What we learned, Tuesday 11 August
That is where I will leave you for tonight. As always, thanks for reading.
Here’s what we learned today:
- Victoria again recorded 19 Covid-19 deaths. It brings Australia’s death toll from the pandemic to 331. The state also recorded another 331 new cases, continuing the positive downward trend following the introduction of the stage four lockdown.
- The 19 deaths included one woman in her 50s, one man in his 70s, six women in their 80s, four men in their 80s, four women in their 90s, and three men in their 90s. Fourteen of the 19 are linked to aged care outbreaks.
- The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, told a parliamentary inquiry investigating the government’s response to the pandemic that Australian Defence Force members hadn’t been offered to guard the hotels at the time the scheme was introduced. But the defence minister, Linda Reynolds, later issued a statement contradicting that, saying ADF support was offered to Victoria “on multiple occasions” from late March.
- New South Wales recorded 22 new cases. Eight were linked to the Tangara School for Girls cluster. The state’s premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said the state remained on a “knife’s edge”.
- Two of the cases were from a cluster in Batemans Bay. It is the first time a case had been recorded in the south coast town in 24 days. Other new cases not included in the daily count included two people in the south coast town of Huskisson, a student at the Parramatta Public School and two staff members from Liverpool hospital in western Sydney.
- The head of the Newmarch House aged care home in Sydney where 17 people died from Covid-19 told the aged care royal commission there was a “frustrating level of dysfunction” between state and federal health authorities about deciding when to send infected residents to hospital during the outbreak.
- But the acting chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, denied allegations made in the royal commission, saying it was “not correct”.
- The Northern Territory chief minister, Michael Gunner, said it may be 18 months before the Territory reopens its border to Victoria and NSW.
Updated
A post-script to our report on the growing revolt from the Nationals over the university funding overhaul:
Andrew Gee, the minister for decentralisation and regional education, has declined to say whether he considered resigning from the ministry over his concerns about the government’s proposed legislation.
When asked about the issue – and whether he had breached rules by dissenting from cabinet decisions – Gee told us: “I stand by my statement. Rather than engage in hypotheticals I’m focused on getting the best possible result for country universities, students and communities.”
Just hours after the government released its draft legislation this morning, the Nationals publicly demanded three key changes – including sparing people studying social work, behavioural science and mental health from the 113% fee increases in the humanities.
You can see our full report here:
Updated
Another school in Sydney has been closed after recording a positive Covid-19 case.
Parramatta Public School will close on Wednesday after a student tested positive. All staff and students are being asked to self-isolate while contact tracing occurs.
Here’s our wrap of today’s news in Victoria, including the details from the state parliamentary inquiry into the government’s response to the pandemic. Comes via my colleagues Melissa Davey and Matilda Boseley.
NSW Health says risk to patients 'considered low' after two Liverpool Hospital staff test positive for Covid-19
Here’s the western Sydney health district’s statement on the two Liverpool hospital staff members who have tested positive for Covid-19:
NSW Health can confirm two Liverpool Hospital staff members have tested positive to Covid-19 but any risk to patients is considered low.
One worker wore a face mask and appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) and the other was not working with patients at the time they were infectious.
All close and casual contacts have been identified and as is standard protocol, advised to isolate, monitor and test for Covid-19 should any symptoms present.
One staff member has links to an existing cluster in the community and the source of infection for the other staff member is under investigation.
Updated
Norman Swan’s take on acting chief medical officer Paul Kelly’s statement today on the aged care sector being provided advice from the AHPPC.
The aged care sector was getting advice from an expert committee that didn’t believe in either aerosol spread or masks.
— Norman Swan (@normanswan) August 11, 2020
Tasmania records first new case for 20 days
Tasmania has recorded its first new coronavirus case in 20 days.
Premier Peter Gutwein has announced a man in his 60s has tested positive while in the North-West Regional Hospital in Burnie. The man had been in Melbourne for medical treatment before being transported back to Tasmania.
He had previously tested negative before recording a positive test upon returning back to the state.
Updated
A cafe in Huskisson on the New South Wales south coast says two patrons who dined there on Saturday have tested positive for Covid-19.
Here’s the statement from the Wildginger cafe’s Facebook page:
On Saturday the 8th of August from 8pm, two patrons who were holidaying in Jervis Bay for the weekend dined with us. As of yesterday (Monday August 10th), they have received positive test results for Covid-19.
Please be advised that at this time, NONE of our staff have tested positive for Covid-19 and the incident was from patrons visiting from Sydney.
The matter has now been taken over and IS being handled by the NSW Department of Health. They will be directly contacting anyone who was at Wildginger during the ‘at risk hours.’
We are devastated at the news of this and will be closed for the next 2 weeks whilst our affected staff are in mandatory, two week quarantine.
Rest assured we have remained 100% compliant with all rules and guidelines regarding COVID-19 and our procedures were verified and approved by local police on Saturday night during a routine inspection, and the NSW Department of Health today (Tuesday August 11th).
Defence minister contradicts Daniel Andrews on ADF support offer
The defence minister, Linda Reynolds, has just issued a statement apparently responding to the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, who said this morning that ADF personnel had not been offered to Victoria to deal with hotel quarantining.
First, here’s what Andrews said today in response to questions:
I don’t believe ADF support was on offer. It’s been provided in limited circumstances in New South Wales, not to provide security as such but to provide transportation from the airport to hotels. I think it is fundamentally incorrect to assert that there was hundreds of ADF staff on offer and somehow someone said no. That’s not, in my judgment, accurate.
And here’s the statement from Reynolds (it’s long):
Throughout the pandemic the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has been postured to respond to requests for support from the states and territories at very short notice.
From 21 March 2020, ADF planning teams were established in every state and territory to rapidly facilitate any requests for support.
Following the prime minister’s offer on 27 March 2020 for ADF support to states and territories with the new mandatory 14-day quarantine period for international arrivals, the ADF discussed requirements with relevant state and territory authorities.
On 28 March 2020, Victorian authorities advised that Victoria was not seeking ADF assistance with mandatory quarantine arrangements. The ADF was consistently advised that its assistance was not required for any “public facing roles” in Victoria.
ADF officials asked whether Victorian authorities required assistance with its mandatory quarantine system on multiple occasions. No request for quarantine support was subsequently received from Victoria at that time.
On 12 April 2020, Victorian authorities reaffirmed to ADF officials that all quarantine compliance monitoring operations were within Victorian authorities’ capacity.
Defence agreed to requests for support to quarantine compliance from Queensland and NSW on 28 March. In NSW, ADF personnel began supporting the reception of international arrivals at Sydney airport and undertaking quarantine compliance monitoring at hotels the following day.
In Queensland, ADF personnel began supporting reception of international arrivals at Brisbane airport the following day, and supported quarantine compliance monitoring at hotels from 31 March.
On 14 April 2020, the ADF shared observations on best practice quarantine compliance monitoring operations with all state and territory police commissioners, including the success of interagency operations between the ADF and NSW police.
On 24 June 2020, defence agreed to a Victorian government request for 850 ADF personnel to assist with hotel quarantine compliance. The request was withdrawn by the Victorian government the following day. The decision to withdraw the request is a matter for the Victorian government.
On 3 August 2020, the ADF agreed to provide up to 50 personnel to support Western Australian authorities with support to hotel quarantine.
Photograph: Paul Kane/Getty Images
Updated
The Victorian government has just released data on Covid-19 cases by age group: pic.twitter.com/RZU1jFRZVG
— Melissa Davey (@MelissaLDavey) August 11, 2020
Nancy Baxter, the head of Melbourne University’s School of Population and Global Health, is speaking on the ABC right now. She says the consistent number of cases that New South Wales has seen over the past month or so is indicative of what politicians and health officials mean when they talk about “suppression” of the virus.
But, she says, she believes rules around gatherings in NSW are “too relaxed”:
NSW is an example – if what we want to do is suppression, this is what we’re going to have to get used to – there being grumbling cases that we need to effectively identify and contact-trace ... the concern with NSW is it’s happened on repeated days. The other thing is they’ve opened up quite a bit, and they opened up in settings that have the potential to become superspreader settings.
We’ve seen this happen in NSW in restaurants and pubs. And they still have the ability for these settings to have up to 300 people. And I think that’s too relaxed and too many people that are allowed in one place.
She says limits such as 300 people into venues or 150 people at weddings is too high.
I think allowing 300 people in a venue’s too much. Allowing 20 people into your home, that’s a party. I don’t think, honestly, we should be having parties at this point. You know, I don’t want to spoil anyone’s wedding day, but 150 people at a wedding where people are going to want to dance, they’re going to want to sing, and likely they’re going to be drinking alcohol and there’s going to be significant peer pressure to do normal activities – I think that those are set-ups for superspreader events, and it only takes one or two and suddenly you have to shut the whole city or the whole state down.
Updated
And that’s all from the acting chief medical officer.
Kelly is asked about music festivals, of all things. He apologises to young people – including his own children – and says he likes live music too, which is nice, but that it’s not “front of mind” right now.
It is something that we did look at very closely in the Australian health protection committee some weeks ago ... before the situation that has developed in Victoria has taken more of our attention ... when you think about it, [music festivals] are relatively high risk. Large numbers of people, often multi-day events, lots of close contact, dancing and singing and so-forth, all of these things are higher risk than some other mass gatherings, so they have a particular component to them and at the moment I must admit it is not front of mind.
He says states like Western Australian and the Norther Territory with smaller number of cases are still being “wary” about mass gatherings.
They have seen what’s happened in Victoria which virtually eliminated the virus as recently as six or seven weeks ago and how rapidly that can develop. It’s a cautious approach at the moment and in terms of specific advice or planning, it’s not happening right now.
Updated
Kelly is asked about shortages in aged care staff in Victoria due to outbreaks. He says it is a “real challenge” and governments are considering bringing in other workforces, including stood down airline staff, to fill the void.
Because of the large number of aged care facilities that have been affected ... therefore staff have been affected and other staff have been in contact with people that have been affected, there is a real challenge in staffing aged care facilities in Victoria.
We have found that previously in other outbreaks and similarly throughout the world. So we are needing to be [appropriately] innovative to see what other workers need to be trained and become available. When you think about Qantas there is a lot of staff that are not currently flying but have great skills in care for people and anyone who’s been sick or have had sick children on a Qantas flight will know that caring attitude that they have. So they have skills, they have skills in first aid and in caring for people and in communication and various other things that are needed for aged care facilities. So that is one – not the only one – but one of the areas we are looking to search our workforce now for Victorian aged care.
Updated
Kelly is being asked about vaccine development. Says he is “very optimistic” about some of the trials going on around the world, and believes it is “not going to be years” before a vaccine is developed for use.
I don’t have a crystal ball on that one but certainly these types of developments usually take years. It is not going to be years. So we are six months into the development of these vaccines and some of them are already in stage three trials, so that’s getting quite close to having those answers about whether they are safe and effective. Then there is the matter of manufacture and distribution and that will depend on which of the vaccines does win that race, if you like, because some of them are quite involved in terms of manufacturing them in bulk and we need millions of doses here in Australia and many millions of doses for the world.
He’s then asked about that as a proportion. That is, the proportion of deaths in aged care compared to places such as the US and UK. Kelly says the fact our rate of deaths outside of aged care is so low is a good thing.
