Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
ACT chief minister Andrew Barr calls on colleagues to stop presenting 70% or 80% vaccination targets as ‘freedom day’ ahead of meeting. Follow latest updates
I also want to stress that from Monday midnight, unless you’re exercising masks should be worn outdoors everywhere across New South Wales.
Our concern is that when people are walking past a group of people or accidentally bumping into people that, that can cause that fleeting contact can cause transmission, and even when you’re exercising, you need to have the mask unless you’re doing some strenuous exercise.
Berejiklian:
So from Monday at midnight, the greater Sydney lockdown will extend until the end of September... but I also want to state that the Central Coast and Shell Harbour will be defined as regional.
So Greater Sydney includes all those areas that are currently in lockdown in Greater Sydney but for the Central Coast and Shellharbour which will be defined as rural and regional as we announced yesterday.
We are now just waiting for NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian to step up for the daily Covid-19 press conference where we learn the state’s daily numbers.
We are expecting that in about 10 minutes, so stay tuned.
Sydney radio station 2GB is reporting a staff member from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Syndey has tested positive to Covid-19 and may have been infectious while working.
A staff member at RPA Hospital in Sydney has tested positive to COVID-19. The worker was fully vaccinated but potentially infectious while working on August 10, 11, 12 + 13 in the nuclear medicine department. There has been no transmission to other staff or patients to date.
One million additional doses of the Pfizer vaccine are on the way to Australia, after the Polish government answered the Morrison government’s international pleas for help and as New South Wales authorities struggle to contain the state’s Covid outbreak.
A total of 530,000 of the new doses, due to arrive in Australia late on Sunday, have been quarantined for use in NSW for 20-to-39-year-olds living in the 12 hotspot Sydney local government areas.
12 Sydney LGAs to get half of the one million extra Pfizer doses secured from Poland; rapid antigen testing to be trialled in some Sydney aged care homes. This blog is now closed
We’ll leave it there for now. Here are today’s main developments:
Police are cracking down on large gatherings in breach of Victoria’s lockdown restrictions, reports AAP.
In the inner city, dozens congregated for a takeaway drink pub crawl event on the streets of Richmond on Saturday, while in Northcote about 200 people gathered for a street party.
Tian Xuejun rejects Australia’s ‘groundless accusations’ that China influenced the finding to score political points
The Chinese host of a United Nations world heritage committee has defended a proposal to label the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger”, and rejected Australian government suspicion that China influenced the finding for political reasons.
It came as the Morrison government sought to use a new report by Australia’s marine science agency to argue there had been widespread coral recovery on the reef.
Having long encouraged universities to find funding elsewhere, politicians now home in on their ties to China to argue that they’ve lost their way
Outside the political sphere, much of Australia’s China panic centres on university campuses. This is hardly surprising, given the deep connections of the Australian higher-education sector to China.
In 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, higher education brought in some A$12bn in export revenue, most of it from China. With more than 150,000 Chinese international students enrolled, some institutions relied on that single revenue stream to make up a quarter of their total budget before the current drop-off. Mandarin is the second language of campus life in most universities these days; Confucius Institutes have been established at 13 universities; partnerships and MOUs with Chinese universities proliferate in many fields. Australian academics now collaborate more with colleagues in China than in any other foreign country: one report found that an incredible 16.2% of scientific papers by Australian researchers – almost one in six – were co-authored with researchers in China, with papers in the fields of materials science, chemical engineering and energy topping the list.
Coalition facing growing pressure – including from own MPs – to join international efforts to curb modern slavery
A top union leader has called on the Morrison government to urgently introduce laws to prevent Australian businesses from “profiting by importing goods made by slavery”, as the push gains support from across the political spectrum.
The president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Michele O’Neil, told Guardian Australia it “should appall all Australians that there is no ban on the importation of goods produced by forced labour”.
Does parliament even happen if the motion to remove Andrew Laming from his committee role isn’t defeated?
Heading into the Chamber for the daily Laming.
Scott Morrison told Australians Andrew Laming would stand down from all his roles, then allowed him to keep a ~$20k Committee role.
Every day we move a motion calling on the PM to keep his word & every day Lib MPs vote against it
In 10 minutes of my life I will never get back, I just watched Michael McCormack on Sky News (fun fact, you can skip ahead to any point of a McCormack interview and it still makes as much sense if you listened to it straight through.
And of course, even during a trade deal interview, he can’t help but take a swipe at the Greens.
We don’t things just to annoy the Greens, although I think the Greens annoy the hell out of everybody.
I mean I’ve yet have yet to ever see them, condemn the Extinction Rebellion protests, I’m yet to ever see them exalt what our farmers do.
Scott Morrison was denied a one-on-one meeting with Joe Biden yesterday, at the PM’s first meeting with the US president, because Boris Johnson joined it.
