Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The Victorian state government won’t release a three-page email chain in which a decision to put Melbourne under a coronavirus curfew was made, reports Karen Sweeney from AAP.
Victorian opposition MP David Davis requested all documents relating to the curfew to be released under Freedom of Information.
These are the documents that relate directly to the decision to put Melbourne under a curfew and the reality, in our view, is there is little reason the documents should not be in the public domain.
We have one document - it is three pages of an email chain containing legal advice.
It is a single document - it may just be a single decision has to be made by the tribunal...
It’s just hard to see why this has been strung out for so long.
It’s worth considering how soon this lockdown is coming after the end of jobkeeper and how close it is cutting it to the start of the federal government’s half-priced plane ticket program.
Jobkeeper ended on Sunday, and the tourism sector support program is slated to start on 1 April.
Federal Liberal MP Andrew Laming has pleaded for privacy after announcing he will not recontest the next election, saying he will seek immediate help to improve his behaviour.
Following a series of reports about Laming’s poor behaviour towards women, including an incident where he allegedly photographed a woman’s bottom, the Queensland MP said he would “own those mistakes” and quit parliament.
Health authorities in Queensland are scrambling to track down contacts of two Brisbane friends who tested positive for coronavirus, amid fresh concerns about the outbreak growing.
Queensland Health said on Saturday night one of the men, aged 26, held a house party in Strathpine while he was waiting on his test result, despite instructions to self-isolate. But on Sunday morning, Queensland police contradicted that advice and said only five people had been directed to quarantine.
Queensland authorities have released a list of hotspots where Covid-positive people have visited while infectious.
Any individuals who have been in the below locations during the relevant times are considered close contacts and asked to immediately home quarantine (for 14 days), even if you receive a negative result, and complete the contact-tracing self-assessment or call 13HEALTH (13 43 25 84):
School closures as more rain, flooding expected on mid-north coast; major flooding expected along the Hawkesbury River in western Sydney, as well as the Macleay River at Kempsey and Smithtown, and the Hastings River. Follow the latest news
Morrison warned the damage from the floods could be significant.
This is an ongoing situation that is evolving and is extremely dangerous. And we are meeting regularly to be updated on the events and to direct our response. We are grateful at this point that no lives have been lost so far.
But weakened foundations for buildings, of roads and trees, they all create risk as do downed power lines and rising water levels. So we ask all Australians in these affected areas to please use caution. Check and on your neighbours and those who you know that are alone.
As is appropriate this time, many members supporting their communities are not here in this place. Another deputy premised and the Minister for government services and other ministers are also reaching out and working closely with the mayors and other communities ensuring they receive every support. This will be a very difficult week for hundreds of thousands of Australians if not more as we face the immediacy of the floods, and there will be many difficult months ahead as the cleanup and recovery from this natural disaster gets under way.
We have very competent agencies and our state governments stopping they are very good at dealing with these types of emergencies. They are doing a tremendous job right now and theAustralian government is standing together with them in ensuring they can be delivering on this most urgent of times. But above all, we rely on Australians themselves. They have shown, as we came together, we can get through these things when we work together, and that is what we will do in the hours, days, weeks and months ahead, responding to this disaster like those before and then rebuilding and recovering afterwards.
Prime minister Scott Morrison is addressing parliament about the floods.
Mr Speaker, Australia is being tested once again. The east coast of Australia, predominantly New South Wales but also in south-east Queensland, has experienced an extraordinary deluge over recent days. Rains are expected for at least the next 24 and 48 hours.
In south-east Queensland, there has been intense rainfall with more than 300 SES requests for assistance, over the 24 hours until this morning with crews working through the night.
I want to acknowledge and pay tribute and say thank you on behalf of all of us here in this place Mr Speaker for the extraordinary efforts of our volunteers and the emergency services and responding to this terrible event. And there is a serious risk still ahead. Heavy rainfall is likely to continue up much of the eastern half of New South Wales and into southern Queensland today and tomorrow. Heavy falls will also develop over northern and central inland parts of New South Wales tomorrow, bringing the risk of flash and significant river flooding to several additional catchments. A different low pressure system is also expected to form off the southern New South Wales coast, bringing rainfall they are also.
Thankfully, the current forecast has conditions easing statewide from early Wednesday but we will watch and see. Mr Speaker, I want to assure residents and all storm and flood affected areas that all parts of government are working closely together.
We understand that this is likely to be for recovery support and cleanup operations including personnel, vehicles and machinery stopping the premier and they were discussing that over the weekend. We have also been just advised now in discussions on the potential for heavy lift aerial support but this is also still to be scoped.
