Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
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”.
A second South Australian MP has been referred to an official investigator over allegations of bullying, AAP reports.
Treasurer Rob Lucas says he has referred allegations against Labor MP Tony Piccolo to the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, said just a moment ago that expanding access to the Pfizer vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds was something being worked through.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese is pushing for a plan.
Parents worried about the effect that lockdowns are having on their kids are now more concerned than ever that their children might catch Covid.
And right now, Mr Morrison doesn’t have a plan for our kids to access a vaccine when it’s safe to do so.
Shopper Helaina Alati, who happens to be a former snake catcher, was luckily on hand to return the three-metre python to nearby bushland
A three-metre-long python has surprised shoppers in a Sydney supermarket by slithering along a shelf in the spice section with a Woolworths spokesperson saying it was a “slippery and rare customer”.
“Only in Australia!” Hilary Leigh wrote in a Facebook post when sharing a video of the large snake at the Glenorie supermarket in Sydney’s north-west.
We are now just waiting for NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian to step up for the daily Covid-19 press conference where we learn the state’s daily numbers.
We are expecting that in about 10 minutes, so stay tuned.
Sydney radio station 2GB is reporting a staff member from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Syndey has tested positive to Covid-19 and may have been infectious while working.
A staff member at RPA Hospital in Sydney has tested positive to COVID-19. The worker was fully vaccinated but potentially infectious while working on August 10, 11, 12 + 13 in the nuclear medicine department. There has been no transmission to other staff or patients to date.
12 Sydney LGAs to get half of the one million extra Pfizer doses secured from Poland; rapid antigen testing to be trialled in some Sydney aged care homes. This blog is now closed
We’ll leave it there for now. Here are today’s main developments:
Police are cracking down on large gatherings in breach of Victoria’s lockdown restrictions, reports AAP.
In the inner city, dozens congregated for a takeaway drink pub crawl event on the streets of Richmond on Saturday, while in Northcote about 200 people gathered for a street party.
A noisy minority in NSW’s northern rivers are pushing back against Covid-19 restrictions
Benny Zable has lived in Nimbin on and off since 1973, when he arrived in town for the Aquarius festival – the event that seeded counterculture and escapist lifestyles into the northern rivers of New South Wales.
The 75-year-old artist and activist is a storied figure in this part of Australia, now a heartland for alternative health and wellness advocates, and notorious for low immunisation rates. He was also the first person from Nimbin to show up for a Covid-19 vaccine.
Barr has acknowledged the long waiting times at testing sites throughout the state, and has asked people who have been contacted by ACT Health as close or casual contacts to come forward as priority for testing:
We will be expanding testing capacity, hours of operations and the number of people at each existing testing centre can manage in a day but yesterday was our all-time record number of tests. We expect today will be even busier and we have stood additional testing capacity.
So please, if you do not have symptoms and you are not an identified close contact, you do not need to be tested today. Please, stay-at-home. There will be an opportunity to be tested in the days ahead but the priority right now is to test those people who ACT health have contacted.
The ACT has recorded two new Covid-19 cases, bringing the total to six. It has identified 1,862 close contacts and that number will grow.
There are more casual contacts. There were more than 2,000 tests yesterday and results have been received on about 1,330 of them.
Chief Executive of Western NSW Local Health District, Scott McLachlan, tells @PatsKarvelas that the majority of COVID cases in regional NSW outbreaks at the moment - including Dubbo and Walgett - are Aboriginal people.
Staying with the Walgett outbreak, my colleague Nino Bucci has been digging into this story.
Melbourne faces the possibility of a lockdown extension as shopping centre workers ordered into quarantine; new cases emerge across regional NSW. Follow all the day’s news
Queensland LNP MP George Christensen has spoken to Sydney radio 2GB about being censured through a parliamentary motion yesterday.
The whole House, including the government, voted to support Labor’s motion disassociating the parliament with Christensen’s anti-lockdown and anti-public health measure comments yesterday (although Scott Morrison couldn’t bring himself to name or reference Christensen in his speech and just a hour or so later, cabinet minister Paul Fletcher declined five times on national TV to say he disagreed with Christensen’s views)
Happy Wednesday!
