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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Graham Readfearn, Ben Smee, Michael McGowan and Matilda Boseley

Morrison speaks to Bill Gates about future of WHO – as it happened

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Here's what happened on Tuesday

That will be that for our live coronavirus coverage for today.

Thanks from me, Graham Readfearn, and from my colleagues Ben Smee, Michael McGowan and Matilda Boseley for staying with our live coverage over the past 13 hours.

Guardian Australia will be back tomorrow with another live blog.

Here’s a summary of the day’s main events:

  • Australia recorded its 72nd death from coronavirus. A 92-year-old woman at an aged care home in western Sydney died this morning.
  • Australia reported 26 new cases of coronavirus, with numbers in the single digits for each state and territory. Of the 6,645 confirmed cases, 4,291 have recovered.
  • The Reserve Bank warned that the Australian economy faces “the biggest contraction in national output” since the Great Depression.
  • In the first easing of rules related to coronavirus, the national cabinet agreed to lift restrictions on some elective surgeries.
  • Virgin Australia entered voluntary administration, but the government was rejecting calls for any bailout.
  • China accused Australia of “dancing to the tune” of the United States, after foreign affairs minister Marise Payne suggested there should be an inquiry into the origins of the virus and the handling of its outbreak.
  • School students in NSW will return to the classroom one day a week from 11 May.
  • Some 49 crew members from the Ruby Princess cruise ship disembarked one by one from a dock at Port Kembla, south of Sydney.

Just a reminder to treat yourselves and others with care.

Keep doing all the hand-washing, the physical distancing and the social isolating. And if you want to find some positivity, you can always visit our Good Place.

Updated

Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers has some commentary on the back of the dire summary of Australia’s economic outlook from Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe earlier today.

He says the RBA’s expectations of high and persistent unemployment was not a sign the economy would “snap back” to normal in the six-month timeframe he said the prime minister had specified.

When unemployment spikes in the next few months, remember hundreds of thousands of job losses could have been prevented if the treasurer had used his powers to include more workers in the jobkeeper program, which he could do with the stroke of his pen.

Chalmers said Labor “appreciates the ongoing engagement with the Reserve Bank and the financial sector, as well as their coordinated approach to supporting liquidity, functioning of markets and the economy during this challenging time”.

He said the RBA’s update should prompt the Morrison government to release a full set of updated economic and budget figures and forecasts in the next month “in lieu of a full budget.”

Updated

It’s about that time of the evening when Jimmy Barnes drops a song from his lounge room.

Tonight it’s a cover of the 1987 Bruce Springsteen song Tougher Than the Rest.

Updated

Staff at Cairns Hospital are all being screened for Covid-19 after three people working in the hospital’s pathology lab tested positive for antibodies of the coronavirus.

Queensland Health has released a statement. Chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said:

The three Cairns Hospital employees who tested positive for Covid-19 had mild or no symptoms and did not realise they had the disease, which is why they did not get tested. As a precaution, they have been placed in self-quarantine, even though they are not feeling unwell or likely to be infectious.

She said all staff were now being screened.

It’s important to understand that there is a low risk of further transmission, but we need to make every effort possible to ensure this disease does not spread further.

The statement said the tests of the pathology workers were ordered after one pathology worker was diagnosed with Covid-19 on 16 April.

A Brisbane-based technician who visited the lab on 19 and 20 March and was diagnosed with the disease when he returned home is believed to be the source of infection

Dr Young appealed for anyone in Cairns who had symptoms including a cough, shortness of breath, sore throat or fever to get tested and remain at home, even if they were essential workers.

Updated

Here’s a statement from Anglicare, confirming the death of a 92-year-old woman at its Newmarch House aged care home in western Sydney.

We are saddened to advise a third resident of Newmarch House, who had tested positive for Covid-19, passed away late this morning. She was 92-years-old and had multiple health issues.

The resident’s family have been contacted, as have all relevant authorities. The cause of death is still to be formally determined.

Anglicare Sydney CEO Grant Millard said: “I have spoken personally to the immediate family of the resident to convey our deepest sympathies.”

This is a very sad time not only for the immediate family but also for other residents and staff.

Please keep everyone in your thoughts and prayers as we continue to support the families through what is a difficult and challenging time.

Anglicare’s Newmarch House in western Sydney
Anglicare’s Newmarch House in western Sydney. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Updated

New coronavirus case numbers, state by state

Here are the numbers of new cases reported by health authorities across states and territories on Tuesday.

  • Queensland – 6
  • NT – 0
  • Tasmania – 5
  • New South Wales – 6
  • South Australia – 2
  • Victoria – 7
  • Western Australia – 1
  • ACT – 0

Updated

Third death reported at western Sydney aged care home

Reports are coming in of a third death at Newmarch House, an aged care home in western Sydney where a quarter of residents have previously tested positive for coronavirus.

Last weekend, Anglicare confirmed a 94-year-old man with Covid-19 had died at the home in Kingswood.

“A coroner will be the person to confirm the cause of death,” a spokesman told AAP at the time.

A 93-year-old resident in the home died the previous day, also after testing positive for Covid-19.

Scott Morrison speaks to Bill Gates about future of WHO

AAP is reporting that Scott Morrison spoke with the philanthropist Bill Gates earlier today about the future of the World Health Organisation.

The news agency says the conversation came just days after Gates used a global broadcast organised by the entertainer Lady Gaga to ask for support for the global health body. Here’s more from the report.

Mr Morrison and Mr Gates are also understood to have discussed vaccines and the Indo-Pacific’s health challenges.

Mr Gates has been publicly critical of a decision by US president Donald Trump to suspend his country’s funding for the WHO.

The US is the largest donor to the WHO, providing more than $631 million in 2019 – about 15 per cent of its budget.

“Halting funding for the World Health Organisation during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds,” Mr Gates tweeted recently.

“Their work is slowing the spread of Covid-19 and if that work is stopped no other organisation can replace them.”

Mr Trump has argued the WHO failed to adequately “obtain, vet and share information” in a timely and transparent way, leaving a global trail of death and destruction.

Mr Morrison recently expressed some sympathy for Mr Trump’s criticisms, pointing to the way Australia pre-emptively declared a pandemic before the WHO.

Australia has worked closely with the WHO for more than seven decades.

The Gates Foundation is one of the WHO’s biggest voluntary donors, providing $836 million over the past two years.

Updated

Northern Territory chief minister Michael Gunner has announced that anyone caught coughing or spitting at any Territorian doing their job “in order to cause fear about the spread of the coronavirus” will get an on-the-spot fine of $5,495 and could face jail time.

Gunner said there had been “one incident, the other day, where an idiot threw his spit at some cops and said he had coronavirus”.

He didn’t have it – but the cops who were just doing their job did not know that.

And it doesn’t matter anyway – the act itself is revolting. It’s one incident, but it’s one too many.

So today we are sending a message – and the message is clear: if you pull something like this, you are a grub. You won’t get away with it.

It’s disgusting and it’s dangerous. It’s unacceptable and it’s un-Territorian. There are zero excuses. You will get zero chances. A massive on-the-spot fine is just the beginning.

He said the one incident was in contrast to Sydney, where, Gunner said, “there seems to be coughers and spitters on every corner”.

That hasn’t happened to that extent here. By and large, Territorians are too decent for that.

All but a few of us are just getting on with it and showing the respect to frontline workers that they deserve.

But we’re the best in the nation right now because we keep staying ahead of the game.

Gunner said on Tuesday the NT had seen its 15th day without a new case of Covid-19 being recorded.

Chief Minister of the Northern Territory Michael Gunner.
Chief Minister of the Northern Territory Michael Gunner. Photograph: James Gourley/AAP

Updated

The government is facing calls to extend its temporary suspension of welfare mutual obligations beyond next week, as Labor and the Greens warn of the risks of compulsory job-centre meetings during the coronavirus pandemic.

But the employment minister, Michaelia Cash, has declined to say whether the government still intended to resume the requirements for jobseekers on 27 April.

The opposition on Tuesday joined calls from the Greens senator Rachel Siewert that welfare recipients should be spared obligations such as in-person appointments with employment service providers while most states remained in lockdown.

Labor frontbenchers Brendan O’Connor, Linda Burney and Louise Pratt said in a statement:

While there should be a resumption of mutual obligation when it is safe to do so, we believe the current arrangements should continue as long as community restrictions are in place.

Siewert wrote to Cash on Monday asking her to suspend Centrelink obligations for six months. She said:

Now is not the time to be penalising people and suspending their payments for choosing not to put their safety at risk by requiring them to attend appointments and face-to-face meetings.

