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Coronavirus Australia update: Scott Morrison says protesters should be charged if rallies continue – politics live Coronavirus Australia update: Scott Morrison says protesters should be charged if rallies continue – politics live
(32 minutes later)
Prime minister says anyone joining a Black Lives Matter rally this weekend would be ‘showing a great disrespect to their fellow Australians’. Follow live updatesPrime minister says anyone joining a Black Lives Matter rally this weekend would be ‘showing a great disrespect to their fellow Australians’. Follow live updates
T’was a foggy ole morning in Canberra on Thursday:
Michael Gunner has announced a tourism voucher for Territorians, to kick start territory domestic travel:
The Territory Labor Government has today announced a tourism voucher scheme to encourage Territorians to explore the Territory and support local tourism businesses until borders can safely re-open to interstate visitors.
More than 26,000 vouchers worth $200 will be available from 1 July, Territory Day, for Territorians to put towards a tourism experience, tour, accommodation, hire car or recreational fishing charter, so long as they match the spend with their own money.
The $5.2 million voucher initiative is supported by a marketing campaign ‘Never have I ever…’ encouraging Territorians to book a local tourism experience they have never got around to enjoying for themselves.
The voucher scheme has been developed in partnership with Northern Territory Regional Tourism Organisations, Tourism Top End and Tourism Central Australia.
From 1 July, Territorians aged 18 years and over will be able to register and redeem their Territory Tourism Voucher at www.territoryvoucher.nt.gov.au.
Voucher holders will then be able to book their chosen tourism experience online, over the phone or in person through their local Visitor Information Centres in Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek and Alice Springs. The vouchers must be used on a bookable product available through these Centres.
Hospitality venues will also be able to benefit from the vouchers by packaging their offerings with a tourism product such as a ‘Stay and Meal’ deal.
This will encourage hospitality businesses to create partnerships with tourism and accommodation operators, creating long-term benefits for both.
Vouchers are valid for 30 days, with bookings and travel to be completed by 31 October 2020.
Earlier this year the Territory Labor Government injected $2 million into an Immediate Tourism Resilience Plan to minimise the impact to our tourism industry from the Australian Bushfires and the coronavirus outbreak.
George Christensen is, of course, an “all lives matterer” – and of course he is all in.
Here he was yesterday, in the parliament:
The Senate has 39 motions in its general business list today. Which is 53 pages worth.
We are truly in the worst timeline.
Q: The prime minister said today those who do attend another Black Lives Matter protest later in the week should be charged. Do you agree with that sentiment, given that those arrested could also be disproportionately Indigenous?
Josh Frydenberg:
Q: You’re a leader, the deputy leader of the Liberal party, should they be charged, in your view?
Frydenberg:
How can Josh Frydenberg push to have the borders open now, while also criticising the protests as threatening public health. Is it contradictory?
The treasurer says the OECD report is not great but Australia is in a good position to once again open again. He is pushing for the borders to be opened.
The prime minister and the states are looking at July. We know this. But still. Here we are.
Queensland gets its own special shout-out. As it always does:
How Mike Bowers saw the chamber this morning:
Victoria has recorded eight new cases of Coronavirus in the last 24 hours – including someone who went to the Black Lives Matter protest.Victoria has recorded eight new cases of Coronavirus in the last 24 hours – including someone who went to the Black Lives Matter protest.
From the state’s chief medical officer, Prof Brett Sutton:From the state’s chief medical officer, Prof Brett Sutton:
Mike Bowers is in the building.Mike Bowers is in the building.
And to finish up that 3AW interview came this exchange between Neil Mitchell and Scott Morrison:And to finish up that 3AW interview came this exchange between Neil Mitchell and Scott Morrison:
Mitchell: What was your attitude personally when you were getting all this [Covid] information in the early days?Mitchell: What was your attitude personally when you were getting all this [Covid] information in the early days?
Morrison: Well, I knew we were in completely uncharted waters.Morrison: Well, I knew we were in completely uncharted waters.
Mitchell: Were you frightened by it?Mitchell: Were you frightened by it?
Morrison:Morrison:
Mitchell: I know you’ll be modest about this but if the optimism is right and if we get it through, through it without significant death rates and with the economy rebuilding and there’s some hope of that – you will have your place in history.Mitchell: I know you’ll be modest about this but if the optimism is right and if we get it through, through it without significant death rates and with the economy rebuilding and there’s some hope of that – you will have your place in history.
Morrison:Morrison:
Josh Frydenberg will be holding a press conference in the next 10 minutes or so – that will be on the OECD report about a second wave.
Queensland has one new case – a returned traveller in quarantine.
So there has been no community transmission in Queensland again today.
If you haven’t watched this as yet, you should.
But then the next minute, the prime minister wants a date for the states to reopen their borders:
Neil Mitchell: The other point of this though is if we do get through the next two or three weeks without a surge, is that an indication that we’re in a pretty good position – if you can have tens of thousands of people on the streets and you don’t get an outbreak and, god let’s hope we don’t, doesn’t that say well hang on, we’re in a pretty good position we can start easing things even more? It’s sort of an experiment in a sense?
Scott Morrison:
And not one that was welcomed and a highly risky and dangerous one, and it is certainly our hope that that is the case, but the only reason that would be the case is because so many Australians made sacrifices to ensure that there wasn’t that sort of community transmission occurring that would have made that event, an absolute certainty of causing a second wave.
So everyone paid the price in their own businesses, their own lives, their own liberties. And that produced that that that scenario where the risk was clearly a lot lower than it might otherwise been and I’m just saying to people, look, it’s a free country, and we have our liberties, but the price of that liberty is exercising it responsibly and respecting fellow Australians, people who would turn up to a rally this weekend, we’d be showing great disrespect to their neighbours.
Mitchell: You want to reopen state borders as quickly as you got the power to make it happen – if Queensland wants to stay closed they can, can’t they?
Scott Morrison:
Neil Mitchell: If we hadn’t had those protests would you now be looking at easing things a bit quicker?
Scott Morrison:
Mitchell: Should they be charged?
Morrison:
For those who might need a little light relief this morning, either because of what we have been hearing this morning, or just because it is Thursday, the worst day of the week:
As expected …
Neil Mitchell: There is a very, sadly high level of Indigenous incarcerations, about 30% compared to 3% of the population, but black deaths in custody, I mean, that’s a furphy isn’t it? I mean since the royal commission as I saw it, there have been fewer Indigenous people per head of the prison population dying in custody than have white people.
Scott Morrison:
Mitchell: It has painted Australia as a racist country – do you think we are?Morrison:
Alan Tudge has moved to shut down Adam Bandt’s motion.
The government has the numbers.
He wants a national integrity commission:
MEMBER: I seek leave to move the following motion —
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Melbourne from moving the following motion:
That the House:
(1) notes that:
(a) the Senate passed the National Integrity Commission Bill 2018 (No. 2) on 9 September 2019 and the Bill was sent to the House for debate on 10 September 2019;
(b) the Government has prevented all attempts to debate and vote on the National Integrity Commission Bill 2018 (No. 2) in the House;
(c) the Government ignored a resolution of the Senate on 10 February 2020 calling on the House to vote on the National Integrity Commission Bill 2018 (No. 2); and
(d) in May 2020, the Attorney-General said that legislation to establish a Commonwealth Integrity Commission would be further delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite an exposure draft being “ready for release”; and
(2) calls on the Government to stop blocking debate and vote on this critically important issue; and
(3) agrees that government business order of the day no. 49 National Integrity Commission Bill 2018 (No. 2) be called on immediately and passage of the bill through all stages take priority over all other business during periods of government business until its completion.