What happened today, Friday 7 May
We’ll leave it there for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Here are today’s main developments:
- New South Wales has reported no new locally acquired coronavirus cases on the first full day of new restrictions in the state, but contact tracers are still working to find the source of an infection in a man who had no links to overseas travel or hotel quarantine.
- New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland are likely to accept additional flights of vulnerable Australians fleeing India, with the states stepping in to assist the federal government, which plans three of its own repatriation flights this month.
- National cabinet has also agreed to vaccinate all Australians who leave the country with a valid exemption from the border force, however details about doses are unclear.
- Meanwhile, there are 173 unaccompanied Australian children stranded in India wanting to return home, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has told a Senate inquiry.
- The ABC says truth will be a “significant” part of its defence against a defamation claim brought by the former federal attorney general Christian Porter and that the broadcaster plans to call at least 15 witnesses. Porter’s lawyers have said, however, that the ABC is not pleading truth to “most” of his defamation claim.
- The employer of a driver who allegedly did not stop after his truck ploughed into a Melbourne traffic light and a group of pedestrians says he was unaware of what happened.
- A prison guard who helped restrain and transport Wayne Fella Morrison during his final moments has repeatedly refused to answer questions during a South Australian coronial inquest into the Indigenous man’s death.
- The NSW transport department has referred its purchases of tens of millions of dollars in environmental offsets in western Sydney to the Independent Commission Against Corruption for investigation. The referral to the state’s corruption watchdog follows a Guardian Australia investigation.
Have a great weekend.
Updated
New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland are likely to accept additional flights of vulnerable Australians fleeing India, with the states stepping in to assist the federal government, which plans three of its own repatriation flights this month.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced the three extra state flights on Friday after a national cabinet meeting with state and territory leaders. He also declared the controversial policy banning Australians stranded in India from returning home would remain in place until 15 May as scheduled.
Morrison said he wanted to thank Australians of Indian descent “for their patience” and “understanding” while hinting he was open to further restricting inbound travellers down the track.
Once the India flight ban lapses on 15 May, the federal government would “very closely” monitor Covid infection rates among travellers from “sensitive third-country transit points”, including Sri Lanka, Morrison said. “All of this is about sensibly preventing a third wave of Covid-19 here in Australia.”
Read our story here:
Updated
A prison guard who helped restrain and transport Wayne Fella Morrison during his final moments has repeatedly refused to answer questions during a South Australian coronial inquest into the Indigenous man’s death.
Trent Hall was one of seven officers in a prison transport van with Morrison when the 29-year-old was taken to G division – the high-security wing of the Yatala labour prison in 2016.
Hall’s appearance at the inquest was much anticipated for its potential to shed light on events during the 125-second van trip. No CCTV footage exists.
Exactly how Hall and the other corrections officers would appear had been the subject of legal argument for the past year. The nature of the questioning was also in dispute, given that lawyers for the officers had flagged they would be claiming “penalty privilege”.
On Friday, it took three minutes before the first objection was raised to the initial question put to Hall.
Read our story here:
Updated
A Queensland proposal to criminalise coercive control could be dangerous for vulnerable women, particularly First Nations women, some criminologists and advocates say.
Queensland and New South Wales are both exploring options to make coercive control an offence and recognise non-physical forms of abuse as a form of domestic violence.
But given documented failures by police to properly contextualise domestic violence incidents or recognise the behaviours, some experts and frontline advocates have warned the proposal could cause more harm to those it is aimed at protecting.
Read the story here:
Updated
Officials say the expansion in the capacity of the Howard Springs quarantine facility – which takes federal government-facilitated flights – means it will be able to care for 50 Covid-positive cases, up from 25 before.
The Labor chair, Katy Gallagher, asks: “Surely the ban would not have been needed if we had adequate quarantine capacity? The two things are linked, aren’t they?”
Prof Paul Kelly:
We are in a very off-the-chart situation now than when we designed the quarantine facilities to use. I’ve said that there were 137 cases from India that had come in the last month – that is much higher than any other time this year and most of last year, and so we’ve been coping with what we’ve coped with.
We’ve got various plans there with the states and territories on their caps, and they’re the ones that are the best to look at what the public health is …”
Gallagher: “I know you’re trying to avoid the question, but do you accept that the travel ban is linked to quarantine capacity?”
Kelly: “Yes it is.”
Updated
Australia’s chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, has given a little background to Greg Hunt’s midnight declaration under the Biosecurity Act last Friday night.
Kelly says he was asked by the health minister at 7am on that day to prepare the relevant advice.
I was requested from the minister to provide him with advice at approximately 7am that morning. And because of the nature of that advice, the complexity of the issues that needed to be addressed, the need for getting this as right as possible, that took us all day and half of the evening.
Kelly and health department officials are tight-lipped on whether this proposed ban was directly discussed with state and territory leaders at the national cabinet meeting that day.
Was he asked to look at less-intrusive options?
Kelly maintains that “right throughout the pandemic we’ve looked for the least intrusive option”.
He says, however, that Australia had been “faced with what was a large number of Australians returning from India … and with very high rates of positive” to the point that there was a concern about the potential failure of the quarantine system.
Updated
More than 20 federal Labor MPs in Victoria won’t be preselected for their seats in the next federal election until a judge rules on the nomination process.
Preselection opened on Tuesday for 21 electorates the party considers safe, and for the new seat of Hawke in Melbourne’s west.
Nominations closed on Friday morning and despite all sitting MPs facing no challenge to their candidacy, a Victorian supreme court judge has barred the ALP from officially declaring their preselection, AAP reports.
Three candidates were nominated to represent Hawke and a ballot to choose the candidate was due to be held on Friday afternoon.
But ALP affiliated unions have been granted an ongoing injunction until at least late May, after arguing that the process under which preselection was to occur was invalid.
The Victorian branch of the Labor party has been under the control of the party’s national executive since June last year, after allegations of branch stacking were raised against former state government minister Adem Somyurek. He denies the claims.
Representatives from 11 unions are taking part in the action, led by the Health Services Union secretary, Diana Asmar. They’ve taken aim at the speed of the preselection process.
Their barrister, Ron Merkel QC, said a two to three-day nomination period was “unprecedented”.
“It’s no surprise whatsoever that there are no other nominations in the 21 seats because the process people have to go through has been short-circuited,” he said.
Potential nominees require the support of 10 party members and a nomination period of less than three days did not allow people the time to gather support, he said.
But Peter Willis SC, who is representing members of the national executive including federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese, said the process was conventional and unremarkable.
He had requested that a previous injunction, put in place after an urgent hearing on Thursday night, be lifted to allow current MPs to campaign as candidates in the next federal election.
A snap election as early as September is not out of the question, he said. Willis also argued if they lost the case, the preselection process could be redone.
But Justice Ginnane said that could be an unwieldy process, the effects of which were difficult to contemplate at this stage.
“It is appropriate that the declaration of the preselected candidates, or the election of a preselected candidate in the seat of Hawke, not occur until the conclusion of the hearing and probably its determination,” he said.
A full hearing on the issue is due to begin on 27 May.
Updated
Prof Paul Kelly, the chief medical officer, has been giving evidence to the Covid committee on the controversial India travel ban.
He says his highest priority is to protect the heath of the Australian population “here in Australia”.
He says his advice is squarely focused on keeping Australians as safe as possible “until we are able to move into a post-pandemic world”.
Issues are often complex, he says. Governments need to weigh up the risks and benefits.
On the advice he provided that led to the “temporary pause” on travellers from India, he says he believes it was the right decision and had been “proved to be effective”.
He says on 22 April, national cabinet had asked the Department of Health to develop a methodology to identify high-risk countries. India was then determined to be high-risk.
“The tragic reality … is the number of Covid-19 cases continues to grow rapidly in India and the situation will likely get worse before it gets better.”
He says his heart goes out to people with friends and family in India.
Updated
'On their own': 173 unaccompanied Australian children stranded in India
A newsflash from the Covid committee: there are 173 unaccompanied children in India who are trying to return to Australia.
Lynette Wood, of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, told the Senate hearing a short time ago:
In our database we have 173 clients registered as under 18 in India outside of a family group – that is, they’re on their own and seeking to return to Australia.
These are among the list of about 9,500 Australians who are seeking to return from India.
As my colleague Paul Karp mentioned earlier, Qantas doesn’t take unaccompanied minors, meaning their only options to come home are Air India and special repatriation flights.
Updated
Asked if he is aware of any Australian citizens who have died of Covid in India while waiting to return home, Barry O’Farrell, Australia’s high commissioner to India, says Dfat is providing consular assistance to the family of an Australian permanent resident who reportedly has died in the country.
O’Farrell, the Australian high commissioner, says the department won’t provide any further comment owing to its privacy obligations.
One of the reasons it is not making comment, he says, is because local authorities haven’t yet confirmed the circumstances of the death (such as whether it was due to Covid-19).
But O’Farrell notes that with the nightly infection rate in India being “greater than the population of Canberra”, and with reported deaths of some 4000 a night, he doesn’t believe “anyone can put hand on heart” and say that Australian citizens or permanent residents are not among the deaths.
Asked more about the vaccination of Australian diplomats and consular officials and support staff, O’Farrell says AstraZeneca doses were on the assistance plane that arrived this week.
The national cabinet statement is out, and there are a few interesting details in addition to the fact they’re off the war-footing and back to regular monthly meetings.
It said:
The commonwealth will also consider tightening Australian Border Force (ABF) outbound travel restrictions for Australians travelling overseas and continue the restrictions in place in respect of applications for travel to high risk countries.
National cabinet agreed to vaccinate essential outbound Australian travellers with ABF travel exemptions approvals. This includes only people travelling in response to the Covid-19 outbreak, including in the Pacific; urgent medical treatment; national interest; critical industries and business; compassionate and compelling grounds; urgent and unavoidable personal business.
This means the federal government has agreed with the push from Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, supported by Victoria, that the exemptions need to be reviewed.
Regarding India, the situation is as described at the press conference: three repatriation flights; New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland to possibly take additional flights; and a review next week of the possibility of resuming commercial flights.
The requirement for rapid antigen tests may be expanded to Sri Lanka:
In particular the commonwealth government will work with the Sri Lankan government to monitor the situation in Sri Lanka and whether further measures including RAT may need to be put in place to address transit point risks.
The national cabinet also “noted that future agreements on capped flights between jurisdictions and the commonwealth will be discussed bilaterally”.
Updated
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed its legal division was consulted on 30 April, the day Greg Hunt’s biosecurity determination was issued.
Officials don’t go into detail on the content of their advice, but say Australia “takes its human rights obligations seriously” and has taken these into account in its policy responses to the Covid crisis.
Marie-Charlotte McKenna, the acting assistant secretary of the international law branch, notes Hunt’s biosecurity determination was “temporary” and “made on public health grounds and based on medical advice”.
These restrictions were considered necessary for the protection of public health, McKenna says. She suggests it is a valid reason for delaying returns “in the context of a global pandemic”.
Returning to the topic of vaccination of Australian citizens in India: the Senate Covid-19 committee heard earlier that the government had considered this week whether it was feasible to help inoculate stranded Australians against Covid-19, and decided against it.
Australia’s high commissioner to India, Barry O’Farrell, has expanded on the issue, saying the Australians registered with the department were spread across the country.
O’Farrell, the former NSW Liberal premier, said Australia had not decided to implement its own vaccination program in India, “but no other country has either”.
He said that was due to a range of “legal, logistic and, frankly, government-of-India issues”.
O’Farrell was asked how many of his officers – Australian and locally engaged staff – had already been vaccinated against Covid-19.
O’Farrell said:
I can say that the majority of our staff have at least had the first vaccination. Some of us, because of age, were lucky enough to be able to access that through the government of India; otherwise we have sought to use AstraZeneca supplied from Australia for that purpose.
It’s clear why it’s needed to do this for diplomats, because we could not help anyone across India if more of my officers – whether locally engaged or Australian staff – went down with Covid.
Updated
The ABC says truth will be a “significant” part of its defence against a defamation claim brought by former federal attorney general Christian Porter and that the broadcaster plans to call at least 15 witnesses.
Porter’s lawyers have said, however, that the ABC is not pleading truth to “most” of his defamation claim.
The minister’s lawyers were granted interim orders in the federal court on Friday preventing the publication of parts of the ABC’s defence – pending a hearing to determine the merits of Porter’s application to strike out the sections. He argues they are an abuse of court process.
Justice Jayne Jagot told the hearing the interim orders were “not about holding a hearing in secret” but merely to prevent potentially scandalous or vexatious material from entering the public domain until she could determine the merits of Porter’s claim.
In the week starting 31 May, the court will return to consider Porter’s bid to strike out what the ABC’s counsel described on Friday as “effectively our entire defence”, before a full hearing of the case that could take up to six weeks in September and October.
Read more:
Updated
Stellar performance, Nino.
As he mentioned, I’m Elias Visontay, and I’ll be taking you through the rest of the day.
If you see anything you think I should be aware of, you can get in touch with me via Twitter @EliasVisontay or via email at elias.visontay@theguardian.com.
And the pinch hitter Elias Visontay is here to finish off the innings. Ciao all.
The Australian government has considered vaccinating Australians stranded in India but has not taken up that option, officials have told a Senate inquiry.
Lynette Wood, a first assistant secretary at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, told the Covid-19 committee that officials had been “asked to canvass the pros and cons” of vaccinating Australian citizens in India.
In the context of the current situation, we’ve weighed up the pros and cons, but for a variety of reasons we haven’t taken it further.
Asked whether the foreign minister, Marise Payne, or the government had asked the department to provide advice on the matter, Wood confirmed: “They asked us for our advice, yes.”
She revealed those discussions had occurred during the course of this week. Wood said there was no immediate prospect of change.
At the moment the policy position remains the same: that Australians overseas are not being vaccinated by the Australian government.
Committee chair Katy Gallagher interjected: “Including those who are being refused access to the country.”
Updated
Laming would be criticised whether he attended parliament or not: Dutton
Defence minister Peter Dutton says Andrew Laming would be criticised no matter what he did as the Queensland MP prepares to return to federal parliament, AAP reports.
Laming returns to Canberra next week following a month of medical leave he took after multiple women alleged he had harassed them.
Before the break, prime minister Scott Morrison forced the Brisbane MP to apologise to two women and had him undertake a short online empathy course.
The Liberal National Party MP will resign at the next election but cabinet ministers have stopped short of calling for him to go now.
Laming’s vote gives the Coalition government a one-seat majority on the House of Representatives, but Dutton says that’s irrelevant, telling reporters on Friday:
Well that’s just not a question – he is going to be in parliament, he has been elected to represent the people of Bowman for three years.
You’d be critical if he wasn’t going to attend parliament because that’s what he was elected to do, and he’s able to do that, and he’ll be there on Monday.
The defence minister also questioned a protest planned against Laming at Cleveland in the MP’s electorate of Bowman on Saturday.
Dutton said the people involved had “affiliations” and were not “community members”.
People who criticise him would be well served as they have a look at his record and look at what he’s been able to deliver for his local community.
He’s made mistakes and importantly owned up to them.
If there is a politically-based rally against him then the organisers no doubt will be upfront about their affiliations and who they’re representing, as opposed to the local community.
Laming last week revealed he had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder while on medical leave.
The MP said his condition explained some of his behaviour towards women.
Two female constituents have accused him of abusing them online. One said the abuse left her suicidal.
The backbencher has also been accused of taking a photograph of a woman at her workplace without her consent as she bent over with her underwear visible.
Police investigated the matter but no action was taken. Laming denied any inappropriate behaviour.
Last week, another three women made fresh allegations about the MP’s “creepy” behaviour making them feel uncomfortable.
Laming’s office said he “comprehensively rejected” those allegations.
Updated
The NSW court of criminal appeal has allowed an appeal against the “manifestly inadequate” sentence handed to a man who sexually assaulted a woman in 2018.
This story from AAP:
A Sydney pool builder spared jail for sexually assaulting a sleepy woman who mistakenly thought he was her casual lover has been sent to prison by appeal court judges.
Matthew Patrick Fisher, now 25, was sentenced in November 2020 to a three-year community corrections order after being found guilty of having sexual intercourse without consent in January 2018.
The district court jury was unable to reach a verdict on a second count and the director of public prosecutions later directed there be no further proceedings in respect to that charge.
The NSW court of criminal appeal on Friday dismissed Fisher’s conviction appeal and, in a majority decision, allowed a crown appeal against the “manifestly inadequate” sentence.
Instead, he was jailed for five years with a non-parole period of three years to date from Friday.
Justice Christine Adamson said:
The sentence imposed must indicate to the community at large the seriousness of sexual assault on a sleeping woman who is a stranger to her assailant.
Excessive use of alcohol by a sexual offender will not mitigate the objective seriousness of non-consensual sexual intercourse against a vulnerable complainant.
The consequences for the complainant were devastating and enduring.
The woman, who had been in an “on-again off-again” intimate relationship with a man, had gone back to his place with a group of people celebrating his birthday.
She gave evidence that after going to sleep in his bed about 3am, she was woken up when the doona was pulled off her and a man, whom she assumed was her lover, performed oral sex on her and then had intercourse.
Fisher told the jury he had gone into the dark bedroom feeling sick, saw someone was under the blanket, got on the bed himself and went to sleep on top of the covers.
He claimed he was woken by the other person touching him sexually, saying “he did not know who the person was and it did not cross his mind to find out”.
They kissed and he gave her oral sex before they had intercourse for around 20 minutes.
The crown contended Fisher did nothing to identify himself to the complainant, before or during either act of intercourse.
She consented to those acts under the mistaken impression that she was having intercourse with her lover and Fisher knew she was not consenting, having consciously deceived her by entering the bedroom and failing to announce himself.
It was only when he was leaving the bedroom that she could gauge his height and realised he was not her lover, whom she immediately texted.
Fisher’s barrister unsuccessfully argued the guilty verdict was irrational and inconsistent with the failure to agree on the second count.
But the appeal court said the jury was persuaded Fisher had no reasonable grounds for believing the woman consented when he carried out the first act.
But some jurors may not have been have persuaded that, by the time of the conduct which constituted the second count, he had no such grounds, given her apparently positive response to the oral intercourse.
While justice Elizabeth Fullerton agreed with justice Adamson in allowing the sentence appeal, justice Paul Brereton found that while the penalty was lenient and merciful, it was not so manifestly inadequate that it was “plainly unjust”.
Updated
The Northern Territory’s chief minister, Michael Gunner, had been on the ABC briefly, and didn’t say a lot, but here’s a snapshot:
Howard Springs is the best quarantine facility in the world. Throughout the pandemic I have never been prouder of Territorians who continue to do the heavy lifting for the nation and look after our fellow Australians, and we will also continue to keep the territory safe.
Updated
The Howard Springs quarantine facility in the Northern Territory is “on track” to increase to capacity of 2,000 people by the end of this month, federal government officials have told a Senate hearing.
Lynette Wood, a first assistant secretary at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, told the Covid-19 committee three facilitated flights would bring passengers to Howard Springs later this month. They are scheduled for 15, 23 and 31 May.
Wood said officials were “still finalising the exact numbers” of who could board each flight. Typically such flights could take up to 200 passengers, but in these circumstances officials suspect it will be about 150 a flight.
Wood said Howard Springs would also be used for travellers returning on facilitated flights from other countries.
