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 prime minister warns nations will be severely judged if they try to profit from hoarding a vaccine
Scott Morrison will use a speech to the United Nations general assembly in New York to urge countries to share a Covid-19 vaccine as soon as a successful candidate emerges, characterising such collaboration as a “global and moral responsibility”.
Morrison will use his contribution to the general assembly 75th anniversary general debate, scheduled for Saturday morning Australian time, to revive concerns that some countries might see “short-term advantage or even profit” in hoarding the vaccine rather than sharing it with the world.
Victorian premier is the last witness who can shed light on the decision to use private security guards, as border restrictions ease around Australia. Follow live
Peter Dutton then followed up that comment, with this one:
Honestly when we had people who couldn’t go to their dad’s funeral and the same time the Premier was approving people from Hollywood to come in and lay by the pool for two weeks, why wouldn’t we call it out?
It was just unfair and it was unjust. It has now changed.
Peter Dutton was on the Nine Network this morning, talking the Queensland border closures:
I just think we want to work very closely together and we’ve been able to do that, and as the Deputy Commissioner pointed out, the ADF and Queensland Police have had a very longstanding relationship and a necessary one and the ADF personnel are going to provide support at the additional hotels that will be stood up to bring more Australians back from overseas. So that will be a very worthy task for them to be involved in. And already they’ve been involved in providing support to the Queensland Police at hotels where people are quarantining. So I think it was obvious yesterday that Dr Steven Miles, who really just picks a fight every day on this issue, I think back-tracked pretty quickly when he realised what he said was actually factually incorrect. And I think the Premier’s pulled him back into line.
Victorian health minister Jenny Mikakos has told the hotel inquiry she had no role in the hiring of private security, while NSW Covid restrictions eased at schools and weddings. Follow live
Victoria police have fined 76 people over the past 24 hours, including eight for not wearing a face mask.
Examples include three men “located in a carpark with no legitimate reasons for being there” and one man and one woman who drove from Tarneit to St Kilda East “to buy fried chicken”.
Queensland will re-open its border to people from the ACT from 25 September, the health minister Steven Miles has just announced.
The Australian National University has announced a restructure that will involve the loss of 465 positions.
Some 230 staff have already accepted voluntary separations, with a further 20 to come, but the ANU announced on Wednesday that there will need to be a further reduction of 215 positions.
All these cuts to Australia’s universities are going to have ongoing impacts for years
BREAKING: ANU has announced 230 staff have taken voluntary redundancies, another 20 are expected to follow in the coming weeks. ANU says Another 215 positions need to go as well. That is almost 500 jobs that will be lost at ANU due to #COVID19#auspol@conorduffynews@abccanberra
That’s it for our live coverage of coronavirus news and other developments in Australia. Thanks to Amy Remeikis for the earlier coverage. She’ll be back in the morning.
You can follow our global coverage here and there is a lot to follow. Outside Australia, the second wave is well and truly surging.
Australia’s cricket coach Justin Langer says he could “see the blood draining out of their faces” when his players were told about the quarantine periods in store for them in the coming months.
AAP reports the team was given the rundown ahead of tonight’s ODI series decider against England in Manchester.
Alexandra Prendergast, whose father’s funeral became part of a federal-state brawl over borders, writes open letter to PM
The daughter of a Queensland man whose funeral was at the centre of a federal-state brawl over border closures has accused Scott Morrison of using the case to “advance his political agenda”.
Alexandra Prendergast said in an open letter to the prime minister his actions were “absolutely disrespectful” to families who had not been granted permission to attend relatives’ funerals.
Greg Hunt says Melbourne curfew should be lifted if ‘there is no medical basis’ for it as two more Sydney healthcare workers test positive. Follow live
The woman who was at the centre of Scott Morrison’s plea today will be allowed to attend a private viewing of her father to say goodbye after her family has held their funeral.
She will be escorted to the funeral home, and then escorted back, a spokeswoman has confirmed.
John Barilaro, who is rumoured to have his eye set on Canberra and the federal Nationals leadership, has effectively removed the Nationals from the NSW coalition, plunged the Berejiklian government into minority after vowing to abstain from government votes (unless its to do with regional NSW), and removed itself from joint party room and leadership meetings – unless the koala protection legislation is scrapped.
Thanks for following our live coverage of the coronavirus coverage in Australia. You can continue to follow our rolling global coverage here.
A quick recap on what happened today:
Asked if he would step down as premier if the hotel quarantine inquiry laid the blame for the outbreak on his office, Andrews said his responsibility was to keep going.
