As it happened: Melbourne family with Delta variant travelled to Jervis Bay; Victoria records four new local COVID-19 cases

That’s all for this week. I’m Natassia Chrysanthos signing off the blog for the evening. We’ll be back early on Monday morning.

Before you head into your weekend, you can catch up on today’s major headlines:

• The Victorian family of four who tested positive to COVID-19 after returning from Jervis Bay in NSW have the Delta variant of coronavirus. This is a different variant to the other cases linked back to the outbreak from South Australia, which are the Kappa variant. Health authorities still don’t know what the source of this variant is – Victoria, NSW, or elsewhere. It has yet to be genomically linked back to known cases.
• Health authorities are prepared to force aged care workers to get vaccinated in a bid to stop coronavirus outbreaks causing another deadly wave. There is now enough capacity in Pfizer clinics to open up eligibility around the nation to people aged 40 and over from June 8. All Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged over 16 and those on the National Disability Insurance Scheme and their carers are also now eligible.
• Chris Minns will become leader of the NSW Labor party, vowing to “rally the troops” and close the book on a bruising period of party disunity to focus on the people of NSW.
• Some of Australia’s biggest media companies have been fined a combined $1.1 million for breaching contempt of court laws over the way they first reported George Pell’s conviction on sex abuse charges. Meanwhile, a new urgent court action that former special forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has taken against his estranged ex-wife could delay his defamation trial.
• This year’s Archibald Prize was awarded to Peter Wegner for his portrait of Australia’s oldest working artist, Guy Warren. The Archibald Prize and Warren shared a milestone celebration this year – they both turned 100. Warren and the winning portrait are pictured below, and you can view the full gallery from today’s ceremony here.

Have a lovely weekend, and we hope you’ll join us again next week as we bring you national news updates live.

Winner of the 2021 Archibald award artist Peter Wegner with his portrait of Guy Warren.Credit: Steven Siewert

Former special forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has taken urgent court action against his estranged ex-wife in a bid to find out if she gave confidential information to The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald about his legal advice ahead of his defamation case against the mastheads.

The new action poses a risk of delaying the defamation trial, which is slated to start on Monday and run for up to 10 weeks.

Mr Roberts-Smith launched Federal Court proceedings on Tuesday against his former wife, Emma Roberts, who is expected to give evidence for the newspapers in the high-stakes trial. Court orders were made on that day in her absence.

Mr Roberts-Smith’s barrister, Arthur Moses, SC, told the Federal Court on Friday that the proceedings against Ms Roberts related to an allegation she had access to an email account her former husband used to correspond with his lawyers about the defamation case and a separate inquiry into the conduct of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.

Ms Roberts was ordered to hand over any documents to the court’s Brisbane registry, and given until next Friday to file an affidavit setting out when and how any such information was obtained by her, and to whom it had been given.

Read the full story here.

Political reporter Katina Curtis has some further detail about the proposal to make vaccinations compulsory for aged care and disability care workers, which we heard from Prime Minister Scott Morrison earlier today.

National cabinet has asked medical experts for further advice about whether it should be mandatory for aged care workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 while strongly urging everyone in the sector to protect themselves voluntarily.

BlueCross Western Gardens Aged Care residence in Sunshine, where it was confirmed a staff member has tested positive to COVID-19 at the end of May. Credit: Eddie Jim

The government’s initial goal was to have the majority of the 190,000 aged care residents and roughly 366,000 workers vaccinated in the first six weeks of the rollout.

But Health Department officials told Senate estimates this week only 32,833 aged care workers – or less than 10 per cent – had been fully vaccinated through the facility where they worked. The Commonwealth did not know how many others might have received shots through GP clinics, state-run hospital hubs or special pop-up clinics.

National cabinet decided on Friday the aged care sector would have to report from June 15 how many staff had had COVID shots.

Read the full story here.

As the week winds to a close, see how our photographers Alex Ellinghausen and Dominic Lorrimer captured the last fortnight in Canberra.

Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Christian Porter, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Minister for Defence Peter Dutton during a division in the House of Representatives at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday 1 June.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The sitting fortnight started after a NSW Labor byelection loss, which left federal Labor again debating its direction, and finished with the government’s Your Future, Your Super legislation passing the lower house - after they scrapped a contentious power for the Treasurer to intervene in super funds’ investments.

Christian Porter discontinued his defamation action against the ABC, the National Accounts showed the economy is back to where it was pre-pandemic, the federal government committed to emergency COVID payments for people stuck in lockdowns post-JobKeeper, and there were budget estimates hearing each day as well.

The PM also managed to fit in a quick trip to New Zealand to meet with his counterpart Jacinda Ardern.

You can view those moments in our gallery here.

In corporate news, mining giant Rio Tinto has hired former Western Australian Treasurer Ben Wyatt as the first Indigenous member of its board of directors. The company is seeking to rebuild broken relationships following last year’s destruction of ancient Aboriginal rock shelters.

Mr Wyatt, 47, retired from WA’s state parliament earlier this year after serving as treasurer and Aboriginal affairs minister. He joined the board of oil and gas producer Woodside on Wednesday and will join the Rio Tinto board as a non-executive director on September 1.

Ben Wyatt will join the board of mining giant Rio Tinto. Credit: Trevor Collens

“With family links to the Pilbara and an impressive track record in public life, Ben’s knowledge of public policy, finance, international trade and Indigenous affairs will significantly add to the depth of knowledge on the board at a time when we are seeking to strengthen relationships with key stakeholders in Australia and around the world,” outgoing Rio Tinto chairman Simon Thompson said.

Rio Tinto’s decision to blow up the Juukan Gorge rock shelters last year to make way for an iron ore mine expansion left the land’s traditional owners devastated, sparked global condemnation, triggered a federal parliamentary inquiry and cost the job of Rio’s former chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques.

Mr Thompson will step down within the next year following the fallout from the debacle.

Mr Wyatt, who has Yamatji heritage, on Friday said he had been “deeply saddened and disappointed by the events at Juukan Gorge”.

“But I am convinced that Rio Tinto is committed to changing its approach to cultural heritage issues and restoring its reputation, particularly in Australia and WA,” he said.

Read the full story here.

A boy under the age of 10 was diagnosed with COVID-19 after travelling from Australia to Taiwan late last month, amid a growing outbreak in Victoria which now involves two variants of concern.

The boy, aged under 10 and a Taiwanese national, left Australia on May 25 and arrived in Taiwan the next day.

Taiwan’s Centre for Disease Control reported late last month that the boy experienced a runny nose in Australia on May 18, before flying to Taiwan just over a week later.

“Upon arrival, he voluntarily notified airport quarantine officers that he had experienced symptoms,” the CDC said in a statement. “After he was tested for COVID-19, infection with COVID-19 was laboratory-confirmed in the case on May 28.”

The Department of Health’s national focal point team was aware of the case, a department spokeswoman told this masthead. For privacy reasons, the department would not disclose the boy’s port of departure.

“The NFP can confirm that all relevant domestic and international parties have been notified,” the spokeswoman said.

Victoria has been fighting an outbreak since a first case was reported on May 11, while NSW last had community transmission in early May.

The fact two COVID-19 cases have been removed from Victoria’s recent tally last night because the test results turned out to be false positives has caused quite a stir.

From a data perspective, it is worth noting that no COVID-19 test is 100 per cent accurate and there is always a small risk that the test will tell someone they have the virus when they don’t (a false positive) or will give someone the all-clear when in fact they have been infected (a false negative).

Victoria has been carrying out record amounts of testing since the start of this fourth lockdown, and more tests means more potential for false positive test results:

Interestingly, if you were to add up every single new case announced each morning since the start of the pandemic - you would get a total of 22,094.

But the official total for the number of cases in Victoria since the start of the pandemic is 20,617.

So why the discrepancy? Some of it is because of double counting or other reclassifications, but some were false positives that were subsequently removed from the total.

For example, at the height of the state’s second wave there were 725 new cases announced on August 4, but over time that number was revised down to 687.

Back when there were hundreds of new cases a day being announced, these false positives barely registered, but now that there is so much attention and so many ramifications from every new case, false positives show up more starkly.

The NSW Labor party’s new leader Chris Minns has addressed the media after being unanimously elected to the top job.

Lucy Cormack reported the 41-year-old Kogarah MP was elected unopposed during a 30-minute caucus meeting this morning, in which rival Michael Daley pulled out of the leadership race.

Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Mr Minns vowed to “rally the troops” of Labor and close the book on a bruising period of party disunity to focus on the people of NSW. “Now the hard work begins for the Labor Party to get up off the mat, take the fight up to the Berejiklian government... I know that task will be difficult,” he said.

Labor’s Chris Minns in his first press conference after being elected leader.Credit: Rhett Wyman

Mr Minns said he was humbled to have been elected by his parliamentary colleagues but conceded deep divides within caucus would not disappear with his election.

He said he firmly believed the next election would define the post-COVID economy and society and that his party would have a big role to play. Cost of living, stagnant wages, regional jobs and tolls will be the first areas he plans to target as leader.

“We will have a [toll] package to take to the next election that deals with what is a serious issue for Western Sydney families,” he said, adding that the campaign and a future NSW “starts today”.

Federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese on Friday congratulated Mr Minns, saying he would not just be “a good Labor leader in opposition, but a great premier of NSW.” Read more here.

At the state funeral for rugby league legend Bob Fulton in Sydney this morning, radio duo Alan Jones and Ray Hadley remembered the Manly star as a remarkable athlete and family man.

In his eulogy, Hadley said Fulton - “Bozo” - called him to tell him of the seriousness of his illness late last year. “I asked him if he could make my wedding on the 27th of March. He said mate, I’ll be there; come what may,” Hadley said.

“He came. Anne [his wife] knows he shouldn’t have been there. He was in a lot of pain, a lot of strife but he turned up and it was probably one of the most important things he ever did for me.”

Russell, a Manly fan of 61 years, salutes the the coffin carrying Robert Fulton at St Mary’s Cathedral.Credit: Brook Mitchell

Jones told a story of the time Fulton took him on in a push-up and sit-up competition while the pair were coaching at Manly. Jones said he won the push-ups, while Fulton won the sit-ups - cheating by only going halfway down.

“Bob didn’t apologise for being competitive and aggressive and wanting to do well and wanting to climb that mountain and get to the top of the mountain before everyone, but that was the lesson that he thought life had for us all,” he said.

Hundreds poured into St Mary’s Cathedral to pay their respects. Read more about the attendees and Fulton’s family’s comments from sports reporter Sarah Keoghan here. You can view the photo gallery here.

In case you missed it earlier, this year’s Archibald Prize has been awarded to Peter Wegner for his portrait of Australia’s oldest working artist, Guy Warren, aged 100.

Mr Warren says he’s getting tired of being asked: “What’s the secret of a long life?” His answer is very simple: “You just have to keep living”. When he gets down to detail he says it’s a matter of “good genes, good luck and a whiskey every night”.

Guy Warren at this morning’s prize ceremony.Credit: Steven Siewert

Joining Mr Warren in celebrating 100 years is the prize itself.

The Victorian-based great-grandson of architect Harold Desbrowe-Annear, the first Australian face to win the Archibald Prize in 1921, welcomed the news Melbourne artist Mr Wegner has won 100 years later.

“Melbourne people in lockdown need something to celebrate – I think my great-grandfather would think this was fantastic win for his home town,” said Paul Desbrowe-Annear. “A century on, a portrait of centenarian artist is something to celebrate.”

The Archibald has changed in that century. Winning portraits have evolved in style from Georgian portraits to psychedelia. They have also steadily gotten bigger.

As the Archibald celebrates its 100-year anniversary (weeks after Mr Warren celebrated his, in April), you can scroll through the gallery below to see past winners and how they’ve changed in style and size.