Berejiklian sacks parliamentary secretary over failure to support the koala bill
I know we said we’d leave it there, but NSW politics has happened.
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian has just announced that upper house Liberal MP Catherine Cusack has been sacked as parliamentary secretary after she voted to send the local land services bill to committee. This is the legislation which came out of a fight that threatened to tear apart the NSW government over koalas.
Cusack was the deciding vote, and sent the bill down 18-19. So those hard fought amendments will now be considered before committee, and the legislation will not be passed — meaning, crucially, the fight in the Berejiklian government will not be passed — until next year.
Berejiklian said in a statement:
Following her decision today to move a non-government amendment to a government bill, I have made the decision to immediately remove Ms Catherine Cusack as a Parliamentary Secretary.
It follows a snap party room meeting of the National Party, which was held at 6.30pm.
OK. Thanks again for your company today, and we will see you in the morning.
Updated
This is where we will leave our live coverage for the day. Here is where things stand:
- Australian special forces soldiers were allegedly involved in the murder of 39 Afghan civilians, including encouraging junior soldiers to make their first kill in practice known as ‘blooding’. Nineteen soldiers have been referred for criminal investigation.
- The head of the Australian defence force, Gen Angus Campbell, has apologised “unreservedly” to the people of Afghanistan, and directly to the head of Afghanistan’s defence force.
- The chief of the Australian army has disbanded the second squadron of the Special Air Service Regiment, which was named in the report.
- Victoria has closed its border to South Australia for 48-hours after fragments of the Sars-Cov-2 virus were discovered in wastewater testing at Portland, 65km from the SA border. Virus fragments were also detected at Benalla, in the state’s northeast. Portland and Benalla are on the two major freight routes in and out of the state.
- South Australia has recorded no new cases of Covid-19, as the state begins its six day hard lockdown. The number of cases associated with the Parafield cluster has been revised down to 22, after one test was ruled out by the laboratory.
- SA’s police commissioner, Grant Stevens, says it is “not possible” to ban people working at medi-hotels (hotel quarantine facilities) from holding a second job. The question is in relation to a security guard at a medi-hotel who worked part-time in Woodville Pizza Bar. It has brought up concerns about the danger of relying on security guards on insecure work contracts, which were highlighted in Victoria’s hotel quarantine inquiry.
- SA premier Steven Marshall has clarified that face masks are mandatory when outside the home, but said because of the lack of notice to acquire masks police were distributing them to people found without, rather than issuing fines.
- Prime minister Scott Morrison said it was impossible to eliminate every risk in a hotel quarantine system, saying “you can’t have a a failsafe 100% system in every case”.
- Morrison said the suggestion from China, in a list of grievances against Australia, that Australia acts on behalf of the United States is “a nonsense”. He later said Australia was not seeking to make an enemy of any country, “least of all China”.
- A Victorian coroner has criticised police for an “agonising” litany of failures in the finding of an inquest into the deaths of six people killed in the Bourke Street attack in 2017. Families of five of the victims said it was “difficult” to hear police officers who gave evidence to the inquiry reject any criticism of their actions, and said there appeared to be a “persisting disconnect between serving members of the force and senior members of Victoria police force command”.
- Victoria has had its 20th day with no new Covid-19 cases. NSW also recorded no new cases, for the 13th day in the row.
- And NSW has relaxed its coronavirus rules for New year’s Eve.
As always you can follow our rolling coverage of the global coronavirus outbreak here, and catch up on our coverage of the Brereton report here. Take care, and we’ll see you in the morning.
- In Australia, support and counselling for veterans and their families is available 24 hours a day from Open Arms on 1800 011 046 or www.openarms.gov.au and Safe Zone Support on 1800 142 072.
Updated
Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd has called for special forces soldiers responsible for war crimes in Afghanistan – and anyone who tried to conceal them – to be “brought to justice”.
Those who are responsible for these crimes, and any efforts to conceal them, must be brought to justice.Behind every unlawful killing is a family grieving for someone they love. The families of those victims must be compensated for their unjust loss.
Read the full report here:
One more thing from the prime minister’s interview on Sky News. On the tensions with Beijing, Scott Morrison said:
Australia is not seeking to make an enemy of any country, least of all I’d say China.
Morrison said China and Australia were comprehensive strategic partners and despite tensions this year trade volumes had reached “record high levels”.
It was, Morrison said, in the mutual interest of both countries to continue to successfully pursue that relationship.
Regarding the list of issues released by the Chinese embassy, Morrison said: “If that is the source of tension that is being raised then these are matters that go to Australia’s national sovereignty.”
Morrison said the Australian government was open to dialogue, including leader-level talks.
We have not prevented such dialogue … The obstacle to such a conversation is not with Australia.
Updated
Burr continued:
As I continue to analyse the extensive findings, be assured that where there is evidence of misconduct individuals will be held to account. This may be through disciplinary or administrative action.
Significant reform has been under way within special operations command and more broadly across our army for the past five years. Important progress has been made and this work continues.
These reforms will be given an increased focus, emphasis and urgency based on the findings and recommendations in the inquiry report.
I will accelerate existing plans for workforce mobility for personnel within special operations command. Individuals within special operations command will be expected to take postings out of the command. This will enable respite, regeneration, broadening of perspectives and to share knowledge and skills throughout army. This has individual and collective benefit for the entire Australian defence force. Independent posting oversight for the command will ensure workforce and strategy are aligned.
We will continue to strengthen the fundamentals of governance, assurance and accountability. This includes reinforcing the importance of culture, leadership, accountability, ethics and our values through the army’s good soldiering initiative.
The centre for Australian army leadership will be core to our training and how we conduct ourselves as ethical, capable and effective leaders at all levels in our army.
Today we start a new chapter and commit to restoring trust with the nation we have sworn to defend. Symbolic of this ongoing renewal is tomorrow’s beret parade for new members of the special air service regiment and recent beret parade for the 2nd commando regiment.
I am confident that as a result of this experience we will emerge a stronger, more capable and effective army.
I would like to thank the families, loved ones and those who support our army during this challenging time. I strongly encourage anyone who requires welfare support to access the services available.
I commend those who had the courage to provide information to the inquiry.
Our people past and present, have made extraordinary contributions to the defence of Australia. I remain inspired by the overwhelming majority of professional men and women who serve in our army. Our people should continue to be proud of their service and know their commitment is valued.
This is a challenging time for us all. Our army must learn, improve, support each other and together we will get through this.
We remain an army for the nation, an army in the community, we are Australia’s army.
Updated
Chief of the Australian army says he disbanded the second squadron of the SAS as a reminder to future generations
The chief of the Australian army, Lt Gen Rick Burr, has just released a statement about the Brereton report findings.
Burr has directed the disbandment of the 2nd squadron of special forces, which was cited a number of times in the report. He said the gap in the squadron numbering system will be a reminder to future generations of what happened.
Here’s his statement:
Today I have been in Perth, Western Australia, at the Australian army’s special air service regiment.
The chief of defence force, Gen Angus Campbell, AO, DSC, has directed specific actions in response to the inquiry. Some of these apply to individual and collective honours and awards.
As the chief of army, I also directed the removal of the title: 2 squadron, special air service regiment, from the Australian army’s order of battle.
Although the incidents outlined in the inquiry occurred across the regiment, the report has made it clear that there was a nexus of alleged serious criminal activities, in 2 squadron, special air service regiment at a point in time. This alleged grave misconduct has severely damaged our professional standing.
This action reflects no judgment on the current members of 2 squadron, special air service regiment, but we all must accept the wrongdoings of the past.
Current members of the squadron will be reassigned to other sub-units within the regiment. A deliberate implementation plan will be developed to support this.
As the chief of army this is not a decision I have taken lightly.
The issues in the inquiry report are so shocking that a clear message is required.
It’s important we learn from this experience and begin the healing process so we can focus on the future. This must never be allowed to happen again, anywhere in our army. Our profession demands we must always operate lawfully, ethically and responsibly. Even in the most complex and challenging environments.
Future generations will be reminded of this moment in our military history from the gap in our squadron numbering system.
More in the next post.
Updated
The prime minister had more to say in that interview on Sky News.
Regarding the war crimes report, Scott Morrison said the details would be provided to the new office of the special investigator to pursue any matters that may be able to be prosecuted under Australian law.
That would ensure justice was served, he said. Morrison said he had assured the government of Afghanistan that Australia would take the matters seriously and deal with it under Australian law.
Morrison argued more generally that the high esteem in which Australians held the defence forces had been earned over time. He said where actions do not measure up to standards, Australia would deal with them seriously and uphold those standards.
Updated
Guardian Australia’s political editor, Katharine Murphy, has written about the “nauseating” findings of the Brereton report.
Last Thursday, the prime minister told Australians the findings of a four-year inquiry led by the assistant inspector general of the Australian defence force, Maj Gen Justice Paul Brereton, into allegations of bad conduct in Afghanistan, would contain “very difficult” and “disturbing” findings.
That turned out to be an understatement.
Brereton’s findings are actually gut-wrenching.
They are nauseating.
I don’t deploy either of those descriptions lightly ...
Obviously everybody is entitled to a presumption of innocence and to procedural fairness – even alleged extrajudicial killers who allegedly didn’t extend that right to others – but it is extraordinary that some of the people implicated in the report are still serving in the ADF.
You can read her full analysis here:
Updated
Scott Morrison says he is backing the South Australian Liberal premier Steven Marshall’s judgment in ordering a six-day lockdown.
The prime minister – who has been highly critical of the Victorian Labor government’s performance when it comes to hotel quarantine and contact tracing – was being interviewed by Sky News.
Morrison says the signs in SA, so far, are “very promising”.
He emphasises that Marshall will not keep the lockdown in place longer than necessary:
This is a very precautionary action that he’s taken. Obviously he wants to avoid what happened in Victoria which involved months and months and months of lockdown … We’re going to back his judgment on this.
Updated
Greens senator Rachel Siewert says the October unemployment figures show it is “untenable” to return the Jobseeker rate back to its pre-pandemic level of $40 per day in March, when the coronavirus supplement will cease.
Siewert said:
Keeping Jobseeker above the poverty line is essential for people looking for work, for our communities and our economy.
It is very clear that if the Jobkeeper program ends there will be another jump in unemployment and these figures mask the people who have dropped out of the job market all together.
What the Government is doing to people on income support is cruel and dehumanising.
The unemployment rate is now at 7%.
Meanwhile, in NSW:
It's understood Nats have called an urgent partyroom meeting for 630pm, with their land rights (koala) bill about to be voted down in Upper House given Lib Cusack is opposed. When asked what this means, one Nat Minister replied "war". #nswpol @7NewsSydney
— Alex Hart (@alexhart7) November 19, 2020
Number of cases in the Parafield cluster downgraded to 22
The number of cases associated with the Parafield cluster has been downgraded to 22, after one case previously associated with the cluster was reclassified.
SA health said:
One case, previously reported as linked to the Parafield cluster has now been excluded from South Australia’s numbers following further laboratory investigations.
So: it’s not a mystery or unlinked case, it has been determined as a false positive.
Forty-six returning overseas travellers who underwent hotel quarantine in South Australia will have to complete another 14 days quarantine in Victoria.
In a statement, the Victorian health and human services department said the returning travellers had been identified and asked to quarantine for 14 days from the date they left hotel quarantine, and to undergo a Covid-19 test on the 11th day to ensure asymptomatic cases are not missed.
But they will not have to be in a hotel because Victoria’s system is still not up and running. Says the department:
They can quarantine at home if they are able to do so safely and appropriately. Support services are available to assist these people during their quarantine period and relief accommodation is available for individuals who cannot complete their quarantine at home.
Anyone who has been in SA in the last 14 days should check the exposure sites listed on the SA Health website and take the appropriate actions. And if they have any symptoms, no matter how mild, they should get tested and self-isolate until the result is available.
And this was mentioned earlier but it’s worth celebrating: today is the 20th straight say with no Covid-19 cases in Victoria.
Updated
Australia created 76m tonnes of waste last year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has found. That’s 23.8m times the weight of the pitch of the MCG – to use our national unit of measurement.
The figures are from 2018-19, and represented a 10% increase in the amount of weight produced over two years. Depressingly, only 9% of the plastic waste in Australia was recycled, and 84% was sent to landfill.
More from AAP:
Households were almost on par with the manufacturing and construction sectors in terms of waste generated, at more than 12m tonnes each.
Two-and-a-half million tonnes of plastic waste was generated, with only 9% recycled, while 84% was sent to landfill.
Households created the largest amount of plastic waste at close to half.
Recycling rates are much better for organic waste, with 42% of the 15.3m tonnes recycled.
Just under half was sent to landfill.
Tyres made up 6% of hazardous waste, which totalled 8m tonnes in the period.
That equates to an increase of 23% from the 2016-17 financial year.
Countries such as China have stopped taking waste exports, prompting the Morrison government to ban sending waste offshore.
Updated
Back on the Brereton report, Liberal MP Dave Sharma has been asked on the ABC whether the Morrison government would use “strong language to condemn” the alleged actions of Australian soldiers, after that strong condemnation was apparently missing from defence minister Linda Reynolds’ statement.
Says Sharma:
Look, I haven’t read the statement but I did see Gen [Angus] Campbell’s press conference and certainly the language I think he used was very strong and appropriately so and I was also glad to see that he’d spoken to the head of Afghan national defence forces to pass on his personal apologies and regrets about what’s happened and that’s entirely right and appropriate in these circumstances.
As Gen Campbell makes clear, these people who were –whose lives have been taken from them were, you know, they were farmers, they were civilians, they weren’t combatants in any sense of the term within the recognised law of armed conflict. Of course we owe the Afghan people and their government a sincere apology for this.
Updated
The Covid-19 testing site at Parafield airport in Adelaide has now been reopened, after being shut due to high winds.
Parafield Airport COVID-19 testing site has now reopened after being temporarily closed due to wind. pic.twitter.com/eYWrOPzWdB
— SA Health (@SAHealth) November 19, 2020
In very different but still extremely important news, numbat researchers in Western Australia has spotted 35 in the wild this year, the highest wild population at Dryandra woodland – a numbat hotspot 170km south-east of Perth – since the 1990s.
Some years the volunteer numbat taskforce, which conducts weekly runs through the woodlands, don’t spot any numbats, so 35 is very exciting. According to the ABC the increase is believed to be due to successful feral cat control.
Dr Tony Friend, from the WA biodiversity, conservation and attractions department, told the ABC:
I’m pretty confident we can put this down to our feral cat control we’ve been doing for the last few years.
Predation by cats was a big impact on populations of native species at Dryandra.
For years, monitoring numbat numbers in Dryandra has been a passion project for a group called the numbat taskforce, four friends from Perth who have been driving very slowly along dirt roads looking for numbats since 1999. I interviewed a few numbat taskforce members back in 2015. You can read that story here.
Updated
Reporter Josh Taylor has been looking at the issues of employing a casual workforce in the hotel quarantine system in South Australia, a problem that was also seen in Victoria. He writes:
The path the virus took through casual workers in two high-risk settings in South Australia echoes how the virus spread in Victoria at the start of its second wave, with the state’s hotel quarantine inquiry hearing of a security guard who continued to work both at the hotel and as an Uber driver while infectious.
The spread was partly put down to casual workers fearing they would not be paid if they needed to isolate. Eventually the Victorian and federal governments made payments to those needing to isolate while waiting for test results, or for the two-week infectious period.
A key recommendation of the interim report delivered by the head of Victoria’s inquiry, Jennifer Coate, earlier this month stipulated that “every effort must be made to ensure that all personnel working at the facility are not working across multiple quarantine sites and not working in other forms of employment”.
Read more here:
Updated
Queensland’s health minister Yvette D’Ath believes the state was singled out for criticism by federal government MPs and has defended border measures in response to Adelaide’s Covid-19 cluster, AAP has reported.
Queensland recorded three new cases overnight, all acquired overseas and detected in hotel quarantine.
D’Ath said acting quickly on quarantine requirements for people arriving from Adelaide was the right decision.
On Monday Queensland’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, ordered all travellers arriving from the South Australian capital into mandatory hotel quarantine from 11.59 that night.
South Australia has since implemented strict lockdown measures designed to avoid a potential second wave.
D’Ath said she was disappointed with criticism from federal MPs including health minister Greg Hunt.
“My question to all of them is whether they still stand by those comments they made in the last 48 hours now that South Australia has made the decision that they have,” she said.
Updated
Woolworths supermarkets in South Australia will reportedly have extended trading hours until 6 December to ensure people in lockdown can access the shops.
They will now open from 7am to 9pm on weekdays, 7am to 8pm on Saturdays and 9am to 8pm on Sundays.
JUST IN: Woolworths will extend trading hours at its South Australian stores from Saturday until December 6. The new hours will be:
— 9News Adelaide (@9NewsAdel) November 19, 2020
- Monday-Friday: 7.00pm to 9.00pm
- Saturday: 7.00am to 8.00pm
- Sunday: 9.00am to 8.00pm#9News pic.twitter.com/M2A7KIlmOy
The supermarket chain introduced buying limits in SA yesterday after an initial period of resistance. Many essential products are limited to two packages a person.
The full list of purchasing restrictions is here.
Updated
And while we’re talking about South Australia, I wanted to remind you that free mental health support is available if you call 1800 632 753.
SA Health has a dedicated Mental Health Support Line during this time. It runs from 8am-8pm Everyday. Please share this so we can make sure everyone gets the help they need right now. pic.twitter.com/teRrsdQBWs
— MHCSA (@MHCoalitionSA) November 19, 2020
Another Covid-19 testing site has been temporarily shut down due to high winds.
The Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre drive-through site will be closed for the time being. The full list of testing sites is here.
Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre drive-through COVID-19 testing site is temporarily closed due to wind.
— SA Health (@SAHealth) November 19, 2020
To find another location to get a COVID-19 test visit https://t.co/daEpRqXyQV pic.twitter.com/o8NV8dZhxU
Former NRL player Jarryd Hayne is set to stand trial for rape next week.
More from AAP:
Former NRL star Jarryd Hayne’s rape trial is set to begin next week more than two years after his arrest.
Newcastle district court judge Roy Ellis said on Thursday a jury was expected to be empanelled on Monday for Hayne’s trial.
The trial had originally been due to start in May but was postponed because of Covid-19.
Defence lawyer Penny Musgrave, who appeared via video link from Sydney, told the court Hayne was with her in her office for the brief hearing. They could not be seen on screen in court because of technical issues.
Hayne, 32, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of aggravated sexual assault involving a woman in NSW’s Hunter Valley on 30 September 2018.
The head of the Australian defence association, Neil James, was speaking to the ABC earlier about the Brereton report into alleged war crimes by Australian special forces offices in Afghanistan.
He said there is “considerable anger and disgust” from ADF members and past members about the report, but many were also not surprised.
There is considerable anger and disgust but to an extent there is a resignation. People understand to some extent why it went wrong and they are angry it wasn’t fixed earlier.
There is an awful lot of people that served in Afghanistan, we are talking 30,000, and a lot of people served in the special forces who weren’t involved in this. They [the people involved] were the people who forgot that they are only special because the operations are special. The people aren’t special, they are soldiers. They aren’t immune to the normal rules that apply to soldiers under international law.
It is a very complex form of anger, from all the phone calls I got, from all ranks and/or services.
There is also some confidence things will finally start looking up. There are two good things to note: firstly the accountability process finally worked – it took far too long to work but it did finally work. The second one is, sure we’re bearing a lot national shame but imagine the shame if we tried to cover this up; we would never get over it. To some extent while this is a black day we could have faced a blacker one if we had done nothing and our accountability processes had finally revealed what went wrong.
Updated
On a warm day like today, Henley beach in Adelaide would usually be packed. Instead, with the state under a six-day lockdown, it’s empty.
Updated
Wong: Australia 'cannot decouple' from China
Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, says Australia must continue to “stand up for our values” after Nine News published a list of grievances it said was provided by the Chinese embassy.
Wong said that should include speaking up for human rights.
Nine News – and its newspapers the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age – reported last night that the list of China’s 14 disputes with Australia included the ban on Huawei from the 5G network in 2018, blocks on Chinese foreign investment deals, and Australia’s criticism relating to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Wong said Australia “should always stand up for our values and assert our interests”.
We should be holding all countries to account over their international commitments – whether it’s international law, human rights, trade or climate. It is vital to our interests in an effective rules-based order.
Australia will have differences with China, but we cannot decouple.
It’s in our interests to engage and to foster a respectful relationship. That is obviously not helped by inflammatory comments that put domestic political interest before the national interest.
Meanwhile the White House’s national security council has tweeted its support for the Australian government:
(1/2) Beijing is upset Australia took steps to expose and thwart Chinese espionage & to protect Aussie sovereignty. It’s encouraging to see a growing number of countries following Canberra’s lead in taking such steps, which Beijing helpfully lays out here: https://t.co/ZqCkMho9JA
— NSC (@WHNSC) November 19, 2020
Updated
This song is now stuck in my head so I am abusing my blog power to make sure it’s stuck in yours too.
Truly a star performance. https://t.co/hzlGI9RzJI
— Calla Wahlquist (@callapilla) November 19, 2020
Zac Efron, of High School Musical and Hugh Jackman circus musical fame, is stuck in lockdown in South Australia.
This is, to me, very funny. I feel extremely sorry for all South Australians facing six days indoors with no exercise. I love that Troy Bolton is one of them. The actor is in SA to film a movie, Gold, for streaming service Stan.
According to 7News, the real tragedy is that Efron, who is somehow older than me, is trapped 2,000km away from Byron Bay, where he has spent most of the pandemic (who knew?) with girlfriend, Vanessa Valladares.
It’s a week, Zac. You don’t have pets or children to contend with. You’ll be fine. Get your head in the game.
Updated
Labor’s employment spokesman, Brendan O’Connor, has told reporters in Melbourne that while the jobs figures out today are welcomed, there are still thousands more looking for work than there were at the start of the pandemic.
It’s important to note, however, while there has been some improvements, unemployment still rose by 30,000 jobseekers, people looking for work, looking for work but not being able to find it. And while there has been a decline in the underutilisation rate, the under-employment rate, 17.4%, that is a very significant proportion of the labour market that can’t find any work or can’t find enough work, and there is much to be done.
Labor is concerned there is a persistent stagnant wage growth, the lowest wage growth on record, yesterday, and we are concerned that there is still problems with people returning to secure work. In fact, it seems to be the case that the pandemic and perhaps the government’s policies, is leading to more precarious work and more part-time work than compared with full-time work.
For example, there have been 100,000 or more full-time jobs lost in the last 12 months but a net addition, an additional increase of part-time work.
Part-time work is better than nothing but it is not enough to cover the financial commitments of many families, like mortgage payments, O’Connor said.
The government should not be initiating policies that compound the problem where we have well over one million Australians looking for more work, so there is much to do here.
Updated
Patton said he knows that the community relies on police to keep them safe, but stood by the officers involved saying “no one could have predicted the outcome” because there had never been a hostile vehicle attack in Australia before then.
That is why what transpired that day was – and still is – absolutely devastating to our entire police force, particularly the police officers involved. This was not the outcome our police officers wanted, nor what they anticipated, when they set out to apprehend the offender...
He continued:
Having read the internal report and closely followed the coronial inquest, it is my firm belief the police officers responding to this incident acted in good faith based on the information available to them.
The reality is, no one could have predicted the outcome. There had never been a hostile vehicle attack in Australia and our members had never dealt with a similar situation.
However, with the benefit of hindsight, it is clear there were some shortcomings in our operational response.
Based on interviews conducted internally and at the inquest, I am aware some police officers felt they would not be supported if they actively tried to stop the offender’s vehicle. Regardless of whether the vehicle could have been stopped before coming into the city, the fact is some of our members felt uncertain if they would be supported in taking more forceful and decisive action.
This is not how we want our police officers to feel. Community safety is our number one priority, which is why it was so important that we addressed this issue as soon as possible.
Over the past four years we have introduced a number of new response teams and policies to directly deal with critical incidents like this. This includes SOG’s Quick Response Force (September 2017), the CIRT security teams (December 2017) and a new hostile vehicle attack policy (October 2019).
While it is impossible to speculate whether any of these changes would have stopped the devastating outcome on 20 January 2017, the community should know we are committed to doing everything we can to prevent an incident like this from occurring again.
Now the coronial inquest findings have been released, we will take the time to read this report in detail and consider the nine recommendations for Victoria police.
I do just want you to cast your mind back to January 2017, six months after 86 people died in a vehicle attack in Nice, France, and one month after 12 people died when a truck was rammed through Berlin’s Christmas market.
Updated
The chief commissioner of Victoria police, Shane Patton, has released a lengthy statement in response to the coroner’s findings on the Bourke St murders.
First and foremost, I want to offer my continued and heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of those who lost their lives. To lose someone because of such a callous act is unthinkable. I can’t even begin to imagine the heartache and anger they must still be feeling.
I want to assure them that our entire organisation will never forget what happened on 20 January 2017. Nor will we forget the names Matthew Poh Chuan Si, Thalia Hakin, Yosuke Kanno, Jess Mudie, Zachary Matthew Bryant and Bhavita Patel.
Just as importantly, our hearts continue to go out to the 27 innocent people who were injured that day. The vast majority of these victims were hospitalised and many of them are still receiving treatment for their injuries. This incident will have lifelong consequences for them, not to mention for all those who saw the tragedy unfold and for Melburnians more broadly.
He then said that, as with any crime, he wished that tragedy “never happened”.
That the offender would have stopped his vehicle when he was repeatedly requested to do so by police and that he never would have entered the city or used his vehicle as a weapon. Most of all, I wish there were no victims and that our community would never have been exposed to such a horrendous crime.
Melinda Tan, the widow of Mathew Si, said in an additional statement read by the same spokesperson that she felt “no one will accept responsibility” for the role they played in failing to prevent the attack.
Reflecting on the evidence and oral submissions by the various interested parties, it is clear to me that no one will accept responsibility on their part for the events on the day, or the lead-up to it. There is no dispute that the offender himself drove the vehicle that injured and killed innocent lives. However, how and why did we enable him to do this?
I felt that counsels assisting the coroner finally voiced the families’ feelings and concerns with their closing and oral submissions. It is based on hard evidence and facts rather than one’s self-interest to protect their reputation.
