Category Archives: Australia news

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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‘This is a mess. Put on your mask’: diary from the frontline of the coronavirus health crisis

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This week we will hear from people working on the frontline of the health system as it manages the outbreak of Covid-19 around Australia. Today, we hear from a GP working in a private practice in Sydney’s southern suburbs

Bleary eyed as usual on an 8am Saturday morning start, I stumble into work, sit down at my desk and sip on the coffee my wonderful colleague has left for me. I glance at the screen and notice the familiar list of 30 patients booked in six hours. Sigh.

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Six grants worth a total of $260k approved in marginal seat of Longman before election

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LNP candidate advertised one of the grants on Facebook a month before election without specifying source of funds

Six taxpayer-funded grants were approved in the key marginal seat of Longman through the Department of Social Services in the month before the last federal election, including $177,000 for the Bribie Island and Districts Junior Rugby League Club.

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FTSE on course for biggest fall since financial crisis

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World markets plunge on back of coronavirus-driven recession fears and threat of oil price war

Global stock markets have suffered their biggest falls since the 2008 financial crisis and trading was temporarily suspended on Wall Street after an oil price crash rattled investors fearing a coronavirus-driven global recession.

Dealing in shares on the main US indices was frozen within minutes of the opening bell, as circuit breakers were triggered by a 7% fall on the S&P 500. Once trading resumed 15 minutes later, the Dow Jones Industrial Average completed a fall of more than 2,000 points for the first time ever – a fall of more than 7%.

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‘I’m sure it was William Tyrrell’: witness tells inquest he saw missing boy in car

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Kendall resident Ronald Chapman says he saw the child in the back of a fast-moving vehicle on the day he went missing

A man living in the New South Wales town where toddler William Tyrrell was last seen is “sure” he saw the boy in the back of a fast-moving car, a court has heard.

The inquest into the three-year-old’s 2014 disappearance resumed in Taree on Monday.

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Coronavirus live updates: fifth death confirmed in UK, as head of New York’s airports tests positive

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With cases spiking sharply across Europe and emergency measures in place from California to Saudi Arabia, investors have sent shares tumbling

US authorities are planning a flight tomorrow to repatriate Britons on the coronavirus-hit Grand Princess cruise ship.

The UK Foreign Office issued the following statement:

We continue to work closely with the US authorities to repatriate British nationals on board the Grand Princess. The US are currently planning for a flight to leave tomorrow evening, returning to the UK on Wednesday afternoon. We remain in contact with all British nationals on board and will continue to offer support.

Chinese authorities reportedly scrambled to move people out of quarantine hotels which need full safety inspections after the deaths of at least 10 people in a collapsed hotel.

Joanna Davison, an English teacher, and her partner were suddenly placed in enforced isolation in Shenzhen after a ferry trip about 10 days ago. On Thursday, she told the Guardian she endured a “terrifying” experience as five people in hazmat suits came to test them at her home before they were whisked to quarantine.

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Sport Australia defies Senate on questions over sports rorts grants

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Exclusive: senior officials claim no ‘specific recollection’ of a hastily convened teleconference to discuss colour-coded spreadsheets

Sport Australia defied a Senate committee request to respond to questions about its role in the Morrison government’s controversial sports grants program, while senior officials involved in the administration of the grants claim to have no “specific recollection” of a hastily convened teleconference to discuss the government’s colour-coded spreadsheets.

Sport Australia had been ordered to respond to 40 questions its officials had taken on notice following a 28 February committee hearing examining the $100m sports grants program by 6 March.

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Patriarchy and power: how gender inequality underpins abusive behaviour | Jess Hill

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Men don’t abuse women because society tells them it’s OK. They do it because society tells them they are entitled to be in control

Investigative journalist Jess Hill interviewed dozens of abused women, domestic abuse sector workers, male perpetrators, children’s advocates and system experts over five years in order to write her award-winning book, See What You Made Me Do. Here she answers some questions about issues arising from the murders in Brisbane of Hannah Clarke and her three children Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, 4 and Trey, 3.

Hannah Clarke’s family described her husband Rowan Baxter as controlling, coercive and obsessive. His abuse appears to have followed a familiar script known as coercive control. Can you explain this?

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Melbourne professor quits after health department pressures her over data breach

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Vanessa Teague reported on a dataset of Medicare and PBS payments that was supposed to be anonymous but wasn’t

A prominent university professor has quit after the health department pressured her university to stop her speaking out about the Medicare and PBS history of over 2.5 million Australians being re-identifiable online due to a government bungle.

In 2016, Vanessa Teague, a cryptographer from the University of Melbourne, and two of her colleagues reported on a dataset, published on an open government data website by the federal government, of 2.5m Australians’ Medicare and PBS payment history dating back to 1984 that had supposedly been de-identified so people were anonymous.

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Coronavirus live updates: Australia traces patients treated by sick doctor as US cruise ship cases rise

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Two victims were in their 70s and had travelled overseas, say state authorities, as cruise ship off San Francisco reports 21 cases and Hong Kong advises against non-urgent travel

An Iranian MP has died from coronavirus, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday, in an another sign the disease is spreading within state institutions.
Iran is one of the countries outside China most affected by the epidemic. As of Friday, the country had reported 4,747 infections.
The MP who died on Friday is Fatemeh Rahbar, a conservative lawmaker from Tehran, according to Tasnim. It did not say if she was included in the country’s official toll of 124 deaths from the virus, given on Friday.
On 2 March, Tasnim reported the death of Mohammad Mirmohammadi, a member of the Expediency Council, intended to resolve disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council, a governmental body that vets electoral candidates, among other duties.
Iran’s deputy health minister, Iraj Harirchi, and another member of parliament, Mahmoud Sadeghi, have also said they have contracted the virus.

Government ministers are expected to advise elderly people in the UK next week to visit relatives now before “social distancing” policies are introduced.
British pensioners could be warned to stay at home and will likely be told to avoid crowded areas, the Daily Telegraph reported.

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