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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Lisa Cox, Matilda Boseley and Michael McGowan (earlier)

Western Australia introduces border restrictions with Victoria – as it happened

What happened today, Wednesday 14 July

And that’s where we’ll wrap up for the evening after that late burst of news out of Victoria, South Australia and Queensland. Here are today’s key points:

  • NSW has extended its lockdown for at least an additional two weeks after recording 97 new Covid-19 cases.
  • The state has announced new 24/7 testing clinics in the Fairfield area after workers were forced to wait hours in long queues for tests.
  • Victoria recorded 7 new Covid-19 cases – with an eighth confirmed this evening – and new exposure venues including the MCG.
  • WA reintroduced border restrictions with Victoria with anyone entering WA from the state required to self-quarantine for 14 days.
  • Four men were fined after taking a superyacht from locked down Sydney to Queensland.
  • South Australia has warned it is considering restrictions due to the situations in NSW and Victoria and an exposure venue at Tailem Bend where some customers had not checked in.
  • Queensland listed new exposure venues associated with a confirmed case overseas that had been in the community prior to departure.
  • Speaker Tony Smith announced that he will not contest the next election.

Updated

NSW Health says it is expanding Covid-19 testing clinics in the Fairfield area to include more 24/7 sites.

It comes after workers were forced to wait for hours in long queues for tests.

A statement released this evening says:

Around-the-clock testing is currently operating at the car park of the Endeavour Sports Park on Maud Street in Fairfield.

To support the community, the current drive-through testing clinic at the Fairfield Showground on Smithfield Rd, Prairiewood, will now operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from 6am tomorrow.

A brand-new 24/7 drive-through testing clinic will open in the Mounties Club car park on Humphries Rd, Mount Pritchard from 10am tomorrow.

The hours of operation have been extended at the Wetherill Park 4Cyte Drive-Through Clinic, 22-30 Mansfield Street (enter via 31 Rosetti Street), Wetherill Park, which is now open every day from 7am to 10pm.

These new and expanded testing clinics come in addition to those already operating across the Fairfield LGA:

The Smithfield Clinical Labs Pathology Drive-Through Clinic, Rosford Street Reserve, entry via Rosford Street, Smithfield – opened today, and will operate seven days a week from 8am to 6pm.

The Fairfield Hospital testing clinic is open Mondays to Sundays from 8.30am to 5pm and the nearby Ash Road drive-through clinic is open at Prestons Mondays to Sundays from 8am to 6.30pm.

In addition we are working closely with private pathology providers to support the establishment of new drive-through clinics and extend the hours of existing clinics.

Other drive-through clinics operated by private pathology providers are located at:

  • Club Marconi car park, Prairie Vale Rd, Bossley Park, seven days a week, 8.30am to 6pm
  • Fairfield RSL Club carpark, Bertha St, Fairfield, seven days a week, 8am to 6pm
  • Brenan Park, Bourke St, Smithfield, seven days a week, 6am to 8pm.

There is a new public health alert in Queensland for exposure sites in North Ipswich, Inala and the Brisbane Airport.

Queensland Health has been notified by another country that a positive Covid-19 case detected overseas had been in the community prior to departure.

“We are asking all Queenslanders to regularly monitor the list of exposure venues on the Queensland Health website and follow the public health advice.”

Contact tracing venues and flights can be found at www.health.qld.gov.au/tracing

Updated

South Australia says entrants from Victoria must have Covid test

South Australian police have been holding a press conference.

From midnight tonight, anyone entering the state from Victoria must have a Covid-19 test within 24 hours.

All freight drivers entering the state will also be required to produce evidence of a negative result on arrival from a test that has been undertaken within the 48 hours prior.

SA’s police chief, Grant Stevens, says they are concerned about an exposure site at Tailem Bend where it appeared not all customers at a petrol station and attached cafe had used the QR code to check in.

“This is a major factor in our considerations in relation to next steps for South Australian restrictions,” he said.

“I’m giving people due warning that we are actively considering restrictions for South Australia.

“It is not something we want it do, but given what we are facing in Victoria and New South Wales, we are making decisions that will be in the best interests of South Australia.”

Updated

NSW Health has issued a correction to the list of venues of concern it released earlier.

The Dubbo Woolworths is not a venue of concern. NSW Health says the correct location is Riverwood Woolworths in Sydney on 9 July.

Teacher at Victorian high school tests positive for Covid

A teacher at a Bacchus Marsh high school has tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of cases in Victoria on Wednesday to eight.

Bacchus Marsh Grammar principal Andrew A. Neal confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that the teacher had returned a positive test.

The teacher had been at a school staff day on Monday 12 July but had not been in contact with students on Tuesday or Wednesday, he said.

“As a result of this, all staff who were at the staff day on Monday 12 July have been directed by the Covid-19 public health division department of health to isolate and be tested,” he said.

Neal said that given “the need for testing of virtually all staff and the need for additional cleaning” the school’s Woodlea and Maddingley campuses would be closed on Thursday and Friday.

“This is a fairly fluid situation and we will endeavour to keep parents informed of the situation as it develops as we have further information of any additional public health requirements,” he said.

“At this stage, I would strongly advise that if any student does start to present with any of the recognised Covid symptoms, they are tested as soon as possible as a matter of precaution.”

Neal said the school was waiting for instructions about the appropriate “sanitation and cleaning of the school”, and in the event of “a longer period of confinement for staff” online learning would commence on Monday 19 July.

Updated

NSW Health has updated its list of venues of concern. New venues for close contacts are in Redfern, Fairfield and Cabramatta.

There are a number of new venues for casual contacts in areas including Fairfield, Fairfield Heights, Rosebery and Waterloo.

A Woolworths in Dubbo in western NSW has also been listed as an exposure site on 9 July.

Updated

Here is a little more on the postponement of the Vivid festival announced earlier, including the new dates for the festival:

Sydney’s annual winter festival of light, music and ideas, Vivid, has been put on hold for the second year in a row.

NSW tourism and investment minister Stuart Ayres has announced that in the interests of community health and safety, dates for the 6-28 August festival have been pushed back more than a month, to 17 September until 9 October.

“Vivid Sydney will only proceed if it’s safe to do so,” he said. Ticket holders will be able to transfer their ticket to the new event date or request a refund via the relevant ticket agent

Updated

Residents can apply for Covid disaster payments from tomorrow

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has issued a statement saying residents of the first seven local government areas in Sydney that went in to lockdown will be able to apply for the increased disaster assistance payment from tomorrow:

Eligible workers across the first seven local government areas in New South Wales to go into lockdown will be able to apply for the federal government’s increased Covid-19 disaster payments from tomorrow, Thursday 15 July, enabling payments to be made from Friday, 16 July.

Residents in Bayside, City of Sydney, Canada Bay, Inner West, Randwick, Waverley and Woollahra will be able to apply for the recurring Covid-19 disaster payment tomorrow, while the wider greater Sydney region under lockdown and right across NSW can make an application from Sunday 18 July, enabling payments to be made from Monday, 19 July.

This means that the increased payment of $600 a week for those who have lost more than 20 hours of work, and $375 a week for those who have lost between eight hours or one day and 20 hours of work, will start to arrive a day earlier than anticipated.

The government says payments will start to be paid the day after application.

Payments will then be reoccurring on the Thursday for Bayside, City of Sydney, Canada Bay, Inner West, Randwick, Waverley and Woollahra, and Sunday/Monday for the remainder of NSW for subsequent weeks.

Updated

I have a clarification on some earlier figures about the number of people at the MCG for the Carlton v Geelong game on Saturday.

The positive case was sitting in level two of the MCC member’s reserve.

There were 2,000 people on that level. There were 8,000 in the MCC member’s reserve. And there were 31,000 people in total at the game itself.

People in level 2 of the member’s reserve have been classed as tier two contacts, meaning they have to get tested immediately and isolate until they get a positive result.

Everyone else in the MCG is tier 3, meaning they have to monitor for symptoms and get tested should any appear.

Updated

If you’ve been following news about Australia’s lobbying efforts to avoid a Unesco world heritage in danger listing for the Great Barrier Reef, my colleague, Graham Readfearn, has an update for you.

Australia has gained the support of oil-rich Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

The two nations, both members of the 21-country committee, are co-sponsoring amendments seen by the Guardian that back Australia and ask the world heritage committee to push back a key decision until at least 2023.

Ley is in Europe for a week of meetings and the government is also hosting ambassadors at the reef for a snorkelling trip on Thursday.

Speaker Tony Smith won't contest next election

In news that shouldn’t surprise people who have been watching the last few months, Victorian MP Tony Smith, who serves as the Speaker in the parliament, has announced he will not contest the next election.

Smith was first elected as the Casey MP in 2001.

He’s genuinely well liked across both sides of the chamber, and in the last few months has made it somewhat of a personal mission to clean up question time in an attempt to bring back some decorum and professionalism to the place.

He’ll serve out the term and then step down at the next election. He joins Scott Ryan, a Victorian senator who serves as the president of the Senate (Smith’s equivalent in the other place) in retirement, meaning no matter who wins the next election, there will need to be two new presiding officers in the parliament.

Updated

With that I will hand you over to Lisa Cox for the afternoon shift.

Four men fined after taking superyacht from Sydney to Queensland

Four men have been fined $1,000 after travelling on a superyacht from Sydney to Queensland last week.

NSW Police have released a statement saying the four men include two Victorians aged 44 and 58, and two Queenslanders, aged 53 and 55.

They boarded a superyacht vessel and travelled from a yacht club at Pittwater NSW on Monday 5 July, to a marina at the Gold Coast, Queensland, arriving on Wednesday 7 July 2021, in breach of the Public Health Order.

Upon arrival, the men were directed by Queensland Police to be placed in hotel quarantine and were dealt with by Queensland authorities.

Following further inquiries, officers from Marine Area Command issued each of the men with PINs for travel from metropolitan Sydney area to place in NSW outside area – individual.

Updated

In news that will perhaps not surprise many of you, Sydney’s Vivid festival has been pushed back to September “in the interest of community health and safety”.

New South Wales tourism minister Stuart Ayres said:

We all want to see Sydney shine through the spectacular show of creativity and innovation that is Vivid Sydney in September and October this year.

The recent outbreak has presented a new challenge for everyone, and the health and safety of our citizens and entire event community involved in Vivid Sydney is our foremost concern.

Updated

New Zealanders encouraged to consider returning home from Victoria

New Zealand’s Covid-19 response minister Chris Hipkins has encouraged residents currently in Victoria to “organise to get home as soon as possible”, saying health officials in the country are reviewing the situation in the state after it reported seven new cases of the virus on Wednesday.

In a statement released on Wednesday Hipkins said:

There are also a growing number of locations of interest that are of concern, including a sports stadium on Saturday and several pubs.

Public health officials are currently reviewing the situation in Victoria and will provide advice to me in due course.

In the meantime I want to encourage anyone with concerns about the potential of a pause to Quarantine Free Travel, to organise to get home as soon as possible.

You will still need a negative pre-departure test within 72 hours of departure, to complete a health declaration confirming you have not been at a location of interest and the Nau Mai Rā travel declaration.

I will provide an update once I receive further information from public health officials.”

Updated

WA introduces border restrictions to Victorians.

Ahead of that press conference, the Western Australia premier Mark McGowan has announced that Victoria has been declared a “low risk” jurisdiction, meaning any arrivals from the state will be required to self-isolate for 14 days and have a Covid-19 test on arrival.

Western Australia’s state emergency coordinator Chris Dawson and chief health officer Andy Robertson will hold a press conference at 3pm (that’s 5pm AEST) to “discuss WA’s response to the developing Victorian Covid situation”.

The head of Victoria’s coronavirus response says he is “extremely frustrated” by delays in getting information from Sydney removalists who worked in Melbourne while infectious, as his state reports seven new positive cases.

Asked on Wednesday if he believed the crew were deliberately withholding information, Victoria’s coronavirus response commander, Jeroen Weimar, said: “Well, they’re not being deliberately forthcoming, you can put it that way.”

“Books will be thrown when it’s time, when it’s appropriate to throw them,” he said.

I am exceptionally frustrated at the timing and the pacing of information coming from the removalists … it is my concern that we haven’t had quick and transparent exposure of all information.”

Here’s Calla Wahlquist’s full report on the developing situation in Melbourne:

Updated

Smiley face emoji.

US military plane passenger tests positive for Covid

A planeload of US military personnel in the Northern Territory have been declared close contacts after a fellow passenger tested positive for Covid-19.

The infected woman, who is a serving member of the US Army, arrived in Darwin on Thursday 8 July before being diagnosed with the virus late on Monday.

AAP reports the 22-year-old is one of about 9000 foreign service personnel in Australia for the Talisman Sabre 2021 military war games, which started on Wednesday.

She was quarantined at the US Marine-leased Bladin Village workers camp, 36km south of Darwin, with about 1000 other US servicemen and women when she tested positive.

The woman has since been moved into the red zone at the Centre for National Resilience in Howard Springs, with her fellow passengers now considered close contacts, NT Health says.

“All personnel that travelled on the aircraft with the US Army member that tested positive are being treated as close contacts,” a spokeswoman said.

“They are undertaking quarantine procedures at Bladin Village including daily checks.”

A defence spokesman said the woman did not come into contact with the community while infectious.

Updated

Sky News reported the government was considering establishing a quarantine facility for up to 250 people at a time using Christmas Island detention centre facilities, which would run between July and October to avoid extreme weather.

But a spokesperson for the home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, said Christmas Island did not meet the government’s requirements for a dedicated quarantine facility, which include being no more than an hour’s drive away from a tertiary hospital, within proximity to an international airport and managed by either the states or territories.

“Those reports are inaccurate,” the spokesperson said.

Former home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, who now holds the defence portfolio, also disputed the Christmas Island detention centre was under consideration, and said any upgrade of the facilities would be in response to housing asylum seekers and refugees.

...The work at home affairs is doing there has got nothing to do with the government announced arrangements with Victoria so far, or what we have proposed in Queensland, and what we will work on with other jurisdictions.

The Refugee Council of Australia estimates there are about 228 people currently in detention in the North West Point detention centre on Christmas Island.

Updated

Victoria Health has published some new tier one Covid-19 exposure points. Anyone who has attended these locations during the relevant times must get tested immediately and quarantine for 14 days.

They include:

  • Ferguson Plarre Bakehouses, Highpoint Shopping Centre Level, 200 Rosamond Road Maribyrnong from 10am to 10:40am on 9/7/2021
  • Maribyrnong Aquatic Centre, 1 Aquatic Drive Maribyrnong, 10am to 11.30am on 10/7/2021
  • Vanilla Lounge, 17-21 Eaton Mall, Oakleigh, from 2.45pm to 4:30pm on 9/7/2021
  • Young & Jackson, 1 Swanston Street, Melbourne, from 2.40pm to 4.10pm on 10/7/2021

You can find the full list of exposure sites in Victoria here.

Western Australia set to lock out NSW travellers for another two months

Western Australia is set to lock out people from NSW for at least another two months and potentially longer as Sydney recorded 97 new local cases on Tuesday.

WA has further tightened exemptions for travellers from NSW, including those granted on compassionate grounds.

“WA residents wanting to enter from NSW are not guaranteed right of entry, and need to demonstrate extenuating circumstances to be granted approval to enter WA,” the latest travel advice published this week said.

“The state emergency coordinator will only approve an individual after consideration of all of the circumstances, including the public health risks.”

NSW is classed by WA as a medium-risk jurisdiction, denying entry to anyone who cannot secure highly restricted exemptions.

Chief health officer Andy Robertson said that would remain the case for “at least two months and possibly more”.

He told Perth radio 6PR people wanting to get back from NSW had been given ample time to do so before the restrictions were tightened.

Obviously if you have very good reason to come back to WA, there might be a very ill family member or a spouse who’s having a baby or whatever the case may be, then obviously there are good circumstances.

But this is not the time to go over for a holiday in NSW, or to go over for work, on the off-chance that ‘oh I’m a West Australian and therefore I can get back in’ – you may not be able to.

WA recorded no new coronavirus cases on Wednesday.

Updated

Dutton is helpfully speaking now and has addressed that Sky report. He seems to be watering down the possibility of using Christmas Island for overseas returnees, saying what is being proposed would not certainly not be for returning Australians.

That is not what is proposed to Christmas Island, obviously when we decided to close the borders first to the Wuhan province and then with the rest of China [at] the commencement of this virus 18 months ago, we did [house] some people at Christmas Island, that was on a temporary basis.

