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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Josh Taylor, Naaman Zhou and Calla Wahlquist

Victoria records 113 new cases and 12 deaths as NSW reports 13 cases – as it happened

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What we learned today, Friday 28 August

That is where we will leave the live blog for today. You can follow the developments overnight here.

Here’s what you might have missed from today:

  • Victoria recorded 113 new Covid-19 cases and 12 deaths, as the state revealed more than one-quarter of cases in aged care had died of Covid-19.
  • New South Wales recorded 13 new cases, with 12 in the community and one in hotel quarantine.
  • Queensland reported three new cases, and introduced 10-person limits on indoor and outdoor gatherings on the Gold Coast. Schoolies has also been cancelled.
  • Tasmania extended its state of emergency for eight more weeks.
  • New rules for South Australia’s border with Victoria came into effect. If you live within 40km of the border, you can cross over for employment and education purposes, to provide or receive care or support, or to buy food or fuel or for medical care or supplies.
  • The Victorian hotel quarantine inquiry heard one guest escaped while a guard was looking at his phone, and health officials told hotel staff linked to the second wave they didn’t need to isolate.
  • New Zealand’s stock exchange was disrupted for the fourth time this week by an offshore cyber-attack.

Until tomorrow, stay safe.

Updated

The New South Wales Greens MP David Shoebridge has escaped a fine after he was arrested in December for failing to obey a police direction after a climate protest outside the prime minister’s residence, Kirribilli House.

Shoebridge was one of 10 people arrested after the protest. He pleaded not guilty, and on Friday walked away without a fine or conviction after the magistrate Erin Kennedy dismissed the matter, AAP reported.

Shoebridge said the case “should never have been brought”.

“Not only was it a gross waste of resources on the day to send the riot squad in to break up some schoolkids, but this entire process has been an obscene waste of money from the police,” he said.

“I can only hope the police learn from this, begin to respect the rights of people to peacefully protest in NSW, and instead of spending money on courts and police, maybe we could ask our government to spend money on actually addressing climate change.”

The Greens MP on Friday said he would seek legal advice about what civil remedies were available.

“I think most people want this kind of aggressive policing to stop.”

Updated

I asked Queensland Corrections about the cases at Arthur Gorrie. The department has not confirmed the cases, but said all prisons from Rockhampton South are in stage four lockdown as a precaution while contact tracing is under way.

Queensland Health will decide who then needs to be tested for Covid-19.

I am just waiting for a statement from Queensland Health.

Updated

Just on from that, Nine News is reporting two more officers at the Arthur Gorrie have tested positive, and there are now six cases linked to the centre.

The Courier-Mail is reporting a second prison officer at Arthur Gorrie has tested positive for Covid-19. We have not yet confirmed this.

Good afternoon from Melbourne on day 26/42 of stage four lockdown.

AAP reports Adelaide has just one active case of Covid-19 currently, after the state’s fifth day of no new cases reported.

The one active case was reported on 23 August. They are a nurse who went to work in Victoria, and then tested positive on their return to Adelaide.

With that, I’ll be handing you over to my colleague Josh Taylor. Thanks for reading, and thanks to Calla Wahlquist for running the blog earlier today.

Updated

An update on some comments the multiculturalism minister, Alan Tudge, made earlier today, which seemed to hint that the government could fund more Chinese language media in Australia.

The ABC’s Stephen Dziedzic has a response from the minister: “No further comment.”

Updated

Some more detail from a University of Sydney academic on today’s protest that was disrupted by riot police.

NZ stock exchange disrupted by fourth cyber-attack

The New Zealand government has activated national security systems after the nation’s stock exchange was disrupted by cyber-attacks for a fourth day.

NZX Ltd had to halt trading on Friday morning after crashing due to network connectivity issues, but it has since resumed trading.

It’s the fourth day in a row that the stock market has been hit by a cyber-attack, with no leads on who is responsible, other than it being an “offshore” attack.

Updated

And Lorena Allam has this report from the federal inquiry into how Rio Tinto blew up the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge heritage site.

Witnesses have said there should be high-level “personnel changes” and compensation paid to traditional owners.

The world-leading anthropologist Prof Glynn Cochrane expressed serious concern about the adequacy of Rio Tinto’s storage of 7,000 items salvaged from the Juukan Gorge site, saying he was “not sure they are being held somewhere safe”.

Cochrane said the items were sitting in a shipping container on the site, and it appeared they were salvaged on a tight timeframe and budget.

“It’s like blowing up the tomb of the unknown soldier and forgetting about the occupant,” Cochrane said.

Updated

Coatsworth says he agrees with Scott Morrison’s comments that, even with a vaccine, there is not a “zero risk” of Covid-19.

“It is not simply me agreeing with the prime minister, every chief health officer agrees with that,” he says.

“Nobody thinks there is zero risk and, indeed, we also need to see how safe and effective the vaccine is before we know what the impact is. I do think we are all firmly on the same page.”

Updated

Listen to Paul Kelly, not Craig Kelly, says deputy CMO

Coatsworth is asked about the Liberal MP Craig Kelly, who has been pushing the discredited drug hydroxychloroquine online as a treatment for Covid-19.

He is asked: “Are you concerned about him using his social media to promote those views against the scientific advice?”

Coatsworth says: “I think Australia is very clear on which Kelly should be listened to on Covid-19 and that is [chief medical officer] Paul Kelly.

“All clinicians around Australia understand that regrettably, hydroxychloroquine is not effective for Covid-19.”

He says that Australia has “tonnes of hydroxychloroquine generously donated by Clive Palmer”, and that if it was effective, “we would be giving it to patients right now, but unfortunately it is not”.

“The trials are clear on that and in fact the World Health Organization pulled hydroxychloroquine from one of its trials because the evidence was so clear that it was not effective. That does not happen very often.”

Updated

One of the deputy chief medical officers, Dr Nick Coatsworth, is speaking now.

He is providing an update on the national Covid taskforce, which is a coalition of 30 peak health bodies, that gives advice to doctors on the treatments for Covid-19.

“My understanding from the group based down in Victoria is that there are over 200 individual clinicians contributing over 360 work hours in total every week to that effort, to give Australians the best guidance as possible.

“If you are in general practice at the moment and you have a Covid-positive patient, and you want to understand the treatments available, you can go to the Covid evidence taskforce webpage. That will give you the information.

“Similarly, for hospital clinicians, if you’re treating a hospitalised patient you can look at the evidence.”

He says that patients and other concerned people can also have a look at the advice.

Updated

Victorian hotel quarantine guest escaped while guard was looking at his phone

Hi all, it’s Naaman Zhou here taking the blog. My colleague Luke Henriques-Gomes is watching Victoria’s judicial inquiry into its hotel quarantine today.

One guest escaped to the ground floor lobby while a security guard was “looking down at his phone”, the inquiry has been told.

Stephen Ferrigno, the general manager at the Four Points by Sheraton, told the inquiry he was unsatisfied by the response of the security company and government officials after a guest escaped to the lobby on 25 June.

Ferrigno said CCTV footage showed the guard was looking down at his phone while the guest entered the 10th floor lift.

Shaun D’Cruz, a manager at Crown ... recounted another incident in which guards had taken towels from the hotel pantries to have naps in the corridor.

“They were not permitted to go into that area,” he said.

Read the full report here:

Updated

On that note I will hand over to Naaman Zhou, who will take you through the next few hours.

Stay safe and if you do wear a tin foil hat, ensure you wear an appropriate face mask as well.

Police call Melbourne anti-lockdown rally 'batshit crazy nonsense'

A bit more on that anti-lockdown protest in Victoria, following the arrest of a 76-year-old alleged organiser. A top police officer today called the prospective protesters a “tinfoil hat-wearing” brigade.

The Victoria police assistant commissioner, Luke Cornelius, told reporters the rally, planned for 5 September, was organised in protest of Melbourne’s stage four restrictions, among other things.

Participating in this proposed protest would be a serious and blatant breach of the chief health officer’s directions and it jeopardises the health of the entire community.

He told AAP the protest carried a serious risk of undoing the hard work of the vast majority of Victorians:

The tinfoil hat-wearing brigade are alive and well in our community.

