Peacock served as foreign minister under Malcolm Fraser, but lost the 1984 and 1990 elections to Labor’s Bob Hawke
Former federal Liberal party leader Andrew Peacock has died in the United States aged 82.
Peacock was the leader of the Liberal party for two stints in the 1980s and led the Australian conservatives to defeat at the 1984 and 1990 federal elections.
Continue reading...NSW woman, 48, died this week after receiving vaccine on 8 April, federal health authorities say
Australia’s drugs regulator has determined the death of a 48-year-old diabetic woman who developed blood clots after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine was likely to be linked to the vaccine.
After a meeting of Australia’s vaccine safety investigation group on Friday, the Therapeutic Goods Administration said experts had concluded the case of the New South Wales woman, who died this week, “was consistent with causal association to immunisation”.
Continue reading...Scott Morrison’s reaction last year to revelations that Christine Holgate had rewarded Australia Post executives with Cartier watches was back in the spotlight this week when Holgate told a Senate inquiry she felt bullied and humiliated by the prime minister. Did Morrison overreact and what can the media learn from this story?
Continue reading...NSW MPs call for end to police investigating themselves on 30th anniversary of royal commission; Queensland eases Covid restrictions; fashion designer Carla Zampatti farewelled in Sydney. Follow updates live
Scott Morrison is speaking now.
Now that unemployment has hit 5.6%, the treasurer Josh Frydenberg has signalled he will revisit the budget strategy - which is that the Morrison government won’t tighten fiscal policy until unemployment is “comfortably within” 6%.
Frydenberg told reporters in Canberra that 5.6% was not “comfortably within” 6% and that now is “not the time for austerity”.
Continue reading...Holgate says she was ‘humiliated’ by prime minister Scott Morrison; man dies of coronavirus in Queensland. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
• Australia won’t purchase Johnson & Johnson jab
• AstraZeneca blood clotting: what is this rare syndrome?
• Andrew Laming blocked from recontesting next election
• More than half of Australians think vaccine rollout is too slow
Wow, it’s been a busy few hours! With that, I’m going to hand you over to Michael McGowan to take you through the rest of the afternoon.
Christine Holgate gave some evidence about executive bonuses. It is a little confusing and we’ll come back to it, because even the senators seem a little confused about what is being said. And it’s important we get it right, so I’ll head back over the transcript to see what she was saying there.
Liberal senator Sarah Henderson has the question call now. She says she has been very moved by Holgate, and what she went through. She asks whether she thinks the questioning on the 22 October estimates hearing was fair.
Holgate:
In all honesty, I didn’t consider whether it was fair or not fair. I absolutely respect and Senator Carr, forgive me but you’ve asked me many tough questions over my time with you (“that’s my job,” Carr says)...and I was about to say ‘that’s your job’.
Continue reading...Request to travel interstate to take accuser’s statement was rejected in March 2020 because it was not deemed essential, documents reveal
The New South Wales police passed up an offer by South Australian police to take a statement alleging sexual assault against Christian Porter – apparently without putting the option to the victim – new documents reveal.
The documents, produced to the NSW Legislative Council after a motion by MP David Shoebridge, reveal how a request to travel interstate to take the statement was rejected in March 2020 because it was not deemed essential.
Continue reading...Lack of transparency over deals with private consultants, logistics companies and healthcare contractors adding to ‘layers of confusion’ over rollout
The Australian government is funnelling millions of dollars to private contractors for its beleaguered Covid vaccine rollout using opaque deals – some of which are hidden from the public and ignore transparency standards.
The government is relying heavily on contractors to aid its vaccine rollout, including multinational consultants PwC and Accenture, logistics companies DHL and Linfox, and healthcare contractors Healthcare Australia, International SOS, Sonic Clinical Services and Aspen.
Continue reading...Australian prime minister says he hopes Queen Elizabeth will ‘find great comfort in your faith and your family’
The Australian prime minister and governor general have paid tribute to Prince Philip, who has died aged 99, saying he was “no stranger to Australia” having visited the country more than 20 times.
Scott Morrison said Australians sent their love and deepest condolences to Queen Elizabeth and the royal family. He stated Philip “embodied a generation that we will never see again”.
Continue reading...Vaccine rollout faces delays as authorities scramble to secure alternatives to AstraZeneca such as Pfizer for under-50s over blood clot fears. Follow updates live
Labor MP Josh Burns has criticised the government for failing to deliver vaccines to aged care staff and residents, noting the issue is unrelated to fresh concerns about the AstraZeneca vaccine causing blood clotting in those under 50.
Burns’ comments follow reports in the Guardian this morning that the federal government is expected to miss a self-imposed target on delivering “pop-up” hubs to vaccinate critical aged care staff and has given no details on the proposal to workers, despite multiple requests for information and meetings from the nursing union.
We’ve not had any federal aged care providers in Macnamara receive their vaccinations or have any indication on what day they are going to be having them, not to mention the staff that are still vulnerable and haven’t been vaccinated.
The frustration that Australians rightly have is that the promises that have been made have not been made by the Labor Party, they’ve been made by Greg Hunt, they’ve been made by Scott Morrison, they’ve been telling Australians that they’ve got it under control, that all is well, they are going to be vaccinating Australians and they haven’t been.
Related: Australia’s aged care nurses still in the dark about promised ‘pop-up’ vaccination hubs
Women need more information about contraceptive options, experts said, after concerns over rare blood clots linked to the AstraZeneca Covid jab prompted a debate over side-effects caused by certain forms of the pill.
On Wednesday the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said that evidence that the jab could be causing a rare blood clotting syndrome was growing stronger. As a result the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommended that healthy people under the age of 30 who were at low risk of Covid should be offered a different vaccine if possible.
Related: Contraception blood-clot risk: ‘public need better access to advice’
Continue reading...Doctors say their phones have been ‘running hot’ and some states bar anyone under 50 getting the AstraZeneca jab
States and territories have been left scrambling to respond to government advice recommending against vaccinating anyone under 50 with the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, leaving tens of thousands of people in the lurch.
On Friday, New South Wales halted its AstraZeneca rollout entirely for several hours while patient consent forms with the latest information about the rare risk of severe clotting associated with the vaccine were added. The state’s rollout for people aged 50 and over has since resumed.
Continue reading...Cheng Jingye hosted a media event at his residence in Canberra that included a two-hour video conference with officials in Xinjiang
China’s ambassador to Australia has warned that Beijing would respond “in kind” if Canberra followed other countries in imposing sanctions against its officials over human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
The ambassador, Cheng Jingye, said people should not be under the illusion “that China would swallow the bitter pill” of meddling in its internal affairs, nor attempts to mount a “pressure” campaign.
Continue reading...Gladys Berejiklian says a NSW Covid immunisation centre will be capable of administering 30,000 doses a week; EU denies blocking further shipments of AstraZeneca earmarked for Australia. Follow the latest updates, live
Australia needs to manage the increasingly complex relationship with China, even as the government seeks areas to diversify its export markets, according to a new report out this afternoon.
The Asia Taskforce – which includes the Business Council of Australia and Asia Society Australia – calls for a target of boosting Australia’s exports to 35% of GDP by 2030 (up from 29% in 2019).
Popular support for the open economy cannot be taken for granted. Retreating to old familiar relationships in western markets, falling behind in Asia literacy and failing to build connections with new Asian business partners should not be seen as a serious default choice when consumption in Asia will likely fuel future global growth.
The Greens are once again calling for an independent rapid review into the vaccine rollout to identify any issues and restore public confidence.
Senator Rachel Siewert, Greens spokesperson for health, said in a statement:
With targets missed, persistent problems with vaccine supply, and troubles getting the available vaccines to where they’re needed, the rollout of these vital jabs hardly inspires confidence...
We shouldn’t let this devolve into a game of finger pointing and blaming shifting between the federal and state governments. This pointless squabble doesn’t inspire confidence in the rollout, and can only serve to add further delays to the process.
Continue reading...Australia has accused the EU of ‘semantics’ after European Commission said just one shipment of 250,000 AstraZeneca doses has been formally blocked, but Coalition says AZ has not been able to secure an export licence from Europe
Scott Morrison denies his government has presented the public with overly rosy assessments about the state of its Covid-19 vaccine rollout, as he steps up calls for the European Union to allow 3.1m outstanding AstraZeneca doses to be shipped to Australia.
While declaring that vaccine supply issues were a matter of “straightforward maths”, the prime minister also attempted to calm a growing diplomatic dispute between Australia and the EU, insisting he had not made any criticism of Brussels over its handling of the matter.
Continue reading...Prime minister refuses to say how many doses of AstraZeneca vaccine CSL is producing in Melbourne each week
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has rejected claims Australia’s vaccine rollout has been held up by the batch testing of 2.5m domestically made doses and instead blamed international supply issues.
At a press conference on Tuesday after New Zealand announced a trans-Tasman travel bubble, Morrison said Australia had not received 3.1m AstraZeneca doses from overseas. He said that was to blame for the massive discrepancy between the 855,000 vaccinations administered so far and the missed target of 4m doses by the end of March.
Continue reading...If just one in two new Liberal-National MPs are women, it could take until next century, according to the McKell Institute
It could take more than two decades for Australia’s House of Representatives to reach gender parity, even if women win two in every three seats gained by the Coalition in the next few elections, according to new modelling.
The modelling by the McKell Institute, a progressive thinktank, indicates the growing momentum for quotas to increase the Liberal party’s share of female candidates won’t be a silver bullet for equal representation of women and men in the lower house.
Continue reading...Community health groups have nurses, GPs and locals ‘ready to go’, but a lack of deliveries has forced them to cancel vaccination clinics
For the past four months, in the towering Richmond housing estate of Melbourne, community health workers have been hard at work, preparing locals for the arrival of the Covid-19 vaccine.
It’s a difficult but vital task. Many of the roughly 2,000 residents are vulnerable or elderly, use shared services and are densely packed into the estate’s five towers, creating a high-risk Covid-19 environment.
Continue reading...NSW deputy premier says ‘there will be no moratorium on coal in the Upper Hunter or anywhere else in the state’
The New South Wales deputy premier, John Barilaro, has rejected Malcolm Turnbull’s call for a moratorium on new coalmines in the state and demanded the former prime minister “set aside his war on the Coalition”.
Turnbull said on Wednesday he believed coalmine proposals and approvals in the state’s upper Hunter Valley were “out of control”.
Continue reading...Australian Labor party gathers online to endorse slimmed-down election platform and debate industrial relations, trade and foreign affairs. Follow all the latest updates, live
Delegate Nizza Siano has put forward this one:
Labor’s policy should be framed to provide a positive and compassionate approach by a Labor Government to the treatment of refugees, rather than a reaction to the punitive and cruel approach of the Coalition Government. Refugees and those seeking asylum in Australia are to be welcomed under a Labor Government as assets who enhance this nation and our economy and provide positive contribution to our strong multicultural society.
In this chapter, Michael Danby will move this motion:
Labor calls on China to abide by its own constitution and laws which expressly allows for the cultural autonomy of the Tibetan people within the People’s Republic.
Tibetans must be allowed, as they are under Chinese law, to freely practice their religion, to learn and speak their language and to have official documents in the language of the vast majority of people living in the Tibetan autonomous zone.
Continue reading...Queensland Liberal defends ‘completely dignified’ photo of woman bending over but apologises for ‘feelings I’ve caused’
Under-seige Morrison government MP Andrew Laming says his online behaviour has been “re-invented into harassment” and that the “facts are on my side”, claiming he only ever asked “hard questions” but apologised “for how it’s made people feel”.
The Queensland MP, who asked for privacy as he takes a month’s paid leave as he undertakes “clinical counselling”, and courses in “empathy and appropriate communication”, has explained his side of the story in a 16-minute interview with his local radio station. Laming has said he will not stand at the next election, but said he had no plans to leave the parliament until his term was completed.
Continue reading...State reports four new local cases; Nationals MP Anne Webster lodges complaint over alleged sexual harassment in parliament. Follow the latest updates
• Queensland Covid hotspots
• Queensland authorities contradict earlier advice about Covid case hosting ‘party’
• Coalition women call for MP drug and alcohol testing in response to sexual misconduct crisis
The Victorian state government won’t release a three-page email chain in which a decision to put Melbourne under a coronavirus curfew was made, reports Karen Sweeney from AAP.
Victorian opposition MP David Davis requested all documents relating to the curfew to be released under Freedom of Information.
These are the documents that relate directly to the decision to put Melbourne under a curfew and the reality, in our view, is there is little reason the documents should not be in the public domain.
We have one document - it is three pages of an email chain containing legal advice.
It is a single document - it may just be a single decision has to be made by the tribunal...
It’s just hard to see why this has been strung out for so long.
It’s worth considering how soon this lockdown is coming after the end of jobkeeper and how close it is cutting it to the start of the federal government’s half-priced plane ticket program.
Jobkeeper ended on Sunday, and the tourism sector support program is slated to start on 1 April.
Continue reading...