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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Nino Bucci and Amy Remeikis (earlier)

Victoria restrictions to ease in September; QLD and SA on alert after NSW truck drivers test positive – as it happened

That's it for today, thanks for reading

Here are the main stories on Wednesday, 1 September:

Updated

This is an interesting piece about how youth radio station Triple J copped it the past day or so for a tweet some people found “ageist”:

Oh how cute*, a new variant named Mu!

*kill it

The Victorian government is making the NSW border bubble even smaller, removing six Victorian local government areas and two in NSW from the list of those who can apply for permits for cross-border travel:

Updated

On the 70th anniversary of the Anzus treaty, Scott Morrison would have hoped he’d be in the United States, marking the occasion on the south lawn at the White House, or that Joe Biden would have been in Australia on his first presidential visit, concealing jet lag behind his signature Ray-Bans.

Instead, the milestone was Covid-safe. Biden’s anniversary reflections travelled to Australia on the social media accounts of the state department, and the prime minister found himself behind perspex in the parliament on the first day of spring, reading his carefully turned anniversary reflections into the Hansard, while his wing man, the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, advised the Speaker he wasn’t that smart and opined that “your heart is where your legs are”.

Full column:

A little post to catch you all up on the Covid situation in New South Wales and Victoria, but also nationally:

In late July, as soon as Emma McKeon won the first of her four gold medals at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, she was guaranteed a $20,000 bonus. Last week, when another Australian swimmer, Lakeisha Patterson, did the same thing at the same venue, she received nothing. The difference? One was competing at an Olympic Games, and the other a Paralympics.

Full story:

Updated

Senate committee calls for greater protections for temporary visa holders

MPs are urging the federal government to urgently address the widespread exploitation of temporary visa holders by banning employers that breach workplace laws, beefing up the powers of regulators, and better educating vulnerable migrants about their legal rights.

A cross-party Senate committee that has been examining the impact temporary migration has on the Australian economy, social cohesion and workplace rights, has made 40 recommendations to overhaul the current system as part of a “comprehensive review” of Australia’s visa system.

The committee has just tabled its report in the Senate.

Labor chair of the committee, Senator Raff Ciccone, said over the past 18 months the committee had heard of “a broken system that is failing to deliver for those that need it to”.

“Over the course of the past two years we’ve heard of temporary visa worker exploitation, wage theft, physical abuse and sexual harassment,” Ciccone said.

“We’ve heard of visa assessment times stretching into not just the months, but the years. Of a systemic lack of communication from the Department of Home Affairs with visa applicants.”

Committee chair Raff Ciccone.
Senator Raff Ciccone. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Given ongoing concerns about exploitation of temporary workers, the committee suggests visa holders are better informed of their workplace rights to ensure they have a “thorough understanding” of these rights.

“The committee recommends that the Australian Government develop a comprehensive worker rights education plan to ensure that temporary visa holders are given information about their work rights in an appropriate language and format,” the report says.

It highlights particular concern about the risks woman on temporary visas face, recommending that there be an expansion of in-language support for migrant workers on temporary visas and “readily available information on migration and family law in easy English and a range of languages”.

It also recommends that unions be authorised to conduct audits and checks on businesses suspected of exploiting workers or the payslips of potentially impacted workers, and proposes more funding and a reorganisation of the Fair Work Ombudsman.

This would allow it to have a “greater capacity to investigate breaches of Australia’s industrial relations laws” in partnership with registered organisations and to prosecute offenders.

Employers that have been found to have breached workplace laws when employing vulnerable temporary visa holders should also be banned from taking on more workers through the scheme, the report says.

The committee found that an “artificially low” income threshold that applies to temporary workers is undermining the attractiveness of employing Australians over temporary visa workers, and recommends it should be increased, and then indexed. It has been frozen since 2013, when the Coalition formed government.

Employees engaged by labour hire firms – a common practice in the industry – should also be subject to the same wages and conditions as other employees on the sites where they are engaged.

To try to facilitate claims against unscrupulous employers, the committee suggests a “formal and legally binding firewall” be established between the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Department of Home Affairs to protect whistle-blowers and temporary visa holders that report exploitation.

Updated

More news on the drug ivermectin, and those tricksters who use it for Covid:

At least this Labrador is having a good day.

Updated

Labor has asked the federal government to consider removing Warren Mundine from the SBS board after he called the journalist Ben Eltham a “cunt” on Twitter.

The SBS board asked Mundine to delete the tweet, which was posted on Tuesday in response to Eltham tweeting what he claimed was the mobile phone number of the MP Craig Kelly, and Mundine did so. SBS said Mundine’s tweet was in breach of the board’s code of conduct and did not align with the broadcaster’s values.

Here’s our full story:

Updated

Thank you Amy Remeikis, who has once again proven she truly belongs in the pantheon of live bloggers.

The parliament is winding down – but there is one day left before the six-week break and given how tempers are already fraying, you should probably prepare for it to be a mess.

Before I hand over to the wonderful Nino Bucci to take you through the evening, I wanted to say a very big thank you to all our readers. I know I keep saying this, but the knocks keep coming. And they are piling on when you are already stressed, or exhausted, or at the end of your capacity. My oma used to say we are all just like cups filling with drips of water when we are under pressure, and you never know what drip is going to be the one which causes your cup to overflow.

There have been a lot of those drips lately. For those in lockdown particularly, but also for those missing loved ones, missing key support networks, missing freedom and missing making plans. Not being able to plan is demoralising. And we all know we are in for another rough month or two before anything starts to become clear and sometimes seeing the light is ahead makes getting through it all even worse.

So take care of yourself. You’re not alone in feeling over absolutely everything. That doesn’t make it easier, I know. But there are people who get it. And if you can, if you have the space, make sure you see if those around you are doing OK. It doesn’t have to be an “are you ok?”. Because we know the answer. But a “this is pretty shit, thinking of you” can work wonders at times.

We’ll be back with Politics Live tomorrow. In the meantime, Nino has you in very good hands. Please – take care of you.

Updated

Queensland has updated its exposure site list after a Covid-positive truck driver passed through parts of the state. You can find the list here.

Updated

Josh Frydenberg also walks back Karen Andrews comments from a little earlier that it is the “view of the federal government that Queensland should be open”.

Frydenberg tells Afternoon Briefing it’s the view of the federal government that premiers should stick to the national plan. Asked if he thinks Queensland should open its border to NSW or Vic when there are such high case numbers, he says:

Decisions should be based on the medical advice at the time but the view expressed very explicitly in the Doherty Institute modelling is that the country can open up when it [reaches] double dose vaccination rates of 70 to 80% in individual jurisdictions as well as the 70% to 80% across the nation as a whole and this is the key point, Patricia.

The country needs to learn to live with Covid. And the admission and acknowledgement in Victoria today is very significant. Patrick McGorry, former Australian of the year and psychiatrist says it is a game-changer because it means that the government that the state level are recognising they cannot eliminate the virus.

They can suppress it and buy time, but they cannot eliminate it and Queensland and Western Australia also need that mentality to know that they cannot keep Covid out indefinitely.

Updated

Josh Frydenberg won't confirm ongoing support for future lockdowns

The treasurer is pushed by Patricia Karvelas into explaining why he won’t say whether or not the federal government will provide financial support for any future lockdowns. The national plan includes targeted lockdowns, in areas where test, trace, isolate, quarantine systems fail. So will those people, who may find themselves locked down in the future if TTIQ fails – which is in the national plan – receive financial support?

Frydenberg wont say because (and this is a throwback to just before lockdown five in Victoria) he does not want to “incentivise” the states to lockdown:

We have supported people right throughout the pandemic and of course our focus is ensuring that they can get back their lives in a Covid-safe way.

I’m not about to incentivise state premiers or chief ministers to go and have lockdowns.

What I want to do is focus on getting out of the lockdowns which means getting vaccination rates up but holding the states and territories to account for the agreement they have reached at national cabinet, and that’s the key point.

Today we have seen 80 of our largest business organisations around the country employing a million people, go out publicly and call upon federal, state and territory governments to actually stick to the plan. And that is critical. We have to stick to the plan. Why? Because people need hope. Why? Because people need certainty to plan.

Our agency and economic support has seen debt burden rise rapidly and we have committed more than $300bn in health and economic support, a lot more than what the states and territories ever committed to, and that is effectively borrowing from future generations, so I will be prudent.

I will focus on the situation at hand and we will make decisions based on those circumstances when they arrive.

Updated

We’ve spoken a bit about different experiences shaping different viewpoints – for example, not just assuming everyone has a family doctor, or even access to regular healthcare.

Different experiences also shape reporting. Here is SBS’s Rashida Yosufzai detailing her own life experience, and how that has impacted her, as she is watching what is happening in Afghanistan as a journalist – but also a human with the most personal of connections to the nation:

Updated

There wasn’t a big update on the Parklea prison Covid outbreak today (or any prison updates) but it is worrying for a lot of people.

The CEO of Jesuit Social Services Julie Edwards had a bit to say – the JSS wants more done to protect vulnerable prisoners:

We call on the NSW Government to immediately find alternatives to prison, both in the community and in supported accommodation, for vulnerable groups including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people with disabilities and the elderly.

Men and women exiting the prison system, who Jesuit Social Services works with every day, often report personal experience of complex health issues including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. These marginalised people are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 – and at the same time prisons are not environments that are generally conducive to the type of important health measures to prevent the spread.

Updated

The two sides of the national plan debate, represented by Tim Wilson and Anne Aly:

Wilson: (on Afternoon Briefing)

If everybody thinks some of these states will be able to keep Covid-19 and its variants out of their jurisdiction forever, then they have taken departure from reality.

This isn’t because any others want to live with it, it is just a reality that you can’t give a virus out forever. We don’t keep the flu out every season.

If we could, we would, but we recognise there are significant consequences from the decisions we made, the obligations required, and of course we can buy ourselves time, which is what Australia’s has pursued.

It is buying ourselves time to get the population vaccinated, build up the health system to respond, but I don’t think anybody, if they were being honest and mature or, as you put it, real with the public that they can live free of the virus forever.

Aly: (also on Afternoon Briefing)

It is great to come to talk to you from my cave in WA. Nobody wants to be in lockdown forever. And Labor, [knows] the national plan is based on modelling that makes a number of assumptions, including assumptions about the number of community cases of Covid before we get to a certain level of vaccinations, and whether or not it is safe to open up at that level of vaccination.

... I think those people need to be prepared for the consequences of what that means to accept Covid in the community. I have one son who lives in Melbourne, one in Sydney. Yes, I would love to see them, I would love to be able to hold them and give them a hug, celebrate their birthdays. I have one who is planning to get married next March. I hope I am able to celebrate with him. But, I am not prepared to put my elderly mother or put anybody’s elderly parent at risk in order to do that.

Updated

Remember the aged care royal commission report?

Rex Patrick does. He just wants to see some of its recommendations implemented sooner. So he introduced a bill in the Senate to mandate aged care facilities to have at least one registered nurse present at all times. (That is planned to occur from July 2024 at the moment)

From his statement:

Currently in Australia, there is no nationwide requirement for nursing homes to have a registered nurse on duty at all times.

I’m concerned aged care residents are not getting the care they need, and the care is varied depending on where they are located across Australia. The inconsistent approach leads to variations in the level of care and quality provided to residents. Proper care for our elderly is critical and it requires aged care homes to have registered nurses on site at all times.

Updated

The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi introduced a bill to the Senate to ban the export of greyhounds from Australian for commercial purposes – which would include breeding and racing.

Between 2016 and 2021, we exported 1,313 greyhounds from Australia. We don’t always think about where they are going.

In her statement Faruqi said:

A ban on commercial greyhound export is long overdue.

Greyhounds from Australia are routinely being sent overseas to race, and often end up in countries where there isn’t a semblance of animal welfare protection for these poor dogs.

Greyhound export might make a buck for the industry in Australia, but the welfare of the dogs is routinely sacrificed at the altar of profitability and gambling revenue.

This is a simple reform and an important one. It will put a stop to a completely inhumane practice that has caused far too much suffering for far too many dogs. I hope other politicians can support this important step for animal welfare.

Updated

I know it doesn’t feel like it, but things also happened in the parliament today. Let’s take a quick look

Jim Chalmers is seemingly trying out Labor’s new line against the Coalition that Australians are “paying the price” for the federal government’s pandemic missteps:

We said that consistently and the most important part of the national plan is fixing the mess that the prime minister has made of vaccines. Australians are paying the price for his mistakes. We saw that in the national accounts today and we will see yet more prominently in September that will come through in December

... The reason they are closed and we are having these outbreaks and these lockdowns is because the prime minister didn’t do his job on vaccines and quarantine. Let’s focus on the real problem here, which is the prime minister’s failures. Let’s fix that up. We’ve made some constructive suggestions about vaccine incentives and trying to be helpful because there are industries in parts of Australia doing especially tough as a consequence of the prime minister’s incompetence.

Updated

Jim Chalmers continues on that theme, after being asked about Victoria now admitting it can’t beat Delta:

It is new territory and that has been a feature all along and there has been some sense of uncertainty and unpredictability but one of the things we now have to be certain of, one of the things that has been entirely predictable is that the economics is a direct consequence of the government inability to get the vaccine rollout right and to some extent the failure to do purpose-built quarantining.

Some of the other things that have been missing and when you think about the slowing economy and shrinking economy in the September quarter, this is the price people are paying when it comes to Scott Morrison and his government when it comes to vaccines and quarantining until we fix that, we will continue to have lockdowns and we will continue to have the social dislocation and the economic carnage we have seen in the last year especially.

Jim Chalmers is on Afternoon Briefing where he is asked about the national accounts (Australia’s economy grew by 0.7%)

The economy was slowing in the data that we received today but we know that the economy is actually is shrinking this quarter and we got the numbers today for the June quarter and we know the economy was slow.

It is now shrinking in this quarter and it’s important to get that perspective and the economy is growing more slowly than the US, UK, OECD average and that’s another important piece of perspective but the other important thing is that for Australians doing it especially tough, particularly but not just in lockdown communities, I think the digits in the decimal places on these quarterly numbers are not the most important thing.

I think for many Australians it already feels like they are in recession and they are who we should focus on.

Updated

I also hear it makes you about 72% more attractive. I don’t make the rules.

20 exposure sites in South Australia

South Australian authorities have updated the exposure site list for the state, after confirming a fifth Covid-positive truck driver has passed through the state over the past six days. Areas include Nundroo and Ceduna in the west, to Port Augusta, Port Wakefield, Adelaide and Tailem Bend.

The exposure sites list has been updated here.

Queensland has also reported a Covid-positive truck driver had entered from NSW.

There is no evidence of any community transmission (as yet).

Updated

'The federal government is of the view that Queensland should be open'

Scott Morrison said yesterday that each state was at a different point. Karen Andrews now says ‘the federal government is of the view Queensland should be open’.

Queensland doesn’t have any restrictions (at the moment) so open to what is unclear – I can’t see anyone opening to NSW or Victoria at the moment. And Morrison has been trying very hard not to pick a fight with either Queensland or WA (or any of the lockout states) because well, he needs them for the coming election.

Andrews:

It is difficult to understand what the Queensland premier is trying to achieve. We have had a range of statements from her over the last couple of days, if not weeks, if not months, that quite frankly have not made a lot of sense. The Queensland premier is quite clearly doubling down on her ‘let’s keep Queensland closed’ and the federal government is of the view that Queensland should be open.

Updated

How is a number a security risk?

Karen Andrews:

Because we are not prepared to give any details that would potentially lead to a security issue for those individuals. We know that the Taliban and others are very focused on how many Westerners are in Afghanistan at the moment and we are not prepared to feed into that.

Quite frankly, what we need to be focused on, and what we are focused on as a government, is doing all that we can to support those people who are there to give their loved ones in Australia for those that have them, the support that they need to manage the situation as best that we can.

There is no easy route out of Afghanistan at the moment. I have spoken previously about the opportunity for commercial flights to start. We don’t have a time for that at this point in time. We are working with our allies, we are working on the ground with a number of different agencies to look at opportunities for people to exit Afghanistan as and when they can.

Updated

How many people with Australian visas did we leave behind in Afghanistan?

Karen Andrews:

I am not going to give the details in relation to those people for a whole range of issues, including the security of those individuals.

It would be very unwise for us to be talking about the numbers that are currently there, but I can say that that number is also increasing on a daily basis as people are coming forward and identifying to our officials either on the ground in Dubai that they have family members that are looking to come to Australia or they are identifying to home affairs or Dfat in Australia that they are wishing to come to Australia.

So that number is increasing. We are looking at what the opportunities are to allow people to come here through our humanitarian program.

Of course those people who are Australian citizens seeking to come here, we will do whatever we can to support them. I think it is important that we understand that the environment in Afghanistan remains critical. The terrorist threat is alarmingly high and there are threatened attacks.

So we are aware of that diabolical situation in which people are remaining at the moment. We are doing all that we can to provide a level of support to those people and we will assist them as and when we can.

Updated

Q: Can you confirm there is another flight arriving in Darwin this evening? How many people are aboard that and what is the breakup of Afghan [visas]?

Karen Andrews:

There are flights coming in on a daily basis now into various airports across Australia. We are looking at how we are reconciling the status of those individuals coming in, in terms of the visa classification, the subclass that those individuals might have, the Australian residents.

We are working through that process and finalising details as we go. But what we should all be very proud of is that Australia uplifted 4,100 people out of Afghanistan and those people are now safe either in Dubai or are on their way here to Australia or are in Australia.

Q: How many people in Afghanistan with valid Australian visas have been in contact with the Australian government to say they weren’t able to make it out in time?

Andrews:

We are on a daily basis receiving further applications from people who wish to come here to Australia. I’m not going to give a figure, simply because that is changing on a daily basis.

Updated

Queensland is taking quite a few Afghan refugees though.

Karen Andrews won’t go into the visas she is issuing.

Q: How many unaccompanied children, children without their parents, are currently quarantining in Australia or on their way in from Afghanistan?

Andrews:

That number is actually varying at the moment. It is less than 10 are here at the moment. We all witnessed the scenes in Afghanistan where people were – adults were passing their children through the gates. There are some unaccompanied minors here in Australia at the moment who are being well cared for. We will continue to do that and then there will be others that come into our country over the coming days as well.

Updated

Karen Andrews is holding a doorstop interview where she deploys the grati-sult – thanking Annastacia Palaszczuk for opening up hotel quarantine for 50 families, while also slamming Palaszczuk for the NRL family decision:

This is great news that the premier has started listening to Queensland who were rightly outraged when NRL players and their wives were flown into Queensland at the same time that Queenslanders were locked out of their own state.

Queenslanders are very concerned at the premier’s hypocrisy. On one hand she has said that quarantine in hotels does not work.

And yet she allows a planeload of people to come in – NRL players and wives – to come in from Sydney, the hottest of the hotspots in Australia and to go into hotel quarantine in Queensland, while at the same time making it clear that she will not allow people to cross the Queensland border even if they live in Queensland.

Updated

Australia Post has sent in a statement on parcel deliveries in locked down areas:

Due to the ongoing impacts of Covid in NSW, ACT and Vic we are temporarily pausing Parcel Post collections for eCommerce retailers in those jurisdictions from 7am Saturday 4 September until 7am Tuesday 7 September, to help manage the record volumes in parts of our network and return them to a safe and manageable level.

Australia Post currently has 500 people in necessary self-isolation, placing increased pressure on our network, while we also manage flight restrictions, temporary facility closures, and parcel volumes as high as our Christmas peak period.

Deliveries will continue across the weekend, post offices will remain open as usual, and parcel processing continues, as our people deliver record amounts of parcels to Australians. Similarly, services provided for Express Post, Premium, Startrack Express and letters remain unchanged across our network. Lodgements at post offices and standard post boxes will also continue to be collected and collections in all other states remain the same.

We sincerely apologise to our customers for the inconvenience.

Updated

Here is how Mike Bowers saw question time:

The Prime Minister Scott Morrison talks to the speaker Tony Smith during question time
Prime minister Scott Morrison talks to Speaker Tony Smith during question time. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Tfw a joke you made about having false teeth becomes part of your parliamentary record:

The Minister for Defence Industry Melissa Price
Minister for defence industry Melissa Price. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Peter Dutton played peek-a-boo:

Defence Minister Peter Dutton
Defence minister Peter Dutton ... Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
proves he can still smile
... proves he can still smile. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

Choice has published a sign-up sheet for an open letter calling on the federal agriculture minister, David Littleproud, to introduce mandatory standards for pet food in Australia, after dozens of dogs in Victoria died after eating toxic meat. The meat, sold through the Maffra knackery in Victoria, came from horses from the Northern Territory which had eaten indigofera plants, which contains the deadly indospicine toxin. The knackery said it was not aware the meat was contaminated and posted a recall. A Senate inquiry in 2018, after another series of dog deaths linked to the megaoesophagus condition, recommended the pet food industry be subject to mandatory standards. But those recommendations have not been adopted.

Updated

Well. That has certainly been a whirlwind five or so hours.

Take a moment to catch your breathe. I’m going to have a read over everything and see what I might have missed while I was focused on all those press conferences and I will be right back with you.

Updated

Question time ends.

One more left for the week and then there is a six-week break.

Updated

Scott Morrison includes this in an answer:

When you talk about young children ... the opportunity for them to sit with a local GP who has helped them with every other sneeze and sniffle, or even more serious things over time, to be able to see a face they know to get that injection and have that assurance from a health professional is extremely important and I want to thank GPs as they go about the job of vaccinating our children

Which is great, if you have a family doctor. A lot of people don’t. A lot of people rely on bulk billing centres where they see whomever is available.

There is a lot of privilege being assumed at times in the vaccine discussions. Not everyone has their own doctor. That needs to be remembered too.

Nicolle Flint asks if she can asks the dixer Jason Falinski was supposed to ask, but can’t, because of technological issues with his virtual link.

She can. And does. So the member for Boothby asks a question on behalf of the constituents of the member for Mackellar.

Just another example of just how completely ridiculous dixers are.

If you haven’t received a package, it might be because there is a bit of a backlog in the locked down states.

Updated

Tony Zappia to Scott Morrison:

My question is to the prime minister. Yesterday the prime minister said, ultimately everything is a matter for the states. Was it the states or the prime minister who said the vaccination program was not a race?

Peter Dutton is on his feet:

The prime minister made clear the statement made as a preamble to that question is not accurate, it related to a response the prime minister gave when asked about the closure of state borders. It has been repeated since the prime minister has raised this, and, it is very clear, this misleading statement regardless of how it is repeated is factually not correct, and it should not be allowed.

I’m sorry. I’m just need a moment to go find my eyebrows. I think they might have hit Sarina with how high they just raised, hearing Dutton speak about how factually incorrect statements shouldn’t be allowed. (If someone in north Qld could pop them back in the post for me, that would be great.)

Tony Smith is also not having Dutton’s hubris:

I can’t agree with the Leader of the House, the practice was made very clear, since 1901, it is not for the Speaker to vouch for the accuracy of statements, questions or indeed answers, or indeed answers, which is, if someone claims to have been misrepresented, the standing orders are so organised there is official capacity for them to do that at the end of question time. Or at the end of when a comment is being made. The question is in order.

So Morrison has to answer:

I would encourage the member to go and have a chat to Senator Kitching (sidenote: Tveeder transcribed Kitching as senator Gucci, which for anyone who has seen the House of Gucci preview will find very, very amusing).

Morrison:

The next time they are at caucus, go and have a chat with the senator for Victoria about the progress of the vaccination rollout which she has made very clear is the reason Australia is moving away from lockdowns in this country, and I welcome her acknowledgement of that.

Those here who sit opposite may come in here and seek to undermine that program, they may wish to engage in the usual politicisation of Covid-19 pandemic.

They may wish to choose that they reinforce only one thing to the Australian people, that they are only engaged in negativity, they are only engaged in running down the country, even here yesterday, the leader of the opposition ...

Smith interjects:

The question was asked by the member for Makin. The prime minister needs to be relevant to the question that was asked by the Member, it’s not an opportunity to begin a political debate on yesterday or two days ago.

Morrison:

What I can confirm is as the minister of health and aged care said today, we are likely to go past the milestone of 20 million doses of vaccine being administered around the country. 20 million, Mr Speaker, 20 million doses, and that means almost 60% of the eligible population, aged over 16, will have had – around 60% of them – will have had their first dose in this country.

That’s around 35% have had a second dose, and for those over 50, it is almost now 80% who have had their first dose and 52.9% who have had their second dose and importantly, 87.8% of those aged over 70, the most vulnerable, have had their first dose and 63.8% have had their second dose. And I can update House on my earlier response as further information has been brought to me after my morning briefing this morning, with aged care workers first dose is 82.9% and second dose is 61.3%.

So, the vaccination program is a central part to the government’s national plan, to get Australia beyond these lockdowns which are doing such terrible damage to people in this country, that we need to get past these lockdowns, and the vaccination program is liberating Australians from those lockdowns, which is the objective of the national plan.

Not to keep Australians shut in, not to keep them locked out of states round this country, the national plan is opening up Australia, the national plan is about connecting Australians to other Australians, and connecting the economy to the world. So Australian businesses can continue to go forward and have confidence to invest and employ … (he runs out of time).

Updated

Melissa Price stumbled in a dixer and says:

Excuse me, I will put my teeth back in.

She then adds “not yet” (as in she doesn’t have false teeth yet” but Tony Smith points out that it is too late and “will probably get a run”.

Yes. Yes it will.

Anne Stanley to Scott Morrison:

Yesterday the prime minister said ultimately everything is a state matter. Was it to the states or was it the prime minister who failed to establish a system of safe national quarantine?

Morrison:

Again, Mr Speaker, the question from Labor is misrepresenting the statements of yesterday, Mr Speaker. I made it very clear that the border measures which were put in place by the states related to public health orders and they are key responsibilities of the states, when it comes to people moving from one state to another, so Mr Speaker, I would ask the Labor party cease misrepresenting that*. [This is the same person who won’t stop saying Anthony Albanese wanted to see worse case scenarios with Covid.]

But Mr Speaker, I am asked about the quarantine, and the most important challenge for quarantine right now is to ensure that home quarantine trials are successful, so home quarantine becomes the norm that enables Australians who are overseas to be able to return, that enables Australians who are here now and have been vaccinated, so they can go overseas, Mr Speaker, as they used to, and be able to return in quarantine at home.

... It is so important to enable international travel to start again, and home quarantine, Mr Speaker, is the answer to that.

That is what is set out in the national plan. That is what is agreed and the national plan. That is what is being led by the commonwealth, Mr Speaker, in moving us into a home quarantine phase that will enable Australians to travel again.

It will enable more people to be able to come into the country, be they students or be they skilled workers that are so necessary to Australia’s economic performance, and that they, Mr Speaker, can take advantage of a range of different quarantine arrangements, both commercially provided and otherwise provided, which will enable the national plan to gear up and strengthen our economy into the future.

So Mr Speaker, home quarantine is what is needed*. Home quarantine is what is going to release Australians, out of the lockouts, Mr Speaker, out of the lockdowns, and to ensure that safely, Australia can live with this virus.

I would urge all members of this chamber to support be moved to go now to home quarantine, but will see Australians being able to return home, who are vaccinated, and vaccinated Australians being able to travel again, to be reunited with their families overseas, Mr Speaker.

That is the challenge which is now before us. That is what is set out in the national cabinet plan which was agreed to and that is what I look forward to working with closely, whether it is South Australia whether trial is already under way, whether the trials will be done New South Wales, and I encourage all other states, be it Queensland or Western Australia or Tasmania, Mr Speaker, to get on board with those initiatives.

I know they are watching those trials closely and they will be very enthusiastic about taking it up because the national plan enables Australians to live with the virus and home quarantine enables Australians delivered the virus and connect again with each other and all around the world.

*There will still be a need for dedicated quarantine for workers.

Updated

Scott Morrison also repeats the line of lives saved, using the OECD averages:

More than 30,000 lives have been saved in this country because of the responses that the government, together with our partners around the country, has been putting in place now these many months, more than 18 months, and not just the 30,000 more lives that have been saved, Mr Speaker, but the million jobs, the million Australians who are back in jobs and can look forward to a future with confidence, Mr Speaker, because they have been living in a country whose Covid response has done both of those things. Saving lives and saving livelihoods.

Australia’s vaccination program was delayed. It started in February, but it wasn’t until Delta hit that there was any urgency from the federal government in regards to it. It previously was “not a race”. The mRNA doses which are coming now were scheduled to come – it was part of the original plan. There are still massive failures, particularly for Indigenous communities, which are playing out before our eyes in real time.

Updated

Scott Morrison is now claiming credit for saving “hundreds and hundreds and hundreds” of lives in aged care centres.

We have continued to work on what is a very difficult program in that sector, but we do know the decision taken by our government to ensure that we focus first and absolutely on getting to every single residential aged care facility in this country … has saved hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of lives, Mr Speaker, and that is ultimately the outcome this is all about.

The vaccination program in aged care homes was delayed. Hundreds died in aged care homes in 2020.

And there still needed to be a massive push, which needed the states to get involved, to get aged care workers vaccinated.

Out of all the claims, the aged care vaccinations being a “success” is not one of them. It was forced, because of a complete failure at the beginning.

Updated

Anthony Albanese has had enough and asks Scott Morrison to withdraw his comments:

I’m asking prime minister to withdraw the comment he just made, he has made it repeatedly.

I have now lost seven of my constituents. They have died. No one, no one is Australia is hoping for the worst from this disease because that is the worst, a loss of life.

Tony Smith says the comments are not unparliamentary, so it is up to the prime minister.

He does not withdraw.

Updated

Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:

Yesterday the prime minister said, ultimately everything is a matter for the the states. Was it the prime minister who failed to deliver enough vaccine supply?

Morrison (who gets quite personal and continues on his “Anthony Albanese is negative” theme, which you will see more and more of as the election approaches):

I was asked about state borders when that matter was raised yesterday.

That is a public health, social measure a border closure is done on the basis of a public health order.

That’s exactly what it is, the leader of the opposition might want to freshen up on some of the facts, get across some of these issues if he wants to engage in these snide interjections that are a result of his own lack of knowledge and understanding of the challenges this country faces, what I do know is this, to date, I read that this is a very wide statement made by a member of the Senate, ‘I think we’re getting to the end of the era of lockdowns, partly because we are doing so well on vaccinations’.

Mr Speaker! The Labor senator Kimberley Kitching has had an outbreak of truth in the Labor party.

There has been an outbreak of truth, Mr Speaker, and I think the leader of the opposition is vaccinated against the truth.

There is no shortage of that when it comes to the leader of the opposition. To date, what we do know today, again more than 330,000 vaccine doses administered, right around the country, again.

Today, we will go close and reach the 20m doses that have been administered around the country.

This week, we announced the half a million of additional doses of hope coming for Pfizer with arrangements we put together with the government of Singapore.

The million doses and more we secured in our arrangement with the Polish government, working these issues, ensuring we leave no stone unturned*[because not enough was ordered in the first place] to make sure we can continue to accelerate the vaccination program that has now achieved rates of weekly vaccination, that exceed those, even of the United States and the UK, at their biggest.

Those opposite may want to talk this down, I’m pleased Senator Kitching has decided to take a different approach, they may seek to underline and be negative but the government will continue to deliver for the best of this country and we are not only seeing that with the vaccination program, we see it with the economic supports that has enabled us to bring Australians to what is one of the biggest crises this country has ever seen. We will continue doing that while the opposition will continue to be negative.

Updated

Daniel Hurst just pointed out to me that Peter Dutton appears to be making plans for this government to remain in power “for decades” given this part of his dixer answer:

“And for all of those leaders on both sides of the equation, who have given their commitment to, this compact for 70 years should know, that this government will continue to reinforce and Anzus treaty for many decades to come.”

Updated

Sharon Claydon to Scott Morrison:

Rachel is 24 weeks pregnant and in my electorate, she cannot get an appointment for the vaccine recommended for her until November 2, she is on a waitlist at five GP clinics and was turned away when she tried to get a vaccination at a walk-in clinic.

In Newcastle, another pregnant woman just like Rachel is in intensive care with Covid-19. How can the prime minister leave pregnant women so vulnerable?

Greg Hunt takes this one.

He goes through the advice that pregnant people should be vaccinated, and then he goes through the vaccination options.

We continue to encourage and provide practices to provide priority to pregnant women in line with the advice of Atagi issued on 1 June.

Which is great. Except pregnant people can’t get priority and are waiting for their vaccinations, like anyone else where mRNA vaccines are the only recommended option.

Updated

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has mentioned climate change in a message marking the 70th anniversary of the Anzus treaty – another sign of the emphasis the Biden administration is placing on the issue in the lead-up to the critical climate talks in Glasgow in November.

The US embassy in Canberra has circulated statements from Blinken and the US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, to mark the occasion. The pair is due to host an in-person meeting with Marise Payne and Peter Dutton in Washington DC this month.

In his statement, Blinken said the Anzus treaty was “a long-standing testament to the strength of our partnership” and was “as essential to the safety and prosperity of our countries today as it was 70 years ago”.

“Our alliance is much more than a military pact. It helps underpin the stability of the region and democracy in the Indo-Pacific. It facilitates the movement of goods, services, and investment dollars, as well as ideas, research, technology, and people. It supports our joint efforts to advance human rights, promote the international rules-based order, assist our Pacific neighbors, and cooperate on issues of global concern, such as public health and climate change.”

Blinken said Australia and the US had served side by side in Afghanistan for 20 years. “As President Biden said, ‘We went in together and we’re leaving together, and now we’re working together to bring our people and our Afghan partners to safety.’ We will always be grateful for the help and trust we find in Australia.”

Austin said the United States would never forget that after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Australia invoked, for the first time in its history, the collective defence article of the Anzus Treaty. “Our Australian allies stood by with us to the very end of our presence in Afghanistan and the United States will be forever grateful.”

Both Blinken and Austin said they looked forward to welcoming Payne and Dutton to Washington DC for meetings, including the annual Australia-United States Ministerial (Ausmin) consultations.

Updated

Peter Dutton is taking a dixer on the Anzus relationship.

Updated

Terri Butler asks Scott Morrison this question:

Why didn’t the government put rules in place to require jobkeeper payments to profitable companies with rising revenue be returned to the taxpayer? The government makes welfare recipients and parents that receive the childcare subsidy return excess payments. Why would the same rules not put in place for profitable companies with rising revenue?

Morrison is now giving a running commentary on how amazing jobkeeper was (leaving out that the wage subsidy was originally Labor’s idea). He is very cranky again today. He then moves on to Labor “flip flopping”.

That is what we put in this place, we made that promise, and labour voted for it. Labour voted for it, Mr Speaker. We said we were going to stand by this economy and those businesses and we made that legal. We did that together. Mr Speaker, what I hear from those opposite now is that they want to change the rules afterwards. They want to change the goalposts. They want to shift the mark, Mr Speaker. They want to have it each way, Mr Speaker. They want to support jobkeeper and they want to oppose jobkeeper. This is a constant theme of the leader of the Labour party, Mr Speaker. A constant theme. We made that commitment.

Tony Burke has a point of order:

On direct relevance, the question does not go to the whole of the jobkeeper program. The question, sorry … I’ve got the call for the moment. [Peter Dutton interjected] The question does not go to the whole of the jobkeeper program. The question goes simply to those employers, those companies, but ended up with rising revenue, and turned a profit.

Dutton then gets up:

At some stage I probably should put a question to you about this continual conduct which you have commented on, and I think chastised, both the Leader of the Opposition under the manager of opposition business on a number of occasions, because it is an abuse of the standing orders. And they repeatedly get up and make statements...

Tony Smith cuts Dutton off and tells Morrison to stay relevant.

He does not:

The question put by the Labor member, the question put by the labour member betrays what we have seen from the Labor party in this place.

It betrays, Mr Speaker, because what was essential at that time was that what was committed to was followed through, Mr Speaker. And that is what gave the Australian business community the confidence to keep people on the payroll, to then put a million people back into work, and too insular, Mr Speaker, that under the national accounts, as we have just seen, but Australia’s economy is now bigger at the end of June that it was before we went into the pandemic.

What we have seen, Mr Speaker, and the questions put by the Labor party, is that they will happily change the rules on business, Mr Speaker. They will happily flip it and they cannot be trusted. They cannot be trusted on anything they say.

Morrison’s time is up, but he keeps yelling his answer. “Back in black” someone from Labor yells. Morrison is still going, and Smith repeats his time is up and the House moves on.

Updated

Josh Frydenberg gets a dixer where he is asked to explain something “yet again” to the House.

That’s what press releases are supposed to be for. Not “questions without notice”.

Updated

Adam Bandt to Scott Morrison:

Your job is to keep all people safe, not just some.

But even though you’ve set an 80% vaccination target for adults, there’s no target for children, nor for at-risk communities like First Nations peoples or people with disabilities.

Everywhere from Wilcannia to the United States, we’re seeing the virus rip through at-risk communities.

Prime Minister at national cabinet this Friday, will you ensure the national plan has separate vaccination targets for children, First Nations peoples, people with disabilities and other at-risk groups, so that they’re vaccinated to at least the same levels as the broader population when restrictions are lifted?

Morrison:

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the member for his question and highlighting those very important groups within our community. All of which are encompassed in the national plan.

The member may not be familiar with the details of the national plan, Mr Speaker, and in particular, how it recognises that even within the overall vaccination targets of 70% and 80%, but there is a strong recognition in all the work that has been done going into that plan.

They will need to be careful management around vulnerable communities. Those vulnerable communities are CALD communities, Indigenous communities, a range of many other communities, Mr Speaker, where vaccination levels, for a range of reasons, those who are homeless, Mr Speaker, those who have issues with substance abuse, Mr Speaker.

There are a range of varying groups across the community which will require continued, careful management of our public health.

Now, the chief minister of the ACT has been making this point extremely well, he and I have discussed it on numerous occasions as we have been preparing plans to deal with the pandemic at post 70 and 80% vaccinations will require ongoing and careful public health plan that deals with disadvantaged communities.

Socio-economically disadvantaged communities. We have seen this and how the pandemic has played out not just here in Australia but all around the world, and there will be a very clear and cooperative national strategy that deals with the ongoing public health needs of disadvantaged communities.

But that plan will ensure that the broader community will also be able to go forward, and this is why it is a safe plan.

It is a safe plan that enables the broad spectrum of Australia to move ahead and to avoid these terrible lockdowns that are causing so much pain, and for Australians to move on from that and not live in fear of them either*, but at the same time, ensure that we have very targeted and focused public health responses at a state and federal level, that understands the very serious needs of those communities, be they in remote places, this is a matter of the chief minister of the Northern Territory has consistently raised, and we have worked together with him from the outset, Mr Speaker, working closely with him as we are indeed now, because there is such a disparate, a disparate, Mr Speaker, performance on vaccinations.

That is exactly what the national plan provides for. I am sure the member will be pleased to hear that and if you would like to learn more about it, Mr Speaker, and we would be very happy to ensure he could be provided with further details, if he were so interested.

*This is a new message as part of the national plan and is aimed at the states where lockouts, not lockdowns, have been the norm.

Updated

Dugald Milton Dick asks the current deputy premier why Pauline Hanson announced a government grant, before the government MP had a chance to.

Paul Karp has the story here:

The current deputy prime minister;

I would like to note that of course, we have Labor Party members who lobby us, for grants, especially in regional areas, yes we do. I can give you the letters. It goes very well. And of course we have senators who lobby us.

He then moves on to grants the Coalition MPs have.

He then comes up with this absolute garbled sentence:

I would say quite obviously that is the case that if we have an announcement, in a whole range of people, you know what they say, it is never about, you say about success and failure and the parentage of both, we can tell you that success is driven by government, announcements are driven by government, the government has the expenditure review committee, that approves the money. The government has the cabinet that approves the policy.

He’s still going. I can not.

The current deputy prime minister refers to George Christensen as the “unassuming and quiet member for Dawson”, perhaps proving TCDPM really does live in a completely different reality to the rest of the world.

Stephen Jones to Josh Frydenberg:

The treasurer said that our economy was the head of the pack, but new numbers show it is growing more slowly than the US, UK and the OECD average, and the current quarter has been extremely tough Australians. Was your claim ahead of the pack about as accurate as your claim to be back in black?

Frydenberg:

The reality is, it didn’t contract. The reality is, it didn’t. Reality is, at a 0.7% in the June we saw economic growth that was better than what the market was expecting, Mr Speaker.

He then goes through all the countries who have seen worse outcomes and federal government funding programs.

Updated

Scott Morrison takes a dixer from Andrew Wallace, and thanks him for his “tireless advocacy” on mental health, particularly for young people.

“He has been an extraordinary advocate,” Morrison says.

Wallace’s most recent advocacy compared “children’s fear of climate change with the threat of nuclear annihilation in the 1970s and 80s, and requested full funding for chaplains in every school to help ease concerns”.

Updated

Question time begins

And we are straight into it.

Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:

I refer to threats by the attorney general that states may face high court challenges to force their borders open? Can he confirm he spent $1m in taxpayer money to tear down the West Australian border and some of it went directly to Clive Palmer?

Morrison:

We did not pursue that matter and we are not pursuing those matters.

Labor laughs.

Updated

Question time is in about five minutes or so.

But to be clear – Victoria is no longer going for Covid zero, or thinking it can see case numbers go down. Case numbers in Victoria WILL go UP. There will be a plateau, but the focus now is on suppressing the cases as much as possible, to buy time for people to get vaccinated.

Daniel Andrews says you cannot live with Covid now. The aim is 80% of the adult population double dosed vaccinated.

He says that is the national plan. Because then, once open, it will be about managing the pandemic of the unvaccinated.

“At 80% double-dosed, it is a fair fight,” Andrews says. But the health system won’t cope now.

Updated

To the other state premiers, Josh Frydenberg says:

With respect to the premiers, my message is very clear. Stick to the plan. A plan that you agreed to at national cabinet. A plan that gives Australians hope. A plan that allows businesses to reopen and plan for their own future. A plan that will allow our kids to go back to school.

A plan that will allow us to attend the funerals and weddings of loved ones.

A plan that will allow families to be reunited across state and territory borders. A plan that takes Australia forward to living safely with the virus.

Josh Frydenberg is doing his national accounts presentation, and takes a moment to acknowledge the Victorian position:

I’m confident that now with those 70 to 80% vaccination targets in sight that we’ll see an easing of restrictions, and I welcome the acknowledgement in Victoria today that eliminating the Delta variant is an impossibility.

It cannot be done. No country has done at and based on the best medical advice we have, we can’t do it.

So we have to learn to live with a virus, that means rapidly vaccinating as many people as possible, bringing more supply online and then using those restrictions as we get to those targets.

Updated

Daniel Andrews says specific restrictions for specific LGAs “don’t work”.

“They didn’t work last year, and if they didn’t work last year, they won’t work. And I don’t have advice to do it.”

Is Melbourne under lockdown until at least the end of October?

Daniel Andrews doesn’t say yes, but he says there will be significant restrictions until vaccination rates hit the levels where enough of the population can be protected.

He says the previous aim was to drive down cases, but that won’t be possible, so with the new advice, the aim is to keep cases as low as possible in order to buy time for the vaccinations to take place.

“I want to keep the case rate growing ... as slowly as possible. That won’t be easy, but I think we can do it,” he says.

For those wondering, Andrews also says there is no harder lockdown rule which could achieve any better outcomes.

Updated

Victoria is still waiting on advice about whether or not it will be shortening the gap between AstraZeneca vaccines.

Daniel Andrews says he hopes to be able to say they can halve the interval between the doses.

Daniel Andrews will meet with Scott Morrison (virtually) tonight to discuss vaccine passports and the like – and what life looks like past 70% double dose.

Prof Brett Sutton says that Victoria is on track to reach its double dose 70% vaccinated target by mid-October.

He says “we will see the curve bend on this outbreak” – but that NSW is also showing “what the real world trend is doing, as well as the modelling”.

Updated

Here is the official release:

It wasn’t just the case numbers, Daniel Andrews says, it is also the number of mystery cases.

People are also not getting tested when they have symptoms, and the nature of Covid means people can be infectious before they have symptoms.

Andrews says lockdown fatigue is real, and they recognise it but it is also something they have to deal with here.

He also acknowledges that insecure work plays a role, and that a person may be the only earner for their extended family, and they feel they have to go to work in order to provide for them.

He says human behaviour is “complex” and can’t always be anticipated.

The advice is the numbers will go up. About 30% every 11 or 12 days at the moment. So the challenge is now to keep numbers low, in the circumstances as they are.

Updated

What changed between yesterday’s press conference with Daniel Andrews and today’s?

The advice given to the government last night by the CHO.

Andrews:

The advice that has been provided to us and it was provided at critical point that this is not going to go down.

Updated

Jeroen Weimar says it is all about managing now:

It means for all Victorians, it’s really important now that we all maintain that vigilance, that we test on symptoms, not the day after or a couple of days later, we test immediately when we have symptoms. That we isolate if we’re asked or told to do so and that we all play our part in getting these outbreaks as much under control as we need to in order to look forward in confidence to get some freedoms back over the days and weeks ahead. So we can still slow this one down. We can still protect our communities and if we keep working together, we can look forward to the confidence to the weeks ahead.

A person receives a Covid test at a pop-up site in Altona North in Melbourne.
A person receives a Covid test at a pop-up site in Altona North in Melbourne. Photograph: Daniel Pockett/EPA

Updated

Jeroen Weimar, the Victorian Covid commander, says the last two days have been rough.

Yesterday was a very sobering day in terms of our battle with coronavirus.

The two people who passed away, two Victorians have passed away, one woman in her 60s who was in the second week of her infection, and it was being supported by one of our health units passed away at home in Hume.

The second individual passed away, woman in her 40s, passed away in Darebin.

She was confirmed as a Covid case by the coroner. It’s been the case that we haven’t had a fatality here in Victoria with Covid since 18 October last year.

We have 120 new cases. It’s 2 September last year that we got anywhere near that kind of number in term of daily caseloads in Victoria.

Now, 900 active cases in total, 895 local community cases active in Victoria. Two-thirds of those cases are under the age of 40 with 187 of those cases under the age of 9. This continues to be an outbreak impacting mostly younger Victorians and younger and more active Victorians. There are 58 people in hospital. Of those, half are under the age of 50, two are infants under a year old, and two are children aged 10 and 11. There are 21 people in ICU, 14 of those on a ventilator.

Updated

He finishes with:

We’ve got to plan to ease restrictions but we do need to bend the curve. We need to get lower case numbers than we might otherwise get to. So, please, follow those rules. They are still the bedrock, they’re still going to be doing the hard work of keeping numbers in check. If you do need support, it is available. Financial support in particular. If you have symptoms, please, please, get tested. And if you don’t, and you have yet to receive your first or second dose of vaccine, please make that booking and get vaccinated.

People wait after receiving their Covid vaccine at the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds in Melbourne.
People wait after receiving their Covid vaccine at the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds in Melbourne. Photograph: Daniel Pockett/AAP

Updated

Brett Sutton says it will be a long three weeks, but the 70% target will be worth it:

When we get to 70% of eligible Victorians getting that first dose, as the premier said, we can look at expanding that 5km to a 10km radius from home for the purpose of exercise and shopping. In-home care like babysitters can be further extended to family. Primary age children, if one parent is an authorised worker and exercise for that additional hour, outdoor personal training, skate parks, private house inspections and the increase in our construction workforce.

Again, not dramatic changes but a step towards that more normal life that we are seeking to achieve. And it can make us feel a little bit closer to normal as we move by increments.

But it is about three weeks’ away. We need to get there as fast as we can. We’ll make those further assessments as we progress. It may follow the trajectory that we expect, but we could equally see better or more challenging conditions. So we just need to watch each and everyday and make those assessments.

Updated

Prof Brett Sutton:

Absolutely it’s tough and three weeks seems like an eternity. That light at the end of the tunnel is too dim and the tunnel is too long, but it is a light at the end of the tunnel.

It is the genuine pathway out of here that means that we can take those small steps forward, bit by bit, and not have to take backward steps again.

But it is such hard work for parents, for kids, for whole families and for single people.

For all of us who miss that human contact, for people we haven’t seen in weeks and weeks and weeks.

I do want to recognise the sacrifices and the wonderful work that so many millions of Victorians have done to get us to this point to allow us to be position to be able to protect our Victorians and protect our health system at the same time.

It’s taken a couple of weeks to get our case numbers from 50 to 100. That increase is slower, much, much slower, than it could have been otherwise but it is an increase and that’s why my advice has changed.

It’s not to say that the efforts aren’t as substantial as they have always been. It’s a recognition of the reality of Delta and of the fact that despite all of these extraordinary efforts between contact tracing and between millions of Victorians following the rules, we are still seeing a slow and steady increase.

So we have to move as fast as we can to get the highest possible vaccination coverage which will change how transmission occurs and will see us plateauing with our case numbers but we want to do it at a point where our health system is not overwhelmed where we don’t have dozens and dozens of people dying in Victoria.

Flinders Street in Melbourne.
Flinders Street in Melbourne. Photograph: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

Updated

Victorian CHO Prof Brett Sutton continues the sombre tone of this press conference:

Today’s number is not a great number. We know that. It shows us why we need to continue our very substantial efforts to slow the spread of the virus, to put a cap on the numbers that we might get to until enough of us have vaccinated. But 120 is still far less than we would have seen otherwise if we hadn’t had the restrictions that we had in place and continue to have in place. It shows that applying the pressure avoids cases today that is avoiding dozens of cases next week, hundreds of cases next month, thousands of cases.

Updated

'This is a race to 80', Daniel Andrews says

Daniel Andrews:

We have thrown everything at this, but it is now clear to us that we are not going to drive these numbers down, they’re instead going to increase.

Now it’s up to us to make sure they don’t increase too fast and they don’t increase too much relative to the number of people who are getting vaccinated every single day every single week. I much prefer to be here announce that we’re opening up. There’ll be a time for that, but it simply can’t be before we get to 70% double dose and 80% double dose.

There are some things we can do along the way. I have announced some of them today.

We will look very carefully at whether there is more that we can do and if we can do that safely, then that will add to the list for the 22 or 23 September.

Until then, please get tested as soon as you have symptoms. Please follow these rules, they’re about your safety as much as anyone else’s.

They’re about making sure our nurses and doctors don’t have more work to do and, please, go online and book a vaccination appointment, talk to your pharmacist, talk to your GP. There’s vaccines there available. Let’s use up all those appointments.

This is a race to 80.

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews speaks to the media in Melbourne, Wednesday, 1 September 2021.
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews speaks to the media in Melbourne, Wednesday, 1 September 2021. Photograph: Diego Fedele/AAP

Updated

In case it wasn’t clear before, Daniel Andrews is repeating, Covid zero is not possible.

This is not the advice I wanted to receive. I’m sure it’s not the advice of the chief health officer wanted to give us.

But none of us have a luxury of pretending that reality isn’t just that. The difficult circumstances that are all too real that we face across our state. If we all look out for each other, if we all do as we have done before and find it in ourselves, with support, to get through this, then we can vaccinate faster than cases grow. If we opened up, that would not be the case.

In fact, cases would grow so much faster than we can vaccinate people. And that means our hospitals will be full and that means Covid patients and all patients, regardless of what you need, will have their care compromised.

As I said yesterday, we can, all of us, manage a pandemic of the unvaccinated if that number is quite small. That group of unvaccinated is quite small.

But at just 35% double dose in Victoria and across the nation, they are the numbers, the group of people who are yet to be vaccinated is just too big for our nurses and our doctors and our ambos to cope with.

We got to buy time to allow vaccinations to be undertaken all the while doing this very hard work, this very painful and difficult work, to keep a lid as much as we can on cases.

A person exercising at Albert Park Lake in Melbourne.
A person exercising at Albert Park Lake in Melbourne. Photograph: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

Updated

Daniel Andrews continues on AstraZeneca:

Of course, there is an informed consent process, speak to your GP or if you make a booking at a state clinic and you come to one of our state clinics, we have guaranteed that there will be a senior clinician either a doctor, a pharmacist or a senior nurse immuniser who will be able to talk to you about what AstraZeneca means for you and then you can make an informed decision as literally millions of other Victorians have made.

