Health News at Your Fingertips

NSW premier announces $500m for road repairs

A $500m fund to fix potholes across New South Wales has been welcomed by several regional mayors who say roads are crucial for their towns to function, AAP reports.

Major flooding in the state’s central west and elsewhere has severely damaged regional road networks, at times disrupting harvest, freight and other major industries.

NSW premier Dominic Perrottet announced the funding for 128 councils at a roundtable with local mayors in Molong on Tuesday, with $280m for the regions and $220m for metropolitan areas.

We want our families, farmers, truckies and tradies to be able to get around our state safely, and that’s what this investment will do.

I don’t want any person in our state dying on our roads and that means this half a billion dollars needs to get out the door as fast as possible.

Perrottet said Transport NSW employees would be deployed to address local labour shortages, while the government was pushing its federal counterparts to clear a backlog of overseas workers.

Forbes mayor Phyllis Miller will use the money to repair the shire’s 2000 kilometre local road network, some of which has been underwater for six months.

Miller urged the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to match the funding.

Unless we can get this matched by the feds, we’re only going to get half the job done.

NSW opposition roads spokesperson John Graham accused the government of breaking election promises by failing to transfer 15,000 kilometres of council roads to state responsibility.

But deputy premier Paul Toole said the move was on hold while the government rebuilt after flood damage.

“We’ve had land slips on several of our roads right across the state, we need to make sure those roads have been opened up,” Toole said.

“That has been our focus and that has been our primary activity.”

The NRMA’s Fix Our Broken Roads report released in December revealed NSW councils already faced a $1.9bn backlog in 2020/21 to maintain roads to a safe standard.

Before Christmas, the NSW government said 190,000 potholes had been repaired since February.

NRMA spokesperson, Peter Khoury, said ongoing support from state and federal governments was critical

“There’s going to be a lot of work to do, and while this will not address the issue right across the state in its entirety, it’s a very good start.”

Treasurer says entry requirement for arrivals from China not ‘especially onerous’

Earlier today, federal treasurer Jim Chalmers defended the government’s decision to introduce entry restrictions on travellers from China, repeating that they are acting out of “an abundance of caution.”

Chalmers was on Sky News, and said that the measures were not “especially onerous”:

It is not an especially onerous requirement that people have a negative test when they come here from that part of the world.

The chief medical officers are people we work with closely, we respect their advice. Of course one of the points that they’ve been making is we need to do better when it comes to surveillance of people coming to the country. There’s an element of uncertainty about the data coming out of China.

So for all of those reasons we’ve taken this decision out of an abundance of caution consistent with what’s happening around the world in other countries with which we compare ourselves.

Little penguins found dead after suspected dog attacks in eastern Tasmania

Birdlife Tasmania is warning residents to keep their dogs on their properties after a number of little penguins were found dead with “wounds consistent with dog attacks”.

In a statement, the group said a member of the public alerted them to the carcasses on the Bicheno foreshore.

Dr Eric Woehler, convenor of BirdLife Tasmania, said the penguin population there had suffered too many dog attacks already:

It is important that all dog owners keep their dogs on their properties overnight, to prevent the killing of penguins by their pets.

Bicheno’s penguin population has suffered far too many dog attacks in recent years, due to uncontrolled dogs killing birds as they return to their burrows at night.

The surge in human visitor and resident numbers over the holidays brings with it a significant increase in the risks to penguins nesting in Bicheno. The penguins are a major drawcard for tourists to Bicheno, and every dog attack puts unnecessary and unacceptable pressure on the breeding penguins.

Murray Watt says China travel rules a ‘modest measure’ and not political

So at the press conference in South Australia earlier, Senator Murray Watt was asked why the Labor government ignored the advice of the chief medical officer in relation to travellers from China.

Watt said they had actually accepted a “number of recommendations” and rejected the idea that the measures were a political decision:

You will have seen the letter that the chief medical officer provided in today’s media, and we have actually accepted a number of recommendations of the chief medical officer, for instance, testing wastewater, in our minds that are coming back from China, and that is particularly to try and get a grip on what kind of variant might be in China at the moment. That is the fundamental issue here.

We listen to the advice of the chief medical officer but we have also been influenced by the advice of other health experts such as the World Health Organization. And over the weekend the World Health Organization made it very clear in a statement that they were concerned about the lack of transparency that China was displaying and the impact that was having on people’s ability to track variants to Covid-19, something that is very important from the world health perspective.

