Australia coronavirus update latest: fifth Covid-19 death at Sydney’s Newmarch House aged care home – live news

Brendan Murphy says he is ‘pretty confident’ most will be negative but it is necessary to monitor community transmission. Follow the latest updates

Night has fallen now across the entire continent.

Usually hundreds of thousands of Australians would be up before sunrise tomorrow to join ANZAC day dawn services and to honour those who serve and have served. But coronavirus means this year will be different.

While the day has had its elements of public ritual since 1916, much early Anzac Day commemoration was private rather than public, sometimes conducted at the gravesides of Australian soldiers buried in cemeteries in Britain and Australia. Women were prominent in these efforts, honouring the memories of men they might or might not have known by placing flowers on their tombs.

There are other echoes of the past. Anzac Day in 1919 was also disrupted by a major crisis in public health. In New South Wales, where the rate of infection from Spanish influenza was high and the number of deaths – approaching 1,000 by Anzac Day – was alarming, the government had banned public meetings.

Several key developments emerged from the national cabinet meeting earlier today.

Rules around aged care visits, hopes for a restart of community sport, clarification on jobkeeper payments and a repeat of medical advice for school classrooms all made for a busy day.

Related: Scott Morrison warns aged care homes to end strict coronavirus lockdowns or face new rules

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Australia coronavirus update live: Two more deaths reported in NSW as national death toll reaches 74 – latest news

New South Wales chief medical officer says 231 people are now being treated for Covid-19, with 20 in intensive care. Follow live

It has been floating around again for a while, but this morning Josh Frydenberg put company tax cuts firmly back on the table.

Business Council of Australia chief executive, Jennifer Westacott told Sky News’s Laura Jayes they were absolutely needed (but she would say that, wouldn’t she).

We’re trying to solve business investment, which was low before this terrible crisis. It’s business investment that drives productivity which drives higher wages. So that’s the problem, let’s frame that up first. Look I think it is important for us to put it back on the table but along with other tax reform. It’s not the only thing that needs to be done. It’s important that we look at the state taxes, the productivity sapping stamp duty taxes, payroll tax. It is interesting how much payroll tax has been deferred.

The whole question of the right configuration of the state taxes. Whether or not we bring forward those other income tax cuts. So it’s not just company taxes but it is important we have a competitive company tax rate. To the treasurer’s point, we’re not asking, in the Business Council, for us to have the lowest rate, we’re simply asking for a competitive rate, so that we can be a magnet for investment in this country.

In case you haven’t seen this as yet, or cried today, I am giving this another run, because we all need a bit of heartbreakingly lovely in our lives.

After noticing that Ken slept with a photo of his late wife every night, one of the carers at Thistleton Lodge presented him with this incredible gift... pic.twitter.com/Q1v8V8HUFS

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Australia’s landlords and tenants: what support is available in the coronavirus crisis?

With a six-month eviction moratorium agreed nationally, we look at what else is on offer from states and territories

Although the national cabinet has agreed to a six-month moratorium on evictions, it has abandoned attempts to achieve a nationally consistent approach to financial support for residential landlords and tenants through the Covid-19 crisis.

Since Scott Morrison announced residential tenancies would be a matter for the states and territories on 7 April, many have offered land tax cuts in a bid to incentivise rent reductions.

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Are schools open or closed for term 2 amid coronavirus in Australia? State-by-state guide

Many parents have been left confused about whether students can or should return to school after the Easter holidays

The position of the federal and state governments on whether to send children to school in term two while coronavirus social distancing rules are in force have many parents confused.

Throughout March the Morrison government opposed school closures on the basis of medical advice, but the issue was forced by Victoria bringing forward its school holidays, and other states and territories introducing pupil-free days to prepare for online learning.

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Australia coronavirus live update: education minister orders independent schools to reopen – latest news

Dan Tehan wants all schools to provide in-person teaching to children whose parents want it. Follow live

The NRL season will recommence in late May, but it’s still unclear in what form it will happen.

#BREAKING: The NRL has announced a competition restart date of May 28. #9News pic.twitter.com/e5uwbe0fAj

Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson is calling for road blocks on the Great Ocean Road to force people to stay home this long weekend. @Kieran_Gilbert

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Australia’s coronavirus victims: Covid-19 related deaths across the country

As the number of cases rises, so does the number of those who have died. Here is a state-by-state list of virus-related fatalities

The Australian death toll from Covid-19 related illnesses stands at 34, as of 4 April. This story will be updated as further deaths are confirmed and Australia’s coronavirus victims are identified.

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Coronavirus Australia live news: chief medical officer says global cases could be 5 to 10 million – latest update

Brendan Murphy says he is totally confident of infection rates in Australia because of our high rate of testing. Follow live updates

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We might leave it there for the night. Thanks so much for reading today.

Hopefully you’re enjoying your Friday night, despite these strange times.

The @YourAFAP union says all 220 @TigerairAU pilots have been made redundant effective today.

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Australia coronavirus live update: Scott Morrison announces free childcare as death toll rises to 24 – latest news

Victoria and Queensland register deaths as Western Australia flags border closure and federal government acts on childcare and industrial relations concerns. Follow live updates

The PM stresses that the “health advice we have is that there is no health reasons why children can’t go to school”.

Asked if taxes will increase to pay for its massive stimulus funding, Morrison does not address this directly.

Obviously there will be a heightened debt burden as a result of decisions we have had to take. They have been necessary decisions. Otherwise the calamity for Australian households economic will be disastrous. We have taken that decisions of government to step up and to make this commitment to provide people with an economic lifeline over the many months ahead. But you are right, we will have to then work hard on the other side to restore the economy. Now, that’s why we are being so careful not to have things that tie the economy and the budget down off into the future. We do need to snap back to the normal arrangements on the other side of this.

Morrison says schools have been planning for a “balance – a combination of distance learning” and, for those who can’t “provide a learning environment at home, for the children to be able to return to school”.

School will return after the holidays. They just won’t be holidays that most school students have known for a long time. And when they go back, it’s the learning that matters, and we hope to have an arrangement that can return as much to normal as possible.

But we have to accept that there will be, for some protracted period of time, this combination of distance learning, and for those who can’t do that at home, no child should be turned away.

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Coronavirus in Australia: how many cases are there? Map, latest numbers and statistics

We bring together all the Covid-19 confirmed cases, data and stats from NSW, Victoria, Queensland, SA, WA, Tasmania, ACT and NT to get a broad picture of the Australian outbreak and track the impact of government response

Due to the difference in reporting times between states, territories and the federal government, it can be difficult to get a current picture of how many confirmed cases of coronavirus there are in Australia.

Here, we’ve brought together all the figures in one place, along with comparisons with other countries.

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Power cuts that left Aboriginal people on NT islands with no food were widespread

Population received no emergency support and scant information during three-day outage in Northern Territory, says resident of one of the areas hit


Telecommunications outages that left Aboriginal people living on islands off the Northern Territory coast without food, fuel and essential supplies for almost three days last week were more widespread than originally reported, fuelling concerns about the network’s ability to support contact with remote communities as fears over coronavirus spread.

Telstra has confirmed the NT mainland communities of Borroloola and Numbulwar were affected by the same outage, while the Cape York community of Kowanyama was also without telecommunications for three days.

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Drought-breaking rain brings joy to some Australian towns, but many dams still await relief

Heavy rainfall across New South Wales and Queensland boosts rivers and allow farmers to plant crops for the first time in several seasons

Heavy and widespread rain across three states is bringing joy to parched towns with some farming regions receiving “drought-breaking” rains.

Further rainfall from ex-Tropical Cyclone Esther was delivering water into regional water storages and rivers, with farmers able to plant crops for the first time in several seasons.