The employment services system is likely to face near unprecedented strain in coming months after Scott Morrison revealed that more than 500,000 jobseeker payment claims had been processed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Those new dole recipients likely add to an existing group of about 700,000 people who were receiving the equivalent payment, formerly known as Newstart, in December.

The suspension of mutual obligations means welfare recipients do not have their payments cut off for failing to attend meetings with employment service providers or complete a certain number of job applications.

Before temporarily suspending obligations in the middle of a Centrelink tech meltdown, Cash announced the requirements would be significantly relaxed.

A spokesman for Cash said on Tuesday:

As previously stated, mutual obligation arrangements are being regularly reviewed, taking into account a range of factors including labour market conditions.

Updated

Queensland senator Matt Canavan has also been commenting on the crisis facing Virgin Australia. The former resources minister reckons the government should “get its hands dirty”.

We saw in central Queensland a few years ago, when Virgin pulled out of a route to a mining town, prices went up 30% after they pulled out. We just went back to Qantas, and I don’t want to see that happen. That is why I’m a strong advocate for the government to get involved, get its hands dirty and find a way forward.

We don’t want to spend billions of taxpayer money to prop up shareholders who had made bad decisions in the past, in this case foreign shareholders, so we should focus on protecting Australian jobs, maintaining competition in airservices. And there is a window of opportunity to do that while we work through the issues with Virgin going forward.

Updated

Cricket Australia is looking at its calendar for the coming year, including hosting the T20 World Cup scheduled for October and a visit in November of India for a test series.

If India don’t come due to continued Covid-19 impacts, then the cricket authority thinks it could be looking at “hundreds of millions” in losses.

Kevin Rudd says the WHO’s “powers” are restricted to “assembling technical information, pointing to the existence of a pandemic, providing international notifications of the same and helping to build capacity to deal with those as we saw with ebola in poor countries”.

But none of it is enforceable, and the former PM and China expert suggests it may be time to attach sanctions to regimes that ignore future WHO directions.

Under the World Trade Organisation, there is an enforcement mechanism. If you breach the rules, then there are a range of sanctions available under world trade law.

I believe for the future reform program of the WHO, given the massive cost this has imposed on human lives and on the global economy - some of the job numbers you were just talking about before in Australia alone – then we as an international community of states are going to have to look seriously at an international sanctions regime to give enforcement to future WHO determinations.

Otherwise, we’re going to go around this race track again and again with greater and greater consequences.

Updated

The former prime minister Kevin Rudd has just been talking, via a temperamental Skype connection, to the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas.

He was asked about whether or not there should be an independent inquiry into the World Health Organisation.

He says he chaired the Independent Commission on Multilateralism in 2016 and 2017 that produced a report on reforming the WHO “to deal with the next global pandemic”.

Well, that wasn’t implemented. And there are many other attempted reform efforts which have been put before the member states of the WHO.

Rudd says there is likely to be an inquiry – even multiple inquiries – and it will be a “frightening task” for whoever has to run it.

This is not some independent secretariat and director general of the WHO sitting over in Geneva running his or her own show. It is very much to the funding, resourcing decisions and direction of the member states including Australia ...

Nationally, within China itself, what happened with the provincial authorities and the original suppression of the information. Then what happened when it got to the WHO level, eventually in Geneva. And then the extent to which member states acted early enough in their own national measures on public health.

Everyone is going to do this and point fingers at everybody else. It will be a frightening task to preside over an independent inquiry which rationally apportions responsibility but most critically comes up with a credible reform agenda for next time round – because pandemics are not going to go away.

Updated

Good afternoon all. It’s Graham Readfearn taking over the blog.

We keep reminding people to be careful and to stay safe, but it looks like we have to extend that beyond physical distancing and hygiene to driving – at least in Queensland.

The state government has just released figures showing while traffic on main roads is down by about 30%, some 61 people have died on the roads compared to 57 at the same time last year.

The transport minister, Mark Bailey, says the police are telling him people are taking more risks as the roads look clearer.

With less drivers on the road, police are reporting people taking increased risks like speeding. Initial crash reports are also showing that not wearing a seatbelt has been a cause of lives lost on our roads.

With so much on people’s minds at the moment, I’m sure more drivers than usual are not concentrating on the road ahead as much as usual given the coronavirus crisis.

Slow down and buckle up, folks.

Updated

Thanks for your company for part of this afternoon, I’m handing the blog over to Graham Readfearn now and for the next little while.

Don’t worry, it’s still coming to you direct from the independent republic of Queensland, across the Sunshine State’s closed borders.

Go well.

The South Australian chief public health officer, Dr Nicola Spurrier, says there have been two new coronavirus cases in the state today.

Updated

The South Australian premier, Steven Marshall, is the latest to offer up an update.

He is speaking about the resumption of elective surgery.

As people would be aware, some weeks ago there was a ban put on all category three and all non-urgent category two elective surgery in South Australia. This was mainly due to the issue regarding PPE availability.

This issue is an issue which is now under control, and we will progressively increase, safely increase, the amount of elective surgery in South Australia from 27 April. We hope to start that by making sure that screening services, in particular breast screening, can start straight away.

Updated

It’s a contraction – who cares if it’s a recession

Asked why the RBA isn’t referring to the economic contraction as a recession, Lowe says it is “very different to a [normal] business cycle downturn”.

It’s a once-in-a-century event – a market contraction we will recover from. The label isn’t important, it’s a once-in-a-century contraction.

Lowe again predicted that interest rates will stay low for a very long period of time. The RBA predicts that inflation will not reach the 2% to 3% target range for at least three years.

Wage growth – which was already not enough to push inflation to the target band before the Covid-19 crisis – is predicted to slow further.

Updated

Asked what sort of reform the RBA has in mind to reinvigorate the economy, Lowe replies:

How do we make Australia a great place to invest, expand, innovate and hire people? Well, I think we start off by reading the multitude of reports that have already been commissioned on this issue and perhaps I could run through it for you at a very high level what those reports say.

They say we should be looking again at the way we tax income generation, consumption and land in this country. They say we should be looking at how we build and price infrastructure. They say we should be looking at how we train our students and our workforce so they’ve got skills for the modern economy.

They say we should be looking at how various regulations promote or perhaps hinder innovation. And they say we should be looking at the flexibility and complexity of our industrial relations system.

Updated

The RBA governor’s remarks are the clearest, strongest acknowledgement that Australia’s economy is facing unprecedented challenges.

Lowe says the national output and unemployment numbers “are all very large numbers and ones that were inconceivable just a few months ago”.

They speak to the immense challenge faced by our society to contain the virus.

In terms of inflation, we are also expecting a significant decline in the June quarter. The large fall in oil prices, combined with the introduction of free childcare and the deferral or reduction in some price increases mean that it is quite likely that year-ended headline inflation will turn negative in June. If so, this would be the first time since the early 1960s that the price level has fallen over a full year. In underlying terms, however, inflation is expected to remain positive.

As the economic data roll in over coming months, they will present a very sobering picture of the state of our economy. There will be many reports of record declines in economic activity.

As Australians digest this economic news, I would ask that we keep in mind that this period will pass, and that a bridge has been built to get us to the other side. With the help of that bridge, we will recover and the economy will grow strongly again.

Updated

Lowe is devoting some time to rejecting the idea that because the RBA is buying government bonds in the secondary market, that it is directly financing government spending.

He says:

I would like to restate that we are buying bonds in the secondary market and we are not buying bonds directly from the government. One of the underlying principles of Australia’s institutional arrangements is the separation of monetary and fiscal policy – that is, the central bank does not finance the government, instead the government finances itself in the market. This principle has served the country well and I am confident that the Australian federal, state and territory governments will continue to be able to finance themselves in the market, as they should.

While we are not directly financing the government, our bond purchases are affecting the market price that the government pays to raise debt. Our policies are also affecting the price that the private sector pays to raise debt. In this way, our actions are affecting funding costs right across the economy as they should in the exceptional circumstances that we face. But our actions should not be confused with the Reserve Bank financing the government.

Updated

Lowe says the RBA is confident the economy will bounce back and recover, because “all the elements that made Australia a prosperous and successful country will still be there”.

Lowe says it’s difficult to be certain, but sketches out some scenarios. If restrictions are eased by mid-year, and most are lifted by year’s end except for the ban on international travel: under this scenario, GDP could grow 6% to 7% in 2021, after shrinking by that amount in 2020.

Nevertheless, it is likely unemployment will be 6% or above for several years, and wage growth will be below 2%.

The other “scenarios” are a statement of common sense: if restrictions are less lengthy, recovery will be quicker; if they are in place longer, the disruption will be worse.

