Federal court rejects bid to overturn India travel ban – as it happened

We’ll leave our live coverage here for today. This is how things stand:

• The federal government has talked up infrastructure and aged care spending ahead of tomorrow’s budget, with finance minister Simon Birmingham promising a “once-in-a-generation investment” in aged care.
• It also confirmed the international border won’t be open until at least next year.
• Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has questioned the federal government’s motives in foreshadowing childcare and women’s safety funding in tomorrow’s budget, saying it would not be happening “if it wasn’t for the fact that a reported sexual assault happened 50 metres from the prime minister’s office”.
• Albanese called the budget (which he hasn’t seen yet) “a showbag budget – a budget that looks pretty flashy but when you take it home, only lasts a few days or a few weeks”.
• The Greens say companies that profited from jobkeeper should be made to pay it back.
• The federal court rejected an urgent application to overturn the India travel ban, rejecting the first two grounds of the case and putting off a question about whether the ban is unconstitutional. The ban is set to be repealed on Friday, with repatriation flights to resume from that date.
• Earlier, Liberal senator James Paterson joined the ranks of Liberal backbenchers and government senators speaking against the India travel ban.
• Foreign affairs minister Marise Payne has visited Afghanistan.
• About 400,000 Covid-19 vaccinations were administered last week, with 900,000 going out this week — the biggest week for vaccine distribution since the rollout began.
• From 24 May, NSW residents over the age of 50 will be able to get an AstraZeneca vaccine at a mass vaccination centre. People aged 40 to 49 are able to register their interest to receive the Pfizer vaccine from 5pm, with vaccination to begin “within weeks”. Victoria began offering vaccines to all over-50s at vaccination hubs last week.
• Australian Olympians began receiving their vaccinations today.
• Both Western Australia and NSW recorded no new community cases of Covid-19 — but authorities in NSW are still looking for the “missing link”.
• NSW health minister Brad Hazzard has criticised the media for naming the man at the centre of Sydney’s Covid-19 outbreak. He was identified in a column in the Australian Financial Review this morning.
• The Victorian government has lifted travel restrictions with Perth. From midnight, Perth and the Peel region will be in the green zone in Victoria’s traffic-light permit system.
• The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will conduct a public review into the proposed merger of Star and Crown casino.
• VicForests has won an appeal against a landmark federal court judgement, which found it had repeatedly breached conservation regulations.

Thanks for your company. Matilda Boseley will be back bright and early tomorrow to take you through budget day. We’ll see you then.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has not ruled out supporting more independent candidates in future election contests, as he has in the Upper Hunter byelection.

He told political editor Katharine Murphy:

As I said in my book, I resigned as prime minister, but I have not resigned as an Australian citizen.

I wouldn’t rule anything in or out, and I wouldn’t expect anyone else to be ruling things in or out at this point. It will depend on the issues and how parties and candidates deal with them at the time.

A thoroughly unnecessary reference to the book but you gotta respect the hustle.

Here’s the full story:

In happier dog news:

Dog-related news is, I think, necessary on federal budget eve.

Police in Sydney are investigating a case of suspected dognapping.

A four-year-old female pitbull terrier, named Baxter, was allegedly taken from outside a store in the Sydney CBD on Friday, a NSW police spokesperson said.

Baxter had been tied up by her owner outside a store at the intersection of George and Liverpool streets about 8.20pm.

Police said in a statement:

When [Baxter’s owner] returned, the dog was missing and officers from Sydney city police area Command attended a short time later and commenced an investigation.

Police have been told a man and woman were last seen heading south on George Street with the dog.

Baxter is brown with a white chest.

Police say they pulled images of the man and woman with Baxter from CCTV. They are a white man in his 20s wearing a baseball cap, black shirt and white tracksuit pants, and a white woman in her 20s wearing a black jacket with a logo and black tracksuit pants, and carrying a brown handbag.

Anyone who saw the pair, or Baxter, is asked to contact Sydney police or make a confidential report to Crimestoppers on 1800 333 000 or online.

Australia’s international travel ban is based on politics not science, health experts have told Guardian Australia’s medical editor, Melissa Davey.

She writes:

On Sunday the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, told SBS News that the budget expectation is that international travel will begin in 2022, with further detail expected when the budget is released on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, posted on Facebook that borders would only open “when it is safe to do so”, saying during media interviews over the weekend that Australians do not have an “appetite” for opening borders if it means further lockdowns and restrictions.

But a professor in paediatrics, vaccinology, epidemiology and infectious diseases with the University of Sydney, Robert Booy, said there were South Pacific and east Asian countries that had proved to have strong infection control procedures in place and that Australia could open sooner.

Booy, a senior fellow at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, said:

Vietnam has done a great job. South Korea has had a problem, but they’ll soon be under control again. Taiwan has done fantastically well, and they have a similar total population to Australia.

But politics rules. And therefore the governments at state and federal levels say they will respect and follow the medical advice, [but] some of it is based on rather anecdotal medical evidence. Some of it comes down to whether you respect one medical expert over another, and that’s when the government has the opportunity to take a political decision.

You can read more on that story here:

In Perth, the Crown casino royal commission has heard its first witness.

More from AAP:

Members of Western Australia’s gaming watchdog lack experience in increasingly complex casino regulation, a royal commission into Crown Perth has heard.

The commission on Monday called its first witness, Gaming and Wagering Commission chair Duncan Ord.

Ord, a senior public servant whose background is in the arts, said he had no formal training in casino regulation before assuming the role.

He has been director general of the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries since the amalgamated “mega-department” was created in 2017.

Ord told the inquiry:

I had to take the role on at obviously a short [notice].

I did what any new member would do when they’re appointed, which is to take advantage of the expertise of the department’s staff.

Ord said he believed only one commission member – former chair Barry Sargeant – had prior skills or experience in casino operations or regulations.

He described the governance of casinos as increasingly complex.

We were primarily focused on protecting the more gullible punter, I suppose, from a sophisticated casino operator.

The area which has opened up as a risk, clearly, is what is the source of money that people are using to gamble.

The inquiry is examining whether Western Australia’s decades-old gambling legislation remains fit for purpose and the suitability of Crown Perth to continue holding a casino licence.

The WA probe is being led by three commissioners: former supreme court justices Neville Owen and Lindy Jenkins and former WA auditor general Colin Murphy.

They are expected to deliver an interim report by 30 June and a final report with findings and recommendations by 14 November.

Other witnesses slated to appear in coming weeks are WA’s chief casino officer, Mark Beecroft, and his predecessor, Michael Connolly.

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10 May 202103.19 EDT

Federal court rejects application to overturn India travel ban

Paul Karp

The federal court has rejected an urgent application to overturn the India travel ban, meaning 9,500 Australians stranded there will not be able to return until after it is repealed on Friday.

On Monday Justice Thomas Thawley declined to make orders overturning the ban after hearing the first half of the challenge brought by Gary Newman, 73, an Australian man stranded in Bangalore since March 2020.

Thawley rejected the first two grounds of the case: that health minister Greg Hunt failed to ensure the ban was “no more restrictive or intrusive than is required”; and the Biosecurity Act was not clear enough to override Australians’ common law right to enter their country.

Thawley sided with Hunt, whose counsel argued the Biosecurity Act was intended to have “paramount force” in the case of emergencies, operating as a “commonwealth legislative bulldozer” that overrides state laws and common law rights.

Justice Thawley found that Hunt had relied on the chief medical officer’s advice, was satisfied of what he needed to be to fit the safeguards of the act, and the determination contained appropriate limitations.

The judge accepted that Australians have a common law right to enter Australia, but said that preventing them from doing so was a “necessary incident” of the scheme in the act to prevent an infectious disease, such as Covid-19, entering Australia.

He said it was “unlikely” parliament would have intended to give the minister power to stop movements within Australia but not to stop the disease entering Australia (via human carriers).

Thawley said:

It is hardly surprising the legislature would want to provide a broad power. The precise nature of future threats could not be known [and may require] novel responses to future and unknown threats.

Newman has also argued the ban is not “reasonably proportionate” and that it infringes an implied constitutional right of citizens and permanent residents to enter Australia, but these grounds may be moot if the ban is not extended beyond 15 May.

More from Paul Karp here.

Still waiting for a decision out of the federal court.

Liberal MP Katie Allen has not joined the ranks of government backbenchers expressing reservations over the India travel ban.

She told ABC24:

I am really sorry but if Australians break the law, they break the law.

Allen then said the penalty for breaking the law had to be “proportional”. Asked if she thinks the penalty in place on the India travel ban — which includes potential jail time — is proportionate, Allen said:

It depends what that is. I do not think anyone was saying that proportionality depends on what is being tested. When you hear those sorts of deterrents they make me uncomfortable but I am equally uncomfortable about the possibilities that someone may do some majorly wrong thing.

We have worked extremely hard to get where we. It is unfortunate Australians who have left have difficulties coming back. The Australia government is making sure they do everything they can to ensure they come back safely. I have been working hard to make sure facilities that will receive them are ready and receptive for those Australians to return home safely so we can continue to keep Australia safe.