings have agreed to take a 20% pay cut for the next 12 months.
In a public statement sent to staff, Wellings said the university was facing a $90m budget shortfall because of the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on student recruitment.
We unfortunately must now confront the other major impact of this global pandemic.
The census date has now passed and I am writing to advise you that the university is facing significant revenue loss because of reduced onshore international student enrolments and associated impacts.
We think that the 2020 losses will be with us for a number of years as a consequence of the scale of the recession and the limitations on the movement of people across international borders.
At this stage we believe UOW is facing a budget shortfall of about $90m linked to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and its ongoing impact on student recruitment. This not only has an immediate impact on our 2020 budget, but has compounding effects for subsequent years.
As well as announcing the pay cuts, Wellings said all non-essential external recruitment would stop, all approved study leave was being reviewed and a 2020 round of academic promotions would not go ahead.
Updated
Environment minister Sussan Ley says the government might make changes to the country’s national environment laws before the scheduled review is finished later this year.
Business groups and the government have been claiming there needs to be cuts to administrative burdens as part of the economic recovery from coronavirus.
My colleague Lisa Cox has the story.
Raelene Castle quits as Rugby Australia boss
Raelene Castle has resigned as chief executive of Rugby Australia.
ABC 7.30 reports a statement from Castle, saying:
I love rugby on every level and I will always love the code and the people I have had the honour of working with since I took this role.
I made it clear to the board that I would stand up and take the flak and do everything possible to serve everyone’s best interests.
In the last couple of hours, it has been made clear to me that the board believes my no longer being the CEO would help give them the clear air they believe they need.
The game is bigger than any one individual – so this evening I told the chair [Paul McLean] that I would resign from the role.
Rugby Australia CEO Raelene Castle has stood down. #abc730 @leighsales https://t.co/rPkh3E4Xbi
— abc730 (@abc730) April 23, 2020
Updated
Here’s a summary of the new Covid-19 case numbers that have been reported by states and territories today.
Reporting zero new cases were Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory and ACT.
Queensland reported 2 new cases, Tasmania reported 4 and New South Wales had 5.
The coronavirus-stricken Ruby Princess cruise has well and truly left Port Kembla and is on its way to the Philippines with about 500 crew members.
My colleague Naaman Zhou has this story on the health concerns among the crew still on board.
Updated
The education minister, Dan Tehan, was asked earlier on ABC TV about independent schools’ demands to guarantee their funding.
Independent schools face a dropoff in enrolments as parents cut back due to hard times, and because the student census date is in August (term 3), declining enrolments will hit their government funding.
They want the census date brought forward to term 1 and payments brought forward.
Tehan said the best thing schools could do to ensure their viability is to reopen, but he also sounded open to the funding guarantee.
Asked what the federal government could do to assist, he replied:
For instance, there are payments which are made throughout the year. So we could look potentially at bringing some of those payments forward to help with cash flow.
There are regulatory things that we ask of independent schools and the Catholic schools, so the non-government sector. So some of those things we could ease the regulatory burden on. There’s issues around census dates. These are all the things we said we would explore.
Some of these issues we have to talk to states and territories about and we’ve begun those discussions. So we understand that these are difficult times for the non-government sector and we said we would work with them.
But we also gave a very clear message that what we wanted to see was them reopened and providing that classroom teaching to children.
Updated
Queensland police has intercepted more than 100,000 vehicles since the border closures four weeks ago.
There’s been swarms of gidgee bugs, hauls of cannabis and cross-border campfires to keep NT police and Queensland officers warm.
Stink bugs, dodgy border pass fashion and drug busts - our officers have seen it all! Today we pay tribute to those on the front line patrolling the Queensland divide 🐛 pic.twitter.com/soBDy1d3Ng
— Queensland Police (@QldPolice) April 23, 2020
Updated
Virgin Australia’s administrators will be in the federal court Friday morning as they prepare for the first meeting of creditors of the stricken airline next week.
It is understood the administrators, a group of partners at big four accounting firm Deloitte, will ask judge John Middleton for permission to hold next Thursday’s meeting by video hookup due to the coronavirus crisis.
They’ll also ask for more time to hold a second meeting, which normally has to be held within 25 days of the first one.
Such requests are common in large or complex administrations. Creditors were already put on notice this move was likely in a circular sent on Tuesday.
The court hearing itself will be held by videolink due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Updated
Police in Western Australia say they have granted exemptions to 900 of the 3,000 people who arrived in WA via air since the hard border came into effect on 6 April to allow them to quarantine at home.
Those people were given directions to self-quarantine, at their house or elsewhere, rather than being put in supervised quarantine at a “quarantine centre” like a hotel.
So, billionaire media owner Kerry Stokes is not the only person to have been granted such an exemption.
WA police would not comment on Stokes’s case, but said:
Exemptions to enter WA without attending a quarantine centre are granted for a variety of reasons including compassionate and health related grounds.
Updated
There’s going to be lots of talk about Australia’s economic recovery and where policy makers should focus their attention. There’s going to be a scrap among major industries for the recovery to favour their interests above others.
But what about climate change?
UK-based marketing and research company Ipsos MORI has released some interesting data from their online polling carried out between 16 and 19 April across 14 countries.
Now, make what you will of marketing polls.
But Ipsos MORI asked if it was important that in the economic recovery “government actions prioritise climate change?”
Some 57% of Australians either agreed or strongly agreed with that statement – the joint lowest level of agreement and similar to the levels of agreement in the US, Great Britain and Germany.
For comparison, China (80%), Mexico (80%) and India (81%) showed the highest levels of support.
Some 59% of Australians also agreed with a statement that “in the long term, climate change is as serious a crisis as Covid-19 is.”
Again though, the level of concern in Australia was the joint-lowest, alongside the US.
Updated
As the Ruby Princess leaves Australia, Australia’s chief medical officer Brendan Murphy gave a reminder earlier today of the ship’s huge impact and its infectious nature.
More than half of Tasmania’s 205 cases are linked to an outbreak of the virus in the state’s north-west.
Murphy told the Covid-19 senate inquiry this morning the likely source of that outbreak was the Ruby Princess.
AAP reports:
Professor Brendan Murphy on Thursday told a senate committee into the nation’s pandemic response northwest Tasmania is a “very good example” of how infectious the virus is.
“Tasmania Health have been investigating. I haven’t seen the final report, but it seems likely healthcare workers picked up the virus, probably, from a Ruby Princess passenger who was being cared for,” he said.
The first three of the state’s eight virus deaths were passengers aboard the ill-fated cruise ship which originally docked in Sydney.
Two of them were patients at the North West Regional Hospital in Burnie which has since been closed alongside its private counterpart, forcing 1,200 staff into quarantine.
State public health director Mark Veitch has previously said the Ruby Princess link is being probed as part of an ongoing investigation.
The outbreak, which has infected more than 70 healthcare workers, prompted tough retail restrictions in the northwest which are due to be lifted Sunday night.
Updated
Some images as the Ruby Princess leaves Australia for the Philippines.
Updated
The Ruby Princess is heading to the Philippines, according to the ship’s operator, Carnival Australia. A spokesman said:
Around 370 crew members have disembarked today for a charter flight to the Philippines organised by Princess Cruises.
Around 500 crew, all well, remain on board about half of whom are needed for safe operation of the ship. Ruby Princess will head to the Philippines and we will have more information to share then on crew repatriation.
We could have disembarked more crew in Port Kembla but they would have needed to stay in shoreside accommodation for a few days before joining a flight and authorities here wouldn’t allow this.
A small number have remained on board because at this stage there was no flight pathways to get them home due to factors such as closed borders to their home countries.
Ruby Princess has left Port Kembla
The Ruby Princess is finally on the move with tug boats seen pulling the cruise ship away from the dockside at Port Kembla.
The ship’s arrival in Sydney – first on 8 March and then again on 18 March – is linked to more than 600 cases of coronavirus and 21 of its former passengers have died.
The debacle surrounding the ship is the subject of a special inquiry. About 10% of Australia’s cases of the virus have been linked to the ship.
