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Australia news live update: NT on edge over growing Covid cases; debate about Victoria’s pandemic laws rages
Australia news live update: NT on edge over growing Covid cases; debate about Victoria’s pandemic laws rages
(31 minutes later)
Follow all the day’s news live
Follow all the day’s news live
Speaking of the threats made again the Victorian premier and his family, here is what Daniel Andrews wive, Catherine Andrews, had to say about it last night:
New South Wales police have seized a car as they continue to comb a mid-north coast property and surrounding bushland for the remains of missing three-year-old William Tyrrell.
Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has been asked about the perceived threats levelled against him by protesters this week, including the displaying of prop gallows on the steps of the parliament house.
The renewed search for vital clues in the baffling seven-year mystery is now in its third day as detectives returned to the property where he disappeared.
Here are the details of this new Victorian mental health initiative the premier has just announced.
William went missing wearing his Spider-Man suit while playing at his foster grandmother’s home in 2014, in a case that has attracted national attention.
Authorities plan to “more than double” the capacity of the state’s youth prevention and recovery care network, giving more young Victorians access to the mental health services they need closer to home.
Police on Tuesday dug up the garden at the Kendall home, with a mechanical sift brought on to the property, and sprayed luminol, a chemical that detects traces of blood, during the night.
The premier’s press release read:
In nearby bushland, volunteers cut down trees to help in the search.
The Commonwealth Bank has kicked off market news today, releasing a miserly $2.2bn first quarter (non audited) cash profit. Income and expenses were down 1%.
Police seized a Mazda car from a home in Gymea in Sydney’s south on 9 November.
One takeaway is that home loan competition contributed to a thinner net interest margin, as did the shift to fixed-rate mortgages which are less profitable for the bank for now at least.
With all the talk of higher official interest rates soon – which the Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe again tried to hose down yesterday – it’s a fair bet more people will be looking to switch to fixed-rate loans before they rise further.
Some of the overnight news might add to the case bond traders have been making that interest rates will rise faster than central banks are now expecting.
US retail sales rose 1.7% in October, beating forecasts of a 1.4% rise. Industrial output rose 1.6% too for the month, well ahead of the 0.7% economists had been tipping.
On the home front, the stat of the day will be the September quarter wage price index. As the RBA’s Lowe said yesterday, there are lots of questions over how wages and jobs will recover as Covid-related restrictions ease.
A nice point he made was that for all the talk about short-term visa holders returning to fill critical job shortages, don’t forget that a lot of Australians are ready to head OS too, many of them potential employees.
Lots of people have advice about the economy. One of them is deputy PM Barnaby Joyce who yesterday was making a case that a Labor government would bring “excessive mismanagement” of the economy, pushing up rates. What’s the right amount of mismanagement?
Anyway, it was a chance to trip down memory lane when he once railed about government debt but has lately gone quiet on that issue. And that’s despite the extra nought be added to what we owe.
Major floods are expected in the NSW central western town of Forbes after hundreds of people spent an anxious night evacuated from their homes, as slow-moving flood waters continue to rise, reports AAP.
The Bureau of Meteorology expects the swollen Lachlan River to peak at 10.65 metres during Wednesday, inundating low-lying areas of the town.
Forbes mayor Phyllis Miller says residents have been waiting for the flood for almost a week but waters are rising at “a snail’s pace” and she’s concerned people are becoming complacent. She told the Nine Network on Wednesday:
Yesterday morning some 1,800 residents were ordered to evacuate by the State Emergency Service, which was concerned the river levels would match or exceed major floods in 2016.
SES commissioner Carlene York said 800 homes may be flooded, as she pleaded with some reluctant locals to evacuate:
An evacuation centre has been set up at St Andrews Presbyterian church for those unable to get to alternative accommodation with family or friends.
Moderate flooding has already occurred upstream at Cowra, and major flooding at Nanami, where the river peaked at more than 12 metres.
