North Coast Voices

Saturday, 9 April 2022

Australian Human Rights Commission's UN accreditation withheld due to unease over federal government process of installing 'captain's pick' commissioners, as well as doubts about the commitment of the current Australian Attorney-General

Australian Human Rights Commission, general release, 7 April 2022:

Statement on international accreditation of the Australian Human Rights Commission

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s status as a National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) has been reviewed by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) – the international standards body.

This review, conducted every five years, considers whether the Commission continues to meet the UN Principles on National Institutions (commonly known as the Paris Principles), which establish whether national human rights commissions operate with the necessary level of institutional independence to ensure the effective promotion and protection of human rights.

The Commission faced three possible outcomes through this review: reaccreditation as an A-status institution; downgrade to a B-status institution; or deferral of reaccreditation for a period of time in order for serious matters of compliance to be addressed.

The Australian Human Rights Commission was not reaccredited as an A-status national human rights institution. Its reaccreditation was deferred.

The key concern of the Committee that led to the deferral was the selection and appointment process for Commissioners. This latest report of 29 March 2022 reflects feedback from the Committee over a 10-year period about Australia’s appointment processes, with three appointments in this timeframe that did not meet the accreditation requirements.

Click to read the accreditation statement from GANHRI

The Australian Government now has approximately 15 months to address this matter before a final decision on the Commission’s status is taken by the Committee in October 2023. The Committee has indicated that the Commission is at risk of being downgraded to a B-status NHRI if this issue is not sufficiently addressed within this timeframe.

For 30 years the Australian Government has played a key role in promoting the establishment of national human rights institutions across the globe, including by leading resolutions in the UN General Assembly and UN Human Rights Council on the importance of such institutions. This is the first time the Commission has been at risk of losing its A-status as an NHRI since the establishment of international standards for National Human Rights Institutions in 1993.

The Commission’s President, Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher AM, has shared with the Government the Commission’s concerns over the implications of the deferral and potential risks to the promotion and protection of human rights in Australia, as well as Australia’s reputation internationally.

The Commission continues to advocate for the necessary policy and legislative changes to ensure Commissioner appointments are publicly advertised and subject to an open, transparent and merit-based process, in line with our international commitments. The Commission will continue to work with the Government, the Parliament and civil society to secure a successful re-accreditation as an A-status NHRI in 2023.

Friday, 8 April 2022

The Liberal Party of Australia continues to rip itself apart ahead of the May 2022 federal general election

On 5 April 2022 the Liberal Party of Australia (NSW Division) Executive was composed of: State President Philip Ruddock, State Director (in attendance) Chris Stone, Urban Vice-Presidents Penny George, Country and Regional Vice-Presidents Tobias Lehmann & Aileen MacDonald Female Vice-President Mary-Lou Jarvis, Young Liberal President De Yi Wu, Leader of the Federal Parliamentary Party Scott Morrison MP (and from time to time his representative Alex Hawke MP), Leader of the State Parliamentary Party Dominic Perrottet MP, Urban Representatives James Wallace, Matthew Hana, Chantelle Fornari-Orsmond, Martin Zaiter, Sally Betts, Zac Miles, Michelle Byrne, Sammy Elmir & Jacqui Munro (replacing Matthew Camenzuli who was expelled from the Liberal Party on or about 6 April 2022 for bringing the legal action, Camenzuli v Morrison), Country Representatives Michelle Bishop, Patrick Doherty, Mark Croxford, James Owen, Chair of Convention Committee and Director of Policy Engagement Alex Dore and Treasurer Mark Baillie.

A battle had been brewing for some time between the Federal Liberal Party Executive, the NSW Liberal Party Executive and state local party branches over the 2018 changes to the NSW Division Constitution which included the right to state branch plebiscites. These changes also allowed the federal leader of the Liberal Party a guaranteed seat on the executive.

The first hint of factional fighting and preselection battles came to light in the local government arena with Diaz v Ruddock; Attie v Ruddock and Zaiter v Ruddock in July 2021.

