Australia news live update: Covid reaches two-year mark in Australia, free RATs pledge falls short

Trouble on the tracks: is Australia’s $14bn inland rail project going off the rails?

A major Guardian investigation examines the 1,700km Melbourne to Brisbane megaproject to find out whether communities along its route will benefit and whether their concerns are being bypassed.

This one is definitely worth a read:

The NSW premier is promising businesses reeling from the effects of the Omicron wave of Covid-19 will get fresh support within a week, reports AAP.

The state Labor opposition says a business support package is urgently needed to lift small- and medium-sized businesses out of the summer’s “shadow lockdown” as the rampant virus keeps workers and customers at home.

Premier Dominic Perrottet says treasurer Matt Kean is working with stakeholder groups and industry “to make sure the support that we provide … during his period has impact”.

“It will be within a week,” the premier told Sydney radio 2GB on Tuesday.

Our focus … has always been to put businesses and workers before the budget … and we will continue to do that.

He also promised non-urgent elective surgery would resume as soon as possible after an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report found the median wait time for procedures blew out to 48 days in the 2020/21 financial year, an increase of nine days compared to the previous year.

Perrottet said the government would commit funding to clear the surgery backlog when the pressure had eased on NSW public hospitals.

As soon as we … get advice from our medical teams that we can bring that non-urgent elective surgery back we will do so…

It’s a key focus of ours … that we would get that back on track as quickly as possible.

The Australian federal government has completed a deal to take ownership of the Aboriginal flag copyright.

Previously owned by the flag’s designer Harold Thomas and a non-Indigenous clothing company, the flag is now freely available for public use.

It comes after a number of Indigenous groups were sent cease and desist warnings for using the flag in an apparent breach of copyright.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt is discussing the victory on ABC radio now:

It means that, much like the Australian flag, people can use it to promote products. You can buy transfers and stickers, or you can have smaller flags that are used in terms of events.

It means the AFL round or the NRL rounds, or major sporting events in this nation. the flag can be used without a charge being applied. And the charges that were applied could be significant, so that’s why the sporting events didn’t feature the Aboriginal flag. They will now be able to do that.

It will hold its place and pride alongside the Australian flag and be used freely by many of our partners, and many of our women who started fledgling businesses in apparel. They can now use it without having to pay a fee for the use of flags.

As I mentioned before Dfat has urged Australians in Ukraine to leave immediately. We are one of the first countries to do so, but Ukraine reckons this is premature.

A representative for Ukraine in Australia, Volodymyr Shalkivskyi, says it’s important to avoid panic.

Tensions are high, but there is no panic. Everyone understands that this time there may be a full-scale invasion … Majority of the population is reviewing their first-aid tool kit.

But he urged people not to believe that an attack from Russia was “inevitable”.

I mean, the official responsibility of Australian officials and Ukrainian officials is to facilitate and assist in every possible way. But we in this situation we would like to avoid panic and different kinds of rumours that the invasion is inevitable …

But we do hope that we will be able to avoid a full-scale invasion. That we will prevail.

And again, we consider international assistance and international support as one of the significant strengths of Ukraine in this situation.

Foreign affairs minister Marise Payne has again confirmed that while Australia has joined the UK, US and EU in calling for the de-escalation of tensions, we will not engage militarily with Russia if the northern power does invade Ukraine.

We have said that we will not be taking part or would not take part in relation to work and military assistance.

I spoke with the foreign minister of Ukraine last weekend in a very constructive conversation and I had a further conversation with Australia’s ambassador in Kiev on Friday evening.

However, she said we may help Ukraine fight off cyber-attacks.

We are seeking to discuss possible avenues of assistance from Australia to the Ukrainian government. In the cyber context, there have been significant cyber-attacks already on Ukraine understood to come from potentially Russian sources. And just to be very clear, this is a challenge that they have been dealing with for some time.

It’s time to talk about Ukraine.

Australians in Ukraine are being urged to leave immediately as the threat of Russian military action against the country increases.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Monday night raised its advice to “Do Not Travel”.

Australians in Ukraine should leave now by commercial means, where safe to do so, noting that flight availability could change or be suspended at short notice …

Australians who decide to remain in Ukraine should review their personal security plans, be prepared to shelter in place if required, maintain heightened security awareness and register with Dfat.

Foreign affairs minister Marise Payne tells ABC radio that around 1,400 Australians are currently in the ex-Soviet country, confirming that “the security situation is unpredictable”.

We strongly support Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and a unified European and Nato response …

Payne was asked what would actually happen if Russia invaded – could it escalate into a full-blown war?

Again, I don’t like to speculate, but what is happening here is that authoritarian regimes are trying to exercise [their power] in relation to circumstances such as this, and it is not helpful to security or stability in any way, shape, or form.

But we have been, again, very clear about that, as have multiple members of the EU, the UK and the United States, and we have clearly sort de-escalation of Russia’s behaviour in that regard.

An early one from the NSW government today. We will be hearing from them at 9am AEDT.

Good morning everyone, it’s Matilda Boseley here, and there is a bunch of news to catch up on so let’s jump in.

Two years ago today the first case of Covid-19 was detected in Australia, although back then it wasn’t even called that yet.

We had heard of this scary-sounding virus circulating in Wuhan, as the news filtered through that the entire Chinese city was in lockdown.

By the end of the day, we would have our first case, a man in his 50s who had spent time in the city and flown back to Melbourne from Guangzhou six days beforehand.

Two years, 2.23m cases and more than 3,000 deaths later, here we are.

But it’s not all bad news (although it’s still mostly bad news), as it seems like we might have seen the worst of Omicron for now (knock on wood).

Federal health minister Greg Hunt yesterday declared infections had peaked in NSW, Victoria, the ACT and South Australia, with NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant also expressing optimism that the virus spread in her state appeared to be slowing and the situation stabilising.

So is this light at the end of the tunnel? Or will we be sitting here reading another one of these posts in two years’ time?

Why don’t we jump into the day’s news and see if we can find out?