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Jacqui Lambie says people scared and confused by Coalition’s cashless welfare card plan

Senator says after visiting remote Indigenous communities that many there feel they have not been properly consulted over new card

Independent senator Jacquie Lambie says “the government has a problem” with the rollout of its controversial cashless debit card, after her fact-finding visit to the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Lambie visited several remote Aboriginal communities to “get a view from the ground on how the card is functioning, before voting on the government’s proposed changes for its future”, she said. Most of the people she spoke to “didn’t know any change was being proposed at all”.

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Police locate body near Alice Springs believed to be that of missing woman Claire Hockridge

Hockridge was one of three people to go missing in the Northern Territory outback two weeks ago, but her companions were both rescued in recent days

Searchers have found a body believed to be Claire Hockridge, who has been missing in the Northern Territory outback for two weeks.

Hockridge was in a group of three people who became stranded in the central Australian outback a fortnight ago, but her partner, Tamra McBeath-Riley, and their friend Phu Tran, were both rescued in the last few days.

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Second person found alive in Northern Territory after two weeks missing in the outback

Phu Tran was found by a pastoralist on Tuesday morning south of Alice Springs, police say

A second person who was missing for two weeks in the central Australian outback has been found alive south of Alice Springs.

Phu Tran was found by a pastoralist on Tuesday morning in the area of Palmer Valley, Northern Territory police said. Phu, 40, told the pastoralist he had survived after finding some water.

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Claims of exploitation of Aboriginal artists ‘intentionally fabricated’, art dealer says

John Ioannou confirms visit from NT police and denies allegations made against him by the APY artists collective

A private art dealer in Alice Springs has said allegations that he had taken elderly Indigenous artists from their communities to paint for him and that one was being forced to paint away a $20,000 debt for her son were being “intentionally fabricated”.

The dealer, John Ioannou, contacted Guardian Australia through a friend to provide his defence to allegations made against him by the APY artist collective in a letter to the federal ministers for Indigenous Australians and the arts, and the South Australian premier.

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Absence of Morrison at Uluru event ‘more than an insult’ to Indigenous Australians

Exclusive: Labor senator Pat Dodson says PM’s failure to show up to climb closure celebrations demonstrates his ‘shallowness’

Labor senator Pat Dodson has blasted the prime minister for his absence at Sunday night’s celebrations of the closing of the climb at Uluru as “more than an insult” to First Nations people.

Sitting alongside Labor colleagues Linda Burney, Malarndirri McCarthy and Warren Snowdon, Dodson chastised Scott Morrison’s failure to progress the Uluru Statement from the Heart, saying it demonstrated he’s a man in need of “an epiphany”.

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Yothu Yindi Foundation chief says Australian governments ‘dining out’ on Aboriginal misery

Denise Bowen says governments spending money on urban centres and tourists instead of tackling disadvantage

Aboriginal people are prisoners to incompetence and maladministration by governments that spend on urban centres and tourists instead of tackling rampant disadvantage, the head of the Yothu Yindi Foundation has said.

Speaking at the Garma festival in northeast Arnhem Land, the chief executive of the foundation, Denise Bowden, took aim at the Northern Territory government and the commonwealth, which she said had responsibility for the NT, and for the “rivers of gold” that its GST formula sends to Darwin.

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Extreme weather has damaged nearly half Australia’s marine ecosystems since 2011

CSIRO says dramatic climate events are compounding the effects of underlying global heating

Extreme climate events such as heatwaves, floods and drought damaged 45% of the marine ecosystems along Australia’s coast in a seven-year period, CSIRO research shows.

More than 8,000km of Australia’s coast was affected by extreme climate events from 2011 to 2017, and in some cases they caused irreversible changes to marine habitats.

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‘Just a matter of when’: the $20bn plan to power Singapore with Australian solar

Ambitious export plan could generate billions and make Australia the centre of low-cost energy in a future zero-carbon world

The desert outside Tennant Creek, deep in the Northern Territory, is not the most obvious place to build and transmit Singapore’s future electricity supply. Though few in the southern states are yet to take notice, a group of Australian developers are betting that will change.

If they are right, it could have far-reaching consequences for Australia’s energy industry and what the country sells to the world.

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