The open stoush widened and had developed by February 2022 into Camenzuli v Hawke. Followed by Morrison & Ors v Camenzuli & Ors; Attorney-General of the Commonwealth v Camenzuli & Ors, heard by the High Court of Australia in March 2022. The High Court remitted the case to its jurisdiction and then promptly remitted it back to NSW Court of Appeal – given that no difficulty was found to exist in the hearing schedule in the state court.

On 5 April 2022 in Camenzuli v Morrison the NSW Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, ruled that the Federal Liberal Party Executive had the power to intervene in the NSW Division’s candidate preselection process and take control of the selection of candidates.

The 12 electorates in question being Farrer, Mitchell, North Sydney, Hughes, Parramatta, Fowler, Grayndler, Newcastle, Warringah, Greenway, Eden-Monaro and McMahon. Candidate selection and endorsement was by a three person federal committee comprising Scott Morrison, Alex Hawke and Trent Zimmerman and occurred ahead of the 5 April judgment.

Subsequent to the 5 April judgment Morrison ordered the expulsion of Matthew Camenzuli from the Liberal Party. Mr. Camenzuli is appealing this expulsion.

Legal proceedings in the matter of the usurped state candidate preselection process has not gone away however.

In MATTHEW CAMENZULI v THE HON. SCOTT MORRISON MP First Respondent, CHRISTINE McDIVEN AM Second Respondent, THE HON. DOMINIC PERROTTET MP Third Respondent, THE HON. ALEX HAWKE MP Fourth Respondent, THE HON. SUSSAN LEY MP Fifth Respondent, TRENT ZIMMERMAN MP Sixth Respondent, THE HON. PHILIP RUDDOCK AO Seventh Respondent, THE HON. JOHN OLSEN AO Eighth Respondent on 7 April 2022 the High Court of Australia decided the timetable for hearing of oral arguments in this Special Leave To Appeal Application, commencing 4pm on Friday 8 April 2022.

Apparently Morrison et al intend to argue that Camenzuli no longer has standing before the Court as he is not now a member of the Liberal Party and will ask that the application be dismissed.

Scott Morrison's dysfunctional need to control every aspect of the Liberal Party of Australia is ripping this 77 year-old conservative political party apart in a very public manner.

Thursday, 7 April 2022

As Scott Morrison draws nearer to dissolving Parliament and visiting the Governor-General the political baggage he carries becomes harder to hide

Former Member of the Liberal Party Michael Towke

https://youtu.be/xRLGYiXLXuM

Former Liberal MP Julia Banks

The Guardian, 5 July 2021:

Banks also told the ABC Scott Morrison was like “menacing controlling wallpaper” during the period where she decided to leave the Liberal party after Malcolm Turnbull was deposed as prime minister.

She says she intended to stay on the backbench after Morrison took over as PM but changed her mind after he attempted to “silence” her.

“I thought if I’m to exit this parliament, I’ll exit on my own terms and under my own story and not on their terms, so I announced that I was going to become an independent.

“It was the three months of Morrison’s leadership that … was definitely the most gut-wrenching, distressing period of my entire career.”

Text Exchange Between Then Liberal Premier of New South Wales Gladys Berejiklian & A Person Understood To Be A Cabinet Minister

IMAGE: news.com.au

Deputy Prime Minister & National Party Leader Barnaby Joyce

The Guardian, 4 February 2022:

Barnaby Joyce labelled Scott Morrison “a hypocrite and a liar” in a private text message, sent before he returned to the leadership of the National party.

In another blow for the embattled prime minister, the leaked text, seen by Guardian Australia, was forwarded to the former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins by a third party.

In it, Joyce said he did not “get along” with Morrison.

“He is a hypocrite and a liar from my observations and that is over a long time,” Joyce said in the message, dated March last year.

“I have never trusted him, and I dislike how earnestly [he] rearranges the truth to a lie.”

