Daniel Andrews ‘won’t be deterred’ by Victoria protests; NT records eight new Covid cases; flood warnings for NSW – as it happened

And with that, we are going to put the blog to bed. As always a totally pleasure going through the day’s news with you. Before we bounce, let’s go through the big ones:

• The New South Wales town of Forbes was flooded.
• Labor announced its first election promise: to revamp the country’s broadband.
• Residential mental health facility capacity for young people to be doubled in Victoria.
• Daniel Andrews said “he won’t be deterred” by protesters’ threats.
• NSW premier Dominic Perrottet said he was hopeful of a breakthrough in the William Tyrrell case, after police seized a car.
• Victoria records 996 new Covid-19 cases and nine deaths, NSW records 231 new cases, no deaths, and no cases in Queensland.
• Many of the 12,000 people stranded interstate “are just waiting” for Queensland to scrap Covid-19 quarantine.
• Liberal senator Andrew Bragg has dodged questions on whether or not he went “rogue” in announcing a parliamentary inquiry into the ABC.
• Roger Federer to miss Australian Open as he recovers from knee surgery.

We will be back tomorrow to do it all again - until then, go well.

As a Country Road executive participated in a digital panel on ethical clothing for Melbourne Fashion Week on Wednesday, dozens of the company’s warehouse workers staged a protest outside a major department store selling the company’s clothing.

CRG owns a stable of high profile fashion brands, including Country Road, Witchery, Mimco, Politix and Trenery.

Liberal senator Andrew Bragg has dodged questions on whether or not he went “rogue” in announcing a parliamentary inquiry into the ABC’s complaint’s process during an interview with the ABC.

The Oz reported earlier this week that Bragg was “rapped over the knuckles” by the prime minister’s office for going public with the inquiry, and reported “senior coalition” figures were furious Bragg had made it a political issue.

ABC Chair Ita Buttrose didn’t hold back in responding to the inquiry, saying it amounted to “political interference” with the national broadcaster, given it has announced an inquiry into the complaints process before an independent inquiry already ordered by the board returns its findings.

Scott Morrison backed the inquiry when asked about it earlier this week, by saying no one was above the scrutiny of the Senate (which ignores all the ministers who have failed to produce documents as ordered by the senate, by claiming ‘cabinet in confidence’). Bragg, for his part, wouldn’t answer whether or not he had gone “rogue” when pressed on the Australian report by Patricia Karvelas this afternoon.

Directly asked if he had gone rogue, Bragg said: “Well, the senate is required under the constitution to perform a review function and the senate is performing that function in relation to a range of government bodies at the moment through the legislation committees. This is a new inquiry that I think can add a great deal to this.

Asked again, Bragg deflected by saying:

“I’m not sure what you mean about the Senate going rogue? The Senate reviews government agencies all the time.”

Asked a third time about the report in the Australian, Bragg answered:

“I’m not going to go into private conversations. I don’t think you’d expect me to do that. Of course, I consult with colleagues. The Senate has a role under the Constitution to perform a review function. And I think you would generally welcome that, given it’s been able to provide scrutiny of government departments, scrutiny of government agencies and it does that on a regular basis most notably through Senate estimates.

Scott Morrison’s ‘can-do capitalism’ is a hypocritical example of ‘do nothing’ leadership, writes Amy Remeikis.

Human rights advocates have welcomed the inclusion of concerns about self-censorship in new guidelines against foreign interference in universities.

The federal government today released a new version of guidelines developed by the university foreign interference taskforce - a body that includes government agencies and the higher education sector.

The new guidelines say “attempts to inappropriately influence academic discussions or public statements made by members of the university community can lead to self-censorship, and conflicts with the principle of academic freedom”.

The document says universities should put in place policies and procedures to manage the risk of foreign interference, including “harassment and intimidation that can lead to self-censorship”.

Human Rights Watch - which has previously published a report on self-censorship on matters related to China - welcomed the new guidelines.

The group’s Australia researcher, Sophie McNeill, said in a statement:

“These new efforts to ensure universities have policies in place to counter state-backed harassment and intimidation are long overdue and have the potential to make a real positive difference on the lives of students and academics.

“The Taskforce’s acknowledgement of the corrosive impact of self-censorship on Australian university campuses and the need to introduce new measures to counter that, is a welcome development. We agree that new education programs highlighting the impact of intimidation and harassment on academic freedom and freedom of speech need to be put in place by universities and we call for those to be implemented as soon as possible.”

From AAP:

Australia’s Human Rights Commission has issued a set of guidelines designed to stamp out racism in crowds at sporting events.

Major professional sports organisations including the AFL, Cricket Australia, Tennis Australia and some of the nation’s largest stadiums have already endorsed the Spectator Racism Guidelines, and more are expected to sign on.

Among the 13 guidelines released on Wednesday, players will be encouraged to report racial abuse in the crowd and even stop play to alert authorities, while there is a recommendation for culturally sensitive counselling and social support services for targets of racism.

They include a number of proactive measures to prevent racism from occurring.

The framework is the result of consultation hosted by the Australian Human Rights Commission with professional sporting codes, clubs, players, venue operators and anti-racism experts.

Race discrimination commissioner Chin Tan said the commission spearheaded the development of these guidelines in response to numerous incidents of spectator racism over the past year.

“When racist incidents happen they can have a long-lasting impact on those affected and damaging social consequences. There is no place for racism anywhere and that includes sport,” Commissioner Tan said in a statement.

Victorian MP Fiona Patten has been pushing for a Minister for Loneliness since 2018 - and it looks like she’s finally got it.

“A Minister for Loneliness will help address this issue at a state level and introduce an integrated approach to tackle social isolation,” she previously said.

“For every policy that is introduced, we will have someone asking the questions ‘how does this impact people’s ability to connect. This is about driving action on loneliness across all parts of the community.”

Warm oceans, unusual currents and strange weather patterns have coincided with an outbreak of disease that has forced the closure of South Australia’s Coffin Bay farms.

Health authorities have said they would now investigate whether climate change was a factor in the spread of Vibrio parahaemolyticus in oysters, which has been linked to 45 cases of gastroenteritis since September.

Undercooked shellfish and fish can carry Vibrio, which in turn can cause diarrhoea, vomiting, cramps, fever and headache. Raw oysters are often the cause of Vibrio infection.

Australia’s second-biggest debt management company made threats against clients, including telling them they could go to prison if they spent money at McDonald’s, the corporate regulator has alleged.

