• PSA chief Nev Kitchin quits post
• Rising cost of living dents consumer confidence 
• Premier ‘scrutinises’ SA’s mask, quarantine rules
• Ambulance ramping continues overnight
• Marshall’s seat still in doubt
• Budget boost for Australian tourism
• Coalition faces uphill battle ahead of federal election
• Chernobyl radiation monitors ‘not working’ 
• Russian government behind hoax calls: UK

PSA chief Nev Kitchin quits post

Public Service Association General Secretary Nev Kitchin will retire tomorrow after nearly two decades with the public sector union.

Kitchin has spent nearly two decades at the PSA as Assistant Secretary and then Secretary after periods as a Worksite Representative, Branch Councillor, Federal Councillor and Vice-President.

Assistant General Secretary Natasha Brown has been appointed as General Secretary of the PSA by the Council in accordance with the rules of the union.

Kitchin and Brown have been leading the PSA together since 2015.

Vice President Christian Hagivassilis has been appointed as the new Assistant General Secretary by the Council.

Kitchin said he was proud of what the PSA has achieved under his leadership.

“I have had the privilege to have worked alongside hundreds, and represented thousands, of highly committed public servants who are proud of the vital work they do keeping our community safe and providing the services on which all South Australians, particularly our most vulnerable, rely,” he said.

“Now is the right time for new leadership to take the PSA into the next chapter of its long and proud history, and I have great confidence for the future of the PSA under Natasha Brown’s leadership.”

Brown said she was looking forward to working with PSA members and new Assistant General Secretary Hagivassilis.

“It is a great privilege to be appointed to lead our union at this time when our community’s needs and expectations for high quality public services have never been greater,” she said.

“My vision is for a strong, well-resourced public sector where PSA members are respected and valued in providing accessible and high quality public services for our community.

“I am looking forward to working with our members in holding the incoming government to account on the commitments they have made about improving public services and banning privatisation”.

Rising cost of living dents consumer confidence

Consumer confidence in Australia has dropped to its lowest level in 18 months as rising living costs drive concerns over the inflation outlook.

New figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that prior to the spike in petrol prices in recent weeks triggered by the war in Ukraine, household spending had increased compared to a year earlier.

But the weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence index – a guide to future household spending – dropped 4.8 per cent, falling to its lowest level since September 2020 when Victoria was enduring the second wave of COVID-19.

Consumer inflation expectations also rose by a further 0.4 percentage points to six per cent, a level not seen since 2011.

“The weakness in consumer sentiment is at odds with the strength in employment and reflects pressure on household budgets as nominal wage growth lags the jump in inflation,” ANZ head of Australian economics David Plank said.

“The weakness in consumer confidence presents a growing near-term risk to the outlook for household spending.”

The ABS said household spending grew 4.3 per cent in the year to January.

“Eased COVID-19 restrictions in January 2022 across most states saw consumers shift spending from their homes to hospitality and retail venues,” ABS head of macroeconomic statistics Jacqui Vitas said.

The latest downturn in confidence comes despite the latest national labour force figures showing the unemployment rate dropping to a 14-year low of four per cent and further strong gains in full-time employment.

The federal government has also repeatedly indicated it intends to try to cushion household cost-of-living pressures in next Tuesday’s budget.

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Petrol prices remained on a sharp upward trajectory as a result of elevated global oil prices last week, averaging about 220 cents per litre across Adelaide last week.

The rate of annual inflation currently stands at 3.5 per cent.

Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe recently warned that inflation could reach at least four per cent as a result of the war in Ukraine, pushing up prices for fuel and other commodities.

Economists believe it could hit five per cent or more.

Rising inflation expectations can themselves fuel inflation as workers seek compensation through their wages.

Premier ‘scrutinises’ SA’s mask, quarantine rules

Premier Peter Malinauskas has met with the state emergency coordinator and chief public health officer to “scrutinise” South Australia’s quarantine and mask-wearing rules, two years after the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the state to declare an emergency.

On his first official day after being sworn-in as South Australia’s 47th premier, Malinauskas sat down with state emergency coordinator Grant Stevens, chief public health officer Professor Nicola Spurrier, incoming Health Minister Chris Picton, SA Health chief Chris McGowan and Department of the Premier and Cabinet chief Nick Reade to discuss the state’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ahead of the meeting, Malinauskas told reporters he would “thoroughly scrutinise” the health advice that is keeping quarantine and mask-wearing rules in place, saying the public “deserve to know” why South Australia has stricter restrictions in place compared to other states.

“I’ve always said if I became premier I would follow the health advice,” he said.

“As premier you get a lot more access to information than you do as opposition leader.

“That brings with it a responsibility to scrutinise all the information.”

Cameras were allowed into the meeting briefly at the start, but the rest of the discussions took place behind closed doors.

Malinauskas did not provide comment after the meeting finished, but an announcement is likely today – the second anniversary of the state’s major emergency declaration.

