Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Graham Readfearn (now) and Amy Remeikis (earlier)

Victoria records eight deaths and 42 new coronavirus cases, with 10 in NSW – as it happened

default

What happened in Australia on Wednesday 16 September

That’s it for our live coverage of coronavirus news and other developments in Australia. Thanks to Amy Remeikis for the earlier coverage. She’ll be back in the morning.

You can follow our global coverage here and there is a lot to follow. Outside Australia, the second wave is well and truly surging.

India has now recorded more than 5 million cases of the disease, with 1 million added in just the past 12 days. The UK’s virus-testing system is creaking under soaring demand.

Here’s what happened in Australia today:

  • Victoria recorded 42 new cases and eight deaths. The number of active cases in the state fell to 991 – the last time it was at those levels was on July 8 when there were 921 active cases.
  • NSW reported 10 new cases. Six were overseas arrivals and four were linked to a known case. Queensland reported no new cases. WA reported one new case – a returned overseas traveller.
  • Deputy prime minister Michael McCormack shifted the focus on the 26,000 Australians stranded overseas to the states, saying he wants to raise the weekly cap from 4,000 to 6,000 arrivals. He wants states to make quarantine room for more.
  • Victoria’s chief health officer Prof Brett Sutton told the state’s hotel quarantine inquiry he was unaware private security staff were being used until outbreaks started to happen in June. In hindsight, using private security was a transmission risk, he said.
  • Victorian police will be able to fine people $5,000 if they try to sneak out of metropolitan Melbourne and into regional areas, where restrictions are being lifted.
  • The NSW deputy premier and NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro survived a no confidence vote in the state parliament. Barilaro last week threatened to blow up the state’s coalition agreement over new laws to better protect koalas.
  • The Victorian government is facing three class-action lawsuits over the coronavirus lockdowns with potentially thousands of plaintiffs seeking damages.

Thanks for being with us. Graham Readfearn signing off. Take care of yourself. Wash your hands and don’t touch your face.

Updated

Australia’s cricket coach Justin Langer says he could “see the blood draining out of their faces” when his players were told about the quarantine periods in store for them in the coming months.

AAP reports the team was given the rundown ahead of tonight’s ODI series decider against England in Manchester.

“You could see the blood draining out of their faces. Because it’s not only the cricket, it’s living in the hubs, the quarantine periods before and after,” Langer told SEN.

“Which is certainly going to add up to more time away from our families. The biggest challenge we’ve got ... is trying to stay focused on now.

“Because if you look too far ahead it probably brings tears to your eyes.

“I’m going to Adelaide for two weeks in quarantine then I go to Perth for two more weeks in quarantine ... probably a few weeks at home then we get back to more quarantine time [prior to the India series].”

Langer, staff and some players will head home on Thursday then spend a fortnight in quarantine at Adelaide Oval’s new onsite hotel.

A charter flight will take a group of Australian and English players to the UAE for the Indian Premier League, which runs until early November.

Cricket Australia is on the cusp of filling a recently-created position that is entirely focused on mental health.

Team psychologist Michael Lloyd has already helped map out individual mental-health plans for Langer’s charges.

“We’ll keep a very close eye on our players, we’re going to have to keep a close eye on our staff,” Langer said.

The former Test opener insisted a six-match tour of England had been worthwhile despite the tourists’ timely and taxing requirements.

Langer suggested a “very inspiring” recent conversation with his dad, in which he was told to harden up and think of visits to the Western Front and Gallipoli, put the squad’s sacrifices in perspective.

Australia Head Coach Justin Langer prior to the 1st Royal London One Day International Series match between England and Australia
Australia Head Coach Justin Langer prior to the 1st Royal London One Day International Series match between England and Australia Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images

Updated

NSW deputy premier survives no confidence vote

New South Wales deputy premier John Barilaro has survived a “no confidence” vote in the state’s parliament.

The no confidence motion was brought by the opposition leader, Jodi McKay, after last week’s chaotic events in which Barilaro, the NSW Nationals leader, backed down from a threat to walk away from the Coalition. Barilaro said his party couldn’t support new rules to protect koalas.

AAP reports that neither the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, nor any Liberal ministers remained in the chamber to defend the deputy premier, who also left the chamber for the debate.

The ABC reports the motion was lost 48 to 40.

Deputy Premier and NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro answers questions from the opposition in the NSW Legislative Assembly on Wednesday.
Deputy Premier and NSW Nationals leader John Barilaro answers questions from the opposition in the NSW Legislative Assembly on Wednesday. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

Updated

The Australian National University and the University of New South Wales today both announced hundreds of job cuts.

Australia’s universities are in crisis mode as revenues from international students crash. Guardian reporter Paul Karp has this story.

Victorian’s higher education minister Gayle Tierney has released a letter pushing back against key elements of the federal government’s jobs-ready university graduate reforms.

In a letter to federal education minister Dan Tehan, Tierney writes:

I ask that you increase commonwealth supported places to a level that reflects real demand, taking into account population growth and higher levels of unemployment due to Covid-19. The proposed increase in domestic student places in the jobs-ready graduates package provides only around 10% of the university-qualified employees Victoria needs to 2023.

I ask also that you reconsider the commonwealth government’s proposed fee revision … the areas of ‘low labour market demand’ identified in the package indicate that we have very different understanding of current and future skills needs.

In particular, Tierney argues increasing fees “will result in students from disadvantaged backgrounds being less able to access courses like law, commerce and humanities”.

Caravan parks and camping grounds in regional Victoria that have shared facilities will be opening up from midnight tonight.

The Guardian’s Melbourne bureau chief Melissa Davey has emailed some clarifications.

Group bookings will be restricted to members of a single household; or intimate partners; or members of a single household with up to five people from another household part of the nominated household bubble.

All of this applies only to people already living in regional Victoria and any groups booking separately cannot share bedrooms, but there are no restrictions on sharing kitchens, toilets and showers.

The state government has previously said people can travel through Melbourne, but can only stop for one of three reasons.

  • To shop for food and essential goods or services.
  • To provide care, for compassionate reasons or to seek medical treatment.
  • For work or study, if you can’t do it from home.

Updated

People in Victoria ordered to isolate at home in March after returning from overseas escaped $20,000 fines when, after later testing positive for Covid-19, contact tracers found out they had been leaving home.

Victoria’s deputy chief health officer, Dr Annaliese van Diemen, told the state’s hotel quarantine inquiry on Wednesday that before hotel quarantine was used for all returned travellers, people were ordered to isolate at home and failure to do so would lead to $20,000 fines.

Some of those tested positive, and through that process, they discovered people weren’t complying with the orders. Van Diemen said:

During the contact tracing process, [they] asked where they had been in the proceeding days preceding their symptom onset, and a number of them stated that they had been out and about in public places.

But those who admitted to breaching the order were not fined, she said, in the interest of maintaining trust and people’s willingness to provide accurate information to contact tracers.

Van Diemen said before hotel quarantine was the policy, the public health team was considering home detention with enforcement for returned travellers, but said ultimately she supports the decision to begin mandatory hotel quarantine.

She said in hindsight of the second wave, the mechanisms to enforce compliance with thousands of people at home were not well developed, and it would have been difficult to ensure at that time that people were quarantining at home.

Victoria’s chief health officer Prof Brett Sutton gave evidence today before the state’s inquiry into its hotel quarantine system.

He told the inquiry he didn’t know before June outbreaks of the disease that private security firms were being used at the hotels. With hindsight, this had created a transmission risk, he said.

The Guardian’s Josh Taylor has this report.

Queensland’s state election is on 31 October. Usually, state elections see national party figures turning up in marginal electorates to raise the profile of their candidates.

But News.com journalist Samantha Maiden has a story pointing out that unless things change, national party leaders, including the prime minister Scott Morrison, will need to go into 14-day quarantine if they want to campaign in Queensland.

Updated

Trade minister Simon Birmingham is talking to the ABC about raising the cap on international arrivals.

He says the government is asking all states and territories – except Victoria – “to do a little bit more” in finding quarantine spots for Australians currently stranded overseas.

Most state premiers, he said, had suggested there was a potential to take more people.

There are many thousands – tens of thousands – of empty hotel rooms across this country with little prospect of tourists or business travellers filling them up any time soon. We want to see those facilities, where they can be, used with the appropriate supervision, appropriate safeguards.

There is an opportunity in the case of Queensland to look at Gold Coast or Cairns as potential centres which do have the experience of handling international arrivals.

Updated

There’s some coverage around today of new research that tested 2,991 Australians who had been for elective surgery to see if they had, or had previously had, Covid-19.

There’s an extrapolation from that study that gets you a headline that reads something like “70,000 more Australians might have caught coronavirus”.

Deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth is a co-author on that study, which you can find here. It has not been peer-reviewed yet.

In his briefing a few minutes ago, Coatsworth said the estimate “doesn’t precisely correspond to reality”.

Here’s what the study did. They took blood samples from 2,991 individuals at 10 hospitals across four states between May and June 2020. All the patients had said they’d had no symptoms of Covid-19 before they went in for surgery.

Coatsworth says none of the patients had Covid-19 at the time they were patients.

But tests also suggested five of the patients had antibodies to the disease. In other words, they’d had the disease but hadn’t realised. Coatsworth said:

That means that this estimate of potentially 70,000 patients around Australia having positive Covid-19 antibodies is exactly that. It is an estimate. It doesn’t precisely correspond to reality.

The range of that estimate is somewhere between zero and 185,000, if we read the paper. Now that can be tricky to explain. But it’s not going to change our policy.”

Updated

Australia’s deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth is giving a media conference to deliver a national update.

He says the 53 new cases of coronavirus takes the national count since the start of the pandemic to 26,779. The eight deaths reported in Victoria take the national toll to 824 people who have died with the disease.

Coatsworth says there are 127 people in hospital with 16 people in intensive care.

The numbers are clearly improving on a national level and most pleasingly in Victoria and their seven-day rolling average of course dipped below 50 cases per day – 49.6.

But very positive news and a testimony to the titanic efforts of the Victorian community in Melbourne and surrounds under the stage 4 restrictions and regional Victoria as well.”

He said in other countries where restrictions had been lifted, the number of cases was accelerating and this was putting a “significant burden” on nations and economies. France had seen 10,000 cases in one day, he said.

Updated

Summary

Afternoon. Graham Readfearn here. Let’s have a quick summary of the day so far:

  • Victoria reported another eight deaths today, all connected to aged care. The state reported 42 new cases.
  • At Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry, the state’s chief health officer Prof Brett Sutton confirmed at least one guest left unknowingly passed on the virus to the person who picked them up when they left.
  • NSW reported 10 new cases of coronavirus. Six were overseas arrivals and four were linked to a known case. Queensland reported no new cases.
  • Victorian police has said it can issue $5,000 fines to people trying to leave city areas to regional Victoria, where restrictions are easing quickly due to low case numbers.
  • The Australian National University has announced it will shed 465 positions. Some 230 had already accepted voluntary terms with another 20 expected, but the university still needed to cut 215 more positions.

There’s a national Covid-19 update expected in about 10 minutes.

Updated

Deputy CHO Dr Nick Coatsworth is due to give the national Covid update at 3.30pm.

Given that I went to sprinkle tabasco over my eggs, and instead seasoned my cup of tea, I am going to leave you in the very capable hands of Graham Readfearn while I attempt to reboot my brain.

I’ll be back early tomorrow morning. In the meantime, take care of you. Ax

$5,000 fine 'to protect regional Victoria'

Victoria police have spoken about the tightening border controls around greater metro Melbourne, as Matilda Boseley reports:

Melbourne’s “ring of steel” is tightening with city residents now facing fines of nearly $5,000 for attempting to escape to regional Victoria.

