Category Archives: Sydney

Australia coronavirus live update: Victoria records 73 new cases and 41 deaths as NSW records 10 new cases

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Figure of 41 deaths in Victoria includes 33 people who died in aged care but not reported until yesterday; legislation to extend but reduce jobkeeper and jobseeker payments will be considered by the Senate today. Follow all the latest news and updates, live

This report from AAP earlier today:

NSW deputy premier, John Barilaro, is calling for a national code to allow agricultural workers to cross state borders without permits.

Twenty Victorian aged care providers have been found to be non-compliant with standards under the Aged Care Act since July.

My colleague Melissa Davey has this report:

Related: Twenty Victorian aged care homes ordered to improve 'inadequate' standards after Covid outbreaks

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Coronavirus Australia live update: Victoria records 113 new Covid cases and 12 deaths as NSW reports 13 cases

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Queensland cancels schoolies events after three new coronavirus cases. Follow live

Coatsworth says he agrees with Scott Morrison’s comments that, even with a vaccine, there is not a “zero risk” of Covid-19.

“It is not simply me agreeing with the prime minister, every chief health officer agrees with that,” he says.

Coatsworth is asked about the Liberal MP Craig Kelly, who has been pushing the discredited drug hydroxychloroquine online as a treatment for Covid-19.

He is asked: “Are you concerned about him using his social media to promote those views against the scientific advice?”

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Victoria reports 113 new cases, NSW nine and Queensland two – as it happened

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Labor grills the Coalition on aged care and the PM discusses the foreign relations bill. This blog is now closed

That is where we will leave the live blog for this evening. If you want to follow the latest global coronavirus news you can follow our other live blog here.

Here’s what we learned today:

#breaking Sports rorts: 70% of grants from separate fund went to Coalition seats, Greens say #auspol #sportsrorts https://t.co/iej3ex14JO

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Australia coronavirus live update: Sydney quarantine hotel dumped as Morrison spends on defence – latest news

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NSW police say Wentworth Travelodge not up to standards as 400 guests moved. Follow all the latest news and updates, live

Scott Morrison made plenty of time to set a test for Anthony Albanese’s leadership in June, when the Victorian Labor branch stacking allegations were revealed - there were interviews and question time attacks and comments about being focussed on jobs while the Labor party was in rack and ruin.

But now that he is facing questions over the Liberals behaviour in Victoria, which implicates one of his own frontbenchers - Michael Sukkar, Morrison is very busy being focussed solely on the pandemic.

These matters have been referred by the Department of Finance and that’s the appropriate response and that’s where... No, I’ve been dealing with the COVID crisis. I’ve been dealing with getting people back into jobs. The matter has been referred to the Department of Finance. I don’t think that Australians would want me distracked by those issues at all.

This is quite the declaration of war within the Queensland Labor party - the CFMEU has announced it is immediately quitting the left faction.

That will have some serious implications for the power balance in the party:

The CFMEU will be withdrawing from the left faction of the Queensland ALP, effective immediately.

Both the Mining and the Construction & General divisions of the CFMEU have decided the union can be a more effective advocate for workers as a voice totally independent of a faction that has lost touch with its core values.

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Peter Foster behind bars in Sydney on 16 charges related to alleged online scam

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57-year-old refused bail after being extradited from Queensland

Peter Foster has been refused bail after appearing in a Sydney court on 16 fraud charges related to an alleged online scam.

Foster was extradited from Queensland by Sydney police officers on Monday night and charged at Mascot police station.

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Low blow: Sydney’s new ferries won’t fit under bridges while passengers on top deck

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Commuters will have to move before boats can travel under Camellia Railway Bridge and Gasworks Bridge on Parramatta River

The New South Wales government has confirmed that 10 newly purchased ferries will not be able to safely pass under bridges along the Parramatta River if commuters are sitting on the top decks.

Purchased from Indonesia, the new River Class ferries are set to join the NSW transport fleet later in the year, operating along the Parramatta River and on inner harbour routes.