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During the election campaign, Malinauskas promised to chair the now-defunct transition committee if he formed government.

At the time, he said a premier should not sit outside the meeting room waiting to be told what was happening, given the broad impact of COVID-19 restrictions on people’s lives.

It comes as South Australians face hours-long queues at some PCR testing sites, with 10,173 people getting swabbed on Sunday.

In an update yesterday afternoon, SA Health said it would take between one to two hours to get tested at the Victoria Park testing site, however, those seeking to get tested reported longer wait times.

After recording a surge in COVID-19 cases late last week, South Australia recorded just 3121 new infections on Monday.

Just under 50 per cent of those predicted to be the highly-transmissible Omicron BA.2 subvariant.

The number of people with COVID-19 in hospital increased to 150, including nine people in intensive care and two people on a ventilator.

Ambulance ramping continues overnight

An ambulance ramping alert was issued last night across metropolitan Adelaide, warning the service’s operational capacity was “insufficient to maintain effective service delivery for high acuity cases”, the paramedics’ union says.

The alert, issued at 10.30pm, declared “OPSTAT White” across Adelaide, meaning the SA Ambulance Service’s “operational capacity, capability and/or resources are insufficient to maintain effective service delivery for high acuity cases”.

"?Mon 10:30pm: SA Ambulance OPSTAT White across Adelaide. ‘Operational capacity, capability and/or resources are insufficient to maintain effective service delivery for high acuity cases’ … ‘Patient safety is directly affected. (DTOC = Ramping) pic.twitter.com/2MkNgX8Fdk"

"— Ambulance Employees Association (SA) (@aeasa1981) March 21, 2022"

A similar alert issued on Saturday afternoon warned there were some uncovered life-threatening cases.

A pledge to fix the ambulance ramping “crisis” was a key centrepiece of Labor’s election platform, with the SA Ambulance Employees Association launching an unrelenting attack against the Liberals over the issue.

In the lead up to the election, Labor promised to release ambulance ramping statistics “as soon as possible” each month.

It also pledged to fund 300 extra hospital beds, 350 additional paramedics and ambulance officers, 300 more nurses and 100 extra doctors to help address ambulance ramping.

After the election was called in Labor’s favour on Saturday night, the Ambulance Employees Association tweeted that the result was a “pivotal moment where health becomes a priority”.

Premier Peter Malinauskas visited health workers at Royal Adelaide Hospital shortly after being officially sworn-in at Government House yesterday.

“I’m here with our doctors, nurses, ambos, cleaners, healthcare workers and staff in the hospital because I want to thank them for everything they do,” Malinauskas tweeted.

“Words matter – but my Government will be working very hard to action and implement our health policies.”

"I’m here with our doctors, nurses, ambos, cleaners, healthcare workers and staff in the hospital because I want to thank them for everything they do. "

"Words matter – but my Government will be working very hard to action and implement our health policies. pic.twitter.com/0pVUc8z9Bh"

"— Peter Malinauskas (@PMalinauskasMP) March 21, 2022"

Marshall’s seat still in doubt

After a night of postal vote counting, former premier Steven Marshall’s chance of hanging on to his eastern suburbs seat of Dunstan remains on a knife’s edge.

In an update this morning, the Electoral Commission of SA count shows Labor’s candidate Cressida O’Hanlon is still ahead 50.5 per cent to 49.5 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.

Just under 60 per cent of votes have been counted in Dunstan, with scrutineers prioritising the electorate during pre-poll and postal vote counting.

Dunstan recorded in the order of 3800 postal vote applications and 3931 pre-poll votes, with ABC election analyst Antony Green predicting those votes will get Marshall over the line.

“If the trend in today’s count continues then Steven Marshall should win re-election,” Green wrote on his blog last night.

“Based on interstate evidence, postal voting is more likely to favour the Liberal Party where pre-poll voting is more like on the day voting.”

Marshall officially resigned as premier yesterday, after announcing over the weekend that he would step down as leader of the Liberal party.

There have been no changes to the two-party vote in the blue-ribbon regional electorates of Finniss and Hammond, where independents Lou Nicholson and Airlie Keen are serious contenders.

Meanwhile in the Upper House, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is looking the favourite to win a place on the crossbench in their first South Australian election campaign since 2006.

The Queensland-based party has so far won roughly 4.2 per cent of the Upper House vote – beating out a glut of conservative minor parties including the Liberal Democrats (3.5 per cent), the revived Family First Party (3.3 per cent), the rebranded Australian Family Party (0.9 per cent) and the Nationals (0.7 per cent).

Budget boost for Australian tourism

Australia’s peak tourism body will receive a $45 million boost in the federal budget in a bid to lure more international visitors after coronavirus restrictions.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will announce a $60 million tourism investment in the federal budget while visiting Cairns on Tuesday.

