Federal Parliament to be cancelled amid growing interstate COVID-19 outbreaks
The next sitting of Federal Parliament will be cancelled because of the risk of coronavirus transmission as cases rise in NSW and Victoria.
Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly told the government that parliamentarians and their staffers coming from interstate could "jeopardise the health situation in the ACT" and "place residents at unnecessary risk of infection".
Parliament was going to sit for a fortnight from August 4 but the next sitting week, in which the government can pass legislation and the opposition can scrutinise its agenda, will now be from August 24.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he did not believe it would be right to exclude parliamentarians from one state.
"Our commonwealth parliament should have representatives from all members of our federation and it is the duty of parliamentarians to attend parliament, if it is scheduled," Mr Morrison said in a statement.
Mr Morrison has written to the Speaker of the House of Representatives to ask for the cancellation while Senator Mathias Cormann will write to the Senate president. Both chambers set sitting weeks on the government's advice.
The government cancelled all sittings from March until August at the height of the coronavirus crisis but later scheduled skeleton sittings to pass its coronavirus stimulus packages, including JobKeeper.
As the virus abated, more sittings were scheduled and restrictions on outside visitors coming into Parliament House were relaxed.
More to come