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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Luke Henriques-Gomes (now) and Matilda Boseley (earlier)

Qld ends lockdown after one new local case – as it happened

People have a drink at a South Bank Parklands venue on Thursday
People have a drink at South Bank Parklands on Thursday after the Brisbane Covid lockdown was lifted. Photograph: Jono Searle/Getty Images

What happened today, Thursday 1 April, 2021

We’ll leave it there for now. Thanks for following along today.

Here are today’s main developments.

  • Brisbane emerged from lockdown at midday today, as one new cases was recorded, linked to an existing cluster.
  • In more good news, there were no new cases recorded in NSW, as the state focuses on an outbreak at Byron Bay that forced the cancellation of Bluesfest.
  • Embattled Liberal MP Andrew Laming was cleared by police in relation to the alleged “upskirting” incident.
  • The chief executive of AMP, Francesco De Ferrari, announced he was quitting the role.
  • Jobseeker and other welfare payments dropped by $100 a fortnight today, as the $150 coronavirus supplement was replaced by a $50 increase to the base rate of income support.

I hope you get a break and if you do, that it’s relaxing and and enjoyable. If you’re working tomorrow, take care and if you’re an essential worker, thank you.

Bye for now.

Sophie Mirabella among new appointments to Fair Work Commission.

Further appointments have been announced by Michaelia Cash, this time to the Fair Work Commission.

The most news worthy item is probably the appointment of the former Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella to the commission. Mirabella is currently general manager of government and media relations at Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting.

Her appointment was reported by the Australian Financial Review last week.

Mirabella is among four new new commissioners.

The others are:

  • Bernadette O’Neill, currently general manager of the Fair Work Commission. In the late 90s, O’Neill was an official with the Australian Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union.
  • Philip Ryan, a long time director at the New South Wales branch of the Australian Hotels Association
  • Alana Matheson, currently the director of the Workplace Relations Advisory at KPMG Australia, and previously a deputy director of workplace relations at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

In another appointment, Michael Easton, currently a senior member of the New South Wales Civil and Administrative Tribunal, has been named a deputy president of the commission.

Updated

Michaelia Cash has also announced that Kate Jenkins and Dr Kay Patterson have been reappointed to the Australian Human Rights Commission.

They currently serve as the sex discrimination commissioner and the age discrimination commissioner respectively.

They have been reappointed for two years.

Updated

The attorney general, Michaelia Cash, has announced several judicial appointments this afternoon.

In a statement, Cash says Judge Paul Anthony Howard has been appointed as a judge of the family court of Australia.

Howard has been on the federal circuit court since 2007.

In addition, senior registrar Colin Campbell, Jennifer Howe and Jonathan Davis QC have been appointed as judges of the federal circuit court of Australia.

Updated

Here’s the market update at the close of play from AAP.

Mining and building companies helped Australia’s share market to a modest gain prior to the Easter holiday break.

The S&P/ASX200 benchmark index closed up 38 points, or 0.56%, to 6,828.7 on Thursday.

The All Ordinaries closed higher by 47.2 points, or 0.67%, to 7,064.2.

The materials sector rose by 1.48%, contributing the most points of the indices.

The smaller information technology sector gained the most, 2.45%.

For the week, the ASX200 closed higher by 0.07%.

The Australian dollar was buying 75.42 US cents at 1623 AEDT, lower from 75.99 US cents at Wednesday’s close.

Updated

Butler is being asked whether Labor will grant Liberal Andrew Laming a pair in parliament. Butler says the party hasn’t decided and it’s not his decision to make.

But he says Laming is not fit to sit in parliament.

Butler claims there is no “rhyme nor reason as to how many doses are given to a particular community”.

We are told story after story after GPs being told they might have 50 doses to last a week where they could be putting hundreds and hundreds of vaccines into people’s arms.

Butler calls on the health minister, Greg Hunt, to “admit, finally, that we have a problem”.

Every single commitment they have given has not been met and then simply swept aside as if it was never made – and a new commitment is put in place and that’s not met. So the first thing Greg Hunt must do is say: ‘We have a problem here. We’re falling behind schedule.’

Butler emphasises that the vaccine rollout needs to be swift because it “really need to confront the possibility of booster shots to deal with the fact that this virus is mutating around the world. There are variants spreading all around the world.”

Updated

Butler continues:

We’ve heard today from the Queensland government that they’ve run short of supplies from the commonwealth. I’ve heard they only have three days’ supply of the Pfizer vaccine, which is the vaccine being provided to the frontline healthcare workers, for example.

Yes, Queensland and NewSouth Wales are responsible for vaccinating their own healthcare workers, but they’re dependent on the vaccine supply chain from the commonwealth and that’s been a problem. In aged care, though, and this is a critical area, Patricia, at the end of this week we were supposed to have completed the vaccination of over a couple hundred thousand aged care residents, but only 10% have received the doses that will give them that full protection.

That’s why we’ve seen a two-week lockdown of aged care facilities in Brisbane as a result of this latest outbreak because, frankly, the protection the commonwealth had committed to given some of our most vulnerable members of the community has not been given.

Updated

Karvelas asks if the roll out is not a shared responsibility by the federal and state governments.

Butler says agrees that is its shared, noting states are “ultimately responsible for vaccinating their own front-line health workers and their emergency services workers.

“But the vast bulk of the population, including, critically, aged care residents, is the responsibility of the Commonwealth,” he says.

The shadow health minister, Mark Butler, is on the ABC with Patricia Karvelas.

Asked who’s to blame for the vaccine rollout delay, Butler, unsurprisingly, lays blame with the prime minister, Scott Morrison.

Well, at the end of the day, the vaccine rollout is Scott Morrison’s strategy. It is his responsibility to make sure this country gets vaccinated effectively and speedily. Four million were supposed to vaccinated by yesterday and it is a serious concern we’re behind. Scott Morrison needs to get this back on track.

Updated

Victoria reclassifies Brisbane as 'orange zone'

Updated

The Australian Defence Force will deliver critical Easter supplies to Lord Howe Island after ferry services to the tiny tourist island were disrupted by the recent catastrophic floods in NSW, reports AAP.

The agriculture minister, David Littleproud, said dry, cold and frozen food as well as LPG gas would be delivered to the island on Friday, ahead of the Easter long weekend.

He said in a statement on Thursday:

There will be around 1,000 people on the island over the Easter long weekend including residents, staff and visitors, so this mission will ensure that business can continue as usual over this important time.

This will be a great boost for the people of Lord Howe Island ahead of a very busy holiday period.

