Saturday 20 / April / 2024
Canberra: Australia's treasurer has warned leaders that the country's economy will suffer if they do not stick to the national plan to reopen from coronavirus lockdowns.
Federal, state and territory governments in July signed off on a roadmap out of the pandemic that will start when 70 per cent of the adult population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
However, some state premiers have since cast doubts over the plan amid recent outbreaks and lockdowns in the nation's major cities, Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne.
In response, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said it could lead to a "ridiculous" situation where Australians could travel freely overseas but not interstate.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will on Wednesday release the national accounts figures for the second quarter of 2021, which are expected by some economists to show the economy shrink.
Australia reported a new record number of COVID-19 cases, as 1,323 new locally-acquired cases had been reported across the country on Sunday morning.
Of the news cases, 1,218 were from New South Wales (NSW), Australia's most populous state with Sydney as the capital city.
Victoria, the second-most populous state with Melbourne as the capital city, reported a further 92 new local cases, and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) recorded another 13, which takes the number of total cases associated with this outbreak in Canberra to 250.
