Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Some of Victoria’s lowest socio-economic areas are still lagging behind on Covid-19 vaccination rates as the wealthiest local government areas surge ahead, creating a stark divide across the state.
The disparity has community leaders and epidemiologists worried the virus will sweep through some suburbs when the state opens up, if the vaccination rate does not pick up in vulnerable areas.
We are going to leave the blog there for the night.
Here’s what made news today:
Stay-at-home orders have been announced for the Kyogle and Narromine local government areas in New South Wales from midnight tonight until 11 October due to Covid cases in the area.
These restrictions will also apply to anyone who has been in the Kyogle LGA since 21 September and the Narromine LGA since 28 September.
Worksafe has just issued a statement about charges against the Victorian health department over its hotel quarantine system.
WorkSafe alleges that the Department of Health breached OHS laws by failing to appoint people with infection prevention and control (IPC) expertise to be stationed at hotels it was utilising for the program.
It alleges the department failed to provide security guards with face-to-face infection prevention control training by a person with expertise in IPC prior to them commencing work, and either failed, or initially failed, to provide written instruction for the use of PPE.
Thanks Nino Bucci. Continuing on at the National Press Club, when asked about the implications of Australia’s withdrawal from its deal with France, Turnbull has some strong words:
What seems to have been overlooked is that one of our national security assets is trust, trustworthiness… This is an appalling episode in Australia’s international affairs and the consequences of it will endure to our disadvantage for a very long time.
A...scamdemic? AAP reports that a record amount has been scammed from Australians this year.
Australians have lost a record $211m to scams so far this year, with people bombarded by bogus calls and texts purportedly from well-known businesses or the government.
The losses between 1 January and 19 September this year have surpassed the $175.6m reported to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch throughout 2020.
The prestigious Melbourne University joins several other tertiary institutions in announcing mandatory vaccination policies.
The University of Melbourne will make having a COVID-19 vaccine a compulsory requirement for attending any of its campuses. Exemptions to apply on medical or eligibility grounds. #springst@UniMelb
It’s very easy to laugh at a bunch of rightwing moms clutching their pearls over sexy seahorses – but there’s nothing funny about the systemic, organised way in which conservatives are trying to rewrite history and restrict freedom of speech.
The Associated Press is reporting an Australian economist who was arrested when Myanmar’s military seized power in February made an appearance Thursday in a court in the capital Naypyitaw, where he will be tried for violation of the official secrets law, his lawyer said.
Sean Turnell had been serving as an advisor to the country’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who was also arrested when her elected government was ousted by the army. Suu Kyi and three of her former Cabinet ministers have also been charged under the law.
Shadow energy minister Chris Bowen gave a blistering doorstop press conference earlier, blasting the Coalition’s climate and energy policy shift.
It comes as federal treasurer, Josh Frydenbrg is due to tell business leaders later today that the government needs to shift towards adopting a net zero commitment.
Josh Frydenberg personally intervened to try and get the chief executive of AGL sacked because he dared to invest in renewable energy. When he was energy minister, he wouldn’t commit to net zero by 2050. He was the architect of the failed National Energy Guarantee.
Yet, now in some sort of bizarre positioning, internally in the Liberal party, he thinks he can be the champion of net zero. Well, he’s got net zero credibility. Josh Frydenberg has net zero credibility when it comes to climate change. He has too often had the chance to act and too often failed.
After finishing her final year of high school in 2019, Amy’s* daughter had dreams of leaving Geelong, in Victoria, to travel to the UK for a working holiday using money saved from her waitressing job.
Video of a man being thrown to the ground by an officer at Melbourne’s Flinders St Station sparks internal investigation
The use of weapons like teargas and stinger grenades and vision of a man being thrown to the ground by a Victorian police officer at Flinders Street Station has raised concerns about police’s use of force during the ongoing protests in Melbourne this week.
On the fourth day of protests in the city, footage emerged online showing an officer approaching a man from behind and throwing him to the ground. The man appeared to be talking calmly to other officers at the time.
