What we learned today, Saturday 2 April
We will leave our live coverage here for today. This is what happened:
- Australia and India signed an interim trade deal, which will cut tariffs on 85% of Australian exports to India and duties on 96% of Indian exports to Australia.
- The prime minister, Scott Morrison, said signing a deal with India, which is still talking to Russia, was not a betrayal of Ukraine.
- Dr Ian Fry from the Australian National University has been named the UN special rapporteur for human rights and climate change.
- Australia reported 25 deaths of people with Covid-19.
- Queensland called on the federal government to commit to flood recovery and rebuilding funding before calling the election, lest the funds get caught up in caretaker mode.
- A special committee of the federal Liberal party has selected nine candidates, despite an active legal challenge about the validity of its previous actions.
- And a combination of king tides and strong winds has battered beaches on Sydney and the NSW Central Coast.
I’ll leave you on the reminder that daylight savings ends tomorrow, so if you wake up cranky it’s because you lost an hour overnight.
That’s all from us. We’ll see you tomorrow.
Updated
A bit of an update on the weather, with a kernel of good news: Sydney police called off the search for a missing sailor after it was revealed that the yacht capsized at Bronte beach had been ripped from the dock with no one on board.
Via AAP:
Huge swells have lashed Sydney, swallowing beaches under tide waters and ripping boats from their moorings inside the harbour.
Bondi and Clovelly beaches were flooded over and waves battered the walls of the beachside Coogee surf club on Saturday morning.
Inside the harbour near the Manly ferry wharf, boats had been ripped from their moorings, with some vessels washed up on the nearby beach.
A sailing vessel was spotted capsized at Bronte beach with emergency services launching a search for potentially missing crew.
But the search was cancelled after the boat’s owner came forward to say it had been ripped from its dock south at Gordons Bay due to the heavy seas.
The Bureau of Meteorology has a hazardous surf warning in place for the NSW coast as winds calmed in Sydney after a night of huge gusts, including one at 74 km/h inside Sydney Harbour.
Across NSW, State Emergency Service crews performed six flood rescues in the 24 hours up to 5am Saturday, with the agency also receiving 468 calls for help over that period.
Updated
