Today’s main developments
And that’s where we’ll leave the blog for today.
We’ll be back tomorrow with all the news as it happens. Here’s what happened today:
- The aged care royal commission released its special report into Covid-19, saying the aged care sector was “insufficiently” prepared.
- The aged care minister, Richard Colbeck, said the government would accept all of the report’s recommendations.
- The NSW Industrial Relations Commission awarded a 0.3% pay increase for public servants, which nurses, teachers and other frontline workers called a “disgrace”. The NSW government had pushed for wages to be frozen.
- The Maritime Union of Australia said it would call off industrial action at Port Botany, ahead of a further fight in the Fair Work Commission with Patrick Terminals.
- In a pre-budget speech, Scott Morrison said he would rebuild the economy without lifting taxes.
- South Australia announced that from midnight tomorrow, people could once again stand up and drink in pubs and licensed venues, and dance at weddings.
- NSW reported no new locally acquired Covid cases, for the sixth day in a row, but two in hotel quarantine. Queensland reported no new cases.
- Victoria reported 15 new cases and two deaths.
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And here is our full story on the MUA and Patrick news from today:
Some of the strongest language from Aged Care RC reserved for lack of PPE, as described by the Health Services Union. Calls that lack of PPE for workers "deplorable"
— Max Chalmers (@maxchalm) October 1, 2020
Aged and Community Services Australia, which represents not-for-profit providers, has welcomed the aged care royal commission’s report and urged the government to act urgently.
Pat Sparrow, the chief executive of ACSA, said in a statement:
“These are fantastic recommendations to safeguard aged care from the pandemic and the government should adopt them urgently. The interface between aged care and the health system has been broken for some time. Older people should not have healthcare rationed. The Medicare Benefits Schedule numbers and improved hospitalisation policy as proposed by ACSA will be big steps forward if implemented.”
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Labor’s spokesperson for ageing and seniors, Julie Collins, has accused the government of “catastrophic failure” resulting in “a national tragedy”.
In a statement, she said the aged care royal commission report confirmed the government had no plan for Covid-19 in aged care.
“The foundations of our country’s aged care system have buckled under the pressure of a deadly disease and the Morrison government did not do enough to stop it,” she said.
“Australians are owed action. The Morrison government cannot announce its way out of this disaster.”
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the aged care Royal Commission's report on the COVID response is out. Some initial excerpts below:
— Josh Butler (@JoshButler) October 1, 2020
"The Interim Report noted that the aged care workforce is under-resourced and overworked. It is now also traumatised"
full report here: https://t.co/jtv6bVF1Ko
Aged care expert Prof Joseph Ibrahim, who testified before the royal commission, is on the ABC and says that the government’s response is “not sufficient”.
“What is clear from the royal commission report is the federal government is clearly responsible for the aged care response, that is beyond doubt now,” he says.
“They still don’t have a national plan. Recommendation four from the royal commission asks again for a national plan, this was not established until around the time of the royal commission hearings. I had called for these to be done in March.
“The fact that the government has accepted all of these recommendations is good and constructive but does not absolve them of their responsibility previously.”
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Government will accept all recommendations of aged care royal commission
Aged care minister Richard Colbeck says the government will accept all recommendations of the aged care royal commission, who today issued a special report into Covid-19.
Colbeck describes the report today as “quite constructive”.
He says the government was already “well-progressed” on four of the six recommendations before they were announced.
“Additionally, the government will, as a part of our initial response to the report, be announcing $40.6m as an investment in two initiatives. One of those will be an additional $29.8m in the serious incident response scheme that we have announced funding for previously, and we will be bringing the commencement of that program forward until early next year.
“And in response to recommendation five, we are announcing an extra $10.8m to enhance skills and leadership of aged care nurses to ensure older Australians and senior Australians receive the best care possible.”
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The royal commissioners, Tony Pagone QC and Lynelle Briggs AO, made a point in this report to say it is “not the time for blame” because “there is too much at stake”.
They said they were in “no doubt that people, governments and government departments have worked tirelessly to avert, contain and respond to this human tragedy”.
But the report said the nation needed to know what lessons had been learned – and what lessons still needed to be learnt.
“The nation needs to know what is being done, and what will be done, to protect those people receiving aged care services – those who this virus has affected disproportionately and whose entitlement to high quality care in safe environments that protect their wellbeing and dignity falls within the scope of our commission.”
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The aged care minister, Richard Colbeck, will address the media at 4.45pm.
The royal commission has identified four things the government should do “immediately” to help the aged care sector right now.
That includes allowing a greater number of visitors.
The report says:
- The Australian government should fund providers to ensure there are adequate staff available to deal with external visitors so that the Industry Code for Visiting Residential Aged Care Homes during COVID-19 (Visitation Code) can be modified to enable a greater number of more meaningful visits between people receiving care and their loved ones.
- The Australian government should create Medicare Benefits Schedule items to increase the provision of allied health and mental health services to people living in residential aged care during the pandemic to prevent deterioration in their physical and mental health. Any barriers, whether real or perceived, to allied health and mental health professionals being able to enter residential aged care facilities should be removed unless justified on genuine public health grounds.
- The Australian government should publish a national aged care plan for COVID-19 and establish a national aged care advisory body.
- The Australian government should arrange for the deployment of accredited infection prevention and control experts into residential aged care homes.
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Royal commission finds aged care was "insufficiently" prepared for Covid-19
The aged care royal commission has found the Australian government’s measures to prepare the aged care sector for Covid-19 were “insufficient” in some respects.
The royal commission’s special report on aged care and Covid-19 has just been released.
The report said the nation’s chief health and medical officers had acknowledged in March that Covid-19 posed a significant health risk for the elderly, “it is now clear that the measures implemented by the Australian government on advice from the AHPPC were in some respects insufficient to ensure preparedness of the aged care sector”.
“Confused and inconsistent messaging from providers, the Australian government and state and territory governments emerged as themes in the submissions we have received on Covid-19. All too often, providers, care recipients and their families, and health workers did not have an answer to the critical question: Who is in charge? At a time of crisis, such as this pandemic, clear leadership, direction and lines of communication are essential.”
We’ll have more detail on this report shortly.
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The industry minister, Karen Andrews, is on the ABC and has said she might look at a Five Eyes-esque network where Australia and similar “like-minded” countries could collaborate to set up supply chains of emergency goods.
Andrews said Australia would look to boost its own manufacturing of things like surgical masks and medical supplies to make the country self-sufficient.
But she added:
We will also be working very closely with like-minded nations so that we can set up supply chains so that we can rely on them during a crisis.
ABC host Jane Norman asked her if this would be “an extension of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network” with English-speaking countries such as the UK, New Zealand and Canada.
Andrews confirmed she would be looking at those kinds of countries. She said the government would not be nationalising companies.
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Nurses and teachers say 0.3% pay rise 'disgraceful'
Some more reaction to the decision to grant public servants in NSW a 0.3% pay rise.
The general secretary of Public Service Association, Stewart Little, said it was “absolutely diabolical” and affecting frontline staff who had worked hard during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The general secretary of the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association, Brett Holmes, said it was a “disgraceful” outcome for nurses who have been putting their lives and their families at risk amid Covid-19, AAP reports.
NSW Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos described the ruling as “nothing short of an insult”.
The decision comes after the NSW government pushed to freeze the pay of public servants.
Today, the NSW Industrial Relations Commission decided to grant public servants a 0.3% pay rise, saying that would keep the real value of their wages from sliding back.
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Hi all, it’s Naaman Zhou here. Thanks to Amy Remeikis for her work today.
In other IR news, the NSW Industrial Relations Commission has awarded a 0.3% pay increase for public servants, which unions have called a “disgrace”.
The NSW government had wanted to freeze pay rises for 12 months, which was opposed by unions and frontline workers including paramedics, nurses, police officers and teachers, who had been seeking to get their 2.5% annual pay rise.
AAP reports that the commission decided today that public servants are entitled to maintain the real value of their earnings as is consistent with the government wages policy and a pay freeze would see a 0.3% reduction in the real value of their earnings.
The IRC said:
The commission proposes to make awards and variations to avoid such a reduction, by awarding increases of 0.3%.
We recognise that it will do little to alleviate the concerns of those witnesses and any like-minded co-workers who see the employers’ position in these proceedings as failing to recognise, let alone reward, their efforts.
But the IRC noted the government sector had been shielded from some of the significant employment-related consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic that have hit other industries hard.
The commission said:
There is no evidence that the pandemic has resulted in forced redundancies or other job losses in the government sector in NSW.
The decision was slammed by unions, with many describing it as disappointing and a slap in the face.
Unions NSW secretary Mark Morey told reporters on Thursday:
Today is a kick in the guts for every public sector worker that got us through not only bushfires but Covid.
It is a disgrace and I feel sorry for every public sector worker.
NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay said she was “bitterly disappointed” by the decision.
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On that note, I am going to hand you over to Naaman Zhou for the rest of the afternoon.
I’ll be back early tomorrow morning. In the meantime – take care of you. Ax
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The Maritime Union of Australia’s Sydney assistant branch secretary, Paul Garrett, has spoken about the Patricks dispute outside the Fair Work Commission in Sydney. And as flagged earlier, the dispute is not over.
Garrett said the union had paused its industrial action, which included bans on overtime and acting in more senior duties, until the Fair Work Commission hears the company’s application on 26 and 27 October to terminate the actions.
Garrett said the union had offered the same weeks ago to suspend actions and continue negotiations. He disputed the company’s characterisation of their offer, which he said would have resulted in “mass casualisation” through engagement of 50 casuals in roles that should be full-time, and warned that the union “won’t trade off pay for job insecurity”.
Garrett also laid into Scott Morrison, who he said had been “wrong all week” because there were not 40 ships off Port Botany waiting to unload, and the company could not identify any ships with medicines waiting to be unloaded.
Garrett said:
We expect Patricks to negotiate – they can’t hide behind the media, the courts, the prime minister who got it wrong all week.
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The Maritime Union of Australia has put out its statement – the conclusion is the same, but the theme and tone is (understandably) very different:
A marathon two-day conciliation hearing before the Fair Work Commission has failed to resolve the current waterfront dispute after container terminal operator Patrick rejected the Maritime Union of Australia’s formal peace offer.
In an updated offer to the company this morning, the union offered to extend the rollover period of the existing workplace agreement to two years — provided an extended period of industrial certainty — along with industry-standard 2.5% a year pay rises.
The deal collapsed after the company insisted workers choose between substantially lower pay rises or changes to the existing agreement that would allow the massive casualisation of the workforce, stripping away job security in the midst of the Covid crisis.
Patrick said it would only accept the union’s rollover proposal — which would have maintained the status quo in relation to workplace rights and conditions — if workers agreed to accept pay rises a full 1% a year below those being provided by other stevedores, including Patrick’s co-owner Qube Logistics.
The FWC hearing into Patrick’s attempt to stop workers from exercising their legal right to undertake protected industrial action has been adjourned, and will take place over two days from October 26.
The union will this afternoon write to the company voluntarily withdrawing all planned industrial action ahead of that hearing.
MUA national secretary Paddy Crumlin said he was dismayed by the company’s rejection of a reasonable and fair peace deal that would have brought this dispute to an immediate end in the public interest.
Crumlin said:
Our formal offer to the Fair Work Commission had no strings attached, it would simply have seen the existing workplace agreement that Patrick previously negotiated continue, resolving the current dispute and allowing a process of genuine negotiation to commence.
The company rejected that offer, even when we offered to extend it for two years, instead insisting that workers either accept a massive increase to the use of casual, rather than permanent workers, or pay rises well below the industry standard.
We will not accept a highly-profitable company using the cover of the Covid crisis to strip away the job security of productive, hard-working whafies, replacing quality jobs with precarious casual employment.
Resolving this dispute requires compromise from both sides.
The union did that with our offer of a genuine peace deal, yet Patrick is instead forcing workers to choose between sacrificing their job security or losing money.
Despite these provocations from the company, and the failure to reach agreement, the union has agreed to halt all forms of industrial action until the FWC hearing into Patrick’s attempt to terminate legally-protected industrial action can take place later this month.
Crumlin said the union would be vigorously defending the company’s baseless application.
Patrick’s dishonesty has been exposed in the media this week, and we believe their legal claims are equally flawed.
On Monday, the public was told there were 40 container ships sitting off the NSW coast waiting to unload, but by Tuesday it was clear there were only one or two sitting off Port Botany, which is a normal situation.
On Monday, the public was told medical supplies were being held up, yet by Wednesday the CEO of Patrick was forced to admit he wasn’t aware of a single medical container that was delayed.
In the same way, this hearing will expose the company’s outrageous claims that limited, legal industrial action was causing massive delays for farmers, importers, and consumers for the fraud they are.
It will also expose the fact that Patrick has been using this dispute as cover to implement massive increases to landside fees, blaming the union for what is clearly a management move to gouge more money out of their customers.
What we have seen today is Patrick management continue to use the cover of Covid and the community anxiety that comes with it to attack the conditions of their workforce, gouge profit, and misrepresent their true intentions.
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The “go slow” order that had been delaying ships from docking (which had impacted about 40 cargo ships, although the majority were not in Australian waters) has also been suspended until the next Fair Work Commission hearing on 26/27 October. The overtime ban has been lifted for now.
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Just back on that statement from Patrick’s, it notes that the MUA has rejected the 1.5% offer (they are chasing 2.5% at this point – the 6% figure you have heard was an early starting point, put forward before the pandemic hit), which means the fight isn’t over, it is just delayed.
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In today’s episode of Full Story I talk to Michael McGowan about Australia’s strange and complex world of online conspiracy theories.
We have also spoken to Nationals MP Anne Webster, who successfully sued Karen Brewer for defamation after she spread a vicious lie that Webster was a member of a secret pedophile network and had been parachuted into parliament to protect a past generation of paedophiles.
Webster was awarded $875,000 in damages and Brewer was ordered to take down the posts – but that’s not where the story ends.
Webster told Full Story that the technology companies had to be regulated:
We have to do better than this. We have to develop legislation, we have to be able to hold Facebook and YouTube and MeWe and Instagram, and all of those other platforms, to account as publishers.
Just as our newspapers have codes and law they would face if they start to spread malicious lies, it ought to be exactly the same for our social media. They should have a responsibility to ensure that the Brewers of this world do not have a handle.
Webster added:
I totally believe in freedom of speech, totally believe in our democratic right, but when it comes to the kind of defamatory and consistent and defiant behaviour that Brewer has shown ... well I don’t think that’s good enough.
Tune in here for the Full Story:
And if you don’t already, you should definitely subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
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Maritime union backs down on strike threat
Patrick Terminals has issued a statement after the Maritime Union of Australia announced it was backing down on its threat of strike action.
After a day and half of talks at the Fair Work Commission, the MUA announced it would immediately end industrial action at Patrick terminals in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle.
Patrick CEO Michael Jovicic said he was pleased the union had called off the damaging actions around Australia.
He said the union had inflicted unnecessary pain across the supply chain and had now walked away with nothing.
Having lost in the court of public opinion, they decided to retreat to fight another day.
During the talks, the MUA today rejected a generous offer of 1.5% pay increases for each year of four years with no changes to their current conditions or rosters.
In addition, Patrick offered to hire 50 new workers at Port Botany to help clear the backlog of containers and improve productivity. We also offered job guarantees with no forced redundancies for the life of the agreement.
Jovicic said he was amazed the MUA had rejected the offer.
At least now we can get on with clearing the backlog which exceeds more than 100,000 containers around Australia. My operations team estimate it will take between two and three months to return to normal.
Hopefully this means we will avoid shortages of goods at Christmas time.
Also, this morning we have been contacted by a freight forwarder seeking assistance to locate and move a container containing essential diabetes medication. They advise there is now a critical shortage of these drugs. The ship was delayed by three weeks due to the industrial action.
We have located the container and it will be discharged from Port Botany tonight.
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WA premier Mark McGowan is holding firm on WA’s hard border:
As AAP reports:
Reopening the borders to South Australia and the Northern Territory would provide Western Australia with no economic benefit, premier Mark McGowan says.
With other states and territories beginning to reopen their borders, WA remains isolated in its refusal to subscribe to a targeted Covid-19 “hotspots” regime.
WA’s borders have been closed to anyone except designated workers and people exempted on compassionate grounds for almost six months.
Like WA, SA and the NT have managed to stamp out community transmission and have had low coronavirus case numbers.
But McGowan says there is no point in pursuing a travel bubble.
He said on Thursday:
There is no benefit. All we’ll do is lose jobs were we to open to those [jurisdictions].
The other states want us to open the border so that West Australian tourists will flood east, not so that people from the east will come here.
They’re only saying all this for very self-interested reasons because we have higher incomes, we have people that are more used to travelling and therefore we’ll have more tourists go from Western Australia to the east.
The comments are likely to frustrate industry groups that have called on the McGowan government to provide certainty on the easing of border restrictions.
McGowan remains adamant the borders won’t come down until the eastern states go 28 days with no community spread.
He highlighted reports that passengers from the Ruby Princess cruise ship may have infected up to 11 people on a flight from Sydney to Perth.
When we get calls from other governments around Australia, particularly NSW, to bring down our border, all I’d say is they have had significant policy failures in the east that caused the spread of the virus into Western Australia in the early days.
We’re always very careful about our borders to protect our people. If only they’d been more careful, we would’t have had some of those cases come to our state.
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Victoria Health has put out its official data release:
Victoria has recorded 15 new cases of coronavirus since yesterday, with the total number of cases now at 20,183.
The overall total has increased by 14 due to one case being reclassified.
Seven of today’s 15 new cases have been linked to known outbreaks or complex cases. Three are linked to aged care (Bupa Edithvale, TLC Noble Manor in Noble Park and Opal Hobsons Bay in Altona North) and four are linked to the Butcher Club at Chadstone Shopping Centre. The other eight cases remain under investigation.
Of today’s 15 new cases, there are five cases in Casey, two cases in Greater Dandenong, Maribyrnong and Monash and single cases in Boroondara, Glen Eira, Wyndham and Yarra.
There have been two new deaths from Covid-19 reported since yesterday: one woman aged in her 70s and one woman in her 90s. One death occurred prior to yesterday.
Both of today’s deaths are linked to known aged care facility outbreaks. To date, 800 people have died from coronavirus in Victoria.
The average number of cases diagnosed in the last 14 days for metropolitan Melbourne is 15.6 and regional Victoria is 0.3. The rolling daily average case number is calculated by averaging out the number of new cases over the past 14 days.
The total number of cases from an unknown source in the last 14 days is 19 for metropolitan Melbourne and zero for regional Victoria. The 14-day period for the source of acquisition data ends 48 hours earlier than the 14-day period used to calculate the new case average due to the time required to fully investigate a case and assign its mode of acquisition.
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The Fair Work Commission will hand down its decision in the Patrick’s Terminals industrial relations dispute at 3pm.
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For those wondering, Jacqui Lambie will announce tomorrow how she plans on voting on the refugee mobile phone bill.
Lambie is the deciding vote.
The bill seeks to strip mobile phone access from refugees and asylum seekers who are detained in our detention centres. It’s often their only link to the outside world.
Don’t kid yourselves, though – the bill, if successful, won’t stop mobile phones being available. It will just means they will be smuggled in as contraband, forcing refugees and asylum seekers to pay insane, inflated prices to access something that provides them much needed contact outside of their locked-in world.
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Q: Is manufacturing the way out of the crisis?
Anthony Albanese:
Look, manufacturing is absolutely vital.
That is something that Labor has been saying for a long period of time. It wasn’t just discovered this week before a budget. Kevin Rudd, when he was PM, said that he wanted a country that made things, and one of the things that we did on infrastructure, for example, when I was the minister, we went from 20th in the OECD when we came to office to first in terms of environment as a proportion of the national economy.
What we did was make sure that there were people getting apprenticeships and training, including four Firs Nations people, on projects that we funded as part of the funding principles.
With made sure that we used local supplies, and one of the things that I spoke about was about using the power of government purchasing to actually drive job creation here in manufacturing in this country.
There is some real low-handing fruit. A national rail manufacturing plan, for example, producing carriages here – rather than overseas, that don’t actually fit the lines – or buying ferries overseas where people get decapitated if they are on the top deck, would be a good idea.
We should make things here. There is a whole range of new products that we can make here as well.
We have everything that goes into a battery. We have lithium and all of those rare earths, the second-largest deposit of rare earths in the world. We should be using that to produce batteries, to produce solar panel, to produce more things here.
We need to be more self-reliant when it comes to pharmaceuticals and medical products here as well. There is a range of things that could be produced here. We should be doing it.
We should be making sure that we are more self-reliant in the future because it is about creating jobs, but it is also about creating a future for this country.
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PM priorities announcements over outcomes, Anthony Albanese says
Anthony Albanese has responded to Scott Morrison’s speech:
It is a good day to be talking about jobs and skills because the prime minister today, of course, has made some comments about manufacturing, another announcement from a government that prioritise announcements rather than prioritises delivery.
The only thing that Scott Morrison has managed to manufacture in his time in government is announcements, rather than actually manufacturing jobs.
We know that this is a government that dared the car industry to leave Australia.
This is the political part, the Liberal party, who said that we can’t manufacture trains here in this country.
This is a government now in it eighth year that has discovered the need to make things right here. Something that I outlined in my first vision statement going back to last year, Jobs in the Future of Work.
The test for this government is not whether it can make announcements. We know that is the case.
The test for this government is them actually delivering on those announcements. It is one thing to use a figure like $1.5bn, when we know that is half of the $3bn that has been cut from TAFE for skilling young Australians and other Australians needing retraining since they came into office. So it is important that they be held to account.
It is important that Scott Morrison change what has become a characteristic of being there for the photo op, but not there for the follow-up.
What we need is a government in this country coming out of the pandemic that actually delivers support for the recovery, that puts people into jobs and skills. And we also remain concerned that a community like this in Western Sydney, with the cuts that have been made to jobkeeper and jobseeker just this week is seeing many millions of dollars being withdrawn from the local economy here.
That won’t do anything to actually create jobs.
Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP
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Helen Haines has some questions for Michael McCormack (I mean, we all do, mostly just ‘why?’) about a new regional fund that locks her electorate out – despite what it has been through since the bushfires.
I'm asking @M_McCormackMP to explain to everyone in Indi why, after the drought we’ve faced, the bushfires we’ve endured, and the border shut down we have suffered, he has excluded us from a new $100m fund specifically for regions impacted by these crises. pic.twitter.com/3P8FyiGtDp
— Helen Haines MP (@helenhainesindi) October 1, 2020
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Just a reminder, this announcement is estimated to create (conservatively) just 8,000 jobs a year; 80,000 is a 10-year-plan number.
It’s 8,000 jobs (annually) across six sectors of the manufacturing industry.
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And Scott Morrison finishes up.
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Meanwhile ...
#breaking Coalition MPs urge Scott Morrison to restore funding to auditor general #auspol https://t.co/UBur9ZTkoW
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) October 1, 2020
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Q: You’ve had the retirement incomes review since July. There is a big debate going on about the future of the superannuation contribution and you will make a decision in a few months. Why don’t you release that fact-based report immediately so the debate can be better informed?
Scott Morrison:
We are focused on the budget right now. The budget measures that relate to areas of superannuation, they will be announced next week.
As I said to [Seven] in the interview we did on the weekend, the superannuation guarantee levy rise is not scheduled to take place until July of next year.
We’ve always been quite cautious through the course of this pandemic to try and make decisions at a time when the information is at its best.
And we’re not at that point, when it comes to making a number of those decisions.
And so we would seek to make that before July of next year, and so there will be plenty of opportunity, I think, to work through those issues between now and then. But for now we will focus on the budget, and when it comes to the release of that review we will make further announcements after the budget.
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Q: One of the big impacts on the economic growth for the next financial year will be the migration mix. We know that permanent migration will fall probably to one of its lowest levels. Are there mechanisms where refugees who are in Australia on temporary protection visas can help fill that void, given we know these are remarkably resilient tarps, highly skilled, highly motivated that want to make a contribution?
Scott Morrison:
Yes, and there already are. We have visas that enable people, in particular who are on temporary protection visas, to go out and work and live in regional areas. I was the minister who introduced it. I would encourage them to take it up. There are more jobs. I encourage them to get them. They work hard and will find themselves with opportunity. If you are there for three years, then you can establish a pathway. And so those arrangements are already in place.
Q: New mechanisms was the crucial word – new.
Morrison:
You don’t need to fix something that’s not broken. There is already a mechanism there to provide for that.
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Q: You mentioned a few times that up to 40% of costs for industries – cost structures – are gas ... Are you willing to enforce retailers to reduce their price closer to the wholesale price for those industries?
Scott Morrison:
Yep. Well, the net back price, I think, is what you’re referring to. There are three things we are doing in gas. I outlined this in the Hunter a few weeks ago.
The first is we need to unlock more of the gas. So I welcome the decision in New South Wales on Narrabri. I think it is great.
We are talking about massive investment here. Thousands of jobs, breath in construction and so on, both in construction and ongoing.
The boost, as Michael McCormack will know, into that region of NSW will be tremendous.
With more rain recently, the Narrabri is looking a lot brighter than it has looked for some time.
I think that is to be welcomed. You have to get more access to the gas. You have to increase the supply of gas to actually get the price down.
The second thing you have got to do is ensure the distribution networks there – the grid is not serving the interests of gas companies but serving the interests of customers. And that in particular includes not just household customers ... That’s why we are taking a similar approach to a gas grid and gas hub, modelled in part on what occurs with the Henry Hub in the United States. Because a distribution and hub system gives you greater certainty about both the supply and the forward pricing of gas, which means people can make judgements about where they are investing in their future lines and what the price of gas might be.
There is too much volatility, too much uncertainty, but more certain distribution, and through ahub arrangement actually– hub arrangement deals with that. Then there are market reforms that come on top.
That’s what the national cabinet is working on, has been tasked with through the energy subcommittee that Angus Taylor leads. And the market reforms there combine with the work that has been done with the exporters of gas on ensuring that we don’t send offshore what we need here in Australia.
There is work being done around our reservation system to that end. So, there’s all of those things working together. There is no one thing that does it. You have to do all of it. That is why we announced such a comprehensive plan to reset, in particular, the east coast gas market, which Angus is leading.
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Q: More than 90% of Australian’s pharmaceuticals are manufactured offshore. You have set a priority focus on medical products. Does that include pharmaceuticals? Does that industry, given the circumstances we have seen, [get to be] geared up more quickly with a bit more government money?
Scott Morrison:
The short answer to that question is a question. That is why medical is a key - one of the priority sectors we have identified for exactly that purpose. ... Pretty soon should we get the vaccine go through its trials; $1.7bn on its way to have two vaccines produced here in Australia. Not just for Australians – every Australian would get a vaccine, but that would also extend to countries in the Pacific and hopefully also to support in South-East Asia as well.
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Q: We are talking today about developing the manufacturing industries of the future. I want to ask you about apparent deep problem with the manufacturing industries of the present. COVID aside, the data from the website today of the Department of Employment and skills, which is just pre-COVID, shows serious skills shortages in areas like sheet metal workers, fitters, mechanics, panel beaters, bricklayers, carpenters and joiners, glaze years, plasterers, plumbers, electrician, refrigeration mechanisms - it goes on and on. We are going to have a record pool of young potential employee, record skills shortages. What will you do to match those two issues?
Scott Morrison:
That is why many, many months ago I came here and said we needed a JobTrainer fund.
That is why we put $1 billion with the states and interest tries to create 340,000 new training places for those things - this year. This very year.
And that commitment of an additional half a billion dollars by the federal government, which I brought to the premiers and chief ministers through our National Cabinet process - I said you match this.
But I don’t want you to just match it for this year, we need to move to a different way in which we run skills investment in this country.
It is run with a rear vision mirror. It is run trying to train people for jobs that were needed five years ago. We need to turn that around.
That is why we set up the National Skills Commission, which is operational. The skills commissioner briefed the National Cabinet and federal Cabinet on where future are, and where we have to redirect resources to those sector, particularly those that will be supporting the skills sector, the supports of industries I talked about today.
By setting priorities, people are talked about picking winners. No. We are setting priorities.
All manufacturing businesses will be winners from dealing with industrial relations, getting energy costs down. Getter taxes lower, by getting the skills areas that we’re now talking about.
To be able - they will all win from that. Then we focus on priorities and particular priorities in the road maps in each sector, which has been assiduously working on, is to ensure there are training plans and skills development plans in the skill areas they are going to support, whether it an in aero space, or plastics manufacture, and composites to support robust armoured vehicles.
That is where we need the people. In the past, I have been an immigration minister.
I was furiously frustrated at the way skills were being identified that were informing the skill list for immigration. It was terribly outdated.
And these were things that were fed up from the ground and were so outdated by the time they hit a list, it created great frustration. We’ve turned that on its head with the establishment of the National Skills Commission and now the Skills Commission is identifying where the future opportunities are.
That gets plugged into these mans. That gets plugged into where the billion dollars is spent. That is what the National Cabinet ministers - premiers, I should say - and chief ministers, together with myself, have agreed to with a whole new skills agreement that has signed a heads of agreement they ever arid to earlier. It is a massive part of the manufacturing plan. That’s why skills I have been focusing on every single day in this job.
Q: You have been critical of Labor in the fast for failing to quantify the costs of their climate and energy policies. So, in that vain, has the government quantified the cost to taxpayers of your gas-led recovery? Obviously you have telegraphed $53 million in the budget next week. But you have also foreshadowed opening a number of new gas basins, you have fore shadowed potential underwriting of infrastructure and common sense tells us that some of these projects may require taxpayer indemnities. So, what is the total cost? Has the government modelled the impact of these initiatives on your own government’s climate policies? And also where do your employment estimates come from, given the Grattan Institute in a forthcoming report indicates that only 1% of manufacturing workers work in gas-intensive manufacturing.
Scott Morrison:
40% of their costs as Andrew Liveris tells us is in gas.
The think about gas that has been misunderstood is gas is a way of supporting renewable investment, renewable energy sources.
When you look at the costed per unit cost of electricity that comes from all the various sources, whether it’s solar, wind or gas or others, you need to compare it on a reliability measure.
And to make the record investment that we’ve had in renewables work better for the system, it needs the firming capacity.
Now, we know that batteries are not at that scale yet. They’re not at that scale yet. That is understood.
And gas is - as I said, it selects itself because there is not another resource that can so quickly peak to support the renewables, to ensure that it has that reliability to support heavy industries.
So, I would contest the assumptions that have been made that you have referred to, because gas not only provides the energy support, but it provides the feed stock. I mean, you can’t make plastic with wind.
You can’t make plastic with solar. You make it with gas. You can make it with hydrogen as well.* But gas is both a feed stock to support industry and manufacturing sectors, and it is also a source of power that supports households. Now, the interventions that we may undertake are interventions that we would prefer to be done in the market sector, and, in particular, whether it is the gas peaking plan, as Angus and I have been talking about in the Hunter, we would prefer AGL to do it.
