NSW eases restrictions as Victoria reports three new cases – as it happened

ABC managing director David Anderson has told a Senate estimates hearing a total of 229 staff have left following an indexation freeze.

But Coalition senators are arguing the ABC has not had a budget cut. Anderson has also raised the constant criticism of the ABC, in particular by the Murdoch press.

He told estimates:

Our critics relentlessly try to make us part of a cultural debate most Australians do not find relevant or helpful.

The ABC is bigger than this debate. And yet public broadcasters around the world face a similar challenge: an assault on their very existence by commercial enterprises that claim that such public services are no longer necessary.

The vast majority of Australians disagree; 2020 has shown us they want, and expect, a public broadcaster that will meet their critical needs across news, entertainment, information and education – just as the ABC charter demands.

The enthralling senate estimate session with ABC boss David Anderson continues, with a discussion just now on the the ABC’s vital emergency broadcast. He says:

In the absence of any additional funding we will do what we have to do to provide emergency broadcast coverage to Australians in times of need.

It’s important to note we are heading into bushfire season, and the ABC’s essential role in keeping rural residents abreast of the latest developments have been well documented.

We’ve now moved on, though, to an extensive conversation on social media policies.

Australian Border Force is refusing to say how many people, aside from former prime minister Tony Abbott, have been allowed to enter or leave Australia on an “auto-exemption” from the travel ban.

In Senate estimates on Tuesday evening, the Border Force commissioner, Michael Outram, confirmed Abbott had left the country twice – in July and this month – on what he said was an “auto-exemption”, meaning Abbott did not need to go through the lengthy wait period to get an approval to leave.

Outram said this was because Abbott was travelling on government business, being that he was travelling for work for the UK government. The commissioner said the rules didn’t specify that the government had to be an Australian government.

When asked by Guardian Australia on Wednesday how many people left or entered Australia on an auto-exemption, and how many of those were leaving for work for a foreign government, Border Force said it had “nothing further to add” than what Outram had said in the hearing.

More than 32,000 Australians are still waiting overseas to get back to Australia.

A Covid-19 case is being treated as a rare case of reinfection in Victoria – the first such case in Australia.

Officials say it’s not entirely clear if the positive test means the man has re-contracted the virus, but they are treating it that way.

Genomic sequencing hasn’t been completed yet but Daniel Andrews said the man first tested positive in July, then again in October, but it was not clear if it was a true case of reinfection or merely a case of the dead virus being shed.

Reinfection is incredibly rare, with only six such cases reported worldwide among the 40m cases.

The attorney general’s department has revealed the running cost of the Witness K and Bernard Collaery court cases is $3.09m.

In August 2019 Witness K’s lawyers said he intended to plead guilty to one breach of secrecy laws for blowing the whistle on Australia’s spying on East Timor.

Collaery, his lawyer, is fighting charges against himself in the ACT supreme court. There’s been a hearing to determine what material is protected by national security laws, but officials blamed Covid for delays in the case.

Independent senator Rex Patrick was not pleased:

An ongoing debate about whether the ABC budget has gone up or down has gripped Senate estimates for the past half an hour or so, with some Coalition senators arguing the budget has gone up in “real terms”.

The ABC managing director, David Anderson, says the latest job losses clock in at 229, and the broadcaster had to axe the 7.45am news bulletin, but perhaps it’s a matter of perspective.

The financial law enforcement agency Austrac revealed yesterday it had spoken to the Australian federal police and Victoria police about claims 700,000 euros had been wired from the Vatican to Australia in relation to the Pell court matters.

The Australian federal police has just issued this statement:

The AFP can confirm it received information from Austrac on this matter. This is part of a routine exchange of financial intelligence between Austrac and the AFP. The AFP is undertaking a review of the relevant information.

The AFP has concurrently referred aspects of this matter to the Victorian Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (Ibac). The AFP has no further comment to make on this matter.

So that’s at least four bodies (Austrac, AFP, Ibac and Victoria Police) looking into it.

Michael Illin, chairperson of the Townsville Aboriginal and Islander Health Service, is on ABC news discussing the Queensland LNP’s suggestion of a curfew for young people.

Asked if he thought the policy, which included $250 fines for breaches, would disproportionally affect indigenous kids and their families, he said:

Most definitely. Like I said, it would re-traumatise kids and families, not just with the $250 fines, but also with the intergenerational trauma that is caused from when their parents and our parents have lived under the act and been dominated by living in missionaries and dormitories.

So it feels like we are being governed by the government again, and it can feel like a loss of freedom again for us. And it can be re-traumatising, not just for kids, but the whole family holistically.

Senate estimates continued and today we heard that more than 80% of the $250m arts rescue package has yet to be allocated.

The package was announced in June after pleas for help from the struggling industry, but only a fifth has been spent, and all on the screen industry.

Thanks Amy, very excited to be here and very much looking forward to Abetzimates tonight.

That brings us to the end of my day (ish) so I will hand you over to Mostafa Rachwani, who is making his blog debut. Big snaps.

Thank you to everyone who joined me today – make sure you check in on the site to see the updates, and of course, the news and analysis of another big day. It feels like a Thursday (the agreed-upon worst day of the week) but alas, it is only Wednesday. It’s Abetzimates tonight – the ABC is fronting the estimates committee, which, for Eric Abetz, is like Christmas – so we’ll bring you news on that.

I’ll be back bright and early for the last sitting day of the week – but in the meantime, take care of you.

This ain’t it.

The former prime minister Tony Abbott signed up on the foreign influence register after writing to the attorney general’s department to ask about his reporting obligations, a Senate estimates committee has been told.

A couple of weeks ago we reported on how Abbott had registered his new role as an adviser to the UK Board of Trade – an appointment that attracted controversy in both countries – but wrote that he was not receiving any payment.

Abbott’s registration is particularly notable because past correspondence between the attorney general’s department and Abbott about potential reporting obligations over previous engagements triggered a rebuke from the attorney general, Christian Porter, and criticism from conservative groups.

Chris Moraitis, the secretary of the department, confirmed at Senate estimates that Abbott had added himself to the register set up under the Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme (Fits) in connection with the UK Board of Trade role:

My understanding is it does not relate to the matters of a year ago. It relates to more recent engagements by Mr Abbott. As a former prime minister and cabinet minister, of course he has lifetime obligations. Given that it’s a matter of public record, I can say that that engagement now with another country meant that he has decided to register.

The Labor senator Kim Carr asked whether Abbott registered reluctantly or was angry about his need to register. Moraitis replied:

Not at all. I can say that I received correspondence from Mr Abbott enquiring about his obligations, which is fair enough and exemplary in that respect. And I wrote back saying in my view, yes, and next I knew he was registered. That sounds pretty amicable and professional to me.

Moraitis added that he had not heard from the Institute of Public Affairs “for a while”.

The institute has previously expressed outrage at the targeting of Abbott, with its communications director writing a piece in February calling for the Fits legislation “to be recast to defang the bureaucrats as well as opportunistic politicians” who used it to pursue enemies.

The department’s deputy secretary, Sarah Chidgey, confirmed the department had also had “engagement with other former prime ministers and former ministers” about potential reporting obligations.

Matt Gardiner, executive director of Save the Children’s Australian services, has responded to the Queensland Liberal National party’s announcement it will enforce a curfew on children in Townsville and Cairns (both regions with large Indigenous populations) if it wins government.

Gardiner said:

The dual tragedy of these policies is that they criminalise children and just don’t work. Instead of reducing crime rates, children are trapped in a cycle of crime they may never escape.

Rather than taking kids into custody, we should be investing in approaches that address their needs, direct them towards support services and help take responsibility for the consequences of their behaviour.