Joyce’s attack is the second time in a week private text exchanges, critical of the prime minister, have been leaked. On Tuesday, Morrison was blindsided when the Ten Network’s political editor, Peter van Onselen, used a televised question and answer session at the National Press Club to reveal private criticism of Morrison.

Van Onselen told Morrison he had a record of a text message exchange between a party colleague and the former New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian in which she branded the prime minister a “horrible person” who was untrustworthy.

“The minister is even more scathing, describing you as a fraud and ‘a complete psycho’,” Van Onselen said. “Does this exchange surprise you? And what does it tell us?”

Van Onselen later said the conversation was between Berejiklian and a federal minister.

Outgoing Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard

NSW Liberal MLA Catherine Cusack

The Guardian, 4 April 2022:

It’s fair to say I have not seen eye to eye with Connie Fierravanti-Wells on factional issues, but I do thank her for her honesty in admitting she assisted Scott Morrison in his preselection for Cook.

More importantly I am also happy to endorse her belated character assessment of the prime minister. She was spot on.

Sadly, it’s just all come a bit late for the Liberal party. The party I joined 40 years ago and loved. The party he has ruined.

The inspirational party of Robert Menzies, whose photo today is affixed to a multitude of policies and statements that bear zero resemblance to the character and values of those tens of thousands of Australians, who formed the Liberals after the second world war, determined we would be a force for freedom, fairness, and the power of individuals – the idea that enterprise and humble ambition through hard work mattered and should make a good life for them and their families.

That’s totally what I signed up for. And that’s what has been lost in the factional model of power driven by Alex Hawke and enabled by Scott Morrison as state director when everything changed and the Liberal dream was set on this awful path that in 2022 sees ruthless self interest spill out of the party tribulations and infect flood relief public policy.

Connie said the prime minister has “lost his moral compass”. Coincidently I used those exact same words in my email to Liberal state director Chris Stone two weeks ago, saying I could no longer stomach these self-serving behaviours and I do not recognise the party I joined.

It’s a terrible situation for me personally – at the age of 58 I have invested my entire adult life in the Liberal dream only to see it trashed – and it’s not like I haven’t tried to stop it. I have given absolutely everything, sucked in a lot, tried to make it work – only to lose it all, to the ruthlessness of the wrong people in power for the wrong reasons.

The Liberal party has no interest group like trade unions (Labor) or environmentalists (Greens). No, we exist for our values and ideas only. We are member based – so Scott Morrison trashed that over two decades starting with his time as state director, then as a scheming MP and now as prime minister finding loopholes in our constitution to delay pre selections in order to get his way.

I thought forcing moderates to vote for Craig Kelly in Hughes prior to the last election was the worst. But he has outdone himself engineering a federal intervention to jump over the organisation all together. Yes, he got what he wanted – at the expense of destroying our rules-based selection system and disgusting virtually every member of the NSW division. And in the process, our president, Philip Ruddock, who used to be a highly respected party warrior, looks like a complete tool. Reputations destroyed. So many Liberals I respected including moderates complied and here we are.

The climate change fight has divided and just exhausted many of us in the NSW Liberals. And sitting here in the flood-ravaged northern rivers I can only deplore how much time has been lost.

Somehow the federal Liberal party, encouraged by the Murdoch press, has delayed the urgent need for climate change action by at least 15 years. To give you an idea as to how completely anti-intellectual and stupid this is, just read Andrew Bolt’s opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph last week saying it was “woke warmists” (climate change activists) like Tim Flannery who caused Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This is the sort of commentary the Liberal party has indulged and wedged and tried to harness into votes. It’s appalling.

“There has been no conspiracy in my decision to speak out about Scott Morrison. Nobody puts words into my mouth”

Robert Menzies invested in the CSIRO, universities and schools, and spoke with great intellectual power about the role of education and science in powering a modern Australia. These values have been totally abandoned by the Morrison government. And I am not happy that successive NSW Liberal premiers have handed the education portfolio to the Nationals, because education is the core business of any Liberal government. Like agriculture for the Nationals and industrial relations for Labor, for us, it’s education. Our philosophy of hard work, competition and markets only works because every child has the opportunity of a first-class education. Our rhetoric falls flat on its face if education isn’t progressing. It’s who we are in terms of fairness and equity. I cannot understand how this – our most sacred core value – has been palmed off to another party. It’s all about inside deals where what we stand for and care about is now negotiable and can be bargained away. Koalas are on that list. I am so incredibly disappointed – not for myself, but for our higher duty to Australia.

So it’s been a difficult time as the ruthless “faceless men” factional power model has taken hold of the party – in my case, the NSW division. Certainly I left the moderates some years ago and standing aside from the factions was a poor career decision, but I thought I could manage to make a contribution. Many of my policy proposals including cost of living and childhood flu immunisation did get adopted and made a difference.

But Scott Morrison’s brazen attempt to fund flood victims in a Nationals seat and exclude flood victims in a Labor seat that I happen to live in was just too much. I cannot deny we are all overwrought here, witnessing so much suffering. My bullshit tolerance levels are at zero. So to see the self-serving ruthless bullying that has increased inside the Liberal party spill over into public policy and the poorest most vulnerable Australians who lost everything in the floods are the targets of this outrageous abuse of morality and power is simply intolerable. Particularly for anyone who actually understands or cares about why the Liberal party was formed in the first place and the values we are entrusted to uphold.

I spoke out expecting it would make no difference – but a Newton’s Cradle effect took hold when others across politics backed the need for fairness to flood victims. It became so embarrassing that the assistance was extended to all northern rivers victims. Of course I was surprised and happy but it seems now we are paying a second price with the prime minister refusing to engage NSW government on additional measures that are so needed for victims of this incredible disaster. It’s so bad I am moved to endorse Connie’s character assessment of the PM. “It’s my way or the highway.” For flood victims. Un-bloody-believable.

Everyone seems to find it hard to believe but I am merely a sidelined female backbench Liberal MP with a brain of my own – I have not been put up to this. I have five years left in my upper house term. No doubt they will find some other assassination of my character to dismiss my opinions rather than address the substance of what I am saying. The truth is, there has been no conspiracy in my decision to speak out about Scott Morrison. Nobody puts words into my mouth. I am what they call a “problem woman”, plus I live in the regions where we just call it out as deserved. The NSW government is not to blame for my outspokenness on this issue and punishing them for my remarks – ergo further punishing our flood victims – is yet another chapter in the disgrace of the prime minister’s approach to this flood catastrophe.

He obviously thinks it’s all about him. Actually, as anyone in the northern rivers will attest, this drama is not about him. It’s about the victims. And his inability to see that, and the compliance of his federal colleagues is further infuriating evidence the Liberal party is completely lost and adrift.

We are so lacking in compassion that even flood victims who have lost everything are like any other pawns in this awful Game of Thrones. And so we have forfeited the precious integrity and values that Australia admired and needed and that served our country so well for decades. The dumb compliance of the federal parliamentary party tells me my beloved Liberal party is beyond healing itself. I have failed and so have like-minded Liberals who understand the significance of who we are and why we even exist. Thus the task of reinventing the Liberals (if that’s even possible) has sadly defaulted to the electorate. Judgment looms. I myself cannot vote for the re-election of the federal Coalition government...... [my yellow highlighting]

The PM on 7.30 Report said I grew up at Alstonville - but I grew up on farm near Yass. Moved to Alstonville in 2000. He claimed I “made similar criticisms of Gladys” - TOTALLY UNTRUE - he just made that up.
— Catherine Cusack (@katieqs) April 6, 2022

Wednesday, 6 April 2022

Scott Morrison went that step too far with the NSW Liberal Party. Has he also gone that step too far with the NSW electorate?

The Guardian, 4 April 2022:

NSW Liberal MP Catherine Cusack says Scott Morrison ‘trashed’ the party’s values over two decades as state director. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

Another senior Liberal has taken aim at Scott Morrison, accusing him of “self-serving ruthless bullying” and claiming he has “ruined” the Liberal party.

Catherine Cusack, a NSW Liberal who announced two weeks ago she would resign from the legislative council over her anger about flood relief, adds her voice to a growing chorus of critics of Morrison from within his own party in an opinion piece for Guardian Australia.

Cusack explicitly endorses Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells’s “character assessment of the prime minister” and reveals she will not vote for the Morrison government in the May election.

The prime minister’s office was contacted for comment regarding Cusack’s claims.

On Tuesday Fierravanti-Wells labelled the prime minister an “autocrat” and a “bully” in an excoriating Senate speech revealing allegations Morrison had made “racial comments” when running for preselection in 2007.

Morrison has vehemently denied the claims, contained in statutory declarations reported in The Saturday Paper and then publicly backed by his preselection opponent, Michael Towke.

Cusack accused Morrison of having “ruined” the Liberal party and “trashed” its values over two decades, as state director, “then as a scheming MP and now as prime minister finding loopholes in our constitution to delay preselections in order to get his way”.

Cusack criticised Morrison for “forcing moderates to vote for [former Liberal and now United Australia party leader MP] Craig Kelly” when his preselection was under threat before the 2019 election.

She has warned she would vote against the prime minister over factional “scheming” and politicised allocation of flood relief.

“But he has outdone himself engineering a federal intervention to jump over the organisation all together.

“He got what he wanted at the expense of destroying our rules-based selection system and disgusting virtually every member of the NSW division.”

Morrison’s immigration minister and proxy in the NSW party, Alex Hawke, has been accused of procedural delays prompting a takeover of federal preselections by a three-person panel, including Morrison and the NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet.

The NSW court of appeal is set to rule on Tuesday whether the takeover and resultant preselections complied with Liberal party rules.

Cusack, a longtime critic of the Liberal party’s culture towards women, has spoken out about the exclusion of Ballina, Byron and Tweed from federal disaster payments, a decision reversed in mid-March.

Cusack said that “Scott Morrison’s brazen attempt to fund flood victims in a National party seat and exclude flood victims in a Labor seat that I happen to live in was just too much”.

“To see the self-serving ruthless bullying that has increased inside the Liberal party spill over into public policy and the poorest most vulnerable Australians who lost everything in the floods are the targets of this outrageous abuse of morality and power is simply intolerable.”

Cusack said assistance was “extended to all northern rivers victims” after their exclusion became too “embarrassing”, but the prime minister now appears to be “refusing to engage NSW government on additional measures that are so needed for victims of this incredible disaster”.

“It’s so bad I am moved to endorse Connie’s character assessment of the PM. ‘It’s my way or the highway’. For flood victims. Un-bloody-believable.”…….

How the Morrison-Joyce partnership is faring in New South Wales.....

The Liberal/LNP and Nationals Coalition Government currently hold 76 seats (50.3%) in the House of Representatives and the Labor Party in Opposition holds 68 seats. With only a 8 seat overall majority, a loss of even three existing Coalition seats in NSW at the May federal election, without winning any NSW Labor seats in return, would possibly cost Morrison government.

Newspoll January-March Quarter 2022 suggests that the NSW Two-Party Preferred Vote of 54-46 in Labor's favour may produce a swing towards Labor of 5.8%, potentially gaining the Labor Party three additional seats in that state at the May federal election.

The Morgan Poll 22 March 2022 suggests that an even bigger 9.6% Two-Party Preferred swing to Labor could occur in News South Wales and a possible three to six seat gained at the federal election.

While the latest Ipsos Poll 3 April 2022 raises the possibility that a Two-Party Preferred swing of 6.8% would see Labor gain four seats in New South Wales.

The Essential Report 22 March 2022 showed that in New South Wales Scott Morrison's performance approval rating stood at 46%. Three was no breakdown of Anthony Albanese's performance approval rating at state level in this particular poll, however his national approval rating stood at 43%.

MAPS: the shocking reality of the reach of the mining industry in Australia

Click images to enlarge

This is Australia.

This is where Australia's operating coal mines are situated.

This is where Australia's coal, oil and gas tenements, production wells and pipelines are across the country.

Quite a bit of desert and marginal land remaining, but not much fertile land left across the continent that isn't subject to the corporate whims of the mining industry

Something to think about over the next six weeks until polling day.

Source:

http://data.erinsights.com/maps/fossilfuels-au.html

Tuesday, 5 April 2022

COVID-19 Pandemic 2020-2022: State of Play in New South Wales and Northern NSW

According to Professor Raina McIntyre (Global Biosecurity, Head of Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute UNSW New South Wales) on 2 April 2022, COVID-19 case numbers are bouncing around. Case numbers in New South Wales have increased since a low of 4,916 daily cases on 21 February 2022. “In the past week, they have ranged from 17,000 to more than 25,000 a day”.

“Part of the problem is the lack of testing and the lack of reporting. The message of “live with it” runs counter to the importance of reporting a positive test, if you can afford one. PCR testing remains restricted, so daily case numbers are a substantial underestimate and even the trends may not be accurate.” [my yellow highlighting]

As of 4pm 1 April 2022 there were 20,389 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in New South Wales and a total of 268,761 active COVID-19 cases across the state the majority of which are being self-managed at home.

There were 1,302 COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital as at 4pm 1 April, including 47 people in intensive care, 16 of whom require ventilation.

NSW Health reported the deaths of 13 people with COVID-19 – seven women and six men. Of these, 7 people were aged in their 70s, 5 people were aged in their 80s and 1 person was aged in their 90s.

Included in the day’s total of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases were 520 people in Northern NSW.

There were 14 COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital with 2 in intensive care.

These 520 cases were all 7 local government areas within Northern NSW:

Tweed Shire – 149 cases across postcodes 2483, 2484, 2485,

Lismore City – 82 cases across postcodes 2472, 2480;

Clarence Valley – 79 cases across postcodes 2460, 2462, 2453, 2464, 2466;

Ballina Shire – 75 cases across postcodes

Byron Shire – 73 cases across postcodes 2479, 2481, 2482, 2483,

Richmond Valley – 51 cases across postcodes 2469, 2470, 2471, 2473;

Kyogle Shire – 11 cases across postcode 2474;

TOTAL 520

According to the federal Dept. of Health as of 31 March 2022 there were 229 COVID-19 outbreaks in residential aged care facilities involving 976 residents.

A full list of these NSW facilities can be found at

https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2022/04/covid-19-outbreaks-in-australian-residential-aged-care-facilities-1-april-2022_0.pdf

On 10 February 2022, the Australian Government announced changes to the definition of fully vaccinated against COVID-19 so as to include vaccine booster doses required for those 16 years and over. The new term in use is “up to date” vaccination.

Therefore as of 1 April 2022 only 60.2% of people aged 16 years to 90 years and older, 79.5% of children aged 12 to 15 years and 26.9% of children aged 5 to 11 years are considered to be “up to date” (fully vaccinated).

The fact that New South Wales is falling behind recommended vaccination rates is a concern given this statement.

ATAGI Statement, 26 March 2022:

ATAGI recommends an additional booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine to increase vaccine protection before winter for selected population groups (see Table 1) who are at greatest risk of severe illness from COVID-19 and who have received their primary vaccination and first booster dose. These groups are:

Adults aged 65 years and older
Residents of aged care or disability care facilities
People aged 16 years and older with severe immunocompromise (as defined in the ATAGI statement on the use of a 3rd primary dose of COVID-19 vaccine in individuals who are severely immunocompromised)
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 50 years and older.

The additional winter booster dose can be given from 4 months or longer after the person has received their first booster dose, or from 4 months after a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, if infection occurred since the person’s first COVID-19 booster dose.

ATAGI recommends that the rollout of the additional booster dose for these groups starts from April 2022, coinciding with the rollout of the 2022 influenza vaccination program.

As of 4pm 2 April 2022 there were 16,807 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in New South Wales and a total of ? active COVID-19 cases across the state the majority of which are being self-managed at home.

There were 1,355 COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital as at 4pm 2 April, including 50 people in intensive care, 19 of whom require ventilation.

NSW Health reported the deaths of 11 people with COVID-19 – seven women and four men. Of these, 1 person was aged in their 30s, 1 person was in their 50s, 1 person was in their 70s, 6 people were in their 80s and 2 people were in their 90s.

Included in the day’s total of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases were 471 people in Northern NSW.

There were 14 COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital with 1 in intensive care.

These 471 cases were all 7 local government areas within Northern NSW:

Tweed Shire – 144 cases across postcodes 2484, 2484, 2486, 2487, 2488, 2489;

Clarence Valley – 75 cases across postcodes 2460, 2462, 2462, 2464, 2465;

Byron Shire – 71 cases across postcodes 2479, 2481, 2482, 2483;

Lismore City – 67 cases across postcodes

Ballina Shire – 66 cases across postcodes 2478, 2479;

Richmond Valley – 41 cases across postcodes 2469, 2470, 2471, 2472, 2473;

Kyogle Shire – 5 cases across postcode 2474;

Tenterfield Shire – 2 cases across postcode 2476; Tenterfield is not in the NNSWLHD but shares a postcode so some cases are included here.

TOTAL 471

On deaths in Australia…..

At the tail end of the Delta wave in December 2021, where we could reasonably point to the start of the Omicron wave, we had 2006 deaths. The Omicron wave saw close to a 200 per cent increase in deaths compared with all previous waves combined, with 5928 deaths by March 29. This includes six deaths in children under 10, two in people aged 10-19 years, 16 in the group 20-29 and 52 deaths in people 30-39 years old. The largest single age group for deaths was in people 80-89 years, with 2025 deaths. Another 2100 or so deaths were recorded in people aged 40-79 years and the remainder – about 1400 deaths – in people aged 90 years and over. [Professor Raina McIntyre writing in The Saturday Paper, 2 April 2022]

As of 4pm 3 April 2022 there were 15,572 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in New South Wales and a total of 266,110 active COVID-19 cases across the state the majority of which are being self-managed at home.

There were 1,418 COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital as at 4pm 3 April, including 56 people in intensive care, 18 of whom require ventilation.

NSW Health reported the deaths of 6 people with COVID-19 – four women and two men. Of these, 1 person was aged in their 70s, 3 people were in their 80s and 2 people were in their 90s.

Included in the day’s total of newly confirmed COVID-19 cases were 437 people in Northern NSW.

There were 19 COVID-19 cases admitted to hospital with 1 in intensive care.

These 437 cases were all 7 local government areas within Northern NSW:

Tweed Shire – 113 cases across postcodes 2483, 2484, 2486, 2486, 2487, 2488, 2489;

Ballina Shire – 83 cases across postcodes 2477, 2478;

Byron Shire – 69 cases across postcodes 2479, 2481, 2482, 2483;

Clarence Valley – 62 cases across postcodes 2460, 2463, 2464;

Lismore City – 55 cases across postcode 2479;

Richmond Valley – 43 cases across postcodes 2469, 2479, 2471, 2472, 2473;

Kyogle Shire – 12 cases across postcode 2474.

TOTAL 437

A reminder......

NSW Health states:

Everyone is urged to take simple precautions to protect each other from COVID-19, such as:

use a mask in indoor settings where you cannot maintain a safe physical distance from others
get your booster vaccine
get a test and isolate immediately if you have any COVID symptoms
clean your hands regularly.