"I don't want to see our children lose an entire year of their education," he said. "This is very serious. Early childhood education is incredibly important, as are all years of education." He said parents had the right to keep their children at home but schools would remain open should they send them. Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video "Parents who make the decision to have their children stay at home, must take responsibility for their children," he said, warning they should not roam the streets.

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said members of the expert medical panel had reaffirmed its position that the risk to children of coronavirus was "extremely low". "We've had hardly any cases in primary school children and the international experience is that it is a very, very low risk of symptomatic infection," he said. Loading "There are some people who believe that closing schools may contribute to social distancing. Our view, the consensus view of all of the chief health officers we signed up to today was at this time schools should stay open. We are talking about measures for the long term for several months and that's why we made that decision." Mr Morrison said the position was agreed to by all premiers and chief ministers as part of the national cabinet and was based on the consensus advice provided by a medical expert panel.

"What we're doing is closing down gatherings in pubs and clubs and things of that nature," he said. "We are not putting in place lockdowns that put people and confine them to their home. That is not a measure that has been contemplated at this point. So there is no reason for anyone to do that." The emergency meeting was called after Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and NSW counterpart Gladys Berejiklian flagged their intentions and pushed Canberra to convene a phone hook-up. Mr Morrison said decisions on shutting down businesses and schools were always a matter for the individual states and territories, playing down any rift between the nation's leaders. "The national cabinet is working," he said. "And every member is committed to its function."

He said Australians must "do their bit" to enforce social distancing practices, which were "not being observed as well as they should be". But he said the latest measures were stage one and the national cabinet would consider extra measures if current restrictions did not halt the spread of the virus. Mr Murphy said while most young people did not become significantly ill from contracting the virus, they should still be concerned about passing on a severe and possibly fatal disease to an elder, vulnerable Australian. "We have to stop the rapid spread of this virus. There has been a very significant increase in cases over the last few days," he said.

"We've had some events in Australia where 35 people have picked up the virus from one particular function. We cannot allow this sort of spread to happen. We have to all in every aspect of our life practice social distancing, good hygiene." Mr Morrison said earlier discussions had taken place about using Australia Defence Force resources helping supermarkets with online delivers. Sign up to our Coronavirus Update newsletter Get our Coronavirus Update newsletter for the day's crucial developments at a glance, the numbers you need to know and what our readers are saying. Sign up to The Sydney Morning Herald's newsletter here and The Age's here. He said army personnel were already deployed into the states to assist with medical check-ups and chase-ups, including contact tracing because some states were overwhelmed. He insisted Australia was better prepared on those issues than most countries in the world.