26 May: what we learned
That’s where I’ll leave you for tonight. Here’s what we learned today:
- Prime minister Scott Morrison confirmed the government’s union-busting “ensuring integrity” bill is dead – for now. Instead, Christian Porter will lead the “Accords 2.0” bringing together unions, employers and business groups to discuss what changes could be made to industrial relations laws.
- Morrison also announced vocational education will be reformed to meet skills demand, as well as simplified across the nation.
- The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, announced what he called “a fast evolving” Covid-19 situation in the state after six crew members on a live export ship in Fremantle tested positive for coronavirus. They are currently in a Perth hotel for quarantine.
- A passenger of the Ruby Princess who tested positive to coronavirus on Monday is suspected to have carried the “dormant” virus for almost 10 weeks before falling ill.
- Two Sydney schools had to be closed after students tested positive for Covid-19. It came only a day after schools across New South Wales resumed full-time face-to-face classes.
- The Nation Tertiary Education Union abandoned its National Jobs Protection Framework after a revolt from its members. The NTEU issued a blistering statement attacking vice chancellors and the Australian Higher Education Industry Association for failing to follow through with the deal and vowed to escalate industrial action.
- The treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, officially turned down appearing in front of the Covid-19 Senate select committee.
- The ABC revealed the American embassy has held private meetings with Canberra to clarify a US State Department document that was used by a Sydney newspaper to link the Covid-19 pandemic to a Chinese government laboratory despite a lack of direct evidence.
- The first human trials of a vaccine for Covid-19 began in the southern hemisphere, at Melbourne’s Alfred hospital.
Updated
The former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who is no friend of Rupert Murdoch-owned media outlets, has come out swinging after the ABC reported earlier today that a Daily Telegraph report about “a dossier prepared by concerned western governments” about the origins of Covid-19 was actually a “non-paper” with no new information in it.
Rudd told my colleague Daniel Hurst: “These revelations should be utterly humiliating to the Murdoch media, except that the Murdoch media has zero shame.”
He believes the document “was leaked to News Corp in Australia with the clear intention that it would be funnelled back into the American media, giving the appearance that Australian spies were backing Trump’s claims”. In reality, though, “Australian intelligence officials don’t believe Trump at all”.
Read the full story here:
The fallout from that extraordinary NTEU statement is coming thick and fast.
Alma Torlakovic, an NTEU branch committee member and national councillor at Sydney University has called it a win for members who had fought back against the union’s plan.
This is a major victory for the organising efforts of hundreds of rank and file NTEU members who have resisted the national leadership’s capitulation to vice chancellors. That effort has also prepared the way for a more vigorous campaigns against the attacks that university managements are already mounting against our pay, conditions and job security”.
Quite a story from my friends at the Newcastle Herald, who have just reported that face masks have begun washing up on beaches on the Central Coast.
The masks were apparently inside some of the 40 shipping containers which fell from a cargo ship on Sunday.
“We have received a report of some medical supplies washing up between Magenta and The Entrance,” the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s general manager of operations, Allan Schwartz, told the Herald on Tuesday.
Updated
The federal government has announced cultural institutions such as the National Gallery and National Library will reopen on 30 May under special arrangements, AAP reports.
National galleries and museums are set to reopen to the public on 30 May following their shutdown over the coronavirus pandemic.
Around 4.5 million people visit the National Gallery of Australia, National Museum of Australia, National Portrait Gallery, National Library of Australia, National Film and Sound Archives and the Australian National Maritime Museum each year.
It is hoped the states will also follow suit in reopening museums, galleries and libraries. Special arrangements will be in place including timed entry and one-way flow through gallery spaces, and visitors may be asked to provide their contact information to allow public health tracing.
There will also be increased signage throughout buildings and more frequent cleaning of “touch” areas.
Updated
NTEU abandons job plans after internal backlash
The National Tertiary Education Union has just issued an extraordinary statement in which it has announced it is abandoning the hugely controversial National Jobs Protection Framework that had prompted a revolt among its members.
The NTEU has faced a sustained and vocal backlash from its members for the plan, which aims to protect more than 12,000 jobs in return for up to one-year salary reductions between 5% and 15%.
The deal had prompted a revolt from a splinter group from within the union, NTEU Fightback, which accused the union of caving to vice chancellors without putting pressure on the federal government for funding.
It has also since been abandoned by a number of universities.
In a statement issued just now, the NTEU has blasted vice chancellors and the Australian Higher Education Industry Association, with which it negotiated the deal, and vowed to escalate to “historically high levels of industrial disputation and campaigning to fight for every job”.
Here’s part of the statement:
The NTEU approached negotiations with the Australian Higher Education Industry Association (AHEIA) in good faith. At all stages we were assured that the association had the support of the large majority of vice chancellors for a fair industry-wide solution to the current crisis.
It’s now clear the AHEIA was either not representing a broad coalition of vice chancellors, or negotiated an agreement that gives employees more rights and protections than some vice chancellors were willing to tolerate. It is up to AHEIA to explain why at least 17 of its members have abandoned the solution it negotiated on behalf of the universities.
The worst crisis in the history of Australian universities demanded a collective solution to save careers and livelihoods. Too many vice chancellors are now baulking at the strong oversight provisions in the jobs framework that guarantee transparency and ensure that any contribution our members make will be dedicated to saving jobs.
Vice chancellors appear to have abandoned their industrial association, and demonstrated they are allergic to scrutiny. They are showing reckless disregard for their workforce.
Updated
With that, I’ll be handing over to Michael McGowan, who will be blogging for the rest of the day. Thanks for following along, and stay safe.
Updated
The University of New South Wales will reportedly close its childcare centres at the end of this year, saying they were operating at a loss even before the impact of Covid-19.
The university wrote to parents that it was “no longer sustainable” to run the childcare centres.
UNSW just cut all its childcare. We must must must have an equity lens on all COVID actions, lest we undo 30+ years of progress. pic.twitter.com/dMWXcetl2L
— AssocProf Gemma Carey (@gemcarey) May 26, 2020
Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy has faced several questions about the coronavirus outbreak on a Western Australian livestock vessel during a Senate select committee inquiry into Covid-19 on Tuesday.
Murphy said he only learned about the outbreak during a meeting of the Australian health protection principal committee meeting on Tuesday afternoon, and that he rushed from the meeting to the inquiry so had not had time to find out more information.
However, he acknowledged that the Australian Border Force, and ultimately the commonwealth, was responsible for cases to come into Australia from ships.
I don’t think it’s fair to comment on the circumstances of the Western Australian ship. I don’t know what that ship told agriculture, what they told border force ... I really can’t comment without knowing the details.
We [the commonwealth] have absolute responsibility, but we do not have public health officers on the ground and we delegate under a usually extremely effective partnership with the state and territory public health officers, whom I appointed as chief human biosecurity officers, so it is a partnership.
I absolutely accept we need to look into what’s happened with this livestock vessel.
Updated
And from earlier, my colleague Christopher Knaus has this extraordinary story of a whistleblower who was told to contact the prime minister using the generic online form.
Public servant who claimed to have documentary evidence of ministerial corruption was told speaking to media could be unlawful and advised to contact the prime minister using this generic online form available to the public https://t.co/e1kPy8KykN pic.twitter.com/70rqLCzxtp
— Christopher Knaus (@knausc) May 26, 2020
Updated
Labor’s Tony Burke, the shadow minister for industrial relations, says he has “an open mind” about changes to industrial relations laws.
Burke has welcomed the government’s offer to discuss with unions what Scott Morrison today termed the “Accords 2.0”.
But he has stressed that the government has not laid out any plans and “all it has done so far is book a room”. “It’s a series of meetings,” he said in a statement.
He also said that some demands, aired by business groups, would not be something Labor would agree to.
The demands business groups have been making in recent days – including a return to WorkChoices-style individual contracts and the scrapping of awards – suggest it will be extremely difficult to forge an IR consensus. Those sorts of changes would be a disaster for workers and for the economy.
For years Labor has been urging the government to bring workers and unions to the industrial relations negotiating table in a bid to deliver those sorts of reforms. It’s a shame it took a global crisis for them to finally realise that workers’ voices are worth listening to.
Updated
Pauline Hanson’s Facebook page is seeking to raise $1m for a legal challenge, saying closed borders are causing economic and social damage.
The One Nation leader is launching what she has called the “Queensland Border Battle” to take the state’s border closures to the high court.
One Nation says it is trying to “stop the damage being caused by unnecessary state border lockdown laws”.
Hanson’s page says the party has the assistance of a pro bono lawyer, but “due to the urgency of this matter” now needs funds to continue the challenge.
Updated
One new case in South Australia
The South Australian chief health officer, Prof Nicola Spurrier, has reported that there is a new case of coronavirus in the state, from a woman in her 50s who had come into the state from Victoria.
“I know this might come as quite a surprise to many people because we have had so many days now with no cases,” she said. “But it is a very timely reminder to everybody in the state that Covid-19 is here, it is in Australia, and we have to continue to be vigilant.”
Spurrier said that the woman had recently returned from overseas, and was in quarantine in Victoria.
She was then given an exemption for family and compassionate reasons to come into South Australia, to continue her quarantine. Spurrier says it was a “very, very compelling reason”.
She also adds that the woman has “very mild symptoms”. People on the plane near her will be contacted for contact tracing.
Updated
Jennifer Westacott, the chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, is speaking in favour of the government’s idea for “Accord 2.0” and changes to industrial relations laws.
Westacott says that current workplace laws and conditions are “too complicated”.
“It is too hard to get enterprise agreements done,” she says. “There are too many things in them ... we have multiple clauses.”
She says that the Hawke-Keating reforms, the original Accord, led to higher wages.
“We know from history that that system created higher wages and if we could get back to that system then I believe Australians will have more secure jobs, better workplaces and higher wages.”
Updated
The WA premier, Mark McGowan, says the federal Department of Agriculture knew crew members on board had “elevated temperatures”, but they did not tell the Fremantle Port Authority.
He says he “doesn’t want to point fingers at this time”, but that he is “concerned and, to a degree, disappointed”.
“The advice I have at this point in time is the Department of Agriculture was informed there were people with elevated temperatures but they didn’t tell the Fremantle Port Authority.”
He denies this is a Ruby Princess-like scenario because “people didn’t get off the ship”.
He says he is working on making the ship leave as soon as possible.
Updated
There are two Australians among the 48 crew, according to the WA police commissioner, Chris Dawson.
“I spoke with the chief health officer only a few minutes ago,” he says. “They’ll make an assessment of how many crew need to come off that vessel.”
He adds that the harbourmaster “100% confirmed” to him that no crew members have come ashore before today, when the six positive crew were taken into quarantine.
Updated
Six people test positive on WA live export ship
The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, has just announced what he called “a fast evolving” Covid-19 situation in the state.
Six crew members on a live export ship in Fremantle have tested positive for coronavirus, and are currently in a Perth hotel for quarantine.
“There is currently a situation evolving as we speak at Fremantle port,” he said. “Just this morning I was informed about the situation currently confronting our state.”
The ship, Al Kuwait, left the United Arab Emirates on 7 May and docked in Fremantle on Friday.
“This morning, seven crew members were tested for Covid-19,” McGowan said. “Six have tested positive, all males, and are being moved off the ship to a Perth hotel for quarantine purposes.
“For the time being, the remaining 42 crew members, who I am advised are currently well, will remain on board the ship and will be monitored and undergo health assessments as required.”
Updated
ACTU 'welcomes the opportunity' to discuss IR changes
Thanks to Amy Remeikis, as always, for her incredible work carrying the blog today.
The ACTU has responded to the government’s announcement of an “Accords 2.0” process of changing industrial relations laws, saying it “welcomes the opportunity to sit down with the government and employers” to discuss the changes.
The ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, said the unions would measure any changes “on the benchmarks of: will they give working people better job security and will they lead to working people receiving their fair share of the country’s wealth?
“Working people need to be at the centre of rebuilding our economy. That means getting us through this pandemic, better quality jobs with security and ensuring working people fairly share in the wealth of our country.
She added that the priority for unions was still to stop a “second wave of infections ... otherwise the pain and sacrifices working people have made, with 20% of working people now unemployed or underemployed and so many losing income, will be for nothing”.
Updated
I am going to hand you over to the wonderful Naaman Zhou for the next part of the day.
I’ll be back tomorrow. Take care of you.
The operators of the Newmarch House aged care home, where 19 residents have died from Covid-19, did not initially accept a federal government-funded surge workforce, waiting six days before allowing the private medical clinicians to enter the facility.
The revelation about operator Anglicare’s decision was heard during the Senate select committee’s inquiry into Covid-19, which is focussing on the aged care sector on Tuesday.
Amy Laffan, the acting first assistant secretary in the Department of Health’s Aged Care reform and compliance division, responded to a question from Liberal senator James Paterson, confirming the date that Aspen Medical surge staff were deployed to the home after a delay of several days.
So Aspen was first offered to Newmarch House on the 14th of April, and ... were first deployed on the 20th of April.
During Tuesday’s proceedings, the committee also heard from aged care quality and safety commissioner Janet Anderson that Anglicare’s management of the Newmarch outbreak “was not a compellingly good example”.
[We] concluded that they needed significant help in their management of that outbreak.
Earlier this month, the ACQSC – the sector’s regulator – intervened in the situation at Newmarch, which included ordering an independent adviser to be appointed, and to not admit any new residents.
The committee also heard that the median age of Covid-19 fatalities in Australia was 80 years old, and that 29% of deaths in Australia have occurred at residential aged care facilities.
Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy will also appear before the inquiry on Tuesday.
Updated
Andrew Barr says that from Saturday, “our galleries, museums, national institutions and outdoor attractions, such as the zoo, will be able to reopen from this weekend for groups of up to 20 people in a designated session”.
Updated
Andrew Barr continues:
Beauty therapy businesses, including nail salons, tanning and waxing services, day spas, including massage parlours and tattoo businesses, can reopen from this weekend.
These businesses must complete a plan, observe strict hand hygiene requirements and ensure physical distancing as much as possible.
Again, these businesses cannot exceed one person per 4 sq m, including staff.
These businesses should also keep a record of their customers to support faster contact tracing.
In the fitness industry, indoor gyms and fitness centres can begin a gradual reintroduction of their businesses.
Small, supervised group sessions and classes indoors can recommence with a maximum of 20 people to any enclosed space or, again, one person per 4 sq m.
These businesses must also complete a Covid-safe plan, observe hand hygiene requirements and shore physical distancing as much as possible.
In community sport, the maximum capacity for organised social sport will be increased to 20 participants.
Indoor sport can commence under a one person per 4 sq m rule. Sporting organisations are to ensure low levels of physical contact and to limit sharing of equipment. Hand washing before and after sessions is strongly advised. Shared facilities, other than toilets, will not be open.
Updated
Pubs are back in the ACT – some venues can have up to 150 people
Andrew Barr is explaining the new restrictions a little more clearly. You can have up to 150 patrons in some larger venues – meaning, in the ACT, pubs are back.
So, starting on Saturday, hospitality-sector venues will be able to implement a scalable framework for the sector to align maximum occupancy with the size of a venue.
So, cafes, bars, restaurants and clubs will be able to cater for up to 20 people in each enclosed space.
Venues cannot exceed one person per 4 sq m, including staff. And this is for both indoor and outdoor spaces.
So if a venue has multiple enclosed spaces, they can have multiple groups of 20 patrons.
Provided that enclosed space allows for 20 patrons, and that is it would need to be 80 sq m.
If it was 60 sq m, 15 patrons would be allowed. If it was 40 sq m, 10 patrons; 20 sq m, five.
This framework allows larger venues with clearly separated enclosed spaces to cater for more. There are some large venues in the ACT with multiple enclosed and outdoor spaces which may be able to accommodate up to 150 patrons or more under these arrangements.
Updated
Sally McManus is responding to the prime minister’s speech, saying that previously “union bashing” had become too entrenched and she was glad to see it looked like changing.
But she doesn’t believe that IR changes alone will be enough to kick-start the economy
Updated
Andrew Barr, the ACT chief minister, says eateries can have up to 20 patrons from Saturday.
Beauticians will also be able to reopen.
Updated
Melissa Davey has this update on hydroxychloroquine:
Updated
Federal Labor would not sign belt and road deal with China, Richard Marles says
On Victoria signing up to the belt and road initiative, federal deputy Labor leader Richard Marles says:
Ultimately, I’ll let Victoria speak for themselves, but let me make this clear: a future Labor government would not be signing a Belt and Road agreement with China.
When it comes to Chinese investment in infrastructure projects, that’s a matter which we think should be taken on a case-by-case basis, and we should proceed down that path with some caution.
For example, we would not have sold the port of Darwin to a Chinese state-owned company, which is what this government has done.
Our position has been: Victoria can speak for themselves but, from the point of view of federal Labor, our position has been very clear from the outset. We would not be signing a Belt and Road agreement.
We would be taking Chinese investment in infrastructure projects on a case-by-case basis, and doing so with caution.
Updated
Richard Marles finishes with (after repeating his line from this morning that the economy “barely had a heartbeat” entering the Covid crisis):
Today’s speech was such a lost opportunity. You know, we heard lots of slogans and lots of marketing.
Jobseeker, jobkeeper, jobmaker – really hope that it doesn’t end up being a jobblunder.
But at the end of the day, this is the most significant moment of reconstructing, of reimagining the Australian economy, that we have seen since the end of the second world war. And all we got today was tired old leftovers from this prime minister and this government.
Updated
On the IR changes, Richard Marles says:
And the government is talking about the importance of industrial relations. We welcome the shelving of the Ensuring Integrity Bill.
Sure, it’s a good thing to get people round the table. But I can tell you there’s a lot more to industrial relations than simply booking the room.
And the idea that a Liberal government is about to engage in industrial relations reform will send a chill down the spine of every Australian worker. We do need to be bringing Australians together at this moment, but this is a government, and a prime minister, that has been more responsible for pulling Australians apart than any other.
Updated
Deputy Labor leader Richard Marles is responding to the prime minister’s speech, which he said was an example of a “tired government which has found nothing but old solutions”:
The government talks about the importance of resilient manufacturing, and yet this is the government which goaded the car industry offshore and which has presided over a massive reduction in manufacturing.
The government talked about the importance of getting energy policy right, and yet this is a government which is on its 19th energy policy.
The prime minister spoke about the importance of universities, but it’s his government which has been strangling university funding.
The prime minister talked about the importance of science and research, but it’s his government which has cut money to CSIRO hand over fist and, at times, has been absolutely anti-science.
And this government is now talking about seeing a salvation in skills and training. Skills and training are really important, but it is Scott Morrison’s government which has cut $3bn from skills and training since it came to office, such that we have 140,000 fewer apprenticeships and traineeships.
If it wants to see the future built through skills and training, we’re unlikely to see it from a government which has allowed the VET sector to bleed out.
Updated
NRL – it just keeps delivering
In the context of the sport restarting at the end of this week...
As a palette cleanser – can you help with this?
The Australian War Memorial in Canberra is looking for help to identify this Indigenous soldier, whose photograph was found in a trunk at a home in Port Adelaide. The soldier was likely a driver or mechanic in an Australian Light Horse unit. pic.twitter.com/DheWs4on6X
— Tom McIlroy (@TomMcIlroy) May 26, 2020
Christian Porter does not rule out joining high court border case
The attorney general, Christian Porter, has left the door open to the commonwealth intervening to support Clive Palmer’s bid to have the Western Australian border ban ruled unconstitutional.
Porter told Guardian Australia:
I will consider the strength of Mr Palmer’s matter and the commonwealth’s position on it when more details about its circumstances are provided through the normal processes.
Updated
Prime minister's address – recap
What did we learn from Scott Morrison’s speech?
Not a huge amount of new information – more a trail of breadcrumbs to where the government plans are going.
- The union-busting “ensuring integrity” is dead – for now. Which we expected and knew, but now is set in stone.
- Christian Porter will lead the “Accords 2.0” bringing together unions, employers and business groups to discuss what changes could be made to industrial relations laws. Some have already made a point of saying Labor isn’t invited to this roundtable, but that ignores that the union movement is part of the Labor movement, and often carries out its grassroot policy drives.
- Vocational education is to be reformed to meet skills demand, and hopefully simplified across the nation.
- The stimulus payments will come to an end (which we knew).
- Coag – currently acting as the national cabinet – will look at reforming national partnerships, which is something quite a lot of premiers have been asking for for quite some time. The health partnerships, for example, make it difficult for the states to forward plan, given they all have time limits and usually get changed when a new government comes in.
- Trade will continue.
- Scott Morrison acknowledged the economic Covid crisis is hitting younger generations “much harder”.
- But Boomers will not be asked to give up franking credits, because they are hurting too.
- Scott Morrison is not going to take a pay cut, and instead will keep doing “a good job”.
Updated
They just beat me to this joke.
BREAKING: Josh Frydenberg says new JobMaker scheme will create 60 billion extra jobs #auspol
— 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚜𝚎𝚛 (@chaser) May 26, 2020
Updated
Should older generations, who have benefited from government policies such as franking credits, be prepared to sacrifice a bit more, given that it is the younger generations who will have to pay for it, for decades to come?
(Millennials, in particular have been doubly screwed during their working lives – first with the GFC and now the Covid crisis, occurring during what would be the highest-earning years for many.)
Scott Morrison:
The answer to coming out of this crisis is not setting one group of Australians against another.
All Australians are in this together.
I remind you of that fellow Andrew [one of the letters he received] who was married to his wife for 50 years and couldn’t give her the send-off that she wanted.
I had another letter, one I didn’t read out, from a daughter. She would have been in her – probably 60s. And she didn’t get to see her mum in the aged care facility before she died.
To suggest that any one group is not feeling the impacts of this one way or the other and to set it up as some sort of generation conflict, I think, is very unconstructive.
It’s not the approach my government.
We’ve all got to do what we’ve got to do. I agree, it is hitting young people much harder. That’s why we have invested in additional services on mental health.
The biggest beneficiary of the process I’ve outlined today, if employers and employees can come together and get this sorted, will be young people.
They will be the biggest beneficiaries. The jobs that we will create will go first and most rapidly to young people.
That is the most important thing I think we can do to help them.
Updated
Will Scott Morrison take a pay cut, in solidarity with those who have lost their jobs or businesses?
I have no plans to make any changes to those arrangements [pay]. We will follow the same practices that we’re applying to public servants right across the board. We’re not singling anyone out when it comes to those issues,
I will keep doing a good job.
That’s my plan.
I will be accountable to Australians for that job.
Updated
[Cont from previous post]
When jobkeeper was designed and first costed, the uncertainties were extreme. And it’s always been my practice - as, indeed, the Treasurer’s - and I always like it when Treasury does it too - that they are cautious in their forecasting.