I would turn that around and say we have had so few deaths, our death rate within the total 21,000 cases we have had now is extremely low so there have been very few cases outside of aged care. When you look at the age of people that have died, the average is well over 80 and many people into their 90s so, it’s a tragedy to lose a loved one but really, there have been very few deaths in comparison to other countries.
Kelly also addresses Australia’s rates of deaths in aged care, comparing to deaths in the US and UK.
I just want to point out a couple of other countries that are very similar to Australia because aged care outbreaks have occurred wherever there has been significant community transmission. As we are seeing at the moment in Melbourne. But, for example, in the US where they’ve had over 5 million cases now, there have been over 50,000 deaths in relation to aged care. In the UK – 16,000 deaths. In Australia there are 220. So I think people can make their own comparison and their own decisions there about whether we are the worst in the world when you see those sorts of figures.
Updated
Acting chief medical officer dismisses allegation government had no aged care plan for Covid-19
Kelly begins by addressing those allegations out of the Aged Care Royal Commission yesterday that the federal government had no plan for the sector in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic.
He’s disputed that quite strongly, saying it’s “not correct”, and given a lengthy rebuttal:
We have been planning for our aged population as a vulnerable group since the beginning of our planning in relation to Covid-19. The first reports out of China in January, which led to the formulation of the Australian health sector emergency response plan for novel coronavirus, which is here, and was launched by the prime minister in early February, makes very specific mention of those vulnerable groups and specific mention that there would need to be specific plans in relation to aged care. So there is quite detailed information there about that particular vulnerable group. On 13 March – so well before we launched into our first wave and the first aged care outbreaks that we saw in New South Wales – the communicable disease network of Australia, the CDNA which is a subcommittee of the AHPPC did develop specific guidelines for residential aged care, quite detailed guidelines about what needed to happen both to prepare, to prevent and to respond to outbreaks in aged care facilities.
Updated
Kelly notes that we have now passed 20m Covid-19 cases globally.
It is, he says, “a very big pandemic”.
Acting chief medical officer Paul Kelly is due to begin the daily Covid-19 update any minute now.
The Morrison government’s transition package for the childcare sector is still due to expire next month – but it will be up to ministers to decide whether to extend it further, officials have told a Senate inquiry.
When the government switched off its emergency “free childcare” package and returned to the old childcare subsidy scheme last month, it announced new transition payments that would be a replacement for jobkeeper across the childcare sector until 27 September. These transition payments were conditional on services guaranteeing employment.
Ros Baxter, an education department deputy secretary for early childhood and child care, confirmed to the Covid-19 select committee this afternoon that the transition payments were still due to run out as scheduled – even though the government recently announced an extension of jobkeeper for other sectors until March.
Baxter also confirmed that the relaxed activity test was also still due to end on 4 October.
But when asked by Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi what would happen after those dates, Baxter confirmed that “remains very much” a matter for the government to decide. She said the education department was reviewing how the transition package was operating and “keeping a very close watching eye on the data” – which would be “very important to informing what comes next” in government discussions.
Faruqi asked the official to confirm that she did not know what would happen after 27 September. “No, that’s a decision for government, senator,” Baxter replied.
The secretary of the education department, Michele Bruniges, added: “It will be a decision of government and we stand ready to provide all of the data and evidence and advice that we can to inform that decision.”
Updated
Hi everyone. Thanks for joining me.
A little earlier a group of legal and human rights organisations issued a statement calling on the Victorian government to introduce stronger safeguards to “ensure that police powers are exercised fairly and proportionately” during the current state of disaster.
It comes after a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into the government’s response to Covid-19 has shown three of the state’s most disadvantaged communities have been disproportionately impacted by police enforcement measures, receiving 10% of public health order fines during the pandemic.
Monique Hurley, a senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, said the increased powers enjoyed by police during the pandemic “cannot be a free pass for heavy-handed or discriminatory policing”.
The Andrews government must guarantee that these new, wide-reaching police powers will be properly and independently scrutinised and make sure there is accountability for any misuse. We don’t want increased police powers to become the new normal – the powers must end as soon as the pandemic does.”
Similarly, Nerita Waight, the chief executive of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service called for police to make data on stops, fines and arrests available.
Police must responsibly exercise their expansive powers, acknowledging that around the world, policing the pandemic through fines and arrests has disproportionately impacted on marginalised communities, including Aboriginal people. Police should prioritise providing public health messaging and supporting people to comply with the current restrictions. Arresting people will not achieve positive outcomes for the Victorian community, and such an approach would be at odds with expert advice that we need to curb admissions to detention to prevent further outbreaks of Covid-19 in detention and in the community.
Updated
Michael McGowan will take you through the afternoon – I’ll be back early tomorrow morning.
Thank you again for joining me today. If you have any questions, hit me up on the socials and I’ll do my best to answer them. I’m just making my way through the last of today’s nows.
Be gentle with yourself – and take care of you. Ax
Updated
He moves on to “learnings” when asked about whether an infectious disease specialist is part of the response:
I know that infection control experts have been part of the response to the pandemic in Victoria.
And I’ve had those conversations with the secretary of my department, so I’m aware that has occurred.
And, in fact, we’ve had Aspen first responders and people who will provide support in respect of infection control available for facilities where that’s assessed as being required. So, that facility has been made available.
And I’ve seen a significant change in, and utilisation of, the learnings from previous outbreaks in the actions of many of the agencies that are involved in the outbreak. In fact, I know that, for example, the issuing of notices to comply has been stepped up quite significantly in Victoria, where we get any sense that there is any lack of capacity, or in the context of the provider to continue to manage the facility in a way that it should.
The commissioner has certainly stepped in there very quickly. So, I’ve seen clear evidence of learnings from previous outbreaks being applied right across the sector.
Updated
Richard Colbeck puts the responsibility for the miscommunication on the St Basil’s aged care outbreak back on the provider and the Victorian health department:
So, the commonwealth was formally informed of the outbreak at St Basil’s on 14 July by Victoria Health.
Victoria Health was advised by St Basil’s of the outbreak on the 9th.
And as I mentioned earlier, our first 24-hour document says that the third thing that you should do when you become aware of an outbreak is inform the commonwealth.
So, that’s the official time that the commonwealth was advised of the outbreak in St Basil’s. The quality and safety commissioner was undertaking some regulatory action, a survey of preparedness and strength of infection control management procedures, across the aged care sector in Victoria between 9 and 14 July, and they happened to call St Basil’s on that day.
And one of the questions was, “Do you have an outbreak?” And St Basil’s answered in the affirmative to that question. And another question was, “Are you aware of the first 24-hour document?”
And St Basil’s answered in the affirmative to that question too. The disappointing thing, from my perspective, is that the information that was gleaned from the question that asked about a positive outbreak wasn’t passed on to anyone else.
There was an assumption made that because the facility understood the first 24-hour document, that this information had already been passed on.
It wasn’t. The gap, if you want to call it that, the gap in the supply chain, or the information chain, has now been closed.
I became aware of that on Friday. I immediately asked for a full report from the quality and safety commissioner, and, of course, we advised the Senate committee so that we could correct the advice that we’d given to them in respect of that. There should not have been a hole in our systems.
That’s been rectified appropriately, as it should have been. But, at the end of the day, the commonwealth should have been advised of the outbreak on 9 July by either – or both – of DHHS, VicHealth, and the management at St Basil’s. That was the protocol.
Updated
Q: What do you say to the families of the 220 elderly Australians who have died of Covid-19 in aged care?
Richard Colbeck:
Well, the first thing I’d do is issue my very, very sincerest condolences to them all.
This is a very, very difficult time for all of them. They’re suffering a significant loss, and all of Australians should consider the circumstances that these families have found themselves in, when we ask them to obey social distancing rules, for example. So, my sincerest condolences to them all.
Unfortunately, the circumstance with Covid-19 is that whenever you see a circumstance of community spread, particularly at the rate that we have in Victoria right now, you are going to have incidents of Covid-19 in residential aged care.
It’s an insidious virus that is infectious before symptoms show, and that’s why we have been so proactive in working with the sector over such a long period of time now, and continuing to develop the plan that we have in place to learn from previous experience, so that we can prevent the – attempt to prevent the ingress of the virus into residential aged care. This is an extremely difficult time for families of those who have passed away.
Updated
Q: Your department has been accused of failing to prepare aged care homes for Covid-19 outbreaks. Given we knew from the start that the elderly were the most vulnerable, how can you justify this failure?
Richard Colbeck:
We have had a plan to deal with Covid-19 in residential aged care, going right back to the beginnings of our preparations. As I said earlier, our national plan for health incorporates and considers the impact of Covid-19 on residential aged care. And the AHPPC advice and the advice from the CDNA, launched in early March, also provides advice to the sector.
We’ve been engaged with the sector since late January, and continuously working with the sector to ensure they have all the information they require and the support that they need in the circumstance that they might have an outbreak of Covid-19.
Q: Has that plan failed, though?
Colbeck:
I think that there have been some circumstances where things haven’t gone as we would like. And the circumstance at St Basil’s is one, where we didn’t get it all right, and we’ve been prepared to acknowledge that.
They’re very, very difficult circumstances, at times of enormous stress for families, and our efforts in every circumstance that I’ve seen since the pandemic started is that everybody’s efforts have been to put the interests of residents in residential aged care first, and our community to ensure that they continue to receive the treatment that they need, and, of course, the care that they deserve.
Updated
Q: When an aged care facility has a Covid case, which agency are they supposed to report this to?
Richard Colbeck:
Well, the official reporting process for residential aged care is to the public health unit within the state. We found very early in our experience in dealing with outbreaks that sometimes the information from the states, or PHUs, took a while to come back to us federally.
And so we very early in the Covid-19 pandemic asked every residential aged care facility to report to us as a part of their immediate actions in responding to a Covid-19 outbreak.
We’ve published a first 24-hour document, and in the first half-hour there are a number of initiatives that they should take, and the third initiative on that list was to advise the commonwealth.
Updated
Richard Colbeck:
We have a plan in place with each state, bearing in mind that the states and territories are individually responsible for the public health response.
Obviously, the commonwealth government is responsible for the management and regulation of residential aged care. But we have, as this whole process has continued, followed what’s been happening, learnt from the experiences we’ve had in previous outbreaks, and implemented, and acted on, the advice that we’ve been given by our health authorities.
And that advice has served this nation extremely well in managing the Covid-19 outbreak so far. So, I think – I just want to put on the record, we have worked extremely closely with the sector.
We have been meeting on a very regular basis – weekly, sometimes twice-weekly – to ensure they were informed of what we were doing, we were learning from their experience, and interacting with them on a regular basis to understand the concerns that they might have, and how we might act on those concerns, and how we might continue to build the plan that we have for Covid-19 in residential aged care.
Updated
Richard Colbeck is holding his press conference from Tasmania – and the aged care minister is again maintaining that the federal government had an aged care response plan as part of the pandemic (the royal commission has heard it didn’t).
As a nation, we started planning for Covid very early. The first piece of advice that we provided, particularly to the aged care sector, went out at the end of January last year.
It was followed by a number of pieces of advice in February. We, nationally, built our ... Covid plan in March, and so in February, the process went out for the national plan, and that was then supplemented by some advice developed by the AHPPC, and certified by the CDMA, specifically for residential aged care.
Updated
Global Covid cases top 20m
What a grim milestone.
Two staff members at Sydney's Liverpool hospital test positive to Covid-19
This seems to be over and above the 22 new cases announced in NSW today.
