The discount will initially apply to interstate flights to 13 key regions, including tourism-dependent parts of Queensland and Western Australia, where notoriously strict border rules hit particularly hard. COVID-19 is an asteroid strike on Australia’s rampant population growth and a moment of truth for the nation’s business model. Australia's flag carrier Qantas has announced that it aims to resume international flights by the end of October 2021. When air filters hum in homes that are bunkers, with kids kept indoors. Climate change threatens heavy pillars of Australian identity: a life lived outdoors, an international role where the country “punches above its weight,” and an emphasis on egalitarianism that, according to some historians, is rooted in Australia’s settlement by convicts. End of an era: Last ever Holden built in Australia goes up for sale. He also questioned how effective the scheme would be in regions that were on the list but which relied heavily on international visitors, such as Far North Queensland. A volunteer firefighter from Tasmania near Cathcart this month. “That means more jobs and investment for the tourism and aviation sectors as Australia heads towards winning our fight against COVID-19 and the restrictions that have hurt so many businesses,” Mr Morrison said today. Join the conversation, you are commenting as, news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site>news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site, mean little to tourism operators who were not on the selected flight routes, Abandoned plane wreckage found on Scotland Mountain Top. The conservative government is still playing down the role of climate change, despite polls showing public anger hitting feverish levels. Very large text size. But that doesn’t mean state borders will no longer be closed. Today is the final day for the Holden brand in Australia. “While the expansion of the vaccination rollout is likely to reduce the spread of the pandemic in Australia there is no guarantee that individual states will cease border closures or quarantine regulations in the event of a renewed outbreak.”, RELATED: How to get your half-price flight, Cairns is one of the Queensland destinations on the list for discounted flights. “And that’s important, because we can’t keep on going through the yoyo of the ups and downs of that,” he said. This last time, as she sat in a vacation home southwest of Melbourne, where smoky haze closed a nearby beach, she told me about a friend driving south from Brisbane, “by all these towns and farms he couldn’t imagine bouncing back.”, Australia, she argued, must accept that the most inhabited parts of the country can no longer be trusted to stay temperate — and, she added, “that means massive changes in what we do and the rhythm of our work and play.”. “As we have seen, several states, notably Queensland and Western Australia, have been very quick on the border closure trigger when an outbreak has occurred,” he said. There’s unity in that, as so many have seen climate change up close and personal. Nationwide News Pty Limited Copyright © 2021. And yet what’s emerging alongside public protest may prove more potent. February 10, 2021 — 1.03pm. Fueled by climate change and the world’s refusal to address it, the fires that have burned across Australia are not just destroying lives, or turning forests as large as nations into ashen moonscapes. “That’s been consistent the position we’ve taken all along and of course that was endorsed by the people of Queensland in the election last October.”. “The first thing the government needs to do is run the economy,” Mr. Gallagher said. Australia: Shares end lower as miners, financials weigh. ... while tourists will be unable to enter Australia. “It would be nice to think that this package will signal the end to state border closures. It covers a rather vaguely defined area of perhaps 245,000 km² (95,000 sq mi) behind the northern coast from the Northern Territory capital of Darwin across to Arnhem Land with the Indian Ocean on the west, the Arafura Sea to the north, and the Gulf of Carpentariato the east, and with th…