She confirmed today’s announcement did not include additional quarantine capacity, but said Howard Springs was already on a trajectory to reach capacity of 2,000 by the end of May.
That’s still on track … we don’t have a problem with quarantine capacity.
Updated
Two less flights (even if the states get involved) from India than there would have been without the ban.
DFAT's Lynette Wood confirms there were EIGHT repatriation flights from India due in May; the govt is now planning on THREE (plus three commercially assisted, maybe). So, @KKeneally establishes it is a "net reduction" despite the pause. #auspol #indiatravelban
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) May 7, 2021
Increased number of Australians stranded in India confirmed
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s first assistant secretary of crisis management, Lynette Wood, has told the Covid committee there are now 9,500 Australians stranded in India, 950 of who are classed as vulnerable.
The Australian high commissioner to India, Barry O’Farrell, gave an update on the Covid situation in India, which he said was not in crisis a month ago but has seen a “dramatic increase” in cases in a short period of time. India has a total of 3.5 million cases, and some 330,000 people have died.
Labor’s Kristina Keneally is asking how many Australians in India are unaccompanied minors. Qantas doesn’t take unaccompanied minors, meaning their only options to come home are Air India and special repatriation flights.
Wood says they don’t have a precise break down. O’Farrell adds they have so far helped 20 unaccompanied minors come home.
Wood says there will be repatriation flights into Darwin on 15, 23 and 30 May, and it is considering a further three flights to go into other state capitals.
Updated
The good souls at Australian Associated Press have filed this story on the press conference Scott Morrison and Paul Kelly held earlier this afternoon:
Australians in India who fail a pre-flight coronavirus test will be banned from boarding when rescue planes restart from 15 May.
Prime minister Scott Morrison on Friday announced the travel ban would end on its planned expiry date, following a fierce backlash against the harsh measures.
He told reporters in Sydney on Friday:
All of this is about sensibly preventing a third wave of Covid-19 here in Australia.
He said India was the world’s most significant coronavirus hotspot for people wanting to travel to Australia.
There would be three flights this month to bring back the most urgent cases, with 900 vulnerable citizens and permanent residents stranded in India.
All arrivals would be quarantined at the Northern Territory’s Howard Springs mining camp, where capacity is set to increase to 2,000 beds.
Morrison said people found to have coronavirus in a pre-flight test would be denied the right to board planes.
That is a clear port-of-entry requirement. We will be holding the line on that.
Up to 200 passengers could be on the first flight, which will depart on May 15.
But the 9,000 Australians still stuck in India could face months of waiting to return home, with the Asian nation in the grips of a coronavirus catastrophe.
One repatriation flight is due to arrive every seven to nine days, with an estimated 1,000 Australians returning by the end of June.
The number of people with coronavirus at Howard Springs has fallen to 21 from more than 50 a week ago, while there is expected to be no cases linked to Indian repatriation flights by next Friday.
India recorded another grim global world record on Thursday: more than 412,000 new coronavirus cases and almost 4,000 deaths.
Morrison said the government did not know how many of the stranded Australians had contracted the disease.
Cabinet’s national security committee signed off on the decision on Thursday following advice from the chief medical officer, Paul Kelly.
Morrison chaired Friday’s national cabinet meeting of state and territory leaders, who were briefed on the pause ending.
NSW and Queensland agreed to receive more repatriation flights.
The controversial ban came under heavy fire from within conservative ranks, the Indian-Australian community and human rights groups after the government threatened jail and fines for people who tried to circumvent it.
The government argued it was necessary to ease pressure on quarantine and prevent a Covid third wave breaking out in Australia.
Talks are underway with Sri Lanka on ensuring pre-flight testing as cases rise on the island nation to India’s south.
Morrison also announced national cabinet would revert to monthly meetings, just three weeks after requesting state and territory leaders convene twice every seven days.
The meeting schedule was increased amid problems with the vaccination rollout, which has now passed 2.5 million doses.
Updated
I can also recommend to you this feature about converting office buildings into housing.
This is a good piece taking in the recent war chatter in Canberra.
Spend for your country!
That’s largely the message from the Reserve Bank of Australia in its statement of monetary policy released today.
Whether or not Australian households spend their “unusually large amount of additional savings” will decide whether the RBA raises interest rates sooner or later.
During the pandemic, household savings ratios hit a record high of 19%, but fell as people emerged from lockdown and are expected to fall to 8% by the end of the year.
If people’s “spending response to increased wealth is stronger than usual”, the bank says inflation and employment levels will pick up, which means it might raise interest rates sooner.
If people save and pay down debt, then “subdued consumption and private investment [will] result in the unemployment rate remaining a little above pre-pandemic levels”. Meaning economic growth won’t be as quick.
Since there’s no right or wrong way to use your money, the RBA realistically expects households to only spend “a small share” of the money they saved during the pandemic.
In today’s statement, the bank confirmed it had upgraded Tuesday’s economic growth forecast to 4.75% by December 2021, and unemployment to fall to 5% over the same period.
Just quickly – the RBA did point out there are some labour shortages in pockets of the economy, like hospitality, but didn’t seem overly worried about it.
Since the borders have been closed, low migration levels mean wages are likely to stay low as competition for jobs remains limited.
Commonwealth Bank thinks the RBA is subtly nudging to the federal government to open borders if they want to see wages growth.
Just for the record, interest rates stayed put at 0.1% this week.
Updated
The Covid committee has heard there is a particular problem for unaccompanied minors leaving India, because they are not eligible to travel on facilitated commercial flights.
The committee is hearing from Dilin. He's in Australia, but his young daughter is still in India. She can't return because of restrictions which prevent minors from travelling unaccompanied. He hasn't seen his child for almost 17 months. He misses her terribly. Man. 2/
— Stephen Dziedzic (@stephendziedzic) May 7, 2021
Absolutely heartbreaking evidence from Sydney couple Drisya and Dilin - who have been separated from their 4 year old daughter in India since early 2020. @10NewsFirst #auspol
— Tegan George (@tegangeorge) May 7, 2021
The committee is now hearing from Deborah Tellis, an Australian who made it back from India after being stranded there for nine months only after she was classed as vulnerable because of an anxiety disorder.
Tellis said the lack of repatriation flights organised by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade amounted to a lack of “duty of care” and - although we are talking about India today, it has been a problem for a year – the lack of flight options for Australians worldwide.
Tellis said the Australian policy “seems to be striving for zero Covid in quarantine”, which is “unreasonable”. (The official target is less than 2%.)
Tellis warned:
There is a strong chance Australians will come home in body bags.
Updated
NSW customer service minister Victor Dominello has urged businesses to up their game in checking people in using QR codes, after Guardian Australia revealed a 25% decline in the number of check-ins between January and April.
The number of check-ins using the Service NSW app declined from 66m in January down to 48.3m in April, we reported this week, as a new case of unsourced community transmission was detected.
Dominello told ABC radio the drop off was due to complacency, and while inspectors were out to ensure businesses were complying, they could not be out in every business.
He said:
They have skin in the game. If I do the right thing and they comply with the rules, simply asking people to check in, looking for the green tick as they come into the venue. Then they form a critical safety net for the contact tracers. Because, if we’ve got the QR codes working, it gives the contact tracers headroom in order for them to do their work.
Dominello said without the system it can take weeks to figure out who has been at a potential exposure site. He noted, for example, the cinema where the Covid-positive man visited in Sydney’s eastern suburbs didn’t have as many check-ins as expected, and reiterated the importance of business enforcing the rules:
Businesses have, in many ways, an obligation to do the right thing to protect themselves and protect the community. They’re like our second line of defence.
Updated
A judge has described the botched robodebt scheme as a “very sorry chapter in public administration”, as a court hears the total of unlawful debts raised by the government exceeded $1.5 billion.
Federal court justice Bernard Murphy made the comment in response to personal stories aired by the court-appointed contradictor, Fiona Forsyth QC, who represents the interests of 600,000 members of a Gordon Legal class action that challenged the scheme.
Forsyth read from 10 of the more than 600 submissions objecting to a settlement reached between Gordon Legal and the government last year. The settlement includes $112m in interest payments, in addition to a guarantee unlawful debts – worth $1.5bn – will be refunded or “zeroed”.
Forsyth said objectors argued the “stress and anxiety” was not reflected in the settlement, which only covers economic loss.
Objectors described the “shame and anger” of being “treated like a welfare cheat”, including one woman who said she couldn’t eat or sleep when she received her debt.
Another person said they had fallen into “financial ruin” after a debt led them apply for a pay day loan.
Murphy said:
You don’t need to persuade me this is a very sorry chapter in Australian public administration.
About 200,000 people are set to miss out on compensation because their debts – which were initially invalid – were later substantiated by pay information welfare recipients provided in response to Centrelink’s debt letters.
The court has heard the legal case for these class members is considered “weak”. Bernie Quinn QC, for Gordon Legal, argued on Thursday that while these members will not get any financial benefit, they have been given clarity through the court process.
He argued the class action had forced the government to announce it would refund the other 400,000 victims.
Michael Hodge QC, for the commonwealth, on Friday questioned $4.4m in costs that Gordon Legal has asked to be deducted from the settlement to administer the compensation scheme.
Gordon Legal says much of those costs will go to communications with people who won’t receive anything from the settlement.
Hodge singled out “$14,000 for video production” contained in a costs report, and noted one of these videos posted to YouTube saw Gordon Legal promote legal arguments for people now excluded from the settlement.
Hodge said those people “should never have been included to begin with” – and thus Gordon Legal would be being paid for “promoting an unmeritorious claim”.
The firm’s total costs have previously been estimated at $14m.
Updated
Liberal chair James Paterson has got the call and asked Sunny if not for the Melbourne lockdown whether he would have been able to come home.