It’s been said to me, if you’re going to miss the mark, it’s better to miss the mark on the right side of the line.
I can’t say that about when the Labor Party was in government. They missed the mark often, and on the wrong side of the line. Forecast revenue - didn’t turn up - spend it anyway.
That’s not what’s happened here. What Treasury has done is made an estimate of what could be the case.
It was the worst-case scenario, effectively, that they were forecasting - estimating. We are now in what is their best-case scenario.
And that is something we should welcome. We acknowledge that, over at the Tax Office, there was a tracking mechanism that was put in place that wasn’t leading to anyone getting a payment they shouldn’t.
Everyone that was entitled to that payment was getting that payment they should.
But the tracking mechanism made it look like we were heading to the worst-case scenario. But, thankfully, we weren’t. And I see this as a relief. And, as I said the other day, if your builder comes to you when you’re building your house and they say, “This is going to cost 500 grand,” and you go, “That’s a lot of money I’ve got to borrow, then they come back to you and go, “I got that estimate off - it’s actually going to cost you $350,000 or $250,000,” you don’t get disappoint would the news, and you don’t borrow the rest of the money to put a heated swimming pool on the roof, I think as Barnaby recently said.
You don’t do that. So what we have done is acted responsibly. The estimates were provided to deliver a program that is doing its job.
And for those for whom that program isn’t designed to assist, JobSeeker is there for them, and they’re getting that support at record levels. assist, JobSeeker is there for them.
They are getting that support at record levels. getting that support at record levels.
Updated
Scott Morrison continues:
And jobseeker was set at a commensurate level. Because, remember, jobseeker is not the only benefit you get.
Jobseeker – when you’re on jobseeker – you get access to a range of other benefits which includes rental assistance, family tax benefit payments, and a whole range of other benefits and allowances.
And that has meant that those, in fact, on jobseeker, in many cases, may well be getting more than those on jobkeeper.
So I don’t accept the argument particularly put by the Labor party that jobseeker is some sort of second-best option for Australians.
I mean, the Labor party like to accuse us often of saying that we demonise the former Newstart.
Well, that’s basically what they’re doing now, by sending that message to Australians.
My message to Australians – and that of the treasurer and the entire government – is that we designed a system, through cashflow allowances for businesses, jobseeker, jobkeeper, and the myriad of other payments and benefits, to get them through.
And that’s what it is doing.
Whether it’s in any of those different programs. And it’s been very successful in that 5 million Australians are benefiting. Now, you raise the point about the jobkeeper estimates.
Updated
On those who can’t receive jobkeeper, because they have been left out of the package, Scott Morrison says there is jobseeker (which comes with income testing and has also left quite a few people out)
But we get the longest monologue so far, (which doesn’t actually address the issue):
Well, first of all, I don’t buy into the demonisation of jobseeker.
I don’t.
JobSeeker and jobkeeper - and it was actually the jobseeker changes we announced first - we announced them as a priority.
Because the jobseeker measures is the ultimate social safety net for all of those who are affected.
That is what is intended to catch everyone who finds themselves out of work. Jobkeeper was designed for those who worked in businesses, who have full-time jobs, part-time jobs, or what were effectively full-time casual jobs. That’s who it was designed for.
It was not designed to pay the bills of state governments or local governments. That is their responsibility.
Nor was it designed to pay the bills of foreign governments.
And those policy designs were put in place. And everyone who falls within those designs is getting JobKeeper. That’s who is intended to get those payments.
[Cont in next post]
Updated
The prime minister is now seemingly comparing a breakdown in the employer/employee relationship in some places, to a soured marriage in need of counselling:
The only way you’re going to get the strength of an outcome through this process is if you engage in it seriously and in good faith and you seek to build the cooperation that is needed for these agreements to stick. That’s true in any relationship.
A business relationship, an employer/employee relationship, in any partnership. It’s about the relationship you build.
And what I’m saying is the relationships have got pretty sick.
And they need a bit of counselling. And that’s what this process, I hope, will do. It’ll bring people together again, and they can rediscover why they’re together in the first place.
And that they depend on each other for their success and their shared success. And I think there has been a real disconnection along these lines.
Employers have felt that their investments and their sacrifices and risks aren’t always appreciated.
And employees can often feel ripped off and feel like they’re not getting a fair share of how the business is going. Well, you’ve got to start there. And let’s see how we go from there.
Updated
Does the prime minister want the “better off overall test” or Boot, removed from IR laws?
I want to see employers and employees sit down around a table, talk about those very issues and find a way forward.
I’m not going to prescribe it for them.
Whatever they agree is more likely to be sustained and maintained into the future. But what I want them to focus on is an understanding that, if there’s no business, there’s no job.
There’s no income. There’s nothing.
And the success of the enterprise is what all those involved in it need to be committed to.
And in return for that commitment, there must be a sharing of the benefits and the success of that organisation back to employees. Back to the shareholders in that business.
And those who are running it. And so, what I’m trying to do differently about this process is not run out there with an IR shopping list. I haven’t seen that work in my political experience in the time I’ve been in the parliament.
All that’s tended to do is force people away from the table, not draw them to it. So I think, you know, the issues you’re talking about are obviously very important to business, and the concerns that employees have are also important to them.
But we’re only going to get through it if they can work this through. Now, sure, we’ll take a, I think, active role in this process and try to take those discussions forward. But at the end of the day, I’m asking everyone to focus on getting that business back on track, making money, so they can pay employees and they can employ more of them. It’s really that simple.
Updated
Q: When you come to the table on pushing for industrial relations reform, what are the sorts of things that you can offer the employees and the union movement?
Scott Morrison:
Well, all of the things you’ve just talked about are all central features of our government services delivery.
All of the things you’ve talked about.
We have reformed childcare.
We have increased the subsidies that are available - particularly to the most disadvantaged workers. We have got record funding for schools. Record funding for hospitals.
We do have a social security system which is the envy of the world.
That is the product of the last 20 or 30 years.
And it’s something I think we will have an absolute commitment to maintaining. This is why I keep coming back to the point about the economy and what we’ve learnt about it during the course of this crisis.
When you’ve had consistent economic growth for almost 30 years, it can be taken for granted.
And as treasurer, I used to warn about this as well. But I think no-one has any doubt now that, if you don’t look after the growth in your economy, then you can’t guarantee any of the things you’ve talked about.
You can make big, bold promises about them, and you can talk about how important they are. But you can’t fund them.
And so that’s why my point today has been that, unless we focus on the success of that business that is going to employ someone, then there’s nothing really to offer. Because there’s no economy to offer it from. And so that’s why we’ve got to get our priorities right.
That’s why we’ve got to get the order right. Now, if we can make that work on those supply-side reforms, as they’re sort of known technically, then all of the things [you] has just talked about will be able to be guaranteed.
I can guarantee hospitals, schools, the aged pension, childcare, one of the world’s most generous pharmaceutical benefits schemes, on the basis of a strong economy. And if you don’t put businesses at the centre of that economy, you can’t make that pledge.
Updated
Should Australian businesses consider investment with China to be a riskier prospect?
Scott Morrison:
I think that’s a judgment Australian businesses can only make. And, like any business, they have to weigh up the security of the markets in which they sell to. And the risks that are associated with those.
And those risks will move, from time to time. They’ll ebb and flow.
And we would like to see stable, reliable, dependable markets all the time for our products and services.
But those are not decisions that governments make for businesses, be they primary producers and exporters or be they resources companies or industries or, indeed, service companies working in the aged care area on training or things like this. I think one of the most exciting parts of the China free trade agreement – China-Australia free trade agreement – was the ability to actually sell aged care services into China. I’ve said that on many occasions before.
