That's it for today, thanks for reading
The main news on 30 April, 2021:
- Scott Morrison and Brittany Higgins meet in Sydney;
- Two separate cases involving breaches of the trans-Tasman travel bubble are reported, one in Brisbane and another in Perth;
- Clive Palmer ordered to pay $1.5m in damages for the unauthorised use of a song;
- The first medicinal cannabis product is placed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme;
- The aid package to deal with Covid-19 in India is being reworked, but the supplies are expected to depart on Wednesday;
- Restrictions to ease in Western Australia from tonight, and remain at that level for another week; and
- No new local Covid-19 cases recorded in Australia.
Updated
A breach of the trans-Tasman travel bubble has been reported by Air New Zealand after a man travelled from the Cook Islands to Perth without completing quarantine in New Zealand.
New Zealand website Stuff first reported the breach, which occurred on a flight on Friday morning.
The man went from Rarotonga to Auckland yesterday. Restriction-free travel is permitted between the Cook Islands and New Zealand, but a person must stay for at least 14 days before transiting to Australia.
Instead, the man caught a flight to Perth hours after arriving in New Zealand. The breach was reported shortly after the flight departed.
The Cook Islands has not recorded a single case of Covid-19 during the pandemic.
Air New Zealand said in a statement to Stuff:
We have been made aware of a passenger on board NZ175 Auckland–Perth today who is ineligible for quarantine-free travel to Australia.
We are working with the relevant authorities on both sides of the Tasman and will follow their guidance.
The next steps for this passenger will be determined by the Western Australia authorities.
Updated
As the Covid crisis in India grows, the country is becoming desperate for ventilators and oxygen supplies.
The Guardian understands the Indian government has told Australian officials it does not require elements of Australia’s initial offer of aid, which included 1m surgical masks, 500,000 P2/N95 masks, 100,000 surgical gowns, 100,000 goggles, 100,000 pairs of gloves and 20,000 face shields.
Instead, Australia will double the number of non-invasive ventilators it sends to 1,000. It will expand this offer up to 3,000 if there is capacity in the Indian healthcare system to accept them.
The first tranche of aid is expected to leave Australia on a charter flight on Wednesday 5 May and arrive later that day. It will also include 100 oxygen concentrators, along with tanks and consumables.
The Guardian also understands that the number of Australians in India registering with the government as wanting to return home has increased in recent days from the reported figure of 9,000.
Earlier today, the health minister, Greg Hunt, who was tasked with communicating the details of the national cabinet meeting he was not a part of, mentioned Australia would resume repatriation flights from India as soon as possible.
But there was no guarantee the flights would resume when the ban on arrivals from India is reassessed on 15 May.
Updated
A man who racially vilified an Aboriginal man in New South Wales has been ordered to pay thousands of dollars in damages and take out an ad in the local newspaper acknowledging “my statements were vile, racist and homophobic”.
A doctor who declared an Aboriginal woman fit to be detained before she died in police custody has been ordered to pay a $30,000 fine for providing inadequate and “substantially” below-standard care.
It’s not so much a war footing as a regular virtual meeting, but the latest national cabinet meeting has been held.
No big changes out of this one – and no prime minister press conference either. That’s because Scott Morrison walked into a meeting with Brittany Higgins pretty soon after, and he wasn’t holding a press conference on that either.
So instead we have a communique which says ... almost nothing.
On India:
National cabinet noted the significant increase in cases in India and welcomed the commonwealth government’s support package including oxygen concentrators, PPE and oxygen tanks and consumables. National cabinet expressed solidarity with the Indian community, both within Australia and overseas.
... National cabinet noted the measures that have been put in place to restrict entry into Australia of people who have previously been in high risk countries determined by the Chief Medical Officer. These measures will be reviewed before 15 May 2021. National cabinet noted the Chief Medical Officer’s assessment that India is the first country to meet the threshold of a high risk country. The commonwealth will consider further measures to mitigate risks of high risk travellers entering Australia.
And on vaccines:
Australia’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout continues to expand. To date 2,179,544 doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in Australia. The number of administration sites has expanded, with 4,500 general practices as well as general practice respiratory centres and Aboriginal health services now administering Covid-19 vaccinations.
Today, national cabinet received a briefing from Professor Brendan Murphy, Chair of the Science and Industry Technical Advisory Group, the Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer, Professor Paul Kelly and Commodore Eric Young, CSC, RAN, Operations Coordinator, Department of Health Vaccine Operations Centre on the Vaccine Rollout Phases Implementation.
And that was pretty much it. The national cabinet reinforced “the imperative to work together to administer Covid-19 vaccinations to Australians as quickly as possible,” which is actually just its job, but good to know.
It won’t meet for another week now, so yes “war footing” was basically just rhetoric.
Updated
Google, Facebook and Twitter all welcome the introduction of legislation that would ban hate symbols like the swastika, or content that incites violence like the Christchurch manifesto.
On Thursday, the Australian Federal Police told the parliament’s extremism inquiry the police “strongly support the criminalisation of the public display of flags and other extremist insignia”.
At the second day of hearings on Friday, representatives from Google, Facebook and Twitter all supported the same proposal.
Google’s government affairs and public policy representative, Samantha Yorke:
If in Australia, there were laws that criminalise the use of certain things or certain content ... then that would provide us with legal certainty around how we could moderate that content across all of our platforms, including the search engine.
So [if] there was a law that prohibited the use of the swastika in Australia, for instance, much like there is in Germany, then we would absolutely comply with those provisions.
Facebook Australia’s head of public policy, Josh Machin:
We don’t have an existing position about a particular law like that within Australia. But we have said, globally, that we welcome governments setting content regulation relating to online content, we recognise that there’s a need for more regulation on that space. And we’re very happy to work with governments on frameworks that we think are going to be workable.
Twitter’s senior director of public policy APAC, Kathleen Reen, was more reserved, saying a ban alone wouldn’t prevent extremism online:
If you ban all discussion at all about it, effectively via search or Twitter, you may find yourself effectively chasing it off our platforms where the companies are working to address these issues, and pushing it out into other platforms ... So I would say a modified yes, but my suggestion would be for deep work with academic experts, civil society and others [who spend] a lot of time thinking about how you get to cohesive communities when you’re also trying to stop those bad actors.
But to be clear, stopping the conversation entirely won’t address the problem, in our view. In fact, it’ll make it worse.
Reen said there also needed to be nuance in any policy, to allow reporting and discussing certain topics that might be banned. For instance, she said, on the day of the Christchurch massacre in March 2019, 70% of the content from the attack posted on Twitter came from verified accounts, mostly journalists reporting or others condemning the attack:
But I think this gets to the complexity of the conversations around it and help people view or identify that content, as opposed to speaking about groups and their behaviours.
Updated
Here’s a story about that meeting between Brittany Higgins and Scott Morrison which has just finished in Sydney:
REPORTER: Do you believe your own party, the Liberal party, has done what it needs to, and more broadly, the prime minister, to acknowledge these issues?
Progress moves slowly. I am hopeful that it’s going to happen. I guess time will tell.
REPORTER: Do you have a sense of relief now that this meeting has come to pass?
No. It was hard. It was difficult. It wasn’t easy. But I think it was a conversation that needs to be had. It was not easy. It was an honest and frank discussion. It is important that we had it.
REPORTER: If there was one single thing that you think you got out of the prime minister today, is there anything that you feel that has moved the dial?
I think he fundamentally seemed to understand what had happened to me and how it was handled in a more holistic way. And that was encouraging, I think, by the end of the conversation. Thank you.
Updated
Here are her comments in a little more substance:
The prime minister acknowledged the system had let me down ... and we agreed that there needs to be reform. It was a difficult conversation to have at a personal level. It was very hard to come here. But we had a discussion about what needs to happen in terms of the MoPs Act, where there needs to be better safeguard for the staffers, where [there is a] power dynamic between parliamentarians and individual staffers.
We also had a robust discussion about the need for an independent authority about human resources, as they made the case in 2007 about entitlements being a big issue, and that was the start. The government brought that in, the government of the day. It was a difficult conversation, it was robust, but ultimately, in the end, I think there was a consensus that reform needs to happen.
REPORTER: Do you believe it will?
I am hopeful that it will. And he is going to do the right thing by the women here.
REPORTER: Was there anything that you disagreed with?
I think we can have a divergence of opinion, but fundamentally, I think there was the consensus for reform, and that was encouraging and that was necessary. I think at this point after so many weeks, after so much discussion, I think that’s where we need to be. And that’s a starting point, and that is encouraging.
Updated
Higgins only spoke for a few minutes after the meeting and has now finished.
Higgins says she raised better safeguards for staffers, concerns about the power dynamic between parliamentarians and individual staffers, the need for an independent authority about human resources, and concerns about staffer entitlements.
She said that there was a “consensus” that change was needed.
I think it was a conversation that need[ed] to be had... it was not easy. It was an honest and frank discussion. It is important that we had it.
Updated
“He fundamentally seemed to understand what had happened to me.”
She said it was “robust”, they could have a “divergence of opinion” on things but there was an “appetite for reform”, which was “encouraging”.
Brittany Higgins speaks about her meeting with Scott Morrison
Brittany Higgins is speaking after meeting Scott Morrison:
“It was a difficult conversation to have at a personal level. It was very hard to come here.”
Updated
When Australian beauty behemoth Mecca announced Gwyneth Paltrow as the keynote speaker at their virtual wellness summit, Mecca Life, their usually loyal customers revolted.
Former prime minister Julia Gillard is set to be honoured by the Japanese government for her service to the nation, AAP reports:
Gillard will receive the grand cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, being one of 117 non-Japanese from 46 countries to be honoured in the spring.
She told Japan’s NHK in an online interview it was “an award for the people of Australia”.
Gillard was the first foreign leader to visit the north-eastern Tohuku region hit by the 2011 tsunami and earthquake. In the immediate aftermath, Australia provided food aid packages, donations and relief teams.
But since then many reconstruction projects have been funded and Australia’s relations with Japan have considerably strengthened.
The former Labor leader said she had decided on the 2011 visit “as a visible way of saying that Japan was coming through this profound period of tragedy and was looking to reopen and re-engage with the world”.
The grand cordon is the highest class of the Order of the Rising Sun, which was established in 1875.
Updated
Brittany Higgins is expected to speak later this afternoon about her meeting in Sydney with Scott Morrison. The ABC just heard from News Corp reporter Samantha Maiden, who said Higgins attended the meeting with businesswoman Wendy McCarthy and ACT victims of crime advocates.
If Australia is serious about ending Black deaths in custody, we need to put an end to the overpolicing of Black communities, Tameeka Tighe writes for IndigenousX.
Major flaws with Australia’s whistleblowing protections are scaring whistleblowers into silence and hindering journalists’ efforts to expose corruption, according to jailed journalist Peter Greste and constitutional law scholar Rebecca Ananian-Welsh.
For the second time in a month, the Fair Work Commission has upheld the sacking of a worker for refusing to get a flu vaccination. Earlier in April the commission found a direction by a childcare centre for a worker to be vaccinated was “lawful and reasonable”.
On Thursday, the commission upheld the sacking of a receptionist, Jennifer Kimber, at the Sapphire Coast Community Aged Care facility in Pambula, New South Wales.
In late March 2020 the NSW government put in place public health orders in response to Covid-19 requiring people working in aged care facilities to have flu vaccinations.
Kimber was sacked for refusing a lawful and reasonable direction to get the vaccination.
Despite finding she was never given an individual direction to get the flu shot, the commission has upheld the sacking on the basis she could not fulfil the requirements of her job.
Commissioner Donna McKenna indicated in these circumstances a direction to get the flu vaccine would have been lawful and reasonable:
Certainly, the respondent could not physically compel the applicant to have a flu shot against her own personal wishes. Regardless of any direction by an employer ... an employee is entitled to make his or her own personal choice about whether to have a flu shot.
Be that as it may, that is not the end of the matter. If an employee makes a personal choice not to have a flu shot, then an employer which provides residential aged care services and which is subject to a [public health order] has its own obligations...
It seems to me that if a direction in fact had been given by the respondent to the applicant to have a flu shot, any such direction would not only have been lawful, it would have effectively reflected what in fact was the law as it applied in 2020 concerning employees working within NSW residential aged care facilities (subject to the exemptions within the PHOs); as a corollary, any such direction would not only have been lawful, but also reasonable.
Updated
Jacinda Ardern isn’t worried about Brisbane airport Covid-19 man, so we can all rest easy. OK? OK.
This from AAP:
Jacinda Ardern has downplayed the risk to trans-Tasman travellers after the revelation of a positive Covid-19 case within Brisbane airport.
On Friday, Queensland health authorities revealed a man from Papua New Guinea had tested positive after spending time in the airport.
Under the Covid-19 travel arrangements, people from higher risk countries such as PNG are supposed to stay in “red zone” areas of international airports.
However, the man and his companion were taken to the “green zone” area designated for trans-Tasman bubble travellers to New Zealand.
The pair spent two hours in the same area as 390 people bound for Auckland and Christchurch on Air New Zealand and Qantas flights on Thursday morning.
After considering the situation, NZ health authorities decided not to order any travellers to isolate.
The health ministry advised it was “continuing to advise passengers who flew from Brisbane to New Zealand last night to monitor their health”.
If symptoms develop, call Healthline and get a test.
Speaking from Opotiki in the Bay of Plenty, the New Zealand prime minister suggested onward transmission was unlikely, saying:
At this stage officials consider it to present a relatively low risk to travellers.
She said the case showed why officials on both sides of the Tasman need to be vigilant to stop the bubble from popping.
We had to put a lot of work into the arrangements. From time to time, we are going to have to manage situations where there may be lapses.
[We have to] continue to ensure [the rules] are applied, that we have rigour around them, and how careful everyone continues to work.
Updated
Australia has slammed shut a loophole that allowed travellers from India to dodge a flight ban by transiting in Qatar, AAP reports.
India’s spiralling coronavirus catastrophe prompted Australia to pause all flights from the Asian nation until 15 May.
Despite the ban, people who had been in India were allowed to fly to Australia after transiting through Qatar’s capital, Doha.
Australian cricketers Adam Zampa and Kane Richardson were among those who dodged the restriction after leaving the Indian Premier League.
Prime minister Scott Morrison said the loophole was closed shortly after their flight took off from Doha on Wednesday.
He told 2GB radio on Friday:
Those transit passengers, the airlines advise us, are no longer coming through from Doha.
The advice we had wasn’t fully correct so when we got the additional information we took that action.
Morrison flagged that further safeguards on stopping people using third countries to evade the Indian travel ban would be applied after Friday’s national cabinet meeting.
But he didn’t front the media afterwards, leaving health minister Greg Hunt – who is not a member of national cabinet – to speak about a meeting he didn’t attend.
Updated
The Nationals MP George Christensen has given a fairly inflammatory interview with anti-mask activist Monica Smit contradicting his own government’s policies with respect to Covid-19.
In it, Christensen argued that Covid-19 had been a “baby pandemic” because if it killed as many people (proportionally) as the Spanish flu, some 200 million people would have died (in comparison to 3 million and counting).
But far from thanking the national cabinet for the measures that helped keep Australians safe, Christensen said the “forced maskings” and “lockdowns which have destroyed businesses, livelihoods and mental health” have been “overreach”.
Christensen asked why people hadn’t been more angry on limits on the number of visitors in the home.
He said:
What the hell gives government the right to determine how many people we have visit us in our own homes?
That would be state and territory laws that mirror the far-reaching powers of the Biosecurity Act of 2015, enacted by the Coalition government he was a member of.
