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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Josh Taylor (now), Donna Lu (earlier) and Mostafa Rachwani (earlier)

Victoria to cut Pfizer interval as cases surge to record high – as it happened

The day that was, Thursday 30 September

We are going to leave the blog there for the night.

Here’s what made news today:

  • Victoria’s Covid cases jumped 500 in a day to 1,438, with five deaths. Authorities have blamed illegal home gatherings over the AFL grand final long weekend for the surge in cases.
  • Victoria will cut the wait period between Pfizer doses from six weeks to three from next week in a bid to speed up the state reaching 70 and 80% double-dose vaccine targets.
  • Australians aged over 60 have been given access to the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines in a bid to get about 300,000 hesitant people over the line.
  • NSW recorded 941 new cases and six deaths, with the state set to lift lockdown measures on 11 October, while continuing to support businesses as commonwealth funds dry up.
  • The NSW Snowy Mountains will go into lockdown for a week due to Covid-19 spread.
  • Despite 10 new local cases of Covid in Queensland, no lockdown has yet been announced, and the NRL grand final will go ahead on Sunday, with one quarter of fans to miss out on their tickets as a result of a cut in capacity.
  • The ACT recorded 31 new Covid-19 cases.
  • South Australia recorded one new case in a truck driver who had worked in Victoria.

Until tomorrow, stay safe.

Updated

Stay-at-home orders have been announced for the Kyogle and Narromine local government areas in New South Wales from midnight tonight until 11 October due to Covid cases in the area.

These restrictions will also apply to anyone who has been in the Kyogle LGA since 21 September and the Narromine LGA since 28 September.

Everyone in these LGAs must stay at home unless it is for an essential reason, which includes shopping for food, medical care, getting vaccinated, compassionate needs, exercise and work or tertiary education if you can’t work or study at home.

Updated

Three people injured by tornado in NSW

Some more from the tornado in Bathurst.

NSW Ambulance tells me they had two callouts. One to a property on Curly Dick Rd at Meadowflat just before 2pm.

A man in his mid-40s had an arm injury, and was transported to Orange hospital in a stable condition.

And a man and a woman were hurt at a property on Limekilns Rd in Clear Creek. The man had cuts on his face, while the woman had back and neck injuries and was transported to Bathurst hospital in a stable condition.

Updated

Here’s the exposure site lists for the new case in South Australia. As I mentioned, it’s just truck stop locations because the driver was travelling to and from Victoria.

Swinburne University in Melbourne will reopen when Victoria reaches its 80% double-dose vaccination target, currently projected for 5 November.

The university’s vice-chancellor, Prof Pascale Quester, told staff that 94% of employees who responded to a survey said they had either received one or two doses of the vaccine so far.

Fully-vaccinated staff and students will be allowed to return to campus from 5 November. Staff working with VET and VCE students will need to be fully vaccinated by 29 November, and have at least had one dose by 18 October, except if they have a valid medical exemption.

The university will also open up a vaccination hub at its Hawthorn campus to staff and students from 4 October, with both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines available.

Updated

Tornado hits Bathurst in NSW

The Bureau of Meterology has confirmed a tornado hit the central west of New South Wales this afternoon.

The NSW SES has warned residents to secure loose items in their house or on their balcony.

Updated

The drug MDMA and magic mushrooms may help treat mental illness, Australia’s medicines regulator says ahead of its final decision on whether to recognise the drugs.

AAP reports the Therapeutic Goods Administration looked at studies on PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, social anxiety in adults with autism, and anxiety or depression in the context of life-threatening disease.

“We conclude that MDMA and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) may show promise in highly selected populations but only where these medicines are administered in closely clinically supervised settings and with intensive professional support,” the TGA said on Thursday.

It examined studies with MDMA that found statistically significant improvements in adults who had autism and social anxiety.

Results for people who had anxiety in the context of life-threatening disease were not significant given low participant numbers.

Studies seeing whether psilocybin was effective in treating OCD symptoms found no significant effect, possibly because of low numbers and a high response to the placebo.

For people with depression or anxiety, psilocybin was as effective as the antidepressant escitalopram.

Magic mushrooms may help in the treatment of mental illness, the TGA says.
Magic mushrooms may help in the treatment of mental illness, the TGA says. Photograph: David Herraez/Alamy Stock Photo

In February, the TGA handed down an interim decision against recognising the drugs to treat mental illness. It deferred a final decision pending the review on the drugs’ therapeutic value, risks and benefits.

The report will be considered by the Advisory Committee of Medicines Scheduling on 3 November ahead of a final decision due in early December.

Updated

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has welcomed the government’s decision to allow the over 60s to get the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

RACGP President Dr Karen Price said it was vital that over 60s get vaccinated, and it was unfortunate that despite AstraZeneca being a very safe and effective vaccine, many people had opted not to get it:

There is a lot of misinformation circulating on social media that has spread like wildfire in the community. Sadly, the AstraZeneca vaccine has come to be regarded by some as an inferior vaccine when that simply isn’t the case.

So, opening up eligibility for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines make sense. It will help us get people aged 60-plus over the line who have been holding out.

Price also urged people to be respectful to GP staff when booking your appointment.

Please remember, it may take time for some practices to adjust to these changes that come into effect tomorrow. Practices are already busy vaccinating the community and may not have bookings immediately available. New bookings will depend on each practice’s capacity, available vaccine stock and whether they have already vaccinated priority groups.

So, if you are aged 60 or over and turn up to your local practice demanding a Pfizer vaccine, they may not necessarily be able to help you straight away. If so, please don’t take your frustrations out on receptionists doing their job, they don’t make the rules and have been through enough already.

Updated

'We're not seeking in any way to constrain China's growth': Morrison

Scott Morrison has declared that Australia does not want to constrain China’s economic rise, saying his government is “not in the containment club”.

The prime minister, who attended the first-ever in-person meeting of leaders from the Quad in Washington DC last week, said the grouping of Australia, the US, India and Japan was “not a formal alliance” and was “not designed to be an alliance”.

In a briefing for Indian media outlets in Australia today, Morrison said he did not want to see the region in “binary terms”.

We’re not seeking in any way to constrain China’s growth - never have. We’re not in the containment club when it comes to China. We have greatly benefited from their economic development, and they have been very successful indeed, as India has, in taking millions, hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

It’s quite a remarkable economic success. This is good. We welcome that. We think that’s great. But, it’s important that as countries develop and as they grow, that they continue to be a positive and supportive influence in the region for peace and stability, and that the respect is there for all other countries in the Indo-Pacific, for their own sovereignty.

Scott Morrison speaks to the press at the White House in Washington DC last week.
Scott Morrison speaks to the press at the White House in Washington DC last week. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

Morrison said the Quad members wanted to ensure that economic growth occurred “in a way that is inclusive and doesn’t place burdens on other countries in the Indo-Pacific, which is only reasonable, only reasonable”.

Pushing back at China’s criticism of the grouping, Morrison also said the Quad was “not exclusive”.

In the Indo-Pacific there is an increasing web of these partnerships and alliances and that only builds greater regional stability and security. It doesn’t escalate anything. In my view it reduces the risks by ensuring that it is providing a positive outcome or a positive effect in the region that deters behaviour that would be counter to a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Morrison said Australia’s newly announced defence arrangement with the UK and the US – called Aukus, which will involve the delivery of nuclear-powered submarines – also “complements, rather than takes away, from what we’re doing in those other partnerships”.

Updated

There aren’t a huge amount of exposure sites associated with the South Australian case, mainly truck stops, Spurrier said.

She said she is very hopeful there won’t be any community transmission as a result of the case.

The driver’s wife works in aged care, but she is vaccinated, tested negative, and the facility has “full coverage” in terms of vaccination.

The driver and his family have been put into accomodation for quarantine.

Updated

South Australia records one local Covid case

South Australia’s chief health public officer Nicola Spurrier has announced a new locally-acquired case of Covid-19. It’s a man in his 20s who lives in SA but is a truck driver who travels into Victoria.

Spurrier said the man had been tested every three days, and has had one dose of the Pfizer vaccine, with the second due this week.

He last tested negative on 26 September, with a positive test returned on 29 September.

Spurrier says it is an early positive, and it is very early in the infectious period.

His wife, child and grandparents have all tested negative.

SA’s chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier.
SA’s chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier. Photograph: Naomi Jellicoe/AAP

Updated

Jane Halton, the chair of the Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, says she is “quite relaxed” about the $9.1m spent on Australia’s CovidSafe app, despite it not being useful in the outbreak.

Halton was on the National Covid-19 Commission Advisory Board, which advised the federal government in the early stages of the pandemic.

She told the ABC that people shouldn’t be afraid to take risks on trying things out:

No. I don’t think it’s been a waste of money. What have we done in this pandemic is we’ve tried some things. And I’m really against this completely risk averse, not try something, some of which may not end up working as best you might like.

We sometimes will do things which won’t deliver exactly what we had hoped. That’s just part of life. And I’m sure we’ve all done that in our lives. We’ve spent money on something that we think isn’t quite the product we thought. So be it.

We were trying to actually do innovative things in the context of the pandemic. Did it deliver quite what we hoped? No. Have we done other things that have outperformed? Yes, we have. I’m quite relaxed about that. It’s just part of doing business in this unpredictable time.

It’s worth noting the government has not admitted the app did not live up to expectations.

An iPhone displays the CovidSafe app released by the Australian government in April 2020.
An iPhone displays the CovidSafe app released by the Australian government in April 2020. Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP

Updated

Victoria Police have arrested a 21-year-old man who allegedly assaulted police at the protests at Kew/Richmond/Burnley on 18 September.

He has been charged with a number of offences including assaulting police, recklessly causing injury and hindering police.

He was granted bail until a later court appearance.

Police are still searching for ten others to assist with enquiries in relation to that protest. They’ve posted the images here.

Updated

Surprise South Australia press conference in about eight minutes.

Updated

Victoria’s anti-corruption body, the Independent Broadbased Anti-Corruption Commission, will hold public hearings from 11 October on the allegations of serious corrupt conduct involving Victorian officials, including MPs.

The allegations include branch-stacking, directing taxpayer-funded ministerial and electorate staff to perform party-political work during work hours, and that public money intended to fund community associations was misused for party-political work.

IBAC’s commissioner Robert Redlich said the Victorian community rightly expects public funds to be used appropriately and for all public officers to adhere to parliamentary standards and processes:

As part of our focus on preventing corruption, the public hearings will also consider whether the current systems and controls are sufficient to protect the integrity of the expenditure of public funds for ministerial and electorate office staff and the making of community grants, and examine potential systemic issues, including opportunities to strengthen associated governance, transparency and accountability arrangements.

Updated

The telecommunications industry has labelled Liberal MP Julian Leeser’s proposed private members bill aimed at improving mobile coverage and customer service an “impractical non-solution”.

The Communications Alliance and the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association say the bill has measures that “are impossible and/or infeasible to implement or would impose crippling costs on consumers and the industry”.

“If brought into law, these proposals would act against consumers’ interests by discouraging industry investment.”

The groups say since 2020, tens of billions of dollars have been invested in rapidly rolling out 5G across Australia, and if politicians have concerns the industry is happy to keep in active dialogue about those issues.

The associations suggest laws need to be changed to help network infrastructure to be rolled out quickly and for the federal government to work with the states to improve local planning laws to allow for infrastructure to be built:

All too often, telcos have planned and are ready to invest in vital infrastructure to further improve or expand services, only to find that their proposals are blocked by State or local governments, prompting misplaced criticism towards telcos from customers and other stakeholders.

It is worth noting for all the talk of poor mobile coverage in regional Australia, the federal government has invested close to half a billion dollars in improving mobile network coverage in blackspot areas, so it was an interesting announcement from government backbenchers considering the government has spent so much fixing it.

A communications tower in the NSW outback town of Bourke.
A communications tower in the NSW outback town of Bourke. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

AAP has some info on the rain in NSW (I am aware it is raining in Victoria too, so I will update on that when I can find some more information).

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued warnings for damaging winds, heavy rain and large hail for parts of NSW, with conditions clearing for a warm and sunny long weekend.

BOM meteorologist Hugh McDowell said widespread rainfall and thunderstorms in inland NSW had peaked on Wednesday and Thursday and the weather front was now moving towards the coast.

Severe thunderstorms hit numerous locations, with hail up to five centimetres in diameter and 85km/h wind gusts recorded in Bourke in the state’s far west.

Walgett in northern NSW saw 60mm of rain - double its monthly average for September - in one day, while Canberra recorded 38mm, or half its September average.

While most communities will only experience showers or rain over the next couple of days, some will see more thunderstorms between now and the weekend, he said.
Friday could bring isolated thunderstorms over central eastern NSW but many locations will be spared storm activity.

“But there will be widespread showers across many parts of the state,” he said.

The BOM said people should monitor for changes in their areas over coming days, with warnings remaining for storms, damaging winds, heavy rain and hail.

Conditions should ease as the trough moves offshore, making for a largely nice long weekend.

“We’re looking at dryer and cooler conditions starting to improve from Saturday. Sunday looks mostly dry with temperatures above average - even into the 30s - with quite warm conditions developing,” McDowell said.

Updated

Regional schools will reopen in Victorian in the next few weeks, deputy premier and education minister James Merlino has announced.

From Monday 4 October, prep to year 2 will return full-time, followed by year 11 students on Wednesday 6 October.

The following week, from 11 October, year 7 will return full time, while years 3, 4, 8 and 9 will go to school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and 5, 6 and 10 will go Thursdays and Fridays.

Every grade will be back full time in the class from 26 October. The current opening excludes schools in Latrobe and Mitchell Shire, which are still in lockdown.

Updated

Just to add to Sarah’s earlier report on vaccine certificates, part of the Senate Covid committee discussion focused on why the federal government was working to implement vaccine verification in the state-based QR code apps for when people check into venues, rather than integrating it into the Covidsafe contact tracing app.

Services Australia told the committee Covidsafe was never considered for the vaccine verification because, after consulting with the states and territories, it was clear they wanted it integrated into their own apps.

And given the venues already have QR codes linked to each state or territory system in place, it made a lot more sense to just work it into the existing system.

They stressed it wasn’t about outsourcing to the states, but rather giving the states what they want.

New South Wales will be the first to trial vaccine verification at venues soon.

For those who have been following whether the Covidsafe app has been useful in the current outbreaks - it has not. The Senate committee heard today the app has now cost taxpayers $9.1m to run.

I filed a freedom of information request with the health department to see if they’d considered this year moving to something similar to what the NHS uses in the UK, which has proven to be much more useful, but the request turned up no documents.

NSW classrooms are being audited for ventilation and Covid-19 safety requirements ahead of students’ early return to school but the teachers’ union says it called for the procedure to get underway “months ago”, AAP reports.

Education minister Sarah Mitchell said the audit should be finished by early next week, while a tender is out for ventilation and air purifiers in those schools that require increased airflow.

Kindergarten, year one and year 12 students will be the first to resume face-to-face learning, on 18 October, while other grades will have a staggered return to the classroom over the following two weeks.

All students will be back at school by 1 November.

NSW Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos said he asked the government three months ago for urgent risk-mitigation action.

“But they only started it about three weeks ago and it’s still not finished,” he told AAP.

The government was aware Victoria had already procured 51,000 air quality testing and filtering equipment units, he said.

The decision to expedite the return to the classroom comes after NSW exceeded vaccination double-dosage expectations and should reach 70% full coverage next week.

Deputy Labor leader and shadow minister for education Prue Car said exhausted parents and teachers had been asking for this for a while.

If the government had acted faster on vaccinating teachers and buying air purifiers then students could have gone back earlier, she said.

Teachers are required to be fully vaccinated by 8 November.

Gavrielatos said it remained to be seen whether vaccinated teachers would be spread evenly across the schools with the first cohort of children.

“If teachers had been prioritised for vaccination then it would have been one less challenge to confront,” he said.

“Teachers are deeply offended to yet again be the last to know of these changes. It’s not the first time this has happened.”

So far 100,000 classrooms have been inspected in 2200 schools across the state, with more than 400,000 windows and 130,000 fans checked.

Updated

Time for me to bid you adieu for the day. Here’s Josh Taylor to take you into the evening!

Vaccine certificate for international travel ready within weeks

Technology allowing Australians to travel overseas with an internationally recognised vaccine certificate will be ready within weeks, as the government prepares to announce a plan for the country’s borders to finally reopen.

In evidence to the Senate’s Covid committee, the chief executive of Services Australia, Rebecca Skinner, said the department had developed a visible digital seal for vaccine status that would be ready by the end of October.

It will allow Australians to verify their vaccination status with Home Affairs, who will create a “highly authenticated” digital record for travel and for use by third parties, such as airlines and other countries.

More here:

Still on sport: in a case of athletes actually being affected by border closures, six Argentinian rugby union players and two officials are stuck in New South Wales after crossing the Queensland border to spend a day at a Byron Bay spa.

They were denied re-entry into Queensland for not having the appropriate documentation, and will have to miss the Saturday Test match against the Wallabies on the Gold Coast.

Emma Kemp has the full story:

Updated

As a result of the pandemic, the Tour Down Under cycling race has been cancelled for a second year running. AAP has the story:

Australia’s top cycling event was due to return in January next year, but event organisers have announced that international border closures and quarantine requirements made it too hard to stage.

Organisers made the call a month earlier than this time last year.

“We have fully explored all avenues, but unfortunately in the end it was the border closures and quarantine requirements for more than 400 people that make up the international teams that proved to still be too difficult to overcome,” said Events SA executive director Hitaf Rasheed.

Adelaide’s Festival Of Cycling, a domestic event covering a wide range of disciplines, will go ahead on January 21-29 in its place.

The Tour Down Under started in 1999 and has grown into a major SA tourism event.

The peloton ride through Adelaide’s Aldinga during the Tour Down Under in January 2020.
The peloton ride through Adelaide’s Aldinga during the Tour Down Under in January 2020. Photograph: Brenton Edwards/AFP via Getty Images

Updated

Another vaccination milestone hit. We absolutely love to see it.

The ACT has the highest Covid vaccination rate in Australia, and has ticked over the 90% first-dose mark.

Fortescue mine closed after worker killed in WA

There is some sad news out of Western Australia. A worker at a Fortescue Metals iron ore mine in the Pilbara has been killed after ground collapsed. AAP reports:

Fortescue Metals has closed its Solomon Hub iron ore mine in Western Australia after a worker was killed.

