The day that was, Thursday 17 February
That is where we will leave the live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Here’s some of what you might have missed today:
- Two Liberal MPs, Bridget Archer and John Alexander spoke on indulgence in support of a commonwealth integrity commission.
- Former Asio boss Dennis Richardson warned of “artificial division” on China.
- NSW reported 9,995 new cases and 14 deaths; Victoria recorded 8,501 new cases and nine deaths, Queensland recorded 5,665 new cases and 38 deaths; WA reported 177 new cases; SA reported 1,440 new cases and three deaths; the NT reported 1,045 new cases; the ACT reported 537 new cases and 1 death; and Tasmania reported 680 new cases.
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NSW will ease Covid restrictions, scrap density limits and encourage people to return to offices.
- Elective surgeries in metropolitan public hospitals in NSW will also return from 21 February.
- Density limits have been scrapped and QR code check-in requirements will be eased in Victoria from tomorrow.
- The Moderna vaccine has been approved for children aged six and over. The Therapeutic Goods Administration announced it will join Pfizer as a vaccine recommended for children.
- The jobless rate was unchanged in January, remaining at its 13-year-low of 4.2%, the ABS announced.
- Prime minister Scott Morrison spoke with his British counterpart, Boris Johnson, this morning, reaffirming “the unique relationship between Australia and the United Kingdom”.
- Australia’s largest coal-fired power plant, Eraring power station in New South Wales, will close in 2025 – seven years earlier than scheduled, Origin Energy announced.
- A major ocean swim on Sydney’s eastern coastline has been cancelled following Wednesday’s fatal shark attack at Little Bay beach.
Updated
In a continued escalation of the China debate, Liberal senator James Paterson has directly criticised former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson.
Paterson told Sky News that although Richardson had a “very long and very distinguished career in the public,” there were issues the Liberal party still disagreed with him on:
Probably the best example of that is [Chinese telco] Huawei.
It’s been publicly reported that in 2011, when he was secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, he went on leave from DFAT to negotiate on behalf of the Canberra Raiders a lucrative sponsorship agreement from Huawei for the Canberra Raiders.
And in 2018, when the Cabinet was considering whether Huawei should be allowed to be involved in the 5G rollout, he publicly advocated that they should be involved in the 5G rollout.
Now we had very good advice from our intelligence agencies that the national security risks of Huawei being involved in the 5G rollout could not be mitigated, and it is one of the best decisions our government has made, and I stand by it even if Dennis Richardson disagrees.
Updated
Earlier today, Opposition leader Anthony Albanese accused the PM of trashing Australia’s “national interests”. You can see the video of his comments below:
Updated
Breaking: NSW Liberal state executive hs voted strongly in favour of an unprecedented federal executive intervention, accepting the motion put forward in a ballot by President Phillip Ruddock this afternoon.
— Max Maddison (@maxmaddison) February 17, 2022
Proposal will now be put to federal executive.
So, treasurer Josh Frydenberg has commented on today’s unemployment figures, saying Australia’s economy shows “remarkable resilience.”
Frydenberg added that he was particularly pleased to see female unemployment figures fall:
Australia’s economy continues to show remarkable resilience, with our labour market holding firm and Covid-19 failing to derail our world-leading recovery.
Despite the challenges posed by the Omicron variant, Australia’s unemployment rate remains at a 13-year low of 4.2%.
It’s particularly pleasing to see a record number of women in work with the female unemployment rate falling to a record low of 4%, the participation rate at a record high and more than one million additional women in work since we came to government.
At the same time, the RBA is forecasting the unemployment rate to have a 3 in front of it later this year, for the first time in half a century.
A tight labour market is putting upward pressure on wages, with both Treasury and the RBA having upgraded their wage forecasts.
Today’s figures stand in stark contrast to the state of the labour market when Labor left office, when the unemployment rate was 5.7% and rising.
A vote for Labor and Anthony Albanese is not a risk-free choice, it’s a risky choice that will lead to higher taxes, fewer jobs and a weaker economy.
With the Australian economy having outperformed all major advanced economies during the pandemic, only the Coalition can continue to keep our economy strong.
Updated
Swimming event at Malabar beach cancelled
A major ocean swim on Sydney’s eastern coastline has been cancelled following Wednesday’s shark attack that killed 35-year-old Simon Nellist.
Organisers of Sunday’s planned Malabar Magic Ocean Swim decided to call the event off as a mark of respect for the Nellist who was attacked while swimming at Little Bay Beach.
Event director Robert Lloyd extended his condolences to all who knew him.
Lloyd said:
Out of respect for the swimmer and his family, and following wide consultation with Randwick Council and experienced, senior Surf Life Saving personnel, we believe that cancelling the 2022 swim is appropriate.
The Malabar Magic is a community event and we respect the local Malabar and broader Randwick communities.
We acknowledge and thank the many first responders and surf life-saving personnel who protect and patrol our beaches.
Updated
And as always, Mike Bowers was on hand to capture the magic, this time to see the Mace the leave the house of representatives once more.
Parliament returns on 29 March for the budget.
Updated
The government is still not collecting data on how many people with disability in Australia have died with Covid-19, more than a year after it was criticised for failing to do so by a royal commission.
Senate estimates on Thursday heard on there were 61 National Disability Insurance Scheme participants who had died with Covid since the start of the pandemic.
But that data covers only a small fraction of the 4.4 million people in Australia who have a disability, even excluding NDIS participants who don’t receive services from a registered provider.
While many of those people would not be more susceptible to Covid, some would be, and the Greens senator Jordon Steele-John, who lives with cerebral palsy, highlighted the inadequacy of the current data collection.
He told Senate estimates on Thursday:
If I die of Covid-19 next week, very possible – immunocompromised, reduced lung capacity ... I will be not be counted by the Australian government [as a person with disability who died with Covid-19] because I’m not an NDIS participant ... The very least the government could have done two years in would been to ensure that if we did die, that we would be counted.
Ruston said she was happy to “take on board” Steele-John’s concerns about data collection.
The disability royal commission issued a new “statement of concern” on Thursday indicating the pandemic “continues to expose the underlying inequities, discrimination and exclusion” people with disabilities face in Australia.
Under questioning from Labor’s Katy Gallagher, Ruston said she planned to address the commission’s concerns in detail once she had the chance to examine its statement.
Estimates heard 72% of people in NDIS residential disability settings had received a booster dose. Among the broader NDIS population aged above 16, 61.8% had received a booster.
The royal commission has repeatedly criticised the government response to the pandemic for people with disabilities.
Updated
The NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet, has announced that a state funeral will be held for rugby league immortal John Raper, which will be held at the SCG on Monday.
In a statement, Perrotet says Raper’s family accepted the offer of a state funeral by the NSW government “in recognition of his remarkable contribution to the sport of rugby league.”
Perrottet said Raper, who died last week aged 82 after a long battle with dementia, was regarded as one of the greatest rugby league players ever:
A state funeral is a worthy tribute for Johnny Raper who was one of the most loved players in the history of rugby league. It’s only fitting that family, friends and supporters gather at the SCG in recognition of his achievements and life.
The event will be an outdoor seated event, with gates opening at 9:45am for a 10:30am start.
Updated
With falling hospitalisations, a strong vaccination rate and more than 50% of the eligible over-16 population boosted in NSW, we're now in a position to safely ease restrictions and help families and businesses keep moving forward. Full details here: https://t.co/0bGxhi9Lbe pic.twitter.com/0fshKPbgUL
— Dom Perrottet (@Dom_Perrottet) February 17, 2022
WA records 189 new cases
Western Australia has recorded 189 new cases overnight, 12 of which were travel related.
There are currently 547 active cases in the state.
This is our WA COVID-19 update for Thursday, 17 February 2022.
— Mark McGowan (@MarkMcGowanMP) February 17, 2022
For official information on COVID-19 in WA, visit https://t.co/qA5jY6F4yDhttps://t.co/1DOuhg5IZv pic.twitter.com/J0CTnQHKDn
Following Rudd on the ABC was Tasmanian Senator Jacquie Lambie, who said she was “appalled” by the “argy bargy” in Parliament this week:
I am quite appalled by some of the argy-bargy that has gone on in the house in the past week. You can smell an election coming up, no doubt about that.
For we have seen what happened to Sam Dastyari with those political donations. We saw the Aldi brown paper bags coming into play. We saw the dinners that everybody goes to that they don’t account money for.
You wouldn’t have a clue whether that was coming from Chinese agents are not. Nobody knows. The first thing we should be doing in this country and whatever has been calling for is fixing our political donations which is still not fixed. They are so open. You can’t tell me that overseas money is not coming through backdoors.
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Rudd has gone on to defend his record on China, and at the same time, attacked the PM for being “a past master of conflating fact with fiction”:
Mr Morrison is a past master of conflating fact with fiction. And creating a fictional political narrative when the national security policy establishment in this country, who are not affiliated with Labor or with the Liberals, have said that frankly, there is no foundation to this case.
On the historical record, let me simply remind your viewing audience of just some facts. You referred to our defence commitments as reflected for example in a defence white paper in 2009, a decade ago. I’m the prime minister who recommended in response to the China challenge, that we doubled the Australian submarine fleet.
What was Liberal Party‘s response at the time? To accuse me of being an old cold warrior, and that we have got the whole notion of the China challenge radically wrong.
But it goes beyond that. On the actual record, it’s Liberal Party in government which sold the port of Darwin, a principal piece of defence infrastructure in the high north of Australia, to China.
It’s the Liberal Party’s former trade minister who immediately having left parliament went to work for the Chinese on that particular project.
It was Liberal Party in government which signed off and gave in on a whole bunch of basic Australian economic interests when it ticked off on a free-trade agreement with the Chinese. It’s the Liberal Party in government that embraced a comprehensive strategic partnership with China, something we refuse to do.
And it was the Liberal Party in government, through the defence minister, who rejected the quadrilateral security agreement with India and Japan and the United States.
Updated
So former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd is on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing and was initially asked his thoughts on question time and the politicisation of national security.
As usual, Rudd did not mince words, calling it the “politics of deflection”:
The Liberal Party is politically desperate. They’re behind in the opinion polls, they know that. This is all the politics of deflection away from their record of Covid, on vaccines, on boosters, 700-plus aged care deaths as well as their appalling performance in terms of debt deficit numbers which make the nation’s eyes water.
Rudd also added his support to the former Asio director general, Dennis Richardson, saying that no one in Australia benefits from this:
The bottom line is, what Dennis has just said is really important. He said there’s only one country advantaged by an artificial division in Australia, a bogus division on national security policy, and that is the People’s Republic of China itself, which across the world has exhibited an interest in democracies dividing on the question of China, good or bad.
Right now, on the essentials, we have frankly a bipartisan national security and foreign policy position on China. The government knows that, the opposition knows that – this is all election politics, because it’s creating a distraction agenda from the real stuff which is what working families are concerned about.
Updated
The Federal govt has extended biosecurity zones in the Northern Territory for another two weeks to 3 March.
Northern Land Council (NLC) Chairman, Samuel Bush-Blanasi, welcomed the move, saying that “these Biosecurity Zones will help slow the spread of Covid out bush and give us more time to get more people their second and third jabs, and to get vaccinations for our kids five years old and up.”
Bush-Blanasi stressed the need for people and communities to work within the chief health officer’s guidelines and rules at all times in order to keep everyone as safe as possible.
These are really tough times and we haven’t seen the worst of Covid. We all really need to stay strong, stay safe and care for our families. The most important thing that everyone can do is to get vaccinated. Now that most adults have got their jabs – and if you haven’t you should – the next step is to make sure our kids are vaccinated.
Bush-Blanasi referred to the hard work that some traditional owner groups and Aboriginal service agencies have been doing to provide local isolation centres but stressed the need for these to operate within NT Health and CHO guidelines and rules.
We call on the NT government, the National Indigenous Australians Agency and other organisations – including mining and energy companies - to provide further support for these local initiatives and work with the NLC to do so.
Updated
SA reports 1,440 new cases and three deaths
South Australia has recorded 1,440 new cases overnight, and three deaths.
It’s a slight drop from yesterday’s 1,600 cases, with 221 people in hospital with the virus, 13 of which are in intensive care.
Good afternoon, and a quick thanks to Tory Shepherd for her excellent job today and this week - its been a rough one! Mostafa Rachwani with you this afternoon, to take you through the afternoon’s news.
My tank is empty, my cup runneth dry, and so I’m going to hand you over now to my excellent colleague Mostafa Rachwani. That’s it for parliament until the end of March – but we’re in a de facto election campaign, so the news will not stop. Thanks for reading!
“Experts say Australia’s reliance on migrants to undertake essential, insecure work and a failure to engage migrant communities early in pandemic planning is a key reason for this.”:
National Covid-19 update
Here are the latest coronavirus numbers from around Australia today, as the country records at least 63 deaths from Covid-19:
ACT
- Deaths: one
- Cases: 537
- In hospital: 47 (with three people in ICU)
NSW
- Deaths: 14
- Cases: 9,995
- In hospital: 1,447 (with 92 people in ICU)
NT
- Deaths: 0
- Cases: 1,045
- One person in ICU
Queensland
- Deaths: 39 (27 previously unreported)
- Cases: 5,665
Tasmania
- Deaths: 0
- Cases: 680
- In hospital: 16 (with two people in ICU)
Victoria
- Deaths: nine
- Cases: 8,501
- In hospital: 401 (with 78 people in ICU)
Western Australia
- Deaths: 0
- Cases: 189
Updated
Mike Bowers brings you rogue MP Craig Kelly asking about sonic weapons, the prime minister looking unimpressed, and Labor leader Anthony Albanese shaking Joel Fitzgibbon’s hand (after Fitzgibbon gave his valedictory speech earlier).
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I missed this. Seems an apt end to the session.
It seems appropriate that the final #qt session of the second last week of this current parliament concluded with Craig Kelly inquiring about sonic weapons #auspol
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) February 17, 2022
Updated
Tomorrow, senator Marise Payne will become the longest-serving female senator in Australia’s history, and the longest continuing serving female member of the parliament. Prime minister Scott Morrison and opposition leader Anthony Albanese have congratulated her.
And that’s a question time wrap.
Updated
Labor’s Madeleine King asks Morrison about a 2017 trip he took to Beijing where he signed a memorandum of understanding and had discussions about an agreement on the BRI initiative.
Morrison says the government’s policy is to not sign up to the BRI, and it never will. He says dialogues on closer economic cooperation had “not occurred for many years ... and a lot has happened in the last five years”.
Since then, he says, “Australia has been subject to economic coercion by the Chinese government”.
Updated
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese is denied leave to table the letter that Josh Butler wrote about below.
Labor’s Brendan O’Connor asks prime minister Scott Morrison if he agrees with former Asio director Dennis Richardson who said:
The government is seeking to create the perception of a difference between it and the opposition on a critical national security issue that is China, seeking to create the perception of a difference where none in practice exists. That is not in the national interest. That only serves the interest of one country and that is China.
Morrison says he respects Richardson, that his government is setting a “high bar” on national security while the Victorian government signed up to China’s belt and road initiative. He says:
I wish it were true there was stronger bipartisanship [for] that to happen the Labor party have to lift their game. They have to show the same strength and resolve this government has faced and shown in standing up to those who would seek to coerce us and bully us, not to have an each-way bet on it, to say one thing over here and one thing out the other side of their mouth, but to have the resolve, to have the steely resolve to stare these sorts of things down and work with our allies and partners.
Updated
Western Australia reports 189 new Covid cases
Western Australia has recorded 189 new Covid cases. There is no one in hospital.
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Labor’s Tony Burke is asking about the Reserve Bank’s prediction low wage growth will continue until 2023. He asks if that means it’s “deliberate” this “decade-old government” is keeping wages low. (Labor’s using that phrase a bit, possibly hoping people will think “it’s time” for a change of government).
Prime minister Scott Morrison says “no, that is not what it means”. He says:
If you want higher wages in this country you need a strong economy, strong businesses, a strong economy which has strong trading arrangements with the rest of the world ... you get higher wages when you invest in the skills development of Australians.
Updated
Labor’s treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers says the federal government spent $3.3m on economic comeback advertisements that had to be pulled. He asks: “Shouldn’t the government’s priority have been actually securing the recovery instead of claiming credit prematurely with taxpayer-funded marketing and spin that had to be canned?”
Morrison says “jobs and jobs and jobs, that is the answer”, and refers again to the latest employment figures. He says:
Jobs have been our response to the pandemic ... we have seen the labour force continue to grow. We have 1 million more women in work. We have the lowest rate of unemployment of women of 4%.
Now (and his voice is starting to sound a little husky) he’s back on Covid death rates, etc.
Updated
Home affairs minister Karen Andrews is sticking to the increasingly dominant election campaign theme: Coalition STRONG Labor WEAK.
Deputy opposition leader Richard Marles asks Morrison about last year’s bushfires. He brings up those pesky texts where former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian reportedly said Morrison was more concerned with politics than people.
Morrison says his job is to keep people in jobs, and spruiks the latest employment figures (see Peter Hannam’s article for those numbers). He says:
That is my job ... to get Australians into work, diminish or they have the hope of a stronger future because they are living in a strong economy that is getting stronger as we come out of this pandemic.
He goes on to say it is his job to keep Australians safe, then launches into the usual speech about standing up to bullies, about Aukus, about everything, it seems at this stage, except China (except it really is about China).
Updated
Labor’s Libby Coker is comparing the government’s lack of support for a pay rise for aged care workers with the $20bn in jobkeeper funds that went to companies that still turned a profit.
Prime minister Scott Morrison says jobkeeper saved 700,000 jobs when Australians were “looking into the abyss of the pandemic”. He says:
This government stood up and we put jobkeeper in place and the very next morning when hundreds of thousands of Australians were going to lose their job and not know how they were going to put food on the table for their families, and businesses who had worked for decades to put their businesses in place were fearing that their businesses were going to fall over.
This government stood up. This government stood up with the single largest income support program, a partnership between business, the government and the financial sector to save this country’s economy.
Updated
Karen Andrews quizzed over refugees at Park Hotel
Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie has asked home affairs minister Karen Andrews why refugees are still stuck in Park hotel when they are not security risks.
Andrews says some cannot be released into community detention for “various reasons” including character grounds or health issues, and that the government is dealing with a backlog from when Labor was in power. She says:
What we have committed to as a government is to work to make sure that as many of those people are resettled as we can possibly manage in the shortest possible amount of time. So we are working with the United States on the resettlement program so that as many people can transfer to the US and be resettled as soon as possible. It is on the public record now that we are working with New Zealand to look at resettlement options so as many people as possible can resettle as soon as there is an arrangement that is in place.
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Health minister Greg Hunt says it’s “utter hypocrisy” of Labor to ask because opposition leader Anthony Albanese has previously said the decision is up to the Fair Work Commission.
Clare O’Neil is up asking why prime minister Scott Morrison isn’t supporting a pay rise for “exhausted” aged care workers (the Fair Work Commission is considering this, but the government hasn’t backed it).
Morrison says he called a royal commission into aged care, and is spending $17bn on aged care, including on workforce issues. O’Neil points out that she was specifically asking about wages.
(Someone sighs heavily).
Morrison takes it back to the workforce and the $17bn. He says:
On the particular issue the member raises, as she will know, that is actually in front of the Fair Work Commission, and I am not aware of a different policy between the government and the opposition, whatever the Fair Work Commission decides on this matter, the government will support those arrangements.
Updated
Labor’s Kristy McBain is asking about aged care homes that have had to close in her electorate, and others that the health department have said will close.
Health minister Greg Hunt says where a facility closes, somewhere another facility opens. But he is aware of the specific facilities closing. He says:
The Department of Health was today meeting with the council, with representatives of the state government and representatives of the community. While this is a particular decision of a particular provider, we have stepped in to intervene immediately.
The federal government has given $808,000 to the regional council for infrastructure, he says.
Updated
Labor leader Anthony Albanese is really enjoying whipping out the receipts lately. On Thursday afternoon, as the government continues trying to create what some intelligence experts called “artificial” differences between the two major parties on national security, the Labor leader dipped into the archives to fish out this letter from October 2021:
Scott Morrison recently thanked me for the "bipartisan approach the Opposition has taken" regarding AUKUS, in contrast to his more recent desperate scare campaign. Our national interest is above partisan politics. pic.twitter.com/rXkfZ4cg5w
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) February 17, 2022
Labor is trying to stress that its position on national security is fundamentally identical to the Coalition, including on China-related issues around human rights and trade.
The government had also tried to criticise Labor for not backing the Aukus pact more strongly, but Albanese is trying to show that even Scott Morrison has conceded there was a “bipartisan approach” on important security issues.
The latest peek into Albanese’s letterbox comes after he released a letter from the PM over the religious discrimination bill last week, and his attempts to table a 31-year-old university economics essay into parliament.
Question time begins
And (with ALL of that!) it’s question time. Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has started with a question about aged care, asking prime minister Scott Morrison to “fix this crisis”.
Health minister Greg Hunt says the government has focused on protections in aged care. “We recognise that each loss in this pandemic is a tragic loss for those that are affected,” he says, before going on to (again) compare Australia to other nations and (again) reeling off statistics about PPE.
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The United States has said it is “absolutely confident” that Australia’s commitment to the US alliance will remain strong regardless of the Australian election outcome.
The US assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Daniel Kritenbrink, also said the US was “reassured that these principles that we hold dear and our vitally important alliance transcends politics and any one party”.
Kritenbrink made the comments during a phone call briefing on US secretary of atate Antony Blinken’s recent travel to Australia, Fiji and Hawaii. Blinken and other US officials met with Labor’s Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong while in Melbourne.
Because this matter is politically fraught in the current environment, I will include my full question and Kritenbrink’s full answer:
Q: Daniel Hurst from Guardian Australia. “Thanks for taking my question, Assistant Secretary Kritenbrink. The US delegation, while in Australia, met with both sides of Australian politics. There’s an election coming up here. Obviously, I’m not asking you to comment on the election. But how confident are you that Australia’s commitment to the US alliance, its commitment to Aukus, and its commitment to cooperate with the US on strategic challenges will remain strong regardless of the election outcome?”
Kritenbrink: “Thank you for your question. Absolutely confident is my answer. Of course, we were delighted to be in Australia. We were delighted to reaffirm with our Australian allies that our alliance is the anchor for peace, security and stability in the Indo-Pacific. And we reaffirmed that in our meetings with with the prime minister, with the foreign minister and others, but as is often the case when we visit our democratic partners, we also had the opportunity to meet with the opposition.
“And we came away reassured that these principles that we hold dear and our vitally important alliance transcends politics and any one party and we came away absolutely confident that whomever the Australian people select as their new leadership, as their next leadership, in the upcoming election, we’re confident that the US-Australia alliance will endure and remain as strong as ever.”
Updated
Given the government has been thundering about its bills being a test for Labor, you might wonder why the firearms bill just sailed through with Labor support.
The shadow home affairs minister, Kristina Keneally, told Guardian Australia the leadership group had decided to support the bill on Thursday morning.
Keneally described the bill as “fairly straightforward” and said Labor’s vote was consistent with the caucus position adopted in 2019 that, when in opposition, “while we don’t support mandatory minimums we’re not going to let that stand in the way of achieving the important outcomes to tackle serious crimes”.
Labor will not seek to amend the bill in the Senate.
Keneally said:
We can’t govern from opposition – Mr Morrison seemed quite clear in his intent to politicise national security in the context of an election, trying to manufacture a difference with the opposition when, in reality, one does not exist.
Updated
Home affairs minister Karen Andrews claims prime minister Scott Morrison has “clearly done the right thing” by ratcheting up the national security and China conversation, even as intelligence experts warn against the government’s approach.
But Andrews refused to endorse the incendiary “Manchurian candidate” insults the prime minister lobbed at Labor in parliament on Wednesday, claiming she was focusing on issues “at a higher level”.
Andrews, whose home affairs portfolio has carriage over national security and foreign interference, was asked at a press conference about comments from Morrison and defence minister Peter Dutton this week, who have sought to claim Labor leader Anthony Albanese was Beijing’s “pick” for the coming election. Andrews said:
The prime minister has clearly done the right thing by indicating where there are points of difference between the Labor Party and the Coalition government.
What he is doing is emphasising those differences.
Labor argues its approach on national security and foreign interference is near-identical to the Coalition, including China-specific issues around Hong Kong, Taiwan, human rights concerns and trade.
Asio director-general Mike Burgess has warned several times this week about the “politicisation” of his spy agency, and stressed foreign interference issues affected both sides of politics. Former intelligence chief Dennis Richardson today criticised the creation of “artificial” partisan differences on national security, saying it was not in the national interest.
When asked by journalists about those concerns, Andrews conceded there was “a range of views that are circulating at the moment” and that there would be “other people that will have their own views”.
Asked whether Labor deputy leader Richard Marles was a “Manchurian candidate”, as alleged by Morrison in question time, Andrews responded “I’m not going to comment on that, my interests are quite frankly at a higher level... the national security interests of Australia are first and foremost.”
On facing independent candidate Allegra Spender at the election, Sharma says he doesn’t buy Climate 200 director Simon Holmes à Court’s claim he won’t influence the candidates he is backing financially.
Labor MP Kate Thwaites says voters are looking elsewhere (such as towards independent candidates) because “the Morrison government is clearly not addressing the issues that most people in the community are feeling at the moment”, for example, on climate change.
Updated
Liberal MP Dave Sharma tells the ABC he doesn’t believe Labor’s Richard Marles is a “Manchurian candidate”, as he was called by the prime minister, Scott Morrison, yesterday. But Sharma declines to comment on Morrison’s characterisation. He says:
[Morrison] withdrew the comment and I believe he stands by that withdrawal. I think certainly things that Richard Marles has said and done ... including on his most recent visit to Beijing should be open to scrutiny. I don’t want to live in an Australia where we can’t debate certain things because the spy chiefs tell us not to.
They need to be careful not to interfere in what is the domain of elected representatives.
Updated
Five thousand complaints about rapid antigen tests have been made to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
The ACCC is investigating the tests after complaints about overpricing.
Some of the complaints received have been referred to the police, AAP reports.
A lot of “rogues” were knocked out by new laws that made it illegal to on-sell a test for more than 20% profit, chair Rod Sims said.
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Elective surgery returns in NSW
Returning to the NSW Covid update, NSW Health deputy secretary, Susan Pearce, has announced that elective surgeries in metropolitan public hospitals will return from 21 February.
It comes as waitlists for elective surgeries blew out to around 100,000 people, with over 6,500 overdue for non-urgent surgeries.
Pearce told reporters the decision comes as NSW crosses the 50% third-jab rate, but warned that there were still over 1,800 healthcare workers off work due to Covid infection or isolation:
It’s really pleasing today to know with pretty good confidence that we will hit 50% of our population above 16 with a booster shot.
One thing I would like to make clear about that is that it will not occur at the same rate throughout our hospitals.
It’s a significant reduction in the number of health staff that were furloughed previously ... so we’ve been looking closely at how we safely return to elective surgery in our hospitals.
Updated
NT records 1,045 new cases
The Northern Territory has recorded 1,045 new cases, with one person in intensive care and 21 people requiring oxygen.
There are currently 6,977 active cases of Covid across the NT.
Mike Bowers brings you the Icac whisperers:
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The Coalition’s firearms bill has just passed a third reading in the House of Representatives. Labor’s Brendan O’Connor wanted to speak on the bill, but Peter Dutton immediately moved for the third reading.
It passed on the voices, so no division, and Labor has sidestepped another wedge by waving legislation through the House – presumably because it knows the government is out of time to bring it to the Senate, or Labor can block or amend there.
The bill increases maximum sentences for trafficking and sets a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison for firearms offences. This is controversial, because Labor has a longstanding opposition to mandatory minimums.
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The federal government has listed three new organisations on its list of terrorist groups, as well as extending that proscription to the entirety of Hamas.
Home affairs minister Karen Andrews announced on Thursday that the government had listed Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Hurras al-Din and the National Socialist Order (formerly known as Atomwaffen Division) “as terrorist organisations under the Criminal Code and intends to list the entirety of Hamas”. She said:
The Government has also re-listed Abu Sayyaf Group, al-Qa’ida, al-Qa’ida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb and Jemaah Islamiyah as terrorist organisations under the criminal code.
Andrews called the organisations “violent extremist groups listed” with “deeply disturbing” views.
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and Hurras al-Din – also known as al-Qa’ida in Syria – are Sunni Islamist extremist groups based in Syria.
National Socialist Order is a racist violent extremist group based in the United States, with an objective to initiate a global ‘race war’. Andrews said:
Terrorist organisation offences include penalties of up to 25 years’ imprisonment.
Updated
Labor’s Tony Burke has successfully suspended standing orders to bring on debate on the Coalition’s firearms legislation, which it introduced to the lower house on Wednesday.
This is a stunt to show that the government doesn’t actually want to pass this stuff, it just wants to wedge Labor.
Somebody moved that Burke’s motion be disagreed to, resulting in a bizarre division where at first the Coalition was voting to shut Burke down, but then switched sides to vote with Labor.
The vote wasn’t even recorded, because there were so few people voting aye to shut it down.
The government tried to move on to other business, but as opposition leader Anthony Albanese pointed out, the suspension of standing orders was successful, so they’re debating the firearms bill.
The bill was then read a second time. Labor’s Brendan O’Connor wants to speak on the bill.
Updated
NSW to ease Covid restrictions, scrap density limits
People will be encouraged back into the office and singing and dancing will return as part of a staggered easing of the New South Wales Covid measures.
Premier Dominic Perrottet also announced the density limits would be scrapped across the state from Friday. He said:
This is the new reality. We don’t want restrictions in place for any longer than necessary.
From tomorrow, QR check-ins will only be required at nightclubs and festivals with more than 1000 people attending. Singing and dancing will also be allowed in all settings other than music festivals - which will be added to the list from 25 February.
People will no longer be encouraged to work from home when they can and returning to work will be up to employers to decide.
From next Friday, masks will only be required on public transport, in a variety of healthcare settings, in indoor music venues with more than 1000 people and at prisons.
Updated
What is the poverty line in Australia? Is there a minimum of income people need not to live in poverty?
“It’s not a simple yes or no question,” social services minister, Anne Ruston, told Senate estimates earlier this morning.
The answer came under questioning from Greens senator Janet Rice, who noted the 2019 Senate inquiry into the Newstart payment (now called Jobseeker) recommended Australia adopt an official poverty line.
“You make it sound like there’s some magical number,” Ruston added.
Rice told estimates that there were a range of poverty line measures that were acknowledged in Australia:
Acoss recommends the poverty live should be set at 50%-60% of median income. 50% is $457 a week for a single person. The Henderson poverty line is higher, it’s $581 a week, and then there [are] other definitions that are even higher.
Rice said it was “extraordinary” that Ruston was “not willing to even acknowledge there was a minimum level of of income that people need not to be in poverty”.
Ruston insisted Australia’s welfare system was “comprehensive and targeted” and noted Australians enjoyed other benefits outside the welfare system such as free healthcare and education.
Asked if the rate of Jobseeker – $630 a fortnight – was enough, Ruston insisted it was “adequate for [its] purpose”.
Keen estimates observers might know this is not the first time the government has been less than keen to discuss poverty in Australia.
Updated
The New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, has offered his condolences to the family and friends of the swimmer who was killed by a shark on Wednesday.
“It’s a reminder to us all about the fragility of life,” he said. He confirmed authorities were trying to track down the shark.
Updated
Two Liberal MPs speak in favour of federal anti-corruption commission
Two Liberal MPs have spoken on indulgence in support of a Commonwealth integrity commission, in the wake of the government conceding this week that it won’t have time to legislate it.
Independent MP Helen Haines first spoke on the matter on indulgence, accusing the prime minister, Scott Morrison, of playing “the public for a patsy”. She said:
The prime minister’s laughable excuse that he cannot legislate his integrity commission proposal because the opposition won’t support it is totally absurd.
She also accused Morrison of misleading her, saying he had initially suggested he wanted to work on the issue in a bipartisan way:
The facts are clear. He had no intention of working on this in a bipartisan way.
I’ll never stop bringing this to the attention of this house even in the dying days of this parliament.
Liberal MP Bridget Archer – who crossed the floor last year to support Haines’s bill – said it remained her view that legislating an integrity commission was still “one of the most important things” parliament needed to do:
I do believe that this issue needs to be debated. It is also clear that this parliament is running out of time to be able to legislate an integrity bill.
Archer said there needed to be a multipartisan approach, and urged cooperation in the next parliament. She said:
We must not allow this issue to just be lost in the politics and in the tribalism of the politics that can go on in this place and outside it.
This is such an important issue. It’s fundamental to the trust and confidence that we need from the Australian people to do our jobs. And so I would urge cooperation and collaboration from all parties on all sides to take this forward in the next Parliament.
John Alexander, the Liberal MP for Bennelong, also echoed this view, saying:
We must stop bashing heads, and put our heads together.
We need our leaders and parties to come together on this issue, because a solution will need to outlive a three year parliament and will need to outlive governments. For too long, this has been a political football.
We need a federal Icac so we can take action, to take the first step to regain the respect of Australians who need to have confidence that we are all acting with integrity and honesty that they rightly expect of us.
Independent MP for the seat of Mayo, Rebekha Sharkie, also spoke in favour of an integrity bill, saying she had been calling for such a body for the past six years. Bob Katter also spoke, as did Labor’s Mark Dreyfus, saying Labor would legislate an integrity commission “with teeth” if it formed government.
Updated
Birmingham criticises Labor for its tactics in Defence Senate estimates, saying it doesn’t “seem terribly interested in actually pursuing questions relevant to the actual investment the government is making” in defence.
Keneally counters:
The Labor party is taking heed of the advice of people like the Asio director general [Mike Burgess] who says the weaponisation of national security makes his job harder, makes it harder to keep our country safe. I ask you again, do you consider using terms like Manchurian candidate is legitimate?
