Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Greg Hunt says Melbourne curfew should be lifted if ‘there is no medical basis’ for it as two more Sydney healthcare workers test positive. Follow live
The woman who was at the centre of Scott Morrison’s plea today will be allowed to attend a private viewing of her father to say goodbye after her family has held their funeral.
She will be escorted to the funeral home, and then escorted back, a spokeswoman has confirmed.
John Barilaro, who is rumoured to have his eye set on Canberra and the federal Nationals leadership, has effectively removed the Nationals from the NSW coalition, plunged the Berejiklian government into minority after vowing to abstain from government votes (unless its to do with regional NSW), and removed itself from joint party room and leadership meetings – unless the koala protection legislation is scrapped.
Thanks for following our live coverage of the coronavirus coverage in Australia. You can continue to follow our rolling global coverage here.
A quick recap on what happened today:
Asked if he would step down as premier if the hotel quarantine inquiry laid the blame for the outbreak on his office, Andrews said his responsibility was to keep going.
My position and the responsibility I have is to see our state through this. What is what I’m focused on.
Let me be as frank as I can be: Politics has never mattered less to me. Leadership is not able doing what’s popular, it is about doing what’s right.
The politics of this, that is of no value. The only thing that matters is we all stay the course. We all keep following the data, the science and the doctors and get this done. Then move to the biggest economic repair job that our state has ever seen.
Stage four restrictions in Melbourne will be extended for two weeks to 28 September with the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, declaring “we can’t run out of lockdown”.
“I want a Christmas that is as close to normal as possible and this is the only way, these steps are the only way, that we will get to that point,” Andrews said when revealing a roadmap to eventually lift restrictions which currently include a night-time curfew.
Daniel Andrews says Victoria’s roadmap out of coronavirus lockdown has “not been finalised” as government and health experts meet before the unveiling of the plan on Sunday.
At least 15 people have been arrested at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance and Albert Park after at least 200 protesters defied the city’s stage-four lockdowns to hold an anti-lockdown rally on Saturday.
Police in New South Wales also arrested three people at an unauthorised protest in Sydney’s Hyde Park while another protest was held at Sydney’s Olympic Park. Smaller protests were also held in Townsville, Brisbane and Byron Bay.
Twenty-one separate publications, six corporate groups and 19 individual journalists charged
Twenty-one separate publications, six corporate groups and 19 individual journalists charged with breaching a suppression order during the George Pell trial in 2018 will face a single, but complex, trial in November.
Figure of 41 deaths in Victoria includes 33 people who died in aged care but not reported until yesterday; legislation to extend but reduce jobkeeper and jobseeker payments will be considered by the Senate today. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
Residents in suburbs without power or drinking water from the storm on Thursday are exempt from coronavirus travel restrictions
The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting more damaging winds to sweep Victoria, while some Melbourne residents are still dealing with the impacts of Thursday’s storm.
The Bom has forecast that strong north to northwesterly winds will develop early Sunday ahead of a front that will move across the state during the day.
The number of new Covid-19 cases in Victoria has dropped below 100 for the first time since 5 July but the state has recorded another 18 deaths, 16 of those linked to aged care outbreaks.
The premier, Daniel Andrews, said while announcing the 94 new cases that the downward trend was promising but cases would need to drop to “the lowest number we can get” before restrictions were eased.
That is where we will leave the live blog for this evening. If you want to follow the latest global coronavirus news you can follow our other live blog here.
Scott Morrison made plenty of time to set a test for Anthony Albanese’s leadership in June, when the Victorian Labor branch stacking allegations were revealed - there were interviews and question time attacks and comments about being focussed on jobs while the Labor party was in rack and ruin.
But now that he is facing questions over the Liberals behaviour in Victoria, which implicates one of his own frontbenchers - Michael Sukkar, Morrison is very busy being focussed solely on the pandemic.
These matters have been referred by the Department of Finance and that’s the appropriate response and that’s where... No, I’ve been dealing with the COVID crisis. I’ve been dealing with getting people back into jobs. The matter has been referred to the Department of Finance. I don’t think that Australians would want me distracked by those issues at all.
