Health News at Your Fingertips

I am so, so sorry Sydney.

Queensland is following Victoria and closing its borders to much of greater Sydney.

Annastacia Palaszczuk:

So we already closed to the Waverley Council area, but from 1:00am tomorrow, in line with the restrictions announced by Victoria, Queensland will close to the following local government areas. They are: The City of Sydney, Woolhara, Bayside, Canada Bay, Inner West and Randwick.

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk confirms Queensland has had a hotel quarantine leak:

Now, the other thing we’ve detected overnight as well is that we had some spread of the Delta variant in a hotel. It’s the Novotel hotel so we’re making sure that we look at that floor closely, and once again, we just think that it is a case of people opening the doors.

The AFP canine team is headed to Parliament House this morning for a bit of soft PR.

They might be cute, but they’re still narcs.

Is Labor divided on climate policy?

Jim Chalmers:

We agree 100% that this country needs to get to net-zero emissions by mid-century. We’ve said that for some time now. As have all the states and territories, the peak business groups, a lot of the countries with which we compare ourselves.

We don’t want to see action on climate change and the jobs which will flow from cheaper and cleaner energy held hostage to more political games between the Nationals and the Liberals.

We are still waiting on the NSW numbers to be released – that should be very soon.

In the meantime, in case you missed it, here are the new venues of concern

Over on the Nine Network, David Littleproud was pretending everything was fine:

Q: Did you manage to wash the blood off your hands before parliament yesterday?

Littleproud: Look, it was a traumatic day but democracy has made its call. Now we have to just get on with the job and win the next election under Barnaby.

Q: Who’d you vote for?

Littleproud: Look, I’ve been consistent. I don’t get into these games or finger-pointing exercises after the event. My comments – my public comments – have been very consistent and my actions align with that.

Q: OK. How’d you manage to hold on to that job then?

Littleproud: Well, anyone can contest me.

Host: [Laughs]

Littleproud: But obviously they didn’t feel they had the numbers.

Host: [Laughs]

Littleproud: The only, the first rule of politics is if you’ve got the numbers, you use them. So, I was happy to be contested. If that was what the party room decided, then that can happen at any point.

Josh Burns was sent out with Labor’s lines this morning.

Asked how he thought the Coalition was going, he said:

I think they are a mess to be honest. I can’t remember a government being as shambolic as they are. They spent, in the middle of a national crisis, in the middle of New South Wales dealing with this really infectious strain of virus, the only thing that this government’s done is stabbed the deputy prime minister in the back. It’s shambolic, Australians deserve better, and instead of dealing with the issues that face Australians this government is leaving us increasingly isolated, and they want to drag us back to the 1950s.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise – to anyone. This has been on the cards (officially) since 2012. There have been multiple warnings. Promises have been broken, commitments have not been kept. The Great Barrier Reef is not getting better.

And in that same decade, Australia has not done anything on climate. There has been no concrete policy for a decade. Despite the spin, not a lot is going to happen on emissions unless there is actual action.

I was a journalist in Queensland for years, and covered when the Queensland government and Coalition federal government co-operated to travel to France and stop the reef from being listed as ‘in danger’ during the Paris climate talks in 2016. In the years since, NOTHING has changed.

There is no way anyone could have been ‘blindsided’ by this. Unless, of course, you have been wilfully blind. But then that is something else entirely, isn’t it.

Graham Readfearn has spoken to Dr Fanny Douvere, of Unesco’s World Heritage Centre in Paris, about the draft decision to list the reef as “in danger”.

The “in danger” recommendation was made on science-based reports from Australia, including from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and official government reports on water quality, the senior Unesco official said.

“This decision is not a surprise to anyone. We have been working constructively [with Australia] for a decade. There has been bleaching in 2016, 2017 and 2020.

“All the information points in the same direction, that the reef is deteriorating and the outlook has gone from poor to very poor.”

Our New Zealand correspondent, Tess McClure, has an update on the NZ Covid situation.

New Zealand is racing to track the in-country movements of a tourist with Covid-19 who tested positive on their return to Australia, with the possibility of a lockdown of the capital, Wellington, not ruled out.

The traveller spent a weekend visiting Wellington from Sydney, and visited a number of sites around the city, including popular tourism spot Te Papa, the national museum. At this stage, it is assumed they caught coronavirus in Sydney before travelling.

Four close contacts have already been identified and are isolating, the ministry of health said.

New Zealand officials have released an initial list of six locations of interest in Wellington, and those who have visited them at the listed times are being told to get tested and self-isolate. So far they include a pub, a pharmacy, a hotel, and the museum, all in the inner city.

David Littleproud also told ABC radio RN:

We shouldn’t close our minds to the technologies that can reduce emissions, that can keep coalmines going here in Australia and around the world, and continue to invest in that technology.

This is one of the biggest furphies the government is pushing – because no one is saying that we should ignore the technology – it’s that, in many cases, the technology doesn’t exist. And it is the market which is making the decision on coalmines. It’s pulling out. All over the world. Banks and investment firms aren’t turning away from coal from the goodness of their hearts or because they have developed a social conscience – it’s because it doesn’t make financial sense.

David Littleproud:

If there is to be any move towards it then farmers should be part of the solution and they shouldn’t be penalised like they have been in the past where they have footed the bill for the country’s social conscience and we just simply say that it’s time to square the ledger.

This ignores that the agriculture industry is already doing things. A lot of work actually. And has supported net zero for some time.

The problem for the Nationals is that the leadership change was essentially on net zero 2050 – there are enough Nats in the party room who don’t want it, didn’t think Michael McCormack was pushing back enough, and Barnaby Joyce seized his chance.

But that only matters before the election (all of this is about the election). After the election, it won’t be as much of an issue (that’s my prediction anyway).

The issue for the government (and the country), though, is the Glasgow climate conference is in November. Which, on current indications, is before the election. And where the world is expecting Australia to do something. And if we don’t, well, that could mean other issues like tariffs.

So this has some way to play out, but the lines are being very strongly drawn.

Nationals deputy leader David Littleproud is on ABC radio RN trying to explain how things are being done on climate change, while also explaining why agriculture needs to be excluded (which is not a new position).

But that is still not enough to get the Nats across the line. So we are at a stalemate.

Happy Wednesday, everyone. We’ve made it halfway through the last sitting week before the winter break.

It’ll be another Barnaby day in the parliament as Labor continues to sideline the prime minister from question time and everything else the opposition can manage. Late last night, Labor and the Greens took advantage of a no-show by Pauline Hanson to disallow changes to the Arena renewable energy fund that would have opened it up to funding fossil fuel projects (like gas).

It’s a blow to the government’s “energy plan’ and won’t help ongoing tensions between the Nationals and the Liberals over climate and energy, including net zero by 2050. The whole reason Joyce is back is because the Nats didn’t believe Michael McCormack was bolshie enough on the topic, so Joyce has come out all guns blazing. Asked about jobs in question time yesterday, the deputy prime minister mainly spoke about coalmining jobs. That’s a very, very small percentage of the Australian workforce, but they’ve become among the most important jobs in the country. Just for political reasons.

Meanwhile, the pandemic continues, with Victoria declaring large parts of NSW “red zones” and effectively shutting the border, while New Zealand has temporarily shut down the travel bubble after a person with Covid flew from Sydney to Wellington.

There is no “normal” with this. Lives are being disrupted and the inability to plan, or the constant dread that comes with those still making plans, is leaving a lot of people on edge. Australia’s vaccination schedule can’t increase until it gets more mRNA vaccines and that’s not happening until at least the spring. The head of the roll-out has admitted that concerns over supply is the reason there is no vaccination campaign. The states can’t increase their side of the roll-out without knowing they have enough for second doses. As NSW deals with the latest outbreak, tensions are increasing, but there are no real answers. National cabinet can meet all it likes, but without increased vaccination supply, Australia can’t move forward.

We’ll cover all of the day’s political and Covid news for you as it happens. You’ve got Mike Bowers out and about for you, and Katharine Murphy, Paul Karp, Sarah Martin and Daniel Hurst in Canberra, hitting the phones and hallways. Amy Remeikis is with you on the blog.

It’s a three-coffee morning. At least.

Ready?