Health News at Your Fingertips

Sticking with the NSW premier, for a moment. He has told reporters that any document relevant to the inquiry into John Barilaro’s appointment to a lucrative New York trade post should be provided as soon as possible.

Speaking in Japan, Dominic Perrottet was asked about the use of standing order 52, which upper house MPs are using to compel the state government to hand over documents about the affair.

According to AAP, he said:

My view is that any document (to the inquiry) that should be legally provided needs to be provided as quickly as possible.

Dates are set and they should be met.

There’s a whole lot of SO-52 (standing orders) that have been issued and my expectation is they should be complied with.

Perrottet repeats call for Warragamba dam to be raised

The New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, once again called for the Warragamba dam to be raised during a visit to a world-leading flood mitigation facility in Japan.

Wrapping up the first leg of his 10-day Asian trade tour on Sunday, Perrottet visited the Ryu-Q Kan facility, one of the world’s biggest underground drainage channels, on the outskirts of Tokyo.

Located 50m below ground, the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel acts as a mammoth water-storage tank to protect Tokyo from flooding during Japan’s monsoon rains.

Completed in 2006 at a cost of more than $2bn, its 177m long underground surge tank has a capacity of 2.5 gigalitres.

It collects overflowing water from four rivers and makes controlled, safe releases to the Edo River.

In comparison, the Warragamba Dam in western Sydney can hold some 515 gigalitres per day.

Perrottet praised the engineering effort as “world-leading” but said a similar facility in Sydney would need to be 400 times the size of the underground drain to deal with floods on the scale of those which recently ravaged the state.

The premier said the walls of the Warragamba Dam to be raised, which would cost about $1.6 billion and called on the federal government to fund half of the proposed work.

Raising the Warragamba Dam will provide incredible support to reduce flooding downstream. We know that to be true.

However, some experts don’t believe the proposed five-year project will fully solve Sydney’s flood problems.

Other suggestions include improving flood evacuation routes for communities and moving people off flood-prone land through government land buybacks.

Asked about flood plain buybacks, Perrottet would not rule anything out, saying “everything is on the table”.

Insurance Council welcomes NSW opposition’s flood-proofing plan

The Insurance Council Australia chief, Andrew Hall, has welcomed $225m plan by New South Wales Labor to flood proof western Sydney.

The Western Sydney Floods Resilience Plan announced on Sunday by the Labor opposition leader, Chris Minns, includes $24m for new levees at Peachtree Creek, McGraths Hill and Pitt Town.

Today’s announcement by New South Wales Labor is a welcome first step and shows that political stakeholders are heeding the resilience message insurers have been giving over a long period.

New South Wales is the highest-taxing state in the country when it comes to insurance, which drives down adequate coverage at a time and in a state where we need it most.

In the lead-up to next March’s state election, the Insurance Council and insurers are calling on all parties to commit to abolishing this retrograde impost.

The February-March 2022 floods caused $4.8b in insured losses – half of which were in NSW – making the event the most costly flood ever.

The ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, has welcomed the Labor government’s decision to wind down the Australian Building Construction and Commission.

The employment and workplace relations minister, Tony Burke, announced on Sunday that the Albanese government would strip the ABCC of its powers and hand its oversight to other regulators.

McManus said the ABCC and requirements under the building code introduced by the Coalition were “anti-worker, onerous and non-sensical”, calling it a “relic” of the “divisive years” under the Turnbull government that lead to an infamous double dissolution election.

We welcome the removal of the anti-worker aspects of the building code as the first and important steps to the Albanese government implementing their election commitment to abolish the ABCC and its underpinning legislation.

The code was one of the ideological projects of the previous government, who spent nearly a decade attacking unions and suppressing wages.

Instead of acting to address important issues like increasing the number of permanent jobs by stopping excessive casualisation or fixing our broken bargaining laws so workers could get pay rises, they spent their time undermining workers’ rights.

It stopped progress on apprenticeships and skills in the construction industry and did nothing to address safety or wage theft. Taxpayers’ money was wasted on banning the Eureka flag and policing union posters on noticeboards.

Here are the latest coronavirus numbers from around Australia on Sunday, as the country records an additional 36 deaths from Covid-19:

ACT

• Deaths: 0
• Cases: 712
• In hospital: 155 (with one person in ICU)

NSW

• Deaths: 14
• Cases: 12,820
• In hospital: 2,260 (with 56 people in ICU)

Northern Territory

• Deaths: n/a
• Cases: 355
• In hospital: 71 (with no people in ICU)

Queensland

• Deaths: 0
• Cases: 5,804
• In hospital: 1042 (with 19 people in ICU)

South Australia

• Deaths: 1
• Cases: 3,340
• In hospital: 374 (with one person in ICU)

Tasmania

• Deaths: 2
• Cases: 1,155
• In hospital: 174 (with three people in ICU)

Victoria

• Deaths: 12
• Cases: 9,501
• In hospital: 849 (with 27 people in ICU)

Western Australia

• Deaths: 7
• Cases: 4,356
• In hospital: 437 (with 23 people in ICU)

The Northern Territory reported 355 new Covid cases overnight, including 71 people in hospital and no one in intensive care.

Australian health experts ‘optimistic’ about containing monkeypox outbreak

Christopher Knaus

Australian experts are optimistic about Australia’s ability to deal with the global monkeypox outbreak.

The World Health Organisation overnight declared monkeypox as a global emergency, saying the outbreak has now expanded to more than 70 countries. The declaration is the highest level of alert possible from the WHO. Australian health authorities are yet to speak publicly following the WHO’s announcement.

The disease was first reported in Australia on 20 May and dozens of cases have since been reported across the country. Professor Adrian Esterman, chair of biostatistics at the University of South Australia, said Australia was well-placed to deal with the monkeypox outbreak.

For 30 or 40 years now [health authorities] been working with our gay communities because of HIV. They’ve got close contacts into that community and good messaging in that community and good relationships in that community. And that is the community by and large that’s being affected by monkeypox. So I like to be optimistic and think that because we have such good links into these communities, we can contain it.

Esterman said monkeypox was far easier to contain than Covid, because monkeypox sufferers were only able to spread the disease when they were experiencing symptoms.

So because of that, because it takes a while for you to actually start getting symptoms, when you get them, they’re obvious, you’re not actually infectious until you get symptoms, it means that it’s comparatively easy for us to detect cases, to isolate them do contact tracing, and do ring-fencing around their close contacts and give vaccines to all the close contacts.

One person with Covid-19 has died in South Australia overnight, with the state recording 3,340 new cases on Sunday morning, 374 people in hospital and 12 in ICU.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, will meet with the new US ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennedy, within days, saying her appointment reaffirmed the strength of the alliance between the two nations.

Kennedy, the daughter of assassinated US president John F Kennedy, arrived in Australia last week, following her appointment earlier this year.

During an appearance on Sky News on Sunday, Albanese said Kennedy’s appointment was a “very positive development”, and that he would meet the “significant figure” on Wednesday.

President Biden said to me … how important an appointment like this is. And I think Australians should be proud of that fact.

The US alliance is our most important relationship and having ambassador Kennedy here is appropriate given the status of our relationship.

Kennedy will also meet with the governor general, David Hurley, this week.

Albanese also said he had been invited to visit the White House and was in discussions on the timing of that trip.

I look forward to visiting the White House and I look forward to welcoming President Biden here to Australia.

Biden to due to visit Australia in 2023 for the next Quad leaders’ summit.

– From AAP

Seven people with Covid-19 have died in Western Australia overnight, with the state recording 4,356 new cases on Sunday morning, 437 people in hospital and 23 in ICU.

South Australia ambulance workers’ pay rise to be back paid

Just to follow up on the announcement from South Australia that ambulance workers will get a 10% pay rise backdated to December 2018, a reader asked whether the cumulative 2.5% increase will be back paid or applied going forward.

I checked with the office of the SA health and wellbeing minister, Chris Picton, who confirmed that the 2.5% would be back paid and applied “for the next few years”.

A 10-year-old boy is the third person to die following a house fire in Sydney overnight.

In an update on Sunday afternoon, authorities said first responders found two women – a 60-year-old and a 40-year-old – dead at the scene and pulled the 10-year-old boy from the blaze, at Hinchinbrook in south-west Sydney.

The child was taken to Westmead Children’s hospital in critical condition but later died from his injuries.

Eight people, including two firefighters, were taken to hospital.

They included a man in his 40s, who was also taken to Concord Hospital, where is was currently in critical condition. Another woman in her late 30s was taken to Liverpool Hospital and was in a stable condition.

NSW police are investigating the matter and will make a report to the coroner.

Fire and Rescue NSW deputy commissioner Megan Stiffler said it was a “tragic start to our winter fire safety campaign” and there had been 500 house fires in New South Wales since 1 June.

We have lost 13 lives due to home fires this year and that is nine more than the whole of the winter season last year.

Nearly 50% of all of those house fires didn’t have working smoke alarms. I cannot stress how important it is for people to hear this message.

Stiffler said two firefighters were injured during the incident, with one falling 6m while trying to enter the property and another experiencing a small electric shock while trying to enter through a window.

The spirits of our crews are rightly devastated.

Dominic Carr from New South Wales ambulance said the blaze was “very, very intense”.

We had resources including critical care paramedics, doctors and dental care paramedics on scene as well, helping to monitor, stabilise patients and transport them to various hospitals.

Anthony Albanese says the government will not close the border with Indonesia as that country battles an outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

In an appearance on Sky News on Sunday, the prime minister said existing biosecurity measures to control the spread of the disease were the “strongest ever measures introduced by an Australian government”.

Albanese said:

It’s important to note that Australia is foot and mouth disease free, that our products continue to be available to the world.

He said the nation’s farming bodies backed his government on not banning flights, which would have a “severe” impact on the economy and trade.

You don’t do that by just jumping to a position that the former government never, ever implemented.

No coalition government has implemented that strong measures that we have announced and put in place during this current current issue as it’s been rolled out.

Travellers would be directed to comply with biosecurity measures, including removing their shoes or walking over sanitation mats, and be questioned by officers.

It’s the first time the Biosecurity Act powers have been used in Australia.

The Coalition has called for the border to close, and has criticised the speed of the government’s reaction.

The disease is highly contagious and affects cattle, sheep, goats, camelids, deer and pigs.

The virus is carried by live animals and can present in meat and dairy products, soil, bones, untreated hides, vehicles and equipment used with farm animals.

Two people have died following a house fire in the south-western Sydney suburb of Hinchinbrook, AAP reports.

Emergency services were called to a home on Rottnest Avenue about 5.40am on Sunday.

Six people including a child were evacuated from the property and treated by paramedics.

Two people died at the scene, with both yet to be formally identified.

The child was transported to Westmead Children’s Hospital in a serious condition.

Officers from Liverpool Police established a crime scene, which will be examined by specialist forensic police.

An investigation is under way and the cause is yet to be determined.

Reports will be prepared for the coroner.