Miles acknowledged the average wait time to transfer from an ambulance to an emergency department was 33 minutes, above the target of 30 minutes.

“So yes, we do want to continue to do better,” he said.

Speaking at the same time from outside Parliament, Deputy Opposition Leader Jarrod Bleijie described the government’s Albert Street celebration as “hard-hat antics” and a distraction from “wastage”, citing the Cross River Rail’s timelines and costs, and again the government’s go-it-alone $190 million Wellcamp quarantine facility, which was still looking for a post-pandemic purpose.

Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman said on Saturday the privately owned facility could potentially take infected cruise ship passengers, a suggestion mocked by the Opposition.

“You’ve got option A: you park at the cruise ship terminal [and] walk five minutes down the road to the new Australian-owned Pinkenba quarantine facility,” Bleijie said.

“Or, the state government would have you land at cruise ship terminal, get on a bus drive an hour-and-a-half to the Wellcamp quarantine facility. They are making excuses up to keep the Wellcamp quarantine facility going.”

Bleijie’s boss, David Crisafulli, continued his attacks on the government about ambulance ramping at Brisbane hospitals, suggesting police had now been drawn into the mess and were also banked up at emergency departments with “patients”.

As his evidence, Crisafulli posted a picture to his Facebook page of police cars outside Princess Alexandra Hospital on Saturday night.

Police have told the Brisbane Times they do not transport injured people to hospitals as some kind of quasi-ambulance service, and there were numerous reasons why patrol cars might be waiting outside a hospital.