The man died after ground collapsed at the site in the Pilbara region on Thursday morning. Police and company officials are investigating.

Fortescue chief executive Elizabeth Gaines said she was thinking of the dead man’s family, friends and colleagues.

“This is a very sad day for Fortescue and all our thoughts are with his family as we provide our full support to them at this very difficult time,” she said.

Mine safety inspectors from WA’s Department of Mines are travelling from Perth to investigate. WA Police say the death is not being treated as suspicious and a report will be prepared for the coroner.

Fortescue is an iron ore mining giant owned by billionaire Andrew Forrest.

The Solomon site includes the Firetail, Kings Valley and Queens Valley mines and is one of several Fortescue sites in the Pilbara.

Updated

Queensland's Covid outbreak hits NRL grand final

Let’s turn our attention to another kind of football. After the reintroduction of public health restrictions in Queensland, the NRL has confirmed that 25% of people who have purchased tickets to Sunday’s grand final will automatically be refunded tickets.

The final between the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Penrith Panthers is set to be held for the first time at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday, which will be limited to 75% capacity after Queensland recorded six new Covid cases today.

The NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo said the last 25% of ticket purchasers – around 13,000 people – will have their tickets refunded, and acknowledged it would be “difficult news to take”.

It’s a case of the early bird gets the worm – and there is an anxious wait as to whether the final will be able to go ahead in Brisbane.

The Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has said “the next 24 to 48 hours” will be critical to determine whether there is any wider community transmission, and has not ruled out a lockdown if necessary.

South Sydney’s Dane Gagai during a training session on the Gold Coast.
South Sydney’s Dane Gagai during a training session on the Gold Coast. Photograph: Jono Searle/AAP

Updated

Here’s a full recap of Victoria’s Covid situation, including 1,438 new local infections recorded in the last 24 hours. Authorities have attributed the spike to AFL grand final parties:

Some good news on a gloomy day for Victorians: thanks to firmer supply projections for Covid vaccines, the state is set to reduce its Pfizer dosing interval to three weeks, starting on 4 October.

Anyone who has received their first Pfizer dose should be able to bring forward their second vaccination date if they want to.

There are more than 10,000 first-dose Pfizer appointments and nearly 9,000 first-dose AstraZeneca appointments available in state-run hubs over the next week.

Updated

Older Australians can get Pfizer and Moderna: Hunt

The health minister, Greg Hunt, has announced that all Australians over 12, including older Australians aged 60 and over, will be able to get mRNA Covid-19 vaccines from their GP or pharmacist from 1 October.

That means older Australians can now choose Pfizer or Moderna, rather than just AstraZeneca.

States have been progressively offering this choice, with NSW announcing the move on Thursday – but Victoria was the last state to do so.

Hunt announced Victoria has now agreed to make choice available, and noted it has also decreased its second dose interval for Pfizer from six to three weeks.

A pharmacy in Melbourne offering the Moderna and AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines.
A pharmacy in Melbourne offering the Moderna and AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines. Photograph: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

Updated

Thanks Mostafa Rachwani. Top of the early afternoon to you! Let’s get into it.

And that will do it for me on today’s blog. Thanks for reading. I leave with the brilliant Donna Lu to take you through the afternoon’s news.

Updated

So, conversation at the Victorian press conference (still going) has turned to charges Worksafe has brought against the state’s Department of Health, with the premier refusing to comment.

He said “there’s a court process afoot, so I’m not going to be commenting on that”.

The government doesn’t get to say, well, actually, we don’t like that judgment so we’re not going to do it.

We can’t say, we’re not going to [pay] these penalties that have been duly issued. That’s not how it works.

Updated

So earlier at the New South Wales Covid update, premier Gladys Berejiklian gave another indication of how contact tracing and isolation will work once the state is out of lockdown on 11 October.

Berejiklian said (repeating some of what she’s said previously) that once the state hits the 70% and 80% marks, the systems will inevitably change:

When you have 70 or 80% of your adult population vaccinated it does mean you deal with contact tracing differently.

You don’t have to be as cautious with close contacts, you don’t have to be as cautious with a whole range of things you deal with.

She said residents will be given a week’s notice before the changes are made.

Gladys Berejiklian speaks to the media at today’s press conference.
Gladys Berejiklian speaks to the media at today’s press conference. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Updated

So, with all that in mind, should the Victorian government have cancelled the AFL public holiday?

Here’s what Andrews had to say:

I put it to you — do each of you know people who have been doing the wrong thing? I think we all do. We all do. It’s not a sense of blame or trying to single people out, it’s a fact.

Part of my job is trying to be as clear with people as possible. I’m appealing to people — we can’t change what happened last weekend. We can’t have a repeat of it this weekend or for the next few weekends.

We have the NSW daily case numbers, now in graph form:

Updated

An exasperated Daniel Andrews is now in a running debate with a journalist about whether or not lockdowns have worked (we’re still having this debate then, hey).

The journalist asked if, in light of the high cases, and in light of Andrews wanting to “avoid a Sydney style situation” by going into a hard and fast lockdown, if the measures have worked.

Andrews:

If you talk to the premier of New South Wales, she will say her lockdown is tougher than ours. We don’t have 40 to 50,000 active cases, we’ll do everything we can to avoid that. I’m not here to make comparisons with New South Wales. We want to avoid the worst of this global pandemic being visited upon our state.

That’s not a comparison, just a point very broadly. I said we wanted to try to avoid what New South Wales has had to go through. And I remain committed to that. That’s why I’m asking people, please follow the rules, please do the right thing, please just let’s finish this off for the next three or four weeks.

Pushed on the matter, Andrews sighed and said ultimately it came down to following the health advice:

We follow public health advice. If you want to on the one hand urge that we open up, and then on the other hand be critical about how many cases there are, those two things don’t work. Like ... there’s no logic in that. We can open up tomorrow, and I won’t be standing here reporting 1,400 cases, I’ll be reporting a lot more than that.

Updated

ACT records 31 new Covid cases

The Australian Capital Territory has recorded 31 new locally acquired cases, with at least 17 having spent time in the community while infectious.

Updated

As Queensland faces a potential Covid outbreak, capacity restrictions for the NRL grand final this weekend have already been applied.

