Summary
We’ll leave it there for now.
Here are the main events of the day.
- Victoria and NSW both recorded no new cases, while SA recorded one new case, with a known source
- The Victorian government announced plans to fund sick and carers leave for casual and insecure workers, putting it on a collision course with the federal government
- NSW announced a further easing of restrictions from Wednesday, while QR codes will also become mandatory in all businesses
- Traffic began flowing freely along the NSW-Victoria border on Monday
Always an entertaining TV interview.
My guest tonight is the former Prime Minister Paul Keating #abc730
— Leigh Sales (@leighsales) November 23, 2020
This is too good.
Research published by Australia’s central bank says jobkeeper stopped 700,000 additional employment relationships being lost in the first half of 2020, and overall job losses would have been twice as large without the wage subsidy.
See more from Guardian Australia’s political editor Katharine Murphy.
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher tells @PatsKarvelas he expects the Australia Post/Christine Holgate report to be made public with "redactions to respect individual privacy". The government received the report on Friday. Mr Fletcher says its release is a decision for cabinet
— Tom McIlroy (@TomMcIlroy) November 23, 2020
'Inexplicable' fire at Tasmanian salmon farm leads to 50,000 4kg escapees
Some 52,000 farmed salmon have escaped into the wild after an “inexplicable” fire at a fish pen in Tasmania.
The blaze broke out at a Huon Aquaculture farm in D’Entrecasteaux Channel south of Hobart on Monday.
“We are estimating that we have lost between 50,000-52,000 4kg fish,” Huon Aquaculture CEO, Peter Bender, said.
An investigation into the fire, which damaged a third of one pen above and below the waterline, is ongoing.
“We have electrical equipment on our pens but in 35 years of farming we have never had an electrical fire on a fish pen so the cause has baffled us,” Bender said.
The company has informed wildlife and environment authorities in Tasmania, reports AAP.
Citing a 2018 Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies report on escaped farmed fish, Bender was confident the mass escape won’t harm native animals.
“Farmed salmon generally don’t appear to feed on native species as they are typically used to feeding on fish pellets,” Bender said.
“Escaped salmon typically don’t last long, unfortunately, what the seals don’t get, the fisherman quickly do.”
In mid-2018 wild storms damaged several Huon fish pens in southern Tasmania, setting hundreds of thousands of salmon free and giving many recreational anglers a meal.
Updated
AAP has a markets update.
Australia’s share market has closed higher to start the trading week after energy and mining shares proved popular.
The S&P/ASX200 benchmark index closed higher by 22.4 points, or 0.34%, to 6561.6 on Monday.
The All Ordinaries closed higher by 32.1 points, or 0.48%, to 6772.0.
The energy sector gained 2.77% after world oil prices rose, while the materials sector, which includes the miners, rose 1.59%.
The Aussie dollar was buying 73.13 US cents at 1622 AEDT, higher from 72.92 US cents at Friday’s close.
Updated
An Uber Eats delivery rider has been killed in Sydney in what is the fourth death among food delivery workers in the past two months.
My colleague Naaman Zhou, who has been following this issue closely, has more details here.
Fletcher is asked whether he regrets the way the Christine Holgate saga played out. Holgate quit after she was strongly criticised by the prime minister over Cartier watches that were handed out to senior managers as performance bonuses.
Fletcher dodges the question, saying Holgate’s decision was her own. He won’t buy in when Karvelas asks why Holgate was “treated so shabbily”.
The communications minister, Paul Fletcher, has been quizzed about the government’s decision to grant a further $10m to Foxtel to cover women’s sports without a plan for spending it.
He says:
That was an extension of a three-year program to support sports that do not have adequate television coverage including women’s sports. Foxtel has done a very good job in getting more women’s sport televised. Our government took a decision to extend that. There are formal requirements on Foxtel in terms of giving us a plan in relation to what they’ll do to secure that funding. That has to come through before funding.
Patricia Karvelas asks Fletcher what the specific requirements are.
Fletcher initially says “I am aware there are some in the ABC that don’t like” the grant. He doesn’t specify the requirements for the funding, but says generally, it is to meet the policy objective, which is to boost coverage of women’s sport.
Updated
WA records five cases in hotel quarantine
Western Australia has recorded five new cases of Covid-19, all in hotel quarantine.
A Department of Health statements said the confimed cases were five women, aged aged between 14 and 59, who had returned to Perth from overseas.
There are now 21 active cases in the state.
WA has recorded 804 cases since the start of the pandemic.
Tasmania has allowed some South Australians to leave enforced quarantine but is keeping its border closed to the mainland state.
The island state had ordered all SA arrivals dating back to 7 November into isolation after a coronavirus cluster in Adelaide, reports AAP.
Tasmania’s health department announced on Monday any South Australians who arrived before 16 November would be allowed to leave quarantine.
Anyone who arrived after that date is still required to undertake two weeks’ isolation, as are any new arrivals from SA.
People in quarantine with coronavirus symptoms, or those awaiting a test result, are required to stay in isolation regardless of when they arrived.
“Extensive testing in South Australia over the past week has not detected any wider transmission occurring in South Australia (before 16 November),” the public health director Mark Veitch said.
“Public Health Services will continue to review this situation and provide further advice in the coming days.”
Tasmania, which has gone more than 100 days since recording a Covid-19 case, is also closed to Victoria but open to the rest of Australia.
Updated
Labor’s federal IR spokesman, Tony Burke, has also responded to the Victorian government’s plan to ensure paid sick leave for casuals and insecure workers.
He says:
Victoria’s plan to provide sick pay to casual and insecure workers shows real leadership in stark contrast with the inaction of the Morrison government.
The Andrews Labor government is stepping up to protect some of our lowest paid and most vulnerable workers.
But Scott Morrison still doesn’t seem to get that insecure work is a problem in Australia.
Once again, the states have been forced to act because Mr Morrison and Christian Porter have failed to do so.
Updated
South Australia police to interview two more people connected with pizza bar
Police in South Australia are providing an update into their investigation into the Spanish national who was accused of lying to contact tracers last week.
The man, a hotel quarantine worker, is accused of failing to tell police he worked at a pizza shop.
We are told that they have viewed more than 400 hours of closed-circuit TV and that the man has been spoken to by detectives.
Police would also like to speak with two further people who are also connected to the pizza shop.
The assistant commissioner Peter Harvey says those two individuals are seeking legal advice.
The Spanish national has been “cooperative and has been helpful”, Harvey says. He emphasises that “there is no presumption here of guilt and we will be looking at all of the facts”.
Harvey says:
The actual process of interviewing both the person in quarantine and two others is that the officers involved certainly have to abide by the health advice as to their own safety. So I expect this will continue for at least several days and I will then be able to make a full assessment on the advice provided from the investigative team.
SA police last week launched a taskforce to investigate information provided to the state’s coronavirus contact tracing teams.
Updated
The federal attorney general, Christian Porter, has also criticised Victoria’s plan for paid sick leave for casual and insecure workers.
Here’s @cporterwa critiquing the proposal. pic.twitter.com/LN8sFZTtbK
— Nick Bonyhady (@nickbonyhady) November 23, 2020
Updated
The company that provides IT services to the disability royal commission has been hit by a cyber security incident.
The commission says in a media statement:
The disability royal commission says its current hearing and its ongoing operations have not been significantly affected by a cyber security incident against an IT service provider, Law in Order, that provides document and digital support to the commission.
The cyber security incident occurred on Sunday 22 November 2020.
As a precaution Law in Order has shut down a number of its key systems.
The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability is one of Law in Order’s many clients affected by the incident.
The chair of the commission, Ronald Sackville AO QC, says the incident has not significantly affected the ongoing work of the disability royal commission, which “will proceed as planned with its important work”.
Public Hearing 8 into the experience of First Nations people with disability and their families in contact with child protection systems, continues in Brisbane today as planned.
The DRC understands that the Australian federal police and the Australian Cyber Security Centre have both been informed about the incident and that Law in Order is undertaking its own investigation with the help of expert cyber security advisors.
The company has assured the DRC that at this stage there is no evidence that DRC information has been accessed.
The investigation is ongoing as the company works to bring all of its systems safely back online.
Updated
Victorian Liberals oppose Andrews government's sick leave proposal for casual workers
The Victorian Liberal opposition does not support the government’s plan to provide paid sick leave to casual and insecure workers.
The two-year trial will initially be funded by the Victorian government, but would then by funded by an industry levy if the scheme continues.
The opposition leader, Michael O’Brien, said:
A jobs crisis is not the time for Daniel Andrews to be introducing a new tax on jobs.
You can’t tax your way to economic recovery.
Small business is on its knees. Daniel Andrews needs to help small business, not slug them with a new tax.
The government has provided $5m in the state budget to design and implement the pilot.
Andrews, the premier, has said the levy would be “modest”. He said the pandemic had exposed the issue of insecure work, which he described as “toxic”.
Updated
A report showing single parents are increasingly unable to afford early learning and care has been described as a “wake-up call” for the federal government.
The Hilda survey, released last week, found 52% of single-parent households with children under four used formal childcare in 2016. But 2018, the figure had dropped to 35%, a trend not seen among coupled parents.
The Parenthood executive director Georgie Dent said:
The new Hilda survey makes it very clear that the early learning system is not working for all children and families.
It is unacceptable that the rising cost of early learning and care is pricing out single-parent households from early learning and care, impeding so many children from reaching their full potential and preventing women from being able to develop financial security.
This survey is a wake-up call for the federal government to urgently introduce universal access to high quality early learning and care before this growing inequality becomes further entrenched.
Updated
The federal government has unveiled the Victorian component of its $75m restart investment to sustain and expand fund, with 48 performing arts companies sharing more than $20m in emergency funding.
My colleague Kelly Burke has the details.
Updated
Sutton says that he is hopeful the Covidsafe app will be more effective now that Victoria’s restrictions have eased.
So far it has not added much to the public health response, he says.
As we move to settings where people will go to restaurants, move to retail shopping areas, and will not necessarily know who they had been standing next to for 15minutes, cumulatively, I think that’s an opportunity for the Covidsafe app to come into its own. I hope it identifies more people but to date it hasn’t really added more than what we have been able to ascertain through direct interview with our cases.
Updated
This is Luke Henriques-Gomes, again. Thanks to Calla for the quick rotation off the bench.
The Victorian chief health officer, Prof Brett Sutton, is giving evidence at a parliamentary inquiry into the state’s contact tracing system.
In an exchange with Liberal Georgie Crozier about the strain on the system during the second wave, Sutton says:
I’m confident we will not get to 200 cases because even with a small number of cases we’re going to be hitting those metrics very early.
Defending Victoria’s response, Sutton also says: “We were faced with individuals who had up to 20 unique close contacts each, either in the workforce or at home or both.”
Updated
With that, I’ll hand back to Luke.
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has written to the prime minister and to state and territory leaders to formally seek their response to his proposed royal commission into the Murdoch press.
He also alluded to articles written against the petition, including this one in the Australian which alleged that 1,000 (of the 501,876) signatures on the petition were “fake” or the result of bots, and this one published in the Sydney Morning Herald where Rupert Murdoch’s former right-hand man, Les Hinton, said Rudd courted News Corp when in office.
Rudd said:
The bottom line is, the Murdoch media mafia hate what we are doing. That’s why you’ve seen so much activity in the last couple of weeks as the Murdoch mob try to discredit the petition and try to discredit those who have led this campaign. Including myself, Malcolm Turnbull and others. And even in today’s media you will see them feeding out former editors and former News Corporation executives in a concerted campaign to undermine the legitimacy of that which we are doing.
But what I wanted to assure you of is the intensity of the Murdoch personal attack, the intensity of the Murdoch campaign against us, indicates that this mob are deeply worried about the effectiveness of what we are doing. I take it therefore as an encouragement, and you should as well.
CAMPAIGN UPDATE: Formal letters have now gone to the Prime Minister, Premiers & Chief Ministers seeking their response to your petition for a #MurdochRoyalCommission to ensure the strength, diversity & freedom of Australia's media.
— Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) November 23, 2020
Join for email updates: https://t.co/1CPRRw0bio pic.twitter.com/QwxNOiqFu1
Updated
The one active Covid-19 case left in Victoria is a person in the greater Dandenong local government area, the health and human services department says. That person is in hospital, but not in intensive care.
Today marks 24 days in a row of no new cases in Victoria. Just four days to go until the state meets the requirements for Western Australia and Queensland opening the border (although they haven’t guaranteed that they will open up).
Just 7,261 Covid tests were conducted in Victoria yesterday.
Speaking of borders, there’s now a permit system in place for people from South Australia wishing to enter Victoria, which you can find here. If you’re in the cross-border bubble, which is 70km on either side of the Vic-SA border, you don’t need a new permit from the Victorian government but you do need to keep using the existing permit system, issued by the SA government, or present your driver’s licence to cross the border.
DHHS has also issued a reminder to people living or staying in Benalla and surrounds, Portland and surrounds, and Altona and surrounds that fragments of the virus were detected in wastewater testing. So if you have any symptoms, even very mild ones, get a test. There are additional pop-up testing sites in every location.
I bullied my dad to get a test because he lives in one of those catchment areas. Dear reader, I will bully you too. Get a test.
Updated
It’s Calla Wahlquist here, holding the fort for Luke Henriques-Gomes for a short while.
And while I’ve got you, here is some extremely Tasmanian news, via AAP:
Three people are accused of importing cannabis oil-infused gummy bears into Tasmania via post.
The illegal packages were seized from a mail centre in Burnie in the state’s north-west, sparking a house raid on Friday which uncovered more infused bears.
“It is concerning that people are manufacturing confectionery infused with cannabis oil, as the confectionery could be easily mistaken as legitimate,” Det Snr Sgt Martin Parker said on Monday.
Police have charged two men, aged 19 and 23, and a 47-year-old woman, all from Burnie, with several drug offences including trafficking in a controlled substance.
A large quantity of cannabis and 47 cannabis plants were also discovered at the house.
“We will continue to target people who distribute drugs and illicit substances, which causes significant harm to the community,” Parker said.
Updated
A teenage boy has been stabbed by another teen at their western Sydney high school in what police believe was a targeted incident.
Police say the 14-year-old boy was stabbed in the back and arm by another 14-year-old boy at Arthur Phillip high school in Parramatta on Monday morning, reports AAP.
He has been taken to Westmead children’s hospital in a stable condition, a NSW Ambulance spokesman said.
“Our paramedics did an exceptional job in stabilising and providing treatment for the teenager who had suffered some pretty serious injuries,” NSW Ambulance inspector Joe Ibrahim said.
“It’s absolutely horrific when we respond to jobs like these, especially when it involves someone so young. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare.”
NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller said the attack appeared to be targeted, and the families of both boys were speaking to police.
He said the accused 14-year-old assailant was not yet in custody.
Lessons have resumed but police will remain at the school.
Updated
The disability royal commission is sitting today.
AAP reports that mothers whose children were removed by the state will tell their stories at hearings that will examine the experiences of Indigenous people with disabilities in the child protection system.
The week-long hearing beginning in Brisbane on Monday will hear from 25 witnesses over five days, including several Indigenous people who have direct experience with child protection systems in various states.
Senior counsel assisting the commission, Lincoln Crowley, said he has repeatedly been told that people involved in the system are not getting the support they need, and neglect occurs on a systematic basis.
In his opening address, Crowley cited ABS figures that show 22% of First Nations children have a disability, compared with 8% of the general population.
In adulthood, this increased to 48% and 13% respectively.
Crowley said First Nations children were almost eight times as likely as non-Indigenous children to have received child protection services.
Commissioner Andrea Mason said the examination of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of First Nations parents with a disability and their interactions with the child protection systems had been largely invisible in past inquiries.
“This week, this changes,” she said.
“We will hear stories of First Nations parents with a disability and their attributes of resilience, courage, persistence and about their love for their children.”
Chair Ronald Sackville said that as of June last year 30,300 children in Australia were in long-term out-of-home care.
“Of these, over 40% were First Nations children,” he said.
Sackville said reasons for the over-representation were complex, highlighting the legacy of past policies of forced removal and the intergenerational effects of previous separations.
Updated
Hi everyone. And thanks, Elias.
I’ll be with you into the evening.
If you want to get in touch, you can contact me on Twitter (@lukehgomes) or by email to luke.henriques-gomes@theguardian.com
And with that, I’m going to pass over to my colleague Luke Henriques-Gomes, who will take you through the rest of the afternoon.
Police in South Australia believe more than one person may have lied to health authorities investigating Adelaide’s Covid-19 cluster.
After entering a snap lockdown last week, authorities lifted the measure after learning a Covid-19 positive case, who worked in the kitchen of a quarantine hotel, lied to contact tracers about working at a pizza restaurant.
He initially claimed he was only a customer at the Woodville Pizza Bar, but later clarified that he had been working both jobs.
On Monday, police commissioner Grant Stevens told ABC Radio Adelaide the pizza worker may not have been the only person to lie to contact tracers.
Stevens said:
I think it’s fair to suggest that the individual who contracted [Covid-19] who also worked in the pizza bar is not the only person that has not been truthful with us
We’re investigating that at the moment … It makes it very difficult to get to the truth.”
Earlier on Monday, premier Steven Marshall said authorities were still investigating whether the pizza bar worker broke any laws in lying to contact tracers, saying: “We will look at every opportunity for there to be some consequences for this person because it is really important that when a public health official asks you questions you provide them with accurate information.”
Police cars have been stationed outside the pizza restaurant in Woodville amid threats against the bar after the lockdown was lifted.
Updated
South Australia records one new local case
One new locally acquired coronavirus case has been recorded in South Australia.
The person is a member of the extended family that is at the centre of the Parafield cluster.
They had been quarantining since Monday and since their positive test swab was taken they have returned two negatives. They will be tested again today.
Chief health officer Nicola Spurrier said there are 27 cases linked to the cluster, and that one person – a man in his 30s – is in hospital in a stable condition.
Premier Steven Marshall said 8,689 people were tested on Sunday, and that more than 4,000 are quarantining – mostly in their homes.
Marshall said “we are still not out of the woods yet”, and that authorities were working to provide information to other states and territories so they could lift any border restrictions for entrants from SA that remain.
The state lifted its lockdown early after learning a hotel quarantine worker lied to investigators about working at a pizza restaurant.
Updated
That is one big tree!
Early this morning VICSES Alexandra Unit were called out to a... rather large tree down on the Goulburn Highway. Amazing work by our volunteers and all those who attended, who worked together to remove the massive trunk of the tree that measured 1.5 metres in diameter! pic.twitter.com/ac03QKoDaG
— VICSES News (@vicsesnews) November 22, 2020
Queensland police are investigating fatigue as a factor in the fatal crash that killed two children and has left a toddler fighting for life.
A car carrying a family of six crashed into a dam at Wyaralong, in south-east Queensland, on Sunday afternoon, flipping on to its roof and remaining submerged while passersby and emergency workers tried to pull the occupants from the wreck.
Two children – a five-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy – were pronounced dead at the scene. A one-year-old boy was airlifted to Queensland children’s hospital with critical injuries and another baby received medical treatment at the dam.
The ABC is reporting that the one-year-old has since been downgraded to a stable condition.
A man, 23, and a woman, 33, were taken to the Princess Alexandra hospital with leg injuries. It’s understood they are all from the same family. Both are understood to require surgery but are not in a life-threatening condition.
Queensland police insp Douglas McDonald said the crash was a “tragic and confronting scene”.
The vehicle was travelling on a relatively straight two-lane section of road and the vehicle appears to have veered to the left and struck a three-strand wire road barrier before travelling across the road on to the opposite side and colliding again with the road barrier there. The vehicle subsequently rolled down a stone embankment.
McDonald said on Monday that although it was early in the investigation it did not appear alcohol was a contributing factor.
It is difficult to say at this stage. Alcohol doesn’t appear to be, on initial investigations, a contributing factor. However, we keep an open mind and in particular, as I said, [for] people travelling long distances, fatigue is a real big killer on our roads and that is certainly part of our investigation for this matter.
The family appeared to be travelling a long distance, from the northern Gold Coast suburb of Pimpama to the small town of Pratten where they lived.
Updated
The federal opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, used his press conference in Melbourne this morning to ramp up his calls for the federal government to invest more in public and community housing.
Albanese welcomed the Victorian Labor government’s recent $5.3bn public housing announcement but said federal leadership was needed and “we’ll continue to campaign” for the commonwealth to add to the investment.
He said economists saw social housing investment as an effective way to deliver “immediate job creation, jobs for tradies, whilst improving the lives of people around the country, whilst also, of course, adding to social housing stock”.
As Elias mentioned on the blog earlier, Albanese faced a range of questions at his press conference about mining and climate action - and now that the official transcript has landed, we can bring you a few more details.
Albanese again declined to specify whether Labor would commit to a 2030 emissions reduction target, saying only that Labor would make an announcement “at the appropriate time” that would “be consistent with our position of zero net emissions by 2050”.
He contended that Australia was increasingly being “left behind” the rest of the world on climate action, “and that’s the real tragedy here”.
Good action on climate change will create jobs, will lower emissions and lower energy prices, which is why we should be doing more. This government, until recently, was still, and still hasn’t written off, talking about using carryover credits to meet its target. But, of course, the world won’t allow it to do that.
So, it doesn’t matter Scott Morrison’s sort-of announcement crab-walking away from that absurd policy, that no one in the world is going to allow that to occur. And when the world gathers, not just at Glasgow, but the world will gather earlier, gathered together by Joe Biden once he assumes the presidency, then what we’ll see is more advance on the world stage in 2021.
Albanese said he planned to keep Mark Butler in the climate change and energy portfolio, resisting calls from now-backbencher Joel Fitzgibbon to move him on.
Updated
Scott Morrison has told participants at the virtual G20 summit that safeguarding the planet is an “ongoing, long-term and collective responsibility” and nations “must pursue economic models that support growth and sustainability”.
Katharine Murphy with this article on Morrison’s comments to the G20 summit.
Another day, another hearing in federal parliament regarding Australia’s family law courts.
Today it’s the joint select committee on Australia’s family law system, the committee established to appease One Nation senator Pauline Hanson last year.
On Friday, a separate parliamentary committee, the senate legal and constitutional affairs legislation committee, published its report into the Morrison government’s bill to overhaul the family law system by merging the family court and federal circuit court.
The proposals are widely unpopular within the profession, but were approved by the government-majority committee, despite the dissension of Labor and Greens senators.
Today, Hanson is asking senior officials from the attorney general’s department about some of her favourite topics, including the theory that women make false claims that a father has been sexually abusing their children in order to win favourable custody arrangements during family court hearings.
“It’s not as simple as saying just because someone puts forward an allegation of sexual abuse that that determines how the court case is actually going to proceed,” Iain Anderson, the department’s deputy secretary for the legal services and families group, responded.
I suggest that it’s not necessarily the case that judges just automatically accept an allegation of sexual abuse if it’s made.
I think they’ll give appropriate weight to determining whether they think if it’s correct or not but it doesn’t in itself determine the outcome.
She also suggested that someone sending texts asking whether they could see their children would be classified as a family violence offence, which was refuted by the department, and asked about the support available to men involved in these proceedings who she said were suiciding at a rate of three a day.
The senate legal and constitutional affairs legislation committee is due to report in February.
Updated
Wild scenes down on the New South Wales-Victoria border when the final movement restrictions came down after midnight.
Me and @ChloeMayBarr are besides ourselves watching our colleague @CassJGlover’s livestream of the Albury Wodonga border opening at midnight. Someone’s blasting John Farnham’s That’s Freedom. There’s an emcee. People are applauding. There’s a limo. Absolute scenes. @TheAWNewsAu pic.twitter.com/6QSLn8Kokf
— Eliza Barr (@ElizaJBarr) November 22, 2020
Paid sick leave for casual and insecure Victorian workers
Casual and insecure workers in Victoria will get paid up to five days of sick leave and carer’s leave as part of a state government trial scheme.
Ahead of the state budget being unveiled on Tuesday, premier Daniel Andrews announced his government will spend $5m on consultation on the design of a two-year pilot of the scheme.
Andrews said the pilot scheme will target workers in “priority” sectors with high rates of casualisation, and that it “could include cleaners, hospitality staff, security guards, supermarket workers and aged care staff”. The pilot is set to begin in late 2021 or early 2022.
According to a statement from Andrews, casual and insecure workers in eligible sectors will be invited to pre-register for the scheme, providing their contact details and information about their employment so that applications can be fast-tracked if they need to apply for payments.
We'll provide up to five days of sick and carer's pay for our most insecure workers.
— Dan Andrews (@DanielAndrewsMP) November 23, 2020
Because no one should have to choose between their health and feeding their family.
Not in this country. Not in this state.
The two-year pilot “will afford these workers sick pay when they’re unwell, and carer’s pay when they need to take time to look after someone they love” the statement said.
The state government will fund the pilot, but if the scheme continues past the two-year trial, it will be funded by an “industry levy”.
Andrews, noting how the past eight months had shown how “dangerous and unfair” insecure workers’ choices could be to the wider community, said:
When people have nothing to fall back on, they make a choice between the safety of their workmates and feeding their family. The ultimate decision they make isn’t wrong – what’s wrong is they’re forced to make it at all.
This isn’t going to solve the problem of insecure work overnight but someone has to put their hand up and say we’re going to take this out of the too hard basket and do something about it – and that’s exactly what we’re doing.
Updated
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian also criticised her Queensland counterpart Annastacia Palaszczuk again about restrictions shutting out residents of greater Sydney.
Asked if she was expecting to hear from Palaszczuk about reopening the border, Berejiklian said:
Some state premiers are making up advice as they go and there is nowhere that I have read where anyone apart from the Queensland medical officer has indicated that you must identify the source of a case within 48 hours.
And as Dr (Kerry) Chant reported today, we found a genomic link with the recent case and so the last case that has an unknown source was back in October 24.
Earlier on Monday, opposition leader Anthony Albanese praised Palaszczuk’s border stance.
AAP reported that Albanese told Sky News that Palaszczuk also wanted to see the free movement of people within Australia. Albanese said:
I reckon Annastacia Palaszczuk’s doing a great job ... One of the things that I won’t do, and you’ve seen Labor oppositions not do, is make partisan political comments.
No one wants to see restrictions in place but restrictions have made Queenslanders safe ... I want to be able to travel and I want Australians to travel. I know Annastacia Palaszczuk does too.
Queensland’s border is currently shut to greater Adelaide, greater Sydney and Victoria. However, it’s set to reopen to visitors from the latter two areas within the next 10 days.
Updated
New South Wales chief health officer Kerry Chant has also announced that two previous Sydney clusters were actually linked.
Chant said it was “pleasing we have been able to find that missing link” between the Moss Vale and Liverpool clusters, after NSW Health genomic testing showed the viral RNA from cases was identical.
Five cases in the Moss Vale cluster, and 13 cases in the Liverpool private clinic cluster are linked by an additional two people who had contact with both.
The last unlinked case of Covid-19 in NSW was a person who reported onset of illness on 24 October and is associated with the Hoxton Park cluster.
NSW further easing of restrictions "imminent"
Covid-19 restrictions in New South Wales are set to be further eased this Wednesday, especially for the hospitality industry.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the opening of the NSW-Victoria border earlier on Monday went “as smoothly as possible”, with 27 checkpoints dismantled overnight and travel across the border now allowed without a permit.
From today, all hospitality businesses in NSW are also required to have QR code digital check in procedures. The state government is urging businesses to use the Service NSW centralised app, however businesses can use their own digital system. Sign in with pen and paper is no longer allowed.
Health minister Brad Hazzard also said that as of today, there will be an increased capacity for outdoor religious services, with up to 500 people allowed to be seated, spaced at one person per two square metres if seating is designated, or one person per four square metres if seating is not designated.
There will also be increased capacity for outdoors singing and carols, with up to 30 singers allowed outdoors.