Updated
Lifeline Queensland is receiving an unprecedented 24,000 calls a week as people struggle with the mental health impacts of living through a pandemic.
Lifeline executive Brent McCracken told AAP that the charity recorded its highest monthly total of calls in the organisation’s 56-year history in March.
Many are facing circumstances they could never have envisaged they’d be in. Many are feeling their life is becoming worthless.
His comments come as the Queensland government committed $3.5m in funding to assist Lifeline and a further $1m to Legacy which supports the families of those who have served with defence.
On that note, I will hand over to Graham Readfearn who will be with you until close. Stay well.
Updated
Farewell, Ruby Princess. We are rather glad to see the back of you.
To NRL news, Scott Morrison says the federal government is open to granting the New Zealand Warriors an exemption to arrive in Australia to participate in the resumption of the 2020 season.
The league has said it will get back on the field on 28 May.
This is from AAP:
Morrison has been in dialogue with New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern about relaxing travelling restrictions for those across the Tasman. “Now if there’s any country in the world with whom we can reconnect with first, undoubtedly that’s New Zealand,” Morrison told reporters on Thursday.
“We have similar trajectories. Their restrictions have been far greater. Our [coronavirus] case response has been the same, if not better, than New Zealand.”
Morrison pointed out that the Border Force commissioner had already granted exemptions for some international travellers to enter the country. The Warriors are likely to be next.
“That is an area that I think we can look potentially favourably on, provided all the other arrangements are in place regarding public safety,” Morrison said.
Updated
The WA premier, Mark McGowan, has just wrapped up a 44-minute press conference with the treasurer Ben Wyatt and education minister Sue Ellery in Perth. They were very generous with their time and stayed to answer a lot of questions.
But, curiously, no one — at least not that I heard, and I was listening — asked the premier to comment on the case of WA billionaire (and owner of WA’s biggest media company) Kerry Stokes, who was granted an exemption on medical grounds to the mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine. The story was broken by the good people at WAToday, a Ninefax site.
The health minister Roger Cook was asked about this earlier today and said there were “a range of exemptions in place” and that “many hundreds and probably thousands of exemptions have been processed by the police and the health department in relation to people coming back into the state”.
But given the strength of McGowan’s comments on the border closure, wouldn’t you ask him?
McGowan was, however, asked to comment on the recent arrest of troubled retired footballer Ben Cousins, and wisely declined to do so.
For the record, I asked McGowan’s office for a comment earlier today and was told to go to the police and the health department (which I did) and that the premier would probably comment when asked at the press conference.
Updated
Ruby Princess prepares to depart
Tug boats have approached the Ruby Princess and the ship’s pilot is preparing to steer out of the harbour. It is expected to leave about 4pm.
Tugs standing by for the departure of #RubyPrincess All sick crew are now off thanks to @ITFglobalunion @MaritimeUnionAU @ArthurRorris and South Coast Labour Council @NSWLabor and the community of Illawarra #auspol #nswpol #ausunions pic.twitter.com/QRlt0nM0qx
— Mich-Elle Myers (@MichMyersMUA) April 23, 2020
The ship has been docked at Port Kembla, near Wollongong, since 6 April. The crew disembarked this week. The cruise ship is responsible for about 10% of all cases of Covid-19 in Australia, making it the single biggest source of infections. Two inquiries into the ship are currently under way.
The message from the Ruby Princess is simple ahead of its expected departure from Port Kembla later tonight. Goodbye Ruby Princess 👋 pic.twitter.com/ce8j8n3roA
— Ainslie DrewittSmith (@AinslieClaire) April 23, 2020
Updated
McGowan is talking about schools now. He says offering face-to-face teaching is “a requirement” at all schools in WA as of next week.
But the Catholic and independent schools lobby in WA has said it won’t provide face-to-face teaching for all students. In Catholic schools, for example, only years 11 and 12 will have in-school face-to-face teaching.
McGowan says parents at those schools are within their rights to call and ask for a discount.
The Catholics and the independents have made a decision that is different to the health advice. I think parents would be within their rights to ask for a reduction in fees or a reimbursement for that period. If there’s not going to be face-to-face teaching for that period then that is contrary to the health advice provided by the most senior health advisers in the nation and those schools need to look at providing some financial assistance back to parents if their children aren’t going to be taught the way they should be.
Updated
What about the AFL, which has said it will announce a date for the resumption of its season next week. WA is a big footy state (bigger than NSW, despite Sydney being named as a possible quarantine hub for players) so people are keen for it to resume.
McGowan says he is open to considering a resumption provided AFL players follow health advice and guidelines around quarantine.
We do allow for workforces to come into the state subject to doing self-isolation when they come here ... Football is actually a job for the players and it may be that the same arrangement can be put in place for football players.
He says the AFL will have to decide if it wishes to do that, seek government permissions, and then the government will hand that off for final approval to the WA police commissioner and health department.
Updated
Thanks Amy. It’s Calla Wahlquist here and I’m going to take you back to Western Australia now, where the premier, Mark McGowan, is still speaking.
He is being asked when some of the tougher restrictions imposed on that state – such as the hard border and the regional travel restrictions – will be lifted.
The liquor restrictions were lifted this week, elective surgery will resume in WA on Monday, and schools are open to families who want to send them as of next week.
But when will the border and travel restrictions be lifted, reporters want to know?
McGowan:
It’s a funny thing. A few weeks ago I was literally being screamed at to lock down, lock down everything. Now the calls are that we need to open up. What we are going to do is be careful and considered and conservative and make sure we take the best of health advice.
He says it’s a “juggling act”. Decisions will be made “as time goes by based on the health advice”.
Updated
On that note, I am going to hand you over to Calla Wahlquist for the next little bit.
I’ll be back early tomorrow, as we continue our Covid-19 coverage. In the meantime, take care of you.
Updated
Dr Nick Coatsworth is asked to weigh in on the World Health Organization having the power to send in inspectors to wildlife wet markets and says:
The World Health Organization has an important role to play in assisting governments around the world in managing disease outbreaks. How that can be improved upon as a result of this particular pandemic is going to be the subject of a lot of lessons learned, potentially inquiries, as our prime minister has suggested, so I think we don’t want to preempt what the results of those would be, except to say that we acknowledge the World Health Organization has a really important role to play and we should consider whether or not its current structures and processes and rules are effective enough to pursue that role.
Updated
The death at Newmarch House Luke reported on, would bring Australia’s death total to 76.
We know that restrictions will most likely be lifted in a reverse order – with large gatherings and travel some of the last to be relaxed.
Why?
Well, because of how quickly flare-ups can occur.
Nick Coatsworth:
We have seen what happens when large numbers of adults gather together. There have been a number of major clusters we are all aware of – some of those have been related to a wedding. So the way to take things slowly is to increase numbers slowly, and so that is exactly what Prof Murphy said this morning. And you can infer from that that larger gatherings are a long way off, and that would include having crowds at sporting matches, for example, as well as weddings. The number of people we could have at events is something that would be considered quite rightly the first tranche of restrictions.
Updated
Fourth person dies at Newmarch House
A fourth person has died at Newmarch House, the stricken aged care home in Sydney’s west where a significant coronavirus cluster has developed.
Operator Anglicare says the 79-year-old resident had tested positive for Covid-19 and died very early this morning.
She had multiple serious health issues, the organisation said.
“I have talked directly to the immediate family of the resident and conveyed our sincerest condolences,” said Grant Millard, Anglicare Sydney’s chief executive.
Anglicare today said it was still facing staffing shortages despite a federal government intervention yesterday.
Updated
The ‘e’ word – eradication – gets another run, as the suppression strategy continues to look successful. Coatsworth says there is still a long way to go:
The aim as we have said is suppression. The reality is we are doing an extraordinary job, we as the Australian community is doing an amazing job, and that suppression strategy to the extent that as you all know, there are some states that have reported zero new cases for several days now. So, eradication, which basically means there are no reported cases or you have effectively eliminated coronavirus from a geographical area could be an outcome of an excellent suppression strategy.
