Health News at Your Fingertips

In Melbourne, Spring Street in the CBD has been closed off for a peaceful protest in honour of Imam Hussain.

Thousands of people have gathered for the event, which forms part of 10 days of religious events.

Greens announces portfolio reshuffle

The Greens have announced their updated portfolios to take into the 47th parliament.

As part of the reshuffle, Max Chandler-Mather will represent the Greens on housing matters, while Libby Watson-Brown will represent infrastructure and transport and Stephen Bates will take on the LGBTIQA+ and youth portfolios.

The former economist Barbara Pocock will represent the Greens on finance and employment, the former teacher Penny Allman-Payne will take on schools, industry, transition and regional development, and David Shoebridge will serve as spokesperson for justice and defence.

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt:

With more Greens in parliament than ever before, this talented team combines years of experience with fresh perspectives. This strong team will push the government to deliver on climate, integrity and inequality.

While the Liberals chase after the far-right fringe, this new Greens line-up will offer a progressive economic alternative to a Labor government that’s giving tax cuts to billionaires while opening more coal and gas.

Three people in hospital after house fire in rural Queensland town

Two people have been airlifted to hospital in a critical condition after sustaining burns in a house fire this morning.

Queensland Police are investigating following the fire, which took place in a rural north Queensland town. Around 5.40am, emergency services were called to the blaze where they discovered a man and a man injured at the residence.

The pair, a 65-year-old man and a 47-year-old woman, were transported to hospital in a critical condition and were later airlifted to Townsville University Hospital.

They remain critical. A man aged in his 20s was also transported to hospital with smoke inhalation.

Earlier, police attended the residence at around 2.15am to conduct a welfare check. Police say the parties involved were all spoken to before officers departed.

A crime scene has been declared and investigations are underway into the cause of the blaze.

Google confirms global outage result of ‘software update issue’

Did you turn to Google this morning, only to find the search engine was down with a mysterious error? And did you then experience the paradox of wanting to Google “what’s wrong with Google” before realising the very platform you intended to seek answers within wasn’t working?

Google has just confirmed the outage was due to a software update issue:

We’re aware of a software update issue that occurred late this afternoon Pacific Time and briefly affected availability of Google Search and Maps, and we apologise for the inconvenience.

We worked to quickly address the issue and our services are now back online.

Discussions ‘ongoing’ as to future of Redfern’s National Centre of Indigenous Excellence

The NSW Aboriginal Land Council (NSWALC) and the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation (ILSC) have issued a joint statement on the future of the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence (NCIE) in Redfern.

It follows a separate release issued by the ILSC on Sunday that a deal had been reached, which was yet to be confirmed publicly by the centre or the land council.

In the joint statement, the two bodies have reiterated the fitness and aquatics centre will continue to be operated by the ILSC until a “sustainable model” is achieved, with “discussions … ongoing” as to what that model will be.

This will ensure community access to the facilities is continued. Tenants’ use and access of the site also remains unaffected and they can continue their valuable programs.

It was agreed that a resetting of the relationship is needed between the organisations and the community, to ensure the site continues to bring a brighter future for community.

The NSWALC and ILSC are committed to continuing to engage and consult on the future use of the site with the Redfern and broader community. Discussions are ongoing.

NSWALC’s chairperson, Danny Chapman, says the centre should continue to be a community hub, which was what the council hoped to achieve as new owners of the site.

The site is important to all Aboriginal people, and our vision has always been to build on the legacy. NSWALC needed to ensure we had the best interest of all Aboriginal people at every decision, but Council and I are now comfortable this will be achieved with the ILSC.

NSWALC remains committed to facilitating the delivery of community benefits and outcomes from the property, including by ensuring there is community access.

ILSC’s chairperson, Ian Hamm, says the ILSC will “continue to operate these important services while we work together in partnership to find a longer-term solution”.

The minister for Indigenous Australians, Linda Burney, on Friday gave the two parties a week to find a sustainable solution before intervening.

Littleproud says Labor ‘taking credit’ for Coalition work on biosecurity strategy

Josh Butler

The shadow agriculture minister, David Littleproud, has pinged his ministerial counterpart, Murray Watt, for allegedly “misleading” Australians, claiming the Labor minister is “taking credit” for the work of the former Coalition government.

Watt, the minister for agriculture and emergency management, today unveiled the nation’s first Biosecurity Strategy, a 40-page document laying out the potential dangers of pest and disease for Australia’s farm sector, and laying out plans to strengthen responses.

But Littleproud, the agriculture minister in the former Morrison government, said the Coalition had begun the strategy in October 2021 and had “effectively completed it” before the May election.