They’re taking every opportunity to leverage the current situation to serve their own ridiculous notions about so-called sovereign citizens, about constitutional issues and about how 5G is going to kill your grandkids.

It’s batshit crazy nonsense.

It comes as police deal with a daily protest in suburban Melbourne.

Hundreds of people have been gathering in and around Dandenong’s George Andrews Reserve since Monday. Two people were arrested at Thursday’s assembly, with a total 17 fines issued.

Since Monday, police have made nine arrests and handed out 48 fines at the Dandenong protest.

Cornelius says people are trying to play the “innocent card” when approached by police and wasting their resources.

That’s why this behaviour is so selfish.

Updated

More from that protest at the University of Sydney:

Updated

Police in Victoria have arrested a person alleged to be one of the organisers of an anti-lockdown protest planned for next Saturday. More than 10,000 people have reportedly indicated they plan to attend the “Freedom Day” rally, although the actual location of the rally hasn’t been made public.

In a statement, Victoria police said:

Police have today arrested a 76-year-old Windsor male following an investigation into the organisation of a protest which is due to occur on Saturday 5 September.

Following the execution of a search warrant, police seized multiple items including two laptops, a computer and two mobile phones.

The male was subsequently charged with incitement, and has been bailed to appear at the Melbourne magistrates court on 8 February 2021.

Gatherings of more than two people, workplaces with Covid-safe plans and households exempted, are banned in Victoria under stage four restrictions, and Victoria is currently under a state of disaster that gives police extraordinary powers to enforce lockdown rules.

The protest seems to have the same confusing collection of ideologies as most anti-lockdown protests to date – no masks, no 5G, somehow Bill Gates’s fault, etc.

Updated

Can’t imagine why.

The Australian Greens have welcomed increased English language classes but say that the Coalition’s attempt to expand the values test for new migrants is “unnecessary”.

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said:

Arbitrary tests don’t make a society more cohesive.

Scott Morrison locks up asylum seekers and Peter Dutton attacks African Australians. Instead of attacking multiculturalism and democracy, Scott Morrison should value them.

Before Scott Morrison tries to enforce this test, he should have to pass it himself. I reckon he’d come undone on questions about the right to protest or freedom from arbitrary detention.

On the language courses, the Greens immigration spokesman, Nick McKim, said:

Regardless of the government’s motivation, we owe it to people who have decided to make Australia their home to help them settle in as best as they can.

Updated

More on those protests at the University of Sydney:

Updated

Landlords are not ‘evil unyielding monsters’, say real estate agents

Landlords are the “forgotten people” of the economic slump caused by the coronavirus crisis and are not “evil and unyielding monsters”, Victoria’s peak body representing real estate agents says.

The Real Estate Institute of Victoria says the state government’s decision to extend a moratorium on evicting people from their homes to the end of the year shows that “commercial and residential landlords are being left behind and all but forgotten as the government makes decisions on financial support for people impacted by the economic downturn”.

With Melbourne in a hard lockdown due to a second wave of infections, the Victorian government last week extended the eviction moratorium, which covers both residential and commercial tenants, to 31 December. Cash payments of $3,000 are also available to some landlords.

This is all terribly unfair, according to the REIV.

The legislation is now unfairly and squarely biased against those property owners who have worked hard to save and invest to provide for the future of their families.

A property owner’s savings and hard work is somehow of lesser perceived value than that of a tenant.

With unemployment skyrocketing, Victoria’s economy in deep depression and businesses closing down in droves, it is not clear where the REIV thinks landlords are going to get fresh tenants from if they tip the existing ones out on to the streets.

And if they do, they’re likely to get less money – anecdotally, rents have fallen away.
Nor does the statement canvass the obvious solution available to any landlord with a cashflow problem because the rent has stopped: sell the property.

Updated

Tasmanian state of emergency extended to end of October

The Tasmanian premier, Peter Gutwein, has confirmed that he’s approved an eight-week extension of the state of emergency, which was due to expire on Monday. It will now extend until the end of October.

Updated

An academic at the University of Sydney has suggested a bit of unequal application of mass gathering rules by the vice-chancellor, Michael Spence.

A protest against student fee hikes was broken up by police, on the grounds that it exceeded the 20-person limit – but tutorials held indoors, with more than 20 students in a classroom, are fine.

Updated

Concerns raised about how Rio Tinto is storing items salvaged from Juukan Gorge

A parliamentary inquiry into the destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal site at Juukan Gorge held its second day of hearings today, and witnesses suggested that Rio Tinto should see a high level “personnel changes” and pay compensation to traditional owners.

On Monday, Rio Tinto said it would strip about $5m in bonuses from its chief executive, Jean-Sébastien Jacques, and about $1m in bonuses from its iron ore boss, Chris Salisbury, after the company “failed to meet some of its own internal standards and procedures in relation to the responsible management and protection of cultural heritage”.

The CEO of the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors, Louise Davidson, told the inquiry ACSI had met with Rio’s management to convey to them:

... That the reduction of bonuses does not meet our standard, and we are looking for signs from the company that they understand that.

We expect the [Rio Tinto] board to put in place processes to fix what’s gone wrong, but also to acknowledge the failings that have occurred and deliver proper accountability around that.

We won’t say person A or person B, but what we want is for the board to be really clear about how they are going to take responsibility and accountability for what’s occurred.

We think the board should demonstrate how it is taking accountability further than just a financial penalty.

Earlier, the world-leading anthropologist Prof Glynn Cochrane, who spent 20 years implementing Rio Tinto’s social performance program, expressed serious concern about the adequacy of Rio Tinto’s storage of 7,000 items salvaged from the Juukan Gorge site, saying he was “not sure they are being held somewhere safe”.

Cochrane said the items are sitting in a shipping container on the site, and it appeared they were salvaged on a tight timeframe and budget.

It’s like blowing up the tomb of the unknown soldier and forgetting about the occupant.

Juukan Gorge in Western Australia
Juukan Gorge in Western Australia. Rio Tinto has admitted damaging ancient Aboriginal rock shelters, blasting near the 46,000-year-old site to expand an iron ore mine. Photograph: PKKP Aboriginal Corporation/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

The opposition in Victoria will oppose the Andrews government’s attempt to extend the state of emergency by 12 months.

Victoria’s state of emergency legislation can only be extended for a maximum of six months at this stage – and we’ll hit that on 16 September. Daniel Andrews wants the legislation changed so that the state of emergency can be extended for up to 12 months – it will still have to be renewed in four-week lots based on health advice, it’s not automatically in place until September 2021.

The opposition’s media release, via the ABC’s Richard Willingham, includes the line:

Victorians deserve a plan out of lockdown. Labor only has a plan to keep us locked down.

Which is catchy, if not true. Instead, the opposition proposes the state of emergency should only be renewed on a month-by-month basis and require the approval of both houses of parliament every time, which is quite an administrative burden.

The opposition also doesn’t agree with a proposal to lower the threshold for a state of emergency to be called, and wants to remove a proposed clause in the bill which would allow the state of emergency to apply even when there are no Covid-19 cases in Victoria. For point of comparison: Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania are all still in a state of emergency with (in most cases) no active cases in the community.

And the opposition says the right of parliament to meet should not be undermined by the state of emergency.

The solution proposed by the crossbench MP Fiona Patten is renewal overseen by a cross-parliamentary committee, which would be less burdensome.

Updated

New rules for travel between South Australian and Victorian border towns

The relaxation of rules around travel between South Australian and Victorian border towns came into effect at midnight last night.

Now, if you live within 40km of the border, you can cross over for employment and education purposes, to provide or receive care or support, or to buy food or fuel or for medical care or supplies. You can’t go further than 40km into SA if you live in Victoria.

If you live in NSW, you can’t go more than 50km into SA.

There’s a new application process for cross border community member passes – details of that on the SA police website – but you don’t need to re-register. Travellers from Victoria – including people in the border communities – will have to wear a face mask in SA.

South Australians are still strongly advised not to travel to Victoria, and with the exception of essential travellers and people in border communities, Victorians won’t be able to get into SA.