While Berejiklian said the easing of restrictions is “imminent” and will happen later this week, Hazzard let slip that he is “looking forward to Wednesday when we will be making further announcements”.
Berejiklian said:
Today is a significant day with a number of easing of restrictions and QR codes becoming compulsory and then during the week I want to foreshadow that unless some major unexpected event occurs, we will be announcing further easing of restrictions, especially in light of the festive season and especially given how well New South Wales has been doing with community transmission.
I know many of you comment when I say the word imminent ... I say the announcement of further easing of restrictions is imminent, especially in relation to hospitality and other things we are encouraging citizens to consider in their celebrations.
Updated
NSW records no new cases
New South Wales has recorded no new locally acquired cases of Covid-19, for the 16th consecutive day.
Five cases were reported in returned overseas travellers in hotel quarantine.
Updated
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese just spoke in Melbourne, and most of the questions appeared to be about Labor’s position on mining and climate action.
Several of the questions reference the speech Queensland senator Murray Watt is giving today in Rockhampton. Watt, the opposition minister for northern Australia, will say the ALP “treasures” every job created in the mining sector.
Albanese, noting the Morrison government “hasn’t written off using carryover credits to meet its targets” said:
All of our major trading partners, South Korea, Japan, Europe, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, the United States, all have zero net 2050. China, of course, has zero net by 2060.
The world is moving on and Scott Morrison’s just frozen in time while the world warms around him.
Murray Watts speaks today and it’s perfectly consistent with what I’ve been saying and what Labor has been saying for a long time.
Asked about Watt supporting the future of Australian coal exports, Albanese said “that’s our policy”.
That’s consistent with what we’ve been saying for a long period of time and those decisions will be made in Tokyo, in Washington, in Beijing, in places that receive our minerals. What Australia has to do is to ensure that we have a trajectory for zero net emissions by 2050.
In response to Joel Fitzgibbon’s resignation as opposition resources spokesman, Albanese also said Labor will have “a minor reshuffle” after the government announces its reshuffle, foreshadowed for the end of the year.
Updated
Tasmania will set up a commission of inquiry into sexual abuse in public institutions after historical allegations were levelled at current and former state employees.
AAP reports that on Monday, premier Peter Gutwein announced he had requested the wide-ranging investigation, which would begin in early 2021 and take a year.
It was revealed last week three staff at Ashley Youth Detention Centre had been stood down amid allegations of historical abuse including rape.
Gutwein said he was briefed on Friday of further cases of alleged historical abuse involving a male teacher, who has been stood down and charged, from a northern school.
He said a mental health services staff member had been also stood down over historical sex abuse allegations outside of work which are subject to criminal proceedings.
My messages to survivors is the commission of inquiry will provide that opportunity to come forward.
This is our opportunity once and for all to deal with the matter and, as we move forward, to make sure our children are safe.
The state government has been under pressure to set up such an inquiry after historical sex abuse allegations against a nurse were recently revealed.
It is alleged James Griffin, who died by suicide aged 69 in late 2019, abused girls over a period from the 1980s to early 2010s.
Updated
Monday 23 November – coronavirus cases in Queensland:
— Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) November 22, 2020
• 0 locally acquired cases, 3 cases acquired overseas
• 14 active cases
• 1,196 total confirmed cases
• 1,326,061 tests conducted
Sadly, six Queenslanders with COVID-19 have died. 1,172 patients have recovered.#covid19 pic.twitter.com/t9R4QiUqZT
Victorian police say a secretive data tool that tracked youths and predicted the risk they would commit crime is not being widely used, amid fears it leads to young people from culturally diverse backgrounds being disproportionately targeted.
My colleague Nino Bucci has this story:
There are a few political press conferences coming up over the next hour or so.
At 10:15am, opposition leader Anthony Albanese will be speaking in Melbourne with Peter Khalil MP.
At 10:30am, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews will be speaking with his industrial relations minister Tim Pallas, ahead of Tuesday’s state budget.
And at 11am, New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian will speak with her health minister Brad Hazzard and customer service minister Victor Dominello, as well as chief health officer Kerry Chant.
Updated
In Tasmania:
The Premier has confirmed a Commission of Inquiry will be launched into sexual abuse allegations in Tasmanian institutions. The inquiry is expected to take 12 months. #politas
— Judy Augustine (@JudyAugustine) November 22, 2020
The amount of platypus habitat in Australia has shrunk by 22% in 30 years and the animal should now be listed as a nationally threatened species, according to new research.
My colleague Lisa Cox has filed this report:
Victoria records no new cases
Yesterday there were 0 new cases and 0 lost lives reported. 1 active case remains. 7,261 test results were received. More detail: https://t.co/pcll7ySEgz#EveryTestHelps #StaySafeStayOpen #COVID19Vic pic.twitter.com/oENuOjjWca
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) November 22, 2020
South Australian premier Steven Marshall has reiterated his state is “not out of the woods yet”, a day after one new case of coronavirus was recorded in the community.
