Victoria records 55 new infections and eight deaths as NSW reports nine cases – as it happened

A Western Australian nurse who is working as part of a team helping the coronavirus response in Melbourne has tested positive to Covid-19.

WA health minister Roger Cook told reporters in Perth that 19 nurses from WA had been sent to Melbourne to work in aged care homes, along with three support staff.

So that’s three teams of seven. One of those teams was tested for Covid-19 on Sunday, and one member returned a positive result.

Cook said:

Obviously we are doing everything possible to assist our nurse and the rest of the team. I’m informed the nurse has mild symptoms, such as dry cough, that is otherwise fairly comfortable. The nurse is isolating in a hotel for health workers, called a hotel for heroes.

Her fellow team members, who are considered close contacts, are in isolation in a different Melbourne hotel.

The safety of all our nurses is paramount and continues to be our priority. The Western Australian Department of Health is in regular contact with the nurse who has tested positive, as well as all the nurses deployed to Victoria to provide support and assistance and their families.

Cook said the department was currently deciding whether the team members should be quarantined in Melbourne, or returned to Perth to quarantined there.

Obviously they anticipated they would be doing two weeks’ quarantining in WA when they returned from Victoria. They didn’t anticipate they would necessarily become infected. We were all aware of the risks when they set out. We’re going to do our best to support them to make sure we look after them and get them back to Western Australia as safely as possible.

NSW health authorities have released the names of two more venues they say are possible sites of transmission for Covid-19.

Anyone who attended the Oatlands Golf Club at 94 Bettington Road, Oatlands, for the Bavarian night dinner in the Bistron on Bettington main dining room on Friday 4 September, between 6.30pm and 8.45pm, has been directed to get tested immediately and isolate for 14 days, even if the test returns a negative result.

People who attended the Paperboy Cafe at 18 Tennyson Road, Concord, between 10am and 12pm on Sunday 6 September, should also directed to get tested immediately and isolate for 14 days, even if the test returns a negative result.

Authorities also said that anyone who attended the following four venues was considered a casual contact and must get tested immediately if they develop any symptoms. After testing, they have to isolate until the result comes back negative.

The venues are:

• Stanhope Village shopping centre, including the Kmart, on Monday 7 September from 8.30am to 9.30am.
• The Clovelly hotel on Saturday 5 September from 12.45pm to 1.45pm.
• Rouse Hill town centre, including Target, on Saturday 5 September from 12.30pm to 1.30pm.
• Fitness First Maroubra on Saturday 5 September from 8am to 12pm.

NSW Health said it is working with Fitness First to identify people who attended the Maroubra gym that morning, and contact them directly.

A man in his 60s has reportedly died following a shark attack in Queensland.

The Queensland ambulance service reported the incident a short time ago.

The deputy national chief medical officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth, has repeated his advice to locked-down Melburnians on Twitter.

I know that Coatsworth’s advice to make your bed as part of maintaining a healthy routine in lockdown raised a few eyebrows, but doing menial tasks such as making my bed and doing the dishes helps some people (like, for instance, me) create a sense of structure. It won’t help everyone, but it’s not a completely ludicrous suggestion.

His more pertinent suggestion if you’re struggling is to contact your doctor and access those free medicare psychologist sessions, if you haven’t already.

A woman in her 30s who recently returned from South Africa has tested positive to coronavirus while quarantining in Adelaide.

AAP reports that the NSW woman’s case is not considered active and believed to be an old infection.

It reports:

Deputy chief public health officer Mike Cusack said it was thought the woman had contracted Covid-19 while overseas.

He said she was currently displaying no symptoms and was not considered any risk to the wider community.

Because you can continue to shed virus for some time after you’ve had an active infection, the presence of virus on those tests does not mean you’re acutely infectious.

But this is her first Covid test and, as it’s the first time she’s returned a positive result, she’s added to the South Australian tally.

He said the woman’s antibodies were being checked to confirm it as an old infection.

Her case takes the SA total since the start of the pandemic to 465, but there are no active infections.

Meanwhile, SA has left its border restrictions with NSW and the ACT in place, requiring people arriving from those regions to quarantine for 14 days.

Dr Cusack said health officials were “heartened and encouraged” by the progress in NSW and would be looking at issues like community transmission over the coming days.

Premier Steven Marshall said while the number of cases in NSW were coming down, the headline figure was not critical in terms of lifting the existing quarantine requirements.

He said local health officials were more interested in where those cases had occurred and in what circumstances.

The top-line number, while interesting, doesn’t really give a picture of the risk for South Australia.

The premier said he did not expect any changes to the border rules this week.

The former Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer has given his thoughts on the appointment, if that’s the right word, of the former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott to advise the UK government on trade. Downer is also based in the UK, where he used to be the Australian high commissioner.

He said that the reaction in the UK to Abbott’s appointment had split along partisan lines – the left don’t like him, the right do. As it ever was.

Downer told the ABC:

He’s a conservative. A lot of people are conservatives. Millions and millions of people are conservatives! They do have a place in our society. And trying to marginalise anybody who has conservative views about marriage or conservative views about society in general, trying to marginalise them, it alienates people ... And in the end, it will create more of a reaction than a successful outcome, I’m afraid.

So the British government – and I’ve spoken with them about it – they’ve hunkered down behind Tony Abbott and they’re sticking with him.

Victoria’s health department was relying on a pen-and-paper inputs and in some cases using fax machines – yes, fax machines – to receive information from general practitioners for contact tracing purposes.

Today, the premier, Daniel Andrews, announced that the Victorian government had asked tech giant Salesforce to create a digitised system that would cover the contact tracing process from test result to initial interview, as well as case management and speaking to close contacts.

He told reporters today:

The Salesforce product … is about trying to consolidate and align many different platforms into one platform. That is happening now and just means that there is less pen and paper, there is less manual data entry.

More in this report by Josh Taylor:

The minister for Northern Australia, Matt Canavan, has been talking on the ABC about the issue of the day – the pulling of two Australian journalists from China. He initially wasn’t across the issue but once brought up to speed by Patrica Karvelas, he said:

It’s very unfortunate. We do have, or did have, a very good relationship with the Chinese government. It’s not too many years ago that we were one of the first countries to sign a free-trade agreement with China but it’s been downhill since then.

Canavan said the Australian government had not changed its position and would continue to work respectfully with China, while standing up for its rights.

We’ve seen the Chinese government take a different tack not just with the Australian government but with many governments in terms of seeking to throw their weight around or impose a degree of constraint on what other countries can do. That’s unfortunate but I don’t think we should change what we should do. We should seek to diversify our trade relationships, seek to diversify our economy, not put all our eggs in one basket and just hope the Chinese government changes its mind at some point.

The Victorian health department has issued its daily Covid-19 email, which outlines the outbreaks with the highest number of active cases. They are:

• Frankston hospital: 18 active cases
• Vawdrey truck manufacturer: 12 active cases
• Bulla Dairy Foods in Colac: 15 active cases
• Dandenong police station: 13 active cases
• There are also outbreaks at Crocmedia in Southbank, eStore Logistics in Derrimut, and Opal Hobsons Bay aged care facility in Altona North

Let’s go back to that earlier press conference with the deputy chief medical officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth.

He was asked about increased complaints to the aged care regulator about the management of Covid-19 risk and said he was “very glad that families are finding a voice”.

He said the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee and the aged care division of the federal health department have been “investing significant time and effort [across] jurisdictions to ensure there is a model that can be replicated, based on the Victorian aged care response ... in response to an outbreak”.

That’s the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre model, which puts the health providers, run by the state, and aged care providers, controlled by the federal government, in the same room.

Meanwhile, the Australian Financial Review editor, Paul Bailey, has told the ABC that his correspondent Mike Smith also received a midnight visit from Chinese authorities.

We were strongly advised early last week to consider leaving Shanghai, where we’re based. And the warnings got stronger as the days went on.

We weren’t preparing to leave, as Bill was, when the seven officers also appeared at Mike Smith’s house in Shanghai at 12.30 in the morning on Thursday morning. And they read a document to him, which said that he was a person of interest, that he was being banned from leaving the country.

So this came as a surprise to us, even though we were warned. We weren’t told why we should leave. So there was scant information. But we felt that the warning from the Dfat officials, the embassy and the ambassador was strong enough for us not to be able to ignore it.

That’s what the ABC’s Bill Birtles was told too. Smith walked to the consulate the next day, and remained there for five days until the flight out could be arranged. Authorities said the case was related to the detention of the Australian journalist Cheng Lei.

Bailey said the AFR had operated in China for 20 years and would like to be able to return, but wouldn’t risk the safety or freedom of its reporters.

We want to be able to tell that story from an Australian point of view and we want to be able to tell it without being hassled or interfered with. It’s an important story to tell because China is a power. We want to be able to inform Australians about that relationship.

Does this incident undermine the bilateral relationship between China and Australia?

Payne said:

Our relationship was founded on many decades of important bilateral engagement. It is a relationship founded on mutual respect with a comprehensive strategic partnership, which has been in operation for a number of years. It is a very important relationship to Australia. The relationship with China is an important one to them as well. We will continue to operate on the basis and work through appropriate mechanisms in a respectful and considerate way.

Just an impressive level of neutrality in that statement.

Do China’s actions, which include knocking on the door of the ABC’s correspondent, Bill Birtles, at midnight, stray from that mutual respect?

Payne:

I won’t engage in a running commentary on that.

Asked when the ABC might possibly be able to reopen its Beijing bureau, Payne said “that would be speculative”.

Payne said she would not comment on whether the two journalists were targeted because they were Australian, saying:

These are matters that will be pursued by Chinese authorities. We have been able to make sure they are home, that has been able to be affected quickly.

Asked if Australia would make a diplomatic rebuke to China over the issue, she said:

Australia will always operate in our national interest based on our values. It is disappointing we will not have representatives of Australian media organisations on the ground in China. I hope that can be revised in a timely way.

Payne said Australia will continue to work with Chinese authorities on the issue, and that she is “not going to speculate” about what form a possible rebuke might take. “That is not how Australia operates,” she said.

Payne said Australia would not revoke the visas of Chinese nationals working in media roles in Australia.

Australia and China are different countries with different systems of government and different approaches. And I respect the systems and the legal environment which operates in China, and you will find we encourage travelling Australians ... to understand the law as it applies in the countries in which they find themselves travelling, and that includes especially now, at a time of great complexity across the world, complexity of travel and complexity of international engagement.

I would encourage every Australian who is overseas to be very careful about abiding by the rules of the country in which they find themselves.

I’ll bring you the rest of Coatsworth’s comments shortly but the foreign minister, Marise Payne, is now speaking in Sydney.

To questions. Coatsworth was asked to explain the difference between contact tracing in New South Wales and Victoria. The difference, basically, is that at the height of the second wave outbreak, the Victorian process was taking too long.

He said the principles are the same in every jurisdictions and said the focus should not be on the process used but on the outcomes.

What you want to do is find the cases so you stop the infectious person being in the community and put them in isolation and then want to find the contacts of those cases so that if they become infectious, they will do so in quarantine.

And then it is all about a timing issue. So the longer you have infectious people within the community, the more likely you are to have your basic reproductive number above one and have those outbreaks get out of control.

So when we say gold standard, what we’re really referring to is the shortest time possible between a person getting symptoms and the whole contact tracing process being wound up, the case being closed by the disease detectives.

What we have seen in Victoria is a recognition that when the outbreak gets to a certain level, those times started to stretch out and that is not just the contact tracers, that is the testing processes, how you get information to the contact tracers and then the interviews afterwards.

So all of those processes are being streamlined.

He said that according to reports from the Victorian government, 99% of cases are now being notified within 48 hours of the assessment taking place. Other jurisdictions are at 100%.

The federal deputy chief medical officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth, is giving the national coronavirus update in Canberra.

He says Australia recorded 66 new cases today – 55 in Victoria, nine in NSW and one each in WA and Queensland. The running total now sits at 26,374. Sadly, 770 people have died.

Coatsworth followed up the numbers by providing mental health tips for people under stage 4 lockdown in Melbourne.

Firstly, he reminded people that the Medicare-funded mental health rebate has doubled:

The government has funded 10 additional Medicare-subsidised psychological therapy sessions in addition to those that have already used their 10 better access sessions in the calendar year. That is 20 sessions for a calendar year and being in touch with someone who is a qualified clinical psychologist.

There was also $12m in additional funding for online services like Lifeline and BeyondBlue, with an additional $26.5m in mental health investment rolling out from Thursday next week.

Coatsworth also advised people to:

• maintain a structured routine
• reach out to friends and family
• set achievable goals
• spend your downtime on something you enjoy, like a hobby
• make your bed every morning

I’ll add one more, which may be necessary:

• Don’t shout at the deputy chief medical officer for offering these tips, he is trying to help.

The families of people detained in prisons in New South Wales have had more than 100,000 video calls with their loved ones since in-person visits were banned in March.

Before the pandemic, about 4,500 in-person visits took place every week across 35 prisons in the state.

In a statement reported by AAP, the Corrective Services NSW commissioner, Peter Severin, said the state’s 12,700 prisoners are now getting more face time with their loved ones than they were in pre-pandemic times – except that face time is all on video calls.

The past six months have been a challenging time and our staff have adapted and embraced innovation to ensure inmates can maintain the important and valuable links with their loved ones.

Severin said one inmate attended his daughter’s wedding via video link. This is presented as a good thing, not a sad thing.

He said 85% of the 5,000 people surveyed want the “video visits” to continue after restrictions are lifted. One respondent said:

It was over six years since I saw my brother because of distance and not wanting to take my children to a correctional facility. I know his mental health has improved a lot from it, and being able to show him our home made it much more personal.

While we wait for the national coronavirus update, let’s do a quick round of hand gestures with Daniel Andrews.

There is a national Covid update coming up in about half an hour - the lovely Calla Wahlquist will take you through that and the afternoon.

I’ll be back early tomorrow morning to cover what Wednesday brings us. Thank you again for joining me. Take care of you.

For those wanting to know what is happening overseas, you can follow along with Helen Sullivan, here:

Naaman Zhou has been listening to the hotel quarantine inquiry today, but here is a quick rundown from AAP:

An inquiry into Victoria’s hotel quarantine program has heard it was hastily organised and ultimately failed to meet the needs of returned travellers.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Ben Ihle, on Tuesday said the program was established within 48 hours of the first returned travellers arriving from overseas on 29 March.

He said it was set up so quickly it had “built-in complications”, which became a “source of confusion and lack of clarity” for those involved.

For instance, the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions contracted hotels and security guards, but it was ultimately the Department of Health and Human Services who chose which hotels would be used.

It’s unclear who were the contacts if security guards had to report.

While Ihle said it was not clear who made the fateful decision to contract private security companies to provide guards for the hotels, it was “not considered controversial at the time”.

He said government procurement practices were not followed and a substantial percentage of the security work was given to Unified Security.

The company had previously been refused inclusion on the government panel of preferred security contractors and was “almost entirely reliant on subcontractors”, Ihle said.

And the independent senator Rex Patrick has called on the Morrison government and follow suit on state-media-accredited journalists from China (that’s not how a free press works though, which is one of Australia’s points).

“Given the forced departure of last two Australian journalists from mainland China, the Australian government should end the presence in Australia of the Chinese state-controlled Xinhua news agency,” Patrick said.

“If Australian journalists can no longer safely report from China, then it appears quite inappropriate for Australia to tolerate the Chinese Communist party’s leading propaganda outlet having a presence here.”

The Xinhua news agency was first allowed to post representatives to Australia in 1973 on the basis of an agreement for reciprocal Australian media representation in China. Xinhua is a state news agency that operates in accordance with the Chinese Communist party propaganda directives. It is described as “the eyes and tongue of the party”.

There have been numerous cases worldwide of Xinhua offices providing cover for Chinese state-controlled espionage and political interference activities.

“In the current circumstances it is inappropriate to allow Xinhua to maintain a presence in Australia and the Australian government should take the necessary action to bring its operations here to a halt,” Patrick said.

Labor has now also issued a statement on the return of Bill Birtles and Micheal Smith from China:

The safety of Australian citizens in China is fundamental to our bilateral relationship.

Freedom of the press is a core Australian value.

Journalists should be able to do their work safely without the risk of intimidation or arbitrary detention.

The Chinese embassy’s deputy head of mission recently spoke to journalists at the National Press Club in Canberra about mutual respect.

The media plays a vital role in fostering this respect by deepening understanding, which is vital for a productive relationship.

It is deeply regrettable that there is now no Australian media presence in China.

We hope that Australian media organisations will be able to have their people on the ground in China again soon.

Labor expects China to observe the bilateral consular agreement, which has strong bipartisan support.

We thank ambassador Graham Fletcher, Shanghai consul general Dominic Trindade and their staff for their crucial consular support.

I’m in a semi-intimate relationship with Haigh’s chocolate, but I wouldn’t want anyone policing that either.

Victoria police have released their fines for the day, which included this very confusing line:

“A man who was found cycling on Dorcas Street after curfew who said he was going to visit his semi-intimate partner.”

Surely Victoria’s police force fined someone for breaking curfew, not for their relationship status.

Police issued a total of 171 fines to individuals for breaching the chief health officer directions, including:

• 31 for failing to wear a face covering when leaving home for one of the four approved reasons
• 21 at vehicle checkpoints
• 67 for curfew breaches

A total of 21,482 vehicles were checked at the vehicle checkpoints.

Police conducted 3,704 spot checks on people at homes, businesses and public places across the state (a total of 396,289 spot checks conducted since 21 March).

A woman was intercepted in Greaves Street, Werribee, after curfew. When questioned by police, she told them she had driven from Geelong to Melbourne to buy a kebab and was then driving back to Werribee to visit her boyfriend.

Two women who were out walking and eating ice cream at 2am. They told police they thought it was 6am.

The lockdown in Melbourne has been hard for almost everyone (I know a few introverts who are doing OK with it, but I get that, on the whole, it is a very difficult way of living life.)

It’s harder for those who have been without human contact the whole time. Never, ever underestimate how much we need touch.

In case you missed it from earlier this morning, Paul Karp had the latest Essential poll:

Public faith in government handling of the coronavirus is on the decline, with voters in Victoria most likely to complain their state and federal governments are not working well together on the pandemic.

