Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
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 operator of a private retirement village attempted to stop a woman taking possession of her deceased grandparents’ land on the fringes of Sydney, claiming it as their own using squatters’ rights.
Australian Retirement Holdings were using the block of land, owned by Monica Pritchard and her husband, Arthur Pritchard, until their deaths in 1990, as part of construction of a multimillion-dollar development past Campbelltown in south-western Sydney.
New South Wales will introduce a home quarantine “pilot” for international arrivals as part of a plan to begin opening international borders even as parts of the state returned to lockdown.
The pilot, which will be run as a partnership between the NSW government and the commonwealth, will trial a seven-day home quarantine program for about 175 fully vaccinated people.
In Islam, it is essential that the dead are buried as soon as possible. The body is washed, prayed over, taken to the cemetery and buried, with some small prayer or invocation said by the grave.
It is usually a quick process, sometimes drawn out by lingering family, but one that can be shortened in times of difficulty, such as in a pandemic.
NSW has marked its most deadly day so far during the Delta outbreak with 12 Covid-19 deaths however the case numbers have continued to stabilise with 1,259 cases, 'We’ve seen a stabilisation in the last few days and we don’t want to see that trend go the wrong way', said premier Gladys Berejiklian. The state also hit its 80% target of over 16-years-olds receiving their first dose of Covid vaccine which has meant NSW Health has lifted the curfew in the Sydney LGAs of concern. Berejiklian also reinforced her message that any further easing of restrictions in the future will only be available to those fully vaccinated saying 'there is no grey area. It's very black and white'
Gladys Berejiklian has revealed a roadmap out of lockdown for the state, and an easing of restrictions for some parts of regional NSW. Here’s the full list of what you can and can’t do in NSW and the ACT
The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has revealed a roadmap out of lockdown for the state, and an easing of restrictions for some parts of regional NSW.
From Saturday 11 September, parts of regional NSW that had seen zero Covid cases for at least 14 days emerged from lockdown. One of those areas, Yass Valley Council, was plunged back into a two-week lockdown from Tuesday 14 September after a new Covid case was detected.
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.
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.
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian says Covid-19 case numbers are expected to continue rising and peak in the next two weeks after a record high 1,431 new cases and 12 deaths were recorded across the state. 'In terms of hospitalisation in ICU beds, there is often a week or two week lag. It means that the highest number of people in our intensive care wards are likely to present during the month of October,' Berejiklian said.
Friday's numbers were the highest daily infection figures ever recorded by an Australian jurisdiction in a day.
A Covid-positive person in Sydney was admitted to Westmead hospital suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea after overdosing on ivermectin and other drugs ordered online, as Australia’s chief medical officer pleads with the public not to take unproven medicine.
Westmead hospital’s toxicologist, Naren Gunja, said the case was part of a growing trend the hospital was seeing of people taking unproven online cures for Covid. The patient didn’t get severe toxicity from taking the ivermectin cocktail, “but it didn’t help their Covid either”, he said.
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.
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.
Meanwhile, mRNA supplies should be increasing over the next couple of months, but older Australians who waited to have a choice could find themselves at the back of the queue:
Brisbane is getting its second mass vaccination hub, this time in the Boondall entertainment centre. That will open up on 8 September, and help take the pressure off the existing hub, which is in the city.
For those in NSW, a new venue of concern has been released by NSW Health.
⚠️PUBLIC HEALTH ALERT – NEW VENUES OF CONCERN⚠️
We have been notified of a number of new close and casual contact venues of concern associated with confirmed cases of COVID 19. pic.twitter.com/3F7VnSkGk9
I’m just about to finish up for the day!
But before I leave you in the extremely capable hands of my colleague, Elias Visontay, let’s take a look back at today’s biggest headlines:
Covid-19 patients from Sydney's Concord hospital have shared their experience of the Delta variant's symptoms and pleaded for Sydneysiders to get vaccinated. Lung specialist Lucy Morgan shared the stories of 50-year-old construction worker Fawaz, 30-year-old pharmacy worker Ramona and 35-year-old tradie Osama in a video from Sydney Local Health District. Fawaz and Osama infected family members who have also been hospitalised, while single mother Ramona says she has been unable to see her children for weeks
Delta may be gripping the city and dominating headlines but global warming is still the number one issue for many
Voters in three Liberal-held federal seats in metropolitan Sydney remain worried about climate change despite the pressing frustrations and uncertainties associated with the Delta outbreak, according to new electorate-level polling commissioned by an activist group.
New seat polls commissioned by Climate 200, an organisation supporting independent political candidates committed to achieving a science-based response to climate change, suggest global heating is the number one issue of concern for voters in the electorates of Wentworth and North Sydney.
More than 30 people were fined $1,000 each at the Blacktown Christ Embassy Sydney church gathering, just hours before stronger lockdown measures came into force
NSW police have issued 31 fines to people who attended an illegal Sunday night church service in Blacktown in the heart of Sydney’s Covid-19 outbreak hotspots.
Police went to Christ Embassy Sydney church around 7.30pm on Sunday after being tipped off about a gathering in breach of public health orders.
Anti-lockdown protesters clashed violently with police as thousandsof unmasked people marched through the streets of Melbourne on Saturday.
Victoria police said they had made 218 arrests and that six officers were hospitalised during a series of altercations. Police said in a statement the majority of the estimated 4,000 demonstrators “came with violence in mind”.