Australia news LIVE: Scott Morrison announces ‘temporary COVID disaster payment’; Victoria records three new local COVID-19 cases

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a national plan to give Commonwealth money to people who are caught in coronavirus hotspots.

It’s called a “temporary COVID disaster payment” and will only kick in if a lockdown lasts longer than a week and coincides with a federally-designated hotspot.

The new payment will be $500 a week for people who normally work more than 20 hours a week and $325 a week for people who normally do less than 20 hours.

It will only kick in where people can’t work and have less than $10,000 in liquid assets. It cannot be combined with other welfare or coronavirus support payments from the federal government, excluding people on JobSeeker, Youth Allowance and the aged pension.

The Prime Minister kicked off his press conference on an optimistic note that’s a bit at odds with some of the more dour rhetoric out of state governments and, at points, the federal government.

“Where those [people] have independent means of supporting themselves for a week then I think they would agree that reaching out for Commonwealth taxpayer-funded assistance is not something they would consider reasonable for such a short period of time,” Mr Morrison said.

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It’s been another big day in news land. Here are some of the highlights:

• Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a plan to give $500 a week of Commonwealth money to people in nationally designated coronavirus hotspots. The scheme begins next week.
• Victorian health authorities say two cases of “fleeting” transmission are in fact false positives, after scientific experts found no evidence the virus strain was the fast-moving “beast” the government claimed in justifying the lockdown extension. Meanwhile more than 500 people in NSW are isolating along the state’s South Coast after authorities added locations to the list of sites visited by a holidaying Victorian family.
• There are eight new cases of the AstraZeneca clotting condition, including one person who is fighting for life in hospital.
• The federal government has signed a draft agreement with Victoria to build a dedicated quarantine facility at Avalon Airport near Geelong.
• More than 200 Australian children are stranded in India without their parents as the number of citizens seeking to return home from the country continues to grow.

Broede Carmody will return at 6.30am to do it all again as national cabinet meets. Goodnight!

Cases of common illnesses have hit record lows as hygiene measures used to stop the spread of COVID-19 have put the brakes on the transmission of many childhood viruses and diseases.

As few as three cases of whooping cough were recorded in NSW last month, compared to 565 in May 2019. More than 1000 cases of the highly contagious infection were recorded in the same month in 2011.

Only 110 cases of stomach flu, or rotavirus, have been recorded up to May this year. More than triple that was recorded in the same period in 2019. Cases of measles have been wiped out in NSW, with none recorded after the pandemic hit in March 2020.

Professor of infectious diseases at the Australian National University Peter Collignon said “this has never been seen before”.

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ABC management has pulled an upcoming Four Corners episode about the relationship between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, a decision that could be seen as an attempt to dampen tensions between the national broadcaster and federal government.

The episode was expected to run this Monday following weeks of delays, but staff have since been informed it will not go to air following a decision by managing director David Anderson.

The decision comes just days after Industry Minister Christian Porter decided to drop his defamation action against the ABC over its reporting of a historical rape allegation.

Multiple ABC sources told the Herald and The Age the episode was pulled after news director Gaven Morris failed to give it the seal of approval and referred it to Mr Anderson. However, the sources said the story did receive approval from legal and head of investigations, John Lyons.

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The Victorian government is considering a draft agreement from Prime Minister Scott Morrison on a new quarantine centre to be built near Avalon Airport, marking another step toward a deal that could be signed as soon as Friday.

Mr Morrison signed off on the proposal on Thursday morning and sent it to Victorian Acting Premier James Merlino, with the promise of federal funding as long as the state government also contributed to the project.

The Memorandum of Understanding clears the way for negotiations on Friday, when national cabinet is due to meet to discuss quarantine and a new regime for federal assistance to states that impose lockdowns.

The Victorian government aired the plan on April 29 with a request for $200 million in federal funding to accommodate 500 travellers, with options to expand it over time.

Mr Morrison wants the state government to pay some of the cost.

While we’re on the topic of travel...

Qantas engineers maintaining the airline’s grounded Airbus A380 fleet in a Californian desert are facing a novel problem: rattlesnakes are making homes in the landing gear.

The airline moved its superjumbo fleet to Victorville, in the Mojave Desert, for deep storage last year, due to the downturn in air travel and the suspension of its international routes.

The location’s dry heat and low humidity makes it ideal for storing aircraft, but it’s also an ideal environment for highly venomous rattlesnakes and scorpions.

As a result, Qantas engineers have had to start using a “wheel whacker” to try and scare off the animals before carrying out inspections.

Read more here.