Perth lockdown ends at 12.01am but some restrictions remain – as it happened

While we’re on Scott Morrison’s hands, Tasmanian premier Peter Gutwein says he doesn’t need the PM to hold his hand during the election campaign.

This from AAP:

Tasmania’s Liberal premier says he does not need Scott Morrison to “hold his hand” while campaigning, in an indication the prime minister may not make an appearance on the state election trail.

Morrison was expected to join premier Peter Gutwein in Latrobe on Sunday but the plan was scrapped because the prime minister had been in Perth, which recently entered lockdown, about a week ago.

Gutwein said on Monday:

As the week plays out we’ll see what the circumstances are but obviously he has a busy schedule.

Tasmania heads to the polls on Saturday, with the Liberals seeking a third term and a majority in the state’s 25-seat lower house.

Morrison has not visited Tasmania during the campaign, sparking commentary that his presence is not wanted on the hustings.

The federal Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, has made several trips to the island, attending the party’s campaign launch and standing alongside the state opposition leader, Rebecca White, at announcements.

Gutwein said:

Unlike Rebecca White, I don’t need the PM to hold my hand. Whether Mr Morrison gets here or not is a matter for his diary.

Both major party leaders have reiterated they will not serve as premier of a minority government.

The Liberals and Gutwein were riding high in the popularity stakes earlier this year but recent voter surveys have indicated the election could be close.

Labor has nine incumbent MPs, while the Liberals have 12 after Speaker Sue Hickey quit the party in April to sit as an independent, sparking the early election call.

Morrison told the conference that he and Jenny had been grateful for the “amazing prayers and support” sent from Christians across the country, and shared with the crowd that he had practised the laying on of hands, a Pentecostal tradition of healing and encouragement to faith.

He says, referring to a recent visit to Kalbarri in the Pilbara in the wake of cyclone Seroja:

I’ve been in evacuation centres where people thought I was just giving someone a hug and I was praying, and putting my hands on people … laying hands on them and praying in various situations.

Morrison also talks about the threats to the sense of community, singling out identity politics as being “corrosive” to society, while suggesting prayers are needed because Facebook can be used by “the evil one” to undermine social cohesion.

Sure, social media has its virtues and its values and enables us to connect with people in ways we’ve never had before – terrific, terrific. But those weapons can also be used by the evil one and we need to call that out.

He said identity politics was an “absolutely corrosive” threat to society which negated the value of the individual while promoting tribalism and misunderstanding.

If you look at each other not as individuals but as warring tribes you know it’s easy to start disrespecting each other, it’s easy to start not understanding the person across from you.

He also draws on conversations he had with his father-in-law about his faith when he first started dating his now-wife Jenny as a 16-year-old.

Morrison said:

He’d get very frustrated with me because I wouldn’t answer all the questions and I said, ‘Roy, you know, I can’t fix the world, I can’t save the world, but we both believe in someone who can.’

And that’s why I’ve come here for your help tonight, because what you do and what you bring to the life and faith of our country is what it needs.

Early in the speech Morrison also acknowledged “the other members of my band of Christian believers in Canberra”, including “Brother Stewie” – Stuart Robert, the minister for employment.

Talking about a difficult time during the final fortnight of the 2019 election campaign, Morrison shared a story of asking God for a sign before visiting the Ken Duncan gallery on the NSW central coast.

Morrison says:

I must admit I was saying to myself, ‘You know, Lord, where are you, where are you? I’d like a reminder if that’s OK.’

And there right in front of me was the biggest picture of a soaring eagle that I could imagine, and of course the verse hit me.

The message I got that day was: Scott you’ve got to run to not grow weary, you’ve got to walk to not grow faint, you’ve got to spread your wings like an eagle to soar like an eagle.

Scott Morrison says misuse of social media is the work of the devil in address to Christian conference.

Craig is quite upset at Facebook.

Tehan has finished up his interview with the ABC, but there are a few other things worth mentioning:

• He wasn’t really across the Craig Kelly Facebook page removal but said that if the company had done it because he breached its policies then he hoped it would “do that consistently across the board on a number of issues”.
• It was not inevitable that China would retaliate against Australia with further trade sanctions after the decision to cancel the Belt and Road agreement with the Victorian government.
• “Everything would be done” to get Australia’s AstraZeneca contracts honoured, despite Tehan’s trip to Europe failing to secure 2.2m extra doses from local suppliers.

