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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Calla Wahlquist (now) and Amy Remeikis (earlier)

Australian stock market falls 5.6%, NRL suspends 2020 season – as it happened

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Summary

Let’s quickly recap the main points of that Q&A special:

  • Any mitigation measure Australia takes will need to remain in place until a vaccine is developed, which is about 18 months away, deputy chief health officer Professor Paul Kelly says.
  • Kelly says the suggestion that a two or four-week lockdown would knock the spread of the virus on the head is incorrect. Both he and Dr Norman Swan said that once a lockdown ended there would be a resurgence, so any lockdown would effectively have to be sustained, or repeated, until a vaccine was available.
  • Kelly said that is why closing schools is such a big step — they would likely be closed all year.
  • They said that all eyes were on China, which has not reported a resurgence of cases since lifting its lockdown provisions.
  • Professor Sharon Lewin, the director of the Doherty Institute, said that there were no specific treatment options available for Covid-19 at this point but they were being widely tested. She was “optimistic” about the development of some anti-viral treatments that might suppress both the symptoms and the spread of the virus.
  • Paul Kelly agreed that health authorities in Australia needed to be clearer with their messaging.
  • Kelly said that the situation in Australia was not comparable to the situation in Italy because Australia has tested and diagnosed a large number of very mild cases, while Italy’s first 1,000 reported cases were “very serious”. That meant Italy had missed many more cases than Australia, he said.
  • Testing criteria in Australia will change in the next week as the number of overseas travellers drops dramatically, Kelly says. Testing has to date been focused on overseas travellers, but mandatory quarantine requirements and travel bans mean the number of travellers arriving had fallen significantly.
  • Norman Swan suggested Australia was still missing asymptomatic cases of Covid-19, because it was not testing widely enough.

We will leave our Australia-specific coverage of the coronavirus crisis there for tonight. You can follow our rolling global coverage here. Read a summary of the day’s events in Australia here.

Be well. We will see you in the morning.

Paul Kelly agreed that authorities in. Australia did need to be clearer with their health messaging.

Look,I think we need to be clearer with our messaging. I think that’s come through from many sources. We’re certainly listening to that.

Kelly said he and chief health officer Professor Brendan Murphy had done 45 press conferences since 21 January and had a lot of information on the Australian health department website, as well as producing “so many fact sheets.”

But he said that communication was “a two way thing”. “People really are primed to listen”.

Paul Kelly said that controlling the epidemic was not a “two or four week phenomenon, it’s until we get the vaccine”. Which, as he said earlier in the program, could take 18 months.

We’re all hoping for a vaccine in the future. If we get a vaccine that works and is effective, then we’re protected and fantastic. We can really defeat this virus.

If we go into lockdown as many people are suggesting we should do now, this is not a two or 4-week phenomenon, it’s until we get the vaccine. If we do that, less people will be infected. Every time we take our foot off the brake... more people will get the infection. We can’t completely eradicate this infection unless we get a vaccine.

Hamish McDonald asked Paul Kelly if he the Australian modelling still showed that between 20% and 60% of the Australian population could get the virus.

Kelly said the 60% figure would be an “uncontrolled epidemic” and the 20% prediction was “without the major interventions that have gone into place this week and with potentially more to come”.

‘We are not two weeks behind Italy’

One questioner asked if Australia was at risk of running out of ventilators, as has occurred in Italy.

Paul Kelly said there was a “laser-like focus” on Australia’s current intensive care capacity.

We’ve been assured by our state and territory colleagues that a doubling of capacity is a relatively simple thing. A tripling of capacity is also possible.

He said that the strongest mitigation measures in Australia were yet to have an impact on the number of cases detected, because they had only just been introduced.

Kelly also warned against comparing Australia to Italy.

Look, we are not Italy. I’ve seen some people say when they look at the curves of what Norman is referring to, the epidemiological curve that we’re two weeks behind Italy. We are not two weeks behind Italy. We’ve been testing and finding many more mild cases.

Italy mainly tested the top of the pyramid, the very serious cases that came into hospital. That’s what their first 1,000 were. Our first 1,000 were mainly community cases. Mostly involved with travel from overseas. We’ve only had 20 people through this whole period that have been in intensive care. We’ve had seven deaths unfortunately. All in older people. The lower age is 77. The average age is 86.

Some comments on vaccines and possible treatment.

Sharon Lewin is the director of the Doherty Institute, one of the organisations in Australia working on vaccines and treatments.

Lewin said that developing a vaccine was key but while that was being developed — which could take 12 to 18 months in the best case scenario — there were some treatment options being explored.

We have no specific treatment for the virus.People get better on their own. Or they get better because they receive supportive care in hospital. But if we had a treatment at anti-viral drug, that blocked replication of the virus, it could potentially do two things. It could potentially improve outcome. People don’t get so sick and don’t die. Or also reduce transmission because most virus transmission is related to how much virus you have onboard.

She said they were trialling an anti-arthritis drug which “reduced the amount of virus that we could measure in someone’s swab”.

And we can actually measure the amount of it accurately and it definitely decreased with this particular arthritis drug.

One thing we might see in the not so distant future is a lot of understanding about drugs that block replication and that could have implications for both clinical outcome as well as how infectious you are. I’m a little optimistic about that.

A few quick fire questions:

  • Can grandparents look after young children while this crisis is underway? No, the experts say. It’s too much of a risk and you can’t rely on children to stay at least 1.5m away from vulnerable older people.
  • Can you swim in the ocean, or a chlorinated pool if you’re on quarantine? No, you are quarantined. The experts say that means you can’t go out — not to swim in the ocean, not to bush walk.
  • Will the change of seasons — heading into winter — make the coronavirus threat worse in Australia? Yes, winter does make things more difficult but not because coronavirus will be. worse. It will be more difficult because it will coincide with flu season, which already puts a pressure on the health system.
  • Is it true that the virus can’t survive hot temperatures? Can you kill it by drinking tea? No. There is no magic cure.

Paul Kelly said school closures was one of the potential things Australia could do to flatten the curve and would be considered at some point.

When pressed on why Australia does not do it straight away, he said: “when you have a range of interventions, it’s hard to know which one would work the best”.

Norman Swan said Australia had only a “partially targeted testing campaign. We’re missing asymptomatics. So we don’t have the best possible... we have an inadequate testing regime.

We have an inadequate quarantine regime which relies on trust...And therefore we’re not actually under control and the hockey stick illustrates that. It’s doubling every two or three days.

That means we need much stronger social distancing — including closing schools, Swan said.

School closures ‘not a two or four-week thing’

Question four is from a senior high school student who says she is anxious about the impact of Covid-19 on her education.

We’re in one of the most stressful years of our lives and the additional stress from the way this pandemic is being treated can only be detrimental, affecting our mental, if not physical, health. Does the panel think that keeping schools open is the appropriate way to deal with this situation? What do you see as the long-term impact on the mental health of students?

Sharon Lewin says there is “great divisions in what experts are saying” on school closures.

Paul Kelly said that early data from Wuhan showed that children got sick in “very, very low numbers”.

Second of all, all of those cases and this is what has been found in other countries, tend to have come from the parents. Not amongst children. Very different to flu.

Closing schools is a big thing. What we’ve been trying to do right throughout this is to look at proportionate responses, what needs to be done now, thinking of that long-term game. What is sustainable over the long term? This is not a two or four-week thing.

If schools close, they are closed for at least the next six months, probably for the whole school year....That’s a life-changing event. We can’t make these decisions lightly and they may have a place at some point.

Paul Kelly says that the monitoring and testing of arrivals in Australia has been stronger than Norman Swan suggests. But he also says it’s possible that the virus circulated in Australia before border checks were put in place.

I believe there probably has been some circulation in the community. Perhaps as far back as January before we recognised the issue in Wuhan.

Question three was from South Australian senator Rex Patrick, who tested positive to Covid-19 after being exposed to Senator Andrew Bragg, who caught Covid-19 at a wedding in rural NSW that has been linked to 35 confirmed cases.

Patrick is asymptomatic, but was able to get a test because he was a known contact of Bragg, a confirmed case. But Bragg was not able to get tested immediately, because he did not meet the criteria.

Said Patrick:

Why is the test criteria so strict? Can you see how 10 minutes two weeks ago could have saved so much time and significantly reduced the risk of my infecting anyone?

Paul Kelly said that 35 of the 140 guests at that wedding has been diagnosed with Covid-19, making it a “super spreading event”.

It demonstrates firstly how infectious this is. It’s much more infectious than flu.

Kelly said testing was focused on cases where it was “most likely to be positive”. That’s because of resourcing, he says.

Up to this point it’s most likely to be in people that have been returning from overseas. More than half still more than half of the cases of the 1,709 cases we have in Australia directly came from an overseas traveller.

Hamish McDonald asks if that’s a self-proving pattern — by mainly testing people who return from overseas, aren’t we going to get more positives from people who have returned from overseas?

Kelly says yes, it is, but he reiterates that we have a shortage of tests and need to remain targeted.

He reiterates that the rate of testing in Australia has been higher than places like the US.

Deputy chief medical officer Paul Kelly says the testing protocols in Australia will change “this week”.

Mostly the guidelines for testing are about a travel component and the travel is decreasing.

Kelly said that Australia had looked “very carefully” at the 30,000 people who have arrived in Australia on international flights in recent months.

So that was one of the reasons why we’ve gone to this new way of doing it, making sure anyone that comes in from any country must- and this is a must and a message to everyone out there that’s comeback in this period - they must self-isolate.

He said the procedures for enforcing that differ in each state. Some states require people to sign a statutory declaration upon arrival committing to self-isolate.

Question two is about what is happening when people arrive at airports in Australia, from a man who flew in to Brisbane international on Friday.

The question:

Upon arrival there were no thermal cameras, no thermometers, no testing, nothing, just a few minor questions and a pamphlet.Customs officers, Border Force officials and duty free attendants were not wearing masks. Is this a strange and negligent as we think it was?

Norman Swan is up first.

One of the problems that’s been throughout this whole episode so far has been contradictions. It’s unsettled the public. And we talk about the borders, closing the borders, and people’s experience of that has been different. And we’ve seen cruise ships discharging and it’s a common story that they’ve got off at the airport and they walk straight through and they know there might be a problem. And they don’t seem to be paying attention to it.

Sharon Lewin says that public health relies on trust and education of the public.

At the moment it has been an issue of trust. I still am a strong believer that’s the best way to practice public health, educating and empowering the public but we may need to increase the levels of observation because of the significance of all the community when people don’t stay in self-isolation.

She suggested that increased observation could include tracking of mobile phones, or apps as used in Singapore.

Paul Kelly said Australian officials had been in touch with the Singapore ministry of health, but that Australia was “a different country to Singapore”.

Kelly said that in his 30 years working in public health, “I have always been able to trust people once they’ve got the message clearly about what’s required, that they will do the right thing”.

Kelly said Australian officials were “certainly looking at the powers that are available under public health acts in all the state sand territories and indeed the biosecurity act...to do things if it is deemed necessary”.

But he conceded that Australia had to date not put those stronger tracking measures in place.

Question one is from Chris McMeniman, who says his parents and younger brother, who has special needs, are stuck in a cruise ship off the coast of South America with 150 other Australians and cannot, at this stage, get home. They had been on a cruise to Antarctica.

Paul Kelly says that DFAT is aware of the situation and trying to help bring Chris’s family, and other Australians stuck overseas, back home. He said 3,000 Australians are currently stuck on 30 cruise ships around the world.

Q&A host Hamish McDonald, who is socially-distanced from two of his three guests, has invited deputy chief medical officer Paul Kelly to make an opening statement.

This is serious. No-one expected 2020 to start as it has. We’ve had bushfires. We’ve had floods. And now this virus. So whilst we’ve been preparing for many years for a pandemic similar to this, this is unexpected at this time.

The world has changed. Australia has changed. And we’re all in this together — young and old — and we all need to play our part to get past this crisis that we’re in. I want people tonight to really start listening to the messages. Listen to the experts. We’ve got two others on the program tonight. Listen to them. Keep safe. Keep calm. And keep your distance.

Meanwhile, if you are one of the thousands sadly affected by coronavirus shutdowns, my colleague Luke Henriques-Gomes has written a guide to help you learn if you are eligible for support.

I will be blogging Q&A’s ‘Ask the doctors’ special, which will begin shortly.

On the panel is deputy chief medical officer Professor Paul Kelly; the director of the Doherty Institute and a leading infectious diseases expert, Professor Sharon Lewin; and Dr Norman Swan, presenter of the health report on Radio National and the podcast Coronacast.

A brief recap of a very big day

Before Q&A starts, let’s take a look at where we stand.

  • The federal government has extended the $550 a fortnight coronavirus supplement to full-time students on Youth Allowance, Abstudy and Austudy, as tens of thousands of people face unemployment due to hospitality shutdowns.
  • The coronavirus stimulus bill passed the lower house and is being debated in the Senate.
  • Social distancing rules came into effect at 12pm today. Across Australia, cafes, casinos, pubs, clubs, places of worship, gyms and cinemas are closed, and weddings and funerals can only occur if people are provided with four square metres of space per person to a maximum of 100 guests or mourners. Takeaway and delivery for food and beverages is still permitted.
  • South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory will close their borders to domestic travellers tomorrow. All non-essential entrants will be required to undergo a mandatory 14-day self-isolation. Queensland’s borders will close on Wednesday. Tasmanian borders are already closed.
  • Schools in the ACT and Victoria have closed until at least 13 April, when the school closure will be reviewed. Elsewhere, schools are still open but parents have been told they won’t be penalised for keeping their kids at home. In NSW, parents have been told that while schools will be open they should keep their kids at home, if possible.
  • The NRL has suspended its 2020 season, following an earlier call by the AFL. A similar announcement is expected by the A-League tomorrow morning.
  • The Australian Olympic Committee has told athletes that the 2020 Tokyo Games are unlikely to proceed.
  • The Australian stock market fell 5.6% today.

Updated

On the issue of school closures in New South Wales, Guardian Australia’s Dave Earley received this email from a public school in Sydney.

This morning, the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said schools would remain open but encouraged parents to keep their children home if possible.

According to one particular school, only parents with “essential” jobs should send their kids to school, where “supervision will be provided for children who attend”.

No wonder parents are confused.

Updated

Up to 250,000 people could benefit from extension of coronavirus supplement

The government’s decision to expand the $550 a fortnight coronavirus supplement to full-time students could be expected to impact about 250,000 people across the country.

Government data shows there were about 200,000 students receiving Youth Allowance, as well as 36,000 who get Austudy and about 30,000 Abstudy recipients.

These students will now get the coronavirus supplement, joining recipients of Jobseeker Payment, Youth Allowance (Jobseeker), Parenting Payment (Partnered and Single), Farm Household Allowance and Special Benefit recipients.

Student unions had said that full-time students were facing the prospect of quitting their studies to claim the unemployment benefit when their casual and part-time work dried up in the coming weeks and months.

In response to questions from the Greens senator Rachel Siewert, the government said it had no plans to expand the payment to disability support pensioners, or other payment recipients.

