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Qld hopes extended laws will help manage difficult customers ahead of vaccine mandates
By Matt Dennien
Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath says her state will make it an offence to deliberately, or threaten to, spit, cough or sneeze on workers at the venues covered by its incoming vaccine mandates.
From December 17, unvaccinated people will be barred from entering a number of hospitality and entertainment venues across Queensland.
Announcing the publication of health directions underpinning the new rules, Ms D’Ath said the offence – created to discourage assaults on frontline workers last year – would be extended to cover all sites under the new mandate.
An on-the-spot fine of $1300 or a penalty of up to $13,000 exists under the offence.
“These workers and every one of these businesses that we are mandating ... are doing their job to keep you safe, and to ensure people are vaccinated,” Ms D’Ath said.
“We want to protect them from this sort of behaviour.”
Qld records one new local case of COVID-19
By Matt Dennien
Queensland has reported one new locally acquired case of COVID-19.
Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said the case was linked to an existing cluster in the region which now stands at four people. However, authorities believe the person may have travelled to NSW recently.
Several new exposure sites are expected to be added to the state’s contact tracing list as Ms D’Ath urges people to come forward for testing and vaccinations while the first-dose rate slows.
“There is still a risk on the Gold Coast as there have been a number of these positive cases that have been in the community for a number of days,” she said during today’s health update.
There are now 39 active cases in the state, with more than 12,000 tests conducted in the 24 hours to Tuesday morning. A total of 4404 people are in home quarantine.
Thousands of striking teachers gather in Sydney
By Jordan Baker
Thousands of NSW public school teachers have gathered in Sydney’s Hyde Park to march towards State Parliament and demand a pay rise.
Wearing red and chanting “more pay now”, they turned up in droves despite a train strike and a smattering of rain. Teachers arrived with signs calling for “more than thanks”, some deliberately misspelled to show what happens without good teachers.
Teachers chant in Sydney’s Hyde Park.Credit:Louise Kennerley
Public schools around the state today have minimal supervision or are non-operational due to the strike.
The NSW Education Minister has described the union’s action as political and damaging to students.
Teachers want a pay rise of between 5 and 7.5 per cent, but the NSW Department of Education has offered the legislated maximum of 2.5 per cent.
Liberals look to battle perception issues as Porter replacement likely to be a woman
By Hamish Hastie
The next Liberal candidate for the federal West Australian seat of Pearce is almost certain to be female as the party seeks to address its “women problem”.
Two women have now declared their intention to run for preselection for Pearce following former attorney-general Christian Porter’s exit from politics last week.
City of Wanneroo councillor Linda Aitken is the latest to put her hat in the ring, meaning the campaign for Pearce could become a local government showdown pitting her against Wanneroo mayor and Labor candidate Tracey Roberts.
Ms Aitken put her application for preselection in at Liberal Party headquarters in Perth yesterday morning, and said she looked forward to supporting the re-election of the Morrison government.
Border permit system was ‘unjust, even inhumane’: Victorian Ombudsman
By Rachel Eddie
Victoria’s “unjust” border permit scheme that locked thousands of people out of the state resulted in some of the most questionable decisions Ombudsman Deborah Glass has seen in her career, with Department of Health staff given as little as 30 seconds to categorise desperate applications.
In a report tabled in the Victorian Parliament this morning, the Ombudsman called on the Andrews government to acknowledge the distress caused by the system which she believed focused on blocking people during Sydney’s Delta coronavirus outbreak rather than helping them get home safely.
Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass. Credit:Penny Stephens
Ms Glass did not criticise the decision to close the state border during the outbreak — which ultimately led to Melbourne’s sixth lockdown and an acceptance that Victoria’s elimination strategy was unsustainable — but said discretion applied under the blunt system was unnecessarily narrow and left people effectively homeless.
Just 20 staff were responsible for the permit scheme in early July, scaled up to 285 by early September. Those tasked with categorising and prioritising applications had between 30 seconds and one minute to do so.
Berejiklian’s federal run would put spotlight on national anti-corruption watchdog: Labor
By Marta Pascual Juanola
The need for a federal anti-corruption watchdog will be well and truly in the national spotlight should Gladys Berejiklian run for federal politics, according to a Labor frontbencher.
Labor’s climate change and energy spokesman Chris Bowen says Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s support for the former NSW premier possibly throwing her hat into the ring for the federal seat of Warringah was a “disgusting undermining” of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, given it has not yet released the findings of its investigation into Ms Berejiklian.
“This is a prime minister who turns a blind eye to poor behaviour and now he is actively providing a character reference … for somebody who is under investigation by the ICAC,” Mr Bowen told the ABC’s RN Breakfast earlier this morning.
“It was an important principle for Gladys Berejiklian to apparently resign as premier because she was being investigated by ICAC, but apparently it’s not important enough of a principle to stop her going into federal politics.”
Mr Morrison promised a federal body before the last election, but only presented the draft legislation last month – meaning the commission will not be created before the end of the year.
Independent MP Helen Haines has put forward a model for a federal ICAC she says gets the balance right, but the Coalition has dismissed her proposal, claiming it is too similar to the NSW model.
Yesterday, Mr Morrison backed Ms Berejiklian’s run for the seat of Warringah and blasted the “shameful” treatment she had received from the NSW ICAC.
“Recordings of private conversations ... were paraded around in the media,” Mr Morrison said.
“What was that about? Was that about shaming Gladys Berejiklian? I thought it was awful. I thought it was just awful.”
It’s possible NSW ICAC won’t publicly release its findings until after the next federal election. Ms Berejiklian is being investigated over multimillion-dollar grants or promises made by the NSW state government to organisations in Wagga Wagga while Ms Berejiklian was in a secret relationship with the then-Liberal MP for the electorate, Daryl Maguire.
NSW records 260 new cases, two deaths
By Sarah McPhee
NSW has recorded 260 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths.
There are 155 coronavirus patients in hospital and of those, 28 are in intensive care.
The vaccination rate for the population aged 16 and over is 94.7 per cent for first doses and 92.8 per cent for second doses.
For 12- to 15-year-olds, 81.3 per cent have had one dose and 77.2 per cent are fully vaccinated.
Victoria records 1185 new cases of COVID-19, seven deaths
By Broede Carmody
Victoria’s daily coronavirus numbers are in.
The state has recorded 1185 new cases of COVID-19 and seven deaths. Today’s tally is up on yesterday’s 1073 cases.
There are 13,050 active cases of coronavirus across the state.
There are now 297 coronavirus patients in Victorian hospitals. Of those, 47 active cases are in intensive care. Twenty-five are on a ventilator.
In terms of vaccines, the Victorian government says 91 per cent of residents aged 12 and up are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Labor denies claims climate plan will cost jobs, close coal-fired power stations
By Marta Pascual Juanola and Mike Foley
Opposition climate change and energy spokesman Chris Bowen has rebuffed claims that Labor’s freshly announced climate policy will bring forward the closure of coal-fired power stations.
Speaking to the ABC’s RN Breakfast earlier this morning, Mr Bowen said the opposition’s target to reach 82 per cent renewable energy generation by 2030 was in response to an increase in the demand for power and would not spur the closure of the industry.
Labor’s Chris Bowen at the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
“The key to dealing with climate change is to electrify everything that can be electrified, our motor vehicles, our transport system, our home heating – that requires more electricity,” he said.
“But it does not mean that coal-fired power will close a day earlier, the market will determine that.”
Labor released its long-awaited climate policy last Friday, which pledges to reduce Australia’s carbon pollution by 43 per cent over the next decade, starting from 2005 level emissions.
The opposition is banking on a massive rollout of renewable energy to drive down the emissions from the energy sector, and plans to impose pollution limits on Australia’s 2000 or so largest polluting facilities, which will be tightened over time.
Plans to force major industrial polluting facilities to reduce their carbon footprint have been welcomed by some of the nation’s most carbon-intensive businesses, which Mr Bowen said was a result of ongoing energy uncertainty brought about by the Coalition’s policies of the past nine years.
“The country has had enough of the chopping and changing and uncertainty of energy policy. The Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments had 28 energy policies. It’s a big part of the reason we’re in this mess,” he said.
“They want a federal government which gets it, gets that we need a certain policy framework.”
The Morrison government has described the plans as a sneaky carbon tax and claimed it would impose significant costs on businesses.
But Mr Bowen dismissed the claims, arguing two-thirds of polluters are already committed to net zero.
“They know they need to make this transition, but they want a positive framework.”
Australians should feel ‘confident’ that Qld border rules won’t change: Premier
By Broede Carmody
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is doing the media rounds this morning.
She was just on ABC News Breakfast to spruik the fact that her state’s hard border will come down on Monday, several days earlier than originally anticipated off the back of an 80 per cent double-dose vaccination rate.
ABC presenter Lisa Millar asked the Queensland Premier if people can be certain that border rules won’t change before Christmas, given different states have changed some of their rules “when they feel that there are health reasons to do it”.
Here’s the relevant exchange (edited for length and clarity).
Millar: Can we trust you on this?
Palaszczuk: They should feel confident. Queenslanders have done a great job. We are at the 80 per cent double-dose [mark] this week. We are sticking to the national plan.
Millar: So you won’t shut the border again?
Palaszczuk: We are not shutting the border. We believe that we have the right measures in place. It is completely different to a year – or two years ago – when people didn’t have the vaccination rates as well as they have today. I want everyone to have a good Christmas and I hope we get to see you in our beautiful state soon.
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2021-12-06 23:44:45Z
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