Scott Morrison calls snap national cabinet to discuss omicron

A snap national cabinet has been called to discuss Omicron, with Scott Morrison urging premiers to hold their nerve on borders, while also conceding some restrictions will continue to be part of ‘living with the virus’.

Premiers will be urged to hold their nerve on state borders and to give “calm and consistent” messages about travel arrangements at a snap national cabinet meeting to discuss the omicron variant.

In what Prime Minister Scott Morrison dubbed an “informal meeting” set for Wednesday, there will be updates regarding new medical information about the new variant as it spreads across the nation.

The previous meeting, held on December 10, was expected to be the final one for the year, with National Cabinet not due to meet again until February.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called a snap meeting of national cabinet. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Mr Morrison said the purpose was to give an update to state and territories on the most recent available information on Omicron.

“It’s not unusual that we would be meeting a little bit more regularly with Omicron being where it is,” he said.

“When we last met we made some decisions and it’s a good opportunity to update on all of that before Christmas.”

He said he would also urge premiers to allow for greater certainty around travel arrangements as Christmas approaches.

“Australians need to know that if they’re going to get on a plane and go somewhere they can get off at the other end and they can do what they want to do there and then return home,” Mr Morrison said.

He said cases the situation in every state and territory was being taken seriously, but
“we’re also going to keep our head, we’re going to interrogate the data very closely

“This is why I would urge that (premiers) be very calm and consistent messages given about travel arrangements.”

Restrictions will continue to be part of “living with the virus”, Mr Morrison said.

“We’ll keep fine tuning and calibrating the things you need to do,” he said.

“We always said in phase C, that there will be things that will still be in need, potentially for masks here and there and there’ll still obviously be the need for testing and tracing in all of this.”

He said there were 4.3 million booster doses available right now and urged anyone who was concerned about the virus and had reached five months since their second dose to go and get one.