The problem is, we just have to acknowledge the non-immune state of the population, and the possibility as we have seen for north-west Tasmania of how rapidly coronavirus can spread, and that might be at a healthcare facility, or within another part of the community where people are closely housed together, we have to be especially attentive to our Indigenous communities in Australia. And so, for all those reasons, I think we are on a strategy of suppression, a magnificent outcome would be geographic eradication in certain parts of Australia.
Updated
But Coatsworth says it is still too early to tell what has caused a lot of the deaths as a result of the virus:
We do have data systems from intensive care, but underpinning that, several centres contribute to overall intensive care research, and the reasons why tragically people have died. That is not information obtained in real time as you can understand – it’s different, it’s not operational, it’s research-based – but that sort of information as and when it is researched and analysed would be presented by the researchers.
Updated
On reports patients overseas have died from issues related to blood clotting after contracting Covid-19, Coatsworth says:
As we learn more and more about Covid 19 disease we take these reports on more and that informs our clinicians’ ability to inform the treatment of patients in Australia. I am aware of clots, going from the legs to the lungs [which] can lead to sepsis and being in intensive care for a long period of time, whether or not it is just due to Covid 19, or how unwell people get, we will get more information as time goes on.
Updated
Coatsworth says the states’ surgical bodies and hospitals have been talking about how to restart elective surgeries over the coming month.
But it will be a softly, softly approach.
Updated
Across Australia today, health authorities have reported 12 new cases of Covid-19.
The deputy chief medical officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth, says there are still patients in the ICU:
In terms of our current capacity to treat patients in need of critical care, we have 48 patients in intensive care units around Australia and 30 of those are on ventilators helping them breathe, and certainly that is a very challenging time for their friends and families, we certainly acknowledge that today.
Updated
Naaman Zhou has been following along with today’s hearing on the Ruby Princess:
The hotel manager on the Ruby Princess cruise ship has told an inquiry he “does not recall” the Australian Border Force being involved in the cruise ship’s docking and disembarkation in Sydney.
Charles Verwall told the special commission of inquiry into the cruise ship that NSW Health had been involved, and had told the ship’s staff to ask sick passengers to present to the ship’s doctors, but did not want to conduct an on-board assessment before docking.
Verwall also echoed the comments of the ship’s senior doctor, who told the inquiry yesterday that she was “surprised” passengers were allowed off the ship before coronavirus test results had come back.
Updated
The Ruby Princess crew are being bussed from the Port Kembla dock, where the ship has been sitting for the past couple of weeks, to Sydney airport, where they will finally get to go home.
Updated
The ACTU has been asking the government about this for quite some time.
As have workers.
Why is the Government allowing call centres with workers crammed in with the same air conditioning? The ACTU call centre moved to working from home a month ago. The technology is there, use it! https://t.co/skGzeIGbBY
— Sally McManus (@sallymcmanus) April 23, 2020
Daniel Hurst has just published this story:
The government services minister, Stuart Robert, was warned of concerns about workers’ safety at a Services Australia call centre nearly two weeks before a staff member tested positive to Covid-19.
NSW Health announced this week that the call centre in Tuggerah, on the NSW Central Coast, had been closed briefly for cleaning after a worker returned a positive test.
Health authorities are now testing five close contacts in the same workplace who are displaying symptoms, while some other staff who may have been near the affected staff member are in self-isolation.
You can read more on that here:
Updated
For all the rugby league fans, I asked the Chief Medical Officer about the #NRL’s plans to resume on May 28. Sounds like there’s a way to go yet - Feds expect to be consulted and has not happened #COVID19Aus pic.twitter.com/zz4s5BN2c9
— Senator Murray Watt (@MurrayWatt) April 23, 2020
The Greens senator Rachel Siewert has responded to Scott Morrison deflecting on the question of whether or not the increased jobseeker payment (which used to be Newstart) should be extended:
I am gobsmacked that the prime minister is thinking it is OK to return the jobseeker payment to $40 a day in six months, condemning what is likely to be over a million people to living in poverty on jobseeker. This is untenable.
The cruelty of low income support rates has been laid bare by this pandemic.
How can it be government policy for people to live below the poverty line?
In six months people are still going to need access to our social safety net because the economy is going to take longer than that to recover and many people will be unable to find work.
We need long-term solutions for employment and our social safety net.
An increase to the jobseeker payment must be long term and permanent.
Updated
Parliaments are starting back – slowly:
The Legislative Assembly has been recalled to meet on Tuesday 12 May. Read The Speaker’s statement below: pic.twitter.com/sgmPgILZeX
— Legislative Assembly (@NSWParlLA) April 23, 2020
Updated
I will never stop believing in NRL Island.
Alas, the league has abandoned that thought bubble (if it even ever considered it at all).
But it is serious about bringing back games from 28 May.
We take a look at just how likely that is:
Updated
Aged care staff shortages continue
The administrators of the Newmarch House aged care home in western Sydney have confirmed staff shortages continue despite the commonwealth’s promise of “unlimited workforce support”.
Anglicare said on Thursday it would host a webinar with families of residents and Department of Health officials following news of two more confirmed Covid-19 cases at the facility.
In a statement, the organisation said at least one-third of the staffing still needed to be met and that safety requirements meant it was taking staff at least five times longer to deliver care.
“We appreciate and understand why families are upset, frustrated and disappointed,” said Grant Millard, the chief executive of Anglicare Sydney.
Families have raised concerns about a deteriorating level of care provided to residents as the virus has spread within the centre.
Three residents have died and 44 people – 29 residents and 15 staff – have tested positive.
Updated
Australia’s death toll is at 75 after Victoria reported another death.
The man in his 60s, who had been diagnosed with Covid-19, died overnight.
Sixteen people have died in Victoria after being diagnosed with the coronavirus.
Updated
Canberra always looks like this, but if you live in an actual city, you may have been taken by just how empty it is at the moment.
My very clever colleagues have taken a look at Australia’s most famous city during this lockdown:
The Oxford Martin School has had a look at how the world’s island nations are doing in the pandemic, which is an interesting graph.
You may wonder why the UK is included, given its border with Ireland, but I was reminded of what John of Gaunt said of England in Richard II by a friend of the blog:
This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
Updated
The ACT has also recorded no new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours.
Updated
The message from the Ruby Princess is simple ahead of its expected departure from Port Kembla later tonight. Goodbye Ruby Princess 👋 pic.twitter.com/ce8j8n3roA
— Ainslie DrewittSmith (@AinslieClaire) April 23, 2020
The national update will be at 3.15pm with the deputy chief medical officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth.
Updated
Western Australia has recorded no new cases in the past 24 hours.
For those asking, Daniel Hurst did follow up with Scott Morrison asking him again whether he now acknowledged $40 a day was not enough to live on - and whether or not he was open to extending the period of the higher rate.
The question was ignored.
Updated
The numbers
There were a few new numbers in there, so let’s recap:
- Some 456,000 people have applied for early access to their superannuation
- That equals $3.8bn in withdrawals
- The average withdrawal has been $8,000
- Some 6.8 million people have received the $750 Covid supplement
- That equals $5bn
- Around 275,000 businesses have applied for the $1,500 jobkeeper wage subsidy
Updated
Will Scott Morrison look at extending the budget deficit to ease the coming economic pain?
The way we have sought, as a government, to manage and handle and respond to the coronavirus crisis is we’ve got some very clear principles that have guided us.
And I, in particular, outlined those some weeks, if not months ago, in Sydney at the AFR conference.
And we have been guided constantly by the evidence – not the opinions, but the evidence.
And we’ve been guided by some outstanding expert advice ... there are so many people that have been guiding us with good expert advice, and this is a model that I think has always underlined how our government has operated and we’ll continue to do that.
We’ll continue to be driven by the principles that we hold very dearly, the data and the evidence to inform our views and the solid and respected expert advice that can input into that process.
And what’s our goal? Save lives. Save livelihoods. See Australia stronger again.
Updated
Daniel Hurst asks about extending the Covid supplement beyond six months and whether or not Scott Morrison now accepts that people can’t live on $40 a day – which was the old Newstart payment.
It does not look promising:
We put a Covid supplement in place for the period of the pandemic and that’s what we’ve budgeted for and that’s what our policy is.
