Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
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.
Gladys Berejiklian under pressure over modelling showing state’s health system to be ‘overwhelmed’ by Covid cases; rapid antigen tests approved for use at home. Follow the latest updates live
The New South Wales government has set a target of zero extinctions of native wildlife in the state’s national parks estate, the first time an Australian government has set the goal.
The environment minister, Matt Kean, said the target, which will apply to all parklands in NSW, was a response to the continued decline of threatened plants and animals and Australia’s status as the country with the highest rate of mammal extinctions.
Asylum seeker advocates are calling for people held in immigration detention to be released into the community after Victorian health officials revealed a guard at a facility in Melbourne had tested positive for Covid-19.
Victoria’s Covid commander, Jeroen Wiemar, on Sunday confirmed at least one coronavirus case at the Melbourne Immigration Transit Accomodation centre in Broadmeadows in Melbourne’s north.
Guardian Australia brings together all the latest on active and daily new Covid-19 cases, as well as maps, stats, live data and state by state graphs from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA, WA, Tasmania, ACT and NT to get a broad picture of the Australian outbreaks and track the impact of government responses
Due to the difference in reporting times between states, territories and the federal government, it can be difficult to get a current picture of how many confirmed cases of coronavirus there are in Australia, where cases are increasing, and the overall trend for each state and territory.
Essential workers over the age of 16 who live in local government areas of concern won’t be allowed to leave their LGA from Monday unless they have had at least one dose of a Covid vaccine. Follow latest updates
Independent federal senator, Rex Patrick, appears to have tweeted an ultimatum to the government: be transparent about the profitable corporations that wrongly pocketed jobkeeper, or he will withdraw support for the government’s changes to the EPBC Act.
The government needs Patrick’s vote in the Senate to pass the legislation.
I’m done with ‘em. @ScottMorrisonMP gifting hard earned taxpayer money to his business mates & donors makes him the most shameless & unethical PM ever. @JoshFrydenberg’s JK prudential failure makes him the most incompetent Treasurer ever. EPBC discussions over @sussanley! #auspolpic.twitter.com/rMctoje7Xy
Finally, Speers asked Robert why the government won’t, at least, publish a list for taxpayers of “where the money went and let the firms decide whether to pay it back”?
But Robert argued that that would interfere with the privacy of these companies.
The transparency if you like, or what pertained in the Senate which was a demand for all the records of so many Australian companies, and vast majority of them being small to medium enterprises under tax law, that would substantially invade the privacy and would substantially make a huge step in the wrong direction as to how we manage the privacy of all of those individuals and all of those companies, David. It would be a massive retrograde step in how we do things.
Melbourne psychologist Chris Cheers says the pandemic’s effect has been akin to grief, and acceptance of it is hard to reach
After 18 months, psychologist Chris Cheers has begun to understand emotional responses to the global Covid pandemic as a kind of grief.
It’s a collective grief, experienced by the whole world at once, but also deeply personal: our losses are not the same just as our experiences have not been the same.
Before we wrap up the live blog, let’s recap the main events of today.
It’s been another grim day. The NSW and ACT reported record case numbers. Victoria has warned of a NSW-style growth in its numbers.
Civil liberties groups have criticised a lack of safeguards and primary legislation accompanying an app being trialled in South Australia that uses facial recognition and geolocation data to enforce home quarantine.
SA is trialling the app, which the government developed, on a small number of volunteers who have returned from interstate. It requires them to answer a message within 15 minutes, using facial recognition and geolocation to verify their identity and location. If they fail to do so, the app alerts police.
It’s the usual thing, it’s done in a very half-baked way, and without all the necessary provisions about what you actually do with the information you’re collecting.
The ACT has recorded 18 new cases today, with 13 linked to previous cases and 5 under investigation.
Only 3 of the cases were in quarantine for their full infectious period.
So contact tracing feels like the theme of todays NSW press conference, with the premier saying the system will move to a “self-monitoring” system.
The premier was asked about the long delays that some had seen in getting responses from health authorities, and Berejiklian said NSW Health had moved to a text message system to ease some of the strain:
Without giving away anybody’s private circumstances, some people who are very sick aren’t getting a test until right at the last minute,” the Premier said, adding “the job of our contact tracers is made easier if people get tested as soon as they think they may have been exposed.
But I want to make sure every citizen knows we will account for every type of circumstance. We don’t want anyone to feel excluded, quite the opposite. Our plans are based on inclusiveness to make sure everyone feel safe and part of the system. Of course we will also make adjustments for people who may not have access to technology in the way that others do.
Obviously there will be a transition.
We have already started transitioning as Doctor Chant and Dr Gale have spoken about, we are advising people by text message to make sure they get the message as soon as possible if they test positive so we are using technology in an efficient way to make sure people get the message as quickly as possible.
Anthony Albanese had a chat to Triple M Newcastle where he continued to hone Labor’s national plan message when it comes to the premiers:
Well, they all signed up for the national plan. The national plan, of course, provides for various protections to be continued to be available at 70% and 80%. No one wants restrictions. Restrictions affect people’s way of life and their capacity to get around and it hurts the economy. But to be fair to Queensland at the moment, South Australia also, I noticed Scott Morrison never talks about the Liberal states, South Australia and Tasmania and Queensland and Western Australia all have their borders closed to New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT at the moment. That’s a decision that is perfectly understandable. WA is getting the Grand Final in the AFL. Brisbane will get the Grand Final in the Rugby League. And it’s tough times, but these decisions have been made to keep their citizens safe.
If you are thinking that the Victorian numbers are usually out by now, you would be right.
There is a delay this morning (we usually get them around 8.30am) but in the past, when there has been more complicated data to reconcile, it has taken a little longer.
The evidence is strongest for receiving two doses of the same Covid-19 vaccine, rather than mixing different types, medical authorities have said amid concerns that some people may be cancelling their second AstraZeneca dose in the hope of securing a shot of Pfizer.
As outbreaks of the Delta variant affect New South Wales and Victoria, people are being urged by state premiers and health authorities to get vaccinated as soon as possible with whatever vaccine is available, and to show up to their existing first and second-dose appointments.
Gerry Harvey has now repaid $6 million in JobKeeper out of the $13 billion that went to companies with rising revenue. Gerry Harvey think it is money should be paid back. Why doesn’t the Treasurer?
Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:
My question as to the prime minister. Most economists expect the economic growth to slow in the June quarter and it is now going backwards in the September quarter. Why does the prime minister not take responsibility for the fact that Australia’s economic recovery was always hostage to his failures on vaccines and quarantine?
Australia is one of the few countries in the world that after the Covid-19 recession of last year saw our economy grow back to a level higher than it was before the pandemic started, and that is before Delta hit, and saw 1 million people, a million people get back into work.
That was the product of economic policies that not only provided significant, in fact unprecedented economic support, both to individuals who had lost hours and had been stood down, through jobkeeper but also through ... the many other measures that supported businesses to see their way through at a time. Particularly last year at the outset of Covid when the uncertainty was at such a level that it was like looking into an economic abyss. And so the certainty that was provided by the government that stepped in with the single largest economic intervention in Australia’s history. Gave businesses, gave families, gave individual employees the confidence to be able to get up the next day and see it through, and do it again, day after day, month after month.