Australia news LIVE: US warns of imminent attack from Russia on Ukraine; Sydney industrial action forces cancellation of all train services; The Queen

Victoria has recorded 5611 new cases of COVID-19 and three deaths over the last 24 hours.

Some 361 people are in hospital, with 49 in ICU and 11 on ventilators.

The state’s booster rate is now up to 55 per cent.

Those numbers are a continuation of a trend of falling cases as the state gets on top of its Omicron wave.

You can view full COVID-19 data for Australia here.

Tech billionare Mike Cannon-Brookes says he will continue to work on a takeover bid for energy giant AGL, after the board rejected his proposal this morning.

Cannon-Brookes teamed up with international fund manager Brookfield to launch an audacious takeover bid for Australian energy giant AGL with the intention of setting stronger emissions-reduction targets and forcing the early closures of its remaining coal-fired power stations.

The proposal offered only a 4 per cent premium on the company’s last closing price of $7.16 a share, and was immediately rejected by AGL’s board this morning, who said that it “materially undervalues the company.”

“We continue to work with the board, collaboratively, to see what we can do about that,” Mr Cannon-Brookes told ABC Radio National this morning.

“Ultimately, I believe the decision is up to the shareholders. We are putting our case forward. This is a much less risky and more value to shareholders than the proposed demerger path.”

“It’s obviously disappointing, we’ve been trying to work with the board through the weekend. We think our bid has significant value for shareholders, and it’s a far better option than the demerger that is on the table.

“We strongly believe it will result in lower bills for consumers. We can fund this move ourselves. We can build out the replacement capacity, which is what the government wants to happen. We will create far more jobs in doing the move in the combined entity and obviously the emissions will be far lower. For those who aren’t aware, AGL is the largest emitter in Australia, it represents over 8 per cent of Australia’s emissions. That’s more than every single car on the road, more than all domestic and international aviation. And if it’s a country, it’s bigger than Sweden. We can do it in an economic way that creates jobs and drives prices down. It’s a very sensible thing.”

Mr Cannon-Brookes said he had spoken to state and federal governments about the bid. He described it as sensible both economically and environmentally.

“Obviously we need to sharpen our exact dates, working with the company. That said, we’re fairly confident we can retire coal capacity in 2030 in line with the Paris agreement. AGL will be net zero by 2035. We think we can do that. We have $20 billion to fund the move ourselves. Time-wise, that’s significant earlier than their 2045 date they have.”

He said the bid would involve an investment of between $10 billion and $20 billion in renewables, which would generate the energy required to replace AGL’s coal power plants. Because renewable power is cheaper than coal, he said, this would lead to lower energy prices overall. And because it would phase out aging coal plants, it would increase overall grid reliability, he said.

“Those renewable assets generate power at far cheaper prices than coal does. We know renewables are the cheapest form of power generation.”

“The viability of coal was one of the challenges in our grid, not the other way around. It’s one of the least reliable power sources at the moment due to the fact that most of these plants are very aging. Right? We’re talking 40 5060 year old infrastructure. You know, we barely got to the moon before some of these things were created. So that’s the technology that we’re using to run this thing tends to be they are unreliable. They create challenges this, we’ve seen this many times

“The economics stacks up, the science stacks up. What we require is just the, you know, the gumption to go for and actually make it happen which is what we’re trying to do. It would be the biggest decarbonisation single project that we can find on the planet.“

You can read our story here.

Rail, Tram and Bus Union NSW secretary Alex Claassens has asked the NSW state government to “wake up to your bloody selves”, as the city’s train network is thrown into chaos by a shutdown.

Mr Claassens, who is holding a news conference right now, said an agreement had been reached in the Fair Work Commission late on Saturday, but due to confusion around “altered working” the parties came back before the Commissioner last night.

Explaining altered working, he said: “You know you’re going to work on a particular time, but you don’t quite know the duties you’re going to be doing. It is a complex issue.”

Mr Claassens said he woke up this morning and was expecting there to be some disruptions today but was shocked the rail workforce had been locked out, describing it as “low and dastardly”.

“Our members have got a right to negotiate a fair enterprise agreement,” he said.

“They [the government] have inconvenienced the people of NSW just because it was going to be a little bit difficult.”

Mr Claassens noted the enterprise agreement negotiations had been ongoing since the last one expired in May 2021, and industrial action began in September. He said the union had only been on strike on two occasions, including a four-hour stoppage and an eight-hour overnight stoppage.

He said it would take a couple of hours to “get things moving again” on the network, pending the outcome of the Fair Work Commission proceedings today.

But speaking on 2GB, Transport Minister David Elliott accused the rail union of hijacking the city, and insists the government is not to blame for today’s disruptions.

“They’re hijacking the city,” Mr Elliott told 2GB radio this morning.

“Them blaming me for this is just absolute crap, why would I want the city inconvenienced?”

Mr Elliott described the industrial action as an “unAustralian act” and went on to suggest many commuters would prefer more driverless trains across the network.

“I’m so furious at their spin and their lies. I think we’re gonna have a large standoff right down because they can’t use the city’s transport system for some sort of terrorist like activity,” he said.

You can follow our live coverage here.

Energy giant AGL has responded to Mike Cannon-Brookes’ audacious takeover bid - the tech billionaire hopes to buy the company to accelerate the phase-out of coal - by immediately rejecting it.

In a statement just released to the Australian Stock Exchange, AGL says the bid, a 4 per cent premium on the company’s $7.16 share price, “materially undervalues the company”.

