Health News at Your Fingertips

Following a whopper meeting, the member for Maranoa David Littleproud has been elected the new leader of the Nationals party, defeating Barnaby Joyce and Darren Chester.

Senator Perin Davey from New South Wales will be the deputy leader.

Mark Coulton made the announcement, informing reporters the newly elected leaders would address the media presently.

There was three people [contending] for the leader and three for the deputy. But apart from that, I have no further comment. I’ll leave it at that. You can ask the leaders on that. OK?

Asked whether there was a lot of disagreement, he replied:

The National party room likes to be thorough how they deal with these things. Thank you.

Labor leading election count in Gilmore by 142 votes

The AEC is counting a large number of prepoll votes today with three seats still in contention. They’re trending in favour of Labor in the seat of Gilmore, where Fiona Phillips now leads over Andrew Constance by 142 votes.

This can only be a great sign.

South Australia SES responding to hundreds of calls after Salisbury hit by small tornado

The South Australian State Emergency Service has responded to more than 200 jobs today after a small tornado hit Salisbury, north of Adelaide, this morning, bringing down powerlines and trees and damaging houses.

More than 70 volunteers are currently responding to about 150 jobs in the Salisbury area alone.

Robert Charlton, SASES state duty officer, urged the public to be patient as volunteers responded to the large number of callouts.

Due to the amount of fallen trees, power lines and other debris on roads our access is currently being hampered.

Western Australia’s premier has provided the state’s Covid update.

There have been 6,649 new cases detected to 8pm last night and four deaths reported to the state department.

There are 317 people being treated in hospital with the virus including 10 people in ICU.

May not be the time to make anecdotal comparisons of Peter Dutton to characters in magical children’s books.

The new leader of the Liberal party is given some sage advice from Karen Andrews.

Former prime minister Scott Morrison is speaking now. He congratulates Peter Dutton and Sussan Ley on their new positions.

They are incredibly experienced, well versed, are deeply committed Australians to both the Liberal cause and the cause of the nation and I think they’ll do an outstanding job and I look forward to giving them all of my full support. It was a good opportunity for me to thank my colleagues for their great loyalty and support over these past more than three-and-a-half years.

He also says the party was saddened Josh Frydenberg “couldn’t be with us” (because he lost his seat).

… to do that both on my behalf and on behalf of my dear friend, Josh Frydenberg, we are all very sad he couldn’t be with us today and there was a rousing cheer for Josh as there should be.

So to him and all the Liberal party supporters out there, thank you very much. It’s been a great privilege to lead the Liberal party and I hand over to Peter and Susan and wish them all the very best.

“We’ve been looking at this empty corridor for quite some time now,” an ABC presenter says, as we continue to wait for news from the Nationals camp.

SA police releasing images of suspect in theft of car with four-month-old child inside

The police spokesperson said to describe the event as “despicable” was an understatement.

You imagine from any parent’s point of view, it’s more than distressing that a child would be taken under any circumstances.

It’s a great relief to South Australia police to reunite mum and child and … you can imagine the distress that caused mum. As a result, we have released images of a suspect. Police are still actively looking for the male and we appeal to the public for anybody that may have seen this Honda Jazz.

SA police still ‘actively looking’ for suspect after locating stolen car with four-month-old child inside

Police in South Australia are providing an update on the stolen vehicle, which has been located with the four-month-old baby.

Through a large number of resources into that area … sometime later at 10.09 this morning, police located the vehicle at Wilkinson Avenue at Enfield and thankfully seated in the rear was the child.

Ambulance and police attended the scene, and the baby will be returned “safe and well” to its mother, police say. Police are still “actively looking” for the male suspect.

At this stage, the baby hasn’t gone to hospital but will be checked by a doctor, police say.

Peter Dutton has been elected unopposed as the next leader of the Liberal party, with former environment minister Sussan Ley to be his deputy.

The Nationals meeting continues.

Bert Van Manen made the announcement, thanking the former PM for his leadership.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Scott Morrison, the outgoing leader, for his service and his leadership of our party over the past 3.5 years and Josh Frydenberg as the outgoing deputy, sadly Josh couldn’t be here given the result in Kooyong but he has provided tremendous service to the party as the deputy leader and treasurer over the past 3.5 years so thank you very much.

News outlets are reporting the four-month-old baby who was in the backseat of a car stolen this morning has been found.

South Australian police are about to confirm these reports in a press conference.

Peter Dutton and Sussan Ley arrive at Liberal party room

Meanwhile, the soon-to-be-opposition leader, Peter Dutton, and deputy, Sussan Ley, enter the party room together.

Scott Morrison arrives at Parliament House, unsurprisingly not busting for a chat, then circling back for round two.

Queensland Health has released today’s Covid update.

There have been 2,872 new Covid cases reported and one further death.

There are 365 people being treated in hospital with the virus including four people in ICU.

AGL share price drops after demerger proposal withdrawn

AGL’s shares are down more than 3% in early trade as investors absorb Mike Cannon-Brookes’s success in derailing the energy company’s plan to split.

The stock fell in early trading on Monday, losing 3.6% or 32 cents, to drop to $8.56. That fall compared with a gain of about 1% in the overall market so far.

AGL’s ditching of the plan to carve the $6bn company (by market value) into a retailing arm, with some 4.5m customers, and a generating arm, comes just four weeks after MCB (as he’s known) launched a raid that netted him an 11.28% stake in one of Australia’s oldest companies.

The Albanese government is yet to comment on AGL pulling the pin, as we noted here earlier. Chris Bowen, who is very likely to be the incoming energy and climate minister, won’t be sworn in until Wednesday and won’t get his full briefings under way until Thursday.

One person to keep an eye on is former AGL chief executive Andy Vesey, who developed a more aggressive decarbonisation plan for the company.

The Turnbull government, though, wasn’t too keen on the timing of the closure of the Liddell coal-fired power plant in the Hunter region of NSW, and spoke out publicly against the plan to shut it in 2022.

In the end, it was Vesey who was shut down, and the Liddell closure date pushed back until April 2023, handily just one month after the NSW state elections. At time of the feds v AGL fight in late 2017, then environment and energy minister (in that order) Josh Frydenberg was reported as intervening in person to get Vesey out.

There might be some irony (or even schadenfreude) if Vesey were to return in some role, with Frydenberg recently turfed out of his previously safe Liberal seat of Kooyong.

*To the tune of George Baker Selection’s Little Green Bag*

Nationals must revisit key issues such as gender equality, Michelle Landry says

As we wait for updates on the leadership spill, Nationals MP Michelle Landry earlier told reporters the party needed to look at the election results “very carefully” and revisit its position on “key areas of policy” including gender equality.

You can’t have people running off with different agendas, we all need to be on the same message, the same page.