Victorian authorities have introduced a new offence under the state of disaster rules, prohibiting people “leaving a restricted area”, aimed at preserving low case numbers in rural towns as they ease restrictions.

This infringement will carry a heavy fine of $4,957, more than double the general toll for breaching the chief health officers orders.

“If it’s two people, if it’s mum and dad, they will both get a fine. That’s nearly $10,000,” deputy police commissioner of regional operations, Rick Nugent said.

Police will also be increasing the number of vehicles they stop.

“Certainly we will be checking every vehicle that is towing a caravan a camper trailer or other trailer, towing a boat or a jet ski or has a surfboard, a fishing rod or swags. They will all be checked.”

Melbournians can still leave the city, but only for permitted reasons, such as work, providing or receiving care, medical reasons and visiting an intimate partner.

Nugent announced on Wednesday, that a new semi-permanent checkpoint would be established on the Mornington Peninsula.

Although classified as part of metropolitan Melbourne and facing the same lockdowns the peninsula is a popular holiday destination with beachside towns such as Portsea and Sorrento.

The original $1,652 find still applies to those travelling illegally to the area.

Updated

ANU vice-chancellor, Brian Schmidt, told staff today:

“The changes required are painful, and the changes we make must leave the university in a state that will allow us to thrive in the years to come.

There will be less money in our systems for the foreseeable future. This is hard to hear when we have all made so many sacrifices to date, whether it is deferring our pay increase in July 2020, cancelling a piece of expenditure we planned to make, taking on additional or new tasks, or – in some cases – agreeing to separate from the university.

To everyone who has made a sacrifice, thank you for what you have done and continue to do.

Sadly, these sacrifices have been essential to get us through 2020, but are not sufficient on their own to make us financially sustainable going forward.

Yesterday, 15 September, the ANU Council approved the University’s 2021 financial strategy. This document launches a consultation on how we should respond.

The stark reality is, we need to save money, and this will mean spending a lot less, both on our non-salary expenditure, but also on salaries.

This is not a course of action we wanted to take, but it is our only viable option going forward if we want to remain a sustainable, stable university. The need for our university and its mission is clear, and we must make sure we can deliver on that mission, and not be a hollowed-out shell of our former selves.”

Updated

The Australian National University has announced a restructure that will involve the loss of 465 positions.

Some 230 staff have already accepted voluntary separations, with a further 20 to come, but the ANU announced on Wednesday that there will need to be a further reduction of 215 positions.

ANU has already saved $13.5m from deferred pay rises, which has saved 90 jobs but will need to save $103m a year up until 2023.

The strategy is based on 50% of ANU’s ongoing level of savings coming from salaries.

The reduction will be achieved through additional voluntary separations, or as a last resort, redundancies.

Updated

All these cuts to Australia’s universities are going to have ongoing impacts for years

Active aged care outbreaks with the highest cumulative case numbers are as follows:

  • 251 cases have been linked to BaptCare Wyndham Lodge Community in Werribee.
  • 219 cases have been linked to Epping Gardens Aged Care in Epping.
  • 213 cases have been linked to St Basil’s Homes for the Aged in Fawkner.
  • 166 cases have been linked to Estia Aged Care Facility in Ardeer.
  • 139 cases have been linked to Kirkbrae Presbyterian Homes in Kilsyth.
  • 130 cases have been linked to BlueCross Ruckers Hill Aged Care Facility in Northcote.
  • 127 cases have been linked to Twin Parks Aged Care in Reservoir.
  • 124 cases have been linked to Cumberland Manor Aged Care Facility in Sunshine North.
  • 120 cases have been linked to Japara Goonawarra Aged Care Facility in Sunbury.
  • 119 cases have been linked to Estia Aged Care Facility in Heidelberg.

In Victoria there are currently six active cases in residential disability accommodation:

  • Total resident cases: two; Total Staff cases: four.
  • Active cases in NDIS homes: six (two residents).
  • Active cases in “transfer” homes (state regulated/funded): 0.
  • Active cases in state government delivered and funded homes: 0.


Non-aged care outbreaks with the highest number of active cases include:

  • 12 active cases are currently linked to Footscray hospital (total cases: 13).
  • 10 active cases are currently linked to Bulla Dairy Foods in Colac (total cases: 20).
  • nine active cases are currently linked to Vawdrey Australia Truck Manufacturer (total cases: 64).
  • eight active cases are currently linked to Wydinia Kindergarten in Colac (total cases: 16).
  • five active cases are currently linked to Dandenong police station (total cases: 15).

Updated

And we have a breakdown of those cases:

In Victoria at the current time:

  • 4,278 cases may indicate community transmission – a decrease of four since yesterday.
  • 991 cases are currently active in Victoria.
  • 107 cases of coronavirus are in hospital, including 11 in intensive care.
  • 18,153 people have recovered from the virus.
  • A total of 2,520,887 test results have been received which is an increase of 14,374 since yesterday.

Of the 991 current active cases in Victoria:

  • 948 are in metropolitan Melbourne under stage 4 restrictions.
  • 37 are in regional local government areas under stage 3 restrictions.
  • four are interstate residents.
  • two are either unknown or subject to further investigation.
  • Colac Otway has 20 active cases, Greater Geelong has three active cases, Greater Bendigo has one active case and Ballarat has no active cases.

Of the total cases:

  • 18,563 cases are from metropolitan Melbourne, while 1,201 are from regional Victoria.
  • Total cases include 9,507 men and 10,422 women.
  • Total number of healthcare workers: 3,455, active cases: 152.
  • There are 497 active cases related to aged care facilities.

Updated

Victoria Health has just put out its official update:

Victoria has recorded 42 new cases of coronavirus since yesterday, with the total number of cases now at 19,943.

The over all total has increased by 32 due to 10 cases being reclassified.

Within Victoria, 29 of the new cases are linked to outbreaks or complex cases and 13 are under investigation.

There have been eight new deaths from Covid-19 reported since yesterday. Four women and two men aged in their 80s and two men aged in their 90s. Six of the deaths occurred prior to yesterday.

All of today’s deaths are linked to known outbreaks in aged care facilities. To date, 737 people have died from coronavirus in Victoria.

The average number of cases diagnosed in the past 14 days for metropolitan Melbourne is 49.6 and regional Victoria is 3.5. The rolling daily average case number is calculated by averaging out the number of new cases over the past 14 days.

The total number of cases from an unknown source in the past 14 days is 81 for metropolitan Melbourne and one for regional Victoria. The 14-day period for the source of acquisition data ends 48 hours earlier than the 14-day period used to calculate the new case average due to the time required to fully investigate a case and assign its mode of acquisition.

Updated

Over at the foreign affairs parliamentary committee which is looking at strengthening Australia’s ties with its Pacific neighbours, Save the Children deputy CEO Mat Tinkler is suggesting Australia embark on a “Pacific jobkeeper” style program:

The lack of a functioning social protection system in most countries in the Pacific is a serious barrier to providing the kind of household payments necessary for families to weather this storm,” he said ahead of the committee.

Australia and the Pacific should look to create a social protection system which reaches the poorest children and families not engaged in formal employment sector – the vast majority.

Strong intervention by the Australian government will save lives and livelihoods among our neighbours.”

Updated

Australia is pushing the United States to stay involved in UN institutions despite Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of several multilateral bodies, officials have told a parliamentary hearing.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade provided a small window into the conversations that are occurring behind the scenes with Australia’s top security ally in the Trump era. Despite Scott Morrison’s warning last year against “negative globalism”, the audit he commissioned ended up warning against an Australian retreat from global bodies but foreshadowed a push to reform UN bodies.

Justin Lee, first assistant secretary of the multilateral policy division, said Australia was working to ensure global bodies were fit for purpose, were doing what they were supposed to be doing, were accountable to member states, and had strong independent leadership. Australia also wanted those bodies to have sufficient focus on the Indo-Pacific region, “particularly if we’re making contributions to them”. Australia was working with countries that had concerns about how global bodies were functioning.

“We’ve certainly been continuing to encourage, where possible, strong United States engagement within the system and within multilateral institutions, and of course it has withdrawn from some, but we’re encouraging it to continue to participate in the system overall.

“And [we have] also [been] looking at coalitions with other member states … to support the rules and norms and values and standards that have served us, so we’ve been very active in multilateral institutions to move in behind those and back those.”

Elizabeth Peak, first assistant secretary of the human development and governance division, said Australia’s call for a comprehensive, impartial, independent inquiry into the Covid-19 response was “emblematic of the way Australia has approached multilateral engagement over this period”. That would look at how the World Health Organization had performed its role.

“We’ve seen some good progress in terms of the inquiry. We’re watching it very closely to ensure that the inquiry really does what we want it to do, which is to learn lessons across the board so we can all be better prepared for a pandemic that may occur in the future.”

Earlier today, Gladys Berejiklian was pushing for the Queensland border to open to NSW residents:

If you look at any proposed definition of ‘hotspot’, technically there aren’t any hotspots in NSW, so I’d be arguing there’s no reason to keep the border closed today,” AAP reports.

There’s really no basis to have the Queensland border shut. I would argue that even the 14-day limit is potentially unrealistic.”

South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia also have their borders closed to New South Wales residents.

Meanwhile, the Melbourne Anglican Archbishop Philip Freier, has thrown his support behind keeping the jobseeker payment where it is – which includes the $550 Covid supplement.

YouTube

Updated

Incredibly normal Queensland election stuff happening today:

There is a lot of talk about what to do with Australia’s humanitarian and migration programs.

Ames Australia, a migrant and refugee settlement agency, is hopeful by the federal government’s indications it is looking to re-establish its humanitarian programs as soon as it can:

We know that migration has been a major driver of economic growth in Australia and will continue to be so if managed properly and safely,” Ames Australia CEO Cath Scarth said.

In fact, in the context of the Covid-driven economic crisis, migration has never been more important,” she said.

A study by the Migration Council of Australia showing that if pre-Covid immigration programs return after the crisis they could as add much as $1.6tn to Australia’s GDP by 2050.

We know that over time migrants and refugees achieve higher workforce participation than the Australian average and they are much more likely to start businesses.

And migrants who are citizens have an unemployment rate of just 3.3% – higher than the national average and the figure for Australian-born jobseekers.

But Scarth also called for economic recovery programs to include newly arrived migrants and refuges already in Australia.

Since March because of the Covid-19 pandemic, employment has fallen by 660,700 and more than 900,000 people are now unemployed,” she said.

The gap in unemployment rates between migrants and the Australian-born population has recently widened to almost 2%. And now, there are proportionately twice as many migrants and refugees looking for work as Australian-born jobseekers.

Updated

That’s most of what Andrew Liveris had to say.

Check back in – Murph will have a story on that talk soon.

Updated

Q: Just on that new form of leader, is Joe Biden that new form of political leader that will persuade voters to vote for him on November 3?

Andrew Liveris:

I sometimes joked about being here. I got to make sure I get re-entry to the US so I don’t particularly want to inflame anyone with personal commentary. I know Joe very well. As vice-president under Obama I worked very closely with him. You know, he represents the Democrat party, right. So it isn’t an issue with Joe, it’s an issue with his party and I do think what’s happened – back to the question that was just asked, what’s happened is there’s no centre in American politics any more. Bill Clinton probably was the last true centrist politician.

So the Democrats have gone more left and the Republicans clearly went right and almost went off a cliff with the Tea Party.

If you think about the division that’s going on, the representative of the party now is the party.

So we’ve gone away from that in the US so now we have obviously a personality that runs the country. I think we have to reframe the policies of the parties.

The topics I talked about today, those topics are actually not happening that much in the parties anywhere.

They’re happening actually mostly in NGOs, they’re mostly happening with businesses. I’m seeing the step up of CEOs and my call to them in this country is step up. It’s your turn. You operate businesses that have all the things I talked about. So you should be the countries that actually lead but I don’t know whether Democrats can hold forth ‘cause they don’t present a new platform.