Downstream from Forbes, major flooding is also expected at Cottons Weir and Jemalong from Thursday.
The Macquarie, Paroo, Macintyre, Belubula and Snowy rivers have also flooded after parts of the state copped a month’s worth of rain in days.
Labor is hoping to make Australia’s internet frustrations an election issue, promising a revamped national broadband network that will stay in public hands and allow more choice.
With Australia still ranked 59th in the world for broadband speeds, and 32nd out of the 37 nations in the OECD, Labor is promising a $2.4bn boost to the nationwide broadband rollout, promising to update the already ageing network.
The opposition says the funding commitment is off-budget, and will be financed through the NBN corporation itself, which Labor has committed to keeping as a public entity.
The Labor promise builds on the government’s $4.5bn retrofit announcement from last year, which aimed to upgrade fibre-to-the-node, fibre-to-the-curb and cable connections for homes in designated areas. That followed years of complaints of poor speeds and connectivity. The Coalition has maintained its decision to upgrade the copper network it had previously insisted on using, was part of a “strategic review” and not because of on-going complaints.
You can read the full report below:
You can read the full report below:
9.30am is shaping up to be busy!
Fixing overcrowded housing in Indigenous communities is key to protecting vulnerable people from Covid-19 amid a Northern Territory outbreak fuelling a Labor senator’s “worst fears”, reports AAP’s Georgie Moore.
A Victorian Pride Lobby survey has found the state’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, intersex, queer and asexual community do not trust the police force.
Jab rates for Indigenous people continue to lag across every state and territory. Just under 58% of Australia’s over-16 Indigenous population is double-dosed.
The lobby’s largest survey of attitudes towards Victoria police heard that more than 1,500 respondents had overwhelmingly negative perceptions of them, including that about 80% did not think police understood issues that impacted them, and about the same percentage did not feel safe when there was a large police presence at community events.
Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy’s family members are at the centre of a Northern Territory outbreak infecting 11 Indigenous people across Katherine and the remote community of Robinson River.
A report released on Tuesday night also found the incidents such as the police raid on Hares and Hyenas and breach of Dani Laidley’s privacy had further eroded the community’s trust in the force:
About 52% of Indigenous people are fully vaccinated in the territory, while 72% have received one dose.
Victorian Pride Lobby co-convenor Devina Potter said Victoria police had made progress but still had a long way to go to mend the relationship with the community:
McCarthy told ABC TV on Wednesday:
We are still waiting for confirmation on what exactly will be announced at this unusual 9.30am press conference from the Victorian premier. I’ll keep you posted.
Her sister carried the virus into Robinson River and nine of the politician’s family members tested positive on Tuesday.
She called for immediate support to fix overcrowding in remote community houses.
She also said misinformation was being targeted at Indigenous communities.
People are being stopped from entering or leaving Robinson River or surrounding homelands under federal biosecurity rules.
Masks are mandatory across the territory and a lockdown of Katherine will run until at least Monday.
Double-dose vaccination rates among Indigenous Australians are as low as 34%. The ACT has the highest Indigenous full vaccination rate of 84%.
Australia’s overall double-dose rate has surpassed 83% for people aged 16 and older.
Centrelink’s decision to cancel the age pension of an 80-year-old man who lives in a nursing home with advanced dementia was “absurd and wrong”, a tribunal has found.
In a judgment published this week, the administrative appeals tribunal criticised Centrelink for cancelling the man’s age pension when he did not “personally have the capacity to comprehend … a decision to suspend his pension”.
The tribunal heard David Fry was living in an aged care home and his son, John, was appointed his legal guardian, after David was discovered driving on the wrong side of the road and judged to be “mentally incapacitated”.
John Fry became responsible for managing his father’s dealings with Centrelink, which had been paying David the age pension since 2006.
You can read the full report below:
Speaking of the threats made again the Victorian premier and his family, here is what Daniel Andrews wive, Catherine Andrews, had to say about it last night:
