8.28am GMT 08:28 What we learned today, Thursday 7 January We’re shutting up shop for the day. Thanks for reading. He...
Mark McGowan warns against complacency after PPE breaches force three people to isolate
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WA department of fire and emergency services’ Sven Anderson, the incident controller for the Red Gully fire, is giving an update on the blaze and the weather conditions.
The fire has been burning for almost a week north of Perth.
He says the fire has been reasonably stationary for the past day and a half, but firefighters have been working around the clock to keep it within those containment lines.
A cool change has just started to arrive at the southern end of the fire which could test containment lines.
We’re confident of some of our containment lines, but with a significant wind change coming in today, that will put some pressure on containment lines that we haven’t actually had tested previously.
So we’re still saying to people, just be aware, we’re not out of the woods yet. Please don’t become complacent because of the lack of fire activity on that fire specifically.
There is still a lot of hotspots … they could spot at any time and we could be chasing a running fire yet again.
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South Australia flags pre-flight testing for incoming international travellers
We have heard a fair bit about what Victoria plans to push at national cabinet tomorrow, but South Australian premier Steven Marshall also has something on the agenda: pre-flight Covid-19 testing for all incoming international travellers.
Under his plan, if you don’t have a negative test result, you can’t board the flight. Marshall says he first raised this plan during last month’s national cabinet meeting.
“We are very concerned with what’s happening with the situation around the rest of the world,” he said, according to a report by the ABC.
“I think it’s absolutely critical that we do that pre-flight testing … we’ve been very keen to progress it again tomorrow at national cabinet.”
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Malcolm Turnbull has criticised his successor, Scott Morrison, for his handling of the crisis in the US.
Turnbull told ABC TV:
When you look at things other leaders have said [Morrison’s response] does look a bit weak, a bit tepid. But it’s a judgment call, you don’t want to get drawn into a running commentary. But this is pretty special. This is a US president actively seeking to undermine the credibility of a democracy he’s supposed to be leading – this is right out there.
Asked if Morrison should return his Legion of Merit, Turnbull said the way such awards work is an inquiry is made as to whether a leader will accept it, and it’s a “pity” Morrison didn’t make a “tactful excuse” to not accept it.
“It’s always a bit fraught accepting honours from other countries, it’s a bit questionable.”
Turnbull said it would have been better if Morrison could “avoid having received it in the first place” but it seems the better course now is to “do nothing” – not hand the award back.
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Optimism abounds on the Australian stock exchange, which has been rising all day with the benchmark ASX 200 index up by 1.84%.
Shares in major miner Rio Tinto are leading the charge, up by a whopping 7.78% at around 3.20pm, while Lynas Corporation, which digs up the rare earths used in things like smartphones, is up almost 7.6%.
The big banks are up by between 2% and 4% but there’s buoyancy across all sectors except technology, which has gone backwards.
The buying frenzy appears to be clogging up broker systems, with CBA’s Commsec platform warning it’s “experiencing very high call volumes and wait times are longer than usual”.
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