Six people test positive on ship in WA as Morrison announces 'jobmaker' – as it happened

That’s where I’ll leave you for tonight. Here’s what we learned today:

• Prime minister Scott Morrison confirmed the government’s union-busting “ensuring integrity” bill is dead – for now. Instead, Christian Porter will lead the “Accords 2.0” bringing together unions, employers and business groups to discuss what changes could be made to industrial relations laws.
• Morrison also announced vocational education will be reformed to meet skills demand, as well as simplified across the nation.
• The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, announced what he called “a fast evolving” Covid-19 situation in the state after six crew members on a live export ship in Fremantle tested positive for coronavirus. They are currently in a Perth hotel for quarantine.
• A passenger of the Ruby Princess who tested positive to coronavirus on Monday is suspected to have carried the “dormant” virus for almost 10 weeks before falling ill.
• Two Sydney schools had to be closed after students tested positive for Covid-19. It came only a day after schools across New South Wales resumed full-time face-to-face classes.
• The Nation Tertiary Education Union abandoned its National Jobs Protection Framework after a revolt from its members. The NTEU issued a blistering statement attacking vice chancellors and the Australian Higher Education Industry Association for failing to follow through with the deal and vowed to escalate industrial action.
• The treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, officially turned down appearing in front of the Covid-19 Senate select committee.
• The ABC revealed the American embassy has held private meetings with Canberra to clarify a US State Department document that was used by a Sydney newspaper to link the Covid-19 pandemic to a Chinese government laboratory despite a lack of direct evidence.
• The first human trials of a vaccine for Covid-19 began in the southern hemisphere, at Melbourne’s Alfred hospital.

The former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who is no friend of Rupert Murdoch-owned media outlets, has come out swinging after the ABC reported earlier today that a Daily Telegraph report about “a dossier prepared by concerned western governments” about the origins of Covid-19 was actually a “non-paper” with no new information in it.

Rudd told my colleague Daniel Hurst: “These revelations should be utterly humiliating to the Murdoch media, except that the Murdoch media has zero shame.”

He believes the document “was leaked to News Corp in Australia with the clear intention that it would be funnelled back into the American media, giving the appearance that Australian spies were backing Trump’s claims”. In reality, though, “Australian intelligence officials don’t believe Trump at all”.

Read the full story here:

The fallout from that extraordinary NTEU statement is coming thick and fast.

Alma Torlakovic, an NTEU branch committee member and national councillor at Sydney University has called it a win for members who had fought back against the union’s plan.

This is a major victory for the organising efforts of hundreds of rank and file NTEU members who have resisted the national leadership’s capitulation to vice chancellors. That effort has also prepared the way for a more vigorous campaigns against the attacks that university managements are already mounting against our pay, conditions and job security”.

Quite a story from my friends at the Newcastle Herald, who have just reported that face masks have begun washing up on beaches on the Central Coast.

The masks were apparently inside some of the 40 shipping containers which fell from a cargo ship on Sunday.

“We have received a report of some medical supplies washing up between Magenta and The Entrance,” the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s general manager of operations, Allan Schwartz, told the Herald on Tuesday.

The federal government has announced cultural institutions such as the National Gallery and National Library will reopen on 30 May under special arrangements, AAP reports.

National galleries and museums are set to reopen to the public on 30 May following their shutdown over the coronavirus pandemic.

Around 4.5 million people visit the National Gallery of Australia, National Museum of Australia, National Portrait Gallery, National Library of Australia, National Film and Sound Archives and the Australian National Maritime Museum each year.

It is hoped the states will also follow suit in reopening museums, galleries and libraries. Special arrangements will be in place including timed entry and one-way flow through gallery spaces, and visitors may be asked to provide their contact information to allow public health tracing.

There will also be increased signage throughout buildings and more frequent cleaning of “touch” areas.

The National Tertiary Education Union has just issued an extraordinary statement in which it has announced it is abandoning the hugely controversial National Jobs Protection Framework that had prompted a revolt among its members.

The NTEU has faced a sustained and vocal backlash from its members for the plan, which aims to protect more than 12,000 jobs in return for up to one-year salary reductions between 5% and 15%.

The deal had prompted a revolt from a splinter group from within the union, NTEU Fightback, which accused the union of caving to vice chancellors without putting pressure on the federal government for funding.

It has also since been abandoned by a number of universities.

In a statement issued just now, the NTEU has blasted vice chancellors and the Australian Higher Education Industry Association, with which it negotiated the deal, and vowed to escalate to “historically high levels of industrial disputation and campaigning to fight for every job”.

Here’s part of the statement:

The NTEU approached negotiations with the Australian Higher Education Industry Association (AHEIA) in good faith. At all stages we were assured that the association had the support of the large majority of vice chancellors for a fair industry-wide solution to the current crisis.

It’s now clear the AHEIA was either not representing a broad coalition of vice chancellors, or negotiated an agreement that gives employees more rights and protections than some vice chancellors were willing to tolerate. It is up to AHEIA to explain why at least 17 of its members have abandoned the solution it negotiated on behalf of the universities.

The worst crisis in the history of Australian universities demanded a collective solution to save careers and livelihoods. Too many vice chancellors are now baulking at the strong oversight provisions in the jobs framework that guarantee transparency and ensure that any contribution our members make will be dedicated to saving jobs.

Vice chancellors appear to have abandoned their industrial association, and demonstrated they are allergic to scrutiny. They are showing reckless disregard for their workforce.

With that, I’ll be handing over to Michael McGowan, who will be blogging for the rest of the day. Thanks for following along, and stay safe.

The University of New South Wales will reportedly close its childcare centres at the end of this year, saying they were operating at a loss even before the impact of Covid-19.

The university wrote to parents that it was “no longer sustainable” to run the childcare centres.

26 May 202003.01 EDT

Elias Visontay

Chief medical officer Brendan Murphy has faced several questions about the coronavirus outbreak on a Western Australian livestock vessel during a Senate select committee inquiry into Covid-19 on Tuesday.

Murphy said he only learned about the outbreak during a meeting of the Australian health protection principal committee meeting on Tuesday afternoon, and that he rushed from the meeting to the inquiry so had not had time to find out more information.

However, he acknowledged that the Australian Border Force, and ultimately the commonwealth, was responsible for cases to come into Australia from ships.

I don’t think it’s fair to comment on the circumstances of the Western Australian ship. I don’t know what that ship told agriculture, what they told border force ... I really can’t comment without knowing the details.

We [the commonwealth] have absolute responsibility, but we do not have public health officers on the ground and we delegate under a usually extremely effective partnership with the state and territory public health officers, whom I appointed as chief human biosecurity officers, so it is a partnership.

I absolutely accept we need to look into what’s happened with this livestock vessel.

And from earlier, my colleague Christopher Knaus has this extraordinary story of a whistleblower who was told to contact the prime minister using the generic online form.