Good morning. Australia has ordered the evacuation of its embassy in Kyiv as the Ukraine crisis worsens. Some countries are warning their citizens to leave the country entirely. And vulnerable Australians are being forced to hide at home due to expensive Covid tests.
Roughly one in three Australians have confidence in the Morrison government, which is the lowest approval since the 2019-20 summer bushfires, according to a survey. The longitudinal survey of 3,472 Australians was conducted in the final two weeks of January, as the Omicron wave and eased restrictions resulted in some days with more than 100,000 new Covid cases. The ANU’s Centre for Social Research and Methods found 34.5% of adult Australians had confidence or were “very confident” in the federal government, down from a peak of 60.6% in May 2020.
Scott Morrison has ordered the evacuation of the Australian embassy in Kyiv, warning the situation in Ukraine has reached a dangerous stage. The order echoes that of many other countries, including Britain and Germany, who have advised their citizens to leave immediately. Australia’s foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, says the government has directed the departure of embassy staff to a temporary office in Lviv, with the buildup of Russian troops on the border. Britain believes that Russia’s powerful FSB spy agency has been given the task of trying to engineer coups in Ukraine’s major cities in the immediate aftermath of any invasion launched by the Kremlin. Meanwhile, fears of flying over Ukrainian airspace have led some airlines to scrap or divert flights as tensions between the west and the Kremlin mount over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Vulnerable Australians are being forced into “hiding at home” and lower-income workers are forfeiting meals because of the cost of rapid Covid antigen tests, unions and welfare charities have warned as they plead with the Morrison government to reverse its long-held opposition to providing free testing kits for all people. Despite the government’s recent move to make rapid antigen tests tax deductible for workers and businesses, a coalition of advocacy groups including the Australian Council of Social Services (Acoss) and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) warn the tax write-off plan provides a greater discount to higher-income earners.
Australia
The so-called “Super Saturday” byelection results may be bad for the NSW government, but they are not surprising. While the full results won’t be known for weeks, it was clear by Saturday evening that the government had lost Bega for the first time since the seat was created in the 1980s.
Two years of the pandemic have meant drops in essential screening and detection, while cancer patients undergo treatments alone and isolate to avoid Covid risks.
A proposed new coal-fired power station at Collinsville in north Queensland is now being pitched as a “flexible” firming project – a pivot that neatly aligns with federal government moves to bankroll such plans.
Unemployment in regional Australia has dropped below the magic 4% but experts say the outcome is “double-edged”, as surging vacancies amid a shallow labour pool looms as the bigger issue.
As disillusionment with the Morrison government grows, a new generation of female independents is emerging to run against the system itself.
The world
Rudolph Giuliani, who was prominent in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result, is considering giving testimony to the congressional committee investigating the deadly 6 January Capitol insurrection, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
Police moved in to clear and arrest the remaining protesters near a key US-Canadian border bridge early Sunday, trying to end one of the main demonstrations that have broken out across Canada against Covid vaccine mandates and other restrictions to bring the pandemic under control.
The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian charity worker detained in Iran, has said she is “very, very angry” after learning about the collapse of a deal to bring her home. Zaghari-Ratcliffe fears she is a “bargaining chip” in ongoing nuclear talks and is filled with “anger at her life being stolen” and the government’s “lack of urgency” in securing her release, Richard Ratcliffe said.
New research into sudden weight loss finds a possible cause of cachexia in cancer patients and Cockayne syndrome in children.
Recommended reads
Photograph: Westend61/Getty Images
Trekking into a walk-in campsite with a tent and provisions for fire-cooked meals on your back can definitely be a romantic experience. But if you’re after intimacy and seclusion that is a little less rugged, accommodation in scenic areas often escalates from under-the-stars to five stars, with not much in the middle. We’ve scoured Australia for short stays and experiences that feel special but not extravagant, within a few hours of every capital city.
“In 2021 my mother lost her partner of 33 years and my year-long relationship ended,” writes Natasha May. “The grief we feel in missing romantic love has bound us tighter than ever.”
Listen
It’s been one year since Brittany Higgins came forward with sexual assault allegations that shook the government. Last week she spoke at the National Press Club alongside former Australian of the Year Grace Tame about Scott Morrison’s failure to lead on this issue.
Laura Murphy-Oates speaks to political reporter Amy Remeikis about how this tumultuous year inspired her book On Reckoning and the government’s response to a national reckoning.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
Through a skeleton career almost derailed by a lack of funding and a severe concussion, Jackie Narracott found a way to win Australia’s most unlikely Olympic medal. Steven Bradbury became part of folklore with his speed-skating gold medal heroics while Chloe Esposito snatched a surprise modern pentathlon gold, but Narracott winning a silver medal in a sport where Australia has no facilities or training program tops the lot.
Australia defender Harry Souttar muses on flying back to England with an ACL injury, how his club fortunes changed and the target as he battles back.
Media roundup
In Queensland, people are hunting to find the unmarked graves where people from South Pacific islands were kidnapped, tricked or lured to Australia to work in the sugar industry in the late 19th and 20th century, the ABC reports. Woodside and Santos face shareholder votes to reveal the cost to decommission their facilities as activists continue to protest the oil and gas industry, WA Today reports.
Coming up
Counting continues in the NSW byelections.
And if you’ve read this far …
Down, dirty and explosively entertaining, the Ozploitation movement of the 70s and 80s produced some sensationally good films. From 1971’s Wake in Fright to 1986’s Dead End Drive-in, Guardian Australia’s film critic Luke Buckmaster ranks 17 of the greatest.
Sign up
If you would like to receive the Guardian Australia morning mail to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here.
Get in touch
If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@theguardian.com.
Discover Australian Weekend
Every Saturday at 6am, enjoy early access to the best journalism planned for the weekend in one elegant app, plus a curated selection of the week’s news and analysis from Australia and the world.
