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Western Australia records two new Covid-19 deaths – as it happened

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 Updated 
Tue 7 Apr 2020 06.49 EDTFirst published on Mon 6 Apr 2020 17.18 EDT

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What we learned today

I’ll leave it here for tonight. The blog will be back tomorrow, of course. In the meantime, you can follow our rolling international Covid-19 coverage here.

Here’s what we learned today:

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Straight-shooter chief medical officer Brendan Murphy was asked by a reporter Tuesday whether the modelling “indicated anything about the relative effectiveness of different measures” employed in Australia.

Murphy replied: “It doesn’t, unfortunately.”

Malcolm Farr on the government’s release of Covid-19 modelling earlier today, which he calls one of the “odder moments of the public debate” on the virus.

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AAP reports that despite the Northern Territory having dodged “a lot of bullets” in avoiding community transmission of Covid-19, the territory’s chief health officer says a short-term lockdown of the affected area might have to occur in the event of an outbreak.

There have been 28 cases of Covid-19 in the Territory, all related to international or interstate travel, making it the lowest per capita rate and the only Australian jurisdiction to so far record no deaths or community transmission.

However, a cluster of cases in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, with a large, vulnerable Indigenous population bordering the NT, spooked government and health officials last week.

“With that outbreak in the Kimberley region last week, we dodged a lot of bullets in that the cases there did not make their way into the Northern Territory,” the NT chief health officer, Dr Hugh Heggie, said.

“They are advising people that they should not be travelling, but it is a reality that people particularly from remote (Indigenous) communities will travel across borders without a visible line. Sometimes it’s a back road and it still has to be acknowledged that there is a risk.

“We have to manage very carefully people who are mixing in other places.”

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Queensland’s opposition leader, Deb Frecklington, has committed what Nine News is calling “a big virus no-no” – touching lots of things in a supermarket.

She’s been criticised for “handling 20 different supermarket products and placing them all back on shelves” in a video encouraging people to buy local products.

Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington posted a video to Facebook encouraging Queenslanders to buy local.

In doing so, she is seen handling twenty different supermarket products and placing them all back on shelves. #9News pic.twitter.com/PfI5Lvmwqs

— Nine News Queensland (@9NewsQueensland) April 7, 2020
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All Australian year 12 students will graduate in 2020 despite the interruption of Covid-19, after education ministers ruled out a “year 13” to complete their studies in 2021.

Here’s my colleague Paul Karp’s wrap on the outcome of today’s meeting of education ministers, which agreed that every student will receive an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank in 2020.

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FluTracking, a national online surveillance system that tracks symptoms of Covid-19 and the flu, has found historically low reporting of respiratory and cold-like symptoms in recent weeks.

The system, which has run for the past 14 years, surveys tens of thousands of people in Australia and New Zealand.

It’s coordinator, the University of Newcastle public health physician Craig Dalton, said the latest weekly surveys suggested social distancing was having a positive impact not just for the rate of Covid-19 infections but for common flu symptoms such as cough and fever generally.

“The social distancing the community have taken up leads to less opportunities to transmit virus between people, so few people are infected and fewer people get sick. The rapid social distancing by the general community may have averted a public health disaster,” Dalton said.

“We mustn’t relax our vigilance, but these initial findings are early reassuring signs that social distancing is working. We have to continue with strong social distancing measures and aggressive case identification, contact tracing and isolation as well.”

The number of people participating in the FluTracking survey has surged during the pandemic. Some 5,000 new people have joined the survey in the last two weeks and more than 60,000 responses are being received in Australia each week.

The survey has also found that of those surveyed who had contracted Covid-19, 27% reported a change in their taste or smell. Dalton said that was “a new emerging symptom of Covid-19” which could help alert doctors to the possibility of an infection.

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Greens leader Adam Bandt is unhappy at Labor’s decision to push ahead with a Senate select committee into the government’s response to Covid-19. The Greens had wanted a joint House and Senate oversight committee.