While the game is still set to go ahead on Sunday, the New South Wales treasurer Dominic Perrottet was asked at his state’s Covid update if it were possible for Sydney to host the final if it couldn’t go ahead in Queensland.

We’ll always pick up the phone if someone rings.

However, he added:

But we have a roadmap, and I’ve said from the outset that we aren’t going to hold major events in New South Wales, until every small business is open and every worker is back in the job.

Updated

Does the significant rise have any impact on Victoria’s trajectory towards reopening?

Andrews:

It doesn’t yet because it’s only one day. What I’m saying to every Victorian, if we continue to see this sort of behaviour, we’ll continue to see these numbers.

It’s not about one day, if you get this each day, every day of the week, you’re putting avoidable pressure on all sorts of different systems, most notably our public hospital system.

It’s not just about ICU. Every COVID patient that’s in a bed, in hospital, or indeed, on a pathway, where we manage people at home, they’re not easy patients to nurse. They’re not easy patients to care for.

They have a widely infectious virus and many of them become very, very sick. No-one wants to get this. No-one should be doing thing to recruit the thing into their family. We’ve all just got to see this through for another few weeks and then we can be open, the lockdown ends, and we can each day take further big steps to getting to a normal position. Normalising this. It will be hard. It will be challenging. Particularly for our nurses. But there’s no turning back now.

We have to get through the difficult gateways, but getting vaccinated is incredibly important. I’m just appealing to people please, try and make the best choices. I know how frustrating it is. I know why people want to connect to the people they love and get back to normal, I understand that. But we don’t quite have the freedom to do that yet.

Services Australia has revealed that technology to allow Australians to travel overseas with proof of vaccination will be ready within weeks.

The so-called visible digital seal (VDS) project will allow Australians to verify their vaccination status with the Department of Home Affairs, who will create a “highly authenticated” digital record for travel and for use by third parties, such as airlines and other countries.

Services Australia said at the request of an individual the department would send a person’s vaccination status to the passport office.

“What they will then do is take that data, make sure it’s all correct, and then they will put what they call a visible digital seal onto a certificate that they will then send back to us,” the department’s Charles McHardie said.

“And that certificate will then appear straightaway in your Medicare Express Plus app, and then you can download it to your phone.”

“That can be used at ... departure gates, etcetera, wherever it may be utilised as the borders start to open up.”

The VDS technology is internationally recognised and was developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization.

The Services Australia executive Rebecca Skinner said she expected the technology to be ready within three weeks.

“We are confident that the technology will all be in place within the next sort of two to three weeks, well before the end of October,” Skinner said.

“Our plan is to have all of the technology in place so that it is settled and tested situation before the policy decisions need to be made.

“We don’t want to be in a situation where policy decisions can’t be taken because the technology isn’t ready.”

Updated

Meanwhile at the New South Wales Covid update, the premier Gladys Berejiklian has reiterated that she expects local case numbers to surge, and that authorities hope these new cases are only among vaccinated residents.

We have to be very careful because whilst we are all excited about opening up the cases are going to surge. We just need to make sure that occurs in vaccinated people and not the unvaccinated because that hurts all of us.

That hurts the unvaccinated person, it hurts their family and it hurts their immediate community.

Updated

Weimar: today is a significant setback for Victoria

Weimar has called the jump in cases a “significant” setback in the state’s reopening plan, and described his disappointment:

We know that everyone is fatigued, tired of this. But today is a significant setback in how we manage this outbreak. It’s a significant setback on our Burnett roadmap.

Today may just be one big rogue day ... if this trend is continued, if we see similar case numbers over the coming days, then we’ll go from just below the mean on the Burnett projection, we were tracking favourably, we’ll jump to the worst quarterial.

If we are seeing continued spread, it will have grave implications for our nurses, ambulance workers, for our hospitals and for people who need care, whether they need care for coronavirus, or whether they need care for other purposes. This outbreak still remains within our hands. We still have so much left to play for. And I think today ... highlights the consequence of hundreds of people dropping their guard.

This is hard for every one of us. But once again, I think we’re at a key decision point as Victorians from where we go from here. We need to decide if we’re going to push through the fatigue and get the job done. At the end of October we should get to our 70% fully vaccinated status, and that gives us all hope.

But we need to get the vaccination job done in the next few weeks ahead.

Updated

Weimar has gone on to descibe the impact of the shift in case numbers caused by the weekend parties, including a change in the profile of the cases being recorded:

We can see it not only in the contact tracing interviews, but also in our mobility data, traffic data. We’ve had the most activity on our roads over a three-day weekend of any lockdown weekend since the end of July. We’re seeing a shift in the age profile, so in today’s cases, 55% are men.

It’s quite a different profile to what we’ve seen for the rest of the outbreak. We’re seeing a disproportionate increase in [people] aged between 20 and 29, and those aged 20 and 50 – 55% of the cases are in their 20s, 30s, and 40s.

Disproportionately high ... Six out of 10 are from new households. We’ve seen a significant sparking off of new households, jumping from known households to fresh territory. We can see it in the sharp increase in cases in the south-east and eastern suburbs.

Unlike in previous days and weeks, we’ve been reporting a very static picture, now a quarter of all today’s cases, 329 of them, are in the east and south-eastern suburbs. And the map is far more diverse than before. We have a far greater scattering into new suburbs, new communities, new households, that haven’t been touched by coronavirus before in this or any of our recent outbreaks.

Updated

A third of Victoria's new cases from AFL grand final parties, Weimar says

Victoria’s Covid-19 commander Jeroen Weimar says contract tracers have informed the government that the significant jump in case numbers can be attributed to grand final weekend parties held illegally last weekend.

The contact tracers tell us that there have been significant numbers of social gatherings on Friday and Saturday, over a long weekend. Grand final parties. Other social gatherings, barbecues, backyard visits.

This has generated significant case load. A third of our cases are due directly to those different types of social gatherings, as people have dropped their guard, and decided now it’s the grand final weekend, it’s the long weekend, we deserve a bit of a pay back, we deserve a nicer time.

And that has now translated into additional 500 cases from when we expected to see today.

Victorian Covid-19 Commander Jeroen Weimar speaks to reporters on Thursday.
Victorian Covid-19 Commander Jeroen Weimar speaks to reporters on Thursday. Photograph: Daniel Pockett/AAP

Updated

New Zealand records 19 new Covid cases

New Zealand has announced 19 new cases of Covid-19 today, a drop from yesterday’s spike of 45.

Much of the remaining spread is happening within large households, but health officials are still investigating 37 unlinked cases from the past fortnight.

“There has been some volatility in cases in recent days - at this stage, though, we continue to have broad control of the Covid outbreak in Auckland and control is key,” the prime minister Jacinda Ardern said.

“We simply do not have enough people vaccinated in Auckland, or in New Zealand, to tolerate a widespread outbreak.”

The numbers come about a week on from when the government lifted some restrictions in Auckland, the centre of the outbreak.

“We still need the restrictions that we’re using,” Ardern said. “I know they’re incredibly hard and they will ease, but for now they’re doing a job for us. That’s why we need people to keep following them.”

As of today, 37% of New Zealand’s total population were fully vaccinated, as were 44% of the population aged over 12. And 65% of the full population and 76% of over-12s have had at least one dose.

The government is aiming to get more than 90% of its population vaccinated before it considers fully reopening. Today, health officials also announced the government would be funding free taxi or shuttle rides for anyone getting to a vaccination centre.

The New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern.
The New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern. Photograph: Getty Images

Updated

Victoria to reduce Pfizer vaccine interval time

Andrews has announced that the Victorian government is set to reduce the Pfizer interval between doses in state hubs to three weeks from 4 October.

He says that 88,000 Moderna doses will be transferred from the pharmacy network to state hubs as they couldn’t be used up fast enough.

A health worker administers a dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in Melbourne’s Melton.
A health worker administers a dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in Melbourne’s Melton. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Andrews has also provided some details on the five deaths in the state, which included two people from the Whittlesea area – a woman in her 70s and a man in his 80s.

One was a man in his 70s from the Moreland area, and the remaining two were a man in his 60s and another in his 90s from the Hume area.

Andrews also said 398 people were currently in hospital with Covid, and of those 83 were in intensive care and 57 were on a ventilator.

Updated

'Great concern': Victorian premier begins press conference

The Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has begun his presser by saying the jump in Covid cases is “of great concern”, and he’s focused on people who are not following the rules:

Particularly given what we know from interviews over recent days, plenty of these cases were completely avoidable.

Andrews says we “can’t change what’s gone on in the last week or so”, indicating I guess that people broke the rules over the long weekend, and perhaps referring to last week’s protests.

Daniel Andrews speaks to the media on Thursday.
Daniel Andrews speaks to the media on Thursday. Photograph: Daniel Pockett/AAP

Updated

So, Perrottet has been grilled about whether the federal government has moved too early to cancel disaster payments, and the New South Wales treasurer has danced around the issue:

Post the 80% double dose, there’s no doubt that those support payments need to be tapered down because businesses will be opening again. Most businesses across the state will open up.

Trade will begin again. That will be a great thing but our government’s position, and I thank the commonwealth government for their support during this period. Budgets around the country are not looking too great now but we have said and are completely committed.

Success for me as treasurer has been, at the end of the pandemic, what is the unemployment rate and how many businesses have we kept open? That’s what success is. It was an easy decision for me to to recommend to crisis cabinet yesterday that we keep our contribution going up to 30 November, when we will have opened up most of the restrictions that were in place.

Updated

The Senate committee on the government’s Covid response is questioning bureaucrats from Services Australia and the Digital Transformation Agency.

Most of the discussion has been about how Australians will be able to access their immunisation record through a digital vaccination certificate, and how this will work with state check-in apps.

The department said the process would work by allowing people to consent to share their digital immunisation record with state and territories, and these would be incorporated into the QR codes currently used.

This would be done through the Medicare app, where users would consent to share their vaccination record with the states and territories of their choosing.

Charles McHardie from Services Australia said the government had taken this approach to avoid customers having to use multiple apps when checking in to venues.

“Our approach has been, particularly for high volume venues, to reduce friction on both staff in those venues and also friction for customers, to leverage the current check-in apps that all of the jurisdictions currently have,” McHardie said.

“Our view was, let’s integrate the capability that we have here in Services Australia in being able to prove that a citizen has been vaccinated and integrate that into the state-based check-in apps.”

However, the Labor senator Kimberley Kitching said this would mean visitors to Australia would need “eight different apps” if they were travelling around the country, given each state has a different check-in system.

The committee also questioned Services Australia about the use of “vaccine passports”, which the One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts said amounted to the department trying to “coerce the mandating of vaccines”.

The Services Australia chief executive Rebecca Skinner objected to the term “vaccination passport”, saying Services Australia was not developing such an application.

“We are enabling citizens to consent to provide their immunisation record to a state for integration in the check-in app,” Skinner said.

“How that check-in app is used and what is required for citizens in certain states is set by the state against their health orders.”

A woman uses a QR code at a food market in Bankstown in Sydney.
A woman uses a QR code at a food market in Bankstown in Sydney. Photograph: Jenny Evans/Getty Images

Updated

NSW extends jobsaver program

The NSW treasurer Dominic Perrottet has announced that the NSW government will maintain its jobsaver program until 30 November (which is a couple of weeks after the state hits the 70% vaccination rate, which will spark the federal government ending disaster payments).

We always said from the outset that success for New South Wales won’t be the budget position, but keeping as many people in work and as many businesses in business during this difficult time.

We know that when we do open up at 70% and 80% there will be still some restrictions in place, that businesses will not be operating at full capacity, so by maintaining the New South Wales government’s contribution to this program it will allow many businesses the support they need as we move from response to recovery.

Whilst it’s going to be a difficult time as we go through that reopening, I’m incredibly confident that the New South Wales economy will bounce back.

Updated

The New South Wales chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant has given some details on the six deaths reported today. They include four men and two women.

Three people were in their 70s, two in their 80s and one person was in their 90s.

Four were not vaccinated and two had received a single dose.

Updated

The premier has indicated that the government is considering bringing forward some freedoms to the 80% double-dose mark, and not the 1 December mark.

She has not said what those freedoms are, just that they are thinking about it. Like a teaser trailer before the main trailer.

Anyway, here is how Berejiklian put it:

The government is considering bringing some things forward to 80% double dose.

They won’t be major things but there will be tweaks. We’ll announce that at 70% double dose.

There are a number of people in the community who have asked us to consider certain things and health is considering those things, and if it’s safe to do so we’ll be able to resume some of those activities at 80% as opposed to December 1.

Updated

The New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian has begun by discussing schools, and as reported, their return has been brought forward by a week due to the ever-impressive vaccination rates in the state.

Here’s what she had to say:

When we set the date for schools opening on 25 October, we did it for two reasons – firstly to provide certainty for parents and school communities and secondly to make sure we’d already surpassed that 70% double-dose figure.

We didn’t realise at that stage how quickly New South Wales residents would take up the opportunity to get vaccinated.

So this is a safe way of resuming schools but the staggered approach will remain in place. The education team have been dealing with the health team for some time now.

Whilst we can bring that week forward, the start date forward by a week – which I know is welcome relief to students, teachers and families – the staggered recommencement will still be in place. Schools feel better in having that staggered resumption, but at least all students, irrespective of what year they’re in, can look to returning to face-to-face learning a week ahead of schedule.

Gladys Berejiklian at Thursday’s press conference.
Gladys Berejiklian at Thursday’s press conference. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Updated

NSW records 941 Covid cases and six deaths

New South Wales has recorded 941 new locally acquired cases.

Sadly, six deaths were recorded overnight.

Updated

We have two press conferences coming up.

The NSW Covid update (which will feature the premier again) is up first at 11am, followed by the Victorian update, due at 11.15am AEST.

Updated

Stay-at-home orders extended for regional areas in NSW

Stay-at-home orders have been extended to 11 October for seveal LGAs in regional NSW, including:

Bathurst, Bourke, Central Coast, Cessnock, Dubbo, Eurobodalla, Goulburn Mulwaree, Kiama, Lake Macquarie, Lithgow, Maitland, Newcastle, Port Stephens, Queanbeyan-Palerang, Shellharbour, Shoalhaven and Wingecarribee.

From 3pm today, stay-at-home orders will be introduced for the Snowy Monaro LGA for seven days.

But the orders will be lifted from tomorrow for Mid-Western regional, Hilltops and Walgett LGAs.

Updated

One important part of the new restrictions introduced: capacity at stadiums has been reduced to 75%, which will affect attendance at the NRL grand final.

Asked about whether it was wise to hold the grand final at this time, the premier said the next 24 to 48 hours were critical before a decision was made:

It will depend each day how things progress in this state, whether Queenslanders wear their mask, whether they go and get tested, and, you know, the fact they need to go and get vaccinated and the fact we have four of those linked to that cluster, plus health have all their contact tracers working and putting people into isolation.

It will be very critical the next 24 to 48 hours about whether or not we see any seeding into the community.

Palaszczuk was also asked if final was affecting decision making, and she was pretty adamant:

Absolutely not. Let me make it very clear that the health of Queenslanders comes first and as soon as Dr Young says we needed to move into a lockdown we will.

Updated

Queensland returns to stage two restrictions for five areas

Queensland has reintroduced restrictions from 4pm today in Brisbane, Gold Coast, Morteon Bay, Logan, Townsville and Palm Island.

So that means the number of home visitors has been reduced to 30, including visitors, residents and children.

Weddings and funerals are reduced to 100 people, with just 20 people allowed to dance at weddings.

Restaurants and cafes go back to the one person per 4 sq m rule.

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says these restrictions are the only way to avoid a lockdown:

Everyone realises that we’ve got to put these restrictions in place if we are to avoid a lockdown at this stage. So I want everyone to please take this very seriously and please do the right thing.

I’m quite sure that we will be able to get through this like we have previously if we all do the right thing. Good news in that those four cases of the six cases were linked to the cluster but testing, testing, testing is absently crucial.

Updated

Queensland records six new cases

Queensland has recorded six new locally acquired Covid cases, four of which are linked to the aviation cluster. The other two appear unlinked.

Updated

We are on standby to hear from Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Updated

Returning to the treasurer’s press conference now: he has been asked why disaster payments are being cut as the state records its worst day of daily cases.

Josh Frydenberg stuck to his lines, reiterating that lockdowns have taken a toll and need to lift, and that the end to the payments was taken on health advice (apparently health authorities advise on when to end disaster payments):

We have taken the decision about our economic support payments, transitioning and ending, based on the best medical advice.

Doherty modelling has said that there will need to be cases and indeed, there will continue tragically to be some deaths even as vaccination rates increased from 70 to 80%. But at that time, lockdowns become unlikely and in the event that they are put in place, they are very temporary and very targeted.

What we announced yesterday with respect to the Covid disaster payment was there would be a couple weeks of transition and people would be able to access welfare systems after that point in time.

But I put you, Andrew, if it is not 80% double-dose vaccination rate, we bring to an end the Covid disaster payment and business support payment, when is it? When is it that the government can stop spending $1.5bn per week on these emergency support measures and when is it that people can get their lives back on the lockdowns can be lifted?

Updated

Reports of Covid case in Townsville

We may be jumping the gun here, but the Townsville Bulletin is reporting that a man in Townsville has tested positive.

According to the paper, the man may have been infectious in community for two days.

I assume this will be discussed at Queensland’s 10am presser, but this is concerning.

Updated

$80bn improvement in budget's bottom line, Josh Frydenberg says

Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg has started with an extended spiel on how great things (reportedly) are in the economy, before adding, almost as an afterthought, that the federal government has agreed a deal with the Victorian, NSW and ACT governments on a business support package.

To list off some of the numbers, Frydenberg says there has been an $80bn improvement to the budget’s bottom line, and a $27bn improvement on forecasts as recent as May.

He says it was post-lockdown spending boosts that charged the bottom line, as well as a falling unemployment rate, which he welcomed in his own unique way:

The labour market continued to strengthen ahead of expectations, with employment exceeding pre-pandemic levels ahead of any major advanced economy.

With more people in work and less people on welfare, the improvement in the labour market has been the key driver of the improved budget position. The improvement in the budget position consisted of $20.1bn in higher receipts and a $6.7bn in lower payments.

What is driving this improvement to the budget bottom line is more people in work and less people on welfare.

Updated

The treasurer has just stepped up for his press conference.

First presser announcement off the block this morning:

Just noting that federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg will be giving a press conference in 10 minutes to release the final budget outcome.

