Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
You will feel the chill if you live in southern #SA, #NSW and all of #Vic and #Tas, as cold fronts move through from the Southern Ocean, bringing a 3-day wintery blast of cold, wet and windy weather.
The Australian Signals Directorate refuses to say who was behind an attack on parliament’s IT systems in March, despite confirming it knows who it was.
The parliamentary services department confirmed an outage of the system that manages mobile devices was caused by the department shutting the system to prevent an attempted intrusion into the parliamentary computer network.
Report in the Australian newspaper promoting Sharri Markson’s book on origins of Covid criticised as misleading and alarmist by China analysts
The Australian’s exclusive about a “chilling” document produced by Chinese military scientists is based on a discredited 2015 book containing conspiracy theories about biological warfare which is freely available on the internet.
Written by the paper’s investigations writer, Sharri Markson, the report last Saturday said Chinese military scientists “discussed the weaponisation of Sars coronaviruses five years before the Covid-19 pandemic” and predicted a third world war would be fought with biological weapons.
Labor leader set to continue attack over sluggish wages growth; NSW Liberal minister Gareth Ward steps down over allegations which he denies. Follow latest updates
Health minister would not be drawn on whether Aishwarya Aswath’s death could have been avoided over Easter weekend
The Western Australian government has apologised for a “failure” at a Perth hospital where a seven-year-old girl died after her parents’ desperate pleas for help were ignored.
Aishwarya Aswath spent two hours waiting in the emergency department at Perth Children’s hospital during the Easter weekend after presenting with a fever and being triaged in the second-least urgent category.
Coalition budget delivers $30bn in tax breaks and money for fossil fuel projects but no measures to help struggling universities or clean energy projects. Follow all the latest news and reaction to the 2021 federal budget as it happens
So not a lot new there. Which means question time is going to be a copy and paste affair.
The other question of note?
Why is the border closed for so long?
The key factor, the central factor, the only factor for us what keeps Australians safe. And it’s not simply the rollout of the vaccine, that is a factor for the Chief Medical Officer in making decisions around borders.
They also need to take into account, what is happening with the virus globally, its transmissibility, new variants of the virus, and what it would mean for Australians health and safety.
There is a lot more to get through with the budget - but you should sleep! - so we will wrap up the blog now and return tomorrow morning when we have all had a chance to let our subconscious mull it over.
There’s a lot more to say - the environment spending, Indigenous spending and university spending leaves a bit to be desired.
The Australian Conservation Foundation’s Matt Rose has also responded:
Environment and climate spending represents less than 1% (0.8%) of the federal budget.
To put it another way, out of every $100 in this budget, 80 cents went to climate, water and the environment.
Former Liberal leader and PM defends decision to support independent rather than National in NSW upper Hunter byelection
Malcolm Turnbull is not ruling in or out supporting more independent candidates in forthcoming election contests, noting he has resigned from politics “but I haven’t resigned as an Australian citizen”.
With a New South Wales state byelection looming in the upper Hunter, Turnbull has urged voters to support independent candidate Kirsty O’Connell – who has been upfront about the inexorable decline of the coal industry as a consequence of climate change – rather than a National party candidate.
The New South Wales health minister has said a newspaper’s decision to name the man who visited numerous barbecue shops in Sydney while infected with Covid-19 was “appalling” and would undermine public health.
Brad Hazzard said the Australian Financial Review’s story identifying a patient “stinks” because it may discourage the public from cooperating fully with the contact tracers in the future and the man had not consented to have his identity revealed.
Sydney man charged with terrorism offences after he allegedly travelled to Turkey in 2013 and on to Syria, where police say he recruited foreign fighters for Isis
A 30-year-old Sydney man who is alleged to be an Islamic State recruiter has been arrested and charged with terrorism offences upon his return to Australia.
Mohamed Zuhbi arrived in Melbourne on a flight from Turkey about 4pm on Saturday and was taken into custody by counterterrorism authorities at the airport.
A perceived lack of cultural awareness has raised concerns about how the rollout will be received, but islanders are working to overcome the barriers
Disruptions are not uncommon on Badu Island, one of the largest islands in the Torres Strait. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, the Torres Strait went into lockdown in line with the rest of the country, and locals were encouraged not to travel between islands.
Charlotte Nona, the director of Queensland Regional Health in the Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula, says there is only one frontline health worker for the entire population on Badu.
Preselection vote leaves the long-serving powerbroker in hard-to-win third place at the next federal election
The influential Tasmanian conservative powerbroker Eric Abetz has been demoted to third place on the Liberal party’s Tasmanian Senate ticket in a shock preselection vote.
It could signal the end of Abetz’s almost three-decade Senate career, given that third place on the ticket is difficult to win.
Mark Dreyfus says corruption watchdog needed to investigate government buying $30m in offsets related to new airport
Labor has strengthened its call for a national integrity commission, saying it is needed to investigate the Morrison government’s purchase of more than $30m in environmental offsets related to the development of the western Sydney airport.
The government has just announced its green list for quarantine-free international travel into England. The countries on it are Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Israel, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, and Portugal, including the Azores and Madeira.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has told a Senate hearing on Covid-19 there are 173 unaccompanied children in India who are trying to return to Australia. More than 9,500 Australians are stranded in the country, 950 of them classed as vulnerable, following a flight ban from India that will end on 15 May. Australian airline Qantas doesn’t take unaccompanied minors, potentially limiting options to come home through Air India or special repatriation flights
The Covid-19 inquiry is hearing from Australians stranded in India, including Sunny, who traveled to India in May 2020 because his father was in a critical condition with no support during India’s coronavirus lockdown.
