Australia

Memoranda of understanding (MOU) were signed in counter-terrorism, defence and cybersecurity, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said.

Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto added discussions took place over the possibility of Indonesian military cadets attending Australian academies, in what would be "a historic first".

The Indonesia trip, by Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Peter Dutton, was the first such ministerial visit from Australia since the start of the pandemic.

The Warriors who spent part of 2020 and all of 2021 across the Tasman, will be based in Redcliffe north of Brisbane next seaon.

Warriors CEO Cameron George said returning to Mount Stadium for 2022 was the preference but that option had become unrealistic due to the ongoing border volatility created by the Covid-19 pandemic.

After spending most of the last two years in Terrigal on the New South Wales Central Coast, George said the Australian Rugby League Commission and the NRL had approved the Warriors' second-choice option to move their operation to Queensland.

In a video message to an awards ceremony held by a global network for Australian expats, Advance.org, Morrison said they had carried a "very heavy burden" over the past year and a half.

"I know for Australians overseas, it has been a very difficult and frustrating time," he said.

"It's tough, living through a pandemic, and being separated from your family, and that's brought its own heartbreak.

"Life's moments missed that you will never get back. Zoom can't do justice to these moments."

Contact tracers have so far linked 121 of the new cases to existing outbreaks, but the number of cases who were in the community while infectious is no longer being reported each day.

The new cases resulted from 42,258 test results processed on Sunday, when 29,955 vaccine doses were delivered at state-run sites.

Last week the Victorian government shifted away from trying to reach zero cases of coronavirus in the community, and is instead focusing on keeping case numbers as low as possible while getting people vaccinated.

The Australians are bidding to hold the tournament for the first time since 2003 and are favourites ahead of competing bids from Russia and the United States, with a decision due early next year.

McLennan said the replacement of Brent Impey as NZR chairman by Stewart Mitchell should help the Australian bid.

"I'm not sure Brent would have supported us, but Stewart Mitchell is a good guy, an old school Kiwi, and I'd be disappointed if they didn't support us under his regime," McLennan told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"He's a guy who has shown his word is his bond."

The All Blacks had chosen not to travel to Perth due to the uncertainty surrounding the Rugby Championship, a decision Rugby Australia described as "unilateral", with boss Andy Marinos essentially accusing his New Zealand Rugby counterpart Mark Robinson of deceit.

"It's incredibly disappointing to be informed of this decision via the media, despite having a conversation with the CEO moments before and there no mention that this was the intention," Marinos said in a statement after NZ Rugby announced it would not travel for the August 28 fixture.

The Minister for International Development and the Pacific Zed Seselja told parliament this was one of the reasons why assistance to the Pacific remains critical.

He said on pandemic response, Australia had fronted up with COVID-19 vaccines.

"We have now gifted over 2.1 million life-saving vaccines to our neighbourhood. Because until everyone is safe from COVID, nobody is safe.

"And similarly, hundreds of thousands of Australian jobs depend on strong economic growth across our region."

The workers arrived on a chartered flight from Port Vila on Tuesday and will spend the next 14 days at Howard Springs quarantine facility, before heading to work across Top End orchards.

The group will join dozens of ni-Vanuatu harvest workers who arrived in September last year and had their visas extended to continue picking fruit.

Without them, Darwin Fruit Farmers manager Mark Smith said, many growers would not be able to send their mangoes to market.

“We'd go broke, I'd say,” Smith said. 

Professor Howes said if the Australian Agricultural Visa was not implemented with same types of safeguards as the Seasonal Worker Programme and the Pacific Labour Scheme, then many farmers across Australia were likely to switch to the new visa.

"Although its termed an agricultural visa it is actually going to allow employers to bring in workers, not only for agriculture but also for other region industries, including meat processing, and meat processing jobs are actually 71% of Pacific Labour Scheme jobs.

Australia’s Agriculture Minister David Littleproud told ABC’s AM program, earlier this week that the arrangement would include Vanuatu.

“This month we'll be trialling in country quarantine in Vanuatu."

"[South Australia'a] chief health officer has got comfortable with the risk profile of Vanuatu that they'll allow them to quarantine in country," he said.

Vanuatu’s Director of Foreign Affairs Yvone Basil said they’d hoped for it to start this month following talks with the Australian High Commission but so far no date has been set on when it would be rolled out.