Health News at Your Fingertips

Paul Karp

Bruce Lehrmann’s trial for the alleged sexual assault of Brittany Higgins will go ahead on 4 October, for a trial of four to six weeks.

At a mention on Thursday Lehrmann’s counsel, Steve Whybrow, asked for the trial to be heard next year, arguing that the “bushfire” of controversy around the case “is still burning”. Lehrmann denies any form of sexual activity took place in early 2019 and is pleading not guilty.

The ACT Supreme Court chief justice, Lucy McCallum, said a three month delay is a “significant period” to allow potential prejudice to Lehrmann to dissipate, and that much of the coverage she has seen has been “ameliorative” because it focused on the fact “a man is facing a trial for serious offence and is entitled to the presumption of innocence”.

McCallum and the director of public prosecutions, Shane Drumgold, revealed lawyers for Channel 10 and Lisa Wilkinson have written indicating they are prepared to make undertakings to refrain from commentary around the allegation, the complainant and accused, and acknowledging the need to avoid a contempt of court.

Given that letter, Drumgold said there would be no grounds for an injunction if the undertakings are given. He also revealed as many as five books are in the works that may touch on the Higgins complaint, and said he would contact their authors.

Perrottet orders review into Barilaro appointment

Sticking with Dominic Perrottet for a moment, he has asked the secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet to conduct a review into the appointment of former deputy premier John Barilaro as a New York-based trade commissioner.

Michael Coutts-Trotter is the secretary for the department, and Perrottet said he had tapped him to look into the “circumstances” that led to Barilaro’s appointment to the $500,000-a-year job:

He will provide that report to me. I will review it and I will make it public.

I just wanted to return to the NSW Premier’s press conference, where he has both announced and defended the NSW government’s decision to hike fines for illegal industrial action.

It comes as both health and eduction sectors face strikes in the coming days, both in response to government decisions (mostly related to staff hires and wages), with the government increased illegal strike fines to $55,000 for the first day of industrial action and $27,500 every day after that.

Subsequent strikes could mean unions are hit with a penalty of $110,000 for the initial day followed by $55,000 every day after.

These fines today should act as a deterrent for not conducting illegal strikes. These are strikes the Industrial Relations Commission has deemed to be illegal,” Perrottet said in a press conference on Thursday morning.

If we have to take further action, we will.

The Northern Territory government has announced its decision to close the Howard Springs quarantine facility from next week. It is likely to remain on standby for another year.

The facility has been in use since the beginning of the pandemic as the country’s forefront quarantine facility.

Chief minister Natasha Fyles said the facility had achieved its goal, adding that it had put the NT “on the national and global stage”:

The government has always, and will always do, what it needs to do to keep Territorians safe.

The Centre for National Resilience helped put the NT on the national and global stage, providing care for Australians and international repatriates in the most uncertain of times.

The closing of the facility symbolises not only the importance it played in keeping our community safe but also how far we have come transitioning from living under the pandemic to simply living with the pandemic.

NSW premier Dominic Perrottet has stepped up for a press conference, and first up he is discussing the strikes that the state are facing (in health and education) and says the union bosses should be hit “with the hardest fines possible” for “inconveniencing families”:

The changes we make today are in line with every other jurisdiction.

My message to the union bosses is that, please work with the NSW government. When it comes to wages in the state, as we know, we had a leading wage policy in the country. We will continue to work with the unions right across NSW in the best interest of the people of our state.

These fines today will act as a deterrent for not conducting illegal strikes.

Labour shortage leaves crops at risk of rotting, Ausveg warns

As I am certain everyone has noticed, the prices of fruit and vegetables is skyrocketing, and the head of Ausveg says there could be more price increases coming for cucumbers, tomatoes and berries.

Ausveg spokesperson Tyson Cattle told Nine that farmers were warning that crops were at risk of rotting if there weren’t enough workers to pick them, adding that flood-affected areas in Queensland have added to the price rises:

The reality is … it‘s going to take 12 to 16 weeks for supply to get back to normal.

The cost of production issues are significant. Fertiliser costs, chemical costs, fuel costs, as you’re seeing, wage costs, all these different impacts are having critical impacts on growers to be able to plant their crops.

That’s obviously going to have a flow-on effect to the Australian consumers.

If we do have the labour coming in, then all of a sudden we can have the confidence to plant more product … we don’t want to have to rely on a backpacker who is largely here to have a good time and enjoy themselves and enjoy the luxuries Australia has to offer.

We don’t want to have to rely on that. We’re disappointed that the government hasn’t followed through in terms of the ag visa.

Victoria is reporting 7,461 new Covid cases and nine deaths overnight:

Another increase in Covid-related deaths in NSW today, with 26 reported in addition to 9,203 new cases:

NSW nurses vote to strike

Nurses and midwives will be striking next Tuesday in NSW after the union attacked the state government for a lack of transparency in its budget announcements.

More than 70 of the nearly 180 public sector branches of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association voted to strike for periods ranging from two hours to 24 hours on 28 June, after ballots were held yesterday.

Liverpool and Bankstown hospitals will strike for 24 hours, while Westmead and Westmead children’s, Blacktown, Campbelltown, and Royal Prince Alfred hospital nurses and midwives will stop work for 12 hours.

Sixteen branches also voted to undertake industrial action but decided they could not “due to severe staffing shortages and a commitment to life-preserving care”.

The union has said it is still unclear how many new nurses and midwives are included in the proposed 10,000 new full-time health staff touted in the state budget.