Birmingham says he has “already rejected your assertion in regards to the public debate that is there” and he says the contrasting of statements and positions “are not unusual things to occur” and are an important part of democratic debate in the lead-up to an election.
Asked whether he has any shame, Birmingham says for decades “we’ve seen different occasions in which national security is featured as part of our democratic election debates”:
When Australians go to vote, making the decision as to who is best placed to manage the safety and security of our nation is one of the key decisions that Australians have to make at that time.
Keneally ends this bracket of questions with the observation:
I never thought I would say this, but the Senate and the nation miss the day when leaders like Mr Brandis were here who stood firm on their values.
Cue stony silence from Birmingham. He doesn’t look comfortable.
Updated
Senate leader Simon Birmingham insists the government is not “confecting” national security divisions, when confronted with a past comment by George Brandis.
Brandis, the former Coalition attorney general who is now the Australian high commissioner to the UK, said in a valedictory speech to the Senate in February 2018:
I have heard some powerful voices argue that the coalition should open a political front against the Labor Party on the issue of domestic national security. I could not disagree more strongly.
One of the main reasons why the government has earned the confidence of the public on national security policy is there has never been a credible suggestion that political motives have intruded. Were they to do so, confidence not just in the government’s handling of national security but in the agencies themselves would be damaged and their capacity to do their work compromised.
Nothing could be more irresponsible than to hazard the safety of the public by creating a confected dispute for political advantage. To his credit, the prime minister [Malcolm Turnbull at that time] has always resisted such entreaties.
Labor’s Kristina Keneally asks Birmingham if he agrees with Brandis. The minister replies “I do”, but then adds: “Before you then leap to the next question, I don’t believe that anything is confected.”
Keneally: “You have got to be kidding me. You believe phrases like ‘Manchurian candidate’ is not politicising national security?”
Birmingham argues that having debates that highlight differences in track records “are all legitimate and fair”.
Labor senator Tim Ayres: “You have lost your way.”
Birmingham: “Senator, I’ll consider the context of the words I use when I when I’m using them.”
Updated
As @msmarto signalled this morning, the Liberal MP John Alexander is on his feet now in the House of Representatives saying politicians need to form a team to get an integrity commission legislated #auspol
— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) February 17, 2022
I know, I linked this earlier! But am giving it a boost up the blog because Liberal MP John Alexander has joined his colleague Bridget Archer to call for a federal Icac. More to come:
In community affairs estimates, Labor’s Jenny McAllister is asking about problems with the Escaping Violence program, a $145m trial set up by the government to “help women establish a life free of violence” with a payment of up to $5000 on offer.
It was announced as part of the government’s “landmark $1.1bn women’s safety package” in the May budget.
The department has revealed that the program has received 6067 applications, with 4000 of these still waiting to be processed. Just 77 applications were assessed as “urgent” and received cash immediately.
Social services minister, Anne Ruston, said the wait times were “not acceptable”.
McAllister is also asking about a document released by the department which is mostly redacted, including guidelines for the program. The department is saying the redactions were based on advice ensuring financial safety of clients and “women’s safety risks”.
McAllister said the sector had raised on many occasions problems about how the program was running, and without the information being released by the department, it was difficult to assess. She said:
The sector says that the eligibility criteria is too tight and the process is not realistic and doesn’t reflect the experience of their clients.
The information provided does not help me deal with the complaints that come to me about how this program is working.
Ruston said the program was a trial, and feedback was welcome. She said:
That’s exactly the purpose of a trial, is to make sure that we are constantly reviewing and making sure that we deal with issues as they come up.
She was engaging with the sector to deal with what she acknowledged were some problems with how the program was running. She said:
I have been talking to the sector around these issues that they have seen and improvements that they would like to see made, and in some cases some misinformation that is out there.
I’m quite happy to acknowledge that there are many improvements that need to be made to this program to make sure that it is delivering what I expected to deliver.
Updated
#BREAKING The entirety of Hamas is now listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia @SBSNews
— Anna Henderson (@annajhenderson) February 17, 2022
ACT records one Covid death and 537 new cases
One person has died in the ACT, bringing the territory’s Covid death total to 32. There have been 537 new cases recorded, with 47 people in hospital and three in intensive care.
ACT COVID-19 update (17 February 2022)
— ACT Health (@ACTHealth) February 17, 2022
💉 COVID-19 vaccinations
▪️ Aged 5-11 years (1 dose): 76.8%
▪️ Aged 12+ (2 doses) 98.6%
▪️ Aged 16+ (3 doses): 62.9%
▪️ New cases today: 537 (275 PCR and 262 RAT)
▪️ Active cases: 2,565 (1,247 PCR and 1,318 RAT) pic.twitter.com/BWzaPPvUMs
Updated
The latest Temperature Check from Graham Readfearn is in. He checks out the “eye-watering” figures News Corp claimed it would cost if there were no more coal and gas projects:
Updated
Defence resumes after that brief interruption. Simon Birmingham is asked about the warning by Asio’s current director general Mike Burgess against the politicisation of national security (it doesn’t help the job of security agencies).
Kristina Keneally asks:
Why is the Morrison-Joyce government making the job of our intelligence agencies like Asio more difficult by politicising national security?
Birmingham replies:
Senator Keneally, I just don’t accept the premise that you are putting there. The fact is that Australia is a democracy and a robust democracy. And we do have an election in a few months’ time and the track record of your party on national security and defence investment and our party’s [record] on national security and defence investment is fair game in a democracy ... [with] an election coming up. We don’t seek to politicise it unnecessarily, but we won’t shy away from drawing contrast where there is contrast.
Birmingham goes on to say:
It is in the national interest in a democracy, which is what we are all defending here … for us to ensure Australians understand the differences … The differences are there to be highlighted.
Tim Ayres asks whether the government is mounting the “elaborate argument” that the statements of Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton have really “got something to do with defence capital and sustainment and personnel expenditure over the last 20 years”. Keneally adds that that suggestion is laughable.
Birmingham has gone back to citing Albanese’s inclusion of the word “some” in a single response to a recent question as evidence Labor wants China to keep in place some of the trade actions against Australia. Keneally says that claim “is ridiculous and you know it”.
Updated
Unemployment stable in January as 159m work hours lost to Omicron disruptions
The jobless rate was unchanged in January, remaining at its 13-year-low of 4.2%, the ABS has just announced. The result was in line with market expectations.
The economy added 12,900 jobs last month, with the participation rate nudging higher to 66.2%. Monthly hours worked fell, though, by 159m or 8.8%, signalling the scale of Omicron-linked disruptions.
Bjorn Jarvis, head of labour statistics at the ABS, noted that in a pre-pandemic year about 90,000 to 100,000 people would be off ill in January. This January, at times, the tally of those off work reached 450,000. He said:
Nationally, and in New South Wales and Victoria, the number of people who worked reduced hours because they were sick was around three times the pre-pandemic average for January.
Western Australia was the only jurisdiction with a usual low number of people working reduced hours in January because they were sick.
Updated
You might remember yesterday that there were several different numbers and a bit of argument over exactly how many people had sadly died in aged care due to Covid this year.
Within the space of a few hours, health department officials said it was 691; health minister Greg Hunt said it was 711; while Labor claimed it was 743.
Considering the scrutiny rightly being applied to the Covid situation affecting some of the most vulnerable Australians, it’d be good to get some clarity – so we went to the health department for an official response and confirmation.
A department spokesperson responded that as of 5pm on 15 February, the latest statistics they had, there had been “711 Covid-19 related deaths associated with aged care facilities in 2022 reported to the Department of Health”.
Labor claimed their 743 number – which was repeated by Anthony Albanese and aged care spokesperson, Clare O’Neil, – comes from comparing health department statistics from 31 December, 2021 and 15 February, 2022. On 31 December, the statistics showed 915 deaths in aged care – compared to 1658 deaths reported on 15 February. That’s a difference of 743, which is where Labor got their number from.
The health department said those numbers “reflect data reported to the Department at that time” but noted that “there is often a lag in the reporting of deaths”. The department spokesperson said:
In this instance there have been deaths reported in early 2022 which occurred in 2021. The department has included these deaths in updated 2021 data reported through the weekly snapshot.
Updated
The Defence estimates committee hearing descends into acrimony.
Government Senate leader, Simon Birmingham, is asked about comments by former Asio chief and former defence secretary Dennis Richardson that the government is seeking to create the perception of a difference between it and the opposition on a critical national security issue when none in practice exists, and that only serves the interest of China.
Birmingham replies:
Senator, I have enormous regard for Mr Richardson, but I don’t agree with with his starting premise there.
Birmingham goes on to claim that points of difference have been created by Anthony Albanese’s statements.
