Federal government considering capped NRL crowds The federal government is considering “decreased capacity” for NRL games, according to deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth. AAP reports that the NSW state government has already ticked off on corporate boxes, for one person per four square metres up to 50 people, being open from this weekend. However, discussions have begun about opening up the grandstands, with ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys aiming for a 1 July return for fans. Coatsworth said it would be easier to maintain social distancing in stadiums than protests, which were given the green light over the weekend. “The important thing of course about the footy is you have a large number of people, like we saw on the weekend with the protests of course, coming together in different parts of the city and then dispersing into the city,” Coatsworth said on the Today Show on the Nine Network. “You can be a little more controlled in a stadium than you can in a protest. “That’s an important thing to note, and we could consider going back to situations of decreased capacity in stadiums. “Ultimately that’s going to be a matter for states and territories, but it is something we are considering now. “Hopefully within before the footy season finishes, that’ll be good.” At this stage, only NSW venues have been given the green light to open up their corporate boxes, with Queensland considering doing likewise. Illicit drug prices soar in Australia as Mexican cartels hit by travel restrictions The Covid-19 pandemic is making it hard for Mexican drug cartels to smuggle cocaine and methamphetamine into Australia, AAP reports. Travel restrictions and ramped-up border security have led to dwindling supplies in Australia and skyrocketing prices. The US Drug Enforcement Administration estimates a kilo of meth was worth between US$90,000 and US$130,000 ($128,000–$185,000) in Australia before the pandemic, but now sells for around US$200,000. Cocaine followed a similar price spike, with dealers passing the rise on to the drug users. “As businesses are having to adjust, every arm of cartels are having to adjust,” the DEA’s Australia attache Kevin Merkel told the Louisville Courier Journal. Australia is the cartel’s “most sought-after illicit drug market”, with Australians more willing to pay a higher price for top-quality Mexican meth than US buyers. Victoria reports no new Covid-19 cases Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has started a media conference. He says there have been 1,687 Covid-19 cases in Victoria – meaning there were no new cases yesterday. There are seven people in hospital, one person is in an ICU. Updated at 1.26am BST FacebookTwitter 28m ago 01:22 In these extraordinary times, the Guardian’s editorial independence has never been more important. Because no one sets our agenda, or edits our editor, we can keep delivering quality, trustworthy, fact-checked journalism each and every day. Free from commercial or political bias, we can report fearlessly on world events and challenge those in power. Your support protects the Guardian’s independence. We believe every one of us deserves equal access to accurate news and calm explanation. No matter how unpredictable the future feels, we will remain with you, delivering high quality news so we can all make critical decisions about our lives, health and security – based on fact, not fiction. Support the Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you. Hi everyone. Thanks to Calla for her work this morning. I’ll be with you for the next few hours. If you want to get in touch, send an email to luke.henriques-gomes@theguardian.com or a message via Twitter: @lukehgomes. I am going to hand over to Luke Henriques-Gomes to take you through the morning. Justine Landis-Hanley Authorities in Western Australia have rejected reports that a woman was “body-slammed” by a guard at Bandyup Women’s Prison prior to suffering a medical episode on Saturday morning. A spokesperson for the WA Department of Justice said that, while the investigation by the Department’s Professional Standards Division is ongoing, “a preliminary assessment has found no evidence of any unreasonable force or an alleged ‘body slam’ incident as reported in the media”. The Departments Professional Standards Division attended Bandyup Women’s Prison and were advised that the prisoner had been found trying to access a vending machine and was ushered back to her cell. The hospitalisation the following day appears to be related to an existing medical condition. The investigation continues tomorrow. A 2018 report by the Inspector of Custodial Services said the prison has “for many years suffered from neglect, indifference, and structural inequality”. If you’re looking to cultivate some positive habits from lockdown, this list might provide some inspiration. Have you also begun jogging, started meal planning, or made a dint in your to-read list? Personally I have only developed, or further entrenched, bad habits. But my baking has never been better. This is the scene at Mount Disappointment this morning. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has called for more support for GPs to battle Covid-19. In a submission to the Covid-19 Senate inquiry, the RACGP asked for a GP representative to be put on the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, to ensure the needs of GPs are represented. The submission also called for the coordination of urgent supplies of PPE and adequate supplies of the flu vaccine; a public information campaign on the importance of not delaying other medical care during the pandemic; and a government campaign on the importance of vaccinations. RACGP President Dr Harry Nespolon said: Because state and territory governments manage the health crisis response and the federal government has primary responsibility for general practice, GPs have not been properly embedded into the wider pandemic response. This is not new, we have been drawing attention to this problem for years. However, the pandemic exposed the full scope of these shortcomings and we believe the role of GPs as frontline health providers must be formally recognised in pandemic preparation, mitigation, response and recovery. GPs know their communities and will be there for patients during and after this pandemic so we should be front and centre. Autistic boy lost in "life-threatening cold" Police are holding a press conference at Mount Disappointment this morning about the search for missing 14-year-old boy, William Callaghan, who has been missing since 2.30pm yesterday and spent the night in the “life-threatening cold”. William has autism and is non-verbal. About 100 people searched for him overnight, many of them volunteers. Sergeant Christine Lalor told reporters at a press conference at Mount Disappointment, 60km north of Melbourne, that it was possible William had gone into someone’s home to seek shelter. William doesn’t verbalise, so if anyone finds him, the best way to communicate with him is just to be patient and calm with him. What we would like to let the public know, William is capable of wandering a fair distance. He does like food and water, and there is a chance that he could go into houses or you know, places to seek food or water. So, if anyone in the area could please check their homes, check their beds. If William is found, please call triple-zero straight away. Obviously, keep him calm and keep him warm. This is very concerning. Obviously, it’s been a cold night. Senior Sergeant Greg Paul from