Category Archives: Melbourne

Victoria enters seven-day Covid lockdown with masks mandatory, schools closed and travel banned

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Officials say a week-long lockdown is needed because the coronavirus variant is spreading faster than contact tracers can keep up with

Victoria is entering a seven-day lockdown as authorities work to contain a rapidly spreading Covid outbreak that the acting premier has warned is “running faster than we have ever recorded”.

The government hopes the restrictions – which start at midnight and include compulsory masks, school closures and a 5km travel limit for shopping and exercise – will act as a circuit-breaker after the state reported 11 new cases of the B1617.1 variant on Thursday taking the cluster to 26.

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Coronavirus Australia live update: no further Covid restrictions in Victoria but next 24 hours ‘critical’ as Melbourne cluster grows to 15 cases

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Hundreds urged to get tested after positive cases went to a Collingwood game at the MCG, a salon in Bendigo and more cafes in Melbourne inner-city suburbs

Meanwhile

Water minister Keith Pitt has introduced legislation to establish the office of the Inspector-General of water compliance.

(Its the job he gave to Troy Grant, and a lot like the job David Littleproud gave to Mick Keelty sans powers).

This is well worth a read

Related: Snowy Hydro chief executive tells inquiry he’s known owner of NSW gas plant site for 40 years

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Australia news live: passenger on India flight tests positive for coronavirus; Singapore next potential travel bubble

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One passenger onboard Saturday’s repatriation flight from India tests positive for Covid in Howard Springs quarantine facility in Darwin. Follow all the latest news live

• Call for medevac-style repatriation flights for Australians with Covid from India
• Stranded cricketers touch down in Sydney two weeks after IPL suspended
• Measures to support refinery industry could cost Australians $2bn over a decade

Health Minister Greg Hunt has stepped up to speak at a press conference in Somerville in Victoria, giving an update on the vaccination program.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian earlier today expressed surprise at a legal loophole that allows students to bring knives into schools.

It comes after a 14-year-old boy at Glenwood High School in Sydney’s North West faces serious charges after allegedly stabbing a 16-year-old boy with a “religious knife.”

Students should not be allowed to take knives into school under any circumstances and I think it doesn’t pass the common sense test.

Even if they’re not using weapons, others might take them from them so I was very taken back when I learnt that.

Schools in NSW are among the safest places in the community, and Glenwood High School is one of those schools.

We are currently working with the department and community representatives to discuss how best to enable students to meet aspects of their religious faith and, at the same time, to ensure our school remains a safe place.

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Victorian treasurer takes swipe at ‘elitist’ men’s only clubs as budget lifts property taxes

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Tim Pallas announces plans to strip single-gender social clubs of land tax concessions traditionally afforded to charities

The Victorian government has taken a swipe at exclusive men’s only clubs, announcing plans to strip them of land tax concessions traditionally afforded to charities and social associations.

Victoria’s treasurer, Tim Pallas, is preparing to deliver the state’s 2021 budget next Thursday, and staring down an eye-watering bill from the devastating Covid-19 second wave. In order to raise revenue Pallas has announced new land tax measures, expected to bring in an extra $2.7bn over the next four years.

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Australian neo-Nazi Tom Sewell charged by counter-terrorism police

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Police say the arrests of Sewell and another man in Melbourne followed an investigation into an alleged armed robbery

Australian neo-Nazi Tom Sewell has been charged by police in Victoria over an alleged armed robbery earlier this month.

On Friday, counter-terrorism police arrested two men – 28-year-old Sewell and another 22-year-old – and executed search warrants in Eildon Parade in the Melbourne suburb of Rowville.

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Alleged Isis recruiter Mohamed Zuhbi arrested on return to Australia

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Sydney man charged with terrorism offences after he allegedly travelled to Turkey in 2013 and on to Syria, where police say he recruited foreign fighters for Isis

A 30-year-old Sydney man who is alleged to be an Islamic State recruiter has been arrested and charged with terrorism offences upon his return to Australia.

Mohamed Zuhbi arrived in Melbourne on a flight from Turkey about 4pm on Saturday and was taken into custody by counterterrorism authorities at the airport.

