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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Michael McGowan (now) and Calla Wahlquist (earlier)

Sydney hotel cluster rises to 30 – as it happened

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What we learned, Tuesday 14 July.

That’s where I will leave you for now. Thanks as always for reading. We’ll be back first thing tomorrow.

Here’s what we learned today:

  • Victoria has recorded 270 new cases of Covid-19, which brings the national total to more than 10,000. Victoria’s Chief health officer Brett Sutton said the state could have could have hundreds of Covid-19 patients in hospital in the next few weeks.
  • Victoria recorded two new Covid-19 deaths, after a man and woman in their 80s both died in hospital. They mark the 25th and 26th deaths from the virus in the state, and the 109th and 110th nationally.
  • The cluster from the Crossroads Hotel in Casula in Sydney’s south-west rose to 30 cases after two men in their 20s who attended a gym next door tested positive. A previous positive case had visited the gym, and the NSW Health Department has now directed anyone who visited between 4 and 10 July to get tested and self-isolate.
  • The New South Wales government announced new rules for venues including a cap on 300 patrons. Any business found to be in breach of the public health orders could face penalties of up to $55,000, with further $27,500 penalties to apply for each additional day an offence continues.
  • Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned there was a “risk that there’s been a level of community transmission in New South Wales for some time”.
  • The Australian Rugby League Commission called an urgent meeting to see if the NRL should be moved to Queensland for the rest of the season, to stave off another mid-season halt. It came as Queensland announced new quarantine requirements for travellers from the Liverpool and Campbelltown local government areas in southwest Sydney.

Updated

Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary, Sally McManus, has spoken to Radio National Drive about the need for paid pandemic leave, and the unions’ position on extending income support.

McManus said that even though some MPs believe people can be “weaned off” wage subsidies or “somehow it will be OK and we have to let some businesses die because they’re going to die” - that the government is planning to extend jobkeeper.

She said: “I think surely there’s an attitude change because of what’s happening in Victoria. Unfortunately what will happen is, if they pull it away, that’s exactly what will happen [business closures] - and it will happen on mass, and it will happen also because of public health measures. I think the is listening to all of this and we’re hoping for a good announcement.”

McManus said there were “fair enough arguments” to make businesses requalify for jobkeeper payments (rather than once at the start of the program), because who knows what they economic position will be in January. So unions would not oppose that proposed change to jobkeeper, she said.

The ACTU is calling for paid pandemic leave. McManus argues it is “human nature” to disregard a sore throat or dismiss it as a cold when staying home and rejecting a work shift has a financial penalty.

McManus says people who stay home to self-isolate are “actually our protectors - they’re protecting the rest of us, saving our jobs and saving lives”. “And that’s a collective responsibility so we all need to support every one of us when we do that because that’s the only way we’re going to get through it.”

Casula Crossroads Hotel cluster rises to 30 cases

The New South Wales Health department has confirmed the discovery of two new cases of Covid-19 at a gym next door to the Crossroads Hotel in Casula.

Just now the state’s health department has issued a directive to anyone who attended the Planet Fitness Gym at Casula from 4 to 10 July to “immediately self-isolate and come forward for testing” after the discovery.

In a statement, NSW Health said the additional cases two men aged in their 20s, came forward for testing after it was established a confirmed case from the Crossroads Hotel attended the gym, which was subsequently closed for testing.

These new cases bring the total number linked to the Crossroads Hotel cluster to 30.

The state’s Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said it was vital that anyone who attended the gym on the dates specified get tested and self-isolate for 14 days since they were last on the premises even if they return a negative result. They should also continue to monitor for symptoms.

“We now have three confirmed cases associated with this gym and we are identifying the close contacts of these new cases to ensure they are also isolating and getting tested,” Chant said.

Updated

Earlier this afternoon former opposition leader Bill Shorten stood outside an aged care home in his electorate and called for it to be evacuated.

I think the facility needs to evacuate everyone. There’s been 13 residents or 14 residents who have tested positive. This is out of 35 residents. Covid-19 has a mortality rate, a death rate of between 30% and 50% for a highly vulnerable group such as the people behind me. I understand it’s difficult to self-isolate in this facility, that people share bathrooms. I understand many staff have already ... tested positive. I think this facility just needs to evacuate. Because we saw what happened at Newmarch in Sydney and I’m worried we could see more people die here perhaps because we haven’t acted when we can now.”

SLAPPED.

So many Simpsons jokes to be made here...

The Nationals senator Matt Canavan admits the government’s Covidsafe app hasn’t worked “as advertised”.

It hasn’t worked as advertised, as they say. It was worth a shot. My understanding [is that it] seems to be the technology on Apple phones is the big limiting factor. There is apparently not much governments can do about that [but] it is clearly not providing the traceability we hoped. In saying that, I would encourage everyone to have it, I’ve still got it. It can help.

Updated

Some numbers from Victoria released just now:

  • 752 cases may indicate community transmission.
  • 1,803 cases are currently active in Victoria.
  • 85 cases of coronavirus are in hospital, including 26 in intensive care.
  • 2,395 people have recovered from the virus.
  • Of the total cases, 3,799 cases are from metropolitan Melbourne, while 298 are from regional Victoria.
  • Total cases include 2,213 men and 2,001 women.
  • More than 1,170,300 tests have been processed.

Cases currently linked to public housing in North Melbourne, Flemington and Carlton:

  • 242 cases are residents of various public housing towers in North Melbourne and Flemington. Investigations are continuing into how these cases are linked.
  • 32 cases are residents of various public housing towers in Carlton.

Updated

Woman in her 80s dies in Victoria

A moment ago I told you a man in his 80s had died in Victoria. Now we hear another person, a woman in her 80s, has died in hospital. That brings Victoria’s death toll from the virus to 26 and Australia’s national toll to 110.

Updated

Speaking on the ABC just now, the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says there is “merit” in the idea of Australia pursuing an eradication strategy over suppression for the virus.

Well, I think there’s a lot of merit in that and, you know, the question, I guess, is are we, you know, is it too far gone in Victoria and potentially in New South Wales to be able to do that? Obviously the other states look like they have pretty much eradicated the virus. New Zealand appears to have done so. But I think that is obviously the safer, if that is achievable, that is the next best thing to having a vaccine, let’s face it.

Updated

For the first time since the pandemic began the New South Wales police have shut down a venue in Jindabyne, in the state’s Snowy Mountains, for breaches of public health rules.

NSW police announced this afternoon the closure of a pub following “serious concerns and breaches of public health and safety during the Covid-19 pandemic”.

“Between Tuesday 5 May 2020 and Saturday 11 July 2020, police issued a premises in Jindabyne with three formal and several informal warnings relating to intoxication levels and public health and safety issues, including large groups of people failing to social distance,” NSW police said in a statement.

At about 7.30pm on Saturday officers attended the premises and forced the closure of the venue. It was closed for a 72-hour period and has since been spoken to by police regarding its Covid-19 safety plan.

Earlier today police issued the venue with a $5,000 fine.

Updated

Victoria records 25th Covid-19 death

A man in his 80s from Victoria has died in hospital from Covid-19. He is the 25th death in the state, and the 109th across Australia since the beginning of the pandemic.

The federal education minister, Dan Tehan, says the government will “continue to monitor” whether students in Victoria between prep and year 10 who could find themselves again learning from home for an extended period could suffer compared to students in the other states.

We have had a fairly consistent position, that the best teaching is that face-to-face teaching, ultimately. Obviously there are some benefits in some circumstances for online learning but it can’t replace that face-to-face teaching.

Updated

Dr Kirsty Short, a virologist at the University of Queensland, is speaking to the ABC. Short’s department is the main group working on a vaccine for Covid-19 in Australia. She says she feels “optimistic” they will have “something” at the start of 2021.