Some essential travellers including cross border community members will be required to wear a surgical face mask in SA when in contact with the public.

If you’re driving into SA, you need to enter by one of the following roads and present your Photo ID and essential traveller number, or fill out the form at the checkpoint.

  • Sturt Highway, Yamba
  • Wentworth Road, Renmark
  • Mallee Highway, Pinnaroo
  • Dukes Highway, Wolseley
  • High Street, Frances (which terminates at Minimay-Frances Road, Frances)
  • Wimmera Highway, Laurie Park
  • Edenhope Road, Wrattonbully
  • Casterton Road, Penola
  • Glenelg Highway, Myora
  • Princes Highway, Glenburnie
  • Glenelg River Road, Donovans/Nelson
  • Lindsay Point Road-Lacey Avenue, Murtho
  • Summerton Road-Mulcra Road (becomes Panitya North Road), Pinnaroo
  • Wolseley Road-Serviceton North Road, Wolseley
  • Binnum-Benayeo Road, Binnum
  • Shepherds Road-Kybybolite Road, Kybybolite
  • Langkoop Road-Casterton-Naracoorte Road, Koppamurra
  • Derghom Road-Dorodong Road, Penola
  • Mingbool Road, Pleasant Park
  • Caroline Road, Caroline
  • Dry Creek Road, Caroline

Updated

Following on that tragic case I mentioned earlier of a woman who lost a child, Queensland’s chief health officer says some border crossing exemptions should be streamlined.

AAP reports:

Queensland’s top doctor wants to streamline border crossing exemptions after the death of an unborn New South Wales twin whose mother waited 16 hours in Lismore for a flight to Sydney for surgery.

The Queensland chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, says emergency cases don’t need exemptions and ambulances or Medevac helicopters won’t be stopped from entering the state.

However, she admitted other medical exemptions were taking too long to process because of the sheer volume of applications.

“I believe I am a compassionate person but at this point in time we are working through the process. All of these exemptions come to me and I work through them,” Young said. “That’s not sustainable because we are getting so many requests now, we are getting very large numbers of requests, particularly from Victorians who want to come up to Queensland because they don’t want to remain in lockdown.”

Young said she had to question why individual NSW applicants applying to enter Queensland for the first time for healthcare could not get the same care in NSW.

The premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said her “compassionate state” was open for all Australians requiring emergency medical care, but said she didn’t get involved in individual medical exemption applications.

“These are clinicians that make decisions in the best interests of their patients and this is an absolute tragedy about this young baby, I mean there’s a woman who’s grieving at the moment and many people know what that feels like,” she said.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, called the case “terribly distressing” and for more compassion from the states implementing hard borders.

“It’s important they’re done with humanity, it’s important they’re done with compassion, it’s important they’re done with common sense and not only at looking at risk on one side of the ledger,” he said. “Any Australian, wherever they are, who needs medical treatment should be able to access it, particularly in an emergency in any Australian hospital in any state they’re in.”

Updated

I think we all need a break from the Republican National Convention, which you can follow live here if you don’t feel up to watching it on TV, for a round of The Faces Of Daniel Andrews:

First, a shadowed, contemplative face, made while watching the chief health officer, Brett Sutton, answer questions at Friday’s press conference in Melbourne
First, a shadowed, contemplative face, made while watching the chief health officer, Brett Sutton, answer questions at Friday’s press conference in Melbourne. Photograph: Erik Anderson/AAP
I’m still tracking that grey streak at the front
I’m still tracking that grey streak at the front. Photograph: Erik Anderson/AAP
Big fish, little fish, cardboard box
Big fish, little fish, cardboard box. Photograph: Erik Anderson/AAP
Holding the lectern
Holding the lectern. Photograph: Erik Anderson/AAP
Oh no, Brett Sutton also holds the lectern. Do they give it a quick spray with disinfectant in between?
Oh no, Brett Sutton also holds the lectern. Do they give it a quick spray with disinfectant in between? Photograph: Erik Anderson/AAP
No, seems they both just use heaps of hand sanitiser. This is also good
No, seems they both just use heaps of hand sanitiser. This is also good. Photograph: Erik Anderson/AAP

And finally, here is the prime minister, Scott Morrison, in a cube.

Prime minister Scott Morrison attends the second bush summit in Cooma on Friday
Prime minister Scott Morrison attends the second bush summit in Cooma on Friday. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

China has suspended imports from a fifth Australian red meat processing plant.

Unlike the barley tariffs – which affect all Australian exports of those goods to China – the red-meat actions target only certain abattoirs over what have been described as technical breaches.

Australia’s agriculture minister, David Littleproud, said the government had been notified that the meat establishment John Dee in Warwick, Queensland, had been suspended due to the detection of a substance known as chloramphenicol. He said:

I have spoken to the establishment and they believe they have traced the source of contamination. Chloramphenicol can occur naturally in some stockfeed and my department is working with the establishment to give Chinese authorities assurance around this incident and to have the establishment re-listed after appropriate investigation.

Four other Australian abattoirs – three in Queensland and one in New South Wales – had their permits to ship products into China suspended in the middle of Mayover alleged breaches of China’s labelling and health certificate requirements.

It’s understood those suspensions remain in effect but that the government and industry have provided the Chinese authorities with the information they requested and are now hoping for a breakthrough. Similar suspensions in 2017 took several months to resolve.

One more thing from earlier. Prime minister Scott Morrison told John Laws this morning that the Oxford vaccine candidate does not use cells directly from foetuses – it uses cells that were cloned from those extracted as long ago as the 1970s.

According to AAP, he told 2SM radio:

So it’s not current cells that have been taken from abortions or anything like that, this is stuff going back 40 years.

And there are many vaccines at the moment that are out there currently in widespread use which draw on that.

It follows religious leaders from the Catholic, Anglican and Greek Orthodox church saying that they would not personally take the vaccine, because they understood it contained cells from terminated pregnancies. The heads of the Sydney arms of those churches sought assurance that the vaccine would not be mandatory and non one would be forced to prescribe it.

Morrison, a practising Christian, told Laws that he and his family would take the vaccine and he would recommend it to others, once it cleared clinical trials.

In this case, given the concerns relate to things that happened 40 years ago, it’s not a current practice, personally I am comfortable with that.

But I mean, these are personal judgments that people make and you’ve got to always be respectful of other people’s views.

Cells derived from elective abortions have been used since the 1960s to manufacture vaccines against rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis A, and shingles, AAP reported. They have also been used to fight diseases including haemophilia, rheumatoid arthritis and cystic fibrosis.

Updated

The Yarra Valley water website is back online. If you’re in that part of Melbourne, please do check to see if your suburb is on the list of 88 with potentially contaminated water this morning.

It’s going super well.

Tasmania to extend state of emergency by eight weeks

To Tasmania now and another proposed state of emergency extension.

Tasmanian state controller Darren Hine is recommending that Tasmania’s state of emergency be extended for another eight weeks beyond its currrent end date of 31 August, reports the ABC’S Emily Baker.

The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, says he will take up the federal government’s offer of a national security briefing in the future.

At his media conference, Andrews confirmed that he had missed the security briefing that was provided to other state and territory leaders several weeks ago, paving the way for the federal government’s announcement of new powers to review and cancel state and territory deals with foreign governments.

But Andrews emphasised that he had spoken with Scott Morrison around the time of that briefing about having a separate briefing at a later date.

He was quite understanding of the fact that I had a bit on at that time, so we then arranged to have a one-out briefing. I haven’t had a chance to do that yet but I will. Nothing more or less than that.

The issue of Andrews missing the security briefing has become an issue today because The Australian newspaper had a front page splash this morning headlined “Eyes wide shut on spy threat”.

Andrews said he had made clear at the press conference yesterday that he was in no way critical of the way in which Morrison had advised him of the decision to introduce the new powers to review state agreements with foreign governments. He received a letter on Wednesday.

Andrews emphasised that, in his judgment, the people of Victoria wanted him to focus on the second wave including planning the pathways out of the strict lockdowns.

Asked about the report that the federal government had also sent him a letter in June expressing concerns about Victoria’s Belt and Road deal, Andrews said Morrison’s views “have been well known and well understood to me”.