If we did it, it would be Snowy Hydro. They would do it on a commercial basis. That would be part of their business plans.
In terms of what investment may be plead in areas of the distribution network, again, I think there are very strong commercial arguments for how that infrastructure can be expanded.
But at this point, the gaps in that and the costs of that are yet to be determined.
And so we will consider that at the time. When it comes to our investment, in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and ARENA, we have set those costs out in terms of where we will invest.
Those investments in both those initiatives, the purpose is to lower emissions, and that’s why we believe both ARENA and the CFC require a broader [mandate].
Because if the purpose is to lower emissions, why would you leave out things that lower emissions?
We actually flow to achieve - whether it is our 2030 target or those that get set for beyond that - then you need to be investing in the technology that achieves that more than 10 years from now.
And so that’s why we want to expand the remit of the CFC, why we want to extend the remit of ARENA. We have set out the costs.
At the present time, there is a clear direction of government policy.
We want to see actually the private sector invest in these areas. Where the private sector, for whatever reason, because sometimes that’s the way oligopolies work, sometimes oligopolies like supply to be constrained so prices can be higher.
We don’t share that view. We know that if we don’t increase the supply, whether it’s of gas or otherwise into the system, for energy prices after Liddell goes that electricity price also go up. That’s not an outcome we’re prepared to countenance.
So, I don’t think these are easy assessments.
There will be plenty of models that make all sorts of punts. Those models I think will struggle in the current environment to make a lot of sense.
The direction that we have said, I think, is very clear.
Gas is the transition fuel. It is what enables us to move from the energy economy we have now to an energy economy that’s going to be there in the future.
And importantly, as a feed stock, and through no less an advisor than Andrew Liveris, who knows a bit about this, he made it pretty clear - if you don’t fix gas, you can’t fix manufacturing. It is in vein.
*You know what you can create with wind and solar? Hydrogen. Imagine that.
Updated
Q: Given that we can probably expect tax cuts next week, what are the methods by which you can get households to consume and spend in the stimulatory way that the budget requires?
Scott Morrison:
You’re right to point to aggregate demand. I set out three components to the budget.
The first one was to cushion the blow. The second one was to recover what was lost. And the third, to build for the future.
The jobmaker plan, of which the manufacturing strategy forms an important part, is very much part of that five-year to 10-year plan around boosting the productivity and performance of the Australian economy.
So, as we shock absorb the blow of Covid and we recover what was lost, then we can grow into a more productive economy domestically.
But the second point around recovery and cushioning that blow goes very much to aggregate demand. And with aggregate demand, measures included jobkeeper, the boost to the instant asset write-off.
It’s already had in plac the wisdom of getting in place personal income tax cuts, two years out from when this occurred – so right here, right now, Australians have more money from what they have earned in their pocket in a time when they have needed it more than at any other time.
That was something worth fighting for. It was something worth fighting for at the last election, and Australians were right to endorse it.
And we were right to legislate it. And we had our opponents. We had those who tried to stop us.
We had those who argued against us at the last selection, not wanting the income tax plan to come into place.
They are important [to stimulate] aggregate demand. There have been support payments made through the welfare system, to pensions and those on the disability pension and other benefits.
All of these combine together to support the volume of activity in our economy. And that’s why they do play an important part in our demand.
Q: You don’t want them to save it?
Morrison:
That is what aggregate demand is.
Q: My question is how do you encourage people to spend it?
Morrison:
Well, point one, I never tell people what to do with their own money. Ever. Because you know why? It’s theirs.
And particularly when you are talking about income tax cuts, they’re just getting to keep more of what they earn.
Now, in these times, we have seen, particularly when it comes to retail and particularly on household items, we have seen, I think, quite extraordinarily an increase in the response in those areas, and that has responded to the aggregate demand stimulus we have put into the economy.
I would argue the measures that we have put in place have done exactly what you have suggested should be done. And measures like that will continue to get those outcomes and they will be important and they’re an important part of the budget...
I’m not going to get into giving an edict to Australians about how they should spend their money. There is plenty of people out there who like to tell people how to spend their money. The Liberal and National parties are not two of those organisations.
Updated
Q: On your comments on sovereign manufacturing capability plans, you said the crisis is not an excuse for protectionist policies to subsidise inefficient firms to make things here locally. Do you consider a government procurement protectionist? In other words, a state or federal government agreeing to underwrite the manufacture of critical products here? Is that protectionist or otherwise?
Scott Morrison:
On those issue, we will abide by the World Trade Organisation rules. And they are a key consideration in how we frame our procurement policies. And we [are] consistent [with] them, being Mathias’s responsibility as finance minister for setting those. You have to balance your ambitions as an open, trading nation and you do that by respecting those rules and playing your part in upholding those rules, and modernising those rules, which we’re doing.
At the same time, understanding that we have a great opportunity through how we procure as a country, whether it is in defence or anywhere else.
I mean, I was advised today that 95.7% by volume and 91.6% by value of the contracts awarded by the Australian government in 2018-19 were to businesses with an Australian address. I think Mathias has done a pretty good job.
That has been assisting, supporting, modernising, energising Australian small and medium-size businesses around the country.
You abide by the rules, and that’s what the rules are designed to protect against – that is against protectionism. If you comply, well, I think you’re in the right spot. That is where we find ourselves.
Updated
Q: Treasury’s best-case assumptions in the July budget update were derailed. We had Victoria’s lockdown extended and new border closures come into play. How confident can we be in next week’s budget assumptions as the country reopens again and how vital is it that once states do open, they stay open?
Scott Morrison:
On the last point, absolutely important. That is why we have to be patient about the process we’re currently engaged in.
We do not want to see a third wave in Victoria or a second wave anywhere else in the country. So that’s why getting it right and making sure the testing, tracing and the outbreak containment measures are totally up to the mark, and to ensure that it contains any outbreaks that may occur. And it wouldn’t be surprising to see other cases occur as states and territories open up.
But as New South Wales has demonstrated, you can do that and keep your economy open. I think NSW, as I’ve said on many occasions, provides the gold standard about how you actually achieve this.
In relation to the budget numbers themselves, Australia’s in as good a position, if not better than most, to be able to assess where our finances will go and how our economy will perform.
But we are living in the most uncertain times any of us have seen in trying to get an understanding of what these numbers will be. I think what we’ve seen over the last four or five months backed up the wisdom of having the budget now, not in May.
It would have been a very different budget in May. I am sure Mathias would agree to what we are now handing down next week.
And it was wise to be patient, to not rush to ensure we better understood what was happening with Covid-19 and our capacity to deal with it. Now, Australia has been able to balance both the health and the economic objectives better than almost every other country in the world today; certainly every other developed country.
As I said, only Norway, economies like Taiwan, then countries like South Korea and Finland as well - I could probably add to that list - have been able to combine these dual objectives as well as Australia has.
But that said, we’re in the same global economy as everyone else. Australia’s economy - we can do everything we can to boost it here in Australia through the measures that will be in next week’s budget and the jobmaker plan over the next five years.
But we will also be vulnerable to the global economy; 4.5% fall this year, 45 times worse than the GFC. That is something to reflect on.
So, in that environment, I think Treasury’s task, and the Reserve Bank’s task - the OECD and others - their task is very, very difficult. And so that’s what we will know next week. If circumstances change again in the future, as you’ve seen the government do, we’ve quickly come together, considered any changes that are necessary, and we’ve acted.
And that’s what you have seen for the last six months. That’s what Australians will continue to see.
Updated
Q: You mentioned research and development during your speech several times. Before the Senate at the moment, the government has a bill that changes taxation on R&D, saves money, one of the critics of that bill is a company called ResMed which made a big contribution this year by making ventilators. At the moment, you seem to be spending $1.5 billion on manufacturing, at the same time you save $1. 8 billion on R&D tax concessions. Does that make sense? Are you open to rethinking the R&D tax changes so that you can actually encourage more research and development?
Scott Morrison:
We certainly want to encourage for R&D. Our answer to that question will be delivered by the Treasurer next Tuesday night. It will be in the budget
Q: Can you offer guidance [on what you are going to do]
Morrison:
The budget speech starts soon after 7:00.
Scott Morrison Q&A
Let’s hope not every question is answered with ‘you’ll find out in the budget’
Q: You touched on industrial relations a couple of times in your speech. The last time that you are here, as you acknowledge, you launched a JobMaker, where you talked about the need for change on industrial relations and you voiced a time-bound approach with September as the deadline with a number of round-table groups, where you also appealed to people to put down their tribal - traditional tribal allegiances to one side. September’s come and gone. Can you tell us where that process is at? Is IR reform still part of your agenda? And will it be announced in the weeks ahead?
Scott Morrison:
It certainly, definitely is. I want to thank all of those who have participated in what has been a fairly feverish paced possess and there has been a lot of good faith and goodwill.
There have been a few disagreements along the way, not to be - not unexpected. But at the same time, people have remained at the table.
And the Attorney-General and I have been very grateful for that, as has the Treasurer. And we have finished that round of the process, and that is being distilled by the Attorney-General, as Minister for Industrial Relations, and he is now fashioning a plan that will come forward to the Cabinet.
We’ve already had a number of discussions about where that would - where that would take us.
I think we have been able to make good progress and the government will make further decisions about how much further we would go beyond what has been discussed because ensuring that we have an industrial relations system that can employ more people, particularly now, is so critical.
We can’t have the rather militant response and approach that we’re currently seeing out there in Port Botany. I mean, we’re talking about a dispute here where they are seeking to reduce automation technology at our waterfront.
To resist the improvements in productivity that will support farmers get their products to international markets. I mean, the process has to be surely about making the enterprises that employ people work better for everybody - our port are a critical link in our economic chain with the world. We can’t do industrial relations that way.
My hope is that is an outlier, that that is an aberration, that that is not a position that is more broadly shared amongst those in the industrial relations area.
And so I hope common sense will prevail and the interests of Australians right across the country, from the paddock to the cities, will be respected in resolving that as quickly as possible.
Scott Morrison finishes his speech with this:
The current crisis is not an excuse for protectionist policies* that subsidise inefficient firms and industries.
Hence we are complementing our actions to boost domestic sovereign capability through greater collaboration with like-minded countries.
Already this has been an area of fruitful discussion with other world leaders, as part of the Smart Covid-19 Management Group convened by the Austrian chancellor.
In conclusion, Australian manufacturing will play a key role in our economic recovery from Covid-19, creating and supporting jobs in cities, in towns, in regional communities and rural areas, right across Australia. It’s a plan for all of Australia and for all Australians.
Our efforts to grow Australia’s manufacturing sector begin by creating a stable and competitive business environment through our jobmaker plan. But it does not end there. Our modern manufacturing strategy will open a new chapter, based on building scale in areas of competitive strength, in driving collaboration and better aligning resources across governments, industry and the research community ... Enlisting expertise to set clear goals for global success, and making science and technology work for industry and for Australians. And, finally, strengthening sovereign resilience in areas of strategic importance.
That is how you create jobs. That’s how you recover from the Covid-19 recession. That is how you build your economy back for the future, which is what our budget will be all about. That’s our plan.
*Unless it is fossil fuels, apparently.
Updated
The Morrison government needs to do a better job of explaining the benefits of foreign investment because of underlying community concerns “that foreigners are buying up the farm, they’re taking over”, a senior adviser to the government has said.
David Irvine, the former Asio chief who now heads the foreign investment review board, clashed with committee chair George Christensen who is using an inquiry into to call for Australia to reduce its economic dependence on China.
Irvine used his appearance before a committee hearing on Thursday to defend the benefits of foreign investment, but when he noted that some underlying concerns were based on “nationalistic” sentiment he was accused by Christensen of being “dismissive” of community concerns.
Irvine resisted attempts to make sweeping statements about Australian concerns about government-owned investors, saying:
In looking at community attitudes we also need to just keep the facts in mind and maybe the response to community concerns is for the government to be doing more explaining of what those facts are and also what the benefits are of foreign involvement in Australian industry, be it agriculture or whatever, because there’s no doubt that it brings benefit ...
If it’s the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund, which is a state-owned enterprise for the purposes of our act, may be very different from the investment of a state owned enterprise of an authoritarian country.
We’ll have a full story soon
Updated
Scott Morrison:
The reality is we cannot and should not seek to reach global scale in a large number of sectors.
We can’t be all things to all people. This is an important lesson from other small and, I’d say, medium-size high-income economies like ours, which have leveraged home-ground manufacturing into global success.
This happened in Singapore, the UK, Germany, Canada – all circumstances and areas that we have looked at. The lesson is don’t try to do everything.
It is all about alignment across levels of government with industry and with research and education sectors, and siloed programs don’t work.
Against that backdrop, the government has identified six national manufacturing priorities in areas of established strength and emerging priority.
They are the resources technology and critical minerals processing, food and beverage manufacturing, medical products, clean energy and recycling, defence industry and the space industry.
Updated
Meanwhile, an important point from my colleague Paul Karp:
The negotiations concluded. They did not reach agreement. All they did was talk. They're now making submissions separately to Christian Porter who can pick and choose what he wants, same as any other consultation process.
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) October 1, 2020
Updated
We are hearing a rehash of the budget announcements (and re-announcements) that have already been made.
Murph is at the press club, so we’ll bring you the new parts of the speech, as well as the Q and A.
Updated
We'll rebuild our economy without lifting taxes, PM says
Scott Morrison:
The 2020-21 budget to be delivered by the treasurer next Thursday will be arguably one of the most important, if not the most important, since the end of the second world war. This year, the global economy is forecast to contract by around 4.5%.
The world economy during the GFC declined by 0.1%. So in simple terms, the economic contraction we’re expecting this year in the global economy is 45 times greater than the GFC.
The scale of what is occurring today is incredibly sobering. Never before have we experienced a global recession of this magnitude in a truly modern, interconnected world and global economy.
No longer insulated by geography and old technology, global recessions now occur in real time. So this budget will be necessarily different, in scale, to those we have seen in many generations.
It will respond responsibly to the challenge of our time and consistent with the principles that we laid down at the outset of the pandemic back in March.
The budget will confirm the strong plan we have to recover from the Covid-19 recession and to build our economy for the future; to cushion the blow of the pandemic recession, to recover what has been lost – the jobs, the livelihoods, the hours, the incomes, the customers, the clients.
But, importantly, to take new ground by rebuilding our economy for the future. And we’ll do this, importantly, while honouring our guarantee to the essential services that Australians rely on – the schools, the hospitals, Medicare, aged care, disability services – and we’ll do it while keeping Australians safe and we’ll do it without increasing taxes.
That’s what the 2020-21 budget is all about.
Updated
Scott Morrison's pre-budget speech
The prime minister opens his press club address by welcoming Michael McCormack’s “tremendous” speech yesterday at the Regional Institute – which is where he suggested people promote fruit picking as a chance for a great Instagram story, or to find love.
You can also take photos in front of big things, the deputy prime minister says.
McCormack looks very chuffed. (I guess it makes up for when the PM chipped him for referring to taxpayers paying 10 times the value of a plot of land not needed for another 30 years as “a bargain”.)
Mathias Cormann also gets a shout out and a reminder that he is leaving at the end of the day, and the “very big shoes” he leaves to fill in the government.
Updated
Labor has responded to the manufacturing announcement today (which includes some re-announcements) and it includes reference to that R&D tax offset cut bill I mentioned earlier this morning:
After a talking up an imminent major manufacturing package, this is nothing more than a re-packaged re-announcement.
Today’s $1.5bn is less than what this government is cutting from the research and development tax incentive – an initiative crucial to our advanced manufacturing future.
The Morrison government’s bill before parliament will rip nearly $2bn out of research and development, which will directly hurt Australian manufacturing.
The six priority areas announced today were all identified in Labor’s 2012 PM’s manufacturing taskforce report and announced in the 2013 plan for Australian jobs, raising the question - where has this government been for the last seven years?
The majority of the funding will come in the form of grants, which is particularly concerning considering the Morrison government’s terrible track record when it comes to grants – think sports rorts.
The ‘modernising manufacturing fund’ element of the package is simply a re-announcement of an election commitment from the chief marketer, the prime minister.
The announcement talks about commercialisation, but let’s remember the first thing this government did is abolish Commercialisation Australia.
They’ve spent seven years attacking and undermining Australian manufacturing, goading Australian car manufacturers to leave our shores, and now they want Australians to believe they support manufacturing – what a waste of years of economic growth and taxpayers’ money.
Updated
Here was Scott Morrison on Adelaide radio 5AAA this morning talking about the Patrick’s Terminal industrial relations fight:
Q: Are we going to be able to sort out this industrial problem we’ve got on the wharf? We’ve got a whole lot of ships holding stock that is causing a few issues. I know that you’ve suggested that unless an agreement is reached, you might call in the ADF. What’s the latest?
Scott Morrison:
Well, A) I haven’t said that. I mean, others have suggested that I’ve been keeping my own counsel on those things with the attorney, but I certainly want to see it resolved and it’s not resolved yet.
And the clock is ticking on this because it is holding back important supplies to Australia. I mean, I think the average wage of those working on the wharf support body is about $175,000 or thereabouts, and for those in other jobs it’s a bit less than that.
I mean, they were looking for 6% increases year on year. We’re in the middle of a recession, a Covid recession, and to slow down work on the wharves to delay, we’ve got 38 ships out there off the Australian coast, about 90,000 containers.
There’ll be others on ports and other parts around the world with medical supplies and other things that are looking to get into that queue. So it does need to be resolved. We’ve made that very clear. My first step is to see it resolved through the parties. But I … they need to get a wriggle on.
A - when asked if he would send in the ADF, he did not rule it out (it is no where near that stage yet); B - you’ll notice the word “medical” has dropped off the supply hold up complaint there (because it wasn’t true); and C – 38 ships off the coast of Australia includes ships that are closer to Pacific Island nations than Australia. The go-slow order may have delayed their arrival in Australian waters, but you won’t be seeing almost 40 ships lined up waiting to dock if you’re standing on a coastal headland, no matter where you are in Australia
Updated
Scott Morrison is about to address the National Press Club.
But this morning, as part of his morning media rounds, he took the time to give a verbal set down to one of his NSW state colleagues.
As Murph reports:
Scott Morrison has rebuked the New South Wales energy and environment minister, Matt Kean, for describing the controversial Narrabri coal seam gas development as a “gamble”, declaring Kean is out of step with the premier and the state’s own policy.
The prime minister on Thursday used an interview on the Sydney radio station 2GB to tell Kean, the NSW Liberal frontbencher and a vocal advocate for renewable energy, to pull his head in, declaring: “If you are not for gas, you are not for manufacturing jobs.
“I’m afraid the minister is a bit out of step with his own government, their own policy, the premier and indeed the deal he struck with the federal government,” Morrison said. “You’ve got to stick to your deals and stick to your word.”
Updated
From midnight tomorrow, you can once again stand up and drink in South Australia.
Previously, you had to sit down. Or, if you are me, lay down on the couch and lift your head, wiping the remnants off your shirt and chin.
But now, if you are in a SA licensed venue, or at a wedding, you can once again wander around while holding your drink (socially distant, of course).
You can even dance at a wedding in South Australia now.
(It is so strange reporting that dancing is once again allowed, and that it is a sentence that makes sense)
Updated
Those last few questions in the press conference were from this story in the Age
And that is where the press conference feed ends.
Q: Is this something that the ADF could do possibly? Like, why are we still using casual work staff when there clearly and consistently are problems ...
Daniel Andrews:
I don’t think the ADF will be cleaning rooms. I don’t think Victoria police should be cleaning rooms.
Q: But you said these people were not cleaners. They were supporting Victoria police, you said.
Andrews:
That’s right.
Q: Are they cleaners or security staff or are they support workers? Which are they?
Andrews:
Well, as I have just said to you, have a look at what Alfred Health has said. Alfred Health has made it clear they are not providing security. They don’t provide security. The site is secured by Victoria police.
Q: Why did Victoria police come in take these people off the shift in the middle of their shift?
Andrews:
There is a transition to a new set of arrangements that is unfolding. For instance, if you had asked me, say, two or three weeks ago would we be going from Grand Chancellor and Brady to Grand Chancellor and Novotel South Wharf, I probably would have said I wasn’t aware of that. Yet there have been planning for some time, I take it, to transition away from the Brady Hotel to the Novotel South Wharf.
So there is change in this program, there is an ability to implement that change, because it only has got about 100 people in it, the vast majority of which are people who have voluntarily – in fact, asked us to house them because they don’t have domestic arrangements that would be suitable.
There are a small number of international arrives who, for compassionate grounds, have been granted an exemption to come. That is a fairly small number. But it is a very different program dealing with a very different risk profile, dealing with different cohorts of people ... It will have to change yet again in the weeks and months ahead, once we finish up with many thousands of people coming back via international flights.
