Category: Australia

Prime Minister Scott Morrison became emotional as he read out a list of Australians killed in the war in Afghanistan and announced Australian troops would leave the country by September.

Mr Morrison said the 80 remaining troops would be withdrawn in line with the withdrawal of US troops as announced by President Joe Biden.

More than 39,000 Australians were deployed and 41 of them were killed during the decades-long conflict.

“The loss is great, the sacrifice immense ,the bravery and courage things we can speak of, but not know of personally,” Mr Morrison said.

“Many more were wounded, some physically, others mentally and we’ll be dealing with the scars, both mental and physical, of their service, for many, many years.”

Australian forces first entered Afghanistan in October 2001 in support of US troops who were deployed in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

The Prime Minister said it was “an emotional day” but that despite the toll the conflict took, it was worthwhile.

“Freedom is always worth it,” Mr Morrison said.

“Australians have always believed that.

“That is why Australians who have served in our defence forces have always pulled on that uniform.”

When asked about the allegations some Australian troops committed war crimes while in Afghanistan, Mr Morrison said: “There will be time to talk about those things. Today is not that time.”

Mr Morrison said the government would continue to support Afghanistan once the troops had left.

“Once again, we stand with them and the complex task of making peace that lies ahead for those people,” he said.

“Australia continues to support the negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

“We encourage both parties to commit to the peace process that so many Australians have died to provide for.”

Scott Morrison has fought back tears as he pledged to improve the treatment of women in Parliament.

But he drew scorn for “weaponising” a previously unreported complaint in a tense exchange with a journalist without consideration for the woman at the centre of that matter.

Holding a press conference inside Parliament House, the Prime Minister defended himself against criticism stemming from his justification for his response to the Brittany Higgins rape allegation and how his wife had told him to imagine it was his daughter.

“Criticise me if you like for speaking about my daughters, but they are the centre of my life. My wife is the centre of my life,” he said.

But he also angrily rejected questions from journalists suggesting he may have lost control over the ministerial staff.

The Prime Minister said he was stunned and disgusted after it was revealed Coalition staffers were accused of filming and sharing sex acts in Parliament House.

One staffer was last night fired after allegedly engaging in a lewd act on the desk of a female Liberal MP.

Mr Morrison said he would address all Coalition staffers on Tuesday to discuss the matter and the broader issue of the treatment of women.

In a fiery exchange at the press conference today, Sky News reporter Andrew Clennell put it to the Prime Minister that the situation made it look like he had lost control of ministerial staff.

“Right now,” Mr Morrison responded, “you’d be aware in your own organisation, that there is a person who has had a complaint made against them for harassment of a woman in a women’s toilet and that matter is being pursued by your own HR department.

“Let’s not, all of us who sit in glass houses here, start getting into that.”

Sky News later said no employee was subject to such an investigation.

Sky News is owned by News Corp. The ABC has approached News Corp for comment.

Mr Morrison said “no one individual” could control what happened in Parliament, and that the incident involving the staffer and the desk happened before he became Prime Minister.

“What I am held accountable is for what I do now, and that’s what I’m outlining to you today,” he said.

“You’re free to make your criticisms, and to stand on that pedestal, but be careful.”

During a Senate committee, Labor senator Katy Gallagher said Mr Morrison was “weaponising” the Sky complaint as a defensive strategy.

“It’s just unbelievable, and it’s no wonder women are so angry because you say one thing and then the Prime Minister goes out and retaliates like that when he’s questioned,” she said.

“What about the woman at the heart of that complaint now? National news.”

In Question Time, Mr Morrison rejected the notion that his raising of the confidential complaint might make other women afraid of coming forward.

He said he was trying to make the “broader point” that all parties and all workplaces had work to do in this area.

“The way I referred to these matters today was an anonymised way.”

Earlier, the PM became emotional when explaining how important the female members of his family were in his life.

He has faced criticism over his handling of the Brittany Higgins rape allegation and the historical rape allegation denied by Attorney-General Christian Porter.ABC News

Three patients were bitten by mice while at hospitals in Tottenham, Walgett and Gulargambone, a spokesperson for Western NSW Local Health District confirmed to news.com.au.

“The current mouse infestation across western NSW is a natural occurrence. NSW Health staff are responding with appropriate control measures,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“At this time, three reports of residents or patients receiving minor bites have been made, in Tottenham, Walgett and Gulargambone, and appropriate treatment has been provided.”

In Bowrаl in the Southern Highlаnds аn аgriculturаl retаiler sаid they were struggling to supply enough pest control products to their customers.