Christensen claimed Japan, Taiwan and Sweden had handled the pandemic better than Australia, skipping conveniently over the 14,000 deaths in Sweden by arguing in 2020 the same number of people died in Sweden as the average over the previous five years.
Christensen accepted that “people are dying” of Covid-19 but noted that the average age of those who died in Australia was 83, which is “exactly” the same as the average life expectancy. Nevertheless, he said “any death is sad and tragic”.
Christensen said that National Matt Canavan and former Liberal now independent Craig Kelly had been “vindicated” for their warnings about vaccines because the TGA had advised under-50s not to take AstraZeneca due to the risk of very rare blood clots.
Christensen revealed he had written to Scott Morrison in December warning against vaccine passports and any form of coercive measures to encourage people to get vaccinated, such as allowing governments or private companies to refuse services to the unvaccinated.
Asked if he would quit and go to the backbench, ala Craig Kelly, if his government tried to silence him, Christensen simply replied:
They won’t be able to silence me.
So it seems Christensen believes he’ll remain inside the tent pissing in, instead of outside the tent pissing in. Which could actually prove a relief for the prime minister and his one-seat majority.
Updated
To be fair to Dutton and Hunt, if someone publicly released a plan for a block of land I owned, but said it could only come to fruition if I paid for it, I suppose I’d be a little bemused too.
Updated
Imagining Peter Dutton with an actual “smoke and mirrors” list that he regularly updates every time he sees another worthy contender.
Peter Dutton this morning: "I've seen some political smoke and mirrors over my time and I think this is right at the top of the list." https://t.co/dlpAbzomUn
— Tom McIlroy (@TomMcIlroy) April 30, 2021
Hunt is no longer being shown live on the ABC, but here’s one last section from his press conference. He was asked about the Victorian quarantine facility proposal, which involves using federal government land and hundreds of millions of federal government dollars to build a centre north of Melbourne.
The plan was unveiled yesterday, and while Hunt says the federal government will consider it, he didn’t seem overly thrilled.
We are learning the details of the Victorian proposal, I will put it that way. I understand the local council has asked for details and I’m sure they are unaware as well, and then the prime minister said we will review it and consider it, so I will not pre-empt anything.
There are many elements which are somewhat of a surprise – it was not a commonwealth proposal even though it is on commonwealth land. It is something put to us and we will respond to that after we have had a look. With the community support I imagine would be an important point for Victoria and will be interested to know what support there is. It is not something we have proposed.
Updated
Just confirming that phase 2A of the vaccine roll-out has been brought forward to Monday, as had been foreshadowed earlier this week. It means people aged 50 and over can be vaccinated (mostly with the AstraZeneca vaccine, given that’s what has been recommended) from then.
Hunt says the 650 Australians in India who are categorised as vulnerable will be given first priority should flights resume on 15 May.
Hunt says he has not spoken to his New Zealand counterpart about the Brisbane airport breach. The breach resulted in a man who later tested positive for Covid-19 spending two hours in a “green zone” designated for those travelling under the trans-Tasman bubble despite arriving in Australia from Papua New Guinea.
Our health officials have been in touch with New Zealand and conveyed the information to them ... Every day, does not matter where it is coming – whether it is state, private or public – we are always seeking to improve, and so we will work with Queensland and with the Brisbane Airport Corporation to make sure they do not do that again.
Updated
Hunt mentions the strong statement made by TGA head Prof John Skerritt yesterday about the safety of Covid-19 vaccines before confirming some fairly sobering figures:
Finally, just in terms of the update, no new cases today, within Australia. At the same time, 882,000 cases are reported around the world. Zero cases in Australia, over 882,000 cases and 14.5 thousand lives lost around the world.
Updated
Hunt says:
Cannabis oil ... it literally can help save and protect lives. It is a small number of kids, about 116 a year who are affected ... But it would otherwise cost them $24,000 a year, and for those families that would be in almost every case impossible.
Updated
The medicine is a medicinal cannabis product, which is the first time such a product has been included on the PBS.
First medicinal cannabis product put on PBS
Hunt’s announcing the bringing forward of Covid-19 vaccinations for some age groups and the inclusion on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme of a medication for treating epilepsy in children which normally costs about $24,000 a year.
Updated
Health minister Greg Hunt is speaking in Melbourne.
Blimey, some wild footage sent out from police in Williams, a town in the Western Australia wheatbelt.
Incredible there were no serious injuries.
Police dashcam footage of yesterday's incident on the Albany Highway, Williams. Please drive to the conditions and prepare to stop. Luckily on this occasion there were no serious injuries. #fb #smokehazard #closecall pic.twitter.com/T1IzRuv74s
— Williams Police (@WilliamsPol) April 30, 2021
This is a wonderful (and sad) feature from Stephanie Convery about the death of AFLW player Jacinda Barclay.
Queensland health minister Yvette D’Ath was asked about discussions at the meeting, including issues with the NDIS.
She put on the meeting agenda a discussion about the need for some people who are in hospital to receive NDIS packages or aged care support to free-up bed capacity.
D’Ath said:
For Queensland, it’s almost 600 beds, and over $5 million a week. What I can say about the meeting we’ve had is that this issue is a national issue. All jurisdictions were identifying that they have very, very similar problems and pressures on their system. And we have agreed to work within a short time frame on some solutions with the commonwealth in relation to that ... In fact, the pressures on our health systems generally, every jurisdiction was identifying similar problems, and that we need to work with the commonwealth to find some solutions going forward.
As I say, these are confidential meetings, but we all had a very good discussion about the pressures on the system, and looking at reform going forward to make sure our health systems across the country are sustainable.
Updated
Ah, there was a health ministers’ meeting in Melbourne today, hence the Queenslanders venturing down. Wonder what a bunch of health ministers have for lunch?
I’m not sure why, but Dr Young is speaking in Melbourne, and a passer-by just interrupted the press conference to have a bit of a friendly chat. It was mostly inaudible, but ended with the passer-by saying “good on you, darling” to Dr Young, which she seemed fairly stoked on.
Updated
After reviewing that CCTV footage at the airport, and serology testing from the man, Dr Young says she is “pretty confident” there won’t be other cases as a result of the breach. The man had travelled from Papua New Guinea:
There is always a low risk. We think - we don’t have genome sequencing yet on this man. And we may not get that because the amount of virus was so low - which is a good thing. But we know that in PNG at the moment they don’t have variants of concern, such as the B117. But we do know that with variants of concern they can be very transmissible, which is why I can never, ever be 100% confident that even when people have followed all processes that there isn’t some remaining risk. But the remaining risk is very, very low.
We had a questionable result yesterday. We didn’t know whether it was positive or negative. Today we’ve had a clear positive result. So, that suggests to me, as well with the serology results, that he’s right at the end of his illness, he could almost be fully recovered. And we know that the risk is always in that 48 hours before someone develops symptoms, at the start of their illness. He’s right at the end. And he’s well. So, the risks are all adding up to be less and less and less.
Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeanette Young:
It was just an error in terms of that staff member, for which the Brisbane Airport Corporation has apologised. Errors happen. We know they happen.
Which is why we have all of those other mitigating factors in place, and they all worked. So, it was picked up, they were moved back through CCTV footage. We’ve seen that people were wearing masks, people were maintaining social distance. The table that the two people sat at was thoroughly cleaned after they stood up and left, although no one at that stage knew that there was any issue.So, people did what needs to be done to keep people safe every single day ... I note it’s a mandatory requirement throughout Australia in domestic and international airports that people wear masks at all times, except when they’re eating and drinking. And that’s a really, really important thing for everyone to do.
Updated
Queensland health authorities are speaking about that Covid-19 breach at Brisbane airport, which saw a man who later tested positive free to hang about in a green zone for two hours.
We had a little info earlier in the blog about tomorrow’s election in Tasmania (premier Peter Gutwein here, opposition leader Rebecca White here), but we did not have this excellent photo of Gutwein on an electric scooter. BYO metaphor.
Yeah Righto. #politas pic.twitter.com/shkyWonboC
— Sean McComish (@spmccomish) April 29, 2021
Updated
The always excellent Weekly Beast is up over here:
The ABC has cut away from McGowan, so this is the last little exchange I’ll give you from his press conference:
The advice we have given to people is you can return to work and that you can do so and wear a mask. I’m sitting in my office wearing a mask. I know it’s not perfect. But it’s not the biggest of impediments to doing your job. We’ve advised people that you can go back to work. I’d certainly encourage people to go back to work. Wearing a mask is not that difficult.
REPORTER: If people are social distancing in their office – say you’re sitting in your office by yourself – [why] is it mandatory they must wear a mask? Could it not be wear a mask if you [can] not social distance?
Because you’re indoors. We have been through this for 14 months. Indoors is different to outdoors. Crowds are different to areas where there’s sparse populations. But because you’re indoors, the prospect of the virus travelling is far greater. So, we have learnt that in hotel quarantine. In confined spaces the virus can travel. That’s why we insist that in work places, in other public places, anywhere indoors, but apart from the home. You need to wear the mask.
Updated
McGowan again gets in a message, without viciously taking a stick to the federal government and other states (mostly NSW) that criticise snap lockdowns to deal with relatively small Covid-19 outbreaks.
Well, the best thing we can do is get vaccinated. So if you would get vaccinated as soon as possible, that would help. Lockdowns are a method that does help prevent spread of the virus very quickly...
I know there’s a lot of discussion out there around these things and what’s the best option. But the Western Australia model has been we try and prevent the virus from coming in, with borders. If we have any spread of the virus, we try and kill it quickly. That’s a far better model than allowing the virus to linger in the community.
He says Western Australia has basically done better at “crushing and killing” Covid-19 than any other state, and that Australia and New Zealand has done better than any other countries with significant populations.
The idea we ... have ongoing lockdowns and ongoing measures that ... remove ordinary life for extended period, I don’t think is the right model. There’s been a lot of discussion. I know there’s ... commentators [out] there with various views. I repeat to you - the New South Wales northern beaches outbreak that took place, that went for ... three months ... it cost the New South Wales economy $3.2billion.
I’d far rather kill the virus quickly over the course of a long weekend rather than three months of restrictions.
Updated
McGowan doesn’t bite back too hard at criticism that was reportedly levelled at the Western Australian government by the Morrison government regarding the inadequacy of its hotel quarantine program.
I won’t into what’s spoken about inside a [national] cabinet meeting. That wouldn’t be appropriate to talk about those conversations. But all I’d say is that the commonwealth does have facilities. They want to bring people home, as we all do, and it should be a joint effort.
Updated
The rules, which he announced last night, are:
Basically, it’s about wearing a mask, it’s about doing the right thing, it’s about ensuring that you follow all the rules and precautions we are putting in place. That will continue for a week. It is a big change on where we have been.
Updated
WA reports no new local Covid cases, one in hotel quarantine
McGowan starts the press conference. No new local cases. One new case in hotel quarantine, a man who arrived from India.
Updated
McGowan will no doubt be thrilled by the news from earlier today regarding Clive, given their recent history.
Waiting for Mark McGowan to give a press conference in Perth, where he will outline which restrictions are set to ease from tomorrow.
Will he also announce Rottnest Island as a new quarantine facility? Probably not. Who knows.
I shall leave you there for the week. Go well!
Handing over now to the fantastic Nino Bucci, who will keep you informed until the final seconds of the workweek are over!
Updated
Clive Palmer has been ordered to pay Universal Music $1.5m in damages over the “unauthorised” use of a version of the hit 1980s song We’re Not Gonna Take It by glam metal band Twisted Sister in a political ad.
On Friday, federal court justice Anna Katzmann found Palmer’s political jingle “Aussies Not Gonna Cop It”, recorded as part of his multimillion-dollar advertising blitz during the 2019 federal election campaign, was a “substantial” reproduction of the Twisted Sister song.
The Palmer version of the song changed the lyrics to: “Australia ain’t gonna cop it, no Australia’s not gonna cop it, Aussies not gonna cop it any more.”
During a week-long trial in October, lawyers for the billionaire Australian mining magnate and former MP had argued the song did not infringe copyright because, they claimed, the original song was a “rip-off” of the hymn O Come, All Ye Faithful.
You can read the full story below:
Updated
I mentioned earlier that there were a number of very strong wastewater Covid-19 detections in Melbourne. Here is a list of the affected suburbs, from AAP.
North-western suburbs:
- Glenroy, Hadfield, Oak Park and Pascoe Vale between 20-27 April.
- Benalla between 10-15 and 20-26 April (repeat detections).
- Avondale Heights, Calder Park, Hillside (Melton), Kealba, Keilor, Keilor Downs, Keilor East, Keilor Lodge, Keilor North, Keilor Park, Sydenham and Taylors Lakes between 18-26 April.
Western suburbs:
- Altona, Altona North, Brooklyn, Newport, South Kingsville, Williamstown and Williamstown North between 20-27 April.
- Albanvale, Burnside, Burnside Heights, Cairnlea, Caroline Springs, Deer Park, Delahey, Hillside (Melton), Keilor Downs, Kings Park, Plumpton, Ravenhall, Sydenham, Taylors Hill and Taylors Lakes between 18-26 April.
Northern suburbs:
- Briar Hill, Bundoora, Diamond Creek, Greensborough, Lower Plenty, Macleod, Mill Park, Montmorency, Plenty, South Morang, St Helena, Viewbank, Watsonia, Watsonia North, Yallambie and Yarrambat between 20-27 April.
Outer eastern suburbs:
- Chirnside Park, Coldstream, Kalorama, Lilydale, Montrose, Mooroolbark, Mount Dandenong, Mount Evelyn, Olinda, Yarra Glen and Yering between 20-26 April.
Eastern suburbs:
- Balwyn, Balwyn North, Blackburn, Blackburn North, Box Hill, Box Hill North, Bulleen, Doncaster, Doncaster East, Donvale, Mitcham, Mont Albert, Mont Albert North, Nunawading and Templestowe Lower between 20-24 April.
Outer northern suburbs:
- Epping, South Morang or Wollert between 17-22 April.
Updated
It's capital "I' and lower case 'w'.
— Amy Remeikis (@AmyRemeikis) April 30, 2021
That it's inverted here says everything about the priorities https://t.co/m11TSIOETS
Albanese:
Ms Higgins will put forward those issues and we hope that the prime minister listens to her. She is a courageous woman who is trying to get some reform and some outcome to change the culture in the future.
Albanese has described the request Higgins will make to the prime minister as “modest and reasonable”:
Which is that just as IPAE – the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority – has been established to look at parliamentary expenses in a transparent and independent way, the Parliamentary Budget Office has been established to look at those issues in an independent and transparent way, and to build confidence in the system.
There’s a need for an independent body so that any woman or any staff member faced with the issues which Brittany was faced with, with the reported sexual assault, or people with other issues related to staffing, relating to culture in Parliament House or in parliamentary offices, are able to go forward and get independent advice...
At the moment, the way that the parliamentary services act operates is to really give no power for members of staff to be able to raise issues. It is not clear how that can occur.
Updated
Albanese calls on public to 'listen to women' after meeting with Brittany Higgins
Albanese is now discussing his meeting with former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, who spoke out against the government after she was allegedly raped in a ministerial office in Parliament House.
It was a very constructive discussion. Brittany Higgins is a very impressive woman. She has shown extraordinary courage in coming forward to be a voice, to be a voice standing up for women, standing up for issues that need real solutions.
Brittany Higgins will be putting forward to the prime minister a range of reforms that are necessary, that she had a discussion with me of. But the first thing that I’d say about today’s meeting was that it was an opportunity for me to listen.
We need to listen to women and to listen to their concerns, to listen to the experience that they’ve gone through and to listen to their views about solutions. Brittany Higgins has been through an extraordinarily difficult period in her life. She has shown incredible courage to speak out on behalf of not just herself but other women.
