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What we know today, Thursday November 11

Victoria has recorded 1313 new COVID-19 cases and four deaths as a crowd of fully-vaccinated people attend a Remembrance Day service in Melbourne.

Nov 11, 2021, updated Nov 11, 2021
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance. Photo: AAP/James Ross

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance. Photo: AAP/James Ross

Vic records 1313 new cases, four deaths

Victoria has recorded 1313 new COVID-19 cases and four deaths as a crowd of fully-vaccinated people attend a Remembrance Day service in Melbourne.

It’s the first time in two years that the public is invited to attend the service at the Shrine of Remembrance, after crowds were banned last year as the city was just emerging from its second lockdown.

Bookings weren’t required for the ceremony but attendees must show proof they are double-vaccinated and check in.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews attended the event.

It comes after protesters in September swarmed the shrine for a violent anti-lockdown rally, which was slammed as disrespectful by veterans and police.

There are 15,675 active cases in the state, including 457 in hospital, with 79 in intensive care and 48 on ventilators.

Some 67,105 Victorians were tested on Wednesday and 10,358 received a vaccine dose at a state-run hub.

Just under 93 per cent of Victorians aged 12 and over have received at least one vaccine dose and 85 per cent are fully vaccinated.

Almost all restrictions are set to be scrapped for the fully vaccinated when the state reaches 90 per cent double-dosed, which is forecast to occur by November 24.

Australia set to hit 90 per cent first dose milestone

Australia is set to surpass the 90 per cent first dose vaccination coverage for over-16s this afternoon, in what the health minister says will be an “extraordinary” achievement.

Greg Hunt said the milestone was expected to be reached about 1pm on Thursday somewhere in Australia.

“About 1pm, in a country general practice, an Indigenous medical clinic, in a suburban pharmacy, someone will be the Australian who takes us over 90 per cent,” Hunt told reporters in Melbourne.

“We’re at 81.9 per cent second doses, or almost 17 million people around the country who have had second doses, so that’s a huge achievement.”

It comes after Queensland on Wednesday became the last jurisdiction to cross the 80 per cent mark for first doses.

Hunt said booster shot rates have already surpassed 200,000 doses after the top-up dose was approved for use in the general public late last month.

Medical regulators are now considering data from Pfizer to approve a vaccine for children aged five to 11.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration on Wednesday also granted a provisional determination for Moderna to submit its vaccine data for children aged six to 11-years-old.

Australia tried to scrap climate reference

Australia has sought to scrap from a key United Nations document a reference to limiting global warming to 1.5C amid mounting pressure on the country to strengthen its 2030 emissions cuts.

The Morrison government wanted to remove from the draft UNESCO document about world heritage site protection a reference to “limiting global warming to 1.5C, with no or limited overshoot”.

It instead wanted to replace it with a general statement about consistency with “commitments to implement the Paris Agreement”.

UNESCO recommended Australia’s proposal to scrap the 1.5C reference be disregarded.

The body reiterated it was important for countries to undertake the most ambitious approach to the Paris goals.

Environment Minister Sussan Ley noted Australia did not oppose another direct reference earlier in the text to climate risks being greater at warming of 2C compared with 1.5C.

“Our approach with the two amendments we proposed to this paragraph was to ensure that the policy document was fully aligned to the Paris Agreement,” a ministerial spokesman said.

Yet-to-be-released modelling underpinning Australia’s target of net zero emissions by 2050 assumes warming of 2C above pre-industrial levels.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has copped heavy criticism for declining to make the modelling public ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

He insists it will be released before federal parliament returns on November 22.

‘I had failed in my task’: Public service boss’s ‘dismay’ at Chapman’s port rejection

The head of the state’s Transport department didn’t consider it his role to advise Attorney-General Vickie Chapman if she had a conflict of interest relating to a deep-water port on her native Kangaroo Island, telling parliament it would have been akin to “teaching your grandma how to suck eggs”.

In an extraordinary afternoon of evidence in the ongoing inquiry into Chapman’s decision as Planning Minister to veto the $40 million port proposal, Tony Braxton-Smith claimed to have a “flaky memory”, little experience in the Planning portfolio he once oversaw, no knowledge of the state’s ministerial code of conduct – which he was “surprised” to learn even existed – and considered conflicts of interest an “administrative detail”.

He also expressed “dismay” that his assessment report recommending the project was knocked back by Chapman, saying he believed he had “failed in my task”, but arguing that “Kangaroo Island needed economic development and diversification in its economy”.

Braxton-Smith, who led the former Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure from late 2018 till mid-2020, when a restructure saw Planning moved to the Attorney-General’s department, told the committee he did not “have any technical expertise or subject matter expertise in that [planning] field”.

“That was freely acknowledged and abundantly apparent when I applied for the job… I have never had responsibility for a planning function,” he said.

Nonetheless, he authored an assessment report for the doomed port project that was rejected by Chapman after she took over the Planning portfolio in 2020, requesting instead another round of assessments.

Braxton-Smith told the inquiry he “did wonder on the basis for the rejection of the assessment report”.

“We had put many months of effort into it and I thought we had done the job, and I was a bit dismayed that I hadn’t done a better job,” he said.

“It was very complex in terms of an assessment, and I had done my best to think carefully about it and thought that I had addressed adequately the various considerations.”

Read the full story here.

– Tom Richardson

First 30 artists announced for 2022 WOMADelaide

Singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett. Photo: Mia Mala McDonald

Paul Kelly, Courtney Barnett and Baker Boy lead the first line-up of 30 artists announced for WOMADelaide’s 30th anniversary festival in Botanic Park in 2022.

As reported last month, the world music festival will return to the park in its usual seven-stage format from March 11-14. Performers, festival-goers and everyone else on site aged 12 and over must be fully vaccinated for COVID-19.

The 2022 festival will feature mainly Australian-based acts, but director Ian Scobie says those performing demonstrate “the extraordinary creative and cultural diversity that lies within our own borders”.

Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett will make her WOMADelaide debut in 2022 on the back of her latest album, Things Take Time, Take Time, released this week, while Adelaide-born multi-ARIA-winner Paul Kelly returns for the first time in 16 years.

Festival organisers say they will also have one of their strongest ever line-ups of Indigenous musicians, led by Yolngu rapper and dancer Baker Boy, whose debut album Gela has just been nominated for the Triple J album of the year.

Read more and see the full line-up here on InReview.

– Suzie Keen

Labor promises funding for ANZAC dawn services

File image: AAP/Kelly Barnes

The State Opposition has announced that it will issue grants of up to $10,000 to RSL branches so that they can hold COVID-safe ANZAC Day dawn services if it wins the March election.

Labor says its $500,000 “South Australia Remembers Grant Program” would contribute to the costs of employing additional marshals, enforcing road closures, ticketing, seating, marquees or getting assistance developing COVID management plans.

It says both RSL sub-branches or local councils that run commemorative events would be eligible to apply for grants of up to $10,000.

An additional $25,000 would be provided to the RSL ANZAC Day Committee which organises the dawn service and march in the city.

The State Government this year had to step in to provide staffing and funding support to the Semaphore, Morphett Vale and Brighton dawn services after organisers said they couldn’t meet COVID rules.

Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas said it was important that the Government helped RSL clubs to continue hold services and events to appropriately mark ANZAC Day.

It comes as Australia today marks Remembrance Day for the first time in more than two decades while not currently involved in an active conflict.

Regulator weighs up under-12s vaccinations

A crucial step has been taken towards approving a COVID-19 vaccine for children aged six to 12.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration has granted a “provisional determination” to Moderna Australia in relation to its COVID-19 vaccine, SPIKEVAX.

It means Moderna can apply to vary the provisional approval of its vaccine for use in children aged under 12.

Currently, SPIKEVAX is provisionally approved for use in people aged 12 years or older.

In making its decision, the TGA considered evidence of a plan to submit comprehensive clinical data in relation to use in children, the regulator said in a statement.

“Moderna Australia has now submitted data for provisional approval and the TGA is assessing the use of SPIKEVAX in children six to 11 years old,” it said.

Meanwhile, the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee recommended a vaccine mandate for all disability support workers, adding vaccinations should be a condition of entry to National Disability Insurance Scheme recipients’ homes.

The committee recommended exemptions to that mandate be “limited”.

NSW aims for 95 per cent vax rate

Having cleared the 90 per cent vaccination mark, NSW health authorities are now aiming to achieve even higher jab numbers.

“While we have really high vaccination rates, we need to remain vigilant and we need to continue to maintain our efforts,” NSW deputy chief health officer Dr Marianne Gale said on Wednesday.

Some 90.4 per cent of people over 16 are fully vaccinated in NSW.

The state looks likely to reach at least 94 per cent vaccination given that’s how many people have already stepped forward for a first dose, but authorities want to reach 95 per cent or more.

The efficacy of vaccines is demonstrated by the make-up of the state’s intensive care wards.

Of the 41 COVID-19 patients currently in ICU, 28 – or 68 per cent – are unvaccinated. Seven have received one dose of the vaccine, and six have received both doses.

Latest federal government data accurate as of Tuesday shows 71.8 per cent of South Australians are fully-vaccinated, while 84.3 per cent have had at least one vaccine dose.

PNG says it may roll back climate change measures

Papua New Guinea’s Environment Minister Wera Mori at the UN Climate Summit. Photo: Alastair Grant/AP

Papua New Guinea’s Environment Minister says his country may “rethink” efforts to cut logging, coal mining and even coming to meetings such as the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow.

“If they keep stalling there’s no point in returning to any future COP meetings,” minister Wera Mori said.

Mori said rich and developed countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Japan and those in the European Union must pay up and that without a meaningful agreement in Glasgow, Papua New Guinea may roll back measures they have taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

“We will have to decide as a country to rethink what position we have taken… in terms of logging, in terms of extracting coal and other measures,” Mori said.

The minister said his country has cut back on logging, plans to ban round log exports by 2025 and hasn’t issued new coal mining permits.

But if financing is not forthcoming then “we cannot be swimming around in the wilderness”.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, which is hosting the UN climate change summit, has released a first draft of what will be the summit’s most important document and it calls on all nations to accelerate the phase-out of coal.

It also urges countries that failed to bring stronger 2030 targets to Glasgow to do that by the end of 2022. Australia is among those nations.

The draft will be refined by participating nations in coming days, with a final version to be issued at the end of the summit, which formally ends on Friday.

China and the United States have announced they will reveal their 2035 targets for cutting climate-warming emissions ten years early in 2025.

A joint statement released at the UN climate summit said the two countries also planned to improve the measurement of methane emissions before COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

-With AAP and Reuters

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