Health News at Your Fingertips

That’s where we’ll say goodbye for this evening. Here are just some of the things we learned today:

• Prime minister Scott Morrison said he will be discussing the national emergency declaration with the governor general in the next 24 hours as Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk rejects the move, saying it’s too late for that now that the floodwaters have receded.
• The PM also announced his plan to enact the “biggest increase” to ADF personnel numbers in peacetime in Australian history, increasing them by around 18,500 to 80,000.
• Opposition leader Anthony Albanese gave a speech to the Lowy Institute, in which he argued that Australia’s inaction on climate crisis was undermining Australia’s status in the Pacific.
• The body of cricket great Shane Warne was loaded onto a repatriation flight to Australia from Thailand, where he died almost a week ago, aged 52. A state funeral will be held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 30 March.
• The Australian mining giant Rio Tinto says it is “terminating all commercial relationships it has with any Russian business”, throwing question marks over the future of its joint venture with Russia’s Rusal in Queensland Alumina Ltd (QAL).
• The Reserve Bank of Australia’s deputy governor Guy Debelle has announced he will resign from his post next week to take up a job as chief financial officer of Fortescue Future Industries, a renewable energy company owned by mining giant Fortescue Metals Group, in June.
• A spike in cases in Covid-19 NSW is concerning authorities as a more transmissible version of the Omicron variant emerges.
• And South Australia announced it is scrapping density restrictions and reducing Covid-19 isolation requirements, as the country recorded at least 21 deaths from the virus.

Thanks for following along today. See you again bright and early tomorrow!

South Australia will remove a raft of Covid-19 restrictions despite a recent surge in new infections but amid a gradual decline in hospitalisations, AAP reports.

From Saturday, SA will scrap all density limits in hospitality and other venues along with removing capacity caps on household gatherings.

Singing and dancing will be allowed in all settings while most people who contract coronavirus will only be required to isolate for seven days, down from 10.

People with serious underlying health conditions may be required to isolate for longer, but will be guided by health officials.

Mask mandates for indoor venues remain in place but will be reviewed next week.

The changes came as SA Health reported another 2590 Covid-19 cases along with four more deaths with the virus.

Thursday’s tally was the fourth consecutive day of rising infection numbers, after 2560 were reported on Wednesday, 2098 on Tuesday and 1577 on Monday.

Police commissioner Grant Stevens said fluctuations in case numbers were always expected:

The critical indicator for us is the number of people being hospitalised on a daily basis and that has reduced substantially and remains low and consistent.

That tells us that while people may be contracting Covid-19 they are not becoming terribly sick with the virus, requiring that intensive medical support. That gives us the confidence to make these changes.

But despite the easing of restrictions the commissioner urged people to continue to be cautious.

We just need to remind people that we are still in the midst of a global pandemic. People are still getting sick from Covid-19. We still have a personal responsibility to make sure we do the right thing to keep ourselves safe, the people we care about safe and vulnerable members of our community safe.

SA Health said the deaths on Thursday were those of a man in his 50s, a man in his 80s, a woman in her 50s, and a woman in her 70s.

They took the SA toll since the start of the pandemic to 219.

There are 91 people in hospital, including 11 in intensive care, with two on ventilation.

There are 21,514 active cases across the state.

In-person visits in Victorian prisons will resume on 12 March, having been restricted as part of Covid control measures. At 6 March, there were 14 total active Covid-19 cases in Victorian correctional facilities according to Corrections Victoria.

Scott Morrison has just been speaking in Gympie, Queensland, about the proposed national emergency declaration and the floods themselves:

On a few other matters I can confirm I spoke to the premier of Queensland this afternoon as I said I would today. We ran through a whole range of issues from the Olympics, infrastructure, to issues around the flood response, and we both agree there has been a tremendously cooperative spirit between the Queensland government [and] local governments across Queensland that have been affected …

We talked about the state of emergency declaration. I consulted her on that today and I’ll be having a meeting with the governor general when I return to Canberra tonight. I’ll see him tomorrow. We’ll be able to [advance] those issues having undertaken the necessary consultations with the premiers of Queensland and of New South Wales.

That’s a very carefully worded statement, and you’ll remember NSW was also included in that proposed emergency declaration. Earlier today, Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk rejected Morrison’s intent to declare the emergency, saying it was too late:

The time for that national emergency [declaration] was probably a week ago. So we’ve actually gone past that. The flood waters have gone down, they’ve subsided.

Has she changed her mind? Is Morrison being coy? Who can say?

Foreign Minister Marise Payne has told China’s new ambassador to Australia that Beijing should use its influence to encourage Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine, AAP reports.

Senator Payne met with Xiao Qian in Sydney on Wednesday, with an Australian government readout saying the foreign minister “set out frankly Australia’s position on a range of issues”.

Those issues included the importance of “appropriate ministerial and other high level dialogue and engagement, stability in the Indo-Pacific, free and open trade, human rights and the welfare of Australians detained in China”.

The readout states:

Australia remains committed to a constructive relationship with China in which we can pursue areas of cooperation while remaining consistent with our own national sovereign interests and focussed on stability.

The opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, on Thursday used a major foreign policy speech to the Lowy Institute to outline how Australia should approach a more aggressive China:

Our approach to the China relationship will be determined by our interests and values: a commitment to international law, rules-based trade, and respect for human rights, and bolstered by our regional partnerships and alliances.

Albanese said Beijing had failed in its obligations as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council by facilitating relief for Russia from international sanctions through trade.

The growing assertiveness of Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has been on display through the takeover of Hong Kong, repression of human rights in China and the militarisation of the South China Sea, Albanese said.

More broadly speaking, Australia still faces threats such as foreign interference, espionage, terrorism, organised crime, and cyber-attacks … These vulnerabilities are often exploited by autocratic countries seeking to increase their power.

The defence minister, Peter Dutton, said authoritarian expansionism required an increase in Australia’s military capabilities across space, cyber, naval warfare and autonomous vehicles to boost deterrence.

Petrol! It’s expensive! And it’s only going to get more so …

Here’s our piece from earlier this week looking at the cost of fuel that Peter refers to in his tweet above: