"Please, if it's flooded, forget it," warns the federal Emergency Management Minister attempting to strike a balance between reassuring people in rain-drenched regions of NSW that the Defence Force stands ready if disaster strikes and keeping them off the roads for their own safety.
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Murray Watt faced the media in Queensland on Saturday wanting to focus on some good news, a joint Commonwealth-state funding package worth $170 million for rebuilding Queensland after flooding, but the Bureau of Meteorology had other ideas.
The flood warnings in NSW for the next two days have escalated as rain continues to pour during the first weekend of school holidays in the state. The minister says he doesn't know "how the weather event could pan out, but it could be quite serious over the next couple of days."
Also serious is the nation's supply of live-saving blood, which has fallen to critically low levels as regular donors cancel appointments while battling flu and COVID-19 as the nation approaches a grim milestone of COVID deaths. The projected blood shortfall is estimated at around 3700 O-negative donors, impacting supply in every part of the country.
Kate Waterford, a donor and past blood recipient, told ACM that when she needed a transfusion of the precious O-negative, she felt very conscious that a stranger she would never know was the "absolute hero" helping save her life.
"There are all these people out there who might be crossing paths in a supermarket who actually saved my life and what an incredible act of heroism that is," Ms Waterford said.
Meanwhile, around Australia, protests are taking place in solidarity with those protesting for abortion rights in the United States following the country's Supreme Court overturning the Roe v Wade decision that protected those rights for almost 50 years.
From social media footage taken by the pro-choice protesters, it appears the protests taking place between Hobart and Darwin, and every capital city in between, were peaceful. Many drew the link that their grandmothers first protested for and successfully won the right to the same healthcare rights now being denied. It wasn't so peaceful in US however, with reports of violent attacks against the protests in several cities.
In animal scientific discovery news, the humpback whales are faring better than the bees - which are being exterminated following the varroa mite outbreak.
Scientists speculating on recordings of feeding events by humpback whale megapods could mean their numbers are returning to pre-whaling levels. Even larger groups while feeding could become more common as around 40,000 humpback whales make the journey each year up Australia's east and west coasts from Antarctic waters.
If you're looking for a bit of culture this weekend, reviewer Jane Freebury has given five starts to an irreverent, playful French period drama film called Lost Illusions. The film, which follows an idealistic poet who sets out for Paris and fame and fortune, is an adaptation of the novel Illusions Perdues from the early 17th century and set in the time of the Restoration, but is vastly more modern than it seems, she writes.
*This edition of The Informer was written by ACM federal politics bureau chief Harley Dennett. If you'd like to show your support for the team behind The Informer, why not forward us to a friend?
THE NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW:
- Blood supply at an all-time low due to COVID and flu
- Australia nearing 10,000 COVID-19 deaths
- Intense showers and flash flooding forecast for large parts of east coast
- What Far South Coast's unique humpback whale megapods are telling scientists
- Impressive period piece steeped in modernity
- Canned COVID facility to become temporary housing solution
- Monkeypox symptoms different now: study
- Solidarity in Aust after US abortion shift