JUST IN: Two staff members at Sydney's Liverpool Hospital have tested positive to coronavirus. #9Newshttps://t.co/vcVSEgKEiF
— Nine News Australia (@9NewsAUS) August 11, 2020
Updated
ACT chief minister Andrew Barr has taken a more conciliatory approach to the border issue with NSW:
There is absolutely no value in having a public slanging match with New South Wales.
I fully appreciate all of the challenges and all of the circumstances that they have to address, and I’m endeavouring to solve a problem for them by providing a practical way forward. And we’ll continue our advocacy in that regard. Well, as I understand, New South Wales have a weekly process of assessing their public health directions.
So, the practical way to achieve an outcome here would be an amended public health direction that allowed this group to move through. Safely to transit the 220km, 230km from the Victorian border into New South Wales to the ACT/New South Wales border.
So, that will require the development of a public health direction. So, that doesn’t just happen on the back of a beer coaster. That requires there to be an exercise in developing such a direction.
Companies are using millions of dollars in jobkeeper payments designed to keep Australian workers employed during the coronavirus crisis to help pay increased dividends to shareholders, sparking calls for an overhaul of the system.
Stock exchange disclosures show that over the past week retailers Adairs and Nick Scali, and dental chain 1300 Smiles, increased their dividend payouts after receiving jobkeeper funding, and market observers expect additional shareholders to reap similar benefits as more companies report their results over the coming fortnight.
Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson has responded to this:
While childcare workers, university staff and casuals employed for less than 12 months have been excluded in the name of ‘limiting costs’, the blatant transfer of public money to shareholders should not be allowed to continue.
Shareholders themselves are also concerned about a lack of transparency on this.
They have no way of knowing exactly which companies they’ve invested in have revenues down more than 50% at the moment.
Since Covid-19, easing of reporting requirements around continuous disclosure on the ASX has also left many shareholders in the dark.
Whilst it’s understandable that things are in flux, in such an environment the lack of transparency risks the mispricing of assets on markets and much worse.
It’s pretty simple: if companies have paid out dividends or bought back shares whilst receiving jobkeeper, they need to return that money to the public and they should no longer be eligible.
I would expect small businesses to be excluded from this due to the complications with dividends being part of their income, for example partnerships, but it should apply to big business.
Updated
The NSW premier has responded to the border kerfuffle that has locked ACT residents out:
I don’t think anyone would begrudge us for being cautious when people from highly infectious area, a highly infectious state, are trying to make their way through NSW,” Gladys Berejiklian said.
I do understand that health and police and other authorities are getting to a place where that issue can be resolved, but I can’t apologise for putting safety first in NSW, and I won’t.”
The City of Melbourne has responded following the story of an ICU doctor who was given a parking fine, for parking outside a hospital she was working at:
From this Friday, the City of Melbourne will provide up to 5,000 additional temporary parking permits to frontline workers responding to Covid-19.
Lord Mayor Sally Capp said the new passes mean that up to 15,000 permits will have been issued to frontline workers in total.
“Health workers are doing an amazing job at this difficult time. We understand they are playing a critical role saving the lives of many Victorians who have been diagnosed with Covid-19,” the lord mayor said.
“We are printing thousands more green dashboard stickers to support frontline staff responding to the pandemic. If you believe you got a ticket when you shouldn’t have please get in touch with the City of Melbourne and we will follow up.
“We also recognise the impact this is having on some residents, who are experiencing a higher volume of cars parking in the streets making it difficult for them to find a park.”
Deputy lord mayor Arron Wood said the extra permits will be made available to hospitals based in the City of Melbourne, Victoria police, and medical staff working in other Covid-19 related areas.
“Paid parking restrictions still apply in the City of Melbourne to make sure there is adequate turnover of car parks and people can access essential services and small businesses where required. Our officers will apply a reasonable grace period if you are running late.
“Disability parking spaces and those parking spaces with red signs in the municipality, such as ‘no stopping’ areas, tow-away clearways, loading zones, and residential permit zones will still be enforced.
“The permits will be reviewed on a weekly basis or until the Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.”
Updated
The Australian Lawyers Alliance has released a statement on the impact the lockdown is having on some of its members in Melbourne:
Injured Victorians may not be able to have their cases heard because of rules that prevent lawyers and barristers in Victoria from accessing childcare despite being able to run trials remotely.
“It does not make sense that, although the courts will continue to operate remotely, barristers and lawyers cannot access any childcare,” said Jeremy King, Victorian state president, Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA).
“The ALA has written to the attorney general requesting an urgent review of access to childcare, nanny and babysitting services for legal practitioners as the current situation means that a large number of injured plaintiffs will be denied full and prompt access to justice.”
The county court will continue to hear civil cases remotely but the majority of these matters will not be considered to be ‘priority’ which means the lawyers and barristers involved are not ‘permitted workers’ and therefore cannot access childcare, nanny or babysitting services. Even when a case is considered to be a ‘priority’, access to childcare may not allowed if someone else is at home, even if they are also working.
“The ALA acknowledges and applauds the fact that the courts continue to operate. However, many legal practitioners will be attempting to run trials or hearings without childcare or support. The difficulties of running a trial in which a client’s legal rights are being determined with young children in the background are self-evident,” said King.
“Unfortunately, it is still often female practitioners who are primarily responsible for childcare arrangements and so it is women lawyers and barristers who will be most seriously impacted.
“Many of our members are informing us that they are simply unable to do this and will either have to adjourn cases, or in the case of barristers, return the brief to their instructor.
“The end result will be that many injured plaintiffs, despite the best efforts of the courts to hear cases remotely, will have their matters adjourned and their cases delayed.”
Updated
On the border issue which has blocked ACT residents from returning home through NSW (which they originally had permission for), Katy Gallagher says:
Look, it’s just outrageous. Here we have a group of Canberrans with permits ready to come across the border and they were stopped with some sort of administrative stuff-up from New South Wales that they’ve now dug themselves in a hole over. We know that the New South Wales premier has had a proposal from the ACT government on her desk since Sunday, and we’ve still got these families hanging around. They’re hanging around in hotels in Wodonga. They’ve had nothing back from the New South Wales government. It’s just not acceptable. We have politicians through the border on the weekend. The New South Wales government responded positively to them. Well, if it’s good enough for the politicians travelling through, why isn’t it good enough for 100 Canberrans with a police escort? It doesn’t make any sense?
Updated
Labor senator Katy Gallagher has held a press conference following the end of today’s Covid committee hearing into the federal government response.
On the aged care issue she says:
There’s certainly gaps and deficiencies and failures – without a doubt. Now, whether that’s due to funding and resources and capacity within that organisation?
I don’t have the answers to that. And I’m sure that the royal commission will go through these with her tomorrow when she appears as a witness.
But certainly, the regulator knew of the outbreak at St Basil’s four days before they did anything about it. They sent it to their Covid-19 response team.
That’s the name of the team the information was sent to. Nothing happened. Why have a response team if there’s no response? So those four days without doubt, and I don’t think that you’ll find anyone who watched this closely, would say that those four days didn’t matter. They did matter.
More than 20 people in that facility have died and there’s more than 170 cases linked to it. And that’s a failure. It’s a failure of the commonwealth. Who in the commonwealth had the failure there? The regulator seems to have played a part. But there may be others. The commonwealth needs to stand up and take responsibility for it.
Updated
This is also still happening.
We have just released a Second Progress Report, summarising work carried out between 1 January 2020 and 30 June 2020. Easy Read and Auslan are available too.https://t.co/Lj88oiV3gn#DisabilityRC pic.twitter.com/GU55SBSGf1
— Disability Royal Commission (@DRC_AU) August 11, 2020
Network Ten announces mass redundancies
Network Ten has just announced mass redundancies, and a centralisation of news through Sydney and Melbourne.
Updated
And because there can never be enough animal content in your day, there is also this lovely story – a seal has popped up in an inner Melbourne stretch of river.
Updated
There is not going to be a vaccine for some time. That’s just a reality.
But for those looking for some progress, there are reports like these:
Australian scientists are using alpacas in the battle against Covid-19, with the animal’s unique immune system proving key to potential Covid breakthroughs.
Researchers from ANSTO and Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) are researching alpaca antibodies in the hope of creating Covid-fighting therapies.
WEHI has employed a method that involves using nanobodies which are small fragments of antibodies, the molecules our systems produce in response to an infection.
By immunising alpacas with the spike protein from Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, researchers have been able to isolate nanobodies, which are screened for the ability to inhibit the interaction of the spike protein to infect human cells.
The Microfocus Crystallography (MX2) Beamline at ANSTO’s Australian Synchrotron uses a technique called protein crystallography to help researchers to identify potential vaccines and anti-viral medicines that could treat Covid-19.
Protein crystallography is one of the very few ways to see the structure of delicate and complex biological molecules down to the level of individual atoms.
This technique is used all over the world to study health and biological processes, as well as to understand diseases, and to develop new targeted medicines that are effective in treating disease.
Researchers are also using this technique to understand how our body’s immune system can fight infection by the Sars-CoV-2 virus.
ANSTO’s Australian synchrotron senior principal research scientist, Professor Michael James, said researchers are able to use the synchrotron to study the structure and function of Sars-CoV2 viral proteins, as well as human proteins that are involved in the entry and replication of the virus within cells.
If alpacas help us in anyway solve this vaccine puzzle, I will forgive that alpaca who bit me that one time and let it bite me again, if it so chooses.
Updated
And there will also be a national Covid update today, at 3.30pm.
The acting chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, will helm that one.
Updated
The aged care minister, Richard Colbeck, is holding a rare press conference, to “speak on commonwealth measures to support the aged care sector during the Covid-19 pandemic” at 2.30pm.
Colbeck doesn’t make a hell of a lot of media appearances. He’s also the minister for sport and kept a fairly low profile during the sports rorts scandal, so that he is coming out today, following the aged care royal commission revelations so far, says a lot.
Updated
Sarah Hanson-Young has some things to say about the news that the arts and entertainment rescue package funds won’t start flowing until restrictions have lifted:
This is devastating news for the thousands of arts and entertainment workers who have lost their jobs.
Artists and creatives should be financially supported right now to be writing, rehearsing, planning, painting – whatever they can do until restrictions are lifted. If this work isn’t able to be done right now because they’re forced to apply for jobseeker and hunt for jobs outside their industry, we stand to lose an entire generation of artists and creatives.
The arts and entertainment industry has been the second-hardest hit by Covid-19 and was effectively shut down overnight when restrictions came in. It took three months for the PM to announce an industry package and now five months later it’s clear he hasn’t understood its needs at all.
Arts and entertainment industry workers need funding right now, in fact, they needed it months ago. Telling them to go on the dole is a cop out.
Updated
The head of Sydney’s Newmarch House has told the aged care royal commission how the operator was “struggling to plead” with state and federal health authorities for personal protective equipment as it was battling a deadly outbreak in its aged care facility.
Grant Millard, the chief executive of Anglicare, which operates the Newmarch facility where 37 residents were infected with Covid-19 and 17 died of the disease, said PPE was requested from both the federal government’s stockpile and NSW Health.
There was a struggle. There was a shortage of PPE internationally. We had many items on back orders and this was a problem. So we did have a central supply of some PPE which was on a site of ours and that was immediately brought to bear. But it became very clear that there was not going to be enough in order to meet the needs at Newmarch House.
