Scott Morrison and the premiers will discuss strategies for containing localised outbreaks, a timetable for reopening Australia’s arts and entertainment venues, and the return of international students when the national cabinet meets on Friday.
Friday’s meeting comes as Victoria is battling an outbreak of Covid-19 infections. After the ninth consecutive day of double digit cases in the state, the Andrews government initially requested more than 1,000 Australian defence force personnel to door-knock the two Victorian suburbs at the heart of the latest outbreak.
But the state government late on Thursday revised that request down to 200 to assist with testing. Guardian Australia understands the state police union has expressed concern about the ADF assisting in hotel quarantine arrangements, and those concerns are yet to be resolved.
Leaders on Friday will discuss the current arrangements for hotel quarantine. Earlier this week, the chief medical officer, Brendan Murphy, said governments were reviewing the protocols around hotel quarantining after staff members at hotels became infected with Covid-19. Currently, travellers returning from overseas are put in isolation in hotels for two weeks.
Of the new virus cases announced in Victoria overnight, seven are returned travellers in hotel quarantine, nine are linked to known outbreaks, six were uncovered through routine testing and the origin of 11 cases are still under investigation. Two people are in intensive care.
The New South Wales health minister Brad Hazzard has urged people in his home state to avoid visits to Melbourne, and appealed to residents in Victoria to stay close to home.
Ahead of talks with his counterparts on Friday, Morrison struck a bullish note, declaring Australia needed to move ahead with reopening the economy. Leaders will be given an economic update at the national cabinet.
“We’re going ahead,” Morrison told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve built the protections to deal with outbreaks. We can respond to these outbreaks. We can deal with it”.
“We are dealing with the coronavirus, the Covid-19, better than almost any country in the world and that’s got to give us confidence to be able to move ahead”.
Morrison said leaders needed to support one another. “Victoria’s got a challenge at the moment and I want to thank the support that has been provided to Victoria by Gladys Berejiklian in New South Wales and Steven Marshall also in South Australia and I know also Peter Gutwein has reached out and I have no doubt that Anna [Palaszczuk] and Mark [McGowan] have also been lending moral support to that as well”.
“We’ve got to just keep the focus on keeping the economy opening and getting people back into jobs. We’ve got to live alongside Covid, it’s not going anywhere and we now have to look forward and we’ve got the systems and protections in place, as we’re demonstrating even now with the outbreak in Victoria, and I think we’ve just got to keep all that in perspective and we’ve got to keep forging ahead and do that together”.
Morrison on Thursday unveiled a $250m support package for Australia’s arts and cultural sectors, including $90m in government-backed concessional loans to fund new productions that will create jobs during the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said it was important for leaders to try and land a plan to kickstart an industry that has been stalled because of physical distancing requirements and because of a struggle to get insurance.
The federal and Australian Capital Territory governments have also already approved a plan for up to 350 international students to fly to Canberra to resume their studies – the first arrivals since Australia closed its borders to non-citizens and non-residents in March to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
The students will take a charter flight in July to resume studies at the Australian National University and the University of Canberra, the first universities to take up national cabinet’s plan to allow international students under pre-approved pilot programs.
Leaders will discuss progress on that front on Friday.