Evidence shows that youth crime rates are decreasing. We are working with individual children directly and need more investment in these type of support services.

Your wishes, are, as always my command.

(Via AAP)

The country’s agriculture department has again picked up the trail of actor Amber Heard over her 2015 decision to illegally bring pets Pistol and Boo to Australia.

Kevin Murphy, a former employee of Heard’s then-partner Johnny Depp, earlier in the year told a London court he repeatedly warned her it would be illegal.

At a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra on Wednesday, agriculture official Peta Lane confirmed Murphy’s testimony had them digging.

She told senators:

There was evidence presented in the London court case which suggested false statements were provided in a court case in 2016, so we are investigating that.

Murphy claimed Heard asked him to contact her former assistant, Kate James, and tell her to lie under oath to an Australian court.

He cooperated with Heard’s request to provide her with a statement supporting the account for Australian authorities.

Lane said the Australian federal police were now involved in the investigation.

Giving a false testimony is an offence under the Crimes Act, so that is what we are now investigating.

The agriculture department has tried to contact Murphy without success.

Lane said:

We are liaising with the AFP who are using their contacts overseas to obtain information on our behalf.

Heard was sentenced to a one-month good behaviour in 2016 after pleading guilty to providing a false document to customs officials.

Former agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce threatened to euthanise the dogs if Depp didn’t take them back to the US after breaching biosecurity laws.

He said at the time:

He’s now got about 50 hours left to remove the dogs. He can put them on the same charter jet.

If we start letting movie stars – even though they’ve been the sexiest man alive twice – to come into our nation, then why don’t we just break the laws for everybody?

It’s time that Pistol and Boo buggered off back to the United States.

Some more Mike Bowers magic. Laughs all round:

Milton Dick called Peter Dutton a “covid spreader” in a debate yesterday (he later withdrew it and apologised – the Queensland election has made things a little tense) and I imagine that this is what this little tête-à-tête was about.

Victoria Health has put out its official data:

Victoria has recorded three new cases of coronavirus since yesterday, with the total number of cases now at 20,323.

There have been no new deaths from Covid-19 reported since yesterday. To date, 817 people have died from coronavirus in Victoria.

Of today’s three new cases:

• Two are linked to the northern metro region community outbreak
• One is a household contact of a known case

The three cases were in quarantine when they tested positive.

A previous case included in yesterday’s numbers continues to be reviewed and assessed by an expert panel of clinicians and epidemiologists to determine if this is a new infection or if the person is still shedding virus from their original infection.

One avenue being explored is that this is a reinfection of coronavirus. Such cases are rare globally and only a handful have been reported in scientific literature. We are conducting further investigations and additional tests, including whole genome sequencing, before making a final determination.

While this investigation is underway, the case is being treated as a new positive and appropriate public health actions are in place, pending a decision.

The Department of Health and Human Services continues to work with local health services to contain an outbreak of coronavirus in Shepparton. There are three cases in Shepparton.

Day 11 re-testing of contacts and close contacts in Shepparton is continuing, with the final round of tests to be conducted on Saturday.

A further 248 tests were taken in Shepparton and surrounding regions yesterday, taking the total number of tests in Shepparton and the surrounding region to 6,972.

Simon Birmingham is defending the delayed the release of the federal national integrity commission draft bill, which was delayed before the pandemic and which Christian Porter told me would “take as long as necessary” well ahead of the pandemic in Australia.

Birmingham, speaking to Afternoon Briefing, holds the line:

It is more urgent for the attorney general to be dealing with the various employment and other matters that came before him as part of the pandemic. That is precisely what he was doing, but obviously we’re still working through these matters.

The commission, and ensuring that we have a model that is a sustainable, want for the future that doesn’t repeat some of those mistakes of state commissions that sometimes look more like show trials, and actual serious bodies aren’t repeated.

What we want is to make sure that in terms of dealing with integrity, we build on the very strong and robust institutions that already exist at a federal level and then we get a model that is enduring for the future.

Airlines have lashed the federal government for “uncertainty” about how many passengers they can fly into Australia, warning the now 32,000 stranded Australians registered with the government as wanting to return home will increase.

In a statement released on Wednesday afternoon, the Board of Airline Representatives of Australia, which represents airlines including Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines and Etihad, scolded the government for telling airlines their upcoming passenger allocations – how many they can take each flight – today, just four days before they take effect on 25 October.

Some planes flying into Australia are limited to carrying as few as 30 passengers, as airlines have to comply with the state government-requested and federal government-enforced cap of about 5,700 weekly arrivals.

The caps, designed to ease pressure on states’ hotel quarantine systems, have resulted in Australians overseas being bumped off return flights they had booked before the caps were introduced.

Bara said:

This delay has frustrated international airlines, and disrupted their ability to meet allocated cap numbers. It will also lead to fewer Australians being able to return home in the four weeks to 21 November. It has already led to yet more uncertainty and stress for Australians stranded overseas because international airlines cannot tell many of them when they will be able to travel home.

Senate estimates on Tuesday heard the number of stranded Australians wanting to return home had grown to 32,300, increasing from just under 19,000 in late August.

It has also increased from 29,100 registered last week, when the Morrison government announced it would be expanding the Howard Springs facility in the Northern Territory – a move which will allow for 5,000 additional quarantine places by the end of March, or about 200 a week.

The government also announced emergency evacuation flights to repatriate Australians from the United Kingdom, India and South Africa.

Labor’s Murray Watt has asked about the higher education integrity unit, established in Melbourne in June. The point is: how did the government set up a cop on the uni beat but not the corruption beat?

Unfortunately senator Jonathon Duniam isn’t familiar with the body, so he can’t explain why it was set up when a national integrity commission wasn’t.

Duniam said:

I’m not aware of the body you’ve referred to. I don’t know how complex the regulation around that is. Senator [Zed] Seselja has answered that we are committed to an integrity commission ... You’ll draw your own comparison, I suspect you will.”

Watt then picks out holes in proposed integrity commission model, including that it can’t make findings of corruption and can’t take referrals direct from whistleblowers and members of the public. He then reads quotes from David Ipp and Geoffrey Watson the general thrust of which is that the proposed body isn’t very good.

Sarah Henderson is now leading evidence from attorney general department witnesses about deficiencies with the Labor-Greens-crossbench model of integrity commission.

That was very, very quick.

Just going back through question time – there are close to 1 million unemployed Australians at the moment. Treasury expects that number to increase.

So hearing the prime minister say this, in defence to an associate of John Howard getting a contract job,

If you are good at your job, you will get a job – that’s how works, Mr Speaker!

is particularly jarring.

The attorney general’s department has just been caught out in Senate estimates about some of the forward sizzle in anticipation of having a national integrity commission.

Greens senator Larissa Waters noticed the budget papers contain an allocation of 76 staff for the integrity commission, and asked how it can have staff in 2020-21 if no draft legislation has even been released.

The attorney general’s department deputy secretary, Sarah Chidgey, said:

That figure was included in error ... I think it was an oversight from previous budget measures that shouldn’t have been included in that paper and would ordinarily have been edited, but that was missed.

Labor’s Murray Watt also discovered that the $104.5m allocated in the 2019 budget has never been varied, despite draft legislation going through various changes.

These are the necessary preparations for creating a new body that stick out when you announce an intention to do something but never get round to it because ... you know, Covid.

Christian Porter was on Perth radio 6PR today and was asked about the labour market. He said:

International borders are going to be seriously constrained for a considerable period of time. And that means that interstate labour market mobility is more important now than it has ever been in Australia’s history. And that is one of several factors that have to be taken into consideration in WA and other states.

And I’m sure that they are, but, you know, it’s not rocket science to realise that you need to be able to have Australia functioning. And it effectively has done for 120 years, where you have as much freedom of movement as the health circumstances will allow, because we’ve built our families and our businesses around the fact that people can move from place to place for work.

And that’s been an important structure that’s existed in Australia for 120 years. Now, if you just stop that structure for one or several states for an extended period of time, beyond the health necessity, you are going to see all sorts of strange and unhappy occurrences, both in terms of the human cost, but obviously in terms of the cost for businesses and employment and labour market flexibility and job growth.

And the most important thing that we can do in all of our government settings is A) protect people’s health, but B) make sure that we are growing jobs wherever we reasonably can.

Labor’s Murray Watt has asked the attorney general’s department if other legislation has been drafted and gone through consultation in 2020.

The secretary, Chris Moraitis, said the bill creating a national commissioner for defence and veteran suicide prevention had gone through a four-week consultation before it was introduced to parliament in August.

It’s a bit of an “a-ha!” moment, because Scott Morrison’s excuse in question time for there being no national integrity commission bill was the government needed to do consultation.

Just as with the wage data yesterday, retail trade fell in most places (not the Northern Territory) in the month the jobkeeper wage subsidy was decreased.

You can find the ABS figures for September here. But there was a 1.5% reduction – and that was in more jurisdictions than just Victoria.

And Scott Morrison calls time on question time, 10 minutes earlier than has been his habit of late.

Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:

My question is to the prime minister, and I refer to his previous answer today where he [cites] bushfires and the pandemic as the reason why the exposure draft of the national integrity commission legislation, which the government received from the attorney general’s department last December, has not been released. What is it about either the bushfires or the pandemic that stops the government from tabling legislation that it has had for almost a year?

Morrison:

It may escape the attention of the leader of the opposition that when serious crises confront this nation it is the entire government that comes together, the entire public service that comes together, to act on a whole-of-government basis to deal with that crisis. And that is what our government has done – whether before Covid-19, as we dealt with black summer [the prime minister went on holiday to Hawaii], or as Covid-19 hit this country in early January, as we ... moved to close the borders and move through the many other measures that we had to take to save lives and livelihoods.

As the attorney general outlined before, this is complex legislation, and it requires detailed consultation, Mr Speaker. And that involves the actions of the public service, it involves the involvement of the attorney general to engage in that process out in the community.

Mr Speaker, I was not going to have one public servants diverted from the task of ... dealing with this pandemic, as the leader of the opposition would suggest. It may have escaped the attention of the leader of the opposition that the attorney general has been involved for many months now in bringing both employers and employee representatives together to fashion a set of proposals to get more Australians back to work. [The roundtables ended in September.]

Mr Speaker, the leader of opposition doesn’t understand the crisis facing this nation, and that makes him totally ill-equipped to participate in ensuring Australian lives and livelihoods can be protected.

Lols

Scott Morrison, for what it is worth, has a Bachelor of Science in applied economic geography from the University of New South Wales.

Tony Burke to Angus Taylor:

I refer to his previous answers where he has been connected to scandals on water buybacks that are critically endangered grasslands, a fake City of Sydney document, and – for the second time now – an Icac investigation, this time about land near Western Sydney airport. Can the minister please name which scandals for this government he has not been involved with?

Tony Smith:

The question is out of order. Let’s move to the next one.

Peter Dutton is allowed to take a dixer on the defence force, and says Labor wasn’t into building boats but “receiving boats from other parts of the world”.

It’s probably worth mentioning that under Peter Dutton, two little girls who have been detained on Christmas Island are followed to school by security guards.

Jason Clare to Scott Morrison:

Can the prime minister confirm that when the government had to choose an investigator to conduct an independent investigation into reports the assistant treasurer used taxpayer funded staff to branch stack, he chose the exact same law firm that the assistant treasurer used to work for?

He paid the law firm $25,000 for the privilege of investigating his former associate, who the law firm describes as a firm friend.

Morrison:

The investigation you referred to was conducted on behalf of the Department of Finance and they had that review conducted independently at arm’s length of the government.

The minister was rightly not consulted about the structure or the manner of the review...

Mr Speaker, the member casts an aspersion on a well-respected legal firm that deals – who undertake these matters, as many firms do, for governments around the country, from time to time.

What we have from the member opposite is again the opportunity taken to come in here, cast a slur on a member in this place that is being dealt with independently by an investigation, and at the same process, sling mud about at a respected legal firm in this country, Mr Speaker.

Such is the desperation that has gripped the opposition. Such is the depth that they have sunk to in their desperation that I think the Australian people can conclude rightly that if they don’t have anything to say of any merit, Mr Speaker, they could save everybody a lot of time.

Dan Tehan is pretending all is well in university-land and how it’s just all brilliant, like university hasn’t just been placed out of reach of a bunch of people who grew up like me.

Tony Burke to Paul Fletcher:

Yesterday in this House the minister said he stood by his answers at the National Press Club in relation to the Leppington Triangle airport rort. Those included a statement when he read the auditor general’s report .... Can the minister inform the House what he learned.

Fletcher:

I do thank the shadow minister for his question. I was asked a number of questions when I spoke at the National Press Club on the 23rd of last month about the Leppington Triangle matter. And I gave very comprehensive answers to those questions and I stand by those answers.

Ahhhh, the ole “I said what I said when I said it and will not say it again in the chamber” line.

Michael McCormack is picking his words very carefully in response to this question from Catherine King:

When asked in Senate Estimates yesterday P agreed with the Minister ‘s assertion about the purchase of the Leppington Triangle and if it was a bargain, he stated compulsory acquisition should have continued to be pursued. Why did the government change course to acquire this land by agreement instead of through compulsory acquisition, does the Minister stand by his statement the sale was a bargain?

Tip Top sounds like he is buffering, he leaves so much space between words:

I was not the Minister at the time I became the Minister for infrastructure in February 2018, this took place before that.

That said, the entire purchase of the land, is under three investigations, investigations that have been called for by the Department itself, by the ANAO, an organisation with which the Member for Ballarat is very familiar, and the ADF are looking into it as is an independent auditor.

I’m sure when those investigations are as they may be take place the government will consider that review and act accordingly then.

For a government that is very sure it has all the plans in the world, its ministers seem very concerned with “alternative” plans of an opposition which hasn’t even put out its policy platform yet.

And apparently we aren’t going to an election until 2022. Surrrreeeeeeeee.

Labor’s Katy Gallagher is examining the finance department’s involvement in the Leppington Triangle purchase.

Finance secretary Rosemary Huxtable said the department was “not the decision-maker” (that would be infrastructure) – it only “operationalises the decision” by providing final sign-off and does not “stand in the shoes of the decision-maker”.

Other officials explained that finance has a greater role when a compulsory acquisition is used, but if the purchase is voluntary its role is limited to checking that processes of the Land Acquisition Act have been followed.

Gallagher characterises this as being a “rubber stamp for a dodgy deal”.

Huxtable said that although finance was aware of the $30m sale figure, it was not aware of the detail of how it was calculated.

Finance minister Mathias Cormann said finance “was only aware of the higher valuation, not any other valuations”, adding they “were not consulted on valuation strategy of implementation”. He said infrastructure “should have” consulted it on the valuation strategy but did not.

Here’s the timeline:

• In late 2015, the finance department gave “preliminary comments” that, in general, acquisitions by agreement are better than compulsory acquisition.
• In a draft strategy in July 2016 and a final strategy in October 2016, the infrastructure department opted for compulsory acquisition.
• Later, the infrastructure department changed tack and went back to a voluntary sale, which allowed the inflated valuation. Finance found that out at the end of 2017, before paperwork confirmed a voluntary sale on 25 January 2018.
• In November 2019 finance became aware the ANAO was conducting an audit and provided its standard guidance about land sales.

Cormann said:

• “As soon as the decision was made to shift from compulsory acquisition to voluntary under their strategy, finance no longer had a formal role.”
• The purchase was “clearly highly unsatisfactory” ; but
• “The auditor general went through this with a fine-tooth comb ... [and] did not direct any findings or recommendations at finance – none.”
  

We move on to our billionth “alternative approaches” dixer.

Related, my eye twitch is back.

Catherine King asks Michael McCormack when he last had contact with Daryl Maguire, referring to his “earlier answers”.

Christian Porter argues it is not in order:

I can’t see how that is related to the Deputy Prime Minister’s portfolio and I’m failing to see how it is related to the last question.

Tony Smith rules it out of order.

Anthony Albanese starts heckling Michael McCormack across the table. We move on

Tim Wilson is obviously vying with Vince Connolly for “best backbencher dixer performance 2020” – either that or he has spent too much time in quarantine practising speeches in front of the mirror.

Cathrine King once again summons Michael McCormack:

Has the minister for regional development had any discussions with disgraced former Liberal MP Daryl Maguire regarding [a] regional business based in Wagga Wagga, Gateway International, that was the vehicle for the cash-for-Visa scheme?

McCormack:

N [space] O

Josh Frydenberg has once again forgotten how microphones work - in that they amplify your voice, so you do not have to scream into them to be heard.

We live in hope.

Catherine King asks Michael McCormack a non-dixer question – always a dangerous proposition, because it involves him having to think on his feet and we just don’t have that sort of time.

Q: I refer to his answers yesterday. Has the deputy prime minister had any discussions with disgraced former Liberal MP Daryl Maguire regarding any land acquisitions or road projects?

Tip Top:

Road projects, yes, I have had discussions with the former member for Wagga Wagga, certainly in the electorate of Wagga Wagga, which he represents and which I of course represent as part of the Riverina electorate.

You would expect a state member and a federal member to have those discussions and I am proud to say that the Riverina freight and logistics hub is benefiting from having a coalition government in New South Wales and a coalition government that built the enabling roads and infrastructure that will support the inland rail when it goes through that project north of Wagga Wagga.

So I have had discussions with the former member for Wagga Wagga in that regard. As far as other land acquisitions, no.

Because there is not enough comedy in this place, someone asks Michael McCormack to talk about the budget.

Given the deputy prime minister seems to think buying something for $30m when it has been valued at $3m will be considered “a bargain” at some point in the future, in the imaginary land where land appreciates by $1m a year every year for 30 years, perhaps he is not the best person to speak on budgets.

Or anything, really. The pot plant that sits wilting on my window sill has more presence.

Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:

I refer to evidence given today before the Senate by the attorney general’s department. That the government has had an exposure draft of legislation to create a national integrity commission since last December 2019. I ask the prime minister, don’t Australians have a right to see this draft, and will the government table it?

Morrison:

Yes they do and yes they well but it may have passed the attention of the leader of the Labor party as it seems to on many occasions, since December of last year, there has been a significant crisis this country has been dealing with, and a rolling set of crises, and the leader of the opposition is correct. Followed by the Covid-19 pandemic. A Covid-19 pandemic that has escaped the attention of the leader of the opposition! Who doesn’t seem to have understood, that that is what has caused the Covid-19 recession in this country, as I said the other day, if you don’t know how you got into the problem, Mr Speaker...

Albanese:

Relevance, Mr Speaker. The question contained a very specific ask, will the government table the legislation, they can do that, they can do that today, they could have done that on any day since December 2019.

Smith says the prime minister addressed the question.

Morrison

The leader of the opposition doesn’t understand how Australia went into a Covid-19 recession, he doesn’t have the faintest idea how he could get Australia out of that situation, but this government knows how and it was set out in our economic recovery plan for the Covid-19 recession, which was in the budget handed down by the treasurer, which has seen one of the biggest spikes on consumer confidence we have seen in response to a budget since those surveys were undertaken. It was the Budget that Australians needed, it is the shot in the arm Australians needed and that’s the plan.

There is no ‘your’, but still - this is an amusing example of Orwellian language.

Much like the parentheses in legislation, these things tend to be dressed up in the most innocuous language possible. The devil, though, as always, is in the detail

Christian Porter says “one” of the issues that requires consultation is the retrospectivity of the commission. He again says the government will take its time doing that consultation.

The next stage for the integrity commission will be a consultation and that will be detailed and extensive. In fact, why is that necessary because it is a serious issue as the Member for Maribyrnong said, a reform of this magnitude is complex and would require extensive consultation and design work. The fact we chose not to conduct that consultation during the height of a global pandemic seems to be to us a matter of some common sense.

But, as I reported in January (and before that) plans to do that consultation had already been delayed - well before the pandemic.

The Australia Institute has put together a timeline of the federal government’s federal integrity commission “journey” so far.

You can find that here.

Labor’s Michelle Rowland really wants you to hear this:

Departmental officials have today confirmed the cost of the NBN has blown out to $57 billion under the Morrison Government.

In 2013, the Liberals promised their inferior multi-technology mix would cost $29.5 billion. That increased to $41 billion in 2014, to $49 billion in 2016, to $51 billion in 2018.

Under questioning by Senator Green, officials did their best to avoid confirming the figure which Minister Fletcher had tried to conceal from the Corporate Plan.

It is now $57 billion.

Over in the finance committee, the estimates hearing has begun for the afternoon session. The No 1 topic? The Leppington triangle sale.

We are on the downhill slide to question time.

Huzzah.

Rod Sims says he has no concerns about having business leaders, such as Nev Power, involved in the Covid commission.

No I don’t, at all. I think getting a wide range of advice to the government is good advice. Sometimes ‘no conflict, no interest’, as a prominent business leader once said to me, I thought that was a rather cute line – provided you are open about things and you know what people’s backgrounds are and you can adjust your thinking accordingly.

But I think getting businesses involved in this time is helpful and my own observation would be that Australian business leaders have stood up pretty well during this crisis. They have done things which I can certainly see were to the benefit of Australia rather than to their own business ... This is taking a wider view and making a wider contribution, so that has been good.

This is the Coalition’s safest seat (against Labor) in the country

On the Google and Facebook media battle, Rod Sims says:

I remember being in Bob Hawke’s office, could be forgiven to media outlets, I think compared to then, our media is more diverse than it was then. I was just saying to people on the table that at the moment, we have various newspapers, but in a sense almost the ABC, when I was growing up, it was radio and TV, but effectively now it is print.

You can go to a website just like all the other websites. That is more effective. You have the Guardian, the daily mail, if you look at who gets the main hits on searches for news websites, the Guardian and the daily mail are right up there.

So of course more diversity in media is better than less. But I think we have more diversity now than in the past. And I suspect in the digital world we will get even more. With a AP, we are just conscious that it is effectively now a new player. We just want to make sure there is not behaviour by other players that sees it knocked out of business. We will be looking very carefully at just how other players might engage with the media that might have that effect. So we will watch very carefully.

Rod Sims tells the press club that since the privatisation of Australia’s ports, there has been “little to no regulation” of monopolies in that sector.

Same goes for airports.

He then moves on to the next battle – the media space:

The media bargaining code is a great example of a tailored solution to a particular market-power issue.

The digital platforms Google and Facebook clearly have market power. It is simply extraordinary how the digital platforms continue to reject that they have market power when everyone else sees it as obvious.

Further, their ‘take it or leave it’ attitude to dealing with news media businesses is damaging journalism, which in my strong view is essential to our society.

And let’s be clear, this is not a case of Schumpeterian creative destruction. The situation we are in is not akin to the car replacing the horse and buggy. The digital platforms do not produce news; rather they are vehicles for the dissemination of views and information which would be all the poorer, including for digital platforms, with a lack of content from professional journalists.

We have all noticed recent offers of money by both Google and Facebook to media businesses. This is due to the pressure the digital platforms are under.

We should get to a sensible outcome on these issues in the not too distant future.

Meanwhile, in estimates ...

I just learnt something: Rod Sims was one of Bob Hawke’s economic advisers when he was prime minister.

Helen Haines will introduce a bill on Monday for a national integrity commission.

Rod Sims:

On many occasions journalists have said to me they think a company is misbehaving when the company is simply using its market power – such as when electricity companies increased electricity prices when Hazelwood closed, or when the monopoly port of Newcastle increased its prices by around 50% because there is no regulation preventing this.

In these circumstances companies are not misbehaving. Their behaviour is not some form of aberration. They are simply acting commercially and predictably to maximise profits, as their shareholders demand of them.

The issue for all of us is how do we prevent companies gaining too much market power in the first place and, when they have it, how do we deal with the most damaging consequences of the use of that market power.

My thesis today is that we must, in all decisions affecting our market economy, take into account market power and the consequences that flow from it. This is particularly crucial at this time, as we confront the economic challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic and the implications of an ever-growing digital economy.

ACCC chief Rod Sims is delivering today’s national press club address.

He says there is more which can be done in consumer laws – for instance, price gouging is not illegal under Australian law.

Again, it was reported in January that the draft was “all but finished” but had been delayed for public consultation, but I guess people are in a space to start paying attention again.

Mark Dreyfus on the estimates evidence that the draft legislation for the national integrity commission was given to the attorney general in December:

Today’s evidence confirms the Morrison government has no interest in integrity or fighting corruption and is using the Covid-crisis as an excuse.

In December 2018 Mr Porter and Mr Morrison claimed to have been working on “a robust, resourced, real system that will protect the integrity of commonwealth and public administration” since January 2018.

Today, almost three years later, nothing has happened, despite departmental officials providing them with a draft bill ahead of their own deadline to release the legislation by the end of 2019.

That commitment was always a sham. The integrity commission promised by Mr Morrison and Mr Porter was so weak, ineffective and opaque it was unable to instigate independent inquiries, to hold public hearings or even investigate any of the multiple past scandals of the Morrison government.

Today’s evidence follows Mr Porter’s recent admission that tackling corruption is a low priority for the Morrison government.

The ever-growing list of scandals surrounding the Morrison government shows why Australia needs a powerful and independent audit office, and a powerful and independent national integrity commission – and why Mr Morrison and his colleagues will do everything in their power to crush both of them.

At Senate estimates, the Future Fund has confirmed reports that it pressed Rio Tinto to take stronger action after the company’s destruction of a 46,000-year-old sacred site at Juukan Gorge in May.

The Greens senator Nick McKim asked representatives of the Future Fund whether the chair, Peter Costello, and others confronted Rio Tinto over the destruction of heritage at Juukan Gorge. This stems from a report in the Australian on 10 September.

Dr Raphael Arndt, the Future Fund chief executive officer, told the Senate finance committee the fund regularly engaged with companies in which the fund had large holdings. He confirmed Arndt, Costello and several other Future Fund representatives attended a meeting with the Rio Tinto board at the board’s request.

At that meeting we did raise our concerns, yes … The discussion centred on the events that had occurred and the report that Rio Tinto’s board had commissioned looking into the series of actions that led up to that, and at that time [the] board’s decision of what the consequences to the individuals involved should be.

Arndt said the Future Fund expressed the view that Rio Tinto needed to have better systems and processes in place.

So did the Future Fund push for the chief executive and others involved to resign? Arndt indicated the Future Fund pressed the board to take stronger action than it had originally planned:

The view that we put was that we didn’t think the consequence was sufficient relative to the potential damage that would be done to the organisation and ultimately, in the long run, its share price …

It wasn’t for us to tell Rio Tinto what to do and how to respond to that, we just expressed a view we didn’t think the consequence at that time was sufficient.

On 11 September, after growing pressure from a range of investors, Rio Tinto announced its chief executive, Jean-Sébastien Jacques, and two other senior executives would leave the global miner.

For the latest on this story, see recent coverage by Lorena Allam:

This is becoming a monthly story.

Labor has struck another blow in exposing the Coalition’s excuse that it hasn’t created a national integrity commission because of Covid.

At Senate estimates, the attorney general’s department secretary, Chris Moraitis, said Christian Porter already has an exposure draft of legislation to create the body. The deputy secretary, Sarah Chidgey, chipped in that it was completed in December 2019.

Labor’s Murray Watt responded:

Wow, so he’s been sitting on it since last year.

I expect Labor will go on the attack about this – the legislation was done before the Covid outbreak, and the department has pursued other legislation since the outbreak, such as cracking down on class actions.

And that is where I’ll leave the press conference – it is getting in to the nitty gritty of the outside dining permits. But I will keep an eye on it, in case anything else pops up.

Q: The intense focus on Dr Brett Sutton, is this a distraction from his job?

Daniel Andrews:

In my experience he is very focused on playing his part and getting the numbers down and keeping them down.

He is a strong person and he has shown a determination to get the job done.

Q: Are you still confident that everyone in government is cooperating as they should be?

Andrews:

Yes I am, and if the board had a different view they would put that forward.

Q: Can you explain what is behind the continued restrictions on religious institutions?

Daniel Andrews:

There are significant concerns in the general public about those gatherings in so far as ... this is not a licensed premises, not a regulated environment. I think there is some concern.

... Because there is a sense that people are distancing, an authorised officer or police officer is not going to walk into the middle of a mass and say this is all – can you imagine if that happened? The offence that people would take. And it would be quite a thing.

So it isn’t a unique environment. It not like it is a pub, where there is a redline and a green line, and there is a license, and there is a responsible service of alcohol and all the other things.

I know there’s been some comparisons, people can be outside at the pub but we can’t [be in church and] celebrate mass – they are two different things.

The good news is, though, we are looking at this very carefully and I hope on Sunday to be able to give to people of faith what they have been craving and missed all this year.

But it has to be safe. I am not complaining that people are making the comparison, I’m just trying to make the point that some of the hospitality-church comparisons, I don’t think they are actually fair. They are not necessarily accurate. But I understand the concern.

People want to get back to temple, the mosque, church, it just has to be done in a different way, in a Covid-safe way, and hopefully we can take some further steps.

Q: Four babies have died from South Australia in the last month. These children would have normally been transferred to Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital for heart surgery. They couldn’t go there because of Covid restrictions. Could you explain what has happened?

Daniel Andrews:

I don’t know that it is correct that Covid-19 restrictions were the cause of them not travelling.

First let me express my deep – I have three kids, I know a bit about the children’s hospital, I was proud to play a small part in building, and I know and understand the quality of care and the range of practice that runs there. The reason we have deep personal collection to the Royal Children’s Hospital is many of us as parents has seen our kids get care there, and we are confident that they don’t just provide run-of-the-mill care, they provide care that can be accessed nowhere else in many different speciality fields.

Paediatric, particularly in cardiac surgery – we don’t just do the best work in Australia, we do some of the best in the world. I want to send my sympathies to those parents, this will be a very difficult time for them, that would never leave you, I would think. That would touch you and be with you forever.

