Health News at Your Fingertips

And with that, we will close the blog for the day. Here’s what happened today:

• The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced that former PM Scott Morrison had appointed himself to five additional ministries, including Treasury and home affairs. The PM is expecting legal advice on the matter by Monday.

• Morrison issued a lengthy statement on his Facebook page, apologising to colleagues, and saying he “had not recollected these arrangements” until today and added that the appointments were in the “national interest”.

• The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, called for “cooler heads to prevail” and did not call for Morrison to resign.

• Former treasurer Josh Frydenberg was reportedly never informed by Morrison that the former PM had himself sworn in as treasurer.

• Past and present MPs criticised Morrison for the move, including Zali Steggall, Bridget McKenzie, Karen Andrews, Pauline Hanson, Bridget Archer, and Malcolm Turnbull.

• The NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet, said the recruitment process that gave John Barilaro a NY trade job was ‘flawed from the outset’, and announced changes to the Government Sector Employment Act.

• Indigenous people will be able to give evidence about injustices committed against them in Queensland as part of the plans to sign a treaty with the state’s First Nations people.

• A petition signed by more than 65,000 Victorians to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 was been handed to crossbench MP Fiona Patten.

• The Bureau of Meteorology has issued an alert saying there is a 70% chance of a La Niña being declared later this year.

• Victorians who have tested positive to Covid will be able to vote over the phone in the November election.

• Across the country today, 73 people died from Covid.

SA confirms second case of monkeypox

South Australia has recorded its second case of monkeypox, SA Health have confirmed.

The man, who recently returned from overseas, is currently isolating at home, with two close contacts identified and receiving advice, SA Health said in a statement.

There is no risk to public health.

SA Health continues to test people with illnesses compatible with MPX as needed.

Lack of transparency around Morrison’s secret ministerial portfolios ‘unacceptable’, says Bridget Archer

Earlier this afternoon, Liberal MP Bridget Archer was on ABC News, and said measures need to be introduced to prevent a future PM from taking on portfolios in secret.

I know the prime minister has said he will be doing some further inquiries into this matter, but certainly on the face of it, it’s unacceptable, particularly around the lack of transparency involved with this.

I’ve spoken a lot about integrity obviously in the last 12 months, and this is the type of thing that is a good example, where the public needs to have trust and confidence in their elected officials and it requires a level of transparency that I don’t think we have seen in regard to this matter, both in relation to Mr Morrison and his conduct himself, but [also] broadly around, what happens to stop this situation from occurring in the future? Which I think is an important consideration.

I don’t know that other Australians understand this is something that could occur in this way, so there is a wider conversation as well.

Malcolm Turnbull: ‘What worries me most’ about Morrison’s secret ministerial appointments is that nobody stopped him

Former PM Malcolm Turnbull has called Scott Morrison’s secret ministerial portfolios “profoundly wrong”.

Turnbull, who was talking to ABC Radio in Melbourne, added that what “really, deeply” troubled him was that no one stopped Morrison:

What really, deeply troubles me is that there are other people in the system who clearly thought it was okay.

The governor general is not just a rubber stamp. They have a constitution to uphold.

There is something profoundly wrong that someone didn’t stand up and say, ‘stop it ScoMo, this is bonkers’, and that’s what worries me the most.

Peter Hannam

What is driving the 70% chance of a third La Niña in three years?

As noted in an earlier post, the Bureau of Meteorology has lifted its Pacific climate driver monitor to “alert” levels for another La Niña. Conditions now and forecast place the chance of a third La Niña in as many years as a 70% chance.

There are a couple of things of note from the fortnightly update of climate drivers from BoM … one related to what’s going on in the Indian Ocean.

Negative IODs, or Indian Ocean dipoles, typically mean more moisture than usual streaming across the continent in the form of north-west cloud bands, lifting rainfall in late winter and through spring in south-eastern Australia.

The Pacific, meanwhile, typically is more influential for eastern Australia from spring into summer, and another La Niña (or even a near-La Niña) would elevate the chance of above-average rainfall.

Given the full dams and saturated catchments, above-average rainfall likely means more flooding, hence the warnings from the Queensland government this week.

Authorities made similar warnings last year ahead of the second La Niña, but whether that made sufficient difference (in NSW at least) will likely be known when the NSW floods inquiry report is released.

One other note from the BoM update today. The Southern Annual Mode, the other influence (from the Southern Ocean) on Australia’s climate is forecast to be in its positive phase for the next month or so. (Forecasting is limited.)

As BoM says: “A positive SAM has a drying influence for parts of south-west and south-east Australia at this time of year, but increases the likelihood of rainfall in eastern NSW, far eastern Victoria, and parts of southern Queensland.”

Guess that means western Victoria and western Tasmania will stay relatively dry, for the next few weeks at least.

Scott Morrison’s decision to block gas exploration project under scrutiny

Another element to the fallout from Scott Morrison taking on a series of ministerial portfolios in secret surrounds the rejection of a gas exploration project off the coast of NSW.

Asset Energy was behind that project, and its executive director, David Breeze, refused to comment to the ABC on the matter, saying it was before the courts, but said he believed the decision was made “contrary to administrative law”.

I’m not really in a position to comment on the case format itself because of that matter. I know that Mr Albanese has made similar commentary, but essentially, we believe that the way in which the decision was made was contrary to administrative law.

So, the bias that we are alleging is consistent with the administrative law precedent in this type of case, where the person who was a decision-maker has to, in fact, follow certain process – and beyond that, I can’t comment.

Here are the latest coronavirus numbers from around Australia today, as the country records at least 73 deaths from Covid-19:

ACT

NSW

Northern Territory

Queensland

South Australia

Tasmania

Victoria

Western Australia

Gillian Helfgott, astrologer and wife of pianist David Helfgott, dies aged 90

The family of Gillian Helfgott, wife of Shine pianist David Helfgott, have announced she has died after a short illness.

The 90-year-old astrologer, who was also the mother of filmmakers Sue and Scott Murray, was described as an “incandescent force in diverse areas of life” by her family:

A renowned astrologer, she met David in Perth in 1983 and dedicated the rest of her life to seeing his triumphant return to the concert stage after years in obscurity and incarceration in a mental institution.

The Oscar-winning film Shine and Gillian’s New York Times best-selling autobiography, Love You to Bits and Pieces: Life with David Helfgott, brought their story to the world.

Gillian lived with David in idyllic countryside outside Bellingen, NSW, where she was an irrepressible force, helping the annual Camp Creative festival find local and international success, while also proudly supporting and promoting the 80-strong Bellingen Youth Orchestra.

A vivacious, social and passionate woman, Gillian will be long remembered and treasured.

Morrison’s resignation from parliament would be ‘appropriate’, Karen Andrews says

Andrews reiterated her calls for Morrison to resign, telling the ABC’s Andrew Probyn that the former PM’s actions “reflect incredibly badly” on the former government:

I’ve made my views clear that based on what we know so far and the fact that there was available secrecy, then it would be appropriate in my view for Scott Morrison to resign and to leave parliament.

I think this reflects incredibly badly on the government of the time and that’s unfortunate given that most, if not all, cabinet ministers were completely unaware that this action was being taken.

And I think it has diminished Scott Morrison as prime minister and it has diminished the cabinet.

Karen Andrews says her role in election day boat arrival announcement extended to issuing of ‘apolitical statement’

Andrews was next asked about the boat arrival announced on election day, and if that is now a more complicated issue knowing Scott Morrison held the home affairs portfolio as well.

Andrews says she had no role in the “politicisation” of the arrival, adding her role was only that a statement was requested:

Well, there were clearly two parts to what happened on election day. One was the issuing of an apolitical statement to say that a boat had been intercepted.

The second part of what happened as a result of that was the politicisation of that boat interception.

So I had no involvement in the second part of that, in the terms of the politicisation, my role was in the request for an issue of statement that was to be very factually based, just to say that a boat had been intercepted.

Former home affairs minister says ‘there were certainly no discussions with me’ about Morrison’s appointments

Former home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, appears incensed that she was sharing her portfolio with the former PM, and said his actions were “unacceptable”.

Andrews was on ABC’s Afternoon Briefing, and said one minister at least should have been made aware of the appointments:

The issue really is that he swore himself into these portfolios, there seems to be no discussion with any cabinet ministers but I may well be surprised to find that there were some discussions. There were certainly no discussions with me, and that is where I think that the secrecy surrounding the swearing in of Scott Morrison to those portfolios is unacceptable.

I think any minister who had someone else sworn into their portfolio … should have been consulted about that, at the very least advised prior to it happening; but in the case of home affairs, I did not know it was even being contemplated, let alone that it had happened.