Q&A live coronavirus: premiers from Victoria, NSW and Queensland join ABC panel tonight to discuss Covid-19
Berejiklian is asked why she was confident that students could safely return to school in NSW from this week.
She said the advice was the biggest risk was transmission between teachers, and NSW had spent weeks getting PPE and sanitary equipment in schools
And just to demonstrate our capacity of preparedness, we extended all of our cleaning contracts. Every school has extra cleaning during the day. Extra provisions in place to mitigate the risk to anybody.
Next question is from Tori Hill in Malvern, Victoria. Why can’t kids in Victoria return to school?
Andrews is not really able to say why the rules are different on returning to school in Victoria than in NSW or other states, but he says by the end of the term “I think most states will finish up in about the same place.”
He says that “every state’s in a different position”.
We took the position and the view that it simply wasn’t a good thing to have a million students going to and from school hundreds of thousands of teachers and parents going to and from school every day.
McDonald asks Andrews to tell parents when they might expect to have their kids back in schools in Victoria, so they can plan. Andrews says he won’t announce that on Q&A.
We’ll have an announcement soon. As important as this program is, we’ll make announcements for all Victorians at the appropriate time. We’re very close. There’s details that have to be settled about the nature of that staggered return. We can confirm tonight that we will have our kids back to face to face learning before the end of term two.
The next question is about the protests that were in Melbourne yesterday, at which 10 people (from a crowd of about 250) were arrested.
Andrews says it was an “ugly scene” and while he supports peaceful protest, this wasn’t that.
If it’s not peaceful, it’s not a proper legitimate protest. We saw police injured. That’s something that we can never accept.
This pandemic is very real. If you don’t think theAustralian experience is something that you should trust, if you need to look further afield, turn your TV on and have a look at what’s happening in Europe and America.This is very serious. If it gets away from you, thousands of people will die.
Berejiklian:
I think the bottomline is to Dan’s point, if you’re out protesting you have to exercise social distancing. I have no issue of what people do when they leave the home as long as they’re within the rules. No matter what you’re up to, even if you’re have a picnic with your best friend, keep the 1.5m.
Andrews responds by talking about Victoria’s testing quota, which Hamish says was not the question.
Andrews says he was unhappy to see images of a number of people in Victoria at shopping centres potentially buying things they don’t need (how do you know, Dan?).
He says we have just one chance to get this right and if he had to, he would tighten the restrictions again.
Andrews:
If I got advice from our chief health officer… that we no longer had control, things had got to a point where we were going to see a significant spike in cases and our hospital system fundamentally overrun, then of course we’d have to reintroduce some of these sanctions. That’s in our own hands in many ways. If people change their behaviour but keep pace with the rule changes that we are making, continue to follow the rules and continue to get tested, we will have many more options in June and we can gradually open up.
The first question is from Kirsten Armstrong in Maroubra, NSW. It’s basically a dixer.
We’ve seen images over the weekend of people at shopping centres seemingly unaware social distancing is still important. With significant outbreaks in New South Wales andVictoria, with most states experiencing a re-emergence of new cases this week, it seems almost inevitable we’ll be having some sort of re-emergence of the disease in the next few months. What’s your trigger, what’s your threshold for reintroducing restrictions that you’re lifting this week?
Gladys Berejiklian responds first, because it’s her state.
I’ll summarise her response, because it’s long and none of it’s new. She says you expect case numbers to rise as you lift some restrictions, cases have fallen significantly since March, it’s all about finding a “healthy balance”, the situation will be monitored to figure out what is manageable over the next few weeks.
Are you prepared to go back into lockdown if numbers increase, Hamish asks?
Obviously if there are significant outbreaks but we’re hoping that’s not the case.
So, we’ve got NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian in the room with host Hamish McDonald and Victorian premier Daniel Andrews and Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on a fancy ABC version of Zoom.
I have moved the cat off my lap and am ready to go.
Alright, here we go. I have a cup of tea, you might want to go ahead and indulge in something stronger. The bad show will begin shortly.
We will be providing live coverage of state premiers Daniel Andrews, Gladys Berejiklian and Annastacia Palaszczuk on the ABC’s Q&A program at 9.30pm. But before we get there, here’s what’s happened today:
Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy is currently on ABC’s 7.30 program.
It’s a repetition of the lines he said yesterday, and his deputies were saying today.
Asked what keeps him awake at night, Murphy says:
A large second wave. That is the most worrying thing of all. We saw people behaving really badly and congregating … If people aren’t careful and we have lots of pockets of outbreaks and widespread community transmission, you know, thousands more cases — that is what worries me most of all.