Lowe warns that people’s behaviour could be permanently changed, and result in structural changes in the economy.

He suggests the economy could be reinvigorated if economic reform is pursued to make businesses more likely to expand and invest.

No word on which reforms yet – although I’m sure he’ll be asked shortly.

Updated

RBA says Australia faces biggest contraction since Great Depression

Phil Lowe, the Reserve Bank governor, is giving an update about the “difficult days ahead” for the Australian economy.

Lowe says the next few months are going to “be very difficult ones for the Australian economy” because “many normal activities cannot take place for the moment”.

For as long as the restrictions need to stay in place, this means we don’t have the jobs and we don’t have the incomes that come from that normal economic activity.

The RBA expects:

  • Australia is likely to experience “the biggest contraction in national output since the 1930s”.
  • The decline is estimated to be 10% over the first half of 2020, with most of the decline in June quarter.
  • Total hours work are estimated to decline by 20%, a “staggeringly large number”, Lowe said.
  • Unemployment is expected to be 10% by June.
  • The RBA also predicts negative inflation, for the first time since the 1960s.

Lowe sounds a positive note though: “As a country we are up to the task ... all arms of public policy are pulling together.”

Updated

My colleague Paul Karp reports on the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics job figures, which show almost 800,000 Australians lost their job during the first three weeks of coronavirus restrictions.

That’s about 6% of the workforce.

Updated

The chief executive of private hospital provider St Vincent’s, Toby Hall, says the resumption of some elective surgeries is “a terrific signpost on the road back to normality”.

Hall says private hospitals will remain in the fight against Covid-19 but given Australia’s relatively low case rates the system had capacity for facilities and personnel to begin working on priority elective surgery cases.

As the chief medical officer made clear in his comments around the announcement today, there are a great many Australians who are in pain or discomfort and are crying out for their planned elective surgery to take place.

This will be a huge relief to them that we can start addressing their medical issues with the surgery they so desperately need.

Updated

Cook is now commenting on the resumption of elective surgery. He says the state will be reviewing the situation every three weeks.

Our priority will be for patients who had their elective surgery cancelled as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. We will also prioritise according to the nationally agreed lists of the following procedures, which include paediatrics, endoscopy and colonoscopy procedures ... breast screening and some dentistry.

I urge any elective surgery patients watching this and their friends and family to please do not contact your hospital. Those who had their surgery rescheduled will be contacted and advised on a new date as soon as possible.

Priority will be given on the basis of clinical need. It doesn’t help anyone if our public hospital switchboards are flooded with calls. In fact, it may delay their ability to contact patients in a timely fashion. Any changes to our current situation would need to take into account the impact on our ICU capacity, the risk to public health and of course the availability and continued supply of PPE.

Any resumption of elective surgery is really in recognition of the successful and ongoing community effort to slow the spread of Covid-19.

Updated

Roger Cook says the latest numbers in WA are a “terrific result” and that total case numbers have gone down due to eight confirmed recoveries.

This new case is a female healthcare worker who was working at Royal Perth hospital. She did not attend work with symptoms and contact tracing will ensure any close contacts are notified, provided with health advice and told to self-isolate.

So today the number of active cases has decreased even further to now just 96. So under 100 active cases across the state. This is because we recorded eight more recoveries overnight.

Updated

The Western Australian health minister, Roger Cook, says the state has had one new case of Covid-19, a female healthcare worker.

Updated

Good afternoon to everyone from beyond Queensland’s closed borders. Looking forward to being with you for the next couple of hours as we digest some of the day’s events.

And that’s me done for today. I’m going to hand you over to my colleague Ben Smee who will be with you for the rest of the afternoon. Thanks as always for reading.

Scott Morrison press conference recap

And that’s Morrison done. Here’s a quick recap of what came out of that press conference:

  • The government has announced that some elective surgeries, including some dental surgeries, colonoscopies, cancer reconstructive surgeries and IVF, can resume after the Anzac Day long weekend. The resumption will be based on need though, even in the private sector.
  • In cases where states have restricted all visitors to aged care homes they will be lifted to allow two visits per day by family or support people. Morrison said it was an issue of well-being, and that national cabinet had never recommended a full ban on visits.
  • On the government’s Covid-19 tracing app, Morrison says the states have given “in-principle support”. He says the app will be released in the “not-too-distant future” and insists no commonwealth agency will have access to its data.
  • On criticism from Beijing on Australia’s calls for an independent investigation into the spread of Covid-9, Morrison says: “We can respectively have a difference of view.”
  • On Virgin Australia, Morrison says he’s pleased to hear there have been in excess of 10 expressions of interest in the company after it entered voluntary administration today. He says the government believes “strong commercial viable competition between two carriers in Australia ... is very important”.

Updated

Morrison is asked whether the rosier than expected outlook on Covid-19 in Australia means the cost of the jobseeker and jobkeeper programs could be lower than expected. He says it’s too early too tell, then segues into talking about Virgin Australia. He calls the decision to enter voluntary administration “a road out and forward into the future”.

“[T]o ensure that the airline can emerge on the other side and we can have the strong commercial viable competition between two carriers in Australia which the government believes is very important. It is very important in usual times, but even more important as we emerge from the coronavirus economic crisis, ensuring that we have those carriers in place.

I am encouraged by the fact that there are already 10 parties who have expressed interest in working with the administrator regarding Virgin’s future and I think if we had not taken the actions that we have had and not demonstrated the patience that we have had then all we may have ended up doing is sending $1bn to foreign shareholders and that was never part of my plan.

Updated

Morrison stonewalls a question about former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s interview on the ABC last night.

On this issue I will remain focused on the actual big picture and that is dealing with the response to coronavirus.

On privacy concerns raised by the government’s Covid-19 tracing app, Morrison says the government is “moving to make sure they are addressed”.

I want to be clear about a couple of things. The app only collects data and puts it into an encrypted national store which can only be accessed by the states and territories. The commonwealth cannot access the data, no commonwealth agency at the national level, not government services, not Centrelink, not Home Affairs not the Department of Education, nothing. The commonwealth will have no access to that data.

Updated

Morrison says there has been a “slowing” in the increase in the jobless rate since the beginning of Covid-19 restrictions.

“But the levels of claims are still very high they are obviously deeply concerning to me because every one of those half-a-million Australians who has processed for jobseeker claims is an Australian who has lost their livelihood,” he says.

Updated

He’s now asked about China’s criticism of foreign minister Marise Payne’s calls for an investigation into the spread of the virus.

I think such an inquiry is important and we can respectively have a difference of view. But that has been put by China. The virus began in Wuhan, China, I think that is well understood. And it’s important the WHO acts and all parties that are part of the WHO, act with great transparency. I think this is important regardless of where a virus may break out if it happened in Australia, if it happened in China, if it happened in parts of Africa or the Pacific or the Middle East or wherever it would happen to be, it’s important for public health globally that there is a transparency in the way you can get access to this important information early. So it’s not pursued as an issue of criticism, it’s pursued as an issue of importance for public health.

Updated

Morrison is asked about an increase in racist attacks on Australians of Asian backgrounds in the wake of Covid-19 including what his message is to people who commit them and whether we need a new anti-racism campaign.

Stop it. That’s my message. And I think that is the message of every Australian. Now is a time to support each other. And I would remind everyone it was Chinese Australians in particular that provided one of the greatest defences we had in those early weeks. They were the ones who first went into self-isolation, they were the ones who were returning from family visits up into China and they were returning home. It was through their care, it was through their commitment, their patience that actually [Australia] was protected in the first wave ... And so absolutely I deplore that sort of behaviour against any Australian regardless of their ethnicity or their religion or whatever it happens to be. And I think that is the view of all Australians. So we have to call that sort of thing up. It’s not on.

Given the low infection rate, Morrison is asked whether other restrictions, including on community sport, will be lifted.

He says not yet.

The decision of the national cabinet remains. We will keep the restrictions in place at a baseline level. It is true South Australia is getting a great result, so is the Northern Territory, Western Australia has had some great numbers, it’s great, it’s fantastic. But you’ve got to keep them going and stick to the plan.

Updated

Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy says the resumption of elective surgery is a “gentle, carful start of normalising” the general healthcare of the community.

On elective surgery, one of the things that has concerned the health profession generally during this pandemic has been the lack of attention to non-Covid-19 related conditions. We do not want people to stop seeing doctors for chronic medical conditions. Continue to get that clinical advice … And the same applies to non-elective surgery. And it is incredibly important, some of it is life-saving. Some people are seriously disabled with hip and knee problems. Some people can’t see because of their cataracts, some people need surgery and have been waiting for it and this is an opportunity in a safe and controlled manner to slowly restart, cognizant of making the process safe, cognizant of getting the facilities up and running again, cognizant of the need to preserve our PPE, this is a gentle, careful start of normalising what is so important, the general healthcare needs of the community.

Updated

Health minister Greg Hunt is now speaking. He says today is an important day on the road back after the announcement of a resumption of some elective surgery.

I would say now, building on what I said on the weekend, we now have a sustained and consolidated flattening of the curve. Less than 1% growth in cases for nine consecutive days and over the last three days we have had averaged less than half a percent of growth. This is a collective national achievement but every Australian has been contributing and I want to say thank you for what people have done. You have made this happen.

Updated

Morison says since 16 March the government has processed 517,000 jokseeker claims.

“By the end of this week we will have processed as many jobseeker claims in six weeks than we would normally do in the entirety of the year,” he says.

“There is still work to do but having now eclipsed more than half a million people, that is obviously of great concern, that is half a million people who need that payment and support.”

Updated

Morrison says national cabinet has provided “in principle” support for the government’s Covid-19 tracing app. He says it will be released in the “not too distant future” but doesn’t give a date.

There are still a few more hurdles for it to clear as we address the many issues associated but it was seen as an important tool for many to help health workers in states and territories in the important work of determining contacts of those who may have been in close proximity to people who have contracted coronavirus. This does three things. Firstly it protects Australians in their own health and those of their own family by participating in this process did secondly, it helps other Australians to keep them safe and, thirdly, it ensures that we can more effectively get back to a more normal setting where we have widespread take-up of this app and we will say more about that when we are in a position to launch the app in the not-too-distant future.

Updated

He says that also relates to “older people” who are self-isolating in the community.

That does not mean that for care and compassionate reasons that they cannot receive visits from those who would normally provide that care. That may be a relative or a carer or a friendly neighbour who regularly looks in on someone.

Morrison says in cases where states have imposed restrictions on all visits to aged care homes, they will be lifted so that there can be two visits per day by close relatives and support people.

We reviewed recent events in a number of aged care facilities and took the lessons from those cases and an important one is the finding was that we are very concerned about the impact of restrictions that had been put in place in aged care facilities over and above what was recommended by the national cabinet on the residents in those facilities. There is great concern that the isolation of elderly people in residential care facilities where they have been prevented from having any visitors from loved ones and support people is not good for their well-being, is not good for their health and so the national cabinet agreed that there needs to be a strong reminder that the national cabinet decision was to not shut people off or to lock them away in their rooms.

Updated

Morrison says the lifting of those restrictions will see a re-opening of around 25% of activity in elective surgery in private and public hospitals.

Priority will be given, with this re-opening, on the basis of clinical determinations by the relevant health professionals and that will occur in both the public and private system.

Other areas where the restrictions will be lifted include post-cancer reconstructive surgeries, all procedures for children under the age of 18, all joint replacements, andcataract and eye procedures.

National cabinet lifts some restrictions on elective surgery

Morrison announces national cabinet has agreed to lift some restrictions on elective surgery, including IVF, after Anzac Day.

Today we agreed to lift restrictions on elective surgery after Anzac Day, after the long weekend. This will not mean an immediate return to normal with elective surgery, but a gradual restart, subject to of course to capacity and other constraints that may exist in each jurisdiction … one of the reasons why we have been able to do that, is the increase in the amount of personal protective equipment that we have been able to secure. And the chief medical officer will make commentary on that. But we will be easing the restrictions on the following areas. That is all category two or equivalent procedures in the private sector, and selected category three and other procedures, which includes all IVF, all screening programs, where they have ceased.

Updated

He says cases where states and territories have gone beyond the recommendations of the national cabinet in terms of restrictions could make decisions to ease them earlier.

States – and territories – in the meantime, where they have taken actions on restrictions that go beyond the national baselines – we have already seen Western Australia do – they will take decisions over the next few weeks that may see them ease back on some of those restrictions where they are above the national baselines in terms of the issues.

Updated

Morrison starts by acknowledging the lockdown are testing the patience of Australians but we need to “stick to our plan”. He says restrictions will be eased once certain markers are met, including a rate of transmission of less than one.

We laid down some clear markers as to what the requirements would be. We said there needed to be an effective rate of transmission less than the score of 1. And we said we need to get in place over these four weeks that we’re now in - almost one week down in that timetable - of testing, tracing and a response capability on the ground.

Updated

Scott Morrison is speaking now.

Major sports in Australia are facing the possibility of multimillion-dollar revenue hits after Virgin Australia entered voluntary administration.

Virgin holds lucrative major sponsorship deals with the AFL and Supercars. The airline is also in partnership with the AFL clubs Carlton, GWS and Gold Coast.

The AFL deal is reportedly worth between $5m and $10m per year.

But the sponsorship agreements are now under the microscope with the extent of the financial damage to be determined by administrators and contractual obligations.

Updated

The federal government will relax regulations on Australia Post to give it flexibility to adjust its operations during the coronavirus crisis. In a statement issued just now, the government has announced three key “temporary” changes that will apply until June next year:

  • Australia Post’s required delivery time for regular letters within the same state will be extended to five days after the day of posting;
  • it will be permitted to adjust its delivery frequency, in metropolitan areas only, from every business day to every second business day; and
  • it will have greater freedom in managing post offices while there is a pandemic, but will take all reasonable steps to keep outlets open.

The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, said Australia Post had experienced sharp downturns in letter volumes and international business but big increases in parcel deliveries.

He said the changes would allow Australia Post to redeploy its workforce to critical areas experiencing increases in volume, such as parcels and essential services. The communications minister, Paul Fletcher, said demand for e-commerce had “skyrocketed as people stay home to combat the coronavirus health crisis”.

Fletcher said the flexibility would allow posties to continue to deliver essential products and services to Australians, including pharmaceutical and grocery products.

The government emphasised that post offices were expected to remain open, including in regional, rural and remote parts of the country, but retail outlets would be able to close during exceptional circumstances to protect health and safety.

Delivery frequency in regional, rural and remote Australia was also expected to remain the same.For more on the big challenges facing Australia Post – include a jump in parcel volumes – see the report we published last week:

Updated

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, is due to address the media in about five minutes following the latest meeting of national cabinet. I’ll bring it to you as soon as it starts.

Updated

As we reported earlier, there have been six additional cases of Covid-19 in New South Wales overnight. The NSW health department has also confirmed for the first time that 1,755 of the state’s 2,969 cases have recovered.

There is one additional case in the Newhaven House aged care home, where two people have died. There are now 42 confirmed cases at the facility.

An 84-year-old woman from an independent living retirement village in Dee Why has also been hospitalised with COVID-19. One of her family members has also tested positive.

And a Centrelink call centre in Tuggerah on the state’s Central Coast where a staff member was diagnosed with Covid-19 will close the office for eight days. Five close contacts in the workplace with symptoms are also being tested.

The health department has also released some preliminary data about recovery times in the state. NSW Health staff interviewed more than 2,000 people three weeks after their illness to ask about symptoms.

Older people were found to take longer to recover than younger people, while there were differing recovery times generally:

  • 50% of cases had recovered after 16 days
  • 75% of cases had recovered after three weeks
  • 95% of cases had recovered after six weeks.

Updated

The ACT has recorded another day with no new cases of Covid-19.

The ACT’s total is still 104. Of those, 92 have recovered. There is currently one person being treated at Canberra Hospital. The ACT has recorded three Covid-19 deaths.

Somehow, despite not having played a match since March, the NRL has managed to remain deeply entertaining during its hiatus. Yesterday, the league’s chief executive, Todd Greenberg, fell on his sword after months of speculation that he was on the outer.

In this piece, my colleague Nick Tedeschi explains why Greenberg’s cards have been marked since September when he unsuccessfully worked to stop Peter V’landys become the league’s new chairman.

“Already widely regarded as a strongman with enormous political clout and a penchant for imposing his will, the knock on him was that he would struggle to run both Racing NSW and the NRL. Greenberg saw this as an opportunity to assert his power in the game. He canvassed behind the scenes to stop V’landys’ ascension. It was a play that was reckless and ignorant. A train was powering at full steam and he failed to heed the warning.”

Updated

The Queensland state development minister, Cameron Dick, is speaking now on the ABC about Virgin Australia. The company is based in Queensland, and the state government there had offered the government $200m in assistance on the proviso it remained based there.

Dick calls it “a very disappointing day”, and says the state government is seeking a meeting with the new administrator this afternoon.

