Australian PM Criticises Premier for Holding State ‘Hostage’ to Extort Hospital Funding

Read MoreThe Australian Prime Minister said the state of Queensland should take responsibility for their state health system rather than hold the federal government to ransom for money over domestic borders. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he would not respond to “shakedown politics” during a pandemic and criticised Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk for threatening to keep borders shut unless they received more public health funding. “She has to take that up with the Queensland people then. I mean, to go down this point and say, ‘I’m going to hold the federal government to ransom and seek to extort from their money on the basis of COVID; I just don’t think that is the right way to go,” Morrison told Nine’s Today show this morning. “We’re not going to respond to those sorts of, ‘give me the money or else’ type demands, and that’s what this is.” Palaszczuk said on Oct. 1 …