In documents filed with the federal court on Tuesday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission accused A&M Group, which trades as Debt Negotiators and promotes itself as a “reputable debt help company who uses our knowledge and expertise to help you get out of debt”, of breaking the law by harassing or coercing customers.

Scientists have investigated the links between the Covid-19 pandemic and the deterioration of the world’s ecosystems and their biodiversity, discovering feedback loops that suggest a potential increase in future pandemics.

Odette Lawler is collaborating with a team of students and fellows contributing to the study in the University of Queensland’s Biodiversity Research Group.

Lawler said that the links between biodiversity loss, habitat degradation and zoonotic disease transfer had long been understood, but it’s taken an international pandemic to bring the issue to public attention.

“Covid-19 has shown the world that human health and environmental health are intricately linked,” Lawler said.

“We’ve long known that issues like land-use change, intensive livestock production, wildlife trade, and climate change drive the emergence of zoonotic diseases, as they increase human-wildlife interactions.

“Now we’ve also found that these issues are being compounded by outcomes of the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in feedback loops that are likely to promote future zoonotic disease outbreaks.

“For example, research has found that rates of deforestation have substantially increased in many regions around the world over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

NSW health minister Brad Hazzard has hit out against suggestions he wants to implement over-reaching new pandemic powers.

Hazzard, on behalf of Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant, sought to extend Covid-19 provisions on Tuesday.

But Premier Dominic Perrottet scrapped the proposed changes, saying he would defer the decision on extending or changing any of the state’s emergency pandemic powers to next year.

On Wednesday Hazzard defended the changes, saying: “far from granting additional powers, the powers are exactly the same as exist now and are simply tweaks on timing for two provisions in the massive Public Health Act”.

We’ve got floods in NSW and now fire danger in Victoria ... all very cool and not concerning

Greg Hunt has talked up the ‘safeguard mechanism’ within the Coalition government’s climate policy as a good way to get companies to cut their emissions.

But on Wednesday emissions reduction minister Angus Taylor said it was never meant to force businesses to reduce their emissions.

So which is it? Peter Hannam explains.

From AAP:

New Zealand will dismantle the hard border around Auckland in time for Christmas, allowing separated Kiwis to reunite over the holidays.

However, police will fine any unvaccinated citizens who attempt to leave the country’s biggest city, undertaking random spot checks similar to drink-driving patrols to keep Covid-19 at bay.

New Zealand is enduring its worst outbreak of the pandemic, with daily case numbers around 200, the majority of them in Auckland.

On Wednesday, health officials announced one fatality connected to the virus - of an Auckland man in his 60s - bringing the country’s death toll to 35.

McCormack has attacked Labor and the Greens for wanting to legislate net zero.

“The Labor and Greens’ way, that’s to legislate these targets. They’re going to close the resource sector and many of the mines down. They don’t care about the Hunter.

“They don’t care about the farmers in Forbes or elsewhere. We are there and we’ll protect not only industry and protect families, protect small business, but we’re also going to lower emissions.

“That’s the responsible thing you’d expect a Coalition government and the Nationals in government to do.”

Patricia Karvelas is asking Michael McCormack about Barnaby Joyce saying the Nationals didn’t sign the Cop26 climate pact.

McCormack says: “The Nationals agreed to net zero. The Nationals agreed to put that in place, along with our Liberal colleagues in a Coalition government. We’re governing Australia for the future.

“We’re in full agreement with the government and the government’s position is the government’s position we took to Glasgow. The farmers that we represent, for the resource industry which we proudly represent, is going to continue to be there.

“May Coalition governments long continue into the future because that’s one way we will ensure we have the economic power base in the ag sector, the resource sector and not charging people through the nose through their power point.”

Nationals MP Michael McCormack is talking on Afternoon Briefing now. He is in Forbes and helping with the evacuation and flood response.

“We heard 47 dwellings have been evacuated. That’s 122 people,” he said.

“There have been a number of people who have said that we’re going to stand here and stand our ground.

“I spoke to Brian Miller who lives around here and he’s not concerned even though the water is creeping up into his backyard. He says it’s not as high as the 2016 flood which reached 10.56m. It’s about 12 centimetres below that at the moment.”

And while we are on vaccines - some really, truly, very great news here.

Queensland is predicted to reach 80% double dose vaccination on December 8.

And we have more data on Victoria’s Covid numbers from today. AAP has a big breakdown of all the numbers you need to know:

• Active COVID-19 cases: 14,260, down from 17,518 on Monday
• Deaths reported on Wednesday: Nine people aged from their 50s to 90s
• Death toll across the pandemic: 1248
• COVID-related patients in hospital: 357, a decrease of 37
• Seven-day hospitalisation average: 402, a decrease of 16
• Actively infected patients in ICU: 58
• Cleared patients in ICU: 65
• ICU patients on a ventilator: 35
• Tests administered on Tuesday: 72,010
• Vaccine doses administered at state-run hubs: 6692

This is a really lovely good news story from science reporter Donna Lu.

A recent sighting of the Kangaroo Island assassin spider has given researchers new hope for the survival of the species, which was feared extinct after the 2019-2020 bushfires.

According to Donna, it looks like a pelican and uses its elongated jaw to impale prey.

Better than a Bunnings sausage?

Sporting greats from rugby league, soccer, netball, Australian football and rugby union will be on hand to congratulate those being vaccinated at select schools during pop-up clinics across Queensland this weekend.

Health minister Yvette D’Ath says it’s a great opportunity to “get a jab and an autograph”, a sentence I never thought I’d read.

I’m no meteorologist, but I’m confident this is quite a downpour.

The three highest totals recorded in Victoria for the week were all in Gippsland.

Over in Canberra, private developers can’t provide affordable housing for low-income earners despite bringing 99% of new properties onto the market, AAP’s Alex Mitchell and Dominic Giannini report.

Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute director Steven Rowley told a House of Representatives committee examining housing affordability the figure was up from around 80% in the mid-1950s.

He added the country faced a “major challenge” with median income earners unable to afford a median priced home.

The hearing also heard saving for a home deposit now takes 10 years on average, a sharp increase from 2001 when it took around 5.5 years.

CoreLogic researcher Eliza Owen noted it took around 12 years to save for a deposit on a home in Sydney.

She said conversation surrounding house prices only reached government and media when more wealthy people were affected, adding the long-term decline in ownership rates were mostly in low-income cohorts:

That would suggest that you have widening wealth inequality perpetuated through Australia’s housing system.