But businesses have got to weigh up those risks and make those assessments. Austrade can assist with those things on the ground.
While I’m pleased to see Mathias and Josh and I this morning reviewing those iron ore trading figures this morning – we’re very reassured by what we’re seeing on those patterns compared to what there’d been in the past. Australia has a very bright trading future, and businesses will make their judgments about how they participate in that.
Updated
Moriah College in Sydney's east closes after a student tests positive
Another eastern Sydney school has had to send children home after a student tested positive for Covid-19.
Waverley College closed earlier this morning. Now Moriah College has sent children home.
Updated
On the industrial accords 2.0 Scott Morrison says:
One of the keys in this is you don’t speak for them - you let them speak for themselves.
We’ve booked the room, we’ve hired the hall, we’ve got the table ready.
Whether the chairs will be as rickety as the ones I saw in Auckland a few years ago, I don’t know.
But our job is to bring people together.
And we’ve been doing that through this crisis.
And though I’ve got to say, it’s been one of the greatest privileges to work with people across the spectrum - the National Cabinet has been a great example of that, and I thank the premiers and chief ministers again for the good faith in which they’ve engaged. Sure, we haven’t agreed all the time, but the relationships are stronger now than they have ever been, despite those disagreements.
I hope to see something of that nature replicated in this process. But it’s not for the government to stick their nose in here and start predefining what these outcomes are.
We need people to get together and sort this stuff out. As I say, they’ve been caught in grooves for too long, and grooves going in parallel lines and not coming together. And that’s why I’m hoping this process will achieve. It may succeed.
It may fail. But I can assure you, we’re going to give it everything we can. And I’m very grateful of the engagements that I’ve had with the sectors that you’ve nominated. It’s been in good faith and it’s been honest, and it requires everybody to leave a bit aside. I acknowledge and respect that as well.
Scott Morrison says “how good is Australia” and concludes his speech.
As reported (and expected), the government is dumping its union-busting bill:
In good faith, we have decided the government will not pursue a further vote in the Senate on its Ensuring Integrity Bill.
Not pursuing a further vote, though, I hasten to caution on this bill, does not reflect any change or lack of commitment to the principle that lawful behaviour of registered organisations should be strictly required on all work sites in Australia.
The government maintains its complete lack of tolerance for the kinds of behaviour we have particularly seen from the CFMEU on Australian construction sites in recent years. It’s not only illegal, it’s costing jobs.
Given how critical the construction sector will be to the task of rebuilding the Australian economy, the government remains committed to ensuring the lawbreaking stops. We are committed to ensuring that this happens in the simplest, fairest and most effective statutory form possible, which we will consider going forward.
But our first – the here and now – priority, what we have to do right now, is to take this opportunity to work together through a genuine good-faith process to get some real outcomes and to make the jobs that Australians need.
Updated
PM on enterprise bargaining agreements: 'we've got to get back to basics'
Here we go. Christian Porter will lead a “time-bound” process bringing employers, industry groups, employee representatives and government to the table “to chart a practical reform agenda – a job-making agenda – for Australia’s industrial relations system”.
The minister will chair five working groups, for discussion, negotiation and hopefully agreement, to produce that jobmaker package in the following areas: award simplification, what most small- and medium-sized businesses deal with in their employees every single day.
Enterprise agreement-making – we’ve got to get back to the basics.
Casuals and fixed-term employees, made even more prescient by recent changes through the Fair Work Commission. Compliance and enforcement. People should be paid properly. And unions need to, obviously, do the right thing. As must employers. Greenfield agreements for new enterprises, where the new investment will go and the certainty is needed more so than ever.
Membership of each group will include employer and union representatives, as well as individuals chosen based on their demonstrated experience and expertise, and that will include – especially – small businesses, rural and regional operators, multicultural communities, women, families.
This process, as I said, will be time-bound, and it is expected to run through to September. We must make the most of this time we have, and we must move quickly. It will become apparent very quickly if progress is to be made. The working groups will either reach something approaching a consensus on issues, or they won’t.
But we’ve got to give it a go.
Updated
We get on to the IR changes:
Now, on industrial relations – I have been genuinely heartened by the constructive approach of employees and employers and business groups and unions working together in the ACTU with the government through this crisis to find practical solutions to keeping Australians in jobs.
We now need to turn that into cooperation to create even more jobs, especially during this all-important recovery phase.
Our current system is not fit for purpose, especially given the scale of the jobs challenge that we now face as a nation.
Our industrial relations system has settled into a complacency of unions seeking marginal benefits and employers closing down risks, often by simply not employing anyone.
The system has lost sight of its purpose to get the workplace settings right, so the enterprise – the business – can succeed, so everybody can fairly benefit from their efforts and their contributions.
It is a system that has, to date, retreated to tribalism, conflict and ideological posturing.
No side of that debate has been immune from those maladies. This will need to change, or more Australians will unnecessarily lose their jobs and more Australians will be kept out of jobs.
The first step is to get everyone back in the room, to bring people together. That’s our job. And in particular, that’s my job. No one side has all the answers.
Employees or employers. Unions or employer organisations. It is not beyond Australians to put aside differences to find cooperative solutions to specific problems, especially at a time like this.
Updated
On the vocational changes, Scott Morrison describes it as thus:
Firstly, the complexity of a system that is clunky and unresponsive to skills demands. Ask any business - they will tell you that.
The lack of clear information about what those skills needs are, now and into the future, to guide training and funding.
Ask any student or their parents about what it is like to deal with the system and whether they think they are getting value out of it. They will tell you that.
A funding system marred by inconsistencies and incoherence with little accountability back to any results.
Currently, the average time frame to develop or update training products is 18 months with a third taking over two years to update. Not very responsive.
For prospective student, the large number of choices they face for qualifications can be bewildering and overwhelming. Compounded by lack of visibility over the quality of training providers and the employment outcomes for those courses.
There are over 1,400 qualifications on offer and almost 17,000 units of competency.
There is also substantial variations in fees for students, depending on which state they are in.
For example, in 2019, a student undertaken certificate 3 in blinds, awning and security screens received a subsidy of $3,726 in Queensland, $9,630 in New South Wales, and no subsidy in Victoria, unless the qualification is taken as an apprenticeship.
Now, I’m not making any comment on each of those individual measures. But there is a wide variety.
Subsidies for a diploma of nursing in 2017 varied between $19,963 in Western Australia and $8,218 in Queensland. And all of this is before the question surrounding the quality of that training is addressed.
No surprise, then, that state subsidised students in Queensland [finish with vocational] debts that are on average more than double of those in New South Wales. It is no wonder when faced with this, many potential students default to the university system. (ahhhh, the university system isn’t much better)
Even if their career could be best enhanced through vocational education. I want those trade and skills jobs to be aspired to, not looked down upon or seen as a second best option.
It is a first best option.
Scott Morrison on what “jobmaker” is all about:
I will seek to bring people together, to define and achieve the change we need to in all these areas.
And today I just want to focus on two areas: skills and industrial relations.
Now, I will address many of the other components of our jobmaker plan in the weeks and months ahead as we proceed to the budget in October – a process that is one of patiently putting each brick in the wall.
This will occur simultaneously with managing the ongoing pandemic.
Let’s not lose sight of that in addressing the right here, right now needs of Australian who continue to be severely impacted.
So, on skills. We need Australians better trained for the jobs, businesses are looking to create. It is that simple.
Updated
This is not how medication works. In many cases, people need to stay on medication for the rest of their lives in order to live.
But you are going to her A LOT about this, because the prime minister has decided it’s a good line:
At some point, you’ve got to get your economy out of ICU.
You’ve got to get it off the medication before it becomes too accustomed to it.
We must enable our businesses to earn Australia’s way out of this crisis. And that means focusing on the things that can make their businesses go faster: the skilled labour businesses need to draw on; the affordable and reliable energy they need; the research and technology they can draw on and utilise; the investment capital and finance that they can access; the markets they can connect to; the economic infrastructure that supports and connects them; the amount of government regulation they must comply with. And the amount – the efficiency of the taxes they must pay, in particular whether such taxes encourage them to invest and to employ.
Updated
Scott Morrison, who had a “we stopped these” sculpture of a boat in his office, says his fifth principle is to “make the boat go faster”:
And then there’s the fifth principle, which I like to call the Sir Peter Blake principle. I spoke to Jacinda Ardern this morning. Doing what makes the boat go faster.
My colleagues are very familiar with this principle.
Many years ago I worked in New Zealand, where I looked after the government’s then engagement with the Team New Zealand 2000 America’s Cup defence.
Team New Zealand, led by the late Sir Peter Blake, was competing in one of the richest sporting events in the world. Biggest sponsors, enormous global media investments, broadcast rights, high-tech sport, like you have never seen. You would think no expense spared by any team in that great quest.
But early on I learned the key to Team New Zealand’s success. At one of our early meetings we met at the headquarters in Auckland.
There was a fellow called Alan Sefton, who was head of the corporate operations. We sat on rickety old shares, there was a scuffed-up table.
The office looked like it had been saved from demolition. I noted the surroundings. And Alan responded by saying: “In Team New Zealand you only ask one question – what makes the boat go faster?”
Those chairs weren’t going to make any difference. Nor their accommodations. And their united and focused effort brought a whole country together. Not just the team. And they won. And so can we. This health and economic crisis is a reminder of just how much we depend on a strong and growing economy for our jobs, for our incomes, for our health and education services. Our safety, our security, our social safety net of which we’re so proud.
To strengthen and agree our economy, the boats we need to go faster are the hundreds of thousands of small and medium and large businesses that make up our economy and create the value upon which everything else depends. Value created by establishing successful products and services, the ability to be able to sell them at a competitive and profitable price, and into growing and sustainable markets. Economics 101. That is what happens in a sustainable and successful job-making market economy.
Updated
He continues:
Fourthly, we must ensure there is an opportunity in Australia for those who have a go to get a go. This is our Australian way. Access to essential services, incentive for effort, respect for the principles of mutual obligation, ensuring equal opportunities for those in rural and regional communities to be the same as those in our cities and our suburbs. All translated into policies that seek not to punish those who have success, but devise ways for others to achieve it.
Scott Morrison:
Thirdly, we must seek to leverage and build on our strengths and educated and highly skilled workforce that not just supports a thriving service sector but a modern, advanced competitive manufacturing sector, resources and agricultural sectors that can fuel and feed large global population, including our own, and support vibrant rural and regional communities.
I know the Deputy Prime Minister would agree thoroughly. A financial system that has proved to be one of the most stable and resilient in the world. World leading scientist, specialist, researchers, technologists and an emerging space sector.
And we are back to “living within our means” (sound familiar?)
Scott Morrison:
Secondly is the principle of caring for country. A principle that Indigenous Australians have practised for tens of thousands of years.
It means responsible management and stewardship of what has been left to us to sustainably manage that inheritance for current and future generations.
We must not borrow from generations in the future from what we cannot return to them. This is as true for our environmental, cultural and natural resources as it is for our economic and financial ones. Governments, therefore, must live within their means, so we don’t impose impossible debt burdens on future generations. That violates that important caring for country principle.
Updated
On trade, Scott Morrison says:
We will remain in Australia an outward-looking, open and sovereign trading economy. We will not retreat into the downward spiral of protectionism.
To the contrary. We will be a part of global supply chains that can deliver the prosperity we rely on to create jobs, support incomes and build businesses.
Our economic sovereignty will be achieved by ensuring our industries are highly competitive, resilient and able to succeed in a global market.
Not by protectionism. While a trading nation, we will never trade away our values or our future for short-term gain.
With trade alliances and other partners, we will work to establish and maintain the balance needed for peace and stability in our region, upon which everyone’s prosperity depends.
Updated
The prime minister then sends a very unsubtle message to the “why even lockdown?” critics.
You know, we should not downplay this, this achievement, and pretend like [the threat] never existed or that our preparations or our precautions were unwarranted.
Let me assure you, Australia, the risk was great. And uncertain. And it still is. Countries like ours – developed, sophisticated economies, with strong health systems – have experienced death rates more than 100 times what we have experienced here in Australia.
The fact our worst-case scenarios have not been realised is cause for great relief, not apathy.
Updated
The prime minister says he received more than 100,000 letters and emails from Australians during the pandemic, outlining their experiences.
Scott Morrison:
A year ago, I said, “How good is Australia? And how good are Australians?” Over the past year Australians have proved this time and again.
We are an amazing country – a view shared by all of my government, I’m sure all of the parliament, my colleagues here with me today, the deputy prime minister, the treasurer, the leader of the government in the Senate, my many colleagues. We believe this passionately. Australians have stood up.
Australians are proving once again that we are capable of doing extraordinary things, but in a very Australian way. I am thankful for the many sacrifices that Australians have made to get us to this point.
Updated
Scott Morrison addresses National Press Club
We’ve had jobseeker and jobkeeper – now get ready for jobmaker.
Scott Morrison will talk about his plan to get the economy through the next few years, which includes a focus on vocational training – but we are yet to hear whether or not there will be any money for the plan.
Updated
And we can only expect bushfire season to get longer and more intense
The prime minister is due to begin his press club address at 12.30pm.
You can follow along live, here.
I’ve just been sent some new statistics on the extraordinary numbers of masks, gloves and other PPE the federal government has added to its national medical stockpile during the pandemic.
In responses to questions on notice from crossbench senator Rex Patrick, the government has confirmed it will have added 60m masks, 5.8m gloves and 15m gowns to the national stockpile by the end of May.
About 11.5m gloves and 520,000 gowns have been received in recent weeks.
The government has also revealed that more than 37m masks have been sent from the stockpile to frontline health workers, including 24m to the public hospital system, 7.7m to general practice and 2.4m to aged care. A further 40m masks will be sent to frontline health workers by the end of May.
The government is generally reluctant to provide details about its national medical stockpile for reasons of national security. The stockpile is an emergency reserve of medical equipment for times of disaster and crisis.
But Patrick told the Guardian that the state of Australia’s national medical reserves needed to be examined by the Senate.
On the face of it, noting emergency efforts to purchase PPE and spin up Australian industry, it appears that the stockpile was insufficient.
It is my understanding the Covid oversight committee will seek a private briefing from Health and other relevant departments.
Updated
Victoria reports five new cases
And Victoria’s daily update:
The total number of coronavirus (Covid-19) cases in Victoria is 1,610 – an increase of five since yesterday.
There have been no new deaths reported. To date, 19 people have died from coronavirus in Victoria.
There have been 182 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Victoria that may have been acquired through community transmission.
Currently eight people are in hospital, including three patients in intensive care; 1,533 people have recovered.
Of the total 1,610 cases, there have been 1,333 in metropolitan Melbourne and 236 in regional Victoria. Several cases remain under investigation. The total number of cases is made up of 850 men and 760 women. More than 437,000 tests have been processed to date.
Of the new cases, three cases were detected in returned travellers in hotel quarantine and one case was detected through community testing unrelated to any known outbreak.
A case of Covid-19 has also been detected in a resident at the HammondCare aged care facility in Caulfield, bringing the total number of cases at that facility to two.
