Christmas travel plans up in the air after Sydney cluster grows to 17 and Qld, WA, Victoria and Tasmania announce new quarantine measures
- Border restrictions throw Christmas plans into chaos
- Northern beaches residents told to stay home
- Sydney coronavirus hotspots
- Follow global Covid-19 updates
9.24pm GMT
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is also telling people (and the states) to be cautious but not frightened (while saying everything is going great with the economy).
“As the health authorities go about their contact tracing and their world- class testing regime we do note that there will be more cases,” he told the Seven network.
9.07pm GMT
Trade minister Simon Birmingham told the ABC this morning that states should “exercise restraint” when it came to border closures with NSW.
Look, we urge other states and territories to exercise some restraint in relation to border closures. Let’s recognise that New South Wales has shown an exemplary capacity to get on top of these clusters.
Their systems, their processes, that lead to the tracing, the contact tracing, the isolating, really are quite exceptional and so we should have confidence they can do it again.
We haven’t assumed that Covid has gone from the face of Australia forever. We do recognise these threats, these uncertainties remain, and that’s built into the assumptions there.
The budget update saw the economy growing stronger than previously forecast, employment and jobs growth growing stronger than previously forecast, and that means we’ve got more Australians in work, fewer people needing to receive payments, more taxes coming in, this is of course strong, all strong signs of recovery and what we want to do is make sure we keep it going as strongly as possible.
Continue reading…Christmas travel plans up in the air after Sydney cluster grows to 17 and Qld, WA, Victoria and Tasmania announce new quarantine measuresBorder restrictions throw Christmas plans into chaosNorthern beaches residents told to stay homeSydney coronavirus hotspotsFollow global Covid-19 updates 9.24pm GMTTreasurer Josh Frydenberg is also telling people (and the states) to be cautious but not frightened (while saying everything is going great with the economy).“As the health authorities go about their contact tracing and their world- class testing regime we do note that there will be more cases,” he told the Seven network. 9.07pm GMTTrade minister Simon Birmingham told the ABC this morning that states should “exercise restraint” when it came to border closures with NSW.Look, we urge other states and territories to exercise some restraint in relation to border closures. Let’s recognise that New South Wales has shown an exemplary capacity to get on top of these clusters.Their systems, their processes, that lead to the tracing, the contact tracing, the isolating, really are quite exceptional and so we should have confidence they can do it again.We haven’t assumed that Covid has gone from the face of Australia forever. We do recognise these threats, these uncertainties remain, and that’s built into the assumptions there.The budget update saw the economy growing stronger than previously forecast, employment and jobs growth growing stronger than previously forecast, and that means we’ve got more Australians in work, fewer people needing to receive payments, more taxes coming in, this is of course strong, all strong signs of recovery and what we want to do is make sure we keep it going as strongly as possible. Continue reading…