Australia news LIVE NSW records 935 new local COVID-19 cases four deaths as outdoor restrictions eased in south-west Sydney Victoria records 567 new cases states road map sparks concerns

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NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant, Treasurer Dominic Perrottet and Minister for Western Sydney Stuart Ayres are due to provide a coronavirus update from 11am AEST.

Watch live below.

Meanwhile, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, COVID Commander Jeroen Weimar and Victorian Pharmacy Guild President Anthony Tassone are due to address the media at the same time.

Watch that press conference here.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says she is feeling more positive having seen her state’s case numbers drop in recent days, but she is “not ready to call it” and say they have passed their peak.

According to modelling by the Burnet Institute for the government last month, case numbers in NSW were predicted to peak in mid-September, although the worst impact of the pandemic on the state’s hospital system was set to be seen in October.

“Part of that plan ... our experts have been working on included the system being technically overwhelmed in some ways during October,” the Premier said, noting it was likely significant parts of hospitals’ capacity would be dedicated to managing COVID-19 patients and operations would be different to normal.

“Interestingly, the number of people in our hospital system is slightly less than what we thought it would be, but the number of people in intensive care is about what we expected,” she added.

“So we need to be aware of that. And we need to know that, come October, there will be weeks when our system will be technically overwhelmed, but the plans are in place.”

Ms Berejiklian stressed it would only take a couple of super-spreading events for NSW’s figures to return to more than 1500 a day.

She said the state would need to work to get its case numbers “as low as possible” to ensure fully vaccinated people would be able to move across the state when NSW hits 70 per cent double-dose.

“By the time we open up to 70 per cent you will be able to go and eat at a cafe, you’ll be able to get your haircut, you’ll be able to do all those things we’ve all missed. But the one issue we have is to make sure that we also provide equal mobility to everybody.”

A woman aged in her 70s from Moreland, in Melbourne’s north, has died from COVID-19 and there are 209 people in hospital with the virus, according to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.

Mr Andrews said 59 of those in hospital were in intensive care. Of those in ICU, 40 are on a ventilator.

Speaking at today’s press conference, Mr Andrews said of the cases in hospital yesterday, 86 per cent were not vaccinated at all and 12 per cent were partially vaccinated.

“Just three people were fully vaccinated,” he said. “These vaccines, all of them are effective, incredibly effective against serious illness they work, they save lives, they are our way out of this.”

Mr Andrews said it was “pleasing” that nearly 40,000 vaccinations were administered yesterday in state hubs.

“I think that is our busiest Sunday we’ve had,” he said.

“Thank you so much to those nearly 40,000 Victorians who made an appointment and then kept their appointment.

“Make sure that you’re not in an ICU bed. Do everything you can to avoid becoming gravely ill. That’s what this vaccination program is all about.”

The town of Cowra, in the central west of NSW, is re-entering lockdown at 5pm today after a child tested positive to COVID-19, Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant has announced.

Dr Chant said anyone who has been in the town since September 13 should abide by stay-at-home restrictions.

NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant.Credit:Edwina Pickles

“There was a 9-year-old boy who attended school in Cowra [while infectious], and there were a number of associated community exposures,” she explained.

The infection’s source is currently under investigation.

“It is pleasing to see that the Cowra population has a high vaccination coverage but I would like to again call out to the Cowra community to go forth and get vaccinated,” she added.

Health authorities also have ongoing concerns about the transmission of the virus in some Sydney suburbs, although case numbers were down on Monday with just 935 cases recorded â€" the first time the daily figure has been below 1000 this month.

Residents of Greenacre, Guildford, Bankstown, Merrylands, Casula, Fairfield, the Wollongong and Central Coast regions as well as Waterloo and Redfern in the inner Sydney are all urged to be vigilant for respiratory symptoms and come forward for testing.

“Whilst we are seeing some pleasing declines in some of the suburbs, and clearly the numbers today reflect that, it is too soon for complacency,” Dr Chant said.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has revealed that about one in five children aged 12 to 15 have now received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

“Given that was only made available about a week ago, that is an outstanding result and we are urging all parents to consider vaccinating their 12 to 15-year-olds,” she said.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, left, and Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, far right, on Monday.Credit:Edwina Pickles

“We want to make sure that when school goes back we have not only great coverage in the adult [population] ... but in the 12 to 15-year-old group which is so critical.”

Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant repeated the Premier’s call for parents to bring younger teenagers forward for vaccination.

Children aged 12 to 17 are able to receive the Pfizer vaccine and also the Moderna vaccine, which will begin to become available at some Sydney pharmacies later this week.

Across NSW, 82.2 per cent of the over-16 population has received a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 52.7 per cent are fully vaccinated, NSW Health reported on Monday morning.

NSW has reported 935 new local coronavirus cases on Monday, its lowest daily case figure since late August.

Four people have died since yesterday’s update: two men in their 60s from south-west Sydney who died at Liverpool Hospital, a woman in her 80s from Wollongong who died at Wollongong Hospital, and a man in his 80s who died at Nepean Hospital.