Tehan was also asked on the ABC about getting Australians home amid the pandemic. The WA government has cut international arrival numbers again in response to its latest outbreak, and the inadequacies of the hotel quarantine system remain a concern for multiple states.

Tehan did not give any detail but seems keen to have more coming back:

Look, the more Australians we can bring home, the better, but we also have to make sure we do that as safely as possible. I think the best thing is that we understand how fortunate and how lucky we are here in Australia.

We should be trying to see how we can bring as many Australians home as we possibly can, and if all states and territories have that as their focus, I’m sure we can work through it in a very constructive way and in a way which really demonstrates to the rest of the world that our success of dealing with the pandemic will continue because we can work through these issues, we can take the expert medical advice and we can continue to be an exemplar for the rest of the world which, I can tell you, is what we are at the moment.

Dan Tehan, the trade, tourism and investment minister, is speaking to the ABC. He is glad the WA lockdown has worked, but reiterates that such measures should be the last option.

Well, obviously the most important thing is that it has dealt with the outbreak. What I’ve said is that the best thing is if we can use our contact tracing and testing as a first resort and use lockdowns as a last resort, that’s the best way to give certainty to our aviation industry and our domestic tourism industry ... but obviously these lockdowns need to be used as a last resort if it’s deemed necessary by the medical experts.

Bit of an update on this very odd story about missing Victorian campers. Police are going back to the area where they first disappeared.

More from AAP:

The year-long search for Victorian campers Russell Hill and Carol Clay is returning to the area where they disappeared.

Victoria police said they would go back to the Wonnangatta area on Monday “as a result of information obtained from previous searches”.

Two shovels were found during a search of the Mt Hotham area on 14 April, about 100km from Wonnangatta, and police said they were still being examined.

The search will focus on the area along the Dargo High Plains Rd, Cynthia Range track, Herne Spur track and the Wonnangatta track.

Hill, 74, and Clay, 73, went missing from the Wonnangatta Valley in March last year. Police believe Hill left his Drouin home on 19 March and picked up Clay from her home in Pakenham in his white Toyota Landcruiser.

Hill was last heard from on 20 March via HF radio, stating he was at Wonnangatta Valley. Campers found his car with signs of minor fire damage at the duo’s campsite near Dry River Creek track in the Wonnangatta Valley the next day. Their campsite had been destroyed by fire.

A number of searches have been conducted in and around the Wonnangatta Valley during the past 12 months, including on 4 April this year with cadaver dogs. Police conceded at the time it was unlikely Hill and Clay were still alive.

They continue to investigate whether the pair met foul play.

Detectives continue to appeal to anyone who was in the Wonnangatta area around the time of the campers’ disappearance to make contact.

They also want to speak to anyone who was in the Howitt Plains and Zeka Spur track area on 19-20 March 2020, and the Wonnangatta Valley and Wonnangatta Station area from 20-24 March.

Who wants to go to a hyper-local micro-festival?

Sydney is going to host the 2027 Netball World Cup. Reckon we will all be jabbed by then?

And the Mark McGowan hour has just finished in WA. One of the final questions, which unfortunately I didn’t hear, was met with this by the premier:

“Not Channel 7, that would be a Channel 7 question.”

On international arrivals – and WA has cut those numbers in half to a little more than 500 a week – McGowan would consider banning people from certain countries, depending on the state of their outbreaks.

I think there are countries ... maybe Brazil, the other countries that have had big issues, we need to look at it. Half or perhaps even now more than half of the returning Covid-19 positive people are coming through or out of India and that is a big problem because that has caused the problem we face.

We need to judge these things on their merits based upon the Covid-19 status of the country in question, and at this point in time it is obviously India, and other points in time it may well be other countries.

There is a lot of back and forth at this McGowan press conference regarding hotel quarantine, federal government responsibilities, snap lockdowns, etc.

Given we’re now more than a year into the pandemic, and not much has changed when it comes to this sort of stuff, you can rest assured that:

• McGowan says quarantine is a federal government responsibility.
• He trusts his health department but the lockdown was necessary to make sure WA avoided what’s happening overseas.
• Hotels are not perfect for quarantine.
• He accepts responsibility for everything in Western Australia.

Got it? Got it.

McGowan says from 12.01am tomorrow:

• People in Perth and Peel will be free to leave home but masks are mandatory.
• All schools will resume. All students and staff at secondary school will be required to wear a mask, but primary school students will not need to.
  
• There will be a 20-person limit in all homes and private indoor and outdoor gatherings.
• All public venues including hospitality, entertainment and retail can reopen, except for the casino and nightclubs and indoor fitness venues. The four-square-metre capacity rule will be in place, with a limit of 20 patrons not including staff.