That is the conclusion of the latest Essential poll, released on Tuesday, which found Scott Morrison is the preferred prime minister of just less than half (49%) of Australians for the first time since April, but still ahead of Anthony Albanese on 26%.

The poll of 1,076 voters found respondents were more likely to agree that Google and Facebook should pay for news (49%) than to say it is not up to the tech giants to support media companies (38%) – in an encouraging sign for government efforts to impose a new industry code.

Some 64% of Australians approve of Morrison’s overall performance, down two points since August, including more than half (51%) of Labor voters who approve.

Albanese’s ratings are steady at 44% approval and 29% disapproval, but “strong support” among Labor voters for their leader fell from 22% to 15% since August.

Malcolm Turnbull very helpfully had a few things to say about the federal government’s Covid response yesterday.

Labor’s Stephen Jones has picked up on the superannuation comments:

Mark McGowan wasn’t happy with Scott Morrison’s comments from yesterday that WA may not be “match fit” when it comes to contact tracing.

Yesterday, the prime minister said:

When you don’t have many cases, well there’s not a lot to trace. And that would be the case in Western Australia at the moment, and many other states and territories.

But if there were to be an outbreak in one of those states, you’d want to be confident of two things: that your testing regime was strong enough ... but also that the tracing capability will be able to move quickly.”

McGowan said WA was doing just fine and was testing 3,000 people a day (quotes via AAP):

Obviously we don’t have hundreds or thousands of people sitting around on the phones when we haven’t had a single [unknown source] case in 150 days.

That would be a waste of time and money.

But what we do have is plans in place and a surge capacity, should it be required, and that’s a sensible approach to this issue.

In some ways, Western Australia at this point in time has been a victim of our own success and that’s why these sorts of things are being said about our state.

There are now just 53 days until the Queensland election.

For those who haven’t been playing along, neither Scott Morrison nor Anthony Albanese will be able to campaign for their respective parties in the state – unless they quarantine for two weeks.

The options are to stay in one of the Covid-safe jurisdictions – which is not the ACT or NSW – or quarantine in Queensland for two weeks.

So the campaign has begun (just check Twitter today to see the Queensland MPs slanging it out against each other) but the federal leaders will have to zoom in. At least at this stage.

Bill Birtles has added his thank yous:

The federal opposition spokeswoman for aged care, Julie Collins, has responded to a report by Guardian Australia revealing the aged care homes with the most Covid deaths by calling for greater transparency in the sector.

“The Morrison government must be more transparent about older Australians who have tragically passed away from Covid-19 in aged care homes,” Collins said.

“It’s time to end the secrecy and be honest with Australians about which aged care homes have been impacted by Covid-19, and how many cases and deaths have occurred at each facility.”

The Department of Health has previously tried to defend this secrecy because of “reputational issues” relating to providers with outbreaks.

“This isn’t good enough – the public have a right to know about the status of outbreaks of Covid-19 in aged care,” Collins said.

Pressure is mounting on the aged care sector and the federal government to reveal how some $13bn in taxpayer funding, along with millions in new funding for Covid-19, is being spent to benefit residents.

Guardian Australia analysis of the 10 aged care homes worst affected by coronavirus in Victoria shows that three are controlled by two large companies, which between them received more than $1.45bn in government funding over the past two years and paid out dividends to their shareholders totalling $77m.

A not-for-profit organisation working to help Victorians achieve hearing equality, Soundfair, has called for greater support for people living with hearing conditions.

The stage 4 restrictions in metropolitan Melbourne and stage 3 restrictions in the rest of the state are having a disproportionately negative impact on people living with a hearing condition, a survey conducted by Soundfair during lockdown has found.

According to Soundfair, 86% of respondents reported that the lockdown was limiting their participation in social activities due to their hearing condition, and 67% of respondents reported feeling lonely. Meanwhile, 72% felt they didn’t belong and 68% felt they sometimes or often felt anxious or depressed.

And 60% reported not having someone to discuss the impact their hearing condition was having on their social or mental health.

One survey respondent said: “I feel anxious when I have to speak to people wearing a mask on as I rely on lipreading to understand speech and the mask also muffles speech. I am very worried that if I had to go to hospital that I would not be able to understand the medical staff wearing a mask.”

Another responded said: “The lack of autonomy is difficult. I now can’t go out unaccompanied because I can’t understand people who are wearing masks.”

Dr Caitlin Barr, the chief executive of Soundfair, said hearing equality is about more than just devices.

“Soundfair is calling for the identification and removal of structural, systemic, attitudinal and service-level barriers to hearing equality,” she said.

“For example, widespread use of clear masks and captioning as standard on all video calls and official broadcasts.”

This is quite the unfortunate street sign, given the context:

Penny Wong finishes on this:

I want to thank, on behalf of the opposition, and I’m sure I speak for all Australians, thanking ambassador Graham Fletcher in China, the consul general, all the staff at Dfat in Australia, and in China, who were involved in facilitating the exit of these journalists after exit bans had initially been put in place.

I also make this point about the bilateral relationship. That the safety of and the treatment of Australian citizens in China we regard as fundamental to the bilateral relationship and the actions of officials in relation to these journalists reflect those facts.

Penny Wong is holding a press conference on the return of the last Australian media-accredited correspondents from China:

Obviously this is a highly disturbing set of events. I want to make a couple of – a number of brief points about freedom of the press and the bilateral relationship.

The first point I’d make is that Australians believe the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of opinion and the right of the press to press freedom is a core Australian value.

We believe Australian journalists and journalists everywhere should be able to do their work safely without the risk of intimidation or arbitrary detention.

I would make the point the Chinese embassy’s deputy head of mission recently spoke at a very well-publicised National Press Club address and he spoke about respect and a better mutual understanding.

What I would say to the Chinese authorities is we believe that the media play a vital role in fostering this understanding. The developments and the return of the two journalists mean that Australia is, I think, without an Australian organisation having a representation in China for the first time since the 1970s.

We think that is unfortunate. We think that is deeply regrettable. We certainly think it is unfortunate that the Australian news organisations have taken this step of returning their journalists from China, and we hope that Australian media organisations will be able to have their people on the ground again in China soon.

