Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
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
Report finds climate change ‘clearly played a role’ in conditions that led up to Australia’s 2019-2020 fires, which were so extreme, traditional firefighting methods often failed
Last summer’s bushfire disaster was so unusual that traditional firefighting methods, such as hazard reduction burning, failed in some instances, an inquiry into the crisis heard.
The final report of the New South Wales bushfire inquiry, published on Tuesday, said the 2019-20 bushfire season brought fires in forested regions on a scale not seen in recorded history in Australia.
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, thenew 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.
NSW Health is advising of a new public health alert for Liverpool Hospital and Dooleys Lidcombe Catholic Club.
Peter Dutton had some things to say about the border closure between NSW and Queensland on the Nine network today:
When you get a premier like Annastacia Palaszczuk making announcements about border closures when Gladys Berejiklian is doing a press conference and she is caught out, the question is asked of her and she knows nothing about it, she hadn’t been contacted by Queensland, well you would imagine she would be a bit miffed. I think it is childish. There is a growing mood here in Queensland at the moment, I have got to say, Ally, of people who say if the doctors are saying close the borders or put in place this regime, fair enough, but there is a lot of politics being played in Queensland at the moment by the state government here in relation to this issue. You see brochures now going out into letterboxes in marginal seats and what not, and Annastacia Palaszczuk is walking a fine line here. People will be cynical if they think these decisions are being made for political reasons and her break down in the relationship with the New South Wales premier, particularly for those people who live in the Tweed or on the Gold Coast, is negatively impacting on those lives and businesses and it is unacceptable.
Authorities are also unable to say if non-Sydney residents will have to quarantine in the state capital
Health authorities in New South Wales are unable to say if residents of border areas returning from beyond the Victoria border zone will have to quarantine at hotels when they cross over, admitting that the details of a health order for mandatory hotel quarantine announced hours earlier by the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, have not yet been finalised.
NSW Health also said it had not yet been decided if non-Sydney residents returning from Victoria would have to quarantine at hotels in the state capital as part of the measures the NSW health minister, Brad Hazzard, said were influenced by Victoria’s rising Covid-19 numbers, which reached a record of 725 new cases on Wednesday.
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:
Gladys Berejiklian says Nine Perfect Strangers cast and crew allowed to isolate at separate location from coronavirus quarantine hotels
The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has said there are “no exemptions” from hotel quarantine for returned travellers despite reports Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban were allowed to isolate at their holiday home in regional NSW.
Media outlets reported on Tuesday that Kidman and Urban, and their two daughters, flew back to Sydney from the United States on a private jet and were allowed to isolate at their home in Sutton Forest ahead of the filming of Kidman’s new mini-series, Nine Perfect Strangers, in August.
Investigation into how infection control breaches are believed to have led to a Covid-19 outbreak starts today. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
Neal said the inquiry had received a number of submissions about “what went well, and what went less well” in managing hotel quarantine in Victoria.
He said that, without preempting anything to come in the inquiry, the following issues had arisen for discussion:
Neal said the inquiry, which is not hearing from any witnesses today, will hear evidence “of a scientific and medical nature about what has been understood about the spread of the virus from the hotel quarantine program into the community”.
It will also hear about the impact of the virus in the community, and the “various steps taken by government agencies and public health officials in response to that impact are matters of profound and ongoing significance to this community”.
Understandably, there has been intense community interest and daily commentary in the media about this program. Increasingly over recent weeks there has been growing and understandable community concern about transmission from that program into the general community.
To establish and implement the hotel quarantine program, a range of contractual and other arrangements were entered into between government departments, hotels, a number of private service providers, private security companies, medical services, transport and food providers. It’s anticipated in the course of the inquiry that you will hear from various witnesses that the purposes of the directions and the contractual arrangements entered into was to either eliminate or reduce the public health risk posed by Covid-19 by containing its spread from returned travellers into the community.
As set out in the order in counsel establishing this inquiry, information already available to the inquiry suggests the possibility of a link between many of the cases of coronavirus identified in the Victorian community in the past few weeks and persons who were quarantined under the hotel quarantine program. Comments made by the chief health officer to the media have suggested that it may even be that every case of Covid-19 in Victoria in recent weeks could be sourced to the hotel quarantine program.
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.
New water-sharing plans use data that ends at 2004 to calculate extractions from major tributaries in the Murray-Darling system
The former NSW water minister Kevin Humphries has defended controversial legislation that effectively excludes some of the driest water years from figures used to calculate sustainable water allocations for irrigators, towns and the environment.
Humphries, who confirmed he had been referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption over unspecified decisions he took as water minister, told a NSW parliamentary committee that the 2014 legislation he introduced was to give greater certainty to all water users.
Japan’s theme parks have banned screaming on roller coasters because it spreads coronavirus. “Please scream inside your heart.” https://t.co/DJjC40H0Ap
Confusion over NSW-Victoria border closure as the state’s northern border closes for the first time in a century and Melbourne prepares for lockdown. Follow the latest news
Someone asks about some sort of foreign travel tax? I don’t know - there is a lot in the question, and it’s involving shiz that none of us can even think about until at least July next year, because I’m not sure if this is common knowledge or not - but Australia’s international borders ARE CLOSED.
Scott Morrison:
Well, there’s a lot of speculation on all those questions. So I don’t intend to engage in what is the normal budget speculation when you lead up to a budget.
Those matters will be addressed in the budget.
On what we are planning on doing with Hong Kong residents, Scott Morrison says:
We continue to be concerned about issues in Hong Kong as many nations are, and we have remained in close contact with other like-minded countries about this issue.
This is about how we, as a nation, are responding, domestically, to these issues.
On the issue of the broader shutdown of Melbourne - this is a matter that the Premier advised me of and, of course, based on their advice and the advice that I have received from the chief medical officer, then this was necessary.
I hope it isn’t for that long. I hope it’s for a shorter period as possible.
Industrial science museum will not be closed and moved to Parramatta but will operate across both sites
The New South Wales government has made a U-turn on its decision to relocate Sydney’s Powerhouse museum, more than five years after the announcement was made.
The industrial science museum in inner-Sydney’s Ultimo will not be closed and moved to Parramatta, but will stay open and operate along with the new Powerhouse facility planned for western Sydney.
Scott Morrison was asked about Annastacia Palaszczuk’s comments about singling out Queensland on the Nine network this morning:
Well, I haven’t. There’s an election in Queensland, so I’m not surprised that the political rhetoric is amping up. Look, we’re keeping all of the country together to focus on this. I made similar comments about the changes in borders in South Australia yesterday. So, look, I think you can file that under a Queensland election.
Anthony Albanese was asked about Annastacia Palaszczuk’s comments yesterday, after she hit back on the border criticism (which included Scott Morrison) and said:
Well, look, I don’t believe that it’s appropriate, and I haven’t sought to politicise a response to the medical issues with regard to borders.
I’m not surprised that Annastacia Palaszczuk, who has shown tremendous leadership in Queensland, is frustrated at the comments of the Prime Minister given he has said time and time again it’s up to the states what happens.
NSW audit office blasts water conservation efforts and finds Sydney Water was two years too late in responding to recent drought
The New South Wales government has failed to investigate or implement water conservation measures for greater Sydney, leaving the city’s water supply vulnerable to the effects of population growth, drought and climate change, the state’s auditor has found.
The report by the NSW audit office also found Sydney Water was two years too late in increasing funding for water conservation in response to the recent drought.
The Sydney “Stop All Black Deaths in Custody” rally has been declared an authorised public assembly after a late decision by the court of appeal as thousands of protesters rallied in cities and towns across Australia to march against Indigenous deaths in custody and the killing of unarmed US man George Floyd.
The decision came minutes before the rally’s scheduled start at 3pm outside Town Hall on Saturday.
Planned protests at a time of social distancing draw criticism, including from Scott Morrison, as Melbourne school student tests positive. This blog is now closed
Sarah Mitchell tells victims of teacher who allegedly preyed on Indigenous boys, she is ‘deeply sorry’ abuse occurred
The New South Wales education minister has apologised to victims of an alleged serial paedophile teacher who preyed on Indigenous boys for decades in the state’s west, saying she was “deeply sorry that those abuses occurred”.