Q: Premier, you are not seriously expecting us to believe it was part of the plan for people to leave their shifts mid-shift, are you?
Andrews:
I can’t provide you any further details than I have. I am happy to ask the question for you and provide you with what further information I have got.
Updated
Q: The health workers have told us that the practices of Spotless staff could spark a third wave of coronavirus. She said, “When international flights start again, Victoria will be screwed.” How and why do we still have poorly trained casual workers working in hotel quarantine, particularly when you have personally assured us that these [cases] are now being treated by hospitals?
Daniel Andrews:
I don’t necessarily agree with the conclusion you have drawn about the quality of training.
Q: This health worker does.
Andrews:
This is an unnamed health worker. She or he is entitled, whoever that might be, to have a view, but that is not the advice provided to me, in terms of training and the terms in which those people are employed. That is not consistent with the advice that has been provided to me.
Q: Just to clarify, you are saying that Victoria police were guarding the hotel. Spotless workers, who are security staff, were there as a support staff, not for security, and they were removed halfway during their shift?
Andrews:
I would refer you to the Alfred Health statement that makes it very clear they were not providing security.
Q: But they are security staff hired by ...
Andrews:
Well, no. If you are not providing security then you are not security staff. The statement of Alfred Health makes that very clear. The Victoria police are providing the security. They are providing the security there.
Updated
Q: So what were the Spotless workers doing if they weren’t providing security?
Daniel Andrews:
They were providing security and Alfred Health has made that clear. They were providing, I think – I suppose you could say it was an extension of welfare work, I would have thought. They are in place, somebody needs something or if there was an issue, they wouldalert Victoria police, for instance, and they would deal with that issue. That is the understanding that I have.
Q: And they got sent midway through the shift and ... [and Victoria police have taken their place.] Why did that occur?
Andrews:
As I understand it, there are a series of different points at which the program is changing and involving. I couldn’t, for instance, as I stand here now, [be] saying to you that is the last change. There is a program to transition – and I suppose the best example of that is that we have gone from Grand Chancellor and the Brady; the Brady is now closed, as I am advised this morning as part of that program.
That didn’t happen yesterday. That is a program that is part of a long-term piece of work and they have gone to the Novotel South Wharf.
So it is not settled in that ... I can list for you what the next three or four changes will be, but it is not necessarily settled and it will continue to evolve and it can because we have got the freeze on international arrivals coming back. But of course it will need to be finally landed, so that it can then be in what form, by which I mean how many rooms will be needed [to be] stepped up to scale once we have got flights coming back here.
Updated
Q: Premier, why were the security guards [changed] mid-shift at the Novotel hotel?
Daniel Andrews:
It is really [important] to be detailed about this. Victoria police provide security. Private companies don’t provide security, and the Alfred [Health] has made that clear.
This is a program that has been transitioned. It is a very different program to what it was.
It will potentially have to chain again, once we get to a point where we have international flights coming back.
There will be a scale and volume there that is certainly much greater than what it is now. And the other point of course is that we await the findings of the board, and I think they will – again, I am not pre-empting it – but it is only logical they will have views about what sort of a system should be run and maybe even who should be required to bow into that sort of a quarantine model.
So you have got Department of Justice - sorry, I’ll start at the top: Corrections Victoria, who are running that program. You have security provided by Victoria police.
You have got cleaning, for instance. I don’t think anyone expects members of Victoria police to be cleaning rooms.
So you have a company that is employed to do that work. You have got, then, Alfred Health, who are providing health care obviously, welfare, some of those other important functions – the importance of which I think has been pretty well canvassed during the work of the board.
Updated
Q: Even if we move to the next step and the daily average is only five cases, you are still saying that might be unsafe to travel to regional Victoria?
Daniel Andrews:
What I am saying is we have not landed on that. There may be travel that we don’t think is safe.
We may have an expanded list of reasons why you can go, but ... at this stage I can’t say the “ring of steel”, as it has been called, will be open and everyone can travel throughout the state.
That may not be a smart thing to do at that point. That shouldn’t be read to mean that for all of the second half of October and all of November that those rules would stay in place.
There might be a shorter period, for instance. I know why you ask the question, it is really important, and on a very personal note, my mum would be very keen to see that boundary go. Yours, too. I get it.
There is some economic reasons. There is all sorts of reasons, but the ones that I think are perhaps the most powerful are ... not being able to see the people that you love is very, very hard. We will get that done as soon as we possibly can.
You can pass that message on to your mum from me – we will get there as quickly as we possibly can.
Updated
Q: Can you clarify, is travel out of Melbourne to regional Victoria allowed under step 3?
Daniel Andrews:
It will depend on a couple of things: One, the detailed advice I get. Two, the amount of virus that is in Melbourne, assuming we can take that next step, though.
That may be safe within Melbourne. Whether it is safe to have a free movement without rules into regional Victoria, that matter has not been settled.
But we are turning our mind to that and we will be very clear with people on or about the 19th, when hopefully we can take that next step in metro Melbourne.
We will be very clear with people about what travel opportunities there are. I think that certainly all of the regional Victorian leaders and others that I speak to are very keen to make sure we don’t do anything that compromises the very low virus status.
So just 0.3 cases per day over a 14-day period – no one in regional Victoria wants that to be compromised. I know and understand that many people will for the best of reasons want to travel to regional areas, whether it be to see family or friends or to attend to a whole range of important matters. But we have to be really careful not to put at risk what regional Victorians have been able to achieve, and that is very, very low virus status. But we will have more to say about that when we get to that point.
Nobody will be in any doubt by the time we got to the 19th about what the weeks after that look like for the purposes of travel.
Updated
Q: How hardline are you likely to be on mystery cases? You know, if we were, for example, under the 14-day daily average of five, but we had eight mystery cases, would you be saying, “No, sorry, we are too concerned about the mystery cases, we won’t be opening up yet”?
Daniel Andrews:
It is very difficult to be hard and fast on that. Because there are mystery cases and then there are ... different types, if you like, in terms of the size and scale. And ... you might not be able to establish to a standard where the person got it, but you may have a theory, you may have a view.
So it also is about how many there are. If it were just one or two, then the real challenge here – and, again, if you strip it all back, it is reasonably simple. A person has got it, we can work out where they got it from. They got it from at least one other person. So the person who has got it has got safe contact, the person they got it from has close contacts as well ...
If you were to map this all out with a series of lines heading towards people, that could potentially be quite a significant number of people. That is why upstream and downstream testing, surveillance testing and a solid testing rate for those who are asymptomatic, that is all part of this mix.
But it is a bit difficult for us to be completely certain on that. It will depend on how many, and they have narratives also. They have narratives that sit behind each of those cases as well.
Updated
We move on to Daniel Andrews:
Q: If Melbourne is above that five cases over the 14-day average but they are linked, some of the cases are linked to aged care or known outbreaks, is there a chance we can move to the next step?
Andrews:
We have made the point a number of times now that particularly as numbers get this low and Allen has made the point about chance and how the random nature of human activity can be pretty significant part of this. So we will look, not just at the numbers, but we will look at the narrative or the story that sits behind them. Every case is unique.
Some will have links, but they will have similar stories. Got it in your household, someone got it from a workplace, that workplace is known, whether it be aged care, health - the list goes on.
So we would look behind each of those numbers and we would make a judgement - the public health team would make a judgement and advise me on whether we were safe to go or not.
The modelling and our experience, not just the assumptions, but the actual data, sees us trending into a place where that the is possible.
In fact, the likely would be - I think the landing, but we do have to wait and see how things unfold in the next three weeks or so, but it won’t just be on those hard and fast numbers. I has to be what sits behind them that is why, for instance, we have made the point a number of times they you could toward the back end of that 14-day period, you could have a number of cases, eight or 10 cases, for instance.
That would potentially throw your number target out, but if you were confident that they weren’t mystery cases, that we had wrapped around all of these people the support that they need, that we had a good and complete list of their close contacts and the same treatment had been given to them all the way through, we will look, not just at the numbers, but at the stories that sit behind those cases as well.
Updated
Q: What is the risk to any of the customer whose have been at Chadstone [Woolworths] that might have been exposed?
Allen Cheng:
It probably is fairly small, but I think it is just important if you have been in that area – and obviously there is the potential for transmission – if you have been in that and have symptoms, it is important to come forward for testing.
Everyone who has been in close contact have been cooperative? Yes. I understand, yes. Management of Chadstone have been really fantastic. All of the cleaning has been done. It certainly is perfectly safe to go back into Chadstone now.
Updated
Q: In terms of contact tracing, is there still issues with contacting people who English isn’t their first language and there is actually a delay in identifying people that can communicate with these people to do the contact tracing?
Allen Cheng:
So, not at the moment. But, I do understand about - I think it is about 10 or 12% of people that have had infection done speak English as a first language and require an interpreter. In recent days I don’t think we have had issues with that.
It is thunderstorm asthma season - which can impact people who have never suffered from asthma before. It’s a combination of pollen and weather events and can hit very suddenly.
Allen Cheng has asked people to be aware of the season (which lasts until December) and keep an eye on how their chest and breathing feels like.
Asked about some of the similarities between thunderstorm asthma symptoms and covid, Cheng says:
That is going to be an issue. A runny nose is found in about 26% of people and I can’t tell you how many people, certainly at the Alfred, how many people we have called and they said, “We weren’t sure if it was. I got a test”, and it was positive. If you have no doubt over the symptoms, please come forward and got tested. I think that - and particularly if there are any additional symptoms. If there is fever or a cough. If the hay fever is more severe than usual or any sort of doubt, particularly at this time while we are still trying to find every last case, I think it is important to come forward to be tested.
We get to the questions:
Q: I might just ask about the Frankston outbreak and what that looks like. I know you probably can’t talk specifically, given you don’t want to ID that household, but can you tell us how many people in that household have Covid? Do they all work at Chadstone? What is make-up of that?
Allen Cheng:
I can’t remember exactly the number. I think it is about eight or nine people in the household. One of the members works at Chadstone and I don’t know off the top of my had how many cases, but I think a lot of them [that] have had infection are being supported to isolate, and we thank them for their cooperation.
Updated
Victoria is doubling its hardship payment from $400 to $800
Allen Cheng spoke on the mystery case numbers and why they have changed:
So of the 82 cases in the last week, 68 were originally down as under investigation, of which 49 turned to contact of case and six were changed from under investigation to unknown source, and 13 still remain under investigation.
