Good morning! Covid restrictions are back in Melbourne as an outbreak in the city’s north grows, preselection battles are brewing in the Coalition and a stink over Tasmania’s Pooseum could be headed to the state’s Integrity Commission – it’s a real mixed bag in today’s morning mail. Enjoy!
One of the Coalition’s most senior women, the federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, is expected to face a challenge in her rural NSW seat of Farrer amid allegations of “toxic” branch-stacking by far-right conservatives. The threat comes as the prime minister, Scott Morrison, urged Liberal colleagues not “to get distracted” by a tumultuous preselection season in NSW in which at least four sitting MPs are being challenged, including two female marginal seat holders. Fiona Martin in Reid, Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney and Alex Hawke in Mitchell are also facing challenges, with the outcomes to be decided by plebiscites of local members for the first time.
Companies linked to tax havens and one of China’s wealthiest property developers have been handed federal government grant money to employ remote Aboriginal work-for-the-dole participants under the 1,000 jobs program – a scheme that was supposed to primarily benefit Indigenous businesses. The $50m program, which aims to generate employment for 1,000 Aboriginal jobseekers and businesses in remote Australia, has created just 400 jobs in the two years it has been running. Guardian Australia can reveal that two companies among those approved to receive the payment are part of one of China’s biggest property development empires, Shimao Property. Shimao has a staggering level of wealth, boasting roughly US$20bn annual revenue.
Victorian health authorities appear to have clamped down on people trying to get the vaccine if they are not yet eligible. The rules have been reinforced after Guardian Australia reported on Sunday that under-50s who were not eligible were nevertheless given the jab when they turned up at hubs. Younger people were turned away on Monday and Tuesday, while eligible Victorians were urged not to wait to get vaccinated as a Covid outbreak in the city’s north grew to nine cases. The cluster has prompted the return of restrictions on gatherings and mask wearing. Meanwhile, dozens of countries are facing severe oxygen shortages because of surging cases, threatening the “total collapse” of health systems. Nineteen countries around the world – including India, Argentina, Iran, Nepal, the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan, Costa Rica, Ecuador and South Africa – are deemed most at risk after recording huge increases in demand since March.
Australia
In Tasmania, a stoush over a large sign depicting a penguin projectile pooing is going all the way to the state’s Integrity Commission. The owner of the “Pooseum” – a small museum “dedicated to all things poo” has made a formal complaint to the state’s public sector misconduct watchdog.
The Morrison government is under increasing pressure to act on the climate crisis, with a poll showing seven in 10 Australians want the Coalition to lock in stronger commitments in the lead-up to this year’s Glasgow summit.
The chief executive of Snowy Hydro, Paul Broad, has known the part-owner of the Kurri Kurri site, where a new taxpayer-funded gas plant will be developed, for 40 years but says he recused himself from negotiations about the land.
Ready for tonight’s super blood moon? Here are the times the lunar eclipse-supermoon will be visible in Australia.
The world
Joe Biden has met the family of George Floyd on the anniversary of the murder that sparked mass protests across the US, and amid frustration over lack of police reform.
The father of Belarusian journalist Raman Pratasevich said it was clear his son was acting under duress and had been beaten when he recorded a video “confessing” to organising mass protests against the regime.
French and German influencers have said a Russian-linked PR agency offered them money to tell followers the false claim that the Pfizer vaccine is responsible for hundreds of deaths.
A shepherd has been hailed as a hero in China after it emerged that he saved six stricken runners during an ultramarathon in which 21 other competitors died.
Recommended reads
Patricia Piccinini is set to bring Flinders Street station’s forgotten ballroom back to life in her first home town show in nearly two decades. The artist was once interested primarily in our relationship with our own bodies. More recently, though her concerns have become far more existential. What she wants now, she says, is to spark in her audiences a new kind of understanding about the relationships between people and the world. “How do we build our lives together with other, more-than-human animals? And how can it be a nurturing relationship? How can we have an understanding and experience of nature, which is not just about this very traditional idea of pristine nature, untouched by humans? Because that doesn’t exist, and the idea is not workable any more.”
“I don’t really know what reconciliation means any more,” writes Wesley Enoch. “It’s been 20 years since we walked over bridges, signed petitions and wrote sorry in the sky, over 10 years since we said we were going to close the gap, 30 years since we held a royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody and 30 years since the Yothu Yindi song Treaty was number one on the pop charts. But why does it feel like we still can’t shift the dial on black and white relations? Why, when we ask for a constitutionally enshrined voice to oversee our sovereign rights is it met with political obstruction? Why can’t people see the logic?”
In the late 1990s Stefano de Pieri made his television debut as the host of the ABC program A Gondola on the Murray. Two decades later he is still living and cooking in Mildura, where he operates a restaurant and cafe. Mildura gave De Pieri one of his most useful cooking tools – a butcher’s cleaver seized from a country pub kitchen, which he has since lost. Here, he tells us about that beloved misplaced utensil, as well as the story of two other prized belongings.
Listen
A year ago the murder of George Floyd caused outrage in Minneapolis – and kicked off a protest movement that spread across the world. How do the young Black people at the heart of the story live with his legacy? In today’s Full Story, Anushka Asthana speaks to Amudalat Ajasa, who was still a student when she heard the news and marched in protest against police brutality against Black people. Amudalat looks back on how the crisis has changed her sense of her city and why she felt compelled to document the movement as it took shape.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
A black cloud has begun to develop over Australian rugby after a series of poor performances by the nation’s teams so far in this year’s Super Rugby Trans-Tasman. After two rounds, Australia’s five teams are 0-10 against New Zealand opposition. The results raise the question: if the Australians cannot win at the provincial level, how will the Wallabies defeat the All Blacks in the Test arena?
Media roundup
The family of a man who died after being tasered 10 times by police during a seven-minute struggle in Perth are calling for the coroner to release confronting footage recorded minutes before his death, says WA Today. Queenslanders could face rolling blackouts ($) after an explosion at a coal-fired power station caused the state’s worst outage since 1985, reports the Courier-Mail. And, in the Australian Financial Review, the Australian chief of the Port of Darwin’s Chinese owner is warning that the potential scrapping of its 99-year lease threatens to deter foreign investment.
Coming up
Senate budget estimates continue in Canberra.
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