Morning mail: Nationals leadership rumblings, NSW mask rules, snorkelling in the Daintree

Good morning. Weeks of leadership rumblings within the Nationals are expected to come to a head today, with some party members saying Barnaby Joyce could retake the top job from Michael McCormack. The other most likely leadership contender, David Littleproud, has told colleagues that as deputy leader he cannot challenge McCormack. But Littleproud could be clear to run if McCormack spilled his own leadership or chose not to stand again after a successful no-confidence motion in the Nationals party room. Two Nationals MPs have told Guardian Australia that Joyce has or is very close to having the numbers to topple McCormack. “I think he’s really close,” one said. “I think he’s always been close but I have heard increased noise over the last two weeks.”

Australia’s troubled vaccine rollout will be discussed in an emergency national cabinet meeting by federal, state and territory leaders today. The vice president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Chris Moy, urged anyone who has had their first dose of AstraZeneca not to waste it by cancelling their second shot in response to Thursday’s updated federal health advice, which recommended the vaccine not be administered to under 60s. “The bottom line is the risk of getting a clot from the second dose is one-tenth of an already tiny risk on the first one. And you need [the second shot] for long-term protection and to protect yourself from the variants. “You’re kind of almost wasting the first dose if you don’t have the second. It’s a no-brainer – for God’s sake have it.”

Sydney residents will need to wear masks indoors across large swathes of the city after the eastern suburbs cluster grew to nine cases over the weekend. Three new cases were recorded yesterday, plus one flagged by authorities on Saturday, as Queensland recorded one local case.

Abroad, Covid vaccination programs are seeing success – the UK is potentially removing quarantine requirements for those who are fully vaccinated, with more than 62m residents now having received one or two doses. Meanwhile Brazil has hit yet another grim milestone, surpassing 500,000 Covid deaths, with protests over the weekend against the response of Jair Bolsonaro’s administration to the pandemic.

Australia

Two Indigenous men from Arnhem Land have lodged complaint against the Australian Electoral Commission, alleging it has suppressed votes through indirect discrimination. They say the AEC’s requirement for people to have a street number and postal address is discriminatory.

Four-year-old Tharnicaa Murugappan has been released from hospital two weeks after being medically evacuated from Christmas Island. The Murugappan family will now be held in community detention in Western Australia as a campaign for their release and return to their adopted home in Biloela continues.

Marise Payne has said that net zero emissions as soon possible and preferably by 2050 is “the broad position of the Australian government”, playing down claims by the Nationals their agreement wasn’t sought or given for a net zero target.

The world

Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party received what one of its own MPs called a “slap in the face” in regional and department elections on Sunday. An estimated 68% of voters shunned the polling stations – an unprecedented rate of abstention.

World powers attempting to revive the Iran nuclear deal have warned of difficulties as they met for the first time since the election of Ebrahim Raisi as Iranian president, a hardline conservative cleric deeply antagonistic towards the west.

Phuket is racing to vaccinate 70% of the population by 1 July so it can become the first Thai destination to reopen to foreign tourists.

A body has been found in Belgium in the search for fugitive far-right soldier Jurgen Conings. He was the target of a huge manhunt after threatening a senior virologist involved in the country’s Covid-19 program and hoarding heavy weaponry.

Recommended reads

The Great Barrier Reef gets all the attention, but in tropical north Queensland’s pristine rivers, Christine Retschlag is equally immersed. She takes us through her journey in cane and croc country, en route to a river drift snorkel in the Daintree – the world’s oldest rainforest. “Artemis gives us instructions for the journey ahead, reminding us that with the river, like life, it’s important to go with the flow. She tells us to ignore our instincts and ‘lean in’ should we be headed for a tree or rock, to avoid crashing or rolling. This is turning into a motivational speech.”

Many of us are feeling anxious, yet unsure what exactly we are worried about. Covid has ushered in a world filled with indefinable threats. “Individually and collectively, we were faced with our existential fragility. As news of the pandemic spread like wildfire, our collective mind fragmented and pandemonium ensued,” writes Gill Straker and Jacqui Winship. “Just as individuals experiencing a psychological breakdown manifest distorted beliefs and irrational behaviour, as a collective we began to manifest these too. Out of control of the microscopic danger that threatened us, people the world over had a very human response – we desperately tried to regain a sense of control via, of all things, toilet paper.”

The Mummy is the perfect rewatch movie – both for the comfort in its familiarity and in the new details you appreciate on each viewing, says Elizabeth Flux, who has had the film playing in the background of her life since she was 10 years old. “The older I get, the more I realise that they captured lightning in a bottle with this film … It’s tightly written, perfectly cast and as they walk the difficult line between horror and goofy comedy, somehow everyone is tonally on the same page. I don’t just love The Mummy for the nostalgia of it all – it’s an objectively good film – but memories of the different times I’ve watched it do run like a golden thread through my life.”

Listen

Australia’s first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under has been marred by controversies around race and a lack of diversity, but it also saw the debut of the show’s first Aboriginal drag queen: Biripi and Worimi queen JoJo Zaho. In today’s Full Story, JoJo talks to Laura Murphy-Oates about the power of First Nations drag and the journey to Drag Race fame.

Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.

Sport

Crowds are expected to return to AFL games in Melbourne this weekend for the Richmond v St Kilda clash on Friday. It has been a month since members of the public have been allowed into AFL venues in the capital city. The AFL has applied to the Victorian government for up to 50% crowd capacity but the figure is likely to be between 20% and 30%.

Italy has defeated Wales 1-0 in and Switzerland triumphed over Turkey 3-1 in the latest round of the Euro 2020.

Media roundup

South Australia is facing a “history-making budget deficit of $1.8bn” due to the impact of Covid, reports the Advertiser, ahead of the state’s budget on Tuesday. Former ministers should be banned from lobbying roles for at least three years to bring them in line with restrictions on senior business executives and prevent the potential misuse of confidential information, say legal experts in the Australian. And the Australian Financial Review reports that Australia’s $5bn cruise ship season is in strife after another cruise line has pulled out of the 2021 season because of ongoing border closures.

Coming up

The national cabinet is meeting about Covid vaccines following changed advice on AstraZeneca.

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