Victoria police has released its daily update of fines issued for breaches of lockdown rules.

They issued 160 fines, including 19 for failing to wear a face covering, 67 for breaching the 8pm curfew, and 13 people fined at vehicle checkpoints.

They include a six men who were fined after police found them hanging out at a Bungalow behind a house in Whittlesea, and “multiple people out during curfew hours to purchase food or cigarettes”.

Updated

A note on the tragic case we reported earlier of a woman who lost one of her unborn children after going to Sydney instead of a nearby Queensland hospital for emergency surgery. We have amended our earlier post while our Brisbane correspondent Ben Smee investigates the circumstances surrounding this matter – we will bring you the details from him as soon as we get them.

Updated

Scott Morrison is at a bush summit in Cooma discussing border bans, calling on premiers to set aside their differences and come up with workable solutions that allow movement without compromising health.

Morrison invoked federation:

Australia was not built to have internal borders. That was the point of Australia. That was plan A - I’m for plan A.

He clarified that he wasn’t calling for “no restrictions” but that restrictions shouldn’t impinge on people moving from one covid-free area to another.

Morrison then issued a warning to state premiers that national cabinet needs to come up with a definition of “hotspot”. This was a plan developed on 21 August, and is clearly a play to show up states like Queensland that have declared jurisdictions with no community transmission (and in the case of the ACT, no active cases) hotspots.

Morrison warned:

There will be a commonwealth definition of a hotspot – come rain, hail or shine. I hope it is a national cabinet one.

If national cabinet disagrees, or state definitions vary - the commonwealth definition will force premiers to explain their own policies.

Andrews still hasn’t outlined a plan for what will happen when the stage four restrictions expire on 13 September.

On businesses re-opening, he said:

It will have to be gradual and steady because we’ve all got to be really careful to make sure nothing we do makes it more likely that we find ourselves back here at exactly this place. We want to defeat the second wave and properly. That means we can avoid a third wave. It’s much more likely that we can then find that Covid-19 normal and have a longer term plan which gets us well into 2021, hopefully with a vaccine during next year, and then things are in a different place.

He added:

No rule will be on longer than it needs to be. And no stage will be longer than it needs to be.

He said the plan will be mapped out “well before” 13 September. Which is in 17 days.

Some of it will be broad, some of it quite detailed, it will all be based on how much virus is there, are the [daily numbers] low enough...

The greatest frustration of this virus is that you can’t provide those definitive and certain answers to all the questions that people want answered and I understand why. That’s why we’re all working as as we can, there will be more and more meetings in the coming days, with all the doctors and experts, just to get that most complete picture and to make, not guesswork but try and make as evidence-based as it can be.

Are the prime minister’s comments helpful, Andrews is asked?

I’m not going to be a commentator on the comments of others.

The reporter says they are not asking Andrews to be a commentator, they are asking how Scott Morrison’s comments impact on Andrews’ ability to do his job.

Andrews says:

I have a good relationship with the prime minister, that’s the only thing that matters. This when it comes to defeating this enemy, this wildly infectious silent enemy, all of us have to work together and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing.

I want to reassure all Victorians that’s exactly what we will keep doing because it’s not about what team or level of government you are on, it’s about a common challenge and that common purpose to work together as closely as you possibly can. There will be opinion pieces written, there will be interest in these matters but don’t be in any doubt, we work together well.

Did you hear that the only fight Daniel Andrews is interested in is the fight with the virus? Everybody cross that one off your Victorian press conference bingo, it’s probably safe at this stage to cross it off before the premier begins talking.

Back to questions – is the premier concerned about contact tracing in Victoria?

Is there a concern? Absolutely. We are always concerned to make sure we have that continuous improvement and want to shout out to all the team, both those who are leading the effort and those literally on the phones. It’s a big team, and will remain a big team. This it will need to be next level to keep low numbers low.

A national dashboard is basically reporting that we’re getting to all of our interviews in 24 hours. Anyone we get, for reasons they don’t want to participate in, [or] despite our best efforts, we don’t have the best contact details for them, door-knocking close contacts as well ... I’m confident that we’ve got the skills and the experience and the team assembled to be able to do that coronavirus detective work once we open up again to keep those numbers low.

Updated

On the proposal to extend the state of emergency, Andrews says he continues “to have productive candid discussions with the crossbench, and we are grateful for the way they are engaging with us”.

There are announcements to make, we will make them.

Not right now, however.

More than a quarter of people in aged care who contracted Covid-19 have died

A quarter to one third of all people in aged care who contracted Covid-19 in Victoria have since died, Sutton says.

He made the comment in response to questions about reports on a person in their 20s, for whom the coroner is yet to determine a cause of death.

We need to see what a coroner would say about the cause of death, whether as a coronial investigation that comes to a finding, they are not counted as coronavirus deaths.

In aged care in particular there area number of cases where someone has a very significant preexisting condition and then gets coronavirus, it is much more difficult. They are not all colonial cases. They won’t all have a manifestly apparent cause of death on a death certificate necessarily, but what we do know is that a quarter to a third of all cases were got coronavirus in aged care have died. So coronavirus is a very significant illness in the population and it is not unreasonable to classify those deaths as deaths from coronavirus, when we understand that that wouldn’t happen in a normal week, in a normal fortnight in aged care.

Sutton said there may be some change to the official death tolls because the Commonwealth has introduced mandatory reporting guidelines, meaning there could be some reclassifications that add or subtract from the total.

Given that half of all the daily cases now are community transmission, how likely is it that those mystery cases will have fallen far enough in two weeks time?

Sutton said:

You are asking me where we will be at [the end of] stage four, I don’t know. We are heading in the right direction, mystery cases remain a similar proportion of our total cases each day, but as the total cases come down, those numbers will get into single figures but we are not yet.

Will it actually mean anything to get the daily case figures down below 100 – given that we only need to knock 14 cases off to get there?

Sutton says no, it’s really just a psychological benefit but getting into double figures – lower double figures – is the short-term goal.

I think it is helpful from a psychological point of view. We all can have an internal celebration to see it into double figures, but no it doesn’t make a huge material difference. It is just a sign if we get there, and I hope we do, that we are still heading in the right direction. And it is a consequence of all the hard yards that we’ve done individually and collectively to minimise our contact from others that is driving this down.

Updated

Questions. If aged care is driving the numbers, does that mean Sutton can look at easing restrictions in the broader community?

It does help. It is good news and bad news. It’s bad news and as much as we don’t want staff, residents, to be infected with coronavirus, but we know where we have to focus our attention.

He said community transmission cases are now “half or a bit more than half of our daily numbers, so that’s encouraging”.

He said a “not insignificant proportion” of people currently in hospital with Covid-19 had been transferred from aged care.

Sadly the mortality rates will take a while to drop.

I think it can be a while before we see the daily mortality figures come down, but it is stabilising, we are not seeing it increase and idea expected to slowly decrease.

Sutton said the daily case numbers are “clearly still trending in the right direction”.

It’s not gotten below 100 yet, I do expect that to happen, if not over the weekend, then by next week, if trends continue. We obviously have to hold the course here at.

Sutton said the Melbourne metropolitan region now has “half the level of active cases then we were a couple of weeks ago”.

The pressures on the health system are also going on the right direction, those in intensive care, ventilated and hospitalised remain pretty stable and slowly decreasing.

There are fewer active aged care outbreaks, but I think that a number of those ongoing outbreaks are still driving a significant proportion of our daily numbers and some healthcare outbreaks as well. Where we know that there are some ongoing active cases in healthcare workers in the broadest sense, aged care, disability and acute health services. But otherwise, we are definitely trending in the right direction, but we do need to hold the course, as it were.

The Victorian chief health officer, Brett Sutton, starts by urging anyone in the 88 suburbs affected by the Yarra Valley Water advisory to ensure they bring their water to a rolling boil before putting it anywhere near their mouth.

There have been 2,000 calls for SES assistance since the strong winds began, of which 1,600 have already bee n responded to.

Some 85% of those calls are about fallen trees, Andrews said, but 10% relate to building damage. The worst affected suburbs are Mount Evelyn, Belgrave, and Croydon.

