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Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has suggested Australia should limit the number of returning Australians, after his state entered another lockdown.
Victoria was plunged into its third lockdown on Saturday after the highly-contagious UK COVID-19 strain leaked out of the state’s quarantine system.
But announcing the five-day lockdown on Friday, Mr Andrews flagged a “cold, hard discussion” on barring 40,000 stranded Australians from returning unless given a compassionate exemption.
He later clarified on Saturday he was simply advocating for a “genuine discussion” over the best way to contain the UK strain.
“What I have said is that we should have a genuine discussion about how many people are coming back, the circumstances in which they are coming back, and can we make this safe?” he told reporters on Saturday.
“I would think that the Commonwealth government would surely want to be a partner in that, but I am not looking to handball the thing to somebody else.”
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