The Grattan Institute’s Brendan Coates agreed wealth inequality was continuing to grow and said that would have “very profound consequences” on society’s structure, particularly in retirement:

If you own your own home in retirement you’re a very good chance of living a very comfortable retirement. If you are a renter, then given the current structure of our income support system, you are potentially in quite a lot of trouble.

The committee was told just 2.5% of established properties were on the market at any time, down from 4.5% cent in 2008.

Senior staff from the federal health department, tasked with responding to last year’s Covid-19 crisis at the St Basil’s aged care home in Melbourne, expressed serious concerns about a state health plan to furlough all staff, an inquest has been told.

Emails tendered as evidence in the inquest into 50 Covid deaths that occurred at the home in July 2020 reveal concerns were raised about replacing the staff and the continuity of care.

The director of the federal government’s aged care Covid implementation branch that managed the surge workforce, Neil Callagher, told the inquest that from mid-to-late July 2020, 10 to 12 aged care facilities were notifying the government of new cases in their home each day. His team was involved in supplying staff to over 120 aged care facilities who were losing staff due to Covid.

An email from Callagher on 19 July said his team had struggled to meet the need for care staff as more and more staff refused to work at Covid positive sites. He said the Victorian department of health may need to identify residents who could be sent to hospital to reduce the number of residents in St Basil’s and improve the staff to patient ratios.

Callagher told the inquest that it was often the case additional staff would be needed on top of the baseline workforce being replaced due to the additional challenges and requirements staff had responding to an outbreak at a home.

The inquest continues.

Protests are planned outside Western Australian parliament today over the introduction of a new bill that Aboriginal people say will continue to allow the destruction of their cultural heritage.

It comes despite WA government assurances that the bill will be a “new way” of protecting heritage in the wake of the Juukan Gorge disaster.

ClubsNSW has successfully restrained former employee and whistleblower Troy Stolz from making public statements that are calculated to “intimidate, harass, or otherwise bring improper pressure” on the clubs lobby as it sues him for disclosing confidential information about lax compliance with money laundering in the state’s poker machine industry.

Stolz, a former ClubsNSW money laundering and counter-terror financing compliance manager, spoke to the ABC last year about what he alleged was a widespread failure to comply with money laundering and terror financing laws in the sector.

ClubsNSW is now suing him for breach of confidence in the federal court.

Earlier this year, ClubsNSW told the court it was victim to an “oppressive” public campaign by Stolz, who had spoken about the case to Guardian Australia and other media outlets, and in tweets, retweets and via a GoFundMe page he set up to help pay for his defence.

The body said Stolz’s comments had prompted members of the public to send derogatory messages, including saying its “blood-sucking organisation is just a parasite” and accusing it of “legal thievery”.

ClubsNSW said the campaign was “inflammatory and frankly misleading” and an attempt to put pressure on it during the proceedings. It said the campaign was designed to falsely imply it was suing Stolz as retribution for him blowing the whistle.

The federal court earlier this year considered whether it needed to restrain Stolz using an injunction to prevent his comments from interfering in the administration of justice and causing contempt of court.

Stolz’s lawyers had argued the public commentary had not interfered with the administration of justice.

But Justice David Yates on Wednesday ordered Stolz be restrained.
Yates said:

As to injunctive relief, I’m satisfied, based on Mr Stolz’s past conduct, that [ClubsNSW] has demonstrated a real threat that Mr Stolz will, unless restrained, continue to engage in that conduct or conduct of a similar kind.

The NT authorities have confirmed two new cases. That means there are eight new cases today, not the six that were announced at the press conference. That brings the total number to eight new cases.

We reported earlier that Craig Thomson had been arrested but it was in the middle of the NT presser so I have this full rundown from my colleague Anne Davies:

Police have intervened to protect a Channel Seven news crew, after anti-vaccination mandate protesters surrounded them and began hurling abuse.

The crew was singled out by protest organisers, who stopped a street march initially to demand an interview.

But many in the crowd quickly turned on the crew, some hurling abuse and chanting “tell the truth”.

Police intervened when a woman, who earlier spoke to protesters about “satanic ritual treason government”, appeared to block the journalists from filming a piece to camera.

NT Labor Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, who revealed yesterday her sister was the first case in the remote community of Robinson River, was talking on the ABC earlier about the spread of misinformation in remote communities and the struggle to get the vaccine messaging out to people.

“As you know, we have over 100 Aboriginal languages just here in the Northern Territory. More across Australia.

“The first time that First Nations media received funding was in September so there was this massive gap between February and September when there should have been messaging out there.

“In the meantime, that gap was being filled by misinformation from overseas, right-wing extremists and also from the backbenchers of Scott Morrison’s government.”

Most of the roughly 2000 ground-handling workers whose roles Qantas outsourced in part due to their union links want the airline to offer them their jobs back, according to a survey that will be provided as evidence to a federal court process to determine a remedy to their unlawful dismissal.

The figure was revealed by the Transport Workers Union on Wednesday, who were responding to an Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigation which found worker inexperience to be the cause of an incident where a Qantas flight took off with locking pins still in place.

An independently conducted survey found that 78% of Qantas workers want to return to the jobs they were sacked from when the airline outsourced almost 2000 jobs, in a move that was later ruled by the federal court to have been in part driven by the fact that many of the axed workers were union members with stronger bargaining capabilities. About 82% of the affected workers completed the survey.

The TWU – which the federal court found in favour of in its legal challenge of Qantas’ outsourcing earlier this year – commissioned the survey. The union sent a letter to Qantas board members informing them of the workers’ preference, and urged the airline to offer the axed workers their jobs back.

Michael Kaine, national secretary of the TWU, pleaded with Qantas to rehire the sacked workers and “reverse this enormous misstep”. The TWU suggested

This survey is explicit. More than three quarters of those outsourced just want to go back to the jobs they loved. Many workers gave decades of hard work, dedication and loyalty to Qantas. Despite everything, they want to put this awful period behind them and get back to work.”

Kaine said the impact of this outsourcing decision has been “colossal”, and that “marriages have broken down, families have had to leave their homes, and many have required medical help to cope with the mental and emotional toll” as a result.

Qantas has previously requested a stay on the remedy proceedings while it appealed the federal court’s July decision. However Justice Michael Lee has indicated his intention to reach an outcome before the end of the year to give certainty to affected workers. Reinstatement hearings will commence on 13 December.