“Our poor neighbours in QLD аre experiencing а cаtаstrophic plаgue of mice аnd rаts,” Bowrаl Co-Op wrote in а Fаcebook post on Thursdаy.

“And we ourselves here in NSW, seem to be coping аn onslаught of vermin аlso.”

The co-op аsked for “pаtience аnd understаnding thаt а lot of these products аre being fаst trаcked to our desperаte fаrmers in the northern stаte to help erаdicаte these pests thаt аre dаmаging their stock аnd grаin supplies”.

Frightening footаge from fаrmers аlso showed hundreds of swаrming mice dаrting аround stored grаin аnd drowned in wаter tаnks.

Adаm Mаcrаe told the ABC the mice аre hitting fаrmers on “аll fronts” аnd costing him аbout $1000 а week аs he tries to protect his hаrvest.

“The stores of hаy we stаcked up in November, we hаd 2300 bаles. A couple of months аgo we buried, with аn excаvаtor, 500 of those. We needed the rest to keep feeding our cаttle,” Mr Mаcrаe sаid.

He sаid they’ve since hаd to scrаp аlmost 1500 bаles of hаy due to infestаtion.

“As well аs creeping in between the bаles they’re creeping in between you here а fаir bit,” he sаid.

“You come аt home аnd they wаke you up, you heаr them going аcross the house.

“It’s probаbly costing а thousаnd bucks just in the poison per fortnight but we’re reаlly not mаking too much of аn impаct there.”

More than a decade after leaving Melbourne for Israel, former school principal Malka Leifer has arrived back in Australia to face child sexual abuse charges.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said she would face trial in Victoria on 74 counts of child sexual abuse.

Former Victorian premier Ted Baillieu, who has been an advocate for Ms Leifer’s alleged victims during the protracted extradition process, stressed the latest step was “just the beginning”.

Ms Leifer has maintained her innocence throughout six years of court proceedings in Israel.

“These allegations are still to be tested,” Mr Baillieu told ABC Radio Melbourne on Tuesday.

This is what we know about what will happen next.

The Victorian Government confirmed Ms Leifer will be held in “Victoria Police quarantine” until she is brought before the courts.

All prisoners in Victoria must serve a 14-day quarantine and are regularly tested for coronavirus.

Ms Leifer arrived at Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport on Wednesday evening with a Victoria Police escort.

Mr Baillieu reflected that those officers, who he said would also be undergoing 14 days’ quarantine, had made “some pretty enormous sacrifices” to ensure the legal process could take place.

Ms Leifer’s lawyer in Israel, Nick Kaufman, said he was hopeful she would be held in a place of detention that respected her religious beliefs and allowed regular contact with her lawyers and family.

The Attorney-General said the “extremely serious charges” would now be tested by Victorian courts.

Ms Leifer will face the Bail and Remand Court on Thursday, Courts Victoria said, for what is expected to be a filing hearing.

She will appear via videolink.

She will be able to apply for bail.

However a a senior lecturer in criminology at Deakin University, Ian Warren, said people who were extradited tended to be remanded in custody straight away.

He said Ms Leifer would then likely be in protective custody until the end of the court proceedings.

“So the conventional trial process pretty much starts as soon as the authorities here can get that ball rolling. And then that will just proceed through the courts as normal,” he said.

Mr Kaufman said it might be some time before Ms Leifer faced any potential trial.

“Given the coronavirus restrictions currently in effect in Australia, I understand there’s a severe backlog of cases and it could very well be the case that the issue doesn’t come up for trial until next year at the very earliest,” he said on Monday.

Under Victorian court protocols introduced during last year’s pandemic, defendants are able to request a judge-only trial, with no jury.

But it is not automatically granted, with prosecutors able to submit a response outlining their support or opposition to a judge-only trial.

In some cases in other jurisdictions, defendants may request a judge-only trial, arguing that significant media coverage has raised concerns that an unbiased and impartial jury cannot be selected from the community.

The lengthy extradition process was at times a point of tension between the Australian and Israeli governments.

Ms Leifer left Australia for Israel in 2008 and Victoria Police submitted a request for her extradition in 2014.

The country’s Supreme Court rejected her final appeal against the extradition in December.

Dr Warren said the length of time was becoming “a general trend in extradition” around the world.

He says different domestic legal systems and the “political element” of the cases “really adds to the complexity and time delay”.

But he said once a person was returned to the country, “the only time the extradition now becomes relevant is in terms of time served overseas” if people are found guilty and sentenced.