The first stage of restrictions will be in place from 12.01am tomorrow until 12.01am Saturday, McGowan says.

We need to be cautious as we come out of lockdown as the virus could still be out there. That is why a stepped approach is safe in the best way forward. We can’t go back to where we were like last week just yet. This step-down approach will give us confidence to begin to get back to normal while we wait for further testing and the incubation period of the virus to come to an end.

McGowan confirms that lockdown will end at midnight tonight as planned, but that there will be a staged easing of restrictions.

Victoria has joined Western Australia in calling for reasons allowing for overseas travel be hardened.

We’re expecting WA premier Mark McGowan to give a press conference in the next hour or so, outlining whether there have been any new cases and whether a snap lockdown can end as planned at midnight.

Meanwhile, in Facebook cancels Craig Kelly news:

Here’s more of what Greg Hunt had to say regarding India:

In the case in India we have seen an outbreak with catastrophic human outcomes. We recognise that for the Indian community, they are suffering abroad, but our Indian Australian community has also suffered. Their friends and families and loved ones are in extremis; many are contracting the disease and sadly dying every day. Literally, they are dying and unable to breathe.

So restrictions have been put in place which have slashed outbound traffic. Other restrictions have also been put in place and I am able to say with the blessing of the prime minister that the national security committee will meet tomorrow and will consider what further measures are needed to assist India. At this moment of humanitarian and health crisis on an unimaginable scale.

But we will also consider whether the medical advice indicates whether additional measures are required. And if those additional measures are recommended, we will take them with the heaviest of hearts but without any hesitation.

In relation to travel between Australia and India:

And then with regards to incoming and outgoing, we will take the medical advice and only in the last few days, we have made the difficult, difficult but necessary decision without hesitation to reduce incoming flights by 30%. And if more is required then more will be delivered.

Little vaccine update for all you keen vial watchers out there:

We brought you news earlier about Facebook removing the page of crossbench MP Craig Kelly for repeatedly breaching guidelines about misinformation.

But it didn’t take long for a Guardian Australia reader to find another seemingly legitimate Kelly page, which includes hyperlinks to an official donation page, operating on the social media platform.

We won’t link to it, but its latest post is a montage of various images including an Anzac Day observer behind a fence during yesterday’s commemorations in Melbourne, a mock-up of a vaccine passport, and photos taken during the arrests of various people who allegedly breached Covid-19 restrictions. So more of the same, then.

This piece published earlier today is interesting, particularly in the context of the upcoming Tasmanian election.

All our Oscars coverage is in our blog here by the way, but if you just want a little bit of a wrap that is right here.

Thanks to Matilda Boseley for another electric display of web logging.

With that, I shall hand you over to the amazing Nino Bucci who will take you through the rest of the afternoon of news.

School banking programs will end in Queensland in July after a review found no evidence they improved saving habits in young children who it described as “vulnerable consumers”, Nick Gibbs at AAP reports.

The end of July is when the Commonwealth Bank’s contract finishes, Queensland’s education minister, Grace Grace, said on Monday.

The Asic report demonstrated that there was really little value in the program, and that often the true intention of the program wasn’t disclosed, and that there wasn’t really a terrible amount of financial education that was taking place.

Grace said “times had changed” since the Dollarmites program was introduced about 50 years ago, and the curriculum now included up-to-date financial education.

Our schools are now giving them skills to help manage their money responsibly while being cybersafe and avoiding the potential pitfalls modern technology can bring ...

About 38,000 [Queensland] students have those accounts, and they can continue their relationship ... but the Dollarmites program will cease at the end of the contract term.

Victoria and the ACT have already moved to end school banking programs.

The Asic report released last year found that school banking could not be proven to improve savings behaviour and exposed young children to “sophisticated advertising and marketing tactics”.

It found payments to schools for implementing the programs could encourage greater participation, and there was a failure to disclose that attracting more customers was a key aim.

Oh by the way the Guardian has just won an Oscar!

Federal Labor is promising to listen to Indigenous Australians and enshrine a voice to parliament in the constitution if the party wins government, Rebecca Gredley at AAP reports.

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese will visit Uluru this week in the lead-up to the four-year anniversary of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

If we want to create a better society, we have to listen to First Nations people ...

Labor is listening. And that’s why we support the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

The denial of a voice to parliament is the denial of a fair go.

Endorsed by hundreds of Indigenous leaders across the country, the statement called for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous advisory body and a commission to oversee treaty-making and truth-telling.

The Coalition immediately rejected the idea of a constitutionally entrenched voice to parliament.

Work is under way to develop an Indigenous voice, with a final report expected by August.

An interim report said the government should be obliged to consult on the Indigenous voice to parliament when crafting laws on race, native title and racial discrimination which impact upon Aboriginal Australians.

But the Coalition’s preferred body will have no power to overturn policy or prevent laws coming into force.

Parliament would also be expected to seek advice on issues that are relevant to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people more broadly.

Berejiklian has been asked if people over 50 will be able to get vaccinated at hospitals from next Monday when the criteria for the AstraZeneca jab loosen across the country.

I was asked that question last week and I answered that was our intention to do that.

Obviously though we need to make sure that we get all the people we were asked to vaccinate in the first instance vaccinated. We are about 200,000 of the way through 300,000, initially mainly through the Pfizer, and then there will be opportunities for people to come forward and get the AstraZeneca as well through the designated clinics we have identified.

A reporter has said they’ve spoken to people who still do not know how to book in for those vaccinations from 3 May.

That is why we will make that information available. The decision was only made last week so we will make that information available.

Berejiklian also doesn’t seem to think that the federal government should take responsibility for state quarantine.

At the end of the day it is the commonwealth that decides what the cap is on Australians coming home. I have to say they listen to what all of the states say in terms of how many people are coming back and the circumstances and we accept that.

There are no rules for how to run a pandemic. Whilst there are obviously different responsibilities done by the states and different by the commonwealth it was made clear to us that the quarantine system was something the states had to look after.

Once that decision was made NSW kicked into action and we got our police force to run the system.

NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian seems to be backing the federal government in the latest stoush between the commonwealth and states. (She doesn’t always stick by her federal Liberal counterparts, but looks like she isn’t picking this battle.)

WA premier Mark McGowan has called for the federal government to stop allowing people to travel to high-risk countries, but Berejiklian says “that’s not a call for the states”.

At the end of the day the quarantine system needs to be as strong as possible no matter what reason people are returning to Australia. That’s not a call for the states.

The federal government decides who is allowed to leave and who is allowed to come back. We are responsible for having the strongest quarantine system we can have and I am incredibly proud that the New South Wales system has welcomed back around 180,000 Australians. We are bringing back 3,000 Australians every week.

If you are keen to get up to date on the massive story that surrounds Ben Roberts-Smith, I recommend this feature by Ben Doherty:

The accusations could not be more serious, nor the consequences higher. But with each new allegation, each twist of an already bloody story, the stakes ratchet up a little more.

Australia’s most decorated living soldier stands accused of brutal war crimes, including kicking an unarmed, handcuffed civilian off a cliff, before ordering him shot dead.

A billionaire media magnate bankrolls the soldier’s defence in a defamation action against one of his chief competitors. Storied institutions such as the Australian War Memorial and the Special Air Services regiment face reckoning of their histories and futures.

You can read the full story below:

It seems like it’s all happening in Victoria and WA today. Here is an updates on the flight that connected the two cities.

Victoria’s transport minister, Ben Carroll, says some Qantas passengers are still waiting to be tested five days after flying to Melbourne with an infected traveller.

Of the 241 other passengers, 156 have tested negative as Victorian health officials boosted the number of tested passengers from 135 on Sunday.

We’ve still got further outstanding tests that are happening today and tomorrow on that Perth flight.” told reporters on Monday.

All the man’s close family contacts have so far tested negative but remain in isolation, reports AAP.

All 10 potentially exposed airport staff have tested negative, and health authorities said messages were sent to all passengers from the flight on Friday afternoon.

Victoria’s testing commander, Jeroen Weimar, told ABC radio the government were still trying to reach all the passengers and ensure they are tested.

Yesterday we had people doing home visits to passengers who hadn’t picked up the phone ...

We’re very confident we’ve got good engagement and response from all the people on the plane and we’ll continue on that vein.

They have been ordered into 14 days of home isolation regardless of whether they return a negative test result.

OK! Oscars news! Chloe Zhao has won best directer for Nomadland!

She is the first woman of colour to win the award and only the second woman to take home the best director statue.

Very cool stuff.

If you want more updates on the night check out the Guardian’s very very funny Oscars life blog below.

If you have been having trouble paying for your mid-morning coffee, I might know why.

It looks like the CommBank app and NetBank services have been having problems this morning meaning many credit and debit cards haven’t been working.

Butler:

We have seen outbreaks in hotel quarantine in all of our major cities, including here in Adelaide, but in all of the major cities over the last few months. This is not particular to a specific state.

This is a national problem, reflecting that quarantine is a national responsibility. It is for Scott Morrison to fix this, not to keep shoving it off to the state governments that have done all of the heavy lifting through the pandemic ...

There should be a national system that has national standards. Instead what we see is very different arrangements in different states. That is not how a quarantine system should operate.

It is not how our quarantine arrangements have operated for more than 100 years. At the end of the day we have one set of international borders. Australians, no matter what state they’re in, should feel confident that there is a quarantine arrangement in place to allow people to come home.

We want Australians to be able to come home but to do so in a way that protects the broader community.

Labor’s health spokesman Mark Butler is speaking now from Adelaide.

Prescribed burns have blanketed roads in the south of Perth this morning.

More on that flight full of people who travelled from Perth to Melbourne who are considered close contacts and must isolate for 14 days.

We’re still waiting to find out when WA premier Mark McGowan will talk to the media today.

When he does we will learn if any more cases have been discovered today, and which if any restrictions will ease at midnight.

There was some talk of a lunchtime announcement (some time around 2pm for Melbourne and Sydney) but that hasn’t been confirmed.

Melbourne will have a team of six traffic managers amid concerns about road congestion after last year’s coronavirus lockdown, reports AAP.

The congestion management team starts next month and will deal with incidents and breakdowns, and will also look at ways to ease traffic flow.

The Victorian government says traffic patterns have shifted in the wake of coronavirus, with trips on Melbourne’s arterial road network increasing rapidly compared to freeway volumes.

The government said it had created about 100 new traffic management jobs, including 12 incident response officers in six vans.

Just ducking back to the Oscars for a moment, I simply MUST inform you that Questlove (joint frontman of Roots) is wearing gold crocs on the red carpet.

I am OBSESSED.

If you have a spare second, it’s really worth reading this opinion piece from long time GP Dr Adrian Plaskitt discussing the decline of mental health services in Australia.

Here is a little bit of it:

I am a GP who has worked in the Hunter region since 1999. This may be longer than you anticipated, but it is so rare to be given an opportunity to tell the truth as I see it that I thought I would make the most of it.

First of all, I want to talk about the general level of service as I have observed it.

During my career there has been a general reduction in service for the severely mentally ill, while the provision of service for mild illness has probably improved. General awareness of mental health has improved, but it is increasingly defined as an illness that effects an individual, which may obscure some societal drivers of mental illness – but I’ll come to that later.

You can read the full piece below:

The head of the Australian Medical Association in WA, Dr Andrew Miller, is making the media rounds this morning and has just appeared on ABC News.

He says many policymakers are “in denial” about the airborne nature of the virus.

There’s still denial of that – not only in hotel quarantine but in healthcare where these people might need to go for attention. Our nurses and doctors are not being given full airborne PPE all the time, and proper ventilation.

There is really a problem with this expert advice which is led in to a whole cascade of issues, and this one-in-200 breakout of the disease from hotel quarantine which is just a predictable, avoidable, preventable disastrous human rights problem.

A man has been charged and a police strike force established after a violent brawl after a soccer game in Sydney’s south, reports Liv Casben from AAP.

Riot police were called to Rockdale just after 5pm on Sunday after reports of the brawl involving men reportedly armed with metal star pickets, bricks, flares and plastic crates.

Three men were taken to hospital and treated for cuts to their limbs. Video footage shared on social media shows flares being let off and objects being hurled between two fan groups.

Police have established strike force azure and a 23-year-old man has been charged with being armed with intent to commit an indictable offence and offences related to rioting.

The Granville man will face Sutherland local court next month and has been banned from any national premier league games as part of his bail conditions.

Rockdale Ilinden – known also as Rockdale City Suns Football Club – posted a message on its Facebook page condemning the violence.

Suffice to say that the club strongly does not condone antisocial and criminal behaviour.

The Victorian government has released data on the rates of mask compliance on public transport (where they are still required).

Looks like the public is doing well in the morning, but get lazy during afternoon peak hours.

Dozens of Afghan interpreters who have worked on the battlefield alongside Australian soldiers have made an urgent plea to the federal government for humanitarian visas, fearing they will be murdered by the Taliban when troops withdraw later this year.

Kate Banville has the story:

The 41 interpreters wrote to the home affairs and immigration departments via the Australian embassy in Jordan in January, and again on 19 April after the prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced that Australia would follow the US by withdrawing all remaining troops by September.

In the April letter, the interpreters detailed a “dire threat”, saying the rate of “targeted killings has increased exponentially” across Afghanistan.

“Roughly 300 interpreters and their families’ members have been killed since 2016,” it said.

“As 2021 commenced, we lost two interpreters who were engaged in assisting the foreign troops in terms of translation and interpretation based on the stories and reports shared by local media.”

You can read the full report below:

Federal opposition frontbencher Tanya Plibersek says WA premier Mark McGowan is right to criticise the federal government’s approach to borders. (This isn’t a huge surprise given they are both Labor.)

She has managed to squeeze in an impressive number of federal government mistakes in her first 30 seconds as well.

I think Mark McGowan is right to ask questions about how quarantine and our borders are being operated. It is a real shame to see this outbreak again. But the reality is, of course, that things aren’t going to get back to normal until we’ve got a fully vaccinated population. We’re running way behind. This is a federal government responsibility. Along with aged care that was such a disaster, along with the Covid tracing app. We’ve got to get our borders right.

I reckon we have to sip for every mistake she mentioned! I’m counting five in the sentences!

You know every year I tell myself that I’m going to watch every Oscars best picture film before the show, and every year I fail.

In fact this time, I’ve only watched one, so I’ve done particularly badly.

But if have done better than me and want to keep up with the awards as they happen check out the Guardian’s Oscars live blog below:

Victoria’s health department has started publishing their numbers at 9am and not 8am nowadays and honestly, I’m not jazzed about it.

I liked the little kick of good news to keep me motivated during a cold Melbourne Monday morning on the blog.

Photos have been released of the Indonesian military submarine that went missing last week.

It was found on the seafloor, broken into at least three parts, deep in the Bali Sea, army and navy officials have said, as the president sent condolences to relatives of the 53 crew.

On Sunday, the Indonesian military head, Hadi Tjahjanto, said there was no chance of finding any of the crew alive.

He said: “With deep sadness, I can say that all 53 personnel onboard have passed. We received underwater pictures that are confirmed as the parts of the submarine, including its rear vertical rudder, anchors, outer pressure body, embossed dive rudder and other ship parts.

“With this authentic evidence, we can declare that KRI Nanggala-402 has sunk and all the crew members are dead.”

You can read the full story here:

Federal Labor has committed to legislating 10 days of paid domestic and family violence leave if elected, as well as establishing “a national definition of domestic violence to include coercive control”.

Anthony Albanese has tweeted out details of this plan this morning:

Good morning, it’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life and I hope you are feeling good!

Matilda Boseley here and before we jump into the morning of news, why don’t I get you up to speed on the situation in Western Australia.

At the moment it’s all a bit of a waiting game at moment with people in Perth and the Peel region are waiting to see which restrictions will be extended beyond midnight tonight. Many are fearful the snap lockdown in its entirety will continue if more cases are found today.

Yesterday the premier Mark McGowan flagged that some social distancing rules would persist:

I’m sure there will be some further measures that continue ...

What they are, we won’t know until tomorrow morning. We’ll get health advice ... and I think people should get used to the prospect that there will be some further measures continue beyond Monday ...

If there’s further cases what we do will be more than perhaps there is now. It all depends on the circumstances. I can’t predict what will happen. There will be an extension of some form of controls.

Yesterday there were no new local cases of Covid-19 discovered.

I’ll give you the whole lowdown on McGowan’s ongoing fight with the federal government later this morning, but why don’t we pivot to another situation in Canberra.

Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins will meet with Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese next week to discuss ways to improve workplace culture in Parliament House, it was revealed on the weekend.

Newswire AAP reported the separate meetings will be held in Sydney on Friday. Higgins wanted to meet the prime minister in Canberra but it is understood she was not given a choice.

Higgins has become a powerful voice calling for reform in Parliament House after she went public with allegations she was raped by a colleague in a federal minister’s office two years ago, and criticised the government’s lacklustre efforts to support her in the aftermath.

Last month during an interview on A Current Affair, Morrison stated he would meet to speak with Higgins, but since reaching out, Higgins says it has been a struggle to lock the prime minister down on a time.

Now that the details are set, Morrison has described the meeting as “important” and said he was looking forward to it.

OK, with that why don’t we get started.

If there is something you reckon I’ve missed or think should be in the blog but isn’t, shoot me a message on Twitter @MatildaBoseley or email me at matilda.boseley@theguardian.com.