Australian politics live: NSW and Victoria to ease Covid isolation rules; Barnaby Joyce warns of ‘little Cuba’ after Solomon Islands-China pact

Peter Lewis from Essential has some further take aways from the latest Guardian Essential poll:

Still waiting on the AEC to get back to us on this.

(That is a joke, obviously).

The Labor campaign is preparing for tonight’s leaders’ debate.

Scott Morrison was asked about how he was feeling about the debate at his press conference and said:

My approach is not to lock myself away in rooms before having these things.

(That’s about Anthony Albanese taking the afternoon off to prepare).

Morrison then said he hoped the debate “will be a civil discussion”.

At least some candidates are still talking about issues like the climate crisis:

The Public Interest Journalism Initiative has taken a look at the local government areas which don’t have any local news outlets.

You can find that map here

And if you are in NSW, here is what you need to know:

(via AAP)

Rule changes from 6pm Friday April 22

• Close contacts don’t need to isolate as long as they’re symptom-free. But for seven days, they must stay away from aged care, hospitals, disability services and correctional facilities. They also need to wear a mask indoors, take daily RATs if leaving the house, work from home where possible, and avoid vulnerable people.
• Vaccine mandates for key workforces are lifted, but staff in aged care and disability services still need to be vaccinated.

Rule changes from April 30:

• No quarantine for unvaccinated international returning travellers, but they must take a RAT within 24 hours of arrival
• Public transport capacity caps are lifted

Rules remaining in NSW:

• People who test positive to Covid-19 need to isolate at home for seven days
• Masks required on public transport, planes, indoors at airports, and cruise terminals.

In Victoria and want to know what Covid restrictions are changing come Saturday morning (or 11.59pm Friday to be exact)?

AAP has a handy dot point list:

• Close contacts don’t need to quarantine for seven days, as long as they wear a mask indoors, avoid “sensitive” settings and have at least five negative rapid tests over seven days
• Vaccination mandates and check-ins for venues scrapped
• Masks no longer required in primary schools, early childhood, hospitality, retail settings, or at any event
• Hospital visitor restrictions lifted but masks still required
• No testing for symptom-free international travellers on arrival, although it’s still recommended
• No quarantine for unvaccinated travellers
• People who have Covid-19 are exempt from testing or quarantining for 12 weeks post-infection, rather than eight weeks

Rules remaining in Victoria:

• People who test positive still need to isolate at home for seven days
• Visitor restrictions in care facilities – residents can have up to five visitors a day if they show a negative RAT or two visitors if no test is provided
• Masks on public transport, airports, sensitive health, aged care and justice settings
• Vaccine mandates for specific workforces such as healthcare, food distribution, emergency services and education

Here is what the prime minister had to say about a Chinese military base on the Solomon Islands:

The prime minister of the Solomon Islands has made it very clear that they are not accepting of any [military] base in the Solomon Islands. They are not. So that is a false claim. That there is no basis to make that assertion. It’s just not there. That would be the first point that I would make.

Perhaps he should tell his deputy?

Barnaby Joyce has also broken government ranks in his description of the security pact between China and Solomon Islands.

Solomon Islands is a sovereign nation. They’ve decided to have a pact with China, dual purpose, which means China is able, if they follow through, to set up a military base there.

That will be, absolutely, that’s a very bad day for Australia.

We don’t want our own little Cuba off our coast.

That is not what is good for this nation. Not what is good for the region.

For at least the second time, Barnaby Joyce has claimed that building coal mines in Australia will halt China’s growing influence in the Pacific region.

His reasoning is coal makes money and money means nuclear submarines. (I am not making this up)

Joyce, speaking in Queensland said:

If you want to buy fighter planes or nuclear submarines, you got (to have) the cash in the bank to do it.

And his money making solution was again developing more coal mines “to make more money”.

So what are we doing? No point everyone saying, “Well, we must do something about it.” All the way through we say, “How do we become as strong as possible, as quickly as possible?

“Well, we develop the Pilbara and that’s what you saw this the budget, money into the Pilbara, make money where we earn money so we can make more money so we can become more secure so if you want to buy a fighter planes or nuclear submarines, you got the cash in the bank to do it.

This ignores international markets beginning to transition away from coal and international financiers moving to renewable energy.