It was a very frustrating experience (requesting PPE from state and federal health authorities) early on but I will say that once, I guess relevant decision makers were brought to bear, they did provide great assistance. But at some times it did seem that we were struggling to plead for the resources that needed to be applied.
One email exchange from 21 April – in the middle of Newmarch’s outbreak – provided to the royal commission shows a NSW Health senior policy and project officer told Newmarch’s procurement officer to “make sure the facility know not to use full PPE for anyone but positive and suspected cases”.
Millard also told the royal commission of how, despite a conservatively planning for up to 40% of Newmarch’s workforce to be replaced during an outbreak, that 87% of staff were lost within a number of days of the outbreak.
He said that Mable staff, one of the surge staff providers organised by the federal government, were not trained for aged care facilities.
The types of people who were being provided, I think there were very few people who had any residential aged care experience, some had home care experience. None of them had any practical experience in the use of PPE. Early on they just weren’t up to the task. It was dangerous for them.
Updated
While that press conference was happening, federal Labor made an announcement: Meryl Swanson will replace Mike Kelly as the shadow assistant minister for defence.
Anthony Albanese:
At a special caucus meeting today the Member for Paterson, Meryl Swanson, was appointed to the role of Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence.
For the past four years Meryl has been a strong and passionate local representative for her community in the Hunter Region.
Meryl has also done an excellent job representing regional Australia more broadly in her role as Chair of Labor’s Regional Jobs Taskforce.
In her time in Parliament, Meryl has played a key role on the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, and as Deputy Chair of both the Defence Sub-Committee and PFAS Sub-Committee.
With the Williamtown RAAF base lying in the middle of Meryl’s electorate, and her long history of advocacy on defence issues, Meryl will hit the ground running in her new position.
I have no doubt Meryl will continue the excellent work performed by her predecessor, The Honourable Dr Mike Kelly AM.
Meryl will join Deputy Labor Leader and Shadow Defence Minister Richard Marles, Shadow Minister Assisting for Defence Pat Conroy, and Shadow Minister for Defence Industry Matt Keogh on Labor’s strong Defence team.
Updated
For those who didn’t see the doctor who was fined outside the Royal Melbourne hospital, here is her story:
The day before lockdown, my bike was stolen from outside this hospital.
— Katarina Arandjelovic (@KArandjelovic) August 10, 2020
Public transport is off-limits to prevent exposure to the virus, and transmission to colleagues and patients.
Your “free permits” are long gone. There were too few to begin with. Many missed out.
We cannot work from home.
— Katarina Arandjelovic (@KArandjelovic) August 10, 2020
We come here, and we sweat it out under our gowns, our voices muffled under masks, learning to “smile with our eyes”.
We wash our hands obsessively, hoping desperately we do not become part of That Statistic.
We do not see our families for weeks.
It is not easy, but every single person in that building is working their butt off right now. It is inspiring.
— Katarina Arandjelovic (@KArandjelovic) August 10, 2020
We make sacrifices and turn up - day in, day out, to serve you.
So I guess @cityofmelbourne and @SallyCapp_, slapping fines on our cars is one hell of a thank you.
“Wicked enemy” has had a few runs today.
The impacts of a virus may seem evil, but the virus itself?
Daniel Andrews is then asked about the leaked internal departmental video in the Herald Sun today
You’ll excuse me if I also indicate to you that I have not seen that either.
It was a very late night, as they all are, it was a very early morning dealing with a number of more substantive issues, can I say.
I’ve not read the article in the paper. I know of it. But I haven’t seen the video.
I’ve been far more focused on far more important things. Ultimately, there are people working across-the-board playing many different roles.
They all have different skill sets, different backgrounds, different expertise. But one thing that is common to all of them is that they’re all working as hard as they possibly can and they all want - they want to get to the other side of this.
They want to help Victoria get to the other side of. This I’m very grateful to all of them.
Just as I’m grateful to people who are not formally employed to do this work but through their own choices and through their own behaviour are making just a powerful contribution to the fight against this wicked enemy
There is some footage of a police officer detaining a woman for not wearing a mask by holding her by the throat, which has been reported by some media outlets.
It is obviously distressing footage.
Daniel Andrews is asked about it and brings up the alleged assault of a police officer last week, after she asked a (different) woman why she wasn’t wearing a mask:
I haven’t seen that footage. I can’t comment on that. However, we have seen, I’m not sure whether it was last week or the week before, and I’ll be careful because the woman involved may well be the subject of criminal proceedings, but what occurred to that young constable down in Frankston. I am supportive of Victoria police being very cautious when they deal with some people not wearing masks or who are openly breaking the rules.
I’m not commenting on this case because I haven’t seen the video. But when you simply ask someone to put a mask on and the next thing they’re smashing your head into the concrete, then I think you are entitled to have a degree of caution and to maybe assume that things could escalate quickly.
I think our Victoria police have done an outstanding job, right throughout this ... Like, there’s few years that have been tougher on Victoria police members and their families than 2020.
They’ve responded amazingly. I’m deeply grateful to every single one of them – every one of them. Whether it be taskforce policing, specialist policing, or general duty officers, our PSOs, sheriffs, Corrections Victoria staff – the whole family.
We have firefighters doing contact tracing, for heaven’s sake. Everyone is doing their very best. They’re such an impressive group of people.
Haven’t seen the video and I wouldn’t comment on that specific case but what we saw last week, it was last week, maybe late the previous week, just awful.
Updated
Will the Victorian government commit to mandatory fit testing of N-95 masks, as some healthcare workers have called for?
Daniel Andrews:
I’m happy to get advice on that.
Part of listening to your workforce, being open to concerns, is if there is a concern, you take steps to try and deal with it. I would say there is a lot of voices in this and that’s a function of the fact there is a lot of people doing this work.
I saw some GPs yesterday. They’ve made some comments and they’re entitled to their views.
But I don’t provide them with personal protective equipment. That’s in the main done by the federal government. But I’ll chase them up and more than happy to fix any problems that are there. In terms of testing, the efficacy or the appropriateness of any particular item, that’s – that’s probably beyond my training level but I’m more than happy to get you an answer on that. I think we do do testing along the way to make sure what we’re getting – because often it’s not made here, it’s made in other parts of the world – we have to check and, if you like, validate that the product can do the job that we need it to do.
I’ll try and get you some further information about that.
Updated
Because if you have been able to drive your car somewhere in Melbourne at the moment, it is because you have a legitimate reason for doing so.
Daniel Andrews:
That’s why I’ll follow that up. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’ve always said there’s no manual on how to shut down a very large part of the economy.
The judgment about what’s essential, what isn’t, what’s the meaning of that term has been fundamentally changed throughout the course of this work.
There are a lot of workers in our economy that we know are essential now, we perhaps didn’t regard them that way, but we know how essential they are.
We know about insecure work. There’s a lot of learnings, which we will have to come back once this is over.
But you can’t build a system when it comes to these rules but I’m always happy and we have, I think, demonstrated a genuine willingness to make changes where that makes sense. At the same time, though, you know, I understand it when businesses, you know, they talk to you guys or they write me letters or they pick up the phone and speak to me direct and make impassioned pleas, emotional pleas, because they have a genuine investment not just in their profits but in their people.
So do I.
It’s heartbreaking to have to say, “No, I can’t let you open because if you do, we’ll have more people at work this month than we had last month”, then the case numbers will keep going up and up, and up. No one wants that.
That’s a sure way to have Christmas under these sorts of rules.
Updated
Should parking inspectors be considered essential workers?
Probably not.
Daniel Andrews:
I think you’ll find there is a massive reduction in the number of people that are parking, because you have much less movement. I think the traffic data I reported to you before is in the order of that – well, it is down 40, 50% at least, if not more.
Let me follow that up. Again, they don’t work for the Victorian government but their status can be determined by us. I’m more than happy to chase up.
Updated
On the ICU doctor who emerged from a shift at a Melbourne hospital to find a parking ticket from the City of Melbourne, the Victorian premier says:
I don’t think that someone who’s in there literally saving lives at considerable risk to themselves should be the subject of a parking ticket. I’ll follow that up. In relation to parking inspectors though, as you know they work for the City of Melbourne and local government.
I’m not sure all parking National Parkers are working across the state. Let me follow up on the status of that work and that individual infringement. No, I don’t think that’s appropriate at all.
On casual workers who have been stood down by industries under lockdown, and moved into gig economy work, Daniel Andrews says:
Because of the stage 4, there’ll be massive contractions and reductions in some workforces but then others will step up. The amount of food being delivered, those types of workers through those types of businesses, I’m sure those numbers are up.
We’ll track that as best as we can but only have settled the rules. It is a bit difficult to give you answers on trends. I don’t think it defeats the purpose.
I think you’ll see but a fraction that get re-employed for a period of time. I won’t criticise anybody for that.
As long as they’re only doing permitted work we’ve factored in a tolerance for that. Overall, that traffic data shows, just anecdotally, driving in this morning, some of the enforcement data we’re getting from Victoria police, there’s a massive reduction in the number of people moving around.
That’s what will drive down cases. That’s what will get us to the other side of this.
Updated
Daniel Andrews is asked for a breakdown of the health worker cases – how many were infected outside, and how many were infected at work?
Andrews:
I will try to get a breakdown. It will be a mix. A number of people, because of the high-risk setting they work in, they will have contracted it at work.
Others will have contracted it in the community and we won’t be able to necessarily pinpoint who the index case was, who did you get it from. Then there’ll be other cases of transmission well aware from the workplace.
There’ll be workers in healthcare who didn’t get it anywhere near healthcare, they got it from a family member. It is fair to conclude if you’re working in a high-risk environment and you’re spending long periods of time, even with the best PPE, you’re at much greater risk working in those environments.
That’s the reason why the work those staff is very, very impressive and another reason, the one reason we should not exposing those health heroes so any more risk. The ultimate way to thank them is not expose them, because that means less people in hospital, less people having to plan funerals and less healthcare workers having to deal with this virus.
Updated
On PPE for healthcare workers, and whether or not there is a supply issue, Daniel Andrews says:
My last report late last night is there has been a power of work going on to double check, triple check that all the supply lines are open, that orders are being processed as quickly as possible.
I can absolutely confident when I say to you that all those numbers I read out the other day in relation to goggles, gowns, masks, face shields, gloves, all of that, those numbers we’re adding to every single week.
Monash Health received a very significant delivery yesterday which they’ll distribute amongst their many different sites. It could be – it could be – that there is a bit of, things are a bit variable in some places.
It could also be that there’s perhaps a sense in some health settings that things that are available, in fact, aren’t. We have to deal with that as well.
Because it is about perceptions and about a sense of safety as much as it is about actually having boxes of this stuff in storage rooms at the local hospital. It’s everything along that way.
I am confident that people are working on that. If there’s anything more from a specific point of view that I can come back to you on, I will.
Updated
Asked about what he would say to healthcare workers – 1,185 of the cases are healthcare workers – to keep their spirits up, Daniel Andrews says:
I don’t think that they need any motivation from me. They are a unique breed. They are amazing people.
I think about all the nurses, midwives, the doctors – surgeons, physicians – allied health practitioners, ambulance, paramedics, cook, cleaners, wards, clerks, car park attendants, one of the great honours of my life is to meet so many people in this sector. There is not a hospital in this state that I haven’t been to.
They’re all different, but one thing that is constant is the people who staff and make our hospital system work, the people who work in our ambulance service – the list goes on – are a special breed.
We will support well with the PPE they need, with the support they need, whether we need to support them to stay away from their family, or stay well, if their family was to infect them, it makes you proud to know that they’re there, every minute, every shift, every case.
Our nurses working shifts in a part of the care system that we have nothing to do with.
Private aged care is not down to them, or else. It’s run by the Commonwealth. But you have nurses and personal care workers going in there, they’re not paid by the private sector, but going in there working hard as they can.
They’re a special breed. I say thank you to them. But if you really want to thank them yourself, then don’t do anything that would spread the virus.
Because if you do, more healthcare workers will have to treat more critically ill patients. If you’re making choices to spread the virus then more healthcare workers will have to treat more patients and more healthcare workers will get sick.
So if you honour them, if you want to thank them, as I do, then make the best choices for your family, for every family, and for our dedicated health heroes. We monitor this in real-time though. It is not static. Any further steps to support our healthcare workers of course we would.
Updated
There are 2,903 cases in Victoria with an unknown source – that’s grown by about 100 since yesterday.
Updated
'There is a sense of fatigue' – Daniel Andrews
The Victorian premier acknowledges the emotional labour being done during this lockdown, by every resident going through it.
It is very challenging.
We’ve never seen anything like this before. But if we all stick together and if we all work together, and we understand that the contribution must be a shared and joint one, must be a shared and joint contribution to a collective benefit that we will all share in – that’s getting through this quicker than we otherwise would, getting past these restrictions quicker than we otherwise would.
Then beginning the challenging job of rebuilding, with strength and with an absolute determination to make sure that Victoria comes out of this stronger in the medium and the long term. That’s what we are going to achieve.
We are equal to this. But it only works if everyone plays their part. It only works if we all acknowledge that we are all in this together and that we look out for each other.
That is something we are well known for. Something I know is being tested.
There is great frustration, anxiety and concern. There a sense of fatigue.
No one wants to be in these settings but the public health experts have told us, they’ve made it very clear, this is the only way we’ll get the numbers down.
It is a six-week strategy. That’s much better than a six-month strategy, which would have been the case if we’d stayed at stage three. So I’m very grateful.
Updated
For those wanting to follow along, live, you can do so here:
Another 19 Victorians have died and 331 new cases of coronavirus have been recorded. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and state heath officials are speaking live with more details. https://t.co/WHk2kxdnrB
— SBS News (@SBSNews) August 11, 2020
Daniel Andrews:
The public health advice to me, all of our experts remain convinced and very confident that as we’re just into the early parts of the second week, not even yet a full week, of many of the stage four most significant changes, we will continue see data that forms a trend and we continue to see numbers coming down.
Exactly how long that takes and to what the lowest number is we can get to, only time will tell.
But there is no alternative, there is no choice. We have too much movement in the community and too many cases. Until we address that movement, which this data shows we absolutely now, then we won’t drive down those case numbers.
Finally before we go to questions, we obviously remain grateful to every single Victorian who is doing the right thing. We are a strong community, we are a proud community.
We get through difficulty each and every year, whether that be in our own personal lives, in local communities or as a whole state. We are, all of us, equal to this task.
Updated
Daniel Andrews also gives an update on the support being offered to businesses:
There are payments of $5,000 have been made to around 24,000 eligible businesses.
That’s totalling $120m. That $5,000 payment that we had announced, we have since increased that by another $5,000.
Those businesses who have received that payment or have applied for that $5,000 payment will not need to submit further paperwork.
They will be paid an additional $5,000 to take that up to $10,000 as a second-wave payment if you like, and there was also a $10,000 payment from the first wave, so that will be for those businesses around $20,000 in support.
I can also confirm that there’s around 77,600 $10,000 grants that have been paid out to businesses as part of our economic survival package, one we’ve talked about many times. We are pushing those payments out as quickly as we can,
Updated
More than 34,000 tests were done in Victoria yesterday – mostly, as you would expect, in Melbourne.
Just repeating – there are 650 Victorians in hospital right now – 47 of those are in intensive care and 24 of those are on a ventilator.
Updated
Daniel Andrews press conference
The Victorian premier has finished up answering questions at the parliamentary committee, and is now fronting the media for what is almost his 40th day of consecutive press conferences.
He says the Victorian death total is now 246 – it was revised down by one, following the duplication of one of the death reports (which also happened the day before – these reports are coming out very quickly these days, and sometimes, things slip through).
Andrews:
[On the breakdown] One female in their 50s, one male in their 70s, six females in their 80s, four males in their 80s, four females in their 90s, and three males in their 90s.
Fourteen of those 19 deaths are linked to aged care outbreaks. Can I take this opportunity on behalf of all Victorians to send our condolences, our sympathies, our love and support to each of those 19 families?
This will be an incredibly difficult time for them and I hope that that pain is made a little more bearable knowing that Victorians are with you in grief and loss and sadness.
There are 650 Victorians in hospital. Forty-seven of those are in intensive care and 24 of those are on a ventilator.
Updated
The aged care royal commission also heard comments Millard made in an Anglicare board meeting on 27 May that the organisation would be “far more assertive … and would strongly push for [infected] residents to be immediately transferred to hospital” in the event of a future outbreak at an Anglicare facility.
On Tuesday, Millard said the “hospital in the home” approach decided upon by the local health area network presented a “monumental” resourcing challenge, added to the risk of infection for staff and had a terrible effect on residents.
I believe if we would have been able to transfer out Covid-positive residents earlier we might have had an earlier liberalisation, of what was really extremely difficult for our residents to go through, being isolated in their rooms with the doors closed.”
To run a hospital you need substantially more (staff), a greater number of registered nurses to do that. It’s just not the way a residential aged care home operates.
I think if you compare the level of equipment, the resourcing, you know, it’s not reasonable to anticipate any of that level
Aged care response revealed a 'frustrating level of dysfunction'
The head of a Sydney aged care home that experienced a deadly Covid-19 outbreak has told the aged care royal commission about a “frustrating level of dysfunction” between state and federal health authorities about deciding when to send infected residents to hospital.
The commission is hearing evidence about the response to a Covid-19 outbreak at Sydney’s Newmarch House, where 37 residents tested positive and 17 died.
On Monday the senior counsel assisting the royal commission, Peter Rozen QC, spoke of a “stand-off” between the operators and state and federal health authorities about where to treat Covid-19-positive residents.
Email correspondence outlined by Rozen said the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commissioner, Janet Anderson, urged authorities to call out an “intolerable” view held by NSW Health that evacuating infected residents to hospital would set a precedent.
This morning the chief executive of the facility’s operator Anglicare, Grant Millard, gave evidence, saying: “Everyone was clearly exercised and passionate about how this could be dealt with quickly and for the expert opinion to be declared. But it just wasn’t clear who was in a position to give that advice.”
Updated
It is not just the Canberra airport which is struggling (the airport will now completely close on Saturdays)
AAP reports Sydney airport is also having a very tough time with the reduced flights:
Sydney airport will cut costs and debt and warned jobs could be lost after the coronavirus pandemic hit its bottom line, forcing it into the red.
Australia’s most active airport on Tuesday reported a net loss of $53.6 million for the first half of this calendar year – a dramatic turnaround from a profit of $17.3 million for the same time last year.
First-half revenue was $511.0 million, down 35.9 per cent as cash flow from aeronautical fees, retail and parking fees declined.
While the year started well, passenger volumes slumped by 56.6 per cent to 9.4 million people as Covid-19-related restrictions on travel began to be implemented from February.
International passenger numbers are down 57.3 per cent and domestic traffic down 56.1 per cent.
“Six months into the pandemic, there remains uncertainty as to how long it will take for aviation markets to return to pre-COVID-19 levels,” chief executive Geoff Culbert said in a statement.
Sydney airport said its operations would continue to be affected while domestic and international travel restrictions remained in place.
It’s still aiming for a 35 per cent reduction in operating costs by April next year and again warned of potential job losses.
“The staff job guarantee will regretfully not be extended beyond 30 September 2020 and a review is currently underway to restructure the organisation,” it said.
Under the guarantee, Sydney airport earlier this year promised to retain the jobs of its 500 employees for six months.
Sydney airport on Tuesday also announced a $2 billion equity raising and will use the proceeds to cut its debt bill to $7 billion.
“At this time, no distribution is expected to be declared for 2020,” it said.
Updated
The Victorian health minister, Jenny Mikakos, is up at the Victorian parliamentary hearing.
The questions open on what department was responsible for the hotel quarantine program – Mikakos says she has read the Herald Sun today “with some interest” and it was the first time she had became aware of “some details”.
She repeats that it was a multi-departmental response and the judicial inquiry will help work out who was responsible for what.
Updated
The Morrison government faces a growing revolt from the Nationals over the university funding overhaul, with the junior Coalition partner warning today that it would fight for changes to the proposed package.
Just hours after the government released its draft legislation, the Nationals publicly demanded three key changes – including removing the social work, behavioural science and mental health disciplines from the massive fee increases facing the humanities.
Andrew Gee, who is the minister for regional education and a Nationals MP, said his party had heard feedback about the “glaring and potentially detrimental design flaw” in the package, which could hurt country areas and affect women and mature students. Gee said in a press release issued under his ministerial letterhead:
“Country people deserve the same access to mental health support as those in the cities. It’s a fundamental issue of equality. That is why The Nationals believe that social work, behavioural science and mental health disciplines should be removed from the humanities funding cluster and be realigned with allied health studies. The Nationals will be seeking a change to the current Job-Ready Graduates Package funding clusters. We intend to fix this design deficiency.”
While Gee has raised concerns about the impact of the proposal before, the push from the Nationals now carries greater weight because the party decided to formally push for changes at a party room meeting yesterday.
The party also wants an extension of grandfathering arrangements to ensure that part-time and online students will not be disadvantaged if they take more than three years to complete their studies, and changes to the design of the tertiary access payment to ensure it doesn’t discourage country children from studying at country universities.
Earlier today, the education minister, Dan Tehan – a Liberal – released an exposure draft of the legislation for public consultation. Tehan said the package would create an additional 100,000 university places for Australian students and would adjust funding and student fees towards creating “job-ready graduates”. You can find that draft legislation here.
We’ll have more details on this developing story later today.
Updated
Daniel Andrews will stand up for his press conference at 11.45
Back to Victoria for a moment:
Daniel Andrews has confirmed that he will provide all documents that Commissioner Coate needs for her inquiry into Hotel quarantine, including the genomic testing reports that link a large portion of second wave questions to quarantine breaches.
Bridget Vallence:
Will you make sure that that genomic testing is made available to the Coate inquiry. Will you give this committee an undertaking that you’ll make it available to the code inquiry and indeed, will you also take that on notice to provide it to this committee.
Andrews:
Well, you can speak to someone about what gets provided to the committee. In terms of the code inquiry. Former justice Coate has been assured by me, by our terms of reference by their budget, through the establishment of the process that she’ll have any and all support that she needs.
There was a little bit of a premature celebration when NSW case numbers dipped below double digits over the weekend. Gladys Berejiklian reminds people that testing tends to dip over weekends:
I do want to thank the community for coming forward and getting tested.
On the weekend, we tend to see a bit of a dip in the number of people getting tested and last night’s results of just over 13,000 people reflect that.
We had, obviously, closer to 20,000 in the days preceding. It’s really important for us to get those testing rates back up. Any new cluster is a concern.
It means our contact-tracers have to work overnight and I anticipate the number of that cluster will grow as, unfortunately, people who live in the same household are extremely susceptible if someone in your family, in your household has it. It’s very difficult not to get it.
