Australia

Australia's Fair Work Commission announced last week that employers would be required to pay seasonal workers a mandatory minimum piece rate of AUD$25.41 an hour.

The President of the Tonga Australia Seasonal Workers Association Falepaini Maile said they look forward to the pay rise scheduled for April 28th.

"Workers are quite happy. When we put the article up on our Tonga Australia Seasonal Workers Association Facebook page, some of them were commenting and said why don't they start now, so they're desperate for when the increase will start," he said.

Critics says the bill enables discrimination and would allow religious schools to exclude transgender students.

Mentioning his late gay nephew, Labor MP Stephen Jones said the bill had not been thought through.

"He was just 15 when he took his own life," he told parliament.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison introduced the Religious Discrimination Bill in November, and said it will ensure protection for religious people and organisations to express beliefs and avoid "cancel culture".

Deakin University chair of epidemiology Catherine Bennett said at New South Wales' peak, the state had roughly 3.5 patients hospitalised with coronavirus per 10,000 residents.

By comparison, she calculated the Northern Territory (NT) now had roughly 6.32 Covid-related hospitalisations per 10,000 people.

Professor Bennett said the territory's high hospitalisation wasn't altogether surprising, considering many people in the NT had a "high risk profile".

Police Commissioner Robson Iavro and the acting Australian High Commissioner Clemency Oliphant led a delegation to Luganville, Santo last week for the groundbreaking ceremony at the barracks.

The medical facilities will support the Vanuatu Police Force and the Ministry of Health to deliver health services to the force as well as help authorities respond to the needs of the Luganville community during a disaster.

An armoury and magazine to store weapons will also be built.

Australia, which shut its borders in March of 2020, has been going through a staggered reopening in recent months, allowing in only its citizens and residents, skilled migrants, international students and certain seasonal workers.

In January, Morrison said he hoped international borders could fully reopen before Easter.

His popularity has been sliding in recent months, however, in part reflecting questions about his handling of the Omicron outbreak, and he faces pressure from a federal election that must be called by May.

Mr Joyce apologised after learning that the message - sent last year and passed to a former staffer of Scott Morrison's Liberal Party - was being made public.

The text was dated 22 March, before Mr Joyce took on his current role.

Rejecting his resignation, Mr Morrison said: "We all have our frailties and none of us are perfect."

Mr Joyce, 54, told reporters on Saturday: "I want to apologise to the prime minister... I should have never written the text that I did.

An alleged conversation between a "senior Liberal cabinet minister" and former NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian was relayed live on air by Channel Ten's political editor Peter Van Onselen yesterday.

Berejiklian reportedly described the Prime Minister as a "horrible, horrible person", with the minister responding he was a "complete psycho".

The ABC has not seen or verified the text exchange.

Berejiklian has not denied the conversation, but said yesterday she had no recollection of it.

Of the patients in hospital, there are 122 in intensive care, 40 of whom are receiving ventilation.

The state has officially recorded 21,966 new Covid-19 infections, but the true number of new cases in the community could be much higher.

About half of the state's cases have been diagnosed using RATs, with yesterday's tally reported from 11,693 PCR results and 10,273 rapid testing kits.

Considering these figures, Premier Daniel Andrews said it was clear Covid-19 was prevalent in Victoria.

The victim is believed to be a nine-year-old girl who went missing from the Blue Mountains near Sydney last Thursday, local media report.

The child's body was found by officers on Tuesday during a search of bushland in a neighbouring area.

Police said a 31-year-old man had been arrested in a flat in inner Sydney and charged with murder.

He was remanded in custody to face a court on Wednesday.

Media reports said the girl - who cannot be identified for legal reasons - was on holiday with her mother when she disappeared last Thursday.

The temperature in Onslow, Western Australia, on Thursday matched a record set in 1962 in South Australia.

Onslow and the surrounding areas could see records broken again with temperatures set to rise slightly on Friday.

It comes after Western Australia reported large bushfires last month.

One fire near Margaret River scorched through more than 6,000 hectares of land, forcing evacuations.

The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed on Thursday that Onslow equalled the record at 14:26 local time (22:26 GMT).