Federal parliament to sit next week despite Covid lockdown in Canberra
The federal parliament will sit as scheduled next week, despite the ACT lockdown, as the government faces deadlines on key pieces of legislation it must have passed.
The sitting had been placed in limbo after the ACT went into lockdown at the end of last week, following its first positive community-transmitted Covid case in 14 months.
Since then, the ACT lockdown had been extended as case numbers have grown, and while the parliament had not been listed as an exposure site, senior Labor senator Katy Gallagher’s 14-year-old daughter had been revealed as one of the latest cases.
The sitting would run with minimum MPs in both houses of parliament, with only those who stayed in the capital in anticipation of the next sitting expected to take part. Both Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese remained in Canberra, given New South Wales’ lockdown, although Barnaby Joyce was locked down in Armidale.
In the Senate, arrangements were a little more complex. The government was still working on its arrangements, with no decision made as yet on whether Simon Birmingham would travel from South Australia. The NSW Labor senator Kristina Keneally had remained in isolation in Canberra as a contingency, with Penny Wong expected to miss the coming sitting. Gallagher would now not attend, given her daughter’s diagnosis.
Travel into the capital had become even more difficult with the lockdown and its declaration as a red zone, complicating matters for MPs who had expected to be able to travel into the territory by quarantining in their homes.
Strict social distancing procedures had already been put in place in the parliament, with only minimal staffing and attendance allowed, with masks mandatory throughout, expect when MPs were speaking on the floor.
Electorate offices were equipped with the necessary connections for virtual attendance last year, meaning those MPs who could not travel to Canberra, could still attend through video link.
The second week of scheduled sittings remained uncertain, with the main focus on passing the counter-terrorism legislation amendment bill, to address sunset clauses in the original legislation, which were set to expire on 7 September.
Without the extension, powers, including those related to stop, search and seizure, declared areas and preventive detention set out in the original bill, would no longer be legal.
The ACT chief minister, Andrew Barr, had previously stated his desire for the sitting to be cancelled, telling reporters on Tuesday it was his “preference” the parliament didn’t sit “unless they absolutely had to”.
“But my starting point would be now is probably not the time for the federal parliament to return,” he said then.
By Wednesday, Barr had softened and said he understood any parliament sitting would be “absolutely limited numbers”.
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He was told of the decision to push ahead with the sitting by the prime minister ahead of the news being made public.
The federal parliament had been designated an essential workplace under the ACT Health rules, although it remained closed to the public.
Gallagher, who chairs the Senate committee looking at the government’s Covid response, said she had so far tested negative and was not thought to have passed it on to any other MPs, having been in lockdown in Canberra. She called for children to be vaccinated as soon as possible.
“My family is not special, we are just like every other Australian family, we’ve been touched by Covid now,” she said.
“I’m angry that it’s come to this, that my children are so vulnerable because we’ve got such low vaccination rate and I just think there’s plenty of parents around Australia that are in the same boat as I am, maybe not directly touched by Covid but anxious and worried about what this virus means for our young people.”
The prime minister wished her family well.
“To senator Gallagher, I can understand she’s terribly upset about the fact that one of her own children has been affected with Covid,” he said.
“Any parent – I can understand that – would be absolutely heartbreaking,
and I wish Evie and the family all the best for a speedy recovery.”
Barr did not believe any parliamentarians were secondary contacts of Gallagher.
Canberra authorities announced 22 new Covid cases on Wednesday, with all linked to existing cases. Four of the 67 total cases in the ACT’s outbreak remained under investigation. About 6% of the population – 12,500 people – had been placed in home quarantine with exposure sites including popular bars, shopping centres and schools. Fifteen cases were now linked to Lyneham high school while new cases who attended St Thomas Aquinas primary, Harrison school and the University of Canberra senior secondary college had been identified.
Canberra had seen increased demand for vaccinations, with Barr reporting one-third of the eligible population had received two doses of vaccine, while 57% have received one dose.