As it happened:NSW records 1281 new local COVID-19 cases,five deaths;Victoria records 246 new cases;extra Pfizer doses arrive from UK

Victorians can now make group bookings for COVID-19 vaccinations.

Anyone who wants to make a group booking has to complete aregistration of interest form and state what type of group they are;whether they be a school,employees of a particular workplace,people at high risk of catching COVID-19,or just a mix of other people who are eligible for the jab.

People don’t have to provide the names of individual group members when they register,and instead,can provide them when they arrive at a state-run clinic for their booking. Group members just have to be eligible for a vaccination,and bring along ID and their Medicare card.

“The service is open to community members and community service organisations at state-run vaccination centres,” the Chief Health Officer’s update said on Monday.

The Department of Health will contact a nominated member of the group within 10 days of them completing the registration form.

Victorian authorities have identified more childcare centres as COVID-19 exposure sites.

The Health Department listed several new tier-1 or close contact sites on Monday evening.

Anyone who attended them during the specified timeframes has to immediately get tested for COVID-19,and quarantine for 14 days from the exposure,regardless of whether they receive a negative test result.

The new tier-1 sites are:

The remainder of the new sites are tier-2,and include the Matrix Early Learning at Fawkner and Derby Street Children’s Centre at Pascoe Vale,both in Melbourne’s north,and a Coles and a Woolworths supermarkets in Epping and Roxburgh Park respectively.

Authorities warned that some people who visited tier-2 sites including Woolworths at Coburg Station,the KFC Ferntree Gully drive-through,and Sprinkles Ice Creamery Lollies n More at Point Cook would be identified as close contacts. The Department of Health would contact those people.

A full list of Victorian exposure sites can be foundhere.

Proof of vaccination,often referred to as a “vaccination passport”,will be required to gain entry to nightclubs,mass events and large venues in England by the end of this month,the UK government has confirmed.

Nadhim Zahawi,Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment in Boris Johnson’s government,told Sky over the weekend:

We are looking at,by the end of September when everyone has had the opportunity to be fully vaccinated,for the large venues,venues that could end up causing a real spike in infections ... we need to use the certification process.

The worst thing we can do for those venues is to have a sort of open-shut-open-shut strategy because we see infection rates rise because of the close interaction of people,that’s how the virus spreads,if people are in close spaces in large numbers we see spikes appearing.

The best thing to do then is to work with the industry to make sure that they can open safely and sustainably in the long term,and the best way to do that is to check vaccine status.

You might recall that NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian today released modelling from the Burnet Institute about intensive care demand and capacity in the state as COVID-19 cases rise.

NSWrecorded 1281 new coronavirus cases in the community in the 24 hours to 8pm on Sunday and five more deaths.

The modelling,which you can take a look at here,predicts that in 12 local government areas of concern in NSW,coronavirus cases will continue increasing until mid-September. These areas are expected to record a combined 1100 to 2000 new cases per day.

“A peak in hospital and ICU utilisation will follow. It is anticipated that between 2,200 and 3,900 people will require hospitalisation,” NSW Health says.

The full list of areas of concern ishere,and it includes Blacktown,Canterbury-Bankstown,Fairfield and parts of Penrith. The government has previously said that more than 80 per cent of new COVID-19 infections are being detected in these areas.

After mid-September,NSW Health believes vaccine-acquired immunity will start kicking in and driving down case numbers,with restrictions also playing a part.

Hospitalisations are expected to peak in October at 3,434 (which includes COVID and non-COVID cases),and the intensive care capacity is expected to peak in early November at 947 patients (again,a figure that includes non-COVID cases).

As the NSW Premier made clear,the modelling is based on a number of variables and assumes that people adhere to existing restrictions.

Liberal Senator Jane Hume,the Minister for Women’s Economic Security,has defended the Morrison government against accusations it has not gone far enough in implementing recommendations of the Respect@Work national inquiry into workplace sexual harassment.

Last week,the federal government enacted six of the inquiry’s 55 recommendations but did not adopt a centrepiece reform to impose a positive legal duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment.