“All the diplomatic issues are now over and done with, and it’s really a question of trial under the normal circumstances,” he said.

“And extradition only comes back into it to consider maybe a discount in sentence on the basis of time served during the extradition process.”

Foreign Minister Marise Payne thanked “all those within the Israeli Government whose cooperation has allowed us to reach this point”. abcnews

However, despite the state going 10 consecutive days without community transmission of coronavirus, masks will remain mandatory in some settings.

From 12.01am on January 29, people in Sydney, Wollongong, the Blue Mountains and Central Coast can:

There will be no caps on the number of people allowed in hospitality venues and places of worship, as long as people abide by the four-square-metre rule.

Masks will also become “recommended” in retail businesses like supermarkets and shopping centres, but will remain mandatory for:

NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant admitted COVID-19 may have already been eliminated in the state.

“But it is too premature to say we’ve got there yet,” she said.

“It may be in two weeks’ time we look back and say: ‘Well, actually, at this point in time we probably had’.”

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said if case numbers stayed at zero or very low, restrictions would be eased for hospitality venues and places of worship in two weeks.

At this time, the Premier said she expected all businesses would be able to revert from the four-square-metre rule to the two-square-metre rule.

“Whilst we have had two 14-day cycles of the northern beaches not having any community transmission, in south-west and Western Sydney we have gone through one cycle of no community transmission,” she said.

“The other cycle will be completed in about two weeks, after which time we can make sure that we’ve ticked all health boxes and we revert back to two square metres.”

Contact tracers have still been unable to link an outbreak among a family of six in Western Sydney to the Berala cluster but investigations are continuing.

Ms Berejiklian warned businesses authorities would step up compliance checks when that further relaxation takes place.

“Do we need to increase fines to make sure businesses are being as vigilant as ever? Because our strategy will only work if people do the right thing,” she said.

“We have the most robust quarantine system in Australia but we know that there’s no such thing as a perfect system and the risk of an outbreak is there.

“We need to make sure that if one does occur, that we don’t create a superspreading event by having all measures in place.”

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said in the last few weeks complacency had crept in and testing rates were “not adequate”.

He also issued a warning for weddings — which will be able to triple their guest numbers from Friday — noting recent reports of unlawful behaviour.

“If you actually choose to ignore the rules and put your fellow attendees at the wedding at risk that is completed and woefully inappropriate,” he said.

In the 24 hours to 8:00pm yesterday a total of 9,723 COVID-19 tests were completed.

Virus fragments are continuously being detected at wastewater treatment plants across Sydney, including at the Liverpool plant in the last 24 hours.

A new rule mandating face mask wearing at Australia’s airports has come into force in Perth with anyone who doesn’t follow the measure vulnerable to copping a $50,000 fine.

The National Cabinet decided last Friday to bring in the mask rule, over concerns of the UK strain of COVID-19, with the direction signed off in Western Australia by the acting Police Commissioner on Tuesday night.Anyone who is in a vehicle — including drivers and passengers — picking up someone from the airport must also wear a mask.

The rule does not apply for any children aged 12 and under or people who cannot wear a mask because of a physical or mental illness, condition or disability which makes wearing one unsuitable.

There are also specific exceptions for when people who have to wear a mask can momentarily take it off.

These include communicating with a deaf person, driving in a car by yourself, and eating food, drinking, or taking medication when seated.

People at the airport can also take the mask off when police, security, airport or flight staff are trying to check their identity.

Anyone subject to a self-quarantine notice who uses private transport must notify the driver and other passengers they have been directed to isolate.

Last week the WA Premier Mark McGowan called on all West Australians to buy a mask.

“My advice to every family and every household and every person in WA is make sure you have a reusable mask,” Mr McGowan said.

“The government has millions on hand should we need it.

“I just urge everyone in the community please go and buy a reusable mask just in case.” watoday

Premier Daniel Andrews has announced a relaxation of his state’s hard border with New South Wales, which will allow Victorians stuck in regional NSW to apply for permits to travel back home tonight.

“Regional New South Wales, from 5:59pm tonight, will become orange, so will move out of the red zone,” Mr Andrews said.

“Therefore people from Victoria who want to travel home from those areas … will be able to do so.”

Greater Sydney will remain a designated red zone but will be under daily review, he said.

Travellers into Victoria from orange zones will be required to quarantine upon arrival until they receive a negative test result.

The Premier said while Greater Brisbane’s three-day lockdown had ended, Victorian health authorities were not “100 per cent confident” that people from that region should be returning to Victoria so it would remain a designated red zone.