The Qantas chief executive, Alan Joyce, was asked last month if he regretted outsourcing the workers, and said: “Not at all. We were in the middle of the biggest crisis in our history, we had to make dramatic action for us to survive. We fundamentally disagree with the ruling, we’re going to appeal it.”

And that is the end of the NT presser. There are now a total of 19 cases.

Anyone who has visited Robinson River since 11 November or who has left Katherine since 7 November, needs to come forward for testing.

Gunner said he has spoken to people in remote communities who say they don’t need to get the vaccine because the closed border has kept Covid out.

He said modelling shows people will change their minds when there is a case in their communities.

“I don’t want a case to be what changes your mind. That’s when we get into the too late category.”

Gunner is asked who is responsible for the low vaxx rate in the NT and if he should take some responsibility.

“I am the leader. It’s my job. I want to get vax rate as high as we can everywhere. I doing everything I can to get the message across repeatedly that this is incredibly important.

“There are a number of remote communities where the message hasn’t cut through.

“I’ll keep working at this and doing everything I can but people have the right to make a decision and some people have made the decision to not get vaccinated and I think that’s where we are now in the vaccine rollout when you look at how long the vaccine has been available.”

Gunner said if the NT population is 80% vaccinated the healthcare system should be OK - but modelling is not real life and the Territory needs to “stay on the conservative side”.

“We note from the Doherty modelling, if we are double dosed 80% in the territory and have 30 to 100 cases a day in the territory, we have the low public health measures that we can handle in our current system.

“It would put pressure on we could handle it.”

Gunner is saying they are concerned because they don’t know how the cases are linked.

“We do not know how those two outbreaks are linked and so there is a concern for seeding.

“Any person who has left Katherine, Robinson River, on those dates, come forward and get tested.

“We are concerned about potential seeding and that missing gap between that outbreak. There is a chance it is a separate and new incursion. But we do not have a source case if that is so. We are concerned.

“We are a bit worried at the moment beyond Katherine and Robinson River.”

Gunner is asked about WA closing the border, despite the fact Darwin is not in lockdown.

“Leaders will do what they need to do to look after that jurisdiction and I think Mark has had a fairly consistent approach all the way through this. I am not here to criticise other leaders.

“I am concerned about the nine-day gap between the fourth and 13 November.”

Gunner is back and he is asked what the reality of life will be for people who do not get the vaccine.

He says he wants to avoid a result where unvaccinated Territorians are separated from normal life.

“I think there will be the inconvenience of the mask.

“If we get to a place where Covid is endemic in the NT, this is hypothetical so I will be very careful about doing hypothetical - there is enough going on with COVID to deal with the reality is that we may have to have other public health measures.

“But at the moment it is about testing rules and must mandate to reduce the risk of incursion and try to catch it as soon as possible.”

Pain says the healthcare system just cannot cope with widespread community outbreak if vaccine rates are not higher.

“Our system is prone to being overwhelmed if we cannot get people protected.

“The modelling we have seen, if we have a widespread outbreak in the community, we cannot manage that. However, we are not there yet. And we must get vaccinated at higher levels to avoid the health system being put under unacceptable and potentially unsustainable pressure.

“So I do not want to sugarcoat that. That is a significant risk we are very concerned about that.

“The government is concerned about that and so, again, I would just like to appeal to people, help us now.

“Your way of helping us is to prevent that is to come forward and get vaccinated.”

Dr Charles Pain is up now. He is talking about how many health workers are in isolation.

He says it’s “a small number.”

“No one is in isolation at this point. We were able to keep people working.”

He says the health system is already under strain.

“We have been planning this for a very long time but I do acknowledge that we are under pressure already.

“Our health system is under significant pressure all of the time. We have high demands of our system into the territory.

“The important point I wish to make an appeal to community, we need your help to prevent those admissions to hospital.”

Gunner is back up – he has been asked about rough sleepers – he says many people are choosing not to take up accommodations.

“We had a meeting yesterday to coordinate welfare support, education, vaccination, mobile testing.

“We are happy to work with anyone who wants to relocate we have discussed this in the past and obviously the solutions that we have for normal emergencies, cyclones, floods, are not appropriate during a Covid emergency.

“You do not bring all people into a single spot. I will double-check the Katherine situation but we are happy to work with rough sleepers.

“I want to be clear, unfortunately, it is a choice. People will (not) want to leave those circumstances ... I will mask.

“In Darwin, in the past, we have had rooms available not taken up by rough sleepers. We have the offer and they choose not to take it.“

Chalker:

“To all key leaders, to the strong family members out that I urge you to pull recalcitrant people in line so we can focus on saving lives in the territory. Thank you.”

Chalker says there was a homicide in Darwin last night and two serious robberies.

“I need to return to Darwin. Unfortunately, there was a homicide that tied up police resources, a very severe domestic violence incident where a female was lying on a mattress and her partner kick to multiple times in the face resulting in serious facial injuries.

“This behaviour in the backdrop of what the NT is currently dealing with is completely unacceptable. The demands on our frontline resources, not just police but our health resources should not be impacted in this way.

“It is very clear all the work we are doing is to serve and protect this community.”

NT police commissioner Jamie Chalker is now talking:

“Within Katherine, the compliance has been very good although behaviour could be better.

“A number of residents unfortunately where it appears alcohol consumption is appearing, probably beyond the realms of what would be considered normal social interaction and that is impacting police services so to those members Katherine of the mindful of the factor that police resources are out there trying to protect people of the Katherine community.”

Back to the NT – five of the new cases are in Robinson River and one is a three-week-old baby girl.

There are new exposure sites and times for the NT.

Gunner said people did not check-in properly at one of the key exposure sites:

We know about 66 close contacts at Kirby’s Pub.

However, our contact tracers have not been able to capture everyone checked in because of missing or illegible information.

It’s legitimate to write details down rather than using your phone but they must be legible. The hardcopy register is illegible and we’re behind the eight ball.

Instead of using our time to get in contact with close contact, we have to go through CCTV and identify everyone who walked into the pub.

Gunner:

I’m again making another call for anyone in the Northern Territory who is not vaccinated to get the jab. If you waited because you didn’t think Covid would get here, it’s here. If you waited because you didn’t think Covid was serious, you’re wrong.

It’s killed 5.1 million people in the world. I fear it will take lives in the territory before the year is out.