Sunny’s father passed away on 1 June 2020 while Sunny was in hotel quarantine in Dehli. He wants to bring his mother home to Australia with him, but his flights in July 2020 were cancelled due to the Melbourne lockdown.
Sunny said it was “next to impossible” to come back with 10,000 stranded Australians seeking seats on Air India flights and no Qantas repatriation flights until November. He paid $10,000 to fly to Australia from Japan, but was bumped from the flight.
Sunny said the Australian government had been “totally insensitive to stranded Australians” after he suffered “11 months of misery”.
Sunny and his mother live in an area experiencing a “tsunami of infections”, with 60-70% of people on the street infected with Covid-19. He said they lived holed up in the house “in fear for our lives” but worried it was only a matter of time before they were infected.
Sunny quoted the advice of the chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, that the India travel ban could, in the worst-case scenario, result in the death of Australians in India.
He called for a comprehensive schedule of repatriation flights to get all Australians in India and elsewhere home.
Meg, another Australian in India, has told the committee she was stranded in India after she travelled there on holiday in January 2020.
Meg was unable to fly back in October when her Cathay Pacific flight via Hong Kong was cancelled, and she hasn’t been able to get a seat in the “raffle” of respite or charter flights.
She said:
The daily fear of going out and contracting Covid was with us every day and it it still is now, the situation is so bad. The Australian government hasn’t provided any kind of emotional support to those stranded in India. We are part of Facebook and Whatsapp groups – people are depressed about the situation. Emotionally people are so down and depressed.
We haven’t really received anything from the high commission. Every time I’ve called for help, guidance, the phone would just ring out no matter how many times you call.
The website for the new Labor campaign we mentioned earlier is now live. It is seen as a bit of an opening salvo for an election which could be more than a year away.
Embassy officials first visited Robert Pether on day 26 of his detention in Baghdad, his wife says
An Australian citizen has still not been told what charge he is facing, has only just been seen by Australian officials and is yet to meet his lawyer, despite spending 30 days behind bars in Baghdad.
Australian officials visited Robert Pether for the first time on Monday, day 26 of his detention, and are now asking if he can get a meeting with his lawyer.
Mask-wearing mandatory for all indoor public venues, including public transport, as health authorities brace for more coronavirus cases due to the level of activity of a man in his 50s while infectious. Follow latest updates
Fairly wild photo of former Australian cricketer Brett Lee and broadcaster Neroli Meadows on a flight out of India (not sure where they’re going, surely we won’t lock up Bing, it’s been a big enough week for former Australian test cricketers as it is).
☣️ As COVID-safe as it gets …
Brett Lee and Neroli Meadows are prepared for the task to start their journey from India.
This is quite a wonky but important national security story: there’s concern that the independent monitor of intelligence and security agencies could become too close to them.
A government member of parliament’s security committee has questioned whether the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security is too close to the agencies it is supposed to be monitoring, AAP reports. The committee is scrutinising proposed laws intended to keep Australia’s close-knit network of intelligence agencies in check. Liberal committee member Celia Hammond gathered evidence at Thursday’s hearing about the practice of intelligence agencies getting pre-operational advice from IGIS. “Overall I think the danger, even with the best will in the world, is huge,” said Bret Walker SC, chair of the Law Council of Australia’s constitutional law committee and member of its criminal law committee. “I think it is depriving oversight agencies of a critical degree of detachment.” Just like judges don’t have lunch with litigants, consulting the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission about a transaction that might be insider trading was a very bad idea, Mr Walker said. “There is a real risk, a constant one, of all oversight supervisory bodies engaged in this sector of government activity, of those of us doing that work, being duchessed by the people we are meaning to be supervised.” The new bill will expand the remit of the inspector-general to include ACIC and AUSTRAC, which gathers financial intelligence on money laundering, organised crime, welfare fraud, tax evasion and terrorism financing. The committee also heard that the oversight bill is not dependent on the passage of the identify and disrupt bill that will add to surveillance powers and warrants for the Australian Federal Police and ACIC. Inspector-General Christopher Jessup QC said it was critical in a democracy that intelligence agencies were subject to strong oversight and accountability mechanisms. “Indeed, independent and credible oversight of intelligence activities is a core element of the public’s trust in intelligence agencies and their operations,” Dr Jessup said. But the bill doesn’t include any intelligence functions of the federal police and Home Affairs. Commonwealth Ombudsman Michael Manthorpe said there were already overlaps engineered into the system and the bill would add to them, but they could refer complaints or matters to IGIS. “I have very specific oversight powers with respect to the various covert and intrusive regimes that exist for law enforcement,” Mr Manthorpe said “But I also have a broad jurisdiction as the ombudsman under the Ombudsman Act to look at and inquire into complaints of a very wide array about administration in the Australian public sector.” For the Morrison government, the bill introduced last December is in line with last year’s review of intelligence laws by former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson who also served as Defence secretary and foreign affairs chief. Critics say the latest Richardson review is a watered down version of the Independent Intelligence Review of 2017, which found a “compelling case” to also include the federal police and Home Affairs. George Williams, head of the Gilbert and Tobin Centre of Public Law, said the bill would leave significant gaps and wanted it extended to include all intelligence functions across government. “It requires a specialised kind of oversight - the gold standard that IGIS provides,” Professor Williams said. He also called for a broader body of work on Australia lacking the parliamentary oversight enjoyed by other members of Five Eyes, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom where parliamentary committees exercise more influence on powerful agencies.
More than 9,000 Australians remain trapped in India by the Coalition’s Covid travel ban. Many travelled before the crisis to visit sick and dying relatives, and say they are angry at their treatment. Here are six of their stories
The backlash has been fierce in the days since the Australian government moved to make it a criminal offence for its citizens to return from Covid-ravaged India.