Coalition bets on business for Covid recovery as Victoria reports six new cases – as it happened

Victoria reported six new Covid-19 cases and two deaths in the past 24 hours. The premier, Daniel Andrews, said he was confident that an outbreak in the suburb of Chadstone was under control, but that “you can only know what you know. We can’t say what comes in tomorrow’s testing or the day after”.
In New South Wales, three new cases of community transmission were reported. The cases, in Sydney’s west and south-west, were the first in almost two weeks. The cases do not appear to be linked, and the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said it was concerning but not unexpected. “Our suspicions that the virus is always lurking in the community are founded,” she said. “And we wouldn’t have said that if we didn’t mean it.”
Berejiklian also urged the Queensland government not to reset the clock on opening the border between the two states. The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has said she will lift the border closure only after 28 days without community transmission in NSW. In the budget washup, Labor confirmed it would support the federal government’s second tranche of tax cuts while the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, said Covid-19 would see the budget deficit reach $213.7bn this year. he crucial crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie said she wanted to see more funding for social housing in the budget.
Etihad Airways has announced it will stop all flights to Brisbane because the route is commercially unviable.
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Support from readers means we can keep our quality reporting open for everyone to access, and it protects our independence for the long term. Every contribution, however big or small, makes a difference. Support the Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you. Queensland’s deputy premier, Steven Miles, says the government is “still on track” to reopen its border with New South Wales next month, despite three new mystery cases in Sydney’s west today.
But Miles said at a press conference this afternoon that reopening the border could depend on whether contact tracers in NSW can link the cases to an existing cluster.
The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said earlier today that the state was still sticking to its plan to open the border only if NSW recorded 28 days of zero community transmission.
Miles said that if the cases could be traced to an existing cluster, it would mean Queensland’s border would be on track to reopen on 1 November, but warned that could change.
The contact tracers in NSW will have 48 hours to see if they can scientifically link these cases to existing clusters, I really hope that they can” he said.
If they can that won’t have any effect on our timeline. As far as we know, for now, we are still on track for that review toward the end of the month.
Good afternoon! Thanks as always to Amy Remeikis for her efforts.
The president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Michele O’Neil, is speaking on the ABC right now, explaining why she’s opposing the government’s proposed tax cuts. What I’m saying is we don’t think tax cuts are the right measure, at the moment. Because we’ve sort of learnt a lot over the pandemic and we’ve also learnt a lot from the bushfires before the pandemic, which is we really need to invest in good-quality public services. We need to make sure that the money is there so that we’ve got a great healthcare system, we’ve got emergency care responses, that we do something about aged care.

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