Australia news LIVE NSW records 110 new local COVID-19 cases as Victoria records 22 local cases Orange SA begin first day of lockdown

Key postsHide key posts

Latest

1 of 5

Oldest

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is due to address the media in Canberra at about 1pm AEST. You can watch it live here.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has acknowledged there had been “significant challenges” with the vaccine rollout.

“What matters is how you fix the things that need to be fixed and get the program doing what it needs to be doing,” he said.

The Prime Minister recently spoke with the global head of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, who, you may remember, former prime minister Kevin Rudd called the other week.

Mr Morrison says he wanted to get a better understanding of what Pfizer’s global production levels were and to again seek to bring forward the supplies Australia has purchased.

Asked whether he was successful, Mr Morrison replied: “Once the doses are on planes, then that’s when I’ll count them. And this week, a million doses on planes.”

Mr Morrison said he also had “a responsibility to ensure Australians are kept safe before we put millions and millions of doses in people’s arms”.

“It was important that process was done the way that we regulate all vaccines in this country.”

Mr Morrison says the vaccine rollout is about two months behind where it should have been based on the plan agreed to by national cabinet late last year.

“Those delays are regrettable, we all know they’re the result of many factors,” he said.

“Sure, there is going to be plenty of critics and hindsight. They will have various motivations for doing that.

“I take responsibility for the problems that we have had, but I am also taking responsibility for the solutions we’re putting in place and the vaccination rates that we are now achieving.”

Back on financial assistance available to workers and businesses affected by COVID-19 lockdowns, the Prime Minister notes that last year, it took between four and six weeks to get the first JobKeeper payments out the door.

“I don’t have six weeks. I need to make sure that we’ve got $200 million out the door now,” he says.

He also points out another difference to the support provided in 2020 is that state governments are now offering their own assistance to businesses.

“All the supports we are providing are not designed as replacement income. They never were and neither was JobKeeper.

“They’re there to provide people with that income support, that economic and cash flow support for businesses that enables them to get on to this bridge to the other side of lockdowns, so on the other side they can open up and get going again.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he is making a “constant appeal” to the expert panel advising the government on vaccines to change their medical advice relating to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 jab, after it said it shouldn’t be the preferred product for people aged under 60.

“When they made the decision to restrict or to have a preference for those under the age ... of 60 to have the Pfizer vaccine, they said that they made that decision on the balance of risk. Well, it’s for them to now constantly reconsider how that balance of risk applies and provide their advice accordingly,” Mr Morrison said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is urging people aged under 60 to consider the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.Credit:AP

He noted more than 32,000 under-40s have now had AstraZeneca shots with the advice of their doctors.

Mr Morrison also encouraged the states to dispense AstraZeneca vaccines through their mass clinics to get as many people vaccinated as possible.

“So I would encourage states to be using the AstraZeneca vaccines, to be dispensing them through those state-based clinics to get as many people vaccinated as possible, and I commend the Victorian Government for the way that they’ve led the way on that.”

The Prime Minister is also addressing what income support is on offer, amid calls for the Jobkeeper wage subsidy to be revived.

He says the disaster payments available to people who have lost work during the lockdowns are set at the same level Jobkeeper was in the December quarter - at $600 or $375 a week, depending on the number of hours of work lost. The only difference is the government is paying people directly instead of funnelling the money through employers.

“We’ve put in place a system of payments that is designed to be swift,” he said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is addressing media from the Lodge in Canberra, where he has a special exemption to stay provided he remains in isolation and holds his press conferences outdoors.

He says the highly transmissible Delta strain of COVID-19 “is throwing another big challenge at our country” but the measures taken by Australian governments during the course of the pandemic to date have saved at least 30,000 lives.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison.Credit:Janie Barrett

“We’re up to it and we’ll deal with it, just as we’ve dealt with each and every one of the challenges to date,” he says.

Australia has now reached the milestone of a million doses of vaccines delivered in one week, Mr Morrison says.

Also a million new doses of Pfizer have arrived this week.

“With these rates of vaccination, we will get to where we want to,” he says.

Mr Morrison says the Delta strain “is taking a heavy toll all around the world” and “what Australia is dealing with right now is no different to countries all around the world”.

The United Kingdom was seeing almost 50,000 cases a day and 94 deaths yesterday, he says, and there were “very high rates of infection in Indonesia”.

“We’re seeing it in the developing world. We’re seeing it in the developed world. We’re seeing lockdowns occur back in Singapore again. We’ve seen the Netherlands open and shut within days of their Freedom Day.

“And, of course, we are seeing what is largely a very significant experiment occurring in the United Kingdom [as it lifts COVID-19 restrictions] ... and we wish them the best.”

There are now three Australian states in a full or partial lockdown in response to the virus, including all of Victoria and South Australia and Greater Sydney and three council areas in NSW’s central west around Orange.

Matthew Knott, North America correspondent at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, has an interesting report today about the Rupert Murdoch-controlled Fox News.

He writes that some of Fox News’s most prominent hosts have attracted attention, and even drawn praise from unusual quarters, for urging their viewers in recent days to take COVID-19 seriously and promoting the coronavirus vaccines.

Fox News presenter Sean Hannity has previously defended former US President Donald Trump.Credit:AP

The US news channel had been coming under increasing criticism in recent weeks for promoting resistance to the vaccines among its viewers amid a surge in the Delta variant in the US.

Former News Corp executive Joseph Azam told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age over the weekend that he believed Fox was costing lives by encouraging scepticism about the vaccines in conservative America.

Prime-time host Sean Hannity went viral after pleading with his viewers to “please take Covid seriously” on his program on Monday local time (Tuesday AEST).

“I can’t say it enough,” Hannity said. “Enough people have died. We don’t need any more death. Research like crazy. Talk to your doctor...I believe in science. I believe in the science of vaccination.”

Read the full story here.

Australian equestrian rider Jamie Kermond has been provisionally suspended on the eve of the Tokyo Games for returning a positive drug test for cocaine.

The Australian Olympic Committee has confirmed that Kermond failed a drug test.

Jamie Kermond.Credit:Stephen Harman

“The Australian Olympic Committee has been made aware of the provisional suspension of equestrian athlete Jamie Kermond after being informed by Sport Integrity Australia as an interested party,” an AOC spokesman said.

The sport’s governing body also issued a statement saying Kermond would be offered support following his suspension.

Read the full story here.

State lockdowns to stop the spread of coronavirus hit retail activity hard in June, with turnover down 1.8 per cent nationally on the back of Victorian restrictions and a week of stay-at-home orders in Greater Sydney.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data released on Wednesday show Victoria led the decline over the month with a 3.5 per cent drop, followed by a 2 per cent decline in NSW. Queensland, which faced its own restrictions, had a 1.5 per cent fall.

Australian Retailers Association boss Paul Zahra.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Every industry recorded a decline with the exception of food retailing, which increased 1.5 per cent. The biggest hit was in cafes, restaurants and takeaway food and clothing.

ABS director of quarterly economy wide surveys Ben James said the turnover was directly due to coronavirus restrictions.

“Victoria saw restrictions from the start of the month, which were gradually eased from the 11th of June,” Mr James said. “NSW, in particular Greater Sydney, saw stay-at-home orders issued towards the end of the month.

“Other states and territories saw interrupted trade due to mini-lockdowns, as well as reduced mobility between states with the tightening of border restrictions.”

Commonwealth Bank card data shows NSW spending fell 0.6 per cent last week compared to a 2.1 per cent rise the week before compared to pre-pandemic levels. Before the restrictions spending was experiencing a double-digit rebound compared to 2019.

Australian Retailers Association chief executive Paul Zahra said “lockdowns have a direct impact on consumer confidence and retail spending, and we fear the worst is yet to come with restrictions imposed across multiple states in July”.

“Small businesses in particular are in crisis and a bearing the full brunt of lockdowns. Whilst existing support arrangements are welcomed, it’s not enough to stem the losses.”

EY chief economist Jo Masters noted retail sales were still up 1.4 per cent over the June quarter but said the monthly figure was “worrying” as Victoria’s decline was sharper than earlier lockdowns and the Greater Sydney lockdown only affected five days of the month.

“A key question is whether there is sufficient fiscal support to see household and business spending recover at the same pace as we’ve seen from earlier lockdowns,” Ms Masters said.

Victoria’s Minister Minister for Industry Support and Recovery, Martin Pakula, says there’s no doubt that budgets both on a state and federal level have taken a hit.

“There’s no question that the pandemic, whether it’s the federal budget with JobKeeper, or state budgets with business support, and all other kinds of relief, state budgets and the Commonwealth budget [have] taken a hit, as a consequence of the pandemic,” he said.

Victoria’s Industry Support and Recovery and Tourism Minister Martin Pakula. Credit:Penny Stephens

“The alternatives would be to not provide that support and to have business failures [and] individuals unable to work without getting any sort of support in a way that I think most people would find completely unfathomable and unacceptable.”

Mr Pakula estimated that the state government has spent billion on various support payments throughout the pandemic.

“These are supports that we need to provide,” he said.

“It will take budgets around the country some period of time to recover. But that is the nature of the global pandemic, it’s not really something that’s avoidable.”

Mr Paula is also Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events and said he remains concerned about the state of the events industry, especially after the cancellation of the Grand Prix.

“That is undeniably something of concern, but if we can get this transmission back to zero ... then there’s no reason that those events can’t proceed in the future,” he said.“But right now, our focus is on getting this outbreak under control and extinguished.”

Latest

1 of 5

Oldest

Share this post