I don’t think it will happen because I think we are as well prepared as we could be, but it will only work if every citizen does the right thing.
But it certainly feels less locked down this week, which may or not be a good thing.
A surfer takes advantage of eased coronavirus restrictions at Maroubra Beach in Sydney. Photograph: Loren Elliott/Reuters
The problem throughout the lockdown period has not been individuals going to the beach, but crowds, or apparent crowds, at beaches. So you can go to the beach for exercise purposes provided no one else has the same idea.
Beachgoers swim at Maroubra Beach. Photograph: Loren Elliott/Reuters
Paul Karp and Luke Henriques-Gomes have been looking into reports the Morrison government is considering “adjusting” the $1,500 jobkeeper payment, just days after the money actually started flowing.
And there are reports that some employers are exploiting the scheme. They write:
Victorian Trades Hall Council’s JobScammer website has received more than 400 complaints from workers about potential rorting of the scheme, the union peak body said.
Luke Hilakari, the VTHC secretary, said the complaints included serious claims such as bosses breaching the scheme’s rules by refusing to pay the subsidy in full or demanding workers increase their usual hours to the value of $1,500 a fortnight.
Other businesses had been accused of “picking and choosing” which employees to include in what is supposed to be a “one-in, all-in” scheme, Hilakari said.
The complaints relayed to trades hall included a childcare company that told workers they would have to increase their hours to earn the $1,500 a fortnight worth of work, and a juice company franchise accused of refusing to backpay staff back to 30 March.
Other examples included a major streetwear retailer who was said to have told their casual employees they were ineligible for the subsidy if they had taken any time off.
In sad news:
Ben Stiller (@RedHourBen)
I’m sad to say that my father, Jerry Stiller, passed away from natural causes. He was a great dad and grandfather, and the most dedicated husband to Anne for about 62 years. He will be greatly missed. Love you Dad. pic.twitter.com/KyoNsJIBz5
Forget golf – Melbourne’s true favourite pastime, purchasing real estate, will be able to resume from Wednesday.
And the Real Estate Institute of Victoria is excited.
Auctions and open-for-inspections will be restricted to 10 people (significantly reducing rubbernecking) and the REIV is “encouraging” real estate agents and anyone attending an auction or open house to download the Covidsafe app. The app isn’t compulsory, and real estate agents will also be taking people’s contact details for contact tracing purposes.
REIV president Leah Calnan said:
Online auctions have worked well over the last few weeks and we encourage members to use this as an additional channel for wider engagement.
Having public auctions will inspire increased confidence in our economy. Auctioneers across the state are looking forward to getting back to what they do best.
Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, says Australia’s relationship with China is “not in a great place”.
Speaking to ABC TV this afternoon, Wong said the relationship would benefit from “consistency and discipline and leadership” from the prime minister and foreign minister rather than backbencher-led commentary.
Some Coalition backbenchers, including George Christensen and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, have been pushing for Australia to take a hard line in its relations with China. Wong also called on the government to provide detailed briefings to parliamentarians on how Australia is handling the China relationship:
I’ve said previously we need to think about the China relationship in 30-year terms, not in three-year terms. Unfortunately, there’s been a little too much from the Morrison government of a reflex to short-term domestic politics on this relationship and more broadly. And we would urge them to take a long-term position and a responsible position, and as much as possible a bipartisan position, when it comes to that relationship that’s in the national interests.
The call comes in the wake of a diplomatic dispute between the two countries over Australia’s call for an international investigation into the origin and handling of Covid-19, which China took to be directed against it.
Tensions intensified when China’s ambassador to Australia gave an interview to a newspaper late last month saying Chinese tourists and students may rethink their plans to visit Australia in the future “if the mood is going from bad to worse”, while consumers may also decide against buying Australian wine and beef.
The government is currently trying to persuade China not to proceed with plans to impose tariffs on Australian barley imports, with Scott Morrison saying the proposal stems from an 18-month-long process and he doesn’t believe it is connected to the recent inquiry proposal.
Cafes and restaurants in South Australia were open to sit-down customers today, for the first time in seven weeks. I say sit down, not sit-in, because customers have to dine alfresco. It’s limited to a maximum of 10 customers.
People will not be able to eat indoors at restaurants until June.
The SA premier, Steven Marshall, says the change that came into effect today will mainly benefit restaurants that have already switched to take-away service.
It won’t be worth it for many organisations. Some states have told us 10 indoor dining and the industry told us 10 wouldn’t be viable. Even 20 will make it very difficult, so we are trying to work through, with the industry, how we can get them back to being viable as quickly as possible. But we’ve got to do it in a safe way.