I can tell you that you can come in at any time of the day and you will always find somebody working. 2.00am, 2.00pm, it doesn’t matter. All the scientists involved in the effort are working incredibly hard. We don’t know definitively when there will be a vaccine because it will depend on efficacy, on safety. What I think is really promising is we have lots of vaccine candidates throughout the world being tried, we’re not just depending on one strategy.

“I feel optimistic we will have perhaps something at the start of next year. That’s my feeling. That’s not a guarantee and if anything, a career in science has taught me, you can’t expect anything to happen easily, there’s unpredictable things that happen along the way, but all the data thus far looks really promising. I feel really positive.”

Here’s our afternoon update of the situation in Victoria, by my colleague Melissa Davey.

Kidd is asked about the usefulness of the government’s Covidsafe app. He says state and territory health departments say it is “useful”.

The reports that we’ve had from the state and territories is that the app is useful, it is picking up cases that the contact tracers are also picking up but clearly we need as many people to have the app downloaded as possible if we are going to be able to pick up those people who people do not know. This of course is where the app comes into its own. It is picking up the people who may have been standing beside you on public transport, the people who may have been with their back to you when you were in a restaurant or cafe, the people who may have been standing in a queue with you at the supermarket or elsewhere.”

In a follow-up he’s asked about its use in multicultural communities.

The app is available in a number of languages. It has been released in Arabic, Vietnamese, Korean, Cantonese and Mandarin. It is an important measure for everybody and we encourage everybody to use it. Clearly where we are picking up contacts of immediate family member, these are people that the person who has been diagnosed is being infected already knows are contacts. As I say, the great utility of the act comes when people are outside of their own hopes and mixing with strangers.

Updated

Kidd is asked whether the 19 August date for the end of the lockdown in Melbourne is realistic given the current rate of community transmission in the city;

The six-week period is three incubation cycles of Covid-19 and we saw the first time that we went into lockdown right across the country that this was the length of time that was required to dramatically suppress transmission of the virus occurring across the country. Clearly that will be monitored overtime and the decision as to whether that date is extended is obviously a decision for the Victorian government.”

Updated

Outbreaks in Melbourne's aged care homes cause for concern, deputy CMO says

Kidd says health officials “remain very concerned about the outbreaks that we are seeing in residential aged care facilities in Melbourne”.

“We recommend that all staff working in residential aged care facilities or providing home care support inVictoria in the areas under restriction where community transmission is occurring must be wearing a surgical mask when at work,” he says.

That measure was announced by federal health minister Greg Hunt yesterday.

Updated

Kidd says he expected the current contingent of more than 400 ADF personnel to remain in Victoria for at least the duration of Melbourne’s stage 3 restrictions. They are currently set to conclude on 19 August.

Updated

There have now been:

  • 10,251 Covid-19 cases in Australia.
  • 108 deaths.
  • 294 cases in the past 24 hours.
  • More than 90 hospitalisations, including 85 in Victoria.
  • 44,500 tests carried out in the past 24 hours including 22,000 in Victoria.

Updated

The deputy chief medical officer, Michael Kidd, is speaking in Canberra now. He tells us that in the past seven days only 4% of cases in Australia have been overseas acquired, which is, obviously quite a marked change from a fortnight ago.

Updated

Melbourne Theatre Company have just announced that it’s postponing its big-budget feelgood show for the year, the Simon Phillips-directed production of Shakespeare’s As You Like it, which was due to open in September.

MTC artistic director Brett Sheehy said in a statement today that the company was “devastated”.

“This production was the beacon at the end of the tunnel for us – a marvellous, uplifting show to mark our return to stage,” he said.

“Until recently we were optimistic about our return in September, but with the worsening situation in Melbourne there was no other option for us. The health and wellbeing of our community is paramount and we could not proceed with confidence that rehearsals or performances of As You Like It could be realised safely for our actors, creatives, staff and audiences.”

The company had held off on confirming that the show would be put on ice, with executive director Virginia Lovett telling Guardian Australia last week that the company was “working through the impact of the lockdown on our plans for the rest of the year”.

“This situation is ever changing and a serious challenge for MTC, our artists and the entire sector. It is uncharted territory,” she said.

Nine of MTC’s 12 shows this year have been affected by the coronavirus shutdowns, which the company said had meant the loss of 157 jobs for actors, creatives, makers and crew.

“This additional cancellation means the company is facing an $11m box-office shortfall along with prolonged hardship for our staff and artists,” said Lovett today.

“What we’re experiencing in the arts sector is shattering.”

The company is calling for an extension of the jobkeeper subsidy to assist organisations through Lockdown 2.0.

As You Like It will be rescheduled for 2021.

Updated

Good afternoon! Thanks as always to my colleague Calla Wahlquist for her work today. Important to note, however, that she is not the boss of me and I will touch as many large and vicious birds as I want to.

The New South Wales opposition leader, Jodi McKay, is being helpful by criticising the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, for not declaring south-west Sydney a “hotspot” for the virus after the Crossroads Hotel cluster rose to 28 cases today.

“The premier won’t declare South West Sydney a hotspot – but with a growing cluster of 28 and today’s new cases all from the region, the Berejiklian government must pull out all stops,” she said.

“There is a Covid-19 hotspot forming in South West Sydney. The government must respond accordingly. Right now its response is woefully inadequate.

“Today, cars have been bumper to bumper for 1km around the Crossroads Hotel. We’ve got long waits in Prestons and long waits in Picton. These testing sites are overrun and woefully under-resourced. It’s the Berejiklian government’s job to fix this and ensure thousands of people get tested without delay.”

woman standing in front of microphones and line of cars
NSW opposition leader Jodi McKay at the pop-up testing centre at the Crossroads Hotel in Sydney. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Updated

I’m going to hand over to Michael McGowan to take you through the rest of the afternoon.

Take care, don’t pat any large birds, and I’ll see you in the morning.

The Menarock Life aged care facility in Essendon is in Maribyrnong, the electorate of Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten.

He told reporters in Melbourne that he wants all residents moved out of the aged care home and into hospital.

I’m shocked and really horrified to discover that between 26 and 31 cases of Covid-19 have been detected behind me at this facility [the number from Victorian health officials is 28].

I think the facility needs to evacuate everyone. There’s been 13 residents or 14 residents who have tested positive. This is out of 35 residents. Covid-19 has a mortality rate, a death rate, of between 30% and 50% for highly vulnerable groups such as the people behind me.

Updated

Queensland police have warned that the new border restrictions against people who have been in two “hotspot” areas of southwest Sydney could lead to longer queues at the border.

As previously reported, from noon today anyone who has been in the local government areas of Liverpool or Campbelltown in the past 14 days will be under the Victorian rules, which means they will not be able to enter Queensland without an exemption.

From Queensland police:

Queensland’s border restrictions mean people who have been in a Covid-19 hotspot within the last 14 days will no longer be able to quarantine in Queensland and will be turned away at the state’s border.

Queensland residents who have been in a Covid-19 hotspot can return home but will be required to quarantine in government-provided accommodation at their expense.

The chief health officer declared the New South Wales areas as hotspots following a public alert of multiple cases of Covid-19 being traced to the Crossroads Hotel at Casula.

The immediate border restriction changes may cause delays at police border checkpoints and those travelling into Queensland are being urged to exercise patience and factor likely delays into their travel schedule.

Everyone entering Queensland must complete a border declaration pass before travelling. The fine for entering the state unlawfully, or making a false declaration, is $4,003.

Updated

John Green, the director of the NSW Australian Hotels Association, has been talking to the ABC:

My information is that with Crossroads, about 80% of the patrons were actually online bookings, so they were compliant with other persons filling in a book. We are going back to every person putting down their details, in electronic form, to clearly read their name and details, just in case there are further cases so New SouthWales Health can identify them and track them down quickly.

We’re happy to be working with government because we do not want to see an increase in the numbers that may lead to a further shutdown. We can’t afford to shut down our businesses like they’ve done in Victoria.

