Category Archives: Australia news

Western Australia Covid lockdown: new case confirmed as hotel quarantine failures condemned

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Australian Medical Association president Dr Omar Khorshid says state governments are not doing enough to protect those in quarantine from coronavirus

Continued leaks from hotel quarantine are “a frustration to all Australians” and state governments are not doing enough to prevent it, the president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Omar Khorshid, has said, while the Western Australian premier called on the federal government to “step up and help”.

Authorities revealed one new community case was detected on Saturday – a man in his 40s – as WA’s Perth and Peel region began a snap three-day lockdown after the latest hotel quarantine outbreak. The virus spread in the corridors of the Mercure quarantine hotel in Perth, infecting a man who was staying adjacent to a couple with the virus who had returned from India.

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Gold Coast deaths being treated as murder-suicide after woman’s body found in furniture chest

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Queensland police say there is ‘early indication’ man, 53, responsible for death of 48-year-old woman at Sapphire apartment complex in Labrador

Police are investigating the sudden death of a 53-year-old man and suspicious death of a 48-year-old woman, who was found in a furniture chest inside an apartment block at a Gold Coast suburb in Queensland.

Gold Coast district detective inspector Chris Ahearn said on Saturday morning that the case was being treated as a murder-suicide.

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Australian authorities say three new cases of blood clots ‘very likely linked’ to AstraZeneca vaccine

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The Therapeutic Goods Administration says the patients, including an 80-year-old man, are all in a stable condition and recovering

Australian health authorities say another three cases of rare blood clots – including in an 80-year-old Victorian man – are very likely linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The medicines regulator on Friday night said the suspected cases of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) were in a 35-year-old New South Wales woman, a 49-year-old Queensland man and the 80-year-old.

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Perth to enter snap three-day lockdown after Covid spreads from hotel quarantine into community

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WA premier Mark McGowan announces restrictions after Victorian man, who contracted coronavirus at the Mercure in Perth, infected a friend

Perth and Peel will enter a snap three-day lockdown from midnight Friday after a Victorian man, who tested positive to Covid-19, spent five days in the community while infectious after leaving hotel quarantine.

The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, announced the lockdown – which will remain in place until midnight Monday – after a close contact of the Victorian man also tested positive.

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Asteroid’s 22m-year journey from source to Earth mapped in historic first

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Flight path of Kalahari’s six-tonne asteroid is first tracing of meteorite shedding rock to solar system origin

Astronomers have reconstructed the 22m-year-long voyage of an asteroid that hurtled through the solar system and exploded over Botswana, showering meteorites across the Kalahari desert.

It is the first time scientists have traced showering space rock to its source – in this case Vesta, one of largest bodies in the asteroid belt that circles the sun between Jupiter and Mars.

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What’s causing Australia’s mental health crisis? – with Lenore Taylor

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In the wake of the pandemic, mental ill health is on the rise, putting more pressure on what some say is an already broken system. Editor-in-chief Lenore Taylor and associate editor Lucy Clark speak to Gabrielle Jackson about what’s causing Australia’s mental health crisis, and how to fix it

Check out the full Australia’s mental health crisis series here.

In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue can be reached on 1300 22 4636. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org

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Federal government tears up Victoria’s Belt and Road agreements with China

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Foreign minister Marise Payne cancels two deals between Victoria and China under new foreign veto laws

The Morrison government has used its sweeping new foreign veto laws to tear up Victoria’s Belt and Road agreements with China, in what the Chinese embassy has denounced as a “another unreasonable and provocative move”.

The foreign minister, Marise Payne, said she would cancel those two deals, along with two older agreements between the Victorian government and Iranian and Syrian entities, because they were “inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy or adverse to our foreign relations”.

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Victorious over Covid, Australia and New Zealand grapple with vaccine rollout

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Australia’s glacially slow delivery of jabs derided as a ‘farce’, while in New Zealand only 4.5% of eligible people have been vaccinated

They were held up as Covid success stories, two countries at the bottom of the world that kept outbreaks under control and deaths low as the pandemic swept the rest of the globe.

Daily life in cities including Sydney and Auckland now feels largely back to pre-pandemic normal – restaurants are full, theatres are open, masks are scarce and offices are busy. A degree of international travel is also a reality thanks to the new “trans-Tasman travel bubble” – a two-way quarantine-free corridor between the neighbours.

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Australia news live: Scott Morrison says Brittany Higgins meeting ‘in process’; Victoria to make mRNA Covid vaccine

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State commits $50m to domestic manufacturing of cutting-edge vaccines; former Liberal staffer to ask Scott Morrison to fix ‘systemic coercive control’ in Parliament House. Follow live

That is where we will leave the blog for Wednesday. Thanks for following along. Here’s what made the news today:

The government has closed a loophole that would have allowed Australians to use New Zealand as a stepping stone to travelling to another country following the opening of the Trans Tasman travel bubble.

On Monday, health minister Greg Hunt amended the biosecurity legislation to specify that Australians could not go to any country other than New Zealand. Unlike Australia, New Zealand does not have an outbound travel ban.