Please, please don’t let it be your life, the vaccine is your best defence.

Gunner:

I’m again making another call for anyone in the Northern Territory who is not vaccinated to get the jab. If you waited because you didn’t think Covid would get here, it’s here. If you waited because you didn’t think Covid was serious, you’re wrong.

It’s killed 5.1 million people in the world. I fear it will take lives in the territory before the year is out.

Please, please don’t let it be your life, the vaccine is your best defence.

Gunner:

The situation in Robinson River and Katherine is serious. We know how quickly Delta can spread in households and cannot be sure it hasn’t spread further in the Robinson River and Katherine communities.

Today we have two new testing requirements. We are asking anyone who has been to Robinson River since 11 November to come forward, to come forward whether you are symptomatic or not and isolate until you get a negative result.

We’re asking anyone who left Katherine since 7 November to come forward whether you are symptomatic or not, get tested and isolate until you get a negative result. I need everyone in the territory to treat this seriously and I believe you are.

We are going to stop there because Chief Officer Micheal Gunner is talking in the NT. There are six new cases

Wren:

Around 34% of people on jobseeker now actually have a disability or an impairment. We have also got a lot of older women and men who have been laid off late in their working lives and, frankly, they are just waiting to claim the higher aged pension. And, of course, we have got single parents.

Predominantly mothers, because, as we know, poverty is gendered, like violence, in this country, with children, with a child of the age of eight years. There is no parenting payment for those mothers, those families. It is jobseeker.

Wren said we would also see the number of people who need unemployment payments is going to rise.

“It is about 27% more now than before we had the bushfires and the pandemic.

“But we’ve also got 2 million people who have, this year, for this lockdown, these avoidable lockdowns, have needed to claim another payment called the Covid disaster payment.

“That’s gone, 2 million Australians have needed that. That payment, we still don’t know how many of them, but I don’t think all 2 million of them are going to be able to automatically snap back to their jobs or find a new job.”

Wren:

“We in Australia have been cushioned, really, buy a decent age pension level, but also predominantly most people who retire in Australia up until now have owned their own home.

“So that is the cushioning effect of poverty in retirement. As we see this rental crisis and buying crisis go forward, we would expect to see many more people retiring without owning their own home.”

Wren is now talking about the yearly data up until October:

“So we still saw 30% increases in the SunshineCoast, Gold Coast, but also in places that weren’t affected as much by lockdowns, in WA some 27% increases, 21% in far north Queensland.

“Sydney, 15%, Melbourne is the outlier, only 3%. But those percentages translate into higher rents that people simply can’t afford to pay.”

Wren is about to go through the key three reasons why poverty will increase as we come out of the first, lockdown-y stage of the pandemic.

And first up is housing affordability.

“We’ve had a failure to invest in social housing over decades and increased house prices have been driving those two things, a big increase in reliance on private rental. The pandemic, despite many predictions, actually has supercharged these factors.

“Prices are going up, whether you are buying or renting. In the year to June, regional rents across Australia went up by 11%. And in some parts of coastal Queensland, it was 30%.”

Executive director of anti-poverty week Toni Wren is up now.

She says the pandemic has exacerbated the wealth inequality of this country.

She says people on the lowest incomes died at a rate four times faster than those on higher incomes.

“Before we had the pandemic the highest 20% of Australians had six times the wealth of the middle, but 90 times the wealth of the lowest 20%.

“That is increasing over time. So wealth inequality in Australia is getting worse. And that just doesn’t feel right in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.”

Charlton:

“We need to act now to ensure that the progress we have made on poverty doesn’t disappear. We need to learn the lessons of the crisis and take those forward boldly in our policy-making.

“We need to make sure that the effects of mental health, education, and employment gaps don’t reappear long after the pandemic has gone.

“These policies aren’t handouts, they are good economics that will make our economy stronger for everybody.”

Charlton is now talking about the long-term impacts. He said because of government spending nearly half a million Australians were lifted out of poverty.

He is arguing governments need to support vulnerable groups now more than ever as disadvantaged people will feel the financial and social impacts of the pandemic.

“If we were smart ... right now we would be preparing a bounceback package to help vulnerable groups get back on their feet and prevent lasting damage from the pandemic to the economy.

“We would be supporting schoolkids, for example, schools were closed for extended periods, we won’t know the full impact of homeschooling on the generation of children for a long time.”

Charlton said the pandemic also showed us that working from home actually enhanced productivity for many people.

“In many companies, productivity went up not down, people work smarter at home, they spent less time commuting, productivity didn’t go up for everyone it depended on the nature of your job, circumstances of your home office, the level of support you received, importantly, there was no suggestion that working from home was inherently less productive.”

Charlton:

“The pandemic helped us answer the age-old question about the generosity of social payments, taught us giving more money to low-income people as many positive benefits, both to them and the community.”

Economic researcher Andrew Charlton is speaking at the National Press Club about poverty – what we learnt about it during the pandemic and “economic long Covid”.

Charlton is talking about the debate on unemployment payments.

“On one side many people make the point that the unemployment benefits are very low, not enough to live on, on the other side people who don’t want to increase the unemployment benefits, argue that it’s already enough, the extra money may not be well spent and it may have negative consequences for the employment.”

He says the extra pandemic payment acted as an experiment to see how people spent it – with data from more than 250,000 bank accounts showing people spent the money on essentials.

“Exactly what they do with the extra money, the data is clear, on that extra $550 a fortnight, the coronavirus to supplement the largest amount $85 dollars, was spent on household bills, electricity, phone, water, $70 of the extra money spent on food, $60, spent on clothing and household goods, seven – $275 saved or used to pay down debt, what we saw as for the people who received that extra money, it was life-changing.

“Hundreds of thousands of people were lifted out of poverty, they didn’t spend that money on frivolous or discretionary items, they didn’t withdraw from the labour market they spent it well on the families and bills.”

You can almost feel your wage packet swelling, or the digiwallet version anyway.

Figures out this morning from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show the seasonally adjusted wage price index picked up in the September quarter. Salaries were up 0.6% for the quarter and 2.2% from a year earlier.
It looks like you’re better off in the private sector, with wage growth reaching 2.4% from a year earlier, continuing a sequence of four quarters of a row of increases.

The public sector is reporting year-on-year growth of 1.7% for the September quarter, snapping a run of quarterly falls that began in the January-March period of 2020.

