Cassy O’Connor MP | Greens Leader
The Premier who has effectively abandoned Tasmanians to Covid needs to show some backbone at National Cabinet today.
Tasmanians are increasingly angry their Premier has adopted Scott Morrison‘s let-it-rip strategy after two Covid-safe years. They feel abandoned to a deadly, disabling and rapidly mutating virus.
Unlike the WA and SA Premiers, Peter Gutwein caved to Morrison on the dangerous, unscientific redefinition of close contacts.
Today, he needs to grow a spine and tell the PM moves must be taken to flatten the curve, save lives and prevent debilitating long Covid.
Instead of just going along with another Morrison plan - not to make Rapid Antigen Tests freely available to all - Peter Gutwein should insist RATs are free and available to curb disease spread.
Due to the difficulty accessing PCR tests and the unavailability of free RATs, current high case numbers in Tasmania are likely a massive undercount.
If the nation’s Prime Minister won’t act to protect Australians through free RATs, the Premier needs to commit to funding free RATs for all Tasmanians, an increasing number of whom are infected because he opened the floodgates to Omicron and Delta.