We’re keen to speak to them quickly, to demonstrate to them our interest in supporting the administration in a managed way going forward, a thoughtful, managed administration – not a fire sale, not moving to liquidation, and that seems to be the message that both the CEO of Virgin, Paul Scurrah, and also the administrator, have said publicly. So we want to work with them.

Updated

The former union leader and Labor minister Greg Combet will head a new working group aiming to improve safety in workplaces and help resolve industrial relations disputes during the coronavirus crisis.

The National Covid-19 Coordination Commission (NCCC) - a body set up by Scott Morrison last month to give the government advice on reducing the economic and social impacts of the pandemic - has announced a few more details about how it is navigating its task this morning.

Combet was already one of the commissioners on the overarching body, which is headed by Nev Power, but will now also lead the new industrial relations working group.

Guardian Australia reported last week that state-based agencies have already received at least 175 workers’ compensation claims or notifications that relate in some way to Covid-19, prompting fresh warnings that employers must take heed of their employees’ health and safety during the pandemic.

Combet vowed to work closely with unions and employer groups. In a statement issued today, he said the working group would focus on helping employers put in place safe working practices and be ready to respond quickly to any Covid-19 issues in their workplaces.

Combet said the group would also “help employers and employees nip issues in the bud before they can threaten jobs, business livelihoods and the further spread of coronavirus in our workplaces”.

The working group’s members include two former senior members of the Fair Work Commission: Jenny Acton, a former senior deputy president, and Graeme Watson, a former vice president.

Other members are employment lawyer Josh Bornstein, Clayton Utz partner Saul Harben, deputy chief medical officer Michael Kidd, and Safe Work Australia acting branch manager Bianca Wellington.

Moving briefly away from Covid-19, Tony Abbott was stopped outside his home this morning and, complete in bicycle riding gear (what do you call it? Spandex?), responded briefly to Malcolm Turbull’s interview on the ABC last night.

He didn’t respond to all of Turnbull’s criticisms, choosing instead to defend his former chief of staff Peta Credlin.

Calling Credlin an “extraordinary person”, he said she “was an important part of the Abbott government”.

“[She was] comparable in my government to someone like Arthur Sinodinos in the Howard government, a fine thinker, a great organiser and she was a trusted colleague and I think she deserves a great deal of credit for what she did,” Abbott said.

Updated

Keen for something lighter over lunch? Me too. My colleague Brigid Delaney curated her own three-day isolation arts festival over the weekend. It is a uniquely Brigid piece of writing, which is to say, very funny and good.

Updated

Donald Trump has announced he will sign an executive order temporarily suspending immigration to the US.

The never-ending Ruby Princess saga continues today. The deeply cursed cruse ship is still docked at Port Kembla south of Sydney, and today 49 crew members are being taken off the ship one by one. They’re being taken to Sydney hotels overnight, before being repatriated to their home countries. The crew being taken off today are from the US, UK, Canada, Japan, Ireland and New Zealand. There are still about 1,000 crew who remain on board. About 200 of them have tested positive for Covid-19.

Beijing accuses Australia of 'dancing to the tune' of US on calls for Covid-19 investigation

China has accused Australia of “dancing to the tune” of the United States, as Beijing pushed back at calls for an independent inquiry into the origins and handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, had stressed the need for transparency as she suggested a review to examine how Covid-19 developed into a pandemic.

When asked on the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday whether her trust in China had been eroded, Payne said her “concern about these issues ... is at a very high point”.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Geng Shuang, said Payne’s remarks were “not based on facts”.

“China is seriously concerned about and firmly opposed to this,” he said when asked by the ABC to respond at his regular press conference yesterday.

According to the official transcript – which has now been posted online – Geng argued China had acted openly, transparently and responsibly and had not lost any time in reporting the outbreak to the World Health Organisation.

And he said the origin of the novel coronavirus was “a serious question of science that should be studied by scientists and medical experts”.

“We hope that the Australian side can treat this issue in an objective, scientific and scrupulous manner,” Geng said. He said China hoped Australia would “do more things to deepen China-Australia relations, enhance mutual trust and help epidemic prevention and control in both countries, rather than dancing to the tune of a certain country to hype up the situation” – an apparent reference to the US.

In the interview with Insiders, Payne had said she shared some of the concerns the US had raised about the WHO. She had said an independent review should look into details “about the genesis of the virus, about the approaches to dealing with it, and addressing it, about the openness with which information was shared, about interaction with the World Health Organization, interaction with other international leaders”.

Updated

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released some very sobering jobs and wages statistics measuring the Covid-19 downturn.

The ABS found that from 14 March to 4 April, jobs were down 6% and pay down 6.7%. Accommodation and food services (-25.6%), arts and recreation (-18.7%) and mining (-8.4%) lead the way on job losses in that period.


Unsurprisingly, accommodation and food services, and arts and recreation services also lead the way on pay cuts – down 30.1% and 15.7% respectively. The very young and very old were both hit on job numbers: employment of over-70s was down 9.7% and those under 20 down 9.9%.

The young were hit even harder when it comes to pay, with wages down a whopping 12.7% for those under 20, and 9.1% for those aged 20-29.


Women have also been hit disproportionately by pay cuts. Payments to women decreased by 7.0% while payments to men decreased by 6.4%.

Updated

And that’s that. So, just to quickly recap that whirlwind 15 minutes.

The federal treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, seems to have ruled out a bailout for Virgin Australia, at least for now. But the government has appointed former Macquarie chief executive Nicholas Moore to act as a kind of emissary to deal with the administrator. Frydenberg said the government wants two airlines operating in Australia, but that he wants a “market-led solution”.

At virtually the same time, Virgin Australia chief executive Paul Scurrah said the aviation industry was going through an “unprecedented” challenge and that “the oxygen supply of our business was cut off” by Covid-19.

He said he took comfort in the government’s comments, and was confident the company would come out of administration “leaner, stronger and fitter”. The new administrator, Vaughn Strawbridge, said there was no plan to force workers to take redundancies at this point and that Virgin would continue to operate at its current reduced scale.

Updated

Strawbridge is asked how long Virgin can keep operating at its current reduced capacity before the money it has runs out.

We’re working through that. We’re comfortable and confident we have sufficient funding in order to continue to trade during this period to restructure the business and a host of parties have reached out to provide financial support during this.

Updated

Scurrah says Richard Branson “cares deeply” about Virgin.

I talk to Richard on a regular basis. It must be remembered that Richard takes a lot of pride in this company and it’s one of the airlines he pays a lot of attention to. Richard’s portfolio has hotels, cruise lines and airlines, so you can understand that Richard is hurting. But he’s doing everything he possibly can to help us get through this and maintains a strong interest in participating going forward.

More than 10 expressions of interest in Virgin Airlines takeover

Strawbridge says “in excess of 10 parties” have expressed interest in Virgin.

There were a number of parties that are reached out prior to our interim funding proposal or package and another few have come in overnight. We won’t go into specifics on who those parties are. Obviously, we have to keep those parties confidential, but they are in excess of 10 parties and I’ll say in excess of 10 parties who are known to us who have got a keen interest in being part of the restructure of Virgin.

It’s quite a wide cross section of parties and, yes, there are international parties that have expressed an interest, but it is wide and it crosses the whole spectrum of potential parties. We can’t go in to give you any details at this stage

Updated

The Virgin Australia administrator Vaughan Strawbridge is speaking now. He says Deloitte is “not planning any changes to the operation of the business”. There are “no plans to make any redundancies” of Virgin’s remaining staff and “wages will continue to be paid”.

He says there has been an “extraordinary amount of interest in the business and in the restructuring of VirginAustralia”.

And so we are confident that this will result in a restructuring being achieved in a short period of time. As I said, we have not changed anything in respect to the operations or the employees. They’re continuing to be employed. There is no plans to make any redundancies. Wages will continue to be paid and those who have been stood down and are accessing jobkeeper, the intention is to continue to make those payments available to those staff.

Updated

Scurrah says Virgin is “very focused on making sure we preserve as many jobs as we can to provide as many jobs for the existing Virgin Australia Group workforce”.

Scurrah says he’s comforted by the government’s insistence that it wants two airlines operating in Australia. Virgin will come out of administration “leaner, stronger and fitter”:

We take comfort from the comments from the government that this country needs a robust and healthy two-airline market. And because of this procession we’re going through, because of the early decision of our board, that airline will be Virgin Australia. We’ll come back leaner, stronger and fitter, and play our role in making sure that the economy of Australia – which is currently devastated by the impact of Covid-19 – recovers as quickly as it possibly can for all Australians.

Updated

OK, we’re leaving the treasurer to go to the Virgin Australia chief executive, Paul Scurrah.