However, the social services minister, Anne Ruston, will have the power to expand eligibility to the coronavirus supplement over the next six months under an amendment to the stimulus package legislation.

Updated

WA records 20 new cases, bringing total to 140

Western Australia has recorded 20 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the total number of cases as of 5pm Perth time today to 140.

Seven of the new cases relate to cruise ships: six passengers from the Ruby Princess and one from the Ovation of the Seas, all of whom returned to Perth from Sydney by plane.

From 1.30pm tomorrow, anyone entering WA from interstate will have to undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

The premier, Mark McGowan, said health services in WA had conducted 450 tests in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of tests completed in WA to 10,000. More than 1,200 tests were in regional areas.

Twelve Covid-19 patients in WA remain in hospital in Perth, while six of the 140 cases are confirmed to have fully recovered.

Updated

Coronavirus supplement extended to cover full-time students

In news that will delight hundreds of thousands of students across the country, the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, has told the Senate the government will extend the $550 a fortnight coronavirus supplement to full-time students.

Cormann said that the social services minister, Anne Ruston, will expand the supplement to people who receive Youth Allowance (Student), Austudy and Abstudy.

Cormann:

The minister intends to use this power to make student payments, Abstudy, Austudy and Youth Allowance (Student), and to make changes to the partner income test, and to essentially make sure they are captured by the coronavirus supplement arrangement.

Austudy recipients currently receive about $460 a fortnight, less than jobseekers. They will now receive $550 a fortnight extra.

Labor and the Greens, as well as welfare groups and student unions, had raised concerns that students who lost casual and part-time work would struggle to make ends meet during the looming economic downturn.

Updated

Passengers will not disembark cruise ship in Fremantle, WA government confirms

The Western Australian government has provided an updated statement on the cruise ship MSC Magnifica, which is due to arrive in Fremantle at 5am tomorrow. It confirmed no passengers or crew would leave the ship and said communications with the ship had been “inconsistent”.

Earlier, the premier, Mark McGowan, said that the ship had called the government requesting that its 1,700 passengers be allowed to disembark, and also that about 250 people on board had reported upper respiratory illness.

But the operator MSC Cruises said that it did not intend for any crew or passengers to disembark in Perth, and denied that anyone on board was unwell with symptoms consistent with Covid-19.

A few minutes ago, the WA government issued this statement:

The cruise vessel Magnifica will make a refuelling stop at Fremantle tomorrow morning, but no passengers or crew will be disembarking.

Over the past 24 hours the vessel had provided inconsistent advice to both the state and federal governments, about the health of its passengers and its intentions around disembarkation.

The state government’s position was clear this morning. That position was based on the latest information received from the cruise company.

MSC Cruises now advises that all passengers and crew are ‘well’ or don’t suffer from any ‘respiratory diseases’.

WA Police and Border Force will be at the port tomorrow morning to monitor the refuel exercise.

In this environment we cannot take risks and we will always put the Western Australian community first.

Updated

It is a big night for television newsreaders, who are trying to sum up a truly dizzying amount of news in one succinct message.

On the ABC’s 7.30, the presenter Leigh Sales delivered a strong message on personal accountability, saying to her audience: “You are our best hope of stopping coronavirus.”

Your individual behaviour is the most important thing to prevent it spreading and everything else flows from that.

So far, many Australians are behaving as if for some reason we’re magically immune from going through the tragedy unfolding in Italy.

We’re not and unless people change their behaviour that’s exactly what will happen.

And on Nine News, veteran broadcaster Peter Overton went with a straight but powerful narration of all the unthinkable ways that Australia has changed in just one day.

On Channel Nine, Peter Overton said:

Eighty-eight thousand people have lost their jobs. The NRL is suspending the 2020 season. The Olympics won’t go ahead this year. Queensland has closed its borders to us, 3,000 Australians are stranded on cruise ships around the world, and we can’t go to the pub for a drink. If I told you six weeks ago this would happen, you would think I was making it up. Well, all of these things happened in one day. Today.

Updated

Anglican schools in WA tell students to stay home

Adding to the confusion about school closures, the Anglican Schools Commission in Western Australia is now telling parents that they should not send their kids to school tomorrow.

A letter sent to the parents of students at John Septimus Roe school in Mirrabooka said that the Anglican Schools Commission of WA had agreed to a “broad directive” that “from Tuesday, 24 March 2020 (tomorrow), all parents are urged to keep their children home from all ASC schools”.

It said that teaching staff would take the next four days, from Tuesday to Friday, to finalise preparations to deliver remote online classes from next Monday, 30 March. School holidays in WA do not start until 10 April.

“We urge all families to take this response seriously. Please ensure you keep your children AT HOME, in the interests of their health and the health of the wider community,” the letter read.

Schools in WA remain open, but the premier, Mark McGowan, said today that there would be no penalties for parents who chose to keep their kids at home. It’s the same confused position as applies in every state other than Victoria and the ACT, which are closing schools from tomorrow.

Updated

If you missed it earlier, the government services minister Stuart Robert in question time backtracked on an earlier claim that the MyGov website had come under a DDoS attack. In fact, it was overwhelmed by demand as thousands of people were made unemployed by shutdowns in response to the coronavirus.

This is from Josh Taylor’s report:

MyGov had last week been able to cope with about 6,000 users logging on at once, but Robert said this was upgraded to 55,000 over the weekend in expectation that many more Australians would have been logging on after the increase in business shutdowns as a result of the coronavirus pandemic forcing more people into unemployment.

Robert told the parliament that about 95,000 people were trying to access MyGov at once, causing the DDoS alarms to trigger.

The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, said it wasn’t a cyber attack, “it was an incompetence attack”.

The shadow minister for government services, Bill Shorten, went further and accused Robert on Twitter of lying about the attack, and suggested the minister should lose his job.

Read the full piece here.

And as Luke Henriques-Gomes said earlier, if you are unfortunately one of the many queuing for Centrelink this week, please be kind to the staff.

This is awful and no one is immune.

Updated

The Victorian Farmers Federation has clarified one point of confusion caused by the Victorian and New South Wales governments suggesting, on Sunday, that they would move to closing non-essential services.

To be absolutely clear: at this stage, there are no further closures planned except those announced by the prime minister on Sunday night, and schools closing in Victoria and the ACT. It is likely that further shutdown measures will be announced over the coming weeks. But nothing has been announced at this stage.

Importantly, the VFF has confirmed there will be no restrictions to agriculture.

They tweeted this statement:

It continues:

We understand there are many questions. The simple answer is that we are working to ensure the whole agriculture/agribusiness supply chain remains open and viable.

The important thing is that we are all working together to secure the future of our agricultural industry and continuing to produce to feed Victorians during these trying times.

Parliament has been suspended until August.

A sign, if you needed one, that this will not all be over in two to four weeks.

Back to the Senate briefly, where the coronavirus economic response package is being debated.

One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts has told the Senate “the government must engage effectively to keep us all up to date with facts”. If anyone wanted evidence that we are living in dark and unusual times, there it is.

Roberts confirms One Nation will vote in favour of the package, although it has two reservations:

  • It has previously opposed the business growth fund, suggesting it will “wipe out opposition to the banks”.
  • It is concerned about $115bn of loans from the RBA and government – although it appears he incorrectly believes this will be spent on “securitised mortgages”, not small business lending.

Updated

The University of Western Australia has confirmed that one of its students has tested positive to Covid-19 but says they did not attend campus while unwell.

The student flew in to Perth on an international flight on Wednesday, went to a testing centre before going home to self-isolate, and “has not visited the UWA campus nor had contact with any member of the UWA community”.

Vice-Chancellor professor Jane den Hollander said there was “no risk to our campus community from this case”.

Earlier, the Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick recounted to Radio National his experience with Covid-19, contracting it from Liberal senator Andrew Bragg and then testing positive 8 days later.

Patrick has done contact tracing with SA Health, suggesting they will now contact people who spent 20min within a metre or two hours in a room with him.

Patrick said Bragg had symptoms but couldn’t get tested for a few days because he hadn’t been overseas or had confirmed contact with someone who had been infected:

That’s left a situation where until he found out he’d been to the wedding in NSW where a number of people had been infected, he wasn’t eligible for a test. Had the testing criteria been looser, he would’ve found out much sooner, and I would’ve found out much sooner, and I would’ve self-isolated sooner. I think as we get more test kits available we should be testing perhaps more people.

On social distancing, he said:

I think it’s really important that people take this seriously. Clearly it can be caught by anyone from a senator to a janitor. And people have to be careful, they have to listen to all the government messaging on this. The scenes we saw on Bondi Beach - [were] totally unacceptable. Take it seriously, people.

Updated

Crown Burswood employees told to stay home

Employees at Crown Resorts’ Perth casino have been told they are not to come to work from 5pm today (Monday), unless told otherwise.

“There will be some roles that continue as normal until further notice and relevant staff will be advised of this,” staff were told in an internal bulletin, obtained by Guardian Australia.

We will be in contact with all staff in coming days around what assistance and support is available.

Staff numbers for the Perth casino were not immediately available but Crown employs 18,500 people in Australia, about 12,000 of whom work at the company’s flagship Melbourne operation.

Casinos across Australia were shut at midday on Monday as part of a broader clampdown on areas where people congregate, designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Pubs, clubs, bars, restaurants and places of worship are also closed.

“We will continue to speak to government regarding next steps for Crown and our people,” the company said in the staff bulletin.

Crown’s casinos had been operating under controversial exemptions from earlier social distancing rules given by state health authorities.

The company has been approached for comment.

Updated

Earlier, in the lower house.

Back to the Senate now. Greens senator, Nick McKim, has spoken on the coronavirus stimulus bills, calling for Australia to “leave nobody behind” and not to go back to business as usual afterwards.

“We can’t have rampant inequality in the good times and socialising the losses in the bad times,” he said, calling for Australia to create “a more caring economic and social framework”.

McKim is rattling off statistics to show times were tough for some – even “before the crisis” – citing rates of homelessness, rental stress, and insecure work.

On the bills themselves, McKim says they are “not guided by the neoliberal ideology ... [because] the ideology of free markets is completely and provably unable to look after people, [it] destroys nature, and it does that in the good time and the bad”.

McKim calls on the government to adopt a similar whole-of-society approach to climate change, noting that global heating will cause an estimated $630tn of damage over a century, dwarfing Covid-19.

The Greens have submitted many sheet of amendments to extend the corona supplement to students and close other gaps in eligibility.

Labor’s Kristina Keneally has commended the objective of these and said Labor also raised these with the government – but there is no point passing them in the Senate if they will be rejected by the government in the lower house. So they are doomed.

Updated

The Star Entertainment Group, which operates casinos in Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, has released a fairly opaque statement in response to the social distancing rules that came into force at 12pm today.

Under the national rules, restaurants, clubs, bars, and casinos are among the venues to close. Crown announced today that it had closed basically everything except its hotel and accomodation services, with some food and beverage outlets possibly remaining open for delivery or takeaway only.

Here’s the statement from Star:

The Star respects the additional social distancing restrictions announced by the Federal and State governments to curb the spread of Covid-19.

As one of the country’s largest tourism and entertainment employers, we are working through the significant impacts on our business.

The priority at present is to make sure we keep our valued team members informed about what this means for them and our properties in Sydney, Brisbane and Gold Coast.

We will provide further updates at the appropriate time.

Updated

Coronavirus safety package introduced to the Senate

Government leader in the Senate, Mathias Cormann, has introduced the coronavirus safety net package to the Senate.

Labor’s deputy Senate leader, Kristina Keneally, is speaking about the opposition’s support for the “basic support package ... designed to keep Australian families going”.

Keneally referred to queues forming outside Centrelink offices, with Australians waiting “anxiously and patiently”, which she described as “horrific scenes on a scale not seen before and I hope not to see again”.

She said:

These are all people we know – our family members, friends, neighbours, and whether they are baristas, chefs, bartenders and flight attendants, they are all our fellow Australians.

Keneally warns that 88,000 people are estimated to have lost jobs in hospitality alone and up to another 200,000 in the next 12 weeks – enough people “without a pay packet” to fill the MCG almost three times over.

Keneally says the government has not addressed some gaps and concerns identified by Labor:

  • There is no “substantial support to protect jobs or guarantees business receiving support will keep people on”.
  • Concerns the measures will “arrive too late”.
  • Renters have no direct support (yet - wait til national cabinet on Tuesday).
  • Students are “highly vulnerable” but there is no coronavirus supplement for them, even if their hours are cut.
  • No provisions for 1.6m temporary visa holders “soon to be trapped here with no income and no access to income support”.
  • Provisions to access superannuation “at the bottom of the market” as a “last resort” suggest the government has not done enough to support people.

Keneally flags that the government is considering a possible Labor amendment about the income test for safety measures.

Updated

All flights out of Dubai cancelled for two weeks

Just a quick update on that news on Emirates flights being cancelled – they are not the only airline that will be affected.

The United Arab Emirates is suspending all inbound and outbound flights for two weeks, starting from Wednesday. So Emirates is not the only airline grounded. Etihad is the other major airline affected.

This is from Associated Press:

The United Arab Emirates, home to the world’s busiest international airport, announced early on Monday that it was suspending all passenger and transit flights for two weeks to stymie the spread of the new coronavirus.

The announcement came a day after the first cases were reported in the Gaza Strip and Syria, where years of conflict have severely degraded the local health care infrastructure. The new cases also raised fears about other vulnerable areas, like war-torn Libya and Yemen.

Dubai’s airport is a vital hub connecting Western nations with countries in Asia and Australia, and suspending transit flights there affects travellers around the world.

It continues:

The UAE’s emergency and crisis management body and its Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement that the decision to stop all commercial flights, including even transit flights, would take effect in 48 hours. The aviation authority said cargo and emergency evacuation flights would be exempt from the ban.

Updated

On the heels of on that news, Mike Hytner says that the Football Federation Australia have called a press conference for 10am on Tuesday. It is expected the A-League will follow the NRL in suspending its season.

NRL chair Peter V’Landys said the decision to suspend the season was taken on Monday afternoon, in response to the evolving crisis and changing health advice.

Due to the rapid rate of infection, we can no longer guarantee the safety of our players. Accordingly, we are suspending the 2020 NRL season.

Earlier, the NRL announced it will close its offices from Tuesday until at least 1 May, forcing hundreds of staff across all departments to take annual leave.

NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg said the shutdown was “catastrophic” for the league and that “the game’s cost base will need to be reset and that cost base is across the entire sport”.

That could include pay cuts to all players and himself, Greenberg said.

Asked whether the season would be played at some stage this year, V’Landys said the league had “left it open at the moment”.

All options are still on table. But what’s paramount to our decision making is the health of our players.

We’ve never encountered a financial situation like this. This is a financial crisis. It’s the biggest financial challenge the game has faced in its history.

V’Landys said rugby league will “always be around” but he could not guarantee it would return in the same form. He repeated earlier comments, for which he was criticised, that the NRL would be seeking some financial stimulus from the government.