More than 56,000 households were affected by power outages, and Andrews said power will be back by midday in most areas.

On the Yarra Valley Water issue, which is affecting houses in 88 suburbs, Andrews urged people to make sure they heed the notice to boil all water that they plan to consume in any way.

He said there would be some allowance granted for people who need to assist family members impacted by the storm, and therefore need to breach stage four restrictions.

We have, I think, if not already then we will very soon, literally in the next hour or so, we will have Q&A’s, detailed advice and guidance to anybody who needs to go and render emergency assistance, people who may need to act outside the rules for the purposes of supporting someone.

That is not an invitation for people to do things that don’t need to be done but we do recognise that with the volume of work and even though the SES do an amazing job, there will be other needs that will need to be met by perhaps a family member.

Andrews offered his condolences to the families of the three people killed by falling trees in the strong winds and storms last night.

As you know, three people have tragically lost their lives in those storms overnight. A four-year-old boy died after being struck by a tree and Blackburn South. He was taken to hospital with critical injuries but sadly he died later last evening.

A 59-year-old Tacoma man died after a tree fell on his car. Investigators have been told that a car was leaving the shopping centre car park when a tree fell and crushed the vehicle just after 6pm last night but those investigations obviously will be ongoing.

Thirdly, a 36-year-old Parkdale woman has died after a tree fell on a vehicle in Fernshaw. It’s believed the vehicle was travelling along the highway when it was hit by a fallen tree by about 10 minutes to seven last night. The driver is a 24-year-old Flinders man who was taken to hospital with, we believe, minor injuries.

Can I send, on behalf of all Victorians, our sincere condolences and best wishes to each of those families and particularly the young gentleman who is still recovering from his injuries. This will be just a terrible time for them and our hearts are with you in any support that we can provide on what is a terribly difficult time, we stand ready to do that.

And I just want to give a shout out to the SES, they are just amazing people. Whenever we need them, whenever we call upon them, sometimes in the most extreme of circumstances they are always there and I have been honoured and privileged as both a local member and other roles they have had to meet many people in the State emergency service.

Updated

The number of active cases among healthcare workers has increased by 134 cases to 449.

Andrews said that is “owing to some data cleaning, just some accounting to ensure we have the most accurate picture. That includes some disability workers who had not been classified as healthcare workers earlier on so that accounts that increase”.

There are 3,141 active cases across Victoria, of which 187 are in regional areas covered under stage three restrictions.

There are now 1,362 active cases in aged care settings, and 45 in disability facilities – that’s 31 staff members and 14 residents.

Daniel Andrews is giving the daily update

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews is speaking now.

He says the number of people who have died with Covid-19 in Victoria now stands at 496. (I said 497 earlier – apologies).

All 12 people who died in the past 24-hours were linked to aged care outbreaks.

There are now 513 people in hospital, of which 29 are in intensive care and 17 are on a ventilator.

There were 19,863 tests conducted in Victoria yesterday – that’s back up to the levels that Andrews has said we need to have an accurate picture.

The total number of cases since 1 January is now at 18,822.

We’re expecting Daniel Andrews to step up any minute now.

Chant said there was also a new case diagnosed in a person who had “spent some time in the Victorian border communities”.

Those residents are now in isolation. The Murrumbidgee local health district contacted these people and our remaining to monitor them.

She added:

Another key learning we have had from looking at the data over the last week is that in our weekly surveillance report it shows that almost half of the cases who acquired their infection and Sydney had a test more than three days after their symptoms began.

It is critical that people are not out and about when they are symptomatic, and it is also critical that they present early for testing. So we would like to see our data improve and we would like to see that people are getting tested within a day of symptom offset and also to stress that people should not be out and about if you have got symptoms.

NSW’s chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, is running through the new cases now.

She said the 13 new cases brings the total number of cases in NSW since 1 January to 3,830. There were 30,282 tests conducted in the past 24 hours.

Other than the one case in hotel quarantine, the new cases are six linked to the Sydney CBD cluster and two linked to previously identified cases. Four are unknown community transmission, with the source still under investigation.

Not included in the 13 new cases, because it was reported after 8pm (so will be in tomorrow’s numbers) is a student at St Gertrude’s Catholic primary school in Smithfield and a teacher at Ryde secondary college.

Those two campuses are closed for on-site learning and are being cleaned and those students are being asked to self-isolate well close contacts are being identified and contacted.

She added that anyone who attended the Sydney Tattersalls club on Monday from 8am to 2pm is “now deemed a close contact and must get tested immediately and isolate for 14 days and remain in isolation even if that test comes back as negative”.

People who attended the following venues at the specified times are considered casual contacts, and should get tested if they get symptoms.

  • The Matterhorn, Turramurra - Saturday 22 August 6pm-8pm (NSW Health has identified and contacted close contacts)
  • Parish of Holy Name, Wahroonga - Sunday 23 August 9.30am-10.15am
  • Liquorland, Marrickville - Sunday 23 August 5.15pm-5.30pm
  • Eat Fuh, Marrickville - Sunday 23 August 5.20pm-5.40pm
  • Metro Petroleum - Hurlstone Park - Monday 24 August 10.20am-10.30am

Updated

Berejiklian she was getting advice from health authorities on the prospect of easing restrictions around the border “towards the end of next week”.

I want to thank the border communities for their patience and understanding. We are working through issues on the Victoria-New South Wales border and getting advice from health with the prospect of easing restrictions towards the end of next week.

That is ongoing work but I do want to thank – I know a lot of rural and regional communities tune and every day and I want to thank them for their patience and acknowledge the frustration and disruption they have experience but we are working through those issues. And Dr [Kerry] Chant will update us on a view cases in Wodonga and what implications that would have for New South Wales.

NSW records 13 new cases of Covid-19

The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said NSW has recorded 13 new cases overnight.

One of the new cases is in hotel quarantine, and the remaining 12 were contracted in the community.

Berejiklian said NSW health authorities had told her that the state has “done incredibly well this winter”.

It has been a difficult month but thank you to the community for doing the right thing, for really coming forward and getting tested, for heeding the health advice that we are giving and as a consequence we have managed to get through this winter with relatively low numbers of cases.

And as the weekend weather warms up and as spring is upon us we just want to make sure that everybody thinks about their movement outdoors and is Covid-safe.

She said police would be on “high alert” with the warmer weather this weekend.

Today is also equal pay day, the day beyond which women no longer have to work because we’re effectively not getting paid.

That’s not really how it works, but it should be.

According to Michele O’Neil, the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), it’s “the end of the 59 additional days that women, on average, have to work to reach parity with male earnings from the last financial year”.

The gender pay gap is currently at 14%, and as job losses from the pandemic have disproportionately affected women that could lead to increased disparity between the earnings and retirement savings of men and women, O’Neil said. Some 1.3 million women have accessed their superannuation early to pay their bills, and more than 300,000 women have completely emptied their super accounts – 80% of them under the age of 35.

Women already retire with 47% less super than men.

O’Neil said:

The refusal of the Morrison government to address insecure work which disproportionately effects women has left a third of the workforce without sick leave during a pandemic and means that women who are returning to work are returning to jobs which are lower paid and more insecure.

In sectors which have carried our country through the pandemic the situation is even worse. Healthcare has one of the worst sector-wide pay gaps in Australia, at 21.3 per cent.

The overwhelmingly female workforces in aged care and early childhood education and care are systemically underpaid and deal with extreme levels of insecure work. Women in the community sector are facing funding shortfalls which will undermine equal pay

The Morrison government’s super early access scheme has forced people to fund their own crisis response and has had a disastrous impact on the retirement savings of women, who have been forced to raid their savings more often than men.

Updated

Here’s another version of the prime minister, Scott Morrison, defending his aged care minister, Richard Colbeck, who walked out of the Senate yesterday while Labor’s Penny Wong was addressing him about aged care.

He told Samantha Armytage on Sunrise this morning:

Well, the aged care minister left the chamber to deal directly with some very serious issues that were happening at a couple of centres, which is what his job is. And the Labor Party might want to be playing games in the Senate, but his job, he went to the Senate; he gave the presentation that he was asked to give by the senate. But this is a job he’s doing morning, noon and night, and so that’s the reason he had to leave the chamber. And that’s what he should be doing.