AGL Energy Chairman Peter Botten said, “The proposal does not offer an adequate premium for a change of control and is not in the best interests of AGL Energy shareholders.

“Under the Unsolicited Proposal the Board believes AGL Energy shareholders would be forgoing the opportunity to realise potential future value via AGL Energy’s proposed demerger as both proposed organisations pursue decisive action on decarbonisation.”

You can read our story here.

The Rail, Tram and Bus Union claims today’s “rail chaos” is due to the state government deciding to shut down the train network, not as a result of rail worker action.

RTBU NSW secretary Alex Claassens says the decision was a “dummy spit” by the NSW government.

Mr Claassens is holding a news conference right now - you can watch it in our Sydney train strike live blog.

“Workers were prepared to take protected industrial action, but only transport management would have noticed the impact, not commuters,” he said in a statement this morning.

“We’re ready to drive the trains whenever the NSW government will let us.”

Issues considered sticking points by the RTBU in current enterprise agreement negotiations include workers wanting a commitment that no train services or lines will be lost if privatisation occurs, workers seeking a guarantee that any changes to services will leave them “as safe or safer” and workers wanting a commitment to maintain the existing level of hygiene with full-time jobs.

Mr Claassens said the union had been trying to negotiate an enterprise agreement that “enshrines safety” on the train network and wants the NSW government to start resolving the “laundry list of safety and employment issues workers have raised”.

“We’ve been taking industrial action since September, and we’ve always tried to deliver a service to the people of NSW,” he said on 2GB radio this morning, noting members had arrived at 2am prepared to work.

“They [the government] want to use this to prove a point.

“For anybody to accuse us of not acting safely is just absolutely low.”

With the last of Australia’s international border restrictions falling off for vaccinated international travellers on Monday, Melbourne Airport was ready to welcome them to the city.

The first international flight into Melbourne, Singapore Airlines flight SQ227 from Singapore, was set to touch down on the tarmac at 8.15am.

Airport aviation executive Lorie Angus joined restaurateurs Frank Camorra and Shane Delia in the international arrivals hall, ready to welcome passengers.

A band, complete with saxophonist and piano accordionist, played music as media filed in.

“It’s been 23 long months before we’ve been able to invite international tourists back into Australia. So we have had a small number of flights going with Australian residents returning home, but this is truly now the first time that we’re open for business and that anyone can arrive into Australia from today,” Ms Angus said.

The aviation chief said 12 international flights would land at Melbourne Airport on Monday, and that would scale up through the coming weeks.

Airport chief executive Lyell Strambi cautioned Australians “not to expect a bumper reopening” for international travel on Sunday.

“We only have about 15 per cent of international travel back thus far. The announcement really was two weeks ago, so airlines need more time to spool up to get their aircraft dedicated to Australia and get the network flying again. So we’ll see a slow increase over the next couple of months leading into Easter,” Ms Angus said.

“I mean, we’ve really been closed for business for almost two years. So today’s the day that we’re fully open. You can see that the staff are excited.“

She said she expected to see international flights into Australia ramping up more significantly in the next scheduled season, through April to May.

Clive Palmer has spent more than $31 million since August on political attack advertising for his United Australia Party, dwarfing the outlay of the major parties and putting him on track to fulfil his promise to run the most expensive election campaign in the nation’s history.

The advertising blitz in the lead-up to an expected May election has been described as “obscene” and “dangerous for democracy” by former Appeal Court judge and chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, Anthony Whealy, QC.

Television ads urging viewers to back the UAP have been running in most capital cities for months, but Mr Palmer is also spending big in metro and national newspapers such as The Australian, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, and in online publications.

Figures obtained from Nielsen Ad Intel, which tracks ad spending across metro TV, print, radio and digital, show Labor has spent just $266,494 on party ads since August and the Liberal Party $246,133.

UAP has spent more than 100 times more, and almost as much as it spent in the entire 2019 election campaign on advertising. The party’s spend on party advertising has been $31.3 million between August 1 to February 18 with the election still not called, and approximately three months away, close to the $31.6 million it spent in 2019.

UAP leader Craig Kelly said the party was relying solely on Mr Palmer’s deep pockets to finance the advertising blitz. “We are going as hard as we can. To get noticed in an election campaign you need to do that. We are doing this to give ourselves a chance,” Mr Kelly said.

Australian Electoral Commission records show his company, Mineralogy, tipped more than $80 million into UAP’s 2019 campaign, a figure that includes unspecified expenditure over and above the advertising costs tracked by Nielsen.

Despite the outlay, UAP failed to win a single seat.

Read more here.

From Monday, Australia will open its borders to foreign visitors without requiring them to quarantine for the first time in two years, as long as they are double vaccinated against COVID-19.

About 50 international flights are expected to land at Sydney Airport on Monday.

The sense of relief from industry heavyweights is palpable. But officials have warned that while the opening of borders brings hope, it will take years for the industry to recover and governments both state and federal will need to continue to dig deep to support what was the country’s fourth-biggest international money spinner in 2019.

“It’s a huge surge of hope for the industry,” said Margy Osmond, chief executive officer of the Tourism & Transport Forum Australia.

“It’s been losing $4 billion a month during the pandemic due to the lack of international visitors.

The bulk of interest from overseas travellers is expected to come from the UK, Europe and the US given that key markets China and New Zealand remain closed.

Read more here.