Category Archives: Australian economy

Australia news live: Scott Morrison speaking after national cabinet meeting

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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

Morrison has moved on from Covid-19, and is being asked about other matters, including Linda Reynolds’ comments about Brittany Higgins.

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.

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Australia news live: accused cabinet minister set to address rape allegation; international borders closed until June

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Minister expected to declare his innocence and is not planning on stepping down. Follow latest updates

• Full report: cabinet minister to make statement addressing historical rape allegation against him
• Australia’s Covid vaccine tracker: when will you get your jab?

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.

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Australia politics live: Daniel Andrews gives press conference update on Victoria cases; jobseeker in spotlight as parliament returns

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Pressure mounts for Coalition to announce a permanent increase to unemployment payment; Australia closes quarantine-free border to New Zealand after coronavirus cases confirmed as UK variant. Follow all the latest news and updates, live

• Victoria Covid hotspots

NSW has recorded no new locally acquired cases - or any cases in hotel quarantine.

So another zero day for NSW

Daniel Andrews:

Again, the types of cases, this UK strain, the fact that despite the amazing efforts of all of our contact traces and testers and lab workers and the work of so many genuine hard-working Victorians, we had a situation where at the same time as we are becoming aware of the primary case, they have already infected their close contacts, that is not something we’ve seen before.

The speed at which this has moved saw our public health team make the very difficult decisions based on the best of science and the best understanding you can possibly have on any outbreak, that this was a difficult but proportionate and necessary thing to do.

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By telling our stories, we have the chance to help someone else feel less alone | Melis Layik

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The generation gap is growing into a chasm because of the refusal to listen to young people about their experiences

Name: Melis Layik

Age: 21

Writing about your life experiences on the internet is always bound to elicit some distasteful responses. The comments sections on social media posts can teem with bigotry and chaos. Despite knowing all this, I was taken aback by the scorn and contempt levelled at me in some of the responses to my diaries in this series.

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Toughing out Covid: why Australia chose not to fracture during a once-in-a-century crisis

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While the US and UK battled resurgent nativism, Australians met the health and economic challenges of the coronavirus pandemic with resilience and optimism – and strong support for multiculturalism

Politics, and media coverage of politics, is powered by conflict and spectacle. But social scientist Andrew Markus wants to focus on something quieter: the resilience and optimism of Australians during a crisis; a country under duress that chose not to fracture.

Markus is principal researcher on the Scanlon Foundation’s annual Social Cohesion report – a project that has mapped a migrant nation since 2007. The report published on Thursday is a snapshot of a country managing a once-in-a-century crisis.

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Scott Morrison tells Craig Kelly to rein in Covid comments after Tanya Plibersek confrontation – politics live

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Coalition MP publicly clashed with Labor frontbencher in press gallery corridor over coronavirus misinformation. Follow live

Yes, Craig Kelly has spoken to the prime minister this morning.

Scott Morrison made clear he doesn’t support the Liberal MP’s views and actions and asked him to refrain from pushing views contrary to medical advice, because they are negatively impacting the government’s vaccine strategy.

NSW has also recorded no new locally acquired cases in the past 24 hours, which makes 17 days with no local cases.

Two people in hotel quarantine have tested positive.

NSW Health continues to urge people across the state, particularly in the Liverpool area, to come forward for testing with even the mildest of symptoms that could signal Covid-19, such as a runny nose or scratchy throat. After testing, you must remain in isolation until a negative result is received.

The state’s ongoing sewage surveillance program has detected the virus that causes Covid-19 at the Ireland Park sewage network site, which serves about 88,000 people in the Liverpool catchment in south western Sydney.

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Australia politics live: RBA holds cash rate at 0.1% as government shuts down attempt to censure Craig Kelly

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Doctors’ group lashes out at Liberal MP, saying ‘all public figures’ should ‘act responsibly’; Morrison government to face pressure on jobkeeper and jobseeker. Follow all the latest news and updates, live

• Perth and WA’s Covid restrictions explained
• Perth and regional WA Covid hotspot locations; NSW hotspots
• Follow the global coronavirus liveblog

Ed Husic is also asked about the CFMEU ad that depicts Scott Morrison driving a literal bus (called the omnibus) towards workers, which is meant to illustrate workers being hit by IR changes, and whether it goes too far:

Husic:

Some of the unions, or some people will try and characterise it in that way, and whether or not that works in their favour, to be putting it bluntly, I think there is a genuine concern about what the government’s industrial relations reforms will do, what impact they will have on working people.

When you go through the detail of what they are proposing, they will be seeing the greatest burden placed on working Australians and it’s just wrong. They shouldn’t have cuts to their take-home pay.

Ed Husic is on the ABC this afternoon, where he is asked about the topic of the day – government backbencher Craig Kelly and the government’s leadership refusal to censure him.

