Health News at Your Fingertips

Tasmania has launched an audacious bid to host or co-host the 2026 Commonwealth Games, but some have labelled the move pointless, reports AAP.

Liberal premier Peter Gutwein has written to Commonwealth Games Australia chief executive Craig Phillips and formally requested the island state be considered as a host for the sporting event.

Tasmania recently hosted the fifth men’s Ashes cricket Test and was given two elimination AFL finals last season due to mainland Covid-19 restrictions.

Jane Howlett, Tasmanian sport minister, said:

Our government is committed to delivering more elite sporting content for Tasmanians to enjoy and, importantly, provide pathways for local sports men, women and children.

We are confident that we can work collaboratively with Commonwealth Games Australia on the opportunities Tasmania presents as either a host or co-host of the 2026 Commonwealth Games.”

The 2022 games will be held in Birmingham. The English city was originally scheduled to host the event in 2026 but it was brought forward when Durban in South Africa was stripped of hosting rights.

Howlett said Tasmania has “clearly demonstrated” an ability to deliver elite sporting content.

The Labor opposition, however, is not on board.

Labor MP Shane Broad said:

This is a pointless plan with absolutely no ability to deliver, and any money spent on a bid would be money wasted,

Peter Gutwein, in writing to the Commonwealth Games CEO, has not even thought through the most basic details like where would we accommodate thousands of athletes and spectators?

Where could he possibly hold an opening and closing ceremony of any size?”

Gutwein has pushed hard in recent years for Tasmania’s inclusion in the AFL but concerns have been raised about the state’s smaller facilities. Blundstone Arena in Hobart has a capacity of 19,500, while University of Tasmania Stadium in Launceston in the state’s north can hold up to roughly 20,000 people.

A traditional Chinese herbalist warned a diabetic woman off “western medication” and allayed her family’s concerns about her decline before she collapsed and died, a New South Wales judge has been told.

Prosecutors accuse Sydney practitioner Yun Sen Luo of unlawfully killing a 56-year-old woman who’d approached him about a skin condition in 2018.

After allegedly learning she was diabetic, Luo is accused of advising her western doctors had an incorrect perception of diabetes, that she could eat whatever fruits she liked and that prior use of western medications had caused toxins to form inside her body.

“[His] final direction, that she stop taking western medication and start taking herbal medications prescribed by him, set in train a series of events that led to her death,” crown prosecutor Emma Blizard told the Sydney district court on Thursday.

Less than a fortnight after her first appointment with Luo – and after days of her daughter reporting increasingly worsening symptoms – the woman died on 8 June 2018.

Luo, who turns 56 this month and is from Baulkham Hills, has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter by gross criminal negligence.

Channel 10 and the Australian are reporting that Scott Morrison was rolled by his own cabinet, after presenting them with a plan to save his religious discrimination bill by also putting a national integrity commission bill back on the agenda.

Liberal senator Eric Abetz has denied that his government’s inability to pass its religious discrimination bill amounts to “capitulation”.

Abetz, appearing on ABC TV’s Afternoon Briefing, went on to blame the Labor Party and the amendments it sought for halting the bill:

Abetz said:

When same-sex marriage went through, one of the quid pro quo statements made by both parties was that religious freedom would be guaranteed by legislation. Indeed the then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, said he believed in same-sex marriage just as much as religious freedom. And yesterday the Labor Party were put to the test to deliver on that and unfortunately they failed.

Sure, there were some of my colleagues that crossed the floor but if Labor would have stuck to their basic policy in this regard, it would have flown through the House of Representatives without the amendments that have now made it untenable.

Asked if he thought that voters would interpret the lack of progress on the bill as weakness in the Coalition and Scott Morrison’s leadership, Abetz said:

What people will see is the weakness of the Labor Party in having promised religious freedom legislation, that on block they voted for amendments [for] knowing that it would be untenable. So this was a wonderful screen for them to try to say, ‘we support it’, but then deliberately vote for amendments knowing that will then derail the legislation.

Abetz concedes “it would be highly unlikely, in fairness” for the religious discrimination bill to progress before the next election.

Thanks to Tory Shepherd for steering us through not just today but the entirety of an eventful sitting week.

I’ll be bringing you news developments for the rest of the day. Buckle up.

That’s this Stobie pole done for today. (I learned today from Mike Bowers that this is a term of endearment for South Australians).

I’ll hand you over to Elias Visontay, and I hope the rest of your day is way more gazpacho than Gestapo.

Until next week!

There have been seven Covid deaths in South Australia, and 1,639 new cases. SA premier Steven Marshall has announced the relaxing of some restrictions, including density caps at hospitality venues and home gatherings.

Western Australia has recorded 37 community cases, its highest daily number of local cases to date. Another 102 cases were travel-related.

Still in the house, independent MP Zali Steggall has raised concerns about the long sitting hours. Greens leader Adam Bandt is rejecting the earlier comments that Labor’s climate policies are identical to his party’s, and outlining the differences.

And that’s Question Time done for today, and the week. Prime minister Scott Morrison and Labor leader Anthony Albanese have thanked all the staff who had to stick around for that all-night sitting.

Albanese has gone on to talk to the speaker about those Dutton comments, and the report on his comments three decades ago.