Given the toll on our health workers during the pandemic, it suggests a “watch this space” is in order in terms of pent-up pressures for more pay. It might also be hard for governments to say “no” to thawing the pay freeze.

Interestingly, the health industry was listed as among the sectors with the largest wage gains.

The professional, scientific and technical services posted a quarterly rise of 1.3% and 3.4% for the year, the most for this grouping since the December quarter of 2012.

Laggards included the mining sector which posted a quarterly rise of 0.4%, while electricity, gas, water and waste services were the least on an annual basis. Their 1.2% advance on the year was the slowest since this series of data began.

The RBA for one will be happy to see the pick up in wages. As Governor Philip Lowe said yesterday, the central bank is predicting the labour market to continue to tighten, with a jobless rate of 4% on the cards compared with the latest rate of 5.2%.

So perhaps the wage price index is on the way up.

From AAP:

NSW police need to “throw the book” at anti-coal activists who have been staging controversial protests around the Port of Newcastle, Environment Minister Matt Kean says, adding the dramatic stunts are “completely out of line”.

The protesters have struck again, interrupting operations at the world’s largest coal port.

Two protesters on Tuesday night entered the port and attached themselves to a key piece of machinery that loads and unloads coal, shutting down the port.

“Pull your heads in - get out of the way and stop hurting other people going about their lives, running their businesses,” Mr Kean told Sydney radio 2GB on Wednesday.

“There are hundreds of ways to make your views known and advocate for change but risking the lives of rail workers is definitely not one of them.”

Blockade Australia said the activists, named only as Zianna and Hannah, climbed to the top of machinery and suspended themselves out of reach.

“As dawn broke on the coal port the sound of machinery was interrupted as the two protesters used an intricate set up of ropes to manoeuvre themselves over the edge,” the activist group said in a statement.

Protests have disrupted the port and surrounding rail infrastructure in the past two weeks, prompting police to establish a strike force to crack down on the high-profile stunts.

Federal Labor has announced its first major policy announcement in the lead-up to the election.

The party is promising to spend $2.4bn upgrading the national broadband network to deliver faster internet speeds for millions of homes.

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese was talking earlier and said: “Depending upon the lottery of where you live, some people do have access to high-speed broadband, some don’t.

“And we know that during Covid, access to high-speed broadband has been so important for students getting through school, for people working from home, and we know that this isn’t a luxury. This is a part of 21st-century living.”

The government acknowledged last year the system needed upgrading and committed $3.5bn to help another 2 million homes – this policy from Labor goes further.

Currently, 8.3 million premises are connected to the NBN.

Dr Mel Taylor of Macquarie University has researched people’s behaviour in floodwaters. She’s just put out a statement warning people that driving through floodwater and playing in floodwater are the two behaviours most associated with deaths in floods in Australia.

“In our national survey (2019/20), 55 per cent of the public reported that they had driven through floodwater in the last five years. This behaviour is often normalised, with those who do it being likely to do it more than once/repeatedly,” Taylor said.

Most people claim to have driven through floodwater after ‘careful consideration’ rather than it being a spur of the moment thing, also social pressure to keep going and not turn around comes into play.

She said most people will comply but it was when the rain has stopped that most accidents happen.

“Once the rain stops and/or water starts to recede, this is when people are likely to take risks. They are keen to ‘get on with things’ and ‘press on’– whether that’s clearing up or checking on things, or just getting back to normal.

“This is often when accidents happen.”

As always, thank you, Matilda for guiding us through the morning. This is Cait, and I will be with you until the evening. Let’s get this going!

First up, I want to share this video from Natasha May, our rural reporter who is up in Forbes with Mike Bowers to cover the floods.

With that, I shall leave you in the capable hands of Cait Kelly, who will take you through the afternoon’s news.

See you tomorrow!

Guardian reporter Natasha May is out in Forbes today covering the flooding.

Wildlife has been caught up, with wallabies braving the flood waters to reach dry land.

The education minister, Alan Tudge, says the federal government’s revised religious discrimination bill will allow schools to hire on the basis of faith, but they will not be able to discriminate on other characteristics.

As the government flags its intention to pass the legislation through the Senate by the end of the year, former Labor senator Jacinta Collins is also urging Labor to support the discrimination employment right for faith-based institutions.

But even if Labor supports the move for faith-based schools, the revised bill’s passage through parliament is complicated by the inclusion of a controversial “statement of belief” clause that will override other state, territory and commonwealth anti-discrimination laws.

The government has scrapped the contentious Folau clause, which would have protected employers from claims of indirect discrimination if they sanctioned employees for misconduct for expressing religious beliefs. But it retains a similar measure for qualifying bodies.

You can read the full report from Sarah Martin and Paul Karp below:

Usman Khawaja and Travis Head have been named in a 15-man Australia squad for the upcoming Ashes series, after selectors chose to leave the door open to both players in their efforts to make the final XI for next month’s first Test against England.

The pair, who have been in a rich vein of form in the Sheffield Shield, are now likely fight it out in a practice match between Australia and an A team starting on 1 December to clinch the No 5 spot in Tim Paine’s side.

Otherwise, the team to face England’s tourists at the Gabba on 8 December is settled, with incumbent Test opener Marcus Harris to partner David Warner at the top of the order for the opening two Test matches.

At the other end, pace trio Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc will only be displaced in the event of injury or fitness concerns, with Jhye Richardson the most likely quick to step in if needed.

You can read the full report below:

Oyster production in South Australia’s famous Coffin Bay has been temporarily halted while the state government investigates a potential disease outbreak, reports AAP.

Coffin Bay, on the southern tip of Eyre Peninsula, is famous nationally for its oysters, which grace the tables of some of Australia’s top restaurants.

The Department of Primary Industries said on Wednesday it had stopped oysters from leaving the area as a precaution, as it investigates a recent rise in Vibrio parahaemolyticus cases.

The bacteria can cause gastrointestinal illness in humans who’ve eaten undercooked shellfish and fish.

Since September, 45 Vibrio parahaemolyticus cases have been linked to eating raw oysters, compared with zero cases in 2020 and eight in 2019.

Officials are trying to trace back recent cases.

“Many growers had already voluntarily closed their harvesting operations,” the department’s executive director of biosecurity, Nathan Rhodes, said.

The closure is likely to be in place until early next week.

Over one day, the Lachlan River can be seen rising quickly just outside of Forbes in central west New South Wales. Rising floodwaters have been threatening homes and agriculture with the State Emergency Service issuing a flood evacuation order for 800 properties in low-lying areas.