Police in Melbourne have again fired non-lethal rounds and teargas at anti-Covid lockdown protesters to end an almost three-hour standoff at the city’s war memorial during a third straight day of demonstrations.
More than 200 people were arrested. Two officers were injured by bottles thrown at them and one was hospitalised with chest pains, Victoria police said.
Police have fired pepper balls and stinger grenades at violent anti-Covid lockdown protesters on the streets of Melbourne as Australia’s second-largest city – under stay-at-home orders for the 233rd day in total – descended into chaos.
Protesters dressed as construction workers clashed with police for the second consecutive day on Tuesday, assaulting officers, smashing police car windows, throwing bottles and stones, and damaging property.
The Victorian government is set to announce a two-week shutdown of the construction industry after a protest against mandatory vaccines for workers in the sector became violent.
The closure across metropolitan Melbourne, Geelong, the Surf Coast, Ballarat and Mitchell Shire was decided on Monday night after the CFMEU building was damaged and riot police deployed in chaotic scenes in the CBD.
Premier Dan Andrews is to release Victoria’s roadmap out of lockdown a day after protests in Melbourne, Sydney, Byron Bay and Brisbane. Follow updates live
The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, is holding a press conference in Brisbane. The state has recorded no new cases of Covid-19 in the community or in hotel quarantine.
Palaszczuk is urging people to get vaccinated after the state controversially made the Pfizer vaccine available to over 60s. She’s urging people to attend walk-in Pfizer clinics.
This is an interesting piece on the people for whom the end of Covid restrictions sparks fear rather than joy.
Racquel Sherry, 49 and based in Sydney, is immunocompromised and afraid.
In the roadmap to freedom, I hear nothing about people like me, other than as a qualifying postscript to the Covid deaths: ‘But they had an underlying health condition’.
Victoria police arrested 235 protesters and three officers remained in hospital on Saturday evening following violent anti-lockdown demonstrations in Melbourne’s inner city.
As the state recorded 535 new cases and one death, around 1,000 protesters gathered in the north-eastern suburbs of Richmond and Hawthorn, forced to make a last-minute change of location after 2,000 police officers formed a “ring of steel” around the Melbourne CBD.
Wednesday: NSW is on track to hit its 80% single dose vaccinations today, while Victoria is heading towards 70% by the end of the week – follow updates live
With that, we’ll wrap up the news blog for the day.
Here were the top headlines today:
Prof Sharon Lewin, director of the Doherty Institute that has provided modelling for Australia’s reopening plan agreed to by national cabinet, has responded to NSW’s roadmap to freedom that was unveiled this week.
Of the plan to reopen at 70% double vaccination in NSW, Lewin told ABC’s The Drum: “I think the with situation in NSW, I’d be going slowly, slowly”.
We will see interpretations that will vary around the country and I think that is going to cause confusion.”
When you don’t have optimal TTIQ then you’ve got to bring in public health measures. That’s why this slow exit from the lockdown is probably going to be important.
I think the biggest challenge for NSW at the moment is keeping an eye on the burden on the healthcare system.
We know that under the current legislative situation, there’s nothing preventing political parties like the United Australia Party from sending out those text messages, and people cannot unsubscribe from them.
The carriage of messages is generally a commercial matter for telecommunications providers, except in circumstances where there may be offences against the laws of the commonwealth or states or territories.
Both the Telecommunications Act 1997 and Spam Act 2003 contain provisions about implied freedom of political communications. These provisions set out that the acts or parts of them do not apply to the extent they would infringe on any constitutional doctrine of implied freedom of political communication.
There’s a press conference with the PM at 1.40pm AEST.
A medical clinic in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs has been offering patients off-label prescriptions for the anti-parasite drug ivermectin to treat Covid-19, despite a lack of evidence for its use in treating the virus.
The clinic set up a dedicated online page to apply for a consultation to be prescribed the drug to treat Covid-19 on its website after receiving an “influx of ivermectin inquiries”.
Victoria Police are monitoring an ultra-Orthodox synagogue in the Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea as part of an investigation into an alleged breach of Covid public health orders.
Video footage recorded earlier in the day appears to show people entering without wearing masks.