Australia news live: Turnbull says Murdoch campaigned against him for 2022 Abbott return; cyclone leaves WA town ‘flattened’ | Australia news

Queensland has recorded one new case of Covid-19 today. The case was acquired overseas and detected in hotel quarantine.

With so much going on today, we are just catching up now on what Gladys Berejiklian has been saying this morning.

AAP reports Berejiklian is worried about Australia getting left behind unless the Covid vaccine rollout gets back on track.

She said on Monday:

There will come a point when the rest of the world starts engaging with each other more and we can’t afford to be left behind.

I’m really keen to get the rollout happening as fast as we can. I do have a sense of urgency about it.

NSW is pursuing its plan to set up mass vaccination hubs to inoculate tens of thousands of people each week, despite ongoing supply problems and concerns about a rare side effect from the AstraZeneca vaccine.

But the state is still trying to ascertain is exactly how many more doses it will receive.

Berejiklian said:

We have a rough idea about the next five weeks, which involves us finishing the 300,000 doses we were asked to do.

But beyond that, we are still waiting for some confirmation and it has been lumpy.

In some weeks more doses were delivered than anticipated, and other weeks it was less.

The premier said:

And that’s why it’s really important for NSW to have our 100 sites up and running, a mass vaccination centre ready to go so that if we do get an unexpected source of doses that we are able to vaccinate our population.

The federal government has asked NSW Health to vaccinate 300,000 people, including all high-risk frontline workers and their families.

Berejiklian said:

I’m keen to get the vaccine rollout back on track and we await advice and information from the commonwealth as to what that might look like.

New Zealand has recorded another Covid-19 case linked to an outbreak at an Auckland quarantine facility, just one week before quarantine-free travel with Australia is due to begin.

The ministry of health confirmed the case was a hotel worker at Auckland’s Grand Millennium hotel and a close contact of the hotel security member who tested positive last week.

It’s been a big morning. Here’s what you need to know:

• Former PM Malcom Turnbull has told the media diversity inquiry he wants to talk about the dominance of the Murdoch media in Australia and how it is a “real threat to our democracy”. This comes after Turnbull was booted from his role as chair of the NSW government’s climate advisory committee. Turnbull said a “ferocious campaign” was launched by the Daily Telegraph against him, and the NSW government “crumbled”.

• At the same inquiry, Turnbull said Rupert Murdoch had acknowledged there was this “crazy agenda” that Murdoch loyalist and editor Paul Whittaker pushed that the Turnbull leadership should be damaged so that Tony Abbott could come back to lead the Coalition in 2022.

• Ola, an Indian ride-share company that operates in Australia, is among the gig economy platforms fronting a Senate inquiry today. The company’s head of legal, Ann Tan, told the inquiry the company stopped providing accident insurance in June last year, meaning drivers who were injured on job would therefore not receive any income support or coverage of medical expenses from the company.

• Former soldier and Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith has issued a new statement on a 60 Minutes report aired last night, presented by the Age’s investigative reporter Nick McKenzie. Roberts-Smith says new allegations against him are “baseless”. He will continue in his role as Queensland managing director at the Seven Network, according to a statement the channel issued late last night.

Hi everyone! It’s Justine Landis-Hanley here, taking over the live blog this afternoon from the wonderful Naaman Zhou.

Got a story? Tweet me @justinel_h

A new report has warned that international travel for Australians is likely to remain restricted until 2024, AAP report.

Deloitte Access Economics’ quarterly business outlook – printed prior to the Morrison government’s vaccination program being thrown into disarray late last week – expects international borders will reopen only gradually.

Deloitte economist Chris Richardson told AAP:

That keeps international travel – both inbound and outbound – pretty weak in 2022, and it may not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2024.

The NSW police commissioner Mick Fuller has apologised for letting down Sydney teenagers Jack and Jennifer Edwards, who were murdered by their estranged father.

John Edwards, who had a history of domestic violence, killed dead 15-year-old Jack and 13-year-old Jennifer at their home on July 5, 2018.

NSW state coroner Teresa O’Sullivan last week found there was a string of critical “errors and omissions” made by police, firearms registry staff and a family court lawyer that led to the deaths.

“The evidence before this court plainly reveals the deaths of Jack and Jennifer were preventable,” she said, noting Ms Edwards and the children had disclosed the abuse and violence to multiple agencies.

NSW Police issued a statement on Sunday night after Mr Fuller appeared on Nine’s 60 Minutes program.

“The systems, processes and people let Jack, Jennifer and Olga Edwards down, for that I am sorry. We have to take responsibility for their deaths,” Mr Fuller said.

“John Edwards should have never got access to firearms. As the NSW Police Commissioner, I need to make sure that can’t happen again.”

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Monday there was always a shared responsibility for such events.

“Nobody wants to see tragedies like that occur and I’m deeply grateful and appreciate the commissioner’s comments and I know they were heartfelt,” she said.

Around 150,000 people in NSW report family and domestic violence each year, according to police data. Half of all homicides in the state are domestic and family violence-related.

NSW Health administered 25,009 vaccines in the week ending Sunday 11 April, according to the health department’s latest figures.

“Of these, 12,013 were first doses and 12,996 were second doses. The total number of vaccines administered by NSW Health is now 151,535.”

Residents of Kalbarri in Western Australia, which bore the brunt of ex-Tropical Cyclone Seroja, have said half the town has been “flattened” by the terrible storm.

Tree branches “snapped off like carrots”, residents said.

Kalbarri, which lies 580km north of Perth, is home to about 1,400 people.

“I’ve never experienced anything in my life like we experienced last night,” resident and caravan park manager Debbie Major told ABC television on Monday.

“It’s only a small town … half of it has been flattened.”

Reports of property damage and power outages in Kalbarri and Geraldton began to emerge as the storm’s force was felt and residents took shelter by candlelight.

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services said on Monday the majority of the more than 150 calls for help so far had come from Kalbarri.

“The whole town has been impacted. Some areas had a greater concentration of damage than others,” resident and Kalbarri State Emergency Service chief Steve Cable told ABC television.

“Some of the older buildings didn’t stand up very well but even some of the modern buildings, they just couldn’t hold.

“Large trees with quite substantial limbs just snapped off like carrots.”

Former soldier and Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith has issued a new statement on a 60 Minutes report aired last night, presented by Age investigative reporter Nick McKenzie.

Mr Roberts-Smith has grave concerns as to whether the broadcast this evening by Nine is an attempt to intimidate him into not proceeding with his case against Mr McKenzie and Nine.

Mr McKenzie and Nine are currently Respondents to defamation proceedings in the Federal Court. These allegations are not supported by any evidence filed by Mr McKenzie and Nine in what has been an extensive pre-trial process. Mr McKenzie has chosen not to give evidence in support of the allegations he has made against Mr Roberts-Smith repeatedly over the past three years.

The allegations aired this evening are baseless. These allegations are not supported by any evidence filed by Mr McKenzie and Nine in what has been an extensive pre-trial process. These allegations were not put to Mr Roberts-Smith prior to being broadcast on 60 Minutes and published in the Nine newspapers.

Had Mr McKenzie or Nine wished to engage in impartial or objective journalism, they would have sought Mr Roberts-Smith’s comment on the so called “shameful” allegations which Mr McKenzie asserted had been the subject of a ‘major and deep investigation’.

Mr Roberts-Smith denies that he has engaged in any unlawful conduct and he will not be intimidated by Mr McKenzie or Nine into not continuing with the Federal Court proceedings against them.”

The real question is what’s behind that curtain?

Some more quotes from Malcolm Turnbull before the media diversity inquiry:

The most powerful political actor in Australia is not the Liberal party or the National party or the Labor party, it is News Corporation.

And it is utterly unaccountable. It is controlled by an American family and their interests are no longer, if they ever were, coextensive with our own.”

There is now a market for crazy. If you doubt the significance of this, just reflect on the damage that Murdoch’s publications and outlets particular in the United States have done to democracy there.”

On NSW environment minister Matt Kean’s comments in the Daily Telegraph:

This is like somebody who is taken down to the police station, beaten over the head until they finally sign a fake confession, the last line of which says: ‘I confirm that I did so of my own free will.’”