Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke says Prime Minister Scott Morrison's complacency in dealing with quarantine issues and the vaccine rollout is directly connected to Victoria’s COVID outbreak.
Victorian health officials believe the outbreak originated from a returned overseas traveller from India who had undergone hotel quarantine in South Australia in April but tested positive for the virus after returning to Melbourne in early May.
Far from politicising the issue, Mr Burke says the Labor Party is holding the government to account for their failures, dismissing Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s claim that the Opposition is “walking away from bipartisanship”.
“The prime minister had two jobs: quarantine and vaccine rollout,” he said.
“His failure to deliver on those two jobs is directly connected to what we’re seeing right now.
“The prime minister became complacent; he had this view that it wasn’t a race – well, it is a race as the new variants come through, getting this done in a timely manner matters.
“Having proper quarantine facilities that can deal with the new variants that are more airborne needs to occur and we were given notice of this ages ago.
“We’re holding the government to account and we’re right to hold them to account.”