As a billion dollar business you want to stimulate the economy ... we are a major tax payer and if you want to make sure you get those taxes into the future you look after us right now.

Updated

The NRL has suspended its 2020 season

The NRL has suspended its 2020 season. Chairman Peter V’landys, speaking at a press conference now, said they had “no other option”.

The league had tried desperately to keep the competition going, hanging on longer than codes like the AFL.

NRL offices have been closed until 1 May and all staff have been asked to take their annual leave immediately. Players have been told not to turn up to training tomorrow.

Updated

The Australian War Memorial is closing indefinitely

The Australian War Memorial is the latest public site in Canberra to close its doors to the public, in compliance with health advice on minimising the spread of the coronavirus.

The National Gallery of Australia, National Library of Australia, and Old Parliament House have also closed.

Here’s the statement from the war memorial.

The council and corporate management of the Australian War Memorial have decided to close the Memorial to the public from Tuesday 24 March 2020 until further notice.

In line with the latest national health advice, the decision was made that all public spaces and programs within Memorial grounds, including galleries, the Reading Room, and the Last Post Ceremony, will be closed indefinitely.

These measures will be effective from the conclusion of the Last Post Ceremony this evening.

The health and safety of our visitors, veteran community, staff and volunteers remains the top priority for the Australian War Memorial. The decision to close the Memorial to the public has been made with the wider community in mind. Where we can transition some programs to an online and/or digital delivery only, we will look to do so.

The Memorial will go ahead with a private, nationally televised Anzac Day commemorative service on 25 April 2020, to be broadcast live by the ABC and streamed online.

Updated

Emirates suspends all flights for two weeks

Emirates has suspended all passenger flights for two weeks, starting on Wednesday 25 March.

In a statement, the airline said they were acting in accordance with a directive from the UAE government.

We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused to our customers and travellers. These measures are in place to contain the spread of Covid-19, and we hope to resume services as soon as feasible.

Customers have been told not to call to cancel affected flights but need to fill out a travel voucher request in order to be able to re-book.

The decision has already affected flights out of Australia. Some people have reported that they were not told by Emirates that their flight had been cancelled.

The moves makes it even more difficult for Australians desperately trying to get home in case border controls tighten further and for non-Australians trying to join family overseas.

Updated

The national peak body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal services (Natsils),has called on the prime minister and premiers to consider the early release of prisoners from prisons to protect them from a possible outbreak of Covid-19.

In a statement, Natsils said it raised the issue in a meeting with the federal Indigenous affairs minister, Ken Wyatt, on Monday.

The statement said:

We, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (ATSILS), are calling for national leadership from the prime minister, attorney general and all levels of state and territory government to take immediate action to protect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in prison, including early release. Most of our people in prison have chronic health issues and are living with disability; they are most at risk. With the over-representation of our people in prison, our lives are on the line.

People in prison are extremely vulnerable to Covid-19. This is why we are calling for immediate early release, particularly people who are on remand, women who are victims of family violence and sentenced for lesser offences like fines and public order offences, young people and those most at risk of transmitting Covid-19, like elderly and people with health conditions. At all costs, we must prevent any Aboriginal deaths in custody from Covid-19.

Natsils also warned against blanket lockdowns or solitary confinement by prisons trying to manage a possible outbreak. It comes as prisons have suspended all visits for the time being. Courts suspended new jury trials last week, and some other court hearings have been delayed.

We discussed with minister Wyatt the impact of Covid-19 in remote communities. Right now, our lives depend on having full access to social safety nets without any strings attached. Bush courts and circuit courts have now stopped, and ATSILS are working on ways to provide services without face to face contact to remote communities.

When courts resume, this will place unprecedented need on our legal services. We require urgent additional resources to adequately respond to this pandemic.

This pandemic will have a huge impact on our communities, our lives, and our services for many months to come. It is vital that the prime minister and all levels of government act now to show leadership for First Nations people.

Updated

Western Australia has opened a new coronavirus testing clinic in the Perth suburb of Armadale.

Another clinic will open in Rockingham tomorrow and two will open in Midland and Joondalup respectively on Wednesday.

That brings the number of coronavirus fever clinics in WA to eight.

For our Western Australian readers, fever clinics are already open from 8am to 8pm at Royal Perth Hospital, Fiona Stanley Hospital and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. A regional clinic at the Bunbury Health Campus is open from 10am to 4pm.

The clinics were set up to take the pressure off the ordinary hospital system, but people who are not near a fever clinic can still go to their local hospital, although they are advised to call ahead if they believe they may have Covid-19.

All states have now stood up similar clinics – lists can be found on state and territory health department websites.

Updated

Some explanation from the AHPPC on shutdowns, school closures

On Monday the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee – the experts who have been advising the government on its response to Covid-19 – published the rationale behind its most recent recommendations including that non-essential services close down.

It said:

The recent rapid influx in imported cases and associated chains of transmission, including cruise ships and super-spreader events, means we do need to do more now. It is too soon for the measures introduced only last week to have impacted on the epidemiology, but we are seeing evidence of non-compliance with these new measures, people not taking this seriously. We have also now had two ‘super spreader’ events in Sydney – one a wedding (35 infected) and one at a church service.

There is a strong argument to do more, at least in the short term, to enforce the new way of life in social distancing that we will have to endure and to adapt the community mindset. This will also allow more time to consolidate health system preparations and evaluate measures already implemented in Australia, and to learn from interventions in other countries.

It also explained the rationale for not recommending school closures, noting that “one state [Victoria] has elected to bring forward Easter school holidays”.

AHPPC does not support the closure of schools given the lack of evidence of significant disease in children and the lack of reported major disease spreading in schools.

Furthermore, the closure of schools poses a major risk to children’s education, mental health and wellbeing, particularly those from low socioeconomic regions, where schools provide an important environment for nurturing and learning. The impact on the critical workforce and potential exposure of elderly relatives caring for children is also of significance. School closure would achieve some degree of additional social distancing but the evidence of its benefit at this stage is minimal.

School closures are likely to be more effective when approaching the peak of the epidemic and enforced for a shorter period.

Updated

New South Wales senator Tony Sheldon, who was in a committee meeting with senators Rex Patrick and Andrew Bragg, both of whom have since tested positive to Covid-19, says that he is self-isolating but has no symptoms of Covid-19.

The statement from Sheldon’s office reads:

Senator Sheldon has had no symptoms and has been self-isolating for 14 days, consistent with medical advice. He did not meet the criteria for testing, but in light of this development will seek further medical advice.

It’s amazing what can happen when the parliament works together – the third reading for the coronavirus stimulus bill is now being read. And agreed on the voices.

Updated

On that very depressing note (and I have the feeling there will be lot more of them coming), I will hand you over to the wonderful Calla Wahlquist.

I’ll be back with you tomorrow morning. Until then, please, take care of you.

Updated

Again, this is what Australia is facing at this point.

There are thousands of people in lines at Centrelink (now called Services Australia), desperate for help. Absolutely desperate.

And again, this is the first day of this being available.

Updated

Kristina Keneally appeared on Sky News a little earlier and brought up the issues over the Ruby Princess cruise ship and Scott Morrison blaming NSW authorities:

You have to question the extent to which this national cabinet is working effectively. If you have in this circumstance, the commonwealth pointing fingers at the state of NSW for what is essentially a border responsibility. Now last time I checked under our laws, borders are the responsibility of the commonwealth government. And this government, backed into a corner by a mistake that has allowed some 50, nearly 50 and climbing I suspect, number of coronavirus cases to come off this Ruby Princess.

... This is a case where the commonwealth, the prime minister himself, stood up in front of the nation and said for the next 30 days there will be no cruise ships. Now somebody made an exemption for these four ships; it would have had to have been the commonwealth. They are now trying to duck and weave around that and shoot the blame home to Gladys Berejiklian – the premier of NSW – and her state government. It is their border responsibility and it’s their responsibility to ensure that if people are coming off ships or aeroplanes, they should be temperature tested.

Updated

The coronavirus stimulus bill is still being debated.

It will reach the Senate tonight. The Senate is expected to pass it. If it doesn’t manage that, parliament will sit for another day tomorrow, where it will remain the only thing on the agenda, other than question time.

School has broken in Victoria for the last time this term, with school holidays brought forward.

The ACT will be moving students to an online lesson plan from tomorrow.

Schools in the rest of the country remain open, although parents may remove their children if they wish.

Updated

Australian stock market falls 5.6%

The Australian stock exchange closed down 5.6% after government measures shuttered vast swathes of the economy, with the threat of more to come.

Monday’s losses come on top of a month of selling, punctuated by the occasional surge, that has driven the benchmark ASX200 index down from 7,162 at the close of trade on 20 February to 4,546 – a loss of more than 36%.

The biggest loser among the top 200 listed companies was debt collector Credit Corp. Changes to the law announced as part of the Morrison government’s stimulus package on Sunday night mean the threshold for bankrupting someone will increase from $4,000 to $20,000, depriving the company of one of its key debt collection weapons.

Radio network operator Southern Cross Media also shed more than 30% of its value.

After the market closed, casino operator Crown Resorts said it was closing everything at its Melbourne and Perth operations apart from accommodation, which will continue “in a reduced capacity”.

It has also shut its London casino, Aspinalls.

The company did not say what will happen to its 18,500 staff.

Updated

With the NRL and FFA still awaiting advice from the government and health officials before following most other sports in shutting down their leagues, Super Netball has announced it will not start as planned at the beginning of May. Australia’s premier netball competition will be deferred until at least 30 June.

The league’s commission will review the situation before the end of May and, based on the latest medical advice and government regulation, will determine whether the season start date should be extended out further. The competition’s official pre-season tournament, the Team Girls Cup, had already been cancelled.

The National Library of Australia has closed:

Due to the need to contain the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), the National Library of Australia building has been closed to visitors until further notice – this includes the reading rooms, Exhibition Galleries, bookshop and cafes.

“We have made the decision to temporarily close our doors as part of the nation’s ongoing management of the coronavirus pandemic,” said Director-General of the National Library of Australia, Dr Marie-Louise Ayres.

“This is following the updated advice and restrictions announced by the Australian and ACT Governments on public gatherings.”

Despite the public closure, Dr Ayres confirmed that staff will continue working behind the scenes to keep all the Library’s popular digital services available.

This is absolutely heartbreaking. It is day one.

Queensland has a ‘stay in your suburbs’ advisory in place.

It won’t be long until it starts being spread across other states.

Particularly if people continue to try to live their lives as usual.

This is the latest from the Manly Beach’s iconic Bold and Beautiful (B&B) swim

Updated

The House of Representatives is starting to move through amendments (or questions put on the amendments) of the coronavirus bill.

Which means it is getting to the tail end(ish) of the proceedings in the House.

Updated

Cruise ships continue to be a massive issue during this crisis:

This is moving very fast:

Updated

The NRL is starting to move.

From AAP:

The NRL has announced it will close its offices from Tuesday until at least 1 May, forcing hundreds of staff across all departments to take annual leave.

In a town hall meeting on Monday, NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg told staff the game was determined to keep playing in the face of the growing coronavirus pandemic.

Closing down the NRL offices and forcing employees to take annual leave are the latest cost-cutting manoeuvres from executives, who are desperately fighting to keep the game alive under “catastrophic” financial pressure.

More, when it comes, from here:

Updated

This is the reason Stuart Robert’s refusal to answer questions on how long people can expect to wait for help as well as his outright denial of how the government was not prepared, before being forced to admit the truth, matters.

These are real people. That you and I know. And it is happening all over the country, and will for weeks.

They need answers. Even if they are hard ones to give.

Updated

What's happened so far

Here is what we know so far today:

  • The coronavirus stimulus package will pass the parliament.
  • Up to a million additional people are expected to need the JobSeeker payment.
  • Centrelink lines have been hundreds deep around the country.
  • The MyGov website, which is needed to access government services, was down, after it was overwhelmed by people desperate for help. The minister responsible originally blamed the site’s issues on a cyber attack, but was forced to admit it had been swamped by legitimate users.
  • Schools are open, in all states but Victoria and the ACT (after tomorrow), however parents can choose to keep their children home in any state.
  • In NSW, parents are encouraged to keep their children home from school.
  • Borders will be shut in Queensland, the NT, South Australia, WA and Tasmania.
  • Rex Patrick tested positive to coronavirus after sharing a Senate committee with another federal MP, Andrew Bragg, who was infected at a wedding.

Updated

For those wondering how coronavirus will affect the ordinary work of parliament, one of the most pressing issues is what will happen to all those committees scrutinising legislation and other matters of government including the sports rorts inquiry?

Today, the Senate agreed:

That, if required, the time for the presentation of reports on matters referred by the Senate to standing committees, select committees and joint committees may be extended by agreement of the committee, duly notified to the president.

Government leader in the Senate, Mathias Cormann, also advised:

I can provide reassurance to the chamber that the government will not seek to report early on committee referrals without the full consensus of the committee.

So all committees can extend their own deadlines, which will also give latitude to postpone scheduled hearings.

Updated

It was an extraordinary question time, in that it was just used for questions and answers.

Even Stuart Robert had to admit he got something wrong, without bringing politics into it.

Here is how Mike Bowers saw it, from the glassed-in section of the media (those allowed in under the numbers rules):

Physical distancing
Physical distancing. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
The back seats on the opposition side, Peter Khalil, Luke Gosling and Anne Stanley during question time
The back seats on the opposition side, Peter Khalil, Luke Gosling and Anne Stanley during question time. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Ministers use the extra space on the front bench for storage of paperwork during question time
Ministers use the extra space on the front bench for storage of paperwork during question time. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
The prime minister Scott Morrison during question time
The prime minister Scott Morrison during question time. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

Jenny McAllister, who also had to be tested after sitting on the same senate committee as Andrew Bragg (who contracted Covid-19 at a wedding), has tested negative.

Rex Patrick, on the same committee, is not so lucky:

Updated

Phil Coorey from the AFR reports the government has made plans to spend another $40bn as the Covid-19 crisis continues to roll on:

Budget bills, which were set to pass both houses of parliament on Monday, were amended so that an annual discretionary fund of $1.2bn that is under the control of finance minister Mathias Cormann was expanded to $40bn.

The government is anticipating having to pay top dollar for emergency supplies as global demand soars.

Updated

It is official – Australia will not be sending a team to the Olympics if it is held this year.

It is instead planning towards having the games hosted (in Japan) in 2021.

Updated

Anthony Albanese says the stimulus bill will be with the Senate by 7.30pm.

“The fact is, it wasn’t a cyber attack, it was an incompetence attack,” Anthony Albanese says of Stuart Robert’s straight up BS about what caused the MyGov site to crash, as nearly 100,000 people tried to access it at once.

Robert blamed it on a cyber attack. Turns out, it was just overwhelmed by people needing help.

Because the government estimates at least an additional million people will be needing to access JobSeeker payments. And the site can only handle 55,000 people at a time.

Updated

Queensland border to be closed from midnight on Wednesday

Here is what we know about the latest domestic border close:

  • The state will be closed to “non-essential” visitors.
  • The boundaries will be closed from midnight on Wednesday.
  • The Queensland disaster management committee will meet on Tuesday to finalise the details.
  • As with Tasmania and WA, if you are a resident, you can still get in. You just have to quarantine (at home) for 14 days.
  • Visitors will have to prove they can self-isolate for 14 days.

Updated

Hospitality workers are queuing up at Centrelink and the MyGov website has crashed, but spare a thought for fans of bikini company Tigerlily, which is in financial distress because of the coronavirus (and the generally poor state of retail).

The brand was founded by James Packer’s ex-flame Jodhi Meares, a savvy business player who sold it on to Billabong in 2009.

Two years ago Billabong sold it on to private equity group Crescent Capital Partners for a reported $60m.

Meares, meanwhile, moved on to her current venture, sportswear label The Upside.

Tigerlily appointed administrators Scott Langdon and Jenny Nettleton, of KordaMentha, on Sunday, a spokesperson for KordaMentha said.

The decision to appoint administrators was made after considering the current state of the retail industry, and the Covid-19 pandemic significantly inhibiting the day-to-day operations of Tigerlily.

Langdon said Tigerlily would trade on a “limited basis” and was for sale:

A sale of business process will commence immediately and we expect a high level of interest in the business given the strong brand and its reputation.

Updated

Hand sanitiser will be back on the shelves “very soon” says Karen Andrews after local companies began manufacturing it.

Meanwhile:

Updated

No cyber attack on MyGov – site just overwhelmed

At least 95,000 people tried to access MyGov this morning, shortly after 9.30am.

The site can take just 55,000 people at once.

The demand triggered a denial of service alert.

Stuart Robert made a big point in his press conference of saying the site was not overloaded, but it had been the victim of a cyber attack.

In the parliament, where misleading the chamber can bring penalties, the minister admits there was no attack, just an alert, because the site was overwhelmed by the number of people trying to access it at once – almost double what it is set up to handle.

Which was the most logical reason, given the number of people physically lining up outside of Centrelink offices this morning.

But when asked about this in his earlier press conference (just a little under two hours ago) the minister deliberately dismissed questions, misled the public over what happened, and claimed there was a cyber attack when there wasn’t.

Updated

The NRL is under increasing pressure to follow suit in Australia after the AFL cut its season.

The biggest difference in this question time?

The lack of politics.

There has not been a single “are you aware of other proposals/policy” questions and the answers are just filled with information.

The opposition’s questions are just filling the gaps of the policies which have been put in place and probing some of the issues which need answering.

In short, most of the people in the chamber are doing their best to do their jobs. It is a big change from what we usually see.

That the lack of grandstanding is notable, tells you just how far the chamber has fallen in the past.

Updated

In these ever shifting times, it is nice to be reminded that some things remain the same.

One of those things is Michael McCormack can not stop yelling, or using homilies. Even as he attempts to explain supply chains will continue to hold up.

As we all discover that meetings really could have been an email, we are also discovering which ministers should probably have stayed on the backbench.

Updated

Josh Frydenberg says up to a million people could be accessing the coronavirus payment – on top of those who are already on the JobSeeker payment. Not all those new additions will necessarily be unemployed though. If you are a casual or sole trader and your income drops, you can still access it.

Updated

The key points from the ACT update:

  • There are 13 new cases in the ACT, all from people returning overseas or their close contacts, including five people on the Ruby Princess cruise ship. No evidence of community transmission (yet).
  • ACT chief minister Andrew Barr warned the restrictions put in place by the national cabinet are likely to be in place at least until the end of the year.
  • Barr said the national cabinet had agreed to meet more frequently, and the communications issues raised by Vic, NSW and ACT announcing changes before the meeting have been addressed by a new ability to immediately call meetings when the situation changes.
  • Barr recognised that some jurisdictions are “under more pressure” than others, due to higher rates of community transmission.
  • “National cabinet must account for that ... We can and should do better, and we will,” Barr said.
  • Education minister Yvette Berry has conceded there was also “unfortunate messaging” with some schools telling students they will be closed from tomorrow.
  • The actual position is that schools will use pupil free days to plan to shift to online learning, but schools will remain open with “no child turned away” so children of working parents can still attend.
  • Government school attendance in the ACT is today at 60%.
  • From 5pm new restrictions on aged care will apply, including social visits limited to one visit of up to two people for up to two hours per resident, except in end of life situations.

Updated

The Australian defence force is being called in to help contact trace the passengers of the Ruby Princess.

Updated

Who let the Ruby Princess passengers disembark?

Scott Morrison says it was NSW Health.

Updated

Supermarket giant Woolworths has begun installing plexiglass screens at its stores in a bid to protect its workers from exposure to the coronavirus.

The company has already installed the screens at two of its Sydney stores at Town Hall and Kellyville North, and say they will begin rolling them out across the country in the coming weeks. They’ll also begin asking shoppers to wash their hands before entering stores and introduce markers in shopping centre lines to avoid people standing too close to one another.

Updated

The government has released 1.3m masks from the national medical stockpile for medical staff.

Another 3m are on order. Greg Hunt says some of the countries where the masks have been ordered, have put a stop on the items leaving the country, which is a challenge.

Karen Andrews says local manufacturers are also turning their attention to medical protective items.

Updated

Australia has ordered an additional 1,000 ventilators.

Four of the big electronic firms have turned their operations to their manufacture in Australia – ResMed, GE, Philips, Medtronic.

Updated

Victoria has recorded 61 new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the number of confirmed cases in Victoria to 355. Six of those cases are confirmed as being the result of community transmission – that’s double the number of cases confirmed as from community transmission on Sunday.

As of Monday, six of those diagnosed with Covid-19 are recovering in hospital and 97 (27%) are confirmed to have recovered.

More than 23,700 people have been tested in Victoria to date. Thirty-five of the cases are in regional Victoria, 290 are in metropolitan Melbourne, and the remaining 30 are under investigation.

The release from the Victorian department of health and human services reiterated that there are fines of up to $20,000 for people who do not comply with directions to self-isolate if they return to Victoria from overseas, or if they are a close contact of a confirmed case.

Chief health officer Professor Brett Sutton also had a message on social distancing:

Everyone who’s unwell must isolate themselves and everyone who’s been told they’re in quarantine either as a returned traveller or close contact must do so. Social distancing will save lives.

Everyone needs to comply with restrictions in place to keep yourself, your loved ones and the whole community safe. We urge everyone to stay 1.5 metres away from everyone else, wash your hands often with soap and water and cough or sneeze into a tissue or your elbow.

Updated

On the question of opening telehealth services up to Medicare – meaning they would be bulk-billed, Greg Hunt says “yes”.

That is after 17,000 doctors signed a joint letter calling for the telehealth consultations to be added to Medicare.

Updated

The national cabinet has met four times in the past ten days, Scott Morrison says.

Non-essential services have been defined (so far) as those businesses which have been closed, as well as the gatherings which have been shut down.

More on that letter from the Northern Territory chief minister. On the economy he says:

I talk to business owners every day and I know how much you’re hurting. These new rules are going to hurt. They are going to hurt some people more.

We’ve released a tourism rescue package, we’ve released the Jobs Rescue and Recovery package. And through the night we have been working on more support.

“The $50m small business survival fund: the fund will deliver grants to help keep businesses alive, even when they have to shut. We will release more detail on the fund this afternoon and in coming days and I have directed it be open for applications from Friday.

I know jobs will be lost. And I feel sick about that. I have agonised over these decisions. And I know a lot of people will be asking: why is all of this needed up here, when the problem isn’t as bad up here?

I think that is a fair question, and let me give you a thorough answer. My big fear – the thing that is keeping me up at night – is that the coronavirus wave is coming to the territory. I hoped that securing our borders would be enough to stop it. And it will help, but it won’t be enough. It’s clear extreme action is needed to keep us safe.

Updated

Northern Territory chief minister Michael Gunner has issued an emotive statement talking about relief for businesses and closures consistent with other jurisdictions. He says while the advice from the nation’s top health experts continues to be that it is safe for schools to stay open, from tomorrow and for the rest of the term, the decision to send kids to school will be a choice for parents.

He says:

Speaking directly to our teachers: thank you. You are on the front line. Your health is as important to me as our kids. I have asked that your welfare be paramount through all this. We need you, and we need you healthy and well.

He also says the territory is not “playing catch-up” like elsewhere and is ahead of the virus.

His statement also speaks about the closure of non-essential services, and says remote communities will be exempt from these closures, given the protections already in place. Gunner says:

When the coronavirus – this silent, invisible killer – first started to threaten our country and our community, I promised you I would do whatever it takes to protect you. It’s a promise I intend to keep.

The threat we are facing is deadly serious. The evidence presented to us at the national cabinet meeting last night was crystal clear.

The spread of this highly contagious disease down south has made this an unprecedented health emergency for our entire country. While the territory remains the safest place in the country, things are getting worse, not better, down south. This is out of control down there. It is spreading and we must control it.

Half-measures are not helping. The territory has been ahead of the game so far. And instead of playing catch-up like others, we can stay ahead of the game. New directions will be issued under the Public Environmental and Health Act to enact and enforce these new rules. These measures will be in place for one month, when they will be reviewed.

Updated

There was a lot happening in that Stuart Robert press conference just now, so let’s try to make sense of it.

Amid all the noise, there were some announcements that will hopefully make a difference for people applying for the JobSeeker Payment and facing delays, either over the phone, online or in one of the long queues around the country.

The government services minister said they would introduce Intent To Claim provisions. That means that if you contact Centrelink today about wanting to apply for unemployment benefits, but are unable to complete your application, you will be back paid from that first contact. (The government actually abolished this in 2018 to save money.)

Crucially, Robert said people starting a new Jobseeker Payment claim could verify their identity over the phone, rather than by submitting their documents at a Centrelink office. This change was slated for April and has apparently been brought forward.

That is, you do not need to go to a Centrelink office to complete your claim. In fact, Robert said there were fewer staff at the shopfronts due to social distancing rules.

This does not get around the fact that getting through over the phone to Centrelink can take hours, let alone at a time like this.

Robert also said he was extending Centrelink call centre opening hours to 8am to 8pm (NSW time). The government is hiring up to 5,000 new staff at Services Australia to cater with demand, but it remains to be seen how quickly these employees can start.

Now, onto the MyGov website. Robert said the website suffered a DDoS attack (when a website is flooded with hits, essentially a cyber attack) but wouldn’t give any more details.

He said the government had MyGov’s upgraded capacity by 10 times. It could now operate with 55,000 concurrent users and, he said, in fact the website never crashed.

Updated

Australia has 1609 cases of Covid-19.

Updated

The bells are ringing for question time.

Given that this is not the politics live blog, I’ll be doing it a little differently than usual (I mean, it is 2o20, and nothing is the same right now) and only bringing you the main points, as we continue to monitor all the Covid-19 changes.

Updated

For anyone who needs some soothing, there are these photos (from before she was in isolation):

Updated

The nation now has an agriculture industry engagement officer.

Mark Tucker’s job will be to act as a liaison between David Littleproud’s department and the industry, as it navigates covid-19.

Today Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management David Littleproud announced a new measure to maintain agricultural production and supply chains through the COVID-19 response.

The reason why cruise ships are such a worry can be seen in the number of infections we are seeing coming out of the Ruby Princess.

There are 48 identified cases from the Ruby Princess so far.

Five from the Ovation of the Seas.

Mark McGowan’s strong stance on not letting the passengers of the Magnifica out, IF it is allowed to dock in Fremantle, is understandable.

More than 17,000 doctors have signed a letter calling on the federal government to immediately allow Medicare to pay for all Australians to have access to telephone and video appointments in response to the coronavirus crisis.

These kinds of appointments are known as ‘telehealth’, and while the use of technology for appointments has been a growing industry, especially for people living in remote and regional areas, the Covid-19 crisis has accelerated discussions around Telehealth and how to implement it. Many health groups and medical associations have been calling for increased support to roll out the technology more widely and rapidly.

The federal government introduced temporary Medicare Benefits Schedule and Department of Veterans’ Affairs items to allow doctors, nurses, midwives and mental health professionals to deliver services via telehealth, provided those services are bulk billed, so that people in self-isolation or quarantine can get health care.

This is a temporary six-month measure. People who meet the testing guidelines for Covid-19, people aged over 70, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged over 50, people with chronic health conditions or who are immunocompromised, and parents with new babies and people who are pregnant can access the bulk-billed Telehealth services.

The thousands of doctors who have signed the letter say this is too restrictive.

It comes “with special criteria that make it so ineffective it’s practically useless,” the letter says. “Defining ‘special groups’ who are eligible for bulk-billed telehealth, leaving all others out in the cold - when normally all medical care attracts a rebate is simply un-Australian and tone deaf, especially when many of our community are losing their jobs and facing
financial hardship.

“The symptoms of coronavirus are identical to those of many other viruses. As the virus spreads in the community, it will be increasingly difficult to tell them all apart. By allowing telehealth access for all it will enable pre-emptive remote screening, without the risk of onward transmission. Telehealth access for all will also reduce the rush on the dedicated coronavirus screening clinics and lessen the impact on public hospitals – allowing them to focus on those who are acutely ill.”

The Consumers Health Forum agrees telehealth should be supported across as many accredited health services as possible to reduce the demand in clinics and hospitals.

“We urge the Government to act on the advice of doctors, nurses and allied health practitioners and expand Medicare to cover telehealth services so clinicians can provide maximum help at minimal risk to many more patients and not just to known coronavirus risks,” Consumer Health Forum CEO, Leanne Wells, said.

“The current limited availability of Medicare-funded telehealth services to specified patient groups represents a lost opportunity to reduce the hazards for clinicians and patients of direct physical consultation and of unnecessary patient travel, while encouraging consumers to seek vital attention.”

In terms of views, this is where he sits on a lot of issues, despite the airtime he is given.

On the Queensland border closure, I am being told that it will be similar to what we are seeing in WA and Tasmania, which means forced 14 day isolation, plus closures to non-essential visitors.

Where this will get tricky is the border with NSW, which operates a lot like a grey zone, with people travelling to one state for work and another to live.

Queensland to close borders

The premier has just tweeted this

That press conference was an absolute mess and I am sorry to anyone who is feeling overwhelmed by their job or financial situation and is desperately trying to get information.

Our correspondent Luke Henriques-Gomes is working on the actual information you need. He has done a few posts below about some of the changes.

The big take aways from what Stuart Robert was apparently trying to say.

All claims will be backdated to today, no matter when you get your form in

The intent to claim, which was scrapped, is back.

You will not have to provide ID in Centrelink today, to be able to claim benefits.

The government is claiming the site breakdown was because of a cyber attack (DoS - denial of service, which is where sites are flooded with requests, overloading them) but won’t provide any further information on that. It is more likely that the site has been overwhelmed by people trying to get legitimate information, given the mass job losses we have already seen, on top of how low the JobSeeker payment has been for so long.