So I send my sympathies, but I don’t think it is a matter of restrictions. That there was a choice not at our end but the other end for them not to be sent – I make no judgements about that.

I’m happy to get more detail on that. I can only go what I’m been told – I don’t think it was a you-can’t-come-here type of deal. But again, it is a terrible tragedy. And if there is anything else that I can provide we’ll have the health minister provide you – or indeed from the Royal Children’s Hospital – I’m happy to follow that up.

Q: He is a public servant and not a politician. Is it a different rule from when someone can knock on his door?

Daniel Andrews:

I don’t make the rules for the press. And I don’t try to impose rules. But I don’t know that there was a desperate need for a brand new photograph of the chief health officer – he has stood here and other forums on literally hundreds of occasions. I don’t need to be drawn any further than that.

You have a job to do, as I said, I’m not someone on the phone three times a day screaming at journalists or editors, complaining about the coverage.

You do your job, I’ll do mine, that is the approach I’ve taken for 20 years now. You’ve asked me a question and I’ve answered it without crossing the line.

Your job is very important. And there are some in my business who spend an inordinate amount of time complaining about coverage; I’m not one of them.

Q: Are you concerned it appears he is instructed the department to not hand up a critical email...

Daniel Andrews:

I’m not trying to avoid the question, but I don’t quite have the freedom in my answer. My concern is the process is not one that is influenced by anyone in the government, it is at arm’s length, it is not finished yet. I would love them to report tomorrow, they have a big job to do, they have hundreds of thousands of documents, witnesses, all sorts of questions that they need to be given the time to finish.

Q: The line in the letter from the department is that Professor Sutton didn’t need the email to clarify his evidence, therefore the email didn’t need to be provided. Does that mean that he didn’t want the email provided?

Andrews:

I’m not entirely sure what that line means. I’m not involved in the production of that theory or viewpoint or letter that correspondence comes from. It doesn’t come from me.

Q: Are you saying the email should be provided?

Andrews:

The first I heard of that was the letter this morning. I don’t want to be a commentator, this is not an invitation for me to become one.

But I think the board made it pretty clear yesterday. They want that material, they have sought that material. I expect that material will be handed up if it hasn’t been already. It was led and tabled yesterday, so they have it, and I’m in no position to make a judgement about those matters. Perhaps the board will as well. That is an important part of their work.

Q: Would he have had a role in saying which email should go?

Andrews:

Again, no judgements on those matters. But questions were asked, he answered from this podium a couple of days ago, beyond that it is for the board and those assisting to deal with those issues and many others.

Q: Do you think it was OK for a journalist to knock on his door, was that OK?

Andrews:

I have done this for a very long time. And I have never, I would stand to be corrected, but I have never criticised any of you for the work that you do.

I don’t always like what is on the front page, and I sometimes think it is not particularly fair. But that is the game. Get on with the job, that is what I do.

I will just say, I would hope there is a recognition in this room and others, I don’t ring and it is, that is not who I am. You have a job to do, go and do it, but people will make their own judgements about whether what is in the papers is accurate or meets with the agreement.

But I will say this: was there a shortage of photographs of Brett Sutton? How many photos have been taken of the bloke over the last year? Lots, I would have thought. Lots. That is all I will say.

Q: Any comment on the hotel quarantine inquiry?

Daniel Andrews:

I have been asked to answer basic questions. I would say it is an exercise for completeness sake, if you like – I’m not changing my evidence. It is just a few developments in recent times, whether it be, whatever it is, for the sake of completeness, some basic questions have been put to me, and I will respond in due course.

Q: Affidavits?

Andrews:

They come in the form of a questionnaire. They are like a witness statement: you answer those questions, true and correct, and that is exactly what we will do. Nothing more or less.

Q: Do you expect any changes to your original...

Andrews:

Absolutely not. There is no need to do that. It is not appropriate for me to be going into those details. It was the same answer months ago when a witness statement questionnaire came to me. That is a matter for the board, and it is appropriate that they make a judgement about what, if anything, should be out there in the public domain. It is an ongoing process. And as we always have done, we will cooperate fully.

Q: Jenny Mikakos decided to resign because of the appearance of conflicting evidence. Why isn’t the chief health officer doing the same?

Andrews:

The board will look at these matters. I’m hearing yesterday these are very live, they are looking at these issues and others. And I will leave it to them to make findings or not as they see fit.

The chief health officer has a very important job to do, he is getting on with that, he leads a team. And I’m grateful to all of them. On the basis that these matters, I think it is fair to say as we are here right now, the board is looking at these issues and I just don’t think it is appropriate that I should be running a commentary on that. There will be a time for that when the final report is handed down.

Q: Did you read the letter?

Daniel Andrews:

I have not read the letter, but I’ve seen reports of it. Again, people are free to send letters, have positions. It is not compulsory to agree, but what is absolutely compulsory is that we see this thing through. The amazing sacrifice, the pain, the hurt, it has got us into this place. That is why hopefully on Sunday we will have more to say on the weeks and months ahead.

On the letter from the CEOs calling for restrictions to be lifted, Daniel Andrews says:

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but we have to deal with the health problem first. We have to look at the damage that this pandemic has done to us in lots of different ways, personal, family, economy, different sectors, different businesses, different workers have been impacted.

That is why the budget, forthcoming budget, the job is about security. It is about of sense of confidence.

For the people people you love the most. What next year looks like, what next month looks like, that is what the budget will look like, projects large and small.

People are frustrated, we all are, but to those CEOs and others, I very much hope that we will have more to say on the weekend.

Q: Victorians feel they cannot have more than 10 people at a funeral or open their business so why are you waiting until Saturday? Why not do it now?

If it’s all of a sudden safe to have 500 people at a race? Why are you waiting until November 1?

Daniel Andrews:

I’ve certainly tried to establish over many, many weeks and months now that we have to wait for case numbers each day.

I cannot predict what the number will be tomorrow. I cannot predict what the number will be on Friday.

I cannot predict what the number will be on Saturday and therefore we are waiting until Sunday and I don’t think that’s unreasonable and we will confirm for people that it will not be a series of snap announcements that will come into effect moments after I leave the stage on Sunday.

They will be a process, if we can get the numbers into that zone where we are confident to take another step.

I’ll be confirming those hopefully, on Sunday, and then there will be some days where people will be given an opportunity to be ready for that.

Particularly if this relates or finishes up relating to retail, bars and restaurants cafes and many of the venues that Richard had spoken about in terms of planning.

They will need to be Covid ready and have a Covid-safe plan and some people called it a dark opening in the industry and we think that is time well spent and we have to wait till Sunday to see what the numbers show us.

The good thing is that the trend this week is very low numbers and falling in all categories, whether it be mystery cases oriented overall numbers and the other good news is, as I reported off the trend here, is that cases that we already know about, people that we already know about, that then become infected, but are in a contained environment, household contacts or contacts of those household contacts, they are not if you like the random and unexpected cases.

They are already known to us and part of a rigorous public health response. That is the other I think are pleasing and comforting trend.

But trends only matter if they are maintained for a period of time and that is why we have to wait until Sunday.

Q: This is an extremely rare and catastrophic event, why is that the chief health officer isn’t here to explain this to Victorians?

Daniel Andrews:

He has a lot to do and you’ll be getting on with doing that and I don’t think it is that catastrophic as such.

Every case is important and significant I’ve explained the context and its through an abundance of caution that doctors are assuming it is a reinfection.

If it is a reinfection, it will be a one-off and I think the single figures, less than five, happy to have others dig out some of the international literature and make sure it’s a feature of the chief health officer’s release later on.