He says the airline is facing “the worst aviation crisis we’ve ever seen in our history”:

We’re not immune to that. Our board made a very courageous decision last night to put the company into voluntary administration and do so quickly, with the intent of working with our administrator, Deloitte, to come through and be as strong as we possibly can on the other side of this crisis.

Updated

Frydenberg is asked whether the government will intervene if a “market-led solution” can’t be found. He says he’s “not going to speculate on what happens in the weeks and months ahead”:

Michael [McCormack] and I have both referred to the company’s statement itself as saying that they are hopeful of working through [the] restructuring of their business and refinancing of their business with a view to coming out stronger on the other side.

Updated

Government wants 'market-led' solution to Virgin, Josh Frydenberg says

Josh Frydenberg is asked what Nicholas Moore’s job will actually be, and whether that indicates that the government may intervene at some point.

He says the airline business “is important to the economy”:

And these matters of voluntary administration are complex. But it’s also a well-known path for companies to restructure and to recapitalise and to come out stronger on the other side, and cases in point – at Channel Ten, Darrell Lea and other companies that have gone through the voluntary administration process. So we have engaged Nicholas Moore in that process to talk to the parties and, in particular, to talk to the administrator, Deloittes, with a view to ensuring that we continue to maintain two airlines on those domestic routes here in Australia, but also a market-led solution is our preference.

Updated

Frydenberg has announced that Nicholas Moore, a former chief executive of Macquarie, will “engage with the administrator on behalf of the government” as well as the Department of Treasury and Finance. He reiterates though that that government wants a “market-led solution”:

Our objective is two commercially viable, major domestic airlines operating in Australia. And we will work constructively with Deloittes through Nicholas Moore and our Treasury and Finance teams from here.

Updated

The treasurer Josh Frydenberg is speaking now. He says Virgin is “not Ansett”, and is ruling out a bailout for the company.

This is not liquidation. This is not Ansett. This is not the end of the airline. Rather as the company itself has said in its statement, this is an opportunity for the company to recapitalise and come out stronger on the other side of the coronavirus crisis.

Virgin Australia is a very good airline performing a very important role and this is a difficult day for its staff, for its suppliers, and for the aviation sector more broadly. But the government was not going to bail out five large foreign shareholders with deep pockets who, together, own 90% of this airline.

Updated

McCormack continues:

We want to see a two-airline sector coming out of Covid-19. It has been a dreadful situation. We understand, we acknowledge that and we want to see Virgin come out the other side. Virgin have said that that in their statement this morning. We acknowledge it’s a difficult day for Virgin. We will continue to work with Virgin, with the voluntary administrators, to get the best outcome.

Updated

Michael McCormack is speaking now.

He says he feels for Virgin employees.

As a government we understand the complexity of this situation. We also understand that as Virgin has said, this is a way out, to recapitalise. There is a path forward under voluntary administration to recapitalise and restructure their business and this is important.

He says the government has already assisted the airline through measures such as waiving the fuel excise, funding to continue regional Australian routes and freight assistance.

That press conference with Josh Frydenberg and Michael McCormack is due to start very soon, as is a press conference by the Virgin chief executive, Paul Scurrah. Which is great news for me, the person trying to liveblog them both.

Updated

Virgin Australia administrator Vaughan Strawbridge said more than 10 parties were interested in taking part in recapitalising the airline.

He said expressions of interest would be sought in the next three weeks and then he would run a sale process lasting about a month.

The airline’s chief executive, Paul Scurrah, said it initially sought a $1.4bn loan from the federal government, convertible into shares – which would have wiped out the company’s existing shareholders.

After long negotiations, mainly to deal with the government’s unwillingness to nationalise the airline, Virgin Australia yesterday made a final request for $200m. This was also rebuffed and in the evening the company’s board put it into administration.

But Strawbridge said the government still had an important role in getting the airline back on track, although he did not explain what that was.

Updated

The deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, and the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, are due to address the media in Canberra in about 10 minutes. They’ll be speaking about Virgin Australia going into administration.

The Virgin Australia administrator Vaughan Strawbridge says the airline doesn’t plan to make any of its 10,000 staff redundant as the company looks for a new owner.

Speaking to the media this morning, Strawbridge said employees who were still employed would continue to receive their wages, and those who are stood down would continue to get the jobkeeper allowance. Entitlements were preserved, he said.

“Hopefully we can maintain all the jobs, or as many as possible, through this process,” he said.

Updated

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, has weighed in on Virgin’s financial woes, calling for a complete government takeover of the airline. I probably wouldn’t hold my breath on that one. He said:

The government should buy Virgin. Not only will the public get an airline at bargain basement prices, it may be the only way to save jobs, ensure competition and keep us connected in a carbon-constrained world.

If ideology gets in the way and Virgin falls over or another buyer swoops in ahead of the government, we will all ultimately pay for it through job losses and higher fares.

Updated

The owner of a massage parlour in Frankston and a person found drunk on a train in Frankston, despite their residential address being in Geelong, are among 89 people to have been fined in Victoria in the past 24 hours for breaching social distancing laws.

The owner of the massage parlour was fined after two workers were found in the venue, which is among a category of businesses banned from operation on 28 March. The two employees of the massage parlour also received the $1,600 on-the-spot fine.

Five other people were fined for carpooling in Williamstown.

We wrote about concerns that Victoria police have not been transparent in their use of emergency Covid-19 powers this morning.

Updated

Virgin Australia’s frequent flyer scheme, Velocity, has frozen redemptions since the airline went into administration.

Redemptions are frozen for an “initial period” of four weeks, Velocity said:

We know how much our members love to plan their travel and use their Points to redeem flights, however the ongoing travel restrictions and reduced flights have limited the options for them to use Points for flights.

We’re seeing more members use Points to shop online for items such as gift cards, electronic goods, and wine. This unexpected demand has made it difficult for our suppliers to provide these offers and limits the availability for all members to redeem their Points.

What our members need to know:

  • Your Points aren’t going anywhere. They will remain in your account.
  • Your existing Points will not expire through this period. We will be extending the expiration period for your existing Points by the timeframe of the pause.
  • You can continue to earn Points with our partners, although you won’t be able to redeem them during the pause.

Updated

The Victoria police deputy commissioner Shane Patton spoke in Melbourne this morning about the scrapping of bail reporting conditions.

From Friday bail reporting conditions will be suspended for all alleged offenders because of social-distancing measures.

Patton said 40,000 alleged offenders travelled to police stations in the state every month, putting people at risk of Covid-19.

“The accountability regime if anything is going to be more stringent,” Patton said. Alleged offenders will have to follow stay-at-home directions from the chief health officer and each of their cases will be assessed by police individually.

There would be increased checking in on high-risk people by police, he said.

Patton added it would be difficult for alleged offenders to leave the state with current flight restrictions in place.

“This is one less lawful activity allowing them to be out in the community,” Patton said. “There’s no leniency.”

Updated

OK, I’ll leave that there. The Cairns regional mayor, Bob Manning, is speaking on the ABC. Virgin is a major employer up there.

He says he’s “encouraged” by the airline moving into administration because he’s “optimistic” about the potential for Virgin or any other airline to fill the need for a low-cost carrier option in Australia servicing regional areas:

The airlines point their noses where people want to go. Airlines continue to fly where they make a profit. And that making the profit, Virgin was very much struggling. They were never going to overcome the current problem. The problem we have now with the virus. But I think that they possibly could foot the bill as we go into the future.

Updated

Albanese has also accused the government of “rightwing ideology” after the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, flagged deregulation of industries and IR to get the economy moving after the Covid-19 crisis:

There is not a single example of a trade union in this country seeking to do anything other than help out their fellow Australians at this crisis. There’s been no attempt to use the fact that many unions are in a powerful position at the moment, because it is the unionised workforce that has tended to be relied upon at the moment ... What they’re all doing is being flexible, putting the national interest first. The government has praised them. We’ve had discussions about Sally McManus and Christian Porter being besties. What we have is the government foreshadowing that they’re coming after workers’ wages and conditions as soon as this crisis is over. By further deregulation, including of the labour market.

Updated

Albanese didn’t answer a question about how much equity he’s calling for the government to invest in Virgin. He’s also shrugged off the fact Virgin was already in financial difficulties, saying it’s “absurd” to suggest the airline would be in the position it is today if not for Covid-19:

What Virgin has done over a period of time, over the last 20 years, is build up its capital. So, yes, it is true that Virgin has only run at a profit in a couple of those years. But that’s because of the investment that you see around you. It’s the investment in people, it’s the investment in planes, it’s the investment in infrastructure that has occurred. Now, I’m not saying that every decision of Virgin management has been correct. I’m not here to make those judgments. But the fact is that the aviation sector is a very difficult sector.