The NSW premier also tells schools, with a particular emphasis on non-government schools, to chill on the activities:
Schools, in particular non-government schools, cannot undertake those extracurricular activities that you do outside of a pandemic.
I can’t make that message stronger.
You cannot undertake those activities you would do if this there wasn’t a pandemic.
Whether it’s offsite gatherings, whether it’s mingling between students and others in extracurricular activities - we are in a pandemic.
Every organisation, every entity needs to abide by the COVIDSafe plans because otherwise, we risk having a surge in numbers, but also we risk having new clusters and none of us want to see that.
NSW on a 'knife edge', premier says
Gladys Berejiklian says today’s news of cases in NSW is worrying.
Eight of the 22 cases today are linked to the Tangara School for Girls cluster.
Six are from hotel quarantine (four overseas and two Victorian travellers).
Berejiklian:
It is a daily battle in New South Wales. We have to be on our toes. We’re in a state of high alert. My anxiety has not subsided in relation to what a knife-edge New South Wales is on. But we need to keep pulling together, keep doing the right thing, keep maintaining our social distance and, most importantly, even with the mildest symptoms, stay home and get tested, make sure when we’re out and about, that we’re doing the right thing, that we’re always on our guard and, of course, that we’re always mindful of the most vulnerable.
Updated
AAP has an update on an issue which is dominating Australia’s agricultural communities:
Farmers and unions have clashed over calls to stop hiring international backpackers to harvest Australian crops and employ unemployed young people instead.
Three high-profile unions have joined forces to call for the working holiday maker visa to be abolished, arguing the program is rife with systemic and widespread exploitation.
They have called for more young people in regional and rural areas to be hired, and urged federal politicians to allow more Pacific Islanders to work on Australian farms.
The National Farmers’ Federation acknowledged backpackers needed better protection from “deplorable, sometimes illegal actions” in Australia, but argued banning working holiday makers was not the answer.
NFF president Fiona Simson said up to 80 per cent of the horticultural sector’s workforce was migrant labour.
Ms Simson dismissed the unions’ call as a “short-sighted, juvenile, headline grabbing stunt”.
“Farmers would always prefer to employ Australians,” she said on Tuesday. “But the facts this gang of unions choose to ignore are that farmers simply cannot source the local workers they need and therefore rely on international workers to help put food on the shelves for all Australians.”
Updated
Gladys Berejiklian will be speaking very shortly.
Her main focus at the moment is the Cherrybrook cluster, linked to the Tangara School for Girls.
The cluster there is growing – but no one knows what the original source for the infections were. Yesterday, 11 of NSW’s most recent cases were linked to the independent Catholic school.
Updated
Liberal MP Bridget Vallence has questioned the lack of Victorian government support for sole traders.
Vallence:
We’ve got around 400,000 sole traders who have been left in the lurch, forced to close by your government under the stage-four restrictions, yet horse racing, dog racing can continue, alcohol and tobacco stores can continue to open and operate. What’s going, what are you going to do for these 400,000 odd sole traders?
Daniel Andrews and Vallence got back and forth arguing for a bit. Andrews eventually answers:
There have been some specific, some industry-specific and very targeted packages that we have gone beyond jobkeeper to deal with some challenges. There’s no doubt that sole traders are doing it tough. I don’t rule out having more to say on that topic. I would make the point that there are other federal governments supports so for instance.
He was then cut off.
Updated
Daniel Andrews has acknowledged the virus will have severe economic consequences for years to come.
Andrews:
I wouldn’t for a moment suggest that this is the end, there will be a budget later on in the year acknowledging the damage that has had to be done in order to [combat the virus]. That’ll be a major feature of the budget, as well as the impacts not just on business but on workers families, communities. We know that this is a one in 100-year event, and the damage done because of it will be long-lasting and will be very significant. That’s why we’ll have to stand with everybody who’s been impacted and stand alongside them strongly and provide them with all the support.
Updated
Daniel Andrews has laid out the “end game” for the current restrictions in Melbourne.
The endpoint is to lower numbers and gets numbers as low as possible so that we can have confidence that we can manage those … inevitable outbreaks that will occur, and the inevitable transmission that we will see.
But again, if you opened up now … without stage three, without stage four, there is no flattening of the curve, there’s no moderate outcome, it takes off like a bushfire, and you’ve got no chance of putting it out.
Updated
Liberal Democratic MP David Limbrick is asking the premier to provide proof that lockdowns are doing more good than harm.
Limbrick:
The claim that the government is saving lives can only be proven to be true if the actions of the government aren’t causing more damage to people’s life expectancy.
What evidence or modelling is the government using to look at these harms that are caused by the government actions, and therefore have confidence that you are in fact, saving lives overall by the actions of the government is taking?
Daniel Andrews:
There are people of all age groups and becoming gravely ill and passing away from this virus. That’s probably more from an international point of view than it is from our perspective, but that speaks directly to what occurs when you get volume. When you have mass transmission, and you have not hundreds of cases a day but many thousands, and you will finish up with a fatality right that is exponentially higher than the terrible tragedy that we’re dealing with.
I’d make this point to you ... It’s very difficult to measure things that don’t happen.
Updated
NSW reports 22 cases in the past 24 hours
We will learn more about the breakdown of cases in the next hour or so, after Gladys Berejiklian holds her press conference, but the Cherrybrook Tangara School for Girls cluster has grown.
Four of the 22 people are in hotel quarantine, two are in quarantine after returning from Victoria.
Updated
Over at the Senate committee inquiry into the Covid response, the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Phil Gaetjens, has been asked about the aged care response
Asked when he knew about the incorrect evidence given at the aged care royal commission – originally the federal government said it didn’t know about an outbreak at St Basil’s aged care home for five days – but it was revealed yesterday the department of health was made aware of it three days later, Gaetjens said he didn’t hear about that until this morning.
Which means no one briefed him on it yesterday, when it was revealed.
Aged care is a commonwealth responsibility. It seems odd that no one from the health department told the prime minister’s department about the evidence delivered yesterday.
(For the record, Scott Morrison was asked about it yesterday during his press conference.)
Updated
Labor MP Pauline Richards has questioned why the government’s mental health funding package focuses on funding acute, or severe, mental health care needs such as hospitalisation.
Daniel Andrews:
I think the most important point to acknowledge is that we are seeing increased demand for services across the mental health system. So not simply in terms of counselling and advice or support that can be done remotely. But we’re seeing increased presentations in our emergency departments, increased presentations in our dedicated psychiatric wards.
The other issue, too, is that there will be people for the first time, because of the extraordinary stress and the strain and anxiety and uncertainty that’s associated with all of 2020, pretty much, they’ll be experiencing mental illness for the first time. And some of those will need care.
Updated
Nationals MP Danny O’Brien asked the premier about a leaked email seen by the Age suggesting that concerns had been raised about hotel quarantine early in the pandemic.
O’Brien:
Premier, on 14 July, the Age reported a leaked email from the department of jobs, precincts and regions, urgently to the DHHS and Emergency Management Victoria, requesting Victoria police be present 24/7 at each hotel, starting from - it was within 24 hours and it says, “We ask that DHHS urgently make that request as the control agency. If your government was warned within 24 hours of the program starting that there was a need for police oversight, why didn’t the government respond to that?
Daniel Andrews, unsurprisingly, did not give an answer.
I’m not going to respond to an email that purports to be from a person within the government. I’ve not seen that email. I’m not aware of the efficacy of that email. Again, there’s 106,000 pages of documents that have been provided to the judge.
Updated
There goes the iPhone timer, giving anyone who has ever watched Ian Macdonald chair an inquiry an eye twitch.
Updated
And now, the question of the hour. Danny O’Brien has asked, “Who made the decision to use private security guards in the hotel quarantine program?”
Daniel Andrews says it was an extension of existing programs:
“The national cabinet on 27 March approved the rollout of a hotel quarantine system for returned travellers. That was to be stood up by midnight. That was a Friday. Midnight the following night, being midnight the Saturday night. We had already begun a process of engaging with hotels, using private security and others to support health workers who needed to isolate, to support vulnerable members of the Victorian community who needed to isolate. In many respects, hotel quarantine system simply became an extension of previously agreed processes, so a service, if you like, that was already on the ground and running, the ultimate arrangements for hotel quarantine – so firstly, that it should happen – that’s national cabinet. Then the [Victorian crisis council] approves a set of arrangements and then they are implemented and delivered by officials and others at a very local level.
Andrews is then asked why private security guards were used for the program.
There was a proposal drawn up. It was essentially already operating, at some significant scale, but would need it to go to another level ... It was essentially an extension of a program that we had already stood up. Nothing more, nothing less.
Updated
Danny O’Brien has the question stick at the moment.
He wants to know who made the decision to have private security lead Victoria’s hotel quarantine program (private security was involved in other jurisdictions, but other agencies such as police, or ADF had oversight)
Daniel Andrews gives him the same answer he has given everyone else – no answer. He says he will leave it to the judicial inquiry.
Mr O’Brien, there are some questions that can be answered and there are others that simply cannot. I take you back to the point I’ve made a number of times now, the judge’s process is not set up because we have all the answers.
It is set up to get us all the answers. And from time to time – you’ve been on this committee along time. I’ve been appearing before this committee for a long time, perhaps even longer than you’ve been a member of it, and from time to time, you will ask questions and despite the best endeavours of witnesses, me and others, we cannot provide you with all the answers.
Updated
Oh come on 2020.
IbisWorld (economic analysts) has included this cheery tidbit in its latest update:
Amid the ongoing disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic, a second virus is emerging as a threat to the Victorian economy. Two egg farms near Geelong have tested positive to avian influenza, also known as bird flu, leading state health authorities to impose quarantine measures on poultry farms and order the destruction of over 40,000 infected animals.
The Poultry Meat Farming industry is expected to be worth $618.2 million in 2020-21.
‘The emergence of the H7N7 avian influenza virus represents a minimal threat to humans, but is devastating to poultry livestock. This virus is a real threat to the poultry supply chain,’ said IBISWorld Senior Industry Analyst Matthew Reeves.
Updated
Labor senator for the ACT Katy Gallagher spoke to Fran Kelly on ABC radio this morning about the stranded ACT residents, who have been denied entry into NSW to get home.
Asked why it was taking so long to resolve, Gallagher said:
I have no idea I’ve been trying to work on this since Friday when some of the people affected contacted me and my office and explained the situation.
I thought it would be relatively easy to resolve, it look like administrative stuff-up in terms of people being given permits, but then refused access to New South Wales.
It’s turned into a much longer saga for those people, many of whom are, you know, in hotels with animals and bag-loads of stuff from, you know, returning home from trips in Victoria and they’ve been told they’ve got a few more days to wait. I have no idea, it really is with the New South Wales government now.
Kelly: The ACT government has offered to send police to the border to escort Canberra residents directly home so they can reassure the New South Wales government these people won’t be stopping along the way in that state. Do you think that the New South Wales government is being unreasonable here?
Gallagher: Yep, I do. I think the ACT government has tried to do everything it can to persuade New South Wales that there’s a good plan in place to make sure that people are brought here and that they’re no risk to New South Wales and there is, you know, the sound of crickets from New South Wales. We need, you know, I believe – I’ve spoken to a number of people in this situation, deeply distressing. You know, and they just can’t get home and have no word from New South Wales about what’s happening. We just need to, you know, politicians had a similar problem, they were due to come through New South Wales on the weekend, but those problems were fixed almost immediately and people did move through New South Wales, got their way to Canberra to self-quarantine for parliament. So, you know, it does happen, it’s just not happening for this group of people.
