Health Minister Steven Miles provides an update on active COVID-19 cases in Queensland
Health Minister Steven Miles has blasted Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington over “dangerous” and poorly timed funeral plans, declaring she should “have a look at herself” while labelling her a “puppet” for Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
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Health Minister Steven Miles has attacked Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington over a poorly-timed announcement to allow people from COVID hot spots to attend funerals, saying her COVID policies were ‘dangerous’ and would override critical health advice.
Mr Miles blasted Ms Frecklington saying she should ‘have a look at herself’ for proposing ‘dangerous’ funeral plans on the same day the state funeral for former Labor deputy Tim Mulherin was held.
Ms Frecklington pledged to develop COVIDsafe plans for funerals, allowing people from interstate hot spots and overseas to attend without having to first quarantine for 14 days.
He also took aim, saying Ms Frecklington would make ‘risky’ health decisions and override the advice of the Chief Health Officer while being a puppet to Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
“The law says the Chief Health Officer is the statutory decision maker in these matters and that’s important because these decisions should be made by doctors, not by politicians,” Mr Miles said.
“They should be made based on the health risk, not based on political pressure, whether that’s from Opposition, from other levels of government, from the Prime Minister’s Office.
“What Deb Frecklington confirmed yesterday is that she wouldn’t take the health advice, that she would give the health advice, that she would tell the Chief Health Officer what to do and it seems to me she would do that largely based on what Scott Morrison tells her what to do.”
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He said what Ms Frecklington had proposed for funerals had already been considered by the Chief Health Officer and was ‘deemed too unsafe’.
“Here you have somebody who has consistently refused to accept the health advice, saying that if she were Premier, she would make the risky, reckless decision to direct the Chief Health Officer, something she doesn’t have the legal power to do … to change her directions,” Mr Miles said.
“To do that she would need to change the law, she would need to change the Public Health Act to give herself that power.
“Do we really want a Premier who would be willing to use the Parliament to override the powers of our Chief Health Officer to make important decisions based on health risk?
“They are the questions that people should be asking of Deb Frecklington.”
Ms Frecklington said Labor were trying to “spin it in any way they can to distract from the fact that we have a premier in Queensland who refuses to make the decisions”.
She said when it comes to implementing public policy - like having a COVID safe plan for families to attend funerals - it was up to the premier of the day to direct.
Mr Miles’ comments came as Queensland recorded no new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, meaning only one new case in the past four days, allowing restrictions on the Darling Downs and Gold Coast to be lifted.
It’s now more than four days since Queensland has had a case related to the southeast’s COVID clusters.
Mr Miles said the Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young had received further genome sequencing related to the state’s latest cluster, confirming that all 48 cases were related.
Mr Miles said the low case numbers showed how health authorities were getting on top of those clusters.
He said some restrictions in the Darling Downs and Gold Coast regions would be lifted, including limits on gatherings in homes.
Up to 30 people will again be allowed in homes while visitors will be permitted in hospitals and aged care homes.
That comes after 17 days without new cases in those regions.
Asked about news that South Australia will open its borders to the ACT, Mr Miles said Queensland would take the number of cases in the ACT into account.
He said the Government would have more to say about borders before the end of September and was keen to look at what South Australia was doing.
Mr Miles said eight deaths had been recorded in Victoria in the past 24 hours due to COVID-19, more than the number of deaths recorded in Queensland during the entire pandemic.
Queensland’s last death due to the pandemic virus was in April.
Six Queenslanders have died due to COVID-19, all of them in their 60s or older.