Anti-vaccination mandate protesters have descended onto the Canberra Airport precinct on Sunday in a bid to meet greet MPs ahead of parliament resuming this week.
It comes as protesters call for five million supporters to converge on Canberra in the coming weeks, following days of campaigning across the city to end COVID mandates and the resignation of parliament.
Travellers have been urged to leave plenty of time to arrive at Canberra Airport and police have setup preparations.
Canberra 🇦🇺 Anti Mandate Rally 💣 A Breakaway Group of Rally Attendees are headed to Canberra Airport, to greet the MPs that are landing for this week's sitting of Parliament. This could be the moment of Truth 🔥👊 pic.twitter.com/F4RaVtIk4e
— 𝙍𝙄𝙎𝙀𝙈𝙀𝙇𝘽𝙊𝙐𝙍𝙉𝙀 (@risemelbourne) February 6, 2022
If you're asking questions about whether being triple vaccinated is needed, here is an explainer.
Staying with COVID and its impact, Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews wants to open international borders as soon as possible but says Australia is not at that point yet.
"We don't have all of the information that we need to be able to take the decision to open, but we are very close," Ms Andrews told ABC's Insiders program on Sunday.
Meanwhile a public health journal has published an evaluation of the effectiveness of the federal government's COVIDSafe app.
"Our analysis showed the app did not add much value to the existing, conventional contact tracing system," the authors said.
Elsewhere in federal politics, Greg Hunt insists a leaked text in which Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce calls the prime minister "a hypocrite and a liar" won't be a distraction when parliament resumes on Tuesday.
Speaking of the PM, he has paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth upon her reaching her 70th year as monarch.
Elsewhere, leading disaster expert has said the tsunami released by last month's volcanic eruption in Tonga should serve as a warning for Australia to be prepared.
Natural hazards specialist Andrew Gissing - a Macquarie University research fellow who has worked on tsunami emergency plans for the NSW, Victorian and Australian governments - said Australians should be under no illusions that tsunamis pose a serious threat and that they occur more frequently than realised.
Staying with the natural world, citizen scientists have helped researchers track Australia's widespread but elusive echidna population - and their poo - to discover the spiny mammal is more the man about town than realised.
In the case of Cleo Smith, who disappeared from a West Australian campsite, the four-year-old's mother has recalled her anguish when realising "someone had my baby".
Also in WA, a bushfire continues to threaten the small railway town of Hester in the state's southwest.
The community's 100 or so residents were warned it was too late to flee homes and urged to take shelter inside on Saturday evening.
In video-based news, check out this week's best videos from around Australia, which are nautical themed.
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*This edition of The Informer was written by 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
THE NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW:
- Camilla will be Queen, Queen confirms
- Anti-vax protesters call for 5 million reinforcements to overthrow parliament
- NSW records 7893 COVID-19 cases, 28 deaths
- Why you really need to be triple-vaxxed
- 'Too late to leave', fire nears WA town
- Koalas face a 'death by a 1000 cuts'
- Spoiler alert: We need to talk about Wordle
- Who is Joe Rogan, and why does Spotify love him so much?