Kelly: It seems like madness on the face of it. Is it likely to be resolved by ordering that the Canberrans drive back to Melbourne, bought a flight to Sydney from Tullamarine, and then pay for two-weeks hotel quarantine? Do you think or do you fear that’s going to be the resolution here?
Gallagher: I think it would be crazy if you did. I mean, many of the people haven’t even been in Melbourne, they haven’t even been in the, the Covid, you know, the thick of where the pandemic is. And, you know, they’ve been in safe parts of northern Victoria and to be told you’ve got to drive into where, you know, where people are being told to avoid in order to get home when you’ve got animals and a whole range of other things going on, just seems crazy to me, particularly if there’s a safe way. I’m not disputing that New South Wales has legitimate concerns, but the ACT government is promising to chaperone these group of people into the territory. It seems like that is a sensible way through for everybody.
Updated
Daniel Andrews says that an immediate lockdown was essential for the nine public housing towers in Melbourne, and the government could not wait until all plans for food and care had been completed.
Andrews:
There’s no alternative but to accept the advice of the chief health officer and part of the advice of the chief health officer was to have an immediate lockdown – not a lockdown three days hence when you’d had the benefit of many, many hours to provide additional planning.
Hibbins:
Can I ask what exact time were you provided with that advice?
Andrews
I had a press conference in the middle of the afternoon, I think perhaps around, it could have been at late at 2.30, 3.00. We had been in discussions with the chief health officer throughout the late morning through lunchtime and into the early hours of the morning … It was in the two to three hours before we made the announcement it had been confirmed by the public health team that there was simply no alternative to lock those towers down.
The ultimate vulnerability here was not whether somebody got fed within five hours or whether they had to wait until the following day to get a bag of groceries, the ultimate vulnerability here, Mr Hibbins here, if I might say, was the thing infecting everyone in those towers and hundreds of people dying.
Updated
And here was that question from Sam Hibbins:
You said, “We’ll provide everything residents need during this period from food to medical supplies, toys to toiletries. No one will go without. No one will be left alone.” Well, it turns out people go without and people were left alone.
I’ll give you a few examples. A woman who couldn’t get clean insulin needles for her diabetic child and, after several days of calling the hotline, had to wash and reuse needles for her child.
An elderly diabetic woman who had carers come and cook for her every day had her carers removed and despite her family repeatedly calling the hotline, no care was provided for three days until she was delivered in the food.
A woman with a premature baby in intensive care in hospital was left for several days without anyone coming to collect expressed breast milk for her baby and a woman who was denied a mental health check after threatening self-harm.
These are dozens of cases of people who didn’t have food, medication, mental health support, nappies and baby formula provided. These arrived late, or not at all, over the five days.
Can I ask on what basis did you make the statement that no one would go without? And when you announced the lockdown, was there a plan in place to deliver [food], medicine and other essentials?
Updated
Greens MP Sam Hibbins has asked Daniel Andrews about the public housing tower lockdown – and what preparations were put in place for people’s medical needs.
Andrews:
This has never occurred before, never occurred before. There’s no manual or playbook or anyone you can go to and say, well, given your experience in doing things like this, can you provide me with some advice on how I might do it?
No such person exists, Mr Hibbins. So what you do is you work as hard as you possibly can, you assemble a team that’s as big as it can possibly be and you get on and you get the job done.
Does that mean that everybody received every single thing they needed moments after, or even hours after ...
(Hibbins: Or days ...)
Andrews:
Well, Mr Hibbins, as I’ve said to you, neither you nor I have ever done this before. Well, I have now, but I’m not entirely sure that there is a ... there is simply not a reserve of people to call on when you’re doing something that is fundamentally challenging and unique.
Now, was every element of that response perfect?
Well, what I say to you is of course it wasn’t, nor could it have been.
But every body from local community health providers to other organisations that were engaged to provide, nursing staff, testing staff, emergency services staff, including Victoria police, social workers, mental health practitioners, the list goes on and on, a massive team, stood up as quickly as possible to meet the needs of a very diverse and a particularly vulnerable group of people.
Updated
If the TV broadcast leaves again, you can follow along with the committee hearing on the Vic parliament website here.
Updated
Anyone watching the Victorian parliament inquiry is getting a crash course in how these committees are run – and the technical issues which have consistently plagued the hearings.
Never thought I would see one become live TV viewing, but given that Covid updates have increased daytime TV viewership, I shouldn’t be surprised.
Updated
Labor MP Gary Maas has asked the premier about the size of Victoria’s contact tracing team.
Daniel Andrews:
My last update has between 2,500 and 2,600 people who are supporting that contact tracing work. They range from people who are making calls, contacting cases, and then recording, through that interview process, in some cases, many dozens [of close contacts].
We have ambulance officers working in our contact tracing team. We have people who have call centre experience and customer service experience, often very complex customer service backgrounds from the private sector who have been stood down on a private-sector employer, who have come to work for us. We have members of the Australian defence force, we have public health physicians, nurses. We have a very very broad range.
Updated
The aged care royal commission also continues today – Elias Visontay will be watching that one for you.
Anthony Albanese was asked about the allegations raised during the inquiry yesterday – that there was no federal plan for aged care during the pandemic – this morning, while on the Nine Network:
The fact is that the outbreak in NSW should’ve been a clarion call. If there wasn’t a plan beforehand, surely there should’ve been one developed then. And the fact that it didn’t happen is really regretful. We need to honour and respect our older Australians who’ve helped build the country. We need to treat them with dignity. And we need to do much better when it comes to aged care, across-the-board. There was a crisis beforehand, we know, with aged-care work force issues, and with other issues that were shown in the interim report of the royal commission. And the federal government up to this point just hasn’t responded appropriately to that interim report, or to the need to prepare for the impact of the pandemic, which we know has a more severe impact on elderly people.
Updated
Richard Riordan:
Finally, did you, or did the crisis cabinet, think hotel quarantine would be better run by people who fix roads and run an art gallery than your own health department? Premier, I’ll ask again, did you, or did your crisis cabinet, decide that hotel quarantine would be better run by people who fix roads and run an art gallery than your own health department?
Daniel Andrews:
The answer to your question is no. At no point did people make a decision like that. People are in every – across the board, in [every department], across the board, people are performing roles and functions that are a long way away from what they might traditionally be expected to do.
Andrews goes to give some examples, but Riordan interrupts. His time is up (the ubiquitous iPhone timer is the loudest thing in the room) and the committee goes on break to work out Andrews audio issues.
Updated
Daniel Andrews has been asked by Liberal MP Richard Reardon if he will demand the minister for jobs and precincts, Martin Pakula, resign after a Herald Sun editorial published this morning suggested he was potentially responsible for the hotel quarantine scandal.
Former judge Coate is running an inquiry. She’s a former judge. I wouldn’t have thought there was a dispute about that. It’s an inquiry set up under the act of Victorian parliament. It has broad terms of reference, a substantial Budget and it will get us the answers that are required.
Reardon has been on the attack, asking the premier if he will apologise to Victorians.
Reardon
Premier, your chief health officer says genome sequencing confirms that the Victorian second wave has come from the minister’s failed hotel quarantine, a point you have conceded yourself on numerous occasions. Because of this, hundreds of thousands of Victorians have lost their jobs and businesses. And thousands of family members have lost loved ones. Victorians have trusted you to keep them safe. You have catastrophically let them down. Will you apologise to Victorians?
Andrews
As I’ve said, Mr Reardon, I’m the leader of the government and the leader of the state and I take responsibility for all of the decisions that are made across our government and the performance of all of our agencies. That ultimate responsibility is an important function of the job that I have, the great honour that I have to serve as the premier of this state.
Riordan continues to push for an answer on the resignation question.
Andrews:
Mr Riordan, the only enemy that every single Victorians confronts is this wildly infectious virus.
I’m not interested in playing political games with this. I don’t think there’s any comparison between the events you’ve quoted.
We are all working as hard as we can to fight a wicked enemy. That’s the enemy I’m exclusively focused on.
I can’t speak for to or what you’re focused on. But I want to be clear with you that driving these case numbers down, provide caring and support to all who need it, and getting us to the other side of this second wave is my exclusive focus.
Updated
Premier Daniel Andrews has begun speaking to the parliamentary inquiry into the Victorian government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Obviously we are in the midst of a second wave, as are many other jurisdictions around the world.
Modelling displayed by the premier on-screen showed that Victorian could have potentially faced upwards of 15,000 cases per day in Victoria if stage-three restrictions were not enacted.
[Without the] work that we’ve done, [we] would have seen not hundreds of cases but, indeed, many thousands of cases, close to around 20,000 cases in just a few weeks’ time. So that gives you a pretty big and stark representation of the need for action.
Updated
Daniel Andrews shows modelling which showed 20,000 infections if the lockdown was not put in place.
Daniel Andrews is appearing at the Victorian Covid committee (via video)
Matilda Boseley is following along with the committee.
The Victorian premier is giving his update :
Obviously we are in the midst of a second wave, as are many other jurisdictions around the world.
There are currently in excess of 20 million people who have been diagnosed with coronavirus and some 730,000 people who have tragically passed away.
That nation has a second wave, and has great difficulty in containing this virus. I think that difficulty is well understood and tragically it’s been experienced in a number of second waves around the world.
It just means, I suppose, that we have to acknowledge how rapidly this spreads. Our challenge is particularly when it gets into high-risk industries, new and different cohorts, and new and different communities different family structures. Different backgrounds - sometimes, for instance, where language can be an issue.
This is something that is a great challenge for communities and economies and health systems right across the world.
Updated
That’s another absolutely devastating day for people in Melbourne.
That’s the second day in a row 19 lives have been lost.
We don’t have the breakdown as yet - that will come a little later.
That’s almost 250 people who have died in Victoria since the beginning of the pandemic. In May, 18 people had died in that state.
Victoria records another 19 deaths, 331 new cases
Victoria has released its numbers for today.
There were 331 new cases of #coronavirus (#COVID19) detected in Victoria in the last 24 hours.
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) August 10, 2020
Sadly, 19 deaths were reported.#Covid19VicData pic.twitter.com/bajE79zjUy
Updated
The ACT is hoping it has struck a deal with NSW to allow ACT residents trapped on the Victorian side of the NSW border to get home, without being made to drive to Sydney and fly.
Many of the trapped residents were healthcare workers who had been given permission to travel across NSW (having had checks) but found themselves stopped after NSW changed the rules. It’s meant days of limbo, as the state and the territory try and come up with a solution.
We’ll keep you updated.
Updated
Looks like it will be some time before Scott Morrison can leave:
President Trump says he's now inclined to hold the G7 Summit after November's US election: "It's a better, calmer atmosphere for a G7" Australian Prime Minister @ScottMorrisonMP previously said he intended to travel to Washington, if the Summit went ahead. #auspol @SBSNews
— Brett Mason (@BrettMasonNews) August 10, 2020
Richard Colbeck, the aged care minister (if you didn’t know his name before, you are about to) was on ABC radio RN this morning, repeating his defence of the federal government’s aged care response during the pandemic. Aged care is a commonwealth responsibility.
As AAP reports:
The minister responsible for Australia’s aged care homes has disputed claims the sector wasn’t given enough health advice to deal with coronavirus outbreaks.