Sunny replied that he had seats on a flight on 10 July that was bumped to 18 July and then cancelled, agreeing that the Melbourne lockdown was to blame.
He said:
Sydney was the only place taking the load [of returning Australians], and if Sydney was able to handle that much load, why wasn’t Melbourne able to handle it as well? We had that extensive inquiry – and we still weren’t able to get to the bottom of who ordered security guards. That cost millions of dollars.
Paterson noted Melbourne airport was closed to international flights for six months, meaning that 10,000s of people couldn’t come home; and even now it was taking 800 people a week in comparison with 3,000 a week in New South Wales.
Sunny said:
I can only plead, I request they open up a bit more. They have a fantastic situation with Covid control. They’ve done a great job sorting Covid.
But Sunny said it was “not just Victoria I’m angry at” and he called on the federal government to show leadership, questioning why Australia hadn’t been able to bring 10,000 people home from India, and the lack of coordination. Even hotel quarantine cost a different amount in federal and states facilities.
Meg, who went to India after she was made redundant at her job in Australia, said:
Very hard living for over a year [overseas] and managing my finances.
Meg has had a cancer diagnosis and is undergoing chemotherapy in India. She has not been vaccinated against Covid-19 because of fear of side effects.
Updated
Scott Morrison and Prof Paul Kelly have finished speaking in Sydney.
The main things we didn’t know are that it’s considered likely there will now be six rather than three flights coming back from India by the end of the month, after Victoria, NSW and Queensland agreed for to take a plane each.
Morrison also said national cabinet meetings will go back to once a month.
And (while this isn’t new it’s worth noting again) he backed current quarantine arrangements but did not rule out changing them in future.
Prof Kelly with a little bit of an ominous comment regarding the Sydney Covid-19 cases:
The chances are we may see some more cases and we certainly need to ... work out that chain for the person we know arrived on 24th April, to our – the Sydneysider, and his wife, that have become positive without an obvious link there. But clearly it’s the same virus.
Updated
He’s not saying it won’t ever happen, though:
The suggestion that defence facilities can be used and immigration facilities, they’ve all been assessed before. They’ve been ruled as inappropriate. They’re not there sitting idle and otherwise used for that purpose – that’s not in case. If there’s other purpose-built facilities that are necessary, that’s something the commonwealth would consider, but would need to do that comprehensively, and in a very detailed way.
That’s why I welcome the proposal from Victoria – it is a comprehensive proposal, it is detailed. It does give us something, I think, to consider very carefully.
Updated
Morrison says quarantine capacity was NOT discussed in the meeting today. He notes that Victoria has a detailed proposal forward which the federal government is considering.
He is then asked whether he is considering another federally-funded facility like Howard Springs, and wheels out what is becoming a fairly familiar line in the past fortnight re hotel quarantine:
They have a 99.99% success rate in quarantine facilities, and that is an enviable position for any country in the world.
Morrison is asked about whether it is fair that Australians in India will have to test negative before being repatriated.
Australia is not alone in that requirement that we don’t uplift passengers coming into our country who are infected with Covid-19. That is a clear port-of-entry requirement. And we will be holding the line on that, just as we are holding the line when it comes to the biosecurity determination which was put in place right until May 15 with no changes.
Updated
Morrison says he reckons there will be six flights back from India this month – three direct to Howard Springs and three into Victoria, NSW and Queensland, as previously mentioned.
The flights will be of about 150 each, which the mathematicians among us will note equals 900 – the exact number of people classified as vulnerable.
But Morrison says that won’t necessarily mean they will all come back in those six flights.
You have family members, I need to stress, and vulnerable persons as well, and it’s not our practice to split up families.
Updated
Prof Kelly is pumped that we’re now at 2.5m doses delivered:
The vaccines, I think, PM, you have touched on the headlines, but it is important to note that milestone, 2.5 million, it is continuing to go ahead, it is continuing to accelerate, the numbers, every day are increasing.
Yesterday, over 81,000 doses were given.
Prof Kelly, Australia’s chief medical officer, says:
First, the good news in Australia again: another zero day ... that includes where we are in Sydney.
That includes that mystery case, the man and his wife. I have full confidence in the disease detectives in New South Wales Health, who have always been the leaders in chasing down these chains of transmission and working out what has happened there.
Updated
And here is Australia’s most famous Paul Kelly.
Morrison thanks the “Australian community of people who are of Indian descent” for their patience (some of them are downright angry rather than patient, but anyway). He talks about sustainability again too:
I want to thank in particular, in Australia, our Australian community of people who are of Indian descent. The Indian community here in Australia, I thank them for their patience, I thank them for the understanding. I want to thank them for the opportunity we have had over the course of the last week to be able to convey directly to them, to explain the decisions the government has been taking. And I know they will be welcoming the fact repatriation flights will be returning once again, but also believe we will be able to do that because of the actions we have taken on a sustainable basis.
Updated
Morrison, still on India:
All of this is about sensibly preventing a third wave of Covid-19 here in Australia ... while at the same time doing everything we can to sustainably bring Australians home from what is currently its most significant hotspot ... of anywhere in the world right now.
The biosecurity order is doing its job. It is doing what we intended it to do. It will run for the term we intended for it to run, and then that will be replaced by arrangements made beyond that point to ensure we can prevent the third wave.
Updated
He adds:
By arranging these returns to Australia, through what is [the] most secure channel we can provide for, that will mitigate the risk of potentially higher rates of infection is presenting on arrival in Australia and ensure the quarantine system will be able to receive continued flights.
Morrison said:
Those charter flights will, of course, be focused on bringing those Australian citizens, residents and families who have been registered with our high commission and consular offices within India. And it will also be targeted on those 900 most vulnerable of the group.
Updated
NSW, Victoria and Queensland will be taking flights directly from India, Morrison says, while South Australia is still considering its position.
Updated
Ie: three flights a week, heading into Howard Springs. First flight to leave 15 May.
Morrison is reiterating what we already know regarding India and repatriation flights.
Prime minster Scott Morrison is providing an update on today’s national cabinet meeting.
Scott Morrison is expected to provide an update out of national cabinet soon.
Here is quite a funny story out of New Zealand.
Updated
The Covid-19 inquiry is hearing from Australians stranded in India, including Sunny, who traveled to India in May 2020 because his father was in a critical condition with no support during India’s coronavirus lockdown.
Sunny’s father passed away on 1 June 2020 while Sunny was in hotel quarantine in Dehli. He wants to bring his mother home to Australia with him, but his flights in July 2020 were cancelled due to the Melbourne lockdown.
Sunny said it was “next to impossible” to come back with 10,000 stranded Australians seeking seats on Air India flights and no Qantas repatriation flights until November. He paid $10,000 to fly to Australia from Japan, but was bumped from the flight.
Sunny said the Australian government had been “totally insensitive to stranded Australians” after he suffered “11 months of misery”.
Sunny and his mother live in an area experiencing a “tsunami of infections”, with 60-70% of people on the street infected with Covid-19. He said they lived holed up in the house “in fear for our lives” but worried it was only a matter of time before they were infected.
Sunny quoted the advice of the chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, that the India travel ban could, in the worst-case scenario, result in the death of Australians in India.
He called for a comprehensive schedule of repatriation flights to get all Australians in India and elsewhere home.
Meg, another Australian in India, has told the committee she was stranded in India after she travelled there on holiday in January 2020.
Meg was unable to fly back in October when her Cathay Pacific flight via Hong Kong was cancelled, and she hasn’t been able to get a seat in the “raffle” of respite or charter flights.
She said:
The daily fear of going out and contracting Covid was with us every day and it it still is now, the situation is so bad. The Australian government hasn’t provided any kind of emotional support to those stranded in India. We are part of Facebook and Whatsapp groups – people are depressed about the situation. Emotionally people are so down and depressed.
We haven’t really received anything from the high commission. Every time I’ve called for help, guidance, the phone would just ring out no matter how many times you call.
Updated
The website for the new Labor campaign we mentioned earlier is now live. It is seen as a bit of an opening salvo for an election which could be more than a year away.
The agriculture minister, David Littleproud, has a concise response to news that China is suspending a key channel for economic dialogue: “The world moves on.”
As we reported yesterday, China’s suspension of the “strategic economic dialogue” with Australia is largely symbolic, because there hasn’t been a meeting in that format since 2017. But it is seen as a response to steps such as the Morrison government’s cancellation last month of Victoria’s Belt and Road deals with China.
Last night, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, called on Australia to “stop the insane suppression targeting China-Australia cooperation, stop politicising and stigmatising normal exchange, and stop going further down the wrong path”.
In a Sky News interview today, Littleproud said Australia had been “consistent from the start” and would “continue to have our hand out for dialogue” because talks were the best way to resolve any differences.
Obviously we’re deeply disappointed by it – but the world moves on. And what we’ve been able to do in Australian agriculture is diversify our economic base, our markets.
We’ve seen that already with barley, we were hit with barley [tariffs]; we sent our first boatload of barley to Mexico for their beer, and we found a new market for 750,000 tonnes in Saudi Arabia. They’ve also given us extended shelf life in Saudi Arabia, and the Indians have given us better market access for barley as well. So we’ve been able to send boats left and right.
But we want to continue to have that dialogue. When they’re ready, we’ll be there, but we will not compromise on our values or principles or our sovereignty.
The Sky News interviewer asked: “Is China a bully?”
Littleproud replied:
I don’t think calling countries – sovereign nations – names is going to advance the cause and enrich dialogue.
(Littleproud has, in the past, had no such qualms about teeing off at state premiers in colourful terms.)
Updated
And that’s me done for the week! Nino Bucci is on the blog now to carry you out to the weekend.
Psychologists are calling for Medicare to be expanded so new parents receive better mental health support, which will in turn improve their child’s wellbeing, reports Rebecca Gredley from AAP.
Ahead of next Tuesday’s federal budget, the Australian Psychological Society is highlighting the health issues parents face in the period immediately before and after birth.
The society’s president, Tamara Cavenett, told AAP that depression and anxiety affected one in seven women in the perinatal period, the time shortly before and soon after birth.
Depression and anxiety for such women is associated with an increased risk of pre-term delivery, reduced mother-infant bonding and a delay in development for the child.
Cavenett said:
Support and intervention in this period has a positive social and economic impact throughout the lifespan of the child ... Better outcomes for parents mean better outcomes for children.
We need to help parents as early as possible for their own mental health, but also the impact that this can have on their child’s wellbeing.
Cavenett said the coronavirus pandemic and associated social isolation had had a huge impact on the mental health of the already vulnerable group.
The Gidget Foundation Australia has reported a 122% increase in pregnant women and new mums seeking support this year.
Calls to the maternal mental health organisation’s national helpline doubled in 2020. The foundation provides free specialist psychological treatment services for families suffering emotional distress during pregnancy and early parenting.
If you are struggling with anything the issues mentioned here, you can call Lifeline 13 11 14 or beyondblue on 1300 22 4636.
Updated
The NSW transport department has referred its purchases of tens of millions of dollars in environmental offsets in western Sydney to the Independent Commission Against Corruption for investigation.
The referral to the state’s corruption watchdog follows a Guardian Australia investigation that revealed that a company known as Meridolum No 1 made more than $40m selling offsets for infrastructure projects that Eco Logical Australia, which employed two of Meridolum’s directors, provided offset advice on.
One of those directors, Steven House, holds interests in two other properties – known as Hampden Vale and Hardwicke – that sold a further $66.8m in offsets for developments in western Sydney from 2017 to 2019.
You can read the full report below:
Just some more background on the Victoria ambulance funding announcement from before.
Health officials are concerned there has been an increase in people presenting at emergency or seeking an ambulance for non-emergency issues – particularly for reasons such as being unable to go to a GP due to having Covid-like symptoms.
It’s also in part due to people not seeking treatment during the lockdown periods of 2020, and conditions therefore worsening, and people needing more time for treatment.
The officials are expecting emergency presentations to get worse in the next few months as winter hits.
One interesting statistic coming out of lockdown, which is said to be affecting both callouts and staffing levels, is an up to 20% increase in some parts of Victoria in the birth rate.
Updated
Resumption of Indian repatriation flights to Howard Springs @ScottMorrisonMP @fanniebay #auspol pic.twitter.com/6Hw72ACJdR
— Political Alert (@political_alert) May 7, 2021
Glitch at SA hospital adds digits to medication dosages
The electronic health record system used at hospitals in South Australia accidentally changed patient’s doses for prescriptions, forcing the staff to conduct manual checks.
The ABC reported the Sunrise EMR system was adding an additional number to people’s doses at the Queen Elizabeth hospital, Royal Adelaide hospital and Noarlunga hospital.
So for example, if people were supposed to get 10mg, it was stating the dosage would be 100mg.
A spokesperson from SA Health said it was an “intermittent issue” but that once identified, all sites using the Sunrise system were notified and implemented risk mitigation strategies, including additional prescription reviews while the issue is being investigated.
We are not aware of any adverse clinical outcomes at this time.
The Sunrise EMR system is used at the Queen Elizabeth hospital, Royal Adelaide hospital, Noarlunga hospital, Mt Gambier and Districts health service and Port Augusta hospital.
The state government in South Australia is still in the process of rolling out the system elsewhere, with $200m in funding in the last budget for the project.
It came after a review of the system found major changes were required but recommended the software be updated rather than replaced entirely.
Updated
$760m to fix Victorian health system amid ambulance 'crisis'
The Victorian government has committed $759m to help paramedics and hospitals cope with “unprecedented levels of demand”, reports Benita Kolovos from AAP.
The package, part of the state’s 2021/22 budget, was unveiled by health minister Martin Foley on Friday.
He said the state’s health system had been dealing with challenges “the likes of which it’s never had to deal with before”, since emerging from a prolonged coronavirus lockdown late last year.
We’ve seen unprecedented levels of demand over the course of 2020 and now in 2021, where we’ve seen just in the quarter gone, the highest level of demand in our public health services’ history.
Foley said the funds helped deliver more paramedics and nurses as well as freeing up space in the state’s emergency department from next month.
The package includes $266m to expand Ambulance Victoria’s triage services to divert people away from emergency rooms, $205m to bolster the services’ resources and $200m to open new hospital facilities and create new beds. The government will also spend about $89m to better resource emergency departments.
Prof Christine Kirkpatrick from the Royal Melbourne Hospital said emergency departments were back to pre-Covid levels, but people were coming in sicker.
This reflects the impact of Covid – during the pandemic people for obvious reasons deferred care...
So now they’re coming into hospital sicker and really with higher acuity presentations.
This means patients are staying in emergency departments for longer.
In addition, Kilpatrick said staff were “understandably tired” and many were on sick leave after the hospital became the epicentre of the state’s second wave of Covid-19.
All of these factors are playing into a more complex situation.
Foley has been under pressure to act all week from the state opposition, which has described the situation as a “crisis”.
Updated
Part of ABC’s Christian Porter defence to be suppressed – for now
Despite Christian Porter’s counsel’s claim that there is “very little” by way of truth defences in the ABC’s defence to his defamation claim, the ABC has disputed this.
The ABC’s counsel, Renee Enbom, said its defence will consist of:
- The qualified privilege defence – requiring a corresponding interest between the publisher and public in finding out the allegation against Porter (essentially, that it was in the public interest; and reasonable in the circumstances); and
- A “substantial truth defence to many of the imputations that have been pleaded” which Enbom described as “significant” and said would involve at least 15 witnesses.
At the conclusion of the hearing, justice Jayne Jagot granted Porter’s wish to suppress parts of the ABC’s defence until she can hold a hearing into whether they can be struck out.
She impressed that this was “not about holding a hearing in secret” but only protecting material that could be scandalous or vexatious from entering the public domain until she can determine the merit of that claim.
So – we’ll have a strike-out hearing in late May/early June before a trial that could last up to six weeks in September/October. Strap in!
Updated
It’s my favourite time of the day! It’s “weird pictures of Scott Morrison in an aeroplane” time.
(What does it say about our country that this is such a common occurrence?)
Updated
Federal trade minister Dan Tehan has wished former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed a “speedy recovery” after he was injured in a blast outside his family home.
Tehan said he was “shocked to learn about this terrible attack”.
Shocked to learn about this terrible attack, having recently met with @MohamedNasheed. Wishing him a speedy recovery. Australia stands with the Maldives.
— Dan Tehan (@DanTehanWannon) May 7, 2021
Updated
Police have begun their inspection of the tanker truck that crashed into a traffic light pole at a busy Southbank intersection in Melbourne, leaving two pedestrians in a critical condition and injuring three others.
Police are inspecting a b-double truck at K & S Freighters in Truganina, believed to be involved in last night’s awful crash in Southbank. @10NewsFirstMelb pic.twitter.com/e07D1sQfZR
— Annie Kearney (@anniemaykearney) May 7, 2021
Incredibly the trucking company (K&S Freighters) is deliberately positioning shipping containers to obscure our view of police inspecting the B-double. pic.twitter.com/JDXuZn1bWl
— Paul Dowsley (@paul_dowsley) May 7, 2021
If you want to learn more about this Melbourne truck crash from overnight, see our article below:
Updated
No new locally acquired cases in NSW today
There have been no new locally acquired Covid-19 cases in NSW today.
This might seem like good news, but it does mean the “missing link” case is likely still out there.
NSW recorded no new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night.
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) May 7, 2021
Five new cases were acquired overseas to 8pm last night, bringing the total number of cases in NSW since the beginning of the pandemic to 5,332. pic.twitter.com/gNugxphXAQ
Updated
Oh, apparently I was wrong about the 11am press conference.
Gladys Berejiklian will not be standing up just yet, but we should still be getting a case number update any minute.
Updated
Jarryd Hayne to appeal against sentence for sexual assault
Convicted sex offender Jarryd Hayne, the former NRL player, is reportedly appealing against the prison sentence handed down to him yesterday.
Having spent his first night behind bars, Hayne has lodged a notice of intention to appeal in the New South Wales supreme Court, according to the ABC.
Hayne was jailed for a minimum of three years and eight months on Thursday after being sentenced to a total of five years and nine months. He was convicted in March of two counts of sexual intercourse without consent.
In handing down Thursday’s sentence, Newcastle district court judge Helen Syme noted he only stopped attacking the victim when she started to bleed, not when she was telling him no and stop.
After being found guilty in March this year, Hayne said he would “rather go to jail knowing I spoke the truth than be a free man living a lie”.
He told reporters outside court at the time:
It’s unfortunate, it’s disappointing but at the end of the day they’ve come to a decision and I respect that.
Updated
In case you were more inclined to watch...literally anything else last night...here’s a quick recap of what RBA deputy governor Guy Debelle said about the red hot property market.
Basically he said, that’s really not the bank’s problem. Unemployment is.
Speaking via Zoom to a Perth audience, Debelle said lowering interest rates to record lows – making debt cheaper for both people and businesses – is designed to get economic activity moving.
The thinking is: businesses can borrow cheaply to expand and employ more people. People can borrow money to spend more in the economy. When people are spending freely, businesses can raise their prices a little bit (this is inflation) and that helps those businesses grow and employ more people...who then have more money to spend freely in the economy...the cycle goes on.
But another byproduct of low interest rates is people borrow money cheaply to buy houses and apartments, which is forcing up prices in Australia’s major cities. (The average property price in Sydney has now hit $1.3m.)