Armytage:

Could that have waited, though? His performance over the last couple of weeks suggests he is a bit overwhelmed by this portfolio.

Morrison:

No, I wouldn’t suggest that at all. What I’m suggesting is that he needed to go and urgently deal with a matter in a particular facility in Victoria. That’s what he was doing last night. That’s what he should be doing. That’s what he’s doing every night, every morning, and every day. This is a very challenging situation in Victoria – a situation that started because we had widespread community transmission of the virus in Victoria. Now, in Australia, about 8% of our aged-care facilities have had infections amongst residents and amongst staff. In the United Kingdom, it’s been 56% – seven times worse than what has happened in Australia. Now, in Australia, in every single case where we’ve had people who have died as a result of the coronavirus and in aged care, that is a terrible tragedy. But this aged care minister is just doing his job, and last night, he had to go and attend to urgent issues in the aged care sector rather than sit there and listen to the Labor party.

Armytage:

So you 100% stand behind Richard Colbeck right now?

Morrison:

Of course I do.

I’m including these big chunks of transcript because I suspect the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, will be asked this at his daily press conference – which Victorian facility, exactly? What was the urgent issue?

Andrews is up at 11.15am.

Updated

A disinfectant manufactured by an Australian company is the first to be granted approval by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) as a product that kills Covid-19 on surfaces.

More from AAP:

Aeris Environmental on Friday announced to the ASX that its disinfectant cleaner, Aeris Active, had been granted extended residual protection claims in Australia.

The cleaner is now deemed effective at killing the germ on a surface within a minute and providing continued surface protection for seven days.

“This recognition confirms the ‘real world’ performance of our products and I am pleased that this Australian developed, manufactured and patented technology is being recognised globally,” Aeris Environmental chief executive Peter Bush said in a statement.

“It is imperative that during this global pandemic, products gain the trust of the consumer and deliver on the promise of proven performance.”

The TGA’s approval came after validation studies at accredited independent laboratories.

NSW Health advice deems that the Covid-19 virus, SARS COV-2, behaves like other coronaviruses and may persist on surfaces between a few hours and several days.

However, this may vary depending on the temperature, humidity and type of surface.

Updated

Back to the Melbourne storm briefly – Yarra Valley Water has issued a warning notice to 88 suburbs in Melbourne’s east and north-east, warning them not to drink the tap water without first boiling it.

They say because caused by last night’s storms led to undisenfected water from the Silvan Dam entering the water supply system. About 250,000 homes are affected.

The full list of suburbs is here on 3AW’s website – I can’t link you directly to Yarra Valley Water because their website is conveniently down for maintenance.

Thanks to Adam for letting us know!

In other news, NRL player Jack De Belin will face trial on sexual assault charges.

Guardian Australia’s sport desk reports:

The St. George Illawarra Dragons player has been sidelined by the NRL’s no-fault stand down policy since being accused of raping a 19-year-old woman.

The 28-year-old former State of Origin player faces five charges of aggravated sexual assault in company after the alleged incident involving a woman at a Wollongong unit in December 2018.

De Belin and his co-accused Callan Sinclair have pleaded not guilty to the alleged assault.

Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry is sitting in Melbourne again today, with managers from Travelodge, Crown, Sheraton, Rydges and Stamford Plaza to give evidence.

The inquiry has previously heard evidence about a lack of food and concerns from guests about the cleanliness of their rooms.

Yesterday, the inquiry was told Victoria police had pushed back against requests that the force maintain a presence at the hotels.

It also heard the health department was opposed to providing all hotel quarantine staff.
One guard was fired after slipping a note under the door of a guest that said, “Hey hun, add me on Snapchat.”

The inquiry, chaired by former judge Jennifer Coate, was created in response to evidence of hotel quarantine breaches widely blamed for Victoria’s second wave.

Updated

As of today, 497 people have died with or from Covid-19 in Victoria since 1 January.

One of them was well-known trade unionist Paddy Garrity.

His grandson, Rory Smeaton, told Donna Lu of seeing a news story about a man who was dragged out of a Nike store for protesting against working conditions for factory employees, dressed only in a belt and sneakers, only to realise it was his grandad.

He just always had a moral compass ... That was him – he would strip off bare naked in the middle of Bourke Street mall to shine a light on huge corporations that were doing wrong.

You can read more about his life here:

Updated

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews will hold a press conference at 11.15am.

This is absolutely tragic. A pregnant northern NSW woman, who waited 16 hours to get to Sydney for emergency surgery, has lost one of her twins.

More from AAP:

A unborn twin baby has died after the Queensland-NSW border closure prevented her mother from having emergency surgery in time.

The Ballina woman waited for 16 hours in Lismore for a flight to Sydney.

The woman’s father, Allan Watt, says one of the twins became anaemic during surgery at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.

“She was the healthy bub and unfortunately she was the one who passed away yesterday,” he sobbed on the phone to 4BC radio.

Watt hasn’t spoken with his daughter or her husband, but his wife is staying with the couple, who have had to rent an apartment in across the road from the hospital.

“It’s busted our family apart, I’m up here, her sisters and brothers are in Queensland and they’re in Sydney,” he said.

Queensland Chief Officer Dr Jeannette Young said on Thursday that the NSW woman’s exemption had been approved as soon as her application had been made.

State opposition leader Deb Frecklington called on Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk to grant automatic exemptions to all Australians facing medical emergencies.

“My heart bleeds for the family and everything they have been put through,” she said in a statement.

Updated

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese was on Triple M Fraser Coast radio this morning, talking to a person allegedly called “Blandy”. Even Blandy is confused about why Albanese is there.

Albanese replied:

I want to be on because I’m really angry about the quite absurd statements of the New South Wales premier that we can’t make trains in Australia. I visited up there just last December. And that fantastic Downer EDI site at Maryborough, where trains, rolling stock, are being fixed first of all, that the LNP Government of Campbell Newman sent the trains offshore, as well, to be built.

They need to be retrofitted, because they’re not fit for purpose, in Queensland. And this is the experience everywhere. Everywhere. Trains have been offshore, doesn’t matter what country, they’ve come back, they’re too long, they’re too wide, the toilets aren’t right, they don’t fit the proper gauge, or there’s some issue with them. We should be making them here, we should be creating jobs here. In the long run, they’ll be far cheaper as well. Because every one of them comes back bad, as the ferries that have been built offshore have come back in Sydney. They don’t fit under the bridges.

Right. Glad that’s cleared up.

Updated

A bit of socially distanced post-storm clean-up in Melbourne.

Arborists access a fallen tree that struck and killed a four-year-old boy in Blackburn South, Melbourne, on Friday
Arborists access a fallen tree that struck and killed a four-year-old boy in Blackburn South, Melbourne, on Friday, Photograph: James Ross/AAP
The tree that struck and killed a four-year-old boy in Blackburn South, Melbourne
The tree that struck and killed a four-year-old boy in Blackburn South, Melbourne. Photograph: James Ross/AAP

Updated

Prime minister Scott Morrison will address the Daily Telegraph Bush Summit at 10.55am.

Queensland’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, said there is an important qualifier on the 10-person gathering limit.

If an event has a Covid-safe plan – like, say, a wedding – it can still go ahead with more than 10 guests. It’s only the unplanned, impromptu events which are back down to 10.

Young said:

Wherever we’ve got Covid-safe plans, that includes for weddings and funerals for restaurants, pubs, clubs, nightclubs, where there’s a Covid-safe plan, those arrangements can continue.

Because of all the work that’s put in place by all those industry groups, by all of the people involved. They are very good plans. They keep people safe. But we know that in people’s own homes, no-one would expect them to have a Covid-safe plan for a gathering.

Young said cancelling the big schoolies events was “a really tough decision”.

I personally feel for this group. They’ve had a really difficult year. This is a rite of passage. Your last year of school is such an important year... and so much of it has had to change for this group. I’m really sorry that they won’t be able to have the tradition schoolies celebration.

But look, I think this group is one of the most resilient, innovative groups, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they will put in place instead of that traditional mass gatherings on the beaches and so forth. They’ll find other ways to celebrate, I know they will. They will happen over a longer period.

Also, this is a group that often has a gap year, goes away, does different things. They can’t do those things. So they’ll be around for over that Christmas, New Year, into next year, for longer. I expect to see that the celebrations will continue over a longer period of time, and we’re working with the accommodation providers to see how they may be able to facilitate that, see they’ll be celebrating in smaller groups, celebrating with their immediate friendship cohorts, of groups of 10 coming together, to celebrate. So there will be still be celebrations, but they’ll just be completely different.

I am not sure if being reminded that gap years are also cancelled is particularly comforting, but it is the reality. But take heart, young Queenslanders – you could be in Melbourne.

Updated

Queensland’s health minister, Steven Miles, said that the three new positive cases take the number of cases linked to the cluster between the Brisbane youth detention centre and the corrections training academy to 15.

All the new cases are people in their 30s – two from the academy, and a third from Forest Lake.

Miles said:

These are of course the first confirmed cases of community transmission on the Gold Coast. They weren’t in quarantine and so it is necessarily for us to extend the restrictions currently in place across metro north, metro south, and West Moreton, towards the Gold Coast.

Updated

Queensland cancels schoolies events

Palaszczuk also announced that schoolies – the huge end-of-high school celebrations on the Gold Coast – would not go ahead this year. This makes sense – if there are no mass gatherings there can be no schoolies parties.

It poses a high risk. High risk, not only the people who attend, all the young people, but also all the people they come in contact with, and of course their families and their friends and their grandparents.

So, we’ve had to take that very tough decision. So there will be, unfortunately, no concerts, no organised events, because there can be no mass gatherings.

Palaszczuk said the chief health officer and director-general of education would write to all schools to inform them, to ensure all students are aware of the rules. But she encouraged year 12s to book a holiday with their friends – just a quieter affair.

However, we know our tourism sector does need support. Just as any other person can go along and book accommodation, people are welcome to continue to do that, in those small groups, right across Queensland... there is nothing wrong with small groups of people finishing school, booking somewhere close to where they live as well.

Because so long as they actually abide by those rules and regulations that are set in place for hotel accommodation, then there is nothing to worry about. It’s a tough year for everyone. And hopefully, hopefully, things will get better by the end of next year, and we can have a double celebration. But we’re in a world pandemic, and I just hope everyone understands that.

Queensland records three cases of Covid-19, extends restrictions on the Gold Coast

Queensland has introduced new limits on people living in the Gold Coast in an effort to curtail a coronavirus outbreak, after the state recorded three new cases of Covid-19 overnight.

It takes the number of active cases in the state to 20. there were 21,653 tests performed in the past 24-hours.

From 8pm on Saturday, premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said that the number of visitors people can have in their home is restricted to 10 people. Outside gatherings on the Gold Coast are also limited to 10, and restrictions on visitors to aged care facilities, hospitals, and disability facilities will be extended to the Gold Coast too.

She said:

We have to take this cautionary approach, I think everyone would agree, we acted very swiftly when it came to those earlier cases with the Brisbane youth detention centre and we know people travel a lot from the Gold Coast to Brisbane, and it makes sense to extend that.

That storm did quite a bit of damage in Melbourne and Victoria last night. We were already feeling a bit fragile down here – losing three people to falling trees is very tough.

There are also a lot of trees down.

More on this from Matilda Boseley.

The acting immigration minister, Alan Tudge, was on ABC News Breakfast earlier talking about the government’s plan for free English language classes, which he will formally announce at the press club today.

In essence, we want to get more people to have basic English. There is probably about a million people in Australia now who can’t speak the language, or not very well at all. That has implications for their opportunities to get work but equally, it has implications for our social cohesion and for full participation in our democracy.

We are overhauling the program which is going to mean that from today, every single person in Australia, whose English is poor, is going to be able to access additional English language classes to get themselves up to that basic English level and that means they have got the best chance of getting a job.

It would also be great if we improved foreign language classes in Australian schools, so the majority of the Australian-born population wasn’t so overwhelmingly monolingual.

Anyway. Tudge said the English language classes would be “unlimited,” the 500-hour cap removed.

We know that the more distance your native language is from English, or from European languages, the harder it is to learn it. You may need a couple of thousand hours if you’re from an Asian language, compared to another European language. We want to take that cap off.

This comes after the Commonwealth and Victorian governments were criticised for mucking up the translation on their coronavirus information for multi-cultural communities.

Labor’s deputy federal leader, Richard Marles, was on the Today show this morning and asked about the federal government’s move to block the belt and road initiative (BRI) and other deals with foreign governments. He was asked about the Victorian government’s position.

He said:

Look, I’m not about to criticise Daniel Andrews, he can run his government as he sees fit. If Labor were in power federally we would not be doing a BRI agreement with China.

Home affairs minister Peter Dutton was also on the interview, and delivered this ... zinger? I think it’s supposed to be a zinger.

Richard, you are locked up in that tiny little library under lock and key and you’ve got no criticism of the bloke. What’s going on?

I am now widely speculating about how large the libraries are in Dutton’s house and/or office, that Marles’s library/study/colour-coded Hansard situation is “tiny”.

Marles replied:

No, but I’ve got criticism of your government, you’ve done a BRI agreement with China. We wouldn’t have done what the commonwealth government with the Port of Darwin –

He is cut off, by host Karl Stefanovic, who wants to know why he is going to criticise the federal government for a BRI agreement but not the Andrews government for having done the same thing.

Marles says:

Yeah, I am a loyal member of the Labor party.

Carry on.

Updated

Well, this is something to not be proud of. According to a Monash University study, which analysed almost three million tweets from six countries to identify key trends about the pandemic, Australians tweeted about panic buying – specifically, grog and toilet paper – more than any people from any other country.

Details from Josh Taylor, here.

Key findings of the study were:

  • Australian and Irish users perceived the issuing of frivolous fines based on ambiguous rules to be a revenue raising activity. This eroded public trust.
  • Australians tweeted about panic buying more than any other country, especially about toilet paper and limits on alcohol purchases.
  • Australians repeatedly referred to the decisions about non-essential service closures, specifically about the restrictions on mourners at funerals while hair salons remained open.
  • New Zealand displayed the greatest acceptance of public health measures, while the US showed the lowest. That’s in spite of these countries having the most and least restrictive of public health measures respectively.
  • Racially charged language and use of anti-China hashtags to signal tweets about Covid-19 were almost exclusive to the US.
  • The British were most concerned with at-risk individuals such as immunocompromised and the elderly, while New Zealand was most concerned with vulnerable community groups such as Maori and those without stable accommodation.
  • Ireland’s delay in shutting pubs and clubs for St Patrick’s day frustrated users juggling working from home with homeschooling children.
  • Anxiety and sadness were expressed in UK tweets. The availability and expense of mental health services was perceived poorly.

Victoria records 113 new coronavirus cases and 12 deaths

Victoria has recorded 113 new cases of Covid-19 and 12 deaths in the past 24 hours.

It’s good to see the number of deaths fall from yesterday. Our thoughts are with the families of those lost.

Updated

In other news, three people, including a four-year-old boy, died when they were hit by falling trees in strong wind in Melbourne last night.

The boy was struck by a tree in Blackburn South yesterday evening.

A 36-year-old woman also died when a ute she was travelling in was hit by a tree on the Maroondah Highway in Fernshaw around 7pm, and a 59-year-old man died when a tree fell on his car outside a shopping centre in Belgrave.

Updated

Morrison was also asked on Today about the 18,000 Australians still stuck overseas, many of whom are trying to get home but can’t get a commercial flight. Our reporter Elias Visontay had a great piece on the difficulties involved in this last weekend. I commend it to you.

Anyway. Morrison said that 4,000 Australians return home every week – that’s the current cap on hotel quarantine numbers. Those caps are reviewed fortnightly and lifted in extraordinary circumstances, as they were following the Beirut explosion.

We understand and realise that’s restricted at the moment but I stress there is about 4,000 people coming back every week and there has been around 100,000 people who have gone through the quarantine processes, and half of that has actually been in NSW.

