House debates

Thursday, 5 March 2020

Personal Explanations

3:27 pm

Photo of Anthony AlbaneseAnthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Today in question time the Prime Minister repeated a claim he's made outside this House: that there was a refusal to have a briefing from the Chief Medical Officer last Wednesday. That is not true. The facts are these. At 7.25 pm last Wednesday the health minister's office rang the shadow health minister, Chris Bowen, saying that there'd been a mix-up in CMO Brendan Murphy's office, and that he had arrived at parliament to give the opposition a briefing. That briefing went ahead at 7.30 pm with the shadow health minister, my chief of staff and my senior health adviser. At that time, I was with the Prime Minister at the vigil for Hannah Clarke and her children. That's where I was when that phone call was made. I was unaware of any of this until the next day, and I confirmed with Brendan Murphy when I met with the CMO this week that that was the fact of what occurred.

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