What we learned, Tuesday 18 May.
I’ll leave you here for tonight. Thanks for reading along. We’ll be back first thing tomorrow. Here’s what we learned today:
- A Sydney father of two died of Covid in India after becoming stuck in the country when he visited family following the death of his mother. Govind Kant, described as a “stalwart” of Australia’s solar industry, died in a Delhi hospital on Sunday, after contracting Covid-19 at the end of April.
- In a decision with huge ramifications for the gig economy, Australia’s Fair Work Commission ruled that a Deliveroo rider was an employee not a contractor.
- A man in his 50s died after he was mauled by a 4.5m great white shark off Tuncurry Beach on the New South Wales mid-north coast.
- The traditional owners of the Juukan Gorge rock shelters demanded they be given a seat at the table in future planning of Rio Tinto’s $1.5bn iron ore mine in an effort to prevent the further destruction of cultural heritage.
- The New South Wales government was criticised for paying a property developer $53.5m for a contaminated block of land in Sydney seven months after it sold for $38m, with the auditor saying it was “unable to exclude the possibility that the transaction was affected by misconduct or corruption”.
- Political leaders lined up to criticise the Virgin Airlines chief executive for her comments yesterday that Australia’s borders should reopen sooner than the middle of next year even though “some people may die”. Morrison labelled them “insensitive”, while New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, remarked that “no death is acceptable”.
Black Lives Matter protester who threw a chocolate bar at police spared conviction
A Black Lives Matter protester who threw a chocolate bar and plastic water bottle at police officers following a Sydney rally has been spared a conviction.
AAP reports that Geleto Kabeta Daledu Eggu pleaded guilty to two charges of assaulting a police officer without occasioning actual bodily harm on Tuesday in Sydney’s Downing Centre local court.
The 22-year-old had joined 20,000 who marched on 6 June 2020, in support of American George Floyd who had been recently killed by police, and Indigenous man David Dungay who died in Australian custody.
A last-minute decision by the NSW court of appeal authorised the public gathering which moved from Town Hall to Belmore Park and Central Railway Station where police attempted to disperse the crowds.
But as large groups of people continued “loitering and chanting”, Eggu displayed an angry demeanour and was pushed by an officer and told to “move back” according to court documents.
The Mount Druitt man then threw a plastic water bottle from about five metres away at one officer who said it felt full or partly full, and a Kinder Bueno wrapped chocolate bar at another.
Shortly after Eggu was arrested for separate offences “committed within the continuity of disruptive crowd behaviour”, but was granted strict conditional bail.
Magistrate Sharon Freund acknowledged the worldwide heightened police and civilian tensions surrounding the protest and the confined Sydney train station space where the conflict escalated.
“In terms of criminality, it would have to be at the lower end of seriousness, the throwing of a partially filled water bottle and a small chocolate,” she said.
But the judge said officers performing frontline duties deserved extra protection in the community and were not to be assaulted under any circumstances.
Eggu’s lawyer Ben Jamieson earlier indicated that his client would be pleading not guilty. But after viewing body-worn camera footage for the first time this was changed and accepted by Freund as an early plea warranting a reduced sentence.
He was given a 12-month conditional release order expiring in May 2022.
Updated
Police are appealing for public assistance to help locate a boy and a girl missing from the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales.
Reginald Ayling and Laura Stephens, both aged 13, were last seen about 12pm on Monday, outside a school on Cawley Close in Alstonville.
Officers attached to Richmond police district were alerted when the children could not be located and an investigation into their whereabouts began. There are concerns for their welfare due to the age of the children
Reginald was last seen wearing a blue hoodie, shorts and carrying a black backpack. He is described as Caucasian appearance, dark brown curly hair, 170cm tall and thin build
Laura was last seen wearing a black hoodie, grey trackpants, boots and carrying a shoulder bag. She is described as Caucasian appearance, light brown hair, 160cm tall and thin build.
Police urge anyone with information on the whereabouts of Reginald and Laura to contact Ballina police station or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Updated
A woman whose mother died in a regional NSW hospital without a doctor present says her mother fell victim to an “inadequate and ill-equipped” health system.
“My mother died alone with no family present. She would have been terrified,” Hayley Olivares told a parliamentary inquiry investigating rural and regional health on Tuesday.
AAP reports that Olivares’ mother Dawn Trevitt, a 66-year-old Gulgong teacher, was taken to the Gulgong Multi-Purpose Service by ambulance on 15 September 2020.
There was no doctor working there.
Although she was triaged into the most urgent category and should have been seen by a doctor immediately, it took 35 minutes to connect with a doctor on telehealth. She had significantly deteriorated.
There was only one headset to speak to and hear the doctor, leading to confusion over the timing of compressions as nurses tried to resuscitate Trevitt.
She died within an hour.
Other patients in the medical centre were left in the care of a cook while the two nurses on duty assisted her.
Olivares was critical of a NSW Health review into her mother’s death, saying it was not independent and its conclusions were flawed.
The report found that having a doctor present would not have saved Trevitt’s life.
“I’m not as convinced,” Olivares said.
At what point did it become acceptable to have a multi-purpose service open for business with emergency and ambulance signs on the front but with no doctor inside the walls?
It fills the community with false hope that they will receive appropriate care when they need it, when in fact that could not be further from the truth.
The inquiry sat in Wellington in the state’s central west on Tuesday, its fourth day of hearings.
Community leaders, medical staff, activists and residents painted a picture of an understaffed, under-equipped health system.
One woman, Sally Empringham, said she’d decided not to have more children because of a lack of healthcare.
Two friends had delivered children on the side of the road and she’d had to drive two hours to Dubbo for her own pregnancy complications to be checked out, she said.
Another man wept as he told of relatives having to drive hours to see a family member because of a lack of dementia treatment available in Warren.
The deputy mayor of Warrumbungle shire council, experienced GP Aniello Iannuzzi, said the four hospitals in his region were going without antibiotics and blood supplies.
“Sadly there are times, and the times are too frequent for my liking, where we run out of basic antibiotics to treat basic conditions,” he said.
Doctors had raised the problem of a lack of blood supplies for many years, he said.
One Canowindra nurse told of having to restrain an aggressive emergency patient because of a lack of security staff.
Another nurse from Gilgandra said she’d stopped taking emergency shifts despite having a certification in emergency work because understaffing meant she didn’t feel safe.
More than 700 people have made submissions to the inquiry.
It sits in Dubbo on Thursday.
Updated
Labor’s assistant treasurer Stephen Jones is speaking on the ABC, and is also asked about this question of, do we need to get used to living with some level of Covid-19 in order to allow international borders to re-open. After he gives a standard political answer, he does concede that “even when we are vaccinated, [by] opening up the borders and travelling again, Covid will be amongst us”.
Yes, we do have to learn to ensure that we are reducing the downside and the impact and mortality, the horrible mortality that is associated with its transmission, that involves the vaccine rollout, that involves the quarantine arrangement, and that involves a clear communication for a plan about what it looks like moving forward and I listened closely to an interview that Jane Halton gave where she made it clear that in her view, we could be doing this on an annual basis. So a clear conversation with the Australian people about what this looks like moving forward. We’re not having that at the moment.
Updated
Good news for Bill Shorten, who received his Covid-19 vaccine today. Also for my mum, who received hers today too.
If you’re interested, she told me she “feels fine” after the shot, and then sent me a bunch of photos of her friend’s dog for no reason.
Dose 1 - ✔️
— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) May 18, 2021
Thanks to the excellent team from @western_health down at the Melbourne Showgrounds Vaccination Hub. Quick, caring AND I got a lollipop for being a good patient.
No queues today, so if you're eligible, head down and help us get one step closer to COVID safety. pic.twitter.com/oZLIWmLUNF
I received the AstraZeneca vaccine 👍🏻 https://t.co/RtUqRSX1Pp
— Bill Shorten (@billshortenmp) May 18, 2021
Updated
Coatsworth agrees that rollout of Covid-19 vaccines in disability care is “far too slow”.
“I don’t think anyone is disputing that,” he says.
But he expresses hope that with supply freeing up, the rollout will begin speeding up. And that’s all from the deputy chief medical officer.
Nick Coatsworth says Australia shouldn't open border before mid-2022
He’s pushed on that answer. Basically, if the borders are open and we do see more cases of Covid-19, even with vaccinations some people will likely get sick, end up in intensive care and possibly die.
He concedes there will “be a risk” of people dying from Covid-19, but that the management of the virus will mean mortality will be “far less” than without a vaccine rollout.
We do need to talk about it and I think you are right and I think in 2022, when we have [higher] numbers vaccinated, we will have access to ICU beds and so there will be a risk of people dying from Covid-19 if it is circulating in our community but what we know from the studies that our intensive care specialist did in 2020 is that, when Australians get to intensive care beds, their mortality from Covid-19 is far less than anywhere else in the well because we have such a good system.
But, he says he does not believe international borders should be reopened before the middle of next year:
I don’t think so. I think the government has been very clear the vaccination campaign is extending throughout 2021 and my view is that there needs to be a staged, a cautious approach.
Updated
Good afternoon. the deputy chief medical officer Nick Coatsworth is speaking on the ABC now.
He’s asked “what kind of risk” Australia should be willing to take on in terms of reopening borders, and gives an interesting answer.
From 2022, he says, Australia should be willing to “test our healthcare system”. Coastsworth says that throughout 2021 when more and more countries reach high vaccination rates it will “give us the data and confidence that we can cope with that in our community”.
Updated
And with that, my time on the blog comes to an end today. But fear not, I leave you in the capable hands of Michael McGowan, who will guide you through the rest of the day’s news.
The ACT government has said it is relaunching its ChooseCBR digital voucher program on 9 June, after an earlier attempt in December fell flat.
Canberrans will be able to access some big discounts – up to 50% off, to a maximum of $50 – from small businesses who sign up to the scheme.
The government also set aside $2m for the scheme, up from the $500,000 set aside for the earlier scheme.
In December, the ChooseCBR voucher program ran for two weeks, and failed to attract enough consumers and businesses, and only got through less than two-thirds of its budget.
The latest rollout will be available from 9 June, and allow Canberrans to use three vouchers per day at local businesses, worth $10, $20 and $50.
You can register for the program here.
Updated
So, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said that in order for the world to reach net zero emissions by 2050, there have to be no new oil, gas or coal developments anywhere around the world.
The IEA also called for no new fossil-fuel cars to be sold beyond 2035, and for global investment in energy to more than double globally, saying the net result would be a benefit to economies, and not a burdern.
You can read more on the report and on what the IEA’s executive director told the Guardian here:
Flight Centre CEO says deaths when border open is 'inevitable'
Flight Centre’s CEO has said it is “inevitable” that some Australians will die once international borders reopen.
Graham Turner said on 3AW today that although the government shouldn’t “rush” to reopen, when they do, Australia will have to “live” with the virus.
Turner said he agreed with Virgin Australia chief Jayne Hrdlicka when she said “some people may die” but that it was important to reopen borders as soon as possible:
What she said actually made sense, it’s just the correlation probably doesn’t sound that good.
But her basic thing was that it’s like the flu. A couple of thousand people die every year from the flu here. It’s going to be the same with the coronavirus, even when people are vaccinated widely.
I’m not saying rush it, but this disease is going to be endemic in our society and we’re going to have to live with it and if you’re vaccinated you’ll be OK.
Updated
Aishwarya report exposes Western Australia hospital fears
Western Australia premier Mark McGowan has backed a fast-tracked inquiry into the death of seven-year-old Aishwarya Aswath to answer key questions on why the girl was not admitted earlier.
McGowan’s comments come as an internal report revealed a “cascade of missed opportunities” may have contributed to Aswath’s death at Perth Children’s hospital (PCH) on Saturday 3 April.
McGowan said the report confirmed that there were enough staff at the emergency department that night:
Basically, if you read the report it said the activity levels within the ED weren’t a contributing factor, and it also said that considering the interactions the family had with the staff and the ED, it was staffed sufficiently.
In light of all of that, we obviously need to work out what happened and why it happened.
That’s why the coronial inquiry I think will be important to understand, with such high staffing levels, how this happened.
McGowan said the inquest would help to answer the questions surrounding Aswath’s death.
Updated
So, a interesting little tidbit has emerged from the newspoll results published this morning, with more Labor voters wanting the government to rein in spending:
Urgh more ALP voters want to "rein in spending and reduce debt" than Coalition voters 🪱🧠 pic.twitter.com/q6DUk2RzKT
— Oz (@redrabbleroz) May 18, 2021
Updated
AMA calls for dedicated Covid quarantine facilities
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is calling on national cabinet to adopt interim steps to strengthen hotel quarantine and to establish long-term dedicated quarantine facilities to manage the ongoing risks of Covid-19.
The AMA federal council today released a communique on the issue, and AMA president Dr Omar Khorshid said with the virus continuing to spread internationally we need to better prepare for it continuing to reach our shores. Australia cannot keep its international borders closed indefinitely, he said.
While international border closures have sheltered Australia from the worst impacts of Covid-19, we know these are having a significant detrimental impact on some areas of the Australian economy.
At some point, it will not be possible to justify the maintenance of border closures given their impact on lives and livelihoods. Internationally, Covid-19 continues to spread rapidly.
Many countries have seen the resurgence of the virus and it has mutated into several variants, the impact of which on the effectiveness of available vaccines is uncertain. Vaccine rollouts across the globe will take time, and depend on supply, equity of access, longevity of protection and booster shot programs.
Covid-19 is going to continue to come to Australia. Whether it’s through a breach of our quarantine or because we open the borders, it is coming ... Australia cannot rely indefinitely on emergency hotel quarantine arrangements.
The AMA wants national cabinet to commit to:
- Further strengthening hotel quarantine including improved ventilation, strengthened personal protective equipment and completion of vaccinations.
- Complete an urgent stocktake of existing facilities (outside of hotel quarantine) that could be repurposed and used to quarantine incoming arrivals.
- Put in place arrangements to fast-track the approval of any existing proposals for dedicated quarantine facilities for Covid-19 that are assessed as being suitable.
- Agree to the establishment of longer-term dedicated quarantine facilities.
- Improve the capacity of the Australian health system to keep up with ongoing growth in demand for services, particularly in our public hospitals.
Updated
Uber Eats has also responded to today’s ruling on Deliveroo.
An Uber Eats spokeswoman said the two apps were different, and Uber did not require its workers to wear a uniform or work set shifts.