Dutton says there is no tertiary hospital facility at Christmas Island, or significant ICU capacity.

There will be an upgrade I am sure at some stage in Christmas Island, no doubt home affairs will be looking at that, because if there is a boat that turns up tomorrow ... obviously they want to be able to provide for those people to be accommodated in Covid-safe ways that have not been relevant in years past.

Updated

Just on those (unconfirmed) reports from Sky, here is a transcript of former home affairs minister Peter Dutton in April telling the ABC the Christmas Island facility was not “fit for purpose” for overseas returnees.

I’d love to tell you that air bases or the Christmas Island facility is fit for purpose, but it’s not. The accommodation is quite austere at our air bases. There is not the segregation of facilities such as the mess and where people need to come together in blocks for, you know, showers or toilets or whatever it might be. It just is not fit for purpose.”

Updated

Via Sky News.

Coronavirus testing at Fairfield showground
Coronavirus testing at Fairfield showground. Many locals have waited hours to receive the test due to large case numbers in the area. Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian

Lines at the Fairfield showground testing site snaked through the huge carparks and up past the entry of the park, spilling out onto Smithfield Road.

Many of the people we spoke with at the entry had already been waiting up to an hour, with another hour or two wait at minimum.

Ben Bona had been there from 6.30am, hoping to get in and out early. He said the state government could have better prepared local testing sites for the rush after yesterday’s announcement.

If the staff knew beforehand, and could prepare, that would have taken a big load off their backs. I think that should have been done by the government first and foremost.

It just seemed to come out of nowhere. Obviously it is frustrating, it is taking time off from the work that I have to do. But, there’s no point complaining. What can you do.”

Vesna Mostrarc works in logistics for fashion brand Gucci, joking that “rich people still need to shop in lockdown”.

She had just completed an overnight shift, but has been forced to get a test before going home and resting.

Vesna Mostrarc. Coronavirus testing at Fairfield showground. Long queues that snaked around the Fairfield showground carpark continued. Many locals have waited hours to receive the test due to large case numbers in the area. Coronavirus, covid, testing, tests, NSW, Australia.
Vesna Mostrarc waiting to be tested. Photograph: Carly Earl/The Guardian

I’ve been waiting for hours now, it’s ridiculous. It’s crazy how many people are here.

I think the rules are a little contradictory, there’s just a lot happening, before we were supposed to get the test and stay home, now we can continue to go everywhere but still have to get tested every three days.

It’s just silly.

Kas Ahmed, a traffic controller at the site, ushered us over and said the lines were “nothing”.

“Come after 3pm, it’ll be packed,” he said, “It’s minimum two to three hours wait then”.

Updated

If you’re still catching up on the unfolding situation in Victoria, AAP have published this handy guide to the outbreaks there following the announcement of seven new cases in the state.

The ‘removalist cluster’ now includes the following cases:

  • Two of a group of three NSW removalists who tested positive for coronavirus after they did jobs in Craigieburn and the Ariele Apartments in Maribyrnong on Thursday, July 8, while infectious
  • Four residents from the third floor of the Ariele Apartments
  • A resident in his 60s passed on the virus to his parents, aged 89 and 90, who live in Craigieburn

The following exposure sites are now attached to that cluster:

  • Ariele Apartments, which is now in lockdown
  • Highpoint shopping centre including The Reject Shop, SkinKandy and level 1 north car park, visited by the man in his 60s on Friday, 9 July, between 11.10am and 12.35pm
  • Level 2 of MCC Members’ Reserve of the Melbourne Cricket Ground, visited by the man in his 60s on Saturday, 10 July, between 4pm and 8pm
  • ALDI Maribyrnong, near the apartment complex, visited by a case on Friday, 9 July, between 5.30pm and 6.10pm
  • Caltex and Hungry Jacks Kalkallo, visited by the removalists on 8 July
  • Mobil and McDonald’s Ballan, visited by the removalists on 8 July

The Hume family cluster now includes these cases:

  • A family of four returned from NSW, three by car and one by plane on 4 July and 8 July. All four have progressively tested positive since Sunday
  • A man in his 30s who attended Coles Craigieburn at the same time as one of the family members

The cluster includes the following exposure sites:

  • Coles Craigieburn Central visited by one of the family members on 10 July
  • Metro Petroleum Broadmeadows visited by one of the family members on 11 July

Updated

Still on vaccines, where the federal government’s rollout continues to face, er, challenges.

This morning Scott Morrison went on Sydney radio station 2GB where he seemed to blame Australia’s top doctors for the slow rollout of Covid-19 vaccines.

In an interview with 2GB Radio on Wednesday, the prime minister said “very cautious” decisions by the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisations (Atagi) had slowed the rollout “considerably” and “put us behind”.

Here’s Paul Karp’s full story:

Updated

If you missed today’s New South Wales press conference with premier Gladys Berejiklian, here’s our video snapshot.

That data on people waiting for Pfizer is perhaps not surprising, given the public messaging over AstraZeneca but, as the Australian Medical Association’s Omar Khorshid said back in May, those older than 70 who have refused AZ may now find themselves with a longer wait.

“Now, if you’re over the age of 70 and you decline AstraZeneca you may be waiting until the end of the year for an alternative,” he said at the time.

Updated

Good afternoon from locked down, rainy Sydney.

This data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics certainly has some interesting figures on the proportion of older Australians who are apparently waiting for the Pfizer vaccine to be more widely available before getting vaccinated.

Confusion and frustration reigns at the Fairfield Showground testing site today, with essential workers and local residents waiting for hours on end in their cars.

Yesterday’s announcement that essential workers from the Fairfield LGA need to be tested every three days sparked a rush on the venue, as locals lined up to follow the government’s mandate.

Jan Daod runs a cleaning company. He told me he’d been in line for hours already, and that the new testing mandate had thrown his life into chaos.

I’ve been waiting for two hours. I can’t do my job, I have to do the test and wait 24 hours, and then get tested again in three days. How can I work? I can’t work.

Daod said he’d tried to get tested yesterday, waiting in line until 7pm before being told the site had closed, and so he’s returned today to try and get tested. The frustration was clear in his voice.

Lara Trkulja, an essential healthcare worker, held back tears as she explained her frustrations at the mandate.

It’s insane that I have to do this. I’ve been waiting here for an hour and a half, and we’re barely close. It’s just too draining at the moment. You come home emotionally and physically drained, and then you have to line up again. It’s just too much.

They’ve got to have more pop up clinics to do this, they got to have other plans in place.

Updated

OK, with that I will hand you over to Michael McGowan to take you through the rest of the afternoon.

Updated

Noooo! OK as a rule I don’t generally share missing pet posts (because then there would be nothing else blog at all) but this missing dog shares a name with my cat, Astro, so we all need to help find him (without breaching lockdown rules, of course.)

Thanks.

Updated

Just on that MCG exposure site:

Updated

That man also visited Highpoint Shopping Centre from 10am to 2pm on Friday. Contact tracers are still narrowing down the stores, but anyone who was at Highpoint between those hours is asked to get tested as soon as possible.

From the Ariele aprtment cases, there is also an exposure site at the MCG for the Geelong v Carlton game on Saturday. They were seated in the level 2 of the MCC reserve. There were 2.000 people in the members’ reserve, and up to 9,000 at the game.

Victoria’s Covid commander, Jeroen Weimar, says he understands the removalists were not wearing masks. Two of those removalists, who returned to Sydney via Adelaide, have since tested positive. Also, it turns out they were driving two trucks not one.

Weimar is “exceptionally frustrated” at how unforthcoming the removalist crew and their employer has been, but said he is more concerned with following the chains of transmission than fining them just now.

“Books will be thrown when it’s time, when it’s appropriate to throw them,” he said.

The other exposure sites for the removalists are the Mobil and McDonalds at the Western Freeway at Ballan. 45 close contacts have been identified, to date none have tested positive.

Another exposure site, the Caltex and Hungry Jacks on the Hume Freeway at Kalkallo, was identified overnight.

Updated

Victoria has recorded seven new cases of Covid-19, in addition to the one new case reported this morning.

I’ll give you the quick breakdown:

The new case reported earlier this morning was the final member of a family of four who moved to Melbourne from Sydney last week. The other three tested positive yesterday. They live in the City of Hume, in Melbourne’s north.