He says a further shutdown would be “disastrous”.

Obviously reducing our numbers is disappointing. A further shutdown would be disastrous, both for the venues, which – many of which may never reopen, but also for the economy and employment across – across New South Wales and, of course, Australia, because New South Wales is such a big part of the Australian economy.

Just quietly, all of these arguments about the economic impact of a shutdown also apply to Victoria. It’s just that in Victoria, rates of community transmission have got to a point where the economic argument comes second to the massive public health risk. If NSW sees a marked increase in community transmission, it will face the same decision.

Updated

OK, one final (hopefully) clarification on those NSW case numbers.

The seven cases that Dr Kerry Chant said came in after 3pm, were actually all recorded after 8pm last night.

The time of 3pm is when Health NSW sent out their coronavirus update yesterday. Chant was just trying to give a more timely update on the Crossroads cluster, because all of those seven cases are part of that cluster, but we all got confused.

So we have 13 cases from 8pm, Sunday 12 July to 8pm Monday 13 July.

And seven cases recorded after 8pm Monday 13 July, which will be included in the official coronavirus tally for today, reported tomorrow.

Good? Good.

Updated

The NRL will not move to Queensland, but players from NSW and the ACT will go back into strict biosecurity bubbles, following an emergency meeting of the Australian Rugby League commission.

The new protocols are expected to be enforced from Wednesday. More here:

Australia's closest neighbours face 'sub-Saharan African levels of poverty'

Australia faces “sub-saharan African” levels of poverty on its doorstep and needs to carry its fair load in helping its regional neighbours, Tim Costello has said.

In an interview with Guardian Australia, the veteran social justice campaigner called for an increase in foreign aid to help the Pacific deal with health, social and economic challenges exacerbated by Covid-19.

Costello cited estimates from the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, which said a severe scenario of a 20% economic contraction would result in an additional 1.2 million people in the Pacific and Timor-Leste being pushed into extreme poverty – or an increase of over 40% on pre-Covid-19 levels.

Costello said with absolute poverty defined as living below $1.90 a day, Australia needed to act:

“20% of that population pushed into absolute poverty, sub-Saharan African levels of absolute poverty on our doorstep”.

While he agreed with Scott Morrison’s assessment – in the recent defence update – that Australia needed to prepare for a post-Covid world that was poorer, Costello said this should spur the government to increase foreign aid and development funding.

The executive director of Micah Australia said:

The language of partnership is good, but I’m noticing even security and defence people saying when we spend $10 on defence for every $1 on aid or development, actually the software of aid has to rise because the hardware of military is what you don’t want to use.

You have cruise missiles to deter, not to use. The software of aid that literally feeds hungry kids and gets health to desperate people is profoundly important. So that’s really the message of [the new campaign] ‘end Covid for all’.

Costello said Australian government’s rhetoric about being a partner of choice in the Pacific was not yet matched with the dollars because even with the Pacific “step up” program, “we’re only back to Pacific aid levels of 2011-2012 – $1.3bn”.

So there’s a whole lot of Australians who think we’ve really stepped up. We’re actually only back to 2012 levels. And that’s pre-Covid. And now there [could be] 20% of the population going into absolute poverty.

Updated

People who fly into Western Australia from Victoria will now be automatically tested for Covid-19 when they land at Perth airport.

It follows the WA government last week making it compulsory for people travelling from Victoria to get a test on day 11 of their 14-day quarantine.

Health minister Roger Cook told reporters they were “adding another layer of caution and safety”.

We are doubling down on limiting any potential spread of the virus from Victoria.

We will have staff and resources in place at the airport to take swabs from people before they collect their luggage.

That means everyone arriving from Victoria will be tested at least twice, the same as we do for our international arrivals.

Western Australia recorded one new case of coronavirus overnight, in an overseas traveller who arrived in Perth from the UK via Dubai on 1 July. He is the 11th person to test positive from coronavirus from that flight, AAP reported.

All 21 active cases in WA are in hotel quarantine.

Prime minister Scott Morrison and Victorian premier Daniel Andrews have released a joint statement about the role of ADF members deployed to Victoria.

Andrews mentioned this in his press conference earlier today.

It explains that the state will have an “open request for assist model” in place, which means their role can be changed and adapted by Victorian authorities without having to go back to the commonwealth and re-deploy them. Apparently they must otherwise be tasked to perform a specific function.

In terms of numbers, Victoria currently has 335 ADF members working in the state. That group, built up to about 400, will remain in Victoria until the end of stage 3 restrictions on 19 August. The other 1,000 will start arriving soon and remain in place for four weeks.

The statement says the additional 1,000 ADF members headed to Victoria will be deployed, based on need, in:

  • State Control Centre planning, logistics and intelligence reporting.
  • Public health response focusing on contact tracing data management and analysis, information flow as well as the allocation and tracking of tasks and the onboarding staff to undertake interviews.
  • Support for supply and logistics to ensure physical care packages such as food and toys and other essential supplies are provided to public housing residents.
  • Support focusing on testing in metro, regional/rural and tourist locations.
  • Assisting relevant agencies with community engagement focusing on community awareness and outreach, particularly in high risk areas as well as critical infrastructure and regional workplaces.
  • Partnering with Ambulance Victoria paramedic response crews to expand Ambulance Victoria’s response capabilities by providing personnel to act as a second crew member that can support paramedics at scenes and drive back to hospital.
  • Compliance checking to support Victoria Police’s enforcement of the Chief Health Officer’s stay at home orders.
  • Surge capacity as required in relation to vehicle check points.

Updated

An important correction: apparently the bird that bit Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was a rhea, not an emu.

That makes sense, because rheas are native to South America and emus are not, and also because the animal in the photo was clearly not an emu. This was our Australian bias showing and we can only apologise.

Here is Bolsonaro with a rhea:

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro speaks on a mobile phone next to an rhea outside the Alvorada Palace in Brazil on Monday.
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro speaks on a mobile phone next to a rhea outside the Alvorada Palace in Brazil on Monday. Photograph: Sergio Lima/AFP/Getty Images

Here is an emu:

You wouldn’t stand next to these guys.
You wouldn’t stand next to these guys. Photograph: Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

People of Victoria: now is not the best time to try to move drugs into NSW. It’s really not. There are police on all the bridges.

Just ask the 39-year-old man who was charged with supplying a prohibited drug after he was stopped by police on the border at 10.45pm on Monday.

This statement from NSW Police:

About 10.45pm, police were enforcing the closure of Wodonga Place, South Albury, when they stopped and spoke with the driver of a white Hyundai Excel.

While speaking with the occupants of the vehicle, officers noticed that the 39-year-old passenger appeared to be drug-affected and the car smelled of cannabis.

Police conducted a search of the vehicle and allegedly located methylamphetamine concealed within a cigarette packet. While police were searching the vehicle, the man allegedly attempted to throw a coffee cup containing methylamphetamine into a nearby bin.

The man appeared in court today, police said, and was bailed to 1 September and given a public health order to self-isolate for 14 days.

This is Menarock Life aged care facility in Essendon, the site of the biggest aged care cluster reported this week. Staff are now wearing face masks and face shields.

Twenty-eight people, a mixture of staff and residents, have tested positive to coronavirus, and some residents have been moved out of the centre to allow them to isolate.

A staff member sanitises her hands outside the Menarock Life aged care facility, where a cluster of some 28 new infections had been reported, in the Melbourne suburb of Essendon.
A staff member sanitises her hands outside the Menarock Life aged care facility, where a cluster of some 28 new infections had been reported, in the Melbourne suburb of Essendon. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images
Another staff member sanitises her hands outside Menarock Life aged care facility.
Another staff member sanitises her hands outside Menarock Life aged care facility. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images
Remember that the zoom lenses used by photographers can give the impression that people are standing closer together than they in fact are.
Remember that the zoom lenses used by photographers can give the impression that people are standing closer together than they in fact are. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images

We have been given a bit of clarification in the NSW coronavirus figures.

As reported earlier, NSW recorded 13 cases of coronavirus in the 24-hours to 8pm last night.

They also recorded an additional seven cases, all at the Crossroads Hotel, which came in after 3pm yesterday.

We’ve been told those seven cases will go on tomorrow’s numbers.

The Australian Capital Territory has recorded no new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, and still has five active cases.

I’ve always liked emus.

The chief executive of ME Bank, Jamie McPhee, has resigned, two and a half months after drawing customer anger over home loan redraws.

ME Bank slashed thousands of dollars from the amount an estimated 20,000 customers could redraw from their home loans. Customers complained that they had been given little or no warning, with some particularly angry because they were counting on the money to help them during the coronavirus crisis.

The bank backflipped, and McPhee apologised, a week later.

ME Bank chairman James Evans said McPhee “made a significant contribution to the Bank over the last 10 and a half years, transforming the scale and extent of ME’s retail offering to customers”.

“Notably, ME has continued to achieve primacy in customer satisfaction, based on Roy Morgan banking research,” he said.

“Importantly, Jamie has steered the Bank through significant change in the industry and the macro economic environment. Jamie leaves with our thanks and best wishes for the future.”

McPhee said that “after 10 and a half years at ME, I am looking forward to taking some time out before considering what I want to do next”.

“The timing is right for me and its right for the bank,” he said.

He will continue to serve until the end of the month, after which chief financial officer Adam Crane will serve as CEO while the board looks for a permanent replacement.

Updated

New lockdown rules for NSW pubs include hygiene marshals and penalties up to $55,000

While that’s happening, let’s set out a few more details about the new rules for pubs in NSW. The new rules will come into force at 12.01am on Friday.

They will:

  • Limit group bookings to a maximum of 10 people.
  • Cap the maximum number of customers allowed in a venue at 300 people.
  • Require large venues to have dedicated hygiene marshals in “distinctive clothing” to oversee social distancing, cleaning and hygiene at all times, and small venues to have them in peak lunch and dinner periods.
  • Make it compulsory for venues to register a Covid-safe plan though Service NSW
  • Require all hotels to create a digital record of patron names and phone numbers, to be submitted to Service NSW within 24 hours.
  • Encourage or strongly promote pubs to adopt a QR code sign in (lol QR codes).

Any business found to be in breach of the public health orders could face penalties of up to $55,000, with further $27,500 penalties to apply for each additional day an offence continues.

Liquor and Gaming NSW will also have the power to enforce $5,500 fines for the first offence, to close businesses for a week on the second offence, and to shut down a venue for up to a month for the third offence.

Updated

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese is speaking now in Sydney. He starts by talking about the palace letters. Which, again, you can read all about here.

Updated

Australia’s barley industry feels it may have borne the brunt of “a fracture” in the relationship with China, representatives of GrainGrowers have told a parliamentary inquiry.

David McKeon, chief executive officer of the industry body, told an inquiry into diversifying Australia’s trade and investment profile that China’s decision to impose steep tariffs on barley from Australia in May had effectively put a $1.5bn market “out of reach overnight for Australian farmers and exporters”.

Brett Hosking, the chair of GrainGrowers who gave evidence during the same session today, said the allegations about subsidies and “dumping” of products were unfounded. He told the Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth:

In terms of the allegations around subsidies, we know we’re the least subsidised farmers in the world. Sometimes we hold that as too much of a badge of honour, I think. Sometimes, perhaps, we should be looking at more strategic support from government.

Hosking said the industry was working with Chinese authorities in a bid to resolve the current dispute over barley, but added:

The real sense that we’ve had throughout this whole process, and it’s been an 18-month-long process, is that there seems to be maybe a bit of a fracture in the relationship between Australia and China, and that could be for a whole lot of reasons and they go way above my head, but whatever it is I feel that perhaps barley has borne a bit of the brunt of that fractured relationship. I guess thinking strategically about what’s next is what we focus on in the industry - I actually think we are looking to government for some real targeted support in helping us develop new markets.

Back to South Australia. Where, as we mentioned very briefly earlier, premier Steven Marshall has announced that they will not reopen their border to NSW and the ACT because of concerns about the rise in coronavirus cases from community transmission in Sydney.

From AAP:

Premier Steven Marshall says the state’s transition committee has met and decided not to go ahead with the lifting of the 14-day quarantine measures on July 20.

He says of particular concern is the “super spreader” event associated with the Crossroads Hotel at Casula, in southwestern Sydney, with many people now in isolation.

“We know that this is going to be very inconvenient to people who have already made plans,” he said. “But our primary responsibility is for the health, safety and welfare of all South Australians.

“We’re being cautious, we’re looking at the epidemiology of what’s going on, we’re looking at the results in NSW. But at this stage, there’s too much uncertainty.”

SA’s decision will also impact AFL teams planning to travel to Adelaide from Sydney.

The state previously lifted the quarantine restrictions for people coming from Queensland, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

But it has imposed a hard border closure with Victoria, only allowing locals to return and essential travellers through, because of the surge of infections in Melbourne.

Marshall said South Australia was still “a long way off” imposing a similar hard border closure with NSW.

Updated

This has become a rolling announcement.

The producers of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which should be halfway through its second year at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, have announced they have suspended production for a further five weeks in line with the Melbourne stage three lockdown.

That pushes performances out, again, until at least 13 September. They said:

Performances from Wednesday 12 August to Sunday 13 September 2020 will be postponed and rescheduled. Ticket holders will be automatically moved to an alternative date from Wednesday 17 February 2021 onwards, with the same seating allocation they originally booked.

Affected customers will be contacted directly with details of their rescheduled date. Provisions will be made for interstate and international customers impacted by continuing travel restrictions as well as those unable to attend their rescheduled performance.

The NRL is considering moving to Queensland for the rest of the season

While all that was happening, the Australian Rugby League Commission called an urgent meeting to see if the NRL should be moved to Queensland for the rest of the season, to stave off another mid-season halt.

It comes as Queensland announced new quarantine requirements for travellers from the Liverpool and Campbelltown local government areas in southwest Sydney.

More on that here:

Updated

One final thing: one of the clusters Sutton mentioned was connected to a private hospital. We were a bit confused about which hospital, but Melissa Davey has clarified it was the Brunswick Private Hospital.

There are now 14 cases linked to that hospital — last week it was only five.

Sutton said Victoria was currently on the “wrong side of the curve” to be talking about the possibility of pursuing an elimination strategy, but should consider it in future.

It’s interesting, when you cut so quickly between a Victorian and NSW press conference, to see the difference in the way they talk about suppression versus elimination. Berejiklian sounded very comfortable with a suppression strategy. Sutton does not.

He said:

I think we’re on the wrong side of the curve now to really be talking about the nitty-gritty of elimination. But if we can drive numbers down to single figures, then we should have that further consideration about whether it’s feasible and what it would look like.

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews repeated that further restrictions could be imposed if case numbers continue to rise.

Further restrictions need to be considered. We can’t rule anything out if there aren’t sufficient mechanisms to drive down transmission. We would do the minimum required, because we knowhow much of an imposition it is on businesses and people’s lives but if it’s required to reduce transmission, then it has to be in play.

Ok let’s go back to Victoria now. We missed the second half of that press conference by jumping to NSW.

The Victorian chief health officer, Prof Brett Sutton, was asked if Victoria was now recording a higher positivity rate in its coronavirus tests. He says that they may be getting a higher positivity rate, but that’s because testing was focused on the areas of the highest risk.

The question was prompted by Victoria doing fewer test this week than the peak of 37,000 tests per day last week.

Says Sutton:

I don’t think we’re missing more because we do 10,000 fewer tests necessarily. It depends where we’re targeting our testing. We’re focused on areas of highest risk of transmission but also on those areas where we don’t want new transmission to be occurring.