And I think the fact that – I said this in the parliament on the day of the March4Justice – it gives me great hope for this country that people like Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins have emerged as courageous women.
Updated
A reporter has asked Albanese what additional help Australia could be offering Australians stranded in India. The opposition leader says:
Well, they could be offered vaccines. They could be offered some financial support for those who need it. We need to also have a plan to bring Australians home. They can’t just be left in a state whereby they’re unable to get home indefinitely.
Scott Morrison promised, remember, to have every Australian home by Christmas. We know that there’s more than 30,000 Australians who are stranded overseas. And depending upon where they are, there’s been different rules put in place.
But we know that if the government had have got the quarantine system right, if it had have expanded Howard Springs earlier, if it had have taken up offers that were on the table – such as Avalon and Toowoomba – if it had of used facilities like Exmouth or Rottnest Island that were put forward by Mark McGowan and the WA government, if it had got on the front foot on these issues, if it had have dealt with hotel ventilation systems appropriately, then we would have been better off.
What we’ve had from Scott Morrison even this week is still saying that he’s satisfied with the hotel system. Well, hotels – including ones very close to the building where this press conference is taking place, there’s two within a couple of hundred metres of here – hotels are built for tourists. They’re not built for medical quarantine. And it’s not surprising that there have been issues associated with it because they’re not built for purpose.
Updated
The opposition leader is now demanding more action when it comes to returning the several thousand Australians trapped in India:
We also say that Australia has a responsibility to our citizens who are stranded in India. There’s about 10,000 of them. And India is going through a difficult time.
We should be offering whatever assistance we can give to India as our friend and our neighbour. But we should also be offering support for Australian citizens who are there – for those who are unable to get home – making sure that they can get access to vaccines, making sure that we provide them with support.
Because whilst there’s some very high-profile people in India who are getting some publicity, there’s also Australian citizens who are doing it really tough, whose names we don’t know in the media, who will need that support during this difficult time.
The crisis in India requires more than the same old day-to-day political management which dominates this government’s approach to every issue, as does quarantine here today. And I hope that the meeting today comes up with real solutions and national leadership from the prime minister. Not just a press conference announcing what state premiers have told each other they’ll be doing, but national leadership.
Updated
Albanese:
We know that every time there has been an issue with regard to hotel quarantine, it has had consequences not just for people’s health but for our economy, with shutdowns of state borders, shutdowns of particular regions, such as most recently that we saw with Perth and the Peel region.
It is time for the prime minister to commit to national standards for hotel quarantine. That in terms of the commitment that could be made immediately, was something that Jane Halton called for so many months ago. I don’t know why it is that this prime minister continually asks for reviews and then ignores it when he receives them, or sometimes keeps those reviews secret - so-called Cabinet-in-confidence as a strategy.
So, today Labor is calling for a clear outcome.
Albanese is calling on the prime minister to announce a national plan for quarantining returned travellers after the national cabinet meeting with state leaders today.
When Australia’s Covid response relied upon Australians doing the right thing, we led the world. Now Australia’s Covid response is relying upon Scott Morrison as Prime Minister to do the right thing, to take responsibility for quarantine and the vaccination rollout.
The fact is that the hard work that Australians put in during 2020 is being put at risk. Hotels are built for tourism, not for medical quarantine. That is just a fact. Today’s National Cabinet is an opportunity for Scott Morrison to finally take responsibility for quarantine, a responsibility that no less a document than the Australian Constitution gives him.
He needs to stand up after National Cabinet and say that he has a national plan for quarantine. Scott Morrison needs to stand up and say that in every state and territory there will be a fit-for-purpose quarantine facility established. Enough is enough.
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese is speaking now after his meeting this morning with Brittany Higgins.
Remember earlier this morning I mentioned that defence minister Peter Dutton had poo-pooed the Victorian government’s requests for the Commonwealth to foot the bill for a new purpose-built quarantine facility, calling it “political smoke and mirrors”?
Well, the Victorian government has now had the chance to clap back, and environment minister Lily D’Ambrosio has gone with an equally poetic response.
[The federal government] can’t wish away or hope away with careless words their responsibilities.
State Government Minister and Member for Mill Park @LilyDAmbrosioMP says re Peter Dutton’s comments ⬇️
— Simon Love (@SimoLove) April 30, 2021
“They can’t wish away or hope away with careless words their responsibilities” @10NewsFirstMelb #springst https://t.co/dh9QUvYZ4y pic.twitter.com/CpT9NmyC5U
Things are changing in the WA lower house, and looks like McGowan is having a little trouble keeping up!
For the first time, there's a Madam Speaker running the show in the @AssemblyWA. https://t.co/e2IMxmW9Cm pic.twitter.com/Cb9P5f7v6o
— Rhiannon Shine (@RhiannonShine) April 30, 2021
The Northern Territory coronavirus quarantine centre has taken on an extra 160 health staff before an expected surge in the number of Australians returning from overseas, AAP reports.
Howard Springs expects to cater for up to 2,000 arrivals between May and June, with a peak of 1,200 in May, under the territory’s agreement with the federal government.
The new staff this week completed their training ahead of joining the expanded quarantine operation based near Darwin airport.
Another 150 workers will be inducted in May, NT health minister Natasha Fyles said in a statement on Friday.
We are working with AUSMAT to ensure Howard Springs remains the gold standard when it comes to repatriating returned Australians.
A total of 400 staff are being recruited to expand capacity at Howard Springs from 850 to 2000 returning travellers per fortnight.
NT chief minister Michael Gunner this week said his government was ready to welcome more travellers from India, which is in the midst of a severe outbreak of the deadly disease.
We have the capacity to look after returning Australians and keep coronavirus where it should be, trapped in that quarantine centre.
The federal government this week suspended flights into Australia from India due to the outbreak, which is running at about 300,000 new cases a day, until 15 May.
Many of the people returning to Australia before the ban were travelling from India and a number have tested positive for Covid-19 upon their return in the NT, Western Australia and other states.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, on Wednesday toured Howard Springs to discuss the expansion of the facility. The centre hasn’t had a Covid-19 case breach since it began regularly taking in repatriated Australians in October. So far it’s catered to more than 6,500 returnees.
Updated
The state’s first mass vaccination hub is set to open at Wayville Showground at midday.
— Andrea Nicolas (@AndreaLNicolas) April 30, 2021
Just 150 frontline workers will be first to receive the Pfizer jab today, but the government wants 3000 people a week vaccinated at the site. @7NewsAdelaide #covidvaccine pic.twitter.com/RznxwLBppX
Updated
Scott Morrison has rejected suggestions he believes God chose him to be prime minister, hitting back at critics of his speech to the Australian Christian Churches conference.
Morrison told 2GB Radio on Friday that his comments suggesting he received divine inspiration to run for office were merely an expression of the fact Christians believe “whatever you do every day … is part of your Christian service”.
It comes after a speech on Thursday evening in which Morrison warned against “identity politics” and gave a fuller account of how his political philosophy is shaped by Christian values.
In a speech to a Jewish community fundraising appeal, Morrison argued that the belief in human dignity leads to the conclusion people matter “individually” rather than for attributes such as sex, race or religion.
You can read the full report below:
In NSW 13 returned travellers have been diagnosed with Covid-19 in the last day.
On the upside, there are no local cases once again!
NSW recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) April 30, 2021
Thirteen new cases were acquired overseas to 8pm last night, bringing the total number of cases in NSW since the beginning of the pandemic to 5,288. pic.twitter.com/scE7nnODY6
Brittany Higgins says her meeting with the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, was “very constructive”.
