Health News at Your Fingertips

Meanwhile, the prime minister has responded to the floods in New South Wales. He says ADF support has already been made available, with 100 troops activated in the Sydney region.

Earlier today, it was confirmed ADF were being requested to assist with sandbagging in flood effected areas.

ADF helicopters were “not required overnight but [are] available tonight”.

Here is the full statement on the Covid border restrictions being lifted from Wednesday.

Home affairs minister Clare O’Neil says the lifting of the vaccination declaration will be “one less thing” for travellers to worry about.

Travellers to and from Australia will no longer have to declare their Covid-19 vaccination status from 6 July, in a significant easing of pandemic travel restrictions.

Mask rules will remain in place.

It comes the same day Australia recorded its 10,000th death to the virus, a grim milestone.

The rules are on the advice of the chief medical officer.

Victoria’s former premier Steve Bracks has released a statement on the passing of Jane Garrett to cancer at age 49, sending his condolences to her loved ones.

Her family’s loss is beyond words.

Western Australia’s government has introduced a package of reforms to crack down on councillors behaving badly.

The changes to the Local Government Act will be the most significant in its more than 25-year-history, the state government says.

Among the reforms, councillors will face three-month suspensions if they seriously breach the Act, and 10-year bans from local government elected office if they are suspended three times.

A new inspector of local government will be appointed to investigate and oversee complaints, along with local government monitors, who can help resolve ongoing issues.

Recording council meetings will be mandated, and larger tier one and two local governments will be live-streamed.

The government plans to introduce the legislation to parliament by the end of the year, and the minister has set up a working group to figure out how to best implement the reforms.

– AAP.

Christopher Knaus

How Australian homeowners can retrofit houses for warmth

It’s minus -4C when scientist Jenny Edwards arrives to inspect my bitterly cold Canberra home. Huddled inside with a coffee, dressed for an ascent to Everest base camp, I’m fretting over whether she’ll make it past the front deck. It’s iced over again.

I’m breathing fog in the kitchen and frost has covered the bay window in my bedroom.

Edwards and her technology-led, data-driven crew from Light House Architecture & Science are here to run a series of tests in an attempt to work out why the house feels so very cold. They’re going to show me the most cost-effective ways to make my house warmer.

Top of the list? Finding the tiny gaps and cracks in my home, and plugging them.

Check out what happened when Guardian Australia’s Christopher Knaus invited a team of architects into his home to find out why it felt so frosty.

The July 2022 flood breaks a record with around 715GL a day – nearly 1.5 times the size of Sydney Harbour on an average day – heading downstream towards Richmond and Windsor.

It’s also nearly three times the amount that flows over the Niagara Falls in a day.

Here are the latest coronavirus numbers from around Australia today, as the country records at least 30 deaths from Covid-19 for a national total of 10,014.

The figure means Australia has passed a grim milestone as new subvariants are placing considerable pressure on the nation’s health system.

ACT

• Deaths: 0
• Cases: 1,031
• In hospital: 130 (with 4 people in ICU)

NSW

• Deaths: 2
• Cases: 8,864
• In hospital: 1,657 (with 43 people in ICU)

Northern Territory

• Deaths: 0
• Cases: 256
• In hospital: 20 (with 1 person in ICU)

Queensland

• Deaths: 0
• Cases: 3,971
• In hospital: 630 (with 18 people in ICU)

South Australia

• Deaths: 6
• Cases: 2,413
• In hospital: 226 (with 8 people in ICU)

Tasmania

• Deaths: 0
• Cases: 1,062
• In hospital: 53 (with 3 people in ICU)

Victoria

• Deaths: 22
• Cases: 8,368
• In hospital: 476 (with 20 people in ICU)

Western Australia

• Deaths: 0
• Cases: 4,390
• In hospital: 223 (with 9 people in ICU)

Bureau of Meteorology says flows in the Hawkesbury River at North Richmond may be higher than any flood recorded in the last two years.

Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, says the government is committed to the “highest” nuclear non-proliferation standards when it comes to securing new nuclear submarines.

Her comments come ahead of her visit with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday.

Part of the talks between Wong and the IAEA’s director general, Rafael Grossi, will focus on Australia’s approach to acquiring the non-nuclear armed but nuclear-powered submarines.

“We are committed to the highest possible non-proliferation standard,” she said on Sunday.

Australia has been a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty for more than 50 years.

This has been put at odds with a decision under the previous Morrison government to replace Australia’s ageing diesel-powered submarine fleet with nuclear ones.

The first of these new submarines are unlikely to be online until the late-2030s to early-2040s, forcing upgrades to the outdated Collins-class fleet.

The acting prime minister and defence minister, Richard Marles, hoped to have the new nuclear fleet online soon but has previously floated the 2040 likelihood.

“I’ll be doing everything we can to try and get an earlier result,” he told Sky News on Sunday.

Whenever we can get those submarines, in whatever year that is, whatever potential capability gap that opens up, we will seek to have a solution for that.

– AAP.

Incredible flow rates being recorded in the upper Nepean.

New updates from NSW authorities:

A Melbourne council has voted to change its name to an Indigenous word, cutting ties with an 18th century Jamaican slave estate.

Councillors voted in a special meeting on Sunday to change Moreland City Council in Melbourne’s inner north to Merri-bek, meaning “rocky country”. The name was among three put forward by Wurundjeri elders, and supported by 59% of more than 6,300 ratepayers who filled out a survey.

The member for Brunswick, Tim Read, posted on Twitter that the council had voted to become Merri-Bek City Council, seven to three.

The vote represented a momentous day of celebration, reconciliation, and healing for the community, councillor Annalivia Carli Hannan said.

“Merri-bek has clear support from the community, and we hope to start formally implementing the name later this year, once it is approved by the minister for local government.”

The number of people who chose Merri-bek was significant and reflected a spread of postcodes and demographics, Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation’s deputy chair, Uncle Andrew Gardiner, said.

“We thank the people for their responses and we are proud to walk with them with their new council name that reflects the vision of ‘one community, proudly diverse’, and a council that backs up its statement of commitment with action and respect.”

Following the vote, the new name will be submitted to the newly appointed local government minister, Melissa Horne, for consideration, with final approval at the discretion of Victoria’s governor, Linda Dessau.

Jerrang, meaning ‘”leaf of tree”, and Wa-dum-buk, meaning “renew”, were the other two name options, garnering 22% and 13% of the vote respectively.

The council last year voted to start consultation with traditional owners and the community on changing its name after discovering it came from land between Moonee Ponds Creek to Sydney Road that Farquhar McCrae acquired in 1839.

He named the area Moreland after a Jamaican slave plantation his father and grandfather operated from 1770 to 1796, which produced sugar and rum and traded slaves, with 500 to 700 enslaved people there in any one year.

It is expected the council will start changing its name on digital materials and major signage later in 2022.

– from AAP.