His is the second death linked to the Uniting Edinglassie Lodge aged care facility at Penrith, in Sydney’s west.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian, centre, arriving at Monday’s press conference.Credit:Edwina Pickles

Speaking in western Sydney on Monday, Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned we can not “read too much into” the slightly lower case numbers reported in NSW, noting it was still expected October would be the worst month for the state’s hospitals.

“Even if case numbers go down, we should expect, unfortunately, that the number of people in intensive care and the number of people who lose their lives will go up,” she said.

“We can’t be complacent because we know that unfortunately given what [the] Delta [strain of the virus] does, if we are too complacent too early things can get out of control and that is the last thing we want.”

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says he expects Christian Porter will return one day to the frontbench, after the former minister resigned from cabinet yesterday over his failure to reveal the identity of anonymous donors who helped fund his defamation battle against the ABC.

Mr Joyce, who quit the deputy prime ministership and Malcolm Turnbull’s frontbench in early 2018 and returned in June this year, told Seven’s Sunrise program that Mr Porter was “gone now, like so many of us in a period of our career, to the corridor of the nearly-dead”.

Christian Porter resigned yesterday from the frontbench amid intense criticism for accepting an undisclosed sum of money through a blind trust.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

“I was there for a bit over three years; it’s part and parcel of a lot of political life,” he said.

“He’s done the right thing to be quite frank, as I did, and he’s resigned.

“I bet you his electorate won’t resign from him, though. He’s an incredibly astute politician; he’s incredibly capable. I’ll put money that we’ll see him back again.”

Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon, who has signalled his intention to quit politics at the next election, told Sunrise Mr Porter’s “resignation in the end was inevitable” and “it closes another sad chapter in the Prime Minister’s slowness to act on these ministerial standards”.

Mr Porter, the former industry minister, had faced intense criticism since declaring on Tuesday last week that he accepted an undisclosed sum of money through a structure he described as a blind trust to help fund his defamation case against the ABC and its reporter Louise Milligan.

He withdrew the case earlier this year after the matter was settled out of court.

Mr Porter said he had “no access to information about the conduct and funding of the trust”.

Mr Porter said in a lengthy statement on Sunday he did not believe he had breached ministerial standards and would not step down from his seat. He has nominated for preselection as the Liberal candidate for the West Australian seat of Pearce at the next federal election.

“Ultimately, I decided that if I have to make a choice between seeking to pressure the trust to break individuals’ confidentiality in order to remain in cabinet, or alternatively forego my cabinet position, there is only one choice I could, in all conscience, make,” he said.

The Victorian government released a barrage of information on Sunday about the state’s road map out of lockdown.

October 26 and November 5 look set to become dates when some rules may fade into history, and vaccines, not lockdown, are counted on to protect Victorians from coronavirus.

Many questions remain about what vaccinated and unvaccinated Victorians will be allowed and not allowed to do in the coming months.

We will attempt to answer your questions via the form below.

Queensland has reached its 60 per cent first dose vaccination target, according to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

The news comes after more than 50,000 Queenslanders rolled up their sleeves at walk-in hubs over the weekend.

The state recorded zero cases of COVID-19 in the community today. There were two cases detected in hotel quarantine.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says the state has vaccinated at least 59.77 per cent of eligible Queenslanders with one dose of a coronavirus vaccine.

“We’re at 59.77 per cent of those doses, but we get the federal vaccination numbers in there about two days behind, so we’re confident we’ve clicked over that 60 per cent, which is wonderful,” she said at a press conference earlier this morning.

The French ambassador has spoken of his fury at Australia’s dumping of a $90 million submarine contract in favour of a US deal for nuclear-powered vessels.

Jean-Pierre Thebault said France “felt fooled” when it discovered Australia’s deal with the US one hour before the announcement.

“Imagine our anger,” he told the ABC’s Radio National.

“When you are trusted partners, you don’t be like that. It’s a question of dignity and mutual respect.”

France’s ambassador to Australia Jean-Pierre Thebault is on his way back to Paris.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

He said France did have a nuclear submarine program, but Australia did not discuss the possibility of this with the European nation.

The Australian Government had “kept us in the dark intentionally until the last minute, [not giving us] at least the decency to ever [converse] about what would be the alternative”, the French ambassador said.

Asked if Prime Minister Scott Morrison signalled the possibility of tearing up the submarine deal during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in June, Mr Thebault replied: “Never.”

He added the issue was in the hands of the European Commission, the body responsible for enforcing EU laws.

Trade Minister Dan Tehan said he understood France’s disappointment, but the Australian government had taken a decision “which we firmly believe is in our own sovereign national interests”.

Mr Tehan added that he would be keen to meet his French counterpart while in Paris to attend an upcoming OECD meeting.

He said Australia and France had worked for over 100 years to build a significant partnership, and “I’m sure over time we’ll be able to continue that strong partnership and we’ll be able to put this behind us”.

Speaking on Seven’s Sunrise earlier this morning, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce suggested it was disingenuous for France to label Australia traitorous given our actions during World War I and World War II.

“You would not want to have to remind people that tens of thousands of Australians died on French soil protecting France,” he said.

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