WATCH: Brittany Higgins says her meeting with Labor Leader Anthony Albanese was a constructive one. I'll have the latest on @Studio10au in 15 minutes. @10NewsFirst pic.twitter.com/Hi2Wpd65KT
— Stela Todorovic (@Stela_Todorovic) April 30, 2021
Updated
The Leader of the Australian Labor Party @AlboMP is in Sydney today and will hold a press conference at 11:45am #auspol
— Political Alert (@political_alert) April 30, 2021
Amazing second line in Justice Anna Katzmann's ruling on Universal Music v Palmer. pic.twitter.com/SMTafi5wnt
— Michael McGowan (@mmcgowan) April 30, 2021
She also found Palmer was "a most unimpressive witness" whose evidence was "at times incredible". pic.twitter.com/7oLCxR4uOG
— Michael McGowan (@mmcgowan) April 30, 2021
Everything we know about the Brisbane airport case so far
Some more information from Queensland Health on the traveller who tested positive to Covid-19 after inadvertently entering the trans-Tasman bubble “green zone” at Brisbane Airport:
The state’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, has declared the international terminal a venue of concern.
Anyone who was in the terminal between 9.45am and midday on Thursday, 29 April 2021, should monitor their symptoms and get tested immediately if they feel unwell.
Queensland Health say the man arrived on a flight from Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, yesterday morning.
He and his travel partner were mistakenly directed to the airport’s green departure zone, instead of the red zone for travellers from higher-risk countries.
They spent about two hours among passengers of three New Zealand-bound flights.
Closed circuit television footage shows they spent most of that time in Hudson Café, had minimal interaction with other people and wore masks appropriately. The footage shows the table was also cleaned once they left.
Once the mistake was identified, the two passengers were tested for COVID-19.
One man’s initial test was equivocal, meaning it was neither positive nor negative. Further testing revealed he is positive. The other passenger is negative.
Serology testing is underway to determine if the confirmed case is historical.
It is understood three flights may have been affected:
- Air New Zealand NZ202 from Brisbane to Christchurch
- Air New Zealand NZ146 from Brisbane to Auckland
- Qantas QF135 from Brisbane to Christchurch.
Young said the risk of Queenslanders being infected is low, but precautions should still be taken.
Staff who came into contact with this case have been placed into quarantine.
We have advised the NZ Ministry of Health of the latest results and they are taking their own protection measures.
Both international and domestic airports are higher-risk environments.
We need people to wear masks in terminals at all times. We have kept that direction in place and we need people to comply.
The department closed out the release reaffirming that “Queensland Health is not responsible for security arrangements inside Brisbane International Airport”.
This is under Border Force’s jurisdiction.
Updated
Here's Justice Katzmann on the jingle being a benefit to Palmer pic.twitter.com/6fjHIDyBFX
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) April 30, 2021
Palmer to pay $1.5m for breaching copyright of Twisted Sister song
Clive Palmer has been ordered to pay Universal Music $1.5m in damages over the “unauthorised” use of a version of the hit 1980s song We’re Not Gonna Take It by glam metal band Twisted Sister in a political ad during the 2019 election campaign.
Palmer used a cover version of the song during his multimillion-dollar advertising blitz during last year’s federal election campaign. The Palmer version of the song changed the lyrics to:
Australia ain’t gonna cop it, no Australia’s not gonna cop it, Aussies not gonna cop it any more.
During a week-long trial in October, lawyers for the billionaire Australian mining magnate and former MP had argued the song did not infringe copyright because, they claim, the original song was a “rip-off” of the hymn O Come, All Ye Faithful.
On Friday the federal court justice Anna Katzmann found Palmer’s version of the song, which changed the lyrics of the chorus, was a “reproduction of a substantial part” of the song, written by Twisted Sister frontman Daniel D Snyder.
Katzmann ordered Palmer and his United Australia party to pay Universal, which owns the rights to the song, a total of $1.5m plus interest and damages for the song.
She also ordered Palmer to remove all versions of the song and accompanying video from the internet.
Updated
Two Sydney men arrested in massive MDMA drug bust investigation
Queensland police are speaking now about a massive multiyear MDMA drug bust investigation and the subsequent arrest of two Sydney men.
These men have now been extradited to Queensland to face charges over a plot to import 850kg of MDMA worth more than $300m into Australia from the Netherlands.
The Australian federal police said the investigation began in 2019 when they tipped off Dutch authorities.
This investigation prevented 50 million ecstasy tablets from reaching Australian shores and harming our communities. In 2019 this operation originally resulted in the arrest of 11 individuals allegedly involved in the criminal syndicate’s plot to attempt to export the illicit drugs from the Netherlands into Queensland.
A 50-year-old Sydney woman was among those charged back in 2019. Today and thanks to our ongoing work of this major investigation, the total number of people charged now stands at 13.
On Wednesday, Joint Organised Crime Force detectives arrested a 37-year-old Lilyfield man and a 19-year-old Summer Hill man, executing search warrants at their homes in the early hours of the morning.
We allege that these men were part of an Australian-based syndicate that attempted to purchase 150kg of the MDMA being shipped into Queensland. It is also alleged that these syndicate members attempted to purchase these illicit drugs using the proceeds of crime.
Australia is a primary market in the global drug trade because locals are willing to pay a high price for substances that cost a mere fraction elsewhere.
An MDMA pill that costs 20c in Amsterdam will fetch $20-$30 on Australian streets.
Updated
Palmer to pay $1.5m for breaching copyright of Twisted Sister song
Oooft! Clive Palmer has been ordered to pay $1.5m in damages for breaching the copyright of Twisted Sister’s song We’re Not Gonna Take It.
#breaking Clive Palmer ordered to pay $1.5 million damages for breach of copyright of Twisted Sister's We're Not Gonna Take It#auspol #auslaw pic.twitter.com/K7zydZD6kO
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) April 30, 2021
Updated
Reporter Michael McGowan will be bringing you more information on this via the blog soon.
#BREAKING Clive Palmer has lost a copyright case over his political rendition of Twisted Sister's metal track We're Not Gonna Take It, which he used in advertising in 2019. @abcnews @abcsydney
— Jamie McKinnell (@jamie86) April 30, 2021
While Queensland hasn’t recorded any local cases of Covid-19 today, they have had three returned travellers test positive.
One of these cases was one of the two travellers, who, while coming off a flight from Papua New Guinea at Brisbane international airport, was inadvertently directed into the airport’s green departure zone, instead of the red zone which is designated for travellers from higher-risk countries.
The green zone at Australian airports are only meant for people travelling to or arriving from New Zealand who are exempt from hotel quarantine.
The health department released the following statement last night:
They were in the green zone for around 2 hours with other passengers due to depart for New Zealand.
Prior to entry into Queensland, both passengers reportedly tested negative for Covid-19.
Both passengers have also been tested in Brisbane this afternoon, with one passenger returning a negative result. The other test was equivocal, meaning it did not indicate either a positive or negative test.
This person has now tested positive and are fears this kind of fumble could harm New Zealand’s willingness to accept Australian tourists.
It is understood that this means possible exposure to passengers on Air New Zealand NZ202 from Brisbane to Christchurch, Air New Zealand NZ146 from Brisbane to Auckland, and Qantas QF135 from Brisbane to Christchurch.
Updated
Traveller who breached trans-Tasman bubble tests positive to Covid-19
More to come on this as soon as possible.
Two of today’s new cases were detected in hotel quarantine. One case was detected in Brisbane Airport’s International Terminal. #covid19au
— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) April 29, 2021
Updated
Morrison has also been asked about the controversial comments from Homes Affairs secretary, Michael Pezzullo, who in a speech this week, warned of an increasing drumbeat to war and argued Australia should not avoid conflict at the price of liberty.
This has lead many, including the opposition, to suggest the government was agitating Australia’s already very tense relationship with China.
Morrison said:
Well, that’s not what I’ve been saying. Our defence forces are there to secure peace. They’re there to secure a free and open Indo-Pacific and we work particularly with our US allies on that.
I was up at Darwin at Robertson Barracks the other day where the Marines trained together with Australian forces. And we’ve just upgraded $747 million, all the training fields and bases that they operate up there in the Northern Territory. That’s there to secure a stable region, a peaceful region, and we make a very positive contribution to that. So that’s what we’re doing.
