Australia news live updates: Wong calls for restraint over China’s ‘disproportionate’ exercises; buybacks recommended for NSW flood victims

No one with Covid-19 has died in Northern Territory overnight, with the state recording 231 new cases on Saturday morning, 43 people in hospital, and one in ICU.

South Australia Health has released today’s Covid update.

There have been 1,959 new Covid cases recorded and 13 further deaths.

There are 311 people being treated in hospital with the virus including 10 in ICU.

Secretary of the RAFFWU Josh Cullinan says more than 50 members and supporters protested outside of Readings Carlton bookshop today following the breakdown in negotiations over an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement.

This morning was the first public action taken by members in their bargaining campaign:

RAFFWU members have fought a long campaign – starting five years ago – for a fair agreement.

After many meetings in 2022, we believed a satisfactory agreement had been achieved. However, after the Fair Work Commission wage increase of 4.6% in July the company has reneged on its promise to pay that increase as part of the new agreement.

This was the last straw for members who had made many compromises in trying to secure a satisfactory agreement. The refusal would effectively freeze wages for 2 years.

Cullinan said following a meeting with management on Friday afternoon, no further offer or proposal was made by Readings.

We expect a major rally will be organised in the coming weeks along with the commencement of protected industrial action.

Readings has not commented publicly on the action.

Christopher Knaus

Coalition used private contractors to collect intelligence on Nauru asylum seekers

The Australian government used private security contractors to collect intelligence on asylum seekers on Nauru, singling out those who were speaking to journalists, lawyers and refugee advocates, internal documents from 2016 reveal.

Intelligence officers working for Wilson Security compiled fortnightly reports about asylum seekers “of interest”, including individuals flagged as having “links with [Australian] media”, “contact with lawyers in Australia” or “contacts with Australian advocates”.

The reports, seen by the Guardian, were circulated among a group of senior government officials, including superintendents and commanders in the Australian Border Force, officials in Australia’s immigration department, members of the Nauru police, the Australian federal police and other private contractors operating on the island.

The reports were compiled in a year of intense protest against offshore detention, and were designed to brief the government about the activities of individual asylum seekers, including children, who were viewed as a threat to the regional processing centre.

They identified influential community members, protest organisers and anyone spreading “negative propaganda” about offshore detention or having a “negative influence” in the centre. Wilson also kept tabs on asylum seekers who were considered “pro-security” and may have the ability to influence others in the detention centre.

Read the full story here.

John Tingle, the founder and vice-chairman of the New South Wales Shooters party, has died aged 90.

A former ABC journalist and broadcaster, Tingle moved into commercial radio in 1969 including forays into talkback radio.

Tingle also presented television programs on Seven, Nine, ABC, SBS and Win throughout his career.

In 1992 Tingle founded the Shooters party in response to regulation over gun ownership. He was elected to the NSW Legislative Council in 1995 and served until 2006.

He is survived by three children, including his journalist daughter Laura Tingle, the chief political correspondent on ABC’s 7.30 program.

Scientists in Perth may have helped make a breakthrough in the decades-old German mystery surrounding a man’s body found floating in the North Sea after tests suggest he spent most of his life in Australia.

The man, dubbed “The Gentleman” by investigators in 1994 after his body was found by police off the coast of Heligoland, a German archipelago, was weighed down by cast iron cobbler’s feet.

He earned The Gentleman nickname due to his smart clothing: a wool tie, British-made shoes, French-made trousers and a long-sleeve blue dress shirt.

The case has baffled German police for 28 years, but criminologists and forensic scientists from Murdoch University may have helped to unravel the mystery after they ran new tests.

They found the man spent most of his life in Australia. Investigators in the 1990s determined he was 45 to 50 years old.

Scientists made the discovery by following the principle of “you are what you eat”, performing an isotope ratio analysis of The Gentleman’s bones.

Differences in climate, soil and human activity across the globe change the isotopic compositions of food, water and even dust – reflected in the isotopic compositions of human tissue.

Researchers from overseas universities were recently also able to get a DNA profile of the man.

There’s hope it could match with DNA being collected as part of Missing Person’s Week, where authorities have been calling on Australians to come forward for testing to help solve some of the nation’s cold cases.

Investigators have been slowly piecing together The Gentleman’s past for years.

The iron tools he was weighed down with were only recently disclosed by police, his shoes are expensive and his distinctive green, yellow and blue striped tie may signal he belonged to a specific organisation.

– From AAP

Two people with Covid-19 have died in Western Australia overnight, with the state recording 2,911 new cases on Saturday morning, 346 people in hospital, and 14 in ICU.

Victoria’s elective surgery waiting list balloons

Caitlin Cassidy

The elective surgery waiting list in Victoria has ballooned by 21,000 compared to the same time last year, performance data released this morning has found.

The number of people waiting for surgery in Victoria for the quarter ending in June this year is 87,275 – a 21,000 increase from the same quarter last year.

The figures are still a drop from the January to March quarter, when 88,920 people were waiting for surgery. There was a 48% increase in elective surgeries compared to the previous quarter.

The health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, said the state was in the midst of a “record-breaking” period of demand on the health system.

But this latest data shows that we are weathering the storm and building a system that will be stronger than ever moving forward. All our healthcare workers are doing an incredible job under challenging circumstances.

Hospital emergency presentations have increased to 486,791 in this quarter, a 5.1% increase from the same time last year, exacerbated by the busy flu season and Covid wave.

The past quarter was the busiest in Ambulance Victoria’s history and the third consecutive time demand records were broken.