The Aged Care Royal Commission on Monday heard neither the federal Health Department nor aged care regulator developed a sector-specific plan.
The commission heard aged care was offered no virus advice from either body from June 19 to August 3, a crucial period in the pandemic when cases in Victoria spiked.
But Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck said the sector had received advice much earlier. “There has been continued advice, support to the sector since late January to deal with COVID-19,” he told ABC radio on Tuesday.
Senator Colbeck said the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee had also given advice on July 14.
Australia’s virus aged care death rate is among the highest in the world at 68 per cent. The majority of the more than 200 deaths in aged care have been in Victoria. Fourteen of the 19 deaths recorded on Monday were linked to aged care outbreaks.
The aged care regulator failed to tell federal agencies a staff member at one of the infected nursing homes, St Basil’s Homes for the Aged in Fawkner, had tested positive to the virus until four days later.
“I’m not happy that there was a gap in the systems,” Senator Colbeck said. “They should have told us immediately.”
Labor’s government services spokesman Bill Shorten says the situation in aged care is heartbreaking. “It’s almost like because they’re old and out of sight we can forget about them,” he told Nine’s Today show.
“Unlike some of the problems of COVID-19 this nation has known that aged care has been very poorly run for a very long time. We have been on notice.
“We have known aged care has been under loved for too long. COVID-19 has just ripped the lid off it.”
Updated
NT working towards opening borders in 18 months (maybe)
But don’t expect the Northern Territory to fully open its borders anytime soon under Michael Gunner.
We’re much more likely to add spots than remove them.
We have got an indefinite ban on Victoria, and Sydney keeps bubbling away to a point to I can’t give you a date where that would ever lift.
My advice to every Territorian, if you can, stay here in the territory. You’re safe here, don’t go. If you can, cancel your Christmas holiday plans, stay here in the Northern Territory.
We’re working towards at least an 18-month window from today, towards the end of next year, is how we’re starting to resource our borders. We’re recruiting extra police, making sure we’re keeping those hard border controls in place. Recruiting extra health officials, making sure we can monitor arrivals at the airport.
We’re working towards an 18-month window from here. That’s conservative, probably.
Updated
The deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, helped launch the NT’s Country Liberal party campaign yesterday.
#NTELECTION: Early #voting has started in the Northern Territory. Michael McCormack joined the CLP for the start of their campaign launch. While incumbent chief minister Michael Gunner voted early to avoid large crowds amid the coronavirus pandemic. @SBSNews pic.twitter.com/6qfozpw8m4
— Aneeta Bhole (@AneetaBhole) August 10, 2020
I had almost forgot he existed.
Updated
The Northern Territory is headed to the polls on 22 August. Polling booths have opened and people have begun to vote.
NT Labor is not guaranteed a majority. The chief minister, Michael Gunner (who has already voted, presumably for himself), is campaigning under the slogan: ‘Who will keep your life safe, who will keep your job safe?’ which has led the opposition to accuse him of politicising the pandemic.
Gunner told the ABC it wasn’t as if anyone could ignore it was happening:
This is the biggest issue in the world. It’s the biggest issue confronting our country. It’s the biggest issue gripping the Northern Territory. We’re in the middle of a declared public health emergency. It will be a tight election.
Elections are always brutal. Come August 23, it will be me standing here, doing what I can, whatever it takes, to save your life or your job. Or it will be somebody else. That’s your choice.
Who do you trust to carry the Territory through with this response to the coronavirus? ... It’s a reality. If you ignore corona, that terrifies me. This is here, it is real. We’re currently the safest place in the country.
You know where you stand with me. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe. I’ll do whatever it takes to save your job. But your life comes first. That’s your choice. That’s what I stand for. If you want somebody else to do this job, back them in. Until August 22, I will do whatever I can to help you through coronavirus. But it’s your choice to make at this election.
Updated
What great timing!
After a parliamentary committee heard that the government’s “arts rescue” package (such as it is) hadn’t yet helped anyone, because applications weren’t open, Paul Fletcher has sent out these announcements:
Media Release: Funding to help Australian venues bring back the music https://t.co/nVKLHZd6Y7 #auspol pic.twitter.com/XUyLupDD0U
— Paul Fletcher (@PaulFletcherMP) August 10, 2020
Media Release: RISE Fund and Sustainability Fund guidelines released https://t.co/nQcRj2DNCc #auspol pic.twitter.com/h8ldCvOzOY
— Paul Fletcher (@PaulFletcherMP) August 10, 2020
Deidre Chambers!
I suppose though, as the prime minister was keen to let everyone know while making this announcement on the arts, tradies are also involved in the arts and therefore they are worth funding. Or something.
Updated
All is going really well with the Covidsafe app as well …
Exclusive: Confusing Covidsafe app message led people to believe they had coronavirus and they turned up alarmed at GP clinics for testing, documents show 🤦🏼♂️ https://t.co/Y9NaV1urOc
— Josh Taylor (@joshgnosis) August 10, 2020
Updated
In Queensland, the Covid test results for two teenagers who were detained for allegedly breaching border restrictions (the girls arrived in Queensland from Sydney before the border closure with NSW, but are alleged to have misled authorities on their border declaration by saying they had not been to a hotspot – Sydney was declared a hotspot by Queensland).
They were showing no symptoms. They are also just 15 and 16 years old. Even the Sunshine Coast police was asking for some understanding for them yesterday.
After being detained in Noosa for testing, they will most likely be placed into a quarantine hotel.
Updated
Donald Trump is addressing the media, after reports of shots being fired at the White House. He says the incident was outside the White House – he says it is “unfortunate this is [the] world, but the world has always been a dangerous place, it is not something which is unique”:
You look back over the centuries, the world has been a dangerous place, a very dangerous place. And, uh, it will continue, I guess, for a period of time.
Updated
The federal Senate committee looking at the Covid response is also holding a hearing today.
You can find the whole program, here but the headline appearances are from the prime minister’s department and the Covid committee, including Nev Power.
Updated
As if cancer wasn’t horrible enough – now gaps in health supply chains for children’s cancers have been exposed. As Daniel Hurst reports:
Australia’s nuclear medicine agency has spent more than $350,000 on chartered flights to deliver critical medicines to diagnose and treat children’s cancer, as the Covid-19 pandemic exposes worrying gaps in health supply chains.
As it prepares to give evidence to a parliamentary inquiry on Tuesday, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation has revealed how widespread flight cancellations temporarily put at risk the supplies of certain nuclear medicines.
Ansto disclosed the charter flight costs in response to questions from Guardian Australia, saying that it was “focused on doing everything we can to continue the supply of life-saving nuclear medicine for Australians around the country”.
It said it had also needed to deliver medicines to Brisbane by truck since April, with this road freight costing $4,000 a week, split between Ansto and its customers.
Updated
Meanwhile, Murph and Elias Visontay have all the details from the opening day of the royal commission into the aged care response to Covid (a commonwealth responsibility):
The Morrison government has said it did have a strategy for Australia’s vulnerable aged care sector, despite the senior counsel assisting the royal commission into aged care arguing the health department and regulator both failed to develop a Covid-19 plan, rendering the industry “underprepared”.
After Monday’s blistering opening statement at the royal commission by Peter Rozen QC, the federal minister for aged care, Richard Colbeck, issued a statement saying the government had been “continuously building on our response to Covid-19 in residential aged care since January 2020”.
Colbeck said the measures undertaken included issuing specific infection control guidance for residential aged care “combined with freely available training for the aged care workforce”.
He said the government had imposed restrictions on visits to homes, had overseen the rapid provision of personal protective equipment, had provided additional skilled workers to support the provision of care and contain transmission in the event of an outbreak, as well as “in–reach pathology testing for Covid-19 and access to telehealth to ensure residents continue to safely receive needed healthcare”.
Updated
Nothing can stop political fundraising, apparently. Not even a pandemic.
Christopher Knaus reports on the Western Australian Liberal party plans to hold (socially distant) fundraising events when parliament resumes later this month:
The Liberal party is attempting to organise at least three fundraising events in Canberra to coincide with the looming resumption of parliament, despite prior health advice warning of the heightened Covid-19 risk posed by sitting periods.
Guardian Australia understands that the party’s Western Australian division is organising three separate Liberal party fundraising dinners featuring the prime minister’s assistant minister, Ben Morton, for the two-week sitting period starting 24 August.
The events are planned for 25 August, 26 August and 2 September, and are advertised as featuring appearances from Paul Fletcher, the communications minister, Simon Birmingham, the trade minister, and Anne Ruston, the social services minister, respectively.
Attendees are being asked to pay $2,500 a head, and told that social distancing will be in force and that the plans may change if the Covid-19 crisis deteriorates further.
That follows this story in the Australian last week, of a planned South Australian Liberal fundraiser for up to 700 people (also socially distant).
Updated
Katharine Murphy has the latest Guardian Essential poll:
Australians rank stopping community transmission of Covid-19 higher on their list of priorities than restarting the economy and putting it on the road to recovery, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll, which shows people are increasingly nervous about the second wave.
The latest survey of 1,010 respondents found 62% of the sample ranked stopping community transmission as their most important issue, compared with more than half of respondents who nominated either economic recovery (55%) or managing the economy (53%) as very important.
Priorities on the list varied by people’s voting intentions. Both Coalition and Labor voters (64%) want to stop community transmission, but Coalition voters rank economic management (68%) and recovery (64%) higher than Labor voters (52% and 55%).
Aged care regulator took four days to tell Australian government of St Basil’s Covid-19 outbreakRead more
Reducing debt ranks much further down the list of priorities for all voters (34%) despite debt and deficit hitting record levels federally because of the fiscal support rolled out during the pandemic. But again, the results vary by voting intention: Labor voters are less worried about debt (31%) than Coalition voters (41%).
Updated
With the federal aged care response under its own microscope, Melissa Davey has this story from Melbourne:
Two nurses working at a private hospital accepting residents from aged care homes have tested positive for Covid-19, a senior doctor says mass transportation of elderly residents to multiple hospitals is a “catastrophe waiting to happen”.https://t.co/Xbh8F17yvY
— Lenore Taylor (@lenoretaylor) August 10, 2020
Updated
Good morning
The Victorian premier will front the Victorian public accounts and estimates committee (PAEC) hearing into the Covid response today, with the hotel quarantine program under the spotlight.
Two federal officials who were involved in the Ruby Princess docking have been so far shielded from having to appear at the inquiry set up in NSW to investigate what went wrong there.
But Daniel Andrews is expected to be the first person to appear at the Victorian hearing. The state’s health minister, Jenny Mikakos, and chief medical officer, Brett Sutton, are also scheduled to appear.
Much like federal parliamentary committee, this one is made up of a mix across the parliament, with the government in control – there are five Labor MPs, three LNP MPs and two from the minor parties, a Liberal Democrat and a MP from the Greens in this case
It’s not the first time Andrews has fronted the committee – he appeared in May. Then, 18 Victorians diagnosed with Covid-19 had died. As of yesterday, 228 people, mostly from Melbourne, had died.
We’ll cover that, and everything else that happens today. You have Amy Remeikis with you for most of the day. I’ve already had two coffees and am on my third. You can find me here or here during the shift, if you have a question. I’ll try and visit the below the line chat, but things tend to move a little fast these days, so if it’s a burning question, let me know and I’ll get back to you when I can.
Ready?
Updated