The comments follow a decision to lift the state’s Covid-19 lockdown early after authorities learned a key case linked to its emerging cluster out of a quarantine hotel had lied to investigators about working a second job at a pizza restaurant.
Marshall said there are about 4,500 people isolating in the state right now, and that he hopes the “modified restrictions” the state has in place will be lifted on 1 December.
Asked if he would re-enter lockdown or place trust in contact tracers if he is faced with a similar situation to last week, Marshall told ABC News that South Australia’s one person per two square metre rule – more relaxed than other states – contributed to the lockdown decision.
You don’t get a second chance to stop a second wave. The advice that we received from health was unequivocal. We had to go hard and go early. We didn’t want a second wave.
We didn’t want to have this seeded in South Australia so that we were managing multiple clusters on an ongoing basis until this particular infection actually, if you like, died out.
The reality is that South Australia has enjoyed very low level restrictions. We have one per two square metres in our density for hospitality and other businesses, which really makes them far more viable than many other parts of the country.
Marshall also said authorities were still investigating whether the pizza restaurant employee broke any laws when he lied to investigators, and that the state had written to the AHPPC requesting a nationally consistent approach about quarantine workers working across multiple venues.
We think the people of South Australia deserve some answers on this and we will look at every opportunity for there to be some consequences for this person because it is really important that when a public health official asks you questions you provide them with accurate information otherwise lives can be at stake.
Updated
Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon has backed the sentiment behind a speech to be delivered today by party colleague, Queensland senator Murray Watt, which indicates plans to “reset the party’s approach to coal and gas”.
Watt, the opposition minister for northern Australia, will say the ALP “treasures” every job created in the mining sector at a speech to be delivered in Rockhampton today, The Australian reports.
Fitzgibbon recently resigned as opposition resources spokesman, the latest development in criticism of his own party’s position on climate action as being too ambitious, after he almost lost his coal-mining reliant seat of Hunter at the 2019 election.
Federal MPs @Barnaby_Joyce and @FitzHunter talk about when international travel could resume and the Labor party's position on mining and agriculture. pic.twitter.com/nuxjsmFgPs
— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) November 22, 2020
On Monday morning, Fitzgibbon, appearing on Sunrise, said Watt’s speech “looks like a great speech”.
No doubt he wants to put labour back into the Labor party. And today he speaks to our traditional base, all those people in the hi-vis and blue collar outfits, working hard every day in Queensland.
All they want for us is to give credit to them for what they do, the contribution they make to our economy and community. And we want to encourage them to be proud of what they do as they should be.
The more Labor talks about the important role they play in the economy, and how important their jobs are to their own financial security and the financial security of their families, then the better we will do out there in the electorate and in the marketplace.
Fitzgibbon also said that “people know that we enjoy a higher level of wealth in this country, higher than it would otherwise be, because of our resources sector”.
We need to be ... very loud and clear in our expressions of support for those industries, and those who work within them.
The Labor party always supported the coal mining industry, it always supported the gas sector, the oil sector, etc our manufacturers, but for some reason we haven’t been that keen to say that loudly and proudly. And if that’s what we’re about to start doing well, I’ll be very very pleased.
Updated
Welcome to Monday
Good morning, Elias Visontay here to take you through all the day’s news in Australia.
In news this morning, election data shows the majority of Australian voters are in favour of pill testing, with 63% agreeing it should be allowed at music festivals, and 33% of those strongly agreeing. The long-running study shows strong public support for a drug harm minimisation strategy largely shunned by governments across the country, despite high-profile cases of deaths.
- Australia’s platypus habitat has shrunk 22% in 30 years, new research says. Scientists and conservationists say the mammal should now be officially listed as a nationally threatened species.
- Victorians can now cross the New South Wales border and no longer have to wear masks outside; rules on indoor gatherings are also relaxed today. Next door, South Australia’s opposition is calling for a halt to the hotel quarantine system until better checks can be put in place.
- Victoria police have refused to reveal how many young people are being tracked using a secretive data tool that predicts the risk they will commit crime. Police say it is not being widely used, amid fears it leads to young people from culturally diverse backgrounds being disproportionately targeted.
- Trade minister Simon Birmingham has demanded China explain why Australia has been singled out on trade restrictions as other nations maintain relations despite their differences and a stalemate continues with our largest trading partner.
- The Australian defence force chief, General Angus Campbell, says he accepts officers and more senior commanders bear some of the responsibility for the handling of alleged war crimes by special forces in Afghanistan.
If you see anything in your area or line you think I should know about, you can get in touch with me by email at elias.visontay@theguardian.com, or via Twitter @EliasVisontay.
Updated