However, uniforms are not compulsory for Deliveroo workers either, according to today’s Fair Work Commission ruling. But the commissioner did write that they were “encouraged”, but not “required”.
“Not all online food delivery apps operate in the same way,” the Uber Eats spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman said that the Fair Work Commission and the full bench of the commission have previously ruled that Uber Eats workers are not employees.
However, as previously reported, a federal court appeal on the same subject was settled by Uber before a ruling was made.
Federal court rulings overrule Fair Work Commission rulings.
The Transport Workers’ Union said at the time that it believed Uber settled because the company was facing defeat after a series of critical questions from judges.
Updated
An inquiry into rural and regional health services has heard some grim details of the conditions nurses and staff have had to work through, as the region suffers through understaffing and underfunding.
The inquiry heard nurses who are forced to restrain aggressive emergency patients themselves, or meeting staff from a nearby aged care facility to receive incontinence pads when their own ward runs out.
Warrumbungle shire council’s deputy mayor, doctor Aniello Iannuzzi told the inquiry there were many times hospitals have run out of antibiotics and blood supplies.
Sadly there are times, and the times are too frequent for my liking, where we run out of basic antibiotics to treat basic conditions.
Say a mother brings in a child with a throat infection or ear infection. There have been times where we haven’t had any antibiotics.
More than 700 people have made submissions to the inquiry.
Updated
Deliveroo to appeal Fair Work unfair dismissal ruling
Deliveroo has confirmed that it plans to appeal a decision today that ruled its workers were employees, not contractors, and thus entitled to more rights.
The ruling today found that Diego Franco, a Brazilian national, was an employee, and was unfairly dismissed when the company sacked him for being too slow with his deliveries during the pandemic.
A spokeswoman for Deliveroo said the company was “confident that riders are independent contractors”.
We do not accept the premise upon which the decision was taken and do not believe this reflects how Deliveroo riders work with the company in practice.
Riders have the absolute freedom to decide whether, when and where they work, and if they do go online they can decide how long to work and can freely reject any offer of work offered to them. Riders don’t need to provide personal service – they can and do use delegates to complete deliveries.
Decisions of the Fair Work Commission can be appealed to a full bench of the Commission, and then to the federal court.
There has never been a federal court ruling on the employment status of food delivery riders.
Last year, Uber Eats settled a case that would have been the first ruling by the federal court.
The Transport Workers’ Union said it believed Uber settled because the company was facing defeat – after a series of critical questions from judges in an earlier court hearing.
Updated
People are being urged to avoid feeding cassowaries after a bushwalker had a run in with one of the large birds near Cairns.
AAP has the story:
Four bushwalkers were stalked by a cassowary for seven minutes along a track in the Atherton Tablelands as the animal approached within a metre of the group.
The normally shy, flightless birds can grow to be almost two metres tall and weigh up to 60kg.
Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service senior officer Dinouk Perera says the video taken indicates the cassowary has become habituated to being fed by people.
“A cassowary that wasn’t habituated would never approach bushwalkers, and would have retreated into the forest to avoid such an encounter,” he said.
“Cassowaries are unpredictable, potentially dangerous animals and habituated birds have been known to act aggressively and lash out if they don’t receive a feed when confronting people in the forest.
“Feeding cassowaries can significantly change their behaviour in such a way that other people will be placed at risk of being approached and potentially attacked by the birds.
“People need to understand that male cassowaries teach their chicks how to find natural foods in the forest, and if the male is being fed by people, his chicks will learn to approach people for food.”
The last death caused by a cassowary in Australia was in 1926, but there have been up to 150 attacks on humans according to a QPWS study in 1999.
The animal is classified as endangered and when the bird is deliberately fed by people they become more vulnerable to vehicle strikes or dog attacks.
Forty-six cassowaries have been killed or injured by vehicle strikes in the past two years in north Queensland and wildlife officers believe many of those cassowaries had been habituated by people deliberately feeding them.
In a recent incident in north Queensland a cassowary was euthanised following a vehicle strike.
The maximum penalty for deliberate feeding of cassowaries is $5,222.
Updated
*Latest Govt Info on Vaccine Rollout*
— Joe O'Brien (@JoeABCNews) May 18, 2021
3.1m doses administered
Aust population over 18yo is about 20m
So about 8% of the way there .. May 2021.
Just on that audit report released earlier in NSW, transport minister Andrew Constance said he is “furious and disgusted” at the findings. The report found the government paid $53.5m for a contaminated block of land it needed for its Parramatta light rail project, without a valuation or estimation of the clean-up costs. A developer had purchased the land seven months earlier for a fraction of the cost and the NSW government took on liability for the clean up, which has now cost it more than $100m.
Constance said he had asked the new Transport for NSW secretary to conduct a “deep dive” into the purchase. He also said the findings proved he was right to refer the matter to the auditor and the independent commission against corruption.
What’s gone on here is bloody unacceptable and there is no doubt that there is an expectation from the community that... we should get the best value for money.
Updated
The AAP has some details on the Victorian government’s plan to invest almost $1bn constructing 25 new trains in the state:
Acting premier James Merlino on Tuesday announced the state budget will include the X’Trapolis 2.0 trains, which will gradually replace the ageing Comeng fleet.
Manufacturing will begin in late 2022, with the trains expected to be running on the Craigieburn, Frankston and Upfield lines by 2026.
Craigieburn’s train maintenance facility will also be upgraded as part of the project.
About 60% of design and manufacturing will be done in Victoria, supporting about 750 jobs across manufacturing and supply chains.
Some parts will be bought from China and Europe.
“These are trains made in Victoria, for Victorians, by Victorians, this is a wonderful announcement,” Merlino told reporters at Alstom’s Ballarat workshop, where about 150 new jobs will be created.
A skeleton staff of 25 have been working at the facility, which has remained dormant since the last order of X’Trapolis 1.0 trains was completed in July 2020.
Transport minister Ben Carroll said the high-capacity trains were “more reliable, more accessible, more energy-efficient”.
He said they were also designed with the long-term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in mind.
“Coming out of Covid, we do know that many people have changed their travel options and one of the big things that people want is more space on the train,” Carroll said.
“People want to get in and out of the train a lot more easier and don’t want to be in close contact.”
He said the X’Trapolis 2.0 trains will have six carriages and a capacity of 1200, with plenty of room for people with a disability and parents with prams.
The Comeng fleet, meanwhile, has a capacity of 760.
It’s not yet known how many seats will be on the new trains.
Updated
The chief legal officer at casino empire Crown Resorts, Josh Preston, threatened to call the Victorian gaming minister, Marlene Kairouz, after receiving a letter from the state gambling regulator raising concerns the company was not going to comply with a recommendation that it beef up controls of junkets that brought in high-rollers, an inquiry has heard.
This morning, the Victorian royal commission into Crown heard that the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation wrote to Crown setting out its concerns on 23 May 2019, just a week before the company was supposed to have new measures in place to combat money laundering by tracking how much money each participant in a junket brought to the table.
Previously, Crown only tracked the total sum of “front money” brought into the casino by the junket operator.
The recommendation that Crown overhaul its internal procedures, known as “internal control statements”, to stiffen control of junkets was number 17 made in a regular review the previous year of the company’s license to run a casino in Melbourne.
VCGLR officer Jason Cremona told the inquiry that as time passed he became concerned that Crown was pushing back on recommendation 17 and wanted instead to concentrate on a broader review of anti money laundering and counter terror finance procedures it was doing.
“Based on discussions with commission staff and Crown’s written updates, Crown appears reluctant to undertake a review of any relevant internal control statements (ICSs) with input from Austrac,” VCGLR’s acting chief executive, Alex Fitzpatrick, told Crown in the 23 May 2019 letter.
The inquiry heard that the next day Crown executive Michelle Fielding called Cremona.
After the call, Cremona emailed Fitzpatrick, saying: “Sorry to bother you, but I just thought I would let you know that I got a call from Michelle this morning responding pretty aggressively to the letter below.”
Fielding claimed the VCGLR letter misrepresented Crown’s position.
“Because she said Josh was ‘furious’ and would most probably ‘call the minister’, I have just briefed Catherine [Myers, another VCGLR executive] on the matter noting my concerns and that I stand by the risk that was presented to the commission and the response to Crown,” Cremona said in in his email.
Asked why he used the word “aggressive”, Cremona said: “Referencing calling the minister is almost like saying we take offence to what you’ve said and we’re going to escalate to make sure that we’re heard.”
Evidence before the inquiry so far does not indicate whether or not Preston did call the minister.
Preston is no longer at Crown and Kairouz resigned from cabinet in June last year after Nine newspapers and 60 Minutes alleged she encouraged staffers to sign up fake Labor Party members. She has consistently denied doing anything wrong.
Updated
Man dies from shark attack
Police have confirmed that a man has died following a suspected shark attack on the NSW mid-north coast.
A man’s died following a suspected shark attack on the state’s Mid North Coast this morning. https://t.co/3WZDu41PrZ
— NSW Police Force (@nswpolice) May 18, 2021
Emergency services were called at around 11.20am to Tuncurry Beach, Forster and found the man suffering critical injuries to his upper right thigh after being attacked while surfing.
Police confirmed the man, believed to be in his 50s, died at the scene.
Tuncurry Beach and Forster Main Beach are currently closed.
Updated
Deliveroo loses unfair dismissal case
The Fair Work Commission has ruled that a Deliveroo rider was an employee not a contractor, and was unfairly dismissed when he was sacked, via email, for being too slow during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Commissioner Ian Cambridge ruled this morning that the worker, a Brazilian national who migrated to Australia, was subjected to “an entirely unjust and unreasonable process”.
Food delivery companies like Deliveroo or UberEats class their workers as independent contractors, rather than employees, meaning that the delivery riders are not entitled to award rates of pay, sick or annual leave, or protections against unfair dismissal.
But the commission ruled on Tuesday that this food courier was in fact an employee due to the “level of control that Deliveroo possessed” over him.
Last month, rival food delivery company Menulog said it would move away from the gig economy model and attempt to make all its workers employees within “a few years”.
“Deliveroo is not a small business employer and the size of its enterprise should have enabled it to have adopted far more acceptable and professional employment-related practices and procedures,” commissioner Cambridge wrote.
The commissioner also found that Franco should be classed as an employee rather than a contractor, in a ruling that could have wider ramifications for the gig economy.
Updated
NSW auditor general slams Camellia land deal
The NSW auditor general has released a scathing report into the controversial deal the NSW government struck to buy land at Camellia for the Parramatta Light Rail project in 2016.
The report refused to rule out “misconduct or corruption” was involved in the sale, with Transport for NSW paying approximately three times the NSW valuer general’s previous valuation.
Transport paid $53.5m to developer Billbergia for the six hectares of land. The developer had previously bought the land only a year before for $38m.
The report found the NSW government had not organised a formal valuation before buying the land, with auditor general Margaret Crawford finding the decision making “rushed and poorly informed”.
The auditor general also complained of a lack of clear documentation, which lead to the conclusion that they were “unable to exclude the possibility that the transaction was affected by misconduct or corruption”.
Updated
Qantas is standing by its Covid testing process that resulted in 70 people being barred from last week’s repatriation flight from India.
The results of the tests were contested after it emerged that the laboratory that ran the tests was suspended by an Indian accreditation agency last month.
It also came after 12 of the passengers that tested positive ran their own tests that returned negative results.
Qantas said in a statement it re-ran the tests at the same lab, under “additional supervision”, and said the tests returned the same results.
All of the positive test results were re-run over the weekend under additional medical supervision, and the outcome was the same.
That included some weak positives that may have been interpreted as negative results by other laboratories.
The airline did confirm, though, that it won’t be using that same lab anymore.
Make of that what you will.
Updated
Good afternoon all, and a quick thanks to Matilda for expertly taking charge this morning, I will be going through the news this afternoon, so let’s get stuck in.
With that, I shall depart and leave you with the amazing Mostafa Rachwani for the next little bit of the afternoon.
NSW man critical after being bitten by shark
I’ve just spoken to the NSW Ambulance and have a little more information on this shark attack on the mid-north coast.
The attack occurred just before 11.10am and paramedics were called to the scene.
The man is believed to be in his 50s and suffered a serious injury to his upper leg. He has four crew treating him at the moment and a rescue helicopter is on the way to the scene to airlift him to the hospital.
It’s understood he is in a critical condition.
We don’t know many details yet, including what type of shark he was bitten by.
Updated
#TUNCURRY Paramedics are responding to reports a man has been bitten by a shark at Tuncurry Beach#NSWAmbulance
— NSW Ambulance (@NSWAmbulance) May 18, 2021
Man bitten by shark on NSW mid-north coast
Paramedics in New South Wales are responding to reports a man has been bitten by a shark at Tuncurry Beach on the mid-north coast.
I’ll chase up those details for you and bring you all the updates.
Updated
If you think you’re having a bad day, spare a thought for the @VirginAustralia PR team this morning...
— Michael Rowland (@mjrowland68) May 18, 2021
The Australian is reporting Fair Work has ruled a single Deliveroo delivery rider is an employee and not independent contractors.
Just correcting this post from before, this does not mean all riders are now legally considered employees (although I assume it can’t hurt)
I’ll bring you more as soon as I can.
In major decision, Fair Work rules Deliveroo rider is an employee, not an independent contractor. Worker reinstated. Finds access by digital platforms to data/performance metrics shouldn't translate into a license to treat workers without a level of fundamental, human compassion.
— Ewin Hannan (@EwinHannan) May 18, 2021
Updated
Luke Henriques-Gomes is keeping an eye on the parliamentary committee examining NDIS independent assessments for us today.
Here are the updates so far:
#NDIS minister Linda Reynolds is fronting a parliamentary committee examining NDIS independent assessments.
— Luke Henriques-Gomes (@lukehgomes) May 18, 2021
She starts off by saying the scheme is on an "unsustainable growth trajectory". #auspol
Reynolds says she's also heard concerns the NDIS is becoming the only option of support for people with disability - ie. a lack of state-based community supports.
— Luke Henriques-Gomes (@lukehgomes) May 18, 2021
She notes concerns about a lack of appeal rights for IAs through the AAT. In general, "I don't think any of [the concerns] are insurmountable." Reynolds thanks disability community for a "constructive approach", acknowledges some "people are very angry".
— Luke Henriques-Gomes (@lukehgomes) May 18, 2021
"Independent assessments are not about cuts," Reynolds says. Notes they are making space for another 80,000 participants, and spending is expected to increase (what she calls a $17bn investment).
— Luke Henriques-Gomes (@lukehgomes) May 18, 2021
Updated
Acting Premier @JamesMerlinoMP is in Ballarat today announcing a $986M investment for 25 new trains. They’ll run on the Craigieburn, Upfield and Frankston lines. @7NewsMelbourne pic.twitter.com/Mi71Vjfh6s
— Sharnelle Vella (@SharnelleVella) May 18, 2021
Australian businessman dies from Covid-19 in India
Businessman Govind Kant has become the second Australian to die from Covid-19 in India.
Trina Solar said in a statement on Tuesday the company’s manager for Australia had died on 16 May at a hospital in Delhi after contracting the virus at the end of April, reports AAP.
He had returned to India for family reasons earlier in the month.
The company said in a statement:
Our deepest condolences go to his wife, two daughters and other family members...
This is a significant loss to Trina Solar and mere words cannot express the heartfelt sorrow we all feel upon Govind’s passing and we will provide necessary assistance to his family in this mourn period and we pray his soul may rest in peace.
It followed the death in India of an Australian permanent resident earlier in the month.
Updated
NSW sets new vaccination record for the state
Not only has NSW recorded another local Covid-19-free day, but it has also set a new record for the most vaccines in arms in a single day.
A whopping 11,415 doses were administered with a “record high” of 5,230 jabs at the vaccination centre at Sydney Olympic Park alone.
NSW recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) May 18, 2021
Three new cases were acquired overseas in the same period, bringing the total number of cases in NSW since the beginning of the pandemic to 5,374. pic.twitter.com/sB0LE5Cl3a
NSW is now nearly at one million doses administered by the state. (Federal government jabs aren’t included in this number.)
Updated
Palaszczuk indicated there will likely be an option for medical professionals to conscientiously object in the new assisted dying bill, set to be introduced into the state’s lower house next week.
[The bill] will then go to the health committee and it will go to the health committee for a period of 12 weeks. That’s double the time that committees usually get because this is such an important piece of legislation, this is such a historic reform. We want to make sure that there’s plenty of opportunities for stakeholders to put their case...
The other thing I’m very pleased [is] in the bill... in relation to the provision for health professionals and entities to be a conscientious objector as well.
That’s also contained in the bill and I’m quite sure that’s going to alleviate a lot of concerns.
I’m very supportive of this bill. The time is right. The time is right and Queenslanders have spoken.
BREAKING: Voluntary assisted dying bill to be introduced in Queensland Parliament next week. #qldpol pic.twitter.com/4xze32sAmU
— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) May 18, 2021
Updated
Assisted dying bill to be introduced to Queensland parliament next week
Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has reaffirmed that government MPs will hold a conscience vote over a new bill seeking to legalise assisted dying.
A re-elected Palaszczuk government would introduce laws to give people that choice, and we will do that. I’ve also made it abundantly clear that government MPs will have a conscience vote. That is the right thing to do. I also want the public community to have a respectful debate.
There are going to be opposing views. I understand this. But I also understand these are deeply personal issues and, in fact, having seen firsthand the suffering of both my grandmother and my uncle, it is heart-breaking, and no one wants to see that. But it is a deeply personal choice and this bill will give people the choice to end their life with dignity.
We often talk about the dignity of work. Well, there is dignity as well in the way in which people choose to end their life. That’s not to say that palliative care is not an option as well, because we know that palliative care is being utilised at the moment by thousands of Queenslanders and that’s why my government is investing $171m to ensure that people have that choice.
The Law Reform Commission has done exactly what we asked them to do. They have provided a comprehensive bill to cabinet for the parliament to consider. The legislation will be introduced – I will introduce that legislation next week into the Queensland parliament.
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I get a lot of messages from people asking why comments are often turned off on the live blog. If you are interested in why, I suggest you give that post from Paul below a read.
Media companies seek to escape Facebook comment liability
Media companies Fairfax and Nationwide News (News Corp) are in the high court this morning, asking it to overturn a New South Wales court of appeal decision finding news organisations liable for comments on Facebook on their posts of their news articles about Dylan Voller.
Counsel for the media companies, Neil Young, has argued this morning they were not publishers of the material because they had not “intentionally lent assistance to its being published”.
He noted the appellants were not able to disable Facebook’s comment functionality, and the companies were not accused of failing to take the comments down after they became aware of them.
Young criticised the earlier decision by noting it had used “amorphous” language about “participating” in a publication – but not all forms of “participation” constitute publication. He used the example of calling a public meeting, at which defamatory comments were made.
Young argued the difference between being a publisher and merely participating is an intention to assist others’ comments. Several judges noted that the way the media companies use Facebook invites comments, and that posting news stories on Facebook is to their benefit.
Chief justice Susan Kiefel suggested the argument amounted to whether hosts of news sites should be given some application of the defence of innocent dissemination. That statutory defence protects “subordinate” publishers such as internet service providers.
We’re not in the realm of publication ... It’s not a topic for us, is it?
That is a very bad sign for the media companies – because it suggests either that parliament should extend the defence to prevent social media posters being liable or the companies should have pleaded and proved that it applied to them sooner, rather than the court intervening. Young rejected the suggestion. The hearing continues.
Updated
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says that Australia didn’t just “get lucky” in how we have handled Covid-19, discussing why Morrison won’t commit to specific vaccination targets for when international borders can be opened.
The prime minister was criticised last year when he closed the international borders to China and then to other countries. It was the right thing to do and it has helped set Australia up to successfully suppress the virus.
Some people say Australia got lucky because the virus has not spread here. That is not right. Australia makes its own luck. We have been able to achieve what we have done because we have moved decisively and quickly and comprehensively on the health and the economic front.
The United Kingdom is also an island, yet they have seen the virus run rampant across the country with a large number of deaths. We are an island but we moved to close our international borders. The net result has been that to date, we have successfully suppressed the virus.
Sorry for the personal opinion here on the blog but if I saw people wearing these outfits in high school I would bully them.
(And that’s saying something because I was profoundly uncool back then.)
✨ Your #Tokyo2020 Opening Ceremony Uniforms are here! ✨
— AUS Olympic Team (@AUSOlympicTeam) May 18, 2021
Thank you @Sportscraft and @VolleyAustralia! #TokyoTogether
📸 Christian Gilles pic.twitter.com/A91SLbLRdq
Albanese calls government's disability vaccine rollout 'a national disgrace'
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has responded to the revelations yesterday that less than 4% of all disability care residents have been vaccinated.
This is a national disgrace. The fact that less than a thousand people, who have disabilities of the roundabout 26,000 who are provided with support, so an immunisation rate of under 4% have received support.
Aged care residents and people with disabilities were people who were supposed to both be at the front of the queue. They were in the first stage.
We were told that four million Australians would be vaccinated by the end of March. This government’s been complacent and the consequences of that have been very concerning for some of the most vulnerable people in our community.
The government had two jobs this year: to get the vaccination rollout right and to fix quarantine. It’s done neither. They have been complacent in both areas. Whether it is vaccinating older Australians, whether it’s vaccinating people with disabilities, whether it is the establishment of appropriate quarantine facility, they just haven’t delivered.
Updated
We’re back at the Victorian royal commission into Crown Resorts today – you can see yesterday’s developments here.
This morning the royal commission is hearing from Jason Cremona, a senior officer at the Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation, about deficiencies in the anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism finance measures in place at Crown’s Melbourne casino.
In early questioning, Cremona has given evidence that the VCGLR was concerned about Crown’s procedures because they did not track how much money each high roller brought to the casino as part of a junket actually brought in – instead, the money was pooled as “front money”, attributed to the junket operator.
The anonymity this provided to individual gamblers contributed to the danger of money laundering, Cremona told the inquiry.
Updated
Morrison admits government needs to 'step up' disability vaccinations
If you remember yesterday we found out under 1,000 (less than 4%) of all disability care residents had been vaccinated with a single dose so far. The program was labelled an “abject failure” at a disability royal commission hearing on Monday.
Morrison has been asked about this today:
We’ve got to step up the performance there and there’s no doubt about that. I’m working with the health officials there.
I’m pleased that in aged care facilities, we are just over 85%. Particularly by the end of today when we get the numbers, we’ll be over 85% of first doses in aged care facility, which is on track. I think that’s very important. And we welcome that.
We are really starting to see the daily on a weekday, the doses that are being delivered, but principally the commonwealth government ...
That’s really starting to pick up pace and we welcome that and we welcome the support of the states and territories in doing their bit* as well.
*They are doing vastly more than “their bit” btw.
You can read more about the situation below:
Updated
PM indicates international sports bubbles may not be enough to allow athletes to skip quarantine
Scott Morrison has thrown cold water on the idea that tennis players or Formula One drivers could come to Australia without hard quarantining because they have been travelling internationally in “bubbles”.
In case you haven’t been following, elite sportspeople are really not vibing the idea of going through hard lockdowns like there was at the last Australian Open again and have been campaigning for exemptions.
Morrison doesn’t sound like a fan of the idea:
I think it’s a bit premature to be making those decisions at this point.
What I would note, though, is it’s very different coming to Australia, because in most of the countries, they’re moving around in, Covid is riddled through those countries. Australia is not riddled with Covid. Most of the rest of the developed world is and increasingly in the developing world. And so, the risk profile there is very different.
But those events are still some time away. And I thought that the decision they made on the Formula One previously was a wise one – largely because they were used to operating in countries where Covid was already in. And Australia, we don’t have it to the same extent as other countries.
And so, that is something that we certainly want to protect. But I think we’ll be practical about those things and I think technology and systems are improving each day.
Updated
Morrison says it is not yet safe to open borders or allow vaccinated Australians to travel:
[We have been considering] vaccinated Australians firstly to be able to travel around Australia and to be able to move around when states, from time to time, might have to put restrictions in place, but also potentially to travel overseas and have different quarantine arrangements on their return with the sign-off from state chief health officers, and to look at travel bubbles with other countries like Singapore.
But we’re some way off of that. And how to bring others into the country that we need to support our economy. Now we’re putting all the plans in place to achieve that, but only when it is safe to do so. And it’s not safe to do it now.
During the course of this pandemic, Australia has avoided 30,000 lives lost when you compare it to the average fatality rate of like countries in the OECD. 30,000 lives. Could have otherwise have been lost had we not had the success we’ve had as a country working together.
Updated
Prime minister condemns Virgin Australia CEO's comment that border should open even if it results in deaths
First off the bat, it looks like Scott Morrison has been asked about those “some people will die” comments from the Virgin Australia CEO yesterday:
I regret that those comments were somewhat insensitive ...
You know, 910 Australians have lost their lives. Every single one of those lives was a terrible tragedy, and it doesn’t matter how old they were. Some were younger, some were older. They were someone’s mum, someone’s dad, someone’s auntie, someones’s cousin, brother, sister, friend. 910 – all felt extremely consciously by those loved ones around them.
And so, no, I find it very difficult to have any part of what was said there.
Updated
Prime minister Scott Morrison is speaking live now from Queensland.
There are about 50 billion individual birds in the world, according to new research that uses citizen science observations to try to estimate population numbers for almost 10,000 species.
The paper, led by scientists at the University of New South Wales, suggests there are about six times as many birds on the planet as humans – but that many individual species are very rare.
Four species belong to what the researchers dubbed “the billion club”, with estimated populations greater than 1 billion. They are the house sparrow, found in many parts of the world, the European starling, the ring-billed gull and the barn swallow.
The researchers developed estimates for 9,700 species, including penguins, emus and the kookaburra, by drawing on hundreds of millions of bird observations logged by birdwatchers on eBird, one of the world’s largest biodiversity citizen science projects.
You can read the full story below:
Here are the full comments from Green senator Jordan Steel-John that I mentioned earlier.
.@Jordonsteele calls out Virgin CEO Jayne Hrdlicka's comments that some may die if international borders reopen but it will be smaller than the flu.
— News Breakfast (@BreakfastNews) May 17, 2021
"Just accepting people may die, as a disabled person who is part of that community, that is extraordinarily offensive language." pic.twitter.com/m8dhueGErp
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Australia's big supermarkets and major companies sign pact to tackle plastic waste
Australia’s biggest supermarkets and some of the world’s biggest food and consumer brands are launching a voluntary pact across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands with a goal that plastic “never becomes waste or pollution”.
The new ANZPAC Plastics Pact, to be launched at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney today, includes 59 members across the plastics supply chain – from manufacturers to retailers and recyclers.
Members will report progress on four 2025 targets. These are:
- Eliminate unnecessary and problematic plastic packaging through redesign, innovation and alternative (reuse) delivery models
- 100% of plastic packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging
- Increase plastic packaging effectively recycled by 25% in each region
- Average of 25% recycled content in plastic packaging.
The ANZPAC effort joins a global network of similar pacts coordinated by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Among the ANZPAC members are supermarket chains Coles, Aldi and Woolworths, alongside plastics producers, recyclers, environmental groups and CSIRO.
Manufacturers Nestle, Unilever, Pepsico, Coca-Cola and Arnott Biscuits are also among the members.
Today’s episode of the Guardian’s Full Story podcast looks at what we know, and don’t know, about the health impacts of microplastics.
Updated
Just sharing this because I’ve been hysterically laughing at it for the last five minutes. I don’t know why I find this so funny, but please enjoy!
When the printer gives you A3 parchments to read the morning news...#newsjournolyfe pic.twitter.com/cdMW5gwLB7
— Emma Field (@SaysEmmaField) May 17, 2021
Sydney man jailed for massive cocaine import
A 43-year-old man will spend nearly a decade in jail for his role in a failed plan to import more than 500kg of cocaine into Australia via the Solomon Islands, reports AAP.
Two Sydney men were arrested in September 2018 following a joint investigation involving the Australian federal police, Solomon Islands police, US Drug Enforcement and the Australian Border Force.
Their arrests came as police searched the Belgian-registered, double-masted yacht Vieux Malin, which was moored outside the Honiara marina in the Solomon Islands.
The AFP says police found 501kg of cocaine concealed on the vessel, with an estimated street value of between $125m and $250m.
The cocaine had been loaded on to the vessel in South America and was destined for Australia. As the yacht was being searched, police in Australia arrested two men during raids on homes in the Sydney suburbs of Wahroonga, Bonnyrigg Heights, Dolls Point and Caringbah.
In December 2019, a 41-year-old Bonnyrigg Heights man charged with knowingly dealing in money or other property which is an instrument of crime was sentenced in Downing Centre district court to two years’ imprisonment to be served by the way of an intensive correction order and 500 hours of community service.
