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 varia
Australia’s slow uptake of the COVD-19 vaccine will severely hamper freedom of movement as Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke warns a "relaxed" approach could see the rest of the world open up “faster than us.”
New data revealed by the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday showed 29 per cent of Australians were unlikely or very unlikely to receive the jab.
“I’m quite worried that we’re going to see, after all the hard work that Australians have done, the rest of the world will open up before we do because they’re doing the vaccine rollout better,” Mr Burke told Sky News.
“If the vaccine rollout keeps going so slowly in Australia, then a whole lot of the things we presume will happen with freedom of movement, we’ll get nothing for all the work we’ve put in over the last 12 months in terms of being able to open up again.
“The vaccine hesitancy that has been recorded over the last few days I’m really worried about."
Burke: Minimum wage earners should profit from JobKeeper payments20/05/2021|9min
Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke says employees should also reap the benefits of “huge profits” earned by companies off the back of the federal government’s JobKeeper payments.
The Coalition has so far resisted calls from unions to increase the minimum wage by 3.5 per cent with new data showing a 1.5 per cent increase in wages since March 2020.
“It’s not a recovery if people’s wages are effectively going backwards,” Mr Burke said.
“If the recovery is doing well enough that JobKeeper can be withdrawn, surely the recovery can be doing well enough that workers, particularly workers on the minimum wage, get a share of what’s happening.
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Australia in weaker position because government didn t act on quarantine 06/05/2021|10min
Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke says there is no doubt Australia is in a weaker position because the government didn’t make decisions on expanding quarantine facilities.
Immigration Minister Alex Hawke told The Australian newspaper the federal government is considering a plan to use the Howard Springs quarantine facility solely for repatriations travellers from India. Quarantine has been a commonwealth responsibility for more than 100 years. When the pandemic broke out you had the report that was given to them that made clear Howard Springs is one of the key sites,” Mr Burke told Sky News.