Given how many people can’t see their families, either in Australia, or overseas, including in emergencies, this burns:

(Via AAP)

A Victorian man has been busted after inventing a dying grandfather as an excuse to skip hotel quarantine and enjoy the weekend roaming free in Sydney.

New South Wales police have charged a man after he produced false documentation to leave hotel quarantine on Saturday.

The 30-year-old Victorian man arrived at Sydney airport without an exemption last Friday and was taken into hotel quarantine.

However, the following morning he was released from the hotel after providing what he claimed to be a valid exemption document saying he was in NSW to visit his terminally ill grandfather in hospital.

Police later determined the documentation he provided was false and further checks revealed the man’s grandfather was not in hospital.

On Monday, police arrested the man at a home in Penrith, in Sydney’s west.

He was charged with failing to comply with Covid-19 directions and producing a false or misleading application, and returned to hotel quarantine.

He is on bail to appear in the Penrith local court on 12 October.

Switching over the ABC now, and its news director, Gaven Morris is talking about the decision to very quickly bring back its China correspondent, Bill Birtles, after seven police turned up on his doorstep last week and said he was wanted for questioning in a national security case. He was told he was not allowed to leave the country. After diplomatic work, both he and the AFR’s Michael Smith, landed in Australia this morning.

Morris:

It’s been a long and trying few days. We’ve tried to work out what was going on, on the ground. Information was in short supply. What we really had to focus on was the very clear advice we were getting that it was best for Bill to leave the country. And so thanks to some extra consular support from the embassy in China, we have successfully brought Bill home and we’re very happy that he is here.

Dr Nick Coatsworth will hold a national Covid update at 3.30pm.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has put out its payroll data for August:

Payroll jobs across Australia fell by 0.4% over the month to 22 August, according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today.

Bjorn Jarvis, head of Labour Statistics at the ABS, said: “Over the month to 22 August, payroll jobs fell by 2% in Victoria while for the rest of Australia, payroll jobs rose 0.1%. While payroll jobs continued to fall in Victoria into the third week of August, it was at a slower rate than earlier in the month.”

Nationally, payroll jobs at 22 August were 4.2% below mid-March, when Australia recorded its 100th confirmed Covid-19 case. Payroll jobs in Victoria were 7.9% below the level reported in mid-March, compared with 2.9% for the rest of Australia.

Across Australia, payroll jobs in the accommodation and food services and the Arts and recreation services industries have suffered the largest losses during the Covid-19 period.

“While accommodation and food services and arts and recreation services have recovered close to half (40% and 49%) of payroll jobs lost since the low point in mid-April, they remain 21% and 14% lower than mid-March,” Jarvis said.

“These industries remain particularly hard hit in Victoria, where payroll jobs were 38% and 23% respectively below mid-March,” Jarvis said.

In mid-March, the four industries with the largest share of payroll jobs (41%) were healthcare and social assistance; retail trade; professional, scientific and technical services; and education and training. By 22 August, these industries were back to over 96% of the payroll jobs recorded in mid-March.

What about for businesses? They have been asking for more information.

Daniel Andrews:

The restriction announcements that we made are painful, they’re challenging, we acknowledge that, we understand that but we’re giving business an opportunity to provide direct input to the government about the support that they need and I think that’s a fair and reasonable thing to do. I think that’s a very important thing to do and as soon as we are ready to make announcements, they will be substantial, very substantial, but it is not for today but it will be soon.

Will NSW and Victoria see the same restrictions, if numbers come down?

Daniel Andrews:

The exact settings in place for New South Wales are a matter for the New South Wales government.

For instance, their border is closed.

We’ll get that border open, though, by driving our numbers down as low as we possibly can. There will be an ultimate point where things are in broad alignment.

Even coming out of the first wave, the way they treated poker machines, for instance, was different to the way we did it. The way they treated, you know, all sorts of different businesses. Whilst there’s similarities and a need for consistency in that ultimate sense, things are different in Sydney, different in regional New South Wales than they are here. Lots of things are similar, but there are some differences also.

What about what Scott Morrison has been saying – that he hopes Victoria’s roadmap is a “worse-case scenario”.

Daniel Andrews:

I’d say to the prime minister the worst-case scenario is being open for three or four weeks and then closed down again. That’s the worst-case scenario. Absolutely that’s the worst-case scenario and I’ll continue to work closely with the prime minister and his team. We’re grateful for the partnership that we have but in my judgment, if I can be so bold as to have a judgment on ... would it be preferable to ignore the fact that we have much higher rates of community transmission than New South Wales? That doesn’t make any sense.

Should Victoria have used the same IT systems as NSW in its contact tracing?

Daniel Andrews:

I wouldn’t say that localised public health teams or regional public health teams or some officials going to Sydney to do a triple check – it’s not like they haven’t been talking.

They’re in constant contact. I wouldn’t accept that.

What I would say, though, is that, you know, the only way to avoid this sort of discussion is to blindly say the system is perfect and can’t get any better.

I’m not saying that. I’ve never, ever said that. We all have to – there’s no rulebook. There’s no playbook. There’s no guide here.

This is something none of us have done before and therefore you all learn from each other and there are plenty of insights that we’ve provided to New South Wales and Queensland and South Australia. It’s a proper model where we share not just resources but we share our experience and our insight so that everybody can do the very best that they can do. That’s what continuous improvement is all about.

When did the public health experts want to do this?

Daniel Andrews:

I think that people have wanted to see how regional teams worked. It’s something that’s been talked about for a while. It’s not necessarily being stood up next week. We’re announcing we’re planning to do it. We need to get the planning right and we’re confident we will.

When did Daniel Andrews realise this needed to be done:

It’s not a matter of realising it had to be done. This is a choice. Because the way regional public health teams have worked, and the fact that we’ve got numbers well down from the peak – so we’re into, you know, below 100 cases and we’re going to keep driving those down even further, the – as I said to Rachel, the kind of margin for error gets really, really small. The Colac example shows you, one person, two people, next thing it’s 25 people, but if it’s well managed, as that outbreak has been – and I want to congratulate all the team at Barwon health and all their partners and the people involved. They’ve been asked to do certain things, they’ve done them and that’s why, to the best of our knowledge as we stand here today, something that could easily have been 100 cases or more is not. It’s 25.

But what about NSW? Scott Morrison pointed to that system as the “gold star” standard.

Daniel Andrews:

On that point, there’s been constant communication, constant communication. But it’s important ... not just to find things that are different, but to potentially just double-check that there are no differences.

So it’s for two purposes. So it is appropriate, particularly given what they’re dealing with now – very low case numbers.

They are where we want to get to and where we will get to under this strategy. It’s just appropriate to sit down and double check, triple check ... no one could have literally counted the number of times there’s been phone calls, Zooms, data being shared.

It is absolutely connected. We speak with our colleagues. In fact, they’ve been doing some contact tracing for us, as part of ... when things were at their absolute peak.

So there is a very strong connection, but it’s always worthwhile going first-hand, not over a 45-minute Zoom meeting, but in person, for as long as it takes, just to double and triple-check that there’s nothing that might be changed, or any insights, any experience – the other thing, too, is that it may not necessarily be that there’s much found that’s very different at all.

But because New South Wales are dealing with very small numbers of cases, that’s a different challenge to dealing with hundreds and thousands.

So they may have some insights into what we can expect to confront, not right now, but in three weeks, four weeks, five weeks’ time, so it just makes perfect sense.

Why wasn’t this done five months ago?

Daniel Andrews:

This comes into its own when numbers are low, and that’s the position we’re moving into now.

Q: The numbers were low between the first and second wave.

Andrews:
Indeed. This is about continuous improvement. It’s not about saying that, you know, there isn’t an opportunity to do better. It’s looking for those – and often, often, it will be very, very small improvements, but the lower the numbers get, the lower your tolerance and threshold for error, the margin for error gets so slim that it’s then appropriate to devolve and that’s exactly what we’re doing. There’ll still be a big team at the centre. But having the most localised response – for instance, I’ll give you an example. I spoke with Commodore Hill this morning about the fact that a case, you know, well deep into regional Victoria where there’s not necessarily the laboratory capacity would mean you had to send that swab all the way to Melbourne. That can add two, three, four hours to that turnaround time. Once you get down to very, very low numbers, though, there are a number of health settings, a number of hospitals, who can run one or two tests. They can’t do a long run of tests, but they can do ... they can do very small numbers and they can turn them around without all that travel time. So, for instance, some things become possible, some things come into their own, some things become absolutely essential when you get to very, very low numbers.

So I think that just as regional teams have played a critical role in the low numbers in regional Victoria now and keeping them low, suburban public health teams, coronavirus response teams, will be a very important part of that final push to get the numbers right down and to keep them there.

Q: That doesn’t explain why you didn’t do that three months ago before we ...

Andrews: Well, this second wave is very different to the first wave. Very, very different.

Q: But you could have prevented the severity of the second wave.

Andrews:

I don’t accept that. I don’t accept that. At all. The key point here is with the amount of community transmission that we’ve got, with the amount of cases that we had, a more centralised model worked and that’s not a matter of my opinion. We’ve gone from 725 cases to 41 yesterday, 55 today. That’s a strategy that’s working. That’s a strategy that ... it’s full of sacrifice.

It’s full of a lot of hard work from many, many people and, again, I’m deeply grateful to everyone who is playing their part, but I don’t accept that view.

This is now the time to do this, but there may be other things that I am not announcing today. There may be other things that become clear that there would be a benefit and we’d always reserve the right to make further announcements, refinements. That’s what a culture of continuous improvement is all about.

Will those new contact-tracing teams be the same people reshuffled, or new people?

Daniel Andrews:

I think it will be additional people. It will be a mix. There might be leadership positions that are essentially from the centre that might go out to those teams. The final design is not yet settled but the model across regional Victoria is they’ve been added to the overall team.

When I say “added” there may be people who are not necessarily doing this work now but they’re on the payroll.

They’re working in a hospital setting, for instance. We’ll also look to local government, whether there are any supports that they can provide and then we’ll stand up those teams but I think the majority of the additional team members will be extra, or at least they will be tasked to these ... This important work when that wasn’t what they were doing, if that makes sense.

Here is the new contact tracing measures, as explained by the Victorian government:

But everything will be based on the data, Daniel Andrews says:

Let’s not make announcements until we’ve got the data. We will ease in regional Victoria based on the data and science and take as big a step as we can provided it is safe. We didn’t put a timeline some of that. We said it would need to be when we got to that 14-day average because we knew, and we expect that we may get to that quite soon. We’re very, very close now but the last thing I would ever want is for people in regional Victoria who have given so much – numbers have got so low, we’ve got to make sure that when we do take those steps, that we’ve got a good picture of how [much] virus is out there and that it doesn’t get away from us very soon therefore.

Given regional Victoria’s numbers are looking good, could restrictions there be lifted sooner?

Daniel Andrews:

Well, they’re already taking one, potentially two, steps more than Melbourne. We’ll just have to be driven by the data.

The trend is very good and we’re very proud and very grateful to everyone in regional Victoria who is doing the right thing. I know those rules are not easy.

I’ll go back to the point I made yesterday. There’s been a bit of commentary about why can’t communities that have no cases jump well and truly ahead and jump right now?

The key point is that’s cases we know of. The sewerage testing result of the waste water in Apollo Bay is this can be in a local community and no one knows it.

Often presents mildly and not everybody who has symptoms comes forward and gets tested. As I said yesterday, if was a situation if we were asking all of regional Victoria to wait six or eight weeks before they could take those safe, steady steps towards normal, we probably would have said we need to divide regional Victoria up into different zones based on risk, based on data.

I think they’ll be able to take some significant steps soon because the trend is with us, the trend is good. And that’s all a credit to the work of every single person across Victoria.

There are suburban contact tracing teams on the way for Melbourne.

Daniel Andrews:

I can announce that we will in coming weeks establish at least five suburban contact tracing and public health, that is coronavirus response teams.

They will be in the north, south, south-east and west of the state.

So we will have across the 40, across the east and south-east, the west also.

We will make sure that we have got those local teams who I think come in their own when there is very low numbers, but the tolerance for copping those numbers low is also very, very small. The notion of pouncing on outbreaks, making sure that when we are chasing one and two cases and keeping those numbers very low, I think just as regional public health teams which we have stood up in a number of significant regional centres and been very, very successful whether is in the Colac outbreak, some positive activity, some cases down in the Latrobe Valley, those locals – at a regional level, those regional public health teams have been very, very successful.

Daniel Andrews attempts to address criticism of Victoria’s contact tracing:

I can confirm that we are just over 90% of those cases, positive cases, being interviewed within 24 hours.

The reason that there are 8 % of people we can’t get to within that timeframe are the same reasons we always have talked about. Not home. You might need a guardian or adult to interview a child. They may not necessarily be present.

Then there will be, not every day – and it is in very, very low numbers – and I make this point not in relation to our disease response or transmission, but in terms of chasing a 100%, that is talking to every single person, there will from time to time be people who are not willing to be part of that process.

In terms of close contacts, we are at 99%.

So just 1% of people for exactly the same reasons cannot be contacted.

The door-knocking activity that the ADF and authorised officers have led and continue to do of all cases and all close contacts low tech, an old-fashioned common sense way of doing things, but one that has served us very well. There is no other other jurisdiction doing that work, but it makes the point it is appropriate here and that is exactly why we continue to do that.

There are now just 82 active cases in regional Victoria.

Daniel Andrews:

It is important with stay the course and we are confident we will reach our target, in terms of the 14-day average, and as soon as we can have those very substantial changes, not one step, but in fact two steps along that road map to Covid normal applying to regional Victoria, that is exactly what we will do. That I don’t think is too far away.

Victoria still needs more people to come and get tested – although Apollo Bay has done a fairly good job at that, after sewer checks found there may have been some undiagnosed cases.

Checking sewers has been going on for some time – it helps authorities work out where the virus is, or may have been, on top of tests.

If you haven’t taken your time outside just yet Melbourne, it might be worth waiting this out:

So while this debate continues, it is again worth pointing out that the app cannot stop you from getting the virus, it can just let you know that you may have been in the vicinity as someone who has tested positive for more than 15 minutes.

It’s 11am for Daniel Andrews this morning.

The founder of Jim’s Mowing, Jim Penman, has continued his one-person crusade against Daniel Andrews and the Victorian restrictions, because his industry is not exempt.

Penman has not seen the modelling (none of us have) but says the restrictions are not necessary.

This was his take on Andrews, while speaking to the Nine Network this morning:

I mean, he is the worst, worst political leader in Australia since federation. I can’t think of anybody as remotely as bad as this.

Labor, Liberal, it doesn’t matter.

Even his Labor colleagues in Canberra are getting fed up with this guy.

He is incompetent and there is cynical politicising. How else can you explain the difference between sole operators who are self-employed and group operators who work for the council. It basically has to do with who funds the Labor party coffers. This is politics.

Greg Hunt also had this to say about Victoria’s lockdown this morning while speaking to the ABC:

We want Victorians to be able to open their businesses safely, in a staged way, to return to life and to be free of a curfew which has, as you know, as Victorians, just had profound mental health consequences.

You would have had friends and businesses talk to you about what it means.

This situation [Melbourne’s lockdown] is longer than Wuhan. Melbourne’s lockdown is four weeks longer than Wuhan. I am sure we can do better.

The inquiry into alleged foreign interference in Australian universities is under way:

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) has received a letter from the minister for home affairs referring an inquiry into foreign interference in Australia’s universities, publicly funded research agencies and competitive research grants agencies with a requested reporting date of July 2021.

The PJCIS recognises that this is a complex topic, and, in order to appropriately consider the issues before it, the committee will seek private briefings from relevant agencies with a view to finalising the terms of reference, in consultation with the minister for home affairs, and launch the inquiry later this month.

The chair, Andrew Hastie MP, said: “The committee supports this inquiry. We will now take the opportunity to engage the relevant agencies as we refine the terms of reference. This inquiry is about transparency and accountability, so it’s important that we ask the right questions.”

Marise Payne has released a statement on the Australian journalists who have left China:

The Australian government has provided consular support to two Australian journalists in China to assist their return to Australia. Those Australians have now arrived in Australia. Our embassy in Beijing and consulate-general in Shanghai engaged with Chinese government authorities to ensure their wellbeing and return to Australia.

Our current travel advice for China, which was updated on July 7, remains appropriate and unchanged. We encourage all Australians who are overseas, or are seeking to travel, to closely monitor Smartraveller.

The Australian government continues to provide consular support to Australian citizens detained in China, including Ms Cheng Lei. We are unable to provide further comment owing to privacy obligations.

There would be big sighs of relief across quite a few rooms this morning.

There are many, many, many families still holding their breath.

The ABC’s Bill Birtles and the Australian Financial Review’s Michael Smith were the last Australian correspondents working in China.

The ABC is reporting Birtles had been ordered to submit to police questioning last week and had been banned from leaving the country. The broadcaster said the pair had sought shelter in Australian diplomatic compounds – diplomats negotiated the journalists out of the country. They left on Monday, and have just arrived in Sydney.

This is going to get huge.

This is after Australian journalist Cheng Lei was detained recently, as relations between China and Australia continue to deteriorate.

It is not all doom and gloom in the agriculture sector.

The latest crop production report shows NSW is on its way to a bumper winter:

Australian winter crop production is forecast to increase by 64% in 2020-21, with NSW expected to have its second biggest winter crop in a decade.

Abares’ September 2020 Australian Crop Report has found that winter crop prospects in Australia are generally average to above average at the beginning of spring.

Winter crop production is forecast to be 47.9m tonnes in 2020-21, 20% above the 10-year average to 2019-20 of 40m tonnes.

This forecast is an 8% upward revision from the Abares June 2020 forecast.

In the previous 24 hours before today’s results Victoria recorded 41 new cases. There were 48 across the nation from 36,000 tests.

The seven-day average is slowly coming down.

Yesterday Victoria recorded 48 new cases, from 36,000 tests.

The seven-day average is slowly coming down.

Given we are going to be hearing about this for a bit, as the weeks roll on and the attacks increase, it is worth keeping in mind this take on New South Wales’s contact tracing:

Gladys Berejiklian will be up at 11am with an infrastructure announcement.