On 2 May this year a 43-year-old Wahroonga man, who was a key player in the scheme, was sentenced in Downing Centre court.
He was sentenced to 14 years and five months’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of nine years for his involvement in the conspiracy to import the cocaine into Australia.
He was also sentenced to five years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of three years for his involvement in knowingly dealing in money or other property which is an instrument of crime, valued at greater than $50,000.
The man will be eligible for parole in November 2027.
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'No death is acceptable,' Berejiklian says in reaction to Virgin Australia border-opening pressure
Looks like the comments from Virgin Australia’s Jayne Hrdlicka, saying borders should reopen sooner than the middle of next year even though “some people may die”, are haunting everyone today.
After saying she would support opening borders if health advice backs it up, Berejiklian was asked how many death she thinks would be acceptable. I swear you could see a brief second of panic that flashed across her eyes, but she recovered quickly:
Please, no death is acceptable. Please don’t put words in my mouth. I’ve never said that and I never would.
We’ve worked hard in New South Wales to protect life, to keep community safety and that’s what we will do. There’s no doubt that the vaccine program is key to our freedom. Having a successful vaccine program is key to making sure that we can make decisions moving forward about our future but we can’t even think about those decisions unless the vast majority of our population are vaccinated.
Any conversations we have now are premature.
Updated
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian has spoken this morning, and the word on everyone’s lips is “borders”.
I think we need to be very sympathetic and mindful to the fact that community safety always comes first but in New South Wales we’ve demonstrate that you can keep the community safe but also push ahead with economic openness and it’s that right balance that has kept New South Wales where it is and we intend to keep that right balance. Community safety always has to come first, but we also believe that you can make some decisions about easing restrictions or opening up to the rest of the world, with facts and science backing you.
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Perth hospital staff missed opportunities to help girl who died of infection, investigation finds
Staff at Perth Children’s hospital missed a “cascade” of opportunities to escalate the care of seven-year-old Aishwarya Aswath as she succumbed to a fatal infection.
The confronting finding is contained in a report by Western Australia’s Child and Adolescent Health Service, released in full on Monday.
The report finds that Aishwarya’s parents, who have accused staff of lacking compassion, raised concerns about her deteriorating condition on five separate occasions after taking her to the emergency department on Easter Saturday.
Within 20 minutes of arriving, Aishwarya’s hands were cold, her eyes were discoloured and her respiratory rate and heart rate were significantly elevated.
You can read the full report below:
Updated
Linfox Airports Group Chair tells @3AWNeilMitchell it'd "be a piece of cake" to have a quarantine facility "set up in 6 months" - so it would've been done by now if there'd been a tick last year.
— Heidi Murphy (@heidimur) May 17, 2021
David Fox says they're now looking at a special sports-bubble-site for major events.
Continued from last post.
Khalil will argue that multicultural policy must include “substantive policies that ensure every Australian no matter who they are, whatever their ethnicity, faith or cultural background has the same social, economic and political opportunities as anyone else”.
Labor’s taskforce proposes taking the existing model of enterprise incentive schemes – which provide free accredited training, business plan development, business mentoring and a small business allowance – and tailoring it to CALD communities.
Khalil told Guardian Australia that migrants are twice as likely to start a business as those born in Australia and one-third of small businesses are owned by migrants.
He credited migrants’ “tenacity and resilience” for their success in small business, but argued they were also “channelled into that” by the lack of opportunities in professions such as law, academia and in corporate Australia.
Khalil told Guardian Australia that despite a reduction in “casual racism” in Australian society since the 1980s and 1990s, culturally and linguistically diverse communities are still structurally disadvantaged.
He cited the fact that just 15 of parliament’s 227 MPs and senators are of non-European or non-Anglo-Saxon backgrounds, including five Indigenous Australians; as are just 5% of the board directors of ASX 300 companies.
The taskforce also found an uptick in racist incidents since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, showing that “casual racism never really went away”, Khalil said.
He cited concerns about the “distortion of efforts” by Chinese Australians to secure personal protective equipment to keep the community safe, arguing this was presented in the media as profiteering.
Updated
Labor pitches small business boost for migrants
Labor will propose a specialist small business program for culturally and linguistically diverse communities including training and business plan development.
The new migrant enterprise incentive scheme is the main recommendation from Labor’s multicultural engagement taskforce, a series of consultations the opposition launched in December 2019 after suffering a swing against it among multicultural communities at the last election.
The report will be launched in Melbourne today by shadow multicultural affairs minister, Andrew Giles, and the taskforce’s chair and secretary, Peter Khalil and Anne Stanley.
Ahead of the launch, Khalil told Guardian Australia that Labor hopes to appeal to CALD communities by focusing on equality of opportunity through its traditional strengths in service delivery including education, healthcare and aged care and hip-pocket concerns like housing.
Despite the greater social conservatism of newly arrived migrants including communities of faith, Khalil said Labor can “continue to appeal to them … by focusing on things that make an actual difference to their lives … bread and butter concerns”.
In his speech, Khalil will take aim at politicians who “focus on the feel-good, the easy photo op elements” of multiculturalism such as “the food, the festivals, the dances, the brightly coloured costumes”, including prime minister Scott Morrison “with his chicken korma cook ups”.
But multiculturalism is so much more than that … what some of my Canberra colleagues often forget, or maybe don’t quite understand, is that our multiculturalism runs so much deeper into the critical question of our national identity – who we are as a people.
Continued in next post.
Updated
Queensland reports no new local Covid cases
Covid-19 free Queensland my darlings!
Tuesday 18 May – coronavirus cases in Queensland:
— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) May 17, 2021
• 0 new locally acquired cases
• 2 new overseas acquired cases
• 14 active cases
• 1,591 total cases
• 2,553,217 tests conducted
Sadly, seven people with COVID-19 have died. 1,565 patients have recovered.#covid19 pic.twitter.com/PiFbLVu1ky
Updated
Despite Australia’s relative success at locking out the coronavirus pandemic, we still aren’t moving around nearly as much as we used to. Public transport has been hit especially hard, as have recreational and urban areas generally.
Only road traffic has really recovered to pre-Covid levels, which experts say could be a short hangover of fears about the pandemic. Or it could reveal a longer-term shift as working from home becomes more accepted.
University of Sydney associate professor Matthew Beck says increased working from home will probably continue for some time, meaning transport networks will need to adjust to a new normal.
Public Transport Victoria is now seeing just more than half of its pre-Covid passenger numbers. NSW is faring slightly better, at just more than 62% patronage. Queensland leads the big states with more than 70% of its pre-Covid numbers.
You can read the full story below:
Updated
Victoria reports no new local Covid cases
Triple doughnuts!
No new cases were reported yesterday.
— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) May 17, 2021
- 8,917 vaccine doses administered
- 18,041 test results received
More later: https://t.co/lIUrl0ZEco #COVID19VicData #COVID19Vic pic.twitter.com/m8qeauJvaH
Updated
Knives to be banned in NSW schools
Carrying knives in NSW public schools will be banned as the government moves to close a loophole that allows members of the Sikh community to carry ceremonial daggers to school for religious reasons, reports AAP.
NSW education minister Sarah Mitchell announced the ban on Tuesday in response to a stabbing at Glenwood High in Sydney’s north-west two weeks ago.