Updated

Further to that first question Andrew Liveris was asked:

Q: In your speech you spoke about the need for a new form of government, a new form of politician. In your mind, how do they differ compared to what we have now? How do they operate differently, and, given your work experience with Donald Trump, is he an example, a good example, of a new form of politician?

Andrew Liveris:

I’ve said countless times in countless forums, President Trump is in power because the politicians that were the options weren’t what people wanted.

The US is screaming for a new form of government as well. Actually, most western democracies are. Believe it or not, not so much in this country, but in the US, I mentioned the black African-American minority, there are a lot of people who are being left behind.

The rich is getting richer and the middle class are being squashed down to a lower bracket.

The kids can’t afford to go to the right schools. That means they can’t get the right jobs and they’re left out of the economy. The big part of the economy the alternative in, voted in Donald Trump. I don’t think we want to go there.

We should encourage or very talented, educated people, there is a whole roomful here, and there is a lot of the demographic called our young people, we should encourage them to get a degree, get a job, get maybe a technical degree, understand technology. It doesn’t have to be engineering, four-year degree.

You can do a two-year Tafe course, the technician stuff, know how to operate robots. Get some sort of degree. Go out and work, be an entrepreneur, maybe don’t make as much money as some of our big entrepreneurs have done but it’s OK, make some money and then run for office. I think commitment to public service for that new type of politician, new type of government to manage in the 21st century.

We need to distill it down to simplified solutions.

Updated

Q: The prime minister has thrown down essentially to the private sector. He has given them seven months to announce new investment in energy to cover the closure of the Liddell plant. What chance do you give the private sector to give them – to announce this new investment in seven months after being shy of new investment not the least because the policy settings around energy have been so unstable?

Andrew Liveris:

Look, seven months, seven weeks, seven years, I never thought I’d see this day. I really didn’t. I have been coming here for 20 years trying to get an Australian gas strategy so we can get value-add in the country and lower emissions.

What was announced yesterday was a challenge to the private sector to say, “Stop whinging. Show us. Show us what you can do.”

I think that’s a great challenge.

There are some frameworks that need to happen with that challenge and that has been laid out as well, deregulation, et cetera, I won’t repeat them. I do think the work we did in the commission is instructive.

For the side, the fertiliser guys, the explosive guys, the cement guys, brickmakers, food production, Thomas Foods, decided to build its second plant not in Australia but the US because of energy costs.

We said to them, “What would it take for you to build in Australia?” Say they had, “If I could get predictable prices of natural gas and I have certainty, I’d build the factory in Australia right away.”

Now, they were many examples like that that said that if you have a trajectory that gives you certainty, and this is what just got laid out yesterday, the private sector would respond. We did stress points, what you do if the price was $8, $6 and $4. At $4 per gigajoule, which is more than the international LNG price, which is available more or less, they would expand for exports.

They would actually expand. If you’re a person in a board room or a capital planner and you’re saying you want to expand your fertiliser plant, plastics plant or packaging plant and I can look at my framework which says I will look at you on the supply side to give me a price of $6 and then I’ll put this on the CapEx, they should jump on that.

If they don’t, then shame on them. Because in essence they’re saying they don’t like the risks of demand. I don’t blame them though. But this is the time to stimulate the private sector to step forward.

You saw the remarks yesterday – many said, “We’re ready. Let’s go.”

Updated

Q: You’ve advised President Obama. You’ve advised Donald Trump. You advise Scott Morrison. Three leaders. But you also have a position in Saudi Arabia to Mohammed bin Salman, not a democratically-elected leader, in fact an abuser of rights, and involved in authorisation the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. How do you align yourself with those?

Andrew Liveris:

I would say to you that a measured answer to your very provocative question is I have learned that, and maybe my global experience has taught me this - I’m a boy from Darwin.

I have seen things now which many my experiences show me how to embrace a question like yours. There are two sides to everything and there are two sides that often do not talk to each other as the answer.

What I’ve learned in business is talk to all sides because all sides have a –whether you like it or not is your personal judgement – point of view. Whether you like it or not is your personal judgement. But in my personal judgement it is important to get all sides to the table.

Look at the social injustice position in the United States. What is the scream that’s being heard? The scream being heard is the African-American minority feel they’re not being heard. We should do something about that. Now, whatever you want to assess Saudi Arabia to be or not be, there is a Muslim country that has, roughly, 70% of its population under the age of 30.

That is incredibly impacted by the instruments of terrorism. That needs to migrate to the 21st century as fast as it can and, frankly, really tough job in that neighbourhood.

What President Trump has achieved is really significant. It didn’t just happen. You will start to see the beginnings of Middle East peace. I’m a great believer that if you’re at the table you can influence the debate and that’s my answer to you.

Updated

Q: You’ve said China will flex its muscles, there’ll be more Hong Kongs. Taiwan, do you think that will be next?

Andrew Liveris:

I’ve lived in Hong Kong 13 years. I’ve certainly been around the Chinese discussion around Taiwan. I think the Taiwanese situation is very different to Hong Kong. Clearly, Hong Kong and Macau and obviously the colonies that were handed back. China’s agreement on that is what it is.

Taiwan was never part of that agreement. So I do think there’ll be a very different response if Taiwan ever ended up becoming a state of China. It does speak to the bigger point I was making in this is discussion.

The US is in retreat and I think we have to figure our way through a new world order on what actually happens in circumstances like that. I mean, you’ve had Russia invade Crimea, you have the saber rattling that’s been going on continuously. Our nations - NATO, you know, Anzac - all those institutions aren’t working. I want them to work, I hate to say it, but there is no leverage anymore in the conversation.

And so, international agreements are going back. My point on G20 and Australia being a leader, I think those conversations have to really start to occur to create something that works institutionally. We night have to give to get. In other words, recognise that China has arrived, recognise their bank is here. Recognise their infrastructure fund is here.

Recognise that the protections of their borders matters to them. OK? And so those sorts of things are not easy to give and they’re not saying that includes Taiwan, but I am saying that there is a new world that we have to develop.

Ian Bremmer wrote a book called The G0 World, it is a great read. It means no leaders. It means when you poke your head up about the parapet, there’s no-one there with you. We have to put our own national interests to the fore, develop strategies for our own citizens, develop our economy that’s not reliant on any other state. Do the four things that I said. If we do those four things we’re not reliant on the geopolitics giving us an answer.

Updated

Q: Can I ask you about your comments on China and us being a one-trick pony, and so forth, and the need to separate the mercantile aspect of the relationship with the diplomatic aspect of the relationship. Was I wrong to interpret this, are you saying the government needs to temper its public comments towards Beijing and China and keep them private in the interests of the economic relationship?

Andrew Liveris:

Look, I never put myself in the position of a leader of a country because that’s a hard job. I’ve been around a lot of leaders.

It is a difficult balancing act, in terms of what your population needs to hear, versus the competing positions of a different country. China is a really good listener and they have a really good culture, where, in private, saving face matters, OK.

So you don’t want to embarrass cultures. I think you have to be very careful with how you say things and what you say. I have no problem with Australia standing up for its moral beliefs to any country. I think we should say that to any country, every country we do business with.

That’s part of what I fall fair trade. If you look at environmental standards, labour standards, all the thing we care about, we should set the highest bar.

The code of conduct should be the highest bar. Whether other countries respond to that, it’s their choice but I don’t believe we should necessarily call them out on that.

I think we should actually spend our time trying to help them if they want to be helped. In the meantime, we’ve got to transact. Especially with an economy so dependent on China we have to be very careful until we diversify. When we diversify, we’ll be fine.

Andrew Liveris has moved to the Q and A section of the press club address:

Q: You’ve outlined the transition that the country needs to make but the reality is the transition you’ve outlined is a very costly one. If taxpayers are to bear the costs of that transition through subsidies or for advanced manufacturing, don’t we need to be very explicit about who is bearing the costs of that transition? Also if I may, how does the re-industrialisation of Australia and increasing the supply of gas which you admit is a fossil fuel get us to net zero to 2050?

Liveris: The two parts to your question, in none of the recommendations made yesterday or the announcements did I see the word “subsidy”. It is a redirection of funds. That’s a key part of the plan. It’s left the private sector to negotiate the contracts, because private sector has not done a good job. International companies can sit on basins in this contrary and sit on them at prices.

In fact, if you give the private sector a trajectory like a hub and like access to demand - i.e, the demand you can put in place - and you say that demand can underpin a power station or two, why you wouldn’t you do? No new taxes. Secondly, gas is roughly 60% of the emissions of coal. Switching to gas will automatically bring down the percentage of coal we burn.

We sell gas to Tokyo, or to Beijing, or to any other part of Asia and we import products back that you’re paying a premium for because we’re not making them locally.

Q: What I don’t understand is how increasing the supply of a fossil fuel, even one that has less emissions than coal, lines us with Australia’s obligations under international climate agreements to reduce emissions?

Liveris: Go study the US numbers, go study the UK numbers and the numbers in Europe - they’ve all decreased because of the introduction of gas to fuel. The very short answer to a very long question.

New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian has said Sydney airport will take an extra 500 arrivals per week, up to 2950, on the condition that other states double their caps.

She said she had reached an agreement with prime minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday, however both Queensland and Western Australia will need to double their intakes for NSW to increase theirs.

“I was given an assurance [by Morrison] other states would also take that load and on that basis I was very pleased to do our bit,” Berejiklian said.

However it appears unclear if Berejiklian’s conditions will be met, as Western Australia’s premier Mark McGowan responded to Michael McCormack’s demand for states to increase their arrival caps, by instead calling for the Commonwealth to use its own quarantine facilities.

And spokesman for Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told Guardian Australia Queensland would need the federal government’s support to take more arrivals into its hotel quarantine.

The education minister, Dan Tehan, has been speaking at a Committee for the Economic Development of Australia event - and he boldly predicted growth in the international student market.

He said:

“One of the things we have been able to do is manage the pandemic. From everything I’m hearing and seeing from international students, the demand is still there ... We will see new growth purely from the way we’ve been able to handle the pandemic.

Our quality of education hasn’t diminished, I would argue it’s got better through our ability to deliver online and options such as short courses and micro credentials, enhances our education offering...

Australia stands in very good stead. Students are going to want to continue to come here. I’m seeing from online offerings that demand is there and visa applications that demand is there. Once we hit the virus on the head … we’re in an even stronger position to compete for international students.”

South Australia’s premier Steven Marshall has announced his state will increase it’s international arrivals cap.

However he said it would increase from 500 to 800 per week, and rather than phrasing it as 800 international arrivals per week, he said there would be 800 hotel quarantine positions available.

Interestingly, Marshall also said that while SA currently had capacity for 500 new hotel quarantine spots per week, only 234 of these beds had been reserved for international arrivals, while the rest were for interstate arrivals.

He said under the new increases, 600 of the state’s 800 hotel quarantine spots each week would be set aside for international arrivals.

“We’ve got to play our part in the repatriation of Australian citizens who are stranded overseas,” Marshall said.

Michael McCormack earlier today called for the state to increase its international arrival intake by 360.

Meanwhile, Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, responding to McCormack’s announcement, said she supports federal government aircraft being used to fly stranded Australians home.

She said she had previously “mentioned to the Deputy Prime Minister, that I would be more than happy to look at taking more Australians here where we have the capacity to do so”.

However a spokesman for Palaszczuk told the Guardian Queensland would need the federal government’s support to take more arrivals into its hotel quarantine.

Andrew Liveris:

Leadership is always a tough job. Leadership in today’s environment is doubly tough. Because this period of relative stability in the world has gone. It’s past. The actions I’m talking about demand agility. They demand a kind of leadership that triangulates, triangulates what the private sector, the public sector and civil society. That are engaged as a partnership model, equally, as equal stakeholders. Here in Australia, we need to talk a lot more about leadership across all enterprises, building strong capability in management that is fit for today’s purpose is a must. If you look at the reality, look at the reality, make your choices, build a team and make the decisions to implement, lead the change. Not only do that once, repeat, repeat, repeat!

Where does Andrew Liveris believe Australia needs to diversify?

We need to diversify to ASEAN and to India in our near north. How do we strike that balance? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work that out.

You have to lead. You have to step up. In the 21st century, Australia has to be known to be a leader, to punch above its weight.

Specifically, there are four things that I believe we should be doing.

One I’ve explained above – we have to diversify economic interests as fast as possible away from one trading partner.

Two, we need to build resiliency and diversify our economy by building a manufacturing sector for the 21st century, a manufacturing sector based on advanced technologies, based on technologies that we scale to the world from us. And not merely a domestic market.

Third, we must invest and be a leader in sustainable technologies and infrastructure.

Yes, green technologies, green infrastructure. To protect the environment and value our ecosystems.

Fourth, we need to restructure, reset and promote the skill base of our citizens.

All four, simultaneous, in parallel, integrated.

Updated

Andrew Liveris has moved onto China in his speech:

The acceleration of China’s march up the economic ladder, relying less on exports to other nations and more on its own goods that are produced and that it consumes itself is irreversible.

The acceleration on building a barrier around themselves, both economically and militarily, is the China we will see for the next many decades.

China has realised it will have to exert its own power. And it has a lot to exert.

How to respond to that if you’re a near neighbour is critical.

The most important conversation to be had is how to ensure that economic interests of a nation are not confused with the security interests of a nation.

Making sure one doesn’t mix them up by making decisions on how to deal with this new reality of the new China.

I don’t think that that China is going to particularly go out there and pick fights or start wars but it is going to flex its muscles.

That, I’m afraid, likely means more Hong Kongs.

That means, as a result, our moral code is going to be tested and questioned on how do we respond.

China will remain a big consumer of goods that Australia produces. And we’ve got to keep developing that relationship for our own mercantile benefit and, frankly, for theirs.

When we confuse mercantile interests with what are the issues of principle, that’s when we get into trouble.

We need to keep the diplomatic channels wide open, to speak frankly and to speak our mind in private with China’s government about what we believe, what our standards are, what our values are, but at the same time we need to keep the flow of trade moving between our two countries. Both of these things can and must be kept in balance. We must also frankly need to immunise ourselves against reliance on one country, on China. Australia has to diversify so we’re not put in a compromised position.

Updated

Among the successes the response centre is claiming:

  • More than 170 ADF personnel have supported the work of the Response Centre.
  • A 100-strong ADF deployment has visited 452 facilities to deliver prevention training.
  • 40 ADF clinicians are providing on-the-ground medical support.
  • A tri-service support system of 34 Army, Navy and Air Force officers are also embedded within the Response Centre, fulfilling a range of cross-functional Planning, Operations and Intelligence duties.
  • The Commission for Aged Care Quality and Safety has worked closely with the Response Centre and has completed 169 spot-checks on facilities around Victoria.
  • Western Health has also assisted with prevention measures at 37 facilities.
  • Australian Medical Assistance Teams (AUSMAT) have completed 174 visits to 80 facilities, with 40 personnel from across the country.
  • Daily Zoom meetings and webinars are ongoing with facilities to assist with best practice in the prevention space and supporting return to work arrangements for furloughed staff. 14 meetings have been held to date with around 500 participants.
  • In partnership with peak industry bodies, the Response Centre is co-hosting a ‘Lunch & Learn’ webinar series on a range of aged care topics, including preparation and prevention, PPE and enhancing communications with families. 500 participants have registered for the five-part series.
  • Peak bodies for the aged care sector have also come together in a weekly stakeholder meeting co-chaired by the Federal Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, the Hon. Richard Colbeck, and State Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers, the Hon. Luke Donnellan.
  • The Response Centre continues to work with aged care facilities to support their communications with families and the primary contacts of residents. The Response Centre has provided direct communications support to eight facilities during acute outbreaks, facilitating a total of 956 outbound calls and 740 inbound calls.

Updated

It has been seven weeks since the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre was set up:

With 170 outbreaks in Victorian aged care facilities to date, the work of the Response Centre has seen the number of ‘Category 1’ facilities fall to zero from a high of 13 in early August. In addition, there were 119 facilities on the Response Centre’s ‘Category 2’ list of facilities at risk, which this week has reduced to only three.

Much of these positive developments can be attributed to the Response Centre’s rapid intervention effort, comprising of more than 450 hospital transfers, enhanced infection control and screening practices, and the deployment of a surge workforce flown in from right around the country.

A remaining 78 facilities are currently experiencing outbreaks, this is 50 less than at the peak of the outbreak. The Response Centre is working alongside case managers, public health units, peak bodies and aged care providers to actively monitor and support these facilities as required.

With the acute situation defused, the Response Centre is further ramping up its prevention effort and has begun supporting residents to return to their aged care homes. The Epping Gardens aged care facility now has 15 residents who have been transferred back to their residence.

To date, 94 per cent of metropolitan facilities and 89 per cent of regional facilities have received an in-person prevention visit, where multi-disciplinary teams have provided practical solutions for infection control, assessed existing procedures, and boosted infection and prevention control measures.

Updated

Andrew Liveris, the former Dow Chemical chief who sits on the board of a Saudi oil and gas company and is advising the government on kickstarting manufacturing in this country (spoiler – it involves gas) is the National Press Club guest today.

Updated

Western Australia’s premier, Mark McGowan, has criticised the deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, for publicly demanding states increase their international arrival caps, calling the move “very directly outside the spirit of the national cabinet”.

McGowan didn’t rule out increasing Perth’s intake to 1,025 arrivals per week – an increase of 500 requested by McCormack – but instead called on the federal government to open commonwealth quarantine facilities as a way of increasing the arrival caps.

McGowan said he was surprised by McCormack’s announcement he had sent letters to state and territory leaders demanding the increases:

I would have thought these things should be discussed at national cabinet rather than a letter being released to the press prior to it being brought to the attention of the relevant premiers

There are commonwealth facilities out there, defence bases, immigration facilities that could be used for two weeks quarantine for people returning from overseas. I’d urge the commonwealth to have a look at those facilities as a measure.

Quarantine and customs is a federal responsibility. But we’re obviously picking up the slack. We’re saying to the commonwealth work with us, don’t palm it all off, don’t say it’s just for states ... The commonwealth can resolve this if it wants to.”

McGowan said increasing WA’s caps wasn’t as simple as allowing more returned Australians to quarantine in empty hotel rooms in Perth, as there were “management and quality” issues.

Updated

OK, there has been a lot of questions about why the Queensland chief health officer is the one making the decisions in Queensland, in terms of exemptions, directions and the rest.

Well, it’s because that is the law in Queensland.

Under the Public Health Act, the power to give directions sits with the CHO:

Power to give directions

(1) This section applies if the chief health officer reasonably believes it is necessary to give a direction under this section (a public health direction) to assist in containing, or to respond to, the spread of COVID-19 within the community.

(2) The chief health officer may, by notice published on the department’s website or in the gazette, give any of the following public health directions— (

a) a direction restricting the movement of persons;

(b) a direction requiring persons to stay at or in a stated place;

(c)a direction requiring persons not to enter or stay at or in a stated place;

(d)a direction restricting contact between persons;

(e) any other direction the chief health officer considers necessary to protect public health.

That is different to other states, but it is the law in Queensland - the CHO makes the rules.

Updated

So that is a no from Victoria and a no, for now, from the ACT in response to Michael McCormack’s request to take on more returned travellers:

Stepping outside Covid to other ongoing issues involving Australians for a moment - there are reports the last of the Australian children living in Syria’s al-Hawl refugee camp have been moved by Kurdish Authorities and are now in an area advocates say means the Australian government could repatriate them.

Save the Children’s Mat Tinkler:

These Australian children are innocent.

They deserve to be brought home to Australia, that is the only place Australia can guarantee their safety.

There is really no practical or serious barrier to bringing them home now, it just needs the political will from the Australian Government.

Updated

The Parenthood, an advocacy group for parents, has called on the government to use next month’s budget to develop a plan to address “the pink recession gripping the country”.

It issued the call after the Australia Institute, a progressive thinktank, released modelling showing that men would gain twice as much of the benefit as women if the Morrison government fast-tracks the next round of income tax cuts. You can read more about that modelling in our story from this morning.

The Parenthood’s executive director, Georgie Dent, said rather than bringing forward the tax cuts, the government would be better off investing in universal, high-quality early learning services in order to help women back into the workforce.

“The Morrison government prides itself on being sound economic managers yet in the throes of a ‘pink recession’, where women are disproportionately affected by unemployment and underemployment, they’re happy for tax cuts designed in a way that means women lose out.”

Dent said it was time “to proactively design policies and packages that will deliver for women” or there was a real risk of “another generation of Australian women being relegated to life-long economic insecurity and poverty”.

The comments follow a call from Natasha Stott Despoja last month for the government to apply a “gender lens” when it draws up the next federal budget.

Australia’s candidate to the United Nations committee on the elimination of discrimination against women had urged the government to look beyond “shovel-ready” stimulus projects and to support female-dominated, low-paid sectors at the frontline of the pandemic response in the budget in October.

Facebook has appeared at the joint standing committee on electoral matters, defending their handling of electoral misinformation on its platform.

Simon Milner, Facebook’s Asia-Pacific vice-president, outlined what Facebook has done to combat misinformation including:

  • Removing 1.5bn fake accounts
  • Banning material that suppresses voting or misrepresents the process of voting such as how when and where to vote
  • Fact-checking news stories; and
  • Banning all foreign ads relating to Australian politics during the 2019 campaign.

But he told the inquiry that in general Facebook does “not fact-check political advertising” with the only exceptions being if they could “lead to real world harm”.

Milner said:

“That’s pretty consistent with regulation around the world. It’s generally accepted that media companies should not interfere with that, because it is effectively interfering in a democratic process.”

Milner put the onus on governments to improve regulation.

“We’d like to see [the field] more thoroughly regulated, so it’s not a case of us as a tech company headquartered in the US making decisions” such as banning foreign ads about Australian politics, he said.

Facebook fact-checked just 17 articles about Australian politics during the 2019 election, but Milner said AI is then applied to treat “thousands” of similar posts.

Milner also called for the Australian election material blackout to apply to digital platforms:

“We’ve taken the position in previous inquiries that if Australian policymakers consider the blackout remains the right policy approach, we would be supportive of extending it to online advertising. To ensure parity between those currently captured and those who aren’t.”

Updated

The medical advisory panel to national cabinet never formally recommended hotel quarantine for returned travellers before the prime minister’s 26 March announcement, Victoria’s chief health officer, Prof Brett Sutton, has confirmed.

When the prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced what came to be known as the hotel quarantine program on 26 March following a national cabinet meeting between Morrison and the state premiers and territory chief ministers, he said the decisions were “based on the medical expert advice that we receive in terms of the restrictions that are necessary to deal with the management of the outbreak of the virus in Australia”.

However, Sutton told Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry that the national committee of chief health officers, the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee – on which he is a member and advised the national cabinet on Covid-19 – never made a recommendation for hotel quarantine prior to the announcement.

“I think it’s fair to say that the specific question in terms of a recommendation to national cabinet didn’t come up,” Sutton said.

It was a topic of discussion, but there was no formal recommendation, he said, and he wasn’t aware hotel quarantine would be brought in until the press conference.

“It’s fair to say until national cabinet has decided an issue, it’s not a fait accompli ... So I guess no one should expect in advance of federal cabinet deliberations, what an outcome might be.”

Sutton said he ultimately supported the decision to quarantine all returned travellers, and he said he took it “on face value” that it was true when Morrison said the decisions were based on medical advice.