On Saturday, between 5.30pm and 6.30pm, one member of that family, who are all supposed to be isolating for 14 days under a red zone permit, went to the Coles supermarket at Craigieburn Central. The next day they went to Metro Petroleum Broadmeadows petrol station.

Contact tracing has identified 70 people who were at the Coles at the same time. One of them, a man in his 30s, has tested positive. He is the first of the seven new cases.

Next, the removalists. This crew of three drove from Sydney to Melbourne, arriving early Thursday morning, doing a drop off in Craigieburn then spending several hours picking up furniture in the Ariele apartments in Maribyrnong.

That entire apartment complex — 79 apartments, about 130 residents — was put into a 14-day lockdown yesterday. Four residents across two apartments on the third floor have now tested positive.

The family whose furniture was being picked up have not tested positive. They are in hotel quarantine.

One of the people who tested positive at the Ariele apartments is a man in his 60s. His parents, aged 89 and 90, have also tested positive. It’s understood they are not in an aged care home.

Updated

Andrew Barr! I thought we had spoken about this!

You have to find a better time to drop the ACT Covid-19 numbers. It just feels like a flex at this point.

Covid-19 positive Sydney removalists were not wearing masks at Melbourne apartment building

Australia will give 1.5 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to Vietnam this year, according to foreign affairs minister Marise Payne.

Updated

Here is the Greens’ take on the new federal lockdown support package.

WA senator Rachel Siewert:

This package fails to acknowledge that people on income support need additional help as well, that they work too and have lost hours and would also have lost income.

Almost half of people on the jobseeker payment have an illness or disability, meaning they will need to isolate and require extra services like grocery or medication delivery. How can they afford that living below the poverty line?

You cannot on the one hand say that people should stay home, and then not provide adequate support for people to do so.

Once again government is ignoring people on income support and those living in poverty.

Updated

I may or may not have started laughing and tearing up at the same time when the Victorian cases were announced midway through the NSW presser.

I need a coffee.

The new head of the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) will use his first speech in the role to set a goal of the country’s electricity grids being capable of running on 100% renewable energy in just four years time.

Daniel Westerman, who started as Aemo chief executive in May, says it would be uncharted territory for any large, independent electricity grid across the globe to have that capacity. He wants it by 2025.

“This must be our goal not because of personal ambition, politics or ideology, but because we know this is where we’re headed,” he will tell a lunch hosted by the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia, according to speaking notes released ahead of the talk.

A combination of technical innovation, economics, government policies and consumer choice is driving the energy transition faster than it ever has before.

Westerman will say South Australia has already passed a “world-first milestone” of 100% instantaneous renewable energy in the middle of the day. Across the national grid, the highest level reached at a given moment has been 52%. In Western Australia, which has its own grid, it is 65%.

He will describe reaching greater solar and wind capacity for the east and west coast power grids as a “difficult engineering challenge”. He says it requires more regular manual intervention by Aemo control room staff to ensure grid security is maintained.

Westerman will also say gas-fired power – a fossil fuel the government is backing with hundreds of millions of dollars of public support – is currently an invaluable part of the electricity system as “it can be called on for short periods or long”.

He says gas is “incredibly flexible, but might not be used very often”. He cites Snowy Hydro’s controversial Kurri Kurri gas plant proposal, which may run at only 2% of its capacity across a year.

His speech says:

Even at 2% of the time, dispatchable generation like this [gas] unlocks many multiples of low-cost renewable generation capacity into the market by providing the security for when the sun isn’t shining, the wind isn’t blowing, and other storage can’t bridge the gap.

Updated

Wallabies star denied citizenship

We reported yesterday that former Wallabies star Quade Cooper had a bid for Australian citizenship rejected, despite playing more than 70 tests for Australia.

Cooper was born in New Zealand but came to Australia when he was just 13. He’s since played for the country at two world cups and won a Super Rugby championship with the Queensland Reds.

Still, it was apparently not enough for the home affairs department to confer him citizenship.

Farcical stuff.

Now home affairs minister Karen Andrews has stuck to the hard-line. She told Brisbane radio that the decision to give someone citizenship was not done “lightly”.

Andrews:

Absolutely no question he’s [Cooper] been a fantastic athlete, an inspiration to so many Australians ... but conferring citizenship on someone is not a decision the government ever takes lightly.

We need to make sure that they are going through the right processes, there’s certainly opportunity for individuals if they have a case for review they can go through that process.

We do ask people to provide all the information that is asked of them so that we have an opportunity to assess their application properly.

The NSW press conference has closed with a question on is it will be tools down at NSW government construction sites, given Berejiklian’s insistence that as many people as possible stay home from work.

Berejiklian:

Generally speaking, people at those worksites have CovidSafe plans in place. We have confidence that they’re being followed.

What is of concern is smaller and medium-sized businesses that have workers going to multiple sites, a tradie for example, might have multiple sites. So unless the work you’re doing is keeping someone alive or keeping someone going, think twice before you leave your house and that is the strongest message.

If your business is suffering as a result, come to the Service New South Wales to get help. If you’re an individual person experiencing stress because we’ve asked you to stay at home, please ring Services Australia where the federal government is providing that support.

Updated

Just a little more from Victoria:

Here is more from that Melbourne press conference.

Gosh, the NSW leaders really do not want people to be going to work. Essential or not.

Reporter:

If people went leaving for essential work, the numbers would come down more quickly?

Berejiklian:

Exactly right. We are saying really think about whether the job you are undertaking is absolutely essential...

As Dr Chant has said most of the transmission at workplaces has been happening at places like supermarkets which have to stay open, health facilities or through mobile workforces.

And that is why we have put the rules in place around what we call surveillance testing for workers who are on multiple sides or workers who are leaving the Fairfield local government area. That is why we are putting that extra measure of surveillance testing.

If you must leave home, think about it. If you build that you must leave home, think about whether you must leave home to conduct your work. Now, with the financial support package in lace, people should feel confident at. Have a conversation with your boss.

The financial support measures in place are to prevent people from leaving home.

Here is Chant’s answer to that modelling question:

So the key metrics are about mobility and movement. That is one of the imports. As well as how quickly we are getting to the cases.

There are various different models. While I can say to the community is that we need to decrease our movements, particularly in the areas of south-western Sydney and Canterbury-Bankstown, St George, Sutherland, that sort of area.

We need to take this seriously and contemplate our need to leave the home. We want to look closely at that mobility data. We have seen some response but it needs to be better. We need less mobility to get a handle on this. But also, within the big picture model the modelling is our individual behaviours. That is around how we interact with households.

Updated

The premier has been asked if the current data and modelling shows that it will take two weeks to get non-isolating case numbers down to zero, or longer.

Berejiklian:

A lot of the data which is predictive relies on human behaviour.

It relies on all of us doing the right thing. I would love to be able to predict what proportion, I would love to be able to predict what proportion of our population will stick to the rules.

We know the settings we have in place of the right settings. What we don’t know is what proportion of the population will choose to follow those settings.

That is why I want to thank those people in the community who have really responded. We can’t thank you enough.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian at a press conference to provide a COVID-19 update in Sydney.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian at a press conference to provide a COVID-19 update in Sydney. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

SBS reporter Amelia Dunn:

Victoria is the only other state that has had an outbreak of the same size and length of lockdown.

They have been able to suppress more than once now but they have gone much harder. Are you seeking advice from them? They have gone through it before.

Berejiklian:

It is very difficult to compare apples and oranges given the Delta strain ... The Victorian government waited far longer than we did to go into the lockdown situation.

I don’t think it is fair to compare because every state has different circumstances and a different way of dealing with the virus. Please note that we have always taken the position in New South Wales that will keep the community safe but also make sure that we keep livelihoods going.

We think we have the right balance, based on the health advice, based on the response we have had from the community. We will always base our decisions on the health advice we have.

Updated

Reporter:

In regards to their three-day testing regime, you mentioned this morning, for the people in those LGAs, it is a disincentive to go to work if you have to get tested three days a week. Are you going to extend to other LGAs?

Berejiklian:

It is a fact that the majority of cases are in that local government area. It involves thousands of workers considering their position and is the health advice. That is why it is limited to that local government act area ... that is why we are saying to those people, if you have don’t have symptoms and on your way to work, please get tested in and around your workplace.

Beyond that, the health advice has not changed. If the changes we will advise the community. It is important, both Dr Chant and I have stressed this morning that the mobility data in Fairfield is looking good. Please keep that up, stay at home.

We need that mobility limited also in the adjoining local government areas to make sure that those areas don’t have an event or situation where suddenly we get another huge cluster of cases.

Updated

Seven new local cases in Victoria

Updated

Oh dear.

Reporter to NSW treasurer Dominic Perrottet:

Some businesses say they would save more money cutting employee shifts. What is the incentive to keep staff?

Perrottet:

The incentive is that workers across the state are still on the books so they can apply through services Australia for that payment. Of up to $600 per week. What we want to see is that connection between workers and the business continue through this lockdown period.

So the important part of this announcement yesterday is that if you are a worker who has had their hours reduced but still employed, you can apply through Services Australia for that payment.

In addition, the financial business package we put together will enable businesses to alleviate in terms of the costs of workers to put those funds into their other fixed costs. These packages don’t work in isolation, they work together.

That is why we want to reiterate the point the premiere made to people right across the state, for workers to contact services Australia and for businesses to contact Service NSW.

Updated

So what about HSC students? Let’s hear what Berejiklian has to say.

There are special concessions for year 12 students and Health and Education have been working together and for families going through, supporting a student during the HSC.

Every provision will be put in place, every step to provide as little disruption as possible, the education department and Health are working very closely together to make sure you 12 can be accommodated and when every other student is pretty much staying at home.

Yesterday I wanted to report that across the state, in the Fairfield local government area, only 1% of students turned up to school. In other parts, as low as 3%-5%.

We have seen households responding and we are deeply grateful for that but please note, because stay learning is in place, it provides capacity to support HSC students.

Updated

So it seems like there will be increased testing capacity in Fairfield, but details on exactly what that will look like are pretty few and far between.

The main message seems to be telling essential workers from the LGA to get tested near their workplaces rather than close to home.

Berejiklian:

Our message today is we are increasing testing capacity across those key areas but our strongest message is, if you have symptoms in Fairfield, go to the closest testing clinic, get tested and isolate.

But if you are subject to the new health orders which say you are a worker leaving Fairfield but you don’t have symptoms, the recommendation and advice is to go to a clinic closest to your workplace, and these other reasons.

When you have an outbreak within a concentrated area, it’s not just testing you have to focus on, you need to focus on good healthcare in the hospital system and the GP network and vaccinations reduce the stress of the moment.

That is a good thing to do, so this is a decision or advice we are providing to ease pressure, not just on testing, testing is one aspect.

Updated

The chief health officer has been asked if there is there another transmission case in the Bondi Junction locked-down apartment block, and what her advice is to people living there?

What we are highlighting is, I think I’ve mentioned this a few times over recent days, we have issued an order requiring people to wear masks in their common areas, so as soon as they get into the apartment building, they are required to put a mask on.

We encourage that strata management and others don’t open any of the shared spaces where people may be congregating because the whole concept of the order, the public health order, is that the household is your exact household, so there are no opportunities for interactions, so we are concerned to make sure we put in those additional measures so that if anyone inadvertently is infectious in an apartment building, it minimises the spread.

Even for instance making sure that in terms of journeying up the lifts and other things, you don’t have overcrowded lifts, saw the precautions you can take to keep those interaction points minimal is important.

Updated

Chant says some people should consider getting their second dose of AstraZeneca as soon as four weeks after the first in exceptional circumstances.

Clearly, what we’re saying is particularly in greater Sydney, I have said openly that if you have had your AstraZeneca shots over four weeks ago, contact your GP and talk about bringing the second dose forward from the 12 week mark to around six to eight weeks.

But if you are in certain areas where you know you are in even greater risk, as low as four weeks is acceptable. We will have to vaccinate again against Covid and will have further advice about boosters but, in the context of an outbreak. what we want to do is give people the advice so that they are protected.

We know that even one those is helpful in protecting against hospitalisation but two doses is more effective. So my message would be, if you have not had your dose of AstraZeneca and you are particularly over 60, but because we still want to see that coverage in over 60s, please book in for an appointment.

If you are due for your second dose and you had your first dose over four weeks ago, call your doctor and see if they want to bring you in earlier. Our guidance is six to eight weeks but in certain circumstances your doctor might want to do it as low as four weeks.

Updated

Chant says there isn’t currently the scale to provide at-home testing widely in the Fairfield LGA:

We are actively looking at antigen testing and other testing that could be used at scale. At the moment they are not at scale. We have great capacity across our system for testing.

We have seen the numbers jump up to 65,000 and we have had times when it is 70,000. I think my key messages would be, we are continuing to look at any testing methods that can target people and we have different processes in place for close contacts and people at risk because they need to get tested quickly, but for this surveillance testing, please drop off at a clinic on your way to essential work. Or on your essential work.

We have good capacity. Don’t get the test in Fairfield. Consider if you really do need to go to your work, if it is essential, if it is, get tested as close as possible to that site.

Updated

So the talk of the town in this outbreak is the isolation status of the new local cases.

Here is a breakdown of all the cases since 27 June showing exactly how many of them were in the community while infecious.

The premier has been asked if she is willing to admit that the government “stuffed up” yesterday, not being clear enough about when the new Fairfield testing rules come into effect, and where people are allowed to go to get tested.

And, nope, she isn’t.

Berejiklian:

I think the community appreciates that the best thing to do is to get the advice to the community as quickly as possible and then, of course, the operational support is required.

That is why today, based on the health advice, based on the operational requirements, we are saying, to ease pressure, and it is not just the clinics and testing capacity but also the traffic condition as well ... if you do not have symptoms and you have to leave the area for work, you cannot stay at home and you have to work, you can get tested near your workplace.

And that is to take pressure off the system. Governments and departments and everyone providing the support needs to be flexible and nimble. We need to be flexible and nimble during this pandemic. We have to respond to what is going on and we will always be upfront and say it like it is.

Updated

OK, it’s time to talk about those colossal car queues outside the Fairfield Covid-19 testing hubs.

Berejiklian says people in Fairfield can visit testing sites near their work if queues are too long in the LGA.

Can I make this point. If you have symptoms, you should not be going to work. If you have symptoms, go to the closest clinic to get tested and then go home and isolate until you get a result or receive health advice.

If you are an essential worker or someone who cannot work from home and must conduct particular work living in the Fairfield local government act area, you can get tested next to your place of work.

If you don’t have symptoms and need to conduct work outside your home, you cannot do it inside the house, you can get tested at the closest place to your workplace as opposed to in the Fairfield area, to take pressure off their field.

We accept the people had to wait a long time, we experience this as well as the Northern Beaches. What is important for us is to communicate our decisions as quickly as we can and then provide that operational support.

Updated

Once again Berejiklian has been pushed to concede that she locked down too late at the start of the outbreak.

And once again she stands firm in her decisions:

Our decisions are always based on health advice. I have as many people telling us we went too early as saying we went too late.

Our job as government is to make decisions based on health advice and data and that is what we will continue to do.

I appreciate people are stressed and upset about what is going on, myself included. None of us want to be in this situation. But it is our job to keep the community safe as well as make sure we keep jobs going for the future, which is what we have done with our economic package. We have taken the health response and obviously a broader business and economic response which is really important.

It is important for us to keep relying on science and data. And also relying on people doing the right thing.

Surfers move along the Bondi Beach boardwalk on July 14, 2021 in Sydney.
Surfers move along the Bondi Beach boardwalk on July 14, 2021 in Sydney. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Updated

Berejiklian has been asked if two weeks will really be enough to get case numbers down to zero:

Remember, we have said that the number of infections in the community we want to get down to zero.

If we have cases in isolation, that is less of a concern to us and I want to make that clear. The number that would worry us in the last 24 hours is the 24 number. Twenty-four people were infectious in the community. We need to get that down to as close to zero as possible. The advice on the two weeks is provided through health.

We will know at the end of two weeks to what extent we need to extend the lockdown, whether there is any chance of face-to-face schooling.

What I don’t want to do is provide guesswork to the community. The community deserve certainty and the community needs to know exactly what decisions the New South Wales government has made. Every time we communicate something to you, we will provide certainty.

The reason why we want to provide that two-week period at least is so that parents who are teaching children or supervising children from home know that unfortunately for an additional two weeks at least their children will need to learn from home.

Updated

Here is the NSW treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, laying out the new financial supports now available in conjunction with the federal government.

We have heard a lot of this before but here he is on the new protections from evictions:

We also provided yesterday important protections for tenants. Whether you are a commercial tenant, residential or retail tenant, there will be no lockouts or evictions.