It can only handle 55,000 people at once at this stage. When you are looking at the millions the government told us this would impact, that is just a drop in the ocean of people trying to access that system.

What Stuart Robert is trying to say is that the government boosted the number of people who could use MyGov at once from 6000 to 55,000 people.

He says that if you are one of the first 55,000 in line, you will get in. If you are 55,001 then you will get a no-service message.

He claims it is not down.

But he won’t give a figure on how long the delays are.

He also says the government is working on increasing the number of people who can access the site at once, again.

The government also wants another 5000 people for Centrelink, so Robert says it is looking for people who may have lost their call-centre jobs to apply.

Updated

The federal government has suspended work-for-the-dole from today.

The community development program (CDP) in remote areas, and other activities delivered in group settings, “will be suspended to support social distancing measures”, Indigenous Australians minister Ken Wyatt said.

I have also put in place arrangements to lift any existing suspensions and penalties for CDP job seekers.

But he said jobseekers could still turn up for work on “a voluntary basis” where it was considered safe, because “CDP providers play an important role in the day-to-day life of the communities where they operate.”

Until late last week Wyatt and his department, the National Indigenous Australians Agency, were advising Aboriginal people to turn up for group activities or risk losing their welfare payments, which alarmed national Aboriginal medical services, which said it was an “unnecessary health risk”.

In a letter obtained by Guardian Australia, the agency had said any CDP participant who was unwell and may have been in contact with someone who has been diagnosed with Covid-19 should call Centrelink to discuss obtaining a “major personal crisis exemption”, valid for 14 days, to “avoid any suspension of payment”.

Wyatt said he had instructed CDP providers not to penalise anyone while the biosecurity arrangements announced by Scott Morrison on 20 March were in place.

Updated

All face to face visits to inmates in the nation’s jails have been banned from today, in an effort to stop the virus spreading in enclosed populations.

The decision was part of tougher distancing measures decided by the national cabinet on Friday night.

Last week, more than 370 legal, academic and criminal justice professionals signed as letter calling on governments to address mounting concerns about the implications of COVID-19 on the criminal justice system.

They’re concerned it will spread widely and to devastating effect among those over-represented in prisons: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples; people from low socio-economic backgrounds; people experiencing homelessness; and people with disabilities.

The letter signed by criminologists, lawyers, barristers and former magistrates say prisons face “an uncontrollable outbreak.”

“Many people who are incarcerated also have chronic conditions, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and asthma, which makes them vulnerable to more severe forms of COVID-19.

“It is only a matter of time before COVID-19 breaks out in our prisons and youth detention centres. This will then have a substantial flow-on effect to the community. People are continually churning in and out of prisons and then being released to their communities.

“Significantly, 77% of people entering and 33% of people in prison are unsentenced and 30% of sentenced prisoners are expected to serve less than 12 months.

Failing to deal with COVID-19 in the criminal justice system will dramatically increase the epidemic curve.

Stuart Robert is being very Stuart Robert about these issues.

And by that I mean he is not explaining things in plain English, or acknowledging the emotional impact these delays are having.

Q: How long does it take on average for people to get online on the phone or online?

SR: We manage those things across multiple...

Q: How long? You must have some idea?

SR: At present there are delays. We don’t give a running commentary on delays.

Q: You must have some idea how long. These people have lost their jobs and are losing their minds trying to get onto your system. How long is it taking?

SR: I don’t accept your question but I understand the frustration people are experiencing.

All Centrelink applicants will have their claims back dated to today, even if they are not approved today.

Stuart Robert says MyGov victim of cyber attack

Stuart Robert says MyGov has gone from an average of 6,000 concurrent users to 55,000 concurrent users.

He then drops this little piece of news:

Unfortunately, this morning we also suffered a distributed server attack on our main channels, which highlights other threats still are there.”

Updated

We are working on getting more information on this.

Updated

AAP has reported on the Australian Olympic Committee plan:

The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) has told its athletes to prepare for a Tokyo Olympics in the northern summer of 2021.

The AOC says an Australian team cannot be assembled for the Tokyo Games, which is scheduled to start on 24 July.

“We have athletes based overseas, training at central locations around Australia as teams and managing their own programs. With travel and other restrictions this becomes an untenable situation,” AOC chief executive Matt Carroll said in a statement on Monday.

Updated

Western Australia has recorded another 20 cases of coronavirus overnight. Six of those are from the Ruby Princess, the cruise ship that was allowed to dock in Sydney, with passengers released.

Another is from the Ovation of the Seas, which was also allowed to dock and disperse.

That brings WA’s cases to 140.

Updated

Key event

Mark McGowan says he has been contacted by the cruise ship the Magnifica, which has about 1700 passengers on board – all overseas residents – who is asking for permission to dock in Fremantle.

About 250 people have reported upper respiratory illnesses.

McGowan says he will not allow the passengers out, and has spoken to Home Affairs and the government over what can be done.

I will not allow what happened in Sydney to happen here. We will not allow passengers or crew to wander the streets.

This is a non-negotiable position.

Options are currently being developed the commonwealth, the defence forces and the state government.

We are working cooperatively with the Commonwealth and in particular minister Dutton to resolve this matter and I’d like to thank the commonwealth for their support ...

We will provide assistance to those with urgent needs. My first priority has to be protecting West Australians. This is an emerging and an evolving issue. We will work with the Commonwealth throughout the day to come up with a plan that properly protects our state.

Updated

WA premier Mark McGowan is also emotional as he talks about the business closures in his state, under the new restrictions.

WA schools remain OPEN, but the law has been relaxed if you choose to keep your kids at home.

So, basically, if you don’t want to send your child to school, you don’t have to, and the government won’t come after you.

Updated

ASX down 6.8% at lunch

The Australian market was down by about 6.8% at lunchtime today as the market struggled to digest the implications of sweeping new bans on hospitality and entertainment businesses.

Trade in at least nine stocks was suspended or halted today, with five companies within the ASX200 halted.

Buy-now-pay-later company Afterpay was the biggest loser in the top 200, crashing by a gargantuan 35%.

The fintech is heavily dependent on retail sales, which are set to be crushed by the new rules, and has younger users who are more likely to be among workers joining the lengthy queues for unemployment benefits that have formed outside Centrelink offices this morning.

Southern Cross Media, the operator of youth-orientated radio station network Triple M, was the second-biggest loser, shedding nearly a third of its value.

Fourteen of the 200 stocks in the ASX200 have fallen more than 20% today - a number that woud probably be higher if companies at the centre of the economic firestorm including Crown Resorts, Flight Centre and Webjet weren’t already suspended from trade.

Outside the top 200, some stocks, mainly junior mining explorers, have lost more than half their value so far today.


The chief medical officer Brendan Murphy will hold a press conference on the latest covid-19 figures in Australia at 1.40pm.

AOC concedes holding Olympics this year is not possible

AAP reports the Australian Olympic Committee has admitted the 2020 Tokyo Games will not be going ahead as planned this year, because of the coronavirus threat.

Updated

On actual MyGov news:

Updated

In amusing news, the minister in charge of government services has tagged the wrong MyGov in his tweet about MyGov

Not sure how Daniel C. Schröter can help. If you need MyGov on twitter, it is @MyGovau

Doctors are calling for all telehealth services to be bulk billed, to stop people coming into doctors’ surgeries and clinics:

• More than 17,000 doctors have signed a letter calling on the government to immediately allow Medicare to pay for ALL Australians to have access to telephone/video (telehealth) appointments in response to the coronavirus crisis.

• The new telehealth restrictions must be removed immediately to stop the co-mingling of infected and non-infected patients in clinics to protect the health of the nation.

• There is no extra cost to the government to do this. A telehealth appointment is rebated by Medicare exactly the same as a face-to-face appointment.

Medical experts say coronavirus will spread significantly in Australia. This infection spreads easily and causes significant symptoms in many. Elderly and those with chronic disease appear most at risk but younger and fitter patients are also affected and will act as carriers.

Almost all medical appointments currently only receive Medicare rebates if they are face-to-face. This means that patients have to physically see the doctor and sit in the waiting room among other patients. This increases the risk of contracting coronavirus. With new social distancing measures, medical clinics are exempt and people are still in very close contact with each other.

Many of the things that Australians go to the doctor for can be managed without a face-to-face appointment. With a new and deadly infectious disease, anything that reduces contact with infected people will reduce onward transmission. As the virus spreads, most of those infected will seek advice from their local GP clinic and potentially expose other patients, their loved ones, doctors, nurses and medical administration staff, who then in turn go on and expose others.

The federal government’s current telehealth program is simply too restrictive, with special criteria that make it so ineffective it’s practically useless. Defining “special groups” who are eligible for bulk-billed telehealth, leaving all others out in the cold – when normally all medical care attracts a rebate – is simply un-Australian and tone deaf, especially when many of our community are losing their jobs and facing financial hardship.

Updated

Regional airline Rex, which has been screaming for the past week that it urgently needs a bailout, will shut all flights except in Queensland from 6 April “unless the federal and state governments are willing to underwrite the losses”.

Passenger flights in Queensland are already backed by the state government.

Rex deputy chairman John Sharp said the airline needed a bailout by the end of the week to be able to resume flying.

He said passenger numbers had fallen by 60% and he expected them to tumble further, to 80% below normal levels.

We believe that with only 20% of our passenger numbers left we have reached that point and the Rex Group has decided that the quasi suspension of all services at this stage presents the best option to preserve its cash.

The federal government has acted swiftly by promising a rescue package to the airlines of $715m.

However, the direct benefit to Rex from this package is only $1m a month, which is grossly insufficient to cover the $10m a month we expect to lose running the heavily reduced schedule we announced last week.

Rex’s Ambulance Victoria fixed-wing air ambulance services, charter contracts with mining companies, freight services and pilot training academies are not affected by the shutdown.

The entire airline sector is under extreme financial pressure due to government decisions to ban or tightly restrict travel.

Updated

This would be great, except MyGov is overwhelmed.

Still, the advice is you don’t need to physically go into a Centrelink office – and even if you do, you probably won’t see anyone any quicker than waiting for MyGov to come back online.

Updated

The regional airline Rex has announced it will be stopping all flights, except in Queensland.

Ben Butler will have a bit more on that soon.

Updated

Stuart Robert, who is in charge of government services (like how Centrelink works), has called a door stop for 1.15pm.

That is because the MyGov website has crashed under the demand and people are lining up for hours to try to access help at Centrelink at a physical building.

Updated

WA to also cancel non-urgent elective surgeries

Western Australia is cancelling or rescheduling most non-urgent elective surgery from today, in an effort to preserve face masks and other personal protective equipment.

After today, patients will no longer be able to book category 2 or 3 elective surgery, including dental procedures done at public hospitals. And from tomorrow, all booked category 3 patients will be cancelled, while category 2 patients will be reviewed and will only proceed if deemed urgent.

Category 1 elective surgery – “defined as urgent with the potential to become an emergency” – will continue.

Health minister Roger Cook said cancelling non-urgent elective surgery was “essential to ensure we have access to the right protective equipment to protect our staff who care for patients with Covid-19”.

He added:

I understand reducing elective surgery will cause distress for some people, however the Covid-19 pandemic requires us to preserve our PPE and free up capacity in our hospitals.

Updated

If anyone is still unclear on the numbers risk here, the UK’s Channel 4 has spoken to Hugh Montgomery, who is the director of the UCL Institute for Human Health and Performance at the University College London (and also the guy who discovered an allele of the gene that influences physical fitness, if you need more of his bona fides) about just how contagious Covid-19 is.

If you had the flu, you would give it to about 1.4 people. Then those people would pass it on and so on, so by the tenth time your flu has been passed around, you are responsible for 14 cases.

With coronavirus, everyone infected with it can pass it on to three people (because of how infectious it is), so if those three people pass it on to another three people and so on, until your original infection has been passed on 10 times, you can infect 59,000 people.

That is 59 thousand.

That’s why it is considered so dangerous and that is why the world is shutting down.

Updated

The Australian Hotels Association has responded to the shutdown of its venues:

This is a sad day for Australians with the shutdown of an Aussie institution – an unprecedented move in our peace-time history, AHA national CEO Stephen Ferguson said today.

The health and wellbeing of our staff and patrons is paramount to all other considerations.

In times like this, it is essential for us all to follow the instructions of our governments and medical officers.

But there’s no doubt this move is already having a devastating impact on our direct national workforce of 250,000 and our millions of patrons.

We saw what an important role hotels play in their communities during the recent bushfires across large parts of the nation. Today’s closure is an unprecedented move which will have a big social impact for months to come.

Updated

It is looking increasingly likely that the Olympics will be postponed.

It is almost inevitable at this point.

Updated

The lines, and the potential for the virus to spread in them, has not gone unnoticed.

Updated

New Zealand to close schools

Jacinda Ardern is ramping up the restrictions in New Zealand: all schools will be closed from tomorrow.

New Zealand is at its level 3 alert. In the next 24 hours, it will move to level four.

From the New Zealand Herald:

Level 3 means limited travel in areas with clusters of Covid-19 cases, affected educational facilities closed, mass gatherings cancelled, public venues closed (such as libraries, museums, cinemas, food courts, gyms, pools, amusement parks), some non-essential businesses closed, and non face-to-face primary care consultations, with non elective services and procedures in hospitals, deferred.

Level 4 means people instructed to stay at home, schools and universities closed, as well as non-essential businesses, major reprioritisation of health services and severely limited travel.

All indoor and outdoor events cannot proceed. In short, we are all now preparing as a nation to go into self-isolation in the same way we have seen other countries do. Staying at home is essential.

That would give the health system a chance to cope, she said.

Updated

Given the website crashes, requests to streaming services to lower the data requirements and millions more suddenly trying to work from home and competing with their neighbours for speed, this media release from Paul Fletcher is incredibly, incredibly ill-timed and ridiculous.

More than 11 million homes and businesses are now able to connect to fast and affordable broadband on Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN), which is closing in on its completion milestone this year.

Minister for communications, cyber safety and the arts, the Hon Paul Fletcher MP, said the Morrison government welcomes the significant progress.

“The Coalition government’s commitment to a fast, efficient delivery of the NBN means that today the rollout is more than 95% complete, with 30,000 to 40,000 additional connections made every week,” minister Fletcher said.

“Around 6.8m homes and businesses across Australia now have an active NBN connection, with 67% of existing customers and 80% of new customers choosing retail plans with peak speeds of 50 megabits per second or higher.

“NBN was a failing project when we came to government, with barely more than 50,000 premises connected to the fixed line network. Thanks to the turnaround which our Liberal National Government has driven, today the NBN is very widely available to Australians wanting to use fast, affordable broadband for a productivity and connectivity boost.

Updated

Here is more information on the new entry requirements for WA:

Updated

It is coming up to midday in daylight-saving states, which means the forced closures are about to take place.

As a rule of thumb, if you can drink there, sweat there or gather there, it will be closed.

Restaurants and cafes will only be able to do takeaway food.

Everything else, at this point, remains open. If you are worried, then don’t go out.

