Good morning. Tasmania is reconnecting to the mainland today, reopening borders to all vaccinated Australians just in time for Christmas. Two Liberal backbenchers have thrown their support behind bringing Wikileaks founder Julian Assange home. And Warwick Thornton’s must-see Indigenous vampire hunter series hits the small screen this week.
Covid restrictions in New South Wales will ease today, including those for unvaccinated people, despite epidemiologists urging caution amid rising case numbers and the Omicron variant. The NSW health minister, Brad Hazzard, said the government would “look at all options”, but the emergence of the Omicron strain and rising numbers would not affect the relaxing of restrictions. It comes as Tasmania reopens its borders to the rest of the country and two Virgin flights into Queensland are forced into isolation for Christmas after an infected passenger was detected onboard.
The convener of an organisation supporting independent climate-focused candidates has hit back at the Morrison government’s suggestion MPs and senators should dob the Climate 200 group in to the Australian Electoral Commission under new electoral donation rules. The government this month passed amendments to electoral laws that will force entities to register as “significant third parties” if they spend more than $250,000 on electoral expenditure a year. Simon Holmes à Court, the convener of Climate 200, said it was “crazy” the Liberal party was “impinging on a reasonably held expectation of privacy” by donors to charities so soon after it was “demanding complete privacy” for donors to the Legal Services Trust which part-paid Christian Porter’s legal fees.
Covid’s Omicron variant will probably become the dominant variant in several EU countries within weeks or even days, according to authorities. Denmark and Norway have announced stricter Covid measures to battle soaring infection numbers which are expected to exceed all previous records. Meanwhile Pfizer has said final analysis of its antiviral Covid pill showed near 90% efficacy in preventing hospitalisations and deaths in high-risk patients. Pfizer’s chief scientific officer Mikael Dolsten said he expects authorisation for use in high-risk individuals regulatory agencies soon.
Liberal MPs Jason Falinski and Bridget Archer have backed calls for the Australian government to seek Julian Assange’s return to Australia “as quickly as possible”, after Barnaby Joyce said the US extradition request was unfair. The UK’s high court has ruled that Assange can be extradited to the US to face espionage charges, but Joyce said it was unfair that the US wanted to extradite Assange to face prosecution over actions allegedly not committed inside the US. Falinski cautioned against megaphone diplomacy over the case, saying it “requires a level of subtlety to get the best possible deal we can for one of our citizens”.
Australia
Australian schoolchildren’s basic literacy and numeracy skills were relatively unscathed during the first year of the Covid pandemic, but the latest Naplan results show the gap between city and rural students widening. However education experts urged caution on interpreting the data and said changes were more likely to become apparent over many years.
Australia’s air force chief signed off on a $16bn F-35 fighter program despite acknowledging “deficiencies” with the aircraft and support systems, according to a new audit, which also revealed cost blowouts and delays with several major ADF programs.
Almost half of Australian federal police staff lack faith in the force’s senior leadership and only 61% believe they act with integrity, according to an internal survey.
The world
Donald Trump Jr and Fox News hosts begged then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to persuade Donald Trump to stop the Capitol attack despite their public efforts to downplay it, newly released text messages show.
The US Capitol attack was a “coordinated act of domestic terrorism”, according to a lawsuit filed by the DC attorney general against the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups.
Belarus has sentenced the husband of the opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to 18 years in prison for challenging the authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko.
A freelance photojournalist in Myanmar has died in military custody after being arrested last week while covering protests.
Microbes in oceans and soils across the globe are evolving to eat plastic, according to a study.
Recommended reads
Refugees are not vulnerable, they just need help to play to their strengths, says Om Dhungel, a “Blacktown boy” from Bhutan in Guardian Australia’s latest feature in our series Welcome to Blacktown. As a growing city deeply divided by socio-economic status, Blacktown depends on its people to hold it together. People like Dhungel, who runs his own consulting and mentoring practice. “The service sector could strengthen communities by helping to build an array of champions within them, then step back to let communities do things by themselves. They don’t need charity, they need inspiration,” he says.
The sunbaked town of Coober Pedy isn’t necessarily the first place you’d think vampires would be hiding out, but in Warwick Thornton and Brendan Fletcher’s eight-part series Firebite, the creatures get a modern – and Australian – twist. “In this refreshingly different take, which combines small reinventions with reframed political perspectives, [vampires] can also be taken down by a boomerang to the heart,” writes Luke Buckmaster. “Firebite has a rocky, grungy feel, with dim lighting and a scuzzy junkyard texture reflecting the energy of a show that comes across as effortlessly cool and engaging … Two things are certain. One: I’m hooked. And two: when genre storytelling mixes with Indigenous perspectives exciting things happen.”
In 2014, Christine Anu released her album Christmas in Australia. This year, Anu is helming a different celebration of the same name, an ABC TV special that explores what makes our festive celebrations unique. In our weekly interview about objects of importance, Christine Anu talks about irreplaceable locks of her babies’ first haircuts, and why some objects are meant to be lost.
Listen
The Labor party has unveiled their plan to tackle climate change, including an emissions reduction target of 43% by 2030. But is it up to the task of addressing the climate crisis? In today’s Full Story, Environment editor Adam Morton speaks to Laura Murphy-Oates about how Labor’s plan compares to the Coalition’s, and the future of climate policy in Australia.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Laramba’s Indigenous residents fear they are at risk of long-term illness due to uranium in their water supply and say they need to know who is responsible for fixing the problem. Features editor, Lucy Clark, introduces this story about contaminated drinking water for today’s episode of Australia Reads.
Listen to the best of Guardian Australia’s journalism on Australia Reads podcast on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
Joe Root has told his England cricketers that their harrowing experience in Brisbane is as tough as it gets, leaving “no excuses” as they head into their must-win second Test against Australia in Adelaide.
Media roundup
Liberal electorates received three times more taxpayer money than Labor-held seats, according to an analysis of 19,000 grants by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Western Australia could see a pre-Christmas Cabinet reshuffle, with the West Australian reporting that Roger Cook could be replaced as Health Minister “after a year of intense scrutiny of WA’s over-stretched hospital system.”
Coming up
Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg will hand down a mid-year budget review.
A NSW Bureau of Health Information report is due on impact of Delta outbreak on health system.
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