Covid Australia live news update: tensions high as national cabinet meets; first Afghanistan evacuees arrive in Perth

ABC host Michael Rowland doesn’t seem to be in the mood to pull punches this morning and has gone in for the kill by mentioning that whole pesky “imminently looming potential for a second recession in two years” thing.

Rowland:

You have said you expect the economy to contract by 2% this quarter. The Prime Minister believes in miracles. It will be a miracle, won’t it, if Australia avoids another recession by the end of the year?

Frydenberg:

In terms of September, everything that has been put to me is that the economy will contract by at least 2%. We are only halfway through the September quarter and we know that the economy is remarkably resilient.

That’s underlined in yesterday’s numbers but it is also underlined by the fact that both businesses and households have accumulated $290 billion on their house and business balance sheets compared to the start of the pandemic last year.

That is money that will be spent as restrictions are eased and we also know from the banks that the level of hardship and distress is not as acute as what they saw this time last year across the economy.

We are very hopeful and confident that with those Doherty Institute numbers, we can reach the targets and that will allow restrictions to be eased.

So you might remember we mentioned yesterday that unemployment has fallen to 4.6% in July down from 4.9% in June.

This seems like good news, but here is that catch, that drop was largely driven by a decrease in the participation rate.

The number of employed people actually fell by 39,900 and participation (the number of people actively looking for work) also fell from 62.2% to 62%.

Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg is out and about this morning trying to get us to focus on the silver lining, not the storm clouds.

Here we was speaking about the stats to ABC News Breakfast:

That headline number of 4.6 %, it is the lowest in 12 years but it doesn’t tell the full story.

What it does tell is a story of what is happening in New South Wales, where hours worked fell by 7% in the month as the survey period took into account the second and third week of the lockdown in New South Wales.

With Victoria, Victoria was emerging out of the lockdown during that period and we saw a 9.7% increase in hours worked which does indicate that the economy can rebound very strongly once restrictions are eased and that is what we’re shooting for, with the 70 and 80% vaccination targets.

They will be critical that we reach and people are getting the vaccination in increased numbers every day.

If you want to read more about the tension between ACT and NSW leaders at the moment you can check out political editor Katharine Murphy’s story explaining it all below:

Good morning all, and would you look at that, we finally made it to Friday!

There is some (reasonably) good news to start today. The first plane full of evacuees from Afghanistan has arrived in Perth this morning.

This will be one of hopefully many repatriation rounds as Australia continues a complex rescue operation after the Taliban takeover of Kabul.

The flight included 90 evacuees who had flown from Kabul to Dubai and then on to Australia. (Not all of them would have been evacuated on ADF planes, as the Australian government is working with other governments to get people out as well.)

They have now been transferred to hotel quarantine, the WA government agreeing to accept them over and above the usual international arrival caps.

Yesterday 76 Australian citizens and Afghans with protection visas were airlifted out of Kabul by the Australian government. Those flights also brought in 40 ADF personnel and provisions to help with the rescue mission on the ground in Kabul.

Closer to home Australia’s federal, state and territory leaders are preparing to meet today for another round of national cabinet, and it looks like tensions will be running high.

ACT chief minister Andrew Barr has accused NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian of putting young people at risk by not toughening restrictions in greater Sydney, and has called her to stop presenting 70% or 80% vaccination targets as “freedom day”.

Barr says Berejiklian’s rhetoric that all of Australia will eventually have to “learn to live with Delta” is making a decision not just for her own jurisdiction, but for the entire east coast of Australia, and that was “pretty concerning”.

NSW and Victoria are both bracing for growing case numbers today while the ACT and NT both try to control their own outbreaks.

It’s a big day, so why don’t we dive right in.