Labor’s Kristina Keneally presses Birmingham on why the government is “manufacturing” differences with the opposition when it only plays into China’s interests.
Birmingham:
I don’t accept that.
Labor senator Tim Ayres interjects:
Grubby, reckless and shameless. You utterly debase yourself with this stuff.
Chair Eric Abetz suspends the committee briefly.
Updated
The Disability Royal Commission has today issued a Statement of Ongoing Concern for the safety, health and wellbeing of people with disability during Australia’s Omicron wave, saying the pandemic “continues to expose the underlying inequities, discrimination and exclusion” people with disabilities face in Australia.
It’s the latest in a series of damning criticisms from the royal commission into the government’s response to Covid. They have included a scathing report on the vaccination rollout for people with disabilities, which the commission called “seriously deficient”, and another that slammed the government for its “serious failure” to have any Covid plan for disabled people in the first year of the pandemic.
Today’s statement heralds a forthcoming paper, due in March, that promises to examine “the de-prioritisation of people with disability and lack of regard for their health and wellbeing during the pandemic”.
It will also look at issues regarding access to vaccinations and boosters for people with disability and their carers, lack of safety provisions including PPE and rapid antigen tests, and the “severe disruptions to disability services and essential supports” that have occurred due to staff furloughs.
Chair of the commission, Ronald Sackville QC, said:
The pandemic continues to expose the underlying inequities, discrimination and exclusion that people with disability experience in the delivery of fundamental services and supports.
The more virulent Omicron variant, combined with the significant easing of restrictions across many states and territories late last year, has created problems for people with disability similar to those identified in [previous reports].
As mentioned in the blog earlier, the Moderna vaccine has been approved by Australia’s drugs regulator the TGA for children aged six and over, joining Pfizer as a vaccine recommended for children. The Moderna jab still needs a final approval from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation before being rolled-out.
The Moderna mRNA Covid-19 vaccine, also known as ‘Spikevax’, is given to children aged 6-11 in two 50 microgram doses, half the adult dose.
Moderna chief executive, Stéphane Bancel, said the TGA authorisation for children 6-11 years old in Australia “is an important milestone for Moderna as it is the first regulatory authorisation for the use of our vaccine in this age group”. She said:
We are grateful to the TGA for their diligence and the government of Australia for its continued confidence in our mRNA platform ... We are grateful for the opportunity to provide protection against Covid-19 to this important age group, keeping children safe and able to continue life as normally as possible.
Moderna’s vaccine was studied in the ongoing Phase 2 ‘KidCOVE’ trial, a randomised, observer-blind, placebo-controlled study to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and effectiveness of two 50 microgram Spikevax doses given to healthy children 28 days apart.
The study population was divided into three age groups; 6 to under 12 years, 2 to under 6 years, and six months to under 2 years.
Data submitted to the TGA demonstrated that children 6 to under 12 years produced a similar immune system response following vaccination with Moderna to those aged 18-25 years old who were given two 100 microgram doses.
Updated
Simon Birmingham has just delivered a fairly prescriptive description of bipartisanship:
The government welcomes and I welcome bipartisanship when it occurs. Bipartisanship is an outcome of the opposition clearly, unconditionally supporting positions of the government of the day.
He notes the joint intelligence and security committee demonstrates bipartisanship. But he says defence spending is an example of differences. Birmingham sites opposition leader Anthony Albanese’s comments about standing up for Australian industries: “How much resolve will we show in the face of coercion?’
Birmingham tries to interpret Albanese’s comment that included the use of the word “some” as a lack of resolve (Albanese has called on China to scrap all of its trade actions against Australia).
'National unity' can bolster Australia's resilience, defence secretary says
The secretary of the defence department, Greg Moriarty, says “national unity” can contribute to Australia’s national resilience.
In defence estimates, Labor senator Kristina Keneally points to past evidence from former Dfat secretary Frances Adamson that projecting a sense of bipartisanship and unity is a powerful message. Asked if he agrees, Moriarty says:
I believe that Australia’s national resilience is an important contributor to our overall defence posture: national resilience depends on national unity to a certain extent.
Could stoking division could serve Beijing’s interests?
The Coalition’s Simon Birmingham cuts in to say the question is “inviting him to give commentary”.
Moriarty:
If I could answer more broadly … of course adversaries will seek to sow division. Over many centuries that has been the case in a variety of circumstances and Australia’s national resilience is an important part.
Moriarty says the government and Defence have been rolling out initiatives to “build that national resilience”. He says resilience is bolstered when our society more broadly is able to resist coercion, when society is committed to Australia, and when people have faith in national institutions and the rule of law.
Birmingham talks about defence funding cuts under Labor.
Moriarty criticises China over the militarisation of features in the South China Sea, saying that is a way of asserting Chinese national views about its territorial claims and its ambitions. He says China’s incursions into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone are designed to pressure Taiwan.
Updated
Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon is retiring at the election and has delivered his valedictory speech. Mike Bowers snapped the member for Hunter as he was congratulated by people from all sides:
Updated
Tasmania reports 680 new Covid cases
680 new Covid infections have been recorded in Tasmania. Sixteen people are in hospital with the virus, and two are in intensive care. AAP reports it’s the fourth consecutive day the numbers have risen, about a week after school returned.
Updated
Market eyes will be on the ABS’s labour figures, due to land at 11.30am. In January, the 4.2% jobless rate for the month of December created a stir, not least because it was the lowest in more than 13 years.
Economists are tipping the rate to remain unchanged for January at 4.2% but it’s actually a tricky month to pick, given the Omicron disruptions and many people off sick or as close Covid contacts.
Westpac predicts the economy added 30,000 more jobs last month, compared with a median estimate by the market of no change. Westpac also predicts the jobless rate will drop to 4% for the month, as does CBA.
The RBA and the federal government are both forecasting the unemployment rate to drop below 4%. If it starts with a “3” that would be the first time since 1974.
The treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, who flew to a regional gathering of treasurers and central bankers in Indonesia overnight, might be expected to break from the argy-bargy and gado-gado, particularly if the numbers are strong.
On the other hand, if they are very strong, expect investors and economists to bring their predictions of a rate rise sooner.
Yesterday, the forecast in the short-term bond market was for the RBA to lift rates to 0.25% by June, with more to come before the end of 2022.
Updated
Moderna vaccine approved for children six and over
The Moderna vaccine has been approved for children aged six and over. The Therapeutic Goods Administration has announced it will join Pfizer as a vaccine recommended for children, AAP reports.
The Moderna jab will still need a final approval from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation.
Updated
Australia and the UK have announced a supply chain resilience capacity building initiative after the call between Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson.
We are told this initiative will “support the capacity for [the] Indo-Pacific to identify and respond to supply chain disruptions”.
It will aim to help partner governments, initially in the immediate region, predict possible supply chain disruptions and build resilience against those disruptions:
The first phase of the project involves developing joint guidance material for partner governments, building on existing UK and Australia supply chain resilience frameworks.
Victoria’s education minister, James Merlino, is now announcing rapid antigen testing will continue at Victorian schools until the end of term one.
He says the government will provide an additional 24m tests to parents and teachers.
Under the current program, rapid antigen testing is strongly recommended for all primary and secondary school students and staff, twice weekly at home before school or childcare.
Students and staff at specialist schools have been recommended to test five days each week due to the higher risk of severe illness for medically vulnerable children.
Merlino says modelling by the Burnet Institute has found the program has prevented more than 21,000 Covid-19 infections.
Updated
Victoria Covid rules easing
Density limits have been scrapped and QR code check-in requirements will be eased in Victoria from tomorrow.
Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, has announced the current density limits in place for hospitality and entertainment venues will be eased from 6pm on Friday.
Indoor dancefloors will also be able to reopen as part of the changes.
People will no longer need to check in at retail businesses, schools and workplaces but QR codes will remain for proof of vaccination purposes at hospitality and entertainment venues.
Andrews said further announcements on the return to offices, mask requirements and support for CBD businesses would be made within a week.
Updated
Defence officials confirm they are still in the process of negotiations with Naval Group and Lockheed Martin regarding the ending of the French submarine project, and won’t talk about the dollar figures likely to be involved.
On to Aukus now: Vice admiral Jonathan Mead, the head of the nuclear-powered submarine taskforce, says delegations from the US and the UK are in Australia now to progress the nuclear-propelled submarine plans. Mead says he will host a joint steering group in Adelaide next week – the third such steering group meeting. He says:
We are making very good progress.
Updated
A $1.7m contract handed to a consultant for research on welfare policy is under investigation after a government department’s top bureaucrat found it hadn’t complied with internal tender processes.
The bulk of the research, which Guardian Australia sought under FOI laws, remains a secret because the department has ruled disclosure may harm Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) business interests.
Labor frontbencher Katy Gallagher, who first raised the issue in parliament 15 months ago, told Senate estimates on Thursday it appeared department officials had repeatedly misled the Senate about the matter.
Gallagher, who previously told parliament the contract looked “dodgy”, said she was considering a referral to the privileges committee.
At issue is a $1.7m extension to a contract awarded to Boston Consulting Group, which officials have refused to release or explain in detail. The original contract, worth about $1.6m, was for a report into the Disability Employment Services program.
BCG’s damning report, which officials initially refused to release to Senate estimates, was eventually released to Guardian Australia under FOI laws.
Officials have declined to give much detail about what Boston Consulting Group were paid to do for the extra $1.7m, except to say it was “additional policy research” that related to people with “partial capacity to work”. One official earlier insisted there was no report provided by BCG.
However in December, the department released about 300 slides of research, including an “executive summary”. Still, most pages are redacted, with the department arguing release of the research may harm BCG’s business interests by disclosing its modelling methodologies.
Ray Griggs, the secretary of the department of social services, told Senate estimates he was investigating the tender, including whether commonwealth procurement rules had been breached.
Griggs conceded there had been “non-compliance with internal processes” and “less than better practice” with the Commonwealth procurement rules.
Griggs said he had taken a number of steps to tighten the department’s procurement processes.
He also promised to investigate whether the FOI decision used to suppress the research was correct.
Updated
Queensland records 39 Covid deaths, 27 previously unreported
Queensland is reporting 39 deaths, but explains they were not all in the past 24 hours. Another 27 deaths were provided to Queensland health by Births, Deaths and Marriages and date back to mid January.
5,665 new Covid cases have been recorded.
Updated
Bit of news around on the energy front, with Origin Energy bringing forward the timing of the closure of its Eraring power plant (see Adam Morton’s piece on that earlier in the blog). At 2880 megawatts, it’s the biggest single power station in the country.
Matt Kean, NSW energy minister, is telling a media conference that the NSW government is going to spend $84m to accelerate the state’s renewable energy plans.
Kean is talking up the value of a big battery Origin plans for the site to ensure stability of the grid.
“This was not NSW’s decision,” Kean says, adding that the state’s Electricity Infrastructure Roadmap will be able to respond “to keep the lights on and put downward pressure on prices”.
Origin had planned to shut Eraring in 2032 and will now do so in 2025, it told the ASX today.
As we noted last week when AGL brought forward closure dates of its Bayswater and Loy Yang A coal-fired power plants in NSW and Victoria respectively, there’s a gap between the projections of the Australian Energy Market Operator’s timetable and individual companies. Origin’s announcement today closes some of that gap.
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Hospital executives are appearing at Victorian state parliament’s pandemic declaration accountability and oversight committee.
Prof Andrew Way, chief executive of Alfred Health, told the inquiry the hospital had 3,100 people on the elective surgery waitlist.
Way said it was unclear if “further waves” of the virus would cause increased pressure on the state’s hospitals.
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The Australian government is continuing to promote its projection of a 35% cut in emissions by 2030 – even though it has resisted calls to upgrade its formal target – amid ongoing international pressure for countries to act consistent with keeping “1.5 degrees of warming within reach”.
The joint statement after Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison’s call this morning insists that both countries are committed “to taking action this decade, with nationally determined contributions reflecting their highest possible ambition”.
The statement says the two leaders “reaffirmed the two countries’ shared commitment to drive ambitious action to address climate change and its impacts, including through implementation of the Glasgow Climate Pact and the Paris Agreement, to keep 1.5 degrees of warming within reach, strengthen adaptation and resilience, and mobilise finance”.
Then there is a statement of the targets and projections as they now stand (remember the Nationals vetoed the idea of formally increasing the 2030 target last year):
The UK has committed to reducing its emissions at least 68% by 2030 on 1990 levels and Australia has committed to reducing its emissions 26-28% by 2030 on 2005 levels, and is on track to achieve a reduction of up to 35% on 2005 levels by 2030.
The two prime ministers “agreed to continue to work together to reach net zero by 2050 and agreed to accelerate the development of technologies essential for reaching this goal through our Clean Technology Partnership, and with other countries through the Glasgow Breakthroughs, Mission Innovation and the Clean Energy Ministerial”.
Australia is hosting an Indo-Pacific Clean Energy Supply Chain Forum in mid-2022.
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'Grave concerns’ over China human rights violations
Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison’s statement included some criticism of China.
The two leaders “expressed grave concerns about credible reports of human rights violations in Xinjiang, and called on China to protect the rights, freedoms and high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong enshrined in the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the Basic Law”.
Johnson and Morrison “underscored the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and expressed support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organisations, as a member where statehood is not a prerequisite and as an observer or guest where it is”.
They also said countries should be able to exercise their maritime rights and freedoms in the South China Sea consistent with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and “reiterated their strong opposition to any unilateral actions that could escalate tensions and undermine regional stability and the international rules-based order, including militarisation, coercion, and intimidation”.
On Myanmar, Johnson and Morrison voiced “grave concerns” about the situation after last year’s military coup and “called for the immediate cessation of violence against civilian populations, the release of all those arbitrarily detained, including Australian Professor Sean Turnell, and unhindered humanitarian access”.
Updated
Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison also argued that, since the announcement of Aukus in September, “all three partners have made significant progress in their collective endeavour to provide the Royal Australian Navy with a conventional-armed nuclear-powered submarine capability at the earliest possible date”.
The joint statement of their phone call says Johnson and Morrison welcomed the entry into force earlier this month of an information-exchange agreement that paves the way for the three countries to discuss the matter in more detail.
There’s an attempt to reassure others about nuclear non-proliferation (an issue criticised by China, and known to have been of concern to regional partners like Indonesia):
The agreement demonstrates the commitment of the three Aukus partners to operating according to the highest standards of nuclear stewardship, in line with their long-standing global leadership on non-proliferation.
Johnson and Morrison also “welcomed the presence in Australia of UK and US officials to provide expert advice on the many facets of nuclear stewardship needed to operate a nuclear powered submarine capability”.
They said they were also making “significant progress” on collaboration on other advanced capabilities. Officials from Australia, the US and the UK are meeting this week in London to discuss cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and additional undersea capabilities:
The prime ministers expressed their determination to continue to work closely together, in lockstep with president Biden, to make Aukus a success, and looked forward to the next set of trilateral discussions at the end of the month in Australia.
“Tax cuts planned to take effect in 2024-25 are highly regressive and would pay male beneficiaries twice as much as women.”
Peter Hannam reports:
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Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison “discussed their countries’ shared commitment to promoting peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific”, according to the joint statement of their call.
They agreed that, together with partners, they would “ensure a free, open, inclusive and prosperous region”.
he statement said the UK had committed £25m to strengthen regional resilience in areas including cyberspace, state threats and maritime security.
On trade, Johnson and Morrison said they were committed to the UK/Australia free trade agreement “entering into force as soon as possible so our exporters, producers, workers, businesses and consumers can enjoy the benefits of this gold standard deal”.
There is no mention in the joint statement about concerns of Australian wine exporters that their gains will be eroded by the UK’s tax plans.
The leaders discussed critical minerals and “confirmed their commitment to a free, fair, inclusive and rules-based trade and investment environment and opposed the use of economic coercion” - without mentioning China by name.
The statement welcomed progress in the UK joining the CPTPP regional trade pact. On security and defence, Johnson and Morrison “committed to build societal awareness and resilience to foreign interference and strengthen our collective toolkits to detect, disrupt and deter current and future hostile activity by state actors, including the use of misinformation and disinformation”.
Scott Morrison's call with Boris Johnson
Prime minister Scott Morrison has spoken with his British counterpart, Boris Johnson, this morning.
In a joint statement issued afterwards, they said they had “reaffirmed the unique relationship between Australia and the United Kingdom, built on shared values and common interests, and sustained by the deep bonds between our peoples”.
(It doesn’t sound like that would be put at risk dependent on the outcome of the Australian election, but I digress.)
The statement says the two leaders “reiterated their commitment to support a rules-based international order free from coercion, where the sovereign rights of all nations are respected and disputes are settled peacefully and in accordance with international law”.
Here is the passage of the joint Morrison/Johnson statement regarding Russia:
The prime ministers discussed the concerning situation on Ukraine’s border. They emphasised their unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders.
They agreed the need for de-escalation and underscored that any further Russian incursion in Ukraine would be a massive strategic mistake and have a stark humanitarian cost.
We’ll have more details of this call shortly.
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Some fireworks at Senate estimates:
South Australian senator Rex Patrick is unimpressed with defence officials answering questions about the future frigates program. He says:
Please don’t try and snow job us.
