JUST INN CASE

Melbourne’s Holiday Inn cluster has jumped to 13, the ABC reports, after officials last night declared another two household cases on top of two declared earlier in the day along with one hotel worker. However, Victoria’s list of exposure sites has not been updated since late Wednesday.

States continue to reimpose border measures against Victoria, with Queensland to reintroduce border declarations from 1am Saturday and 9News explaining that Mark McGowan yesterday confirmed WA will keep its border closed to Victoria for another week, with a decision on other states set for today.

Elsewhere, Al Jazeera reports that head of the UK genetic surveillance programme Sharon Peacock has warned that the B.1.1.7 variant — which was first recorded in Kent in September — is likely to “sweep the world” and become the most dominant global strain of the virus.

PS: In arts news, the Adelaide Fringe festival has been left scrambling ahead of its February 19 start date, The Guardian reports, after South Australia shut its border to Melbourne residents.

RORT RED-HANDED?

According to The Age, Labor has asked the Auditor-General to examine the federal Safer Communities Fund after department documents revealed Peter Dutton diverted $8.5 million to 53 handpicked projects ahead of the 2019 election, only five of which were in safe Labor seats.

The documents, first revealed under Freedom of Information by 7.30, show Dutton personally moved almost half the total pool of funding away from recommended security cameras and safety lighting projects to his handpicked ones in January 2019.

In other rort news, Bridget McKenzie is due to appear today 3pm AEDT at the Senate Inquiry into the Administration of Sports Grants.

PS: As Australia continues to wait for a worse-than-toothless national anti-corruption body, The Australian ($) reports the Morrison government is developing plans for a new agency capable of investigating allegations of corruption, sexual harassment and bullying against judges.

CROWN OF THORNS

Crown Resorts director Andrew Demetriou has tendered his resignation to chairwoman Helen Coonan, The Australian ($) reports, while chief executive Ken Barton is expected to formally step down today following pressure from two state gaming regulators and the casino operator’s biggest institutional shareholder, Perpetual’s head of equities Paul Skamvougeras.

The ABC also understands Barton signaled his intention to resign in a meeting with Coonan yesterday, after the Bergin Report specifically called for his departure and two other board members stepped down on Wednesday.

After the NSW report found money-laundering at Crown’s Melbourne casino, The Age reports the federal Labor party are considering banning donations from Crown. This would follow similar decisions by WA Labor and WA Liberals.

RENEWED HOPE

Finally, and in another example of the WA Liberals lapping their federal counterparts, Opposition Leader Zak Kirkup yesterday launched a $400 million renewables plan that would see all publicly owned coal-fired power stations close by 2025.

The plan, which the ABC reports includes $100 million for transitioning coal communities, also offers what could be the first time a Liberal party has outflanked its Labor counterpart on global warming.

Conversely, WAToday reports that two major projects expected to blow a million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere in their first year — Mitsui’s Waitsia onshore gas project in the Mid West and Fortescue Metal Group’s gas-fired power station in the Pilbara — were approved during lockdown and days before the WA government entered pre-election caretaker mode.

PS: Remember how the Morrison government was considering using taxpayer funds to underwrite a coal-fired power station part-owned by Liberal downer Trevor St Baker? Well The Guardian reports that’s over, but only because the company has abandoned its bid.

PPS: On the Labor end, Joel Fitzgibbon has, shockingly, hit out at shadow energy minister Chris Bowen’s very accurate claim the coal sector is under strain, making familiar denialist claims in an op-ed at The Australian ($) over Australian coal lowering emissions in Asia and demand for the resource to last “for decades to come”.