Locals who have endured months of mice and rats getting into their houses, stores and cars are praying heavy rain will help wipe them out Warning: graphic images may disturb some readers
Drought, fire, the Covid-19 pestilence and an all-consuming plague of mice. Rural New South Wales has faced just about every biblical challenge nature has to offer in the last few years, but now it is praying for another – an almighty flood to drown the mice in their burrows and cleanse the blighted land of the rodents. Or some very heavy rain, at least.
It seems everyone in the rural towns of north-west NSW and southern Queensland has their own mouse war story. In posts online, they detail waking up to mouse droppings on their pillows or watching the ground move at night as hundreds of thousands of rodents flee from torchlight beams.
The body of Toyah Cordingley, 24, was found in sand dunes north of Cairns in October 2018
Australia has taken the first step towards catching a runaway suspect believed to have murdered Toyah Cordingley on a Queensland beach before fleeing to India.
It has been two-and-a-half years since the body of the 24-year-old was found in the dunes of Wangetti beach, north of Cairns, following what police called “a personal and intimate attack”.
More than 100 federally funded clinics will take bookings for Covid-19 jabs from Friday and will begin administering them from Monday. Follow latest updates
This is Elias Visontay bringing you this morning’s main stories: some Covid vaccine developments, a growing political feud, and misogyny culture in the spotlight across the globe.
Month-long restrictions to come into force as officials warn virus could rip through PNG’s fragile health system ‘like a tornado’
Papua New Guinea will go into a month-long nationwide isolation in an effort to arrest a spiralling Covid-19 outbreak that threatens to rip through the country’s fragile health system “like a tornado”, health officials say, shutting hospitals and leaving wards without sufficient staff.
Hospitals across the country have already been forced to shut wards and departments, overwhelmed by a combination of staff becoming infected with the coronavirus, surging patient demand, and swingeing budget cuts.
Board belonging to big wave surfer Danny Griffiths believed to have made the journey via New Zealand
An Australian surfer has found a surfboard he lost four years ago after it floated at sea for thousands of kilometres, from the bottom of Australia to the top – potentially via New Zealand.
Danny Griffiths, a big wave surfer, lost his favourite board after he crashed off a wave at the very southern tip of Tasmania. It was found, covered in barnacles, by two brothers near Townsville in north Queensland, more than 2,700km away.
After 100,000 women marched for justice on Monday, the federal government faces scrutiny over whether it’s listening. Follow all today’s latest news and updates, live
Scott Morrison’s address to the joint party room spoke about the March4Justice issues, as well as the wider concerns about harassment and abuse at work, included a comparison to the Kokoda Trail.
He said, according to Sky News’ Andrew Clennell,
He actually compared it to walking the Kokoda Trail, is what I’ve been told out of the party room and said we are on a narrow path, we have to look after each other and focus on what matters.”
You wonder how you’ve got over the first hill and the next one’s even bigger.
That’s what it’s like in the pandemic,” he said, citing the next hill as being weaning the economy off government support.
More than 100,000 women are expected to march in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to demand action in response to allegations of workplace abuse. Follow latest updates
Janine Hendry, a founder and organiser of the March4Justice, explained to the ABC this morning about why organisers turned down Scott Morrison’s offer of a private meeting with a small number of march delegates:
I think it is really quite disrespectful to the women whose voices need to be heard to have a meeting with our prime minister behind closed doors.
I have invited the prime minister, as I have all other sitting members of parliament, to come and march with us, to come and listen to our voices. I don’t think it is really a big ask – we have come to Canberra.
Monitors on Queensland’s Lady Elliot Island have only seen a handful of albino hatchlings but never an adult
Jessica Buckman is used to finding stragglers when she heads out to check recently hatched green turtle nests on Queensland’s Lady Elliot Island.
But the tiny pink creature she found in the neck of one nest on Monday was far from a usual find – a rare albino hatchling that was having a little trouble digging itself out.
Cairns hospital called a code yellow on Tuesday due to an influx of patients, including a number of Covid-19 payments from Papua New Guinea.
More from AAP:
More than 260 people presented at the emergency department on Tuesday, with road crash victims adding to increased pressure on services.
“A sustained high number of presentations to the ED, alongside a spike in trauma admissions and several patients needing isolation for Covid-19 had led to the hospital declaring a Code Yellow,” the hospital said in a statement on Wednesday.
News that the Hong Kong legislator Ted Hui is settling in Australia after being granted a travel exemption by the Australian government is unlikely to go down well in Beijing.
When Guardian Australia contacted the Chinese embassy in Canberra for comment on the matter, an official pointed us to remarks made by the foreign ministry spokesperson in Beijing last week. The foreign ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, told reporters Monday last week:
China’s position on Hong Kong-related issues is consistent and clear. Hong Kong is China’s Hong Kong, and every bit of Hong Kong affairs belongs to China’s internal affairs, in which no other country has the right to interfere.
The Chinese side urges the Australian side to stop meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs and China’s internal affairs in any way. Otherwise the China-Australia relations will only sustain further damage.
Sex discrimination commissioner to lead review of parliament culture; Italy blocks 250,000 doses of Covid vaccine under the EU’s export authorisation scheme. Follow latest updates
Minister Reynolds has offered an apology, as she should. And as I said yesterday. And I didn’t find that acceptable, the comments that were made within her office at that time. They weren’t public statements, of course. These were comments made not in a public space... That doesn’t excuse them. And it was relating... she was not talking about the allegations of sexual assault.
Linda Reynolds is returning. She’s currently on leave and will return to her duties when her leave is finished. She maintains my confidence.
Morrison is also asked about the education sector, and whether that was a consideration when discussing international arrival caps and quarantine facilities. In short, no change, but if universities want to reach agreements with government, they’re willing to chat.
No, there’s no change on that front. It would be good if we could get to that point, but at this stage we’re not at that point. The opening of the international borders, we don’t think is wise at this time, and for the period that we’ve suggested, and that’s totally consistent with the medical advice. And we’ve always been happy to work with the international education sector if they want to put in place supplementary self-funded quarantine arrangements and flight arrangements. That has always been there for the international education industry, the large universities and others to go down that path. They haven’t chosen to go down that path. Our focus has remained on the responsibilities we have as a commonwealth.
Labor’s assistant shadow treasurer, Andrew Leigh, has been on Sydney radio contrasting the government’s attitude towards companies that got jobkeeper and welfare recipients it pursued in its unlawful and botched robodebt scheme.
At Leigh’s request, auditor-general Grant Hehir is investigating the administration of the $100bn job subsidy scheme, and yesterday Leigh asked for the probe to be extended to touch on stevedore Qube, which got $30m in jobkeeper.
But the bulk of Australian firms haven’t handed it back, and they haven’t received the pressure to do so because the Treasurer hasn’t come out and been clear about how the JobKeeper scheme operated...
In terms of the government, we gave Josh Frydenberg extraordinary latitude to tweak JobKeeper where it wasn’t working as intended. But he hasn’t used that at all to prevent money flowing to shareholders and executives. He’s been as silent on this as the government was noisy about RoboDebt, clawing money out of the hands of social security recipients in an illegal approach.
Attention at the Albanese press conference has now turned to the historic rape allegation levelled against a (currently unnamed) cabinet minister in the Liberal government.
Albanese has been asked if he thinks the minister should stand down:
Quite clearly, this woman told multiple people, including people in public life, but also her friends that she wanted an investigation of this. It is very clear [the government] are pretending that this will go away, it will not ...
It is very clear that, in my mind, that this will require further leadership and action ... and I await the statement by the minister involved, the presumption of innocence is a critical part of our legal system but now that the existing legal processes have been unable to proceed, certainly in terms of NSW police, I think people will be looking for further responses beyond any statement that might be made today by the minister.
I was very disappointed by Scott Morrison’s statement yesterday where he said that he hadn’t read the documentation that was forwarded to him by the woman who was at the centre of the allegation who then took her own life by her friends.
He then also said, essentially, that he had spoken to the minister and that he believed the minister. That stands in stark contrast to what Scott Morrison said in May of 2019. About the need to believe people. Who come forward.
Jeremy Samuel says the incident ‘was a very, very heavy weight on her. I’m incredibly sad for her on so many levels’
Jeremy Samuel says he met the woman who has alleged she was raped by a cabinet minister in January 1988 during that same year.
“I was her friend,” Samuel told Guardian Australia on Monday. “I just want to say that my friend was an incredibly smart, witty, talented and capable person.”
It’s the third crocodile attack in the state this month, after two swimmers in Cairns and Weipa survived encounters
A second crocodile has been killed and will be examined for human remains after a 69-year-old fisher went missing in north Queensland.
The reptile, measuring about 3 metres, was caught and euthanised by Department of Environment and Science officers near Hinchinbrook Island on Sunday night.