Senator Hume had this to say to the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas this afternoon:

Of the 55 recommendations,not all were directed to government;some were directed to state governments and some were directed to businesses.

Of the 15 that were to government,there were a number that were legislated last week and they’re really about strengthening the framework around sexual harassment and sexual violence,which is really important to do.

There are some recommendations that are more complex and more work is required on those and more work is currently being done. The others should be directed to business.

There’s some that didn’t require legislative change,things like the Respect@Work Council,that’s something we’ve already implemented. This is one part of the puzzle.

The Respect@Work council brings together leaders from government regulators and policy makers that have oversight of sexual harassment policies and complaints,and is aimed at improving clarity and consistency across existing laws.

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‘Australia has a problem’,PM tells women’s safety summit

Asked why the government had not supported a proposal for ten days’ domestic or family violence leave,Senator Hume said it was “not a policy that’s without implications,both for business and for individuals”.

“We want to hear voices from across the community. There are more than 200 different groups that are represented at the[two-day women’s safety] summit today and tomorrow and they all have very unique perspectives.

“That’s exactly why we want them to inform that next national plan on ending violence against women.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has returned to Canberra from a brief visit to his family in Sydney after gaining an exemption from health authorities to cross the border with NSW.

With state borders closed across the country,Mr Morrison needed approval from the Australian Capital Territory’s chief health officer to make the visit after being in Sydney for Father’s Day on Sunday.

The arrangement allowed him to return to Parliament House on Monday morning to join Social Services Minister Anne Ruston at a summit on women’s safety and to speak with national security officials face-to-face for a cabinet committee meeting.

Flight radar websites showed that one of the Royal Australian Air Force’s business jets,a Dassault Falcon 7X,flew from Canberra to Sydney on Saturday afternoon in a 25-minute flight and returned to Canberra early on Monday morning.

Read the full story here.

Victorian health authorities have identified a number of new tier-1 COVID-19 exposure sites,including two medical clinics,a bar,a courier business and a smash repair place to add to a primary school,supermarkets and community centre listed earlier in the day.

A number of the new sites are tier-1 or close contact,meaning anyone who attended them during the specified timeframes must immediately get tested for COVID-19 and quarantine for 14 days from the exposure,regardless of whether they receive a negative test result.

The new tier-1 sites are:

The remainder of the new sites are tier-2,which require people to get tested urgently and isolate until receiving a negative result. Those sites are are:

A full list of Victorian exposure sites can be foundhere.

Prime Minister Scott Morrisonopened a two-day women’s safety summit today by saying there hasn’t been enough progress when it comes to attitudes towards women and domestic violence.

His comments have not been particularly well received in some quarters.

As regular contributorKristine Ziwicka writes today,Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins made 55 recommendations after the national Respect@Work inquiry to make workplaces safer for women:

But last week,the Morrison government ensured that only six of those recommendations made their way into law and scuppered attempts by Labor and the Greens to implement the centrepiece of Jenkins’ report – a positive duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment from happening in the first place.

Make no mistake:history will remember this moment as a key milestone in Australia’s #MeToo journey – and Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his newly minted taskforce for women will prove to be on the wrong side of that history.

The government also joined with One Nation to block other amendments to the Sex Discrimination and Fair Work (Respect at Work) Amendment Bill. These would have changed workplace laws to ban sexual harassment,protected victims of sexual harassment from massive legal bills,and reviewed the Fair Work system to ensure that sexual harassment – using the definition in the Sex Discrimination Act – was expressly prohibited.

This was a significant missed opportunity.

Read the full opinion piece here.

NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro says the curfews in south-western and western Sydney have not worked,and were only introduced following media pressure.

At a briefing of regional media on Monday,Mr Barilaro said he would not support a curfew for Dubbo,despite rising coronavirus case numbers.

“So the idea of a curfew is one that was put in place in an area that was so out of control and you would question its ability to work ... If you look at the numbers since we put the curfew in,nothing has occurred,nothing has changed;numbers continue to rise,” he said.

He said a curfew in Dubbo would do “nothing more than hurt the wellbeing of that community.”