But from the RBA’s perspective, the government has the tools to handle that problem, not the central bank.
I do not think monetary policy is one of the tools...
Monetary policy is focused on supporting the economic recovery and achieving its goals in terms of employment and inflation.
The kinds of tools the government has to make housing more affordable could be around tax treatment, different rules on banks issuing home loans (via the regulators), or how the state and local governments release and zone land.
But while the RBA is keeping an eye on the housing market, in case people start defaulting on their mortgages, the unexpected Covid-19 shock means the bank is mostly focused on making sure people are in jobs.
And it credits its low interest rate policy as the reason we’re in a good spot now going into next week’s budget.
It is important to remember that while housing prices may not rise as fast without the monetary stimulus, unemployment would definitely be materially higher without the monetary stimulus.
Anyway, back to regular programming.
Updated
And just a little bit more Victoria news!
Density quotients of one person per two square metres will soon be lifted for small-to-medium sized venues (up to 400sqm) in VIC.
— Heidi Murphy (@heidimur) May 7, 2021
State Govt says from 28 May, venues can have up to 200 people per space without any density limit, but must have COVID marshals and QR checks.
According to 3AW, Victoria is set to move to a single QR code system for venue check-ins at the end of the month.
According to the NSW government, this kind of statewide universal system proved invaluable when trying to get on top of the most recent outbreak.
VICTORIA to move (finally) to one single QR Code system for venue check-ins at the end of May.
— Heidi Murphy (@heidimur) May 7, 2021
The Service Vic App to be the only electronic record keeping system from May 28.
Updated
We are standing by for a press conference where NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian will confirm the state’s Covid-19 numbers for today.
That should be happening in around 15 minutes.
According to 7 News this is the truck that crashed into a traffic light, injuring five pedestrians, two critically, at an intersection in Southbank, Melbourne last night.
FIRST PICTURE: This is the B-double truck believed to have struck five pedestrians in Southbank last night. Police and others inspecting its back section at a Truganina depot. Driver still being questioned. pic.twitter.com/4SpD9hD102
— Paul Dowsley (@paul_dowsley) May 7, 2021
An Australian citizen has still not been told what charge he is facing, has only just been seen by Australian officials and is yet to meet his lawyer, despite spending 30 days behind bars in Baghdad.
Australian officials visited Robert Pether for the first time on Monday, day 26 of his detention, and are now asking if he can get a meeting with his lawyer.
Pether’s wife, Desree, spoke to her husband on Monday, their second call during the four-week ordeal, and said he was “desperate” and felt betrayed by both Iraq and Australia.
Desree said she was deeply frustrated by the time it took for Australian officials to visit her husband and begin requesting that Iraqi authorities allow a meeting with his lawyer.
You can read the full story below:
Updated
New Zealand’s top doctor believes the risk to Kiwis from two new Covid-19 cases from Sydney is “small” but enough to justify the suspension of quarantine-free flights from NSW, reports Ben McKay from AAP.
On Thursday, the New Zealand government halted quarantine-free travel from Australia’s biggest state for 48 hours.
Director general of health Ashley Bloomfield told Radio NZ the “line-ball call” was made as there were “a few unknowns”, specifically relating to how the pair caught the deadly virus.
It’s good that they have been able to link these two new cases, the husband and wife, to a border case and someone who is in managed isolation...
It’s good that it’s recent. It’s not like there’s infections bouncing around in the community.
But there is still a missing chain of transmission there, a missing link as it were.
The New Zealand government will assess whether to extend or scrap its travel ban based on news from NSW contact tracing today and tomorrow.
Kiwi health officials are now attempting a contact tracing effort for the approximately 6,000 travellers from NSW over the past week that entered New Zealand after being in Sydney.
That will involve emailing every traveller.
The likelihood that one or perhaps a few of those people have been at the locations of interest at the times of interest and then travelled to New Zealand I would say is small but we are being cautious.
People can still travel from Aotearoa to NSW without quarantining – though airlines have cancelled flights making that practically difficult.
Updated
ABC accuses Porter's lawyers of attempting to control reporting
The ABC’s counsel, Renee Enbom, has submitted if Porter succeeds in getting the schedules of the defence suppressed (on an interim basis, pending the strike-out hearing) then Porter’s reply which alleges malice against the ABC should also be suppressed.
Enbom said:
The effect of Mr Porter’s position is this: the public would not be informed of the way the ABC and Milligan put their defence to the claim, [because the schedules would not be public]; but the public would be given 13 pages of allegations about the conduct of Louise Milligan and ABC, which he says defeats one of them. That’s an attempt to control how this proceeding is reported.
Justice Jayne Jagot disagrees, she says she is “not persuaded by this” because the interests of open justice are “best served” if she makes “available everything that isn’t subject to an argument it should be struck out”.
So it looks like because Porter has asked for bits to be struck out, they could be suppressed for a few weeks; but the reply alleging Milligan and ABC maliciously published the story will be made public, because their lawyers have not applied to strike them out.
Enbom is now arguing that in Geoffrey Rush’s defamation case the interlocutory application to extend the suppression of the defence pending the strike-out application was not successful.
Porter’s lawyers dispute this, noting there was an interim order until the strike-out hearing.
Updated
One man has died and another has been taken to hospital after their boat capsized on the NSW north coast, AAP reports.
The boat overturned on Friday morning on the Sandon River, about 60km south of Yamba, and both men were thrown into the water.
One man swam to shore and was hospitalised with minor injuries but the other man, a 48-year-old, died at the scene after being pulled from the water.
NSW police says it will prepare a report for the coroner.
Updated
Good news up north!
Friday 7 May – coronavirus cases in Queensland:
— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) May 6, 2021
• 0 new locally acquired cases
• 2 new overseas acquired cases
• 21 active cases
• 1,574 total cases
• 2,492,639 tests conducted
Sadly, seven people with COVID-19 have died. 1,538 patients have recovered.#covid19 pic.twitter.com/yWeByEc8qP
Friday's news so far
Okay, while I have a second let me remind you of everything that’s happened or is currently happening today:
- The prime minister has confirmed the biosecurity measures criminalising returning home from India will end on 15 May and three emergency repatriation flights to the subcontinent will be chartered before the end of the month.
- Morrison also confirmed Australians who test positive to Covid-19 in India will not be allowed on the flights, regardless of if their health could be at serious risk from the subcontinent’s extremely stretched healthcare system.
- We are waiting to hear if NSW has recorded any more local Covid-19 cases, and if health authorities have managed to track down the “missing link” case they believe is out there somewhere.
- Former attorney general Christian Porter’s defamation case is in court today, to decide whether to make interim orders that the schedules of the ABC’s defence not be published.
- Five people have been injured, two critically, in Melbourne after a truck crashed into a traffic light next to a crowded footpath. The alleged driver has since been arrested and the city’s Lord Mayor will demand safety upgrades at the intersection from the state government.
Updated
Just a reminder we are set to get an update on the Covid-19 situation from NSW in about an hour.
So far all we know is that the premier is “very pleased” with the response so far, but seemed to suggest health authorities are still searching for that “missing link” case that connects an infected 50-year-old man to a returned traveller from the US in hotel quarantine.
Updated
Christian Porter’s counsel, Sue Chrysanthou, has revealed further details of the ABC’s defence, including that there is a “denial that the article is of and concerning Mr Porter”.
She says Porter has applied for particulars of that denial, because they simply do not understand it.
Chrysanthou then takes issue with the ABC’s claim that the imputations that there is “reasonable suspicion” against Porter cannot be conveyed by the article.
She said:
I can’t see how anyone could deny that or say that they are not capable of being carried. Not only that imputations aren’t carried, but that they are not capable of being carried, that they are so hopeless it should be struck out. We don’t understand that pleading.
Chrysanthou asks for the strike-out hearing to be expedited, noting that Porter “had to step aside as attorney general” as a result of the ABC article so it is of utmost urgency.
The ABC’s counsel, Renee Enbom, asks for more time because it is a substantial strike-out application to “effectively strike out our entire defence”.
Updated
Victorian government to overhaul police integrity processes
The Victorian government will overhaul how it deals with integrity and corruption complaints as part of its response to the royal commission into the management of police informants.
Jaclyn Symes, the state attorney general, confirmed that Ibac would also receive more funding and that the government’s announcement on Friday also finally addressed a separate 2018 parliamentary inquiry which raised serious questions about the external oversight of police corruption and misconduct.
Symes said the government would appoint a “special investigator”, an “implementation monitor” and also invest significantly in the courts as part of a $87.9m package.
Symes said:
The commission made serious and significant findings – getting to the bottom of matters that go to the heart of our criminal justice system. We will act on each and every one of them.
We’ve already made substantial progress, but there’s a long way to go. Our response and implementation plan sets us a clear pathway to deliver long-lasting systemic and cultural change.
The potential overhaul of how police complaints are handled is the most significant part of this announcement though. Symes’ statement confirms there will be a “systemic review” of the process to consider how best to change the law so that it “places a stronger focus on the needs of complainants and victims of police misconduct”.
It goes on to say that the review will work closely with Victoria police, integrity agencies, community legal centres and community groups “so police oversight is strong and transparent, while meeting the needs of our diverse communities and backing the integrity of Victoria police.”
The police complaints mechanism in Victoria is considered to be significantly flawed, largely because of issues with Ibac’s remit to investigate.
The current system in Victoria for the handling of complaints and disclosures about police is extremely complex,” a 2018 parliamentary committee found.
It is based on an intricate, overlapping, and sometimes fraying, patchwork of laws, policies and processes governing Victoria police and Ibac.
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Christian Porter’s counsel, Sue Chrysanthou, has just revealed in the federal court that “the ABC are not pleading truth for most of his case”.
