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Are you affected by border closures?
By Ben Grubb
Has your travel to either Queensland or Melbourne been impacted after both states banned travellers who have been to the City of Sydney, Waverley, Woollahra, Bayside, Canada Bay, the Inner West and Randwick?
Tell us below, and include a contact number to call you on.
Reserve Bank will soon lift official cash rate: Economists
By Shane Wright
Highly indebted new home owners could be seeing higher interest bills as early as November next year with economists at the nation’s biggest lender predicting the Reserve Bank will soon have to lift the official cash rate.
The Commonwealth Bank’s head of Australian economics, Gareth Aird, on Wednesday said with the jobs market improving much faster than expected, wages would soon start to lift that would force the RBA to move.
Highly indebted new home owners could see higher interest bills as early as November next year.Credit:Penny Stephens
The Reserve has stated it does not expect to start lifting official rates – currently at 0.1 per cent – until 2024 “at the earliest”.
But financial markets and market economists are much more bullish with most expecting a rate increase in 2023. The last time the RBA increased interest rates was in November 2010 when they were taken to 4.75 per cent.
Mr Aird said a cash rate of 0.5 per cent by the end of next year, reaching 1.25 per cent by the third quarter of 2023, was now much more likely.
“Our central scenario has the RBA delivering the first hike in the cash rate in November 2022,” he said.
“We have pencilled in an increase of 15 basis points which would take the cash rate to 0.25 per cent. We expect that to be followed by an increase of 25 basis points in December 2022.
“We have three further 25 basis point hikes in quarter one 2023, quarter two 2023 and quarter three 2023 that would take the cash rate to 1.25 per cent, the level at which we assess the cash rate to be neutral.”
An increase in the cash rate to 0.5 per cent would take the monthly repayments on a 25-year, $450,000 mortgage to $2158, an increase of $93.
Mr Aird said beyond that point, the federal government’s budget spending and the targeted level of net overseas migration would have a large impact on wages growth and the future path of interest rates.
The federal government is forecasting a deficit of $99.3 billion for 2022-23. It also is assuming net overseas migration of 95,900 that year, after losing a net 77,400 people in 2021-22.
Purpose-built quarantine facility ‘effectively ruled out’ for Qld: Deputy Premier
By Cassandra Morgan
Queensland’s Deputy Premier Dr Steven Miles says the federal government has effectively ruled out a regional quarantine facility for the state.
Dr Miles said the latest hotel quarantine COVID-19 transmission in Brisbane, from one room to another, highlighted the need for purpose-built regional facilities.
Queensland's deputy premier Steven Miles.
He said the Commonwealth government had refused to cooperate with the state on the issue.
“We’ve been saying for some time now, months and months, that hotel quarantine is not proving as effective as it was with earlier strains,” Dr Miles said during this morning’s coronavirus update.
“[The federal government] have said this morning that they’ve assessed defence sites in Queensland and determined that none are suitable for a regional quarantine facility.
“The criteria for a regional quarantine facility ... says that they have to be on Commonwealth land.
“If they have assessed defence facilities in Queensland and determined none are suitable, that doesn’t leave any other suitable Commonwealth land.”
Dr Miles urged the federal government to properly consider Queensland’s Wellcamp quarantine proposal, saying it could be up and running soon and would have more capacity than the facility proposed by Victoria.
Four potential COVID-19 exposure sites identified in New Zealand
By Michelle Griffin
New Zealand health officials are scrambling to trace the contacts of an Australian traveller from Sydney who visited Wellington over the weekend while infectious with COVID-19.
The visitor was in Wellington from Saturday, June 19, until Monday, June 21, and tested positive for the virus on their return to Australia, the Ministry of Health said on Wednesday.
Wellington’s Te Papa museum has been identified as a potential COVID-19 exposure site.
In addition to the flights the person was on, four locations of interest have been identified, including the national museum Te Papa, where 150 people from New Zealand and Australia attending a tech conference on Wednesday morning have been evacuated.
Close contacts are being asked to get tested and isolate for two weeks, and the NZ government is already discussing introducing city-wide restrictions.
“We don’t know which variant it is,” Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield told Radio New Zealand.
“Whatever the variant, the response is the same, it is for people to act quickly, to isolate and to be tested. We will be looking at whether other measures might be required, wider use of masks, potentially restrictions on gathering sizes for a period.”
Minister for COVID response Chris Hipkins said he understood the traveller had had one shot of AstraZeneca.
Air New Zealand has cancelled all its direct services from Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown into Sydney. Flights from Auckland to Sydney will continue to operate over the next 72 hours.
A return of the virus would be a blow for New Zealand, which has gone about four months without any community cases.
The nation paused quarantine-free travel with Australia’s New South Wales last night following the Sydney outbreak, and has just lifted restrictions on flights between New Zealand and Melbourne.
The ministry said it appears the visitor to Wellington contracted the virus in Sydney prior to their departure.
New Zealand’s vaccine rollout has been slow. Immunisation of the general population is due to start at the end of July.
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NSW child care centre closed after girl, father test positive to COVID-19
By Jenny Noyes
A childcare centre in Sydney’s south-west has closed after a child who attended the centre on Monday tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday.
Richard Bell, CEO of Little Zak’s Academy, which has several child care centres across Sydney, said he learned at 4.42pm on Tuesday that a child who spent the day at the Narellan Vale centre on Monday had tested positive to COVID-19.
Sydney’s restrictions don’t look like they’re going anywhere after a girl who attended a childcare centre in the city’s south-west tested positive for COVID-19.Credit:Edwina Pickles
The girl, who is under five years old, had attended a family birthday gathering over the weekend with her father, Mr Bell said. Both the girl and her father have tested positive to the virus.
Mr Bell said the centre closed and Little Zak’s had put its COVID action plan in place “within two hours” of receiving news of the positive test. The centre in question has closed for deep cleaning and all staff and close contacts were alerted, he said.
All staff at the centre are now undergoing testing with some results returning, all negative so far, Mr Bell said.
Couple caught COVID-19 in Qld hotel quarantine, authorities say
By Cassandra Morgan
A couple in Brisbane hotel quarantine caught coronavirus from a person in the next room, Queensland health authorities say.
The state’s Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said authorities initially thought the couple caught the virus overseas.
Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young.Credit:Getty
“That person in the room adjacent tested positive first and then two days later, the couple, or the two people in the adjacent room, tested positive,” Dr Young said during this morning’s coronavirus update.
“At the time we thought it was just overseas acquired. But now that I’ve got the genome sequencing back, it’s clear that the first person has given it to the other two people.”
Dr Young said the couple arrived at the Brisbane Airport Novotel on June 8 while the person in the next room arrived on June 10.
She said authorities were contacting all 30 people who’d stayed on the same floor (level five) and had left during the period of concern.
Quarantine is being extended for people still on that floor to ensure there is no additional transmission, she said.
Qld closes border to NSW’s COVID-19 hotspots
By Broede Carmody
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has just announced that her state will shut its border to six additional local government areas in New South Wales.
“We’ll be easing even more restrictions across Queensland, and we cannot afford to have this Delta variant out in our community,” the Premier said.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Credit:Attila Csaszar
“So, to keep Queenslanders safe, we will be following exactly what Victoria has announced last night.”
The affected areas are the City of Sydney, Woollahra, Bayside, Canada Bay, Inner West and Randwick. The travel restrictions apply from 1am Thursday. Sydney’s Waverley Council was already considered a hotspot.
Queensland residents who have been in one of those local government areas will have to quarantine when returning home. Everyone else who has been at a NSW hotspot will be barred from travelling unless they obtain an exemption.
“We haven’t heard the update from New South Wales today, so people should be prepared that if there is further spread in New South Wales, this advice may have to be updated during the course of the day or into the evening,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“Now, we want everyone to be safe and we wish New South Wales the very best in getting on top of this particular variant, but as we know, we’re going well here in Queensland and we want to continue to keep Queenslanders safe.”
Watch: Qld’s COVID-19 update
By Broede Carmody
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is due to hold a COVID-19 update.
It comes amid a growing coronavirus outbreak in Greater Sydney.
Watch the press conference below.
Great Barrier Reef’s value remains ‘whole and intact’: Marine park boss
By Nick Bonyhady
The head of the agency that manages the Great Barrier Reef said he was surprised by a UN decision to begin listing the reef as endangered.
A panel from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation issued a draft “endangered” listing this week for the reef, sparking anger from the federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley who said the decision hadn’t been backed by a proper examination.
The United Nations has issued a draft endangered listing for the Great Barrier Reef. Credit:AP
Josh Thomas, who is a former adviser to Liberal environment ministers, chief executive of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and not the comedian of the same name, said he had hoped to be able to argue Australia’s case at a UN World Heritage committee meeting in July before any draft listing but been denied the opportunity.
Marine scientists and a UNESCO official, speaking to The Guardian, defended the listing, saying there had been repeated and forceful warnings that the reef was in poor health and getting worse because of climate change and other threats.
“No one is challenging the fact that the reef is under pressure, not least from climate change, water quality, crown of thorns starfish predation and illegal fishing and we’re taking really serious action on those issues,” Mr Thomas said.
“Our Great Barrier Reef outlook report 2019 does indeed state that the… the outlook for the reef is going from poor to very poor in our assessment, but it does also state that the outstanding universal value of the great barrier reef remains whole and intact and that’s something UNESCO should take careful note of.”
Childcare subsidies spark ‘robust debate’ in Coalition party room
By Nick Bonyhady
Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes has defended the government’s $1.7 billion boost to childcare subsidies, which came under attack yesterday from several of her own colleagues in the Coalition.
Nationals George Christensen and Matt Canavan, both close allies of the new Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, had attacked the proposal on the basis that it did not do enough to support stay at home parents, who are overwhelmingly mothers.
Liberal Senator for NSW Hollie Hughes. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
My colleague Katina Curtis heard from several sources in the room that Mr Christensen had described parents who use childcare as outsourcing their responsibilities to big corporations.
“There was robust debate between a number of people in the party room,” Senator Hughes said after being repeatedly pressed on ABC TV about who said what.
“I think most people would like to see they’re able to make their own choices about how they raise their children.”
Senator Hughes repeated one cutting line she was reported to have used in the meeting to rubbish claims all decisions to go back to work were financial.
“There’s a lot of people who choose to go back to work because, you know, they’re not, dare I say it, cut out to sit at home and watch Bluey.”
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2021-06-23 00:27:07Z
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