Sharma labels Deves’s comments on trans people ‘reprehensible’ – as it happened

Wentworth MP Dave Sharma says he didn’t back Liberal senator Claire Chandler’s ‘save women’s sport’ bill.
Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

11.15am BST

What we learned today, 21 April

Just as the day was winding down came the news that Labor leader Anthony Albanese has tested positive for Covid. He’ll isolate at home in Sydney for seven days, and we’ll have to wait and see what impact that has on the campaign. In other news:

• Prime minister Scott Morrison apologised if anyone took offence at him saying he was “blessed” to have children without disabilities.
• Those comments aside, families are being left without the help they need from the NDIS.
• The ongoing saga of Liberal candidate for Wentworth, Katherine Deves, continued, with news attorney general Michaelia Cash rejected changes aimed at excluding transgender people from single-sex sport.
• A Nationals candidate is under fire for telling her congregation she wants to “bring God’s kingdom” to politics.
• The fallout continued over the security deal between Solomon Islands and China, with questions over what Australia could have done.
• Catch up on the day in politics and what the leaders got up to with the Campaign catchup and the daily election briefing.
• And more extreme weather is on the way for Queensland.

See you back here tomorrow, where Amy Remeikis and the politics team will keep you in the loop on all the campaign twists and turns.

Updated at 11.17am BST

10.56am BST

Katharine Murphy on Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s Covid positive plot twist:

While this Covid positive plot twist is not a development Albanese will welcome, or would have wanted, it's hard to say tonight how this will impact the campaign and the vote in four weeks time. It's obviously a disruption, but is it catastrophic?

— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) April 21, 2022

Obviously a bunch of challenges for Labor logistically. Obviously unhelpful for this to happen just as Albanese was getting his campaign legs. But this development also presents some challenges for the PM. Tone? How do you smackdown an absent opponent without that looking OTT?

— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) April 21, 2022

If you are Morrison, do you just charge on like nothing's happened, having a one legged campaign? Seems likely, but what's the impact? Intriguing really. Campaigning in a cave panned out reasonably well for Joe Biden in the end. As they say in the classics, only time will tell.

— Katharine Murphy (@murpharoo) April 21, 2022