It’s not just hump day; we’re also halfway through the parliamentary sitting. At this stage, there’s a week break and then it’s back into it, but you have to wonder whether any of the east coast MPs will risk going home, given how quickly Covid is changing the landscape. Although, it doesn’t seem like anyone is missing the deputy prime minister, who has been in lockdown in Armidale, and apparently, unable to zoom in for the sitting (he has answered no questions in QT and offered no contributions to debate).
All things going as normal, we should hear from the NSW authorities around 11am
A women’s and children’s hospital in St Albans has been listed as a tier one exposure site in Melbourne.
The maternity assessment centre at Joan Kirner women’s and children’s hospital on Furlong Road was listed on the Victorian exposure site list late last night. Anyone who attended the centre between 8.15am and 2.45pm on Friday 6 August has been ordered to isolate immediately for 14 days, get tested, and notify the Department of Health. The pathology lab – Dorevitch Pathology – on the ground floor of the same hospital has also been listed as a tier one site.
The new drive-through vaccination clinic will have capacity to administer 10,000 vaccines per week. That’s a conservative number, Bromley says, and may be limited by Pfizer supply.
She urges people to book ahead before turning up at the drive-through clinic.
To start it will be 10 cars at a time. Obviously this week all the processes will be reviewed and they’ll make it as big and as fast as efficient as possible. But we’ll start with 10 cars coming through.
Bromley says the rest of the state-run clinics will soon be allowed to deliver the AstraZeneca vaccine to under 40s. Only nine will be used initially, to test demand and the informed consent process.
So we’ll just do that initially, open up the nine hubs and the reason for that is, A, we want to see what the demand is. We want to know that we’re going to be able to manage that and we want to make sure that the process, because there is an additional process, as Brett sort of talked through, for these individuals coming through, they will go through a slightly more rigorous consent process. We want to make sure we got the systems and the workforce all set up perfectly so it’s running smoothly and so it doesn’t impact on the overall efficiency of the system.
Hazzard is the asked if the health system is being overwhelmed:
The health system is under stress as you would expect because there are a number of cases that are coming into our hospitals and our patients are being cared for, but they want to thank our nurses, our doctors, our cleaners, administrative staff who are there every day putting themselves at the front line to keep us all safe and I would just say again to people who might want to walk into our hospitals, if you do have COVID symptoms, cough, cold, temperature, anything that you think might be COVID, bring ahead and let them know that you are coming in so that they can keep themselves safe.
We have to keep our health staff safe so you can be safe. But certainly, anybody who thinks the health system in any country where we have a Delta variant is not under stress is getting themselves. Of course it is under stress but our health professionals are doing a great job.
As per usual, health minister Brad Hazzard has given his colourful daily take, today urging HSC students to “go for gold” in getting the Pfizer vaccine, and then listed off all the “stars” who have performed at the Qudos Arena, where the pop-up hub will be set up:
We’ve seen our Olympic stars go for gold, we’ve seen the most amazing stars in the Qudos Bank Arena, I think there has been Lana Del Rey, Keith Urban, Pink, Madonna, you have a chance to go to that stadium next week and get some gold by getting your first vaccination, your first Pfizer vaccination.
This is your big chance to really go for gold. You are getting an opportunity that so many others haven’t yet managed to achieve and is there to light up your future by having your safety and security looked after.
Anthony Albanese wants the Morrison government to provide a one-off $300 payment to every person who has been fully vaccinated by 1 December. Follow latest updates
David Gillespie has been seen in the parliament – so Christian Porter has been chosen to be the acting leader of the house, ahead of Gillespie who is the deputy leader of the house.
Barnaby Joyce will be holding a press conference in 15 minutes to talk extended support for the aviation industry.
Gladys Berejiklian has said New South Wales plans to break vaccination records this month in an effort to control Covid-19, as the state recorded 239 new cases – the equal-highest daily figure in the current Delta outbreak.
The NSW premier on Sunday said higher vaccination rates were the “only way to live with Delta or any other horrific strain that comes along” and urged people in NSW to make August their month to come out and get vaccinated.
People who do not comply with Covid-19 pandemic restrictions are mostly male, more extroverted and more likely to put their own self-interests above those of others, suggests a new study of behaviours internationally.
University of Sydney researchers assessed behaviours and attitudes towards Covid regulations in 1,575 people in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US between April and May last year, during the first wave of the pandemic.