Australian News Live: Jason Clare promises university ‘reset’; north-central New South Wales coast on flood alert; no longer eligible for fourth Covid booster | Australia News

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Pavlovsky said Australian-Russian relations had reached their “lowest point”.

Whatever cooperation we had, the Australian side destroyed it without regard to Australian interests.

It’s truly sad.

When asked if Putin would attend the G20 summit in person, Pavlovsky said Putin would “definitely” attend, but the format is still being discussed.

Pavlovsky said the situation with the pandemic will determine the format.

He is very busy with a constructive dialogue with many countries. He will not pay attention to signals of virtue from certain leaders.

Pavlovsky said the war could have been avoided if “diplomatic dialogue had not been blocked by the West”.

The West is stepping up its efforts, prohibiting the Ukrainian side from returning to the negotiating table.

Q: Why do you keep bombing Ukraine? That would end it.

There are important existential reasons for Russia to launch this operation. The operation will stop when the patterns are deleted.

Russian ambassador says West is ‘hysterical’

ABC Radio asks the Russian Ambassador to Australia, Alexei Pavlovskyhow Russia can justify its position at the G20 summit.

Pavlovsky responded by criticizing “the West’s hysterical reaction”.

ABC Radio interviews the ambassador on the impact of the invasion on the world’s food supply, and the host Hamish McDonald chided Pavlovsky: “It’s not Russian state media, you can’t get away with making it up.”

Pavlovsky denied the situation was a war, saying it was a military operation to protect Russia’s security interests.

You can call it whatever you want, from our point of view it is a military operation to protect the people of Donbass, and to protect security interests.

Atagi warns of fourth dose of vaccine

Dr. Chris Moy, Vice President of the Federal Australian Medical Association and a member of the Atagi Technical Advisory Group, is on ABC radio to discuss the decision to allow Australians over the age of 30 to receive a fourth dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Moy said a key consideration was wanting to hold on until needed:

They wanted to hold the fire until it was really necessary because they didn’t want to leave too soon.

They were under pressure for a long time to go to the fourth shot, everybody, but they wanted to hold that shot because they didn’t want to end up firing the shot too soon actually so, with a new variation, having to do a better fifth shot.

Moy said there is now evidence that newer variants have more of an impact on the lungs:

The three things that are worrying about this, there is evidence from overseas, is that [the new subvariants] are more contagious. It exceeds BA2, which is the previous subvariant…with high reinfection rates. So people particularly rely on previous infection for immunity or being rejected at a higher rate, but also on the fact that it has a greater propensity for lungs – this means a more serious diseasewhile the previous periods were more in the upper respiratory tract.

So therefore, because of that, we can envision a higher proportion of people in….hospitals. So this combination of a wave coming in for hospitals is testing. A high percentage, even a small percentage… will overwhelm the hospitals, as they already are right now, unfortunately. They already had a fourth set.

Moy said 30 was the cut-off age where the benefits outweighed the risks.

Chances of rain and flooding move north in NSW

Stephanie Convery

The rain may have eased in Sydney and on New South Wales Central Coast, but severe weather and the risk of flooding shifted to the Hunter Valley and the North Central Coast overnight.

More than 6,000 Hunter residents have evacuated their homes and businesses, while the New England Highway remains closed in Singleton and Maitland.

Major flooding in Singleton continues, where an evacuation order has also been issued, and there is moderate flooding in Wollombi and Maitland.

The Hunter River peaked at 13.7m overnight, surpassing the March flood level of 13.15m.

As of Thursday morning, the SES had received around 1,200 requests for help in the past 24 hours, including around 900 in the Central Coast, Hunter and Central North Coast regions, the NSW SES Deputy Commissioner said. , Ashley Sullivan.

They had seen about 65 flood rescues in the 12 hour night and were focusing on flooding in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley areas.

There were 58 “return with caution” advice in progress, which means about 35,000 can begin to return home with caution, Sullivan told ABC News Breakfast:

[For those people] the threat of flooding has lessened, the danger has lessened because of the flooding, and it’s okay to go back to your home and do that assessment to see what’s needed next.

Obviously, when people return to these communities, there will still be flooding in low-lying areas. There will be debris, potentially contaminants from spilled chemicals and also watch out for power lines. Treat power lines as still live if damaged throughout this event. And when you enter your home, do not turn the electricity back on if it has flooded or flooded.

– With PAA

Rishworth says employers should hire people with disabilities

Rishworth is asked about her appeal to Australian employers who are facing severe staffing shortages to hire candidates with disabilities:

There’s never been a better time for employers to think outside the box when it comes to finding people we hear from all the time.

One of the reports that has been written on the employment of people with disabilities is that community attitudes are actually one of the biggest barriers, so seeing people with disabilities find jobsent so it’s not about making changes to the workplace, it’s about people’s attitude.

So I want employers to think seriously about how they can potentially employ someone with a disability, because if they don’t, they’re missing out on a wealth of knowledge, but more importantly, in times of skills crisis, they will find the employees they really need.

Rishworth says she thinks a lot of employers are open to this option:

I recently spoke at a BCA session where I know they really want to work practically with the employer on how they could accommodate people with disabilities and make sure the accommodations are in place, but one of the things we really need to change is not to change the workplace, but to change our attitudes and that sort of thing.

I hope that as we approach the jobs summit, a roundtable will specifically bring employers and unions together, as well as people living with disabilities around the table, to start talking about those- these are somehow melted into the Johnson, we limit myself to saying that there must have been more than round tables and changes in perception.

The Minister of Social Services reaffirms his commitment to social housing

The Minister of Social Services, Amanda Rishworthis on ABC Radio and talks about the social pressures Australians face.

Rishworth is asked about the housing crisis and reaffirmed the government’s commitment to building more social housing:

We need to be very clear that a lot of people are facing housing issues, not just the cost of housing, but actually the ability to get a house, so housing, we said we would build more social housing it’s a commitment as part of our Future Australia program.

ABC asks Rishworth if it’s fair to keep people on $46 a day while giving those with more than $200,000 a year a tax cut of $25 a day:

Well, the tax tax you’re talking about is in 2024. So we’re not saying this tax cut is related to the immediate pressures families are facing right now.

It’s about how we can provide a whole-of-government response to help people in these difficult circumstances and, as I said, in every budget we look at what our priorities are and I will certainly be working with others at within the government and our other ministers to deal with it.

Good morning!

The flood crisis continues in parts of New South Wales with major flooding and evacuation orders in Singleton and several Hunter Valley towns.

Weather conditions are improving for Sydney and the NSW central coast as nearly 30,000 people have been allowed to return home. Applications for federal disaster recovery payments will open at 2 p.m. today.

Reports indicate that a fourth dose of Covid-19 vaccine will be available for Australians over 30after the Minister of Health, Mark Butleris informed today of Atagi’s recommendations following yesterday’s meeting.

The Minister of Education, Jason Clairepledged to ‘reset’ government-university relations, announcing a review of the role and governance of the main granting body in a major speech last night.

I am Natasha May and I’ll keep you posted on all those titles and more this morning. If you think something should be on the blog, you can hit me up on Twitter @natasha__may or email natasha.may@theguardian.com.