Those appointments are available right now.

We can’t wait for stocks to arrive when promised in September, October, November. We cannot wait for deals albeit they’re good deals to do but we can’t bank on the next deal that’s done with Poland or Singapore.

There is a good, effective safe vaccine available right now. We have always pushed this because it’s always been true – it is a safe and effective product and it is on the shelves available in the warehouse right now.

The appointments are there, if you go online you can put your name beside one of those appointments and play your part.

More than 70,000 available right now over the next three weeks. If they’re taken up we’ll add more. We will add more. And we will be closer, sooner, to that 70% first dose target and all the other vaccination targets that are critical to us protecting our health system.

Updated

Daniel Andrews then turns to people who are putting off getting vaccinated when they have access to AstraZeneca.

He has no time for it.

Andrews:

I just want to make it very clear – there are more than 70,000 AstraZeneca appointments that are available in state clinics right now.

There is, I think, a sense and it’s not a criticism, just a sense that I think that has grown that people can wait.

People can afford to wait, they’ll get a vaccine of some sort or another down the track, they can get it in a month or two. And that will be all fine.

My message to every Victorian is – no, we cannot wait.

You need to get vaccinated and you need to get vaccinated as soon as possible. And the best vaccine is the one that you can access today.

I don’t have Pfizer for everybody and it is a long time off before we will have Pfizer for everybody who perhaps wants that. Again, I just make the point – 2.6m doses of AstraZeneca have been administered in our state over the last few months.

This is a choice that literally millions of Victorians are making. It is a safe vaccine, it is an effective vaccine. It is the vaccine that is available now and that means for the vast majority of people, it is the best vaccine right now.

People line up for Covid vaccines at the Sandown Racecourse Vaccination Centre in Melbourne.
People line up for Covid vaccines at the Sandown Racecourse Vaccination Centre in Melbourne. Photograph: Daniel Pockett/EPA

Updated

Most of regional Victorian lockdown potentially ending next week

Turning to regional Victoria (other than Shepparton which is experiencing an outbreak).

Daniel Andrews says it is very possible the regional lockdown (possibly with the exception of Shepparton) could end in most regional areas, next week.

But no promises as yet. More detail will be coming next week. And there will still be “significant restrictions” and travel from metro Melbourne won’t be allowed.

Updated

Face-to-face learning is out for Victorian students for the rest of term three though.

Next week, there should be some guidance on what term four looks like.

Updated

What does the school year look like for Victorian students?

From 7-17 September, schools will contact students and their families about vaccinations for VCE students. That will be done through state run hubs and will be open for students doing Year 12 exams (including Year 11 students doing Year 12 subjects).

That should mean Year 12 students will have at least one dose by 5 October.

You can go to a GP or pharmacist earlier, if you are able to make those appointments.

Updated

Changes for 23 September or 70% vaccination for Victoria

Daniel Andrews then moves on to what life looks like with 70% of the adult population vaccinated in Victoria:

Everything else has to stay in place until on or about 23 September when we get first dose 70% across our state.

That’s a significant milestone.

And it’s at that point that the chief health officer had advised that it will be safe for us to do the following: expand the 5km radius to 10km for shopping and for exercise.

It will also be it safe for us to extend the time to exercise from two hours to three hours per day.

It will also be safe for outdoor communal gym equipment and skate parks and things of that nature to reopen.

Outdoor personal training will also be allowed with up to two people plus the trainer.

Child-minding for school-aged children will be permitted in terms of some further changes there, real estate, private inspections of unoccupied premises for a new purchase or end of a lease will be permitted.

There’ll be rules applied to that. Construction sites will be able to increase to 50% of their capacity where 90% of their workforce have received at least one vaccine dose.

So, again, linked to the statewide achievement of 70% first dose, but also where industry can get themselves vaccinated through that program, we will be able to allow further expansions of that economic activity.

Updated

Playgrounds to reopen in Victoria, changes to childcare

So what does the transition look like?

At first, not a lot.

Daniel Andrews:

So, firstly, from midnight tomorrow night, the chief health officer has advised that playgrounds can reopen.

He’ll speak to the logic and the rationale behind that and also his expectations of how playgrounds will work and the rules that need to be followed in just a moment.

Also the chief health officer has advised that from midnight tomorrow night, some of the in-home child care arrangements that had been disrupted by rule changes will be able to tidy that up and have some of those what are principally long-standing arrangements reinstated where families have authorised workers in their household.

That’s as far as we can go in terms of changes effective from midnight tomorrow night.

Updated

Daniel Andrews continues:

We can, all of us, manage the growth in these cases. It will be hard. It will not be easy.

But we are confident that as we continue to vaccinate, by the time we reach 23 September, which is our 70% first dose target day, that is when we believe we perhaps may even be able to with some additional doses coming from Singapore and hopefully I’ll come to – in a minute I’ll come to the notion of people taking up empty AstraZeneca appointments right now, hopefully we can be even sooner than the 23rd, maybe a few days earlier, but if we can all play our part in getting vaccinated, if we can reach our 70% first dose target on or about 23 September, then there are some changes that we can make to these rules.

Updated

Daniel Andrews:

This is very, very tough. But it is simply not possible to make wholesale changes, to have our freedom day if you like, or an opening up day in metropolitan Melbourne in the next few weeks.

That is going to require us to hit our vaccination targets because that’s what gives us the protection against infection and most importantly it gives us the protection against hospitalisation.

Now, some people listening would say, what have these last four weeks been about if we can’t drive these numbers down and instead they’re going to grow?

Well the Burnett Institute have estimated that what we have all done, what we have all given these last four weeks, has basically prevented around 6,000 cases of this virus.

That means that every Victorian has also prevented around 600 people being admitted to hospital and no one gets admitted to hospital with coronavirus because they’re mildly unwell.

They are all very unwell, some acutely unwell and, indeed, in need of intensive care.

Now, of course, having avoided 6,000 cases over four weeks and 600 hospitalisations over the same period, we have avoided thousands more because once we get to 6,000, the numbers just keep doubling and doubling and doubling again.

Updated

'These numbers will not go down, these numbers will go up'

Daniel Andrews says Covid zero is over.

In just the last two days, the number of cases, the nature of those cases, the depth of the seeding of this outbreak has become clear and the chief health officer’s advice to me and the government has changed – fundamentally changed.

None of us have the luxury of ignoring that, none of us have the luxury of shopping for the advice that we want.

When we get advice we follow it and the data and the evidence and the experts are very clear with us.

We will not see these case numbers go down. They are going to go up. The question is – by how many and how fast?

What we are all doing, the government, the public health team, nurses, doctors, people working in laboratories and testing clinics, people giving jabs, all of us as Victorians following the rules, all of us are trying to manage two peaks – the peak of those who are vaccinated and the peak of those who get infected with this Delta variant.

What we must do is suppress case numbers sufficient to buy us time, to buy us time, to get people vaccinated.

What that means is that we can’t ease restrictions today in any profound way. I don’t think anyone was expecting that, but it simply is not possible.

Updated

In Victoria there are 58 people with Covid in hospital, 21 in the ICU and 14 of those people need a ventilator.

Updated

Daniel Andrews says Victorians will most likely exceed the one million vaccine doses in five weeks target.

That is excellent news.

Updated

Victorian press conference

It opens with condolences to the two women who died yesterday. Both had Covid and both died at their homes.

Daniel Andrews then moves to the day’s cases:

64 of today’s cases are linked to known outbreaks. 56 are under investigation by our public health team.

That takes us to a total of 900 active cases. 895 locally acquired and five overseas.

Everyday, of course that public health team makes linkages, solves some of the mysteries of this virus and we’ll update the figures as we go forward.

There are some 122 cases, though, that remain open, if you like. They’re still being investigated.

To give you a sense of how things have changed and changed very rapidly, of today’s cases that have been fully interviewed and our contact tracers work as hard as they possibly can and as fast as they can, of these that have been fully interviewed, only 20 were in isolation during their infectious period.

These last few days have seen a dramatic shift in the nature and the number of cases coming forward.

Updated

We are just waiting on the Victorian press conference to start.

We are going to be hearing the transitioning arrangements for Victoria, so stay tuned.

Updated

Mark McGowan blasts the federal government

The Western Australian premier Mark McGowan has blasted federal attorney general, Michaelia Cash, for her suggestion the state could lose a high court challenge over borders now there is a vaccination for Covid-19.

McGowan told reporters in Perth:

I don’t know why the federal government is doing this ... What’s gotten into them? We went to the high court last year, we had to defeat Clive Palmer. The Liberal party supported Clive Palmer during that then they withdrew half way through. They tried to get us to withdraw the case, they told me we’d lose, and they were wrong.

Why are they on this mission to bring Covid into Western Australia, to infect our public? To ensure we shut down parts of the economy? That we lose jobs? That people get sick and some people die? Haven’t they seen what’s happening in NSW?

I can’t understand why they’re doing this. It makes no sense. We are the strongest economy in Australia, we are the freest...we have a society that is totally open. We have no one in hospital with Covid. Yet they want all that to change – they don’t seem to understand what’s going on here in WA.

I just find it so incredible – they went through the Clive Palmer experience last year, and they want to do exactly the same thing again. It makes absolutely no sense.

McGowan said he was not concerned WA might lose, noting last year’s victory and telling the commonwealth government “if they want to bring on round two – let them”.

McGowan did commit to eventually reopen the WA border. He said the state will “get to a high enough vaccination rate that we can bring down the border with infected states” but warned “that’s a way away”.

Updated

Here is Gladys Berejiklian on welcoming home vaccinated Australians to NSW at 80% and home quarantine as a “definite”.

Updated

NSW Health is working on giving pregnant people better access to the Pfizer vaccine (they are not recommended to have AstraZeneca) through antenatal settings.

But that is going to depend on vaccine supplies.

Updated

Does Gladys Berejiklian think interstate borders should open to everyone, or just the vaccinated?

I think we get to a stage where you need to stick to the national plan.

...Well that’s why it’s 70%, double dose privileges and freedoms will extend to only those that are vaccinated.

Now at 80%, you will only be able to go, consider travelling internationally, if you’re vaccinated.

But I say this many airlines will make those decisions for us, many airlines will say you can’t jump on my plane, unless you’re vaccinated, and they will have every right to do so.

So, I say irrespective of what government policies at any stage, private organisations are entitled to have policies to keep other customers safe to keep their workforce safe and to prevent the spread of the disease so don’t assume it’s only a government policy that’s relevant.

It’s also non-government business leaders will have a say on what they feel is the best way forward and for a business community that’s been absolutely smashed for the last two years in NSW even longer if you had the drought.

If you read the bushfires, if you had the floods, we’re talking about three years where many businesses across the state have been smashed.

The most important thing to you, understandably will be business continuity, business certainty not having to stop. Open and shut. Open and shut. And that’s what the higher rates of vaccination insures against once you get to 80% double dose.

There should not be any circumstance under which there will be a lockdown of any description, but that’s also up to businesses who want certainty and business continuity, to be able to say, well, it’s up to us, we don’t want to expose our customers or our workers and airlines themselves around the world. Some haven’t.

Some airlines welcomed people who aren’t vaccinated, but most airlines are welcoming people who are fully vaccinated.

Updated

Gladys Berejiklian also said she is “expecting data” later in the week on just how bad October will be for the NSW health system.

For those wondering what the federal government role would be in Gladys Berejiklian’s announcement NSW will take international vaccinated Australians when the state hits 80%, Sarah Martin included this in her story from last night:

Scott Morrison:

In states that aren’t locking others out … there will be the opportunity for people to go and travel and return to Australia and quarantine at home, and that people in those states who are overseas can come back to Australia.

The caps that are on flights coming into those places … that aren’t locking others out, they will be able to receive more and more, and that will be a big change.

Updated

The Victorian press conference will be held at 12.45pm.

Updated

NSW to open to international Australians at 80% vaccination

Gladys Berejiklian says she will open to international travellers at 80% double dose vaccination – and they will take in Australians from other states as well, even if the other states aren’t opening up their own borders.

Asked if NSW would welcome home vaccinated Australians who are overseas for Christmas, Berejiklian says:

If they are double dosed vaccinated, I think home quarantine is a definite. The traditional hotel quarantine system is no longer relevant when you have 80% of your population double vaccinated.

And it’s no longer relevant when the key issue is rates of vaccination.

So things will look different.

And as I said if other states aren’t ready to welcome home Aussies at 80% double dose New South Wales will be.

And if means more citizens come through to the Sydney airport so be it, the more flights, the better. But obviously we’re working through those issues and discussing them at national cabinet and with the prime minister.

Updated

The deputy ACT CHO, Dr Vanessa Johnston, has given a run down on the latest ACT cases – 23 today.

Fourteen are linked. Dr Johnston:

We know that 13 are either household contacts or close social contacts and the remaining one is linked to a known cluster. Nine are still under early investigation. Out of the 23, 11 were in quarantine during the whole infectious period. Of the 12 remaining, 11 of these were infectious in the community for at least part of their infectious period. And one is under assessment. Since our last update, we have had just over 1,100 self identified close contacts and over 3,900 casual contacts.