Then we get this exchange about Michael McCormack’s comments on the Black Lives Matter protests and Victoria’s second wave:

Lisa Millar: Last night on Q+A the deputy prime minister linked the Victorian lockdowns with the second wave. It doesn’t help, that a senior member, is perpetuating that myth.

Greg Hunt: I remember that Brendan Murphy and I warned very clearly … we didn’t support those protests. It is not about supporting the protests. We don’t support protests going on.

Millar: It is not about supporting them. It is about whether it triggered the second wave.

Hunt: None are sensible or thoughtful in terms of public gatherings ...

Millar: You are not answering the questions.

Hunt: There are strong, clear ways for people express their views. That is our approach. We know, very importantly that all of these actions in Victoria are being taken to limit public gatherings, minister, last night the deputy prime minister ... and ... strong steps taken.

Millar: You are not answering the question. Last night the deputy prime minister made a link between the protests and the second wave. That is wrong. And the deputy prime minister said it on Q+A last night. You know, are you not going to offer something rather than divert the question?

Hunt: Well, given that we are dealing with the question of public health consistency, our approach has been consistent. We have not supported any of these protests.

We do believe there are powerful ways to do it, for people to protest, whether it is online or whether it is at their front gates, within the laws and we do think it is absolutely critical that there is a consistent approach from the Victorian government.

Ten thousand people were allowed to gather. I think there were three, maybe more, but three, as best I understand it, fines issued. Two hundred people gathered and there were up to 150 fines. I don’t see the parity in that. I don’t favour either of those.

Wherever people gather together in those large numbers, that was in breach of all of the health advice. So the faster we take the steps to have a consistent approach with the rest of the country, to follow the national cabinet roadmap that was laid down in May, which brought eight out of eight states and territories to a safe place, and in particular, Victoria actually achieved at about the time of the protests, zero cases. And, so, that was a milestone, yet we have come roaring back. The message is very clear – we have a pathway, follow the national cabinet approach and that will help safe lives, protect lives but give people back those freedoms that are at the heart of who we are as a nation.

Millar: Yes, but OK, for clarity for our audience, the protests did not contribute to the second wave. That has come from hotel quarantine.

Greg Hunt is then asked if the federal government has seen the modelling Victoria’s authorities are using. He says it should be released publicly (it took weeks of asking for the federal government to release its modelling).

We have had the first elements. But we have yet to have the underlying assumptions and details.

I think it should probably be provided not just to the commonwealth but released publicly.

What is the basis for having a 14-day and 28-day zero transmission goal?

That is a very stuff tough standard I am not aware of anywhere else in the world where they have that but I will leave that to Victorians.

Greg Hunt was asked about Victoria’s roadmap and what the federal government would like to see, given that it has been one of the chief critics:

A very strong public health response in terms of testing, tracing and isolation. And the last thing that you do is to lockdown a population.

Now we supported, reluctantly, but we recognised it needed to be done given the situation in Victoria, the entry into stage-three and stage-four restrictions.

We do disagree now, respectfully. We disagree on the length and time and threshhold that has been put in place, and leading epidemiologists, the head of epidemiology at Deakin University the professor from ANU, all have expressed concern about the Victoria has put in place.

It is a simple comparison. Sydney would be under curfew under those standards announced and yet they are able to manage. And we know we can do that and that is why we are offering Victoria more help with their contact tracing in a positive, real, gesture that is aimed at assisting them and assisted Victoria.

Daniel Andrews was on 7.30 last night. He was asked about comparisons to NSW – why Victoria is looking at a longer lockdown, given that if NSW set the same parameters, it would be under lockdown too.

He made the point that the transmission has been different:

Sydney has not had the amount of community transmission that we have had. I don’t think that is a particularly valid comparison and not a particularly worthwhile one. We are not in New South Wales. We have a set of unique circumstances that apply to Victoria and a roadmap to safely and steadily ease out of these current rules, these current restrictions to find a Covid normal. To open up and stay open.

Greg Hunt is about to go on the ABC.

He’ll be talking more about this:

There is no vaccine at the moment but there are promising trials. Even once a vaccine is announced, that will not be the end of the pandemic. It has to be rolled out. And just remember we have a flu vaccine but it doesn’t cover all flu strains. Life won’t be going back to “normal”.

Micheal McCormack though, is going to Michael McCormack:

While the national cabinet had its latest discussion on this issue on Friday, this is not a new problem.

Melissa Davey has been pushing for this information for a very, very long time. The federal government was not forthcoming:

More than four out of every 10 Victorian aged-care deaths due to Covid-19 occurred across just 10 facilities, data obtained by Guardian Australia reveals.

As of Monday, 532 of the state’s deaths were linked to aged care, with St Basil’s Home for the Aged in Fawkner recording 44 of those deaths. The home, which caters for the Greek Orthodox community, is where the most deaths have occurred.

A writ filed to the Victorian supreme court in August alleges St Basil’s breached its duty of care and failed its residents during the pandemic.

Epping Gardens Aged Care had the second-highest number of aged-care deaths in the state, at 35. Kalyna Care, a residential home in Delahey, was third, recording 22 deaths.

The Morrison government is pushing ahead with its planned tapering of the jobkeeper rate come the end of the month, despite Victoria remaining under restrictions.

But the jobseeker rate is also being cut. And that is going to cause even more problems. As Luke Henriques-Gomes reports:

A low-paid Australian worker laid off during the pandemic will receive the third lowest unemployment benefit in the OECD when the coronavirus supplement is reduced, according to expert analysis.

Despite mass unemployment and an extended stage-four lockdown in Melbourne, the federal government plans to push ahead with a $300 cut to the supplement on 25 September, reducing the base rate of benefits to about $1,115 a fortnight.

An ANU social security expert, Prof Peter Whiteford, said by one key measure Australia’s jobseeker payment and commonwealth rent assistance would drop below all OECD nations except Greece and New Zealand.

His analysis uses OECD data examining what is known as the “replacement rate”, which compares unemployment and housing benefits with the income a person received in their last job.

“The replacement rate sounds rather technical, but what it means is how well can you keep your previous commitments if you become unemployed,” Whiteford said.