House ministers can refuse to appear before Senate committees

So with Parl not sitting, this Lib/Lab deal lets PM, Treasurer, IR & Health Ministers avoid any accountability to other MPs until August.

In this crisis, we need more democracy, not less.

— Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) April 7, 2020
Paul Karp
Paul Karp

The Australian Council of Trade Unions has released a statement about the jobkeeper legislation released by the minister for industrial relations, Christian Porter, on Tuesday.
The ACTU reeled off a series of safeguards in the bill, to be debated by parliament and passed with Labor on Wednesday. The bill is:

  • Strictly time-limited
  • Applies only to employers eligible for the jobkeeper payment
  • Protects the rate of pay for workers ensuring they are properly paid for all work undertaken at the legal hourly rate of pay, not artificially capped at the $1,500/fortnight wage subsidy
  • Allows variation in working conditions only after consultation and in many cases requires the agreement of employees; and
  • Allows any dispute to be arbitrated by the Fair Work Commission to ensure reasonableness and fairness

The ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, said:

We remain opposed to the restrictive eligibility rules which exclude millions of workers, in particular many casuals and visa workers who have lost or face losing their jobs because of the pandemic.

“They should also be eligible to receive the payment as they face no less a financial struggle and should be supported to keep their jobs and connections to employers for when this crisis is over.

“We will continue to campaign to have these workers covered by the jobkeeper payment.”

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Two more people die in Western Australia.

Western Australia recorded two new Covid-19 deaths, bringing the total number of deaths in the state to six.

The WA health minister, Roger Cook, has told the media that a man and a woman, both in their 70s, died overnight.

The woman died at the Royal Perth hospital. Cook said she had recently returned from overseas and had been staying in a Perth hotel as a part of mandatory quarantine.

The man was a passenger on the Artania cruise ship. He died at Joondalup health campus.

Six people have now died of the deadly virus in WA hospitals, including two foreign nationals from the Artania. It is the second death in WA related to the Artania cruise ship.

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Ben Butler
Ben Butler

The prudential regulator has written to banks and insurance companies telling them they need to cut or put off paying dividends to their shareholders due to the coronavirus crisis.

Company boards should also “appropriately limit” executive bonuses, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority chairman, Wayne Byres, said in a letter to deposit-taking institutions and insurers, sent on Tuesday.

Apra’s decision follows bans or limits on dividend payments overseas. They are banned entirely in New Zealand and most big UK banks have agreed not to pay them after a request from the Bank of England.

Byres told banks and insurers Apra had given them room to spend capital on shoring up the economy during the pandemic.

“In this context, Apra expects ADIs [approved deposit-taking institutions] and insurers to limit discretionary capital distributions in the months ahead, to ensure that they instead use buffers and maintain capacity to continue to lend and underwrite insurance,” he said in the letter.

“This includes prudent reductions in dividends, taking into account the uncertain outlook for the operating environment and the need to preserve capacity to prioritise these critical activities.

“During this period, Apra expects that ADIs and insurers will seriously consider deferring decisions on the appropriate level of dividends until the outlook is clearer.”

Dividends should only be paid after “robust stress-testing”, agreed by the regulator, and at “a materially reduced level”, Byres said.

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You may have seen that earlier today the Australian Bureau of Statistics released new trade figures for February.

It doesn’t make for pleasant reading. The data shows exports fell $1.8bn or 5% and imports declined $1.5bn or 4% compared to January. Some industries were hit particularly hard. Australia’s tourism-related exports – which includes education services – plunged 15%, a reflection of the early decision to close the border to China.

Labor’s shadow minister for trade, Madeleine King, has said it’s likely those figures will continue to fall once March data is released, “given the severe interruptions to supply chains and an expected decline in domestic demand”.

“But as I have said previously, Australia’s export sector will be crucial for the economy in the grim weeks and months ahead,” King said.

“It is vital for the economy that our national borders remain open to trade, assuming that we can do so with the highest health protocols in place.”

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