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Has Australia’s economy escaped the pandemic? – Australian Politics podcast

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This week, Katharine Murphy sits down with economics writers Shane Wright and Greg Jericho to discuss the Australian economy. With house prices soaring, stimulus payments being reduced and a budget on the way, what can people expect financially over the coming months?

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Australia news live: Scott Morrison says Brittany Higgins meeting ‘in process’; Victoria to make mRNA Covid vaccine

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State commits $50m to domestic manufacturing of cutting-edge vaccines; former Liberal staffer to ask Scott Morrison to fix ‘systemic coercive control’ in Parliament House. Follow live

That is where we will leave the blog for Wednesday. Thanks for following along. Here’s what made the news today:

The government has closed a loophole that would have allowed Australians to use New Zealand as a stepping stone to travelling to another country following the opening of the Trans Tasman travel bubble.

On Monday, health minister Greg Hunt amended the biosecurity legislation to specify that Australians could not go to any country other than New Zealand. Unlike Australia, New Zealand does not have an outbound travel ban.

Travellers should be aware that international travel to any other country, except New Zealand, continues to pose a significant risk to public health, and for that reason outgoing travel to other countries remains restricted.

“Australians considering travel outside of Australia or New Zealand are still required to apply for an exemption from the outgoing travel restrictions through ABF, and ensure they review the information available on Smartraveller relevant to their destination.”

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Daniel Andrews walking 18 minutes a day as he recovers from serious back injury

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Victorian premier says he’s making ‘steady progress’ after a ‘pretty painful’ few weeks

Daniel Andrews says he’s making steady progress in his recovery from a serious back injury and is now walking about 18 minutes a day.

Victoria’s premier suffered broken ribs and a fractured T7 vertebra after slipping on wet stairs at a holiday home on the Mornington Peninsula on 9 March.

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‘We want to deliver’: Covid vaccine delays hit vulnerable Melbourne tower residents

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Community health groups have nurses, GPs and locals ‘ready to go’, but a lack of deliveries has forced them to cancel vaccination clinics

For the past four months, in the towering Richmond housing estate of Melbourne, community health workers have been hard at work, preparing locals for the arrival of the Covid-19 vaccine.

It’s a difficult but vital task. Many of the roughly 2,000 residents are vulnerable or elderly, use shared services and are densely packed into the estate’s five towers, creating a high-risk Covid-19 environment.

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Brittany Higgins addresses March 4 Justice rally as women demand action across Australia

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Former Liberal staffer and Grace Tame among those to address tens of thousands of protesters calling for an end to gender-based violence

Brittany Higgins’ voice shook as she addressed the crowd outside Parliament House in Canberra.

She had decided at the last minute to speak to more than a thousand people, mainly women, holding signs calling for justice for women, for sexual assault survivors and for Higgins herself, who has alleged she was raped by a colleague inside Parliament House.

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‘It’s a funeral march’: French artist JR’s powerful eulogy for Australia’s Murray-Darling

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Exclusive: The street artist’s latest work saw 60 people parade through Lake Cawndilla in NSW, holding aloft enormous portraits of local farmers and leaders as they fight to save Australia’s vital river system

The mood around Lake Cawndilla in western New South Wales on Saturday is funereal but defiant, as a procession of around 60 locals parade through scrub and sand around its banks.

They carry between them a series of 30m-long cloth figures: three local citrus farmers and prominent Baakandji artist William Badger Bates.

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Australia’s travel bubble with New Zealand to resume as Victoria records no new Covid cases

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Quarantine-free travel for New Zealanders entering Australia will restart from Sunday

Australia’s coronavirus travel bubble with New Zealand will recommence on Sunday, the Department of Health has announced.

In a statement issued on Saturday afternoon, the department said “green zone” flights from New Zealand could resume at 12.01am on Sunday, subject to some conditions.

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Australia’s international travel ban and arrivals cap investigated by audit office

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Australian National Audit Office launches inquiry into pandemic border policies, including biosecurity and the adequacy of assistance to those stranded overseas

Australia’s international border policies including the outbound travel ban and inbound arrival caps will be examined by the Australian National Audit Office.

After first proposing the audit in September, the ANAO quietly activated the inquiry in mid-January and has called for submissions on the management of the Australian border to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

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Victoria Covid hotspots: list of Melbourne and regional Vic coronavirus case locations

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Here are the current coronavirus hotspots in Victoria and what to do if you’ve visited them

Victorian authorities have released a list of public exposure sites visited by a confirmed case of Covid-19.

This comes after a hotel quarantine at one of the hotels used to isolate international tennis players and officials in Melbourne for the Australia Open tested positive to the virus.

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Coronavirus live news: New Zealand puts Auckland in level 3 lockdown; Australia to receive first Pfizer vaccine delivery this week

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Victoria’s Holiday Inn outbreak rises to 16 cases on second day of state lockdown; Boris Johnson urges G7 leader to unite against virus. Follow the latest updates live

The press conference in Wellington, held in response to the discovery of three community cases in Auckland, has now finished. As of 11.59PM tonight Auckland will be placed under tougher restrictions, at level three, while the rest of the country will be moved to level two restrictions. (Details of the alert levels can be found online here).

Ardern said she was asking the public “to be strong and to be kind”:

I know we all feel the same way when this happens, we all get that sense of - not again. But remember we have been here before and that means we know how to get out of this again, and that is together. If you know someone in Auckland reach out, please check on them. If you are in Auckland please check on your neighburs and ensure they are looked after and supported.

Related: New Zealand Covid outbreak: Ardern puts Auckland into three-day lockdown

Dr Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s director-general of health, said officials were working under the assumption that the new Auckland cases were one of the new variants of Covid-19. “Regardless of where people have come from, these are the common variants and we do know they are more transmissible,” he said.

Ardern said that the decision to introduce tougher restrictions was “not taken lightly”. However, the cost to the economy would be far greater, she said, if the country was slow to react.

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France hospitals in ‘crisis organisation’ – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. We’ve launched a new blog at the link below:

We’ve launched a new blog at the link below – head there for the latest:

Related: Coronavirus live news: UK variant hits New Zealand; CDC says 'absolutely' too soon to lift US mask mandate

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Daniel Andrews announces five-day ‘circuit breaker’ as Victoria goes into Covid lockdown – video

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Victoria will enter a snap five-day coronavirus lockdown from Saturday in an attempt to halt the spread of a UK variant outbreak in response to its hyper-infectivity. Premier Dan Andrews made the announcement that will see the entire state return to stage 4 restrictions where Victorians are only able to leave their homes for four permitted reasons: shopping for essential items, essential work, exercise for two hours a day, or caregiving for compassionate reasons. Masks will be compulsory in all settings outside the home, all private gatherings are barred and a 5km ban on movement has been reintroduced

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Snap five-day Covid lockdown for Victoria announced in bid to contain UK variant

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Daniel Andrews says stage four lockdown is to prevent a third wave in response to ‘hyper-infectivity’ of variant

Victoria will enter a “circuit-breaker” five-day lockdown from Saturday in an attempt to “prevent a third wave”, Daniel Andrews has announced.

The premier said on Friday afternoon the government would impose a snap lockdown from midnight because the “hyper-infectivity” and speed of a UK variant outbreak had created a “very real challenge”.

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Coronavirus Australia live update: Dan Andrews to hold press conference about Melbourne Covid cases amid lockdown speculation

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NSW asks 7,000 people to isolate after visiting Melbourne airport Terminal 4. Andrew Demetriou resigns from Crown after scathing report. Follow live

Things aren’t looking amazing for Melburnians hoping to see their Queensland lovers for Valentine’s Day. But until we hear the Queensland health minister’s announcement at 12.15pm Brisbane time, I guess there is still hope!

Queensland acting health minister @StevenJMiles will be speaking about the unfolding virus situation in Melbourne at 12:15pm (Brisbane time).

People who have visited virus exposure sites in Melbourne are already barred from entering after 1am on Saturday.#qldpol #auspol

All of Melbourne Airport Terminal 4 is now considered a hotspot, not just Brunetti Cafe anymore.

Anyone who visited this location on Tuesday 9 February between 4.45am and 2.00pm must isolate, test and remain isolated for 14 days.

Following further investigation by our public health team Terminal 4, Melbourne Airport has been added to our list of Tier 1 exposure sites.

Anyone who visited this location on Tuesday 9th February between 04:45am – 2:00pm must isolate, test and remain isolated for 14 days.

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