The second type of classification are those that affect the total case number, and these are usually duplications. So obviously every positive test is not filed to the department and we want to be very sure that when we have a case that looks like the same name as someone else, that it actually is the same person – so we go through a process to just make sure that they are, in fact, duplications.
So in the last week, there were six reclassifications of this type. Four of those were duplications and two were felt to be false-positive results.
Updated
Sorry for the break in transmission – my computer just had a small meltdown.
We’re back now, it seems.
Updated
On the reporting of mystery cases, Allen Cheng says:
In terms of some of the data issues that have come up a number of times, we have been reporting mystery cases – and just to emphasise that mystery cases are reported as of two days ago to allow us time to close our investigations.
So there have been 19 cases in the two weeks up to 28th September.
Mystery cases have roughly been halving, week on week, for the last four weeks and there have been nine cases in the period of 15th to 17th. So over the next few days the nine cases will fall out of this reporting window.
Since then there was one case on 20th September and then nine cases again between 22nd and 25th September. It is important to note that these mystery cases are in 14 different LGAs [local government areas].
So they are widely distributed and they do suggest that obviously a mystery case has got it from someone, so it just reenforces the need for people with symptoms to come forward for testing wherever they are in Melbourne.
Updated
Victoria’s deputy chief health officer, Prof Allen Cheng, is giving an update on the outbreaks:
Firstly, on the outbreaks, we have a bit of a situation in Frankston that is linked to the Chadstone cases.
So at Chadstone, there have been eight cases in the fresh-food part of Chadstone. The staff have been contact traced and cleaning has occurred, so it is perfectly safe to go back into Chadstone at this time.
There has been a case that has worked there from 23rd to 28th September, so any people that have been into that area over that time, if they have the slightest symptoms, if you could please come forward to be tested. That would be great.
There is a drive-through clinic for the public at Chadstone’s Golfers Drive, gate 4, and there is going to be a pop-up clinic, a drive-through clinic in the Chadstone shopping centre from tomorrow.
We would like to thank management for getting on to this very quickly and for their cooperation in working with all of the other employees at Chadstone shopping centre.
At Frankston, there is an outbreak that involves a household that are being supported to isolate. At Frankston there is a pop-up clinic at the Peninsula Aquatic Centre. There is no exposure site in the area, but obviously for those who have symptoms in Frankston, if you could come forward for testing, that will help us find the cases [and] trace contacts.
Updated
Daniel Andrews:
This strategy is working, and people can be rightly optimistic and hopeful about the 19th of October.
We’ve just got to find that within ourselves, despite the challenges, despite the frustration, which is a perfectly understandable thing.
I think that Victorians across the board know and understand that unless we do this properly, unless we stake safe and steady steps, then we simply will be frittering away all the hard work, all the sacrifice, the quite amazing efforts that Victorians have gone to, for which I am deeply grateful, and more than a little proud.
The Victorian community has risen to this challenge so well and we’ve just got to see this through.
It would be great to be able to make a decision today and stand here and announce that we can open everything up tomorrow, but I think most Victorians – the vast, vast majority of Victorians – know that that would not be a wise decision.
It would not be sound, and it would almost certainly mean that we were back in a form of restrictions, whatever that might be, that would be far more onerous, far more onerous, than what we hope to build and we’re confident we’ll be able to build - a Covid-normal Christmas, a Covid-normal summer, and a virus at such a low level that we can sustain that over the long term.
That may even be for the majority, or indeed the entirety of 2021.
I think the vast majority of Victorians are determined to have a very different 2021 when compared to 2020, and that is all about making sure that we get these numbers low, open up, steady, safe and stay open, and keep those numbers low.
And I want to thank every single Victorian who is out there doing what has to be done. It’s not to say that everybody is enjoying the predicament and challenges we face, but we haven’t got the luxury of pretending that because we want this to be over, it’s over.
We haven’t got the luxury of pretending that because we’re frustrated with this, we can somehow cheat this thing. You can’t.
It’s got to be defeated properly.
There’s no short cuts in that and we’ve just got to see this through and I’m very proud that Victorians are very much, very much aware of that, very much aware of that. Once, of course, the health challenge is dealt with in this latest phase, that’s when we can really pivot to providing the economic repair, the confidence, the investment, so that this economy can lead our nation again.
And that’s exactly what we’ll do. Jobs and skills, investment and confidence, the biggest budget, the biggest program of repair that this state has ever seen.
Updated
There are just 289 active cases of Covid in Victoria as of today.
That is wonderful news - especially when you consider where it has come from.
Daniel Andrews press conference
The Victorian premier starts with the numbers:
The last time we were under 300 active cases was 29 June.
Seven of those 15 cases are linked to known outbreaks and complex cases.
Eight are under investigation, and one was reclassified.
There have been, I’m sad to report, now 800 Victorians who have lost their lives because of this global pandemic.
That’s two since yesterday’s report: one female in their 70s, one female in their 90s.
Both deaths are linked to aged care and we send our sincere condolences and best wishes and sympathies to those two families.
There are 38 Victorians in hospital, six in intensive care and three of those six are on a ventilator.
A total of 2,709,688 test results have been received since the beginning of the year, which is an increase of 14,709 test results since yesterday.
Updated
NSW reports no new locally acquired Covid cases, but two in hotel quarantine
NSW has reported no new cases of locally acquired Covid for the sixth day.
From NSW Health:
NSW has today reported one case that is believed to be an old case which will be added to the total number of cases today.
The epidemiological and laboratory investigations indicate the infection likely occurred two months ago.
Two cases of returned travellers in hotel quarantine were also diagnosed in the 24 hours to 8pm last night, bringing the total number of cases in NSW to 4,038
The locally acquired case is a man in his 50s from south-western Sydney. As the case was not previously diagnosed, it is included in the total numbers for NSW but all indications, including a repeat negative swab test, positive serology results that show he has an immune response to the virus and a history of illness two months, are that it is an old case most likely acquired when the virus was circulating at low levels in south-western Sydney around July.
There were 13,072 tests reported in the 24-hour reporting period, compared with 13,575 in the previous 24 hours.
NSW Health thanks the community for all they have done towards reducing Covid-19 numbers and continues to ask people to remain vigilant and come forward for testing immediately if symptoms like a runny nose, scratchy throat, cough or fever appear.
Updated
Daniel Andrews and the Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers, Luke Donnellan will hold a press conference at 11.15am
Karen Andrews was on ABC radio this morning speaking with Sabra Lane about the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund (which was announced as an election commitment and is $50m from the government, $110m from the industry).
The government’s $50m has been exhausted, so it is putting in another $50. Lane asked Andrews about jobs:
Andrews:
... we will open the funding round for the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund by the end of this year, so money will start to flow as quickly as we can. That’s pretty much ready to go now.
Very conservative estimates are that this will provide about 80,000 direct manufacturing jobs over a 10-year period.
And the evidence is that for every one job directly in manufacturing, there’s 3.6 indirect jobs. So potentially this is an over 300,000 jobs package.
Lane: All right. But 80,000 over 10 years, 8,000 jobs a year?
Andrews:
Oh, well it’s 80,000 over 10 years. But that’s a very conservative estimate.
But when you actually look at it, that’s over 300,000 new jobs that are being created here, and there may well be many more.
That’s a very conservative estimate. What we do know is that when priorities are set, industry, businesses get behind that. And we’ve seen examples of that happening in the space sector.
We’ve seen it happening in defence industry. It is already happening with medical products. So we’re maximising those opportunities. But an important part of this program is the business to business collaboration. And that’s a significant part of the support that we are providing to bring businesses together so that we can build the scale that we need.
300,000 jobs over 10 years is still only 30,000 jobs a year – and that is at the top end of the hopes.
Updated
Scott Morrison’s favourite animal is apparently the koala (which is close to becoming endangered) because they get the shits.
He had a chat to Adelaide radio 5AA this morning and spoke about a visit to the Adelaide zoo, where he got to chill with some still alive koalas.
I am a big fan of koalas. I’ve got to say, I love koalas.
And I like it when they get the irrits a bit, too.
I find that quite funny.
I’d have the irrits too if I had to spend the two hours I was awake cuddling people, in between taking down the NSW Nationals, while my species was sliding towards extinction, but that’s just me.
Updated
The ABC/RMIT Fact Check team have fact-checked Tony Abbott’s claim that outside of Wuhan, Victoria had the world’s most strict lockdown (a claim that has been picked up and reported as fact by other commentators).
You will not be surprised to learn that Abbott, is in fact, wrong.
Updated
Meanwhile, in Clive Palmer orbit land, Palmer’s media adviser, Andrew Crook, has sent out this statement:
Media advisor Andrew Crook has been cleared of all charges involving the National Australia Bank.
Mr Crook said today he felt an enormous sense of relief that the matter had been finally dropped and his name has now been cleared.
“I have maintained from day one that I was innocent. It has taken six long years for vindication but the day has finally arrived. It is an enormous weight off my shoulders,’’ he said.
“The impact on my personal and business life has been devastating.
“For a matter to be held back in the magistrate’s court for six years has been frustrating. One wonders whether the system is just broken or if political motivations were at play.
Mr Crook said he could never have endured the ordeal without the support of family and friends.
“I have had incredible support from people close to me, my wonderful family and friends and business associates including Clive Palmer and Skroo and Jude Turner. I will be forever grateful,’’ Mr Crook said.
Updated
4,000 Flight Centre staff have been made redundant during pandemic
Ben Butler has more on the latest cuts to Flight Centre:
The travel agency Flight Centre is to close an additional 91 Australian stores and further cut its staff numbers as flight bans and closed borders continue to ravage its business.
The new cuts target its flagship Flight Centre brand, where the company has already closed 330 of the 740 stores it operated pre-Covid. The company also operates other brands including FCM Travel Solutions, Stage and Screen, GOGO Vacations and Student Universe.
Permanent staff numbers at the Flight Centre division will be slashed to 1,350, management told workers on Wednesday. A further 600 part-time jobs of one day a week will exist until March, it said.
A Flight Centre spokesman said the move meant 4,000 people in total would have been made redundant across the company during the pandemic. The business employed about 10,000 people before coronavirus.
The company on Wednesday told staff it would abolish the role of assistant team leader. It also said it would spill all other store manager roles nationally, forcing current team leaders to reapply for one of the jobs that will remain available when the cuts are complete.
Updated
While we wait for Daniel Andrews’ 91st consecutive press conference, this makes for interesting reading:
Updated
Queensland has reported no new Covid cases.
Updated
The good eggs at AAP have put together a “what we know so far” of the 2020 budget.