Updated

Victoria’s health commissioner, Brett Sutton, has confirmed at least one guest left hotel quarantine not knowing they had contracted Covid-19 and then subsequently passed on the virus to the person who picked them up.

The Victorian hotel quarantine inquiry heard on Wednesday that although Victoria now extends hotel quarantine for an extra 10 days for returned travellers who refuse to be tested for Covid-19 on day 11 of their 14-day stay, the view of Sutton and the Victorian government was that testing should not be mandatory.

In late June, the government reported around 30% of the 18,000 travellers who came through hotel quarantine refused testing.

The inquiry heard one person who completed their quarantine at the Stamford Plaza Hotel left the hotel without being tested and was positive for Covid-19 with a genomic strain linked to the hotel as the source. They subsequently infected the person who picked them up and took them home.

Sutton said this incident contributed to the decision to require an extended stay for those who weren’t tested on day 11.

“I think that that has become part of the reflections on strengthening the testing regimen within hotel quarantine for that very purpose,” he said.

Sutton said while he was empowered to force testing, there was a view of the outbreak team that coercive powers to force testing would not help people be compliant.

“The trust and rapport that is fundamental to being able to engage with people and have the honest provision of information, and also the willingness of people to come forward for testing with an understanding that if they test positive, they will need to go through a process of defining their close contacts constraining where they move to and constraining their behaviours,” he said.

“There is always a trade off, if there is an individual who might not be providing that information, or who might not be compliant with advice, what the consequences might be for the broader community, going forward.”

Updated

NSW reports 10 new cases of coronavirus

Now, just catching up on what else happened in that hour, NSW has reported 10 new cases of Covid in the last 24 hours.

Four were locally acquired.

NSW Health:

There were 19,566 tests reported in the 24-hour reporting period, compared with 8,835 in the previous 24 hours.

Of the ten new cases to 8pm last night:

  • Six are overseas travellers in hotel quarantine
  • Four are locally acquired and linked to a known case or cluster

One of the new cases is a close contact of a previously confirmed case linked to the CBD cluster. They had completed self-isolation prior to becoming symptomatic and had previously tested negative. Contact tracing is underway.

Three of the new cases are linked to a staff member from Concord Emergency Department. They include:

· a student at Blue Mountains Grammar School who attended school while infectious late last week

· a household contact of the above case who did not attend school while infectious.

· a close contact of the above student who is not at school.

Contact tracing is underway. Blue Mountains Grammar School senior school (years 10, 11, 12) has moved to online learning until after the school holidays.

Two of the cases above visited the Springwood Sports Club, 83 Macquarie Road, Springwood, and anyone who attended on 12 September from 1 pm to 2 pm time is considered a casual contact and must monitor for symptoms and get tested immediately if they develop. After testing, they must remain in isolation until a negative test result is received.

These cases also visited Lawson oval, Lawson. Anyone who attended on 13 September from 10:30 am to 12:45 pm is also considered a casual contact and must monitor for symptoms and get tested immediately if they develop. After testing, they must remain in isolation until a negative test result is received.

People who attended the above venues who are identified as close contacts are being contacted by NSW Health. Close contacts must immediately isolate and get tested for COVID-19 and remain in isolation for a full 14 days after their contact, even if the test result is negative.

One of the cases reported today attended the Hunters Hill Bowling Club on Tuesday 8th September from 6:50pm to 9pm. NSW Health is contacting all patrons who were at the venue at this time to review their exposure and identify any close contacts. Anyone who was at the venue at this time should be alert for symptoms and immediately get tested if any develop or have developed since this exposure, and stay isolated until a negative test result is received.

One of the cases reported today attended the JB HIFI Penrith Plaza on Sunday 13 September from 4pm to 4.30pm. Anyone who was at the venue at this time should be alert for symptoms and immediately get tested if any develop or have developed since this exposure, and stay isolated until a negative test result is received.

NSW Health is also advising that a previously reported case attended Anytime Fitness, Casula on Friday 11 September from 10:15am to 12pm. All people who attended the gym during this time are considered a casual contact and must monitor for symptoms and get tested immediately if they develop. After testing, they must remain in isolation until a negative test result is received.

Updated

That’s where the Daniel Andrews press conference ends.

On the issue of ‘permanent’ road blocks, that is what it sounded like and that is what the Tveeder transcript said and Andrews said something similar yesterday. I am checking whether it should be ‘prominent’.

No one is suggesting there will be a divide between metro Melbourne and regional Victoria forever - but just like for the moment there are fixed roadblocks set up at borders, there will be stronger static roadblocks between metro Melbourne and regional Victoria while restrictions are lifted in one area and not the other.

Q: There’s been parents asking for, when metropolitan schools open up, for Grade 6 rather than Grade 2 to be allowed in first. Has there been medical advice that suggest why the younger levels compared to Grade 6 would be able to go back?

Daniel Andrews:

This is as much about volume as it is about anything else. With the greatest of respect to parents of Grade 6s and to Grade 6s themselves - I know it’s an important year but if you were to ask the parent of a Grade 6 student, they’ll be committed to trying to have an element of normal in term 4 for their child.

If you ask parents of preps, 1s and 2s, they’ll be equally committed to having those children not at home but either in childcare, which now opens up as well as part of these steps, and back at school.

They’re difficult judgements to make. They’d obviously be easier if we could safely have every student at every school back pretty much on the same day. We just can’t do that. We’re not in that place.

Again, it’s not a commentary on school being high or low conservative. It’s about movement. Just the sheer volume of movement and the aggregate impact that has.

That’s how you finish up with R number that’s not at 0.7-ish, with every person giving it to more than 1 other.

Students will be staggered over two weeks of term and myself and the Education Minister will have - they go into holidays at the end of this week, to there is a little bit of time. We’d have them all back on the one day if we could, but feedback from schools, feedback from teachers and staff, that needs to be done in a staggered way, but certainly by the end of week 2 in term 4, we will have everyone back at school in regional Victoria, across both the Catholic, Independent and the government sector. Which is a fantastic outcome.

Can Melbourne look at just locking down aged care, but opening up other areas?

Daniel Andrews:

I know some things in this are counter-intuitive and I’ve heard from not unreasonable people that have got no other agenda, they’ve made the point - can’t we just lock down aged care and everything else can open up?

The first point to make is aged care is pretty well locked down now. You haven’t got many visitors going in. You’ve got staff working at one place, by and large.

You’ve got very, very strict infection control protocols and, my latest advice - this is principally a matter for the Commonwealth given they regulate and fund the vast majority of these.

We’ve got a couple of hundred of these aged care facilities and they’re in a very, very different place to private aged care. I’ve got no report that compliance isn’t high.

So it’s under very, very strict rules at the moment. As we’ve said, and we’ve all come to know, even one case in an aged care facility is treated like an outbreak of 250 cases at a meat works, for instance, because we know how vulnerable people are.

Once it gets in to aged care, the fact of the matter is it’s very, very hard to pull it up, very hard. It is a little easier now because we’ve seen standards rise.

We’ve got a much more concerted approach to. It we’ve also got less community transmission in the Victorian community as well as the numbers come down.

What I’m saying to you is everything that can be done in aged care is being done. I don’t know that there are too many more steps you could take or changes you could make to the way aged care operates to get to this hard lockdown, if you like, that would mean you’d made such a step changes that you could change settings elsewhere. It’s just a really challenging environment.

But all my briefs, all my advice says that it’s, you know, in a better position now than it’s been in for a long time but we have to be vigilant, because even just one worker goes to work sick, takes it into one of these places and all of a sudden it’s not one case for long.

It can be many, many people short answer - we’re doing as much as we can to control infections and the transmission of the virus in aged care and I certainly have no advice that there’s 6 or 8 further steps we could take that would allow cafes and restaurants to open.

Believe me, if there were, we could do it. We absolutely would do it and we’d do it in good time.

There will be no changes to daylight saving in Victoria.

Q: Did Mr Eccles relate the email to you?

Daniel Andrews:

I’m not getting into a commentary on these matters. It’s not appropriate. It’s an active process and the people, myself and others, will be assisting the inquiry next week. It’s not really appropriate for me to be commenting on those matters.

Q: Have you spoken to him since yesterday’s hearing?

Andrews: No, I have not spoken to him since yesterday’s hearing.

Q: Brett Sutton is before the inquiry today. His written submission says he did not know security guards were being used until after the outbreak. Is that something he was consulted about?

Andrews: It’s not for me to interpret, comment or make findings about a written statement in written evidence. That’s before the inquiry. I’d scarily have time to do anything else if I were to pretend to run an inquiry as well as doing the other work.

Will Victorians have time to prepare for bushfire season?

Daniel Andrews:

That’s a very good point. We would normally have Fire Action Week or the beginning of the fire season in October, so it’s still a few weeks off. We know and understand this is a really significant issue.

At the same time, though, it’s 2020, so nothing is simple. We’ve got the bureau forecasting substantial rain eveins later in spring. It’s challenging.

We’ll get people to their second residences to do the important clean-up work as soon as we possibly can do that safely without undermining some of the points I made earlier about mass movement, you need to be careful, really careful, that we’re not having people travelling even for the best of purposes taking the virus with them.

It’s a tough balance but I’m confident we’ll strike the right one. There’s been other issues raised with me as well. Many people, for instance, the member for Bentley, today raised an issue with me that he had a number of people in his local community asking questions about what if there’s been damage to my second residence and I go to make an insurance claim and I haven’t been there for a couple of months. Will the insurance company process the claim? Perfectly legitimate question.

We’re going to talk to the Insurance Council today about a process for that.

And I’m confident the insurance industry will step up, just as they did with fast-tracking special consideration during the bushfires.

So we’ll get people in there as soon as we can. That is very important work. We all benefit from that work being done but it’s got to be safe and it’s got to be, as best we can, we’ve got to limit the likelihood that those people travelling into-in-to do that work are taking the coronavirus with them.

We wouldn’t want that to happen. In terms of a date, I can’t give you a definitive date but as soon as we question, we’ll come back.

Updated

Q: Last month you it told the public accounts and estimates committee that it’s fundamentally incorrect to assert there was hundreds of ADF staff on offer to Victoria and somehow someone said no. Do you stand by that statement?

Daniel Andrews: Yes, I do. My statements have been accurate and I will be assisting the inquiry next week.

Q: That appears to contradict the evidence we heard yesterday: We heard that the secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Philip Gaetjens, wrote to your departmental secretary, Chris Eccles, in an email entitled “assistance re hotel security” and he said he was sure the commonwealth would be willing to assist with ADF personnel if Victoria wanted to “reconsider its operating model”.

He replied saying, “Thanks, Phil”.

In light of that, who is right about this? Why does your statement appear to contradict that?

Andrews: All can I can say is the statements I’ve made are accurate. I stand by those statements and I’ll be providing evidence next week and it’s not appropriate for me to run debates back and forth. You’re fine to ask the question but there’s a live process going on. I’m not distant from it. I’ll be part of that process next week.

Q: With all due respect, how can your statement have been correct when it directly contradicts this email trail?

Andrews:

That’s entirely a matter that relates to a whole lot of detail both within the email and beyond that it’s not appropriate for me to get into. I’ve answered your question. It’s exactly the same answer I gave yesterday because it’s accurate, it’s truthful and others can seek to play games with this. I’m focused on getting this job done and the statements I’ve made are accurate

Updated

Q: There’s a growing amount of legal cases against the state government for lost earnings tracing back to hotel quarantine failures, including a class action with more than 100 plaintiffs. Are you worried that taxpayers will end up forking out money?

Daniel Andrews:

I understand why the question is asked. The only answer I can give you is that, because this is foreshadowed legal action, I’m no position to comment on it. I’m focused on getting these numbers down and then being able to open up and stay open. I simply can’t be drawn on those sorts of matters.

