Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Christian Schools Australia (CSA) has demanded the federal government withdraw a threat to independent schools and instead commit to guarantee funding even if enrolments drop off as a result of Covid-19.
On Thursday the education minister, Dan Tehan, wrote to all independent school associations ordering them to provide in-person education to children from term two or risk losing their federal funding.
Premier Daniel Andrews says state of emergency will be extended for a further four weeks as Australians trapped on Antarctic cruise ship arrive in Melbourne. Follow updates live
McGowan says he took his kids camping ... in his backyard ... over Easter because obviously other locations were unavailable.
And that’s the end of the press conference.
“We’ve successfully flattened the curve, but now we’ve got to figure out how to keep it there but also find out a long-term solution to the problem we face,” McGowan says.
He says he is working on getting commercial tenancy legislation in parliament this week. He’s not sure whether residential tenancy legislation will be ready this week but it will be brought in when it is.
The former will be brought into WA parliament for debate on Wednesday.
Australia urged to use its influence to push for the permanent cancellation of all debt due from vulnerable countries in 2020
Low-income countries need their debts for 2020 forgiven, alongside billions in emergency grants to survive the Covid-19 crisis, civil society groups around the world have said, arguing the viral pandemic will hit hardest the poorest people in the poorest countries.
More than 100 civil society organisations internationally have called on creditor nations to permanently cancel all debt repayments as the “fastest way to keep money in countries and free up resources to tackle the urgent health, social and economic crises resulting from the Covid-19 global pandemic”.
Cardinal writes in the Australian that ‘God-fearers’ are better able to deal with evil and suffering than atheists
Cardinal George Pell has used an Easter opinion piece to argue “God-fearers” are better able to deal with evil and suffering than atheists, pointing to his own experience of “13 months in jail for a crime I didn’t commit”.
Pell was released from prison on Tuesday after Australia’s high court quashed five convictions for child sexual abuse, over allegations he assaulted two choirboys at a Melbourne cathedral in the 1990s.
From the final verdict on George Pell to devastating Great Barrier Reef bleaching, here’s our roundup of important stories
As Australia’s coronavirus outbreak continues, a lot of important news has slipped under the radar.
Here are the most important stories you may have missed over the past week. From the statement of George Pell’s accuser to the worst coral bleaching the Great Barrier Reef has ever seen.
We will close the blog for this evening. Thank you for your company and contributions.
A summary follows of Australia’s Covid-19 situation, the evening of Good Friday 2020.
“I would really urge caution there. Most of the cases we’ve seen so far have and still remain related to overseas travel and so our local epidemic is very early. There’s only a couple of thousand of those 6,000 cases are actual local transmission.
The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has accepted the resignation of her arts minister, Don Harwin, after he was fined $1,000 for staying at his Central Coast holiday home, breaching a Covid-19 public health order.
While Harwin maintained he had sought, and followed, official advice on whether he was allowed to relocate to his holiday home, he accepted the controversy surrounding his move – as the government was urging people to stay home over Easter – was a “distraction”.
During this health crisis my government has asked the community to make greater sacrifices than all of us have ever had to make before.
These sacrifices are saving lives, and I am proud of the people of NSW for continuing to uphold the law in the interest of public health.
Oman’s capital, Muscat, went under full lockdown this morning as number of confirmed coronavirus cases reach 484 in the sultanate with 27 recorded in last 24 hours, writes Akhtar Mohammad Makoii.
The government announced that the isolation procedure will be implemented until April 22. The plan started 10 am this morning by “activating control and checkpoints”.
Singapore has suspended the use of video-conferencing tool Zoom by teachers, its education ministry said on Friday, after “very serious incidents” occurred in the first week of a coronavirus lockdown that has seen schools move to home-based learning, Reuters reports.
One of the incidents involved obscene images appearing on screens and strange men making lewd comments during the streaming of a geography lesson with teenage girls, according to local media reports.
These are very serious incidents. MOE (Ministry of Education) is currently investigating both breaches and will lodge a police report if warranted. As a precautionary measure, our teachers will suspend their use of Zoom until these security issues are ironed out.
The US has approved 661,000 loans to small businesses totalling $168bn (£134bn) under a programme to address the pandemic’s fallout, the White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow says.
A $2.3tn economic stimulus enacted last month allocated $349bn to loans to small businesses hurt by the crisis that can be turned into grants if they meet certain conditions.
New Zealand’s drive against Covid-19 is showing promise and it is not too late for other countries to follow
Epidemiologists love to evoke the memory of John Snow, who famously advocated removing the handle from the Broad Street pump in London, an action that helped to end a severe outbreak of cholera. In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic we need to take the same kind of decisive action, yet western countries have appeared remarkably slow to do so, despite the advantages of immense scientific knowledge and modern tools of pandemic control.
New Zealand now appears to be the only “western” nation following an articulated elimination strategy with the goal of completely ending transmission of Covid-19 within its borders. The strategy appears to be working, with new case numbers falling. Most cases are now returning travellers, who are safely quarantined at the borders, and the few remaining case clusters in the community are being traced and further spread stamped out. But it is far too soon to claim victory, and the country is remaining under an intense lockdown to support the elimination effort.
Thousands of travellers returning from overseas have been forced to quarantine in hotels to reduce the spread of coronavirus. Some say the conditions there are shocking, with reports that some people have been denied access to urgent medical care. In this episode of Full Story, Melissa Davey and Matilda Boseley explain how some people are falling through the cracks in this system
A 74-year-old woman in a fluffy purple dressing gown pulls a wheelie bin down her driveway. As she walks, she tugs suggestively on the zipper in a pretend striptease, kicking up her leg and singing to the tune of Right Said Fred: “I’m too sexy for my bin”.
This is the sort of content you can find in Bin isolation outing, an Australian Facebook group that’s amassed almost half a million members in under two weeks. Its premise is that with social distancing measures in full force, the country’s wheelie bins spend more time outside than we do – so why not dress up for those weekly walks to the curb?
Leaving the house to take the garbage out has suddenly become a rare treat for isolated Australians, who are putting in all kinds of effort for the occasion. The Bin isolation outing Facebook group has amassed almost half a million members in under two weeks. Here are some of our favourite posts
Its more than 35,000km (21,750 miles) of coastline was always going to be Australia’s strongest advantage in keeping coronavirus at bay, but even so, the speed with which it was used was breathtaking.
Without warning on Thursday 19 March, the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced: “Australia is closing its borders to all-non citizens”. The ban was effective from 9pm the next day.
Authorities around the world are preparing to use curfews, roadblocks, travel bans, surveillance technology and threats of fines and arrests to deter people from travelling and congregating over Easter.
Many governments have already announced tighter restrictions and increased police enforcement in an effort to sustain lockdowns during a holiday period traditionally associated with trips and socialising.
It would be ‘legally wrong’ to conclude that the high court ruling undermined the point of bringing cases to trial, professor says
Victims of child sexual abuse should not be dissuaded from coming forward and reporting perpetrators as a result of the jury conviction of Cardinal George Pell being overturned by the high court, a barrister and professor of law at La Trobe University in Melbourne says.
Prof Gideon Boas said he was concerned by those questioning the merit of future cases brought in the criminal or civil jurisdiction based on the Pell ruling.
Frontline health workers in Queensland have been denied a promised pay increase because they agreed to prioritise coronavirus preparations ahead of finalising an industrial agreement, their union says.
An analysis of the latest government data on coronavirus shows locally acquired infections have outnumbered infections acquired overseas for the past four days.
The analysis also shows the growth in locally acquired cases is slowing in New South Wales and Victoria, the two states for which detailed data is available.