As it happened: Victoria records 148 new COVID-19 cases as Daniel Andrews flags state of emergency extension; Australian death toll jumps to 525

That's all from us today. Thanks very much for reading and for your feedback.

As of this evening there are 3965 active cases of COVID-19 in Australia: 3738 (94 per cent) are in Victoria, 196 in New South Wales, 18 in Queensland, nine in Western Australia, three in South Australia, one in Tasmania and zero in the ACT and Northern Territory.

Let's take a look back at the major stories of the day:

• Prime Minister Scott Morrison blamed "unacceptable" failures in Victoria for deepening the coronavirus crisis as he comes under more pressure in Parliament over his response to infections in aged care.

• Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said he was prepared to compromise to get extended state of emergency legislation through the upper house after members of the crossbench and federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg raised concerns.

• NSW Police have been forced to remove hundreds of people from one of Sydney's quarantine hotels after the facility was deemed not up to standard.
• The West Australian government had a win in the first stage of its border war with businessman Clive Palmer after the Federal Court found the 'hard border' strategy was the most effective method of keeping coronavirus out of the state.
• The South Australian government announced it would reinstate a 40-kilometre travel buffer zone for border communities from this Friday.
• Qantas is set to slash up to 2400 jobs and fashion retailer Mosaic, which is behind brands such as Rivers and Noni B, has announced it will close between 300 and 500 stores.

• There's some hope for Victorian parents with Education Minister James Merlino confident students will be back in classrooms - with Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton's approval - sometime in term four.

• State government analysis showed up to 80 per cent of the almost 2700 Victorian healthcare staff who have tested positive for COVID-19 caught it at work.

• In Perth, a woman has been jailed for trying to sneak into the state after travelling from Melbourne, while a Melbourne magnate who used his super yacht to sail his family away from winter lockdown to sunny Queensland will be required to quarantine.

This is Rachael Dexter signing off.

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NSW Health are investigating two COVID-19 cases who attended a CBD gym on multiple occasions in the past week.

A statement from the department on Tuesday night advised anyone who attended City Tattersalls Fitness Centre at any time on August 19, 21, or 23, 24 should be alert for symptoms and, should they develop, prepare to get tested and self-isolate.

“NSW Health is working closely with City Tattersalls Fitness Centre to directly contact close contacts,” the statement read.

"People who visited the office building at 300 George Street near Wynyard Station on August 19th 20th, 21st or 24th should also be be alert for symptoms, after one of the cases worked here while infectious."

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has blamed "unacceptable" failures in Victoria for deepening the coronavirus crisis as he comes under more pressure in Parliament over his response to infections in aged care.

In his strongest attack so far on the state government's performance, Mr Morrison slammed the problems with hotel quarantine, contact tracing and virus testing under Premier Daniel Andrews.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says failures in hotel quarantine and contact tracing in Victoria led to the outbreak spreading.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Morrison insisted Australia had performed better in aged care than other countries and backed the Aged Care Minister, Richard Colbeck, against claims he had been sidelined.

Some Liberal MPs spoke up for the embattled minister in the Coalition party room on Tuesday, but others expressed frustration with his performance and with the Prime Minister's defence.

When Mr Morrison said that only 8 per cent of aged care homes had experienced outbreaks among residents and staff, compared to 56 per cent in the United Kingdom, some Liberals expressed private frustration the argument sounded complacent.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese repeatedly challenged Mr Morrison over delays in the response at Victorian aged care homes including St Basil's and Epping Gardens, noting the 8 per cent figure meant more than 300 older Australians had lost their lives.

[Read the full story here]

New Zealand will launch a seven-day testing blitz designed to test another 70,000 people for coronavirus.

Auckland’s community cluster grew by another seven cases on Tuesday, taking the country’s total number of active cases to 129. Nineteen of those are returned travellers.

Ordered testing blitz: NZ Health and Education Minister Chris Hipkins.Credit: Tom Lee/Stuff

A total of 160 close contacts to the Auckland cluster, which is the country’s largest, are now in quarantine and 89 of those people have tested positive.