Updated

What would Daniel Andrews say to the families of those suffering from a mental illness, given what they have seen?

Andrews:

I’d say to every Victorian who lives with mental illness, their carers, their families, we understand that there are massive gaps in the mental health system and I think that ... I’m not necessarily seeking credit for it, it’s just a fact.

I don’t think there’s many leaders in this country who have acknowledged the abject failures in our mental health system more clearly and more impactfully than I have, than the government I lead.

A royal commission commission that’s on at the moment will give us the answers we need and a massive reform agenda. Many of the things that have been exposed in our mental health system over these last seven or eight months, nine months, will be able to deal with those things.

To every client, to every consumer, to every career and to every clinician across mental health, these issues are very serious. We take them seriously.

We are doing everything we can to keep you safe and to make sure there’s a system that’s connected, a system that’s efficient, a system that delivers you the care that you need. That’s about dignity. It’s about the absolute acknowledgement that one in five Victorians will experience mental health issues this year but five in five Victorians have a stake in this system being so, so much better and I look forward to the royal commission’s recommendations early next year and as I will just remind you, we have committed - we’re the only ones, I think, in the state - that have committed to implement every single one of the recommendations that royal commission produces.

Updated

Does the Victorian premier think public trust in the Victorian police has been damaged given the footage and images from the last week?

Daniel Andrews:

I think you’d appreciate that it’s challenging for me to be drawn into detailed commentary of incidents but I’ll add to what I said yesterday. An officer was stood down.

I think that’s appropriate. And the Victorian community can be confident that where there’s an issue, where there’s a need to investigate, where there’s a need to find out exactly what’s begun on there, then there’s a proper process that’s there.

That should inspire confidence. More broadly, Victoria police are doing very difficult work.

They are very committed to the task that they have and that is to keep Victorians safe and from time to time there are people who do the wrong thing and I would just appeal to all Victorians, you know, if you’re asked to provide your licence and your name and where you live so that you can be determined whether you’re 5km from your house or not, whether you should be in regional Victoria or not, so on and so forth, the easiest thing to do is just to do that.

That avoids so much conflict. That avoids so much of the ... So many of the challenges that we’ve seen highlighted in recent days. That doesn’t cover every single matter but many of those incidents would be very different in nature and perhaps not happen at all if people simply respected the fact that Victoria police have got a tough job to do.

They try to do it in a polite and civil way and were pro-vide your details. Where, of course, there’s any claim or allegation that police have not acted in that way, then people should have confidence that those matters are properly investigated and I’ll allow those processes to run their course.

Updated

Will Victoria take on any more hotel quarantine travellers, given Michael McCormack’s request?

No.

Daniel Andrews:

My answer has not changed. I think it’s important. We’re informed by the process going on at the moment. I know it’s challenging. In a similar vein, South Australia, to the best of my understanding, or doing some trial work in relation to international students. That’s another market we need to get open as well. So yes, it’s people returning. I do appreciate there’s significant frustration with the caps that have been put on changed arranges.

They’re not just a function of the fact that Victoria is not taking planes. I don’t think that the moment we do, the caps will come off. I think there will still be some limits because, you know, it’s obviously challenging, total capacity within that quarantine system is, you know, it can only go so far.

We’re very grateful to other capital cities that have taken the planes that would have otherwise come here. We’ll get to the points that we can recommence that. But that is not for today and when I make that announcement I want to give you all the details that sit behind it.

Updated

Daniel Andrews is checking on what the advice is for people from regional Victoria who want to travel to another region – and whether they can travel through metro Melbourne to get there.

Updated

Camping and national parks are still being worked out – as in where you can camp, how and which national parks in regional Victoria will be opened.

Updated

You’ll find out what is considered a lawful reason to travel into regional Victoria.

(Another of those very weird sentences. I get why, but it doesn’t make it any less strange.)

Updated

But more fines and penalties are coming.

Daniel Andrews:

I’ll leave it to Victoria police to make those announcements. They’ll talk about checkpoints that will be [edit note: double checking this - could be prominent].

They’re talking about a high percentage of cars that will be stopped. It’s almost certain that if you think you’re going to break these rules, A, you’ll be in a queue for a fair while, and, B, you will get asked to demonstrate why you’re travelling to regional Victoria and if you don’t have a lawful reason, you will be fined. I’ll leave it to Victoria police to announce some new penalties.

We’ve got to be inflexible on this. We have to be determined and focus and my message to every single regional Victorian is we’re going to do everything we together can to make sure the virus is not travelling into regional Victoria from people who have no lawful reason to be in regional Victoria.

I’ll just say that as well: this is not so much a matter for Victoria police. They may go to it but we’ve been having very, very good discussions with, for instance, the Australian Hotels Association and others, to make sure that when they’re serving customers, when they’ve got their 20 people inside and their 50 people outside and they’re running many hundreds of customers throughout the course of the day, people will need to establish that they have a lawful reason to be able to access those premises, those businesses that are open.

If you’re not from regional Victoria, you should not be at the pub and that compliance will be very, very important when it comes to ... It’s not just police. Not just the health department, ADF and others. It is also individual businesses playing their part and I’m grateful for the positive engagement we’ve had, everything from cleaning and making sure staff are well when they come to work and keeping their distance and all those things but also making sure that patrons and customers, wherever practical, are from regional Victoria if they are purchasing and having those experiences in regional Victoria, they need to establish they’ve got a lawful reason to be there.

That’s what’s driving this. It’s common sense.

Regional Victoria has low numbers. Let’s all jealously guard those and keep them low. Then let’s focus on getting the numbers down in metro Melbourne and let’s not have a situation where we’ve got any more fights on our hand than we need.

Updated

What did Daniel Andrews make of the footage of very long lines of cars attempting to get into regional Victoria yesterday?

Andrews:

It was a significant queue and, as I think I foreshadowed yesterday, there would be many people who would get caught in those all-too-necessary checkpoints.

Victoria police will be out at 1 today to take you through a series of steps that we’ve worked very closely with them on around penalties, around the processes and procedures that they’ll put in place and the number of cars that they’ll be stopping and I just say to anyone who is caught in one of those roadblocks, you know, that will be challenging, but nowhere near as challenging as this getting away from us again in regional Victoria.

Because people went to regional Victoria from metropolitan Melbourne Melbourne, had no lawful reason to do it, and took the virus with them.

Whether you want to call it a ring of steel or a border or whatever the term, the key thing is simple – only those who have to go to regional Victoria and have a lawful reason to go to regional Victoria can go to regional Victoria and the feedback I get from very small country towns to big regional centres is they’d love to have visitors but they love being virus-free a lot more. There will be a time for travel.

There will be a time for tourism to get back on its feet, Melbourne out into the regions and vice versa. That is not now. And Victoria police will have significant announcements to make in just a short time.

Updated

Is Daniel Andrews worried that the seven-day average seems to be slightly higher this week?

No – because it depends on where the cases come from.

Andrews:

I think that, you know, whether it’s a family in Hallam and you can get five cases in one household, you can get more than that, actually, given that there are many large families across the state ... It’s when you get into this zone it is challenging. You don’t need too many cases on any given day and all of a sudden, that can present a real challenge. But that’s why all the way through we’ve said that we’ll look at what sits behind those cases. Four, five, six, eight, 10 cases even...

If we know where the person got it, we’ve got a lid on that, we’ve got our arms around those people, then that is not a risk, there’s no mystery to that, then that’s very different even to one mystery case where we don’t have that kind of certainty.

So common sense and the story, the narrative that sits behind each and every number, that informs us all the way through and just like we were able to take the steps yesterday and from effect tonight in regional Victoria, that’s because we had models and assumptions, they were robust but they’re never as good as the actuals.

With that passage of time, as frustrating as it is, data gets replaced by actuals, assumptions get replaced by the actual numbers we’re seeing each and every day and the point I’m making is it’s not just a quantitative exercise. There’s a qualitative element to it as well and then there is, sadly, there is that passage of time element also.

Updated

Daniel Andrews says it is too early to make judgments about falling below 50 cases a day, although he says it should be happily acknowledged:

The fact that we are in the 30-to-50 band should be a point of pride, absolutely.

But we are making an assessment, not today, but in a short amount of time, about being in the 30 to 50 band and if we are, not just for a day, but for a decent period, for a significant period, then we’ll be able to make that call.

The other thing, too – I think I went to this a bit yesterday. Case numbers matter, absolutely. The story behind every one of those cases – so how did they get it? Is it contained? What risk to they pose? All of that needs to be part of it and the passage of time is, frustratingly, very, very important. Because we know this thing, part of its stubbornness is that what we do today, we can’t be certain of the outcome until 10 to 14 days. Which means the passage of time, as frustrating as that is, is a really important part of this.

So that’s why we can’t just get to a point in time where we’re just fractionally under that average of 14 days. It needs to be in that band of 30 to 50 and we need to wait a little bit longer. I know that’s challenging but, as we’ve said, we are on track, we are on track to getting to that 30-to-50 band and staying there so we can take significant steps.

Updated

Metro Melbourne’s rolling day average is at 49.6

Regional Victoria is at 0.9

Given Melbourne has hit the under-50 benchmark, can restrictions be lifted sooner?

Daniel Andrews:

What I’d say is that numbers will continue to fall if we all stay the course and as they continue to fall, we’ll have more options than we other with the would and the key point here is Victorians can be optimistic.

In Melbourne, look to what’s happening in regional Victoria. The strategy is working. For those in Melbourne, look to those 14-day averages, look to the number of people in hospital, look to the total number of active cases. On any given measure, the strategy is working.

Now, would we all like to to work even faster? Of course, but that’s not the nature of this fight. That’s not the nature of this virus. It’s stubborn and we’ve got to be as stubborn as this virus, all of us, as Victorians.

We have to see this through. We absolutely do. Because if we get ourselves into a position where frustration gets the better of us and we pretend it’s a over because we all want it to be, then we can open, but we won’t stay open for very long.

I know that’s not what people want to hear. It’s not the message I want to give. I’d prefer to be able to have a series of steps that were really quick. But that’s not the struggle. That’s not the battle. That’s not the challenge that we face.

Updated

Will you need a Covid test before surgery?

Jenny Mikakos:

Obviously, in emergency situations, urgent situations, that is not always possible. People, you know, come in and need to be operated on immediately, you know, that’s not going to be a consideration. But there has been pre-operative screening for what might be called, you know, scheduled elective surgery, where you’ve had the ability to get the phone call and be told you’re due for your surgery next week. There’s the ability there for someone to get tested and to get that result ahead of time and that’s designed to protect the patient as much as the health care workers. Because, you’re right, if someone has Covid at the time of their surgery, there are more risks of complications and a move difficult path to recovery. This is why, of course, in those circumstances, if the surgery is able to wait, the person would be required to recover from coronavirus before accessing their surgery.

Updated

If you live in metro Melbourne and are booked into a regional hospital, can you get through the roadblocks? (There are so many strange sentences which are becoming more and more normal in this pandemic).

Jenny Mikakos:

So there is the ability to access medical treatment across the metro-regional divide. That’s been part of the care, the definition of care in the state home directions. So, for example, for someone who lives in regional Victoria and they need to travel into, say the Victorian cancer centre for cancer treatment, they will be able to continue to access that treatment in Melbourne.

Similarly, we’re going to be working very closely with regional health services to try and limit the amount of trips that health care workers, in particular surgeons, are making to regional Victoria, to try and manage their surgical lists in such a way that they’re not making regular trips to regional Victoria.

So if they can try and concentrate their surgery over a number of days, or a week even, so they can stay in regional Victoria, do the surgery and then travel back to Melbourne, that just reduces the risk of people taking the virus from Melbourne into regional communities.