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Coronavirus live news: new French cases surpass 3,000 for second day; Italy hits record cases since May

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Italy closes all discos; Spain takes new measures as infections soar; New Zealand adds 13 infections to total

The UK government has said that in the 24-hour period up to 9am on Sunday, there were a further 1,040 lab-confirmed cases of the coronavirus. Overall, a total of 318,484 cases have been confirmed in the UK.

As of Sunday, 41,366 people have died in the UK within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19. This was up by five from the day before.

Ireland’s health chiefs will meet on Monday to decide if further restrictions are needed to slow a sharp increase in the spread of coronavirus that the government and officials have described as deeply concerning.

Ireland has reopened its economy at a slower pace than most EU countries but that has not prevented a jump in cases over the last two weeks that led to the first localised reimposition of some restrictions last week.

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Australia weather: towns evacuated amid flash flooding warnings for NSW south coast and ACT

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SES orders parts of Moruya, Nowra and Captains Flat to evacuate as kayaker in Canberra dies and 400 calls for help come from Sydney and Blue Mountains

Several New South Wales south coast communities were on high alert on Monday morning as river levels continued to rise and towns evacuated.

The body of a kayaker was found in swollen river waters in southern Canberra on Sunday. He became separated from a group on the Murrumbidgee River near Canberra about 2pm on Sunday, after his boat became stuck under a bridge.

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Victoria records Australia’s worst day of Covid-19 with 15 deaths and 725 new cases

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Premier Daniel Andrews confirms a man in his 30s is the youngest person to die from coronavirus in Australia

Wednesday marked Victoria’s most devastating day of Covid-19 cases and deaths, with a man in his 30s among 15 people who died overnight including many from aged care, and 725 new cases of the virus identified.

Three men and a woman in their 70s, three women and a man in their 80s, and a woman in her 90s were among the deaths. Twelve deaths were linked to outbreaks in aged care.

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Coronavirus Australia live update: Victoria premier Daniel Andrews to announce more stage four restrictions as NSW reports 13 new Covid-19 cases – latest news

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Premier to outline further details of state’s new lockdown, including business shutdowns. Follow all the latest news and updates, live

NSW police have released information on the fines they have issued for social distance breaches:

Police have issued a total of 16 Penalty Infringement Notices (PINs) for non-compliance with Covid-19 Public Health Orders across the weekend.

The Business Council of Australia and the Australian Council of Trade Unions – not known for being on the same side of a lot of issues – have released a joint letter calling for a paid pandemic leave scheme:

Dear Attorney,

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Close encounter: mother and calf humpback whales stun surfers at Sydney’s Manly beach

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Images show dozens of surfers about 10 metres from whales, which migrate up and down the Australian coast

A humpback whale calf, closely followed by its mother, came within metres of surfers and swimmers at Manly beach, in Sydney’s north, on Sunday afternoon.

It is unusual to see a whale calf so early in the year in Sydney. Eastern Australian humpbacks migrate north from Antarctica, along the coast to tropical waters in north Queensland from April to July.

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Ruby Princess passengers let off ship after border force officer confused flu and coronavirus test results

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Labor again calls on the Morrison government to apologise ‘for failing to stop the one boat that mattered’

An Australian Border Force officer who inspected the Ruby Princess mistakenly believed passengers with flu-like symptoms had tested negative to Covid-19 when they had in fact tested negative to the flu.

That revelation, first reported by the ABC, is contained in documents to the New South Wales inquiry into the disastrous mid-March decision to allow 2,700 passengers to disembark the ship responsible for hundreds of Covid-19 cases and at least 22 deaths.

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Sydney coronavirus toilet paper stoush: mother and daughter found guilty

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Meriam Bebawy took the law into her own hands after another shopper grabbed a packet of toilet paper from her trolley at Woolworths, a magistrate has found

A Sydney magistrate has likened a coronavirus-fuelled stoush over toilet paper to a rugby league bust-up as he found a mother and daughter guilty of affray.

Health worker Meriam Bebawy, 23, and her daycare operator mother, Treiza Bebawy, 61, have been sentenced over an altercation with another woman at a Woolworths store in Chullora on 7 March.

