Australian Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison's inept handling of the COVID-19 vaccine supply contracts revealed, as business turns to former Labor prime minister Rudd for assistance

 

Letter dated 30 June 2021 concerning Pfizer vaccine supply - from former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Ru... by clarencegirl on Scribd

The New Daily, 12 July 2021:

The ABC, which obtained a copy of the letter, reports that Mr Rudd stepped in after a senior Australian business figure living in the USA held two meetings with Pfizer because he was despairing of the Coalition government’s vaccine supplies.

The ABC reports that senior Pfizer executives had been astonished that Mr Morrison had not directly spoken to the Pfizer chairman and suggested that Mr Rudd — who was known to them because of his work in the United States — may have some influence.

If it was possible for Pfizer to accelerate the doses, Mr Bourla indicated they would need a contractual request from the Australian government, Mr Rudd’s letter states…..

Nine days after Mr Rudd’s Zoom meeting [with Mr. Bourla], Mr Morrison announced on Friday [9 July 2021] that Australia’s Pfizer doses would be brought forward, with 1 million jabs per week starting in July......

Immediately after the media reports began to circulate on 12 July 2021 Australian Minister for Health and Aged Care & Liberal MP for Flinders Greg Hunt began issuing denials that Mr. Rudd had any involvement in the contractual delivery schedule of Pfizer COMIRNATY BNT162b2 (mRNA) doses to Australia being accelerated.

However the letter of 30 June clearly indicates that Rudd had earlier proactively contacted Pfizer and that Pfizer would be amenable to being contacted further in relation to the supply schedule by the Morrison Government, its contractual partner.

The letter also indicates that prior to the 30 June letter being sent Rudd personally contacted Prime Minister Morrison informing him of the initial contact with Pfizer.

In my opinion the contents of Rudd's letter are more credible than deflective statements made by Minister Hunt.

Statement from Kevin Rudd’s office just now on the Pfizer stuff. pic.twitter.com/DaSYR5I85p

— Rick Morton (@SquigglyRick) July 12, 2021

State and territory disability ministers have shot down Morrison Government's controversial reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme

ABC News, 9 July 2021:

State and territory disability ministers have shot down controversial reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), in what advocates say is a huge win for the disability community.

For months, disability advocates have been warning against the changes, which would have forced all NDIS participants and people wanting to access the scheme to undergo independent assessments.

The federal government announced its plan to introduce the functional assessments in August last year, and the NDIS has trialled the program.

But after a meeting between disability ministers today, NDIS Minister Linda Reynolds confirmed the federal government would not push ahead with the proposal.

"I can absolutely confirm that we agreed with the Independent Advisory Council's recommendation that the independent assessments in their current form will not proceed," she told the ABC.

"So are independent assessments as we currently understand them dead? Yes, they are."

Do you know more about this story? Email Specialist.Team@abc.net.au.

The move has been welcomed by disability advocates, who had argued the independent assessments plan was not fair.

"We are glad that the state and territory disability ministers have listened to the thousands of people with disability and their families who have contacted them this week to ask them to say no to the NDIS independent assessments," said El Gibbs, from campaign group Every Australian Counts.

"We have worked together for months to raise our voices and say that these changes were wrong."

'Back to the drawing board' for NDIS assessments

The independent assessments program would have involved an allied health professional, unknown to the person with disability, either meeting with the prospective participant face-to-face or holding a teleconference assessment.

That assessment would have determined someone's eligibility for an NDIS funding plan.

Currently, a person's usual doctors, specialists and allied health professionals provide reports to determine if someone is eligible for an NDIS plan.

The federal government had always maintained that independent assessments were an original part of the NDIS and would make it fair and equitable for everyone.

But many in the disability community said it was a box-ticking exercise designed to cut costs.

Opposition to independent assessments grew steadily last year within the sector, and in February more than 20 organisations, led by Every Australian Counts, called on the government to abandon the plan.

One of the architects of the NDIS had also criticised the independent assessments model…...

New South Wales - keeping on top of the pandemic one month, right back where we started from the next

9News, 10 July 2021:

New South Wales has recorded 50 new cases of COVID-19 since yesterday, breaking yesterday's record for the highest number of daily cases since April last year.

Of these locally acquired cases, 37 are linked to a known case or cluster, 14 are household contacts and 23 are close contacts. The source of infection for 13 cases remains under investigation.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian has called on more people to come forward for testing after 42,000 people were tested for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.

The number of people hospitalised with COVID-19 has grown again overnight with a teenager also now being treated in ICU.

Of today's 50 cases, more than half were in the community while infectious.

"That is the number we need to get down to as close to zero as possible," Ms Berejiklian said.....

UPDATE

Sadly, a woman in her 90s from south west Sydney died yesterday at Liverpool Hospital. She was a close contact of a locally acquired case and was tested for COVID-19 on Friday, returning a positive result early yesterday morning.

9News, 11 July 2021:

New South Wales reported 77 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19, including 55 linked to previously confirmed cases, and one death on Sunday in the 24 hours to 8 pm on Saturday. This is the highest single-day increase of cases in the state since Bondi's cluster outbreak began in June. All of Greater Sydney, including Wollongong, Central Coast and the Blue Mountains entered a two-week lockdown on June 26 that will remain until 12:01 am on July 17..... 

Ms Berejiklian and Dr Chant again urged people not to mix with other family members from separate households. More than 50 of today's new infections close family members of previous cases. "When you get COVID, unfortunately those most impacted are those closest to you," she said. Dr Chant said that the "vast majority" of the new reported cases live in the south-west Sydney region - a number that is "extraordinarily high". "We know transmission is going through households, from household to household. And it's impacting on other close friends and work colleagues," she said.....

Is NSW Berejiklian Government walking back its 2019 election pledge to fix traffic congestion on the Bruxner Highway - at the Dawson St intersection - in favour of a short-term fix elsewhere?

 

In the lead up to the 2019 state election, the NSW Berejiklian Government committed $6 million to upgrade Ballina Road (Bruxner Highway) at Dawson Street in Lismore.

Echo NetDaily, 19 February 2019, excerpt from article:

L to R: RMS regional manager John Alexander, Nationals Lismore candidate Austin Curtin, roads minister Melinda Pavey and Nationals Lismore MP Thomas George at the roundabout.

Ms Pavey then moved on to Lismore where, together with retiring member Thomas George and Nationals candidate Austin Curtin she announced $6 million for the Dawson Street, Bruxner Highway intersection, replacing the existing roundabout with traffic lights.

Mrs Pavey said a concept plan for the new traffic signals had already been completed, which meant design work on the new traffic lights would start immediately.

‘Traffic lights will be coordinated with other signal sites in Lismore, providing the greatest level of efficiency and safety for all road users,’ Mrs Pavey said.

She added that, if returned, the government would start work on concept designs for the intersection immediately and community consultation would occur in the second half of 2019…..

Now, having lost the seat of Lismore to Labor at that 2019 state election, the Berejiklian Government appears to be walking away from its specific election promise:

Based on these investigations and the level of funding currently available, installing traffic signals at Molesworth Street intersection is considered the best short term solution to ease congestion and improve local access, connectivity and safety for pedestrians and cyclists. [my yellow highlighting]

This "solution" reduces parking availability for residents in the area, along with the removal of some mature trees within the road reserve. It does add traffic lights and new footpaths at this Molesworth Street intersection.

However, it is unclear just how enthusiastic the Lismore community is about this site change.

From the Office of  NSW Labor MLA for Lismore Janelle Saffin, media release, 9 July 2021:

Government changes tack on congestion-busting pledge

STATE MP Janelle Saffin is urging locals to give feedback to the NSW Government on significant changes it is making to its February 2019 election pledge to fix traffic congestion and improve safety on the Bruxner Highway in downtown Lismore.

Ms Saffin, who has been pressing the Government to release its plans for public comment, said people remember the election commitment to spend $6 million on traffic lights and improvements to the Bruxner Highway-Dawson Street intersection.

“Transport for NSW and Lismore City Council have carried out investigations and traffic modelling, and now the Transport recommendation is that this upgrade should occur at the Bruxner Highway-Molesworth Street intersection,” Ms Saffin said.

“I have been in a continued conversation with NSW Minister for Regional Transport and Roads Paul Toole’s office and Transport for NSW on this issue, and while it’s good that there is finally some movement, we, as a community of stakeholders, still need to be persuaded.

“All those residents living on the southern side of the highway, in the Girards Hill area, were very keen on the Dawson Street project, so they have to be convinced that Molesworth Street will provide the best long-term solution.”

Ms Saffin said she had lodged Questions on Notices to hold the Government to account on delivering its election commitment, and to highlight the congestion of this ‘gateway’ roundabout which copes with 25,000 motorists every day.

Minister Toole’s latest response from March 25 this year read: “Transport for NSW is developing a number of traffic, walking and cycling improvements within Lismore to improve safety and traffic efficiency, and walkability on the Bruxner Highway within the town centre.

“Transport for NSW will invite the community to comment on the proposed improvements shortly. The improvements include new traffic signals in the town centre, which are currently underway and due to be completed by the end of 2021,” Mr Toole answered.

Further information about the proposal, including a design layout, go to

https://nswroads.work/molesworthstreet

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meme of the Week

@TomRed43

Quote of the Week

 

” It seemed that the part he was most sensitive about was whether I was going to expose his invisible role as a ringleader – of the coup, and of the treatment I’d received since. He asked the same question in various different ways, along the lines of ‘It’s not anything I have done is it?’ ‘You don’t have a problem with me, do you?’ ‘Are you sure there’s nothing I’ve done to make you want to leave?’ Would I expose that he was a bully? That he was a man who could not be trusted?” [Former Liberal MP for Julia Banks quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 July 2021]

Federal Court judgment of 8 July 2021 in Sharma by her litigation representative Sister Marie Brigid Arthur v Minister for the Environment (No 2) gives the Morrison Government little comfort

“The parties do not dispute that human emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere are largely responsible for the warming of the Earth’s surface temperature since the Industrial Revolution. The Minister accepts that the Earth’s surface temperature is increasing and that humans are primarily responsible. She also accepts that average surface temperatures will likely continue to increase and Australia will experience more drought, sea level rises and extremes of heat, rainfall and fire-related weather. The Minister accepts that increases in temperature affect the environment, the economy and society and that the climate exacerbates inherent risks and introduces new risks in the context of heatwaves, droughts, bushfires, floods and tropical cyclones all being part of the Australian climate experience.

The Minister accepts that the projected effects of climate change depend upon the extent of greenhouse gases emitted globally in coming years. The applicants presented unchallenged scientific evidence on the future trajectory of global average surface temperatures. The evidence was largely based on the climate change modelling of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and more recent assessments made by Professor William Steffen, an eminent specialist in climate science.” [BROMBERG J, 27 MAY 2021, MELBOURNE, excerpt from SUMMARY supplied for Sharma by her litigation representative Sister Marie Brigid Arthur v Minister for the Environment [2021] FCA 560 (27 May 2021)]

“It is difficult to characterise in a single phrase the devastation that the plausible evidence presented in this proceeding forecasts for the Children. As Australian adults know their country, Australia will be lost and the World as we know it gone as well. The physical environment will be harsher, far more extreme and devastatingly brutal when angry. As for the human experience – quality of life, opportunities to partake in nature’s treasures, the capacity to grow and prosper – all will be greatly diminished. Lives will be cut short. Trauma will be far more common and good health harder to hold and maintain. None of this will be the fault of nature itself. It will largely be inflicted by the inaction of this generation of adults, in what might fairly be described as the greatest inter-generational injustice ever inflicted by one generation of humans upon the next.

To say that the Children are vulnerable is to understate their predicament. However, it is not vulnerability in the abstract which is relevant for determining whether a duty of care is owed to them by the Minister. Their vulnerability must be connected to their relation with the Minister or their reliance upon the Minister: Stuart at [134] (Crennan and Kiefel JJ). And it is.” [Sharma by her litigation representative Sister Marie Brigid Arthur v Minister for the Environment (No 2) [2021] FCA 774 (8 July 2021, Judgment, excerpt])

In its 8 July 2021 judgment in Sharma by her litigation representative Sister Marie Brigid Arthur v Minister for the Environment (No 2) [2021] FCA 774 (8 July 2021) the Federal Court did not accept the the Minister’s contention that the Court should order that the proceeding not continue as a representative proceeding at all - instead ordering that The proceeding not continue as a representative proceeding in respect of persons who were under 18 years of age and not ordinarily resident in Australia at the time of the commencement of this proceeding. The Court also did not accept the Minister’s argument with regard to costs and ordered The Minister pay the applicants’ costs of the proceeding.

This second judgment although it now excludes unnamed Other Represented Children from the representative proceeding specifically allows those eight Australian teenagers named as applicants to remain as applicants in the proceeding: I have determined that the proceeding should continue as a representative proceeding in relation to the Represented Children.

BACKGROUND

Allens, Australia, retrieved 9 July 2021:

In August 2020, the NSW Independent Planning Commission granted development consent for the extension of the Vickery Coal Project (the project) in northern NSW under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (NSW). As the project is likely to have impacts on federally listed threatened species and water resources, it also requires approval from the Federal Minister for the Environment (the Minister) under the EPBC Act.

The project, if approved, will involve the extraction of an additional 33 million tonnes of coal over the life of the mine. The combustion of this additional coal will result in the emission of approximately 100 million tonnes of CO2.

In Sharma by her litigation representative Sister Marie Brigid Arthur v Minister for the Environment [2021] FCA 560, eight Australian children brought an action in negligence against the Minister, seeking a declaration that she owed them — and children around Australia — a duty to exercise her powers under the EPBC Act with reasonable care so as not to cause the children harm. They contended that the project would contribute to climate change, and consequently increase the risk of climate change-related harm to the applicants, including mental and physical injury, damage to property, and economic loss.

The claimants also sought an injunction restraining the Minister from committing an apprehended breach of that duty — that apprehended breach being the approval of the project.

The decision

The court found that the Minister owes the applicants a duty to take reasonable care when considering whether to approve the project under the EPBC Act.

In determining that the Minister owes a duty of care, the court held:

• The environmental impacts of increasing global surface temperatures, including greater incidence and severity of heatwaves and bushfires, would expose the applicants and the representative class to a real risk of death and personal injury.

• While the project would cause a 'tiny' increase to global average surface temperatures, that increase was measurable and therefore the risk of harm 'real', and not far-fetched or fanciful.

• A reasonable person in the Minister's position would foresee that the applicants would face an increased risk of injury brought about by climate change that would flow from the contribution to increased atmospheric CO2 brought about by the project.

• The Minister's knowledge of the risk of harm and her control over the source of harm strongly supported finding a duty of care.

• While some factors weighed against a duty being recognised, in totality the salient features of the relationship between the Minister and the applicants favoured the recognition of a duty of care.

Despite recognising the duty of care, the court declined to grant an injunction preventing the Minister from approving the project. Ultimately, the court was not satisfied that the applicants had demonstrated the Minister would breach her duty of care, and said that, instead, it would be more appropriate to grant any relief once a decision had been made. The court did not accept the applicants' contention that an approval of the project would inevitably constitute a breach of duty, noting that the Minister's competing or conflicting responsibilities could influence a reasonable response to the foreseeable harm. Such a reasonable response could include conditions on any approval under the EPBC Act.

Implications

While the applicants were not successful in injuncting the Minister from granting the approval, the decision to recognise this novel duty of care could have significant consequences. This is the first time in Australia that a court has recognised a duty of care owed to children by a Minister exercising powers under any statutory environment or planning regime.

The recognition of a duty of care in connection with climate change-related harm under the EPBC Act framework is noteworthy, given the matters protected by the EPBC Act do not extend to greenhouse gas emissions or climate change. While protection is afforded to various environmental matters, including listed species and habitats, the health and wellbeing of human beings is not a protected aspect of the environment that would trigger the need for approval under the EPBC Act. However, by reference to the broader statutory scheme (including reference to the principle of inter-generational equity) the court noted the Act's object is to protect the interests of people and, in particular, future generations of people, in the environment — rather than the environment itself. Because this duty of care was not found by reference to the particular protected matters in the EPBC Act and instead within the broader statutory scheme, the interpretive approach may translate more readily to other pieces of environmental legislation at a state level.

This decision may also impact the grant of approvals under the EPBC Act. The court noted that in deciding whether to approve the project, 'a well-advised and responsible Minister would take notice of those matters', referring to the now-established duty of care owed to the applicants. Those in charge of approving carbon intensive projects may now be more alive to climate change-related issues and place greater weight on those risks when making decisions.