Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Also, the Five Eyes finance ministers met. Given what their operatives do, a meeting seems superfluous, but ok.
Today Australia hosted a call with the Finance Ministers of the “Five Eyes” nations – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States.
It was the first of what will be regular calls among the countries to discuss the economic issues associated with COVID-19.
I guess when you don’t have the Global Times, you have to be a little more overt in your silent diplomacy.
Michael Gunner declared the NT Covid-free and will prepare to allow domestic travel; person who attended Melbourne Black Lives Matter protest among new Vic cases. Follow live
Tony Smith: The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The Prime Minister needs to withdraw that imputation.
Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:
My question is to the Prime Minister. Under this Prime Minister, Australia has entered its first recession in three decades. Australia now has an effective unemployment rate of 11.3%. How many unemployed Australians don’t have a job because the Prime Minister deliberately excluded them from JobKeeper?
No-one in this country is unemployed because of the Government’s responses.
People are unemployed in this country, people have been reduced to zero hours which is the same thing, people have been hit by the coronavirus pandemic!
Chinese embassy in Canberra accuses Australian media of ‘rumours, lies and malicious slanders against China’ that has been picked up by politicians
China has hit back at “baseless accusations” that are “completely rubbish” after Australia accused Beijing of spreading disinformation during the pandemic.
At a press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, the Chinese government spokesman Zhao Lijian accused Australian officials of undermining international efforts to combat the virus.
Julian Hill is looking at the government’s spend on consultants (an evergreen sentence, no matter what political party is in government)
New analysis by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has found that the big four consultancy firms – Deloitte, Ernest&Young, KPMG and PwC – now collectively reap $800m a year in government contracts.
But only 20% of that figure is spent on actual consultancy contracts, meaning the Morrison government is paying top dollar to large consultancy firms to work as contractors doing the day-to-day work of public servants.
The Australia Institute has begun a new campaign to have truth in advertising part of Australia’s political advertising.
An open letter coordinated by the Australia Institute and signed by 29 prominent Australians calls for parliament to pass truth-in-political advertising laws that are nationally consistent, constitutional and uphold freedom of speech.
Signatories to the open letter include former political party leaders and politicians, Dr John Hewson, Cheryl Kernot and Michael Beahan; former supreme court judges, the Hon Anthony Whealy QC, the Hon Paul Stein AM QC and the Hon David Harper AM QC, as well as barristers, community leaders, business people and other prominent Australians.
Mutual obligations for welfare recipients return today.
There are now about 1.6m people receiving the unemployment benefit jobseeker.
Mutual obligations return today & will be gradually phased in.
We are in Phase 1 meaning there are no financial penalties for not meeting activity requirements.
We don't have a timeline of each "phase" but I will keep following up with the Minister for more clarity.
The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian was giving a press conference just now. She was pressed on comments from her police minister, David Elliott, who said yesterday that police would not approve future permit protests that did not comply for the health guidelines.
Government has shielded closed collection centres from takeover and provides big subsidy increases after industry lobbying
The Australian government handed major pathology companies lucrative Covid-19 contracts through limited tenders, shielded their closed collection centres from takeover, provided large subsidy increases after industry lobbying, waived normal registration fees and promised to provide additional assistance outside of jobkeeper.
Guardian Australia has spent the past week examining aspects of the federal government’s response to coronavirus, investigating problems with jobkeeper, the childcare support package, and the potential economic impact of the sudden cessation of stimulus.
Penny Wong says treasurer should have ‘the courage’ to take responsibility for error as Coalition faces calls to expand wage subsidy
Labor will attempt to pressure the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, to appear before the Senate’s Covid-19 inquiry to explain the “$60bn black hole” in the jobkeeper program.
The move comes as the Morrison government faces growing calls to expand the wage subsidy to cover a wider group of workers, after revelations on Friday that the six-month program is now expected to cost the budget $70bn rather than $130bn.
The Morrison government commission has promoted gas as a key way to boost the economy after the coronavirus crisis
The head of the Morrison government commission tasked with coming up with plans to revitalise the economy after the coronavirus crisis, Nev Power, is to step aside from his position as deputy chairman of a gas company over conflict of interest concerns.
“Because of the perceptions of conflict of interest he has stepped back from participating in board meetings and will not participate in the decisions of the board” of Strike Energy, a spokesman for the National Covid-19 Coordination Commission said on Friday evening.
Angus Taylor also spoke on the border closure issue while on the ABC:
Well, I think ultimately it’s a decision for Queensland but the advice coming in is very clear from the Chief Medical Officer and it’s clear what the New South Wales Premier has put her view as well.
What I want to see is opening up, getting things going again, jobs, investment and of course we have got to make sure all our policies are aligned with that at the federal level and we’d like to see states do the same and that includes our emissions policy which is all about strengthening the economy.
Speaking to the ABC a little earlier, Gladys Berejiklian says she did not think it was “logical at this stage to maintain those border closures for a prolonged period of time”.
She prefaced the comment with “that’s a matter for the Queensland premier and the Queensland government” before giving her opinion, so that might tell you how relations within national cabinet are starting to go.
New South Wales is in a position now where we’re really focused on jobs and the economy, and we’ll be able to get our industries up and running.
But for Australia to really move forward as a nation during this very difficult economic time as well as difficult health time, we do need our borders down, we do need to allow people to move between states, to live, to work, to see family.
Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce among those who raised objections to the Peter Dutton proposal for regional airport fees
The Morrison government has overhauled cost recovery arrangements for regional airports to conduct security screening to head off a potential revolt by the Nationals in the Senate.
The Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick sought on Wednesday night to disallow regulations imposing security screening requirements that he says would have forced small airports to seek cost recovery through increases in landing charges. Patrick said the changes originally proposed by the home affairs minister Peter Dutton could see fares from Whyalla increase by $54 to $70 per passenger.
Treasurer says in statement in lieu of the federal budget: ‘There is no money tree. What we borrow today we must repay in the future.’ Follow the latest news live
In what is becoming a common scene, there were long lines of international students waiting for donated meals today.
This footage was shot in Sydney where restaurants in Chinatown are offering free meals to students who have lost jobs and aren’t eligible for jobseeker or jobkeeper.
Quite incredible. A long line of international students in Sydney right now waiting for free food from a restaurant (line goes another 50m around the corner).
International students have been hard hit and aren't eligible for coronavirus stimulus payments. Many rely on free meals pic.twitter.com/eTDtRFU8Lw
Nathan Cleary, the Penrith Panther banned and fined by the NRL for being “untruthful” during the league’s investigation into his social distancing breach, has apologised.
“I’m obviously embarrassed with myself and I’m not happy with what I’ve done,” he told the club’s website. “I just to want to apologise for my actions. My actions were irresponsible, selfish and pretty stupid, to be honest.
Deputy CMO says there are ‘very serious risks’ from overcrowding as Victoria plans to lift lockdown rules and another Newmarch resident dies after testing negative. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, says Australia’s relationship with China is “not in a great place”.
Speaking to ABC TV this afternoon, Wong said the relationship would benefit from “consistency and discipline and leadership” from the prime minister and foreign minister rather than backbencher-led commentary.
Some Coalition backbenchers, including George Christensen and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, have been pushing for Australia to take a hard line in its relations with China. Wong also called on the government to provide detailed briefings to parliamentarians on how Australia is handling the China relationship:
I’ve said previously we need to think about the China relationship in 30-year terms, not in three-year terms. Unfortunately, there’s been a little too much from the Morrison government of a reflex to short-term domestic politics on this relationship and more broadly. And we would urge them to take a long-term position and a responsible position, and as much as possible a bipartisan position, when it comes to that relationship that’s in the national interests.
Cafes and restaurants in South Australia were open to sit-down customers today, for the first time in seven weeks. I say sit down, not sit-in, because customers have to dine alfresco. It’s limited to a maximum of 10 customers.
People will not be able to eat indoors at restaurants until June.
It won’t be worth it for many organisations. Some states have told us 10 indoor dining and the industry told us 10 wouldn’t be viable. Even 20 will make it very difficult, so we are trying to work through, with the industry, how we can get them back to being viable as quickly as possible. But we’ve got to do it in a safe way.
Shadow attorney general says use of national security law in defamation case is a first as the Coalition denies any sort of secret trial
Labor wants the national security watchdog to examine the government’s use of powers to enforce secrecy on the defamation proceedings involving Ben Roberts-Smith.
The government confirmed this week it had invoked the National Security Information Act in a civil case brought by Roberts-Smith, a special forces veteran who says stories published by the Age and the Sydney Morning Heralddefamed him by suggesting he was a war criminal. Nine Entertainment, which owns the newspapers, is defending the allegation.
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.
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.
On 22 March Morrison returned to his courtyard with another $66bn. Then on 30 March, Monday, the prime minister came back with $130bn for wage subsidies. Monday’s $130bn will be spent not over the four-year forward estimates, which is the budgetary convention. It will be spent over the next six months.
From fanning national anxiety with claims of a cyber-attack on MyGov, to a lack of empathy for the jobless, the government services minister has no grasp of the gravity of our times
“It was heartbreaking stuff yesterday Alan.”
“Alan”, naturally, is Alan Jones and our heartbreak town crier is Stuart Robert – the minister charged with rolling out government support to Australians knocked sideways courtesy of the coronavirus pandemic.