The ban will apply from Wednesday to all students, staff and visitors to NSW public schools.
It’s in response to the stabbing of a 16-year-old by another teen with a Kirpan – a ceremonial dagger that baptised Sikhs are required to carry.
On Monday premier Gladys Berejiklian expressed shock over the schoolyard stabbing and flagged a crackdown, saying “students shouldn’t be allowed to take knives to school under any circumstances”.
Mitchell told Sydney radio 2GB this morning that allowing knives in schools was not in line with community expectations and the government would be making the legislative change to close the loophole:
In the interim I’ve also asked the department to send advice out to our schools today updating our policy to say that knives for religious purposes will be banned in government schools.
Mitchell had spoken to representatives from the Sikh community about the stabbing and they were distressed, she said:
We need to act and I think that’s in line with community sentiment and it’s also in line with my responsibilities as minister ... I have to make sure that our schools are safe places for our students and staff and that’s why we need to take this action.
Updated
Australians returning home from India on commercial flights – now selling for more than $10,000 one-way – will not undergo the same strict pre-flight testing as those on government repatriation flights.
As a fresh row erupts between the Coalition and Labor over the handling of government-supported flights out of India, Guardian Australia has confirmed that those able to afford commercial flights are allowed to leave the country with just one of the two Covid tests that are required for vulnerable Australians supported to return home.
This is despite Scott Morrison announcing last month that “passengers on all future flights will be required to have both a negative Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test result and a negative rapid antigen test result prior to taking off”.
You can read the full report below:
Updated
Greens senator asks Virgin CEO to clarify 'how many disabled people is it acceptable to die' for borders to open
Greens senator and disability advocate Jordon Steele-John says Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka must be held to account for reportedly saying Australia’s borders should reopen sooner than the middle of next year even though “some people may die”.
Steele-John says this is essentially offering up the lives of disabled Australians and other vulnerable groups as a sacrifice for economic profit:
If you look at the cohorts that are most at risk of Covid-19, it’s older people, it’s First Nations people, it’s disabled people. We are human Venn diagrams of risk when it comes to Covid-19.
Before the pandemic, we are the ones that had the worst outcomes when interacting with the health system. The life expectancy of an intellectually disabled person in Australia is currently 25 years less than the rest of the population. That’s before the pandemic.
So when we talk about changing policy settings and accepting that people “may” die because it will boost the bottom line of a corporation like Virgin, we need to be very clear who we are talking about and put the onus upon individuals that make statements like that to make exactly clear how many people the CEO of Virgin believes is acceptable – how many disabled people is it acceptable to have die in a context where this government’s vaccine rollout has not yet cracked 1,000 people?
Updated
Speaking of disability care, Greens senator and disability advocate Jordon Steele-John says he was “infuriated” to see hear about the failures in residential care vaccine rollout.
He is speaking to ABC News Breakfast now:
What it shows us, very clearly, is that, in vaccinating only 999 disabled people that live in residential accommodation settings, the Morrison government has so far vaccinated more politicians and Olympians than it has disabled people, who are acutely at risk of the virus ...
I don’t think there’s any way that Minister Littleproud or anybody else can kind of slip out of this one. As the royal commission said the other day, this program has been an abject failure when it comes to vaccinating disabled people, and there must now be accountability among the health department and there must be an urgent review of every single document that the health department has produced in relation to the pandemic to ensure that disabled people are accurately accounted for there.
Updated
Yesterday the vaccine rollout in disability care was labelled an “abject failure” during a hearing for the royal commission into disability care.
Federal frontbencher David Littleproud was asked about this on ABC radio this morning:
.@frankelly08 asks Govt Minister David Littleproud "Is it good enough that less than 1,000 people with disability in residential disability care are vaccinated at this point." He says "Yes because it's part of the scheduled roll out."
— Stephanie Borys (@StephieBorys) May 17, 2021
David Littleproud goes on to say "there are no [covid] cases in the disability sector."
— Stephanie Borys (@StephieBorys) May 17, 2021
Updated
Indigenous children dominate out-of-home care
Indigenous children continue to be disproportionately represented in Australian out-of-home care statistics, despite overall rates falling, AAP reports.
A 118-page annual report, released on Tuesday by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, shows one in four of the roughly 46,000 children in out-of-home care in mid-2020 were Indigenous.
At the time there were about 18,900 Indigenous children in out-of-home care, which includes living with a relative or foster carer.
That represents one in 18 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in Australia, and is 11 times higher than the rate for non-Indigenous kids.
Almost two-thirds (63%) of that group were living with family or other Indigenous caregivers, with the rest in other arrangements including foster care.
AIHW spokesman Dinesh Indraharan said:
In positive news, over 80% of Indigenous children who exited out-of-home care into more stable and permanent arrangements, did not return to care within 12 months.
The number of Indigenous children receiving child protection services in 2019-20 was 55,300 – a rate of 166 for every 1,000 Indigenous children, up from 151 for every 1,000 in 2016-17.
Some 14,300 Indigenous children had reports of abuse substantiated, with emotional abuse (47%) and neglect (32%) the two most common forms of mistreatment.
Indraharan said:
Children from very remote areas were three times as likely as those from major cities to be the subject of a substantiation ...
That is, when a notification has been investigated and there was reasonable cause to believe the child had been, was being, or was likely to be, abused, neglected or otherwise harmed.
Victoria had the highest reported rate of Indigenous kids in out-of-home care of all states or territories, followed by WA and the ACT.
Updated
If you are keen to read more about those comments from Virgin CEO Jayne Hrdlicka you can read this news story from the fantastic Micheal McGowan, who was up last night reporting while we were all in bed.
Good morning everyone, it’s a lovely (freezing) Tuesday and it’s shaping up to be an interesting day already.
It’s Matilda Boseley here with you for the morning and why don’t we jump right in.
Calls from the business sector to re-open international borders have intensified, as people come to terms with the government’s vague “mid-2022” timeline laid out in the budget.
Virgin Airlines CEO Jayne Hrdlicka has come under fire this morning for commenting that Australia’s borders should reopen sooner than the middle of next year even though “some people may die”.
(That’s really saying the quiet bit of capitalism out loud isn’t it!)
She told a university business lunch yesterday:
Covid will be part of the community, we will become sick with Covid and it won’t put us in hospital, and it won’t put people into dire straits because we’ll have a vaccine...
It will make us sick but won’t put us into hospital … some people may die, but it will be way smaller than with the flu.
The crux of her comments where that Australia risked being left behind if it did not reopen borders once a sufficient portion of the population had been vaccinated.
This is a sentiment that’s been echoed by Australian Industry Group CEO Innes Willox yesterday when he spoke to Sky News:
The concern from business and parts of the broader community here is that the longer we remain closed off walled off from the world, the deeper the economic impacts will be. We will quite simply be forgotten about.
I think there’s a whole range of medical advisors, Nick Coatsworth among them, and many others who are coming to the same conclusion - that Covid is not going away. The vaccinations will help but they won’t be a silver bullet. At some point we do need to re-engage in the longer we take the real risk is that we will get left behind.
This all comes as the prime minister steadfastly refused to commit to a vaccination level target at which international borders will open.
Well, I’m sure that will be the first question off the block for any unfortunate federal government minister that steps up today.
With that, why don’t we get started!
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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