We updated and upgraded our strategic defence position last year and we’ve taken some decisions since then to ensure that our defence forces are in the best possible position to protect and defend Australia’s national interests.
While we have a second let’s duck back to that Scott Morrison interview with Sydney radio station 2GB.
The prime minister was asked why it seems NSW hasn’t benefited as much from the government’s half price plane ticket tourism support package as Queensland.
Queensland has received around 300,000 flights while only around 1,400 had gone to NSW.
I mean, the programme was really about getting people to more remote locations where people don’t drive.
I was up in Darwin a couple of days ago, 50,000 of the flights went to Darwin. Now, these are places where you couldn’t drive in a couple of hours from Sydney, from or Melbourne or Adelaide or Perth. And it was in those more remote communities, those far flung communities, which really had a much higher proportion of their economies determined by tourism.
And having been there and getting the feedback from particularly up in North Queensland and those heavily dependent tourist and destinations will benefit from that. Over, I think, 660,000 of those flights have gone out.
There’s nothing stopping states and territories, if they want to see more, they can go to the airlines and they can fund half price flights themselves. I mean, there’s nothing stopping any state and territory doing that.
Just for the record, plenty of states have offered tourism incentives, just in the form of vouchers, rather than flights.
As India grapples with a devastating Covid wave that has overwhelmed its hospitals, offers of aid, including from Australia, have flooded in from around the world.
The help on offer has focused on medical supplies such as ventilators, personal protective equipment and even oxygen from India’s traditional foe, Pakistan. But the quantity of equipment on offer is dwarfed by the mammoth task of vaccinating the country’s 1.4 billion citizens and the ultimate effort to protect the country from future outbreaks.
And Australia, along with a handful of other wealthy nations, is not making that task any easier, so far refusing a plea made by India in October to help ramp up vaccine access for developing nations.
India is leading a push from lower and middle income nations at the World Trade Organization to suspend vaccine patents to allow cheaper versions to be manufactured and sold.
You can read the full report below:
Updated
Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins arrives for talks with Labor's Anthony Albanese in Sydney. She'll sit down with the PM this afternoon. It's their first meeting since she went public with rape allegations. She's now lobbying for reform @7NewsAustralia pic.twitter.com/PbMjXtwDGN
— Olivia Leeming (@olivialeeming) April 29, 2021
Don’t miss out on the Guardian Australia book club today. Look’s like it’s going to be a great one!
Book lovers! @GuardianAus interactive book club happens today on Zoom at 1.30pm, featuring the amazing Emily Maguire with the also amazing @lucykateclark. Read up below, and click through pre-register to join the conversation: https://t.co/hDZOrXiav9
— steph harmon (@stephharmon) April 29, 2021
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has struck out against cancel culture and identity politics, following several days of criticisms for an explicitly religious speech he made at a Pentecostal church convention.
He made these new comments during a speech at a United Israel function in Sydney on Thursday night on faith and community, referencing Australia’s Judeo-Christian heritage, reports AAP.
Seeing the inherent dignity of all human beings is the foundation of morality.
It makes us more capable of love and compassion, of selflessness and forgiveness.
Because if you see the dignity and worth of another person, another human being, the beating heart in front of you, you’re less likely to disrespect them, insult or show contempt or hatred for them, or seek to cancel them, as is becoming the fashion these days.
Morrison also highlighted individual and personal responsibility, its relevance to citizenship and the role of the state in society.
Where we once understood our rights in terms of our protections from the state, now it seems these rights are increasingly defined by what we expect from the state.
As citizens, we cannot allow what we think we are entitled to, to become more important than what we are responsible for as citizens.
You are more than your gender, you are more than your race, you are more than your sexuality, you are more than your ethnicity, you are more than your religion, your language group, your age.
Earlier this week, Morrison’s personal faith came under the spotlight when details of a speech he gave to a national Christian conference earlier this month were made public.
The prime minister, a Pentecostal, spoke of social media being used by “the evil one” to undermine society and described identity politics as “corrosive”.
He also spoke of doing God’s work and he sometimes used the Evangelical practice of “laying on of hands” while embracing people who had suffered from trauma or natural disaster.
Updated
I’m am sharing this tweet only because I think it’s so so funny that a politician sat down and wrote out “Me = 😂”.
Also, I feel like that deserves a sip of coffee for the morning coffee game.
Me = 😂. In the week where Joe Biden said “Trickle-down economics has never worked. It’s time to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out” the AFR criticised the union movement for SAYING THE SAME THING. Time for the tired old boys brigade to get with the program. pic.twitter.com/GYXNLdhV24
— Ged Kearney (@gedkearney) April 29, 2021
Updated
Canberra police have received a complaint of potential revenge porn related to the sharing of intimate images taken at Parliament House.
The report was received on 30 March, one week after a Liberal staffer was sacked for performing a solo sex act on the desk of a female MP amid a storm over the Morrison government’s handling of sexual harassment.
The sacking of Nathan Winn, a longtime Liberal aide to Coalition whips including Nola Marino, provoked a fierce backlash against the whistleblower who had reported the alleged workplace misconduct to Network Ten.
Ten broadcast pixelated images on 22 March of unnamed Coalition advisers allegedly performing lewd sex acts, including on the desk of a female MP, in Parliament House.
On 29 March, Liberal MP Warren Entsch, another former employer of Winn, told the Sydney Morning Herald the distribution of explicit images was a clear case of revenge porn and should be investigated by police.
You can read the full report below:
No local cases of Covid-19 in Victoria today. Huzzah!
Yesterday there were no new local cases and 2 new cases acquired overseas (currently in HQ) reported.
— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) April 29, 2021
- 4,123 vaccine doses were administered
- 15,656 test results were received
More later: https://t.co/2vKbgKHFvv#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/xOUZlUmuJG
Updated
I don’t particularly feel like spoiling my Friday too much by wading too deep into the swamp that is the religious content in the Australian Curriculum debate. But I just want to point out the very interesting choice of words in this tweet from education minister Alan Tudge.
“Indigenous history”, but “our Western heritage”.
We can and should focus on indigenous history, but not at the expense of our Western heritage which made Australia the liberal democracy it is today. Both need to be taught. https://t.co/VVqbkpMxZA
— Alan Tudge (@AlanTudgeMP) April 29, 2021
Morrison says he will close Indian travel loopholes
Scott Morrison has confirmed that, despite Australia blocking flights from India until 15 May, a loophole existed for transfers to intermediate countries such as Qatar (Doha).
This loophole reportedly allowed cricketers Adam Zampa and Kane Richardson to return to Australia via Doha.
Morrison said that when the ban/pause was imposed on Tuesday, Australian authorities mistakenly believed the two-week quarantine period in Doha would be imposed on transferees.
When they found this was not the case, on Wednesday evening they moved to close the loophole, but the flight to Melbourne was the last to get through under the old rules.
Morrison flagged that he would have more to say about closing loopholes on the India ban after national cabinet today.
Updated
Commonwealth government likely to reject Victoria's request for quarantine construction funding
The defence minister, Peter Dutton, has condemned the Victorian government’s request for federal money to build a new quarantine hub.
Yesterday Victoria unveiled plans for their long-promised alternative quarantine facility after the hotel system proved unreliable. But, much to many people’s surprise, they announced the preferred location as an area on commonwealth land and said they would be asking the federal government to foot the $200m-$700m bill; stating quarantine was a federal responsibility.
But now Dutton has told Nine News the suggestion is “political smoke and mirrors”, the rebuke signalling the commonwealth is unlikely to support the proposal.
I have seen some political smoke and mirrors over my time and I think this is right at the top of the list.
Hotels are working very well.
They are able to be scaled up. It gives us the ability to bring people in, quarantine them and send them back home to get on with their lives.
But the deputy Labor leader, Richard Marles, disagreed.