Her honour has instilled hope that this inquest will not be wasted and to remember the main reason why we are all gathered here in the first place. It is for the safety of the community, the young and old, local Victorians, interstate visitors, and even foreigners.
We place our trust in Victoria police to protect our lives and take decisive action in the face of danger, and that they will have our back when they do. With the change in leadership at Victoria police, I hope that the new police commissioner will listen to the victims’ voices in this tragedy and provide us with some comfort that our loved ones were not sacrificed in vain. This Christmas, Matt’s daughter, Aria, said “I wished that Papa was still here”.
Graham Ashton was the Victorian police commissioner when the Bourke Street attack occurred, and retired at the end of his five-year term in the role in June. The current chief commissioner of police is the former deputy commissioner, Shane Patton.
Updated
Families of Bourke St victims say it was 'difficult' to hear police officers 'reject any criticism' of their actions
The families of five of the people killed in the 2017 Bourke Street attack in Melbourne say they were disturbed by a “persisting disconnect between serving members of the force and senior members of Victoria police force command”.
Coroner Jacqui Hawkins handed down her findings in the inquest this morning, and described an “agonising” litany of failures on behalf of police in stopping the attack.
In a statement delivered by a spokesperson outside the coroner’s court in Melbourne, the families of baby Zachary Bryant, 10-year-old Thalia Hakin, as well as Yosuke Kanno, Matthew Si, and Bhavita Patel said it was “difficult” to see police in the witness stand during the 31-day-long inquest reject criticism of their actions.
The family of 22-year-old Jess Mundie, who also died in the attack, did not join in the statement.
The statement said:
Over the course of 31 separate sitting days, her honour heard evidence from over 50 witnesses about what happened in the lead-up to and on the day of 20 January 2017, as well as changes that have been implemented by Victoria police and other organisations since that time.
During the course of the evidence, a number of witnesses extended genuine condolences for those who lost their lives as a result of the events on 20 January 2017. These condolences were gratefully received and were deeply appreciated.
The majority of the witnesses who gave evidence during the inquest were current serving members of Victoria police. During the course of their evidence, criticisms were put to a number of these officers about decisions that were made, or actions that were or were not taken in the lead-up to the Bourke Street attack. It was difficult to hear these officers reject any criticisms that were made of their actions, even when these criticisms had been levelled by senior members of the Victoria police command.
This suggests a persisting disconnect between serving members of the force and senior members of Victoria police force command.
The findings delivered this morning by her honour seek that atrocities never occur again in the future. It is expected the recommendations will be adopted in full and undertaken with transparency and accountability.
Over the course of this particular inquest, evidence was given about missed opportunities for earlier intervention and apprehension. It is imperative the Victoria police see this inquest as a catalyst for real, meaningful cultural change within the force, lest this investigation be added to the list of missed opportunities.
Updated
In other news, the Transport Workers Union has welcomed the Victorian government’s decision to exempt truck drivers from its border closure with South Australia.
Truck drivers have been technically exempt from all the border closures, following a plan struck at national cabinet back in April, but they’ve still been stuck in long queues and had permit difficulties on the Victoria-NSW and NSW-Queensland borders.
TWU Victorian Tasmanian branch secretary John Berger said:
We are pleased the Victorian government has consulted us on this issue to ensure truck drivers will be able to enter Victoria from SA when the border shuts tonight. We do not want to see a repeat of the difficulties truck drivers experienced when they entered NSW from Victoria a few months ago after the border shut. Confusion and delays on the border can have massive effects on supply chains.
Berger said the Victorian government needed to provide truck drivers with information on testing waiting times.
The South Australian and NT branch secretary, Ian Smith, said:
Truck drivers are performing a critical service at this time, getting supplies of food, fuel and medicines across borders ... We urge state authorities to ensure exemptions remain in place so that drivers can access truck stops with showers, hot meals and rest areas. Drivers should be given masks, sanitiser and gloves and they should be paid pandemic leave if they need to self-isolate. By protecting truck drivers we can keep these essential workers and the wider community safe.
Updated
Asked whether it was believable that senior commanders in the ADF were not aware, Dreyfus said:
I take the report as we find it. I mean, this report doesn’t pull any punches. This report is searingly independent. This report is as difficult reading as has been produced, I suspect, by any country in respect of its own defence force.
So, for all of those reasons, I think we can also take comfort when that observation is made in relation to the senior command. I mean, Gen Campbell made it clear today that there is a collective responsibility that is shared at the highest levels of command, and he’s not seeking to shirk that and nor did he say this lets anyone off the hook.
Labor’s defence spokesman Richard Marles said he found the allegations in the Brereton report “profoundly difficult to accept”.
These are appalling allegations. These happened by people wearing our nation as uniform. In the name of our country. That is profoundly difficult to accept.
It is profoundly difficult to accept, knowing as I do, the incredible service that has been provided by thousands, tens of thousands of Australians in our defence forces and in Afghanistan. I feel for the victims. I really feel for those who have provided distinguished service, which is the vast majority of those who went to Afghanistan wearing our nation’s uniform. This day for them is a really difficult day.
I want to say sorry to the victims. I want to say to those Australians who did provide distinguished service in Afghanistan, notwithstanding this, thank you for that service and that service was distinguished and the country continues to owe you a debt of gratitude and my thoughts are with them today.
Updated
Shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said the report shows that Australia respects the rule of law.
This is a very sad day for the Australian defence forces. It is a very sad day for our country.
But I think we should take heart from this report, which shows that we are a country that respects the rule of law. As a country that respects the rule of law, we gain strength, our democracy gains strength, our country gains strength, from that respect for the rule of law.
Dreyfus said there was a lot of difficult work ahead.
There is a recommendation that 19 individuals be referred to the office of the special investigator within the Australian Federal Police for investigation and if that investigation produces sufficient evidence, admissible evidence, of an appropriate standard, that there then be consideration of prosecution for war crimes of one or more of those 19 individuals....
I would stress, as has everyone who has spoken on this matter today, that this inquiry was not a criminal trial. The work of the criminal justice system, work by the AFP, work by the Commonwealth director of public prosecutions, that lies ahead, but I would say again, as a country, we should take heart from this report because it demonstrates our respect as a country for the rule of law.
Updated
Richard Marles says soldiers who reported alleged war crimes in Afghanistan were 'enormously courageous'
Marles then praised “the bravery of those soldiers who stood up and called out when they saw wrong occurring within their own ranks”.
This was enormously courageous. In my book, this is bravery of the highest order and it is these people who are the true custodians of the morals and ethics of the Australian Defence Force.
It is because of them, that these wrongs have been uncovered. We owe to them, as a nation, an enormous dependent of gratitude.
I particularly want to acknowledge the moral courage of Maj Gen Jeff Sengelman. As difficult as this day is, their actions, the inquiry, this report, the investigations still to come and the processes which follow are enormously important and we should pause and just acknowledge how from a global perspective this is extremely unusual. This demonstrates that Australia has the capacity to acknowledge and deal with its own mistakes.
We should take heart from that. Because it is through this that we can have a sense of confidence about the ethics and morality of us as a people and about the ethics and morality fundamentally of the Australian Defence Force. It is these processes which will ultimately provide the basis upon which as a nation we are able to move on and we are able to restore integrity to Australia’s defence forces.
Updated
Marles then defended Australia’s military involvement in Afghanistan, and said it should not be diminished by these allegations.
It would be a tragedy if Australians were to see our nation’s involvement in Afghanistan solely through the prism of these allegations.
We should remember that when Australia first became involved in Afghanistan as part of an international force in the early 2000s, our objective was to deny Afghanistan as a base for international terrorism. With should never forget that Australians lost their lives on September 11. We should never forget that the organisation that perpetrated the Bali bombings, utilised training camps in Afghanistan. This objective was achieved.
From there, Australia stood in that group of nations which were willing to give help to a country which sought assistance as Afghanistan did. Thousands of Australian soldiers gave distinguished service in supporting the Afghan defence forces in building their capabilities, so they could provide for their own security. And enabling a more effective Afghan government. Now, there is a long way to go, but for the thousands of veterans and existing service personnel who give service in Afghanistan, they should feel proud of that service.
The allegations in respect of a few, do not detract from the sacrifice of the many.
Marles said he takes “great comfort” form the fact that the ADF is under the leadership of General Angus Campbell while this has occured.
He’s a man of enormous integrity and capacity and we have seen that in the last few hours.
Labor’s defence spokesman, Richard Marles, is talking about the report by Maj Gen Justice Paul Brereton, which found that Australian special forces officers were allegedly involved in the murders of 39 Afghan civilians.
Marles said, “to the people of Afghanistan, we say sorry”.
All of those who value the place of the Australian Defence Force in our nation’s history and culture with a very heavy heart. As Justice Brereton said, the events discovered by this inquiry occurred within the Australian Defence Force by members of the Australian Defence Force under the command of the Australian Defence Force.
It is all just very sad. Today our thoughts are with the victims of these alleged events. Also with their families. To them, and to the people of Afghanistan, we say sorry. We acknowledge that the expressions of regret and sorrow on the part of the chief of the defence force and on the government have been utterly appropriate.
In Justice Brereton’s report there are recommendations, which deal with a process of developing recompense for those families and that is as it should be. Today we call on the government to implement all of the recommendations of the Brereton report and I feel they will.
Today is not a day for politics. Today is a day where we come together and support the very difficult work which lies ahead in restoring integrity to Australia’s defence forces.
We stand in support of the actions that the government has and will take in this regard. That includes the establishment of the office of the special investigator under the banner of the Australian Federal Police, which will be principally responsible for taking the next steps in this process. I want to acknowledge Justice Brereton. His report is searingly honest. It is extremely thorough. It is actually the basis upon which we as a nation are able to heal and in the fullness of time, I have no doubt that his work will come to be regarded as extremely profound.
Updated
Victoria’s deputy chief health officer, Prof Allen Cheng, said that increased wastewater testing in western Victoria would be part of Victoria’s protective measures against the SA outbreak.
But the discovery of the virus at Portland, which is 65km from the SA border and in the border bubble, doesn’t necessarily mean the virus has skipped the border.
Virus fragments were discovered in wastewater testing at Ararat, about 200km north of Portland, in October. They have also been discovered at Colac, Gisborne, Kilmore and Shepparton.
Coronavirus detected in wastewater tests at Benalla and Portland in Victoria
Coronavirus has been detected in wastewater samples in the regional Victorian towns of Benalla and Portland.
For interstaters, there is quite a distance between these two locations: they are 555km apart, with Portland on the southwest coast near the South Australian border and Benalla about two hours north, off the Hume Freeway.
Victorian authorities have asked anyone who is a resident of either town, and anyone who visited or passed through between 15 and 17 November, to be alert for Covid-19 symptoms and get a test if anything comes up.
UPDATE FOR BENALLA AND PORTLAND: Coronavirus detected in wastewater samples
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) November 19, 2020
Coronavirus fragments have been detected in wastewater from Benalla and Portland. If you are a resident or have visited either of these areas from November 15-17, please be alert for symptoms #COVID19Vic pic.twitter.com/n8VpTEkOaT
Updated
Thanks to Matilda Boseley for taking you through the afternoon.
Before we get back to news of the day, I wanted to put something in the diary for you. The parliamentary inquiry into Rio Tinto’s destruction of the 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site at Juukan Gorge is holding hearings again tomorrow afternoon.
On the witness list are two WA bodies charged with administering the Aboriginal Heritage Act: the registrar of Aboriginal sites, and the Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee.
Committee chair Warren Entsch said:
The Aboriginal Heritage Act has failed to protect Aboriginal Heritage.
The bureaucracy has played a significant role in this failure and we need to understand why.
The ACMC will be grilled on submissions made by traditional owner corporations operating in the Pilbara, who said it has limited the role of Aboriginal people speaking for their country and limited the role of experts like archeologists, and has removed Aboriginal heritage sites from the register “without proper reasons”.
Mining giant Fortescue appeared before the committee on Tuesday. You can read our coverage of that here.
As much as I have loved being with you all today it’s time for me sign off (and brew a fresh cup of tea). But there is good news! Calla Wahlquist (the best of the best in blogging) is taking over.
See you tomorrow!
Updated
As South Australia’s hotel quarantine program ramps down, for the time being, Victoria is preparing to relaunch theirs.
Vic Premier flags the workforce in upcoming reset of Hotel Quarantine will be "advance contact traced"(to work out who they live with) & exclusively only work for the Vic Government (avoiding 2nd jobs, the pizza shop /hotel worker case in Adelaide).@10NewsFirstMelb #springst
— Simon Love (@SimoLove) November 19, 2020
Usually bustling with commuters making their way to offices. Right now there is no life on Pirie Street #adelaidelockdown @9NewsAdel pic.twitter.com/awr62mZWUi
— Piper Denholm (@PiperDen) November 18, 2020
From next year New South Wales drivers won’t be warned about mobile speed cameras, and motorists caught drink and drug-driving will face harsher penalties, reports the AAP.
Signs warning NSW drivers about mobile speed cameras are being scrapped and harsher penalties will apply to anyone caught drink and drug-driving. Transport minister Andrew Constance said the speed camera signs will go over the next 12 months.
This is about changing culture and changing behaviour...
We’ve seen it happen with our world-leading mobile phone detection program, where the rate of people offending has steadily declined.
No warning signs mean you can be caught anywhere, anytime and we want that same culture around mobile speed cameras.
Last year, 136 people in NSW lost their lives and 2,941 were injured due to speeding motorists.
This year, 275 people have been killed on NSW roads compared to 314 at the same time last year. Constance said tougher penalties for drink and drug-drivers would apply from next year.
Research shows you are 23 times more likely to crash if you are under the influence of both alcohol and drugs – this massive, life-threatening risk needs a stronger penalty.
Modelling from Monash University Accident Research Centre showed the move could save between 34 and 43 lives, and prevent around 600 serious injuries in NSW each year.
These tougher penalties send the message that this behaviour won’t be tolerated.
Since 2015, 101 serious crashes involved a driver or rider with illegal levels of both alcohol and drugs in their systems. These crashes killed 98 people and seriously injured another 52.
Revenue raised from the mobile speed camera program will go directly to road safety initiatives.
Labor’s John Graham accused the government of scrapping the warning signs in a bid to raise revenue on ABC radio.
It’s a budget measure. We know that fine revenue will leap by about a third as a result of this single measure.
Updated
Queensland’s health minister, Yvette D’Ath, has announced that Queensland police and staff working at quarantine hotels will be tested for the virus weekly.
It comes after the outbreak in Adelaide was linked to staff at the hotel quarantine programs.
All three cases recorded today in Queensland were detected in hotel quarantine and contracted the virus overseas. D’Ath said the decision was made to strengthen the quarantine program:
We believe this has strengthened our hotel quarantine response but we are going to go a step further and we will from early next week, start testing our staff from hotel quarantine on a weekly basis.
Updated
The testing site at Magil is being temporarily closed due to wind.
Magill COVID-19 testing site is temporarily closed due to wind.
— SA Health (@SAHealth) November 19, 2020
Please go to Victoria Park / Pakapakanthi drive-through site or to find a location to get a COVID-19 test visit https://t.co/daEpRqXyQV pic.twitter.com/RAcAziDLjF
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian has said that the government will introduce special, more relaxed health orders for New Year’s Eve.
Up to 3,000 people will be able to attend outdoor events on the special night, as long as Covid guidelines are met.
Anyone visiting friends or family in the Sydney CBD will require a permit to do so. A special public order will be introduced to create a restricted zone around the CBD, and anyone hoping to attend functions within it must apply through Services NSW to do so.
NSW police will have the power to move people on without a permit, should they gather in large numbers across the CBD.
It comes as NSW record no new locally acquired cases for the 12th straight day.
Updated
According to the statement, once the 48 hours are up, a permit scheme will be set up for those who want to cross the border.
Although further details are not yet available, the permits initially will be provided for:
- Emergency services workers or workers providing essential services.
- Agricultural work.
- Medical care (including seeking coronavirus testing), and to obtain medical supplies or compassionate reasons.
- Those who need to shop to obtain essential supplies.
Updated
Victoria will close border to SA for 48 hours from midnight
The Victorian government has announced it will close its border to South Australia for 48 hours from midnight tonight.
Temporary Border Controls With South Australia - https://t.co/xF1MeASpB5 #springst
— Victorian Government News (@VicGovtNews) November 19, 2020
Under the hard border, only freight drivers and those with medical or emergency reasons will be able to cross the border.
Premier Daniel Andrews said the closure was to preserve the progress Victoria had made:
Victorians have worked too hard and given too much to allow anything to put at risk our goal of reaching Covid-normal by Christmas. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep Victorians safe.
Residents of Portland and Benalla, and anyone who’s visited between 15 and 17 November are urged to get tested.
The statement also says testing sites will extend their opening times, with additional testing capacity to be made available.
Updated
The report on alleged war crimes by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan is being handed down now.
Justice Brereton considered in detail 57 allegations of incidents and issues.
Campbell says he found there to be “credible information to substantiate 23 incidents of alleged unlawful killing of 39 people by 25 Australian special forces personnel, predominantly from the Special Air Service Regiment”.
Get all the updates here:
Updated
Nicola Spurrier is outlining now why bottle shops will remain open during the lockdown:
Unfortunately, in Australia, we’ve got many people who are dependent on alcohol and are addicted to alcohol, and the same could be said for tobacco and nicotine.
When people are not able to access alcohol, then they can become very moody and can have increased depression, increased anxiety, and it could be a very significant clinical problem.
So, when we were thinking about this yesterday we spoke to our colleagues at drug and alcohol services, and we took their advice on this. So this is based in a sound clinical decision.
