Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
It’s another for the ‘always look at the bright side’ file.
From AAP:
The Morrison government has released the findings of an investigation that the environment minister, Sussan Ley, ordered into her own department over the export of rare and endangered Australian parrots to Germany.
The investigation was prompted by a 2018 investigation by Guardian Australia’s Lisa Cox and Berlin bureau chief Philip Oltermann.
A third woman has come forward to allege she was sexually assaulted by the same political staffer accused of raping a colleague inside Parliament House.
The woman says she was assaulted while working as a Coalition volunteer during the 2016 election campaign, after a night out drinking with the then-political staffer. She was barely out of school at the time.
After comments about a ‘culture of disrespect’, prime minister responded it was not ‘confined to the parliament’
Scott Morrison has indicated that he has reprimanded his staff for not bringing a former government staffer’s rape allegations to his attention as soon as a reporter submitted questions earlier this month.
The prime minister has also taken umbrage at a major business group’s comments about a pervasive “culture of disrespect” in politics, with Morrison responding that “if any workplace thinks that this is just confined to the parliament, they’re kidding themselves”.
Initial group, which includes aged care residents and staff as well as chief medical officer, receive Pfizer vaccine on Sunday
The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, has received the Pfizer vaccine, as he joined a small first group to be vaccinated against Covid-19 on Sunday – a step the government says is intended to build public confidence in the safety of the vaccines.
Morrison – the 12th member of the group to receive the vaccine at a televised event in Sydney – described it as a “curtain raiser” for the formal start of the vaccine rollout on Monday.
Australia’s prime minister says Facebook is back at the negotiating table after the tech giant this week blocked news on its site in the country.
However, despite Scott Morrison saying Facebook has “tentatively friended us again”, the company has publicly indicated no change in its opposition to the proposed law requiring social media platforms to pay for links to news content.
News remains blocked as satirical websites are reinstated and Qanon and anti-vaxxers continue to be unaffected
Facebook may wait up to a week before unblocking some of the pages of hundreds of non-media organisations hit by its news ban, while anti-vaccination content and misinformation continues to run rampant on the social media platform.
News was blocked on Facebook in Australia on Thursday morning in response to the federal government’s news media code, which would require Facebook to negotiate with news publishers for the payment for content.
Lenore Taylor and Mike Ticher discuss the allegations made by a former Liberal staffer, the government’s response and what it will take to change the longstanding culture of parliamentary politics in Australia
Company says it has made decision ‘with a heavy heart’ in response to proposed media bargaining code
Facebook has followed through on its threat to ban Australians from seeing or posting news content on its site in response to the federal government’s news media code.
The tech giant’s Australian and New Zealand managing director, Will Easton, said this it would block links to Australian publishers from being posted, while all Australian users would not be able to share or see content from any news outlets, both Australian and internation.
Former sex discrimination commissioner Pru Goward is asked about Brittany Higgins’s statement on Afternoon Briefing:
I think we have two start by accepting her position on everything.
It happened to her, she is the aggrieved party and she is entitled absolutely to that view, and I think we have seen a lot of victim blaming in history, and people need to be very careful the way that they choose their words.
Malcolm Turnbull spoke in support of Brittany Higgins this morning.
Australian National Audit Office launches inquiry into pandemic border policies, including biosecurity and the adequacy of assistance to those stranded overseas
Australia’s international border policies including the outbound travel ban and inbound arrival caps will be examined by the Australian National Audit Office.
After first proposing the audit in September, the ANAO quietly activated the inquiry in mid-January and has called for submissions on the management of the Australian border to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Prime minister says his wife, Jenny, urged him to respond to Higgins’ allegation ‘as a father first’
Scott Morrison has drafted one of his own MPs and a deputy secretary of his department to develop options to improve “the environment” of Parliament House after allegations from former government staffer Brittany Higgins that she was raped by a colleague in 2019.
The prime minister told reporters on Tuesday he had asked Liberal backbencher Celia Hammond, a former university vice-chancellor, to lead a process of internal consultation about how to improve “professional behaviour” in political offices.
Australians have proven highly capable of adapting international conspiracy theories like QAnon to the local context. And the problem is not going away
In his navy suit and blue tie, Malcolm George looked every bit the part as he launched his Liberal party-endorsed campaign for a seat in the Western Australian parliament back in 2016.
A now defunct candidate website lists his priorities for the Baldivis electorate on Perth’s suburban fringe as “a stronger local police presence”, “local job opportunities” and “increased recreational facilities for young families”.
Pressure mounts for Coalition to announce a permanent increase to unemployment payment; Australia closes quarantine-free border to New Zealand after coronavirus cases confirmed as UK variant. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
NSW has recorded no new locally acquired cases - or any cases in hotel quarantine.
So another zero day for NSW
Daniel Andrews:
Again, the types of cases, this UK strain, the fact that despite the amazing efforts of all of our contact traces and testers and lab workers and the work of so many genuine hard-working Victorians, we had a situation where at the same time as we are becoming aware of the primary case, they have already infected their close contacts, that is not something we’ve seen before.
The speed at which this has moved saw our public health team make the very difficult decisions based on the best of science and the best understanding you can possibly have on any outbreak, that this was a difficult but proportionate and necessary thing to do.
Federal minister says regional Australia is ‘not just about farmers’ and party must represent diverse views
Victorian Nationals MP, Darren Chester, has warned his party to listen to its diverse heartland and be “part of the solution” when it comes to practical environmentalism and emissions reductions rather than “sideline ourselves from big debates”.
The federal veterans’ affairs minister used an interview on Sky News on Thursday to push back at National party colleagues who declared they would cross the floor if the prime minister, Scott Morrison, tried to legislate a mid-century net zero commitment.
Federal and state governments are being urged to respond to the effects of the climate crisis and to Indigenous rights to water
States and the federal government should forge a new compact on water policy that explicitly recognises climate change, and which sets “triggers” for rapid policy responses, the Productivity Commission has said.
Releasing its draft report on national water reform, the commission has called for a substantial overhaul of the 17-year-old National Water Initiative, a bedrock document that commits the states and federal government to working together on water policy as well as outlining a work program for the future.
NSW and Victoria report no new local Covid cases as hotel quarantine worker in Melbourne diagnosed with UK variant. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
On the vaccine distribution in Australia, Paul Kelly says it is still on track for the first injections to be happening before the end of February, but will not put an exact timeline on it.
The aim will be to get 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine before the end of this year, in weekly deliveries. Kelly said the AstraZeneca and Novovax vaccines will also be used if and when they are approved by the TGA:
We don’t want a lot of vaccines sitting out in warehouses, so we will be looking to roll out particularly for those priority populations that people will know about now, as soon as we can. But then will be going back to the same population, those people, to give them a second dose. That is really important.
We will await the TGA advice in relation to AstraZeneca but some of the information that has been coming up in the last few weeks is that it may actually be a longer interval for that second dose.”
Australia’s chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly, is also moving to reassure people about the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.
He said it was still in the process of being approved by the Therapeutics Goods Administration, and talked down claims it was less effective in treating the South African variant of the virus.
I just want to make a very clear statement about people taking small amounts of information quickly, without looking at it carefully. And making conclusions. At the moment, I can absolutely say, and this may change in future, and we will be nimble in the way we look at that information, and putting that into our planning, but at the moment, there’s no evidence anywhere in the world AstraZeneca effectiveness against severe infection is affected by any of these variants of concern.
And that is the fact. What we have at the moment is a small group of people in a study not yet peer-reviewed or published in South Africa where there was an effect on the mild or moderate disease in relation to that variant of concern in that country. But there were no severe infections in any of the people that received the vaccine in regards to any of those types of the virus.”
Foreign minister Marise Payne says Australia stands up for its citizens but that does not mean it’s interfering with China’s legal system
The Australian government has rejected China’s claims of meddling after Canberra called for the detained Australian journalist Cheng Lei to be treated humanely, while the head of the security committee has labelled the accusation as “absurd”.
Chinese authorities have confirmed that Cheng – an anchor for the Chinese state-owned English-language news channel China Global Television Network – has been formally arrested “on suspicion of illegally providing state secrets to foreign forces” after nearly six months of detention.
Melbourne quarantine hotel worker tests positive to virus; NSW issues alert over returned traveller case. This blog is now closed.
That’s where we will leave the live blog for Monday. Here’s what you might have missed today:
AAP has the latest on Covid restrictions in Western Australia:
Face masks are mandatory for teachers and secondary students, a precaution that’s part of transition arrangements for Perth and Peel, after the five-day lockdown sparked by a hotel quarantine security guard’s infection.
Deputy PM says he’s focusing on now, not 2050, as Coalition’s climate skirmishes go on
The Coalition is facing an increasingly testy party room as it struggles to land on a climate policy, with the Nationals leader, Michael McCormack, declaring he is “not worried about what might happen in 30 years’ time”.
The deputy prime minister said excluding agriculture from Australia’s attempts to reach net zero emissions by 2050 may be one option.
The prime minister says Australia will increase the number of international arrivals after national cabinet agreed to raise the limits in certain states. Almost 40,000 Australians registered with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as wanting to return remain overseas, with arrival caps and limited flights restricting their opportunities. From 15 February the number of arrivals in New South Wales and Queensland will return to previous levels while South Australia and Victoria will also increase their numbers