Q: How confronting is it to see a reinfection the community?

Daniel Andrews:

We are assuming that person has got it a second time and it seems like there are only a small number in the category and perhaps we were never actually know.

But I think it’s better to assume and be cautious then to jump to a conclusion that the best of science cannot confirm for you. I think this is the best way to go.

Q:

Will there be extra testing on this person given it could be Australia’s only a handful? I would assume so. I think there has been only a couple of tests, this person testing positive, they were retested, I’m not sure how many times but there were multiple tests and there may be that they will continue to retest because if it is as they very cautiously have determined, against an extremely high threshold, to not count this as a positive, you have to meet a high threshold and it doesn’t quite get there so they are making an assumption in favour of public health if you like.

I’m sure there’ll be many interest this case and I will look to monitor that and make the judgment and maybe they can make that judgment at a later point cannot have it as a reinfection but indeed as a shedding case.

Q: Is that because we have linked them to other outbreaks or how they just gone because they are at the back end?

Daniel Andrews:

Could be either, I’m not certain but the expert panel has been each day this week and today probably going through each of the mystery cases from recent times and trying to work out through a very painstaking process, are they a genuinely mystery case or do we have a suspicion or theory and is it robust enough to call that not a mystery case.

I’m more than happy to make sure that they feature, if it can be, a feature of the chief health officer’s release.

Q: Is the infected person a hospital worker?

Andrews:

I have no details on who they are but again if it’s appropriate to speculate or confirm that in any way, I’m more than happy to make sure there is an update. These are the words from public health for me to go to today, so I think it’s appropriate, there was speculation yesterday, was that a one or a zero, is being treated and they one because frustratingly, despite some very, very clever people who do this for a living, going through all the different elements of this, they cannot be satisfied to a pretty high standard that this is not a new positive case. Even as unlikely as it is that you can get it twice, at least that is the advice we have.

Into the questions.

Q: The person who is reinfected, does that mean they are back into another 14 days of isolation?

Daniel Andrews:

Yes, they would be because they are being treated as if it is a fresh coronavirus case now.

I won’t speculate about whether they are or are not, all the experts have sat around and looked at all the testing and the signs that sits behind that, if you like the biology that sits behind that and they cannot determine whether it is shedding or fresh, new, so through an abundance of caution, the assumption is that habit for a second time.

If that is the case, it’s better to be cautious. If that is the case then that will be one of only a handful of those sorts of reinfection cases we have seen anywhere in the world. Green the three mystery cases that have dropped off, 13 yesterday, 10 turn eight.

Victorian planning minister, Richard Wynne, is outlining a new program for Victorian hospitality businesses, to allow them to expand their outdoor operations.

While some may struggle with it, footpath dining is being expanded across Victoria.

Wynne:

We understand absolutely that for hospitality to really get back on to its feet, we need to not only provide the infrastructure support that we are providing, but today I can announce that the government has removed all hurdles to allow hospitality to in fact expand its operation outdoors.

What this means of course is that there has been an inconsistent application of the restrictions in terms of local government not providing an approach that is consistent across all of local governments.

We have put in place a planning scheme amendment that really removes all of the hurdles to any hospitality venue that has already a permit for outdoor dining.

This is important, because we know there is a huge appetite for hospitality, as the premier has indicated, not just in the CBD, but across metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria.

This planning scheme amendment is for the whole of Victoria. The opportunity is there for any hospitality venue that wishes to expand its existing legal operation to do so without having any hurdle in its way.

We know also that from the point of view of consistency of applications, this is really important. We will have this in for an initial 12 month period, where we will assess going forward, and as the premier has indicated, this may well be the future of our planning deals with these outdoor applications going forward.

We should be hearing from Daniel Andrews very soon

There was also a doubling of test numbers in NSW in the last 24 hours – 14,932 tests reported to 8pm last night, compared with 7,401 in the previous 24 hours.

NSW authorities want to see more tests, but that is a great start.

Kristina Keneally covered off a lot of topics in her radio interview with Fran Kelly on ABC radio RN this morning.

Most will be discussed throughout the day – the Leppington triangle sale was the main one – no doubt Michael McCormack will be asked many questions he will not answer during question time.

But Keneally was also asked about Tony Abbott being given permission, a second time, to leave the country, this time to attend a mass given by George Pell in Rome – given how many people are struggling to get on flights to return home.

We have 32,000 stranded Australians. Last week the number was 29,000. A few weeks ago, it was 27,000. The fact of the matter is Australians want to come home in the middle of a global pandemic, a deadly pandemic. Many are in the northern hemisphere facing the cold winter months.

The idea that Tony Abbott gets to flit around the globe in his capacity as a UK trade official, not even on Australian government business and take up quarantine spots. Well, I think it’s highly concerning.

I think it’s bad judgment by the prime minister and I think the federal government needs to clear up the mess they got themselves into at estimates last night as to why Mr Abbott was granted an exemption again, and the capacity to come back and take up a quarantine spot again. Let’s not forget that the prime minister Scott Morrison said that he wanted all stranded Australians home by Christmas. There is no plan to do that and it is highly unlikely they’re all going to be home. In fact, it’s only likely that a handful of them will be home by this Christmas and that is simply leaving Australians behind.

Stuart Wiley of submarine builder ASC has revealed that the first he knew of the government setting 2026 as the earliest date for a move of the full-cycle docking submarine sustainment program was when Scott Morrison said it at a press conference.

When asked at a press conference in February why a decision was yet to be made on the location of submarine maintenance work (at issue is whether it is done in Adelaide or Perth), the prime minister said: “I’m not one to rush these important decisions. I mean, the decision relates to what we’re doing with full-cycle docking in 2026.”

At estimates today, Wiley said: “That really is probably the first time I’d heard indications against a particular one of the options by government.”

Labor’s Penny Wong asked Mathias Cormann – in his final round of outings at estimates hearings before he leaves the Senate – whether that was an optimal way to run submarine capability.

The finance minister replied:

“So you’re now criticising the prime minister because he answered a question from a journalist in South Australia – really? If the prime minister walked on water, you would ask why he can’t swim. I mean, either it’s too much information or not enough information ... I think it was entirely appropriate for the prime minister to answer a question that was put to him by a journalist in South Australia about the issue you’re pursuing with me.”

Cormann sought to clarify the evidence, saying:

“I think you’ll find some of the options and scenarios ASC would be well aware of earliest practical opportunity to make a move if such a decision ... I don’t think it was a complete surprise.”

That comment from the minister prompted Wiley to say ASC had indeed provided advice to the government about options:

“The advice we provided was that 2026 was, in our opinion, the earliest. But what I was trying to say is that was the first time I’d heard government say those dates. I hadn’t heard it other than from my own advice. So the minister is correct.”

It’s 11am for Daniel Andrews 111th consecutive press conference.

He’ll be joined by the planning minister, Richard Wynne.

Just pointing out that it had been reported that the attorney-general Christian Porter had the integrity commission draft bill at the beginning of the year - but delayed the public consultation.

Moonee Valley racing club CEO Michael Browell said he accepts the “tribe has spoken” over the initial Cox Plate decision.

He says he thinks there is a lot of frustration in the community – and it is “not quite ready yet, for a sporting event to welcome back crowds in any capacity”.

He said it was going to be a “very sterile environment” and “certainly wasn’t going to be a party or celebration” but he accepts everything needs to be virtual.

Labor is pursuing the government in Senate estimates over the still outstanding decision on a major submarine upgrade project known as full-cycle docking.

