Australia news live update: national cabinet agrees on new definition of ‘close

In this morning’s meeting there is wide acceptance, in particular from the prime minister, that Western Australia is different.

And we don’t have large numbers of cases. In fact, we have one case today.

NSW had 11,000. So we are in a very, very different position to the other states. Which is why our testing, tracing isolation and quarantines ystems are all still working.

Overthere, they have all collapsed. So that’s why we are able to hopefully eliminate this, because our systems are still working.

And so we will adopt those rules around close contacts at some point in time in the future when necessary, if we get to high caseloads. So that’s the agreement of the meeting this morning.

Obviously it wouldn’t be, in my view, it wouldn’t be before February 5.