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The day in review
Thanks for reading our live news coverage today. Here's a summary of the main headlines:
- Fugitive and conman Peter Foster has been arrested by federal police in regional Victoria after six months on the run. Foster, who is facing fraud charges, failed to show for a court hearing in Sydney earlier this year, and police say the big four banks helped track him down to where he was located on a hobby farm.
- NSW health authorities have linked a small cluster of Omicron COVID-19 cases in south-west Sydney to a recent international arrival who returned to Australia before isolation requirements were reintroduced. Their Victorian counterparts are investigating whether another traveller who landed in Melbourne last week might be infected with the new strain.
- Thousands of NSW teachers marched in Sydney today as they protested against their pay and conditions. The public school teachers' union is lobbying for a bigger wage increase than the government is offering. The teachers say their work is undervalued and they are poorly remunerated for roles which keep getting busier.
- The Victorian government has acknowledged thousands of people had a "difficult time" stranded across the border after the Ombudsman said the “unjust” and "inhumane" permit scheme resulted in some of the most questionable decisions she has seen in her career.
- The Reserve Bank held official interest rates steady at a record low of 0.1 per cent as figures show property prices around the country growing at record levels.
- The SCG has thrown its hat into the ring alongside the MCG in the race to host the fifth Ashes Test after Perth was stripped of hosting rights due to Western Australia's draconian border restrictions. English pace star Jimmy Anderson has been withdrawn from the first match in Brisbane starting tomorrow, which will see Australia unveil new captain Pat Cummins.
- Voters in Sydney's northern beaches have expressed mixed views about the prospect of former Premier Gladys Berejiklian running for federal politics in their electorate. One columnist thinks the lingering shadow of ICAC investigation should not rule her out, but the Herald believes her push is "premature and reckless".
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Podcast: How will next year’s election compare to previous polls?
By Bianca Hall
Labor’s election campaign kicked off in earnest at the weekend, while Prime Minister Scott Morrison has barely drawn breath in recent days.
The election might be months away, but the unofficial campaign is well and truly under way.
What sort of campaign will this be? And how will it compare with elections in recent memory?
Today on Please Explain, associate editor and special writer Tony Wright, who has been covering elections since 1983, joins Bianca Hall for a look back at the hits and misses of elections over the years.
Fugitive Foster found on hobby farm after big banks helped police find him
By Cloe Read
Career criminal Peter Foster, who was found on a hobby farm in rural Victoria with another man, tried to flee officers but "didn't make it past the back door" before he was arrested, police say.
Foster, 59, was arrested by federal police near Gisborne in Victoria, after officers tried to track him down for six months.
Mr Foster outside court in Sydney.Credit:Nick Moir
He was facing multiple charges relating to alleged $2 million fraud offences. A warrant was issued for Mr Foster’s arrest in May after he could not be located to attend a court hearing in Sydney.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Nigel Ryan said Foster was "living comfortably" on the hobby farm.
"He was actually identified there with another person and that person is obviously subject to further investigations as to whether they had any involvement in harbouring Mr Foster," he said.
Assistant Commissioner Ryan said the big four banks were instrumental in the investigation by providing information that helped locate Foster.
"Obviously I don't want to go too much into our investigative capabilities but obviously the tracing of financials and those types of things are very instrumental in all investigations where we can trace money back to individuals," he said.
Novak Djokovic confirmed for ATP Cup in Sydney, organisers say
By Scott Spits
Organisers of the ATP Cup - to be held in Sydney at the start of January - say world No.1 Novak Djokovic has committed to the men’s teams event.
Confirmation that Djokovic, chasing a 10th Australian Open at Melbourne Park in January, will be in Sydney is the strongest sign that the Serbian champion will take his spot in the field in Melbourne for the first major of 2022.
Djokovic will travel to Australia to play the ATP Cup.Credit:Getty Images
All players heading Down Under for the Australian Open must be vaccinated. Djokovic has previously not disclosed his vaccination status.
The 16 teams for the ATP Cup, a team event run by Tennis Australia and the ATP, were confirmed at the tournament launch in Sydney.
An article on the official ATP Tour website reported the following:
“Top seed Serbia, headlined by World No.1 Novak Djokovic, will lead Group A, which will also features Norway, Chile and Spain. Two years ago, Serbia lifted the trophy at the inaugural ATP Cup by defeating Spain in the championship match.”
Watch: AFP press conference on arrest of conman Peter Foster
Australian Federal Police officers are addressing the media at 3pm (AEDT) after the arrest of notorious conman Peter Foster in Victoria earlier today. Watch below:
NSW Labor accuses Education Minister of inflaming teacher strike tensions
By Lucy Cormack
NSW Labor leader Chris Minns has accused Education Minister Sarah Mitchell of being inflammatory, after she said the NSW Teachers Federation was being an obstructionist protection racket ahead of Tuesday's teachers strike."
Ms Mitchell launched a blistering attack on the federation today, accusing it of fighting transparency and hanging students out to dry for political purposes.
Teachers protesting in Sydney today over pay and an overwhelming workload.Credit:Janie Barrett
“Families should not be punished by a protectionist racket focused solely on rewarding the federation’s longest-serving members whilst ignoring the needs of students," she said.
Mr Minns said he was concerned that the language only inflamed the ongoing industrial dispute.
"The emphasis here should not be on throwing mud, it should be on trying to fix this complicated situation," he said. "I wonder whether the minister is in fact inflaming the situation and antagonising it, rather than solving. At the end of the day, we were hopeful that 11th hour consultation and negotiations with the unions would stop industrial action in NSW. That doesn't seem to be the case."
Public school teachers took strike action for 24 hours on Tuesday to reject the state government’s offer of a 2.5 per cent a year pay rise.
Mr Minns accused the government of holding wages flat at a time when rising cost of living pressures had made Sydney one of the most expensive cities on earth.
"In NSW in the last 12 months, petrol has jumped up over 40 per cent ... health care is up over 5 per cent, vegetables and fruit is up 7.6 per cent and rents are up 7.2 per cent," he said. "I urge the NSW government and the Minister for Education sit down with teacher representatives – don't antagonise the situation any longer."
Fugitive arrested in Victoria after months on the run
By David Estcourt
Notorious conman and wanted fugitive Peter Foster has been arrested in the Macedon Ranges after being on the run for six months.
Mr Foster, 59, was arrested by federal police today near the Victorian town of Gisborne, about an hour north-west of Melbourne, after a six-month investigation to locate him.
Peter Foster leaves court in Sydney after a brief mention of his case back in April.Credit:Nick Moir
A warrant was issued for Mr Foster’s arrest in May after he could not be located to attend a court hearing in Sydney.
The 59-year-old was arrested in dramatic scenes in August last year on a beach near his Port Douglas home in far-north Queensland and extradited to Sydney.
He was charged with five counts of publishing false and misleading material to obtain advantage, 10 counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception and one count of knowingly dealing with proceeds of crime with intent to conceal.
Federal police said Mr Foster was remanded in custody, and moves were afoot to extradite him to Queensland.
Possible Omicron case in Victorian hotel quarantine
By Marta Pascual Juanola
Genomic sequencing is under way to determine whether an international traveller who landed in Melbourne last week could have been infected with the new Omicron strain of COVID-19.
The traveller, who is fully vaccinated, arrived in Victoria from the Netherlands after transiting through Abu Dhabi on December 3 and went straight into hotel quarantine.
The traveller flew into Melbourne on December 3.Credit:Eddie Jim
The person returned a negative PCR test on December 4 before developing symptoms and testing positive for the virus on December 6.
Health authorities said the test results had shown an S gene dropout in the virus, a sign a person could be infected with Omicron, according to the World Health Organisation.
“Several labs have indicated that for one widely used PCR test, one of the three target genes is not detected — called S gene dropout or S gene target failure– and this test can therefore be used as marker for this variant, pending sequencing confirmation,” the WHO said on November 26.
All other passengers on the inbound flight will be contacted to make sure they have been tested for the virus, as contact tracers try to determine the source of the infection.
The traveller has not been in the community while infectious. Overseas arrivals to Victoria need to quarantine for 72 hours upon arrival and undergo PCR testing within 24 hours. They have to get tested again between days 5 and 7.
Meanwhile, two elderly Aboriginal Victorians have died having tested positive for COVID-19, becoming the first Indigenous people in the state to die with the virus.
In a statement on Tuesday afternoon, health authorities confirmed a 68-year-old woman with coronavirus had died from an underlying health condition, while a 73-year-old man had died from COVID-19.
Future COVID variants to be named after stars when Greek alphabet is exhausted
By Rachel Clun
How long will the pandemic last? It’s difficult to say for sure, but here’s a hint of what the world’s top experts think.
Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly said the World Health Organisation (WHO) is already looking at how it will name new variants of concern once it runs out of Greek letters.
“In a sign of things to come the WHO has indicated once it has exhausted the Greek alphabet, and they've got 11 left, it will look to stars and constellations for future names,” he told a Senate committee hearing this afternoon.
“It is clear that this will not be the last variant that we will be dealing with.”
The newest variant of concern, Omicron, is still being investigated by health authorities and so far still appears to be milder than other forms of the virus. But Professor Kelly said we need more information.
“Omicron is already here and as it has spread around the world in the past 10 days. There are now 49 countries that have recorded over 1000 cases of Omicron,” he said.
“We have no definite signals anywhere in the world that the Omicron is more severe than any other of the variants that have preceded it. Of course, we're watching that very carefully.”
Professor Kelly said Australian health authorities were not looking to stop the variant from getting into Australia, but rather slow its spread through the country.
Australia considering donating more vaccines as wastage rises
By Rachel Clun
Australia is looking to donate mRNA coronavirus vaccines and has delayed some imports in order to get through millions of existing doses before they expire.
Operation COVID Shield coordinator Lieutenant General John Frewen told the Senate COVID-19 Committee that the government was looking at donating doses of Pfizer and Moderna to countries in the Pacific and South East Asia as vaccines near expiry.
General Frewen at a Senate hearing in July. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
“We're still doing management to make sure that doses that are nearing expiry are being used first,” he said. “We are working to donate if that's appropriate. We have also delayed some deliveries of mRNA vaccines from overseas to make sure that we haven't gotten vaccines here that the clock has started ticking on for expiry as well.”
There are nearly 9.9 million doses of vaccines sitting unused in clinics around the country this week, and the wastage rate has crept up to 4.3 per cent from 1.2 per cent earlier in the rollout.
“When every dose was precious, we were making sure that no vial was opened until we had enough people,” General Frewen said.
“Now we are saying if you have got a person who needs to be vaccinated they should open a vial ... That means sometimes a vial is being open when they've only got one walk in, and then they might not get any more walk-ins for the rest of the day. So you waste nine at the 10 doses.”
General Frewen said that the wastage rate was still very good, and well below the OECD wastage average of 10 to 15 per cent.
Earlier this year, Australia raided 500,000 doses of Pfizer from a scheme set up to ensure poorer countries received fair and equitable access to vaccines.
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2021-12-07 07:29:31Z
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