So we’re going to be working very closely with those regional health services and with our surgeons to make sure we can try and manage those surgical lists in a careful manner.

Updated

Are the majority of the 107 Victorians who are in hospital, diagnosed with Covid, from aged care homes?

Jenny Mikakos:

We have a significant number of aged care residents still in both public and private hospitals across Victoria.

They have started to transition back in some circumstances. And that’s been assessed by the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre with the input of both the commonwealth government, as the funder and regulator of that sector, working together with the aged care facility itself.

So our staff have had to be furloughed in a nursing home, for example, and they’ve then been able to come back and the regulator also assesses that it’s safe for those transfers to happen. We’re starting now to transfer more of those aged care residents back to what is their home.

Updated

Why start at 75% in regional Victoria – why not higher?

Jenny Mikakos:

We need to ensure there is capacity there. Currently our hospitals have been sitting on about 50%.

It varies across from hospital to hospital and across the public and private system. And it’s been determined also by local need.

So, for example, if we had an outbreak, as we had recently, at Frankston hospital, that does impact on their activity levels, responding to that.

So there needs to be some flexibility in the system. We want to make sure that there’s the capacity there to respond to outbreaks, whether it’s in particular aged care outbreak or an outbreak in the hospital itself or other significant outbreaks in the community, we need to have the capacity to respond.

So we’re going at a much faster pace in our regional hospitals, ramping up to 75%.

Usual activity from tomorrow, as regional Victoria moves to that third step and moving much faster in terms of getting to 85% by the end of September.

Of course we will continue to assess all of this as we are doing with a road map, based on the data every day, based on the advice that we get from our public health experts.

Updated

What is the Victorian waiting list looking like at the moment?

Health minister Jenny Mikakos:

We publish the figures quarterly of course and our government has made it our practice to do so. The last figures that were published in the previous quarter were roughly about 56,000. I think the figure now is approximately 60,000.

The figures change from hour to hour and day to day. Of course, as people’s needs change, and I want to stress also that as we resume this elective surgery, that people will get access to their treatment based on clinical need. For anyone who is concerned about their current condition or have any concerns that their condition may have deteriorated in recent weeks, it’s important that they speak to their GP or their specialist doctor and their place in that waiting list, their classification – whether they’re a category 2 or 3, is able then to be reviewed.

So of course we don’t make these decisions. These assessments are made by doctors, based on clinical need and people will get access to that treatment on the basis of clinical need.

Updated

Here is the official release on that:

Hospitals in metropolitan Melbourne will begin to ramp up to 75 per cent of usual activity from 28 September, when they enter the Second Step of the roadmap, and 85 per cent of usual activity when they move to the Third Step.

All Victorian hospitals will move to 100 per cent of usual activity when the state moves to the Last Step to COVID Normal, planned for 23 November.

This plan will allow for around approximately 18,750 additional elective surgeries across our private and public hospitals in October and an extra 10,500 surgeries in November.

We will also reinstate the elective surgery blitz as soon as it is safe to do so to catch up on the backlog to make sure we get as many patients into theatres as possible.

Specialist clinic consultations will increase in line with elective surgery activity and telehealth will continue to be utilised where possible to reduce face-to-face consultations.

Further changes will also mean an easing of restrictions for dental and allied health services in metropolitan Melbourne during the Second Step, from 28 September.

This means dental services in Melbourne will able to resume non-urgent procedures such as routine examinations, temporary fillings, simple extractions, preventive procedures like fluoride varnish and hand scaling, and dentures and orthodontic treatments.

AHPRA-registered allied health professionals will be able to see patients for face-to-face services for a broader range of treatments than just preventing hospital admission, such as for pain management or to prevent a deterioration in functional independence.

During the Third Step, most dental and allied health services will be able to recommence with a COVIDSafe plan, with some limitations still in place on group therapy for allied health.

Updated

There are now just 37 active cases in regional Victoria.

Daniel Andrews says elective surgeries will resume in the regions:

There are two different pathways. Obviously, regional Victoria finds itself in a better virus position than metropolitan Melbourne.

But essentially we’ll see the percentage from tomorrow in regional Victoria will go back to around 75%. 28 September will then jump to 85%.

Metropolitan Melbourne from 28 September, assuming we get between the long-term average between 30 and 50 cases, which we’re confident it will be.

They can go to 75% and then progressively build from there. To put it another way, essentially we plan under this cautious and safe reintroduction of elective surgery, we plan to have approximately 18,750 additional elective surgeries across private and public hospitals in October, and an extra 10,500 surgeries across those settings in November.

That will mean that we can deal with the backlog – and I do, again, apologise to those who have had to wait for their surgery, but the nature of this pandemic, we had to create capacity for aged care residents who potentially needed to come into hospital.

There was also a safety issue with as much virus in the community, many people who need elective surgery, they’ve got other underlying health issues, so there were a number of factors that had to be balanced there.

Category 1 surgery, the most urgent, has continued. There’s been no change to that and the most urgent category 2 have continued as well.

These will by and large be people in category 3 and those that are in that second half, or the back end of category 2.

This will be good news for them, but no one will have to wait any longer than is absolutely necessary to get the care that they need.

We’ll have more to say at the appropriate time, not just about resuming business as usual, but a substantial blitz – extra funding to make sure that extra surgery is done in quick time.

Updated

Victoria has less than 1,000 active cases

This is excellent news – there are 991 active cases of Covid across Victoria.

Things are all headed in the right direction.

Daniel Andrews:

That is significant. It is a long time since we have had less than 1,000 active cases and, again, whether it is a very targeted local personal way, your family, your community, your friends or whether it be statewide terms, this strategy is working.

Numbers are coming down and, as they come down, we have many more options.

By getting them to low levels, we have that ultimate pathway where we can find that Covid normal and lock it in and not have a situation where it lasts just a few weeks.

I appreciate the frustration. Everyone would like to get to the end of that journey as fast as possible and get back to normal but that is just not the reality that we face. And none of us, regardless of where we live, regardless of the business we run, regardless of our circumstances, none of us can pretend that the reality we face is not real.

That is the nature of having to confront reality, that is the nature of having to confront tough issues and make tough calls and that is what we have done and continue to do.

People are free, of course, to have different views and I fully acknowledge there is pain in the community and a sense of frustration.

This year is not been a good year, it has been a challenging year, but we are at our best when we see things through and when we are united in dealing with our common challenges.

Instead, we should look to what is happening in regional Victoria at 11.59 tonight and be confident we can deliver exactly that outcome in Metropolitan Melbourne and we will.

Updated

Victorian press conference

Daniel Andrews is up at the podium:

All of the eight deaths are linked to aged care.

Queensland will be examining this declaration at the end of the month (as is normal)

Soooooo that was clear as mud.

Michael McCormack has written to the premiers and chief ministers asking them to accept more Australians wanting to return home.

But from his language, it is impossible to tell whether there has been an agreement to accept 2000 more - making it 6000 a week, up from 4000, or whether the deputy premier just wants it to happen.

Just another day with Michael McCormack in charge.

Michael McCormack:

Victoria, with the situation there, a few more than 40 cases today, you know, it is a situation that is improving but, until the situation improves to even a better state, then there will not be international flights into Melbourne.

There are more than 20 international carriers coming into Australia. Of course, Virgin and Qantas, our international carriers are not flying internationally at the moment.

But they are flying as best they can around the country and that is why it is important to get more interstate travel and that border restrictions are eased so that we get more planes in the air because, as I have said repeatedly, planes in the air means jobs on the ground.

The aviation industry was hit hard and first. I want to make sure that more Australians can return home.

There are some heart-wrenching stories. I heard one yesterday of a young woman in the United States of America who has found it very difficult to be able to come home.

We appreciate these stories, heart-wrenching and heartbreaking .

Updated

But he is written to the state and territory leaders asking them to increase the number of returned travellers they are willing to accept for hotel quarantine.

Michael McCormack:

I have written to each and every one of the premiers and chief ministers to tell them that the caps for international flights, based on quarantine levels and based on our reasonable records in recent days and weeks, as far as the number of cases of Covid, we want to make sure that we can get all Australians home.

We want those returning Australians to be able to do so. At the moment there are about 4,000 coming home per week.

I want to raise that to 6,000. I have written to premiers and chief ministers to make that possible.

So that we can bring home 2,000 more Australians over and above what we have been doing in recent weeks.

This has been due to discussions taking place in national cabinet and at regular national cabinet meetings on a weekly basis that I have with my transport ministers across the country.

This is important. What we want to do is we want to make sure we increase the numbers of returning Australians to NSW by 500. NSW has carried the biggest load of Australians coming back and I thank to the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, and her government for making that possible.

We will increase the number of Australians coming into Sydney by 500.

As well 500 more will be coming into Queensland and I urge and encourage Annastacia Palaszczuk to look at the Gold Coast and Cairns.

Likewise WA is increasing its capacity by 500.

SA about 360.

I have just finished a phone call with Premier Steven Marshall and he wants to do as much as he can to help Australians into Adelaide. More people coming in, more flight coming in means more freights going out and he is very keen to see south Australian produce to be able to go out to export markets that SA engages and trades with.

I would like to see as many possible in Tasmania, NT, the ACT. Want to more Australians being able to come home. I have written to those territories and states to see what capacity they quarantine can have at this point in time.

Updated

Michael McCormack seems to be blaming Australians who didn’t come back to Australia when the pandemic was first declared for the fact they are now stranded overseas.

There are many, many reasons why Australians did not return. Jobs, visa issues with loved ones, pregnancies, areas where return flights were not simple, money – the list goes on.

The deputy prime minister then uses the same argument the states with closed borders have made (a move which has been criticised by the federal government, including McCormack himself) when defending why Australia has a closed international border.

When Covid first hit our shores, this global pandemic, the prime minister and I, and indeed others in parliament, have tried to get as many Australians at home as possible.

We put out the call to Australians to come back home. For any given time there are hundreds of thousands of Australians abroad for varying reasons and that is all well and good but we did encourage Australians to come home.

It has been a difficult situation for some trying to get home and we have acknowledged that.

We have worked with the national cabinet and I have worked every week with my national transport ministers and ministers around the country with weekly discussions to discuss this situation and that is how we so successfully got through the transport code to ensure there was ease of access and availability to get across borders when premise close borders. International borders were closed early in the piece.

They were closed when we wanted to make sure that we protected Australians very much from this global pandemic which has caused so much misery and heartache and so many deaths around the world.

In a sense we have been lucky that there is only 1,800 deaths and that is tragic for those families, but when you look at the number of deaths in total compared to any country, we have done very well and we continue to work hard as a federal government and indeed all governments adding their part to ensure that they minimise at all levels the number of deaths from this awful situation.

Updated

Victorian CHO professor Brett Sutton is giving evidence at the Victorian hotel quarantine inquiry this morning.

He is looking pretty relaxed as he answers questions about who takes charge in a pandemic with this stuff:

It is fair to say the chief human biosecurity officer in any jurisdiction doesn’t have different powers to a human biosecurity officer in general.

There is a title that is held so there is a go-to, if you like, as the chief human biosecurity person, if you like ... But under the act it is the same for all human biosecurity officers.

Updated

The Victorian state government is facing court actions in the wake of the second wave.

There is also an action against the curfew.

Paul Karp has covered the release of Covid infections in aged care homes:

The Australian government has begun releasing a weekly snapshot of Covid-19 deaths and infections in aged care homes, despite earlier attempting to keep secret the identity of providers with fewer than five cases.

The health department secretary, Brendan Murphy, had previously asked the Senate’s Covid-19 committee not to publish a full list of providers with outbreaks, claiming publication of the data could distract from care and discourage staff from attending work.

The first snapshot, published on Saturday, contains the names of 115 aged care providers with two or more cases of Covid-19, but still omits the names of a further 98 providers with just one case.

Updated

It is 10.45am again for Daniel Andrews today.

Updated

The Victorian opposition yesterday was talking about Victoria’s elective surgery waiting list blowing out to 100,000 – but the NSW Health figures show that it is a problem for the NSW Coalition government as well – all categories of elective surgery waits are up, with the total number surpassing 100,000.

It’ll be the same for all governments – that’s because elective surgeries were put on hold after the pandemic declaration.

Updated

You’ll be hearing more and more about this.

Via AAP:

Almost two-thirds of medium-sized companies are concerned economic activity faces a significant decline, resulting in even higher unemployment, when the federal government unwinds its COVID-19 stimulus measures.

As Treasurer Josh Frydenberg puts together his delayed 2020/21 federal budget for October 6, a KPMG Enterprise survey found over half of private, mid-sized firms and family businesses have benefited from measures like JobKeeper.

Increasing the GST and raised productivity to drive revenue growth were considered the two measures that would be most effective to help reduce government debt, scoring 41 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.

“Interestingly, raising GST was the only tax-raising measure considered an effective option for the government,” KPMG Enterprise national tax leader Clive Bird said.

“Previous KPMG modelling has shown that overall economic welfare is improved if the GST base is expanded, even if the rate is kept at 10 per cent and other ‘inefficient taxes’, like insurance taxes and stamp duties on motor vehicles, are abolished.”

Per Capita’s annual tax survey found almost two-thirds of respondents want to see JobSeeker increased by at least $75 per week.

Nearly a quarter believe the dole payment should remain at least at the increased rate provided through the coronavirus supplement of $275 a week.

Just over half thought negative gearing should be restricted or abolished, while 57 per cent said there should be a cap on tax reductions for high income earners.

Modelling conducted by the Australia Institute found men on high incomes would be the main beneficiaries if already-legislated tax cuts are brought forward as flagged by the federal government.

The study found if the tax cuts scheduled from 2022/23 are introduced earlier, for every dollar of tax cut that women would get, men would get $2.28.

If at the same time tax cuts planned from 2024/25 are also brought forward, men would get $2.19 for every dollar a woman would get.

Previous modelling by the institute showed higher earners would benefit more from these tax cuts, and are more likely to save the benefit than spend it.

“Giving tax cuts to the wealthy will have a very limited stimulatory effect on the broader economy, but it will significantly widen the economic divide that already exists between men and women in this country,” the institute’s senior economist Matt Grudnoff said.

There are several changes due in the 2022/23 tax cuts, including an increase in the threshold of the 32.5 cent bracket from $37,000 to $45,000 and the threshold of the 37 cent bracket from $90,000 to $120,000.

In 2024/25, the tax cuts reduce the 32.5 cent rate to 30 cents.

The Per Capita survey found just 13 per cent of voters think the distribution of the final stage of these cuts is about right.

Updated

Queensland has recorded no new cases of Covid in the last 24 hours.

The health minister, Steven Miles, has begun mentioning what is happening in other states as part of his briefings – the not-so-subtle message being “this isn’t happening in Queensland because of the border controls”:

We’ve had four cases over the last five days, all of those in quarantine and just five cases over the last seven days, which is very promising.

The three days prior to that we had 12 cases mostly related to those clusters.

That is designed to give you just a sense of how we are getting on top of those clusters, particularly in the south side of Brisbane and the Ipswich area.

It’s very, very good work and I’d like to congratulate particularly the staff of the Ipswich hospital and the west Moreton and metro south public health units as well as everyone else involved in that effort, from our chief health officer right throughout the teams.

While we also see other states, particularly New South Wales and Victoria, continuing to make progress, sadly more people lost their lives to Covid-19 in Victoria in the last 24 hours than have in the entire year here in Queensland, tragically eight deaths in Victoria in the last 24 hours compared to six in Queensland all up.

Our total number of cases now sits at 1,149 and I’m really pleased to report that we’ve seen a rebound in that testing rate. Earlier in the week we indicated concern in the drop-off in the number of people getting tested in. The last testing period we tested 6,424 people back within that 5,000 to 10,000 range in which we hope to be testing to ensure we aren’t missing any community transmission.

Updated

Barnaby Joyce appears to be driving around his electorate opening bridges. Unofficially.

I have had a few questions about where the new Melbourne infections were coming from, given the strict lockdowns.

The last time this question was addressed, the answer was workplaces.

Dreamworld opens today for the first time in six months, after receiving a $70m loan from the Queensland government.

But as always, it is the 14-day average we are looking at.

Casey Briggs follows this for the ABC (one day I should apologise to my maths teachers – it really does come in handy).

Updated

Victoria records 42 new cases and eight deaths

Very sad news in Victoria again, with eight people diagnosed with Covid dying in the last 24 hours.

The number of new infections is staying around the low 40s.

Updated

South Australia’s health minister, Stephen Wade, said his state was watching NSW closely, to see when it could reopen its borders to New South Wales residents:

They have made good progress in recent weeks. If that continues, we look forward to opening up to New South Wales as soon as possible. Let’s be clear – this state, South Australia, has been very keen to open the borders, border control is an important part of our public health response. But we’re not going to have them in place a day longer than they need to be.

Updated

What’s happening with Labor’s 2030 target? Well, it doesn’t exist any more. Because it is now 2020 and by the time there is another election, there won’t be any time to change things in time for there to be a 2030 target.

But Anthony Albanese is staying coy on what the mid-term target will be. It doesn’t have to be 2030, obviously, but there are still 30 years between now and 2050:

We will take a comprehensive plan to get to zero net emissions by 2050 to the next election. That will include a range of issues, both how we’ll get there, but also consistent with that end objective. We determined the 2030 target in 2015. Since then, there’s been two elections, by the next election there would have been three and we would have been halfway through the period. It’s absurd frankly. It is an obsession.

Updated

Gladys Berejiklian will be standing up at 11.

Updated

So is Anthony Albanese asking the federal government to use facilities like immigration detention centres to house people during quarantine?

They did early on. The facility, for example, in Darwin, it shouldn’t be beyond the wit of the commonwealth of Australia – we’re not talking about, you know, millions of people here – we’re talking about numbers of people. Not all of them would, of course, want to come home.

But we know that large numbers do, and we know that the circumstances whereby a young mum with a one-year-old gets told in London to find a homeless shelter to stay in is simply unacceptable in 2020. The commonwealth does have responsibility to Australian citizens and at the moment, they have just thrown their hands up in the air and they’re saying it is too hard.

Updated

Anthony Albanese was on the ABC’s News Breakfast, repeating his call to have the government bring more overseas stranded Australians home:

Well, look, it’s the commonwealth’s responsibility to look after our national borders, but it’s also the commonwealth’s responsibility on quarantine. What we’ve had through this so-called national cabinet that isn’t national and no longer looks anything like a cabinet is the prime minister handing off these core responsibilities to the states and then being critical of the states.

It seems to me that the only thing that’s lacking here is national leadership. Scott Morrison is in a position to do so, and that’s underlined by the fact that he does have access to RAAF aircraft and in terms of those aircraft, of course, one of the things that will be occurring is that the RAAF personnel have to get their hours up. They will be flying around empty.

Updated

The prime minister had some very big words for the private market in his speech yesterday – either build something to replace the Liddell coal-fired power plant or the government will.

This may not be what he had in mind (via Katharine Murphy):

The Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes has expressed an interest in developing an option to replace the ageing Liddell coal-fired power plant if the Morrison government can clearly identify the rules of engagement for any proponents.

After the prime minister said in a speech on Tuesday the government would back the construction of a new gas-fired power station in the Hunter Valley if the energy company AGL failed to replace Liddell, Cannon-Brookes told Guardian Australia the prime minister needed to be clear about what the government was proposing and then let the market sort out the optimal replacement.

“Would I seriously have a look at this? Yeah, why not,” the tech billionaire said.

“Let people come and bid – don’t force the solution and declare the outcome.”

Updated

This is also happening in the NSW parliament today.

It won’t go anywhere, given the numbers, and there aren’t any koalas (of the Phascolarctos cinereus kind, although I’m sure there are plenty of protected species) to make the Nationals blink.

Updated

When the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, steps up to speak today she is expected to make an announcement on the further easing of the southern border, as regional areas of Victoria open up.

In a Facebook post, the Albury MP, Justin Clancy, said he had discussed the border with the premier:

Travelling to Sydney yesterday my first port of call today was to contact the premier to stress the importance of the border restrictions being eased in line with changes to the Victorian regions. I’m pleased that the premier spoke to this later this morning, saying she will make an announcement tomorrow regarding changes to coronavirus restrictions for border communities.

This comes as Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, said regional communities would be able to move more freely from 11.59pm.

Berejiklian has said NSW would also amend restrictions for consistency: “This will bring more relief for our border communities.”

Regional Victoria is now in the “third step” of reopening, meaning cafes and restaurants can begin some “dine-in” services, school is set to return and groups of up to 10 people can gather outside.

Updated

Good morning

With regional Victoria counting down to a more (Covid) normal life, with restrictions due to ease from midnight, NSW is looking at the “daily life” exemptions for crossing the border.

The NSW-Victoria border communities have been through quite a bit in the last couple of months and are hoping that having the virus under control on the Victorian side (with greater metro Melbourne still under heavy restrictions) means crossing that arbitrary line will get a little easier.

Meanwhile, Queensland will revisit its border closures at the end of the month, with the ACT hotspot declaration the most pressing. South Australia has announced that ACT residents are free to enter the state – but only if they fly. Driving through NSW will still mean quarantining.

The ACT was declared a hotspot by Queensland because of its geography – sitting inside NSW with porous borders made it impossible to lock down. There are some whispers Queensland is worried a NSW resident will fly from the ACT (which has had no Covid cases in more than two months) into Adelaide and then on to Queensland, but there are checks in place to meet all travellers. Plus, the ability to check licences. But watch this space. There is an election in less than 50 days and anything can happen!

Politically, it’s still all about the gas announcement the government made yesterday. Except now, it’s the reaction – which is going as you would expect. It’s not the first time Australians have heard this, so we’re seeing the same reactions play out too. That’s what happens when there hasn’t been an overarching energy policy in about a decade.

We’ll bring you all the day’s events as they happen. You’ve got Amy Remeikis with you for most of the day.

Ready?

Updated

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Wine drinkers show lower heart risk than other alcohol consumers, study finds
A study of 340,000 adults suggests not all alcohol carries the same risk - even at low to moderate levels, beer, cider and spirits were linked to higher mortality, while wine was associated with a lower risk.
Euronews
Euronews
Gen Z is Addicted to Social Media? Seniors Are Worse, Study Says
For years, social media addiction has been framed as a “Gen Z problem”- a generation endlessly scrolling through reels, chasing notifications, and living online. But new research is quietly rewriting that narrative. The reality now emerging is both surprising and deeply human: older adults are not just catching up- they…
MyLifeXP
MyLifeXP
Police video of Justin Timberlake's 2024 drunken driving arrest released
Police have released body camera footage from Justin Timberlake's drunken driving arrest in New York’s Hamptons in 2024
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Brand New Day's Tom Holland Explains Why Spider-Man And Punisher Might Be His 'Favorite Dynamic' For Peter Parker Yet
I can't wait to see these two together!
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
43 Years Before It Was Trending, Steven Spielberg's Living Room Was a Jewelbox of Vintage Style – Recreate His Look With Tiffany Lamps, Butter Yellow, and Dark Wood
All the chicest people are decorating with antiques in 2026, but Steven Spielberg was ahead of the curve – experts discuss the trend
Homes & Gardens
Homes & Gardens
Does Zendaya Only Hold Tom Holland's Hands? 'Euphoria' Star Rejects Other Men's Sweet Gesture
Explore the rumours surrounding Zendaya and Tom Holland, including claims that they have already tied the knot.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play