Australia live news updates: Novak Djokovic meets immigration officials in Melbourne amid legal battle; Victoria reports 23 Covid deaths and NSW 20

And here are the Victorian Covid case numbers: 23 people have died, and there are 115 people in intensive care. There were 25,526 positive cases, 12,857 of those results are from rapid antigen tests.

“Although Angus Taylor’s interest in Jam Land is through an indirect shareholding, it puts him in the unusual position of being connected to a case challenging the decision of one of his government’s own ministers,” Lisa Cox and Anne Davies write:

Here are today’s Covid numbers from New South Wales. Twenty lives lost, those poor families. There were 48,768 cases, 21,748 of them from rapid antigen tests.

NSW Health says almost 16,000 of those rapid test results are from the past week. They also say there may be some doubling up of numbers, where people have had a rapid test and a PCR test. It’s getting harder to understand the meaning of these numbers.

Hillsong church says the singing and dancing at their youth summer camp bears no resemblance to a music festival. This is Sian Cain’s piece from yesterday – somehow I’d missed seeing the video footage.

Oh yeah, totally doesn’t look anything like a music festival:

Have any of you ditched your car? I’m thinking about it. Shelley Hepworth has written about her experiences with a car-sharing app – it sounds more complicated than I thought:

Immigration officials are interviewing Novak Djokovic now in Melbourne, ahead of that 10.15am hearing.

Serbia’s foreign ministry earlier said Djokovic had been “lured to Australia to be humiliated”.

It said: “Novak Djokovic is not a criminal, terrorist or illegal migrant, but he was treated that way by the Australian authorities, which is causing understandable indignation of his fans and citizens of Serbia.”

Meanwhile, in Belgrade … Novak Djokovic’s very enthusiastic fans have reacted to his second visa cancellation.

To some of them, Djokovic is a “symbol of the free world”, and the situation is “shameful”.

But while Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, denounced it as a “political witch-hunt”, there are signs the government is starting to distance itself from the player, Jon Henley writes:

“Double-dose vaccination rates among people with disability may be as low as 50% in some regional and remote local government areas,” Luke Henriques-Gomes writes:

While close contacts around the country have been allowed to go back to work after the federal government pushed for more relaxed isolation rules, a South Australian meatworks went further.

People who were Covid positive were allowed to go back to work. Peter Hannam writes:

Workers who tested positive to Covid were forced to wear yellow hairnets to identify themselves.

Extraordinary. Read all about it here:

Police are preparing for “intense protests” at Old Parliament House today, AAP reports.

The so-called sovereign citizens movement has been encroaching on the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra and causing trouble ever since that fire was lit against the doors of Old Parliament House in December.

I’ll keep an eye on it and let you know what happens.

The legendary Malcolm Farr has cast an eagle eye over the Novak Djokovic saga, and prime minister Scott Morrison’s role in it.

The damage to Australian tourism and Australian sport caused by a single, stubborn tennis player and a hesitant federal government could require a formal inquiry to sort out.

Some more details on this morning’s court hearing for Novak Djokovic – we’ll be bringing it to you as it happens:

Good morning, and welcome to your weekend. On the news front, it’s sure to be a relaxing ride. There’s not much going on, is there?

Oh, wait.

Late yesterday we heard tennis star Novak Djokovic’s visa was cancelled – again.

After a week of tortuous twists and turns, the immigration minister, Alex Hawke, cancelled it “on health and good order grounds, on the basis that it was in the public interest to do so”.

The world’s No 1 player is expected to be interviewed by immigration officials in Melbourne at 8am. He is then expected to be returned to immigration detention.

A hearing on the matter is listed in the federal court at 10.15am. A final result is expected on Sunday afternoon.

The Serbian president, Aleksandar Vucic, has accused the Australian government of “harassing” and “maltreating” Djokovic. Djokovic’s former coach and mentor, Niki Pilic, described the situation as “shameful” and said Djokovic was being treated like a “criminal.”

In the meantime, here’s Paul Karp’s take.

We’ll bring you the latest Covid figures, even if the case numbers have somewhat lost their connection to reality, and we’re keeping an eye on shortages of … frankly, everything, including common sense on some fronts.

And as always, I’ll try to find some nuggets of joy (or weirdness) to sprinkle through the news.