You can watch the video below:

The New South Wales government’s proposed affirmative sexual consent laws contain a loophole that could allow alleged offenders to use mental ill health to escape conviction, according to a leading rape and domestic violence support service.

In a letter sent on Tuesday morning to the NSW attorney general, Mark Speakman, and other MPs, Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia urged amendments to the laws, which are to be debated in parliament this week.

The service, which runs the NSW Rape Crisis Centre, says it consulted with other providers within the sector, as well as academics and psychologists, before preparing the letter.

The letter says the reforms are “warmly welcomed” and congratulates Speakman for his decisiveness in bringing them before parliament. The reforms were considered the best consent laws in the country by some experts when they were unveiled in May.

You can read the full report below:

A minor flood warning has been issued for communities around the Namoi River in NSW. This includes Bugilbone on Thursday and Goangra on Monday.

New South Wales police have seized a car as they continue to comb a mid-north coast property and surrounding bushland for the remains of missing three-year-old William Tyrrell.

The renewed search for vital clues in the seven-year mystery is now in its third day as detectives returned to the property where he disappeared.

William went missing wearing his Spider-Man suit while playing at his foster grandmother’s home in 2014, in a case that has attracted national attention.

Police on Tuesday dug up the garden at the Kendall home, with a mechanical sift brought on to the property, and sprayed luminol, a chemical that detects traces of blood, during the night.

In nearby bushland, volunteers cut down trees to help in the search.

Police seized a Mazda car from a home in Gymea in Sydney’s south on 9 November.

You can read the full report below:

Fixing overcrowded housing in Indigenous communities is key to protecting vulnerable people from Covid-19 amid a Northern Territory outbreak fuelling a Labor senator’s “worst fears”, reports AAP’s Georgie Moore.

Jab rates for Indigenous people continue to lag across every state and territory. Just under 58% of Australia’s over-16 Indigenous population is double-dosed.

Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy’s family members are at the centre of a Northern Territory outbreak infecting 11 Indigenous people across Katherine and the remote community of Robinson River.

About 52% of Indigenous people are fully vaccinated in the territory, while 72% have received one dose.

McCarthy told ABC TV on Wednesday:

This is our worst fears realised.

We’ve got to arrest this in terms of the Covid outbreak before we can actually really seriously consider when it is safe to open up.

Our deepest fear here is that has spread across the territory.

Her sister carried the virus into Robinson River and nine of the politician’s family members tested positive on Tuesday.

She called for immediate support to fix overcrowding in remote community houses.

Overcrowding is a massive issue across Australia for First Nations people.

How can people isolate when they’re 15 to 20 people to a house for starters?

She also said misinformation was being targeted at Indigenous communities.

We have got over 100 Aboriginal languages just here in the Northern Territory, more across Australia, and the first time really that First Nations media received funding was in September.

In the meantime, that gap was being filled by misinformation, from overseas rightwing extremists but also from the backbenchers of Scott Morrison’s government.

People are being stopped from entering or leaving Robinson River or surrounding homelands under federal biosecurity rules.

Masks are mandatory across the territory and a lockdown of Katherine will run until at least Monday.

Double-dose vaccination rates among Indigenous Australians are as low as 34%. The ACT has the highest Indigenous full vaccination rate of 84%.

Australia’s overall double-dose rate has surpassed 83% for people aged 16 and older.

Centrelink’s decision to cancel the age pension of an 80-year-old man who lives in a nursing home with advanced dementia was “absurd and wrong”, a tribunal has found.

In a judgment published this week, the administrative appeals tribunal criticised Centrelink for cancelling the man’s age pension when he did not “personally have the capacity to comprehend … a decision to suspend his pension”.

The tribunal heard David Fry was living in an aged care home and his son, John, was appointed his legal guardian, after David was discovered driving on the wrong side of the road and judged to be “mentally incapacitated”.

John Fry became responsible for managing his father’s dealings with Centrelink, which had been paying David the age pension since 2006.

You can read the full report below:

Speaking of the threats made again the Victorian premier and his family, here is what Daniel Andrews wive, Catherine Andrews, had to say about it last night:

The Commonwealth Bank has kicked off market news today, releasing a miserly $2.2bn first quarter (non audited) cash profit. Income and expenses were down 1%.

One takeaway is that home loan competition contributed to a thinner net interest margin, as did the shift to fixed-rate mortgages which are less profitable for the bank for now at least.

With all the talk of higher official interest rates soon – which the Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe again tried to hose down yesterday – it’s a fair bet more people will be looking to switch to fixed-rate loans before they rise further.

Some of the overnight news might add to the case bond traders have been making that interest rates will rise faster than central banks are now expecting.

US retail sales rose 1.7% in October, beating forecasts of a 1.4% rise. Industrial output rose 1.6% too for the month, well ahead of the 0.7% economists had been tipping.

On the home front, the stat of the day will be the September quarter wage price index. As the RBA’s Lowe said yesterday, there are lots of questions over how wages and jobs will recover as Covid-related restrictions ease.

A nice point he made was that for all the talk about short-term visa holders returning to fill critical job shortages, don’t forget that a lot of Australians are ready to head OS too, many of them potential employees.

Lots of people have advice about the economy. One of them is deputy PM Barnaby Joyce who yesterday was making a case that a Labor government would bring “excessive mismanagement” of the economy, pushing up rates. What’s the right amount of mismanagement?

Anyway, it was a chance to trip down memory lane when he once railed about government debt but has lately gone quiet on that issue. And that’s despite the extra nought be added to what we owe.

Labor is hoping to make Australia’s internet frustrations an election issue, promising a revamped national broadband network that will stay in public hands and allow more choice.

With Australia still ranked 59th in the world for broadband speeds, and 32nd out of the 37 nations in the OECD, Labor is promising a $2.4bn boost to the nationwide broadband rollout, promising to update the already ageing network.

The opposition says the funding commitment is off-budget, and will be financed through the NBN corporation itself, which Labor has committed to keeping as a public entity.

The Labor promise builds on the government’s $4.5bn retrofit announcement from last year, which aimed to upgrade fibre-to-the-node, fibre-to-the-curb and cable connections for homes in designated areas. That followed years of complaints of poor speeds and connectivity. The Coalition has maintained its decision to upgrade the copper network it had previously insisted on using, was part of a “strategic review” and not because of on-going complaints.

