An opposition politician in Australia is hitting out at Prime Minister Scott Morrison, saying he's not only to blame for their own COVID-19 outbreak - but New Zealand's too.
Morrison earlier criticised New Zealand's COVID-19 response, telling 9 News an elimination strategy is no longer practical with the Delta variant.
It comes as Australia's locked down New South Wales state recorded 919 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday - a daily record.
Australian Labor Party Senator Kristina Keneally said the NSW outbreak is Morrison's fault.
"We've got half the country in lockdown here in Australia. We've got Western Sydney in the harshest lockdown conditions the country has seen and now we have New Zealand with an outbreak," she told reporters in Canberra.
"This is Mr Morrison's fault. This is Mr Morrison's lockdown."
She said Morrison's slow vaccine rollout was behind the outbreaks. The Australian federal government, like New Zealand's, has been criticised for its vaccination rates - both of which are among the lowest in the OECD.
Keneally said Morrison had failed.
"He has failed to keep Australians safe. The fact that this virus is now spreading across Australia and into New Zealand sits with the Prime Minister of Australia Mr Morrison, who has failed to do the jobs that he had."
New Zealand is currently battling an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta strain of COVID-19, with 210 community cases reported so far. The country is a national alert level 4 lockdown until at least Friday.
The outbreak was sparked by a 58-year-old man testing positive for the highly infectious in the Auckland suburb of Devonport last Tuesday. The case has since been linked to a returnee from Sydney in managed isolation, but how the infection was passed on remains under investigation.
