Australia news live updates: union rejects aged care bonus, elective surgery to resume in NSW, public school students return | Australia news

The Morrison authorities’s failure to impose sanctions towards Myanmar junta figures sends a message that Australia is a “mere bystander to authoritarian backsliding in our area”, in accordance with the Labor occasion.

With at present marking one yr since Myanmar’s army seized energy in a coup, the opposition at present joined with human rights activists in urging the Australian authorities to behave to cease the stream of cash to the junta.

Labor’s appearing overseas affairs spokesperson, Kristina Keneally, stated at each stage of the disaster in Myanmar, the federal government had “acted too late and completed too little to reveal Australia’s opposition” to the coup and to the “the killing of over a thousand harmless civilians”. She stated:

The Morrison-Joyce authorities’s refusal to behave over the previous yr sends exactly the unsuitable message – that Australia doesn’t care and that we’re mere bystanders to authoritarian backsliding in our area … We be a part of calls from the Australian Council of Commerce Unions, Human Rights Watch and the Australian Council for Worldwide Growth, in addition to many different NGOs, for focused sanctions towards the Tatmadaw and linked entities. Mr [Scott] Morrison and the overseas minister should use this anniversary to lastly act – and rise up for democracy in our area.

Elaine Pearson, the Australia director of Human Rights Watch, stated Australia wanted to take coordinated actions along with like-minded governments “to assist deprive the army of its income sources and to maximise strain on the junta to finish its marketing campaign of terror”:

That is the one-year anniversary of the coup and I feel it sends a horrible message that Australia has didn’t implement any new focused sanctions towards the coup leaders or any of the enterprise pursuits.

Pearson stated the Australian authorities had repeatedly expressed its grave considerations, however “actions communicate louder than phrases”. She stated the federal government ought to goal the oil and fuel income flowing to the junta. Citing Woodside Petroleum’s announcement final week that it will depart Myanmar, Pearson added:

When Woodside is taking stronger motion on human rights than the Australian authorities, I feel that’s a trigger for concern.

Earlier this month the overseas affairs minister, Marise Payne, and the defence minister, Peter Dutton, joined with their British counterparts in calling on the Myanmar army “to instantly stop violence towards civilians; interact in constructive, inclusive dialogue; finish the focusing on of legitimately elected leaders; and launch all these arbitrarily detained, together with Australian Professor Sean Turnell”.

New South Wales will resume a restricted variety of non-urgent elective surgical procedures in personal and regional public hospitals from subsequent week, the federal government will announce on Tuesday.

The federal government introduced on 7 January that non-urgent elective surgical procedure could be suspended as hospitalisations rose following the Omicron wave of infections.

On the time the premier, Dominic Perrottet, stated surgical procedures would resume from the center of February.

However whereas the federal government is assured that hospitalisation numbers have plateaued, on Tuesday the premier will announce some elective surgical procedures will resume in a staged capability from Monday 7 February.

The plan will see non-urgent elective surgical procedure requiring an in a single day keep returning to 75% capability in personal hospitals, and as much as 75% of pre-pandemic ranges at some public hospitals in regional and rural NSW.

Perrottet stated in a press release:

The reintroduction of non-urgent elective surgical procedure will likely be completed in a phased method to stability the continuing potential want for further capability in our hospitals and the necessity for individuals in NSW to entry their elective surgical procedures as shortly as doable…

We recognise the impact these essential restrictions have had on the lives of individuals requiring non-urgent elective surgical procedure and I need to guarantee them we will likely be doing all the things doable to return to full capability in all of our hospitals as quickly as doable.

The NSW authorities has been utilizing personal hospitals to cope with the surge in Covid-19 hospitalisations through the Omicron wave, and the well being minister, Brad Hazzard, stated that may proceed for non-urgent elective surgical procedure to make sure fairness of entry.

Our hospitals stay below strain attributable to Covid-19 so solely our public hospitals which might be ready to renew non-urgent elective surgical procedures with out compromising their potential to take care of Covid-19 sufferers and sufferers with different medical circumstances will achieve this.

The most recent Bureau of Well being Info report launched in December revealed that waves of Covid-19 outbreaks had seen the elective surgical procedure waitlist in NSW rise to greater than 92,000 individuals earlier than the latest suspension.

Final week the federal government flagged a resumption of some elective surgical procedures as hospitalisations and ICU shows remained throughout the best-case situations projected by the state’s well being division.

“Hospitalisation numbers have actually plateaued, as we stated final week … we do suppose that within the coming week we are going to begin to see them drop,” deputy well being secretary Susan Pearce stated final week.