ACT deputy chief medical officer Vanessa Johnston speaks to the media in Canberra, Wednesday, 1 September 2021.
ACT deputy chief medical officer Vanessa Johnston speaks to the media in Canberra, Wednesday, 1 September 2021. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Updated

Andrew Barr moves on to vaccinations:

Yesterday the prime minister announced 500,000 additional doses of Pfizer as part of a vaccine swap.

He also announced these vaccines will be distributed on a per capita basis around Australia, so we have been advised that the ACT will receive 8,344 vaccines.

To put this in perspective, this is roughly the equivalent of a big, single day of vaccination in the ACT across all our government clinics, GPs and pharmacies.

Every little bit helps. So the extra 8,344 will allow us to get through another day of vaccination more quickly. Today, bookings open for 16 to 29-year-olds to access Pfizer vaccines at ACT government clinics.

Already until about 11.30 this morning, 6,500 new appointments and bookings have been made, which is great. If you are waiting for Pfizer, please register with the health record system and book your vaccination as soon as possible.

We acknowledge though that the demand is incredibly high and we are making bookings now in November. So, as always, the AstraZeneca vaccine is more readily available now through GPs and pharmacies. Being vaccinated is the best way that you can avoid serious illness and hospitalisation.

Updated

The ACT is also going to be concentrating on compliance.

Our Covid-19 business compliance teams were incredibly active yesterday, right across Canberra.

Nearly 100 businesses were visited. Around one-third were found to be not compliant with the public health directions. The overwhelming issue was staff not wearing masks properly, or not wearing them at all.

Wearing a mask is critical. It reduces the risk of you spreading the virus. And what we are seeing in our daily numbers is a small number of cases each day who are people who have been working while they are infectious.

They do not know they are infectious, but they have been at work while infectious. And that is how the virus is transmitting outside of the household and close contacts. So if you are not wearing a mask properly, it increases the risk of you transmitting the virus to a work colleague.

ACT police, Access Canberra and WorkSafe ACT will be active in the next two weeks to ensure compliance and public health directions, with a particular eye on people wearing masks in workplace settings. You need to do it. It is absolutely essential to keeping your businesses operating safely and to protect the community.

A resident rides his bike over Commonwealth bridge near Parliament House in Canberra.
A resident rides his bike over Commonwealth bridge near Parliament House in Canberra. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Updated

ACT chief minister Andrew Barr is giving a little more clarity about the easing of restrictions which are coming for ACT residents at the end of this week:

Non-organised recreational activity includes things like walking, jogging, cycling, going for a picnic in the park.

It does not include organised boot camps, sporting competitions, organised team training, golf, tennis, those sorts of more organised sporting activities. Informal small groups and conducted within your household of no more than five people.

The reason for five people, it could be five people from five separate households, is to give singles and couples some opportunity to interact with others.

But this needs to be done outside, wearing masks, for up to two hours, and the advice for everyone is that outside of these interactions keep as far away from other people as you possibly can, all of the time.

Updated

ACT records 23 new cases

14 are linked as mostly household contacts.

11 were in quarantine for their infectious period.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr speaks to the media during a COVID-19 update in Canberra, Wednesday, September 1, 2021.
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr speaks to the media during a COVID-19 update in Canberra, Wednesday, September 1, 2021. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Updated

And then there is a small little swipe at Victoria:

Gladys Berejiklian:

I know that people will not believe me when I say this, but we have done a lot to keep the case numbers where they are, given our population, given the spread, in fact if you look at the trajectory of where Victoria’s case numbers are going, I will let people make those comparisons themselves, but having been through this, we know how quickly case numbers get up to where we are now. And had we not taken the measures we had, they would have been much higher.

Updated

Gladys Berejiklian has also brought up a few times in this press conference about how she had been criticised for “not going hard enough” in the past.

I say this hand on heart, we know what it is is we have asked people to do in those areas of concern, it is onerous, it is difficult, it is stressful, and I will be the first one to go the other way as soon as we get the green light.

But I just say to everybody, Delta is evolving, and the questions I get today are very different to what I was getting just a few weeks ago when I was accused of not being hard enough.

Updated

Gladys Berejiklian will not guarantee that she will meet with the mayors.

I have been doing it already, and I have already been talking with them on many occasions to community leaders.

But there was more than just a local government that is involved, there are community leaders who touch hundreds of thousands of people, the mayors will be involved in that process, but so will our religious leaders, so will our cultural leaders.

A person is seen in Fairfield, south-west of Sydney, Australia.
A person is seen in Fairfield, south-west of Sydney, Australia. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/EPA

Updated

Why hasn’t Gladys Berejiklian met with the 12 hotspot LGA mayors?

Berejiklian says she has been engaging with community leaders.

I would always welcome meeting with community leaders, and I spoke virtually to hundreds of them, many of the conversations I’ve had those local mayors have been directly involved.

I am not certain about the invitation they’re talking about, but certainly there have been numerous occasions where I have engaged, the minister has engaged, the members of our other agencies have directly engaged broader community leaders, and that is ongoing.

But please know, that all the advice we get about what we can do in those areas is based on the health advice, and it is to keep people safe and healthy, and as the doctor said eloquently, still a proportion of the community unfortunately do not appreciate how serious this disease is, and we want to make sure that everybody is.

I am deeply grateful to the vast majority of our citizens across the state, no matter where they live, about how well they have responded to what we have asked them to do, and I will be the first to want to provide relief as soon as we get the green light.

Updated

Gladys Berejiklian is going to use the national plan as a shield for as long as she needs to. Even if the other states don’t budge at the 70% vaccination target.

Berejiklian:

I guess I’ll just say to the other premiers...every single premier of the states, every chief minister signed up to the plan.

What I am doing is working towards the plan, as I hope every other state premier is. The only thing I will say, from experience in NSW, is that every state at some stage, if not at 80% double dose, then when? Every state is going to have to accept that you cannot live in a bubble forever, your citizens will want to travel interstate, your businesses will want to go interstate, citizens will want to go overseas, and come back from overseas, so if not at 80% double dose which is what our national plan says, then when?

Updated

Gladys Berejiklian:

We all signed up to the national plan, we all signed up to the plan which has research based on the Doherty Institute, that is very important.

I also want to say, as confronting as this is, a lot of states who have not had any major outbreak during the pandemic, are going to have to appreciate that if we get to 80% double dose vaccination, and you open your borders, Delta will creep in.

But if your population is protected, and you have Covid safety plans into place, a good QR code system, good systems to monitor where the disease is circulating and what residence, take immediate action to take care of outbreaks that may or may not occur, that is the way we have to live with Covid.

As confronting as that is, that is the reality. I hope that every premier is signed up to the plan, and I hope you’ll stick to the plan.

But all the conversation that I’ve had with the prime minister suggested the nation will continue to move forward, but I feel that Victoria is perhaps turning the corner in how they are dealing with Covid in terms of accepting what the Delta strain is like, and what it means for citizens, but I hope that we are in a position at least where the two large states are on the same page.

Updated

Back to the NSW press conference.

It is all about NSW sticking to the national plan, but you can’t know what the worst case scenario modelling is.

Health care workers are seen checking passengers arriving from Sydney at Perth Airport, Perth.
Health care workers are seen checking passengers arriving from Sydney at Perth Airport, Perth. Photograph: Richard Wainwright/AAP

Updated

The Australian economy grew by just 0.7% in the June quarter, narrowly avoiding shrinking in the months before the Delta strain spread uncontrollably in NSW and Victoria.

The result, announced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, means Australia has avoided a technical recession for now, before an expected massive contraction in the September quarter due to lockdowns in its two largest states by population.

At the end of 2020 and start of 2021 Australia’s economy rebounded strongly from the initial phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, recording growth of 3.1% in the December quarter and 1.8% in March.

That momentum slammed to a halt in the June quarter, as the Delta strain was introduced to Australia and greater Sydney entered a lockdown in the final week of June that continues today, with thousands of new cases recorded daily.

Australia’s hopes of avoiding a technical recession now rest on hopes of growth in the December quarter, after the national plan to reopen once vaccination rates reach 70% and 80% has softened or phased out lockdowns.

In per capita terms, Australia’s economy grew by just 0.4% in the June quarter.

The terms of trade rose 7.0% on the back of high iron ore prices. The household saving ratio decreased to 9.7% from 11.6%.

Updated

National accounts show 0.7% growth in June quarter

Just breaking in for a moment to bring you the national accounts – the GDP figure shows 0.7% growth.

That is good news, but of course, it is also in the past – it’s for the June quarter, mostly before the lockdowns.

Everyone is focused on what is happening now, and even if we aren’t in a technical recession, we seem to be in a manufactured one, in that it feels like it. At least if you are on the east coast. There are two economies in Australia at the moment, and people are feeling these impacts differently. And half the country is not feeling great.

Updated

So Gladys Berejiklian knows what is in the national plan, she can tell you the positives for what happens in NSW when 70% of the adult population is vaccinated, and is keen to tell you what life “will look like at 70-80% double dose” but she can’t tell you the flip side, or the worst case modelling, because that “varies and depends”.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian arrives to address media during a press conference in Sydney.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian arrives to address media during a press conference in Sydney. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Updated

How can she not recall it?

Gladys Berejiklian:

No. I’m saying various modelling is done. NSW Health provides modelling but there’s modelling done by ex-personal organisations, which NSW Health is not part of and those organisations, as we’ve read have...

Q: What about the advice from NSW Health? The worst case scenario presented to you, you don’t know that it is?

Berejiklian:

It varies and it varies and it depends on what the inputs might be and I wish...

Q: What was the worst one?

Berejiklian:

I wish I had a crystal ball to tell you. What I can tell you...

Q: They’re modelling the worst case scenario. What is that?

Berejiklian:

The most recent advice I’ve received is that case numbers are likely to continue to rise for the next few weeks and the worst hospitalisation rate is likely to be in October and I can’t tell you anymore more than that because that’s the best advice I have.

Updated

Gladys Berejiklian 'can't recall' worst case modelling

Gladys Berejiklian says she can’t recall the worst case modelling, which is why she can’t share it.

I’ve seen various versions of modelling and I can’t recall all the numbers but I can tell you this much – that we know that the rate of hospitalisations is likely to peak some time in October.

We know there’s ranges of predictions on what the case numbers will come up to. I’ve often said, as the doctors have said, we anticipate the worst will be in the next couple of weeks.

The worst will be the next couple of weeks because the impact of the vaccinations takes about two or three weeks and as we’ve said from the outset, lockdowns work in suppressing the spread of the virus but the best antidote, the best weapon in fighting the virus is the vaccine and once we know someone is vaccinated, it takes effect in two or three weeks’ time and we know there’s been a high concentration of vaccines administered in the last week and the upcoming two weeks. We still anticipate case numbers to rise in the next couple of weeks and then we anticipate and hope that they will start to come down.

Updated

Why won’t Gladys Berejiklian release the modelling which shows the worst case scenarios? Why is it only the positive cases being shared?

Berejiklian:

The best judgement is what the public health experts tell us and every day the modelling changes. Every day there’s inputs put into the modelling and every day there’s different models around.

There’s many, many institutes across the nation that will provide input into what New South Wales looks like but that depends on a number of variables and we shouldn’t be in the habit of providing information which is not certain because it depends on the inputs, on the rate of vaccination, on what people are doing. It depends on compliance. There’s a whole range of issues that go into that.

What we do know – because the best case is the accumulation of test numbers, we know there is always a lag between when someone gets ill and when they end up in hospital and we anticipate, given where case numbers are and given the rate of vaccination that the highest rate of hospitalisation will occur at some stage in October. As soon as we see anything more certain than that, of course we’ll provide that information.

Updated

The national plan includes targeted lockdowns in areas where test, trace, isolate and quarantine systems are under pressure.

Which right now, includes those areas of greater Sydney.

Updated

Does that mean equal freedoms? Will people in the greater Sydney LGAs who are in areas of concern get those same freedoms?

Gladys Berejiklian, who promised transparency yesterday, doesn’t say:

We’re obviously looking at those issues but no matter where you live, life will be much, much better, much freer, as long as you’re vaccinated at 70%.

We’ll provide details as soon as we can. We’re obviously taking input from stakeholders, from our health experts and also comparing it to the national plan, which has already been released.

So the national plan is on the public record and New South Wales would be adhering to that national plan and obviously we’re really keen to see our nation moved forward but we appreciate that what is the most critical number for us to keep a close eye on it is the rate of hospitalisation and the rate of vaccination because at 70% double dose, life will be very different and life will be much better than it is today.

People are seen waiting to receive a Covid test in Lakemba.
People are seen waiting to receive a Covid test in Lakemba. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Updated

Does that mean everyone? Including people in the hotspots?

Gladys Berejiklian does not address the question.

Clearly we’ve had a concentrated effort to vaccinating our population in local government areas of concern and vaccination rates have not only come up from a very low base but now a lot of those areas have higher vaccination rates than other parts of Sydney and New South Wales.

The key issue for us moving forward is the rate of vaccination and how many people you can keep out of intensive care wards and hospitals and they’re the figures that matter most.