A full-cycle docking involves the maintenance and upgrade of the existing Collins class submarine before the future submarines are ready. A key issue is whether the work will be done in Adelaide or will be moved to Perth – something that carries not just operational considerations but also state-based political implications.

Labor’s Penny Wong wants to know why a decision is not yet made, given that the defence minister, Linda Reynolds, signalled at last year’s estimates that a decision would be made by the end of 2019.

The finance minister, Mathias Corman, told Wong the government’s position was that a decision would be made “as soon as possible”. He said the government was gathering information to make the best possible decision.

He said the decision hadn’t been made yet.

Ahhhh, it never stops. If you can repay it, great. But given all the changes that keep being made to the university sector, and student loans – including now more than doubling the cost of an arts degree – sigh. We inch closer to America every day.

From Dan Tehan’s office:

Australians living overseas repaid $127m in Help debt in 2019-20, an increase of $27m on the previous year.

In total $310m has been repaid since the Morrison government introduced overseas repayment obligations on Help debts in 2016.

Minister for education Dan Tehan said Australia’s Help loan scheme was among the most generous in the world to students.

“If you live in Australia or live overseas, it’s only fair that if you are benefitting from a world-class Australian higher education that you make a contribution towards repaying your student loan,” Tehan said.

“The Morrison government introduced changes that have significantly improved the sustainability of the Help scheme for the benefit of taxpayers and future students.”

Prior to 2016, Help debtors residing overseas were not required to repay their Help debt.

Australians with Help, VET student loans and trade support loans debts living overseas are now required to report their worldwide income – Australian and foreign-sourced – to the Australian Tax Office (ATO).

If reported income is above the minimum threshold, overseas debtors are required to make repayments. In 2019-20 the threshold was $45,881, down from $55,874 in 2017-18.

And the house is off

Meanwhile, over in legal affairs estimates, the committee has heard that Christian Porter was given the draft legislation for the national integrity commission in December 2019 (which we kinda knew)

Just a reminder though – this isn’t anything like Icac. The entire thing would be done in secret. You wouldn’t know who was under investigation, when, what the allegations were or if any charges were laid until after a successful prosecution in the court. It would be an offence to make public a charge or that someone was under investigation or in front of the commission.

So yup.

Criminal jury trials are back in Melbourne.

Amanda Rishworth stopped by doors this morning, because she had something to say on childcare:

What the evidence from the Grattan Institute has shown is under the current childcare system, under Scott Morrison’s child care system, unfortunately there are many families where the second income earner is working the fourth and fifth day are not better off. In fact, in many cases they are worse off. In sharp contrast to this, Labor’s policy has been demonstrated to be giving these families a leg up. Just one example when the primary income earner is on $100,000 and the secondary income earner is on $40,000, working the fourth day delivers no return for that second income earner under Scott Morrison’s system. Under Labor’s plan, this family would be thousands of dollars better off.

This childcare plan that Labor is proposing is a game-changer for families. It’s not just me saying that, we’ve got Danielle Wood from the Grattan Institute clearly backing in Labor’s policy. Many, many groups have welcomed this policy. We’ve had unions welcome the policy, business welcome the policy, economists welcome the policy, families welcome the policy. The only group that refuses to welcome this policy is Scott Morrison and the Liberals. They can’t put an argument together about why, all they do is oppose.

Lawyers acting for the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services have defended the omission of emails about the use of private security from the hotel quarantine inquiry, stating that the emails did not shed light on who made the decision for the hotel quarantine program.

The inquiry on Tuesday has sought an affidavit from the chief health officer, Prof Brett Sutton, after DHHS discovered an email chain from the day the hotel quarantine program was announced in which a senior DHHS officer outlined to a commonwealth official at the behest of Sutton how the program would operate.

Sutton replied to the email with “thanks so much”. Sutton has maintained that he was not aware private security was being used in the program until the outbreak in late May and did not remember seeing this detail in the email.

A letter from DHHS’s lawyers made public by the inquiry late on Tuesday evening said the email had not been provided to the inquiry earlier because, among the 500,000 documents reviewed, it was deemed not relevant because the decision had already been made at the time it was sent.

“The email does not add in any way to the range of other evidence on the issue of who determined that security guards should be used in the program, but refers to a decision already made to use private security by 6.43pm,” the letter said.

“The email only records that ‘private security [was] being contracted to provide security at the hotels with escalation arrangements to VicPol as needed’.”

The law firm also said that even if Sutton was aware of the private security, it wouldn’t have given him enough information about the suitability of private security in such an environment, and Sutton did not believe the emails needed to be provided to the inquiry.

“In short, the effect of Professor Sutton’s evidence was that even if he had been aware of the use of private security in the hotel quarantine program at that time, based on what he knew at the time, he would not have been in a position to foreshadow issues with the workforce,” the firm said.

“Professor Sutton further instructed us that he did not consider he needed to clarify his evidence and therefore the email did not need to be provided to the Board for that reason.”

Sutton is likely to face questions again on this matter at the daily Victorian government press conference this morning.

Christian Porter’s department is in estimates this morning.

The Attorney General’s Department can expect a lot of “where is the federal integrity commission”-type questions, given it has been two years since it was promised.

Porter has blamed Covid. But it was delayed even before the pandemic.

Alan Jones broadcast his radio show from his southern highlands home when the pandemic was at its peak in Australia. But sure, go off.

All three of those cases have had contact with a previously known case.

That is excellent news – it shows that the number of unknown/ mystery transmissions is also dropping.

The 14-day average for metro Melbourne is now 6.2.

This petition is certainly gathering pace.

In terms of the border bubble with Victoria, Steven Marshall says:

The border bubble is 70km either side. We previously had a requirement for people to tell us the reasons why they were coming into South Australia. That is now being removed. There is still a testing requirement. We are still remaining vigilant but we are easing those restrictions with the reduced risk, which is clearly being felt in regional Victoria.

Victoria’s doing a great job at the moment. They still have some way to go but as the risk of infection reduces then we are reducing those restrictions in South Australia. We don’t want to keep any of those restrictions in place for one day longer than we need to.

South Australia’s premier, Steven Marshall, wants New Zealanders to be able to come to South Australia without having to quarantine on their way back.

He tells the ABC:

I’m writing to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern suggesting that there be a reciprocal arrangement for those people that come into South Australia.

At the moment, New Zealanders can come into South Australia but when people return to New Zealand they are required to do that 14 days of quarantine.

So I’m writing to Prime Minister Ardern telling her about how well we’ve done in South Australia, the very, very low risk here for people that have spent time in our state and hoping that we might be able to go one step further than where we are at the moment so that people returning to New Zealand won’t have to do that 14 days of quarantine.

Further to that AFR story, Lindsay Fox is speaking to the ABC’s Radio National.

A short story:

6.11pm

6.47pm

10.08pm

The Australian Financial Review is reporting that the CEOs of some of Australia’s largest companies have written to Daniel Andrews saying current restrictions are “not sustainable”, and the lockdown is taking too great a toll on people.

From the AFR:

BHP’s Mike Henry, Orica’s Alberto Calderon, Wesfarmers’ Rob Scott, CBA’s Matt Comyn, Incitec Pivot’s Jeanne Johns, Newcrest’s Sandeep Biswas and Coca-Cola Amatil’s Alison Watkins congratulated Mr Andrews and the citizens of Victoria on bringing the COVID-19 outbreak under control.

But rather than wait several more weeks, they say now was the time to lift restrictions on small business, office workers and other sectors of the economy for both the wellbeing of citizens and the state’s future.

A state funeral will be held for the Honourable Susan Maree Ryan on 23 October in Sydney.

You can read more about this remarkable woman here: