Australia news updates live: urgent action required to ramp up Indigenous vaccination rates; wet weather warnings

The Bureau of Meteorology is urging people across Victoria to prepare for severe weather toward the end of the week, with Friday and Saturday expected to see the heaviest rainfall.

Western Australia has recorded no new cases today, with 66.4% of the state’s eligible population now fully vaccinated.

Following on from Matt Kean’s comments, NSW opposition leader Chris Minns also appeared on the ABC this afternoon, and largely backed the state government’s climate policies.

Asked if there needs to be a more ambitious target for state government, Minns gave a diplomatic answer:

We support it, we think it is appropriate.

Australia has been pretty terrible at electric vehicle uptake, we required no lease operators or large purchases of electric vehicles to have any particular requirements when they go about their purchasing strategy, and as a result it’s often been dumped on the Australian market over the last 10 years.

So it’s good the New South Wales government has got an incentive in place, they’ve already rolled out about half $1bn for electric vehicle charging stations particularly in the regions which is important as people move towards electric vehicles.

And I think that in some ways, and a small way we are seeing changes from the federal government, we need to keep going further, [but] states have obviously led the way, in New South Wales in particular.

Asked if the federal Labor party should release its midterm targets, Minns was more avoidant:

I don’t want to, I guess, jump in front of what will be the federal Labor policy proposal.

I’m sure it will be in keeping with the obligations that every political party has to meet these climate change goals and to ensure that we’ve got realistic targets but ambitious targets that can be met over the coming decades. We need these things entrenched not just in law but obviously in a ranges of policy decisions because it is not just going to have to be the heavy lifting of the NSW government or the state Government in Victoria, it will require federal leadership for us to meet our obligations.

New South Wales treasurer and minister for energy and environment Matt Kean was on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing earlier, and had some choice words about the commonwealth’s EV plan.

Asked about the federal government’s EV “plan”, and if it was a “chance missed”, Kean tried to keep it economical:

Put it this way. We are spending $600m to ensure that New South Wales consumers can enjoy all the benefits that this new technology has to offer.

Compare that to the commonwealth who are spending $250m across the entire country. So the proof is in the pudding.

Asked what he thought of the PM facing questions about his own rhetoric about EVs in the leadup to the 2019 election, Kean tried to dodge the question without dodging the question:

Look, what I do know as someone that drives an EV is it won’t ruin their weekend, they will make it even better. That will revolutionise not just the weekend but every single day of the week.

That is a matter for the prime minister, but what I say as someone that drives an EV is that they are a great product, they are good for the environment and cheaper to run and we want to see those advantages rolled out so everyone who wants one can afford one.

The Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) is recommending mandating vaccines for all disability support workers, adding that all first doses should be administered by the end of November.

In a statement that also details their recommended national definition of a disability support worker, the AHPPC recommended the vaccine be mandate for all workers delivering at-home services as well.

AHPPC notes mandating of vaccination for disability support workers providing services and supports to people with disability provides an important protection for people with disability during this emergency.

The committee also recommended that exemptions be “limited” and “consistent with the national framework endorsed by AHPPC for residential aged care workers.”

The group, which is made up of the country’s chief medical officers, said vaccinations should become a condition of entry into the homes of NDIS recipients.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) are warning that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities are facing elevated risk as the country opens up.

The RACGP said that vaccine rates among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities continue to “lag behind non-Indigenous populations”.

They said only 54.5% of eligible adults among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are fully vaccinated, and 66.2% have received one dose, compared to the double-vaccinated rate of all Australians, which sits at 80.6%.

RACGP Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health chair, Prof Peter O’Mara said it was essential that governments ramp up outreach and vaccination programs:

The fact that there remains a serious gap in vaccine coverage between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Indigenous people in our country is a national shame.

We urgently need to ramp up vaccine access and education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, particularly for younger community members and certain jurisdictions, including Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia, and the Northern Territory, which we know are really lagging behind.

We have already seen devastating outbreaks in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, particularly in the eastern states, despite the considerable work that went into ensuring these communities were isolated from the virus.

So, earlier today, the Australian government has ranked dead last by the Climate Change Performance Index for its response to the climate crisis.

The assessment looked at the climate response of 60 countries, and the current government’s lack of policies, high per capita greenhouse gas emissions, weak targets, low levels of renewables and high levels of energy use.

Australia slipped four places on the index from last year, and was the only country allocated a score of zero in the climate policy category.

You can read more on the assessment in the story from Graham Readfearn, linked below:

WA police have confirmed the arrest of two men after they allegedly drove through a border checkpoint.

In a statement, police say a 17-year-old male driver and his 24-year-old male passenger were attempting to return to WA by road from NSW, via Victoria and South Australia, but his G2G pass had been rejected multiple times for “failing to meet the threshold to be granted entry from an ‘Extreme Risk’ location”.

A subsequent G2G Pass application was accepted on 7 November, suggesting he had been in South Australia for the previous fortnight.

They attempted to cross the border on Monday and were turned around. Police say the car returned later that day, and attempted to drive through the checkpoint.

About 6:25pm the same vehicle re-attended the checkpoint and it will be alleged the vehicle was driven through the checkpoint at high speed, failing to stop for police.

The vehicle was later located about 20km east of Norseman. The two occupants were arrested without incident and have been tested for COVID-19.

Both men have been charged with three counts of Fail to Comply with a Direction.