Winter is coming and so are the second booster doses of COVID vaccines for the elderly and vulnerable from Monday ahead of a predicted winter infection surge.
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The groups will include those 65 and older, Indigenous Australians aged at least 50, disability-care residents and the immunocompromised.
An estimated 4.7 million people will be eligible to get the fourth dose, but it's expected fewer than 200,000 will be able to at the start of the rollout.
Health department secretary Dr Brendan Murphy said the fourth jab would be critical in the effort to protect at-risk Australians ahead of winter, with a surge in cases of both the virus and influenza looming.
"The single most important thing we can do to protect people with underlying medical conditions, people with disability, people at risk of severe COVID, is to get as much vaccination - including full booster protection - as possible," he said.
Staying with health, and thousands of NSW healthcare workers are set to walk off the job, demanding higher wages from the government, after strikes by paramedics and nurses.
Under the NSW wages cap, public sector pay increases can not legally exceed 2.5 per cent, but the Health Services Union maintains this is not enough, with inflation running at 3.5 per cent.
"We don't need another politician thanking us for being heroes of the pandemic, we need a pay rise," HSU NSW secretary Gerard Hayes said.
The planned industrial action on Thursday will include stopping work for four hours at major metro hospitals and two hours at regional hospitals.
Meanwhile in Victoria, the state will invest $1.5 billion to address its growing elective surgery wait list as part of a catch-up scheme - the COVID Catch-Up Plan - that will see surgical capacity increased to 125 per cent by 2023.
Forty-thousand additional surgeries are set to take place in the next year.
Looking at the nation's rental crisis, it keeps growing as the cost of living keeps rising.
Australian Community Media journalists, who looked at the issue in each state and territory, said "while most people watch the rising value of real estate with interest, anticipation and pleasure, seeing it as a sign of positive economic growth for the future, the flip side is a homelessness crisis that's already Australia-wide".
To politics and royalty, republicans believe Australians don't want Prince Charles to become the nation's head of state after his mother Queen Elizabeth II's record reign ends.
The Australian Republic Movement has released a draft of constitutional amendments, including having up to 11 candidates nominated for president to serve five-year terms.
Meanwhile, the prime minister has been accused of making a racist comment against an opponent during his 2007 pre-selection.
Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells last week made the accusations under parliamentary privilege, claiming Mr Morrison told party members they couldn't have a Lebanese person as a candidate for the NSW seat of Cook.
With the federal budget being handed down last week, refugee and asylum seeker organisations and advocates have criticised the lack of provision in the budget made for refugees and asylum seekers, saying it constituted yet another "step backwards" for the government.
Primary producers are set to save $100 million during the next four years, with the budget giving a tax break for farmers selling carbon credits.
To lighter news, a pumpkin grown as a tribute to a late friend has weighed in as Tasmania's heaviest. Shane Newitt, in the small town of Sorrell, broke his own title with a 731-kilogram whopper.
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*This edition of The Informer was written by The Canberra Times reporter Toby Vue. If you'd like to show your support for the team behind The Informer, why not forward us to a friend?
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