The court is going to decide whether to make interim orders that the schedules of the ABC’s defence not be published, pending a hearing to strike out some particulars to be held on Friday 14 May.
Chrysanthou told the court that the “only issue” is whether to keep the schedules with particulars confidential – because Porter says they are an abuse of court process, and they should never have been put on the court file.
But Chrysanthou says the rest of the defence and the reply should be published. This is where she drops the major revelation that the ABC isn’t pleading defence to all imputations.
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Okay, we will be hearing more from the prime minister on all of this later in the day after national cabinet has had a chance to meet. Stay tuned.
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Morrison:
I remind you that 99.99% is the effectiveness* of the hotel quarantine system including the work of Howard Springs in that, of our quarantine system in Australia.
If I told you over a year ago we would have put in place a quarantine system that had 99.99% effectiveness, I’m sure you wouldn’t believe me but that is what Australia has achieved. That is what Australia’s achieved.
That is why Australia is living in a way that the rest of the world largely isn’t. I’m going to do everything within my authority to ensure that we continue to keep Australians safe.
*I’ve said it before and I shall say it again. It’s only 99.99% effective if you look at ALL the cases including all the negative cases that were never going to be an infection risk. Experts say if you just look at all the positive cases, we have a hotel quarantine outbreak rate of about one in every 300-ish positive cases. Considerably worse stats.
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Infected Australians to be left in India
So just on that “you need to test negative to get on a repatriation flight” situation, a reporter has asked if that means even if an Australian is acutely ill with Covid-19, they will be left to contend with India’s extremely stretched health system.
Morrison says, yep, basically:
Rapid antigen testing is a requirement and a negative test to get on a border flight to Australia. I’m sure that’s what all Australians would expect.
The prime minister has been asked how many of the 900 Australians in India have contracted Covid-19.
We don’t have that information. That is why they are tested before they get on the flight.
So the requirement to have a test before getting on a flight is an existing requirement. What we are doing in relation to these repatriation flights is ensuring that we have rapid antigen testing in place as well to give ourselves a greater sense of surety that if we are bringing people back to Australia we are minimising the risk of Covid cases of being brought into the country.
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Travel ban announcement summary
So Morrison’s announcement was slightly confusing but here is the long and short of it (as far as I can tell):
- Both the commercial travel ban and the Biosecurity Act order that criminalises returning to Australia from India will remain in place until 15 May.
- The National Security Committee of Cabinet believes that case numbers in Australian quarantine facilities will have dropped low enough to remove the Biosecurity Act order.
- The ban on commercial flights may or may not end at this time too.
- Between 15 and 31 May the government will charter three flights to repatriate Australians from India who will be taken to Howard Springs.
- You MUST test negative to Covid-19 in order to get on one of these flights.
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Morrison:
I will consult with the premiers and chief ministers today as part of that national cabinet meeting, and the National Security Committee of Cabinet will consider those matters further next week and in the weeks ahead.
But what’s important is that the biosecurity order that we have put in place has been highly effective, it’s doing the job that we needed it to do, and that was to ensure that we could do everything we can to prevent a third wave of Covid-19 here in Australia, but also to ensure that we can put ourselves in a stronger position to bring Australian citizens, Australian residents and their direct families home safely to Australia.
This has put us on a much stronger footing to do that in a sustainable way. And so other matters we will discuss with the national cabinet today.
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The prime minister says no decision has been made on the resumption of commercial flights to India yet.
So wait, doesn’t that meant that the travel ban might still be in place? The travel ban specifically was always concerning commercial flights? Morrison, I’m confused!
The challenge we have had with brief arrivals from India is the higher incident of infections and the stress that was placing on the quarantine system, whether at the national resilience facility that we fund to the tune of some half a billion dollars up in the Northern Territory, or elsewhere around the country.
So, I will be advising the premiers and chief ministers of that decision this morning, and then we’ll be working on the many other matters we need to attend to. The government has made no decision yet on the restarting of normal commercial flights from India. We will take further advice on that next week.
Three repatriation flights to India in May
Morrison has committed to three charter flights bring Australians home from India before the end of May.
There will be three flights, we envision, in the course of May going into the Northern Territory, bringing back the most urgent of cases as that’s worked through by our high commissioner and consular officials in India.
We have some 900 people listed as vulnerable, as part of the group that we have got registered in India and our charter flights also will be focusing on them. In addition, there will be rapid antigen testing put in place for everyone getting on the flights.
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Travel ban will remain until 15 May but won't be extended, says PM
Prime minister Scott Morrison says there will be “no change” to the travel bans or biosecurity orders until 15 May, but it won’t be extended after that.
Medical advice we have and the evidence that we’ve and our quarantine facilities, in particular up in the Northern Territory, is showing that the number of cases there is moving back to more manageable levels and will be at a level by 15 May to ensure that as planned we will be able to return to having those repatriation flights from India, from 15 May.
There will be no change to the biosecurity orders we have put in place, which were put in place to run till 15 May. That biosecurity order is working as exactly as it was intended to, and that will remain in place with no change until 15 May.
National Security Committee of Cabinet has confirmed that it will have done its job by then, and as a result we see no need to extend it beyond that date. So the original decision to put in place that biosecurity order until 15 May has proved very effective and it will run its full course until that time without any change.
What we will be doing is receiving our first repatriation flight into the Northern Territory as part of the charter arrangements that we have with our airlines to bring back those first people from India at that time.
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Prime minister Scott Morrison is speaking now.
Now, Sydneysiders have woken up to stricter Covid-19 social distancing rules.
If you need a refresher on exactly what’s changed, check out the explainer below:
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Scott Morrison has warned the future of the National Disability Insurance Scheme is at stake unless ballooning costs are brought under control, reports Daniel McCulloch from AAP.
In a pre-budget speech, the prime minister said the cost of the NDIS had blown out beyond initial maximum forecasts and was on track to surpass $26bn next year and grow further beyond that.
To ensure the NDIS is here for generations of Australians to come, we have a responsibility to manage increasing costs...
Reasonable and necessary supports come with some boundaries - boundaries to ensure the scheme is affordable, but more importantly so it is fair for all participants.
At the moment the costs of the NDIS are increasing more than was ever contemplated or expected by those who first framed it.
The scheme supports almost 450,000 children and adults with the number expected to rise to 530,000 in coming years.
Last month, the government paused plans to introduce independent assessments for all NDIS recipients in response to widespread backlash.
But the prime minister said independent assessments must go ahead.
Proposed reforms through independent assessments and personalised budgets are designed to make the NDIS fairer and more sustainable into the future.
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Nine News is reporting that all Sydney Roosters players have tested negative to Covid-19.
This comes after a cafe near the Rooster’s head office was placed on the NSW hotspot list, creating a Covid-19 scare among the players and staff of the NRL team.
JUST IN: The @sydneyroosters have confirmed all players have tested NEGATIVE for #COVID19. #9News pic.twitter.com/UCkIX1hQTp
— 9News Sydney (@9NewsSyd) May 6, 2021
A Queensland proposal to criminalise coercive control could be dangerous for vulnerable women, particularly First Nations women, some criminologists and advocates say.
Queensland and New South Wales are both exploring options to make coercive control an offence and recognise non-physical forms of abuse as a form of domestic violence.
But given documented failures by police to properly contextualise domestic violence incidents or recognise the behaviours, some experts and frontline advocates have warned the proposal could cause more harm to those it is aimed at protecting.
You can read the full report below:
The prime minister will be speaking soon from Newcastle airport, following a new funding announcement for upgrades there.
But what we really care about is the chance to press Scott Morrison on this decision to reinstate repatriation fights from India from 15 May onwards.
I’ll bring that to you as soon as I can.
Yesterday there were no new cases reported.
— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) May 6, 2021
- 9,158 vaccine doses were administered
- 16,135 test results were received
More later: https://t.co/2vKbgKHFvv#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/mt83LB0qw6
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Now that diplomatic relations with China are in the toilet (that’s the official term for it I believe), industries are worried that our free trade agreement with the industry powerhouse country could be the next thing on the chopping block.
Tehan seems hopeful Australia will find a way to sit down with Chinese officials and ease tensions before things get that far:
Well, the decision that’s been taken currently is one to put on hold the economic strategic dialogue and we haven’t held that since 2017.
So my hope is, and what we are seeing is that our officials will continue to be able to have a dialogue, that they will continue to be able to meet and work through these issues and that overtime we will see a ministerial dialogue resume.
That’s what I’m hoping for. That is the message that I continue to send. I wrote to my Chinese counterpart who was appointed the same time I was saying that I’m very keen to sit down with him and work through these issues and my hope is over time is that is what we will see.
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Host Madeline Morris is asking the trade minister the question that’s on a lot of people’s minds – “If we want to continue the economic relationship [with China], why did we tear up the Belt and Road Initiative between agreement between Victoria and China?”
(According to Chinese state-run media, this move to cut diplomatic ties with Australia is a “proportionate response” to our government cancelling a number of these infrastructure investment agreements.)
Tehan has replied by saying that it was a “country agnostic decision” (meaning it wasn’t targeted at China), which I believe exactly zero people are buying.
Well, what we did was take a decision, as a national government, that all foreign policy decisions and treaties and MOUs that are entered into should be done so at the national level and this was a country agnostic decision and so we have taken decisions according to our national interests, according to our sovereignty, as all countries do.
We have explained that to China and we want to make sure that we continue to say to China that we want to sit down and be able to have a dialogue with you, especially at the ministerial level so we can step you through these decisions that we’ve taken, which are sovereign decisions about our national interests that are country agnostic and are about making sure that the processes that we’ve got in place here in Australia lead to the commonwealth as the national government making decisions when it comes to foreign policy.
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The trade minister Dan Tehan has moved to ABC News Breakfast to discuss the rather dramatic move by China yesterday to officially sever all diplomatic communications with Australia.