Travellers should be aware that international travel to any other country, except New Zealand, continues to pose a significant risk to public health, and for that reason outgoing travel to other countries remains restricted.

“Australians considering travel outside of Australia or New Zealand are still required to apply for an exemption from the outgoing travel restrictions through ABF, and ensure they review the information available on Smartraveller relevant to their destination.”

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‘China is not a cow’: embassy chief accuses Australia of working with US to ‘illegally’ hamper Huawei

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Canberra diplomat tells press club China should not be milked with a ‘plot to slaughter it in the end’

A senior Chinese diplomat has accused the Australian government of triggering a downward spiral in the relationship by “conniving with the United States in a very unethical, illegal, immoral suppression” of Chinese telco Huawei.

Wang Xining, the deputy head of the Chinese embassy in Canberra, told the National Press Club that China had “done nothing intentionally to hurt this relationship”, despite the Australian government’s complaints about Beijing trade actions against a range of export sectors over the past year.

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Self-proclaimed ‘Big Bird Bandits’ return $160,000 costume to Adelaide circus

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Two men seen leaving the stolen Sesame Street costume with apology note were unable to be located by police dog squad

A $160,000 Big Bird costume has been returned after being stolen from a circus in Adelaide by the self-proclaimed “Big Bird Bandits”.

The 213cm-tall, bright yellow costume reportedly made of ostrich feathers, was found dumped near the south-western end of the circus, with a note saying “no harm” had come to “Mr Bird”.

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Comparing AstraZeneca vaccine blood-clot risk to odds of dying in a car crash unhelpful, experts say

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Downplaying the risk with inappropriate comparisons will not build coronavirus vaccine confidence, Australian medical panel says

Trying to downplay the risk of severe but rare clotting that appears to be associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine by comparing it with the clotting risk from taking the contraceptive pill, or to the chances of dying in a car crash, is unhelpful and likely ineffective in building vaccine confidence, an expert medical panel said.

Earlier in April the Australian Technical Advisory Group for Immunisation (Atagi) recommended those aged under 50 be offered an alternative to the AstraZeneca vaccine due to a small but potentially increased risk of developing a rare and severe clotting disorder following the vaccine in that age group.

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Man charged with murder after woman found dead with burn injuries in Gold Coast backyard

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Officers are treating the death at Arundel as a homicide that may have been witnessed by Kelly Wilkinson’s three young children

A man has been charged with murder after the burned body of mother-of-three Kelly Wilkinson was found in a Gold Coast back yard.

Queensland police on Tuesday evening said they had charged a 34-year-old New Beith man with murder and breaching a domestic violence order.

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Australia news live: Greg Hunt has ‘full confidence’ in NZ Covid controls after border worker contracts coronavirus

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Queensland premier says people need confidence in vaccine before mass rollout; US secretary of state says countries investing in new coal ‘will hear from US’. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
• Secretary of state says countries investing in new coal ‘will hear from US’
• Australia increasingly isolated as US and others ramp up climate ambition
• Melbourne GP clinic with capacity to vaccinate 2,100 a week supplied with just 50 doses

The health department secretary, Brendan Murphy, has made opening remarks at the Covid-19 Senate inquiry. Murphy said Australia is “still in a very good place” even as comparable countries are battling fresh outbreaks and a fourth wave of the novel coronavirus.

He said:

“We are in a very fortunate place, even though we have border measures in place we are basically living a normal life – we have full football stadiums, restaurants, things are back to normal.”

Two state education ministers, Labor and Liberal, had criticised the milkshake video earlier today, via AAP.

Victoria’s Education Minister James Merlino called for the federal government to pull all content featured on The Good Society website, which launched as part of the Department of Education’s Respect Matters program last week.

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Byron Bay residents call on Netflix to scrap Byron Baes TV series

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Locals fear ‘docu-soap’ about social media influencers will gloss over issues including the environment and lack of housing

Residents and business owners in the New South Wales beachside town of Byron Bay have held an emergency meeting over the proposed Netflix original series, Byron Baes, and called on the streaming platform to cancel the show.

Locals, including the owners of the Byron establishments the Byron Bay General Store and No Bones restaurant, gathered on Friday night to discuss what could be done to protect the community.

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Teenager turned away from NSW hospital three times before dying of a severe infection

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A doctor who later saw Alex Braes said the 18-year-old was ‘the sickest patient he’d ever seen at Broken Hill’ hospital

A teenager dying of a severe infection and blood poisoning went to a New South Wales country hospital four times in 32 hours before his blood pressure and other basic readings were recorded, a coroner has heard.

Alex Braes, 18, died at Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred hospital in the early hours of 22 September 2017 after arriving by plane from his hometown of Broken Hill.

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Joy, actually: happy reunions fill Auckland airport as trans-Tasman bubble begins

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Emotional scenes in arrivals hall as hundreds of travellers touch down on first day of quarantine-free travel from Australia

Lisa Tetai warned her son not to take a sick day when he picked her up from Auckland airport. “I thought there might be media there,” she explains.

She wasn’t wrong.

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