He said they were also encouraging people in regional areas to get tested, if they have any symptoms.

I just spoke to someone from NSW Health to clarify those new coronavirus figures, and was told they would put out a statement shortly. So we’ll bring you that information as soon as we have it.

Berejiklian praises the person who first linked back the two disconnected cases, reported last week, to the Crossroads Hotel.

I’m not sure if this has been discussed public but I want to congratulate the really smart physician who found the initial link between two cases in very different suburbs who were then linked to the Crossroads Hotel.

That was really smart detective work in a matter of hours who allowed us to then take the action we have. This is the kind of detective work that goes on every day in New SouthWales. It also means that when our health officials have to deal with contact tracing, it is much easier to deal with a venue with a maximum of 300 people than to deal with a venue that might have 600 or higher numbers.

'We are seeing a new phenomenon for our continent'

Berejiklian is asked if these new restrictions on pubs essentially mean that the previous restrictions were not tight enough.

She says that’s not what it means, but then repeats that it’s “highly likely” that NSW has been exposed to underlying community transmission for some weeks.

It’s important to note that it’s highly likely, as I said last week — and potentially before then— highly likely that given the evolving situation in Victoria, that New South Wales was exposed to underlying community transmission from that state and the work that [NSW Health] is doing, whilst it’s yet to get to that conclusion, demonstrates there is no doubt that the impact of what’s happening in Victoria has impacted New South Wales.

And that’s why we are in a state of high alert.

She said this level of community transmission was “a new phenomenon for our continent”.

Previously, prior to what occurred in Victoria, the vast majority of cases in Australia were from overseas travellers and their direct contacts. We are now at a very different phase in the pandemic, when the vast majority of cases in Australia are from community-to-community transmission and that impacts the way in which we deal with the disease.

... Now, when you have a new, evolving situation, when there is anew phenomena, that is amongst us, have you to act accordingly.

Updated

The new rules for pubs in NSW will come into force this week.

As of midnight on Thursday night, every pub in NSW must download a Covid-safe plan and register with Service NSW.

Updated

NSW records 13 new cases, Crossroads Hotel cluster now at 28

NSW has recorded 13 new cases of coronavirus to 8pm last night. Of those, two are returned travellers in hotel quarantine, and one is a known close contact of a previous overseas case who was isolated prior to becoming infectious.

Ten other cases are connected to the Crossroads hotel cluster. Three attended the venue, and the remaining seven are close contacts.

That brings the number of cases associated with the Crossroads Hotel cluster to 28, NSW chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, said. She’s describing these numbers in a slightly confusing way – they’ve changed the standard reporting period.

Anyway. The new cases are:

  • A 40-year-old south-western Sydney woman, who attended the Crossroads Hotel on 3 July;
  • A 50-year-old Melbourne man who attended the Crossroads Hotel on 3 July;
  • A 30-year-old south-western Sydney man who attended the Crossroads Hotel on 3 July;
  • A 20-year-old south-western Sydney woman who attended the Crossroads Hotel on 3 July;
  • A south-western Sydney child, who is a contact of a hotel case;
  • A south-western Sydney teenager, who is a contact of a hotel case;
  • An 80-year-old south-western Sydney man who is a contact of a hotel case;
  • A 20-year-old south-western Sydney man who is currently being interviewed by contact-tracing experts.

Says Chant:

Clearly, this is showing that there has been a number of cases linked to the Crossroads Hotel on 3 July.

She has again urged anyone who visited the hotel between 3 and 10 July to self-isolate and get tested as soon as possible.

Updated

Berejiklian: There has been 'a level of community transmission in NSW for some time'

Says Berejiklian:

I want to make this point very clear – that during a pandemic, when you’re easing restrictions as we have been doing, you’re going to get extra cases and we have to live with that.

There is no way that NSW will have zero cases during a pandemic. It’s not going to happen and we shouldn’t expect that. We were always going to have cases when we’ve eased restrictions and we have to expect that.

The reason we’re been in especially high alert in NSW is also, of course, of what’s happened in Victoria. The geographic proximity of our states, the fact that there were some challenges with quarantine potentially going back some months means that we have that risk that there’s been a level of community transmission in New South Wales for some time, which is why we are on extra high alert.

There will be phases during the pandemic when we are more concerned than other times and this is a time that we are more concerned because we are still tracing what level of communities transmission has occurred in the last few months that may be bubbling below the surface that we’re not aware of.

Updated

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian is addressing the media now. She is stressing that indoor activity where people aren’t seated is a huge risk for the spread of coronavirus.

She is announcing those previously foreshadowed changes to hospitality in NSW.

They include:

  • A cap of 300 patrons.
  • Venues with a capacity of of more than 250 people to have a full-time marshal to enforce the coronavirus safety plan.
  • A coronavirus safety monitor smaller capacity venues during peak times.
  • Making it mandatory for hotels and pubs to take every customer’s contact details.

These measures were put forward by the Australian Hotels Association, Berejiklian says.

She says it’s a good example of industry taking the initiative.

This was expected. South Australia will not open its border with NSW.

On the outbreaks in aged care, Sutton says that some residents have been transferred out of Menarock aged care but it is not always appropriate that aged care residents be transferred to hospital.

I don’t think it’s always the case that patients in aged care, residents who test positive, need to be transferred. Sometimes the safest place for them is to remain in that facility, but we’ll always make a consideration and it will be a clinical judgement of the treating doctor for those patients. Where we think there’s a risk of transmission within that facility, with we will make a strong recommendation for those patients to move out to an acute health setting but it’s really done on a case-by-case basis.

I skipped over this earlier, but one of the agreements struck around the use of ADF members in Victoria will be to make many ambulances in Victoria a shared crew, with an ADF member partnered with a paramedic.

Andrews says it is “a bit novel”.

Ambulance Victoria paramedic response crews — not all of them, but many of them — will be now a shared crew, so one members of Ambulance Victoria, so an ambo, and a member of ADF, that will be a general-duties ADF person who can support the inevitable number of paramedics who will finish up having to quarantine, having to isolate, having to be furloughed because of exposure or potential exposure.

It’s also just a great way to best use the resource that we have, freeing up additional ambulance paramedics. That will be rolled out quite soon. That is separate to Ambulance Victoria personnel who have come into our public health response. They’re separate things but the common denominator is Ambulance Victoria personnel and putting them to the best use possible.

Here’s a run-through of some of the the biggest outbreaks in Melbourne.

Al Taqwa College — 147 cases.

Menarock Life aged care facility in Essendon — 28 cases.

Riverina Apartments in Footscray — nine cases

Somerville retail services — 14 cases

Updated

Victoria could have hundreds of coronavirus patients in hospital in the next few weeks, says Brett Sutton

Victoria’s chief health officer, Prof. Brett Sutton, said he is expecting that “a couple of hundred individuals at least” will be hospitalised in Victoria after testing positive to Covid-19, over the next few weeks.

There are currently 26 patients in intensive care in Victoria, an increase of nine from yesterday. Twenty-one are on ventilators. There are 81 people in hospital with coronavirus in Victoria.

Sutton says there are now 1,800 active cases of coronavirus in Victoria, and that usually 10-15% of coronavirus cases will require hospitalisation.

He urged GPs to refer patients who may need more intensive treatment early.

GPs have a really critical role in looking after these current individuals with coronavirus. I would just say to them please be in touch and make an assessment of the clinical needs of those individuals.

If people are deteriorating, now is the time to make an early referral of linkage with acute care or the tertiary care system. They’ll want to see these patients early. They’ll want to be on top of clinical management early with Dexamethasone or Remdesivir or whatever therapy is available to them. It’s important to see these patients early if they’re deteriorating it avoid the worst outcomes — intensive care or death.