It’s a handy list of keeping track of the promises (and the re-announcements) so far.
Overall:
* Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg say it will be a “jobs budget” with the aim of driving the recovery out of the first recession since the 1990s
* Estimated budget deficit of $200 billion
* Debt edging upwards of $800 billion
* Expected $140 billion in stimulus over four years
Infrastructure
* Funding to expand two NSW dams, Wyangala and Dungowan
* $53 million funding for gas infrastructure as part of a national plan
* $211 million for domestic fuel security facilities
* More flexible rules for the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility to invest
Personal
* Possible bringing forward of personal tax cuts due to start in 2022
* 2.5 million pensioners to get extra help to make up for an inflation-related rise not going ahead
* HomeBuilder package likely to be extended
* No changes to the JobSeeker dole payments. Government wants more data on economic conditions before deciding.
Business
* Consideration of a business investment allowance
* Wage incentive for small and medium-sized businesses to take on new workers
* $1.5 billion manufacturing strategy
* $800 million aimed at helping individuals and businesses work online
* $53 million funding for television and film production and new content rules
Health
* Extension of telehealth and e-prescription services
* Extra funding for aged care, ahead of the receipt of the royal commission report
* New strategy to get young people out of residential aged care
* $9 million for research into cancer in children and young adults
Regions
* $100 million for new Regional Recovery Partnerships (projects in areas hit by drought, bushfires and coronavirus)
* $30 million for the Regional Connectivity Program (local telecommunications projects)
* $50 million Regional Tourism Recovery initiative (assist businesses in regions heavily reliant on international tourism)
* $200 million for an additional round of the Building Better Regions Fund
Education
* Extra $326 million to provide 12,000 more university places for domestic students
Welfare
* $7.6 million for parents experiencing stillborn babies or the death of a child under 12 months of age
* 700 new safe places for women and children escaping domestic violence under $60 million “safe places” initiative
Environment
* $61.7 million for nature-based tourism
Updated
34 million jobs have been lost in Latin America. For more international Covid news, head here.
Updated
For more on the prime minister’s upcoming speech:
Malcolm Turnbull has been quite chatty of late.
China’s net-zero target will boost renewables investment around the world, says @TurnbullMalcolm | The New Daily @ https://t.co/O4f4jupXdM @euanblackwrites #SmartEnergySummit
— SmartEnergyCouncil (@SmartEnergyCncl) September 30, 2020
Updated
Long lines have already formed at the Queensland/NSW border as the sunshine state extends its border bubble region to five additional NSW shires.
Queensland police Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler told the Nine network cars had been queuing since before 1am:
This is our 15th iteration of border restriction changes, so the public have gotten used to it ... I just ask for people to be patient and plan their journey accordingly ...
Of course we will see some line-ups that will probably extend hundreds of metres down the road … at the moment we are seeing some delays to about 30 minutes and that is understandable.
Long lines at Queensland border checkpoints .. police say it will get worse as people on both sides of the border take advantage of the long weekend. @sunriseon7 pic.twitter.com/PuYzkL1cqz
— Bianca Stone (@Bianca_Stone) September 30, 2020
Wheeler conceded that IT issues and confusion had increase wait times.
“This morning, unfortunately, there’s been a couple of IT issues around some suburbs. The relevant government departments are working through that now as we speak.”
NSW residents who live in the border region are now allowed to travel freely in Queensland, provided they carry a border pass and declare they have not travelled to a hotspot in the last 14 days.
Queensland residents can also travel in the NSW border region without needing to quarantine upon return.
Previously a number of postcodes along the border were included, but from 1am this morning this was extended to include the local government areas of Byron shire, Ballina, the city of Lismore, Richmond Valley and Glen Innes.
Updated
The AMA has released its public hospital report card for 2020 and found that waiting lists – which have ballooned since the pandemic led to the cancellation of elective surgeries – were in trouble before Covid hit:
Access to public hospital elective surgery is stagnant. In 2018-19 more patients were added to elective surgery waiting lists than were admitted for their elective surgeries. The national median waiting time for elective surgery was the worst performance since 2001-02. In 2018-19, only two states improved the proportion of Category 2 elective surgery patients admitted within 90 days. The performance of all other jurisdictions was either no better than the year before, or worse.
The graphs in this report card clearly show a decline in public hospital performance since it peaked in 2013-14. Quality care, best-practice care, world-leading patient outcomes, cannot be achieved and sustained unless public hospital funding is also calculated on the costs of providing best-practice care and timely access. The public hospital funding formula that has been extended for another five years to 2025, does not do this. The Commonwealth contributes 45 per cent of the efficient growth in public hospital activity, capped at 6.5 per annum.
Updated
Victoria records 15 new cases and two deaths
The rolling 14-day average is now 15.6.
Yesterday there were 15 new cases & the loss of 2 lives reported. Our thoughts are with all affected. The 14 day rolling average & number of cases with unknown source are down from yesterday as we move toward COVID Normal. Info: https://t.co/pcll7ySEgz #COVID19Vic pic.twitter.com/vGIdXUtYab
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) September 30, 2020
Updated
Scott Morrison said it was time to go back to the office earlier this week – but the tax department has extended the simplification of working from home deductions.
From Micheal Sukkar’s release:
This further extension will allow taxpayers working from home to continue to claim a rate of 80 cents per hour by keeping a record of the number of hours they have worked from home, rather than needing to calculate specific running expenses, until 31 December 2020.
The short cut deduction method is making it easier for many Australians who are continuing to work from home due to COVID-19 when it comes to accurately completing their tax return.
These continuing arrangements do not prohibit Australians from making a standard working from home claim using the two standard approaches should they wish to do so.
For further information about these new arrangements visit: https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/Income-and-deductions/Deductions-you-can-claim/Home-office-expenses/
Updated
While we are on building the manufacturing industry, it might also be worth pointing out that the government still has its Treasury laws amendment (research and development tax incentive) bill 2019 on the books, which puts caps on the research and development tax incentive.
It’s a complicated formula but basically smaller companies will see a $4m cap on the RDTI and larger companies will have an “intensity measure” put in place to calculate their offsets.
What that means is Australian companies could lose $1.8bn in research and development tax offsets, which critics warn will lead to R&D departments either being scaled back or sent overseas.
The bill has been rejected once before but was sent back to the parliament in December. The Senate committee looking at it was meant to report on it in April, with a vote before July, but then Covid happened, so it was pushed back. The committee was meant to report on the bill in August, but that has now been delayed, again, until 12 October – after the budget.
Updated
The manufacturing announcement is not all new – the manufacturing modernisation fund was an election commitment – the government kicked in $50m and the industry contributed $110m for the $160m program.
Here is Karen Andrews announcing its launch in September last year.
We need to see the full detail but the space program Andrews has been talking about also comes under manufacturing – Australia is not going to space, but it is taking part in the industry by manufacturing products that will.
Updated
Scott Morrison was on Sydney radio 2GB not just to talk about the ABC’s incremental pay rise this morning – he was also talking about the $1.5bn manufacturing plan his government is planning (over the forwards), as part of the Covid recovery.
“We make things in this country” is the attached line that goes with the plan.
*coughs* Except for cars. We don’t make cars in this country.
Updated
George Pell was able to leave Australia (remember the whole borderlock down thing, stopping people from leaving and returning to the country?) because of a “travelling on government business” exemption (Vatican business, in this case).
His spokesperson said it was a “private visit”.
Updated
Oops.
Someone forgot to Bcc.
(Via AAP)
More than one thousand Australians stranded overseas have had their personal email addresses shared with strangers.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade shared the emails by mistake.
“We apologise for unintentionally disclosing email addresses of stranded Australians we’re trying to help get home. No other personal information was disclosed,” the department said in a statement on Thursday.
“We want to get you home, and are working as hard as we can to do so.”
At least 26,800 Australians overseas are waiting to come home.
The weekly limit on returning travellers is set to increase to 5500 this month.
Updated
PM says he was "quite surprised" ABC employees voted to give themselves a pay rise.
— Ben Fordham Live (@BenFordhamLive) September 30, 2020
He says there's 112 government agencies that took a pay freeze during Covid. #auspol
That pay increase? It is 2%.
It is part of their enterprise bargaining agreement and was decided before the pandemic. The staff who remain after the last round of cuts are doing more work with less (as we all are) and pay rises are not on the agenda for quite some time.
The ABC is not alone – Asic and the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex employees have also voted to accept their pre-planned pay rise.
The request put to government employees has been to delay any pay rises for six months but, more likely than not, at the end of the deferral, agencies will be accepting the pre-planned incremental pay increases.
Oh – and federal politicians received an annual 2% payrise for four years in a row between 2016 and 2019 – the 8% pay rise taking their base salaries from $195,130 to $211,250, meaning at the end of those four years, federal MPs had taken home an extra $39,900.
Updated
Good morning
It is the 40th Thursday of the year – which means there are only 13 more Thursdays left this year. (Of course, with Thursday being the worst day of the week, 2020 has 53 of them.)
This Thursday opened with the Queensland border zone extending about another 100km into northern NSW (which marries up nicely with where I plan to extend the border, for when I am the eventual supreme leader of the Great Nation of Queensland.)
But for those northern NSW residents, it means access to Queensland will just need a border pass, not two weeks’ hotel quarantine, and life should get a lot easier.
Queensland will examine whether it allows the rest of NSW in, at the end of the month – which is also when its state election will be decided.
NSW has a pretty big testing push under way at the moment, which yesterday led to the increase in tests the states wants, in order for authorities to feel comfortable that they have a handle on any potential outbreaks.
Victoria is watching its curve flatten but won’t be moved on opening up any earlier, given the number of mystery cases and evidence of community transmission. Daniel Andrews has been at pains to point out that it is not the case numbers that count by themselves – but also where the cases are coming from. The last time the state opened while community transmission was occurring, well, we are still living it. So don’t expect much movement on Victoria’s restrictions, until at least mid month.
Federally, all eyes are on the prime minister’s speech – the last big speech before Tuesday’s budget – where Scott Morrison will speak about “rebuilding the nation”. We have heard this budget described as the “most important in a generation”. Now the prime minister is moving to remind people why debt and deficit no longer matter. (Not that they ever really did, and certainly not as people were told they did under the Howard and then Abbott governments. There never was a “budget emergency”.)
We’ll bring you all of that and everything else that happens today. You have a bedraggled Amy Remeikis with you for most of the day. Drop me a line, if you have a question or comment, and I’ll do my best to get back to you.
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