The package includes $45 million over two years for Tourism Australia to focus on regional destinations which have been impacted heavily by the loss of international tourists.

Tropical North Queensland, the Gold Coast, NSW north coast, Sunshine Coast, Great Ocean Road, the Whitsundays, and the Hunter will be the main destinations to benefit from the Tourism Australia marketing campaign.

An additional $15 million will go specifically to Tourism Tropical North Queensland in a bid to promote the Great Barrier Reef to visitors.

Morrison said he wants to make sure Australia is at the top of every tourist’s must-visit list.

“The package is about getting people on planes and getting them here. It’s about converting the strong interest in Australia to actual businesses,” he said.

Tourism Minister Dan Tehan flagged the industry could see further support later this year.

“This campaign is just the start of a long-term strategy to restart tourism to Australia, with further investment in tourism marketing campaigns internationally to come in the second half of the year,” he said.

Regional Australia is also the focus of several gas infrastructure projects to be included in the upcoming budget.

The government announced an additional $50.3 million will be invested in seven priority projects as well as carbon capture and storage infrastructure.

The projects expect to safeguard against potential energy shortages, keep electricity prices stable and create jobs in regional Australia.

Projects include the south-west pipeline expansion project in Victoria and a gas infrastructure hub project in Queensland’s Bowen Basin.

Funding will also go towards a feasibility study into the efficient infrastructure needed to deliver natural gas from Beetaloo in the NT to the east coast.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor says the government will back the natural gas and carbon capture and storage industries in the budget.

Coalition faces uphill battle ahead of federal election

Support for the federal Coalition is lower than it was during the Black Summer bushfires, a study has found.

Just 32.2 per cent of respondents said they would vote for the government if an election was held in January, compared with 35.4 per cent in January 2020.

It is also a sizeable drop from January 2021 at the height of the pandemic, when 40.3 per cent of respondent said they’d vote for the Liberal-National coalition.

Lead author of the Australian National University study Professor Nicholas Biddle said with less than one in three respondents to back the incumbents, things did not look good for the coalition.

“This is significantly lower than the 37 per cent who said they would vote for Labor, who would appear to have been in an election-winning position,” he said.

“Those who thought environmental concerns were more serious were more likely to withdraw their support from the coalition government.”

Women overwhelmingly support Labor ahead of the coalition, with the study finding 38.8 per cent intend to vote for the opposition and just 28.7 will back the government.

That contrasts with a far tighter race among men, where 35.9 per cent intend to vote for the coalition and 35.2 per cent supported Labor.

Those who said they didn’t know who they would vote for rose from 4.1 per cent to 5.9 from last year to this, the study noting a possibility that would shape the final election outcome.

It also found an increase in the belief the government should use strict laws to reduce environmental harm done by industry.

Some 61.6 per cent of respondents said Australia was doing too little to tackle climate change which was a 3.3 per cent increase on last year, although not as high as the 65.2 per cent at the height of the bushfires.

The study notes consistency in Australians’ view of the government’s role despite the Black Summer and COVID-19 pandemic creating “a unique set of circumstances”.

“We find a somewhat surprising level of stability over the period in terms of views on key policy issues … despite a very large increase in the government’s role in the lives of Australians during the pandemic period, we don’t find large changes in Australian’s views about what the government’s role should be or the extent of the government’s role,” it reads.

But it did find significant declines in people who think it should be the government’s role for a number of objectives, including providing a job for everyone who wants one, providing a decent standard of living for the old and promoting equality between men and women.

Chernobyl radiation monitors ‘not working’

Ukraine’s nuclear regulatory agency says the radiation monitors around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant – site of the world’s worst meltdown in 1986 – have stopped working.

In a statement on Monday, the agency also said there are no longer firefighters available in the region to protect forests tainted by decades of radioactivity as the weather warms.

The plant was seized by Russian forces on February 24.

According to Monday’s statement, the combination of risks could mean a “significant deterioration” of the ability to control the spread of radiation not just in Ukraine but beyond the country’s borders in weeks and months to come.

Management of the Chernobyl plant said on Sunday that 50 staff members who had been working non-stop since the Russian takeover have been rotated out and replaced.

Russian government behind hoax calls: UK

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman has accused the Russian government of being responsible for hoax calls to two ministers and an attempted call to a third.

UK defence minister Ben Wallace and interior minister Priti Patel both said they had been targeted.

Johnson’s spokesman said a similar but unsuccessful attempt to hoax culture minister Nadine Dorries was also made.

“This is standard practice for Russian information operations and disinformation is a tactic straight from the Kremlin playbook to try and distract from their illegal activities in Ukraine and the human rights abuses being committed there,” the spokesman said.

Wallace publicly acknowledged he had been targeted shortly after his call on Thursday in an attempt to get ahead of any attempt by Russia to circulate footage from it, officials said.

He also launched a government probe to understand how he ended up on a video call with a hoaxer pretending to be Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

– With AAP and Reuters