Australia news live: NSW reports no new local Covid cases; PM confirms India travel ban to end 15 May



9.17pm EDT21:17

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9.07pm EDT21:07

No new locally acquired cases in NSW today

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9.03pm EDT21:03

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9.01pm EDT21:01

Jarryd Hayne to appeal against sentence for sexual assault

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8.58pm EDT20:58

In case you were more inclined to watch…literally anything else last night…here’s a quick recap of what RBA deputy governor Guy Debelle said about the red hot property market.

Basically he said, that’s really not the bank’s problem. Unemployment is.

Speaking via Zoom to a Perth audience, Debelle said lowering interest rates to record lows – making debt cheaper for both people and businesses – is designed to get economic activity moving.

The thinking is: businesses can borrow cheaply to expand and employ more people. People can borrow money to spend more in the economy. When people are spending freely, businesses can raise their prices a little bit (this is inflation) and that helps those businesses grow and employ more people…who then have more money to spend freely in the economy…the cycle goes on.

But another byproduct of low interest rates is people borrow money cheaply to buy houses and apartments, which is forcing up prices in Australia’s major cities. (The average property price in Sydney has now hit $1.3m.)

But from the RBA’s perspective, the government has the tools to handle that problem, not the central bank.


I do not think monetary policy is one of the tools…

Monetary policy is focused on supporting the economic recovery and achieving its goals in terms of employment and inflation.

The kinds of tools the government has to make housing more affordable could be around tax treatment, different rules on banks issuing home loans (via the regulators), or how the state and local governments release and zone land.

But while the RBA is keeping an eye on the housing market, in case people start defaulting on their mortgages, the unexpected Covid-19 shock means the bank is mostly focused on making sure people are in jobs.

And it credits its low interest rate policy as the reason we’re in a good spot now going into next week’s budget.


It is important to remember that while housing prices may not rise as fast without the monetary stimulus, unemployment would definitely be materially higher without the monetary stimulus.

Anyway, back to regular programming.

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8.49pm EDT20:49



8.48pm EDT20:48

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8.45pm EDT20:45



8.38pm EDT20:38

An Australian citizen has still not been told what charge he is facing, has only just been seen by Australian officials and is yet to meet his lawyer, despite spending 30 days behind bars in Baghdad.

Australian officials visited Robert Pether for the first time on Monday, day 26 of his detention, and are now asking if he can get a meeting with his lawyer.

Pether’s wife, Desree, spoke to her husband on Monday, their second call during the four-week ordeal, and said he was “desperate” and felt betrayed by both Iraq and Australia.

Desree said she was deeply frustrated by the time it took for Australian officials to visit her husband and begin requesting that Iraqi authorities allow a meeting with his lawyer.

You can read the full story below:

Australian businessman Robert Pether.


Australian businessman Robert Pether. Photograph: Supplied by family

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8.37pm EDT20:37

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8.24pm EDT20:24

ABC accuses Porter’s lawyers of attempting to control reporting

The ABC’s counsel, Renee Enbom, has submitted if Porter succeeds in getting the schedules of the defence suppressed (on an interim basis, pending the strike-out hearing) then Porter’s reply which alleges malice against the ABC should also be suppressed.

Enbom said:


The effect of Mr Porter’s position is this: the public would not be informed of the way the ABC and Milligan put their defence to the claim, [because the schedules would not be public]; but the public would be given 13 pages of allegations about the conduct of Louise Milligan and ABC, which he says defeats one of them. That’s an attempt to control how this proceeding is reported.

Justice Jayne Jagot disagrees, she says she is “not persuaded by this” because the interests of open justice are “best served” if she makes “available everything that isn’t subject to an argument it should be struck out”.

So it looks like because Porter has asked for bits to be struck out, they could be suppressed for a few weeks; but the reply alleging Milligan and ABC maliciously published the story will be made public, because their lawyers have not applied to strike them out.

Enbom is now arguing that in Geoffrey Rush’s defamation case the interlocutory application to extend the suppression of the defence pending the strike-out application was not successful.

Porter’s lawyers dispute this, noting there was an interim order until the strike-out hearing.

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8.20pm EDT20:20

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