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Crossing the line: Did PM ignore border closures for Father’s Day trip?

Scott Morrison has been criticised for “appalling judgment” after going from Canberra to Sydney and back for Father’s Day while both jurisdictions remain locked down.

Sep 07, 2021, updated Sep 07, 2021
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been accused of breaking border restrictions to fly home for a Father's Day visit (Image: ABC).

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been accused of breaking border restrictions to fly home for a Father's Day visit (Image: ABC).

While the prime minister has not broken any rules, former Labor leader Bill Shorten doesn’t think it’s a good look.

“It’s not that he does’t deserve to see his kids, but so does every other Australian,” Shorten told the Nine Network on Tuesday.

“When people are doing it tough, you’ve got to do it tough too.

“You can’t have one rule for Mr Morrison and one rule for everyone else. I just think it’s appalling judgment.”

But the prime minister did not break any rules because he was granted an exemption to return to Canberra after his dash to Sydney for the Father’s Day weekend.

Both jurisdictions have shut their borders to each other amid fears the peak of Australia’s third coronavirus wave is yet to come despite more than 26,000 active cases nationally.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk today declined to comment on Morrison’s trip, saying it was for him to explain. Deputy Premier Steven Miles said he was more concerned with how the Prime Minister spent his working week – and why Queensland was not receiving more vaccines.

Infections in NSW continue to surge with health authorities predicting daily cases will hit a high next week after another 1281 on Monday.

Victoria reached another outbreak-high daily increase of 246 new local cases as Melbourne battles an outbreak.

Nationally, almost 36.43 per cent of population aged 16 and above have been fully vaccinated while 63.16 per cent are covered with a single dose.

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Vaccine rollout co-ordinator John Frewen is confident supply issues that dogged the program have been conquered after the first shipment of Pfizer doses from a UK swap deal arrived.

“We’ve got the supply. We’ve got the distribution networks now,” he said.

There are about 9400 places to get vaccinated across Australia with hopes the figure will rise to more than 10,000 in coming weeks.

“Really it all just does come down now to people turning up,” Lieutenant General Frewen said.

Tasmania is the latest state government to signal it may retain hard borders with jurisdictions experiencing coronavirus outbreaks even when high immunisation rates are achieved.

WA and Queensland have drawn the ire of the federal government for cautious approaches to the national reopening plan which has vaccine targets of 70 and 80 per cent.

Modelling underpinning the agreement doesn’t mention state borders, an increasingly controversial subject as jab rates increase.

The national death toll stands at 1044 after five more people succumbed to the disease in NSW.

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