Australia news live updates: One Nation dumps Brisbane candidate; Anthony Albanese and Jenny Morrison attend same Easter service; 26 Covid deaths | Australia news

And with that we are going to put this blog to bed – thank you for spending Good Friday with us.

Before we go, let’s re-cap the big ones:

• Federal party leaders attended Good Friday services, amid a campaign trail ‘truce’ for Easter.
• Anthony Albanese, Jenny Morrison and Tony Abbott attended the same Easter service.
• The Centre for Public Integrity warned a federal anti-corruption commission that is unable to hold public hearings would be largely ineffective.
• Huge airport queues moved quickly but Easter flights departed without baggage amid airport staff shortages.
• Golfing great Jack Newton died aged 72.
• More aged care deaths in 2022 than the first two pandemic years combined.
• Liberal senator Ben Small resigned because of dual citizenship.
• One Nation dumped Brisbane candidate Rebecca Lloyd.

I am off – my friends have managed to find the only pub open in Melbourne for dinner – but we will be back tomorrow to do it all again.

Election promises or pork barrelling? Check out the Guardian’s Pork-o-meter:

One Nation has dumped Rebecca Lloyd – their candidate for the seat of Brisbane.

Lloyd, who is aligned with the “freedom movement” has reportedly been ditched because she refused to work with party leaders.

We are chasing more on this and I will bring it to you when we’ve got it.

It comes just days after the Australian Electoral Commission announced it is investigating a Facebook page that is linked to Lloyd and promotes candidates opposed to vaccination mandates:

Fine print casts doubt on AFR and News Corp’s claims about Labor leader. Plus: Leigh Sales quits Twitter, writes Amanda Meade.

The federal government has joined the Victorian government in giving $2 million to the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday appeal.

Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe on Twitter:

Scott Morrison has said on Twitter that two officers involved in yesterday’s crash in Tasmania have been discharged from the hospital.

The crash involved members of the prime minister’s security detail, with the car rolling while carrying four police officers.

One reader from regional Victoria has emailed to say their internet has been down since 2pm.

We are currently not sure what is behind the outage and will bring you more when we have it.

There have been more Covid-19 deaths in residential aged care this year than the first two years of the pandemic combined, AAP reports.

Data from the federal health department released this week showed 1,088 people in residential aged care died so far in 2022.

There were a total of 918 deaths in the centres as of 31 December 2021.

Some 28,028 people have contracted Covid-19 in Australian residential aged care centres since the pandemic started.

AAP has contacted the federal health department for comment.