GREATER BRISBANE ENTERS LOCKDOWN

Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, Moreton and the Redlands have all entered a snap three-day lockdown, which the ABC explains requires residents to only leave their house for the now-standard four reasons — essential shopping; exercise in local areas; work or study that cannot be done from home; and to provide care — and to wear masks outside the home, including in workplaces, on public transport and in rideshare services.

Announced after the city’s caseload for the UK COVID-19 variant jumped from three to seven yesterday, the restrictions also apply to anyone who has visited Greater Brisbane since Saturday March 20. Easter holidays will be brought forward with schools closing across the region from today.

Queensland Health continues to update their list of hotspots, with new close contact spots now including:

• Friday March 26:
  • FitStop Gym in Morningside, 6.50- 8am
  • Spinnaker Park Café in Callemondah, 10.22-11.23am
  • Auckland House in Gladstone Central, 7.23-9.30pm
• Saturday March 27:
  • Auckland House in Gladstone Central, 7.23-9.30pm

Several dozen casual spots have also been added to the list, while NSW Health has identified 10 sites across Byron Bay (Friday 26 – Sunday 28) and Suffolk Park (Friday 26 – Saturday 27).

Effectively all states and territories imposed restrictions against travellers from either the region and the entire state yesterday, including Victoria, Western Australia, New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory.

PS: Note that while both JobKeeper and the above-poverty JobSeeker payments are now officially over, the Morrison government has suspended mutual obligations for the region.

CABINET KERFUFFLE

Scott Morrison’s new cabinet will be sworn in today, after Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation and a historical allegation denied by Christian Porter led to a shake-up announced yesterday.

As Crikey detailed yesterday:

• Linda “lying cow” Reynolds moves to Government Services and the NDIS and has been replaced at Defence by Peter “not a monster” Dutton
• Michaelia “too busy to speak with AFP re: possible crimes by her own office” Cash will become attorney-general and minister for industrial relations
• Porter, whose litigation against the ABC created a potential conflict of interest in his role as attorney-general, is demoted to the Industry portfolio
• Stuart “where do we begin” Robert will take Cash’s portfolio of Employment.
• Karen Andrews moves from Industry to Home Affairs
• Defence Industry Minister Melissa Price retains her job and, after a hilarious stint at Environment pre-2019 election, returns to cabinet
• Superannuation Minister Jane Hume, who recently failed to push domestic violence survivors to tap into their super, will take on a role of “Women’s Economic Security” on a women’s taskforce
• Social Services Minister Anne Ruston, who saw thousands return to poverty after briefly doubling the JobSeeker rate, will take on the role of “Women’s Safety”
• Marise Payne will remain minister for women — an office that, as Crikey has tracked, has yet to issue a single media statement over 2021’s parliamentary scandals — and will be in Morrison’s words “effectively the prime minister” of Hume and Ruston’s taskforce
• Payne will be joined by far-right Queensland senator and prominent critic of abortion rights and the “transgender agenda” — which, editor’s note, largely consists of “existing” — Amanda Stoker as an assistant minister.

The Sydney Morning Herald adds that Morrison is also expected to announce the government’s response to the Respect@Work report over the next week, which was released a year ago and recommends several new workplace harassment reforms.

Porter, separately, has issued a statement claiming he has “no regrets” over launching his defamation case against the ABC.

PS: In departing comments to the Department of Home Affairs, the suddenly very litigious Dutton alleges no adult asylum seekers remain in offshore detention and that he has removed all children from onshore sites “put there by Labor”. Note: activists protested over the weekend to release more than 100 medivac refugees from hotel detention along with dozens confined to Nauru and Papua New Guinea, while the Biloela family of four — Priya and Nades Murugappan, five-year-old daughter Kopika and three-year-old Tharnicaa — earlier this month celebrated three years in detention.

GETTING THE PICTURE

According to 9News, Queensland woman Crystal White has begun a complaints process with police over allegations Liberal MP Andrew Laming took an indecent photo of her while she was working at a Brisbane landscaping supplies business in 2019.

The report, which specifies that White has only discussed her options with police and there is no formal complaint at this stage, comes after 7.30 explained that the store manager at the time Sean Blinco was yesterday planning to lodge a police complaint of his own.

Laming yesterday alleged that reports of his online behaviour had been “re-invented into harassment” and, as Guardian Australia explains, denied taking a photo under White’s skirt, claiming it was a “completely dignified” picture of her “kneeling in an awkward position, and filling a fridge with an impossible amount of stock, which clearly wasn’t going to fit in the fridge”.

Scott Morrison continues to reject calls to force the LNP to expel Laming, one of which saw the prime minister walk out of a press conference, while The West Australian ($) reports that Coalition women within his government believe the MP should step down immediately. Meanwhile, Amanda Stoker has been tipped to replace Laming at the next election.

PS: For a legal analysis of the allegations, check out The Conversation’s break-down of state and territory laws dealing with inappropriate photography and video recording.

MANUFACTURED RESULTS

Ahead of Labor’s special policy conference today in Sydney, the ABC reports that Anthony Albanese will make an election pledge to establish a $15 billion “national reconstruction fund” to revitalise Australia’s manufacturing industry and operate in a similar loan and board system as the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

The news comes after The Sydney Morning Herald revealed that the Health Workers Union yesterday threatened a last-minute injunction to block the online conference because it claims it will be unfairly unrepresented after the party installed the same delegates from the 2018 conference.

The conference is also set to includes debates over free trade agreements — with Guardian Australia reporting that unions are pushing to stop MPs from voting in support of deals it has not negotiated — and Labor’s support for Palestinian statehood, although, as Crikey explored yesterday, the party’s (relatively mild) support for the country is expected to survive a motion from a handful of dissenters.

PS: Albanese’s announcement — which, like most of Morrison’s over the course of his prime ministership, has been dutifully leaked to several outlets ($) — comes days after Greens leader Adam Bandt outlined the party’s demand for any potential power-sharing agreement: 700% renewable energy generation.