Good morning. Former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins will make a speech at the National Press Club today with former Australian of the Year Grace Tame, following Scott Morrison’s apology for the “terrible things” that happened in parliament workplaces yesterday.
Families separated by Australia’s strict travel restrictions are counting down the days to long-anticipated reunions when the country’s border opens after almost two years on 21 February. The border rules have been progressively relaxed since November but some groups remained cut off from exemption-free travel. While there’s hope for families, many Australians could still be waiting months for international parcel deliveries. Some countries with strict Covid quarantine rules, such as China and Hong Kong, may not initially have enough passengers to support freight-carrying passenger flights, according to industry experts.
The Coalition has been accused of “hiding negligence” by refusing to release a major report into the state of the care workforce in Australia it has had since September. The national skills commissioner, Adam Boyton, undertook an “in-depth study on the factors affecting the supply and demand of care workers” and delivered the final report to the employment minister, Stuart Robert, in September. The government is yet to formally respond. The Health Services Union secretary, Gerard Hayes, called for the report to be made public saying “the government can’t keep hiding its negligence on wages and training”.
Emmanuel Macron says he has received personal assurances from Vladimir Putin that Russia would not worsen the crisis over Ukraine after a whirlwind diplomatic mission to Moscow and Kyiv on Tuesday. But Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was sceptical about his Russian counterpart’s apparent commitment to peace. “I do not really trust words. I believe that every politician can be transparent by taking concrete steps,” Zelenskiy said.
Scott Morrison has secured the support of the Coalition party room for amendments to the government’s religious discrimination bill that only partially protect gay students and overlook trans students entirely. Labor MP Stephen Jones gave a powerful speech to parliament on Tuesday while debating the bill, paying tribute to his gay nephew who took his own life recently. “The thing that every parent of every gay or trans kid knows is that the love and protection that we provide for them inside our homes and families is not enough.”
Australia
Former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer privately boasted that Timor-Leste was an “open book” to the Australian government in the year 2000, well before the infamous bugging scandal revealed by Witness K, a tribunal has heard.
A journalism academy set up by News Corp Australia and former foe Google Australia at a university business school has angered academics who say the move is “reflection of antagonism News Corp has for university journalism”.
Conservationists claim the Queensland government acted with a lack of urgency after water and gas were found bubbling “uncontrolled” from former exploration bores near Chinchilla.
A dispute between neighbours involving the use of leaf blowers, 17 CCTV cameras and an easement quickly grew “out of all proportion” and has ended up in a New South Wales court.
The world
Two suspected Islamic State recruits, one of them carrying a British passport, were seized by the Taliban when they tried to slip into Afghanistan last autumn through its northern border, the Guardian can reveal.
Chagos Islanders exiled from their homeland by the UK government 50 years ago are heading to the remote archipelago on a Mauritian-chartered survey ship without British supervision for the first time.
Victims have lamented a lost opportunity for healing as former Pope Benedict has acknowledged errors in his handling of sexual abuse and asked for forgiveness but his lawyers argued he was not directly to blame.
A gay kiss caught on a live news report, evading Singapore’s ban on LGBT content, has been hailed as “act of revolution”.
Recommended reads
This year’s Oscar nominations have been announced, with The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion’s Montana-set drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a threatening rancher, leading the pack, nominated for a dozen prizes. “The Academy has responded to the classic quality of The Power of the Dog: the way it speaks to US culture and history and positions itself unambiguously in the heartland, but a heartland coloured and contorted by anger and sadness,” writes Peter Bradshaw. See the full list of nominations here.
A collective of Aboriginal photographers working across different styles launches this week. Formed by Michael Jalaru Torres, Blak Lens aims to provide support for talented photographers across Australia, building a professional and cultural network to amplify each other’s work and to change perceptions. Check out our gallery with a selection of some of the work from Blak Lens photographers.
Michelle Brasier has a knack for making sad things very funny. Her last musical comedy show, Average Bear, was about living in the shadow of hereditary illness – a family history of cancer means that Brasier has a 97% chance of developing the disease that claimed the lives of her father and brother. Her history of loss has left Brasier with a conflicted relationship to physical objects. She tells us why she is afraid of holding on to sentimental items, as well as the story of a few significant personal belongings.
Listen
How did the Northern Territory lose control of Covid? Aboriginal organisations have labelled the government response a “catastrophic failure” as cases in the NT hit a record high. However, the chief minister, Michael Gunner, says the territory’s response “remains the best in the world”. In this episode of Full Story, Laura Murphy-Oates speaks to Indigenous affairs editor Lorena Allam about what went wrong in the Northern Territory.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
Australia’s women finished a clean sweep of the one-day matches concluding the multiformat Ashes series, winning the third ODI by eight wickets to ensure that England finished winless on tour.
Media roundup
The Age reports that police are assessing images of Coalition MPs that reportedly appear to show them flouting Covid rules requiring masks in the Victorian parliament. The Melbourne Cup has some competition, with Racing NSW today announcing a new $2m race called the Big Dance to run in Sydney straight after the Cup, according to the Daily Telegraph.
Coming up
Federal parliament sits.
Brittany Higgins and Grace Tame to speak to the National Press Club.
And if you’ve read this far …
A wild crocodile in Indonesia has been freed from a tyre that it was trapped in for more than five years. A local bird-seller used chicken as bait and ropes to catch the animal at the end of what he said was a three-week rescue effort, before dozens of locals helped to drag the crocodile to shore and cut the tyre around its neck.
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