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Coronavirus live news: cases spreading out of control in Hong Kong; UK infection rate flat, says ONS head

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Record 100 new daily cases confirmed in Hong Kong; UK’s head of Office for National Statistics calls for scaling up of testing; South Africa’s cases become fifth-highest worldwide

Thirty-nine people were detained after police were attacked with “a hail of bottles” at an open-air party in central Frankfurt attended by thousands of youngsters, police in the German city said today..

Five officers were injured in the riot that began at around 3:00 am (0100 GMT) when police intervened to stop a brawl involving around 30 people in Frankfurt’s historic Opera square.

People who travel outside of Ireland have been warned they will invalidate their travel insurance even if the place they visit is on a so-called ‘green list’ of safe countries to by published this week, the Irish Times reports.

It added that travel insurance exclusions denying cover to people who travel contrary to official guides are the norm across the sector. At present, the advice from the Irish Government is that non-essential journeys overseas should be avoided.

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Coronavirus Victoria: three more deaths and 363 new cases reported as masks made mandatory in Melbourne

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Daniel Andrews’s announcement on face coverings comes as state tries to control a second wave of Covid-19

• Follow the latest global news live
• NSW reports 18 new cases, the highest number in three months
• What you need to know about Melbourne’s stage 3 lockdown rules
• Melbourne map: where Covid-19 cases are rising or falling
• Sign up for Guardian Australia’s coronavirus email

Victoria has recorded 363 new Covid-19 cases and three more people have died as premier Daniel Andrews announced face masks will be made mandatory across Melbourne as the state attempts to control a second-wave outbreak of the virus.

At a press conference on Sunday, Andrews appeared wearing a face mask and said residents in metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell shire would be required to wear “masks or face coverings”, including bandannas or scarves in public from midnight on Wednesday.

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Coronavirus Australia: Victoria records three more Covid-19 deaths and 217 new cases as PM postpones parliament

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Australia’s acting chief medical officer warns people in Sydney are not taking precautions ‘as seriously’ as in Melbourne

Victoria has recorded 217 new cases of Covid-19 and three more deaths, as the prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced parliament would be postponed due to the health risks of MPs travelling to Canberra from Melbourne and south-western Sydney.

Victoria’s chief health officer, Brett Sutton, described the 217 cases as “a relief” following a record 428 new cases announced on Friday, and a then-record 317 new cases on Thursday.

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NSW on ‘extra high alert’ for Covid-19 resurgence as hotel crackdown announced

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Premier Gladys Berejiklian details stricter regime for pubs as cluster linked to the Crossroads Hotel grows to 30 cases

New South Wales is on “extra high alert” for a widespread Covid-19 resurgence and will require so-called hygiene marshals to enforce social distancing at every pub in the state.

The crackdown comes after patrons who visited a Sydney hotel at the centre of the state’s largest outbreak expressed concern over relaxed safety practices and the pub’s manager conceded more could have been done to record visitors’ contact details.

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Crossroads Hotel: thousands told to isolate for two weeks as Sydney coronavirus cluster grows

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Nine cases have been added to the cluster in Casula and the contact dates have been widened to 3 to 10 July

Thousands of pub-goers have been asked to self-isolate for two weeks after a hotel staff member and three other people became the latest cases in an emerging coronavirus cluster.

The 18-year-old staffer and a close contact in her 50s, plus a woman in her 40s and a Victorian man in his 20s, who both dined at the venue, were on Sunday confirmed as new cases linked to Sydney’s Crossroads Hotel cluster.

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NSW government backs multimillion-dollar lifeline for Sydney arts hub Carriageworks

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The arts institution, which is home to eight resident arts companies, had gone into voluntary administration in May

Sydney arts institution Carriageworks has been saved from administration after the NSW government backed a multi-million dollar lifeline from a group of 15 philanthropists.

The multi-arts organisation that operates performance and gallery spaces in repurposed 1880s locomotive workshops in Sydney’s inner west owes more than $2m to more than 140 creditors, and went into voluntary administration on 4 May.

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