As a residential tenant there will be no forced evictions for 60 days. Mandatory mediation is in place as well as support.

I encourage all landlords to speak to their tenants and, if your tenant is struggling, to engage with them in a payment plan, a reduction in rents and we will provide an equivalent offset in terms of your land tax obligations.

And for landlords in the residential space who do not pay land tax, we will provide up to $1500 for you to pass that onto your tenant to help them through this difficult period.

Updated

Here is the deputy police commissioner Gary Worboys:

A very challenging situation last night at Fairfield around those testing centres.

New South Wales police deployed additional resources to that area the one reason. That is to help out those people to assist our friends at Health to look after the people of Fairfield, to provide them with some information, some reassurance around those lines and the testing centres, and hours of operation.

We will continue to do that right today, right throughout the next few days, until such times as we get some sort of sense of normality about it.

The local superintendent will work with the police operation centre, has done last night, into the next few days, to arrive at the very best traffic plans, the best communication plans, to work with our friends at Health and local government, to make sure the testing regime has been adopted in that Fairfield area runs as smoothly as it can.

Long queues of cars are seen at a pop up Covid testing clinic at the Fairfield Showgrounds in Sydney.
Long queues of cars are seen at a pop up Covid testing clinic at the Fairfield Showgrounds in Sydney. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

Here are the hospitalisation numbers for today.

Chant:

We currently have 71 Covid patients admitted to hospital and there are 20 people in ICU, four of whom are ventilated. Of the 21 people in ICU, one is in their 20s, two are in their 30s, two in their 40s, five in their 50s, five in the 60s, three in 70s and two in 80s.

The reason I take the time to read out those age profiles, it really is to dispel the misconception that Covid is mild and younger age groups.

Yes it is less likely to lead to hospitalisations in younger age groups but it still can be a serious illness admission to ICU so it’s important to keep ourselves and loved ones safe so please follow the public health advice.

Updated

Chant:

Of today’s cases, the vast majority were in south-western Sydney.

Seventy are from south-western Sydney local health district and most of these are from the local government area of Fairfield.

The areas of concern are Fairfield local government area, Roselands, Rosebury, Canterbury, Belmore, Sutherland shire, the St George area, Windsor, St Ives, Penrith and Bayside local government area.

Updated

NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant says there are some unlinked cases in today’s numbers.

New South Wales recorded 97 locally acquired cases of Covid in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.

The majority of the close contacts and household contacts are in this number but we are seeing unlinked cases of the source of which are actively being investigated.

The pattern as indicated is household transmission but we are seeing some in workplaces, so again, a reminder that for those essential businesses, they ensure they have those Covid-safe practices in place.

Updated

Greater Sydney lockdown extended for at least two weeks

Berejiklian:

Based on the health advice I said I would provide information on the lockdown.

And it always hurts to say this, but we need to extend the lockdown for at least another two weeks.

That includes upon learning.

We will assess the situation at the end of those two weeks and provide information beyond that.

Bondi Beach primary school in Sydney.
Bondi Beach primary school in Sydney. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Updated

Berejiklian says the movement of people in Sydney’s south-west is still too high.

She also thanked all those in the Fairfield LGA who came out to get tested yesterday.

Updated

NSW records 97 local Covid-19 cases overnight.

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian is speaking now:

To 8pm last night, New South Wales recorded 97 cases of community transmission. Unfortunately, 24 of those were infectious in the community.

Members of the public and health workers at a pop up Covid testing clinic at the Fairfield Showgrounds in Sydney.
Members of the public and health workers at a pop up Covid testing clinic at the Fairfield Showgrounds in Sydney. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

Just a reminder that we are standing by now for the NSW premier to stand up and deliver a Covid-19 update at 11am.

VICTORIA! You should know better than to schedule your press conference for the same time as NSW.

Victorian health officials will be standing up at 11.30am, which I assume will overlap with Gladys Berejiklian who will start talking in about three minutes.

It’s been a long week because this video of a Victoria Health worker walking the dog of one of the residents in the locked-down Marribynong apartment complex is bringing me to tears.

I want this to be my job! Also, those poor dogs! I have a lot of emotions right now.

Updated

A bit more from that news coming out of Queensland that charges against a woman accused of putting needles in strawberries have been dropped.

She was facing eight counts of contamination of goods with intent to cause economic loss.

The Queensland government will keep the NSW border open amid optimism that Greater Sydney’s lockdown is containing the city’s Covid-19 outbreak, reports Marty Silk, from AAP.

Deputy premier Steven Miles says authorities are closely monitoring the situation, but there’s no evidence of virus cases or positive sewage testing results north of Sydney.

He’s hopeful the lockdown is containing the virus in Greater Sydney and a hard border won’t be have to be imposed.

We continue to closely monitor the situation in NSW. Pleasingly the ongoing monitoring of sewage indicates that the outbreak there is largely contained to Greater Sydney, meaning that the restrictions in place in Greater Sydney may mean that we don’t yet need to put in place greater border restrictions here.

Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia have already closed their borders to NSW, but Queensland is only restricting entry for travellers from Greater Sydney.

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has been urging residents in regional NSW to come home for days.

Five new Covid-19 cases were recorded in hotel quarantine in Queensland on Wednesday, but no further cases emerged in the community after two local cases were recorded on Tuesday.

Initially Palaszczuk said the cases were of no concern, but Queensland Health later issued an alert after finding out one had been infectious longer than first thought.

New exposure sites have been listed in Noosa, Kenilworth, Eumundi and Sunshine Beach, including a newsagency, cafe, pharmacy, liquor store and a bakery visited at various times between 28 June and 1 July.

Anyone who visited the venues at the times listed on the Queensland Health website is advised to get tested immediately and self-quarantine until a negative result is received.

Updated

Ten news is reporting that charges against the woman accused of being in the centre of the “strawberry needle” controversy from several years ago have now been dropped.

Here is Queensland deputy premier Steven Miles giving the daily Covid-19 update.

We have five new cases of Covid-19 overnight. They are all returned travellers in hotel quarantine, three of them tested positive on day one, though, which means that they were likely to be infectious on their flights, and so we will obviously be closely monitoring other passengers on those planes.

We continue to closely monitor the situation in that New South Wales ... The ongoing monitoring of sewerage indicates that the outbreak there is largely contained to greater Sydney, meaning ... we don’t yet need to put in place any greater border restrictions.

New South Wales though has issued a large number of additional venues for contact tracing. We urge anyone who’s been in New South Wales to check that list.

There is particularly a number, south of Sydney to Melbourne along the highway to Melbourne, from that removalist, who travelled into Melbourne and so we’d urge people who might have been in those locations to check that list.

Updated

As usual, a disclaimer on the below tweet, which has not been independently confirmed by Guardian Australia, but Nine News is reporting that today’s NSW numbers are just below 100.

Updated

Worth remembering.

Queensland border with regional NSW will reportedly remain open

Just an FYI, we are standing by now to hear from the Queensland deputy leader, although we already know the state has recorded no local cases of Covid-19.

AAP is reporting that the border with regional NSW will remain open for now.

Updated

Queensland records no local Covid-19 cases

Good news for Queensland by the way today. No local Covid-19 cases overnight.

Updated

Zangari:

[The testing sites] should be put in areas that have many roads in and out. We have major stadiums that are in the Fairfield local government area, bigger parks and schools that have accessibility.

Where the 24-hour testing site is, at Endeavour Reserve, has one road in and basically one road out. It is not good enough. It has caused a lot of confusion and angst in amongst the community.

At the moment this is not good for the mental health and wellbeing of all residents of the Fairfield local government area who over the last three weeks have had the finger pointed at them, they have been shamed and blamed and they are doing the right thing here.

Commendations to all the residents but they need a government that is going to support them with all the resources possible.

Updated

Zangari:

I am calling on [the NSW government] today to urgently up the ante with resources so that the people of Fairfield, the good people of Fairfield, can get tested and go to work because some of them have been working yesterday all day and then having to spend six hours in a line to be turned away – unacceptable.

Updated

'Absolute chaos': long testing queues blocking school and other amenities

Back to Fairfield, the state Labor MP for the area, Guy Zangari, had told the ABC that the long snaking lines of cars queuing outside the testing hubs have blocked off schools and residents’ access to other amenities.

It’s been absolute chaos for the residents who are doing the right thing, going out and getting tested. but unfortunately the demand is too great and the government hasn’t met that demand with pop-up or other 24-hour testing sites.

People last night were rediverted to sites that unfortunately couldn’t meet the demand and we are calling on the government today to increase 24-hour testing sites, to have more people on the ground to facilitate the testing sites but also more resources when it comes to Covid testing.

These testing sites ... they are in the middle of suburbia, which means that they are local streets.

Local streets are getting clogged with traffic which has meant that local schools can’t even have their teachers or students picking up important resources to do online learning. So this wasn’t thought out well.

Updated

Just jumping back a bit, here is what federal opposition leader Anthony Albanese had to say about the new lockdown funding package when he spoke to ABC earlier this morning.

Sydneysiders are really struggling. I think the government needs to explain why we’re not doing the model that was there before.

So we’re a bit concerned about that, but it is important, we’re going to need these packages for as long as lockdowns occur and lockdowns will continue to occur while this government doesn’t fix the rollout of the vaccine and doesn’t have national quarantine facilities.

We called for when Victoria had a lockdown as well. There’s a need to provide that support. People are really struggling. I note the prime minister last Friday saying that people had a buffer in their budgets.

That just shows out-of-touch he is. People are doing it really tough. I had a small business on the phone to me last week crying literally because he employed 20 people, he’s built up this business over six or seven years, and he just was distraught at the idea of laying people off.

Updated

New South Wales’ coronavirus case numbers will keep bubbling along and restrictions will continue for months because of a “soft lockdown” approach that relies too heavily on people doing the right thing without clear guidance, a top epidemiologist says.

Prof Tony Blakely runs epidemiological modelling on Covid-19 for the University of Melbourne’s school of population and global health, and provided advice to the Victorian government during its prolonged second wave in 2020.

He says NSW needs to tighten its definition of essential workers and prioritise vaccinating those people if it wants to contain the Delta variant outbreak within weeks rather than months.

“I call what they are doing now ‘soft lockdown a la New South Wales’ and I have been very critical of this approach,” Blakely said.

You can read the full report below:

The Biden administration has vowed to work with Australia to push back against China’s “unfair” trade practices, as the Morrison government seeks international support to fight Beijing’s tariffs on Australian wine.

With the US declaring it has “Australia’s back”, Guardian Australia has learned the European Union is also set to join as a third party if the dispute between Australia and China moves to the next stage at the World Trade Organization.

Trade experts say Australia stands to gain from the involvement of major players such as the EU and US, because they have larger ranks of trade litigation specialists and the wine dispute is likely to be more complicated than the barley tariff fight.

The trade minister, Dan Tehan, is set to fly from Vietnam to Japan on Wednesday as part of a two-week trip seeking to diversify Australia’s trade links amid growing tensions with China and to “champion support for a functioning global rules-based trading system”.

You can read the full report below:

More scenes from Fairfield last night, from the state Labor MP for Fairfield, Guy Zangari.

Updated

Here is another local reaction to the testing hub congestion in Fairfield this morning:

Updated

Ambassadors from more than a dozen countries will be flown to the Great Barrier Reef for a snorkelling trip on Thursday as part of the Morrison government’s lobbying campaign to keep the ocean jewel off the world heritage in-danger list.

The government’s reef ambassador Warren Entsch will host the Canberra-based diplomatic group which, he said, included nine countries with voting rights at the upcoming world heritage committee meeting.

Australia has launched an all-out lobbying offensive against a recommendation from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to place the reef on the world heritage in danger list.

On Tuesday, Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk wrote to prime minister Scott Morrison, asking him to match more than $2bn of funding for renewable energy and water quality projects along the 2,300km reef.

You can read the full report below:

Updated

Hmmmm, Scott Morrison also seems to be arguing that Australia really isn’t as far behind when it comes to vaccinations as everyone thinks.

He was asked if the Sydney situation could have been avoided if the vaccine rollout was on track:

No, that’s not true because there’s only two countries in the world that are above 65% on their vaccination rates.

It is the United Kingdom, which will – should clock over that mark in the next week or so, and Israel. The rest of the world is not at those rates of vaccination. And Australia was not going to be at those sort of rates of vaccination at this time of the year.

Today Show host:

But very few countries are talking single digits when we’re talking single digits when we’re talking personals. We’re at 9%.

Morrison:

No, no, we’re above 10% ... We’re at about 11%. A third of Australians have already received their first dose.

Well over 70% of over-70s. And well over half of those over 50 and we’re scaling up now to almost a million doses a week.

Updated

Prime minister Scott Morrison has also been out and about this morning, seemingly mostly to slam the Victorian government a little more.

Here is what he had to say on the Today show when asked if the Victorian government’s criticism were fair:

No, it wasn’t because during the Victorian lockdown without request the federal government was providing a billion dollars every week.

In the recent lockdown, which thankfully only went for two weeks, Victoria got exactly the same as what NSW got for those two weeks. NSW is going into week four of a lockdown and that means the challenges are escalating.

What I announced yesterday is exactly what every other state and territory would get in a week four of a lockdown. Frankly, people want to see governments working together. The Victorian government has been strongly supported by the commonwealth, particularly last year during those terrible lockdowns, and I have no doubt that people in Melbourne and across Victoria just want to ensure that Sydney can get through this and that they don’t have to look at a lockdown that was so devastating that we saw in Victoria ...

We have to fix the problem and when Victoria needed the commonwealth we were there. And when NSW needed the commonwealth, we’re here again. And we’ll continue to be there, particularly those payments that start this Friday.

You can already get a $500 and $325 payment now. There’s been 130,000 claims that are already getting those payments. From this Friday, for those first LGAs, $600 if you’ve lost more than 20 hours, 375 for between eight and 20 hours, 375 for between eight and 20 hours a week. For the rest of NSW that’s available from Monday.

NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian during the announcement of a Covid-19 financial support package at Kirribilli House in Sydney, Tuesday, July 13, 2021.
NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian during the announcement of a Covid-19 financial support package at Kirribilli House in Sydney, Tuesday, July 13, 2021. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

Victoria has recorded one local Covid-19 case overnight

Victoria has recorded one new local Covid-19 case overnight.

The department says “the new locally-acquired case is a known primary close contact in isolation during their infectious period”.

Updated

'I apologise to everyone in Fairfield,' says NSW treasurer Dominic Perrottet

NSW treasurer Dominic Perrottet says the state government will be looking at solutions to Fairfield testing hub wait times today and has reminded residents that it does not become mandatory for essential workers from the LGA to carry proof of recent testing until Saturday.

He also opened his interview with Sydney radion station 2GB by apologising to residents for the inconvenience:

We’re certainly going to be looking at it today ... You don’t need to get tested until Saturday.

Importantly, you can get tested outside of this Fairfield area. So if you’re working outside and you’re required to do one of these surveillance tests, there are other testing venues across metropolitan Sydney which you can attend.

But can I just say on behalf of the government, I apologise to everyone in Fairfield for this significant inconvenience, but to also thank them because it’s the sacrifices that they’re making today and last night that keeps people safe.

NSW treasurer Dominic Perrottet
NSW treasurer Dominic Perrottet . Photograph: Jenny Evans/Getty Images

Updated

NSW treasurer Dominic Perrottet has just spoken to Sydney radio station 2GB about the excruciatingly long lines outside Fairfield’s testing hubs today.

I’ll bring you more from that in just a second but it’s worth noting that the treasurer has offered an apology to the community.

Updated

This next exchange is also fairly telling, the federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg has seemed to concede that prime minister Scott Morrison didn’t call the global Pfizer CEO to try to sweet talk Australia’s way up the vaccine queue because the government was counting on our own domestically manufactured AstraZeneca supplies.

News Breakfast host Michael Rowland:

The Israeli prime minister, the Japanese prime minister, the Canadian prime minister, all called that global boss.

In particular, the former Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called him 30 times.

Frydenberg:

Yeah, and the Israelis weren’t manufacturing the AstraZeneca vaccine in their own backyard as we were through CSL.

We took a portfolio approach to acquiring the vaccines and as you know that was both the mRNA vaccines but also in the case of our own domestic sovereign capability. We were seeking to manufacture AstraZeneca here in Australia.

Now, there was some things we couldn’t control, namely the Atagi advice that was affecting the rollout, the age cohorts to which the AstraZeneca vaccine could be provided.