Updated

Albanese is asked why Labor wants the government to intervene when the airline’s administrator says it has already received expressions of interest to recapitalise Virgin. Why not just let the market do its thing, essentially.

The concern that we have about letting the market rip on this is that people will be looking at coming in, looking at the profitable sections, the profitable routes, potentially, of an airline. So, Sydney to Melbourne, Sydney to Brisbane, consistently in the top 10 in the world. Sydney to Melbourne has, indeed, at various times been first. The most travelled-on route in the world. They won’t be interested in flying, as I’ve flown on Virgin, into your Gladstones or into Townsville, or into Mackay. They’ll be interested in cherrypicking, people losing their jobs through a restructuring of the company. And our concern is that the Australian national interest needs to be served with two full-service airlines. And we know that the sort of build-up of the skills of the people behind us is the greatest asset of this airline.

Updated

Anthony Albanese is still taking questions about Virgin in Sydney. He’s asked why the government should prop up an airline when the uncertainty created by Covid-19 means we don’t know what the aviation industry will look like on the other side. He says it’s still crucial to prevent Qantas having a monopoly.

What we know is that, if you have a single airline – we’ve seen it before, go back and have a look at the prices which people were paying to fly from Sydney to Melbourne when you had an effective monopoly during that period. So, we know it will have an economic impact, and we know also that regions have been better serviced than they have ever before. Because of the competitive nature of the airline system. And part of the other solution, you’ve got tp look at the counterfactual. What is the alternative? The alternative is people losing their jobs.

Updated

Good morning. It’s all Virgin Airlines today. Anthony Albanese and co are still addressing the media and we expect to hear from the company soon.

In the meantime, the New South Wales treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, has issued a statement on negotiations with the company. You may remember that yesterday the Queensland minister for state development, Cameron Dick, gave the NSW government an absolute serve over their attempts to woo the airline away from Queensland.

It’s still unclear how Virgin’s decision to go into voluntary administration may affect those negotiations.

Here’s what Perrottet has to say this morning:

The NSW government believes our state and nation are best served by having a competitive aviation sector.

We have been in discussions with Virgin, as have other states, about their future. We will continue these discussions with the administrators and the federal government.

We will always act in the best interests of the people of NSW. Any measures the NSW government takes are aimed at keeping businesses in business and people in jobs.

Updated

I might leave you there for this morning, thank you for reading.

My colleague Michael McGowan will take you through the news for the rest of the day.

More from Anthony Albanese:

Right around the world, governments intervene in airlines. Indeed, Virgin Australia’s shareholders, such as Singapore and Etihad and the Chinese airlines HNA, are based upon government support and ownership.

That is the standard model around the world. Here in Australia we’ve developed a very good system with two full-service airlines with budget arms, Tiger and Jetstar, providing affordable service for Australians.

Indeed, if you look at real terms, flying in Australia is 20 times more affordable than it was three decades ago. It has made a substantial difference to the way that our economy functions.

Updated

Anthony Albanese is now addressing media at a press conference:

It’s about not just the 15,000 people who depend directly on Virgin Australia for their jobs, it’s about the hundreds of thousands of Australians who depend upon tourism for their jobs.

It’s about the millions of Australians who depend upon a two-airline system in order to be able to afford to get around this country.

The government says that they want a market-based solution, but it is government policy – and it’s good policy – to protect Australians’ health, which has shutdown this market. There is no market here today.

Updated

The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, as released a statement on Virgin Australia entering administration.

This is a failure of leadership from Scott Morrison whose complacent approach to aviation did nothing to support the airline through this crisis ...

For weeks, Labor and unions called for Scott Morrison to extend a lifeline to Virgin Australia through extending or guaranteeing a line of credit and taking an equity stake ...

Allowing private equity investors to pick over Virgin will see thousands of workers lose their jobs and provides no guarantee of ongoing access to affordable flights for the travelling public.

Sixteen thousand workers cannot afford further inaction from Scott Morrison. Our regional tourism economies from Cairns to Broome to Launceston cannot afford further inaction from Scott Morrison.

Updated

As my colleague Daniel Hurst mentioned earlier the unions have been calling on the Morrison government to step in a save Virgin Australia.

This is the message from Australian Unions this morning:

Updated

The Australian Tourism Industry Council executive director, Simon Westaway, says the collapse into administration of Virgin Australia “represents a further significant challenge for Australian tourism facing off against the already massive impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and previously the summer bushfire crisis”.

This is also a historic but also difficult moment for Australian aviation and for thousands of airline personnel and many associated businesses that will be severely impacted. Those obviously also include in tourism.

These are the most challenging of times. The uncertainty around what level of future lost volume of flights and seat capacity that came from a second airline group is obvious in its negative impact.

He said tourism employed about 1 million people and it was “logical and important that our Australian-based airlines maintain sustainable operations in order to help achieve this”.

Updated

Virgin Australia’s chief executive, Paul Scurrah, and one of the airline’s newly appointed administrators, Vaughan Strawbridge, will front the media at 10.30 this morning and hopefully answer some of the questions everybody has about the airline.

While the airline’s announcement this morning made it clear it wants to keep operating on the other side of the coronavirus crisis, it was silent on several crucial issues.

These include what will happen to the jobs and entitlements of about 10,000 workers, the future of the poorly performing budget offshoot Tiger, which is a logical candidate to be shut down, what happens to around $1.2bn in flight bookings, and the value of people’s frequent flyer points.

The latter are held in a separate company that isn’t in administration, but it’s not clear what that means in terms of redeeming them for flights in the future.

Strawbridge will also need to deal with banks and other financiers owed about $4.8bn. The airline’s fleet is heavily mortgaged; just in November it issued about $700m in junk bonds.

As voluntary administrators Strawbridge and his fellow Deloitte partners are in charge of navigating the process from here on in.

Updated

Seven new cases in Victoria

Victoria has just released its numbers for Covid-19 cases overnight.

It has reported an additional seven cases, bringing the state total to 1,336.

This number is made up of 641 men and 695 women, with people aged from babies to their early 90s.

Yesterday the state reported only one new case.

Victoria’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, said this fluctuation in the number of positive Covid-19 cases was due to an increase in the number of tests being completed and an increase in the number of travellers returning from overseas on repatriation flights:

The increases we are seeing are still small and this is encouraging. They prove that our physical distancing measures are working but this is not a time to relax our strong approach as this disease can get away from you very quickly, as we have seen in cities overseas.

Updated

Australia’s peak union body has called for Virgin Australia to keep trading in administration and then come out of administration with new shareholders that include the federal government.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions said it was not too late for the government to rescue the company by acquiring a stake in the airline and argued that a collapse would cost taxpayers dearly.

A failure to rescue Virgin Australia would leave the government with an $800m bill to pay out the entitlements of the workforce under the fair entitlements guarantee scheme, the ACTU said, and “open the door to a monopolistic takeover of our skies”.

The ACTU president, Michele O’Neil, said it was a “do or die” moment for the Morrison government.

“If the Morrison government does not immediately intervene, they will be responsible for the biggest airline collapse in Australia’s history,” she said. “They can choose to save the jobs of 16,000 Virgin Australia workers, or they can choose to abandon all these workers and hand Qantas a monopoly.”

Updated

A message from Virgin Australia this morning:

Five new cases in Tasmania

Tasmania has reported five new cases of Covid-19 overnight.

All of these are from the north-west of the state, where there is a significant outbreak.

This brings the state total to 200. Seventy-four of these people have now recovered.

Updated

Ruby Princess crew repatriation begins

The repatriation of international crew members from the Ruby Princess has begun, NSW police say.

More than 1,000 crew members, many infected with Covid-19, have been trapped on the cruise ship for weeks, unable to disembark unless they require urgent medical attention.

The ship is now the subject of a criminal investigation after some 2,700 passengers were allowed to freely disembark in Sydney on 19 March, despite worries that positive Covid-19 cases could be onboard. The ship has now been connected to more than 600 Covid-19 cases around Australia and at least 19 deaths.

“The first contingent of Ruby Princess crew members will begin the process of repatriation to their home countries today,” NSW police said.

Forty-nine crew members will be taken off the ship today, one of whom has tested positive for Covid-19.

“The [infected] crew member will be taken to a NSW Health-managed hotel to undertake a strict 14-day quarantine period,” police said.

“The remaining 48 crew members have tested negative for COVID-19. They will be disembarked this morning, and arrangements are being made for flights to return them to their home countries.”

NSW police say more crew members will be disembarked from the Ruby Princess over the coming days, and a significant number of crew members will remain on the vessel and return with it to its port of origin.