So we have taken into account a range of that advice and we have now taken what we consider to be a modest measure, simply asking people to be tested before they get on an airline, just like more than a dozen other countries have done, and we are doing this really out of an abundance of caution.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin has reportedly responded to the entry restrictions Australia and other nations have imposed, saying that “authoritative medical experts” from different countries have said that such restrictions were “unnecessary”.

The ABC reports that Wang responded to the new measures during a press conference, and said:

China always believes that for all countries, Covid response measures need to be science-based and proportionate without affecting normal travel and people-to-people exchange and cooperation.

China will, in light of the Chinese people’s inclination for outbound travel, resume outbound tourism to countries where conditions allow.

More disaster relief for flood-hit SA communities in jointly-funded package

The federal and South Australian governments have revealed additional disaster support for flood-impacted communities along the Murray River.

In a statement, and presser, both governments revealed $126m in further disaster assistance for communities hit by the devastating flooding that peaked in Renmark on Boxing Day and is subsequently impacting downriver areas.

The funding is being provided through the jointly-funded commonwealth-state disaster recovery funding arrangements, and includes property assessment and essential services reconnection, small business recovery grants, waste management programs and legal assistance.

The federal minister for emergency management, Senator Murray Watt, said it was the largest disaster support package that has ever been provided to South Australia:

We know it’s going to be a long road to recovery, but this new funding means that people will have access to the immediate, impactful support they need to start to clean up, repair, rebuild and recover.

The Albanese Government is committed to ensuring communities in South Australia are better prepared and can recover quicker from natural disasters.

NSW seeks to host nature summit to attract private investment in conservation

Lisa Cox

The New South Wales government has offered to host a global nature summit aimed at boosting private investment in nature restoration.

The federal environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, announced at the recent Cop15 biodiversity conference in Montreal that Australia would host a “nature positive” summit in 2024.

The NSW environment minister, James Griffin, has written to Plibersek offering to host the summit in Sydney.

He says the state is a “national leader of biodiversity conservation”, making NSW the right location for such a conference.

The letter says:

Private investment is already making significant contributions towards protecting and repairing the natural environment in NSW. The NSW government has taken significant steps to encourage even more private investment and partnerships in biodiversity conservation.

Griffin points to a recently announced state fund to support farmers who manage their land sustainably, which he estimates could “unlock” $10b in financing.

The letter also points to private stewardship agreements managed by the state’s Biodiversity Conservation Trust and NSW’s “world first” biodiversity offsetting scheme as examples of the positive contribution the state is making in this area.

It is worth noting here that a recent audit of the offset scheme found it was failing. The NSW auditor general concluded the state had not designed the scheme properly and had no strategy for making sure it delivered the environmental outcomes required. The government has been making improvements to the scheme since 2020 but both the audit and a parliamentary inquiry have recommended additional changes.

Federal and state governments have been focused on private markets as a way to boost spending on biodiversity protection and restoration. This has been welcomed in some sectors which see it as a way to incentivise environmental stewardship.

But it has been criticised by others that want governments to take responsibility for the long term public underfunding of conservation work and failure to properly regulate threats that have caused the decline of Australia’s environment such as land-clearing.

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, and shadow health minister, Anne Ruston, have come out swinging against the government’s decision to implement restrictions on travellers arriving from China.

In a statement, both call on the government to explain the rationale behind the decision, after it emerged they went against advice given by the chief medical officer:

The Albanese Government must explain to the Australian people why they have ignored the advice of the Chief Medical Officer – particularly given the Health Minister and Acting Secretary of the Health Department have advised there is no new variant of concern coming out of China and, therefore, no logical reason for the restrictions they are putting in place.

In the absence of Australian health advice to put the restrictions in place, the Prime Minister must justify why he has deviated from what has been previously agreed.

The most relevant health advice for Australians is our Chief Medical Officer’s advice, as it considers all factors in the context of our nation’s health and economic position.

The last thing our country needs is a panicked response from a government that doesn’t have a plan and, frankly, over the last week, has been making it up as they go along.

Chinese Australians want to return home after their holidays and need more certainty in their travel plans.

Young Liberals call for more mental health support as they try to drag party towards centre

Amy Remeikis

Good morning from Canberra – and happy new year (I think this is still within the Larry David rules of acceptable new year greetings, but the sand is rapidly running out of that hourglass).

You may have read Paul Karp’s reports and analysis on the Liberal party’s election review and the party’s attempts to find itself following its election loss.

Well, the Young Liberals are trying to drag the party back to the centre and to the answer it believes can be found in the party’s name – liberalism.

That also means going out on issues the parliamentary party seems missing on.