We have to get the balance right here. We are giving additional support wherever we can to people who need it around the world and there are many cases where there is an urgent need for people to get home and we will continue to seek to support them in the ways that we can.

Are there any plans to quarantine them in regional areas to take the pressure of cities?

No. I’m unaware of that the source of those reports are.

He said the federal government does have “a lot of contingencies for emergency situations”, but that things like quarantining people in Howard Springs in the NT or on Christmas Island, as happened with the initial flights home from Wuhan and the Diamond Princess cruise ship, were “one-off cases”.

In other cases we have brought chartered flights back into Australia and they have gone through the normal hotel quarantine. But we don’t want to put too much stress on that hotel quarantine. We know what happens when quarantine breaks and there isn’t the tracing program to back that up. We have seen that in the terrible incidents that occurred in Melbourne.

Updated

Morrison then said that the embattled aged care minister, Richard Colbeck, “didn’t walk out of questioning” in parliament yesterday.

A video of Colbeck leaving was shared by the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese. It does look rather like walking out.

Morrison said:

The Labor party were involved in making a whole range of statements in the house. He [Colbeck] left the Senate to deal with issues in aged care, which he does morning, noon and night. There continue to be very serious issues there, and he went to address those issues as he went to address those issues as he needs to do each and every day.

Told that Colbeck’s failure to front questions “looked bad,” Morrison said he, Colbeck, and the health minister, Greg Hunt, dealt with more than 75 questions in parliament this week. He added:

There is a Senate inquiry looking into these issues, so the government hasn’t walked away from any scrutiny. At the same time it is his job to deal with issues that are happening in aged care centres, not to sit in the parliament and just listen to speeches from the Labor party.

Updated

Scott Morrison says he and Daniel Andrews will 'get on with our jobs'

Still on this issue, Scott Morrison was on Channel Nine’s Today program when it was put to him that his relationship with Victorian premier Daniel Andrews “seems to have disintegrated in recent weeks”.

Morrison said the reports of estrangement have been exaggerated, but this does sound like the kind of language you’d use after a break-up.

All the commentary around this issue is usually overstated. We are both very professional leaders, we work together on so many different issues. There will be some we disagree on, there are many we do agree on.

What we want to get happening in Victoria is obviously continue to get the outbreak under control, get people outbreak under control, get people out of lockdown, get borders open again, get people back to work and ensure we have a very solid basis to ensure that the outbreak won’t recur in Victoria. There is a lot to do, we will get on with our jobs, he with his, me with mine.

It was put to him that the premier’s tone yesterday sounded very annoyed. I’d posit that whether he’s annoyed or not, that’s the tone Andrews usually uses when he’s asked questions he doesn’t like, made worse by the fact that he hasn’t had a day off in 57 days. (Please take a day off, premier.)

Morrison said it was his job to “look after Australia’s foreign interest, to promote our national interests around the world and ensure that everything that’s happening in Australia is consistent with that”.

It is state premier’s jobs to continue to focus on the challenges they have with the pandemic and we are giving them unprecedented support for that and will continued to do that and work closely together to achieve that.

He rejected a suggestion the proposed legislation was just about disrupting Belt and Road, saying there were “130 agreements and memoranda and various other things that we know of with 30 countries” which could be considered.

What about what China thinks?

It’s not about whether I’m happy or any other politician is happy, it’s about doing the right thing and that’s what we are doing, standing up for Australia’s national interest and ensure there is a consistent approach. We welcome the relationship we have with all countries including China. They are our biggest trading partner and our trade is at record levels and we will continue to work hard to ensure that happens. But we won’t trade away our national interest with any country.

Updated

Daniel Andrews’s office has said the premier has been entirely focused on the pandemic as it defended him for not joining a briefing by Australia’s security agencies.

Andrews was the only premier or chief minister to not join a high-level briefing provided by security agencies within the past four weeks, sources in Canberra told Guardian Australia late yesterday. The claim comes amid increasing tensions in the relationship between the Victorian and federal governments over the handling of the Covid-19 crisis.

Andrews irked the federal government by saying yesterday that it should spell out alternative export markets and free trade agreements if it used its planned new powers to tear up Victoria’s agreement with China to cooperate on the belt and road initiative. That cooperation agreement has not yet led to any specific projects or investment strategy.

Andrews told reporters he had received a letter from Morrison about the proposed new federal legislation on Wednesday, the day before the announcement. Scott Morrison said the announcement was “not unsurprising or unexpected” because he had “arranged for all premiers and chief ministers” to be briefed on Australia’s national security issues and interests.

Victorian sources confirmed that Andrews had not joined the security briefing but insisted that Morrison had acknowledged and understood that the premier was busy dealing with the second wave of Covid-19 infections in the state.

A spokesperson for Andrews last night simply referred Guardian Australia to what the premier said at the earlier press conference “about his focus being on the pandemic”.

The Australian newspaper went big on the issue of the missed security briefing overnight, running the headline “Andrews’ eyes wide shut”.

Updated

Scott Morrison also responded to the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, who hit back at the federal government pursuing new powers to rip up agreements between state, territory, and local government with foreign governments, if it considers them to be detrimental to Australia’s foreign policy objectives. That could include the belt and road program.

Morrison said:

Dan will get on with his job this morning I’ll get on with mine, we are both professional leaders.

But he stressed that foreign policy was the commonwealth’s responsibility and the states had to fall into line:

We can’t have any government in the country going off in another direction. That undercuts us, it undercuts us internationally.

Morrison said the acting immigration minister, Alan Tudge, would today announce the details of a plan to provide free English-language classes to migrants:

If you can speak English you have got a higher chance of getting a job and I want people in jobs.

And finally, Fordman congratulated the PM for cooking another curry and suggested that he solve issues with China by cooking a Mongolian lamb or sweet and sour pork. Presumably not the RSL versions.

Morrison said:

I reckon that’s a great idea ... but you know it [cooking] is a bit of my down time.

Updated

Scott Morrison has been doing his usual Friday morning TV and radio rounds. He told 2GB’s Ben Fordham that he has not received a formal request from New Zealand for Australia to imprison the Australian terrorist who yesterday was sentenced for life without parole for killing 51 people at Friday prayers at two mosques in Christchurch.

Morrison interrupted Fordham when he read out the sentence, saying: “good”. Then he said:

There’s been no request formally made by the NZ government for that. I spoke to prime minister [Jacinda] Ardern yesterday ... our first concern is the feelings of the families.

There are “significant broader implications” to arranging to house the gunman in Australia, Morrison said. Australia doesn’t have a prisoner transfer agreement with New Zealand (which is wild to me) and, if one were signed, Morrison suggested that many New Zealanders could be sent home too:

We have quite a few New Zealanders in our prisons here. Obviously we send them home after they are finished their sentence … The prime minister and I are open to having discussions about this but there has been no request made, so we’re sensitive to that issue, but we would both want to know what the families think about this.

Updated

Good morning,

Another school in Sydney has been closed for cleaning overnight. Ryde secondary college was closed after a staff member tested positive for Covid-19, and 100 staff and students at the school have been asked to stay home while the deep-cleaning takes place.

“All staff and students are asked to self-isolate while contact tracing occurs,” the education department said on Friday.

Riverstone high school, Wyndham college and Schofields public school will reopen today.

Meanwhile, the hotel quarantine inquiry in Victoria today will hear from the managers of the Travelodge, Crown, Four Points by Sheraton, Rydges and Stamford Plaza hotels, who it’s understood will list concerns they had with the conduct of private security guards hired by the Victorian government to enforce the mandatory 14-day quarantine for returned international travellers. Those hearings start at 10am and will be broadcast.

The inquiry heard yesterday that guards had been hired via WhatsApp with minimal screening, and that one had been sacked after sliding a note under a guest’s door that said “Hey hun, add me on snapchat”.

In non-coronavirus news, the parliamentary hearing into the destruction of the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge rock shelter will commence at 8am. We have more on that here.

Let’s crack on. You can follow me on Twitter at @callapilla or email me at calla.wahlquist@theguardian.com.

Updated

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