We followed that advice and then we have taken other actions, namely to secure more supply, and the good news for your viewers and your listeners is that more than 9.3m doses have been distributed, we’ll be getting up to 1m doses a week of the Pfizer vaccine coming very shortly and we have also seen those more vulnerable cohorts like the over-70s have more than 70% of people having received the first dose already.

So the rollout is gaining pace.

Updated

Speaking of criticising state governments for public health policy failures, will Josh Frydenberg criticise NSW for its – arguably significantly more clear cut – policy failure that lead to this Delta variant outbreak?

Frydenberg:

Well, they definitely need to explain how that actually occurred because it was very unfortunate and it was wrong.

ABC News Breakfast host Michael Rowland:

Very unfortunate? It’s gone from one case to now nearly 800. It’s gold standard public health failure.

Frydenberg:

Well, for them to have a limo driver where they were carrying international aircrew and not wearing a mask was something that they have recognised was wrong.

They have changed the public health orders, but if you actually look at the performance of New South Wales over the course of the 18 months of this pandemic, they have managed the outbreaks very effectively and ...

Rowland:

But that was then, this is now. This is very serious, you would understand why Sydneysiders feel very filthy in the way the government has handled this?

Frydenberg:

I’m the first to say that shouldn’t have occurred. It was wrong. The New South Wales government has recognised that and have changed the public health orders as a result.

Updated

ABC News Breakfast host Michael Rowland:

You have accused the Victorian premier of politicising this crisis. That’s very rich coming from you, though, treasurer. You spent large slabs of last year politicising the Victorian lockdown.

Josh Frydenberg:

I was just pointing out the very clear phase that occurred in Victoria last year ...

Rowland:

Making very strong political criticisms of the Victorian premier in the process.

Frydenberg:

Well, the facts told a very clear story there, unfortunately, tragically, sadly, more than 800 lives were lost in Victoria, more than 90% of the lives being lost during this pandemic have occurred in Victoria.

As you know, Victoria held their open inquiry to determine who was responsible, who had made the decisions for those quarantine [breaches] – that inquiry found no one did, quite bizarrely indeed.

We’re now in a different stage of the pandemic, we’re dealing with the Delta variant, New South Wales is in a longer-term lockdown and the support we’re providing them for the fourth week and beyond will be provided to every other state should they find themselves in that precarious situation.

Updated

Ooop! I hope you didn’t think that would be the last that we heard from Josh Frydenberg today!

No way! Here he is on ABC News Breakfast where he has once again been asked about the comments from the Victorian government:

Let me put the facts on the table. The first thing is that when Victoria went into lockdown last year, we were putting from the commonwealth alone more than $750m a week into the state of Victoria. Indeed on a per capita basis under jobkeeper, Victoria received more than any other state or territory.

We offered Victoria a 50-50 split with business and income support. They rejected it, deciding they would alone pay for business support and the federal government will pay for income support.

New South Wales has not received anymore money than Victoria for the two weeks that Victoria was in lockdown. Now, that this lockdown is an extended period, we have provided more support, business support, and income support and we have created a template that can be rolled out nationally, including to Victoria if, indeed, they went to another extended lockdown.

Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Wednesday, July 7, 2021.
Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Wednesday, July 7, 2021. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Updated

In case you needed a refresher on what the Victorian government actually said that has annoyed Josh Frydenberg so much, you can check out the story below by the fantastic Sarah Martin.

Here is a bit of the statement a spokesperson for the Victorian government released last night:

Everyone in Australia believes people in Sydney and NSW deserve every possible support as they battle a second wave and a long lockdown ...

But Victorians are rightly sick and tired of having to beg for every scrap of support from the federal government. It shouldn’t take a crisis in Sydney for the prime minister to take action but we are seeing the same double standard time and time again. His job is not to be the prime minister for NSW.

Updated

The federal treasurer is laying out the different stages of support states will receive from the commonwealth during lockdowns.

Josh Frydenberg:

So it goes in different stages.

In the first week, we don’t provide support, and we didn’t provide support in New South Wales. Neither did we in Victoria.

In the second week, we provide that disaster payment, and then in the third week, we removed the liquid assets test* and now in the fourth and beyond, we provide a 50-50 split on the business support payments, as well as extend that individual income support for households and families from $500 to $600.

*This “liquid assets test” is the rule that you are not eligible for the support payments if you have more than $10,000 in the bank.

Updated

Josh Frydenberg:

Well I hope your listeners, look at the facts, not the politicking that’s coming out of Victoria.

Because the facts are very clear. We provided Victoria with more support on a per capita basis than any other state, when they went into their extended lockdown last year – that’s when jobkeeper was still in place ...

New South Wales is going through an extended lockdown. They’re now going into its fourth week, it could go for longer.

Victoria’s lockdown went for two weeks, and so the actual support is of a different nature because the lockdown is for a longer period ...

The support that New South Wales needs and receives is actually in the national interest. If New South Wales can get on top of this virus and this outbreak, then that will be to the benefit of the national economy, something, and I think that the Victorians indeed will accept themselves.

An empty street in central Sydney
An empty street in central Sydney. Photograph: Jenny Evans/Getty Images

Updated

Frydenberg labels Victorian government 'petulant' and 'childish'

I mentioned before that the NSW state and federal governments had come together to create a financial support package to help Sydneysiders survive this extended lockdown.

But others, including the Victorian government, have been quick to criticise the program as inferior to jobkeeper, and an example of favouritism to NSW, after the federal government was significantly less forthcoming when Victoria was in lockdown earlier in the year.

Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg is speaking on ABC radio now, and has called the Victorian government’s comments “petulant” and “childish”:

Well, the Victorian government unfortunately is being petulant, childish and they are playing politics here because the facts tell a very clear story. What we have done in the New South Wales lockdown is exactly what Victoria received Victoria when they went into their extended lockdown last year.*

They received more than $7m a week from the commonwealth government and jobkeeper and have received more on a per capita basis than any other state.

We offered the Victorian government a 50-50 split when it came to business and income support, they rejected it and they were too smart by half.

*But not their two-week lockdown earlier this year.

Updated

The mayor of Fairfield, Frank Carbone, is calling for the state government to urgently set up more testing locations in his council area, noting that people have in the lines have been forced to wait upwards of six hours and suggesting that local residents have effectively been barricaded into their homes, with roads gridlocked with cars:

We support more testing but adequate resources need to be put in place, today has been a terrible experience with a 6-hour wait and the NSW government needs to put more testing sites across Fairfield.

Endeavour reserve testing clinic has blocked all of The Boulevard, Avenell St and every other road leading into the Park for kilometres, crossing over into Hamilton Road.

These poor residents who need to go to work tomorrow are having to wait hours due to the new testing rules that apply to Fairfield residents who are required to get tested every 3 days if they work outside our area.

Stay safe everyone and best to get tested tomorrow.

Updated

Speaking of extreme queues, here is the line outside the Fairfield testing hub in the wee hours of the morning:

Updated

Good morning, it’s Matilda Boseley here with you, and welcome to Wednesday.

It’s a tense wait this morning in NSW with the premier expected to announce an extension to the greater Sydney lockdown, but it’s not clear how long this extension is likely to last.

The state recorded 89 new local coronavirus cases on Tuesday, after 112 on Monday and 77 on Sunday. Twenty-seven of the positive cases announced on Tuesday were not in isolation for all or part of their infectious period, with authorities desperate to get this number as close to zero as possible.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been warning for several days that the lockdown is extremely likely to be extended, but this was all but confirmed yesterday when the state and the federal government came together to announce a significant lockdown financial support package that’s calculated to last at least several weeks.

The state government expanded its business grants and either cut or deferred payroll taxes for most companies, while workers who have lost eight or more hours a week as a result of the lockdown will be able to apply for up to $600 a week in federal support.

Each day it seems the attention of NSW Health focuses more and more on the city’s south-west, where case numbers continue to grow.

As of today, anyone living in the Fairfield local government area but performing essential work in the wider city must be tested every three days, while anyone from greater Sydney travelling to the regions for work must be tested weekly.

This has caused colossal lines outside testing clinics in Fairfield. Here’s a look at the Fairfield showgrounds yesterday afternoon:

With that, why don’t we jump into the day. There is certainly enough to get through.

If there is something you reckon I’ve missed or think should be in the blog but isn’t, shoot me a message on Twitter @MatildaBoseley.

Updated

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