COVID-19: Update 29/04/2020
- More on the story in NSW on a construction stimulus. Includes ‘fast tracking’ of developments including Ivanhoe Estate a public housing renewal project awarded to a consortium led by Frasers in August 2017. https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-government-fast-tracks-key-projects-to-boost-economy-20200428-p54nx8.html
- The Anglicare rental snapshot will be published tomorrow
- Education Minister Dan Tehan is pressing private schools to return to classroom teaching by June 1 using funding timing as incentive.
- Health minister Greg Hunt says US authorities would not be able to access data collected by COVIDSafe app, based on advice from Attorney General.
- Hunt: ‘there is no application to the US law in relation to this app… In any event, the Biosecurity Act determination trumps it.’ (SMH)
- China reverberations:
- Chinese Embassy leaks conversation with DFAT Secretary Frances Adamson; DFAT objects to breach of protocol and questions account.
- Chairman of National Foundation for Australia-China Relations, Warwick Smith, stepped down weeks ago, understood to have ‘held concerns’ about the new body. (Australian)
- Andrew Hastie MP suggests that Australia should take back the Port of Darwin to reassert our sovereignty. (DT)
- Former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry says government response has been ‘very good’. (ABC RN)
- Expects that government will be looking at adjusting JobKeeper to wind back early if unused.
- Doubts that JobSeeker will go back to original level, and says it shouldn’t.
- And the FT has Bondi Beach on the front page.