O75 Public Administration

Huge AstraZeneca stockpile open to the young

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Original article by Richard Ferguson
The Australian – Page: 1 & 4 : 9-Aug-21

New figures show that New South Wales and Victoria have access to a combined stockpile of more than one million unused doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The huge stockpile has been attributed to weak demand for the vaccine, which has been linked to a rare blood clotting disorder. The Victorian government has advised that it will make 200,000 doses of the vaccine available to people aged 18-39, with Premier Daniel Andrews stating that mass vaccination is the only way out of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the NSW government plans to inoculate some 24,000 Year 12 students in designated hotspot areas, while the Therapeutic Goods Administration is expected to approve the Moderna vaccine within weeks.

CORPORATES
ASTRAZENECA PLC, VICTORIA. DEPT OF PREMIER AND CABINET, NEW SOUTH WALES. DEPT OF PREMIER AND CABINET, AUSTRALIA. THERAPEUTIC GOODS ADMINISTRATION, MODERNA INCORPORATED

Australian employment dropped by 176,000 in July as all five mainland States experienced lockdowns

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Original article by Roy Morgan
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 9-Aug-21

The latest Roy Morgan employment series data shows that 1.42 million Australians were unemployed in July, up 28,000 on June, for an unemployment rate of 9.7% (up 0.3% points). Some 1.33 million Australians were under-employed (up 77,000 on June), for an under-employment rate of 9.1% (up 0.6% points). In total, 2.76 million Australians (18.8% of the workforce) were either unemployed or under-employed in July, an increase of 105,000 on June. The increase was driven by increases in both unemployment and under-employment. Meanwhile, employment was down by 176,000 to 13,198,000 in July, including 8,765,000 workers employed full-time, a drop of 61,000 from June. There was also a decrease in part-time employment, down by 115,000 to 4,433,000. Roy Morgan’s unemployment figure of 9.7% for July is nearly 5% points higher than the current ABS estimate for June 2021 of 4.9%.

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ROY MORGAN LIMITED, AUSTRALIAN BUREAU OF STATISTICS

It’s a tricky path trying to steer between the prevailing greed and hysteria

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Original article by Terry McCrann
Sunday Herald Sun – Page: 50 & 51 : 8-Aug-21

Data from Roy Morgan shows that 28,000 Australians lost their jobs in July, amid the fifth lockdown in Victoria and the ongoing lockdown in New South Wales. Roy Morgan estimates that 1.4 million Australians were unemployed in July, while an addition 1.33 million were under-employed. These figures do not take into account the full impact of the NSW lockdown and the latest lockdowns in Victoria and Queensland. Meanwhile, official jobs data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics for July will not be available for another two weeks, and will cover only the first two weeks of the month. The big question is whether state governments will continue to impose job-destroying lockdowns if the vaccination target of 70-80 per cent of Australians is reached and the nation is still recording new COVID-19 cases and deaths.

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ROY MORGAN LIMITED, AUSTRALIAN BUREAU OF STATISTICS

Almost 70 per cent of new Covid cases in Sydney under the age of 40

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Original article by Alexandra Smith, Lucy Cormack, Mary Ward
The Sydney Morning Herald – Page: Online : 6-Aug-21

New South Wales has recorded 262 new locally-acquired COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours; at least 72 of them were active in the community while they were infectious, while 67 per cent of the new cases are among people under the age of 40. The state’s death toll from COVID-19 has risen by five, and Premier Gladys Berejiklian notes that none of the 21 deaths so far in the current outbreak had been fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, the state government has imposed a seven-day lockdown of eight local government areas across the Hunter region after a number of cases were detected in Newcastle.

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NEW SOUTH WALES. DEPT OF PREMIER AND CABINET

Sixth death linked to AstraZeneca clotting

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Original article by Rachel Clun, Mary Ward, Lucy Carroll
The Sydney Morning Herald – Page: Online : 6-Aug-21

The Therapeutic Goods Administration has advised that a 34-year-old woman in New South Wales has died from a rare blood clotting disorder just over a week after receiving AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine. It is Australia’s sixth confirmed death from thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, which has been linked to the AstraZeneca jab. There have now been 93 confirmed cases of TTS nationwide. One Australian has also died from immune thrombocytopenia after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine.

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AUSTRALIA. THERAPEUTIC GOODS ADMINISTRATION

Morrison refuses to say if he saw list of marginal seats to get car park funding

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Original article by Katina Curtis, Shane Wright
The Age – Page: Online : 6-Aug-21

The federal government’s $660 million commuter car park grants program has come under severe criticism from the Auditor-General. Only three of the 47 car parks promised in early 2019 have been built, and the Auditor-General has found that there was no criteria for assessing the merit of projects and that 77 per cent of those that were initially funded were in marginal Coalition seats. The Auditor-General has claimed that a list of "top 20 marginal seats" was used as the basis for deciding which projects to finance. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has refused to say if he saw such a list.

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AUSTRALIA. OFFICE OF THE AUDITOR-GENERAL, AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER AND CABINET

Gutted Andrews demands more vaccines, says snap lockdowns new normal

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Original article by Paul Sakkal
The Age – Page: Online : 6-Aug-21

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has defended the state’s seven-day state-wide COVID-19 lockdown, which began at 8pm on 5 August and comes just nine days after the last one ended. Andrews contends that without swift action the state would have been looking at a much longer lockdown, given that the vaccination target of 80 per cent of the population is unlikely to be reached until late in 2021. Victoria has recorded eight new locally-acquired cases in the last 24 hours, although two were reported late in the day and will be included in the case numbers for 6 August. There are now 82 COVID-19 cases in Victoria. Meanwhile, the state government will request additional doses of the Pfizer vaccine from its federal counterpart.

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VICTORIA. DEPT OF PREMIER AND CABINET

Strike threat to parcel deliveries

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Original article by Ewin Hannan
The Australian – Page: 7 : 6-Aug-21

Workers at parcel delivery firms StarTrack and FedEx may take strike action over stalled negotiations regarding a new enterprise agreement. The Transport Workers’ Union will apply to the Fair Work Commission to hold a ballot of its members at the two companies. Amongst other things, the TWU wants any pay rise in the new enterprise agreements to be backdated to 2020, in order to compensate workers for agreeing to forgo wage increases due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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STARTRACK COMMUNICATIONS (AUSTRALIA) PTY LTD, FEDERAL EXPRESS (AUSTRALIA) PTY LTD, TRANSPORT WORKERS’ UNION, AUSTRALIA. FAIR WORK COMMISSION

Australian government pays PR firm to copy existing Covid data into daily email to media

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Original article by Christopher Knaus
The Guardian Australia – Page: Online : 4-Aug-21

The federal government has attracted renewed scrutiny over questionable spending policies following revelations of a contract with Cox Inall Communications. The public relations firm is being paid to copy the daily COVID-19 vaccination data on the Department of Health’s website and email it to media outlets. The data is sent in the same PDF format in which it is displayed on the department’s website. The department has declined to comment on the cost of the contract, details of which have yet to be published on the government’s AusTender website. The department has an in-house media and communications team.

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AUSTRALIA. DEPT OF HEALTH, COX INALL COMMUNICATIONS

Roy Morgan Business Confidence plunges by 11.1pts (-8.7%) to 117.2 after Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide placed in lockdowns

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Original article by Roy Morgan
Market Research Update – Page: Online : 4-Aug-21

In July 2021, Roy Morgan Business Confidence plunged 11.1pts (-8.7%) to 117.2. Despite the fall, Business Confidence is 32.9pts (+39%) higher than a year ago (84.3), and it is 3.3pts above the long-term average of 113.9. Business Confidence has now averaged 123.6 during the first seven months of 2021, the best ever start to a year for the Index. The reading of 117.2 for July is also the highest level of Business Confidence in the mid-Winter month since July 2014 (119.1). Some 59.9% of businesses now expect ‘good times’ for the Australian economy over the next 12 months, and 52.3% say the next 12 months is a ‘good time to invest in growing the business’. The latest Roy Morgan Business Confidence results for July are based on 1,341 detailed interviews with a cross-section of Australian businesses from each State and Territory.

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ROY MORGAN LIMITED