Everybody should expect a level of freedom which they don’t have today and in relation to those settings, we’re going through the road map. We’re getting health advice.

It will depend on a number of other factors but let me be clear – no matter where you live in New South Wales, please expect to have much more freedom than you do now as long as you’re vaccinated fully and as long as 70% of residents are vaccinated and details will be provided in the next little while.

Updated

Gladys Berejiklian is being asked about her comments this morning to the Nine network that at 70% double dosed vaccination, adults can expect to be able to go out for a drink, a meal, an event.

Obviously, New South Wales always takes a responsible approach but the national plan does say at 70% double dose vaccination that you can expect to go out and have a meal, you can expect to attend a public event, you can expect to go and get services that you can’t expect now but obviously we’ll take a very responsible approach. We know that indoor gatherings or people coming to your home is a high risk. But outside of that if there are many, many things we can’t do now we should be expect to be able to do them when we have 70% of the adult population vaccinated.

That’s what the national plan says. I’m not saying anything that other states have not signed up to. Of course at 70% there will be density requirements, QR code check-ins, validation that you’re vaccinated, mask wearing in certain settings, so there will be obviously constraints and restrictions in place but compared to what we’re going through now, life will be much better at 70% double dose than it is now and I’m calling out to businesses to say let’s have September be the month we all get ready.

If you’re an individual, get vaccinated. Get your loved ones vaccinated and if you’re a business, dust off Covid plans and get ready to open your doors.

Updated

Hospitalisations due to Covid are going to hit more than 1,000 soon.

There are 917 people in hospital with Covid, 150 are in intensive care and 66 of those people need ventilation.

Updated

Three new Covid cases in Wilcannia

There are three new cases in Wilcannia.

There will now be 30 motorhomes set up in the community so people can isolate – which has been a massive issue for people, given the overcrowding in homes and lack of accommodation to move people.

An aerial view of the Outback NSW town of Wilcannia.
An aerial view of the Outback NSW town of Wilcannia. Photograph: Chris Graham/New Matilda

Updated

Gladys Berejiklian:

Once you hit 70% double dose numbers, hotel quarantine looks different. Quarantine looks different. The way we manage the disease is different. Tracking and tracing is different and I’m having these conversations now with everybody so we can get used to what life is like living with Covid.

Our position is the one we stated from the outset. It’s impossible to eliminate the Delta strain. New South Wales has proved successful until this point in time of getting rid of other strains of Covid but the Delta strain is a game changer and every state in Australia, sooner or later, is going to have to live with Delta and that’s why I’m calling on all my colleagues, other state premiers and first ministers to stick to the national plan to make sure we give our citizens not only the freedoms they deserve but also learning to live with Covid as soon as we can.

The national plan does not deal with border closures.

The Doherty Institute also points to the need for a strong test, trace, isolate and quarantine system, which NSW does not have at the moment. Other states are lending their resources to NSW and Victoria, but when the states are open, that won’t happen – they’ll need themselves.

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian addresses media in Sydney, Wednesday, 1 September 2021.
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian addresses media in Sydney, Wednesday, 1 September 2021. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Updated

NSW records 1,116 Covid cases and four deaths

Gladys Berejiklian opens by celebrating the vaccination numbers, with 70% of adults having received at least one dose.

She says people need to “get ready” for September.

Four people have died.

Berejiklian:

Four females who, unfortunately, were not vaccinated and who did have underlying health conditions – a woman in her 50s, one in their 60s, one in their 70s and one in their 80s. We extend our deepest condolences to their loved ones.

Pharmacist Christine Kelly prepares doses of the AstraZeneca vaccinations.
Pharmacist Christine Kelly prepares doses of the AstraZeneca vaccinations. Photograph: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

Updated

Joe Biden may not have spoken to Scott Morrison as yet over Afghanistan (at least as of yesterday) but he has a message for all Australians and New Zealanders on the Anzus anniversary:

There will be a clash between the NSW and Victorian press conferences – as is usual these days.

We will probably head to Victoria after getting the NSW numbers though, as we know there are a lot of people waiting to hear the transition plan.

We’ll also bring you the ACT updates – it will take a little bit, but I promise we will be able to cover it all.

Updated

Just a note on the current deputy prime minister claiming he is not trying to be smart, because he’s not (a paraphrase of his quote to the house).

TCDPM talks a big regular Joe game, and loves to wear the hat, but he is also an Old Ignatians from Riverview – the exclusive Sydney school which also counts Tony Abbott among its alum, has a university degree and worked as a practicing accountant.

He is also the current deputy prime minister of Australia.

Updated

The deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce also contributed during the Anzus debate.

He noted that shared values were the cement that bound Australia and the US together. So far, so good.

But then things became more variable. Stay with me, I’ll do my best.

There was a reflection on democracy slipping “through a form of quasi democracy, and quasi democracy slips back to autocracy, where autocracy is not tempered by the collegiate aspects of cabinet forms of government, or by referring to an executive, but goes out and parrots the mouthpiece of the supreme leader. Mr Speaker, without being smart, because I am not ...” (at this point some Latin was invoked) .. “if you want peace, then prepare for war. And we want peace, no-one ever encourages war, we want peace, but this is an essential component of what must happen if you want peace”.

Then there was more Latin. Joyce noted “it was Latin, because it has been the same through history. There is nothing new about this. And a preparation needs mass, and mass needs allies. Looking forward requires a learned experience, a learned experience over the long term, a learned experience over 100 years, not a memory of the 1990s.”

It kept rolling.

The world has changed, now the geopolitical circumstances of our region show an uncomfortable resemblance to the power jousting of Europe in a previous century. Mr Speaker, Anzus comes with costs.

Then there was a reference to bipartisanship and the requirement of parliament “to show to the Australian people why we were involved with Korea, why we were involved with Vietnam, why we were involved with Iraq, why we were involved for 20 years in Afghanistan.”

Because friends have to understand that your heart is where your legs are as well.

I can only leave this with you.

Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce.
Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

No evidence face masks worsen asthma

The National Asthma Council Australia has urged health professionals to reassure patients with asthma that they should wear a face mask when outdoors or when they can’t socially distance from others.

National Asthma Council Australia director and respiratory physician Professor Peter Wark said:

There is no evidence that wearing a mask worsens asthma, and an article published in the European Respiratory Journal states that any exemptions of respiratory patients on the compulsory use of face masks is not evidence based and may carry increased risk of personal infection from Covid-19.

People with asthma, or their friends or family looking for advice, should know that face masks are essential for the protection of the person with asthma, as well as any carers or guardians looking after children with asthma.

Face masks, hand hygiene and social distancing will all help prevent the spread of infection and in fact, not wearing a mask could put adults and children with asthma at a disproportionate risk of getting the Covid-19 virus.

Wark said wearing a mask can make someone with asthma and other lung diseases feel more breathless, especially if they are more active.

However we know from the World Health Organisation that face masks of breathable material, worn properly, will not lead to health problems, still provide protection and are more comfortable.

If someone does become breathless whilst wearing a face mask they will be helped by moving to an open area with good airflow if possible then briefly removing their mask until they have caught their breath. Reapplying their mask when they are able to will help their symptoms and reduce their risk of infection.

People exercising in Melbourne.
People exercising in Melbourne. Photograph: Michael Currie/Speed Media/REX/Shutterstock

Updated

A minute ago I sent a post on Scott Morrison’s contribution in the parliamentary debate about the 70th anniversary of Anzus. Before Covid, Morrison had hoped to be celebrating this milestone in the US, or to have been in a position to have invited Joe Biden to Australia.

But obviously that’s not possible. Anthony Albanese followed Morrison.

He used his speech to announce that Labor (if it wins the next election) will initiate a new defence force posture review to ensure arrangements are fit for purpose. The Labor leader also referenced the difficulties of the Trump period head on.

We welcome the return of American leadership in the rules based order under president Biden, and his dedicated effort in repairing alliances.

Even when the United States stepped back from its long-standing leadership on trade and other forms of multilateralism during the Trump administration, Australia held the line, and importantly, held the door open for the United States.

There was also a significant chunk on the security implications of climate change. The Biden administration has publicly criticised the Coalition’s lack of ambition about climate action. Albanese’s contribution ran along that faultline.

“Climate change remains beyond this government’s grasp,” the Labor leader said.

Albanese says if he wins the election, he would “immediately deepen US-Australian cooperation on climate change security issues”.

Updated

Queensland has not lifted its pause on domestic arrivals – but it has cleared spaces for 50 families to come into its hotel quarantine system.

That follows criticism over the families of NRL players being able to come into the state for the coming finals. Those families aren’t taking the same places, but the optics are terrible when you have people just trying to get home or be with loved ones having their exemptions denied because of a lack of quarantine places, but the families of footballers being able to enter the state.

South Australia is trialing the home quarantine program the national cabinet is investigating. The plan is to roll that out more widely when vaccination rates increase.

Updated

There is still some good in 2021:

We’ll hear the transition plan from Daniel Andrews today. Victoria is no longer aiming for zero Covid cases and instead has switched to “as close to zero as possible”.

Updated

Good morning everyone. Parliament has kicked off today with speeches marking the 70th anniversary of the Anzus treaty. Scott Morrison has told parliament American leadership remains indispensable and “essential” to peace and security in the Indo-Pacific.

The prime minister said the treaty, managed by 14 prime ministers and presidents since it was signed, “breathes and adapts with each passing generation”. Morrison said: “Together we share hope, we share burdens and we share vision.”

As could be expected, there is much in the prime minister’s speech about mateship, much about freedom, and much, inferentially rather than directly, about the challenges of China’s rise and the importance of a world order that champions freedom.

The Labor leader Anthony Albanese is speaking too. I’ll send a post on that contribution shortly.

Updated

Rex Patrick pushes to refer ATO commissioner for contempt

The Senate has begun with a bang – independent senator Rex Patrick has sought to refer the ATO commissioner Chris Jordan to the privileges committee for refusing to produce documents revealing big business recipients of jobkeeper.

As Senate president Scott Ryan explained, the tax commissioner declined to respond to an order of production of documents on 4 August, citing public interest immunity. On 23 August the Senate explicitly rejected that – and insisted on the documents by 26 August.

The treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, then made a separate public interest immunity claim, and Jordan said he would wait til that claim was dealt with before he responded. Jordan missed the 26 August deadline.

Ryan said that it is clear that Jordan’s actions “could substantially frustrate orders of the Senate”, clearing the first hurdle to refer the matter to the privileges committee, and that he was satisfied that it “could warrant a contempt” of the Senate.

Ryan said that it is a matter for the Senate to determine if Jordan had a “reasonable excuse”.

Ryan suggested it may not be necessary to refer the matter to the privileges committee because there are other remedies available – such as first dealing with Frydenberg’s public interest immunity claim, or bringing amendments to legislation to force production of the jobkeeper information.

Patrick then gave a speech arguing that Frydenberg’s additional public interest immunity had no power to countermand and order of the Senate, and Jordan therefore lacked a reasonable excuse.

He’s given notice of a motion to refer Jordan, to be debated and decided on Thursday. We’re now on to the Respect at Work bill.

Independent senator for South Australia Rex Patrick.
Independent senator for South Australia Rex Patrick. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

Khal Asfour, the mayor of Canterbury-Bankstown continues with why the hotspot mayors want to meet with the premier:

We want to convey our concerns to her from the stories that we’re hearing every day.

Secondly, we need more vaccination hubs and thirdly, we want more government support. It defies belief that the Premier just doesn’t want to hear these concerns and she doesn’t want to hear from the 12 mayors that are doing it tough and representing these two million people in western and south western Sydney.

$750 a week doesn’t seem to cut it. We have people who are really struggling and are stuck at home obeying the health orders.

Our people are getting vaccinated. We are making sure the numbers are increasing so we can get out of this lock down and we are doing our bit but we are doing it tough and the lock down seems to roll on month after month and the $750 a week doesn’t cut it for a lot of the members of the community.

...The Premier has referred us to the Local Government Minister. This is not a local government issue. This is a health issue and it is an all of New South Wales issue. We want the Premier to reverse her decision and give us one hour of her time to meet with us.

Linda Scott says Greg Hunt has met with them.

But it is probably also worth pointing out that when Coag became the national cabinet, local government was left off the table.

Local government had representation in Coag, but despite lobbying, were not included in the rebranded national cabinet.

Linda Scott continues that theme:

The mayors in the 12 local government areas in Sydney’s hot spots are from every political stripe – Liberal mayors, independent mayors, Labor mayors.

This is not about politics. This is about the need for the premier to work with local governments, to solve problems that communities in a hard lockdown are experiencing.

The 12 mayors in these areas and the councillors are working day and night to support a locally led recovery from Covid. They are personally translating materials into languages other than English.

They are encouraging communities to get tested, stay home and be vaccinated. The mayors and councillors are providing facilities, local government facilities for use for testing and local government facilities for vaccinations.

They’re supporting communities who are often out of work and struggling, supplying food and other basic essentials to ensure that communities are not faced with the impossible decision about breaching a health order or feeding their families. The least the NSW premier can do at this time is come out of hiding, meet with the elected local leaders in these 12 hotspots and support their efforts to ensure these communities are safe.

Updated

Khal Asfour, the mayor of the City of Canterbury Bankstown, is one of the 12 mayors in Sydney’s LGAs of concern.

He’s holding a press conference with Linda Scott, the president of the NSW Local Government Association, about Gladys Berejiklian declining to meet with the mayors of the hotspot areas.

To say the mayors are pissed would be an understatement:

Asfour:

A few weeks ago we sought a meeting with the 12 mayors of the hotspot areas in greater Sydney.

Yesterday afternoon we received a response from the premier’s office that she is refusing to meet with the 12 mayors of the hotspot areas.

The areas with the most Covid cases at the moment. This is a royal snub for our community and the over two million people we all represent.

I don’t understand why the premier won’t meet with us. She doesn’t – she might not want to hear the concerns we are hearing every day.

Phone calls and emails, people crying on the phone, not knowing what they are going to be doing next with their businesses crumbling, with people out of work, with people in lockdown, mental health issues, with people not having any social connectivity to their family and loved ones.

The premier doesn’t want to hear these stories and I don’t know why. This is really unbelievable. I am furious that she is too busy to want to meet with us.

She can’t spare an hour of her day to meet with the 12 mayors that represent over two million people and for communities that are really doing it tough in the harshest lockdowns for the communities.

She doesn’t want to hear these stories. Our community wants surety, we want hope. We want some light at the end of the tunnel and we just don’t know where that is going to come from when the premier refuses to meet with us.

Updated

Parliament has just opened for the day. The morning speeches are dedicated to the Anzus alliance.

It’s the 70th anniversary of the Anzus alliance (Australia, New Zealand and US) so Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton laid a wreath at the US memorial at Defence HQ.

Prime minister Scott Morrison at Defence headquarters in Canberra lays a wreath during a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Anzus alliance.
Prime minister Scott Morrison at Defence headquarters in Canberra lays a wreath during a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Anzus alliance. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
The Prime Minister Scott Morrison (left) and Defence Minister Peter Dutton (centre) at Defence headquarters
Scott Morrison (left) and defence minister Peter Dutton (centre). Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

I’m just getting messages from some public servant staff about IT issues impacting several government departments, including the agricultural department.

Staff are reporting mass issues in being able to login to their IT systems.

We are told it is being worked on – but things might be a little slow this morning.

Updated

That’s not exactly coded there.

Gladys Berejiklian is all but pointing out the federal government failures. She just doesn’t name them.

Gladys Berejiklian, speaking to the Nine network, also made sure to send some blame in the federal government’s direction. Asked if vaccines should be mandatory for clinical staff, given one in five clinical staff in the state system have not received one dose of the vaccine, Berejiklian says:

Well, firstly we weren’t able to make the vaccines mandatory. It was actually not in our path to do that. The fact we’ve taken the step to say everybody has to get the vax is pretty major.

We have made sure that everybody who has access to the vaccine in our healthcare system does.

I was aghast because as you know at the beginning of the process there was a process where aged care workers would get vaccinated first. We had tens of thousands of them in NSW who hadn’t been offered the vaccine. We’re playing catch-up now. There have been supply issues. We’re knocking on the door of the feds to give us more supply.

Remember the states weren’t going to be involved in providing any vaccine. But I think I was the first premier to say some months ago let us help. I’m pleased we did.

Now we’re seeing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people get the jab every week in NSW. I was shocked. We’re approaching 850,000 jabs a week in NSW which is incredible. A lot of that is done by NSW Health system.

Remember, initially we were told we don’t need you, you don’t do it. We stepped up.


NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian.
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/EPA

Updated

Victoria records 120 new Covid cases

Of the 120 new Covid cases announced today, 64 are linked.

Updated

Drinks, meals and events for vaccinated adults at 70% in NSW

Just catching up on some of the interviews this morning on commercial television and Gladys Berejiklian was on both the Seven and the Nine networks.

Here is her message on where NSW is at today – including what freedoms NSW residents who are vaccinated can get at 70% of the adult population meeting the vaccinated target:

I think if you compare the case numbers in NSW at the moment compared to what Victoria went through last year they didn’t have a Delta strain. It was regular another strain of Covid. And tragically hundreds and hundreds of lives were lost over a couple of months.

In NSW we haven’t seen that. Because the vaccines are working. The vaccines are the best weapon against fighting Covid.

Lockdowns will help us stop the exponential growth of a virus. What will allow us to live normally is the vaccine. The more of us that get vaccinated the sooner it reduces the spread. It puts downward pressure on case numbers. More importantly, it inches us that much closer to living life as we did previously.

At 70%, those that are fully vaccinate will be able to have a drink, a meal. Go out to an event.

And I’m really looking forward to that as I hope everyone is. Our opportunity now is to make sure we vaccinate older Australians. Make sure they’re fully vaccinated. Vaccinate vulnerable people. To make sure when we do open up they’re not exposed we do know how horrible the disease Covid is. It can affect anybody. Unexpectedly.

But we know that it can impact particularly parts of community more than others. We don’t want people going through that horrible time.

Updated

Queensland isn’t afraid to play ball at the moment:

Anthony Albanese had a chat to Triple M Newcastle where he continued to hone Labor’s national plan message when it comes to the premiers:

Well, they all signed up for the national plan. The national plan, of course, provides for various protections to be continued to be available at 70% and 80%. No one wants restrictions. Restrictions affect people’s way of life and their capacity to get around and it hurts the economy. But to be fair to Queensland at the moment, South Australia also, I noticed Scott Morrison never talks about the Liberal states, South Australia and Tasmania and Queensland and Western Australia all have their borders closed to New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT at the moment. That’s a decision that is perfectly understandable. WA is getting the Grand Final in the AFL. Brisbane will get the Grand Final in the Rugby League. And it’s tough times, but these decisions have been made to keep their citizens safe.

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese.
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

If you are thinking that the Victorian numbers are usually out by now, you would be right.

There is a delay this morning (we usually get them around 8.30am) but in the past, when there has been more complicated data to reconcile, it has taken a little longer.

We’ll have them to you as soon as we can.

It is also national accounts day – when we learn whether the economy grew or not.

It is going to be a bit of a mixed bag, but it looks at the past when we are all looking at what is happening right now. This one won’t take in the bulk of the lockdowns, but really, it is just about the feeling at the moment – confidence isn’t high, and people are feeling the economic impacts themselves. It might not be a technical recession, but it feels like one.

And what’s the main difference between these lockdowns and those major ones we saw last year? Government support. There is not as much of it. And well, that is being felt.

Which makes videos like this from the treasurer – who actually has the power to make a huge difference in the lives of the people he is talking about a little ... you know.

Updated

Because the Australian government is still the Australian government, the Coalition party room is still a wild place at times.

Which is how Paul Karp learned of this story:

Coalition MPs have urged Scott Morrison to increase funding to the government’s school chaplaincy program to help address concerns that activism against global heating is causing mental health problems for Australian children.

In the Coalition party room on Tuesday, Liberal MP Andrew Wallace compared children’s fear of climate change with the threat of nuclear annihilation in the 1970s and 80s, and requested full funding for chaplains in every school to help ease concerns.

The assistant youth minister, Luke Howarth, has backed the call to expand the program in comments to Guardian Australia, saying climate activism is “alarmist and does cause mental health problems for young people” that could be helped by chaplains.

Children working out the world around them, and what they are and aren’t willing to accept is not causing mental health problems – not seeing a lot of action on identified problems in the world around them though, is a totally different story.

Liberal senator Jane Hume was also on ABC Breakfast this morning, where she was walking back Michaelia Cash’s comments:

I think Michaelia Cash has been misinterpreted there. There’s going to be no high court challenge to borders but what she was ...

Q: She’s leaving the way open for it the way I read. She’s leaving the way open for high court challenges?

Hume:

No, I think she’s saying the reasoning behind that high court challenge last year that was taken out by the reasoning behind that really be have diminished once we reach those vaccination rates. Again, while we’re also urging people to go to the ATO website (for super information, her beat), we’re also urging people to get themselves vaccinated so we can stick to the national plan and reopen our borders and get back to life as we knew it.

Updated

Tanya Plibersek appeared on ABC News Breakfast this morning, where she was asked about the possibility border closures could be challenged in the high court again (which Michaelia Cash spoke about in an interview with the Australian, something Scott Morrison probably won’t be too pleased about, given he has been distancing the government from a previous challenge this week).

Here is what Plibersek had to say:

Court challenges are ridiculous and you saw just how popular Clive Palmer’s last effort, supported by Scott Morrison it is important to say.

When Clive Palmer wanted to take the West Australian government to court, I think he united every West Australian against him. We support the national plan to reopen Australia. People are sick of the lockdowns.

They are sick of seeing businesses that they have spent 20 or 30 years growing being destroyed by what is happening with the economy. They are tired of the kids being home from school. They are worried about their kids’ education.

They are worried about their kids social and emotional wellbeing. Everybody wants things to get back to normal as quickly as possible and the reason this is dragging on so long is because our prime minister didn’t order enough vaccine and he didn’t establish purpose-built quarantine qualities when he was advised to do so and because Australia can’t make the Pfizer-style mRNA vaccines here, despite the government saying months ago that we would embark on the process that would allow us to make mRNA vaccines here in Australia.

This is a failure that should be laid at Scott Morrison’s door. We need to open up, we need to do that sensibly follow the roadmap to reopening but I can tell you, if I were a premier in a state with zero transmission, I would be looking at New South Wales now and I would be worried.

Labor MP Tanya Plibersek.
Labor MP Tanya Plibersek: ‘If I were a premier in a state with zero [Covid] transmission, I would be looking at NSW now and I would be worried.’ Photograph: Sam Mooy/Getty Images

Updated

Murph has taken a look at the national plan mess; and what is actually going on:

If you tune in to the daily Covid briefings from Scott Morrison and the premiers, the impression you’ll get is the federation is at war about the national plan to reopen Australia once vaccination rates increase.

But is this really war?

Or is this dynamic more fluid than it seems?

Victoria recorded its first two deaths in this Covid outbreak late yesterday.

A woman in her 60s died in her home in Hume and a woman in her 40s died in her home in Darebin. Their deaths will be reported in today’s figures.

You may have seen on social media from those with leaked figures (we have no confirmation) the number of cases will be over 100 today. Victoria did lockdown early, and it locked down hard. It’s an indication of how contagious Delta is when it takes hold. The Victorian strategy now seems to be to keep the outbreak as under control as possible, rather than reach for zero. And of course, vaccinate.

Two people take a walk for their hour of exercise in Melbourne on Tuesday.
Two people take a walk for their hour of exercise in Melbourne on Tuesday. Photograph: Michael Currie/Speed Media/Rex/Shutterstock

Updated

When the health department, the Australian defence force and the Prime Minister’s Office wouldn’t answer questions on Lt General John Frewen’s appointment to lead the vaccine program, and what it meant, Daniel Hurst put in a bunch of FOIs.

He received the letter Scott Morrison sent when making the appointment, which finally answers some of those questions:

Scott Morrison assured the senior military figure Lt Gen John Frewen that “the necessary resources and assets will be put at your disposal” when he was appointed to boost confidence in the Australian government’s vaccination rollout.

A letter obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws reveals the prime minister told Frewen a “direct command and control structure” should help speed up the vaccination program and if the goals were achieved it would allow a faster reopening of Australia’s international borders.

Updated

Good morning

Welcome to parliament hump day, with just two days left in the parliamentary sitting before a six-week break.

That break was added in to give the government some flexibility for when it could hold the election. Given *gestures to everything* it’s unlikely to be held in the next month. I know there are rumours, but with half the population in lockdown, bad polls, travel restrictions, the need for a virtual campaign, frustrations with the federal government and at best, ho-hum economic news coming, a government wanting to retain power would only hold an election right now if they absolutely had to. This government has until May. Don’t be surprised if Australia Day passes and suddenly there is an Election Day announcement. But I think even with this break, you have time.

That doesn’t mean things aren’t moving though. The Australian has an interview with attorney general Michaelia Cash where she says border closures could be challenged when vaccination targets hit 80%. As my colleague Paul Karp has previously pointed out, that’s always been a possibility because the Western Australia high court case was handed down at a time when there was no vaccine, something which was made clear in the judgement. Once 80% or so of adults are vaccinated there is every chance the high court could come up with a different decision. So while the national plan isn’t explicit on border closures, the federal government has plans. It’s just not pushing it right now because it needs Queensland and Western Australia to win the next election. That’s where the seats are.

In Covid news, we’ll hear the transition plan from Daniel Andrews today. That will include some restrictions easing a bit down the track. Andrews still wants numbers “as close to zero as possible” but seems resigned that Covid zero with Delta, once it has taken hold, is asking a bit much. Still, he has also been clear that he won’t be opening up when numbers are high. And he has also been clear he won’t be doing what NSW has been. We’ll bring you that and the latest from NSW, where the regions are being watched closely.

You have Mike Bowers in the halls and Amy Remeikis on the blog, with Katharine Murphy, Sarah Martin, Paul Karp and Daniel Hurst.

You’ll also hear from members of the wider Guardian team as the day unfolds.

It being Wednesday, I had a lollipop with my coffees. It just seemed right. So grab your breakfast treat and let’s get started.

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