Australia news live: ‘I ask everyone to pray for the little man,’ father of boy in Gold Coast helicopter crash says | Australia news

‘Pray for the little man’

Returning to the Gold Coast, the father of the 10-year-old boy fighting for his life in hospital has taken to social media to say his son Nicholas “needs all the prayers he can get”.

Simon Tadros was watching when his 36-year-old wife Vanessa Tadros was killed in a helicopter collision on Monday.

Tributes have poured on to social media for the four people who lost their lives in the accident, with Tadros saying:

I ask everyone to pray for the little man. He is on life support in a critical condition.

May God pull him back with me and make a good recovery.

He is in an induced coma on a life support machine to help him breath. He is in a very serious and critical state. I’m asking for all your prayers to bring my little man back to me.

An online fundraiser has been set up by family friend Rochelle Fajloun, with Vanessa Tadros described as a loved mother and friend:

We are praying for a miracle that our Nicky, (as he is playfully known) can be brought back to his grief-stricken father Simon.

If by God’s grace Nicky survives his catastrophic injuries, he will have an intense and protracted recovery period.

Simon distressingly witnessed the accident unfold and is totally shattered.

The Bureau of Meteorology has maintained its severe weather warning for northern Western Australia, as ex-tropical cyclone Ellie continues to batter the region.

The strom is expected to slowly track west to be centred just east of Broome sometime this morning, with the bureau forecasting heavy rainfall for Broome, Roebuck Plains and the Dampier Peninsular from Tuesday to Thursday.

They say daily rainfall amounts of 100-200 mm with isolated falls of 250 mm and very isolated falls of 300 mm are possible.

A major flood warning for the Fitzroy River has also been maintained overnight, with major flooding at Noonkanbah this morning. Record major flooding is occurring at Fitzroy Crossing, with river levels still rising, and with further rises expected later in the week.

AMA calls for coherent strategy in place of ‘political responses’

AAP is reporting that the head of the Australian Medical Association, Prof Steve Robson, is calling for a genuine strategy rather than a “series of political responses” being needed to address the Covid outbreak in China.

Despite chief medical officer Paul Kelly advising that imposing restrictions on travellers from China, or any other country, at this time was “unnecessary and inconsistent with Australia’s Covid-19 management”, health minister Mark Butler imposed the testing measure.

Butler has defended the decision, saying he was acting with “an abundance of caution”. Multiple countries around the world including the US, UK and European nations have already imposed the same restriction.

Robson said it was another example of why a far-reaching plan would hold the country in good stead:

We really would love to see a comprehensive strategy about how to deal with the Covid situation in the northern hemisphere, at a time when there’s a huge amount of travel going on and almost no mitigations rather than what would look to people like a series of political responses.

We want to see a comprehensive strategy that’s informed by public health practice, to just say, ‘What needs to be done to protect Australians at this vulnerable time?’

Acknowledging Australians were going into their fourth year of Covid, Robson said while he understood the fatigue people were feeling, more people would die unless fundamental principles were adopted:

We’ve just literally come out of the most lethal year of the pandemic by a long shot … We want to see a strategy that’s evidence-based, nimble … and based on good public health principles.

We haven’t really heard anything from the government except a plan that really seems cobbled together … it’s time for this cobbling to stop and coherence to start.

China hits back against entry restrictions

Last night Chinese authorities warned that there could be retaliatory measures after the Australian government introduced entry restrictions on travellers from China.

The Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a briefing last night that the restrictions being introduced by various countries lacks “scientific basis”:

Some countries adopt entry restriction measures only targeting China, which lacks a scientific basis.

We firmly oppose the practice of manipulating epidemic prevention and control measures to achieve political goals, and will take corresponding measures according to the principle of reciprocity according to different situations.

New strains can emerge anywhere, so there is no need for special entry restrictions on China.

China always believes that the epidemic prevention measures of various countries should be scientific and appropriate, and should not take the opportunity to ­engage in political manipulation, discriminatory practices, and normal personnel exchanges, exchanges and co-operation should not be affected.

Australian officials have reiterated multiple times that the lack of detail surrounding the outbreak in China has led to the concerns behind the entry restrictions.

You can read more on these comments at the story below:

Twitter down in Australia

It appears Twitter is down – in Australia at the least – with two websites that track the status of websites, Down for Me and Down Detector, reporting problems.

Down for Me says Twitter has been down for approximately 23 minutes, while Down Detector is reporting a spike in user-reported problems in the last 24 hours.

The website is not working for me, with tweets not showing and only an error message on screen. We will keep you updated on how this develops.

Chalmers defends entry restrictions on visitors from China

Federal treasurer Jim Chalmers is on RN Breakfast this morning, responding to some of the criticism raised of the government’s decision to introduce entry restrictions on travellers from China.

Chalmers repeats yesterday’s line that he doesn’t think the measures are “especially onerous”, regardless of the pressures on the Chinese health system (RAT tests need to be ratified by a health professional under these measures).

He is also asked about potential countermeasures but says managing Australia’s relationship with China is a “complex task”:

I think countries will make their own decisions about travel arrangements and how they manage Covid. More broadly, we’ve been pretty clear we’ve taken this decision out of an abundance of caution. I don’t think it’s an especially onerous requirement, to be frank, and it’s consistent with the steps being taken in other countries.

We’ve said for some time that we think it’s in Australia’s national interest interest to stabilise that relationship. There have been some welcomed developments on that front but we’re realistic about it too. You know, managing the relationship with China is a complex task. It’s a difficult task. Nobody pretends it’s easy. There will be bumps along the road. But our objective remains pretty clear and consistent.

But there certainly is a lot of concern around the global health community and the global economy, about the transparency and quality of data that we see out of China on Covid. I think that’s very clear. If you look at what the World Health Organization has been saying about the sorts of steps that people have countries have been taking to manage travellers out of that part of the world, they said that these kinds of steps are understandable and that’s because they have a concern.

We share that concern about the quality and transparency of the data. We do need to make sure that we’ve got the best possible surveillance of strains as they emerge, but also waves as they emerge and become more difficult to manage. And so that’s really one of the key considerations here as we put these responsible restrictions in place.

Good morning