Updated

We have our daily Victorian case number graph – it doesn’t make for pleasant viewing:

Updated

Sticking with Victoria for a moment, the health and safety watchdog yesterday charged the Victorian health department with 58 breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, with regards to its hotel quarantine program.

The key charge is that the Department of Health failed to provide a safe working environment for its employees and put non-employees at risk.

The charges relate to Operation Soteria, which was the name of the hotel quarantine program between March and July 2020. It was the breaches of that program that led to the deadly second wave.

The department now faces more than $95m in fines for the breaches, which include failing to appoint infection control experts at hotels and failing to provide training or instructions for the use of personal protective equipment.

In a press release, WorkSafe lays out the charges and the breaches:

In all charges, WorkSafe alleges that Department of Health employees, Victorian Government Authorised Officers on secondment, or security guards were put at risk of serious illness or death through contracting COVID-19 from an infected returned traveller, another person working in the hotels or from a contaminated surface.

This complex investigation took 15 months to complete and involved reviewing tens of thousands of documents and multiple witness interviews.

Updated

Victoria records 1,438 new cases and five deaths

A mammoth rise in Victoria today, recording 1,438 new locally acquired cases.

The state also recorded five deaths overnight.

Updated

One of the education unions in NSW has raised concerns at the state fast-tracking the reopening plan.

The Independent Education Union’s acting NSW secretary Carol Matthews was on Sunrise earlier, and questioned whether school buildings would be properly ventilated by next month:

Look, will we are quite disappointed about the lack of consultation about the changes.

There was no consultation, certainly with the union for the non- government sector, and I don’t know whether our employers were consulted. I suspect they weren’t.

It’s one thing for teachers to be ready for classes – I’m sure they will be – but it’s quite another for the buildings to be ready for the students.

One of the things we have really learnt with this virus is that good ventilation and air filtration is important and you can’t do that overnight.

Updated

Linda Burney, shadow minister for Indigenous Australians, was on RN Breakfast this morning, and said she thinks the reason the number of fully vaccinated First Australians lags so far behind the broader population was due to a “lack of political will”:

There is a lack of political will. I can’t put it down to anything else. The gap is widening in every single jurisdiction, despite the fact that Aboriginal people were supposed to be a priority in the vaccination rollout.

Burney slammed the government for indicating that vaccine hesitancy was the issue, saying it was “patently wrong”:

I am so sick of the federal government using vaccine hesitancy as the reason for this. That is just patently wrong.

Vaccine hesitancy requires a response and if it is the case in some places then the messaging is the important thing, the way things are communicated.

She also said she was informed that some communities in NSW with large Indigenous populations had their vaccines diverted to western Sydney earlier in the outbreak:

General Frewen stated two or three weeks ago that there’d be a vaccination push in 30 communities. We’ve heard nothing since about how that’s going or whether it’s started ... What has happened to that program?

Updated

Australia and the US should work together to build “resilience to China’s economic coercion”, according to a new report, which also argues that Joe Biden’s trade policy is not substantially different from Donald Trump’s America First mantra.

The report – published by the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney – says Australia and the US have increased cooperation on the defence industry, technology and critical minerals, and the Aukus security pact shows that the Biden administration understands the need to work more closely with allies.

But even though the administration has pledged not to leave Australia “alone on the field” in the wake of Beijing’s trade actions, the report’s author Stephen Kirchner observes that China’s commitment to purchasing US goods under a Donald Trump-negotiated “Phase 1” trade deal “continues to damage Australia’s interests”.

The report, titled “A geoeconomic alliance: The potential and limits of economic statecraft”, says the US “has largely dealt itself out of the emerging Indo-Pacific regional trade architecture” by opting out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Kirchner, the international economy director at the US Studies Centre, warns that cooperation between Australia and the US on industry policy, supply chain security and critical minerals “are all vulnerable to being undermined by the US domestic political process”.

He argues that Australia, as a small open economy potentially vulnerable to economic coercion, should focus on engaging the US with reforming the World Trade Organization, while continuing to invest in the international trade promotion and trade defence architecture.

Australia is challenging China’s tariffs on barley and wine through the WTO:

A multilateral approach to fostering resilience to China’s economic coercion should remain a paramount priority for both US and Australian policymakers.

Updated

Let’s talk schools in NSW.

At a crisis cabinet meeting last night, the NSW government decided to bring forward school start dates by a week.

So kindy, year 1 and year 12 students will now return on 18 October.

Years 2, 6 and 11 return on 25 October, and all other grades will resume on 1 November.

Teachers will only be allowed on-site if they are fully vaccinated.

This comes as NSW thunders ahead with its vaccine rollout, looking to cross 63% today and 70% sometime next week.

We will be expecting to hear more details of the plan later today at the daily NSW Covid update.

You can read more on the story here:

Updated

Good morning, Mostafa Rachwani with you this morning to go through the early headlines.

We begin in Queensland, which yesterday recorded only one new case, raising hopes the state has again dodged an outbreak, but Brisbane and the Gold Coast are on high alert after dozens of new exposure sites have been released. Hundreds of people have entered home quarantine over the past week, and mask mandates have been introduced, but there no further restrictions yet. We’re still waiting to see if this will impact the NRL grand final.

In NSW the government will bring forward a return to school. The crisis cabinet decided late yesterday to bring forward schools reopening one week earlier than originally expected.

It comes after the state recorded its worst daily death toll in the pandemic, with 15 deaths recorded yesterday.

Victoria recorded another record number of daily cases yesterday, with 950 locally acquired cases and seven deaths. The state is bracing for more cases and greater strain on its health system, with the outbreak’s peak still uncertain.

It comes as the federal government signed off on a final multibillion-dollar business assistance package for NSW, Victoria and the ACT, with an announcement expected today. The goal with the bailout is to bridge the gap between the date disaster payments are wound down and when states and territories will hit 80% fully vaccinated.

And rumbling along will be the pressure on Scott Morrison to cement an emissions reduction target after state and territory commitments pushed the spotlight on to the federal government.

This comes after Malcolm Turnbull yesterday rubbished the government’s new submarine deal, its dealings with France, and most interestingly, announced he will go to Glasgow for Cop26 while the PM continues to toss up whether to go or not.

As always, we’ll bring you the inevitable rush of press conferences and everything in between. Stay tuned.

Updated

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