Labor’s Penny Wong said it was disappointing that Morrison could not have a one-on-one meeting with Biden.
[The three-person meeting] was an opportunity that presented because we’re all here and so it was mutual.
It was a great opportunity for my first meeting, of course, with the president. I mean I’ve known Boris for many years.
The Australian army is investigating allegations of bullying and harassment of officer cadets at the University of Sydney regiment. Allegations include searches through women’s underwear drawers and a nearly three-month period in which cadets were forced to work seven days a week with no days off.
PM resists pressure to commit Australia to 2050 climate deadline as he talks up hydrogen, LNG and carbon capture and storage
Scott Morrison has inked deals with Japan and Germany to develop technology to help reach “a net zero emissions future” – but continues to resist international pressure to formally commit Australia to a firm 2050 deadline.
With the climate crisis taking centre stage on the final day of the G7 summit in Cornwall, England, the prime minister stuck to his preferred approach of focusing on technologies such as hydrogen, rather than signing up to more ambitious medium- and long-term emission reduction commitments.
Guards say their work for Australia has made them and their families targets for retribution
The Taliban have publicly threatened Afghan security guards who have worked for the soon-to-be-shut Australian embassy, circulating pictures of them online and warning they would be targeted for cooperating with a foreign government.
The Australian government announced this week that it was shutting its embassy in Kabul, citing “an increasingly uncertain security environment” and saying its diplomats would not be safe “in light of the imminent international military withdrawal from Afghanistan”.
Mike Pezzullo announces digital permit system to verify vaccination status; NSW Upper Hunter byelection results heap pressure on Labor as federal politicians return to Canberra. Follow all the updates live
Tanya Plibersek gets straight into it - asking about Grace Tame’s comment on the Betoota Advocate podcast (we reported that a few posts below)
Can the Prime Minister confirm that was his response to this brave woman’s extraordinary speech?
I would agree it was, indeed, a very brave speech, Mr Speaker. I can’t recall the exact words I used, Mr Speaker, but I wouldn’t question that in any way shape or form, what Grace Tame has said. That is roughly my recollection. That was a very brave statement.
That is exactly what I meant when I said that to her on that occasion. It was a very proud moment for her and her great struggle and challenge over a long period of time and what she did on that occasion was speak with a very strong voice about what had occurred to her, Mr Speaker.
Security guards who work for the Australian embassy in Kabul have staged a peaceful protest on the streets of the Afghan capital, campaigning for access to visas and resettlement in Australia, fearing for their lives and the safety of their families.
In September, Australia, following the US and other coalition forces, will withdraw their military from Afghanistan, after 20 years of war.
Foreign minister Marise Payne says China has provided no evidence against Yang Hengjun, who has been held for more than two years
The detained Australian writer Yang Hengjun will be tried on charges of espionage in a closed Chinese court next week after being held in Beijing for more than two years.
The foreign minister Marise Payne’s office said the government had been notified by Chinese authorities that Yang would face trial next Thursday, 27 May.
Indian community leaders call on officials to do more to avoid a repeat of the scores of empty seats on the first post-ban flight
The Australian government needs to do more to avoid a repeat of the scores of seats left empty on the first post-ban repatriation flight from virus-ravaged India, one community leader has said.
Mask-wearing mandatory for all indoor public venues, including public transport, as health authorities brace for more coronavirus cases due to the level of activity of a man in his 50s while infectious. Follow latest updates
Fairly wild photo of former Australian cricketer Brett Lee and broadcaster Neroli Meadows on a flight out of India (not sure where they’re going, surely we won’t lock up Bing, it’s been a big enough week for former Australian test cricketers as it is).
☣️ As COVID-safe as it gets …
Brett Lee and Neroli Meadows are prepared for the task to start their journey from India.
This is quite a wonky but important national security story: there’s concern that the independent monitor of intelligence and security agencies could become too close to them.
A government member of parliament’s security committee has questioned whether the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security is too close to the agencies it is supposed to be monitoring, AAP reports. The committee is scrutinising proposed laws intended to keep Australia’s close-knit network of intelligence agencies in check. Liberal committee member Celia Hammond gathered evidence at Thursday’s hearing about the practice of intelligence agencies getting pre-operational advice from IGIS. “Overall I think the danger, even with the best will in the world, is huge,” said Bret Walker SC, chair of the Law Council of Australia’s constitutional law committee and member of its criminal law committee. “I think it is depriving oversight agencies of a critical degree of detachment.” Just like judges don’t have lunch with litigants, consulting the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission about a transaction that might be insider trading was a very bad idea, Mr Walker said. “There is a real risk, a constant one, of all oversight supervisory bodies engaged in this sector of government activity, of those of us doing that work, being duchessed by the people we are meaning to be supervised.” The new bill will expand the remit of the inspector-general to include ACIC and AUSTRAC, which gathers financial intelligence on money laundering, organised crime, welfare fraud, tax evasion and terrorism financing. The committee also heard that the oversight bill is not dependent on the passage of the identify and disrupt bill that will add to surveillance powers and warrants for the Australian Federal Police and ACIC. Inspector-General Christopher Jessup QC said it was critical in a democracy that intelligence agencies were subject to strong oversight and accountability mechanisms. “Indeed, independent and credible oversight of intelligence activities is a core element of the public’s trust in intelligence agencies and their operations,” Dr Jessup said. But the bill doesn’t include any intelligence functions of the federal police and Home Affairs. Commonwealth Ombudsman Michael Manthorpe said there were already overlaps engineered into the system and the bill would add to them, but they could refer complaints or matters to IGIS. “I have very specific oversight powers with respect to the various covert and intrusive regimes that exist for law enforcement,” Mr Manthorpe said “But I also have a broad jurisdiction as the ombudsman under the Ombudsman Act to look at and inquire into complaints of a very wide array about administration in the Australian public sector.” For the Morrison government, the bill introduced last December is in line with last year’s review of intelligence laws by former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson who also served as Defence secretary and foreign affairs chief. Critics say the latest Richardson review is a watered down version of the Independent Intelligence Review of 2017, which found a “compelling case” to also include the federal police and Home Affairs. George Williams, head of the Gilbert and Tobin Centre of Public Law, said the bill would leave significant gaps and wanted it extended to include all intelligence functions across government. “It requires a specialised kind of oversight - the gold standard that IGIS provides,” Professor Williams said. He also called for a broader body of work on Australia lacking the parliamentary oversight enjoyed by other members of Five Eyes, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom where parliamentary committees exercise more influence on powerful agencies.
More than 9,000 Australians remain trapped in India by the Coalition’s Covid travel ban. Many travelled before the crisis to visit sick and dying relatives, and say they are angry at their treatment. Here are six of their stories
The backlash has been fierce in the days since the Australian government moved to make it a criminal offence for its citizens to return from Covid-ravaged India.
Liberal senator Jane Hume is asked about her government’s controversial move to make it a criminal offence to enter Australia for citizens who have been in India in the last 14 days.
Hume told the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas the punishments are “a function of the Biosecurity Act” that was introduced with Labor’s support.
“The most important thing here is we’re keeping Australians safe”
No-one is saying this is an easy decision stop in fact, it is a very, very difficult decision to make but I think Australians realise how fortunate we are to be able to live in a country that is largely Covid free and our economy is back on track.
When we see the heartbreaking images of people in India, 300,000 cases a day, 90 million people infected and 200,000 deaths, I think we all fear that third wave.”
It is not a decision made lightly and we are trying to help India in any way we can.”
We don’t want to see anybody charged, we want to see the borders open and for Australians to be able to come home again and we will do that as soon as we possibly can safely.”
Jane Hume, the minister for superannuation and financial services, has been speaking about the government’s proposed $1.7bn increase to the childcare subsidy, which will see the subsidy for families with two children lifted to a maximum of 95% and remove the cap on subsidies for higher-income earners.
Hume said it’s better than more generous proposals from Labor because the Coalition’s plan “is aimed at lower-middle-income workers and people going back to work, study or doing charity work”.
Robert Pether’s wife says he is being kept in jail as ‘leverage in a dispute’ with country’s central bank
The wife of an Australian man arrested in Iraq has pleaded with the foreign minister, Marise Payne, to intervene and help her husband, who she says is being kept in jail as “leverage” to help the country’s central bank.
Mechanical engineer Robert Pether, 46, remains behind bars in Baghdad without the means to contact his family after being arrested without warning three weeks ago.
Canberra diplomat tells press club China should not be milked with a ‘plot to slaughter it in the end’
A senior Chinese diplomat has accused the Australian government of triggering a downward spiral in the relationship by “conniving with the United States in a very unethical, illegal, immoral suppression” of Chinese telco Huawei.
Wang Xining, the deputy head of the Chinese embassy in Canberra, told the National Press Club that China had “done nothing intentionally to hurt this relationship”, despite the Australian government’s complaints about Beijing trade actions against a range of export sectors over the past year.
Cheng Jingye hosted a media event at his residence in Canberra that included a two-hour video conference with officials in Xinjiang
China’s ambassador to Australia has warned that Beijing would respond “in kind” if Canberra followed other countries in imposing sanctions against its officials over human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
The ambassador, Cheng Jingye, said people should not be under the illusion “that China would swallow the bitter pill” of meddling in its internal affairs, nor attempts to mount a “pressure” campaign.