Updated
And we love New Zealand, Scott Morrison says. We can’t wait to reconnect with them:
I speak weekly to prime minister Ardern and there are many issues we discussed.
There was the issue that came up recently about our borders.
Now, if there is any country in the world with whom we can reconnect with first, undoubtedly that’s New Zealand. And we have similar trajectories.
Their restrictions have been far greater. Our case response has, you know, been the same, if not better than New Zealand. So if there’s any country where we can look to achieve that, then I would have thought New Zealand would be the obvious candidate and that’s the nature of discussions we’ve had.
So there already are exemptions that the border force commissioner has to enable those individuals to come. That is an area we can look potentially favourably on provided all the other arrangements are in place regarding public safety.
That’s something we’ll work through patiently.
Updated
On the NRL, Scott Morrison says the league does not count as “community sport” (which will resume, if all continues going well, very soon).
In terms of the NRL, it’s principally a matter for the New South Wales government because they are ... as I understand the proposal, that’s where the matches are being played.
And so they have the health authority over what occurs with that. If you’re looking for what the health agreements or approvals that have been provided, that’s entirely really a matter for the New South Wales government, or any other state governments who may be involved in where games may be played or how training is being conducted.
The commonwealth government doesn’t have any direct role in any of that. The only matters that we’ve been directly engaged in – and they’re being handled by the minister for home affairs – is in relation to the New Zealand involvement.
Updated
PM comments on Chinese embassy spat
Scott Morrison is asked about Peter Dutton’s comments and the “spat” with the Chinese embassy and says:
I think the minister for home affairs has set out the situation well.
Australia is perfectly entitled to set out positions that are totally consistent with the principles and values that we have as a country.
We are a transparent, open nation, and when it comes to issues of public health, we would only seek the good-faith participation of any country that would find itself in that situation. We had a virus originate out of Wuhan in China, and we were very fortunate here in Australia that we moved very quickly to close off the travel of Chinese nationals to Australia early in the piece.
As I said yesterday, it was one of the matters that President Trump and I discussed. I think we were in about 24 hours before the United States, but we made the decision about the same time and it was the extraordinary discipline of our Chinese Australian community, which meant that we resisted that first wave of cases. The wave of cases that impacted Australia came from predominantly returning Australians from other parts of the world, where the virus had transmitted to out of China.
What’s important is that we work together in a transparent way. The World Health Assembly is coming up in May.
There are opportunities to pursue that matter there. And that’s our first port of call. I’ve obviously shared my views, as has the foreign minister, with other like-minded countries, about the need for a transparent process here and for a fair dinkum look at how these rules are working. Our purpose here is just pretty simple: we’d like the world to be safer when it comes to viruses. It seems like a pretty honest ambition that I’m sure most people in the world would agree with. So it would be great if we could achieve that and that’s the spirit in which we’re pursuing this and I would hope that any other nation, be it China or anyone else, would share that objective.
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The Australian government has hired an additional 5,000 people during the Covid-19 crisis. Scott Morrison:
5,000 is how many additional people have been brought into the task and that includes with service providers. As you know, early on, one of the first things they did with the service providers was to lift some of the call centre staff out of, I think, one of the airlines actually, and have them move in and they started processing jobseeker claims, which has worked very well.
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Scott Morrison says he doesn’t understand how getting rid of franking credits or negative gearing or raising taxes does anything to grow the economy.
Josh Frydenberg refers to his “home state of Melbourne”, proving that we are all feeling a little tired and maybe all need a short lie down.
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Is Scott Morrison looking at a new accord between employers, unions and employees?
I’m not about to start articulating a public reading list on the topic nor am I about to engage in horsetrading from this podium about this process. What I’m honestly saying to Australians is we’re looking at all options with fresh eyes. And that’s in a good-faith way and I would be encouraging everyone else with a stake in this – and that includes the union movement. I mean it’s about jobs – to engage in a ... good-faith manner.
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I couldn’t possibly comment, but I think this question is aimed at the WA Today story we mentioned a few posts ago, about Kerry Stokes being granted permission to isolate at home, after everyone else was forced into quarantine in hotels and Rottnest Island:
Q: Prime minister, you mentioned before how dangerous this virus is. How important is it, though, that people continue to adhere to the quarantine measures in place? And are there any circumstances under which anybody should seek to make themselves exempt from those quarantine measures, irrespective of their status in society?
Morrison:
We’re all in this together. All of us. And I think that’s the expectation of all of Australians.
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PM links downloading tracing app to civic duty
Scott Morrison on the tracing app, again linking its download to a civic duty:
Well, it’s a very important part of the broader plan that the government’s pursuing.
It’s not a silver bullet. It goes along with many other initiatives that the government is pursuing.
I want to be clear about, again, what this is. This is a tool, a public health tool, to assist health officers and state and territory governments, when someone has contracted the coronavirus, to assist them in that work to contact others who may have been put at risk.
That’s what we’re trying to do here. That protects every Australian.
Every Australian will be safer if those health officers are able to contact you more quickly if you have been exposed to the coronavirus and, importantly, that means that you will be less at risk of infecting others if they can get to you fast.
And so we want to help those public health officers. There’s been a lot of – quite rightly – praise and commendation for our health officers, our nurses, our doctors. You want the health system, you want to help nurses, you want to help paramedics, you want to help doctors and say thank you for the great job they’re doing, then you can help them, by supporting and downloading the app which will be released soon.
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Australians withdraw $3.8bn from super funds
Josh Frydenberg says Australians have taken up the offer to access superannuation, after the barriers were relaxed:
In terms of the early access to super, the ATO – the Australian Tax Office – has approved 456,000 applications, totalling $3.8bn. Those applications are now with the superannuation funds for their payment over the next five days. The average withdrawal is around $8,000. And just to remind you that you can access up to $10,000 from your super this financial year and up to another $10,000 next financial year.
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Last week, Scott Morrison said election promises may need to be broken as the nation moved into a post-Covid-19world.
He’s asked about that again:
Q: You’ve spoken about the need for fresh eyes to get to a Covid-safe economy. Does a Covid-safe economy involve breaking election promises?
Morrison:
It involves ensuring that Australia is put in the safest and most prosperous place that we possibly can.
Here is what he said last week, (the they is referencing the RBA and the Grattan Insitute)
They also highlighted, though, the need to ensure that 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 frameworks that we had prior to the election will need to be reconsidered on the other side to ensure that we can achieve the growth that will be necessary in our economy to get people back into work, to get our economy back on track.
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Asked about whether the federal government needs to take responsibility for issues in aged care outbreaks, such as what NSW is seeing in its western Sydney Newmarch House facility, Scott Morrison says:
We’ve been working very closely with the NSW government on those outbreaks, as we have at other places. Aged care facility areas have always been a great concern. Yes, the federal government does provide funding support to aged care facilities but regulatory responsibilities are held at a state level.
We work closely together. One of the important things we did early on in the Covid response was to ensure we were providing additional funding to support the efforts of surging additional medical staff and others into aged care areas.
Because in aged care as well, state governments also provide direct clinical support into those facilities as well. It’s a team effort.
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Josh Frydenberg says he has spoken to the banks and anyone who is having trouble should speak directly to their own bank:
Today, I held a telephone hook-up with the four bank CEOs and the tax commissioner, Chris Jordan.
It was a very productive discussion. And we emphasised the need for the banks to provide the support to those businesses.
They have agreed to set up each of these four major banks, a dedicated hotline for their customers to call to receive the bridging finance necessary to pay their staff ahead of receiving that money under the jobkeeper program.
Importantly, they have also agreed to expedite the processing of all those applications to the front of the queue. So our message today is if you are a business or a not-for-profit operation that is eligible for the jobkeeper payment, as required, you need to pay your staff ahead of receiving the money from the tax office. Go to your bank, ring their hotline, ask for that support, and that support will be forthcoming.
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Scott Morrison says 587,686 jobseeker applications have been processed, which is more than Services Australia (formerly Centrelink) usually do in a year.
