“The Government’s border testing regime is a complete circus,” according to ACT Leader David Seymour.
Mr Seymour was responding to the news that a maintenance worker at the Rydges Hotel managed isolation facility has tested positive for Covid-19 and is not linked to the community cluster discovered last week.
“The only reason we haven’t seen more cases appearing at the border is because it wasn’t a requirement for border staff to be tested.
“The Government completely dropped the ball when it failed to require testing for the people who were most likely to get Covid-19. This Government couldn’t run a bath, let alone the world’s smartest borders.
“The Government has one job: keep the virus out of our community so we can avoid lockdowns. It has failed and we are all paying the price.
“Lockdowns have massive costs for households and businesses and create huge uncertainty.
“The Government has spent the last 100 days congratulating itself and navel-gazing instead of achieving world-leading testing, tracing and isolation.
“ACT has set out five principles for better public health: stop preaching fear, have an open debate about our national strategy, treat travel to different countries differently based on risk, use better technology, and use private sector solutions for testing, tracing and isolation.
“The Government must improve its public health response so we can avoid future lockdowns and businesses and households can have the certainty they need.”