search and rescue said it was life-threateningly cold overnight. Obviously, there’s no sugar-coating it. It was a very cold night last night, life-threatening cold, no doubt about that, down to zero, or close to zero. He said the thick vegetation from bushfire regrowth made it difficult for searchers, but may provide some shelter. There’s an opportunity to stay a little bit warm if you can snuggle up in the undergrowth and try a stay a bit warm and seek a bit of insulation through that forest, so it’s a positive and a negative. But in terms of the actual searching, it’s very difficult countryside. Paul said there was a real risk of hypothermia, particularly if William remains missing for several nights. We’re pulling out everything to try and find this young fellow ... We really don’t want to have this turn badly. We want to find Will as soon as possible. So we really appreciate all the people coming out today last night, searching all night and today, with the sun coming up and the bit of warmth that that brings in, we’re feeling like, you know, it could be a positive day. We hope. Josh Frydenberg also reportedly told Sky News this morning that the federal government’s $150,000 instant asset write-off scheme would be extended until the end of the year. The extension will cost $300m and help 3.5m businesses, AAP reported. Frydenberg told Sky: [They] will be able to go and buy equipment or machinery, other materials for their business – up to $150,000 – and write it off straight away. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has been doorstopped this morning about the end of the free childcare program. He says: What we’re seeing is more people start to use those childcare support services. When we first announced the reform package, the viability of a number of childcare centres was threatened. And we had to ensure that childcare centres could be provided, particularly for children of essential workers, because we needed to get them to the frontline. That support has worked. 99%of childcare businesses remained operational. Now we move to the next stage, which is an effective transition. In other (extremely British) news, PG Tips and Yorkshire Tea are now anti-racist. Considering the colonial history of tea, this is probably the least they could do. We have just passed the first long weekend in 12 weeks in which people were allowed to head up the coast, and Sydney had the traffic jams to show for it. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that “several spots on the M1 remained heavily backed up into the night” as holidaymakers returned form the mid-north coast. The M1 is clogged. Nature is healing. Protesters should "self-monitor" and get tested early, says deputy CMO The federal deputy chief medical officer, Nick Coatsworth, says that everyone who attended a Black Lives Matter protest on the weekend should “self-monitor” and get a Covid-19 test if they experience any symptoms. He says there’s no need to quarantine unless you are unwell. I think perhaps a better approach is to self-monitor. If you were at a protest and you get any sort of symptoms the most important thing is to get tested as soon as possible. Speaking on Radio National, Coatsworth dismissed a suggestion that politicians who attended a protest should not attend parliament, saying that if ordinary Australians can attend work then politicians can attend parliament. There’s no difference between a politician and any other Australian. Our advice on the weekend was don’t attend a protest and if they did they need to self-monitor. Coatsworth said the protests, attended by tens and thousands of people, should not be taken as a signal that other mass gatherings should take place. Even if the protests do not result in a spike, he said that would be “but one indicator” of rates of community spread and would not necessarily mean it was safe for crowds to return to the football or for nightclubs to open up. Asked when crowds would return to the football, he says: “It will be, I think, before the end of the footy season.” He said New Zealand’s lifting of restrictions, after it was declared Covid-free on Monday, should also not be taken as an indicator that Australia was safe to open up. We’re two very different countries and I think there has been a lot of temptation over the past few days to say that we’re in the same race, we’re in a different race ... We have to acknowledge again that the virus is going to set its own timetable, but there are states and territories that have gone to stage three lifting of restrictions very quickly. The education minister, Dan Tehan, has been on ABC News Breakfast this morning, explaining the decision to end the free childcare package on 12 July and stop paying the jobkeeper payment to childcare services from 20 July. Asked if this is a broken promise, when jobkeeper was initially set to last for six months and expire in September, Tehan said the government “always said that we would review jobkeeper”. We said that we would review it in June. We said that we would make changes if it needed to be more targeted. We had discussions with the sector, and it was seen that it was much more equitable to have a transition payment that went right across the sector, which enabled the sector to be able to transition from the relief package that we put in place to these new arrangements ... Now, obviously jobkeeper will be reviewed, and decisions will be made on that after the review. But it was done on consultation with the sector, and it was seen as a much more equitable way for us to be able to provide the transitional support that the sector needs. In some depressing news, a new study published today has found that 75% of Australians hold implicit bias against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The data comes from 10 years of responses to an implicit association test. More than 11,000 responses were analysed. The study found there was no correlation between higher education and a reduction in implicit bias, and those younger than 25 and older than 60 held higher rates of bias than those in the middle. The group with the lowest rates of bias, either towards or against Indigenous peoples, were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples themselves, who “statistically speaking they are unbiased”. Good morning and welcome to our continued live coverage of the coronavirus in Australia. Finance minister Mathias Cormann, treasury boss Dr Steven Kennedy, and officials from the Australian Taxation Office, including taxation commissioner Chris Jordan, will face the Covid-19 Senate inquiry this afternoon to explain the $60bn accounting error in the budget for the jobkeeper program. You’ll recall the $1,500-per-fortnight program was initially forecast to cost $130bn and cover six million workers, but then revised down to a $70bn program with only three million applicants. Today is also the first day back at school for the final cohort of Victorian students. Students in years three to 10 will return to the classroom, and schools have implemented staggered start times and banned access to drinking fountains in an attempt to minimise the spread of any potential infection. Meanwhile, the federal deputy chief medical officer, Nick Coatsworth, said it would take two to three weeks before it was known if the Black Lives Matter protests at the weekend had caused a spike in cases. The Australian Medical Association yesterday called for everyone who attended a protest to quarantine for 14 days, as a precaution. And if you need the reminder: today is Tuesday.