“Hotels are not fit for purpose,” he told Nine. “Quarantine is the government’s job. The federal government’s job. They have had advice from the middle of last year that they should have purpose-built facilities to deal with quarantine.”
Updated
We will get back to Morrison in a second, but side note:
There are more Labor MP’s called Lisa than Liberal MPs in the WA lower house!
Amazing image of WA Parliament in tomorrow's The West Australian ... where the Lower House now has more Labor MP's named Lisa than the Liberals have representatives pic.twitter.com/e64mrsRFWz
— Anthony De Ceglie (@AnthDeCeglie) April 29, 2021
Updated
Morrison has been asked about the backlash he faced after making a fairly explicitly religious speech at a national convention of Pentecostal churches, where, among other things, he suggested that he and his wife, Jenny, were called on to do God’s work in the office of prime minister:
Christian talks to Christians about Christian things. I don’t think that’s really a newsflash, but I have been, I suppose, disappointed about how some of that has been mischaracterised.
People of faith, Christians ... we just feel that, you know, whatever you do every day, you do is part of your Christian service.
Whether you serve as a prime minister, whether you serve as a journalist, whether you serve as a police officer, a nurse, a teacher. We just see that as part of our faith, that you know you’re there, doing service as part of your Christian faith. For that to be mischaracterised by, frankly, others who should know better, I’m disappointed.
But there’s no suggestion about anyone other than the Australian people deciding who runs this country.
Updated
Morrison 'hasn't seen' empathy course Laming was order to undertake
Scott Morrison has just been asked if he was aware that the empathy training he ordered controversial MP Andrew Laming undertake was simply an online course:
At the time, he said he would arrange to undertake appropriate training and, as you know, Andrew also advised for some period of time now, he’s been affected by ADHD.
Andrew is not running for LNP at the next election, the LNP have made that decision. And in the meantime, I expect him to serve his community that elected him on many occasions, and to do that job, between now and the election.
Morrison was asked if an online course was what Morrison expected.
He undertook to me that he would be correcting and changing his behaviour and getting help for that. And I know he has been doing that.
I mean, I haven’t seen the exact course that he’s undertaken, I mean there’s been a few other things that I’ve been focused on.
Updated
The prime minister is speaking on Sydney radion station 2GB now.
"The budget would be in much better nick if it wasn't riddled with these partisan rorts - sports rorts and dodgy land deals - and if it wasn't weighed down with the kind of waste we've seen with the botched implementation of the JobKeeper program."
— RN Breakfast (@RNBreakfast) April 29, 2021
- Shadow Treasurer @JEChalmers
Speaking of the Tassie election why don’t we hear from the opposition leader, Rebecca White, who is urging people not to consider just the last (very successful) year of Tasmania fighting Covid-19 but the (more checkered) last seven years of Liberal governance in its entirety.
She told ABC News Breakfast:
[Ahead of tomorrow I’m feeling] very determined. There’s no doubt that this election has really started to swing Labor’s way. I think it’s because people can see that too many people have been left behind in Tasmania, and health is no doubt the biggest issue that people will be casting their votes on tomorrow.
The point I’ve been making is this isn’t an election on the last week, month or year, which would make it a Covid election. It’s an election on the last seven years of this Liberal government.
For people to make a decision about whether their lives have improved or gotten worse. I think, for too many Tasmanians, sadly, their life outcomes have declined, whether it’s access to housing, healthcare, employment – we can do so much better. So I’m asking people to think about the future. Not just to think about the last year. But to think about what kind of Tasmania they want. Right now, too many Tasmanians have been left behind, and we can do better.
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I mentioned before that Tasmanians are heading to the polls tomorrow morning. Well, the premier, Peter Gutwein, was just on ABC radio chatting about his imminent fight to regain a majority government.
Pokies have been a major topic this campaign. Gutwein has been asked if he was shocked by figures that showed Tasmanians have also lost $180m on these machines since he became premier at the start of 2020.
That’s why I’ve always taken the view that we need to have a strong harm minimisation framework in place but I don’t believe the government should be telling people what to do with their own money.
Host Sabra Lane:
But it must worry you, given what you’ve just told me about an ageing and very vulnerable population here, that Tasmanians have lost $180m since you became premier in January last year.
Gutwein:
One of the things that I believe very strongly is that people should have the choice and they should be able to decide how to spend their money. But it’s important that government ensures it has strong supports in place and the harm minimisation measures that we announced back in 2018, in terms of the gaming reforms, are a doubling of those supports.
The real front in regards to gaming risk is not what’s appearing in a gaming venue, it’s what’s happening in someone’s lounge room whilst they sit on the phone.
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Starting out the day with a must-read article from Stephanie Convery.
Degradation of cerebral white matter was found in the brain of the late AFLW player Jacinda Barclay after she donated the organ for concussion research.
AFLW player Jacinda Barclay, who died last year, has become the first contact sportswoman in Australia to donate her brain to the Australian Sports Brain Bank, where researchers have uncovered neurological damage that they described as a “ticking time bomb”.
Barclay, who died in Chidlow, WA, last October aged 29 after a short but intense period of mental illness, was found by brain bank researchers to have degradation to her cerebral white matter.
Microdamage of this kind has been observed in American footballers, and is understood to be the consequence of repetitive head injury from contact sports. White matter changes and repeated head injury have also been linked to the development of mental illness and an increased risk of suicidal ideation.
Barclay’s groundbreaking donation has been hailed as “a defining moment towards balancing gender equity in sports concussion research”.
You can read the full report below:
- In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.
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Good morning all. It’s Matilda Boseley here and to quote one of the lyrical geniuses of our time, it’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday. (This is a very 2011-based joke.)
So let’s talk about the news, why don’t we.
One of the biggest things to look out for is Scott Morrison’s much-anticipated meeting with former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, whose decision to go public about her alleged rape in a ministerial office at Parliament House sparked national rallies about the mistreatment of women.
She will meet with the prime minister and Labor’s Anthony Albanese in Sydney where they will discuss ways to change the toxic workplace culture faced by political advisers.
Higgins has publicly said that she feels the current system failed her and she wants “a new framework for political staff that ensures genuine cultural change and restores the trust of staff”.
There have also been a number of travel scares in Australia today, including an apparent breach of the trans-Tasman bubble.
Queensland Health says two transiting passengers coming off a flight from Papua New Guinea at Brisbane international airport this morning were inadvertently directed into the airport’s green departure zone, instead of the red zone which is designated for travellers from higher-risk countries.
The green zone at Australian airports are only meant for people travelling to or arriving from New Zealand who are exempt from hotel quarantine.
The health department released the following statement:
They were in the green zone for around 2 hours with other passengers due to depart for New Zealand.
Prior to entry into Queensland, both passengers reportedly tested negative for Covid-19.
Both passengers have also been tested in Brisbane this afternoon, with one passenger returning a negative result. The other test was equivocal, meaning it did not indicate either a positive or negative test.
Further tests are being conducted but there are fears this kind of fumble could harm New Zealand’s willingness to accept Australian tourists. We will keep an eye out today for the NZ response, and if there are any isolation orders for the passengers on the three affected flights.
Down in Victoria, 246 newly returned travellers from Perth and the Peel region in WA have been told to get tested for Covid-19 after “strong and unexpected” fragments of the virus were detected in wastewater.
The health department said:
This additional action is being taken due to the strength of the wastewater detection and because a known positive Covid-19 case, from flight QF778, has been in Victoria in the past 14 days.
Those asked to get retested includes four close contacts of the infected patient. All have returned negative results but the department wants them to get tested again “out of an abundance of caution”.
And very quickly there is also:
- The Tasmanian state election tomorrow.
- National cabinet meeting today.
- Restrictions easing further in Perth and the Peel region
- And most importantly, possibly, a new surprise album, from Taylor Swift! (Or so her super fans believe.)
OK with that why don’t we jump into the day! 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 or email me at matilda.boseley@theguardian.com.
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