News from Australia live: Ambulance Covid-19 ‘code yellow’ at Cairns Hospital; air tickets at half price in the desire to revive tourism

Inflow of patients with Covid from PNG; $ 1.2 billion tour package announced; a key crossbench senator warns that Prime Minister Porter’s saga will become an ‘albatross around the neck of his government’. Follow the latest updates

• Half-price flights are on offer as Australia aims to boost regional tourism
• In late December, a more realistic goal for all Australians to get the Covid vaccine, says the AMA
• The head of the law office, Minter Ellison, is reportedly leaving power because of Christian Porter
• Follow our global blog on the global coronavirus

1.15 GMT

Australian officials have stopped blaming the cyber attack on the Australian National University in 2018, but said in the investigation that at least five countries could do so.

Marc Ablong, a deputy secretary in the Department of Home Affairs responsible for national resilience and cyber security, said officials were also aware of a much more recent cyber attack on Melbourne University RMIT “and that investigations are ongoing”.

It can often take many months, if not years to pass on a very forensic level to be able to identify and legally prove who an actor is.

The threat is very real, it is becoming more and more real and much more difficult, even for sophisticated organizations … The sophistication and ability of any state or criminal organization to undertake cyber hacking is very real and will only get worse.

1.12 GMT

Qantas says its airline brands will offer up to 32,000 government airline tickets a week as the company celebrates an aviation rescue package for heavy tourism.

Qantas, QantasLink and Jetstar are among the companies offering 50 per cent mid-priced flights to 12 key regional destinations between May and July, after the government awarded $ 1.2 billion in subsidies and payments to support interstate travel.

With the introduction of a vaccine that now gives greater certainty that state borders will remain open, this is the perfect time to provide incentives and get people back on domestic travel, especially given that there will be no more international tourists for another seven months.

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