Chadstone outbreak spreads to Kilmore cafe as state records 15 new cases, one death

"My gut feeling is it will be a line ball. It's not certain one way or the other," he told reporters on Monday.

A large cluster connected to Chadstone Shopping Centre has spread to regional Victoria, with a staff member at a cafe in Kilmore testing positive to COVID-19 after an infected customer dined there for 45 minutes last week.

Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton yesterday confirmed that someone from metropolitan Melbourne connected to the Chadstone outbreak had visited Oddfellows Cafe in Kilmore, in Mitchell Shire north of Melbourne, between 7am and 10am last Wednesday.

The person had been granted permission to travel to Kilmore to see family, but visitors from Melbourne are not permitted to dine out if allowed into regional areas for permitted reasons.

Oddfellows Cafe confirmed a staff member had tested positive after being exposed to a customer with COVID-19.

Business owner Ms Short said she had made the decision to close her business until further notice, with all staff in quarantine after the "devastating" news.

"Please stay safe everyone, we are a small community that this could spread very quickly in. If unsure stay home, get tested, I can't stress it enough."

Earlier in the day on Monday, Ms Short expressed her frustration that her employees and other customers had been put at risk.

"We've worked so hard to keep our business open and following all the guidelines through the whole pandemic, to say I'm upset this has happened when it shouldn't of (sic) is an understatement," she said.

Professor Sutton said the outbreak included three customers who shopped at The Butcher Club in Chadstone, who most likely caught it from infectious staff who they stood very close to.

The new case numbers come as the federal government prepares to deliver its budget later on Tuesday, with a focus on jobs.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Tuesday morning the nation now has a two-speed economy. "We have Victoria and we have the rest," he said.

"But, fortunately, in Victoria, the number of daily cases has been coming down, and those restrictions have started to ease. And that will see more people in Victoria get back to work, just as we've seen more people around the rest of the country get back to work," Mr Frydenberg told reporters on Tuesday morning.

Federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese said his party would create an Australian Centre for Disease Control to handle future pandemics if it wins the next election.

The Australian Medical Association called for one after Victoria's breach of hotel quarantine infection control led to a deadly second COVID-19 wave.

On Tuesday morning, Mr Albanese said he hoped the Morrison government would pick up the idea, but committed to a CDC under a Labor government as Australia was the only country in the OECD without one.

"This pandemic, this once-in-a-century pandemic, we were unprepared for. We hadn't had an exercise of going through a crisis … exercise, as is recommended by the World Health Organisation since 2008," Mr Albanese told ABC's Radio National.

"We were massively underprepared. We need to make sure that we are prepared in the future, which is why we're saying that in tonight's budget, and if the government doesn't do it, then a Labor government will establish this according with best practice".

In June, federal Health Minister Greg Hunt dismissed the need for a new body, saying that the Australian model of "embedding" the federal Chief Medical Officer within the national cabinet along with state and territory counterparts had proven effective in suppressing the coronavirus.

The national incident room in Canberra effectively functioned as a Centre for Disease Control, while "being able to draw on the resources of the whole country and the states", Mr Hunt said at the time.

With Mary Ward