Updated

Queensland reported only six new Covid-19 cases today, bringing the state total to 1,024.

The state health minister, Dr Steven Miles, said:

It brings our total for the week to 25 and you’ll recall that there was a period there where we were consistently seeing twice that number a day. We are now seeing that number a week.

Six is good, compared to those numbers, but it is not zero.

Updated

Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin group, tweeted this this morning:

Updated

All Cairns residents with Covid-19 symptoms encouraged to get tested

There are concerns for Cairns in far north Queensland after a number of lab technicians have tested positive for Covid-19.

Queensland chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, urged anyone in the area to get tested if they have any symptoms.

One month ago, a technician went up from Brisbane up to Cairns and then, when he returned back toBrisbane, was tested positive for Covid-19 ... Then last week, we had one of the lab workers, who’s worked in that lab, tested positive. And we are unsure where that lab worker actually contracted that infection. We now have confirmation that it was in the lab.

So we’re now doing further work to make sure that there are no other unwell staff members or patients in the Cairns hospital, and it’s very important that across the whole community in Cairns, that anyone who is unwell with any respiratory symptoms – so cough, sore throat or shortness of breath – that you immediately go and see your own GP, or go to the fever clinic that’s there in Cairns, to be tested.

Updated

Queensland announces plans for a quarantine-friendly Anzac Day dawn service

Annastacia Palaszczuk has encouraged Queenslanders to stand at the end of their driveways on Saturday morning to commemorate the Anzac soldiers.

The RSL president, Tony Ferris, gave details at a press conference this morning:

I would just like to encourage Queenslanders this Anzac Day, 25 April, to step out on to their driveways, verandas or porches at 6am in the morning and commemorate those that have gone and served this country, those that are currently serving this country, and those that have come home with their injuries and are still suffering with those injuries.

On the RSL Queensland website, we have a link, which will allow you to turn round and play the full service from start to finish. It’s fully timed and it will be beneficial if you turn round and play that. For me, this is hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck stuff.

Updated

Virgin Australia officially goes into administration

Virgin Australia has told the stock exchange it is in administration.

It has appointed Vaughan Strawbridge, John Greig, Sal Algeri and Richard Hughes of Deloitte as voluntary administrators.

“The decision comes as the group has continued to seek financial assistance from a number of parties, including State and Federal Governments, to help it through the unprecedented crisis, however is yet to secure the required support,” the company told the ASX.

“Virgin Australia will continue to operate its scheduled international and domestic flights which are helping to transport essential workers, maintain important freight corridors, and return Australians home.

“The administrators will be supported by the group’s current management team, led by Chief Executive Officer Paul Scurrah, and will work closely with team members, suppliers, and partners throughout the process.”

Strawbridge said: “Our intention is to undertake a process to restructure and refinance the business and bring it out of administration as soon as possible.”

“We are committed to working with Paul and the Virgin Australia team and are progressing well on some immediate steps. We have commenced a process of seeking interest from parties for participation in the recapitalisation of the business and its future, and there have been several expressions of interest so far.”

Virgin Australia said the frequent flyer program Velocity “while owned by the Group, is a separate company and is not in administration”.

Updated

We know that the mayor of Waverley, the local council area taking in Bondi beach, is in talks with the NSW Health minister’s office about opening a pathway on the sand to allow surfers and swimmer access to the water.

Seven News’s Chris Reason is reporting this is what the pathway could look like.

You can check out the Guardian’s full report here:

Updated

Dozens of Victorians have described feeling “intimidated”, “discriminated against” and “fearful” after being targeted by police enforcing the state’s lockdown laws, according to a new report detailing the use of the emergency powers.

Michael McGowan has all the information on this new report here:

Updated

Queensland education department apologises for online learning bungle

The head of Queensland’s education department has apologised for a website crash that frustrated parents and students on the first day of term two on Monday, AAP reports.

Students were left in the lurch after the state’s online education portal crashed when nearly 2 million people tried to log in yesterday.

It was smashed with 1.8m hits in less than half an hour.

Tony Cook is the head of the department and on Tuesday apologised for what went wrong, saying officials had worked overnight to resolve the issue.

The portal will again be put under pressure at 9am this morning when students log in for day two.

Updated

NSW records just six new cases

Also out of that press conference comes an update on NSW’s Covid-19 numbers.

The NSW chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, said the state had only six new cases in the past 24 hours, bringing its total to 2,969.

More than half of those diagnosed in NSW have since recovered – 1,755 people in total.

There are now 249 people being treated by NSW Health in a mix of hospital and “hospital at home” care. This figure includes 21 people in intensive care, with 17 requiring ventilators.

Updated

Sarah Mitchell also announced extra measures to help casual teaching staff who have lost work due to the Covid-19 crisis.

For term two, any teacher who has worked casually ... 10 days in term one of casual teaching, will be eligible to work up to two days per week in our schools across NSW. And we estimate what that will mean is 7,000 casual teachers and up to 3,000 school support staff will have that guaranteed work throughout the term ...

That will mean we can make the system work well, so that will have the flexibility around what they’re doing in the classroom, but also extra support with casual staff coming into our schools.

Updated

The NSW minister for education, Sarah Mitchell, says schools will work on a rostered system.

We want them to make sure they are having about a quarter of students on campus each day, but how they break that group up will be a matter for them. But we are asking them to certainly consider family groupings, keeping siblings together, so that that will make it a lot easier for parents as we transition back to normal schooling.

We will have extra cleaning, extra sanitiser, extra health provisions, including forehead thermometers and also extra health equipment in our sick bays. And we’ll also be asking parents to stagger drop-off and pick-up times, and recess and lunch breaks within our schools. We think that these are important measures inline with health advice that will ensure that everybody feels safe in their school environment.

Updated

Students to return to school one day a week in NSW

Gladys Berejiklian says NSW students will be asked to return to school for one day a week from 11 May:

Initially, it will just be a day a week. And then progressively two days, and then we hope by the end of term two we’ll be in a position to have students going back to school in a full-time capacity by term three.

Will it be the same as kids going to school under normal circumstances? No, it won’t. We’ve made sure we’ve used this time not just to build up our online capacity, in case children, or a proportion of them do need to continue learning from home, but we’ve also made sure we have enough hand sanitisers, soap and all those things which make a school community feel safe, not just be safe.

Updated

On the other side of the Virgin debate, the federal finance minister, Mathias Cormann, spoke to ABC radio this morning.

He said the government would consider if it was “appropriate to provide sensible support in an appropriate fashion” after it became clear what options emerged from the company’s voluntary administration.

He insisted the government wanted two full-service airlines in Australia but believed the process of Virgin Australia going into voluntary administration was “the best way to have a genuinely viable airline on the other side” and said “Virgin had serious challenges prior to the pandemic”.

Updated

As Australian infection rates fall there is still a question mark hanging over the future of schools in term two.

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, will announce a gradual back-to-school plan for students later this morning.

The plan involves students initially going to school for one day a week, with attendance increased in stages if coronavirus rates remain low.

Previously Berejiklian set 11 May as the start date for NSW children’s return to school. This plan would see a rostered attendance schedule to keep numbers low.

We will bring you more details as they emerge this morning.

Updated

Just on Virgin Australia, ABC News Breakfast is speaking with Peter Biagini, the Queensland state secretary for the Transport Workers’ Union:

In Queensland alone, in Brisbane there’s 5,000 employees. There’s 10,000-odd direct employed by Virgin, and another 5,000 contractors that contract to Virgin. It’s an enormous amount of people that’s going to be affected by this, as well as their families.

He said it’s “fanciful” to think another airline could easily replace Virgin in Australia:

This is all the airlines around the world who are struggling and getting bailouts. So to think that if Virgin was to fall over, that another airline would just come in and fill the void – that will take years. And in the meanwhile, once we get over this virus, we need two good, strong airlines, to be able to service our economy, our travellers and also our freight tasks.

Updated

Good morning and welcome to today’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. We’ll bring the latest news from today’s national cabinet meeting and all the news on Virgin Australia.

Here’s a recap of Monday’s key events:

  • Australia recorded its lowest count of new cases since early March. Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia recorded zero new cases. Victoria and the ACT just one each, with NSW adding six. Tasmania had five new cases.
  • Reports that Virgin Australia could go into administration sparked fears for thousands of jobs.
  • Australian stocks saw their worst drop in three weeks.
  • Unemployment in Australia could hit 16%, according to a report from the thinktank the Grattan Institute.
  • The NRL’s chief executive, Todd Greenberg, stepped down amid a financial crisis for the game.

Updated

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