“So this ‘national first’ has been none of the doing of the current government,” Littleproud said.

The complaint came in a media release titled “Labor takes credit again for Coalition’s biosecurity strategy”.

Watt, in a speech at the National Press Club, announced $10m extra funding for Indonesia to combat its foot and mouth disease outbreak. Littleproud, one of the strongest critics of the government’s response to FMD, demanded more.

The minister must consider stronger measures to protect us from FMD otherwise we’ll all pay. Why aren’t we screening all passengers returning from Indonesia? Why haven’t we banned all passengers bringing food products into the country?

Minister for the environment Tanya Plibersek has listed two Australian animals as threatened species.

The south-eastern glossy black-cockatoo is now listed as vulnerable, and the mountain skink is officially endangered.

The cockatoo and the skink that I’m listing today are two animals that were really badly affected by the Black Summer bushfires and I think it’s important to know that while the bushfires were a couple of years ago now we’re still dealing with the environmental impacts of that terrible time on our ecological communities.

We know the damage caused by the bushfires is still being felt today – and this decision shows we’re committed to working to protect, restore and manage our precious environment.

Here are the latest coronavirus numbers from around Australia today, as the country records at least 104 deaths from Covid-19:

ACT

• Deaths: 4
• Cases: 498
• In hospital: 146 (with 4 people in ICU)

NSW

• Deaths: 25
• Cases: 10,043
• In hospital: 2,265 (with 54 people in ICU)

Northern Territory

• Deaths: 0
• Cases: 216
• In hospital: 34 (with 3 people in ICU)

Queensland

• Deaths: 24
• Cases: 4,141
• In hospital: 710 (with 24 people in ICU)

South Australia

• Deaths: 4
• Cases: 1,853
• In hospital: 341 (with 11 people in ICU)

Tasmania

• Deaths: 3
• Cases: 650
• In hospital: 84 (with 2 people in ICU)

Victoria

• Deaths: 44
• Cases: 6,380
• In hospital: 673 (with 32 people in ICU)

Western Australia

• Deaths: 0
• Cases: 2,965
• In hospital: 358 (with 11 people in ICU)

Tony Abbott meets Japanese MPs after being awarded Japan’s highest honour for foreigners

Meanwhile, former prime minister Tony Abbott is meeting with Japanese MPs following his awarding of Japan’s Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun – the highest Japanese honour available to foreigners.

Tributes flow for Olivia Newton-John

Tributes are still pouring in for Olivia Newton-John from across the globe.

Closer to home, here is Molly Meldrum’s statement, who regularly interviewed Newton-John on former music and entertainment program Countdown.

He pays tribute to “Livvy”, one of “those rare people who had a profound effect on the world and the people in it”.

Tonight, the stars will shine a little brighter and I am heartbroken.

Murray Watt believes Australia will keep growing enough food to go around

Watt’s final question at the National Press Club was on food security and relations with our trading partners: “How important do you think it is for Australia to help feed other nations, and in particular what is your view on the role of food security for our trading partners, especially in the context of our global diplomacy efforts?”

The agriculture minister replied he didn’t see it “as one or the other” and providing agricultural produce to regional neighbours would be “really helpful” for Australia’s diplomatic relationships.

We would want to ensure that we have enough food to feed ourselves … but we are a trading nation, most of our agricultural produce is exported, depending on the industry. So I think that we can do both.

When I was in Indonesia the agriculture minister raised food security as a very big priority for their government, so it is the same for many other countries in our region, so I do think there is a really big role we can play in assisting neighbours with food security.

Looking at the state of the sector going forward, as long as we can keep growing it then there is enough to go around. I think it is really helpful for our diplomatic relationship in our region … to try and play that role. I think it wins you points with your neighbours, and you would have already seen our government putting a lot of effort and in that regard.

Josh Butler

Floot-hit regions of NSW and Queensland to be prioritised by new disaster fund

Emergency management minister Murray Watt says the federal government will prioritise disaster mitigation projects in northern NSW and southern Queensland areas recently devastated by floods as its first spending under a new natural disaster fund.

Labor committed to spend $200m annually on its disaster ready fund, a revamp of the former government’s emergency response fund, which came under criticism for spending only a small portion of its yearly budget on mitigation and recovery efforts. In the dying days of the Morrison government, the Coalition committed funding toward flood areas.

Watt, speaking at the National Press Club, said the new government was still finalising legislation to establish its new fund, but said it would honour spending of the former government.

“The former government had finally dedicated some of that fund towards post disaster resilience work, particularly in the northern rivers region, and we intend to honour that,” he said, adding that northern NSW and southern Queensland would benefit.

So we’re working with those states to identify how that money could be spent.