Husic:

The prime minister occupies an important place in the country, the words of the prime minister matter, the actions mean even more, and in this case allowing Craig Kelly to just keep rolling on the way he is, to undermine the investment of taxpayer dollars, in information campaigns to embrace the inoculation process, to help us deal with a Covid-19 pandemic that has crippled the economy for the best part of 2020, resulted in 2 million Australians being unemployed or underemployed and the vaccine bringing one way to bring us closer to normal, as it were, this is just wrong, that you could have a government MP being allowed by virtue of inaction by the prime minister for that to continue.

It shouldn’t, and if he did take this matter seriously it would be reined in and it wouldn’t be an issue and you and me wouldn’t be talking about it.

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Coronavirus Australia live: Victoria, NSW and Queensland record no local Covid cases as three new cases linked to Australian Open

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Two tennis players have tested positive, but hard lockdown of those who shared flights remains. Follow latest updates

  • NSW hotspots; Queensland hotspots
  • State-by-state restrictions and lockdown rules explained
  • Follow the global coronavirus liveblog

    • As our West Australian readers start to log-on, I bring to you news of possible secession. I have not clicked through to see what other images/tweets etc come up under #WAXIT but please feel free to do so:

    A group of business leaders in Western Australia want the state to break away from Australia… calling the campaign #WAXIT.

    Should WA be allowed to break away and form an independent nation? #9News pic.twitter.com/mtStO3Ayzh

    A $7bn funding injection into social housing would address surging homelessness caused by the pandemic, advocates say.

    This just in from AAP:

    Social housing advocates fear a surge in homelessness stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, and are urging swift action from the federal government to ensure Australians have a roof over their heads.

    A national campaign to end homelessness, Everybody’s Home, estimates a $7bn injection into social housing would make a serious dent in homelessness, while creating 18,000 jobs a year over the next four years.

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    Morrison will decide ‘over the course of the year’ whether to allow international travel – as it happened

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    Meanwhile, three of four Covid cases found in Victoria hotel quarantine linked to Australian Open. This blog is now closed

    That’s where I’m going to leave you for today. Thanks as always for reading along.

    Here’s what we learned today:

    Fragments of Covid-19 have been detected in sewage at three sites in Queensland, the state’s health department has said.

    Queensland’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, said in a statement released just now that viral fragments of the virus had been detected at wastewater treatment plants after samples were collected last week. The positive results were detected at three locations:

    While this does not mean we have new cases of Covid-19 in these communities, we are treating these detections seriously.

    A positive sewage result means that someone who has been infected was shedding the virus. Infected people can shed viral fragments and that shedding can happen for several weeks after the person is no longer infectious.

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    Coronavirus Australia live: Australian Open tennis quarantine disarray; Victoria opens border to most of Sydney as NSW records no local cases

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    Victoria premier Daniel Andrews says people in most of Sydney can apply for a permit to travel to the state while 10 LGAs still remain in red zones. Follow latest updates live

    The ABC has spoken to one of the tennis players who is isolating as part of strict restrictions applied to those who travelled for the Australian Open.

    #AusOpen player Artem Sitak happy to be in Melbourne for the tournament. A lot of the players have now realised it's an unfortunate situation. News of the long Victorian lockdown & of Australians unable to return home is making them feel very lucky to be in Melbourne. #Springst pic.twitter.com/EgQ9CEix9P

    Of course I’m happy. As I said, I was prepared for the worst and unfortunately it happened to me, but I’m – I’m definitely happy. I’m here, I love Australian Open. I think it’s going to be any sixth or seventh Australian Open and I love playing here. There’s always a really – a really vocal huge crowd. Hopefully this time it will be – I don’t know the percentage of spectators that are allowed but there will still be a lot of people. We haven’t played in front of spectators since back in August. And this is going to be a lot of fun.

    The Victorian police union is less welcoming of news that Covid-19 fines in Victoria will be waived. Here’s what Victorian Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt said on radio station 3AW earlier today, according to AAP:

    It’s a wee bit frustrating.

    None of this was fun for our members. It was bit of a thankless job.

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    NSW reports no new local Covid cases, as Queensland denies hotel quarantine breach – as it happened

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    Madison Keys drops out of Australian Open and Andy Murray in doubt after testing positive for Covid

    With that, we’ll be closing the blog for today. Here’s a recap of the day’s headlines:

    Emergency warnings have been issued for separate bushfires threatening lives in Perth’s eastern foothills and the Wheatbelt region, AAP reports.

    Firefighters are battling to contain an out-of-control blaze in High Wycombe, near the Perth Hills.

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    Labor calls on Coalition to do more for hard hit areas of Australian economy as jobkeeper cuts kick in

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    Government is withdrawing critical support when it is most needed and has no proper plan for jobs, federal opposition says

    The Morrison government faces new calls to offer targeted support to businesses in the hardest hit parts of the Australian economy as the Coalition presses ahead with cuts to emergency wage subsidies from Monday.

    Labor has accused the government of withdrawing critical support from the economy at a time when Covid-19 outbreaks in New South Wales and Victoria have sparked the return of tight domestic border rules and curbs on business activities.