Tehan says the move is “disappointing”.
We haven’t held the dialogue since 2017 so what it means is that we’re probably not going to be holding the dialogue going forward any time soon, which I’ve got to say is very disappointing. The best way that we can work through our differences with China is to sit down and talk about them, work through them, so that we each understand where we’re coming from.
So this is obviously disappointing but we’ll continue to say to China that we want to sit down and talk and we want to work through the current issues that we are facing. The business community is really concerned about this. China remains our major trading partner.
The Morrison government will allocate another $58.6m to “gas-fired recovery” measures in Tuesday’s budget and is continuing to hold out the prospect of building a new power plant in the Hunter Valley despite experts questioning the need for it.
The energy minister, Angus Taylor, will confirm on Friday new funding to support gas infrastructure projects, including a short-term loan of up to $32m to support early works for the Golden Beach gas production and storage project in Gippsland in Victoria.
The budget package includes $6.2m to further develop the Wallumbilla gas supply hub in Queensland. The Australian Energy Market Operator first implemented the hub in March 2014 as an exchange for the wholesale trading of natural gas and a single trading location was established in 2017.
You can read the full report below:
NSW premier 'very pleased' with how state is handling outbreak
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian says she is “very pleased with how things are going” teasing good news to come from the traditional 11am press conference where new case numbers are announced.
Obviously, we give our updates at 11 o’clock and we don’t just give an update of what happened in the last 24 hours now.
We’re in the midst of a community transmission outbreak as we are now, we tend to give all the results up until that time. So all I will say at this stage is I’m very pleased with how things are going.
The only concern for us is obviously the fact that at least one person has been in the community going about their business for a few days, having the virus and not knowing they have it. It could be more than one, but we know there are missing links...
That’s why we’ve brought in what we believe are very proportionate restrictions over the weekend. We’re just saying to people: go about your daily business, just be extra safe.
Updated
Okay, let’s duck back to that interview with trade minister Dan Tehan on ABC radio.
It’s another day, and that means another federal politician claiming that they didn’t threaten trapped Australian citizens with jail time if they try to come home. (Spoiler alert, they kinda did.)
What the government did was act on medical advice...
What the advice was, was to enact the Biosecurity Act and that’s what the government did.
There were 53 cases in Howard Springs. There was an unacceptably high level of cases on returning passenger flights, and so the government acted and enacted the Act.
We kept Australia safe, we always said it was going to be temporary. It’s made that we could deal with the cases in Howard Springs which will be down to zero by the 15th of May and that means that we will be able to start bringing back these vulnerable Australians.
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Victoria supreme court temporarily bans federal Labor from preselecting candidates
The Victorian supreme court has temporarily banned the federal Labor party from preselecting candidates for safe seats in the state, with lawyers representing ALP-affiliated unions accusing the party’s national executive of “preselection stacking”.
Nominations for candidate preselection in 21 safe federal seats in Victoria and one new seat opened on Tuesday and were due to close on Friday morning, in what some party members claim is a rushed process without precedent.
However, in a last-minute hearing, justice Tim Ginnane on Thursday night granted a temporary injunction on any finalisation of the process before 4pm on Friday, dashing plans for the national executive to have confirmed candidates in safe seats by early afternoon.
The Victorian branch of the Labor party is under the control of the party’s national executive after allegations of branch stacking were raised against former minister Adem Somyurek. He denies the claims.
The takeover has meant voting rights for Victorian party members who would ordinarily have a say in preselecting candidates are currently suspended– and decision-making power is instead in the hands of the national executive.
But a group of ALP-affiliated unions – including the Australian Workers Union, the CFMEU and the Health Service Union – and their members have taken issue with the speed of the process.
Figures within Labor are cynical about the court action and the temporary injunction, however, and pointed to the preselection battle for the newly-created seat of Hawke as the real reason for the legal action.
Sources told the Guardian the unions behind the legal challenge were previously aligned to Somyurek and, as a result of his fall, had lost preselection decision-making powers.
Ron Merkel QC, the barrister representing the unions, on Thursday told the court that “preselection usually takes a minimum of two weeks but a two to three-day setup, I’m instructed, is unprecedented”.
He said there was obviously an “ulterior purpose” for the hasty process, suggesting it was designed to achieve “as little competition for nominations as possible”.
Looked at objectively, it looks like preselection stacking justified by branch stacking which has got nothing whatsoever to do with any conduct or misconduct alleged against the plaintiffs.
As well as the federal takeover, Labor stalwarts Steve Bracks and Jenny Macklin were appointed as administrators of the Victorian branch and a review of membership was ordered to ensure the rank and file are all valid and paid up.
Merkel said that process had ended in February, leaving no valid justification for “singling out” the 22 electorates three months later.
But Peter Willis SC, who is representing members of the national executive including the federal Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, said the process was entirely conventional and unremarkable.
The Guardian understands the unions are angered by the preselection process for the newly created seat of Hawke – where former Labor state secretary and current PwC partner Sam Rae is the national executive’s preferred candidate.
The remaining 21 seats are considered “safe” seats where it’s expected the sitting members will renominate and face little or no challenge, the court heard.
Ginnane will hear more arguments on Friday.
This post includes additional reporting from AAP.
Updated
Federal trade and tourism minister Dan Tehan says the efforts to repatriate vulnerable Australians in India will be complicated by the individuals being spread out across the country but says the government is still confident they will be able to get them home.
We’ll be working to do everything we can to try and get them home as quickly as we possibly can.
Obviously, the situation on the ground in India is fraught, but our high commission and our consoles have been working very, very diligently over the last few weeks to make sure that those people are identified and then the arrangements can be put in place to try and repatriate them, but they’re obviously spread out across India. So there will be quite an amount of logistical work that’s required to be able to repatriate them.
But we’ll systematically and methodically work through them and make sure we’re doing it in a way which also means that we’re looking after those vulnerable Australians who want to return looking after their health but also making sure that we’ve got the facilities back here and our health facilities can walk out to them upon return.
The election might still be about a year away, but for Labor, the campaign has already begun – and Kristina Keneally is picking up right where she left off.
At the last election, Keneally was one of the lead government attack spokespeople. Under Anthony Albanese, that has turned into a shadow ministry, with Keneally tasked with keeping an eye on “government waste”.
To make that easier, Labor, led by Keneally, have put that all under one umbrella, launching a new campaign and website “against the Morrison government’s record of rorts, waste and jobs for mates”.
The main message?
Scott Morrison is all about himself and doesn’t really care about you.
The “Not on your side” campaign (subtle, I know) is an extension of Labor’s established “On your side” election slogan – which you may have noticed included in every speech, tweet and media release Labor has released over the last couple of months.
The campaign aims to shine a light on the last eight years of Coalition governing – including just how many jobs former Abbott ministers have received, with almost half the original Coalition ministry having moved into government appointed roles, or lobbying their former colleagues for government funds. Among them:
Tony Abbott – appointed to the War Memorial Board.
Warren Truss – appointed to the Australian Rail Track Corporation.
Julie Bishop – member of the aid contractor, Palladium board.
George Brandis – appointed UK high commissioner.
Joe Hockey – Ambassador to the US.
Mitch Fifield – appointed UN ambassador.
Arthur Sinodinos – appointed US ambassador at the end of Joe Hockey’s term.
Christopher Pyne – former defence minister now lobbyist for defence contractors.
The website also goes through the controversies which have plagued the government – and how in most cases, no one has been held responsible.
(There is still no word on when the federal integrity commission is coming – such as it is, given the model put forward by the government keeps everything secret until any court cases have ended in conviction.)
Labor is also asking people to “report a rort”.
Labor’s campaign for the coming election has taken a leaf out of previous Coalition campaigns – particularly Tony Abbott’s – and will focus not on policy differences, but the actions of the government since 2013.
Updated
Five injured in horror Melbourne crash
Good morning and welcome to Friday! We have all nearly made it, you can almost smell the weekend!
But before we get there, we unfortunately I have some bad news to bring you from Victoria.
In Melbourne, five people have been injured, including two left in critical condition, after a truck allegedly crashed into a traffic light poll near a crowded footpath in the inner-city suburb of Southbank.
Confronting scenes in the aftermath of a truck having collided with a traffic light and group of pedestrians on Power Street & City Road, Southbank. Five injured, two critically. Police searching for the truck/driver who left the scene @9NewsMelb @9NewsAUS @TheTodayShow pic.twitter.com/ZuyUAAQ1AQ
— Tom Kelly (@tpwkelly) May 6, 2021
Witness told police the B-Double tanker was travelling down City Road when it tried to turn left at Power Street around 7pm.
It appears that while performing the left hand turn the truck cut the intersection corner and mounted the footpath, taking out the traffic light which fell to the ground.
Five pedestrians, four men and a woman all aged in their 20-30s, were in the vicinity of the corner at the time and were injured.
But the driver of the truck allegedly didn’t stop at the scene, continuing down Power Street. Police say a nearby driver who witnessed the crash followed the truck home, telling police where to find the alleged driver.
They have now arrested a 64-year-old man from Wyndham Vale, but he has yet to be charged. I’ll bring you all the updates on this throughout the day.
Turning to India now, prime minister Scott Morrison is expected to announce the restart of Australian repatriation flights after a proposal was reportedly approved by the cabinet national security committee.
Reportedly the committee signed off on the plan to start repatriating Australians stranded in India as early as next week.
As many as 200 passengers could be on the first flight, which would likely depart soon after the temporary travel ban is lifted on 15 May.
The travel ban is in place until 15 May, with about 9,000 Australians stuck in India including 900 listed as “vulnerable”. Immigration minister Alex Hawke told the ABC some of those stranded were “in great danger” and these would be prioritised when flights were approved.
Okay, 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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