Albanese says Labor will match Coalition’s IVF pledge ahead of second leaders’ debate – as it happened

What we learned, Sunday 8 May 2022

With that, we’ll wrap up this live news blog. We will have a new blog from 8pm tonight, where my colleague Tory Shepherd will be covering the leaders debate.

Here’s what happened today:

Thanks for following along, and another reminder that we’ll be back from 8pm with a fresh blog covering the leaders debate.

Have a great evening!

Updated at 04.10 EDT

The Australian government says almost nine out of 10 visits to GP clinics are bulk-billed, but a health insurance researcher says gap fees often aren’t recorded, meaning the official data is “a great big lie”.

Read more:

Senate candidate Drew Pavlou arrested while protesting

A 22-year-old federal Senate candidate from Queensland was arrested in Sydney on Saturday night while protesting at night markets.

Drew Pavlou from the Drew Pavlou Democratic Alliance was holding a sign that read “free Tibet, free Uyghurs, Free Hong Kong” when police were called to the Eastwood event about 6.30pm.

New South Wales Police said an unauthorised protest which Pavlou was a part of was causing problems for stall owners and “obstructing pedestrian traffic”.

NSW police said:

Police were concerned that the unauthorised assembly was causing fear and alarm among the community due to the escalating anti-social behaviour of those present.

Police spoke with a 22-year-old man and issued him a move along direction. When the man failed to comply with that move along direction, he was arrested.

Pavlou was then taken to Ryde police station and charged with failing to comply with a police direction before being granted conditional bail to appear at Hornsby local court later this month.

Pavlou said the protest was “peaceful” until an argument between others broke out.

At that point, he was told by police that he was causing fear and alarm and instructed to move on, which he refused to do and was then arrested.

Pavlou said:

It’s actually a tremendous attack on free speech. It’s a really bad thing for our democracy that a Senate candidate in the course of campaigning, peacefully protesting is arrested.

Updated at 03.14 EDT

Labor will promise a new measure to close the gender pay gap and attack the government for promoting “the importance of low paid work” in the campaign’s final fortnight.

On Sunday the shadow minister for women, Tanya Plibersek, confirmed another policy push on gender pay inequity, while the shadow industrial relations minister, Tony Burke, signalled a plan to weaponise the Coalition’s submission to the minimum wage review.

With runaway inflation and a mid-election campaign interest rate rise, cost-of-living pressures and wage stagnation have emerged as the most important issues for voters ahead of the 21 May election.

The Morrison government has claimed to be the superior economic managers, but Labor has countered that its cost-of-living measures consist largely of one-off handouts without structural solutions to low wages.

Read more:

National Covid summary

Here are the latest coronavirus numbers from around Australia today, as the country records at least 19 deaths from Covid-19:

ACT

NSW

Northern Territory

Queensland

South Australia

Tasmania

Victoria

Western Australia

Large parts of Queensland are at risk of flooding this week as regions prepare to receive up to 10 times their average monthly rainfall by the weekend, AAP reports.

Police are warning people to avoid unnecessary travel, including for holidays or work, with the downpours expected to begin from Tuesday.

Acting inspector Donna Stewart said one in 10 road deaths in the state this year had been from people driving in flood waters.

It’s incredibly frustrating to see the number of people who aren’t heeding our warnings.

Felim Hannify, a senior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, said flood and severe warnings will begin to be issued from tomorrow.

The central, central interior and central coast are all set to receive 10 times their monthly average, while the interior and south-east are tipped to get an average month’s worth of rainfall.

During the worst of the weather Queensland’s central coast region could be hit with up to 300mm of rain within six hours, along with damaging winds.

Hannify said:

There’s going to be widespread rainfall basically across the entirety of the state.

The real event starts to ramp up particularly from Tuesday to Wednesday.

Hannify warned parts of the state were already saturated and flooding presented a threat to lives and livestock.

He said the severe weather would be fuelled by two troughs, one coming from the interior and another from the north coast.

A high pressure system in the Tasman Sea will essentially trap the two rain-laden troughs across Queensland, forcing it to rain itself out rather than move on.

It’s like nature is working against us.

Queensland and New South Wales are still reeling from devastating and deadly floods earlier this year which triggered a massive – but criticised – response from state and federal governments.

Updated at 02.02 EDT

The NBN rollout may have been completed, but Richard Proudfoot is still using an old ADSL internet connection, and he has to juggle his Zoom meetings around his partner’s work.

He runs a small IT business from his home in Maleny, on the Sunshine Coast, about 100km north of Brisbane, while his partner is a part-time university lecturer.

Due to their property’s terrain, NBN Co has told him he is not able to connect to fixed wireless or fixed line. While he has the option of satellite, many users have reported poor speeds and reliability. He has stuck with ADSL for the time being because he believes the tree cover and weather would adversely effect his service.

“We are very, very dependent on a reliable internet ADSL connection. To make it work for us given the limitations, we schedule internet use based on need … we cannot do concurrent Zoom meetings so we rearrange diaries in order to cope.”

Read Josh Taylor’s feature for the full story on the future of the critical national infrastructure project that should have been a triumph but became synonymous with disappointment.

Updated at 01.40 EDT

The Greens have marked Mother’s Day by saying they will fight for universal free childcare as a priority in the event of a hung parliament.

Greens leader Adam Bandt announced the proposal on Sunday morning which would expand Labor’s own $2.9bn policy and is expected to cost an extra $2bn for a total of $18.9bn over three years.

It is thought the policy pitch would have a stronger chance of attracting support from Labor were the opposition to find itself in the position of minority government.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has repeatedly said he would not do a deal with the Greens and the Coalition has repeatedly painted Labor and the teal independents as being at the mercy of the minor party.

Updated at 01.27 EDT

Prime minister Scott Morrison and opposition leader Anthony Albanese will be squaring off in their second leaders’ debate on Sunday evening.

Political animals can catch the hour-long debate on Channel Nine and 9Now from 8.45pm AEST. It will also be streamed on The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age’s websites.

Sarah Abo will moderate the debate which will take questions from a panel of reporters headed by Nine political editor Chris Uhlmann.

Albanese was declared the winner of the first leaders’ debate by 100 undecided voters in the third week of the campaign.

Updated at 01.20 EDT

Stay safe, Queensland.