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    Coronavirus Australia live news: NSW reports eight new Covid cases while Victoria records three

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    Many customers of Sydney bottle shop are considered to be close contacts and must isolate for 14 days. Follow latest updates

    MEDIA RELEASE: From 1am Monday 4 January, anyone who has been in Victoria on or since 21 December will be restricted from entering vulnerable facilities, including aged care facilities, hospitals, disability accommodation and correctional facilities.https://t.co/xd8p24VvdZ

    Some more details on that cyclone warning from AAP.

    A severe weather warning has been issued for far north Queensland as a tropical cyclone is expected to develop in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

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    Australia insists WHO inquiry into Covid origin must be robust, despite China tensions

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    Australia, whose early call for inquiry sparked furious Chinese response, says it expects ‘robust, independent and comprehensive’ report

    Australia is pushing to ensure the global inquiry it helped trigger into the early handling of the Covid-19 pandemic doesn’t pull any punches – a move that has the potential to risk further recriminations from China.

    Amid scepticism among several government backbenchers that the inquiry will fully address Chinese authorities’ early missteps and reporting delays, Australia is using its final months on a top World Health Organization board to press for the investigation to remain robust and independent.

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    Australia news live: NSW authorities scramble after three cases of local Covid transmission

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    State breaks 12-day streak with no local transmission as Sydney airport driver test positive and two mystery cases emerge in the northern beaches. Follow latest updates

    Late morning the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, will release the mid-year economic and fiscal update which is expected to show that the budget deficit will be less than $200bn due to a $11bn saving on jobkeeper and rising iron ore prices boosting revenue.

    Asked about the $11bn jobkeeper saving, the finance minister Simon Birmingham told Channel Nine:”Look, it is really encouraging to see the strength of the recovery in the Australian economy. Now, there is still a long way to go but we’ve seen more than 650,000 jobs created across Australia in recent months. More Australians back in work, fewer Australians on JobKeeper - this is a trend that we want to see continue but we know that there are always threats present.

    The Victorian Ombudsman has tabled an investigation into the detention and treatment of public housing residents at the onset of the second wave in the state.

    Ombudsman's Investigation into the detention and treatment of public housing residents arising from a COVID-19 'hard lockdown' in July 2020 tabled today, a non-sitting day https://t.co/cXTFf4wPIy #springst

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    China tariffs offset by rising Australian iron ore prices due to ‘fear tax’

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    Boosted iron ore prices due to anxious markets are likely to help federal budget’s bottom line, Deloitte says

    Australia’s losses from trade tensions with China are being offset by rising iron ore prices, according to new analysis, which also predicts the Morrison government will announce a smaller budget deficit than originally forecast.

    Deloitte Access Economics said Chinese government moves against wine, beef, barley, lobsters and thermal coal have cost Australia money “but we’ve more than made that up in overall terms thanks to iron ore – and the taxman will be a considerable beneficiary of that”.

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    Australia live news: Queensland border opens to New Zealand and UQ Covid vaccine trial abandoned

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    Australia had ordered 51m doses of the UQ/CSL vaccine. Follow latest updates

    In better news for Victoria, another doughnut day:

    Yesterday there were 0 new local cases, 0 new cases acquired overseas and 0 lost lives reported. Thanks to all who were tested: 9,760 results received #EveryTestHelps #StaySafeStayOpen
    More info https://t.co/lIUrl0ZEco#COVID19Vic #COVID19VicData pic.twitter.com/6Ts9mijiD9

    So it looks like the website to apply for the Victorian government’s tourism vouchers is still down.

    The site crashed after being inundated as holidaymakers rushed to snap up the first batch of the $200 vouchers.

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    Five asylum seekers released from detention before court hearing – as it happened

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    Scott Morrison says quarantine rules to be tightened for airline crews and UQ vaccine trial abandoned. This blog is now closed

    That’s where I’ll leave you for this evening. Thanks as always for reading.

    Here’s what we learned today:

    Five asylum seekers, who were transferred to Australia under Medevac, have been released from immigration detention this week, it has been confirmed.

    Three asylum seekers were released today – including musician and artist Farhad Bandesh – and two people were released on Tuesday, according to the Refugee Advocacy Network.

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    Australian politics live: government approves $500m war memorial redevelopment

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    Sussan Ley says it will ensure the memorial ‘continues to recognise and commemorate an important part of Australia’s history’. Follow latest updates

    Labor has the matter of public importance, and then the adjournment debate begins - but parliament is all but over for 2020.

    And that’s a wrap on the Christmas speeches.

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    Australia accuses China of breaching free trade deal by restricting imports

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    Trade minister Simon Birmingham says ‘targeted nature’ of China’s measures raise concern about its adherence to trade deal and WTO obligations

    China appears to be breaching its trade deal with Australia by taking a series of “disruptive and restrictive measures” against Australian exports, the Morrison government has said.

    As concerns grow among Australian exporters about the impact of a widening range of actions, the trade minister, Simon Birmingham, told the Senate on Wednesday all dispute settlement options were on the table.

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