Evening News Bulletin 8 November 2024

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TRANSCRIPT
In this bulletin;
A nationwide passport system outage causes major airport delays;
Low vaccination rates behind Australia’s whooping cough epidemic;
And in football, uncertainty over young star Alex Robertson’s future with the Socceroos.
Australia’s international airports have been hit by a technical outage at immigration counters causing delays for passengers.
The outage at the automated kiosks for identity and facial recognition has caused processing delays for both departing and returning passengers.
The Australian Border Force says passengers are being processed manually, and the system is slowly returning online.
There have been lengthy queues at Sydney and Melbourne international airports.
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A Qantas plane has made an emergency landing at Sydney Airport after passengers heard a loud bang from one of its engines.
Qantas engineers have conducted a preliminary inspection of the engine and confirmed it was a contained engine failure, not an explosion.
Fire and Rescue crews are also responding to a contained grassfire near Sydney Airport’s third runway, it is not confirmed if it was sparked by the emergency landing.
The plane was heading for Brisbane before it made the emergency landing.
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Australia is experiencing its worst whooping cough epidemic on record, with more than 41,000 confirmed cases so far this year.
Experts say the increase is being driven by school children as childhood vaccination rates dip.
Data from the National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System shows a major spike in whooping cough among children aged 10 to 14, accounting for almost 40 per cent of cases recorded this year.
In 2015, Catherine Hughes’ one-month-old son died from whooping cough.
Young infants are most at risk of serious disease and death before they get their first dose of the vaccine at two months old.
Ms Hughes is now an ardent campaigner for vaccination.
“I think with covid, it’s been easy to forget about these other diseases and other infections but… we want to shine a light on the dangers of whooping cough during a year where we are in the middle of an epidemic. We want people to check with their G-P or their pharmacist to find out if they are up to date with their whooping cough vaccine.”
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National Cabinet has agreed to a minimum age of 16 for social media in Australia, with legislation to be introduced before the end of the month.
State and Territory leaders unanimously agreed with the Prime Minister’s proposal, despite Tasmania indicating a preference for the minimum age to be set at 14.
The legislation will establish a minimum age and put the obligation of enforcing the ban on social media services, as well as bolster privacy protections.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland says the ban will still allow kids access to some educational content.
“National Cabinet also noted that this legislation would strike a balance between minimising the harms experienced by young people during a critical period of their development, whilst also supporting their access to benefits as well. It is a national challenge that requires national leadership and that’s why we are working closely with the states and territories and taking strong action.”
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In football, Socceroos coach Tony Popovic says Alex Robertson has to decide which country he wants to play for.
The 21-year-old has made himself unavailable for the Socceroos squad for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Robertson has played two matches for Australia, but they were both in friendlies prior to him turning 21, meaning he can still elect to play for any of the three other countries he is eligible for- England, Scotland, or Peru.
Rhyan Grant is amongst those to have earned a recall to Popovic’s 26-man sqaud for the upcoming qualifiers, whilst Nestory Irankunda and Keanu Baccus are the biggest names to miss out.