The defence force had provided vital support to New South Wales throughout the floods, with life-saving search and rescue helicopters as well as boots on the ground to help with clearing debris and wreckage, he said.

As the clean up continues, the State Emergency Service on Thursday gave the final all clear for residents to return to their homes affected by flooding in parts of north-west Sydney.

Lord Howe Island
Lord Howe Island is to get critical Easter supplies after ferry disruptions. Photograph: James D Morgan/Getty Images

Updated

Independent senator Rex Patrick has taken a swipe at the federal government for its “absolute failure” on electric vehicles and says the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has broken a promise to make progress on their adoption.

Royce Kurmelovs has more.

Laming welcomes police finding on photo, begins counselling

The embattled Liberal MP Andrew Laming has just issued a statement after Queensland police found he had no criminal case to answer over an allegedly inappropriate photograph taken in 2019.

Laming, who is currently on leave, says in the statement:

I thank Queensland police for their prompt assessment yesterday; that this complaint revealed no offence, and they have decided to take no action.

I have commenced courses and counselling, which have been of enormous assistance, not just to be a better MP, but to be a better father, husband and community member.

I will have more to say on the remaining matters when this period of support is completed.

Andrew Laming
Andrew Laming: ‘I have commenced courses and counselling, which have been of enormous assistance.’ Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Updated

Pedestrian reports that some people are scalping the NSW government’s Dine & Discover vouchers.

NSW residents can apply for $100 in vouchers: two worth $25 each for restaurants and bars and two worth $25 each for entertainment and recreation sites.

But according to Pedestrian, they’re being sold on eBay and Facebook at a reduced price, which the government says is against the terms and conditions.

Job vacancies jump 14% nationally

At a time when tens of thousands of people may be worrying about their futures following the end key government support measures this week, there was at least some positive news for those left seeking a job, reports AAP.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that between November 2020 and February 2021 there was a 13.7% increase in job vacancies – 27% higher than a year earlier and before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

National Australia Bank economist Taylor Nugent said:

Even with the faster-than-expected fall in the unemployment rate so far, the elevated level of vacancies points to further declines.

Elevated job vacancies also reduces the risk of unemployment increasing substantially following the end of jobkeeper.

Unemployment dropped to 5.8% in February, more than a year ahead of official forecasts.

But Treasury estimates up to 150,000 people could be out of work as a result of the jobkeeper wage subsidy ending this week.

The jobseeker coronavirus supplement also ended on Wednesday, although the base of the dole rate was slightly lifted.

The ABS head of labour market statistics, Bjorn Jarvis, said there were 289,000 job vacancies in February - 61,000 more than a year earlier.

He said:

This reflected the pace of recovery in labour demand over the second half of 2020 and early 2021, and labour shortages in some industries.

In other data released on Thursday, retail spending declined 0.8% in February, a slightly smaller fall than had been estimated in preliminary figures released last month.

However, retail trade was still a solid 9.1% higher than a year earlier.

The Australian Retailers Association’s CEO, Paul Zahra, said:

While we don’t expect a ‘fiscal cliff’ with the removal of jobkeeper, we do expect sales to soften in the coming months.

Updated

Asked about delays to the vaccine rollout, McCormack says:

We’re getting on with the vaccine, we’re working with states, as you’d expect us todo, and the pleasing thing is that we haven’t had a death from Covid this year. So that’s the important thing.

We are the envy of the world when it comes to what we have done right through Covid-19. Many other countries, their vaccine rollout might be ahead of us, but they’re still having a tragic number of deaths each and every day, each and every hour of each and every day.

Updated

Michael McCormack is at Sydney airport spruiking the government’s half-price travel scheme.

He’s asked if he thinks the Queensland government’s decision to lock down Brisbane spooked any travellers.

He says:

Get in early. That’s my message: get in early. Plan, make sure that you have that holiday on us. These Brisbane lockdowns, yes, we’d prefer, of course, that everything was open for business, but that is a decision taken by the Queensland government. They are acting on their best medical advice, I understand that.

I understand that they wanted to make sure that the health, safety precautions are taken. But as I say, there’s plenty of places in Australia crying out for visitors and this scheme enables them to do just that.

Updated

Commonwealth Bank wrongly charged nearly 1 million customers almost $55m

The Commonwealth Bank wrongly charged almost one million customers nearly $55m in monthly fees, and a regulator wants a hefty fine, reports AAP.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) on Thursday said it was seeking penalties in the federal court after the fees were charged between 1 June 2010 and September 11 2019.

The customers were charged $4 to $6 a month despite meeting conditions that made them exempt. Those included having a balance of more than $50,000, receiving a pension and depositing at least $2,000 in a month.

Asic claimed bank staff in 2011 discovered problems with systems causing overcharging.

Customers made about 14,000 complaints about the fees from 2010 to 2019.

The regulator said that when customers complained, they were told the bank was contractually entitled to charge the fees. Asic said these statements were false or misleading.

In a statement on Thursday, the bank said the fees should have been waived and apologised.

The bank said it repaid $64.2m, including interest, to all affected customers.

However, Asic said that while most affected customers had been repaid, others were owed payment.

The regulator said the bank’s systems designed to identify these criteria were inadequate. Staff error was also to blame.

Commonwealth Bank logo
Commonwealth Bank said the fees should have been waived and apologised. Photograph: David Gray/Reuters

Updated

David Littleproud, who said yesterday the states and territories were doing “three-fifths of bugger all” on the vaccine rollout, has hit back at the Queensland deputy premier, Steven Miles.

The Nationals deputy leader says in a statement:

I won’t be lectured to by a man who was sacked as health minister and a government that was derelict in their duty of protecting their frontline health workers by not having them fully vaccinated before they treated Covid patients.

His statements today also show why he and his government are incompetent. My statements pertained to assisting the Queensland government roll out the vaccines they’ve left in the rack rather than in health workers’ arms.

Miles said earlier that Littleproud was this year’s “April fool” and that the federal frontbencher had undermined the rollout for the Morrison government’s political benefit.

Everything running smoothly, then.

David Littleproud
David Littleproud: stoush with Steven Miles. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

Thanks Matilda. Hello to you all, it’s Luke Henriques-Gomes here.

I’ll be with you into the evening, so if you want to get in touch, please send me an email at luke.henriques-gomes@theguardian.com or make contact through Twitter @lukehgomes.

And with that good news, I will pass you over to Luke Henriques-Gomes to take you through the rest of the afternoon.

Have a happy Easter, all!

Updated

Greater Brisbane lockdown lifted

HAPPY NO MORE LOCKDOWN, BRISBANE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, I actually like this graphic from Palaszczuk but I’m still going to call a “coffee sip” on it.

Updated

Five minutes until the Brisbane lockdown is over, and the ACT is easing travel restrictions.

Updated

You know what, guys, you have all earned a bit of joy today!

Updated

ACT reports no Covid cases

Gosh, it’s raining official Covid-19 updates on Twitter!

No cases in the ACT:

Updated

We already know all this but there are the official Queensland numbers.

Just 20 minutes to go until Brisbane is out of lockdown!

This one news case was a returned traveller in hotel quarantine.

Updated

Well this is ... honestly not that surprising.

(For those not up to date, the idea of gender quotas is building steam in the Victorian Liberal party. And for those who have banished the Melbourne lockdowns from their memory, Tim Smith was the “Dictator Dan” guy.)

Updated

Tasmanian Labor has been labelled spineless for signing a deal to back poker machines in state pubs and clubs, three years after campaigning for their removal, AAP reports.

It was revealed this week the party, seeking to oust the incumbent Liberal state government at the coming 1 May poll, had recently inked a memorandum of understanding with the Tasmanian Hospitality Association.

Labor campaigned for the phased removal of pokies in the lead up to the 2018 election, but dropped the policy after losing.

The party instead pledged to focus on harm minimisation measures, something the memorandum says need to be “workable for industry”.

Tasmanian federal independent and long-time anti-pokies activist Andrew Wilkie described the deal as a “spineless betrayal of the community”.

He said in a statement on Thursday:

Unfortunately we have in this state – and we’ve had it for a long time – a conga line of politicians who are beholden to the poker machine industry.

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor accused Labor of abandoning their principles and capitulating to the gambling industry.

Labor leader Rebecca White, who released details of the memorandum of understanding after it was leaked to the media, has said the deal shows the party’s commitment to listen and consult.

Updated

There are calls for an independent investigation into the arrest of an Indigenous teenager who said she was having a panic attack in Sydney and was subsequently released without charge.

Lili Bayles, who is also Indigenous, has said she was “thrown to the ground” as she was trying to help her partner, Tarniesha Widders, 19, who was handcuffed while reportedly suffering an anxiety attack in Darlington last Thursday.

The women’s lawyer, George Newhouse, said neither had been charged with an offence and nurses, not police, should have been sent to deal with the “mental health crisis”.

He said:

It is my view and the view of many First Nations people that police should never be first responders in a mental health crisis. Police are trained to use weapons and not words in difficult situations.

Full report here:

Updated

An update on Victoria’s response to the early end to Brisbane’s lockdown: only 40 minutes left, guys!

Updated

More than 100,000 people have already bought half-price flights in the first few hours of the federal government’s cheap flights offer, Qantas says.

A spokeswoman from Qantas Group says they sold more than 50,000 fares to Qantas flights and more than 45,000 to Jetstar flights in the 11 hours between midnight and 10.45 am.

It’s fantastic to see this kind of confidence coming back to the domestic travel market and passengers getting back in the skies. This sale gives everyone a chance to reconnect with loved ones, reschedule those important celebrations or just take a well-deserved break, and means we can get more of our people back to work.

We know this week has been hard for people who may have had their holiday plans disrupted. We are confident that the vaccine rollout will help keep borders open permanently, and these strong sales show that Aussies are excited and ready to travel again.”

The most popular destinations in the first few hours were Cairns, Adelaide, Darwin, Hobart, Maroochydore and the Gold Coast.

NSW premier 'confident' government will lose coming byelection

In a bit of a Zak Kirkup style move, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says she is sure the government will lose the upcoming by-election in the seat of Upper Hunter.

The by-election was triggered after Nationals MP Michael Johnsen was pressured to resign from his marginal seat in NSW parliament a week after being accused of raping a sex worker.

Nationals Leader John Barilaro and Berejiklian welcomed the news, despite plunging the coalition into minority government.

Berejiklian:

I have no doubt we won’t retain the seat. If you look at the history of by-elections in New South Wales, there has been at least a double-digit swing against governments and certainly it would take more than a miracle for us to keep the seat.

Of course we will try hard, but if you just look at the maths, on average, the swings against governments in by-election in the last 10 years since we have been in government have been between 10-15%.

I have very little confidence we will retain the seat, but that is not to say we won’t put a strong case. We will put our best foot forward but the maths are against us.

Johnsen held the Upper Hunter electorate by just 2.2 per cent - making it vulnerable to the Shooters Fishers and Farmers - or even Labor which has never held the seat.

The pressure Johnsen to quit escalated on Tuesday after the ABC reported he’d allegedly offered a prostitute $1000 to have sex with him at his parliament house office, exchanged lewd texts with her and sent her an obscene video while parliament was sitting in the chamber.

Updated

Berejiklian says the NSW government is on track to administer the small share of vaccines they are responsible for.

I can certainly say that we have been asked to do 300,000 vaccines by a particular time and can I assure the people of New South Wales that we absolutely will meet our deadline. That is obviously subject to the supply of vaccines, but there is nothing to suggest to me that we won meet our deadline.

Maybe weird graphic design choices are just a Queensland thing in general?

Either way... SIP!

Ooooh, Gladys Berejiklian is going for a “kill them with kindness” approach to slamming the federal government. It’s a pretty smart tactic for a Liberal leader.

Berejiklian:

I wrote to the prime minister yesterday and I am looking forward to the response. The letter said what I said publicly in that we are offering.

As you know, the NSW government has been asked to administer 300,000 doses of the vaccine. We have done about a third of that. When we complete the 300,000, we are offering to do tens of thousands a week more to support their efforts and I am looking forward to getting the response ...

We haven’t been given the green light. No ...

The commonwealth has responsibility for the entire vaccine rollout, except for the 300,000 the New South Wales government has been asked to do.

We have 6 million citizens that need to get the rollout. We haven’t yet had the green light to do anything beyond the 300,000 that we have been asked to do. What I am saying to the commonwealth is the GP network is fantastic. Pharmacies – if they come online – will be fantastic. But you still will need our support to meet the October deadline.

Sickly sweet and ice cold.

Updated

The NSW premier has been asked about the cancellation of the Byron Bay Bluesfest.

Berekjiklian flagged the possibility of it being held at a later time (but that seems pretty unlikely, to be honest).

I think people realise and accept the pandemic is an evolving situation. The festival wasn’t viable under the circumstances.

The good news is, for the balance of NSW, you can still have all of those other things you couldn’t do before. So, we are going to get these blips along the way as we navigate the pandemic. NSW has demonstrated our ability to just directly deal with those local communities directly affected and have the rest of the state continue on their same path.

In recent days, even with the package we announced recently for live music, I think the industry as a whole is doing much better than what they have done previously. Yes, the festival going ahead would have been great, but it is just not possible. As far as I am concerned, the government will continue to work with the organisers to see if that can be resurrected at a future stage.

Updated

Berejiklian:

We are confident that New South Wales is able to deal with the current scare that we have had.

We obviously are asking the population of those four council areas to respect the restrictions we have put in place until the end of Easter, at least. We are confident that won’t really prevent businesses from staying open. It won’t prevent people from doing what they would normally do, although we have asked people to be extra cautious ...

We are really asking people who live in the four council areas to consider not going out of that area over Easter. Again, we are not going police that, but it is strong advice we are giving because if there is some undetected case of community transmission, we don’t want to see it in other parts of the state.

Updated

OK, I think ABC cut to the press conference a little way in. She hasn’t mentioned numbers yet, but I reckon that means we can assume there are no extra cases from after 8pm.

Updated

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian is speaking now.

Updated

Okay, we are just standing by now for a press conference with NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian.

Has been just one new local case overnight, but this was previously reported yesterday. We still don’t know if there have been any cases discovered after 8pm and therefore not counted in today’s number but we are bound to find out very soon!

Also if we are lucky health minister Brad Hazzard will get grumpy at the federal government again.

At least 43 children killed in Myanmar protests

Save the Children says it is “shocked that children continue to be among the targets” of Myanmar’s security forces, with the organisation pointing to figures showing at least 43 children have reportedly been killed in the two months since the military coup.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has reported that the total number of people killed in the post-coup violence now stands at 521. At least 43 children are reported to have been among the deaths, including 15 under the age of 16.

Save the Children - which is involved in providing support to children and their families in Myanmar - called on the armed forces to end the deadly attacks against protesters. They said in a statement:

We are shocked that children continue to be among the targets of these fatal attacks, despite repeated calls to protect children from harm. It is especially horrifying that several of these children were reportedly killed at home, where they should have been safe from harm.

The comments come a day after the former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd told the Guardian the world was “radically underestimating” how badly the situation in Myanmar could deteriorate, with the prospect of thousands of deaths and an exodus of refugees. Rudd has called for an urgent meeting of the UN security council, arguing the international community had a “responsibility to protect” the people of Myanmar

Unemployed Workers Union says jobseeker recipients at risk of self harm

The Australian Unemployed Workers Union says it has received an increased number of request from help from people who are extremely distressed and at risk of harming themselves after $150 a fortnight jobseeker Covid-19 supplement expired today.

(You can call the Australia crisis support service Lifeline on 13 11 14.)

Although the federal government increased the base payment by $50, this will still mean an effective drop of $100 a fortnight for more than 1 million Australians.

The AUWU condemed the move:

Today’s drastic cuts are a direct attack by the Morrison government and exposes their contempt for nearly 2 million people and 1 million kids. The government has brutally and needlessly chosen to force millions of people to rely on a poverty payment. Their poverty machine is designed to crush us while funnelling billions of public money from our welfare system into private organisations who brutalise us.

No matter how you look at it this is a cut to payments, not the government’s claimed “increase”. Compared to yesterday people affected by the cut will have up to $180 less per fortnight, and those on the JobSeeker payment will be $40 below the poverty line of $85 per day – $2 more than this time last year, when they were $38 below the poverty line...

The AUWU has been flooded with messages from people who are severely distressed, a disturbing number of whom have self-harmed, expressed thoughts of suicide and who fear homelessness and domestic violence. Our welfare system kills people. The government should not be creating the conditions that produce such harm and distress.

Updated

Brisbane residents in NSW will come out of lockdown at the same time as their Queensland counterparts.

This is 12pm in Queensland, but sorry guys, still 1pm in NSW.

No new local cases in NSW

There have been no new locally acquired cases in NSW. That one listed is the man in Byron Bay from yesterday as he tested positive after 8pm.

Updated

Albanese was asked if the government was likely to make the goal of everyone receiving the first vaccine dose by October:

Well, that wasn’t the target. The target was that people would be fully vaccinated by October. Not the first dose.

That was, again, the target that they said they would have. No one made them set that timetable. Scott Morrison said we were at the front of the queue when it came to vaccines. That just wasn’t true.

Other governments put in place deals and arrangements to receive vaccines in the first half of last year. We waited for the second half. Then we didn’t have as many agreements as international best practice showed.

And that’s why we’re behind countries like Rwanda and Bangladesh and Lebanon* and other countries. We’re way behind the rest of the world when it comes to receiving even the first vaccine, let alone people being fully vaccinated.

* I say we sip coffee every time a politician insults developing nations by being incredulous that we received vaccines after them.

Updated

We should be expecting a tweet with NSW numbers any second now.

If we get to 11.03am I reckon we have to take a sip of coffee.

Updated

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has taken a swipe at the prime minister for his comments yesterday says that the target of 4 million people vaccinated by April “was dealt with months ago, so that being put up some constant target is just politics.”

Albanese doesn’t seem to agree:

This federal government has to accept responsibility for the failings which are there. No one made Scott Morrison deliver the target of 4 million people being vaccinated by the end of March. It was Scott Morrison who chose to do that. It was Scott Morrison who said that he wasn’t going to make promises that couldn’t be kept.

But it’s Scott Morrison who’s always big on promises, always big on announcements, and never there for the follow-up and the delivery. So, Scott Morrison has to accept the responsibility for the failings that are there in the system and for the consequences of those failings.

The opposition leader also dropped that Morrison pulled out of plans for the two political rivals to vaccinated together, I assume as a show of vaccine unity:

I agree to be vaccinated at the same time as the prime minister. Now, he walked away from that. That was a decision for him. But we’ve fully cooperated and we’ve continued to play a constructive role.

Updated

OK, but why are the April Fools posts actually kind of good this year?

Updated

New defamation laws limiting the cases people can bring for comments and articles posted online will come into effect from 1 July in NSW, Victoria and South Australia, the NSW attorney-general, Mark Speakman, has announced.

The big change for media companies is that now people will only be able to sue for defamation up to one year from when the article was first published, rather than, as the law currently states, the last time someone clicked on the article.

There is also a new public interest defence for publishing allegedly defamatory material.

All states and territories have committed to the change, but only NSW, Victoria and SA have passed legislation to bring it into effect.

Speakman said the second raft of proposed changes to defamation law was still going ahead, including considering making digital platforms like Facebook, Google, and Twitter, liable for the comments posted by their users.

A discussion paper on the next set of proposed changes will be released next week.

It comes as Facebook announced overnight all users and pages would soon be able to turn off comments on posts.

Updated

Some great news, the two children NSW police were urgently searching for this morning after they allege their father took the children against their mother’s wishes, have been found.

A spokesperson for the police said they were located after members of the public recognised the man and called authorities:

Two children missing from Sydney’s east this morning, have been located safe and well.

About 9am, members of the public recognised the man and two children from media reports and contacted Triple Zero, after seeing them walking towards Panania Railway Station.

Officers from Bankstown Police Area Command attended and located the trio.

The man has been taken to hospital for assessment and the children will be reunited with family.

Police would like to thank the media and the community for their assistance.

Updated

ADOPTED.

And they like to keep things snapping the Queensland so that press conference has wrapped up in just 4o minutes! Victoria could never!

Updated

Palaszczuk was asked about the figures leaked to media suggesting Queensland has only administered just over half of the vaccine doses they have recieved:

That’s not the data we have to hand. That’s not the data we have to hand. Half of the stock of AstraZeneca was received in just the last week. And as I outlined, if we continue at our current rate, which is a record daily rate, we have less than 12 days’ supply of the AZ vaccine.

Young has been asked to justify why families in rural Queensland communities with no Covid-19 cases will not be allowed to visit loved ones in aged care facilities over Easter.

And she didn’t miss a beat in giving “the federal government” as an answer:

It’s [because of] what happened in Victoria. We know you can just have one case going to an aged care facility – one case – and if they’re asymptomatic and you don’t know that they’re unwell, and so you’ve screened – which our aged care facilities are doing beautifully – and you let that one case in, they can infect nearly all those residents, and we can see very high death rates.

So, I understand how awful this is, that people can’t go and visit, and, of course, wherever possible I encourage them to use, you know, Skype and phones and really keep in contact. But really I am asking people to wait for 14 days ...

Here in Brisbane we’ve had 56 out of our 186 aged care facilities that the commonwealth has been going in to vaccinate - vaccinated. That’s not enough. And it’s only just rolled out, so the protection is not enough.

Updated

Chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young says she is worried at the number of returned travellers returning to Queensland with extremely high viral loads – which can drastically reduce the incubation period of the people they infect:

I’m not concerned about the capacity because we are a health service with over 10,000 beds. What I’m concerned about is the amount of virus each person has.

And we are seeing very low cycle times for a lot of these people. That means they’ve got an enormous amount of virus. We didn’t see that early in the pandemic. They were different variants. And we didn’t see that amount of virus.

So, we know the risk is extraordinarily high and we are getting more and more of these extraordinarily high-risk patients in our hospitals. And it is so easy for one tiny, tiny error to lead to contamination of a healthcare worker.

So, it does worry me that we’ve got over 80 cases in our hospital system that we’re having to manage, and they are such high-risk cases. That’s why it is so critical that we’ve been given that go-ahead for the next two weeks to halve the numbers of travellers coming into Queensland.

Updated

Young says the woman who tested positive today is in the Wide Bay area and is a close contact of the infected person in Bundaberg hospital.

I’m not sure of the transmission whether she got it at the hen’s party which she did attend as one of those guests, or whether she’s got it from the person she shares a house with.

Young says all medical workers in Covid-19 wards in Queensland are now vaccinated:

My advice is that by midday today we believe that all of the 1A front-line workers who are looking after hotel quarantine or hospital cases will be vaccinated.

Now, remembering that people come in and out of that category. It’s not a fixed category. So we know that there were 37,000, but some of them will have gone back to other duties and other people coming in. But the requirement now is before you can actually come in and be a front-line worker looking after a positive case, is you have to be vaccinated.

Palaszczuk has confirmed numbers allowed at weddings and funerals will go back to normal.

After the federal government accused states of stockpiling vaccine does, Queensland deputy premier Steven Miles says Queensland is running extremely low Pfizer and AstraZeneca:

[Littleproud] should not have risked confidence in the vaccine for the Morrison Government’s political benefits.

We have right now on hand just three days’ supply of the Pfizer vaccine. We have 12 days’ supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine, and at current rates that could just be eight to nine days, and if you think about the fact that that is the vaccine that we are distributing to our regions and to our remote communities, we need ample supply of that to ensure our hospitals have it.

We have heard a lot in the last 24 hours from GPs about their experience of vaccine supply. About how they don’t know what vaccines they’ll be receiving, about how they have been booking people in for vaccines and then had to cancel them when their supply was received.

I think it just underlines those calls for better transparency about the number of vaccines out in the community and the number of people being vaccinated.

Updated

Okay, so the good news part of the press conference is over and it’s time to roll out deputy premier Steven Miles to go in gun blazing again the federal government.

He has called deputy federal nationals leader David Littleproud “2021’s April Fool”, which does truly make sense as he the controversial comment yesterday in March but I’ll admit, is still pretty funny:

As the chief health officer and the Premier have outlined, we do need to maintain some restrictions for the coming 14 days and I know they’ll be particularly distressing to those in aged care facilities or with family members in aged care facilities that they had hoped to visit over Easter.

Unfortunately, they’re necessary because only a third of aged care residents have been vaccinated and almost no aged care workers have been vaccinated so far. Similarly, very, very few residents of support disability accommodation have been vaccinated and for those reasons, we need to maintain those lockdowns for 14 more days...

I just underline again that we would not be facing risks like this if the Morrison Government had engaged with us on the construction of a national quarantine facility. Yesterday David Littleproud said that whatever the states needed, the Commonwealth would provide. Well, we need a national quarantine centre so that we can reduce the risk of returning travellers so that we don’t have to cut back on the number of returning travellers when we have an outbreak.

What you saw yesterday, I think, was a very cynical attempt from David Littleproud to use the number of vaccines delivered to states and territories to try to get Andrew Laming out of the news cycle. I think while that might have worked, we can all agree that David Littleproud is 2021’s April Fool.

Young is given more detail on the restrictions that will be in places across Queensland for the next two weeks:

It’s great to see everyone wearing masks outside but if you’re by yourself outside, you’re at the beach, you don’t need to.

Of course, if you’re strenuously exercising, you don’t need to wear a mask. I don’t want people to compromise their health by wearing a mask. That wouldn’t be a logical. So strenuous exercising, outdoors or indoors in a gym for instance, you don’t need to wear a mask. So please do use some common sense which is what I have been seeing happening ...

Then secondly – please only have a maximum of 30 people in your own private residence because we know that’s where transmission first happens. So if we do have a case, we know that that’s where we’ll see it transmit. We saw it with that party down at Byron Bay, those 11 people, they were in an Airbnb, so a private residence, and now all of them virtually all of them have become infected. So we know that private residences are a risk.

Then the other one is that we need to keep our most vulnerable safe. We – the vaccine has not yet been rolled out for long enough to our aged care facilities and we know to not enough of them. So that means aged care facilities, disability care facilities, hospitals and our prisons need to, for the next fortnight, only have end-of-life visitors. They can’t have other visitors which I know is very, very difficult over this Easter period ... hopefully when we get all of those sites vaccinated in the future, we won’t have to do that again.

Then the other thing ... everyone needs to sit down in any hospitality venues, any venues indoors. They’ve got to sit down while they’re seating and drinking. Take their mask off, of course, when they have sat down to eat and drink, but sit down. You can get up to go to the bar if you’re in a pub to pick up your drink or your meal, but then go back to your seat. And that’s important because we saw transmission of this virus in the restaurant in Byron Bay. So someone sitting at an adjacent table.

Updated

New Queensland case was already in quarantine

Queensland chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young says the new locally acquired case is “no risk at all” to the community:

We only had one community-acquired case overnight in Queensland and that was the perfect case …

This was one of those participants in that party that happened at Byron Bay. So when the person came back to Queensland, they went into quarantine and they were tested on Monday night and they were negative on Monday night. Then they were tested again Wednesday morning when they were positive.

So they have been in quarantine during their infectious period. So a no risk at all …

And the reason I can be reasonably confident that we’re managing these two outbreaks is the amount of testing. The amount of testing over the last 48 hours has been astronomical.

Updated

Covid-19 restrictions to remain across Queensland

Although Brisbane’s lockdown will end in three hours, increased Covid-19 restrictions will be in places across Queensland for at least a fortnight as the state is “not out of the woods yet”.

Palaszczuk:

There will be some restrictions that will remain in place for the rest of Queensland. For all of Queensland …

So for the next two weeks from 12 noon today until Thursday, 15 April, all Queenslanders will be required to carry a mask when they leave their home. We will also ask you to wear those masks in indoor spaces such as shopping centres and supermarkets, indoor workplaces, public transport.

Anyone attending food or beverage establishments, so if you’re out there going to a restaurant or cafe or a pub, you must be seated. We have to go back to the seating …

Gatherings at your home right across Queensland will be restricted to 30.

Unfortunately no dancing in public venues and businesses, of course, can reopen, but it’s that one per two square metre rule.

In terms of outdoor events, there are a lot of big events planned over Easter. They can still proceed if they have a Covid-safe plan in place, but if you are outdoors and you cannot socially distance, put a mask on. It’s as simple as that. If you don’t feel that you can socially distance, and you’re in a crowd, put a mask on. That is the safest we can do ...

[Church] services and the Easter mass can go ahead. It will be one per two square metres, so most churches have that in place. It can be 100% capacity if people are seated and have it ticketed.

Updated

I missed this before, but there are nine Covid-19 cases from returned travellers in hotel quarantine.

Palaszczuk:

The numbers from overseas in our hospitals is now 68. So that’s returned travellers coming back. And like I said, that’s a real risk for us because I think we are the highest state in the country at the moment with the most number of active cases in hospital who are returned travellers from overseas.

In light of that, I have written to the prime minister to ask for another further extension to the end of April in terms of reducing our capacity of returned travellers. So I’m quite sure that the prime minister will give that due consideration.

Updated

Palaszczuk says the decision to lift the lockdown at 12pm is to ensure dangerously busy traffic doesn’t build up on roads as people try to escape the city to go on Easter holidays.

I understand a lot of families in the greater Brisbane [area] have made plans and the last thing we want to see are accidents on our roads at 5.00pm this afternoon into the evening. So if you have plans, the lockdown is lifted from 12 noon today and I encourage people to take care on the roads.

Updated

Palaszczuk:

We have one community-acquired case but it is linked to one of the known clusters. That is fantastic news.

As I said yesterday, we are looking at two preconditions before we can lift the lockdown. Those two preconditions is that there needed to be no unlinked community transmission and the second was high testing rates. Well, I can also thank Queenslanders because Queenslanders have come out in their thousands to be tested. Thank you, thank you, thank you. There have been 34,711 tests. Another record.

So that is good news for Queensland and Easter is good to go.

So in further good news after discussions with Dr Young and the police commissioner and deputy police commissioner, the lockdown will be lifted from 12 noon today.

Updated

Brisbane to come out of lockdown at 12pm today

Annastacia Palaszczuk says there is one new locally acquired case of Covid-19 in Queensland and it is linked to a known cluster.

The lockdown will be lifted in just three hours.

Updated

In just a few minutes Annastacia Palaszczuk will stand up for a press conference and will tell the 2.5 million residents of greater Brisbane if they will be allowed out of lockdown at 5pm tonight.

Stand by, I will bring you all the updates as they happen.

Updated

Westaway says the tourism industry needs a wage supplement program rather than just subsidised flights to keep afloat.

Look, jobkeeper was a fantastic piece of public policy …

At some point, we had to be moved on, but what we can’t see is the tourism industry and other key sectors left behind just because other parts of the economy are moving forward …

Well, we didn’t close the borders, we don’t do the changes of domestic border arrangements, lockdowns, hard lockdowns, partial lockdowns. Our industry is right in the eye of the storm here.

We do need to look at a multilayered approach. We think some direct targeted support to businesses, maybe through a cash flow boost arrangement, one-off support payments, it was done during the height of the coronavirus pandemic last year. It doesn’t necessarily need to be jobkeeper, but certainly, a type of wage subsidy arrangement is certainly a really clean way of doing it. We think it could be quite well targeted.

Updated

The Australian Tourism Industrial Council executive director, Simon Westaway, has called for supports to the tourism sector to be extended.

Today marked the first day on sale for half-price flights to the popular tourism destination, subsidised by the federal government. But many have criticised the program for being too focused on airlines.

The reality is these fares will go relatively quickly and, look, it’s – it’s a good first step. Our organisation has called out this morning that we need, in essence, expansion of the program as part of, you know, really trying to get a number of stepping stones back to getting the economy back to where it needs to be.

The Australian tourism industry lost the best part of $90bn in 2020. We’re the – it’s the biggest free-falling employment sector in country in terms of those working in tourism and hospitality and accommodation. We got a long way to go.

The international border, as we all know, is still hard closed and, you know, from time to time we’re going to have these difficulties around the hot spot situation which is currently transpiring through south-east Queensland down through to Byron.

Updated

Facebook will allow every user including celebrities, politicians, brands and news outlets to determine who can and can’t comment on their posts.

The social media giant announced on Wednesday that when people post on Facebook, they will be able to control who comments on the post, ranging from everyone who can see the post, to only those who have been tagged by the profile or page in the post. It is similar to a change recently introduced by Twitter to limit who can reply to tweets.

The change comes after a landmark ruling in Australia in 2019, which found news media companies were liable for defamatory comments posted by users on the companies’ public Facebook pages, leading to media companies calling for a change to the law, which had put pressure on staff resourcing on moderation.

You can read the full report below:

Police find 'no evidence' to charge Laming over alleged upskirting complaint

Police will take no action against federal backbencher Andrew Laming, who was accused of taking an inappropriate photograph of a woman while she was bending over, reports AAP.

A number of people were interviewed as part of the investigation and a Queensland police spokesperson said detectives found no evidence to indicate an offence had been committed.

The woman involved in the incident lodged a formal complaint, and police said she has been advised of the outcome.

Laming has also been accused of – and has apologised for – harassing two female constituents and is now on leave to undergo empathy training at the request of Scott Morrison.

Updated

It seems like most of Australia is just waiting around for this Queensland press conference today. That should be up in about 30 minutes.

After that, there will be the NSW press conference at 11.30AEDT. The numbers will come out at 11am though, so we will find out if there has been more Covid-19 spread in Byron Bay in about an hour and a half.

Updated

The United States and Australia are discussing how they would respond to a range of military scenarios including an outbreak of war in the Taiwan Strait, Washington’s top diplomat in Canberra has signalled.

The US embassy’s chargé d’affaires, Michael Goldman, also expressed “enormous respect” for how Australia had stood up to China’s “economic coercion” over the past year, and said the Biden administration wanted to reassure Canberra and other allies “that we have their backs”.

During a wide-ranging podcast released on Thursday, Goldman was asked to describe the significance of Taiwan in conversations between the US and its allies in the region, including Australia, and whether Washington had any expectations of the role Canberra might play in the event of a conflict.

You can read the full report below:

Just in case you missed this yesterday Victorian Liberal opposition leader Michael O’Brien was aggressively heckled by a woman in fun red hat.

Wild.

AMP top boss to resign

Francesco De Ferrari is quitting as the boss of what was once regarded as an Australian financial services powerhouse, ending a week of foxing by the company over his fate.

De Ferrari had been brought in to run AMP after a management and board exodus that happened as a result of the 2018 Hayne royal commission exposing it for misleading the corporate regulator and changing expert reports into the actions of management.

Last Thursday the AFR’s Joe Aston reported that De Ferrari “will resign from the company today”, saying that “his departure has been negotiated with the board of directors”.

Cue a couple of days of coy statements from AMP that on first blush might have seemed to say that Aston was wrong - but on closer inspection did not.

In a first statement, released the same day as Aston’s item, AMP said it “confirms that Francesco De Ferrari remains as chief executive officer of the group”.

This didn’t satisfy anyone as it is obviously possible to have tendered your resignation but not yet served out the notice period.

The following day, AMP tried again, issuing a longer statement in which it said that “there has been no change to the CEO’s position and that Mr Ferrari has not resigned”. However, it also said that he was “constructively discussing the future strategy and leadership of the group” - a sentence that seemed to indicate he was on the way out after all.

Today - April Fools Day - AMP says De Ferrari is leaving after all. He will stay on until 1 July, and then hand over to Alexis George, who is currently deputy CEO at ANZ.

Ruling: OFFICIALLY ADOPTED

Jobseeker payments drop by $100 per fortnight

Now among all the April Fools funs, it’s worth remembering that today marks the first day of the jobseeker Covid-19 supplement payment being scrapped.

Before today a single, childless, Australian on jobseeker earned $720.80 a fortnight. That’s $570.80 as part of the base jobseeker rate and then the $150 Covid-19 supplement.

(This supplement started at $550, then was reduced to $250, and is now $150.)

Many social services groups campaigned for the federal government to maintain the significantly higher level of support permanently, as jobseeker recipients were previously living on just $40 a day.

The government did agree to a small increase, but only around $50 a fortnight: $3.57 a day.

In effect, this means more than a million Australians will be taking a $100-a-fortnight cut from today.

The jobseeker payment is now $310.40 a week. In Australia, the generally accepted poverty line is $457 a week for a single adult.

The minister for families and social services, Anne Ruston, has released a (very positive) statement about jobseeker today, which spoke a lot about the baseline increase and not much at all about the overall decrease.

On top of [the baseline increase], JobSeeker and other related payments will start benefitting today from the bolstered $150 per fortnight income free area meaning they can keep more of what they earn through work …

During the pandemic the Morrison Government has paid out more than $20 billion in temporary support.

Jobs are returning and the number of unemployed persons for every job vacancy has since fallen below pre lockdown levels to 4.2 unemployed persons per vacancy.

Updated

OK, OK, I’ll admit that I laughed at “attach to dogs to drones”.

SA police get a pass for April Fools cringe.

Updated

A reminder to people just hopping on, we are standing by for a press conference from Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk at 9am AEST (10am AEDT).

She is expected to announce a decision on whether greater Brisbane will come out of lockdown as planned at 5pm tonight or if restrictions will continue across the Easter weekend.

Updated

Honestly, it’s 8.30 am and I’m already sick of the April Fools prank posts, but I have to share this one for the truly baffling (and incorrect) use of the galaxy brain meme.

If you are a bit confused about where all the hotspots in Queensland are (and I can’t blame you as the list keeps growing) you can check them all out here:

Please keep an eye on your Easter eggs today!

NSW police are urgently seeking public assistance to find two missing kids, allegedly taken by their father in the early hours of the morning.

Police say they now have extreme concerns for their safety:

Just before 2.30am Bowie and Basten Dowlut, aged four and 10 respectively, were at a home on Carthona Avenue, Darling Point, with their parents.

Despite strong protestations from the children’s mother, their father, Dennis Dowlut, aged 47, [allegedly] packed the family into a white 2014 SsangYong Actyon SUV, with NSW registration DLF-43A, expressing an intention to travel to Melbourne.

About 3am, their mother was [allegedly] forced from the vehicle at Alexandria and notified police.

Dennis is described as being of Mauritian background with an olive complexion, about 180cm tall, of slim build, and balding. He was last seen wearing black pants, a white t-shirt, khaki puffer jacket, and a red beanie.

Four-year-old Bowie is described as having an olive complexion, long brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing white pyjamas with pink unicorn symbols.