Andrews said he and prime minister Scott Morrison would issue a statement later today announcing a standing capacity of ADF members in Victoria to help with the coronavirus effort.

That standing capacity will be around 335 members, which is the number of ADF members already working in Victoria. The 1,000 ADF members announced yesterday are in addition to that standing capacity.

Andrews said:

I can confirm that rather than this being subject to requests and offers and a whole lot of paperwork, we’re going to have essentially a standing presence, so arrangements just get rolled over and it’s kind of an open-ended thing, rather than having to fill out heaps of paperwork every couple of days, whenever there’s even a minor change to the roles, responsibilities and numbers of ADF personnel that are going to be here...

So those 335 will continue to do principally what they have been doing, but there may be some changes defend pending on circumstances. This obviously is very dynamic. But they’ll be staying and they’ll be there for the foreseeable future. There will be around 1,000 additional ADF personnel that will join us in the days, weeks, probably over the balance of the next three or four weeks. It will take some time to get up to that full contingent.

Andrews said the tasks the additional 1,000 ADF members would be doing, includeing providing surge capacity at the state control centre; logistics and planning; delivering meals to people in public housing towers; helping police monitor exits to the Melbourne and Mitchell Shire lockdown area.

On contact tracing, Andrews said that about 200 staff from Ambulance Victoria who are not able to be on the road, including graduates, are now helping the public health team with contact tracing.

They are off-roster paramedics, people who who would not be on the road anyway so it’s not taking away from the number of paramedics available to be on the road.

Andrews said the Victorian government was still working on partnerships with the private sector, including bringing across staff from Medibank, Telstra, Qantas and Jetstar to work on the call-centre elements of the contact tracing and public health effort.

As the task grows, the team needs to grow as well. And pre-emptively, I think where we’ll get to is to train up a whole range of staff from our banks, not to use right now, but in the event for either fatigue manage mentor if the task continues to grow, for them to be potentially deployed in some weeks’ time. That’s just good forward planning.

The total number of coronavirus cases reported in Victoria now stands at 4,224, premier Daniel Andrews says.

Some 21,995 tests were conducted yesterday, and 1,170,352 since 1 January.

Andrews has again encouraged anyone with even mild symptoms to get tested.

That gives us the data, the information, the certainly we need to deliver this strategy to drive down numbers and to get to the other side of this second wave.

Of the 270 new cases reported overnight, 28 are connected to known “and contained” outbreaks, whatever that means, and the remaining 242 are under investigation.

Obviously with such large numbers it’s a real challenge to get to the bottom of exactly where those people have been, who they’ve spent time with, who are their close contact and to make sure that appropriate public health responses are delivered at that individual and family level right across those suburbs and, indeed, right across the state.

Australia records more than 10,000 coronavirus cases

Victoria has recorded 270 new cases of coronavirus, which brings the national total to about 10,250.

The ABC reports that Gladys Berejiklian will give a coronavirus update at about 11.30am.

More on the potential impact on the NRL of Queensland declaring two areas of Sydney to be coronavirus hotspots, via AAP:

The NRL is seeking assurances from the Queensland government that players who have visited Sydney’s COVID-19 “hotspots” will be exempt from a mandatory hotel quarantine period.

On Tuesday Queensland declared anyone who has visited the Campbelltown or Liverpool areas in south west Sydney in the past fortnight will not be allowed into the state.

Queenslanders who are returning after visiting them will need to undergo hotel quarantine at their own expense.

The NRL hopes an existing exemption for teams to enter the state despite earlier border closures will simply continue given the game’s strict biosecurity measures.

No games have been played at Campbelltown Stadium in the past 14 days, however, numerous NRL players reside in the area.

In round 10 there is only one game scheduled in Queensland, with Melbourne and Gold Coast to play on Friday night.

However, it will not be affected as both teams are already based in that state.

Also up for consideration is a Wests Tigers and Warriors game scheduled to be played at Campbelltown Stadium on July 31, which could be moved.

It comes after a cluster of 21 cases of the virus have been linked to the Crossroads Hotel in Casula, while three NRL players were put into ‘COVID-hold’ away from their teams on Monday.

Before we hear the Victorian coronavirus update, which is due at 11am, let’s look at the national numbers.

As of 9pm yesterday, the total number of coronavirus cases in Australia stands at 9,980, according to the tally maintained by the health department.

That includes 189 historic cases, mostly crew members on the Ruby Princess and other ships, that were reclassified as Australian cases on 3 July.

So unless there has been a sudden and drastic reduction in the number of cases in Victoria, we are going to reach 10,000 cases today.

Things are getting very interesting on the Palace Letters blog. Today, we are all history nerds.

This is what then governor general, Sir John Kerr, wrote to the palace on November 11, 1975:

I should say I decided to take the step I took without informing the palace in advance because, under the Constitution, the responsibility is mine, and I was of the opinion it was better for Her Majesty not to know in advance, though it is of course my duty to tell her immediately.

Has this been covered in The Crown yet?

Australian agricultural exporters are reassessing their dependence on the China market after previously viewing financial benefits of such trade as being worth the risk, a senior public servant has said.

A range of agricultural groups and industry bodies will today give evidence to a parliamentary inquiry looking into the need to diversify Australia’s trade and investment profile.

The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment has told the inquiry the impact of Covid-19 had “highlighted the vulnerabilities from reduced demand and disruptions to global supply chains” and it warned that trade concentration could “sharpen” the consequences of a disruption in a key market.

In a submission, the department says exports to China accounted for 29% of the total value of Australia’s agricultural, fisheries and forestry exports in 2018-19, up from 21% four years earlier.

David Hazlehurst, the acting secretary of the department, was asked to explain the claim in the department’s submission that the “likelihood of a targeted trade disruption is reduced where there is mutual dependence, such as Australia’s live cattle exports to Indonesia and Vietnam or in the case of a range of Australia’s exports to China”.

The chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth, George Christensen, likened it to “mutually assured destruction” theory from during the Cold War.

Hazlehurst replied that countries would operate in a way that they perceived to be in their own interests. And explaining what had driven Australian exporters to focus on China, Hazelhurst said:

Particularly as many have observed in relation to China, the price premium for many agricultural products is so high that it’s led to many agribusinesses making the judgments that the risk is worth taking. Now those judgements may be being recalculated by those businesses over time, but the judgement they made at the time was that that premium was worth taking that risk.

New Zealand’s new opposition leader, Todd Muller, who was only appointed to the role in May, has resigned.

Muller, 51, said:

It is more important than ever that the New Zealand National Party has a leader who is comfortable in the role.

The role has taken a heavy toll on me personally, and on my family, and this has become untenable from a health perspective.

For that reason I will be stepping down as leader effective immediately.

I intend to take some time out of the spotlight to spend with family and restore my energy before reconnecting with my community.

AAP reports that his resignation comes after he was widely criticised for his handling of a scandal involving a junior National Party politician leaking private health details of coronavirus patients to the media.

New Zealand is due to go to a general election on 19 September.

Again, all your Palace Letters news can be found on a separate live blog here.

But the director-general of the national archives, David Fricker, is still speaking.

This could cause some difficulty for the league.

Albert, the two-year-old boy missing in Margaret River, has been found safe and well.

How good is good news?

With Queensland questioning the deterrent value of its public health fines, it’s worth pointing to this comparison by Nick Evershed.

Star Entertainment Group made a profit of $198m in 2018-19. Their fine for contravening NSW’s public health rules was $5,000.

Star Entertainment Group profit v Covid fine
Star Entertainment Group profit v Covid fine

The National Archives is holding a press conference ahead of the release of the Palace Letters at 11am. We have a liveblog just for Palace Letters nerdery, helmed by Naaman Zhou. You can follow that here.

TikTok appears to be lobbying Australian MPs, to assure them they are “not aligned with any government, political party or ideology”.

Labor’s Stephen Jones shared the letter he received.

