Sunrise's Nat Barr unimpressed over Origin chat mid Covid interview

Sunrise host Natalie Barr was left a little miffed as an interview around the current outbreak of COVID-19 in Australia, specifically Sydney, took an unwanted turn.

The seasoned journalist was interviewing Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon on Monday morning about whether NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian took too long to place Sydney into Lockdown, when the politicians decided they would rather talk about the State of Origin.

After pointing to the importance of the vaccine rollout to prevent further outbreaks and lockdowns in this country, Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon decided to touch on Sunday night's Origin game that saw NSW win the series over QLD.

"The other big story from this morning Nat, is why is Barnaby Joyce a Queensland supporter?" he asked.

Nat tried to stop the change of topic by interjecting with: "Well let's get back onto the news though."

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Before she was cut off by the Deputy PM. "I can answer that!"

"I can answer the last [question] first," he continued, despite Nat's interjection.

While Joyce was born and raised in Tamworth, NSW, he later set up an accountancy practice in the Queensland town of St George, five hours west of Brisbane, before becoming a Queensland senator in 2005.

"I played my first game of rugby league in Queensland," he explained.

"Ok," Nat again jumped in, "Let's get on to the vaccination rollout. We were the envy of the world, but now the world is opening up."

"I'll take comfort in the fact that in the last night days we've vaccinated 1million people," Joyce said.

"I know at the start it was a slow process, it took 45 days to vaccinate the first million."

Health Minister Greg Hunt and the federal government on Friday touted the program hitting 7 million jabs since it began in February. But Australia has the lowest percentage of its population fully vaccinated at just over 4 per cent, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

Meanwhile, Sydney's surging outbreak grew by 30 local cases on Sunday, with the city being warned to expect cases to grow substantially yet again in the coming days

Darwin and surrounding regions also joined Greater Sydney in lockdown on Sunday as the virus emerged in the community with six cases now linked to a central Australian mine.

Nat Barr also recently grilled Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the vaccine rollout.

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