There are eight people in hospital with COVID-19, and three of those people are in ICU.
For a second day in a row, the total number of tests fell below 5000 tests in a day, to a relatively low 4434 tests.

Health Minister Chris Hipkins announced the testing blitz and said that of the 70,000 tests - or 10,000 per day - the government wanted about 7000 to be conducted in Auckland each day.

Hipkins said the dip in testing rates over the last two days indicated testing fatigue had set in.

"It’s challenging to keep up this pace but it is doable," Hipkins said.

"Please don’t relax now, we need to continue our testing effort."

"We haven’t quite got this cluster completely identified yet, we do need people to take that test when asked."

[Read the full story here]

Department of Health and Human Services data has broken down coronavirus testing rates by local government area for the first time.

The map below shows the testing rate for each of Victoria's 79 local government areas over the past fortnight. By default it shows Greater Melbourne but use the zoom controls to view data for rural and regional areas as well.

In local government areas with active coronavirus cases, testing rates were between 25 and 50 tests per 1000 residents over the past fortnight.

Testing rates tended to be lower in areas with few or no active cases and greater in areas with a higher infection rate.

In areas with the largest number of recent cases – Brimbank, Melton, Wyndham, Hobsons Bay and Darebin – testing rates are among the highest, ranging from 37 tests per 1000 residents in Hobsons Bay up to 49 per 1000 in Darebin.

In Melton, 453 tests were done each day on average and about one in every 20 people swabbed were found to have contracted COVID-19, the highest proportion for any municipality in the state.

Regional areas showed more variance in testing rates than metropolitan areas, although this is probably due to the small population size of these locations.

[Read more here]

There's been a lot of news and opinion generated by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews' announced bid to extend the state's COVID-19 state of emergency by 12-months yesterday.

While the Premier went to great lengths today to explain that state of emergency legislation was not the mechanism that allows for the enforcement of curfews and other harsh restrictions, the political pushback on the plan has gone all the way to Canberra.

All but one of the crossbenchers who spoke to The Age on Tuesday said they were opposed to the government’s proposal and would vote with the Liberals and Nationals to defeat the move when Labor brings Parliament back next week to try to legislate its changes.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was on his feet in Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra today joining the backlash against the proposal.

As the day draws to an end it feels like a good time to read this explainer from our legal affairs reporter Tammy Mills who breaks down exactly what what all the fuss is about.

What are these powers? What's a state of emergency? And what's the problem with extending it?

Read Tammy's explainer here

Victorians are being encouraged to demand compensation from the state government over the cost of sweeping restrictions on the community, in a move to force officials to decide the claims.

Concerned at a state bid to extend emergency powers, Victorian Liberal senator Sarah Henderson is calling on people to use state law to seek financial redress if they have lost work from the curbs imposed to counter the coronavirus.

Liberal senator Sarah Henderson based her call on a provision of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act that allows people to seek redress for decisions by Victoria's Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The move is aimed at forcing Premier Daniel Andrews to scale back the restrictions as quickly as possible without endangering public health, as the Liberals blame his controls for driving 400,000 people out of work.

Senator Henderson based her call on a provision of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act that allows people to seek redress for decisions by Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton.

"This provides, potentially, thousands of Victorians with the right to seek compensation including those who have lost their jobs or been forced to close businesses," she said.

"Victorians have a voice. Restrictions should only be imposed insofar as they are absolutely necessary."

Section 204 of the state law says a person who suffers loss as a result of a decision by the chief health officer can seek redress to the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The secretary, Kym Peake, can award compensation if she considers there were insufficient grounds for Dr Sutton's authorisation, an unlikely scenario given the statewide controls.

But people can appeal against the secretary's decision at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, raising the prospect of a flood of claims.