Updated
What will the economic reforms the government (and RBA governor Philip Lowe) have begun talking about look like? No one is sure yet:
Scott Morrison:
It is not a matter of just dusting off old reports or old submissions that have been made to the government and bowling them up again. That’s not what we are doing.
We are looking with all of these things with fresh eyes, with very fresh eyes, with a view to what the post-Covid economy was going to look like globally and domestically to help them get back on their feet and grow the businesses and have a business-led recovery to put Australia in a stronger position in the future.
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While the prime minister is speaking, Nine Newspaper’s WA Today has just dropped this story:
🚨🚨 @WAtoday scoop: Kerry Stokes exempted from strict WA quarantine rules after arriving in Perth from Aspen by private jet https://t.co/mpGlMkVH7G
— Kylar Loussikian (@kloussikian) April 23, 2020
Updated
Scott Morrison says he is aware of frustrations from some businesses that have been unable to access fast bridging credit lines, and he wants the banks to work on that.
Updated
Morrison explains why Australia is not rushing to lift restrictions
The prime minister says there is a reason Australia is not rushing to lift its restrictions:
Let’s not get complacent while our numbers are good.
One number that is never good is the fact that 75 Australians have passed away. As sad as that is for those families, let’s not forget that in countries that are smaller than Australia, like Belgium – 6,262 people have died.
In Sweden 1,937 people have died. If you look at the fatality rates as a proportion of population, in the United States it is almost 50 times higher than Australia.
In France it is over 100 times higher than Australia. In the United Kingdom also, just under 100 times higher. In Germany it is over 20 times higher. In Switzerland it is over 60 times higher. Denmark over 20.
These are all sophisticated, developed economies with good health systems. This can happen in Australia if we are not careful and that is why Australians and our governments have been so careful to balance the needs to get our economy back to a Covid-safe level so it can support people’s incomes and with can return to higher rates of growth into the future.
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Scott Morrison press conference
Scott Morrison starts his press conference by paying tribute to the four Victorian police officers who were killed yesterday during a traffic stop.
This is a terrible time, more broadly, but for these families and for the Victorian police family and for police officers all over the country – and I know their families will be feeling the same way – this is just an awful tragedy.
A terribly dark day for that police force and our thoughts, our prayers, our sympathies are there for all of them, but also our thanks to police officers serving all over the country. It is a dreadful and terrible reminder of the dangers that you face every single day.
You step up every day, you stand between us and that danger every single day and we are deeply grateful for your service, deeply grateful for your sacrifice and to those families who are knowing nothing other than terrible grief today, we stand with you as much as we possibly can and with hop that provides at least some comfort to you and we extend also to the Victorian government our appreciation for the work they are doing to support those families.
Updated
Oh and then this is fun.
Ray Hadley says that having inspectors go into wildlife wet markets is a good idea, but not under the current leadership of the World Health Organisation. And then Peter Dutton agrees.
Hadley: I declare that if we are to trust the WHO it can’t be under the current Ethiopian leader.
Dutton: I agree with that ... their reputation is besmirched when there is propaganda involved or there’s influence in commentary that has been made.
Updated
Then the conversation moved to China, and the ambassador’s criticism of Peter Dutton, after Dutton said there needed to be more transparency. Beijing accused Dutton of taking his talking points from Washington.
Hadley: You’ve been condemned by the Chinese ambassador as “pitiful and showing ignorance and bigotry”, when I think you’ve merely repeated what the Politburo said on the 4th of February [the need for a crackdown on wet markets] have you not?
Dutton: I’ve seen some reports of people of Asian extraction in Australia who have been citizens here for decades being targeted on the streets, abused physically or verbally, that is just not on. It’s completely unacceptable, it’s illegal and it should be called out. My problem is with the Communist party of China … I want to make sure that we make a big distinction between people of Chinese heritage who are wonderful Australians; work hard, educate their children, abide by the law, are as Aussie as any Caucasian-looking person and are an integral part of our society and they should be treated with equal respect, as you would anybody else walking down the street … but I have big problems with the way in which the Communist party has conducted itself here.
.... The other issues that we’ve got to look at are around cyberactivity. We know that the Chinese and others, Russia, North Korea, for example, is involved in cyberactivity. And there are some reports now, perhaps it’s Russia, I don’t know, where there’s a misinformation campaign which is designed to scare people. We saw it in the US election as well, where these fake text messages were sent around purporting to be delivering a message from the government where that wasn’t the case. There are serious questions to be asked about that, because when they go viral there can be a massive misinformation problem that any government or democracy experiences.
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Peter Dutton has appeared for his regular cosy chat with Sydney radio host Ray Hadley.
Today, Hadley was very, very upset about the NRL and the possibility that Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk may not loosen the border restrictions to let the Queensland teams in and out without any issues.
I mean, she has asked the NRL for its plan, which doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable, but then again, I am at a loss at to how Hadley defines “reasonable” and not sure I ever want to find out.
Dutton, asked about whether the New Zealand players would be allowed in, says:
Well, Ray, it’s obviously a complex picture and you’re right, everybody wants to see the NRL start up again, we want to see the footy and we want to see other sports as well, even for kids who are stuck at home at the moment doing, you know, their work online, we’ve got to get those kids active again and people back interested in normal aspects of life.
So getting the NRL up and started, I think, is a very important part of the next steps that we take to normalise and return to the way it was only a few months ago.
So we’re in discussions with the NRL at the moment, I’ll have a chat with Peter V’Landys again later today.
Obviously, as you point out, the Border Force commissioner has discretion to allow people in, now he has allowed a number of people in on compassionate grounds and other considerations around work and people with expertise coming in. There have been certain exemptions, as I understand.
But for many, as you rightly point out, that request has been rejected. So, we just need to look at what is reasonable in the circumstance.
Obviously New Zealand is a very low-risk country for us given the very low numbers of cases, and people would have to go into quarantine in accordance with the state jurisdiction’s Department of Health requirements so, if the Warriors were to come into NSW or Queensland they would have to go through two weeks of isolation, as would be the case for everybody else … we just need to clarify what [Palaszczuk’s] position is and the position of the premiers otherwise, so there’s a lot of work to do but we all want to see it up and started as soon as possible.
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Well, something didn’t go to plan
Chief Medical Office Professor Brendan Murphy says authorities including NSW Health carried out a training exercise in May last year = for a cruise ship arriving into Sydney - with a pandemic on board. @9newsaus #auspol #RubyPrincess #coronavirus
— Jonathan Kearsley (@jekearsley) April 23, 2020
The AFL is preparing to restart its season:
There are no AFL islands being discussed, but there are hubs.
Meanwhile, Mason Cox had a few things to say about how his homeland was handling the pandemic. (I will use any excuse to talk about Collingwood)
My thoughts on what is happening back home in the US... pic.twitter.com/FFMDjMIqLq
— Mason Cox (@masonsixtencox) April 22, 2020
Tasmania has recorded four new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours.
The north-west lockdown is expected to be eased this weekend.
Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg will hold a press conference at 11.30am.
I believe it has something to do with the banks.
After Greens senator Richard Di Natale returned to the Ruby Princess, Murphy finally offered a statement of regret:
“In retrospect there were some decisions that were made that everyone regrets ... Clearly, there were mistakes made. Everyone was doing their best in tricky and tense times. Let’s not blame anybody but wait and see [the outcome of the NSW special commission of inquiry].”
Brendan Murphy has said although it is “very hard” to estimate timeframes for relaxing Covid-19 measures, but he “wouldn’t envision any changes” to Australia’s international travel ban in the next three to four months.
The one exception would be New Zealand, he said, which may reopen to Australia and vice versa but this is “quite speculative”.
The next steps are to consider relaxing physical distancing measures with “stronger public health measures” to counterbalance the risk.
He noted the great concern about a second wave of infections, as has occurred in Singapore.
Murphy said health officers are “certainly not considering large-scale gatherings” but may relax the numbers allowed at small-scale gatherings.
The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee has also been asked to consider “community sport and some retail shops”.
Some measures will be needed for “quite a long time”.
Updated
More than 93,000 Covid-19 tests have been conducted in Victoria.
That’s about one test for every 70 people.
Although obviously that figure includes people being tested a number of times, and people from interstate who underwent quarantine and testing in Victoria.
Victoria has recorded just one new case of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the current total to 1,337.
A man in his 60s died in hospital last night, bringing the number of people to die in Victoria after testing positive to the disease to 16.
There are 27 people still in hospital, of whom 10 are in intensive care.
More than 93% of people who tested positive in the state have now recovered, leaving just 70 active cases. Some 135 cases – or 9.9% of the total – have been attributed to untraced community transmission.
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Brendan Murphy has distanced himself from decision-making on the Ruby Princess, telling the Covid-19 committee he was “not directly involved” and “operational decisions” are made by state and territory human biosecurity officers.
Murphy said there were “issues with what [authorities] were told, and the information they acted on”.
Murphy repeatedly noted that there is a NSW commission of inquiry into the matter, but Kristina Keneally pushed on.
Murphy defended NSW Health’s assessment the ship was of low risk:
“It had only been to New Zealand and back, and New Zealand was not a high-risk country. I think everyone was quite surprised there had been a significant Covid-19 outbreak onboard. On first principles, it was not a high-risk vessel.”
Murphy also argued that most of the infections from the Ruby Princess “would’ve happened whether or not it disembarked, because they were contracted on the ship”. But he conceded “if disembarkation had occurred into a more structured quarantine, there may have been less community transmission”.
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Anthony Albanese repeats his main message, for those up the back:
What we’ve seen during this crisis as well is the trade union of this country engaged in cooperation.
There isn’t a single example that the government can point to of an opportunistic behaviour by a union on any work site. What we’ve seen is trade unions putting the national interest first, working people being prepared to make sacrifices, to give things up in the short term.
What we need to make sure is arising out of this, we don’t return to the rhetoric that we’ve already seen the start of from this government, of labour market deregulation, of freeing up the labour market, which really means driving down wages and conditions further.
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Anthony Albanese:
What we’re saying is that the government needs a plan that doesn’t say that on day X there is a Covid-19 crisis and that there’s an immediate snapback, that we need a plan that includes investment.
We need a plan that looks after people and the employment. This will be a transition out of Covid-19.
It won’t be a snapback.
The government needs to acknowledge that and needs to put in place policies that deliver an appropriate outcome, that look after people.
One of the things that we’ve had during this crisis is that governments have worked in opposition – and we’ve had two parliamentary sittings – whereby we’ve had, I think, a very cooperative approach and it’s been parliament working at its best, but the real credit goes to the Australian people, those working people in essential industries like nurses, teachers, supermarket workers, transport workers, who’ve kept the economy going, but also workers on sites like this who’ve kept the economy going, who’ve kept the activity going.
What we need to make sure is that arising out of this crisis, we don’t have the government go to the bottom drawer and say, “What we need is labour market deregulation. What we need is more tax cuts for people who don’t necessarily need it.”
What we need to do is to make sure that we continue to support those working people who’ve provided support for our national economy at this critical time.
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Queensland has committed $3.5m to keep Lifeline phone lines open and operating as the organisation faces more and more demand for its services.
As AAP reports:
Lifeline was hit by a tsunami of desperate calls in March, recording its highest monthly total in the organisation’s 56-year history.
The coronavirus crisis has put unprecedented pressure on the group’s help line, with demand peaking on Good Friday when some 3,200 people reached out for support.
Lifeline volunteers and staff answered 90,000 calls for help in March – the highest month tally ever recorded.
That was up 25% on a year ago, and saw operators deal with one call every 30 seconds.
Lifeline’s Brent McCracken said Good Friday was “the biggest day in our history” as people marked Easter under onerous but necessary isolation rules.
“We saw people really struggling with loneliness, and the isolation, exacerbating the circumstances they’re in,” he told reporters.
Asked who was reaching out for help, he simply said “everybody”.
“[People] losing their business, losing their job, finding themselves without other people around them, having a lack of social contact,” he said.
“Many are facing circumstances they could never have envisaged they would be in. Many are feeling their life is becoming worthless.”
They included people with chronic mental health issues exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis, but also a new group, people who’d never reached out for support before.
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Federal shadow minister for housing and homelessness Jason Clare says:
Housing is an important way to crawl our way out of this crisis. Whenever we’ve had a crisis – after the war or the Great Depression – building houses helps to build a way out of the crisis.
We can do that again.
The prime minister talks about ‘snapback’, but the economy is not going to snap back if these small mum-and-dad businesses snap.
And that’s why we’re saying today that the next priority for the federal government and for the national cabinet needs to be working on a plan for these people and these small mum-and-dad businesses, to make sure that in the months ahead, we don’t have hundreds of thousands of Aussies and tradies losing their jobs.
The last thing we need is, as Australia goes back to work in the second half of this year, that we’ve got hundreds of thousands of tradies out of work. That’s why it’s important that the federal government makes this a priority right now.
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Anthony Albanese:
The prime minister has said that we’ll have ‘snapback’. The truth is that that won’t occur. We won’t wake up one morning and be through this crisis and be back to where we were. It needs government support, and we’ve been reminded during this crisis that government intervention is an essential component of how we deal with our economy.
So what we don’t need is a government that says after this crisis is over, we’ll just let the market rip. What we need is a government that’s prepared to invest in people, in skills.
Updated
Anthony Albanese is gathering steam on this argument.
Now that the suppression phase is well and truly underway and showing all the signs of success, Labor is looking to what comes next. And it also wants to make sure that not everything is blamed on Covid-19. (Which is a little awkward because some of the Labor states are doing the same thing when it comes to their budgets.)
The fact is that we are going through a crisis, but the other fact is that the economy was soft before this crisis.
Last year, we saw a decline in consumer demand. We saw productivity going backwards. We saw wages not keeping up with the cost of living.
We’d seen interest rates decreased by the Reserve Bank on multiple occasions because of the softness that was there in the economy.
We saw a doubling of our debt under this government, before the bushfire crisis, and before the extraordinary expenditure we’ve seen due to the Covid-19 response.
Labor has been constructive during this period. We have made constructive suggestions, many of which have been taken up by the government, most significantly of which is wage subsidies, that have kept relationships between employers and employees.
But coming out of this crisis, we need to do better.
Updated
Liberal James Paterson has asked Brendan Murphy to outline why Australia has been so successful at combating coronavirus.
Murphy replies that two-thirds of Australia’s cases have been returned travellers, and Australia has had very good rates of testing and tracing to prevent early spread.
He singles out travel bans, hotel quarantine and the “progressive range of social distancing measures” for the success.
Paterson then asks about Taiwan, which has done even better than Australia with less stringent restrictions.
Murphy replies that Taiwan has a “very aggressive” regime of tracing and isolation, and Australia is studying its response to determine if we can reduce our social distancing measures if we “test like we’ve never tested before” and “do even better”.
Nevertheless, he warns Australia is at “permanent risk of further waves”.
Asked about schools and how many children have Covid-19, Murphy replied:
“The proportion is very small, those under 10 is a handful, there are a few more in the teenager group. Worldwide, the [proportion of those infected] under 19 is 2.4% ... There is no evidence of student to student [transmission in Australia], there is some evidence of student to teacher transmission. But this virus is completely unlike influenza, this virus doesn’t infect children as much. There is some question about whether children are asymptomatic ... [but] they don’t seem to be transmitting it in schools. We have had concerns about adults, vulnerable teachers.”
Updated
To be fair though, most other countries in the G20 are still struggling to contain the virus – they are still working on suppression.
So there focus is elsewhere at the moment.
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Australia may have to wait some time to see if any other country picks up its call to investigate wildlife wet markets.
As David Littleproud told Fran Kelly on ABC radio this morning there wasn’t a huge takeup of the idea:
I was the only one that raised it, sadly, as a real risk to human health and to biosecurity wellbeing of our agricultural production system. So we’ll continue to work with our G20 partners but also we intend to engage with the World Organisation for Animal Health. They would be the independent body that could go and work within these wildlife wet markets, and make sure they get the science, and draw on other independent scientific experts to help them get the information we need, and we do that together as a global community.
And whether that’s in China or anywhere else and I do acknowledge the fact that China has previously temporarily closed these wildlife wet markets down but we need to continue to understand the science of it. As biology evolves, as we evolve we need to understand how that science interacts, and how do we keep ourselves safe in that.
Updated
The department of health secretary Caroline Edwards has submitted her opening statement to the Covid-19 inquiry.
You can find that here but it won’t tell you too much.
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Chief medical officer professor Brendan Murphy has told the committee that Australia has “never reached a situation where [personal protective equipment] has been insufficient”.
Labor’s Murray Watt is asking about PPE because Murphy had earlier given evidence to Senate estimates that under some scenarios Australia might run out, and there have been numerous news reports of shortages, especially in primary healthcare.
Murphy said it’s true that earlier in the pandemic “we weren’t sure of the course” of coronavirus, but since then Australia had purchased “hundreds of millions of masks” and fortunately due to the public health response it has not been a “large or uncontrolled” outbreak.
Murphy said the health and industry departments had “invested billions” and been “scouring the world”. He concedes only that some distributions of PPE were “just in time”.
Updated
David Littleproud has spent the morning explaining Australia’s position on wanting more scrutiny of wildlife wet markets – while making it clear that he doesn’t mean *all* wet markets.
That’s after Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg, among other government MPs, criticised what they said was the World Health Organisation’s support to reopen wet markets in China.
That started a few days of explaining what a wet market is – it’s essentially a blanket term for a fresh food market. And in a lot of places, it is the main place communities source their food. It’s not like there is a supermarket on the corner of every village.
So now Australia has adapted its position to focus on the problem – the wildlife wet markets.
As Littleproud explained to the Seven Network this morning:
We’ve got to understand not all wet markets are bad, it’s when wildlife, exotic wildlife is added to them, which is what’s happened in this case, as the Chinese officials have identified and reported to the World Organisation of Animal Health. So there are many of these around the world. It only makes sense. The world’s got smaller; we’re part of a global community, that we come together and we do the right thing to protect one another but also protect our agricultural production systems that underpin our food security.
Updated
Bret Walker, the commissioner of the special inquiry into the Ruby Princess, has rejected claims that the opening day of the commission was “concealed” from the public.
Yesterday, NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay said she had been taken by surprise by a sudden start to the much-awaited public hearings.
“The premier hid this fact at her 8am press conference,” McKay said.
Today, Walker has released a statement saying the commission started suddenly because witnesses were only confirmed on Tuesday.
“The reason for the late notice for the commencement of the hearings and the lack of ‘fanfare’ about them is that neither I nor any member of the special commission staff knew that the hearings were going to go ahead until late on 21 April 2020,” he said.
Walker said the commission was totally independent, and there was no “concealment” from the NSW government.
“The decision to convene hearings this week was mine, and mine alone … None of the matters … have anything to do with any minister of the NSW government, much less the premier.”
He adds, in person, that certain witnesses were not served until the day before the commission started.
The reason this was brought forward was because the Ruby Princess was staying in Australian waters for longer than expected, he says. Last week, NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller said he hoped it would leave on Sunday. It is still in NSW.
“There was no concealment,” Walker says. “As soon as summonses were served, there was public announcement of the hearing. Which was held in public, livestreamed, and a transcript of evidence will soon be available.”
Updated
The Senate Covid-19 committee has kicked off with a statement by chair, Katy Gallagher, advising the chief medical officer to consider the inquiry “essential to not separate from” his work responding to the pandemic.
Caroline Edwards, the acting health department secretary, gave an opening statement outlining that the national incident room was set up on 20 January and all the measures taken to boost the health response. Australia is “well-placed to manage the virus”, she says.
The chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, said he was “very pleased” to work with the committee and would provide “frank and fearless” advice. He said:
“I’m proud of the way we’ve responded and I’m happy to be open to scrutiny.”
Updated
Covid-19 Senate inquiry begins
Professor Brendan Murphy has begun giving evidence at the select Senate committee looking at Australia’s Covid-19 response.
He says Australia first heard from the World Health Organisation on 1 January about a new pneumonia which had been seen in Wuhan in China.
In the second week of January, China said it had no more cases for a week and there was no evidence of human to human transmission, and was being described as a virus which might travel from animals to humans, but not necessarily widely spread from human to human.
That all changed from around the 19 to 20 of January.
There was clear evidence coming from China that there was significant human to human transmission which was a game-changer. If you have a virus which does not spread from human to human, it is easy to contain but once you have human to human contamination it becomes risky and that is when we activated [incident room] and started meetings daily with the principal committee which is our national committee comprising of all chief medical officers, expert advice and we set up a working group with what we call our communal diseases network and we started discussing with international counterparts.
We were in an active response mode and declared this a listed human disease under the Biosecurity Act a few days later.
We were one of the first countries to do that because we recognise the potential pandemic of the virus.
Updated
We now have a little more information about how the looming resumption of elective surgery allows the federal government to reduce some of the payments it has been making to the private hospital sector.
Late last month the federal government announced it would guarantee private hospital viability throughout the crisis.
It followed calls from the private sector for help after the cancellation of non-urgent elective surgery had cut out a lot of the activity occurring in those hospitals.At the time, the health minister, Greg Hunt, said the federal government was expected to contribute an extra $1.3bn.
In return for state and federal support, such hospitals would be fully integrated within the public hospital system as part of preparing for a potential influx of Covid-19 cases.
One of the big decisions of the national cabinet on Tuesday was to resume some of the suspended elective surgeries from next week onwards.
We pointed out in our story on Tuesday that the move was expected to allow the federal government to gradually reduce the amount the private hospitals are paid under the viability guarantee.
We chased confirmation from Hunt’s office, and a spokesperson has told us:
“Under the National Partnership Agreement on the Covid-19 Response, the commonwealth will continue to provide funding to maintain private hospital viability while ensuring we can quickly respond to Covid-19.
“The agreement recognises that any revenue received by the private hospital, including from private patients, will reduce the payment required from the Australian government to maintain system capacity and viability.”
But there’s no word yet on how this affects the price tag originally foreshadowed.
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Anthony Albanese had a chat to Laura Jayes on Sky this morning, about the government’s calls for unions to join business on its “reform agenda” once the physical restrictions are lifted.
Albanese says whatever the agenda is, it needs to be made clear, and not just be used to carry out old industrial ideologies:
The prime minister needs to outline what that agenda is. And last week we saw industrial relations regulations changed without any reference or consultation with the trade union movement or with the Labor party, or with the community. Regulations changed overnight by Christian Porter, which allow for an increase in power by employers by limiting the period of consultation for changes to awards to a 24-hour process so that individual workers and workers in particular workplaces would have a great deal of difficulty having proper advice and consultation on any proposed changes.
So, I look at what people do not just what they say. I hope that some of the spirit that has been around during the recent period, whether it’s listening to science, whether it’s having respect for unions, I hope that does continue from this government beyond the existing crisis, because that would be a good thing.
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But as he went on to say, not all countries are focusing on that as yet:
Now, the other countries as yet, they won’t have formed a view on my specific proposals.
But the broader area of cooperation, independent, transparent, getting to the heart of what’s happened here so we can learn the lessons, that’s incredibly important.
I mean, after the Ebola episode, the WHO had an independent review of all that, they had a whole series of recommendations about what should change and nothing was changed. And I don’t think we can have a repeat of that exercise and so like-minded countries like France and ourselves and Germany and I’m sure, as yet, when I next get to speak to Boris in the UK and Canada and the United States and so many, we have a lot in common here.
And we need to ensure there’s transparency, that there is independence and getting to the bottom of these things and getting world global organisations, which have their place, they can do really good work.
But they’ve got to be able to do that without, you know, being feted in any way in the way they find out what’s going on so the rest of us can take action.
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On the inquiry Australia wants the World Health Organisation to undertake on the coronavirus response, Scott Morrison told Sky News last night that it wasn’t just about China.
One of the things that would have been very helpful to the rest of the world is if there wasn’t any delay and if there was the ability to get this information very early on that could have alerted the rest of the world to the greater risk that was occurring there. It did take a while.
And I don’t make that comment to be critical. It’s just an observation, and I personally think it would be very helpful that in circumstances, and it wouldn’t matter if it was in Australia, if it was in South America, if it was in south-east Asia or Africa or China or anywhere else, in Europe.
That if there is a virus of this nature that is believed to be of pandemic potential and very dangerous to the world, well we need to know what’s going on and fast, very fast and if we have that ability, that could have potentially saved thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of lives.
And we need to have that sort of ability and so that’s why yeah I am an advocate of that case.
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Katy Gallagher has held a quick doorstop on the Senate select committee looking at the Covid-19 response.
She says it is important it plays out in the public where it can:
I think trying to be a conduit to the Australian people and give them the opportunity to understand some of the decisions that have been taken, how they have been taken and when they might change is an important part of our job and if that is why it will be broadcast today.
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Queensland to allow 20 people to attend funerals
Queensland has announced it is relaxing its funeral restrictions. That state will now allow 20 people at a funeral. Physical distancing restrictions remain.
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Anthony Albanese, along with the shadow minister for homelessness, Jason Clare, will hold a press conference in Canberra at 10.20am.
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Two more people in Queensland have been diagnosed with Covid-19 in the last 24 hours.
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Gross GDP predicted to fall by 3.9%
The world is on track for a recession of “unprecedented depth in the postwar period”, the ratings agency Fitch says.
In a note issued on Thursday, Fitch’s chief economist, Brian Coulton, said the agency now expected world gross domestic product to tumble by 3.9% in 2020.
“This is twice as large as the decline anticipated in our early April GEO [global economic outlook] update and would be twice as severe as the 2009 recession,” he said.
Fitch said the slump implied a US$2.8tn fall in global income levels from last year.
Coulton said unprecedented floods of cash pumped into the economy by governments “will serve to cushion the near-term shock”.
“But with job losses occurring on an extreme scale and intense pressures on small and medium-sized businesses, the path back to normality after the health crisis subsides is likely to be slow,” he said.
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Australia’s chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, and the health department will appear this morning at the select Senate committee looking at the Covid response.
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We are really starting to rack up our acronyms.
The health minister has announced a critical health resource information system will operate in all intensive care units. The government calls that CHRIS. The Guardian style guide declares I call it Chris.
Basically, it’s a fancy name to describe something you may have thought already existed – a way for health jurisdictions to share how many intensive care beds are available around the country at any one time.
“This national system will make sure we know where available ICU beds are and that the equipment, including ventilators, the patient needs are in place and ready for a rapid response in the event of future Covid-19 outbreaks,” Hunt said.
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Australia wants more scrunity of wildlife wet markets
Returning to the Covid and political coverage of the day, the federal government is ramping up its call for international scrutiny of wildlife wet markets.
David Littleproud was part of a G20 agriculture ministers meeting where the future of markets formed a big part of the conversation.
Australia wants international inspectors to go in and investigate that health safety standards are being adhered to. Littleproud said:
We must learn from Covid-19 on how we better manage and mitigate both human and animal biosecurity risks, and to ignore wildlife wet markets in that assessment would be wrong.
There are risks with wildlife wet markets and they could be as big a risk to our agricultural industries as they can be to public health, so we have to understand them better.
The G20 of agriculture ministers have a responsibility to lead the way and draw on global experts and engage international organisations to rationally and methodically look at the many significant risks of wildlife wet markets.
Our people should have confidence that the food they eat is safe. We owe it to our domestic population and our international markets.
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Victoria’s police commissioner, Graham Ashton:
It is a tragic day for Victoria police, I said last night, it is a tragic day obviously for the families of these officers and we feel very deeply for them.
The whole force is reeling this morning from what has occurred last night. It is an unprecedented event for us to lose so many officers in one event, in one very terrible collision on the freeway.
And officers just doing their work, doing their job, doing a duty that is performed by officers many times a day across our state and it is just a timely reminder of how tragic this police work can be at times. And, indeed very unexpectedly at times.
The whole police family is feeling that this morning and will for many, many days to come.
We are providing welfare to the officers and providing welfare, also to the many, many colleagues of our fallen officers as well.
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The Victorian police commissioner, Graham Ashton, says not all family members have been told of the deaths and so the officer’s names can not be revealed.
About 4.50pm, he says, a highway patrol car spotted a speeding 911 Porsche and directed the driver to an emergency lane, where he stopped. The driver was given a roadside test, and, testing positive, the patrol called for the car to be impounded and another highway patrol team came to provide support. About 5.40pm a semi-trailer hit the cars. All four police officers were killed. The truck driver suffered what the commissioner described as a medical event immediately afterwards and was taken to hospital.
The driver of the Porsche is not being identified but is known to police, and will be surrendering to a police station later today. The police commissioner is asking Facebook to take down photos of the man, which were passed around social media overnight.
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Daniel Andrews:
To live a life in the service of others is a deeply impressive thing. To lose your life in the service and protection of others is a tragedy. We honour those who we have lost. We send our best wishes to their families.
We send our best wishes and support to those who worked alongside them and we all of us, hopefully today can come together, and spend just a moment, thinking about every member of Victoria police and through that moment of quiet reflection, hopefully send our best wishes to every single member of Victoria police.
They do an amazing job and we have been tragically reminded just how dangerous that job can be.
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Daniel Andrews is holding a press conference.
This morning the Victorian premier is asking all Victorians “to pause and honour every single member of Victoria police, for the work that they do, for the service that they offer”.
Four Victorian police officers were killed last night when a truck hit them after they pulled over the driver of a speeding Porsche on a Melbourne freeway. It’s the single largest loss of life in the force’s history.
The matter is under investigation. The truck driver is under police guard in hospital. The driver of the Porsche fled the scene.
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Five more people in NSW have been diagnosed with Covid-19 in the last 24 hours.
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The reactions to this are *kisses fingers* exactly what you need on this Thursday morning (yes, it is Thursday but I did have to check. Twice). Also, it’s a great reminder to always have your microphone muted when on a work teleconference. Especially if it’s a parliamentary teleconference.
We have the first great Parliamentary Zoom disaster, courtesy of @vaughangething in the Welsh Assembly pic.twitter.com/bqa9rCxj6s
— Alain Tolhurst (@Alain_Tolhurst) April 22, 2020
The minister has apologised:
I’m obviously embarrassed about my comments at the end of questions today. I’ve sent a message apologising and offered to speak to @JennyRathbone if she wishes to do so. It is an unwelcome distraction at a time of unprecedented challenge.
— Vaughan Gething AM (@vaughangething) April 22, 2020
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Meanwhile, the NSW police commissioner, Mick Fuller, was aiming to have the Ruby Princess cruise ship (which has been docked off Port Kembla after arriving in Sydney last month, where its passengers were allowed to disembark and disperse, despite Covid symptoms showing up on board) leave today.
Here’s what happened on the first day of the Bret Walker-led inquiry.
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Good morning
The Covid curve continues to flatten, with state and territory leaders confident of another day of small case numbers.
But all are still quick to warn that won’t mean a sudden return to life as we knew it.
Relaxing the physical distancing rules is still a few weeks away. Schools returning to normal onsite learning is probably a bit after that. Parliaments may start sitting again next month, but budgets have been pushed into the second half of the year.
The border lockdowns still have some months to go – and don’t be surprised if there are extensions to the travel bans in some regions.
The UK is being warned that physical distance restrictions could be in place for a year. Until there is a vaccine, Australia will see some version of what’s in place for sometime. If there is a flare-up, we’ve already been told the response will be to lock it down.
Which makes the select Senate inquiry looking into the government’s Covid-19 response all the more important. Labor’s Katy Gallagher and the Liberals’ James Paterson will hold the first public hearing of that today. It’s designed to examine the money that has been spent and recommend any improvements. One that has already been mentioned is including those on disability support payments on the Covid supplement. We’ll see what else they come up with.
We’ll have everything else that happens today, so thank you for coming along with us. You’ll have Amy Remeikis for most of the day.
Ready?
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