My position and the responsibility I have is to see our state through this. What is what I’m focused on.
Let me be as frank as I can be: Politics has never mattered less to me. Leadership is not able doing what’s popular, it is about doing what’s right.
The politics of this, that is of no value. The only thing that matters is we all stay the course. We all keep following the data, the science and the doctors and get this done. Then move to the biggest economic repair job that our state has ever seen.
National cabinet will look at alternatives to state border closures and discuss the cap on international arrivals
Scott Morrison is expected to secure agreement from some but not all state and territory leaders on a definition of hotspots when they meet on Friday with a review of the current cap on international arrivals also on the agenda.
The prime minister has been ratcheting up pressure on the premiers for weeks to reopen their borders, and the commonwealth has been working up a definition of a hotspot with a view to replacing current border controls with localised lockdowns to control coronavirus outbreaks.
Insiders say campaign for digital Victorian council could scuttle forensic audit of new members
Federal electorate conference chairs in 14 Victorian seats are campaigning for a virtual state council of the Liberal party – a sortie which party insiders fear is an effort to scuttle a forensic audit to deal with fresh branch stacking allegations.
Labor has ratcheted up pressure on Scott Morrison to take action after fresh allegations were aired by the Nine network last weekend about Liberal party branch-stacking orchestrated by a conservative party powerbroker with links to the Victorian frontbencher Michael Sukkar and veteran MP Kevin Andrews.
Case prompts Queensland’s chief health officer to call the sheer volume of medical applications ‘unsustainable’
Queensland’s top health official says the sheer number of people applying for medical exemptions to enter her state is “unsustainable” following the death of an unborn twin in NSW.
Dr Jeannette Young granted an exemption to a Ballina woman pregnant with twins who required emergency surgery on Thursday, but it came only after the expectant mother had waited 16 hours and then flown to Sydney.
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.
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.
As Covid-19 tore through aged care homes during Victoria’s second wave, state and federal governments attempted to shift blame for the rising death toll. Political editor Katharine Murphy examines what has happened and who has ultimate responsibility
Brisbane watches hotspots after youth detention centre outbreak, Victoria’s hotel inquiry continues and politicians gather in Canberra for the first time in 10 weeks. Follow today’s latest updates
Scott Morrison has declared he still has confidence in his aged care minister after Richard Colbeck came under pressure at a Senate inquiry and was unable to recall how many people had died in aged care during the pandemic.
Colbeck apologised on Friday for the times when the Morrison government “didn’t get everything right” in dealing with aged care outbreaks – but insisted it had been prepared for what it sincerely believed to be the worst-case scenarios.
Andrews thanked all Victorians for the role they played in getting the daily coronavirus numbers down below 100.
I’d simply say that, whilst tomorrow’s numbers will be for tomorrow, we are all pleased to see a ‘1’ in front of these additional case numbers, and to a certain extent it is perhaps at that level a little quicker than I thought it might be.
Of course, this Sunday marks the three weeks since the curfew was imposed. Next Wednesday marks three weeks since the most significant workplace restrictions came into effect. To be at this point shows that the strategy is working....
I want to thank each and after Victorian who is making a big contribution to this strategy working. I want to thank them and their families. I want to thank people from all backgrounds, from all parts of the state. No matter your perspective, this is a challenge that none of us are immune from. We’re all in this together. We say that a lot, but it’s true. It’s absolutely true. And because I think more and more Victorians are making the best choices and looking out foreach other, and therefore everybody, we are seeing these numbers come down.
We’ll see what tomorrow holds. But there’s no room for complacency, there’s no way we can assume that this is over. It is an ultra-marathon, and we’re not halfway yet.
The Victorian and federal governments have set up a $15m joint disability response centre, which Andrews said is “essentially mirroring the arrangements we have in aged care”.
There are currently 62 active Covid-19 cases in disability care sectors, across 60 different sites.
We’re grateful to them. That’s not easy. But with that payment, that’ll mean that we can support them to, in turn, keep their clients safe. We all know that, in that sector, that’s what they’re motivated to do – to provide the best care and support to their clients.
Again, I thank the prime minister and the federal government for their partnership. This is yet another example of us working together to deal with a common challenge. And it’s really important that, given the vulnerability of many people across these settings, it’s very, very important that we have a singular focus, and all the senior people around the table at the same time, and that funding to be able to limit the amount of workers who are going to multiple sites.