Updated
'Not possible' to stop medi-hotel staff working elsewhere, police commissioner says
Grant Stevens has remained steadfast on the hotel quarantine issue, saying that it is “not possible” for the state to fully staff hotels if workers were not allowed to work in other places as well.
Not allowing hotel security workers to be employed across multiple sites was one of the key recommendations coming out of Victoria’s second wave investigations.
We need people to do this job for us. They have lives beyond the responsibilities in medi-hotels, and we need to find that balance.
It’s simply not possible for us to bring in the total number of people required to run this function in South Australia, and have them not participate in other activities that they may consider necessary for their personal circumstances.
As best as possible we will do that, but we need to be realistic about our capacity to do so. I have dozens of police officers working in many hotels, I can’t expect them not to get on with the remainder of their lives.
Updated
Police commissioner Grant Stevens has been clarifying some of the ins and out of the new restrictions. So far we have heard that just generally walking your dog is out, but you are allowed to walk your dog if you are heading to the supermarket for your once a day trip.
However, you can’t bring your children with you to the supermarket, even for single parents:
The direction is written that you can drop your children off to another person’s place, or you can have someone come to your place so that you’re able to either attend to essential work activities or to access goods and services that are allowed under the direction.
We don’t want to see people taking their children to the supermarket.
Police Commissioner Grant Stevens is getting very heated in today’s press conference, telling journalists that they are being “unreasonable” when they question the decision to allow security guards to work multiple jobs.
Let me give you my perspective on this to perception you are setting around quarantine hotels.
Your expectation is the people who work in a quarantine hotel will be isolated in a complete bubble from the rest of the community, while they’re providing that service. That’s not just security guards, that’s police officers, it’s nurses, it’s caterers, its cleaners, its hotel staff, it’s the Australian Defence Force, your expectation is unreasonable.
These people are part of their community and we require them to do a really important job at the moment. People have an entitlement and get on with their life, when they’re not at work. So please, balance your expectations in relation to the, what we’re asking these people to do...
You are being completely unreasonable, these people have lives.
Safe to say this has not gone down well with the press pack.
There has been a lot of questions around this morning as to if face masks are compulsory in South Australia. Marshall has provided an answer, which is ... yeah, kinda.
Masks are compulsory if you’re leaving your home, but we do understand that there are many people who haven’t been able to access them at the moment.
So in the first instance, people will be warned. I know that there have been police officers at Rundle Mall all day, handing out face masks. We appreciate this has caught a lot of people by surprise, but you can’t wait to plan these things.
Updated
Marshall has once again been asked whether hotel security workers should have been allowed to work second jobs (which allowed this virus to spread to a popular pizza shop).
We subjected ourselves in South Australia to that independent audit ... I don’t believe there was a recommendation with regards to people working at multiple sites...
We have no evidence to suggest that anything that has happened in our hotel quarantine hasn’t met the standard. Whether that standard, which is a nationally accepted, is right, we need to look in.
Updated
SA premier Steven Marshall has urged people not to try and find loopholes in the lockdown.
Can I just say, what we’re appealing for here is common sense. The order is essentially a stay-at-home order.
This doesn’t mean that people should be looking to try and find loopholes, to get out of that basic requirement as Professor Spurrier has said...
I think we all want Christmas. We want Christmas to be as normal as possible, celebrating with our family and friends.
Updated
More from SA’s chief health officer Nicola Spurrier:
There have been more than 12,000 people who presented for testing yesterday, that is an absolutely phenomenal result. And I really thank each and every one of you, South Australians for doing that...
There were 11,913 tests in total processed yesterday. I’m absolutely sure that’s the record and let’s see how we go today as well.
So, the message today is, be patient. Be kind, stay at home. You are absolutely doing the right thing we are going to get on top of this, we want to be open for Christmas and go back to all the things that we’ve enjoyed doing before. We don’t want an extended shutdown.
Updated
No new cases in South Australia's cluster
SA’s chief health officer Nicola Spurrier has annouced that South Australia’s cluster has not grown overnight, still sitting at 23 cases.
I’m really pleased with that news, but you might be saying why have we got no new cases and yet I’m not able to get out of the house, so it’s my job to explain that to you...
So with all of the 23 cases and the 17 suspected cases. What we are doing is putting a double ring-fence around all of those people. So if you imagine that all of those people have had close contacts, and then their contacts have had close contacts, that’s where we’re up to finding all of those people and requiring them to quarantine.
Now at the moment, we have 3,200 close contacts or contacts of those close contacts, who we’ve identified and now are all in quarantine and are directly linked to this cluster. In addition to that, of course, there are other thousands of South Australians who have had a private test and were also in quarantine.
Updated
More from Marshall:
The lessons of surging infections in Victoria and other parts of the world, have been learnt. Indecision plays into the hands of this virus. Covid-19 is highly infectious, extremely dangerous and very difficult to eradicate once it gets a foothold in a community.
So we need this circuit breaker as breathing space for a contact tracing blitz...
Last night, I asked the Commonwealth to cancel all international flights ... until 30 November the end of this month.
Updated
SA premier Steven Marshall gives Covid-19 update
SA premier Steven Marshall is speaking now:
We have woken up to a very different, South Australia today. And my message to everybody at home is that while we might be physically distanced I believe that we have never been more united.
What we do for the next six days will determine if we are successfully stared down the threat posed by this outbreak of Covid-19.
Updated
Morrison speaks on Chinese officials list of grievances
Scott Morrison says it’s “a nonsense” to claim Australia acts at the behest of its security ally the US, and “we’ll continue to be ourselves”.
In a round of TV interviews this morning, the prime minister has pushed back at what he described as a list of grievances from the Chinese embassy in Australia.
Nine News – together with its newspapers the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age – reported last night that the Chinese embassy had handed it a list of 14 disputes with Australia.
They include the ban on Huawei from the 5G network in 2018, blocks on Chinese foreign investment deals, and criticism relating to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang – similar to the objections that China’s foreign ministry spokesperson has raised from the podium in Beijing in recent days.
Morrison told’s Seven’s Sunrise program:
I think one of the big misunderstandings and you saw that in the unofficial list of I suppose grievances you could call them that came out of the Chinese embassy and the media reports on that, is there’s some assumption that Australia and Japan, for that matter, or other countries, act on the behest of the United States. Now, that’s nonsense. Australia is a sovereign country. We make our own decisions in accordance with our national interests.
On Nine’s Today program, Morrison was asked about the quote attributed in Nine reports to an unnamed Chinese government official in a briefing with a reporter in Canberra on Tuesday: “China is angry. If you make China the enemy, China will be the enemy.”
Morrison said:
My response to that is Australia is not doing that and Australia isn’t about to do that. We’re just going to keep being ourselves ... I tell you one thing we won’t be doing, we won’t be compromising on the fact that we will set what our foreign investment laws are or how we build our 5G telecommunications networks or how we run our systems of protecting against interference Australia’s way we run our country.
Updated
More from coroner Jacqui Hawkins in Melbourne:
The evidence in the inquest supports the finding that some police members were reluctant on the day to take more assertive action because they were concerned that force command would not support them and instead discipline them for breaching policy.
I agree with the assistant commissioner and their opinion that the fear of being disciplined paralysed some police members from taking more assertive action on the day. This issue has hopefully in part been addressed with the implementation of the new vehicle policy...
Although the precise events of Bourke Street were unforeseeable, the offender had an extensive unknown history of baiting police and driving dangerously to evade police with a complete disregard for the safety of others.
Updated
Coroner hands down report on 2017 Bourke Street attack
Coming out of Victoria we are hearing coroner Jacqui Hawkins handing down her findings on the deaths of six people during James Gargasoulas’ car attack along Bourke Street in January 2017.
Not calling it a pursuit meant that proper oversight was not initiated as note pursuit controller was allocated. This meant that no one had responsibility to conduct the appropriate and necessary risk assessment to manage the risks.
This was a clear breach of the pursuit policy ... I am unable to say, had a pursuit been called and probably terminated, whether it would have changed the course of events but not calling it did not allow any form of supervision or oversight...
As the operation to locate the offender moved into the north-western region, there was a marked deterioration in command and control by the Port Phillip CIU.
I found that is a lack of assertive leadership and supervision provided to the Port Phillip CAU by detective sergeant Humphreys and detective acting singer sergeant Newman in relation to an appropriate plan throughout the day including during the time the offender was located in Marrickville and to disengage in south Melbourne.
Updated
Some news out Victoria’s prisons.
A woman in prison has been charged with a terrorism offence over a stabbing in a Victorian jail.
The 27-year-old woman is charged with engaging in a terrorist act after allegedly stabbing another inmate at the Ravenhall prison on 30 October.
Her alleged victim, a woman also aged 27, suffered a hand injury.
The accused stabber is due to appear in the Melbourne Magistrates Court today.
Updated
The messages of support for South Australia are coming thick and fast today, with even the likes of Jimmy Barnes joining in.
Adelaide we’re sending this one out for you. Victoria did it and so can SA. We’ll send out some tunes to cheer you on. For everyone everywhere locked up, locked down, isolating, feeling lonely. We’re here with you. Full video on my Facebook page pic.twitter.com/krLF73vDkO
— Jimmy Barnes (@JimmyBarnes) November 18, 2020
Updated
Just a reminder we are standing by for the long-awaited report into alleged war crimes committed by Australian soldiers in Afganistan. That should come around 11 am ADET. We will have a dedicated live blog for those results as well, and I’ll post a link to that when it begins for those who are interested.
More than a quarter of a million people are now dead from Covid-19 in the US.
The Guardian’s US office and reporters Richard Luscombe and Rashida Kamal have broken down this tragic milestone by numbers:
The victims come from a variety of racial backgrounds, from different age groups, locations and occupations; and no state in the nation has been unaffected as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.
The largest public health emergency in a century also equates to an economic disaster, for the US and its industries as well as for families and individuals struggling to survive in the face of a strong resurgence of Covid-19 this fall and winter.
This is the story of the pandemic in numbers and the tragic toll it has taken in terms of lives and livelihoods lost.
Updated
I’m not totally sure what to make of this but definitely something to watch out for as the day goes on.
(For those not in Victoria, Neil Mitchell is Melbourne’s most popular breakfast radio host and often gets tip-offs from listeners on the news ahead for the day.)
. @3AWNeilMitchell is hearing a strong suggestion the VIC side of the SA/VIC Border will be tightened by the end of today. Told Police are being mobilised to head out this afternoon.
— Heidi Murphy (@heidimur) November 18, 2020
Christmas carols ring out across a very empty Rundle Mall on day one of lockdown. @abcadelaide @BreakfastNews pic.twitter.com/K0X91WaXSE
— Sarah Mullins (née Hancock) (@sarahmullins) November 18, 2020
SA update set for 11am ADET
SA premier Steven Marshall will give an update at 10.30am ADCT (11am ADET).
I wonder if he will start adopting the North Face jacket like Victorian premier Daniel Andrews did during his daily outbreak pressers?
Today’s live #COVID19 update for #SouthAustralia is at 10.30am. Tune in: https://t.co/A2E3AD4lUv pic.twitter.com/8cvzOMDKJt
— Steven Marshall, MP (@marshall_steven) November 18, 2020
Updated
So just a reminder, the South Australian cluster now sits at 23 with seven additional people they believe are likely infected. We are expecting an update to those numbers in the next hour or so.
You can check out the Adelaide city streets on their live webcam steams here.
Quiet scenes on the Adelaide city live cams today as SOuth Australia goes into lockdowns. More update on the @GuardianAus live blog https://t.co/Iy20o1XfaU pic.twitter.com/InC9Sru03b
— Matilda Boseley (@MatildaBoseley) November 18, 2020
A Queensland man will face court after allegedly killing a man with one punch outside a pub north of Brisbane.
Police say the 29-year-old and a 49-year-old got into a fight outside a pub on Aerodrome Rd, Caboolture, about 10pm on Wednesday.
The younger man allegedly struck the other man, who fell to the ground and hit his head on the concrete.
The 49-year-old died at the scene. The other man was arrested and charged with unlawful striking causing death.
He’s due to the appear in Caboolture magistrates court today.
Updated
Here are some photos from South Australia as the state prepped for lockdown yesterday afternoon.
Big insurer IAG says it might need to raise more money to cover the cost of insurance payouts to businesses that closed because of coronavirus.
This follows the insurance industry’s loss yesterday in a test case over whether policies covered Covid-19. The NSW court of appeal said they do, putting the industry on the hook for what is estimated to be hundreds of millions of dollars in payouts. (Basically, the exemption the industry wanted to rely on refers to legislation that was repealed back in 2015).
The Insurance Council of Australia, which funded the case, says it is considering an appeal to the high court.
In the meantime, IAG has this morning gone into a trading halt “to consider the impact of the judgement of the New South Wales Court of Appeal handed down on 18 November 2020 in relation to business interruption insurance as a result of Covid-19, and to assess the financial impact and its capital requirements”.
The company told the ASX it would resume trade in its shares by Monday, at the latest.
Updated
SA resident (and blog reader) Neil has sent in this picture of his first day without a bike ride, and have given some excellent insight into the last-minute exercise scramble in the state.
A warm welcome from my lockdown home in SA. Now, you may be able to tell from the attached photo of my Day One lockdown atire, that I am a keen cyclist.
This morning, my Strava feed [a cycling based social media app] is full of unmasked Adelaide cyclists who last night completed their “last rides before lockdown”. It seems that cyclists believe that they could not catch or spread Covid prior to the government lockdown at midnight.
I guess my point here is that when a snap lockdown is called, people seem to panic and rush out to do stuff. If Covid is already in the community, surely this has the potential to actually increase the spread of the virus, rather than stop it.
There is probably a lesson here, although I am not sure what it is.
I’m on the @GuardianAus live blog today and asked SA residents to send in photos of themselves on the first day of lockdown. Neil Titterington did not disappoint. pic.twitter.com/cVGJ7Lwz80
— Matilda Boseley (@MatildaBoseley) November 18, 2020
Send me your lockdown adventures on Twitter @MatildaBoseley
1/3 COVID-19 AND BUSHFIRES ADVICE: If you are in quarantine or isolation due to COVID-19, you can leave your home if you are in an emergency or your home is unsafe – but try to get back into self-isolation as soon as you safely can.
— SA Health (@SAHealth) November 18, 2020
3/3 You must ensure you advise emergency services that you have been forced to leave self-quarantine or self-isolation due to the emergency and if you have recently tested positive for COVID, are a close contact of a case, or are experiencing symptoms of COVID.
— SA Health (@SAHealth) November 18, 2020
No 'failsafe' quarantine system, Morrison says
Prime minister Scott Morrison has told Seven Network he believes no hotel quarantine system can be made 100% safe after the disease escaped South Australia’s isolation regime. (Somewhat of a change of tone from the Victorian second wave.)
Morrison said Australia had welcomed more than 400,000 returned citizens and permanent residents during the pandemic.
We’ve had a lot of people coming through and we’ve had outbreaks in cases that have emerged from quarantine in many states during that time ...
You can’t have a failsafe 100% system in every case.
He said South Australia was putting in increased levels of defence based on former health secretary Jane Halton’s review of the hotel regime.
Melbourne’s deadly outbreak also spread after the virus escaped from the hotel quarantine system.
All hotel quarantine workers around Australia will now be tested weekly.
The nation’s top medical experts will look at the risks associated with hotel quarantine after issues were raised with hotel quarantine employees working multiple jobs.
Cabinet minister Simon Birmingham said the scale of risk needed to be assessed.
“We can’t always eliminate every risk, but we ought to have a look at them, assess them, act on the health advice where it is clear,” he told the ABC.
There are more than 35,000 Australians stranded overseas trying to return.
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Important news on my all-time favourite statue.
The Adelaide pidgeon is now officially Covid-19 safe.
Stay safe adelaide pigeon statues! pic.twitter.com/LG1OhT7XFw
— Bajo (@bajo) November 18, 2020
South Australian chief health officer Nicola Spurrier has spoken to ABC Radio Adelaide this morning.
SA CHO Nicola Spurrier tells @abcadelaide the reason they had to keep bottle shops open was because alcoholics would be in strife without them for 6 days. They were worried about rise in DV. #COVID19sa
— Isobel Roe (@isobelroe) November 18, 2020
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Just an update on the homicide investigation currently underway in Melbourne from the AAP:
Homicide detectives are investigating the death of a man on a busy road in Melbourne’s west.
Police say the man was found injured on Boundary Rd in Derrimut about 6am on Thursday morning. Emergency crews tried to work on the man but he died at the scene.
He was found several kilometres from another crime scene established overnight.
Police had received a call that an injured man had been spotted lying in the middle of East Derrimut Cres just after 11.15pm on Wednesday. When officers arrived the man was gone but a number of personal items were found, and the dog squad discovered what appeared to be blood in the surrounding streets.
Anyone who may have seen or heard anything in the vicinity of East Derrimut Cres, West Court or Derrimut Dr, or who has dashcam footage of those areas has been urged to come forward.
South Australian premier Steven Marshall told Nine’s Today show is confident the state will have a normal Christmas, after the six-day hard lockdown.
Marshall says the pause in most community activity will significantly reduce the risk of the virus spreading further.
It could also prevent the need for a much longer Victorian-style shutdown.
It’s quite different from other lockdowns around the world and other parts of our country, often they’ve been dealing with multiple clusters that have got away and widespread community transmission ...
We don’t want that in South Australia. We have taken this proactive decision to have this circuit breaker, to have this pause on mobility so that we can stay ahead of this particular cluster.
He said he was “very confident” the state would have a Covid-normal Christmas.
This is the very best chance we’ve got. By working together over the six days.
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South Australia’s lockdown is making international headlines here is the US’s premier public radio station NPR’s report on the six-day “circuit breaker”.
South Australia is entering a strict, mandatory lockdown lasting 6 days that began at midnight Thursday local time.
— NPR (@NPR) November 18, 2020
Facial coverings are required in public, and only one person per household is permitted to leave on a single day for essential activities.https://t.co/RMTdeYFR36
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Adelaide’s Lord Mayor, Sandy Verschoor has described the hours after the lockdown announcement was made
It was watching the reverberations through the city and through the offices yesterday as everybody tried to work out what this meant.
We, of course, had our critical incident management team already in place since COVID started. So, they went into action very quickly after the12:30 announcement by the Premier and Professor Spurrier. By 2:30, we had made all the decisions and staff were contacted, and by 3:30 the majority of staff had already left the premises.
So, we worked very, very quickly to make sure that our staff were safe...
It’s an absolute ghost town here. Very few people around, very little traffic.
Reporter Max Opray has been out on the ground in South Australia, getting in inside scoop on if the state’s contact tracers are truly up for this mammoth job.
Here is some of what he found:
As tense South Australians swirled around Unley Shopping Centre on Wednesday afternoon trying to figure out what to buy for their first full lockdown — “screw essentials, I need ice cream!” — council worker Anne Ross was standing in the long queue for the supermarket, calmly preparing for her third time around.
Ross had secured an exemption to enter SA from her home state of Victoria several weeks earlier, escorted by police to Adelaide so she could grieve with relatives after her mother died.
Little did she anticipate how the tables would turn. “Now I’m stuck here,” she tells Guardian Australia with a laugh.
Ross hopes the six-day lockdown announced for SA on Wednesday doesn’t develop into the marathon she experienced at home.
“I think South Australia is in a fortunate position, in that they can learn from what happened in Victoria,” she says.
You can read Opray’s full report below:
Victoria 20 days Covid-19 free
The Victorian health department has just released its daily numbers updates, and it’s good news once again!
Once again there has been zero new Covid-19 infections and zero virus-related deaths in a “doughnut” streak that has now lasted 20 days.
Another day of 0 new cases, 0 lives lost. There are still 3 active cases, 0 with an unknown source. Thanks to all who were tested, 17,161 results were received. https://t.co/pcll7ySEgz#StaySafeStayOpen #COVID19Vic #EveryTestHelps pic.twitter.com/8woerVSlVf
— VicGovDHHS (@VicGovDHHS) November 18, 2020
In some sadder news, homicide detectives are investigating the death of a man on a busy road in Melbourne.
Police say the man was found injured on Boundary Rd in Derrimut in the city’s west on Thursday morning.
Emergency crews tried to work on the man but he died at the scene.
Updated
Oh no! Steven Marshall has just coughed live on TV! (Although it looks like he may have just swallowed a fly rather than being infected with Covid-19, so probably not that worrying).
The premier was asked whether South Australia was taking their lead from Victoria when it comes to lockdown, but he seemed to dispute this idea.
I think it was a very different situation in Victoria. But we’re very pleased with the very low numbers that they’ve had now for an extended period of time.
But in South Australia, it’s quite a different arrangement. We’re not locking down because we’ve got multiple clusters and community transmission running rampant across our state. We’re going hard, we’re going early. We want to get out of it as quickly as we possibly can.
SA premier speak about lockdown
SA premier Steven Marshall has outlined the epidemiological reasons authorities are so worried about this outbreak on ABC.
But what we know is that we’ve had to take this extreme action, this important intervention, to put a circuit breaker in place to deal with this disease. We have a particularly difficult strain of the disease, which is showing no symptoms of for people who become infected.
We also know that, of course, it is highly contagious, and we believe it possibly transmitted from surfaces. The other thing that we know is that the incubation period for this particular strain is very short, and it can be down to 24 hours.
So, for all of those reasons, the very clear advice from the public health officials yesterday was to put this pause, this circuit breaker, in place so that we could get on top of the contact tracing and get every single person that we can into that quarantine situation as quickly as possible so that we can ease those restrictions on the rest of our state.
He said there would be an update on numbers soon and a press conference later in the day.
Updated
A socially distanced line has already formed at Coles at Kurralta Park. Shoppers stocking up on the first day of South Australia’s 6 day lockdown. 😷😷 @10NewsFirstAdl pic.twitter.com/aALfZ0QchE
— Kate Somers (@kate_a_somers) November 18, 2020
The South Australian premier is set to speak on ABC News Breakfast soon, and will likely have an update on numbers over night.
Updated
Safe to say this South Australia is a bit confusing. Why have they locked down after a rise of only two cases in the last day? How many hotel quarantine sites are involved? And what on earth does this pizza shop have to do with everything?
Luckily for us, the amazing Melissa Davey has broken it all down for us in this handy explainer.
Give it a read below:
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Birmingham was asked about reports in nine newspapers this morning that a Chinese official stated “China is angry. If you make China the enemy, China will be the enemy,” to a Canberra reporter on Thursday.
The trade minister said, “that sort of comments aren’t helpful”.
We make no apologies for Australia having foreign investment laws that act in Australia’s national interest, for protecting communications networks, but on all of these things, we do it in a non-discriminatory way...
I’m not going to respond tonameless allegations that are being made by alleged officials. What I will do is re-enforce that from the Australian perspective, we value the bilateral relationship, we seek to have a mutually-beneficial one in the areas of mutual interest, and we are willing to have dialogue with our officials or with our counterparts from China.
Federal finance and trade minister Simon Birmingham is speaking to ABC from South Australian lockdown (his home state).
I’ll be staying at home today just as pretty much all other South Australians will be as the state government applies this six-day lockdown.
South Australian authorities have decided to go hard, go early in an attempt to make sure that they can get this over and done with as quickly as possible in terms of crushing this latest cluster.
We understand the logic of their approach there, these are their decisions, they’re calling it a circuit-breaker – that’s what it needs to be, short, sharp and effective so lives and businesses can get back to a Covid-safe normality as quickly as possible …
I think authorities have already said that they expect 14 days of restrictions, but it is six days in terms of the extreme nature of this lockdown. That is partly to enable authorities to be able to get right across all of the contact-tracing elements.
Updated
So, first up the South Australian premier, Steven Marshall, has announced a raft of coronavirus restrictions after the cluster in Parafield grew by two on Wednesday.
Marshall said the state needed a “circuit breaker” to better tackle the outbreak and prevent a second wave.
“The reality is you don’t get a second chance to stop a second wave and so we are trying absolutely everything. And we know Victoria was in lockdown for 112 days and we want to have six days. This circuit breaker is so we don’t have more pain down the track.”
But what exactly does this lockdown mean you ask?
Never fear, here’s everything you need to know about the lockdown and restrictions in Adelaide and across the state of South Australia.
Updated
Welcome to Thursday
A very good Thursday morning to you all.
Matilda Boseley here to take you through all the day’s news in Australia, whether that be Covid-19 related or otherwise.
If you see anything in your area (especially in South Australia) or online that you think I should be aware of, make sure you send it through to me on Twitter @MatildaBoseley or by email on matilda.boseley@theguardian.com.
Of course, the top news of the day is those in South Australia who have woken up in one of the harshest lockdowns in the world as the state attempts to execute a six-day “circuit breaker” to curb a growing cluster in the capital city of Adelaide.
Cafes, pubs and restaurants are close, take away food deliveries banned, and schools closed for all but the children of essential workers. South Australians are not allowed to leave the home for exercise and only one person per household can leave the home once a day to visit the supermarket.
Weddings and funerals are banned, and obviously, schoolies celebrations have been cancelled. Regional travel isn’t allowed and aged care centres are in lockdown. Factories are closed, along with the construction industry, and elective surgery has ceased.
If you are in South Australia, tell me how you are spending your first day or lockdown and shoot me a photo and I might include it on the blog today.
In other news around Australia:
- The Brereton inquiry report will be released around 10.30 today, which will layout (some of) the finding from a years-long investigation into alleged war crimes by Australian special forces soldiers serving in Afghanistan. NSW supreme court judge Major General Paul Brereton was tasked with conducting an inquiry covering the period from 2005 to 2016, and a heavily redacted version of his findings will soon become public.
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Casino operator Crown Resorts plans to focus on the non-gaming operations of its new Sydney development next month after a NSW regulator denied it permission to open gaming floors. Crown’s lawyers will continue closing submissions today as they try to persuade the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority it is fit to run the gaming operation.
- Anyone who attacks a police officer or other frontline worker will be subject to mandatory disease testing under laws passed in the NSW lower house.
police and emergency services minister David Elliott said the mandatory testing scheme would help provide some peace of mind and lessen anxiety for affected workers. - National Australia Bank will reopen its doors on Thursday after a hoax bomb threat forced it to close hundreds of branches across the country. The NAB evacuated and shut all of its branches, business banking centres and commercial sites across the country on Wednesday over a “physical security threat”. However, later in the day the bank confirmed it had been a hoax.
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