Young Liberals have been vocal on the need for climate action, more women in politics and now, mental health.

Clark Cooley, the federal president of the Young Liberals, wants the Labor government to restore the additional subsidised mental health sessions:

Anthony Albanese’s cuts to mental health support will hurt those who are most vulnerable, especially young Australians who face a youth mental health crisis. This Labor Government is ignoring experts, peak bodies and medical professionals who have all called for these psychology sessions to be restored.

Young Australians are still facing the consequences of the pandemic, and the growing pressures that impact their lives. They need more support, not cuts to vital mental health services.

Young Australians will suffer under these cuts to Medicare, at a time when they need support more than ever. Anthony Albanese and Labor have turned their back on vulnerable Australians needing their support.

The response to the winding back of the program has been mixed. Some experts have said 20 sessions are barely enough as it is, others have said that the system is so overburdened people can’t get a first appointment and the resources need to be refocused where they will do more good.

But while the parliamentary party and branches try to work out how to move forward, the youth branch has decided to go it alone. Expect to see more of these interventions.

An extreme weather system is hovering across the central Kimberley in Western Australia between Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek, bringing with it major flooding and heavy rain.

Ex-tropical cyclone Ellie is expected to move slowly westward over the next 24-48 hours, with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting it to be centred just east of Broome by Wednesday.

They have issued almost a dozen severe weather warnings across the Northern Territory and Western Australia over the past couple of days as the rain and damaging winds slams into the region.

In the NT, the vigorous monsoon flow remains over the Timor Sea, with Intermittent monsoonal squalls bring the risk of damaging wind gusts to the western Top End.

A major flood warning is in place for Fitzroy river, with flooding now higher than the 2002 record, and rising.

Since the start of the weekend widespread rainfall totals of 200-500 mm have been recorded across the Kimberley region. Further widespread heavy falls are forecast for the next few days.

Queensland police release more details on crash victims

I just wanted to return to the fatal helicopter crash on the Gold Coast, because Queensland police have released a statement with further details.

Police say that the helicopter that crashed had seven occupants, including the 40-year-old pilot. The pilot died at the scene alongside three passengers, including a 57-year-old woman and a 65-year-old man from the UK, and a 36-year-old woman from Glenmore Park in New South Wales.

A 10-year-old boy also from Glenmore Park sustained critical injuries and was transported to the Gold Coast University hospital where he remains in a critical condition.

Two people from this aircraft, including a 33-year-old woman and a 9-year-old boy both from Geelong West in Victoria were transported to hospital with serious injuries. She remains in a critical but stable condition and the boy’s condition remains stable.

The chopper that landed had six occupants, including a 52-year-old pilot, a 27-year-old Western Australia woman and two families from New Zealand who were travelling together, a 44-year-old man and 43-year-old woman from one family and a 48-year-old man and 45-year-old woman from the other.

One occupant from this aircraft was uninjured, with the remaining five people sustaining minor physical injuries. They were transported to the Gold Coast University hospital.

Police are appealing for witnesses, particularly those with video of the incident.

Paul Karp

Universities Australia boss hopes China travel rules a ‘short-lived’ measure

Universities Australia chief executive, Catriona Jackson, has addressed the fact the chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, advised against imposing extra conditions on travel from China.

Jackson told ABC News Breakfast:

I’ve read those reports … and I’ll be interested to see what Mark Butler, the health minister, has got to say about how he reached his position. But look, our position remains the same. It’s incredibly important that we do everything we can to regain the position of strength we had with international education pre-Covid.

But Jackson didn’t criticise – acknowledging it was a “decision for government”.

She said:

Look, that’s a decision for government, not for me and not for the university sector. However, we’ll be watching very carefully what Mark Butler says about how he reached that position. I’d like to hear directly from Paul Kelly rather than reading newspaper reports about what he apparently said. We have a deep investment, as universities should, in expert advice, but it’s a matter for government how they reached their decisions. What’s really important here is this is not an impediment to Chinese students returning to Australia. It just means they need to have a test before they get on that airplane. We said when this was announced on New Year’s Day that we hope this is a short-lived, temporary measure. I seem to recall the health minister had that same hope.

So with that the press conference comes to an end. We learned a couple more details, including that one helicopter was taking off and another landing.

We also learned that the rotor of the helicopter that was taking off hit the cabin of the chopper coming in to land.

Four people are confirmed dead: the pilot and three passengers including two British nationals. They are aged 37 to 65. The injured from that helicopter are still in critical condition, and include a mother aged 33 and two boys aged 10 and nine.