The resident has been moved to a separate building at the facility, and identified close contacts are already in quarantine. These close contacts will be re-tested. The source of acquisition for this case is still under investigation and all potential sources of transmission will be explored. Potential links to the previous case at the facility are being investigated.
All residents and staff at the facility were tested following the first notification of a case of coronavirus at the facility. Due to an existing medical condition, only one resident remains to be tested. This resident remains in strict quarantine.
Updated
NSW reports two new cases
NSW Health has released its daily update:
As at 8pm Monday 25 May 2020, there have been two additional cases of Covid-19 diagnosed since 8pm 24 May, bringing the total number of cases in NSW to 3,092.
Both of the new cases are in returned travellers who are now in quarantine hotels.
There were 4,621 tests carried out in the reporting period, compared with 4,783 in the previous 24 hours. Nearly 457,000 Covid-19 tests have now been carried out in NSW.
As previously advised, NSW Health is modifying how it records testing numbers moving forward to take into account how many times a person has had an individual test, until they become positive.
Once the person has tested positive, subsequent testing to confirm whether they are clear of the virus will not be recorded in the overall count as those subsequent tests will not add to the number of infections in the community.
NSW Health is again urging anyone feeling unwell – even with the mildest of symptoms, such as a runny nose or scratchy throat – to come forward and get tested, so cases in the community are identified as quickly as possible.
Updated
Catherine King has some thoughts on jobkeeper, as the government moves towards jobmaker:
With last week’s revelation that the number of people on jobkeeper has been revised down by 3 million, the government cannot continue to deny support to dnata’s 5,500 Australian workers.
Three weeks ago, one of Australia’s leading aviation services companies, dnata, had to tell its 5,500 workers that the company is currently ineligible for the jobkeeper wage subsidy program.
Dnata’s Australian workers provide crucial ground handling, charter handling, cargo and logistics, and catering services to Australia’s aviation sector.
For weeks the Morrison government has been telling casuals and other excluded workers that the jobkeeper program was full when in reality it was 3 million workers short.
The treasurer has extraordinary powers to extend jobkeeper with the stroke of a pen. He should do so immediately.
Updated
New Queensland case suspected to have carried 'dormant' virus linked to Ruby Princess
AAP has a bit more on the new Queensland Covid diagnosis, which is suspected to be linked to the Ruby Princess cruise ship:
A passenger of the Ruby Princess who tested positive to coronavirus is suspected to have carried the “dormant” virus for almost 10 weeks before falling ill.
The woman was diagnosed in Cairns on Monday, taking the total number of Queensland cases to 1057, with just 12 remaining active.
Authorities suspect she is the latest coronavirus case to have carried the inactive virus and become sick weeks after exposure.
Last week another woman in Queensland was diagnosed two months after returning from India.
“We are monitoring that very closely to work out if it’s directly related to the Ruby Princess or if it was acquired in some other way,” Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told reporters on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the health minister told AAP the woman had returned a negative result after a recent test and it was not possible she was contagious since she left the ship on 19 March.
Updated
I just rewatched Annastacia Palaszczuk’s press conference from earlier today, and the Queensland premier seems quite exasperated at the border questions.
She asked a journalist if they were willing to put their family at risk of community transmission of Covid-19 by opening the borders to NSW, and said Simon Birmingham “lives in a state that has the borders shut”.
National cabinet this Friday should be fun.
Updated
NSW transport minister and the almost-Eden-Monaro candidate, Andrew Constance, says specialist teams will be deployed to check on social distancing on public transport:
You know, at the end of the day, I just want to echo this message – complacency is going to kill us.
If we’re complacent with Covid across our community, people are going to get sick and we’re going to lose lives.
What we want to do in terms of our transport system, use every available resource to make sure that people maintain that 1.5m, don’t get crowded on services, and don’t risk their lives.
And to have an additional 80 staff backing up our frontline deployed specifically monitoring the 11,000 cameras, CCTV cameras across the network, using the load data on the trains to ensure we can get there quickly and get people safe is what this is all about.
For us, this is a really important initiative, it’s one which is very insightful in terms of the community.
Updated
Footy might be back, but the crowds are still some time off.
Pauline Hanson is still working out if she can challenge the Queensland border closures legally, and Clive Palmer is taking his Western Australia border complaints to the high court as well.
Simon Birmingham, who previously was “open the borders”, took a more conciliatory approach on Sky News this morning:
It’s their right, it’s anybody’s right to initiate legal challenges. I hope it doesn’t come to that.
I hope these matters can be resolved before it gets to the determination of the high court. In the end, we are having enormous success across Australia in suppressing the spread of Covid-19 and every state and territory has played a role in that and every state and territory’s enjoying that success. And they are now safely, successfully reopening schools, getting pubs and restaurants back open, getting people back to work which is the most important thing.
But ultimately, and hopefully well before September, as the health advice allows, I want to see those interstate border restrictions come down because one in 13 Australian jobs relies on our tourism industry and yet of course with no international travellers coming now or for the foreseeable future, we need to see domestic tourism recover to sustain some of those jobs and businesses.
Updated
Non-Covid related, but something which will be capturing headlines into the future
Victoria to make remote learning 'a feature' of state education system
Victoria has reported five new Covid-19 cases, as some students return to school.
Victorian education minister Gayle Tierney says there have been many successes from the recent remote learning and he will be ordering an independent inquiry into what can be incorporated into the usual school program. A summit of education leaders will be held next month to discuss the issue.
Tierney:
I mean, the pandemic across the globe has been very, very challenging. It is a crisis of tragic proportions, but when you look at how schools have responded, there is gold, there is gold in the way that schools have responded, and we got to mine that gold and make it a feature of our education system.
Every principal I have spoken to, every teacher, talk about students who have reengaged, students who disengaged at school, seven weeks ago, are suddenly embracing their learning.
Students who are performing very well academically compared to when they were at school.
So we got to ask the question: why is that the case? We got to take those positives out of this crisis and make it a feature of our education system. So that’s why today as students return to school, I have asked teachers and staff across all schools, across all sectors, to think about what has worked for them as teachers and what has worked for their students during flexible and remote learning.
It’s why we’ll commission an independent analysis of what we can learn from flexible and remote learning over the last seven weeks and it’s why I’ll be calling for an – a summit, I’ll be holding a summit, of education leaders across government, Catholic and independent schools.
We’ll be holding that summit later in June but it’s about examining what has worked and how we can make that a feature of our education system. Out of every crisis, there’s an opportunity and what I have seen as education minister is our schools have been doing a brilliant job and there are thousands and thousands of students across Victoria who have thrived through remote and flexible learning.
We need to learn from that and make it a feature of our education system.
Updated
Queensland to decide what stage two restrictions look like on Sunday
Queensland has reported one new case of Covid-19. Where it came from is still under investigation, but at this point, authorities think it may be related to the Ruby Princess.
Annastacia Palaszczuk says there will be more information on the next stage of loosening restrictions, on Sunday. She also says she is holding meetings with representatives from the tourism industry:
We still only have 12 active cases in Queensland and that is wonderful news as we approach Sunday when we make decisions on what restrictions will be lifted for sage 2.
It is excellent news to know that we are sitting on just 12 active cases in Queensland which is a stark contrast to what’s happening in other parts of Australia.
Today, I’m also very pleased to be on the Gold Coast. I’ll be meeting the minister of tourism, a range of stakeholders across the Gold Coast – both big employers and small employers.
It’s really important that we’re hear listening to the views of Gold Coast and I know that people want to get up and running as quickly as possible, but we need to do it in a safe and measured way. It is absolutely vital that we do it in the safest way possible, making sure that we listen to the expert advice which is, of course, from Dr [Jeannette] Young, but also to – listening to the views of people here on the Gold Coast. So we’ll be having a range of meetings.
Updated
The Greens leader has some thoughts on the latest policy buzzword.
'JobMaker'?
— Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) May 25, 2020
JobFaker.
Cutting rights is not a plan to create jobs or tackle job insecurity.
Nor is skilling people up for jobs that aren’t there.
We must invest to recover, with nation-building, planet-saving projects & a Jobs Guarantee.#GreenNewDeal https://t.co/LWLPUkNR2P
I have to say, I am very excited for JobBaker and JobCandlestickmaker.
Updated
Treasurer says no to appearing in front of Senate committee
Josh Frydenberg has officially turned down appearing in front of the Covid-19 Senate select committee.
Non-government MPs had wanted the treasurer to front the committee, to explain the $60bn jobkeeper issue.
That is not a surprise – he all but said he wouldn’t be appearing yesterday.
But it is also a signal that the bipartisanship during the height of the Covid-19 crisis is over.
Josh Frydenberg has declined the Covid-19 Senate committee's invitation to appear in person, offering instead Mathias Cormann as his Senate representative to answer questions about the $60bn jobkeeper bungle. #auspol #COVID19Aus pic.twitter.com/OF1ie98Ng8
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) May 25, 2020
Updated
The employment, skills and small business minister, Michaelia Cash, has quietly authorised a “national communications campaign to support small business”.
An instrument, which commences today, Tuesday, authorises funding for a campaign to support small businesses affected by Covid-19.
“The purpose of the program is to mitigate the negative economic impacts of Covid‑19 on these businesses by encouraging consumers to patronise small businesses,” it said.
Just how much will taxpayers be charged to be told to come out from under the doona? Unclear at this stage – as this instrument merely authorises spending rather than making an appropriation or awarding a contract.
The authorisation is provided by section 33 of the Industry Research and Development Act 1986 – which allows the minister to “prescribe one or more programs in relation to industry, innovation, science or research”. I guess ads telling people to go back to shops, cafes and restaurants fits in the broad parameters of a “program in relation to industry”.
Treasury secretary, Steven Kennedy, has said households and businesses’ “demand confidence” will be the difference between a V-shaped and U-shaped recovery but it is “very hard to determine” whether consumers would flock back to shops and cafes now restrictions were easing.
Let’s hope the ads – when they hit the airwaves – help.
Updated
Waverley College student tests positive for Covid-19
The ABC is reporting a student at Waverley College in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, which went back to on-site learning last week, has tested positive for Covid-19. It reports parents have been asked to collect their children from school.
Updated
In case you missed it, there was this quiet announcement from the Treasurer’s office, yesterday as well:
Given the impact of the coronavirus crisis and the uncertainty it continues to generate, it has been considerably more difficult for companies to release reliable forward-looking guidance to the market.
Therefore, the government will temporarily amend the Corporations Act 2001 (the Act) so that companies and officers’ will only be liable if there has been “knowledge, recklessness or negligence” with respect to updates on price sensitive information to the market.
These changes will be made under the instrument-making power that has been inserted into the Act as part of our response to the coronavirus crisis.
The heightened level of uncertainty around companies’ future prospects as a result of the crisis also exposes companies to the threat of opportunistic class actions for allegedly falling foul of their continuous disclosure obligations if their forecasts are found to be inaccurate.
In response, companies may hold back from making forecasts of future earnings or other forward-looking estimates, limiting the amount of information available to investors during this period.
The changes announced today will make it harder to bring such actions against companies and officers’ during the coronavirus crisis and while allowing the market to continue to stay informed and function effectively.
The changes will be in effect for six months from [today].
Updated
Another quiet announcement
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has delayed ACCC inquiries into home loans (now due 30 November) and water markets in the Murray Darling basin (interim report now due 30 June) #auspol pic.twitter.com/2ibq107o6S
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) May 25, 2020
The ACCC says seven million of us are now connected to the NBN:
More than seven million Australian consumers are now connected to the NBN after the activation of 455,000 new services in the three months to 31 March.
The connections were made as available NBN bandwidth per user jumped by 31% during the March quarter, following NBN Co’s boost of the network capacity in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The ACCC’s latest quarterly Wholesale Market Indicators Report, released today, shows total Connectivity Virtual Circuit (CVC) per user increased from 1.92Mbps to 2.52Mbps during the March quarter, after NBN Co temporarily provided retail service providers (RSPs) with up to 40% extra capacity at no additional cost.
“We were pleased to see NBN Co and RSPs work together to ensure Australians can stay connected during these unprecedented times,” ACCC chair Rod Sims said.
“Consumers have been downloading and uploading record amounts of data for online work, school and social activities, which has been essential in helping households get through this challenging situation.”
Updated
The special commission of inquiry into the Ruby Princess continues. AAP has a recap on what happened yesterday:
Carnival Australia’s port operations director has disputed claims he told a staff member at the NSW Port Authority the Ruby Princess docking should be “business as usual”.
The special commission of inquiry into the Ruby Princess continued on Monday with a focus on the communication between Carnival’s Paul Mifsud and the NSW Port Authority in the early hours of March 19.
Mifsud told the inquiry he had learned the ship had been cleared by NSW Health about 5.30pm on March 18 via a text message from Carnival Australia port agent manager Valerie Burrows.
This was questioned about midnight by NSW Port Authority senior manager Robert Rybanic who had been told there were Covid-19 concerns regarding two passengers needing ambulance transport from the ship.
Mifsud says he didn’t recall saying to Rybanic it was “business as usual” or mentioning anything about the ship being deemed low risk by NSW Health.
Updated
Richard Marles is having a chat to Sky News this morning, where he gives an idea of where Labor is headed with its attacks on Scott Morrison this week:
He likes to be there on the good days, but when times get tough, he likes to be somewhere else.
Addressing the “take the economy out of the ICU” line that the PM will be using to frame his press club address today, Marles says:
The fact of the matter is the economy barely had a heartbeat before we came into the Covid crisis, it was already really sick. We had the lowest wage growth on record. We had a government which doubled the debt, we had an economy with anaemic growth, and that set the conditions for this economy going into the Covid crisis.
Updated
The prime minister will deliver his press club address just after lunch.
First human trials of Covid-19 vaccine in Australia begins today
The ABC is also reporting that the first human trials of a vaccine for Covid-19 have begun in the southern hemisphere, at Melbourne’s Alfred hospital today.
The drug has been developed by a US biotech company, Novavax, and results are hoped for by July.
Updated
US embassy 'clarifies' Covid-19 'non-paper' – reports
The ABC has published a story by Dylan Welch, detailing the “dossier” Sydney News Corp papers claimed was connected to the Five Eyes alliance:
The American embassy has held private meetings with Canberra to clarify a US State Department document that was used by a Sydney newspaper to link the COVID-19 pandemic to a Chinese government laboratory despite a lack of direct evidence.
The so-called “Western governments dossier” used by the Saturday Telegraph and sister newspaper the Daily Telegraph was, in fact, a widely distributed — and deniable — background document created by the US State Department.
The document contained no new evidence linking the laboratory to the outbreak and instead relied on publicly available news and scientific journal papers.
Updated
Speaking of stimulus and what comes after, you may find this new Guardian series interesting.
Updated
Good morning
Well, it’s the prime minister’s speech day, which means you are going to hear a lot of analogies about medication and doonas and weaning the economy off of both of them and something-something ICU.
Scott Morrison will try to hit the reset button before the June parliamentary sittings, while trying to ensure that everyone forgets about that pesky $60bn the government was going to borrow but now is trying not to.
Which means everything is focused on the next few months and getting business back up and running.
We’ll cover that, plus all the days other coronavirus and political developments as Australia starts to examine what this new normal looks like.
You have Amy Remeikis with you for most of the day.
Ready?
Updated