“There’s still many close contacts that have not been tested, it’s a relatively new outbreak,” he said, but added he was hopeful that advice could be updated later this week.

Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton suggested those who had been quarantining for 14 days as a result of travelling through regional NSW would be able to end quarantine at 6:00pm, provided they had returned a negative test.

“For those individuals who have been in rural or regional NSW as a red zone, turned into an orange zone they will be free to leave quarantine,” he said.

He said health authorities were considering a similar arrangement for returned travellers from the Greater Brisbane region.

Professor Sutton said the trend was “positive” in Greater Sydney, but the ongoing new cases meant “the risk is still there”.

Mr Andrews said from 6:00pm tonight, anyone seeking to enter Victoria would be required to apply for a permit on the Service Victoria website.

“It will be based on the colour code, that is, the virus status of where you’ve been, the virus status of where you’re coming from,” he said.

“What that will mean is that we can provide clarity to people who are wanting to travel here.

“And we can also make sure we are as consistent as possible when it comes to those areas where you would be issued a permit — a green zone or orange zone — and of course those that you would not be getting a permit from, being a red zone.”

Travellers who present to the Victorian border without a valid permit will face fines of up to $4,957, the Premier said.

Communities captured by the cross-border bubble will continue to be exempt from the need for a permit.

Victoria today recorded its fifth consecutive day of zero new locally acquired cases.

A couple who reportedly defied Victorian public health orders have apologised for the “mess” but say they had no intention of doing the wrong thing.

Victoria Police said on Saturday they were investigating breaches of public health orders by two people travelling from Victoria into NSW.

The pair flew into Melbourne from Canberra on New Year’s Day, where Victoria’s health minister says they did not have the proper declaration and “absconded”.

“They came in from Canberra, they did not have the appropriate declaration material and they would have been heading straight into compulsory hotel quarantine,” Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said.

“They absconded. They disappeared in a vehicle and they were next heard of in Goulburn in New South Wales.”

Mr Foley said they each face fines of at least $19,000.

However, in an email statement from Terry and Debbie Elford sent to media on Saturday, the couple defended their actions and expressed shock at seeing media reports about themselves.

“We really are very sorry for the mess that this has caused,” Mr Elford wrote.

He said the couple got caught up in the confusion about when the rules about entering Victoria had changed, like hundreds of others had.

“We had a permit, live in a green zone in NSW, were flying from Canberra airport which is allowed, and after we arrived in Tullamarine, we were stopped by (Department of Health and Human Services) officers who were not able to tell us whether or not we needed to quarantine, so after about an hour or so we walked away.”

The couple attended an outdoor family BBQ before flying back into Canberra that afternoon for a medical appointment – plans which they explained to the officers, Mr Elford said.

The pair were “really shocked” to read the stories in the media about their actions and contacted Goulburn police to sort it out.

“We also have proactively gone to get a COVID-19 test this morning, and will be self-isolating,” he said.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says the state is not “out of the woods” yet and there will be an increased risk over Christmas of the virus spreading, as the state recorded another nine positive infections.

Seven of the new cases are linked to the Avalon cluster, now at 104 cases, and the other two are under investigation.

Ms Berejiklian said one of the cases under investigation was problematic because the person was infectious when they went to work in an office in Sydney’s CBD.

The other case under investigation is a man in his 20s who lives in Sydney’s northern beaches who has tested positive, but his household has tested negative.

A location of concern to health authorities is a sports bar inside the Paragon Hotel at Circular Quay, which now has three cases associated with it.

NSW Health said anyone who attended the location on the afternoon of December 16 is now considered a close contact and needs to get tested and self isolate for 14 days, regardless of results.

“They are all eventually linked to the Avalon cluster but it does mean there are potential chains of transmission that we’re not on top of and that is a concern,” Ms Berejiklian said.

NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant said there were now six cases in NSW under investigation.

One of those is a patient transport worker involved with international travellers, who did not acquire it from overseas but rather is “linked by an unknown source to the Avalon cluster”, according to genomic sequencing results.

“Investigations are continuing, that is one of the cases that we are keen to get to the bottom of, because it represents a chain of transmission we cannot explain,” Dr Chant said.

The new cases come the day after the Premier announced “modest tweaks” to restrictions yesterday, allowing households to have more visitors through to Boxing Day.

Despite a record 60,184 tests conducted yesterday, up from 41,865 the day before, the Premier said “we are far from out of the woods”.

“In fact, we have to be extra vigilant over the next few days,” she said.