Ten-year-old Basten is described as having an olive complexion, short brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing white pyjama pants, a white t-shirt, and black puffer jacket.

There are extreme concerns for the safety of the children, and as such police are asking the public to be on alert, not approach but report any sightings of this man, or vehicle to Triple Zero (000).

NSW police have published photos graphs of the children and Dowlut on social media.

Updated

The mayor of Byron Bay, Simon Richardson, is speaking now on ABC about the cancellation of the Byron Bay Bluesfest, which was meant to start today.

He has suggested the federal government allow specific areas, highly impacted by Covid-19 restrictions, to continue to receive jobkeeper payments.

It’s devastating. Byron is part of Bluesfest, and Bluesfest is part of Byron. It started here over 20 years ago. We love it as an event. It obviously employs hundreds of locals when it’s full bore.

It’s about a $100 million economic impact for us. And, of course, it brings visitors from everywhere and brings musical acts – this year – from all over Australia. So, it’s something we love, it’s something that’s important to us, and we’ll miss it over Easter greatly …

We’re yet to find out really until the dust settles, until this Covid moment passes us, the ongoing and final implications and impacts. But it’s going to be quite devastating for many.

Byron already has the highest rate of jobkeeper in Australia, so as it’s disappearing, you know, we’ve now got hundreds of people who were looking to be earning some serious post-Covid income over Easter that are now going to be back in that hole.

So, the impact is gonna be significant and, you know, I’d love if the federal government could look to see if they could do an area-specific exemption of winding back jobkeeper, or just continue it a little while, to allow a whole sector and a whole region to get back on its feet.

Updated

On the off-chance anyone was wondering what I do when I leave the blog at lunchtime, check out the Guardian Australia TikTok page!

I’m breaking down the hustle and bustle of the day’s news into bite-sized videos.

Updated

It’s a doughnut day in Victoria!

(I reckon “doughnut day” should also be a sip if a politician says it.)

Updated

The ABC is reporting that AMP chief executive Francesco De Ferrari will retire, after much speculation this week.

He will be replaced by deputy ANZ chief executive Alexis George in the third quarter, with De Ferrari staying on in the interim.

Updated

Fifa has made its final decision on which cities will host games during the 2023 Australia and New Zealand women’s world cup.

And it looks like pretty much everyone is getting a shot (well besides Canberra, Darwin and Christchurch).

A police helicopter will join the search for a six-year-old boy with Down’s syndrome who’s gone missing overnight in northwest NSW, reports AAP.

Braxton Plant was last seen at his home on Wallangra Road, Wallangra, about 4pm on Wednesday.

Emergency services were contacted at about 7pm and officers from the New England Police District began the search.

NSW police and the boy’s family are worried because he is unable to speak and has gone missing near dense bushland and dams.

When he was last seen by his family, Braxton was playing in the mud and not wearing any clothes.

A coordinated land search is under way with help from Polair.

Updated

Now I’m still taking submissions for rules on the morning blog coffee drinking game (where we make fun of Australian news while overly caffeinating ourselves).

This is a non-exhaustive list but so far some sips include:

  • A state is late to put out their daily numbers and panic ensues
  • State premiers take a dig at the federal government, or vice-versa
  • Scott Morrison tells off any reporter named “Andrew” at a press conference
  • “If you have any symptoms, no matter how mild, please get tested”
  • Annastacia Palaszczuk makes a strange graphic design choice on Twitter
  • Brad Hazzard talks about NSW being the “gold standard”
  • Daniel Andrews says “the only fight I have is with the virus”
  • Michael McCormack makes a cringe pun
  • Any politician makes the political choice to call out another politician for playing “politics”

Please tweet me your ideas at @MatildaBoseley and if I like them I’ll pop them in the blog!

Updated

The minister for emissions reduction, Angus Taylor, has told an international event that the Australian government is “firmly committed to getting to net zero as soon as possible and preferably by 2050”.

While Taylor echoed the recent language of the prime minister, Scott Morrison, the comments could be seen as another sign that Australia is feeling pressure internationally over its reluctance to formally commit to the mid-century emissions target.

Yesterday the Australian Academy of Science called on the Morrison government to accelerate the country’s transition to net zero in a report that examined what Australia could look like in a 3C world.

Speaking at an International Energy Agency (IEA)/COP26 Net Zero Summit late last night, Taylor argued that “international collaboration to accelerate the development of low emissions technologies is vital if we are to achieve net zero emissions globally”.

He said ambition in climate targets was “one thing” but “action and achievements are what matter”. He said the Australian government’s focus was “very much on the ‘how’” of achieving such a transition. The minister used the speech to pledge $1m towards an IEA clean energy transitions program that provides advice and support to developing countries.

Australia is proud to support this program – and the IEA – as a forum to discuss and invest in the development of practical solutions to the world’s great policy challenges.

Taylor - speaking during a session ­co-chaired by the UK and China - said the rapid investment in renewable energy in Australia “isn’t driven by subsidies or deployment targets” but by rapid cost reductions.

We now need to repeat that success across the next round of new and emerging technologies, like storage, carbon capture, green steel and green aluminium.

In the lead-up to the COP26 summit in Glasgow later this year, he said, it was “vital that countries work together to get low emissions technologies to parity”.

Updated

Welcome to Thursday

Good morning! Just one more day until the long weekend and, fingers crossed, only one day until greater Brisbane is freed from lockdown.

Matilda Boseley here, blogging today from the beautiful island of San Serriffe and ready to take you through all of Australia’s biggest news today.

This morning is basically just a count down to 9am Queensland time (10am Melbourne and Sydney time), where premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will stand up, with the state’s overnight Covid-19 numbers and announce if the lockdown will end at 5pm (Queensland time) tonight, or extend over the easter weekend.

Yesterday she seemed pretty positive about it all, after there were only two new local Covid-19 cases and both could be decisively linked back to existing clusters.

But we will also be waiting with bated breath for the NSW press conference where we will get more of a sense of how far Covid-19 may have spread throughout Byron Bay.

Yesterday NSW recorded one locally acquired case, a man who was infected after sitting near a hen’s party at a Byron Bay pub last weekend attended by two infectious women from Queensland.

This prompted NSW health minister Brad Hazzard to cancel the five-day Byron blues festival, which was due to begin on Thursday and expected to host up to 16,000 people a day.

Authorities have also reintroduced a range of restrictions for four council areas near the border.

This new case will be included in today’s numbers for NSW, but if there are any more it will be very interesting to see how the usually fairly relaxed NSW government deals with the situation.

With that why don’t we get cracking with 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.

Updated

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