Australia news live: Barnaby Joyce questioned on when he learned of Morrison’s secret ministries

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Morrison didn’t call finance minister to apologise, Maiden says

There’s been an interesting point from Samantha Maiden on the ABC Insiders panel about the timeline of events between former PM Scott Morrison and his former finance minister Mathias Cormann.

During a wide-ranging press conference on Wednesday, Morrison’s explanation of events made it seem that he had called Cormann to apologise for what happened.

However, Maiden suggests that’s not actually what happened:

Scott Morrison is really good at painting word images, right, and if you listened to that press conference this week, would you not get the impression that he called Mathias Cormann to apologise and he had called Josh? Would that be the impression you were left with?

That’s not what happened. What happened was Mathias Cormann calls Morrison on the weekend. He picks up The Weekend Australian, he reads the article, he comes to the international language of WTF and goes: “What happened here?”

Rings Morrison and goes: “Mate, what are you doing?”

Updated at 19.40 EDT

Covid royal commission will look at response of all governments, PM says

Prime minister Anthony Albanese said a royal commission into the nation’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic will include both state and federal governments.

Clearly you need to look at the response of all governments.

Primarily, it will be about the federal government. That’s what we have responsibility for, but the interaction between the levels of government of course, were critical to the response to the Covid pandemic.

The response of various government agencies, how it operated, the different jurisdictions … it exposed some of the issues with our federation can often be quite difficult with overlapping responsibilities.

Albanese said a royal commission would be held as soon as practical.

– with AAP

Updated at 19.44 EDT

Albanese flags reforms to ensure secret ministries scandal ‘never happens again’

Anthony Albanese has flagged reform and inquiries in the wake of revelations former prime minister Scott Morrison secretly swore himself into five ministries, to ensure it never happens again.

The prime minister will receive advice from the solicitor general on Monday on whether Morrison’s actions gave rise to any legal or constitutional problems, then make any necessary changes.

Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Albanese said if the solicitor general’s advice was Morrison had acted within the law, he would still seek to change the system.

There’s separate questions about the functioning of our democracy, about conventions and whether any conventions have been overturned and whether there’s a need for any reforms required to ensure that something like this can never happen again.

We’ll examine all of those issues … I am running a proper cabinet government that has proper processes.

Very clearly, there’s a need for proper scrutiny of what occurred here, this was an undermining of our parliamentary democracy.

Albanese said his predecessor had trashed the Westminster system.

Albanese would not be drawn be drawn about the legal consequences of Morrison’s intervention in a gas drilling project off the NSW coast.

He said the government would honour contracts that were signed under modern manufacturing grants, and were worth more than $828m.

– with AAP

Updated at 19.59 EDT

Media fallout from Morrison’s secret ministries continues

The ABC Insiders panel is serving as a good barometer for how the media is responding to the revelations about former prime minister Scott Morrison this week and Samantha Maiden is taking no prisoners.

Just listening to his own words in that press conference, the absolute rubbish that people held him responsible for every drop of rain, this guy had some sort of Messiah complex and this is what was going on and he seriously is deluded, right. He was delusional. When he talks about the unilateral national interest, you could mount a strong argument that having the gas project go ahead could be in the national interest, right. He is not talking about the national interest. He is talking about his political interests.

Updated at 19.22 EDT

This morning the Barnaby Joyce will be appearing on ABC Insiders with a run of press conferences to follow.

I also understand Victorian premier Daniel Andrews and the New South Wales environment minister James Griffin will be holding competing (separate) press conferences at 10am on the east coast.

We’ll bring you all the latest as it comes.

Updated at 19.14 EDT

Victoria records 18 new Covid deaths

Eighteen people with Covid-19 have died in Victoria overnight, with the state recording 2,427 new cases on Sunday morning, 438 people in hospital, 29 in ICU and 12 on ventilation.

Updated at 19.08 EDT

New South Wales records 16 new Covid deaths

Sixteen people with Covid-19 have died in New South Wales overnight, with the state recording 4,335 new cases on Sunday morning, 1,925 people in hospital, and 52 in ICU.

Updated at 19.08 EDT

Medical expert warns current Covid policy unsustainable

Coronavirus infections and deaths continue to tick upwards as the head of a medical institute warns Australia is losing its battle with the virus, AAP reports.

Burnet Institute director Prof Brendan Crabb told Seven’s Sunrise on Saturday that current strategies to combat the virus are not working.

What the numbers say is that we’re simply not winning.

The latest wave we just had … which was the third wave of this year, was the worst wave we’ve had this year, more hospitalisations and more deaths.

At that rate, the country is on track to record its 10 millionth case within a week.

Prof Crabb said there was an “attitude problem”.

We haven’t quite grasped the fact that having lots of virus in our community is bad.

We have to change to reduce transmission, to be intolerant of the amount of virus in our community.

Prof Crabb said the research from the US on how repeated infections increase the risk of acute and chronic is worrying and surprising, and shows the need to reduce infection rates.

There is no wall of immunity built by infection against the impacts of infection.

While “herd immunity” is real, Prof Crabb said the way to reach it was through vaccination, not infection.

Updated at 18.52 EDT

Labor claims byelection victory in NT seat of Fannie Bay

Labor has fought off a swing to claim victory in the Northern Territory seat of Fannie Bay in the byelection to replace former chief minister Michael Gunner, AAP reports.

Brent Potter was ahead on Saturday night with 52% two-candidate preferred over the Country Liberal party’s Ben Hosking, according to the Northern Territory Electoral Commission, with 63% of the vote counted.

Chief minister Natasha Fyles hailed Potter’s victory, saying the constituents of Fannie Bay “want a government that backs them and only a Territory Labor government can do that”.

It is with great pride that we welcome Brent Potter into the Territory Labor caucus.

Hosking led the primary vote with 42%, with Potter on 33% and the Greens with 19%.

The three independents – George Mamouzellos, Raj Samson Rajwin, and Leah Potter – each garnered between one and three per cent.

The past three Fannie Bay MPs have served as the NT’s chief minister.

Updated at 18.42 EDT

Good morning

And welcome to another Sunday morning Guardian live blog.

The Albanese government is facing growing pressure to abandon plans to pass Stage 3 tax cuts. The cuts are expected to cost $243bn by 2032-33, but unions, economists, the Greens and analysts are saying the money could be better spent providing critical services.

Fallout from the revelations that former prime minister Scott Morrison secretly took over five additional ministerial portfolios continues with calls for the governor general to explain why his signing of critical documents was left off the official diary. David Hurley signed off on the documents swearing Morrison in to the health, finance, treasury, home affairs and industry, science, energy and resources.

I’m Royce Kurmelovs, taking the blog through the day. With so much going on out there, it’s easy to miss stuff, so if you spot something happening in Australia and think it should be on the blog, you can find me on Twitter at @RoyceRk2 where my DMs are open.

With that, let’s get started …