This is quite the declaration of war within the Queensland Labor party - the CFMEU has announced it is immediately quitting the left faction.
That will have some serious implications for the power balance in the party:
The CFMEU will be withdrawing from the left faction of the Queensland ALP, effective immediately.
Both the Mining and the Construction & General divisions of the CFMEU have decided the union can be a more effective advocate for workers as a voice totally independent of a faction that has lost touch with its core values.
The textbook, which has now been recalled, includes passages that critics believe endorse China’s authoritarian rule and are ‘straight out of the party playbook’
A textbook used in some Victorian schools includes portions that repeat Chinese Communist party propaganda and features a controversial map in which China claims most of the South China Sea in contradiction of Australian government policy.
The Guardian can reveal concerns about the material have prompted the publisher, Cengage Learning Asia, to recall unsold copies of the textbook, which the Melbourne-based authors said they had written to suit the course design of the Victorian senior school subject Chinese language, culture and society.
Brisbane watches hotspots after youth detention centre outbreak, Victoria’s hotel inquiry continues and politicians gather in Canberra for the first time in 10 weeks. Follow today’s latest updates
Victoria’s chief health officer has said the state’s residents could be wearing masks until there is “no community transmission whatsoever” as the state records a second day below 200 cases.
Victoria recorded 182 cases in the past 24 hours, three more than the previous day’s numbers. The state’s death toll now sits just under 400, with the premier, Daniel Andrews, confirming the deaths of 13 more Covid-19 positive Victorians.
Scott Morrison has declared he still has confidence in his aged care minister after Richard Colbeck came under pressure at a Senate inquiry and was unable to recall how many people had died in aged care during the pandemic.
Colbeck apologised on Friday for the times when the Morrison government “didn’t get everything right” in dealing with aged care outbreaks – but insisted it had been prepared for what it sincerely believed to be the worst-case scenarios.
Andrews thanked all Victorians for the role they played in getting the daily coronavirus numbers down below 100.
I’d simply say that, whilst tomorrow’s numbers will be for tomorrow, we are all pleased to see a ‘1’ in front of these additional case numbers, and to a certain extent it is perhaps at that level a little quicker than I thought it might be.
Of course, this Sunday marks the three weeks since the curfew was imposed. Next Wednesday marks three weeks since the most significant workplace restrictions came into effect. To be at this point shows that the strategy is working....
I want to thank each and after Victorian who is making a big contribution to this strategy working. I want to thank them and their families. I want to thank people from all backgrounds, from all parts of the state. No matter your perspective, this is a challenge that none of us are immune from. We’re all in this together. We say that a lot, but it’s true. It’s absolutely true. And because I think more and more Victorians are making the best choices and looking out foreach other, and therefore everybody, we are seeing these numbers come down.
We’ll see what tomorrow holds. But there’s no room for complacency, there’s no way we can assume that this is over. It is an ultra-marathon, and we’re not halfway yet.
The Victorian and federal governments have set up a $15m joint disability response centre, which Andrews said is “essentially mirroring the arrangements we have in aged care”.
There are currently 62 active Covid-19 cases in disability care sectors, across 60 different sites.
We’re grateful to them. That’s not easy. But with that payment, that’ll mean that we can support them to, in turn, keep their clients safe. We all know that, in that sector, that’s what they’re motivated to do – to provide the best care and support to their clients.
Again, I thank the prime minister and the federal government for their partnership. This is yet another example of us working together to deal with a common challenge. And it’s really important that, given the vulnerability of many people across these settings, it’s very, very important that we have a singular focus, and all the senior people around the table at the same time, and that funding to be able to limit the amount of workers who are going to multiple sites.
St Basil’s aged care home breached its duty of care and failed its residents, according to a writ filed in the Victorian supreme court over the nursing response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has cost dozens of the centre’s residents their lives.
The writ, obtained by Guardian Australia, was filed on Thursday and lists Effie Fotiadis as the first applicant in a case that could include residents, their families, employees, or the estates of residents at the Victorian aged care centre.