Health News at Your Fingertips

Josh Butler has herded a lot of cats today to bring you this campaign briefing:

And Anthony Albanese dons the hi-vis:

A couple of pics from Scott Morrison’s swift visit to Adelaide this morning from AAP:

NSW treasurer Matt Kean is on Sky News trying to discuss nuanced issues about transgender people with Chris Kenny. Yikes.

Kean called for Liberal Warringah candidate Katherine Deves to be disendorsed and Kenny … doesn’t agree.

(PS: apologies, I prematurely published this just before!)

Need a quick refresher before tonight’s leaders’ debate? Jane Lee and Sarah Martin have your back with the Campaign catchup:

Is my maths right? This would mean about six in 10 tests in the past 24 hours came back positive (the rate was about half that yesterday):

For some essential reading before the debate, Paul Karp’s latest fact check is out.

Labor is warning that a return of the Coalition’s omnibus industrial relations bill will mean changes to the better off overall test, allowing pay cuts.

Scott Morrison has dismissed this as “another scare campaign” following on from Labor’s claims about aged pensioners being put on the cashless debit card.

Read the verdict here:

Kate Palmer, the former CEO of the Australian Sports Commission, is on the ABC talking to Fran Kelly.

Palmer says that since guidelines on the inclusion of transgender and gender diverse people in sport were released in 2019, it has been heartening to receive messages from trans women saying thank you, and providing examples of welcoming sports communities – often in Australia’s regions.

Asked “how big an issue” the inclusion of transgender people in sport is, Palmer replies “it’s not at the top of our list” and says language used in the public sphere hasn’t been appropriate.

There are many more critical issues to deal with and it puts sport in a really difficult position because sport is doing a terrific job of including people in their organisations … This is putting them off track, so for me, it’s not an issue that they need to deal with critically.

Palmer says she intends to focus on what matters for women in sport – which means “more investment, more infrastructure, equal opportunity”.

In case you missed it earlier, here was deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce’s contribution to the discussion. He said:

Solomon Islands is a sovereign nation. They’ve decided to have a pact with China, dual purpose, which means China is able, if they follow through, to set up a military base there.

That will be, absolutely, that’s a very bad day for Australia.

We don’t want our own little Cuba off our coast.

Asked about those comments, Seselja says: “We are a long way from that,” before making it about the opposition:

We have an opposition who make claims that are false, [that are] for their own political ends.

Pacific minister Zed Seselja is on the ABC, talking to Greg Jennett.

Jennett asks if there’s any plan to send foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, to Solomon Islands after they signed that security agreement with China (Labor has criticised her for not going, and for Seselja going in her place). He says that’s not the fundamental issue:

“The fundamental issue is how we can continue to engage at every level with the Solomon Islands government.

We have a disagreement on this, as friends and a Pacific family [we] will continue to express that. We will ask for the Solomon Islands government [that] they be transparent about what is in the agreement.

That’s very important going forward [that] the entire region can see what it is, because we’ve had assurances which I think are good assurances in relation to the fact that there will never be bases and Australia will continue to be the first port of call and security partner of choice.”

Catch up on the back story here:

OK, just one more on the dog theme. But this is First Dog, and he is such a good boy:

The video of today’s hot air balloon crash is quite wild and comes with a profanity warning. The whole story is quite a gas, really. Caitlin Cassidy and AAP here:

And now for some very different dog content. Khaled Al Khawaldeh reports on treasurer Josh Frydenberg pulling those election ads: