Australia news live update: Morrison says Qld premier ‘consulted’ on emergency declaration; Rio Tinto ditching Russia; 21 Covid deaths

The end of last year saw a nice jump in the number of hours being worked, but the latest labour account figures released on Wednesday by the bureau of statistics reveal that there are now more people working multiple jobs than ever before.

Since the dark days of the pandemic in the middle of 2020, it is fair to say the economy has recovered well – and better than most economists expected.

Recessions are horrendous things that generally destroy work for many years even once the economy is back growing. The Covid recession, however, was different because it was a largely government-decided recession – people and business had to stop work and had to stop moving across borders to prevent the spread of Covid, and that was why we had a recession.

But while the job recovery has been better than expected, when we look at what type of work has grown, we see some big concerns.

Read the whole story here:

Scott Morrison is “looking at” extending eligibility for extra payments to more flood victims on the New South Wales north coast, in response to anger over the decision to leave some of the hardest-hit disaster areas out.

The prime minister made the comments in Brisbane where he was planning to declare an emergency two weeks after major floods that killed 13 people and damaged thousand of homes and businesses in the south-east.

But the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, rejected the offer, saying it’s too late.

The federal government is also facing a backlash over its decision to extend by two weeks a $1,000 Australian government disaster recovery payment for people in the Lismore, Richmond and Clarence Valley local government areas, but not nearby Byron, Ballina and Tweed local government areas.

The deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, has denied the decision was because Byron, Ballina and Tweed LGAs are not represented by a Coalition member.

Read more about the issue here:

High-profile victims of online trolling, including Erin Molan and Nyadol Nyuon, have said an “anti-trolling” bill that overhauls defamation law for online comments will be “almost impossible” to uptake and not “useful” to most people in Australia due to the cost and effort involved.

The bill will make the owners of social media pages and groups not liable for user comments on those groups or pages, and would shift the liability burden to social media platforms if they do not attempt to facilitate the unmasking of anonymous commenters for someone seeking to bring defamation proceedings.

The majority of those who have made submissions about the bill have said the bill is incorrectly titled, because it does not target trolling. However, the media personality Erin Molan, the former Broncos NRL coach Anthony Seibold, and the prominent African Australian lawyer and chair of Harmony Alliance, Nyadol Nyuon, were called before the inquiry to give evidence about the trolling they had endured online.

Read more about what they had to say here:

A United Nations monitoring trip to the Great Barrier Reef will land in Queensland later this month just as forecasts suggest the risk of widespread coral bleaching will be at its highest.

Unesco has confirmed two scientists will carry out the mission, requested by the Morrison government, lasting for 10 days from 21 March.

Forecasting from the US government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) shows the visit could coincide with the reef being at risk of widespread bleaching.

Environment groups told the Guardian while they were not aware of any details of the itinerary, it was vital the scientists were allowed to see any bleaching for themselves.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority reported late last week that “low to moderate bleaching” had already been reported in many areas.

The reef authority said significant heat stress had accumulated in some parts of the far north of the reef, as well as between Townsville and Rockhampton:

The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting sea surface temperatures to remain above average throughout most of the marine park in the coming weeks.

Read more here:

The head of Ukraine’s embassy in Australia has said he cannot remain “diplomatically polite” while his parents are sheltering in Kyiv, and has called on the Morrison government to expel the Russian ambassador.

Volodymyr Shalkivskyi, the chargé d’affaires at the embassy, issued the plea as he spoke about how his parents, aged in their 70s, had rebuffed suggestions to flee Ukraine’s capital and were now asking for recipes to make Molotov cocktails.

He told the National Press Club in Canberra today:

They’re making sandwiches [for] our military and they spend the nights in bomb shelters.

As my father told me, two nights in a bomb shelter is enough to completely change any pro-Russian sentiment that you have in your heart.

Shalkivskyi also described a message he had received from his mother, aged 73, after she looked out from the balcony on the seventh floor of her apartment building in northern Kyiv.

I was worried about her and asking, ‘well, maybe you should go’. But she texted me, ‘I went to the balcony, I think it’s a good position. Can you send me a recipe of Molotov cocktail?’

The Australian government has ratcheted up sanctions against Russian political, military and business figures over the invasion of Ukraine, but has stopped short of expelling Russian diplomats from the country, saying it wants to keep open lines of communication at this stage.

Shalkivskyi said given his line of work he usually stuck with “diplomatic narratives” and he understood the Australian government’s position about retaining lines of dialogue.

But he said countries needed to “use all means that we have in our disposal in order to fight back”:

Again, I am not in the position to be diplomatically polite. Having my parents in bomb shelters, it makes you kind of more decisive. So yes, I will appreciate any kind of push from the Australian government that is possible in order to deliver the messages from Australian side.

The Bureau of Meteorology has just updated its flood watch (#65) for the Hawkesbury-Nepean River that fringes Sydney’s north and west, and as you may have sussed out by now is floodprone.

Here’s what the river’s flow looks like at Windsor:

According to the BoM:

Rainfall has eased since Wednesday morning and major flood peaks above the March 2021 event have been observed at North Richmond, Windsor and downstream. River levels at Windsor peaked … with flood levels nearly 1m above those experienced in March 2021. The peak observed at Windsor is the highest since the March 1978 flood event.

The main flood peak in the Hawkesbury is now downstream of Wisemans Ferry, the bureau said.

River levels at North Richmond are expected to remain above major levels for the remainder of the week.

Warragamba Dam, which has been spilling into the river, was still releasing at the rate of 82 gigalitres a day earlier on Thursday. Inflows are now less than outflows.

Across the city’s dams, they remain almost 100%, with most of them spilling, WaterNews says.