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CANBERRA, July 18 (Xinhua) -- The next sitting of Australia's Parliament will be cancelled due to a spike in COVID-19 cases, according to a statement from Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Saturday.

Paul Kelly, the acting chief medical officer, on Saturday advised the government that there would be significant risk associated with politicians returning to Canberra in the context of the increased community transmission of COVID-19 in Victoria and the trends in New South Wales.

Members of Parliament (MPs) and Senators were set to return to Parliament for the first two weeks of August.

"The entry of a high-risk group of individuals could jeopardise the health situation in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and place residents at unnecessary risk of infection," Kelly said.

In response Morrison has requested that sitting fortnight commencing Aug. 4 be cancelled.

"This would mean Parliament will next meet on August 24th 2020," Morrison said in the statement.

"The government cannot ignore the risk to parliamentarians, their staff, the staff within the Parliament, and the broader community of the ACT that holding a parliamentary sitting would create."

"In addition, it is not feasible nor desirable to hold a sitting of Parliament that would exclude parliamentarians from a single state."

As at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, a total of 11,441 cases have been reported in Australia, and 8,161 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19, according to the latest figures of Department of Health.

The national death toll has increased from 116 to 118. And the number of new cases in last 24 hours is 233. Of the new cases 217 were in Victoria. New South Wales has recorded 15 new cases including four overseas travellers in hotel quarantine. Enditem