The letter, from Lee Hunter, the general manager of TikTok Australia, says:

The truth is, with tensions rising between some countries, TikTok has unfortunately been caught in the middle, and is being used by some as a political football.

I assure you — we’re a social media platform for sharing videos — that’s all.

Updated

And I’m sorry, but this remains the case.

Queensland increases threatens prison time for those who breach public health orders

The Queensland health minister, Steven Miles, has announced that the state will increase its penalties for breaching public health orders to include a possible six months imprisonment.

The maximum on-the-spot fine for breaching Queensland’s public health orders is the oddly specific amount of $4,003, but Miles said that for some, that did not appear to be a sufficient deterrent.

He told reporters:

Perhaps people from other states think they might get away without having to pay for it. Perhaps people think that $4,000 is worth it to come to Queensland, worth the risk. So this week we will move amendments that will allow us to apply a penalty of imprisonment for breaches of those health directions.

So the maximum penalty on the spot will be $4,003, or up to six months’ imprisonment and I hope that that will demonstrate to the public just how serious we are about enforcing these measures, just how serious it is that everyone complies with them, and just how serious the penalty might be if they fail to do so.

Miles said health authorities were still waiting for the results of the tests of 18 Queenslanders who had been at the Crossroads hotel in Sydney during the at-risk period.

Queensland’s chief health officer, Jeanette Young, also provided some more information about that decision to classify the local government areas of Liverpool and Campbelltown, in Sydney, as coronavirus hotspots.

The order will apply from midday today, and will mean that anyone who has been in either of those areas in the 14 days before attempting to enter Queensland, will have to self-quarantine for 14 days upon entering Queensland. That includes any Queensland residents who visit those areas.

Says Young:

This is important because we are seeing continued cases confirmed who attended that hotel and we’ve seen subsequent infections in families and other groups from people who have come into contact with people who went to that hotel.

Victorian premier Daniel Andrews and chief health officer Brett Sutton will give a press conference at 11am.

Pat Sparrow, the CEO of Aged and Community Services Australia, which represents non-profit aged care homes, says people who test positive to coronavirus in aged care should be moved to a hospital.

Sparrow, speaking to ABC News, said that was a lesson learned from the tragic Newmarch House outbreak.

One of the things that we are recommending and talking to governments about is that we do think that when there’s are positive residents, we should transfer those residents to hospital. We think it’s really important — both for the individual resident to make sure they get the best treatment they can and have the best chance at recovery — but also for aged care providers, it’s important to be able to limit the spread and contain the spread.

And in the instance that we are going to see higher numbers, that we can actually work with the health authorities and prepare to deliver what’s known as hospital in the home, but we think the best thing that we can do right up front is actually to transfer those positive residents to hospital or to another secure environment where they can be treated in the same way as the rest of the population would be, and give us that more critical time to prepare and to take steps within the facility ... because we do know that when we see coronavirus come into a facility, the results can be devastating.

Updated

Queensland declares two areas of Sydney coronavirus 'hotspots'

The Queensland government has declared two areas of southwest Sydney, in the area surrounding the Crossroads Hotel, to be coronavirus hotspots.

Anyone who has been in the local government areas of Campbelltown and Liverpool will be subject to quarantine requirements if they go into Queensland.

Queensland has reported no new cases of coronavirus overnight. There are still four active cases in the state.

If you have completely given up on Q+A, you may have missed last night’s show with Julia Gillard, where she said she wished she had called out the sexism she experienced earlier in her term.

You can read a recap here but I wanted to share this quote:

I do muse to myself that, you know, the second day I was prime minister, the news media was entirely about the jacket I wore.

Entirely. Like, no one reported anything I said the second day I was prime minister. It was all about what I was wearing. And I wonder now if, you know, on the third day I was prime minister, if I’d gone out to the Canberra press pack and said, ‘Is anybody feeling a little bit silly about this? If I’d been a bloke wearing a suit, would you have put that on the news yesterday? Oh, my God, he’s got a charcoal suit on! Would anybody cover that? Are we going to keep doing this for as long as I’m prime minister?’

I’m not sure what the reaction in the pack would have been – bemusement by some, defensive by others, but maybe it’s a conversation we needed to have.

I was a baby journalist in regional Australia during Gillard’s prime ministership, and the strongest lesson I learned was not that women were capable or could lead, because that is self-evident to anyone who has met women and is not blinded by misogyny. It was that, for women in public life, appearance and presentation would always be given primacy over actual skills. That’s a terrible lesson. Let’s do better next time.

In other tragic news, eleven people have been taken to Royal Hobart Hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning.

More from AAP:

Two adults and five children are in a serious condition with carbon monoxide poisoning after an open charcoal grill was used inside.

In all, eleven people were taken to Royal Hobart Hospital after paramedics were called to a house around 2.30am on Tuesday.

The health condition of four children is being monitored, while the other seven people are in a serious condition.

The children range in age from two months to 17 years, the state’s department of health says.

A reminder that you can follow our global coronavirus coverage here.

There has been another Aboriginal death in custody in Western Australia.

The 19-year-old man was found unresponsive in his unit at Perth’s privately-run Acacia Prison on Saturday and taken to hospital, where he died yesterday.

In a statement, Serco Australia, which runs the prison, said:

Staff at Acacia prison have remained in contact with the man’s family through this period and Serco acting prison director Craig Moody has offered his condolences to the family on behalf of all prison staff.

The prisoner’s death will be subject to a coronial inquest, which will examine the circumstances surrounding his death.

Serco will also assist a Department of Justice review into the prisoner’s death.

The death is being reported as a suicide. He is the second Aboriginal man to die in custody at Acacia in a month.

If you need help, the following crisis support services can be reached 24-hours a day: Lifeline 13 11 14; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800; MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78; Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636

It is a national day of action for the campaign to raise the rate of jobseeker and youth allowance, past the return to pre-coronavirus payment levels of just $40 per day at the end of September.

Guardian Australia’s Greg Jericho wrote about the issue today.

The harsh truth about the government’s decision to effectively double the jobseeker rate from a base of $565.70 a fortnight to $1,115 for a single person, as soon as Covid-19 smashed employment, is that were the rate actually at a decent level such a special bonus would not have been needed.

Unemployment benefits need to do two things. First, they need to allow people to support themselves while looking for work. Secondly, they should act as automatic stabilisers during recessions – to keep money flowing across the economy.

Not only was it clear that the base rate of $565.70 a fortnight did not achieve either of these aims, it was also clear politically that having such a large number of people experiencing life below the poverty line was death for the government

The CEO of the Australian Council of Social Services, Cassandra Goldie, said:

There’s broad agreement that we need to work together to get through this crisis and that we cannot turn back to the brutality of leaving people without paid work to try to get by on just $40 per day – the old Newstart rate.

As we continue to deal with this health crisis, more people than ever before will struggle to find paid work. There is currently only one job vacancy available for every 13 people receiving jobseeker.

We’re calling on the government to announce in the mini budget on July 23 a permanent, adequate increase to income support that allows people to cover the basics – housing, food, public transport, bills – so that they can rebuild their lives.

People living on jobseeker and youth allowance have been asked to share their stories on social media at #RaiseTheRateForGood.

Updated

Poor little guy. Please do share if you’re in southwest WA.

In some good news, it turns out that your hatred of leaf-blowers (and by extension anyone wielding a leaf blower at the god-awful time of Before You Were Ready To Get Up) is shared by the Australian Medical Association.

In a submission to the Queensland government’s inquiry into its health response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the state branch of the AMA recommends the following:

The Queensland government in consultation with Brisbane City Council (BCC), can make Brisbane a safer cleaner city, reducing by:

    • Ceasing the non-essential leaf and dust blowing in parks and streets. Blowers re-suspend small particles which remain airborne exposing those nearby to the polluted air. In addition the excessive noise impacts on mental health, with increased concerns due to COVID 19;
    • Minimise other vehicle and equipment emissions;
    • Adopt the air quality standards advocated by the health experts. This would have targets that incorporate all air pollution and particulates including dust and bushfire smoke, “attributable to a natural event”.

