Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Gerard Maley, says Territorians are looking to the Gunner
Government for leadership during this snap lockdown, and there needs to be clear and
concise messaging to avoid confusion and panic.
“The Gunner Government has had 18 months to prepare a response for a potential outbreak
here in the Northern Territory, with the luxury of no community transfer or exposure sites
throughout the global pandemic – until now.
“Whilst we acknowledge the government has a plan to tackle this outbreak – we’re concerned
with the execution of this plan given the issues that have emerged since Greater Darwin went
into lockdown on Sunday – particularly around accessing COVID testing.
“The number of exposure sites and levels of contact tracing is a lot to digest, and Territorians
don’t need another level of confusion when it comes to getting tested.
“Over the past few days we’ve had the Chief Minister saying one thing, and the Health
Minister saying another when it comes to booking COVID test or simply showing up at the
Marrara facility.
“That mixed messaging means we now have a situation where people are being turned away
for not having a booking, or waiting in line for more than six hours despite having a booking,
only to be told the centre has hit capacity and to come back the next day.
“Unless our testing capabilities are substantially increased, we won’t be able to deal with the
surge in Territorians getting tested. We support the urgent establishment of another facility
in Darwin to process the large volume of tests expected over the coming day,” said Mr Maley.
Shadow Minister for Health, Bill Yan, says all available resources should be going towards
beefing up our COVID testing regime so we can get a handle on this outbreak.
“We now have Alice Springs in a 72 hour lockdown and we just hope the issues we’ve seen
emerge in the Top End with the Marrara testing facility are ironed out as soon as possible so
we don’t have the same problems during lockdown here in Central Australia.
“Now is the time for clear communication, not confusion,” said Mr Yan.