[Read the full story here]

The headmaster of The King's School, a prestigious private school in Sydney, has accused the NSW government of creating inconsistent, confusing COVID-19 sport rules that "make no sense" and advantage public schools over private ones.

The furious email, sent to parents on Tuesday, comes as schools involved in the GPS schoolboy sporting association continue fighting for an exemption to a COVID-19 ban on non-local school sports that would allow their winter competitions to continue.

The King's School is protesting the cancellation of the GPS winter competition.Credit: Paul Seiser/SPA Images

It adds to concern from music groups and year 12 students about bans to woodwind instruments, choirs and graduations that they also argue are stricter inside the school gates than outside them.

King's headmaster Tony George said NSW Sport and NSW Education had chosen to implement state health guidelines differently, leading to a tighter ban on school teams than club ones. “What we have been seeking from the NSW government for the past week is consistency,” he wrote.

"Either ban sport or don’t. But don’t have double standards that result in inconsistency, confusion and inequity. However, while NSW Sport has been willing to engage in discussion, NSW Education and NSW Health are yet to respond positively."

[Read the full story here]

A trial aimed at ensuring doctors and nurses have properly-fitted medical masks must be rolled out to all frontline healthcare workers to curb rising numbers of them being infected on the job.

The Australian Medical Association and other key medical groups are demanding that "fit testing" of face masks become mandatory for health workers after a state government analysis showed up to 80 per cent of the almost 2700 Victorian healthcare staff who have tested positive for COVID-19 caught it at work.

The analysis validated the concerns of medical groups that have long disputed government suggestions only 10 per cent to 15 per cent of COVID-19 cases among healthcare workers were acquired on the job.

The government is facing an intense backlash from the sector after it opted to run a single "fit testing" trial – which uses a machine to ensure mask are sealed to the face – for high-risk staff at Northern Health, rather than implementing the infection control practice across the state.

Fit-testing is mandatory for workers dealing with asbestos and silica, but not always for hospitals dealing with COVID-19, leaving doctors and nurses vulnerable to the deadly virus.

"Why you need a trial to work out if people should be fit tested is beyond comprehension," Australian Medical Association national president Omar Khorshid said.

The government analysis also illustrated the need for hospitals and healthcare facilities to provide safe areas for staff to have lunch breaks in a COVID-safe, according to the nursing union.

Leading causes of infection in hospitals included substandard personal protective equipment – including misuse of face masks – and transmission through shared spaces, such as contact in break rooms, the analysis found.

“Where can nurses safely have a break? Where can they go?,” Lisa Fitzpatrick, Victorian secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation said on ABC Radio Melbourne’s Drive program on Monday evening.

“A couple of weeks ago we had a health service suggest that they might have to go to their vehicles to have their lunch break. I think we can do better than that.”

In hospitals, 70 per cent of infections were among nurses, while about 11 per cent were doctors, the data showed.

[Read more here]

An operation has commenced in Sydney’s CBD to move 366 guests who are currently in hotel quarantine to another location, after NSW Police determined their current location not suitable.

The Travelodge in Surry Hills has been evacuated, with guests placed on coaches to a range of other hotels.

NSW Police said that while conducting a regular audit of the hotel, they determined this location did not meet the standards expected, and would be rotated out of the roster.

366 guests who are currently in hotel quarantine at a Travel Lodge in Surry Hills are moved to another location on Tuesday night.Credit: James Brickwood

"The health, safety and comfort of all quarantined travellers remains a top priority for NSW Police," a statement read.

The operation is in progress and is expected to be completed by tomorrow morning.

"The NSW Police Force continues to work closely with NSW Health to ensure hotel quarantine operations comply with the highest standards, including having robust infection control measures in place at all quarantine facilities, with support from the NSW Clinical Excellence Commission," the statement read.

In total, more than 50,000 people have entered mandatory quarantine in NSW Police-managed hotels, with 4185 people currently in 16 hotels across Sydney.

It has been an incredibly successful operation, which has dramatically reduced the transmission of COVID-19 throughout the community.