Updated

Coronavirus cases from Ruby Princess rise to 48

NSW health authorities have diagnosed 48 people who were on the cruise ship Ruby Princess, which was allowed to dock in Sydney last week and have passengers disperse, with Covid-19.

Twenty-seven of those passengers are in NSW; 21 of those passengers have left the state and gone to their home states

Five people on the Ovation of the Seas have also tested positive.

Updated

Things are escalating in Queensland over the schools issue.

Updated

A reminder that there will be border closures in more Australian states.

WA will close its borders to all but essential services and workers from 1.30pm (WA time) on Tuesday.

All interstate arrivals will be made to self-isolate for two weeks.

South Australia will monitor its borders from 4pm (SA time) on Tuesday, with all entrants made to sign a declaration on their health and enter mandatory isolation for two weeks.

The Northern Territory will introduce its own border controls from 4pm (local time) tomorrow. All people must self-isolate for 14 days.

It’s all about the coronavirus stimulus today

More from Mike Bowers:

Scott Morrison sanitises his hands in the parliamentary chamber
Scott Morrison sanitises his hands in the parliamentary chamber. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Hansard and hand sanitiser
Hansard and hand sanitiser. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

With the MyGov website still down, Bill Shorten and Linda Burney are demanding minister Stuart Robert sort out something for people trying to access the coronavirus payments:

Around the nation there are queues around the block at Centrelink offices as first-time social security recipients are told they can only get a customer reference number by going into shopfronts in person.

And online myGov has once again crashed despite demand being entirely foreseeable.

Government services minister Stuart Robert must do better. He must ensure Centrelink services – online and in person – are working now when Australians need them most.

Updated

Virgin Australia has announced new measures for domestic flights (international flights are being grounded), with people due to fly this week able to be moved onto flights TOMORROW, as the majority of Australian states’ and territories’ travel restrictions come into effect.

For guests departing on or before this Friday:

Guests who are booked on a Virgin Australia or Tigerair flight scheduled to depart on or before this Friday 27 March inclusive are able present at the airline’s check-in counters at any time from now to be moved onto a flight departing on or before tomorrow (Tuesday 24 March) without paying any change fee or fare difference.

Guests can also rebook their flight via the airline’s guest contact centre:

Virgin Australia 13 67 89

Tigerair 1300 174 266

Should a seat not be available on an earlier Tigerair service, those guests will be able to fly on Virgin Australia without additional costs.

Guests departing before 30 June (inclusive):

The new measures to help guests return home are in addition to Virgin Australia Group’s recent announcement giving guests full flexibility for existing and new bookings scheduled to depart up until and including 30 June 2020 as detailed below:

  • Virgin Australia and Tigerair guests can change their flight to a later date and/or to a different destination, without incurring a change fee. Guests will just need to cover the fare difference if the value of their new fare is greater than the original.
  • If travel is within four weeks, Virgin Australia and Tigerair guests can also cancel their domestic or international travel without incurring a fee and receive the full value of the booking as a flight voucher in their Travel Bank, valid for 12 months.

Updated

Michael Gunner also warns of stricter measures coming:

I know this is a lot to take in. I know this decision will cause pain for people.

I expect there will be territorians who do not support this and who will never forgive me for it, but I didn’t make these hard choices ... If I didn’t make these hard choices to save lives, I could never forgive myself. People’s lives are on the line.

That’s what has to come first.

This is not the end. In coming days, I’ll have to ask even more of you. Things will get harder before they get easier.

Eventually they will get easier. This crisis will not break us. We will not let it break us. We are all in this together.

We are all on Team Territory.

Updated

And then he speaks of the recent heart attack he suffered and has to pause, as he is overwhelmed:

A few months ago, I was the one lying in the hospital bed in the ED.

Extraordinary doctors and nurses saved my life.

I thank God for them. I thank God for the Royal Darwin Hospital and I thank God for everyone that works there. I was lucky.

Great Territory health care workers were there for me, to care for me and to save me.

If I had presented in the middle of a coronavirus outbreak, it might are been a different story.

So everything we are doing, every one of these hard decisions, is to prevent that outbreak, that nightmare, from happening here.

We do not know everything about this virus, but we know this - the only thing that’s been properly effective anywhere in the world is partly shutting down sections of society where the risk is greatest. It’s the only thing that’s really saved lives.

No Government has regretted going full bore to stop this virus. Almost every government has regretted doing too little and waiting too long. I don’t want us to have the same regrets.

Michael Gunner becomes choked with emotion when he begins to talk about what is coming:

My big fear, the thing that is keeping me up at night, is that the coronavirus wave is coming to the territory. I hope that securing our borders will be enough to stop it.

It will help, but it won’t be enough. It’s clear extreme action is needed to keep us safe. We know the coronavirus is already here.

We don’t have community spread, neither did anywhere else in Australia until they suddenly did.

In every part of the world, it all started with one case.

Please do not think the territory is immunity from the worst effects of the coronavirus. We are not. If this hits us hard, it will be devastating.

If you think these measures go too far, Google coronavirus and Italy and spend five minutes looking through the pictures and the videos, see the sick and dying lined up in hospital hallways and then think, “That could be mum. It could be dad. It could be my brother, my sister, my colleague, my mate.” It could be your son or your daughter. It could be you. It could be me.

Till now, he with are... We have been in the safest place inAustralia and I am going to keep it that way.

The states down south might be able to let the virus get out of control before acting but up here we do not have the luxury of waiting for it to get worse.

Our size is too small, our population too vulnerable, the risk too great, the cost too high. Maybe this hits home for me more than most.

The NT government has set up a $50m business fund:

The $50 million business, small business survival fund. The fund will deliver grants to help keep businesses alive, even when they have to shut.

An advisory board of business-leaders will oversee the fund. We will release more detail on the fund this afternoon and in coming days and I’ve directed it be open for application from Friday.

It has three clear goals: First, and most importantly, keeping businesses alive, helping you survive this period, so you’re still here when things go back to normal.

Second - helping businesses adjust and adapt to this new environment, like setting you up online or helping you expand takeaway and delivery services.

Just on that - if Territorians want to help and are not sure how, order some takeaway. I am serious. At least a meal a day from a local joint. If you’ve got the dough for it, being the best Territorian you can be right now does mean eating takeaway.

Michele O’Neil, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, has warned that the measures announced by the federal government “do not go far enough ... in terms of how quickly they’re going to be available but also they don’t provide enough assistance to keep people in jobs and incomes flowing”.
O’Neil said:

  • It was “wrong” the Coalition had decided against direct subsidies to keep workers in jobs, favouring waiving withholding of tax instead
  • The doubling of jobseeker payments (formerly Newstart), doesn’t kick in until 27 April, meaning workers will go on the “old, very inadequate” rate of Newstart (about $40 a day) before then
  • The one-off payment of $750 doesn’t happen til mid April

The ACTU wants the government to follow the lead of other countries with “much faster, much more direct and more comprehensive support for workers, jobs and employment” - particularly the UK model of an 80% subsidy of wages to keep workers in jobs.
“If taxpayer money is to assist business - and we think it should - then that should be on conditions – to keep people in jobs, and income coming weekly,” she said

Michael Gunner on what is OPEN:

Bottle-os are still open. You can still get a beer - God knows we all might need one - but everything else, there are no changes right now.

Retail stores are still open, but with the existing restrictions that already apply to indoor venues.

Shopping centres are open, but do not sit at food courts and, of course, supermarkets will always stay open, always. New directions will be issued under the Public Environmental Health Act and enforce these new rules. As a starting point, these measures will be in place for one month, when they will be reviewed and only relaxed if the threat has subsided.

Remote communities are not included in these, given the strong protections we are already implementing for them.

Updated

Michael Gunner, the Northern Territory leader, says schools will remain OPEN in the territory.

Parents can choose whether or not they want to send their children to school.

Updated

Kristina Keneally is standing in for Penny Wong as Labor’s leader in the Senate (Wong is self-isolating). Keneally echoed Anthony Albanese’s speech in the House:

Labor will raise our concerns about this stimulus package, this economic support package. It isn’t perfect, and we acknowledge it may not ever be. It may not be as Labor would have implemented it, had we been in government.

We will look at additional methods of accountability and scrutiny to ensure this stimulus is getting into people’s pockets as quickly as possible.

When it comes to both our health response and our economic response, we need to be asking ourselves as a parliament: if we know we are going to need to do something in a week or two weeks’ time, wouldn’t it be better to do it as soon as possible? Wouldn’t it be better to take action as soon as possible to save lives and livelihoods?

We will do what all of us have been elected to do to protect Australians and our Australian way of life. We will be constructive as we work through this evolving and complex crisis.

Australia now, more than ever, needs leadership and clear messaging. We need to support Australian families and we need to support one another, because we’re only going to get through this health and economic crisis together.

Updated

What Mike Bowers saw this morning:

Scott Morrison sanitises his hands before entering the parliamentary chamber
Scott Morrison sanitises his hands before entering the parliamentary chamber. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
The new seating arrangements in the reduced parliament
The new seating arrangements in the reduced parliament. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
The prime minister as a special sitting gets underway
The prime minister as a special sitting gets underway. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

You will be seeing these scenes for weeks. Possibly months.

Updated

Expect more information on indoor gatherings at private homes following the next national cabinet meeting on Tuesday night.

In the meantime, it is one person per 4 sq metres. Don’t switch up your weekly pub drinks by meeting at a mate’s house.

Here was Dan Andrews on that this morning:

Updated

The manufacturing of hand sanitiser in Australia is being ramped up.

From Karen Andrews’s release:

Ego Pharmaceuticals makes Aqium sanitiser at its factory in Melbourne.

Managing Director Alan Oppenheim said it had drastically increased how much it made.

In February we made five times what we forecast and our factory is now running 24 hours a day, five days a week.

We’re currently hiring to increase that to six days a week and we’ve stopped our little bit of exporting to prioritise Australian needs.

The government is also working to ensure ethanol supply for that hand sanitiser.

Updated

MyGov services remain down

AAP on the MyGov crash:

The website giving Australians access to government services has crashed as people deal with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

“There is unprecedented demand for the service right now, but Australians need to be patient,” the government services minister, Stuart Robert, said on Monday. “Try logging on later today or even tomorrow.

“MyGov is working, but the best option right now is for people to be patient.”

Updated

The government business line will be opened seven days a week to answer questions about the new payments and tax changes:

Operations at the business.gov.au 13 28 46 Contact Centre will increase from five days per week to seven days per week, and provide additional hours of support outside standard operating hours for the first month, answering calls from 7am to 11pm AEST.

The Senate will sit until 10.30pm if needed to pass the coronavirus stimulus bill.

If it doesn’t pass tonight for whatever reason, the parliament will sit tomorrow.

Updated

In just over an hour, these businesses will all be forcibly closed:

  • Pubs, registered and licensed clubs (excluding bottle shops attached to these venues) and hotels (excluding accommodation).
  • Gyms and indoor sporting venues.
  • Cinemas, entertainment venues, casinos and nightclubs.

Restaurants and cafes will only be able to serve takeaway.

Religious gatherings, places of worship or funerals (in enclosed spaces and other than very small groups and where the rule of one person per 4 sq metres applies).

Updated

For those who want to see what exactly is in the bill, you can find more information here.

This is a very, very sombre parliament you have right now Australia.

Anthony Albanese:

Today we feel the weight of our nation’s need.

Never has our duty been so urgent. I lead a Labor team determined to be constructive and Labor stands ready to play our role.

We want to help the government to get it right and this parliament to get it right. All of us. We find ourselves in a time like no other.

We, the Australian people, must, in our self-isolation, come together, remember who we are. We are the people who came together selflessly in the recent bushfire crisis.

Now is not a time for ‘me’, it is a time for ‘us’. Let’s spread kindness and humanity, not coronavirus.

The months ahead will be difficult. There will be pain and suffering. Our country, our world has changed but this will not last forever.

Things will be different after this. I am an optimist. I have faith in the people of Australia; faith in our people’s courage, faith in our people’s sense of community, faith in our people’s compassion for one another. And that gives me the faith that we will get through this together.

Updated

What is Labor worried about in the bill?

This is about people’s lives, and then of course consequentially their livelihoods. Particularly the lives of many of our vulnerable people – our parents and grandparents, the disadvantaged and the First Australians.

We owe them our best.

It is pretty hard to self-isolate if you are homeless.

Also, the economy:

We will support both stimulus packages, not because they are perfect but because they are urgent. We want this package to work and to work quickly. People’s lives are at stake. We are concerned about the lack of direct support that would keep people in their jobs.

The business measures do not guarantee support for workers because it is calculated on people being in work in February, not now or in the future.

Those who don’t receive the coronavirus subsidy:

Youth Allowance, Abstudy and Austudy recipients do not receive the coronavirus supplement.

Various visa holders also aren’t getting the support that we believe they need.

Other sectors:

There are sectors that I think could be given more support. Today, of all days, we think of our teachers ... they are certainly not child minders, they are people who each and every day – whether they work in the public system, the Catholic system or the independent system – create future Australians with their knowledge and commitment and we respect those for the work that they are doing.

We also think of other sectors that haven’t got specific support at this point. The arts and entertainment industry, so important for the quality of our lives, needs, in my view, direct support in order to be sustained into the future so that as we come out of this diabolical circumstance. We recognise that the quality of our lives isn’t just about money.

And the super changes – what happens to those funds which are losing millions of dollars in investments if people start pulling their contributions to access the $10,000?

Updated

This is still an issue:

Updated

Anthony Albanese again says Labor will pass the bill:

We have provided the government with that absolute certainty that at the end of the process we would put forward our suggestions and our views to try and improve the legislation, but we would not stand in the way of economic stimulus or any bring-forward of any health measures that were proposed.

That is the responsible thing to do. That is consistent with the view that I put when my caucus colleagues and party members gave me the great honour of leading this party that is 130 years old next year. It is the responsible thing to do.

We will continue to be responsible and we will act today in a responsible and constructive manner because I want to be known as the Labor leader, not the opposition leader.

The legislation today is not perfect. We would do more and do it sooner but we will advance our arguments. This is not a time to prevent measures that, however imperfect, are necessary to be implemented. We do need unity and above all we need resolute action.

Updated

Anthony Albanese is now speaking:

Most of our lives have not been directly affected by war, hunger or financial strife. They were stories our parents and grandparents told us.

We listened to those stories and we pictured them in black and white. We thought we were the lucky generations.

We now face an enormous threat and it’s in colour. It is happening right now. It is global.

Fear and panic, of course, feed on uncertainty and inconsistency and at the moment those ingredients abound.

This is a time for national leadership, consistent messages, clear directions.

Today parents are concerned about whether to send their kids to school or not.

People are anxious and that is understandable.

They know this is a big deal, and when people feel that they can’t control events they seek comfort in what they can control.

We’ve seen that exhibited around the country.

That they have enough essentials such as toilet paper or pasta – that’s seeking control over something in the face of the threat for which it is difficult for people to understand.

They want to go to the footy or go to the beach one last time because they mightn’t be able to go next week.

These actions might be regrettable, but hectoring will not help. Clear explanation and clarity will.

Updated

Those Centrelink queues are forming everywhere:

Scott Morrison finishes his opening speech with a promise that more help is coming, as Australians line up around Centrelink’s around the country and businesses close:

We will be doing everything we can to protect those most vulnerable to the impacts of this crisis and to preserve the businesses that employ them.

There will be more support to come and it will keep coming for as long as this challenge is before this nation. And even more importantly, we will be there to ensure that Australians get back on their feet, that the businesses rebuild, that our economy resurges and that we go on in the great national story of this amazing nation, Australia.

He finishes:

In conclusion, the more Australians work together, the more we share the sacrifice and the burden. The more we do the right thing, the more lives and the more livelihoods we will save. And when the virus passes - and it will - we will be stronger on the other side.

This will be a test of all Australians. It is a test of our nation, of our spirit. There are some who believe Liberal democracies and free societies cannot cope with these sorts of challenges. We will prove them wrong here in Australia.

Updated

Gerry Harvey, of Harvey Norman department stores, is understandably getting a lot of pushback this morning, for ridiculous comments he made on the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes show, bragging about the “roaring trade” his business is doing as Australians come to grips with a new normal. He said:

Why are we so scared about getting this virus?

There’s pretty much nothing to get scared of. It’s not the Spanish Flu that killed 15 million people just after the first world war … I’m 80, I should be really scared. Guess what? I’m not really scared.

... You know, this is an opportunity.

Our sales are up in Harvey Norman in Australia by 9% on last year. Our sales in freezers are up 300%. And what about air purifiers? Up 100%.

In case it needs to be said: there is a lot to be worried about. A lot.

Updated

Prime minister asks the nation to pray

Scott Morrison:

I will say this: while you may not be able to go to church, the synagogue, the temple or the mosque, I most certainly call on all people of faith in our nation to pray. I can assure you, my prayer knees are getting a good work out.

Mr Speaker, as Australia works to flatten the curve and slow this virus, we also face an immense economic challenge. Across Australia today many thousands of Australians will lose their jobs.

They are lining up at Centrelink offices as we speak – something unimaginable at this scale only weeks ago. They have lost their jobs, many, and we know, many more will.

This is the biggest economic shock our nation has faced in generations. Australia, long an open, trading nation, is now closed off largely from the world. Internal border restrictions not seen since before federation are now in place.

Updated

All measures in place for at least six months

Scott Morrison:

Australians will be living with this virus, is our advice, for at least the next six months. It could be longer.

There is no three- or four-week shutdown that makes it all go away.

There is no short-term solution to this. We have to steel ourselves for the next six months and work together to slow the spread in order to save lives, to protect the elderly and vulnerable Australians.

They are counting on us. Every extra bit of time we save allows us to better prepare for the challenges that are ahead. Last night all the states and territories, through the national cabinet, agreed to an even more stringent set of social distancing rules that will change further how we all live our lives.

No more going to the pub after work. No more gym in the morning. No more sitting down at a cafe for lunch.

These chains are vital to slow the spread of this virus.

As the virus spreads – and it will – governments around Australia will not be complacent and may need, and are likely to need, to impose further restrictions on our daily lives.

Wherever possible we will seek to do that to ensure a consistency of approach between all states and territories.

Updated

Scott Morrison:

Life is changing in Australia for every Australian and life is going to continue to change.

For many, young and old, 2020 will be the toughest year of our lives.

Meeting this challenge is bigger than any Australian.

It’s obviously bigger than politics, it is bigger than any of us who are in this chamber – prime ministers, leader of the oppositions, minister, shadow minister, members of parliament; bigger than all of us.

It is bigger than premiers, chief ministers, captains of industry, leaders of union movements; it is bigger than all of us.

I want to thank all of those who have come to this great challenge with such a unity of spirit. It requires every single Australian to do their duty as public citizens.

So again in that spirit I want to thank in particular the nation’s premiers and chief ministers for coming together to form Australia’s first ever national cabinet, a cabinet of all Australian governments.

Five Labor leaders, four Coalition leaders. I want to thank the leader of the opposition for the cooperation he and his colleagues have afforded us here in this parliament as we battle this dual health and economic crisis. Today we have some very important work to do.

Updated

The doors remaining open is not the only change – there will also be no adjournment debate. When the speaker declares the parliament adjourned, that’s it.

Updated

Parliament has begun. Scott Morrison has the first speech:

We gather today at a time of great challenge for our nation and indeed the world. We are a strong nation and a strong people but in the months ahead this will put us all to the test. At no time like this, since World War II. But together, Australia, we are up to this challenge.

He invokes the “spirit of Australia”:

So we summon the spirit of the Anzacs, of our great Depression generation, of those who built the Snowy, of those who won the great peace of World War II and defended Australia. That is our legacy that we draw on at this time.

Updated

Stock market plunges more than 8% on opening

The Australian market plunged more than 8% on Monday morning amid uncertainty over the effects of a shutdown of hospitality and entertainment operators announced by prime minister Scott Morrison on Sunday night.

Monday’s losses are on top of more than a month of coronavirus-inspired selling that has already cut the value of Australian shares by a third.

Before the market opened, gambling company Tabcorp said its totalisator outlets and on-course betting, both of which are to be shut, accounted for about 28% of its revenue.

With this money now set to be ripped away, the company said it withdrew its previous profit guidance.

A raft of companies temporarily halted trade in their shares to give them time to respond to the new restrictions, including Star Entertainment, which operates Sydney’s casino, and Retail Food Group, which is the franchisor of fast food outlets including Gloria Jean’s coffee shops and pizza joints Pizza Capers and Crust.

Village Roadshow said it was closing Gold Coast theme parks Warner Bros Movie World, Sea World, Wet’n’Wild and Paradise Country, but Sea World would remain open because it has a hotel.

Airline Virgin Australia, which along with rival Qantas has already slashed flights as travel restrictions bite, said it “expects a material reduction in its domestic capacity as a result” of new travel bans announced by state and federal authorities over the weekend.

Updated

The doors in the parliamentary chambers are remaining open, so people don’t have to touch the door handles.

Teachers who fall into the at-risk categories in Queensland, like everyone in the public service, can arrange to work from home.

It is advised that all other workplaces follow suit.

Queensland’s chief medical officer, Jeanette Young, on why the advice is to keep schools open:

There are all sorts of reasons why the private school system might be making different decisions to the public.

For the public school system, it is extremely important it remain open. Our children need their education.

We all know that education is the most important department of health and department of people’s situation, so it needs to continue.

But just putting that to one side, it is of course true, looking at the evidence, we have not seen outbreaks in schools, we haven’t seen them in Australia, we haven’t seen them overseas.

Where children have got it, when we’ve worked back through how they got it, they got it from their parents.

Children are not giving this disease to their parents, the parents are giving to it the children. This is not flu.

... This is not a flu, it is a coronavirus. Totally different.

Updated

Queensland is also looking at closing its borders.

Annastacia Palaszczuk:

Yes, we are. Cabinet will be considering that today. I think that is a really important issue. Other states have done it.

We have already looked at closing our western border and I think there is a greater sense that we should be looking at taking stricter measures, especially with aircraft coming in.

We would possibly make people quarantined for 14 days but let me say very clearly that people should be staying in their state, staying in their suburb, and as much as possible staying at home.

Queensland’s health minister, Steven Miles, says the state has tested 32,000 people for coronavirus so far. It has 319 positives. Most people picked up the virus oveseas, but there are signs of community transmission.

Queensland is particularly worried about the cruise ships which have docked in Sydney, where passengers have dispersed into the community. (Queenslanders love to cruise.)

But the council elections and byelections are still going ahead.

Updated

Queensland to cut back on 'very' elective surgeries and treatments

The Queensland chief medical officer Jeanette Young says “normal” work is continuing in hospitals, but there is a decrease in “some of the very elective work”.

You might see changes to your arrangements or for some of the surgery that was scheduled, for some of the selective outpatients, but the important work that we need to do to save lives in Queensland is continuing and to enable that to continue, please, those of you who are regular blood-donors, could you please go and donate blood?

The Red Cross has contacted me that they’ve seen a decrease in the numbers of people coming forward.

And I understand that, because people are hearing the social distancing message, but Red Cross has that all in hand. They have social distancing in place.

The bells are ringing in parliament. The coronavirus stimulus debate will begin.

Updated

In Queensland, another 60 people have been diagnosed overnight.

That brings Queensland’s cases to 319.

Updated

Schools

Victoria: closed from tomorrow

NSW: open, but parents are encouraged to keep students home, if they can.

Queensland: open, but parents can choose to keep their children at home.

Tasmania: open, but parents can choose to keep their children at home.

ACT: closed from tomorrow.

Updated

In the House of Representatives chamber, parliament is about to start.

There are bottles of water (usually glasses, with water served by the attendants) and name tags telling MPs where to sit, under the physical distance changes.

Updated

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the same closures the prime minister announced last night will be applied in Queensland.

Queensland schools will remain OPEN. Parents can choose to keep their children at home, if they wish.

Palaszczuk says Queensland has been testing since the end of January and is watching “this every single day” and if the “expert health advice changes, then we will change, I want to make sure everyone knows that”.

Palaszczuk says when the school holidays happen everyone must “stay in your state and stay in your suburb”.

It is not about packing up the car and going to the beach for a picnic or going for a swim on the beach.

It’s not about going camping, packing the family up and going camping. This is about staying in your suburb I need everyone to listen to advice and stay in your suburb.

Queensland has the best weather and it will be hard for people because we have to do it because we are trying to lessen the curve.

Updated

Following the government’s announcement that any non-essential domestic travel should be reassessed, along with the border closures we are seeing within Australia, Virgin Australia had told the ASX it expects to cut its domestic services even further.

Updated

The NSW government website has come back online.

It’s list of CLOSED businesses is exactly as the prime minister outlined last night:

Restrictions on facilities

The Australian government has announced the following facilities will be restricted from opening from midday local time 23 March 2020:

  • Pubs, registered and licensed clubs (excluding bottle shops attached to these venues), hotels (excluding accommodation).
  • Gyms and indoor sporting venues.
  • Cinemas, entertainment venues, casinos and nightclubs.
  • Restaurants and cafes will be restricted to takeaway and/or home delivery.
  • Religious gatherings, places of worship or funerals (in enclosed spaces and other than very small groups and where the 1 person per 4 square metre rule applies).

Updated

Here is the Victorian government release on its new police taskforce.

Queensland police have also been authorised to enforce the physical distance rules. They have been doorknocking people in self isolation, to ensure they are staying in.

Updated

Tasmania recorded five more positive Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the state’s total to 22.

So far all infections can be traced back to an overseas visit (so no community transmissions there, as yet).

Updated

The national cabinet (the teleconference of premiers, health officers and federal government leaders) will discuss if there are any stage-two restrictions needed, when it comes to closures.

Included in that, will be what to do about childcare centres and private gatherings.

That meeting will be held tomorrow night.

Updated

Tasmanian schools will remain OPEN, but premier Peter Gutwein says parents can keep their children home if they wish (which is what Scott Morrison said last night).

Online learning will be made available.

If they’re at home they must be at home. This does not mean take your children out of school and let them go on holiday.

The government’s view, based on the AHPPC advice, is that the best and safest place for your children is at school.

If you decide to take them out of school, look after them, be responsible for them.

If they are at school, then we will be responsible for them.

But if you take them out, then it is incumbent upon you to ensure that you know where your children are, what they are doing, that they are not mixing with groups, that they are not putting themselves at risk or others at and I can’t be clearer than that.

Updated

Tasmanian premier Peter Gutwein echoes other state leaders in telling citizens they can’t migrate their social life to their mate’s or family’s homes.

I also want to say that – and a number of people this morning have said, you know, “Why bring this in so quickly?”

Well, this disease is amongst us. There is no community transmission [in Tasmania] and we are not going to go through the farcical situation that we saw in Britain, where last drinks brought hundreds of people together for one last night, which must have – there is no doubt in my mind – further spread the virus in that country.

We need to act now.

I’m sorry for that, but we need to take these steps. I also want to make the point that, with pubs and clubs, entertainment venues, casinos, hotels closing, do not gravitate to holding parties in backyards or in other facilities.

The rules of social distancing apply.

If you’re having a 21st or a 40th or a 50th, abide by the rules of social distancing.

Tomorrow night, the national cabinet will be looking again at the issue of private gatherings.

This cannot be a migration from the pub to the backyard. This is important. It will save lives.

Updated

NSW teachers who are in the high-risk category for Covid-19 will be able to arrange to work from home, the departmental secretary, Mark Scott says.

Updated

There is one agenda item for the parliament today – the coronavirus stimulus package.

Question time will be the only thing that interrupts it. That will be at 2pm.

Then it is back to the debate. As soon as it is passed, the parliament will adjourn.

It is now in “emergency mode” which means for the foreseeable future, it will only sit when there is an urgent bill to pass. The next scheduled sitting was the first week in May, which is almost certainly going to be postponed, at this stage.

Updated

There are additional Centrelink staff (Services Australia) staff being put on, but obviously not fast enough.

Updated

Penny Wong self-isolating

Good morning all.

With parliament about to resume for the brief session to legislate the stimulus, all MPs, I suspect, will be exercising an abundance of caution. Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong is one of those MPs. She’s given me a short statement.

This morning I woke feeling unwell. Consistent with advice to all Australians, and recognising that my parliamentary colleagues will return to their home states and communities, as a responsible precaution I will self-isolate, pending medical advice. As a result I will not be attending the Senate today.”

Wong is in Canberra and attended meetings with colleagues yesterday about the arrangements for this sitting, including the Labor leader Anthony Albanese and the prime minister Scott Morrison.

She is not aware of having come into close contact with anyone who has coronavirus.

Updated

It is very unusual to see politicians walking alone in these halls.

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese in the press gallery of parliament house, Canberra this morning
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese in the press gallery of Parliament House. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Finance minister Mathias a Cormann in the press gallery of Parliament House
Finance minister Mathias a Cormann in the press gallery. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

There are still Australians stranded overseas.

Ben Doherty has the latest on Australians trapped in Peru:

Australians scrambling to find a way home from locked-down Peru say they still don’t know if they will be able to get out of the country and fear the window for leaving “may slam shut”.

Britons and Canadians have been promised government flights to take them home from Peru, while Israelis and Mexicans have already been evacuated by their governments, but Australians say they are unsure commercial charter flights they have been encouraged by Canberra to book will be allowed to fly.

The foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, said late on Sunday she had spoken to Peru’s foreign minister, Néstor Popolizio Bardales, “as we try to facilitate departures for our nationals”. Australia’s ambassador said citizens trapped in the country were her “top priority”.

Peru is continuing to tighten its travel restrictions in response to the coronavirus pandemic, with the government closing all airports and insisting only government-organised flights, flying out of military airbases, will be permitted to leave the country.

Unfortunately, the NSW government website is still down.

That website crashed after the NSW premier said it would include a list of businesses which would have to close.

There are now 330,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus around the world.

“Field” hospitals in New York, Washington state and California – they will be established in hotels and federal buildings.

The National Guard (the US army reserve) will be called in.

Updated

The International Olympic Committee, has for the first time, conceded the Tokyo olympics may be delayed

That decision will be made in the next month.

A little earlier, the Victorian premier Dan Andrews made it clear that shut bars did not mean people could have house parties.

You won’t be able to go to the pub because the pub is shut.

That doesn’t mean you can have all your mates round to home and get on the beers, that’s not appropriate.

It’s not essential. It’s not needed. All it will do is spread the virus.

If you want another example we had a case last week where a group of people, a dozen or so, went to a dinner party.

As best we can tell the dinner party started with one person who had the coronavirus. By the end of the dinner party almost everybody at the dinner party had the coronavirus.

This spreads rapidly. If people simply behave as normal, if they don’t take this seriously, if they act selfishly, then people will die.

I can’t be any clearer than that. I also say many are doing the right thing, and I’m very grateful to them for having the welfare of others, the welfare of all of us front of mind. That’s your civic duty. That’s what’s most important and that’s what must be done.”

Victoria has set up a special police unit, with 500 officers, to ensure the physical distance rules are being adhered to.

Anthony Albanese on Labor passing the stimulus bill, speaking to the ABC this morning:

The package is likely to have a procedural motion this morning that will ensure that it will pass by 5pm this afternoon. We met with the prime minister and Josh Frydenberg and other leaders of the government yesterday. It was a constructive meeting. We have been determined to be constructive. We have a range of concerns, Fran. Including on superannuation. We will be pursuing those.

But if they are not successful, that will not mean that we stand in the way of this stimulus package. Because quite clearly, our economy needs it and it needs it right now.

Those issues:

On superannuation, for example, it clearly isn’t in the interest of individual superannuants to essentially sell out at the bottom of the market. That would have a negative impact on their retirement incomes.

... We think the government should be stepping in and providing more support for low-income workers. We think there should be a greater act of urgency. We’re concerned that a range of the measures that have been introduced have been introduced with an eye on politics. So, for example, even the first stimulus payments of $750 doesn’t flow until the second quarter, until the June quarter. The next payment flows in the quarter that begins the first quarter of the next financial year beginning in July. That clearly is aimed at trying to avoid recession. What we actually need to do is to get money into the economy sooner rather than later.

Updated

Schools:

Victorian schools will be closed from tomorrow. The school holidays are being brought forward. The next term will begin on 14 April, unless health advice says otherwise.

NSW schools will remain open BUT parents are advised to keep their kids at home if they can.

ACT schools will be closed from tomorrow. The school holidays are being brought forward. Online learning will be made available.

All other states are continuing the school term as scheduled.

OK. There is a lot of confusion it seems over what is open and what is closed under the new rules:

Here is what is closed from noon:

  • Pubs, registered and licenced clubs (excluding bottle shops attached to these venues), hotels (excluding accommodation).
  • Gyms and indoor sporting venues.
  • Cinemas, entertainment venues, casinos and nightclubs.
  • Restaurants and cafes will be restricted to takeaway and/or home delivery.
  • Religious gatherings, places of worship or funerals (in enclosed spaces and other than very small groups and where the 1 person per 4 square metre rule applies).

Retail stores remain open. Shopping centres remain open. As do hairdressers, dentists, doctor surgeries, post offices – those sorts of things.

The indoor gathering rules apply to those services and stores still open. No more than one person per 4 sqm and a maximum of 100 people. Keep your distance – at least 1.5m away from people.

Updated

DO NOT stop taking your prescribed medication for high blood pressure.

The Heart Foundation chief medical adviser professor Garry Jennings is very, very worried that people prescribed medications to lower their blood pressure may have heard an unproven theory about some of the medication and coronavirus and decided to stop.

DO NOT DO THIS is the message from Jennings.

Continue to take all your medicines, including ARBs or ACE inhibitors, as prescribed by your doctor,” Jennings said.

The medications, ARB (angiotensin receptor blocker) and ACE (angiotensin converting enzyme) inhibitors are used to treat high blood pressure, as well as in cases of heart failure and in treatment following a heart attack.

“These medications are widely used and considered safe. They have important benefits in treating high blood pressure and in reducing the risk of illness and death in many chronic health conditions, including heart failure.”

From the Heart Foundation:

More than three million Australians take anti-hypertensive medications, the equivalent to three in 10 Australian adults (hypertension is the medical name for high blood pressure). It’s estimated that more than six million Australians have high blood pressure (34% or 1 in 3) – a major risk factor for coronary heart disease, which is Australia’s single biggest killer.

Jennings said stopping prescribed medicine could do more harm than good: “The dangers of suddenly stopping your blood pressure medications are clear and well known whereas the interaction of these types of medicines with Covid-19 is hypothetical and unproven,” he said.

Updated

A passenger who was on the Ruby Princess cruise ship said he believes he shouldn’t have been allowed to disembark, and organisers knew that coronavirus was spreading on the boat.

Bill Beerens, who contracted Covid-19 on the ship, told the ABC this morning that organisers “knew what was going on, and they just wanted us off the boat”.

“We got off the boat on Thursday,” Beerens said. “We got off at 9am. I was feeling alright. We hopped on to the shuttle bus and I was starting to get coughing there, but I held it back because of the other passengers on the bus there ... By 10pm that night, I was up at Nepean hospital getting tested and two days later, I’m positive.

“I think that they let us down. I do honestly believe that they knew what was going on and they just wanted us off the boat. They pushed us so quickly. As I said, I do believe that they knew what was going on.

“Our cabin boy, the person who looks after the cabin, he was off for two days and they said – he’s alright and he just has a sore throat.”

The 2,700 passengers on the Ruby Princess had been allowed to disembark at Sydney’s Circular Quay last week and were deemed to be “very low risk”, despite more than 150 recorded cases of illness on board.

Yesterday, NSW Health yesterday confirmed that 26 people from the cruise ship had tested positive for Covid-19 – including eight people who had been allowed to fly interstate.

Earlier, NSW health minister Brad Hazzard admitted that allowing the passengers to disembark was “a mistake”.

Updated

It seems like there was a lot of interest in Gladys Berejiklian’s schools announcement – the NSW government website has crashed.

To be clear: schools are open in NSW, but parents are encouraged to keep their children home, if they can.

That is because 30% of parents had already made that decision, and education was already disrupted.

However, there are parents who have no other choice, and for them, the schools will remain open.

There will be no special lessons. A single lesson plan for each grade will be taught. Online learning will be made available for those at home.

Updated

What has just happened

In the last hour we have learned:

• NSW schools remain open, but for “practical reasons” parents are encouraged to keep their children home. If you have no other choice, there will be a single lesson plan for all kids at school.

• Victoria will bring forward the school holidays as planned. School will resume as planned on April 14, unless health advice recommends otherwise.

• Victoria has established a 500-strong police taskforce to enforce the physical distance rules.

• Labor will support the fast passage of the coronavirus stimulus bill and hopes to have it passed by 5pm today.

Updated

Victoria sets up 500-strong coronavirus police taskforce

Dan Andrews has announced a special police group has been established to ensure the physical distance rules are enforced:

Now, many Victorians are doing the right thing, they are keeping their distance, they are observing the rules that have been written but there are many Victorians who are acting selfishly.

They are not taking this seriously.

They are doing the wrong thing and if that continues, then people will die. It is easy to do the right thing for your family and for people that you have never met.

I just want to make this point, whether you call it mateship, whether you call it being Australian, being Victorian, whether you call it decent behaviour, civic duty, I don’t care what you call it, just do it.

You need to keep your distance. You need to observe the rules, and that is not an option.

That is why today I’m joined by the chief commissioner and I can also announce that Victoria police have allocated 500 police members to a special taskforce that is all about enforcing the coronavirus rules that have been put in place.

In some respects it is disappointing that it has come to this but we have seen people on beaches in Sydney, we could just as easily have seen people in bars and cafes and restaurants and nightclubs here in Melbourne and right across Victoria.

It is unacceptable. It will cost lives. It will cost lives. So no matter what you call it, no matter what motivates you, do the right thing for everybody. That’s what’s at stake here.

Updated

NSW has had 136 people diagnosed with Covid-19 in the last 24 hours.

10 people remain in intensive care.

The state’s total is now at 669.

Updated

In Victoria, Dan Andrews is also having a press conference.

Schools, as you know, were due to break up, holidays will begin, were scheduled to begin on Friday.

There was at least one pupil-free day in the week also. We have taken the decision, and the chief health officer of Victoria is completely comfortable and supportive of this, to bring forward the school holidays and to spend these precious days without kids at school to plan for remote, flexible, distance learning in the event that we need to move to that way of teaching and learning.

Updated

NSW schools to remain open – although parents encouraged to keep students at home

The schools will remain open in NSW, but if you can keep your children at home, you should “for practical reasons”.

There will be a single unit of teaching for all teachers, and online teaching will be supported.

Gladys Berejiklian says it is safe to send your kids to school, but 30% of parents have already made the decision to keep their children at home.

But for parents who have no choice, the schools will remain open. There will be no special lessons though.

Updated

Gladys Berejiklian press conference

The NSW premier is holding a press conference and says she endorses the message from the prime minister last night, to close all “non-essential” services.

Updated

The AFL has also shut down the season, but the NRL says it will keep playing until it is told it can not. A decision from the A-League is expected later today.

Updated

What closes from midday

Under the new rules put in place last night, this is what will be forcibly shut down at midday today

The following facilities will be restricted from opening from midday local time 23 March 2020:

  • Pubs, registered and licensed clubs (excluding bottle shops attached to these venues), hotels (excluding accommodation)
  • Gyms and indoor sporting venues
  • Cinemas, entertainment venues, casinos and nightclubs
  • Restaurants and cafes will be restricted to takeaway and/or home delivery
  • Religious gatherings, places of worship or funerals (in enclosed spaces and other than very small groups and where the one person per four square metre rule applies).

Isolated remote community hubs are not included in these restrictions.

These measures also apply to outdoor spaces associated with the above venues.

Updated

Gladys Berejiklian will hold a press conference at 8am.

The NSW leader is expected to announce what that state will be doing over school closures.

On the coming forced closures, Anthony Albanese says the “earlier we act on the health issues, the better it will be”, and says he supports the crackdown to ensure physical distance.

But he says he understands why parents are confused over schools.

“It was clear as mud,” he said of last night’s press conference.

Albanese says he also believes federal Labor should have a seat at the “national cabinet” but he won’t go to Scott Morrison “with a begging bowl”.

Updated

The Labor leader says if Labor’s suggestions are not picked up, the opposition will still not stand in the way of passing the legislation.

Anthony Albanese says the payments should be brought forward, and there should be more money available to low-income workers. He also wants some safeguards put in around superannuation.

He had a private meeting with Scott Morrison last night and “unlike what the opposition did when we saved the nation from the global financial crisis”, Labor will be “constructive” during the legislation process.

Updated

Anthony Albanese is now talking to Fran Kelly on ABC radio and says he believes the coronavirus stimulus bills will be passed by 5pm today.

For anyone who needs information on the coronavirus payments, you can find more here.

Updated

I’ve had a few messages from readers – to make it clear, as a parent, you can decide to remove your children from school, if that is what you wish, no matter where you live.

Scott Morrison (from last night):

Parents who make the decision for their children to remain at home must take responsibility for those children.

Those children are staying at home. It’s not an excuse for them to go down the shopping centre or to go and congregate somewhere else or potentially put themselves in contact with the vulnerable and elderly population.

If you choose to keep your child at home, you are responsible for the conduct and behaviour of your children.

That is always the case for any parent. But particularly in this case, it is important that they observe the strict social distancing arrangements that have been advised to the public.

The Labor shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, says Labor won’t stand in the way of the government’s stimulus package, and will do what it can to support the fast passage of the bill.

But Chalmers says the government hasn’t moved as quickly as it might have, and the July payments need to be brought forward.

It isn’t clear how Labor plans on trying to make that happen as yet – at the moment, everyone is trying to get this bill cleared as soon as possible. The first payment is due to be released at the end of this month.

Education minister resolute that schools remain open

Dan Tehan, the education minister, is resolute that schools will remain open, as far as the federal government is concerned:

What we have to do is take the medical expert advice.

If we don’t do that, what do we do? Do we take the medical expert advice on Twitter, on Facebook?

This opinion or that opinion?

We can’t be doing that. We’ve got to listen to the panel which has been brought together which is taking in the best advice that we can get around the country from our scientists, from our universities, from our best medical professionals.

That’s what is informing government decision-making and that’s what will continue to inform government decision-making. That very best medical advice.

If it changes, the government’s made very clear that we will change the position when it comes to schools. But at the moment, it hasn’t changed.

Updated

The education minister Dan Tehan is on ABC Breakfast, attempting to clear up the confusion around schools being open or closed.

“Schools remain open, and if parents want to send their kids to school, they should do so,” he says.

Tehan says he doesn’t want students to lose a year’s education, if it can be avoided, and the medical panel is agreement that schools can safely remain open.

The education minister is trying to spin Victoria’s decision to close schools this week, as not a rebellion – he says Dan Andrews has just moved school holidays earlier.

It’s a mess.

Updated

The parliament will sit today, but with reduced numbers.

Only 90 MPs will be allowed into the House of Representatives at a time. There are 30 pairs.

The parliament will sit for as long as it takes to pass the coronavirus stimulus package and that’s it. It is scheduled for today, but will spill into tomorrow, if necessary.

Scott Morrison said the parliament was now in “emergency mode”, which means it will sit when there is an urgent need – which basically means when it needs to pass more legislation related to Covid-19.

Updated

There is still some confusion over schools closures.

Here is what we know.

Queensland: schools open as usual.

NSW: an announcement is expected today.

Victoria: easter holidays brought forward, with schools to close from Tuesday.

ACT: easter holidays brought forward, with schools to close from Tuesday.

Scott Morrison said last night that parents could decide to pull their children from school, regardless of where they lived, but were responsible for keeping them at home.

Updated

Good morning, everyone.

Australia will introduce another round of measures to encourage social distancing today with all clubs, pubs, nightclubs, places of worship, cinemas, indoor sporting and other entertainment venues closing from midday. Cafes and restaurants will be able to do takeaway only.

These restrictions could be in place for up to six months, according to the prime minister.

But schools will remain open in all states and territories except Victoria and the ACT, who have announced they will be bringing Easter holidays forward to start tomorrow.

There’s been a lot of confusion on the issue of schools.

NSW and Victoria both signalled yesterday that they were going to go it alone and shut down schools and introduce more draconian lockdown measures without national consensus.

But when the prime minister emerged from the national cabinet meeting at 9pm last night he insisted that schools would remain open, and that those that were closing early for the school holidays would open again in term two, subject to medical advice.

Katharine Murphy and Sarah Martin have more on this obvious fracture between the PM and the premiers of the two most populous states.

You have the whole Guardian team working to bring you the issues as they happen.

We have never seen these sorts of restrictions in Australia before – and we know there are more to come.

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