You can read the full report below:

9.30am is shaping up to be busy!

A Victorian Pride Lobby survey has found the state’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, intersex, queer and asexual community do not trust the police force.

The lobby’s largest survey of attitudes towards Victoria police heard that more than 1,500 respondents had overwhelmingly negative perceptions of them, including that about 80% did not think police understood issues that impacted them, and about the same percentage did not feel safe when there was a large police presence at community events.

A report released on Tuesday night also found the incidents such as the police raid on Hares and Hyenas and breach of Dani Laidley’s privacy had further eroded the community’s trust in the force:

Any lack of trust between police and LGBTIQA+ community members has harmful and far-reaching consequences. LGBTIQA+ people are often discouraged from reporting victimisation due to anticipated negative outcomes.

This is particularly problematic as the LGBTIQA+ community experience higher levels of victimisation, especially in regard to sex work, mental illness, homelessness and substance abuse.

Victims sometimes fear they may not be taken seriously or will be treated prejudicially. The effects of harm caused by discriminatory or violent interactions with police can therefore extend beyond the event itself; they can cause a reticence to report and thus deny or delay justice for LGBTIQA+ community members.

Victorian Pride Lobby co-convenor Devina Potter said Victoria police had made progress but still had a long way to go to mend the relationship with the community:

Victoria’s LGBTIQA+ communities have experienced decades of harmful policing in this state, including several high profile and fraught incidents in recent years. Because of this, LGBTIQA+ people are discouraged from reaching out to the police when they experience vilification, harassment or abuse, for fear they may not be taken seriously or will be treated prejudicially.

This is especially the case for members of our community with intersecting identities, like First Nations people, trans and gender diverse people, people with disabilities, sex workers, and illicit drug users.

We are still waiting for confirmation on what exactly will be announced at this unusual 9.30am press conference from the Victorian premier. I’ll keep you posted.

The average Australian is working 1.5 hours more unpaid overtime each week since the start of the Covid pandemic, according to a new survey.

The poll, which used a nationally representative sample, found the average employed Australian is working 6.13 hours unpaid each week in 2021, up from 5.25 hours in 2020 and 4.62 hours in 2019.

The findings are based on a poll of 1,600 people by the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work released on Tuesday to coincide with go home on time day – a campaign that urges workers to push back against unpaid overtime.

By working an extra 319 hours a year unpaid in 2021, workers are doing the equivalent of an extra eight 38-hour weeks of work. Employers are benefiting from a total of $125bn of free labour, estimated to cost $461.60 a worker every fortnight.

You can read the full report below:

I mentioned before that the 30-year-old woman who was diagnosed with Covid-19 in the emote community of Robinson River is the sister of federal Labor senator for the NT Malarndirri McCarthy.

McCarthy has just appeared on ABC RN to discuss the worrying implication of the Delta variant entering a remote Indigenous community, and the stress her family are now under:

Before I went to sleep last night, family members were still quite anxious ... We’ve got five-year-old twins who have been infected with Covid. It is a very serious time ...

Most of them are double-vaxxed, which I was very pleased to hear ... Some had already gone to try and get a vaccination, and this is where it’s been quite despairing. These vaccinations should’ve occurred earlier this year ...

That gap in the communication strategy, I believe, has enabled the social media storm that we’ve seen, with inaccurate information and messaging that’s caused quite fearful reaction to the vaccinations.

McCarthy said part of the reason misinformation on social media hadbeen able to flourish in these communities was that not enough official government advice was made available in First Nation languages:

First Nations media organisations started receiving funding in September. That’s way too slow, way too late. The damage had already set in.

Three out of every four video ads the United Australia party has posted on YouTube since late September have been pulled by Google for allegedly violating the tech giant’s advertising policies, according to Google’s transparency report.

Since former the Liberal MP Craig Kelly joined the UAP in late August, the party has spent $2.684m on 25 ads run on YouTube, boosting the number of views on the party’s videos into the millions. The spend far outweighs the amount being spent by any other political party. The next nearest is Labor with $60,750.

It is not clear from the report what the removed videos contained or which of Google’s policies they are alleged to have violated.

You can read the full report below:

Flooding in the regional NSW town of Forbes continues to cause havoc today. Here is a look at what some residents are dealing with:

You better believe that Albanese also spoke to ABC News Breakfast. Here he was asked about reports in the Herald Sun newspaper that Labor is poised to settle on a 40% emissions reduction target by 2030.

Albanese:

They’re making that up.

Host Michael Rowland:

So it’s not true? You won’t settle on 40%? What about below or above 40%?

Albanese:

They’re making it up. I have no - no reason why the Herald Sun would be reporting something based upon its own guesswork.

We’ll release our policy in the fullness of time. We’ll give it proper consideration. There’s been no consideration by our shadow cabinet of where we go on these issues.

We only received the government’s inadequate modelling they released on Friday night. We’ll examine it in a considered way. We’ll examine in the context of the outcome of the Glasgow conference as we said we would...

Rowland:

So 40% is wrong.

Albanese:

Well, it’s based on absolutely nothing.

Rowland:

So we’re not going to find a situation in a couple of weeks’ time when Labor announces arguably 40% and we have to revisit this?

Albanese:

We’ll announce our policy and I assure you that the people who are involved in the development of the policy, no-one has spoken to the Herald Sun.

The other big headline today is Labor announcing its $2.4bn plan to improve the NBN if elected.

Party leader Anthony Albanese has promised more than 10m premises will have “world-class” internet speeds by 2025 under a Labor government. Basically, the plan is to go back to all the homes and businesses that only got copper to the node in the first rollout and give them the option to switch to a fibre connection to the premises.

It’s estimated up to 660,000 premises in regional areas and 840,000 in the suburbs stand to benefit.

Albanese has been out and about discussing this with the media this morning. Here is what he had to say to ABC radio:

One of the things that people have recognised during Covid is that fibre is better than copper and that people need high-speed broadband in order to for students to study, in order for businesses to operate, in order for people to work from home.

And the fact is, people would get it when this government trashed the NBN model to move to a mix of fibre and copper and depended upon luck of the draw. Some people have access to 21st-century technology, but too many households don’t ...

And we know that we have a big technological repair job as a result of the negative policies of this government, who when they came to office, of course, said that high-speed fibre was a waste. They thought it was all about downloading videos.

We know that it’s not. We know that it’s about healthcare, it’s about education services, it’s about businesses being able to operate in the 21st century.