Category Archives: Australia news

Aboriginal people who work for dole told to attend group activities despite coronavirus risk

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Minister’s spokesperson says arrangements ‘consistent with other employment programs’ but few require group activities

Aboriginal people who work for the dole will have to show up for group activities as usual, despite the government telling service providers that there is a “high likelihood that larger scale community outbreaks [of Covid-19] will occur in the near future”.

The National Indigenous Australians agency (NIAA) wrote to CDP (community development program) providers on Monday to tell them “mutual obligations remain in place at this stage”, meaning that Aboriginal people will still be expected to turn up for work or risk losing their welfare payments.

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Coronavirus: cruise passengers stranded as countries turn them away

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Thousands in limbo around the world as vessels seek a port at which to dock

As countries scramble to close their borders in response to the global Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of cruise ship passengers are stranded on the high seas while their vessels seek a port at which to dock.

The Norwegian Jewel, sailing under the flag of the Bahamas, has been refused permission to dock in French Polynesia, Fiji, New Zealand and Australia, and is piloting to American Samoa to refuel.

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Coronavirus latest updates: all arrivals in Australia must self-isolate for 14 days, says PM

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Trump tests negative while Spanish PM’s wife tests positive; France and Israel announce partial closure of country; scientists condemn UK ‘herd immunity’ strategy. Follow live news

The US city of Hoboken, across the Hudson River from New York City, has announced a night curfew starting 16 March and ordered bars and restaurants to conduct only delivery services amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

An Uzbek citizen has tested positive for coronavirus after returning from France, Uzbekistan’s Healthcare Ministry said on Sunday, marking the first infection from the virus in the Central Asian country of 34 million.

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Coronavirus latest updates: Trump gives briefing as Ohio and Illinois go into lockdown

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Number of UK deaths rises to 35 while other countries introduce stricter new measures

Here comes Donald Trump.

Speaking of which:

California governor Gavin Newsom announces that the state's bars, nightclubs, breweries and wineries be closed.

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Tropical Cyclone Gretel set to bypass Norfolk Island but damaging winds expected

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Strong wind warnings also in place for coastal regions across south-east Queensland and northern NSW

Tropical Cyclone Gretel is set to bypass Norfolk Island in the next 48 hours, although it will still create damaging winds.

Tropical Cyclone Gretel may not make landfall but was still expected to have an impact with damaging wind warnings of around 100km/h for coastal regions across south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales.

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All new jury trials in Victoria to be suspended amid coronavirus crisis

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Concern over large gathering of potential jurors for empanelment sees chief justice announce drastic measure

Courts across the state of Victoria in Australia will immediately suspend all future jury trials in a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19. The drastic measure will apply to the county and supreme courts.

Supreme court chief justice Anne Ferguson said all new jury trials would be suspended but that trials in which a jury had already been empanelled would continue.

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‘Potentially dangerous’: One Nation’s tactics at family law inquiry concern women’s advocates

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Discredited themes, including that men’s aggression is caused by partners who seek to deny access to their kids, have drawn most of the attention this week

l The only authorised video stream of this week’s federal parliamentary hearings into Australia’s family law system was broadcast on Pauline Hanson’s Facebook page. The camera was operated by Hanson’s aide James Ashby, the stream captioned like an official broadcast but published with hundreds of unfiltered live comments from apparently aggrieved fathers, who called witnesses and MPs “man-hater” and “dirty snake”.

In the shadow of the murders of Hannah Clarke and her three children, expert witnesses have told the inquiry that reform to family law is increasingly urgent to better protect mostly women and children, primarily from men who perpetrate acts of coercive control and domestic violence.

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How Spanish flu nearly ripped apart Australia’s fledgling federation | Paul Daley

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A nation supposedly forged in the hellfire of war almost crumbled in the face of a virulent threat at home

Newly federated Australia, with its population not yet 5 million, was still enduring shocking fatalities on the European western front when its authorities began paying attention to the virulent strain of pneumonic influenza sweeping Britain.

Early Australian awareness of the “Spanish influenza” – an epidemic in Britain by mid to late 1918 – came with an acknowledgment that the new states grown of old colonies would need to stick together should the virus reach this isolated continent.

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Coronavirus live news: Trump says UK may be included in travel ban as WHO calls Europe ‘centre of pandemic’

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Queen cancels engagements; Canadian prime minister self-isolates; UK cases rise by 208

Plans to close off Catalonia have been announced by the northeastern Spanish region’s president, Quim Torra, who called on the central government to help by authorising the closure of ports, airports and railways.

The evolution of the contagion calls for most drastic action. We need to restrict entry and exit to protect ourselves.

In Europe, Hungary is closing all schools and will continue education as best as it can via digital channels, its prime minister Viktor Orbán has said.

In a Facebook video, he said he expected the Hungarian economy to stall soon and it will have to be restarted; an effort the government will participate in.

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Global shortage of Covid-19 test kits hits Australia as other nations limit exports

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Australia’s chief medical officer says supply problems are a ‘temporary issue’ but one that is hampering testing in Australia and across the globe

A global shortage of Covid-19 testing kits is hitting Australia as other nations limit exports and keep equipment for their own use, the country’s chief medical officer has said.

State health ministers have reported shortages of reagents and kits used to conduct coronavirus tests in laboratories, as unprecedented demand for testing combines with limits on exports from other nations struggling to contain Covid-19.

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Coronavirus pandemic reaches world leaders and disrupts global sporting events

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Justin Trudeau’s wife and diplomat at the UN test positive as Australian Grand Prix is cancelled and Arsenal and Chelsea teams affected

The coronavirus has reached the highest levels of government and the sporting world, with Canada’s prime minister isolating himself when his wife tested positive, the Arsenal manager and a Chelsea player being diagnosed and the Australian Grand Prix cancelled just hours before the event was due to start.

On Thursday night, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, Justin Trudeau’s wife, announced she had been diagnosed with Covid-19 after returning from the UK. Her symptoms were mild and she began two weeks of isolation. Her husband also began isolation and was “in good health with no symptoms”.

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Qantas repays more than $7m to staff it underpaid for up to eight years

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Airline has so far paid back 638 head-office staff, Fair Work Ombudsman says, and agreed to give every affected worker an additional $1,000

The Fair Work Ombudsman has said Qantas is paying back millions of dollars to hundreds of workers it underpaid for up to eight years.

The airline had so far paid back $7.1m to 638 staff at head office who were underpaid between June 2011 and June 2019, the ombudsman said on Friday.

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Sydney writers’ festival 2020: Bernadine Evaristo, Lisa Taddeo and Anna Weiner announced

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Themed around the Doomsday Clock, writers Anna Weiner, Daniel Lavery, Bruce Pascoe and Leslie Jamison will also be appearing

The 2019 Booker prizewinner, Bernardine Evaristo, Three Women author Lisa Taddeo and essayist Leslie Jamison are among the Sydney Writers festival lineup, which was announced on Thursday evening.

Joshua Wong – a student activist who played a pivotal role in pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong – will be appearing via video link. The program also features Uncanny Valley author Anna Weiner; The Blazing World and Memories of the Future author Siri Hustvedt; Dark Emu author Bruce Pascoe; and Australian actor Yael Stone.

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Businesses affected by coronavirus should have access to disaster relief funds, says Queensland

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State says virus ‘is no different’ to floods, cyclones and bushfires as it prepares to ramp up pressure at Coag meeting

Queensland will use the upcoming meeting of state leaders and the prime minister to appeal to the federal government to open up its natural disaster assistance payments to local industries impacted by the coronavirus.

Scott Morrison has previously rejected Queensland’s request for the disaster recovery funding arrangements to be made available for businesses knocked by the economic slowdown resulting from Covid-19 on 4 February, and again on 28 February.

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Australia’s chief medical officer urges calm and says coronavirus is a very mild illness – video

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Australia's chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, attempts to allay community fears about the spread of the coronavirus. 'It's clear that there is some anxiety in the community with over 100 cases, but I say … most of these cases are related to import from overseas … there is no point in being tested at the moment if you have not travelled or you have not been a contact.' Murphy adds, 'For most people who get this virus, it's a very mild illness.'
• Australia to unveil $2.4bn coronavirus health package including pop-up fever clinics

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Sports rorts: Scott Morrison sidesteps question about late changes to spreadsheet

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Prime minister says ‘ministerial authority’ was with Bridget McKenzie when asked about changes she says she did not make

Scott Morrison has sidestepped a question about whether changes to a spreadsheet of sports grants on 10 and 11 April last year – including a change sought by his own office – were made with proper legal authority.

The former sports minister Bridget McKenzie reignited the sports rorts controversy late last week by insisting she made no changes to the brief and attachments outlining successful projects funded under the sports grants scheme after 4 April 2019.

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George Pell appeal: cardinal’s lawyers say jury was wrong to reject defence arguments

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High court justices hears arguments on why they should grant Pell leave to appeal his conviction for child sexual abuse

The high profile barrister Bret Walker SC has argued jurors who convicted Cardinal George Pell of child sexual abuse were wrong to reject arguments from his defence about the improbability of the offending occurring.

On Wednesday morning Pell’s final chance of appealing his verdict begun before the full high court bench of seven justices in Canberra. The court is yet to grant Pell leave to appeal his conviction – first, it is hearing arguments from Walker as to why the appeal should be allowed. It may grant or deny the appeal at any time.

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Kylie Moore-Gilbert: jailed British-Australian not among 70,000 prisoners freed in Iran as coronavirus spreads

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Political prisoners, including the University of Melbourne academic, have overwhelmingly been excluded from furloughing

Iran has temporarily freed 70,000 prisoners from jails around the country out of fear coronavirus could spread through prisons unchecked, but British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert has not been released.

Political prisoners have overwhelmingly been excluded from the furloughing of prisoners, with other dual nationals such as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-born British aid worker, remaining imprisoned despite growing concerns for their health.

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Tasmania university to slash courses from 514 to 120 in wake of coronavirus impact

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An over-reliance on China and the emerging pandemic have forced reevaluation of university’s offerings, vice chancellor says

The University of Tasmania will slash hundreds of courses from its curriculum as part of a major overhaul driven in part by an “over-reliance on China” and the impact of the coronavirus.

On Tuesday, the university’s vice chancellor Rufus Black told staff the university was “facing sustained headwinds” to being sustainable, and would cut the number of courses on offer from 514 to fewer than 120 by next year.

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