Health News at Your Fingertips

Barnaby Joyce launched his New England election campaign in safe territory – Armidale – on Sunday.

He’s still there, where he’s being questioned by reporters about government appointments and choices:

Gina Liano, who I think is the queen of Melbourne, features in Labor’s latest social media ad.

Western Australia appears to be reporting no Covid deaths:

WA Health is reporting a total of 5,847 new cases to 8pm last night. There are currently 43,524 active cases in Western Australia.

To 8pm last night, there were 240 people with COVID-19 in hospital, 6 in ICU.

Total case breakdown:

Region Active (new to 8pm last night)
Metropolitan 35,141 (4,640)
Goldfields 712 (84)
Great Southern 647 (88)
Kimberley 599 (82)
Midwest 673 (114)
Pilbara 696 (87)
South West 3,046 (452)
Wheatbelt 597 (72)

Very envious of Murph and Mike Bowers who are in the Greatest Nation on Earth today as they follow Anthony Albanese around for a little bit:

Sarah Martin also saw quite a bit of the Greatest Nation on Earth while following Scott Morrison – her profile of his campaign is very revealing:

Adam Morton

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, is in Hobart, promising to push for a ban on offshore drilling in Bass Strait if the minor party is in a balance of power position after 21 May.

Bandt released a parliamentary budget office assessment that suggests extracting and burning all gas in a proposed development off the coast of King Island, between Tasmania and Victoria, could release 545m tonnes of carbon dioxide – more than Australia emits in a year.

The parliamentary office calculation of the scale of the proposal by US energy giant ConocoPhillips and Australian company 3D Oil includes several caveats but is based on data released by the companies.

Bandt said it showed the development was a “potential carbon bomb”.

He said polling showed King Islanders opposed the development and he has called on all parties to commit to blocking it. He compared it to the Pep11 gas exploration proposal off Sydney’s northern beaches that was blocked by the Morrison government. Labor supported the decision:

Australia is proudly girt by sea, but our oceans are being treated like tips and quarries as well as being heated by the burning of coal and gas.

Labor and Liberal need to commit to stopping this dangerous project and, like with Pep11, they need to pledge this prior to the election so Tasmanians know where they stand.

Josh Frydenberg has also faced this.

There is no excuse for these sorts of attacks.

In a statement, Kim Rubenstein said:

I’ve got a pretty thick skin and was warned this could happen. But I’m writing this as a reminder that we must be vigilant against any behaviour that seeks to vilify people for their religion, race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality.

I will always defend freedom of speech and people’s right to their own opinion. But free speech can’t be a free pass for hatred. And with that freedom comes a responsibility to do so peacefully and respectfully.

We can disagree without harming or belittling each other, and we can have our say without racist, bigoted attacks.

We should also be able to make our points without resorting to misinformation and misleading political advertising – something we’ve seen far too much of already this election campaign.

Our multicultural democracy is only as strong as its defenders – its citizens. It is precious, but it is also fragile – and we should never take it for granted.

Offsets are working out just wonderfully.

As Lisa Cox reports:

An area of heritage-listed bushland that formed part of the environmental offset for the western Sydney airport has been bulldozed for a car park at a new defence facility.

The clearing was revealed in an independent audit of the federal government’s progress in delivering the offsets required to compensate for the destruction of endangered habitat for the new travel hub in Badgerys Creek.

The main offset for the clearing of critically endangered Cumberland plain woodland is about 900ha of bushland at a defence site in the suburb of Orchard Hills.

The Greens are looking likely to have the balance of power in the next parliament. They didn’t announce their cannabis policy on 4/20 which seemed a missed opportunity, but the legalise-it push is getting stronger.

Via AAP:

The Australian Greens are promising to reform cannabis laws and push for a ban on new fossil fuel projects in Bass Strait if the minor party secures the balance of power at the federal election.

Cannabis laws needed reform after decades of punitive policy at the state and federal levels, the federal party said on Monday.

“Much of the rest of the world has moved on to legalise cannabis and it’s high time Australia did the same,” Greens NSW Senate candidate David Shoebridge said ahead of a policy launch in the NSW Northern Rivers town of Nimbin.

Current laws criminalising cannabis resulted in money being funnelled to the organised crime groups meeting demand, Mr Shoebridge added.

Some 36 per cent of Australians over the age of 14 have used non-medicinal cannabis, according to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data for 2019, with 11.6 per cent having consumed it in the previous twelve months.

Many people in the community use cannabis and a regulated industry could raise $4.4 billion in revenue for schools, hospitals and climate action, Greens candidate for Page – which includes Nimbin – Kashmir Miller said.

The party also wants a freeze on offshore gas exploration, including ConocoPhillips and 3D Oil’s plans to drill northwest of Tasmania near King Island.

“To reach even the weak target of net zero by 2050, not one single new coal, oil or gas project can be built,” Greens leader Adam Bandt said on Monday.

Just trying to imagine explaining this to someone from another country and failing.

“And then the prime minister brought out a ukulele and started playing April Sun in Cuba and then the band got upset, and there were thousands of memes …. ”

The view from Murph

Katharine Murphy

Quick hello from Brisbane, folks.

I’ve hopped on the campaign bus with Anthony Albanese for the next few days. After the press conference this morning, he joined the May Day march through Brisbane city to the showground.

Albanese was joined by his partner, Jodie, union leaders including Sally McManus, ALP president Wayne Swan and many Queensland MPs. Obviously it’s a friendly crowd, that’s a given, but Albanese got lots of support from onlookers lining the footpaths. The member for Lilley Anika Wells supplied the necessary baby content.

She has young twins and both of them got a ride on the Labor leader’s shoulders during the walk through Brisbane.

Albanese is still visibly battling Covid. He’s pale. Up close there’s signs of physical depletion. But he’s revving his engines a bit harder to compensate.

We’ve arrived now at the showgrounds with thousands of unionists. The air is thick with the smells of barbecue – fried onions, snags and sauce. A band is belting out Solidarity Forever. Next song: Rolling on the River. Rolling to 21 May.

Brisbane’s Labour Day parade kicked off with bagpipes and jubilant cheers of “union power” as sweat glistened across revellers’ faces while they marched in the Queensland heat.

Unlike his mixed reception at Bluesfest, Labor leader Anthony Albanese was treated like a rockstar by union supporters as he spoke about the need to address the skyrocketing costs of living and housing affordability.

As he addressed the media, Albanese made his election pitch to Queenslanders, arguing that he’d work closely with the premier to secure stable work and boost funding for public housing:

What workers also know is that cost of going up but their pay isn’t.

His time with reporters was brief but it was a marathon parade that followed, winding through Brisbane’s CBD and ending at the Brisbane Showground.

Albanese, Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and the Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus led the march as reporters ducked and weaved, trying to avoid tripping over each other or interrupting pieces to camera.

There were only a few tiny hiccups, including when a group of protesters calling for Julian Assange to be freed stationed themselves in the middle of the parade but were swiftly moved on by police.

Another group of protesters were also silenced when their calls for “climate action” were drowned out by the chants of union members.

All in all, it was smooth sailing for Albanese, who was among friends in Queensland’s union movement.

There has been a bit of chatter about this and we covered it in a post earlier this morning, but here is Dr Monique Ryan speaking about how nasty some of the campaigning has been in Kooyong:

In case you haven’t seen it, Guardian Australia has a YouTube channel, where you’ll find recaps, fact checks and explanations. Ignore my tired face.

These last few weeks are going to get very messy.

This is the big Liberal campaign announcement for today:

An extra 50,000 older Australians will have access to more affordable health care and medications to help ease cost of living pressures under changes to the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card.

A re-elected Morrison Government will increase the singles income test threshold from $57,761 to around $90,000 from July 1 this year, to give more senior Australians access to the concession card. The couple’s threshold will also increase from $92,416 to $144,000.

At the Commonwealth level, all card holders are eligible for cheaper medications and health care, and they may also be eligible for state, territory and local government savings such as discounted rates, electricity and gas bills, ambulance, dental, eye care, recreation and public transport.

The Prime Minister said the Coalition would invest more than $70 million over four years to expand eligibility, helping an extra 50,000 senior Australians this year.

Labor has said it supports it and would match it.

For those who missed him, Alan Jones is back on the (social) air. Josh Frydenberg is his first guest, along with Pauline Hanson.

Tasmania has now changed its household contact restrictions, as AAP reports:

Household contacts of people infected with COVID-19 are no longer required to isolate in any Australian state.

Tasmania on Monday became the last jurisdiction to eliminate the requirement for people to isolate for a week if a member of their household had the virus.

There are around 330,000 active coronavirus cases around the country, with more than 3000 in hospital with the virus.

Meanwhile, NSW and Victorian health authorities confirmed last week they had detected evidence of two new sub-variants of the Omicron strain – BA.4 and BA.2.12.1.

The World Health Organization has declared the BA.4 strain a highly transmissible variant of concern.