ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has slammed the National Cabinet today (October 1) for “dumping” information on state and territory leaders at the last minute before cabinet meetings.

At today’s ACT COVID-19 press conference, when asked about the possibility of international travel before the end of the year (an item on this afternoon’s National Cabinet agenda) Mr Barr described the process of sending papers with important information the night before or on the day of cabinet meetings as “disgraceful”.

“National cabinet has its strengths and its weaknesses, one of its weaknesses is the way the commonwealth treats the states and territories in dumping papers at the very last minute,” said Mr Barr.

“It’s pretty disgraceful to dump papers, particularly for example the one on health system capacity, which is more than 100 pages long, has arrived less than 24 hours before the meeting.

“It’s very disrespectful and what it means is that decisions have to be taken over multiple meetings because we haven’t even had the opportunity to read the material.”

In regard to the possibility of international travel, Mr Barr said he thinks fully vaccinated Canberrans will be able to travel before the end of the year albeit in a very limited capacity.

“I think it would be fair to presume that international travel will not be completely open to go anywhere in the world,” said Mr Barr.

“It is principally a decision for the commonwealth government in terms of the detail of the papers.”