There. You’re not being intolerant, you’re just concerned about the resuspension of small particles such as may increase air pollution and therefore exacerbate the risk of Covid-19. How eminently reasonable of you.

Updated

A $2m failure?

The Covidsafe app has been branded a “$2m failure” by Labor after it seemingly failed to identify any unknown close contacts in recent outbreaks in Victoria and New South Wales.

The Victorian Health Department has told Guardian Australia it has now downloaded data from the app from people who tested positive for coronavirus 285 times, but the state’s chief health officer Prof Brett Sutton said yesterday it hadn’t identified any additional contacts not already found through existing tracing methods.

Sutton said the app would be more useful in situations like the outbreak at the Crossroads Hotel in Casula, where you would be in contact with people you don’t know for more than 15 minutes, but state Labor MPs Jodi McKay and Anoulack Chanthivong who were at the venue in the period where infections have occurred said they haven’t been contacted.

The NSW chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, said the app had not been the major feature of contact-tracing in the state.

Federal Labor’s health spokesman, Chris Bowen, told Nine News the app had “played no role in effectively finding anybody who’s been exposed to COVID-19. This is a $2m failure.”

Many of the ongoing issues with the app could be resolved by switching to the Apple and Google version of the app as the UK, Ireland and several other countries are now in the process of doing. Australia is reluctant, however, because it would mean users wouldn’t be forced to register their phone number, and Apple and Google would retain the power to deactivate the app if it was being used for non-contact tracing purposes.

Updated

Aged care minister Richard Colbeck says he is “very concerned” about the number of coronavirus outbreaks linked to aged care service providers in Melbourne. He was speaking on Radio National just now about a new order requiring people working in aged care in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire to wear masks.

There are 35 coronavirus outbreaks in aged care service providers in Melbourne. Of those, 29 are linked to residential aged care homes – but all but five are at this stage limited to staff, not residents. Four of those outbreaks predated last week, but the rest are new. The rest are in-home service providers.

Colbeck said:

Most of the cases that we have are in fact staff presenting with Covid-19. It’s not residents as such. There are five facilities where residents have contracted Covid-19, two of those are very concerning, there are quite large numbers in those facilities... but mostly it’s staff.

The facility with the highest number of residents testing positive to Covid-19 is Menarock Life aged care home in Melbourne, where 31 residents and staff have tested positive. Some residents have been moved out of the facility to allow them to isolate. That’s because the facility has shared rooms and shared bathrooms, Colbeck says, so it’s impossible to isolate in the home.

Colbeck said:

I’m extremely concerned about the situation in Victoria at the moment. We were in very good shape up until a few weeks ago, and the fact that we have had 35 residential facilities and home care providers present with a case of Covid in a week is very concerning.

He added:

We have quite a few residents now who have contracted the virus and unfortunately that’s going to lead to tragic results.

Colbeck said the AHPPC’s order around wearing face masks in aged care was limited to Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire because that is where there is significant community transmission. But he said there was nothing stopping aged care providers from taking up that advice more broadly.

Updated

The president of the National Farmers Federation, Fiona Simson, will address the national press club today about a plan for agricultural manufacturing, which the NFF says will provide a boost to the Australian economy post-coronavirus.

More from AAP:

The NFF wants green and red tape slashed, digital resources for farmers, investment in regional manufacturing and the Murray Darling Basin Plan fixed.

“When farmers do well, Australia does well,” Ms Simson said ahead of the speech.

Ms Simson says coronavirus is a chance for businesses to become more flexible, with Australia having the potential to be a global leader when it comes to a post-COVID economic recovery.

“The obvious place for that recovery to start is in the bush,” Ms Simson said.

But the regionalisation of Australia’s economy will need national coordination.

“Fragmented sources of public and private investment have no coordinating strategy at the regional level,” Ms Simson said.

The farming lobby wants a $1 billion fund to entice farmers to meet biodiversity targets.

Ms Simson is also asking the government to fast track 20 regional infrastructure projects.

Failures in hotel quarantine will be reported immediately to government, says Jane Halton

Jane Halton, who is leading the national review into the management of hotel quarantine, and who is also the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), says she will alert government immediately if she discovers any issues or failures.

Speaking to Radio National, Halton said:

If I come across something that I am concerned about that I think can be improved immediately, I will raise that … the last thing we want is to wait for some bureaucratic process where we wait for people to write reports and respond to that.

Halton said she is not concerned about the use of private security guards in managing hotel quarantine per se, but is concerned about the adequacy of their training.

I don’t care what kind of uniform people wears, what I want to make sure … is that they are appropriately trained

She says hotel quarantine has “served us well to date”, the infection breach in Victoria exempted, and that it is likely the program will be in place for some time.

Certainly we know that until there is a vaccine or an effective treatment this will be a scourge that will run around the world and as an Island nation we do have an advantage that is not available to others

Halton’s inquiry is separate to an inquiry instituted by the Victorian government, which will examine what went wrong to allow the coronavirus to escape from quarantine hotels. Her inquiry, she says, is prospective, and will be concerned with three issues: compliance with infection control protocols; management of active cases; and support for vulnerable people in quarantine.

The last is an area of particular concern to her, she told host Fran Kelly.

Halton said she was “excited but not ecstatic” about the start of human trials of the prospective vaccine developed by the University of Queensland. She said Helen Clark’s warning that it could take two to three years for a vaccine to be developed and produced at the necessary scale was “very realistic”.

Everyone needs to be a little cautious because there’s a long way to go between going into a safety trial in humans and rolling out an effective vaccine.

Updated

The Kmart store in Casula, southwestern Sydney, near the Crossroads pub, will reopen today after being closed for deep cleaning because a staff member tested positive to Covid-19.

A Kmart spokesperson said.

At Kmart, the health and safety of our team and customers is our highest priority and we can confirm that a team member at our Kmart Casula store has returned a positive result for Covid-19. As soon as we were made aware, we immediately closed the store as a safety precaution and we’re currently conducting a thorough sanitisation of the store and will reopen tomorrow. We are working closely with NSW Health and SafeWork NSW and will continue to keep our team and customers informed.

Updated

Good morning,

Well, that did not last long. Pubs in New South Wales will be subject to tighter restrictions, for a given value of tight, after a special meeting of state cabinet last night. There will be a cap of 300 patrons allowed in any venue – remember venues still had to comply with the one person per four square metres rule – and group bookings will be reduced from 20 to 10.

The changes will be announced today, in response to the outbreak at the Crossroads Hotel, which is linked to 21 confirmed cases with potentially hundreds of close contacts. According to Nine newspapers, they will only apply to pubs – not to clubs or the Star Casino, which was fined $5,000 and had a case reported yesterday.

The source of the outbreak is yet to be confirmed, and the NSW chief public health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, says that authorities are considering the possibility that it originated with a truck driver on the Melbourne to Sydney run.

Among those who patronised Crossroads during the at-risk period, of 3 to 10 July, were guards at Sydney’s Villawood detention centre. They are now self-isolating, but refugee advocates are concerned they could already have exposed refugees to the virus.

In Victoria, Nine newspapers reports that public servants sent emails within 24 hours of the mandatory hotel quarantine program being implemented on 28 March, calling for a police presence on site and warning that private security companies were ill-equipped to manage the infection control risks.

And 57 police officers from Frankston police station are now in self-isolation following exposure to Covid-19.

And finally, happy Palace letters release day. More than 200 pieces of correspondence about the dismissal between the Queen, her private secretary, and the then governor-general, Sir John Kerr, will be publicly released today.

You can follow me on twitter at @callapilla and email me at calla.wahlquist@theguardian.com

Updated

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