Patrick disputes previous evidence given to the committee about a lack of weight problems with the ships and says:
That tells me you lied to this committee.
The chair, Eric Abetz, calls for a withdrawal of the lie claim.
Patrick is undeterred:
I’m considering a privileges committee referral … I’m not going to withdraw that and I’m happy to substantiate it.
Abetz says in that case, he will hand questions over to Kimberley Kitching.
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Defence is up at estimates today, beginning with a focus on the $45.5bn future frigates project.
Sheryl Lutz of the Department of Defence says the first ship is expected to be delivered in 2031 and the final ship in 2044. Ships are usually operational one to two years after delivery.
Labor is asking questions about a report suggesting the program was complex, changing and uncertain. The Australian newspaper reported a Defence “Engineering Team Assessment” of the frigates program, undertaken last November, raised problems with the “immature” British design. The government’s contract is with shipbuilder BAE Systems.
Lutz says: “All changes are being tracked very closely.”
Labor’s Kimberley Kitching asks whether there are any problems managing the design changes.
Lutz: “There’s a defined process.”
The departmental official notes “there are a whole lot of ‘what ifs?’” but says that’s what the experts are required to do, so all issues can be managed.
Is the weight a problem? “That is now under control.”
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More than a quarter of all primary healthcare nurses – nurses who work outside hospitals, including in aged care – say they are planning to leave their job, according to new national data.
As a result, Australia is at risk of not having enough suitably trained primary healthcare nurses to staff aged care homes, general practices and other primary healthcare settings in coming years, the Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association says.
The survey of 1,061 primary health care nurses by Apna found:
- More than four in five (80.4%) primary healthcare nurses said they felt exhausted at work
- More than four in five (86.7%) primary healthcare nurses said they felt stressed at work
- More than three-quarters (78.8%) of primary healthcare nurses said they felt burnt out at work
- Nearly three-quarters (72.9%) of primary healthcare nurses said they worked too much
- More than three-quarters (76.4%) of primary healthcare nurses said they worked overtime
- More than one in four (28.73%) primary healthcare nurses are planning to leave their job within the next two to five years.
Apna president Karen Booth said while health authorities had recruited extra staff and provided extra resources to help with hospital admissions, they had forgotten the primary healthcare sector:
Primary health care nurses work in general practice, in our schools, in community or correctional health, in rural and remote areas without a hospital, and in the resource-stretched aged care sector.
The latest moves to bring forward booster shots and end Covid restrictions were the final straw. This has severely impacted the primary health care nurse workforce, with thousands of sick nurses furloughing, leaving an intolerable workload on those nurses who remain.
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Victoria reports nine Covid deaths and 8,501 new cases
Nine people with Covid have died in Victoria, and 401 people have been hospitalised; 78 are in intensive care. The state recorded 8,501 new cases.
We thank everyone who got vaccinated and tested yesterday.
— VicGovDH (@VicGovDH) February 16, 2022
Our thoughts are with those in hospital, and the families of people who have lost their lives.
More data soon: https://t.co/eUcG50Y3T0#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/yGZincHB9g
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NSW reports 14 Covid deaths and 9,995 new cases
Fourteen people with Covid have died in New South Wales. In the past 24 hours there were also 1,447 hospitalisations, with 92 people in intensive care. The state has recorded 9,995 new Covid cases.
NSW COVID-19 update – Thursday 17 February 2022
— NSW Health (@NSWHealth) February 16, 2022
In the 24-hour reporting period to 4pm yesterday:
- 95.6% of people aged 16+ have had one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine
- 94.2% of people aged 16+ have had two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine pic.twitter.com/ebUCsrw4Lp
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Australia’s largest coal-fired power plant to close seven years earlier than planned
Australia’s largest coal-fired power plant, Eraring power station in New South Wales, will close in 2025 – seven years earlier than scheduled, Origin Energy has announced.
The company has given regulators the required three-and-a-half-year notification period that it plans to shut the giant black coal generator.
It said the decision reflected “the rapidly changing conditions in the national electricity market, which are increasingly not well suited to traditional baseload power stations”.
It follows the rapid rise of solar and wind power. Renewable energy now provides more than 30% of the electricity in the national grid and is forecast to reach more than two-thirds of all power – at a minimum – by 2030.
The announcement follows AGL last week saying it would bring forward the closure dates for the Bayswater coal generator in NSW and Loy Yang A in Victoria.
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Here’s the latest from that Little Bay shark attack:
Speaking of not being politicised ... here’s Amanda Meade on ABC managing director David Anderson’s new book:
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I mentioned that character test legislation earlier – proper name and link here: migration amendment (strengthening the character test) bill 2021).
Paul Karp has set out here what it is, the concerns Labor has, and what it has to do with the punting of Novak Djokovic:
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Former Asio boss Dennis Richardson has also been on ABC television this morning. He said:
Seeking to create the perception of a difference, when none in practice exists, for straight-out party political purposes is something that we have not seen an Australian government do for decades, and it does not serve the national interest by any objective standard.
It in effect only serves the interests of one country and that is China ... the national interest is served by our body politic having a unified position on an issue as critical as China.
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Want to catch up on the anti-corruption bill? Sarah Martin has the latest here on both the government’s proposed legislation (or “exposure draft”) and independent MP Helen Haines’ version:
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For some more context around those comments from Dennis Richardson, here’s Katharine Murphy and Daniel Hurst’s piece on current Asio boss Mike Burgess warning about the politicisation of intelligence. Burgess (unusually) spoke up again last night on 7.30, saying Asio is apolitical and it’s “not helpful” when politicians politicise its work:
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Former Asio boss warns of 'artificial division' on China
Former Asio boss Dennis Richardson says there’s an attempt to create an “artificial division” on China.
Richardson tells ABC radio it’s been well known for many years that China seeks to intervene in politics in Australia, and that the government and the opposition have long stood together:
Up till now they have been, that’s why I find it puzzling that a government would appear to go out of its way to ... create the impression of a difference where none exists. And the government is quite happy for you and I to be talking about this right now. It suits their political purposes.
China will seek to use this division against the national interest, Richardson says. It’s “dangerous” and “best avoided” and it has been decades since a government has done this.
He expects the government will keep doing this, then “pick up the pieces and put it back together after the election”.
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Kristina Keneally is asked why Labor waved through the character test legislation, which will make it easier for the government to deport people.
She says Labors want to “fix” that bill, and that it’s not clear at this point what powers it gives the government that it doesn’t already have:
It would have some unintended consequences on particularly our relationship with New Zealand, but also in relationship to individuals potentially who’ve been living in the country quite peacefully and successfully for decades.
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Prime minister Scott Morrison should “think carefully about this risky rhetoric he is running”, shadow home affairs minister Kristina Keneally says.
The federal government has pledged to keep hammering Labor over China, despite intelligence officials warning against the tactic.
On ABC radio, Keneally says officials also warn that Beijing benefits from the perceived division, and that foreign affairs minister Marise Payne has said bipartisanship is an asset to the country. She says:
This is a desperate act from a desperate prime minister who is seeking to use national security in a domestic political context. And that has been called out by the Asio director general [Mike Burgess] when he said the politicisation of these issues makes his job harder, not easier.
Updated
Good morning
It’s the last sitting day of the week until the end of March, and the all-important pre-election budget.
Debate will continue over the character test legislation – although there are now doubts it will pass before the election, with the government and the opposition at odds over potential amendments. Labor waved it through the house on Wednesday but is likely to push for changes in the Senate.
There’s also a firearms trafficking bill that the government will use to prove its “tough” credentials.
Scott Morrison has vowed to keep hammering Labor over national security – despite security chiefs warning against the tactic. The prime minister has been going hard on Labor over China, accusing it of being soft. But even foreign affairs minister Marise Payne agrees there’s bipartisanship on the issue and Asio boss Mike Burgess has said – more than once – that it’s not helpful to politicise national security.
And while it’s deeply unlikely any federal anti-corruption legislation will make it to the table, that won’t stop it being discussed.
Senate estimates, the so-called “nerd Olympics”, also rolls on.
Sydney beaches are closed after a fatal shark attack, which is tragic (and the stuff of nightmares).
United Australia Party boss Clive Palmer, who had to pay damages over his unauthorised use of Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Gonna Take It in 2019, is now bankrolling ads with the tagline “Tell them they’re dreaming”. Fans of The Castle will be digging a hole.
Katharine Murphy, Sarah Martin, Daniel Hurst, Paul Karp, Josh Butler and Mike Bowers will bring you all the news from Canberra. Our crack team across the country have got you covered elsewhere.
How’s the serenity?
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