David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The COVID-19 pandemic crisis is obviously an event that will go down in history and is even much more devastating than the pandemic of 100-and-so years ago. But the response that Australia has made so far will also go down in the record books as one of the most successful managements thus far of a viral pandemic, when you see the tragedy unfolding around the world in countries with very large health systems, very mature health systems, and with all the medicine and technology that money can buy and yet the disease has gone through the population, literally with fatal consequences. Because the virus is new and it's come from animals and it may have had a bit of designer engineering added—we are not to know for sure, but there's a lot of suspicion in scientific circles that that is, indeed, the case—it has had a particular predilection to have a higher mortality in the elderly, but obviously it can be fatal in young people. And that's what has happened in other pandemics as opposed to the regular flu, where young people don't get the severe illness. With this, young people can get it. That's why it's such a serious condition.

I'd just like to run through and document some of the incredibly effective manoeuvres. We were right out of the blocks, first of all, as a nation, calling it a listed human disease of pandemic potential on 21 January. That's weeks ahead of the WHO. We announced our emergency response plan for both the health and the non-health sectors on 27 February, and our national biosecurity coordination plan on 5 March. And then there was the declaration of a biosecurity event on 18 March.

I would like to compliment, from the top down, Minister Hunt, the Chief Medical Officer, all the other medical officers around the state, all those on the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee and all our health workers. Across the Lyne electorate we had quite a cluster of cases because a lot of our retirees are big travellers and they love going on cruises. So we imported quite a lot of people into the Lyne electorate. At the bottom end, down in John Hunter, through to Manning Base Hospital, through to Port Macquarie Base Hospital, we had a huge mobilisation of health resources. We've set up respiratory clinics. We've got GP respiratory clinics. We've got drive-by testing. Fortunately, because of all the social isolation principles that the nation embraced and contact tracing by our community and public health officers, we have flattened the curve. But the unfortunate thing about this new virus that we humans aren't used to is that it will behave like every other viral pandemic. It will bounce around the world until we get to 60 per cent or 70 per cent of people who have been exposed and become immune, or we get a vaccine, or we get a treatment or both, or all three. So this is with us for a while to come. And, even though we've had an outstanding response so far, there will be other waves.

We negotiated with the states in a way that we haven't negotiated before. We negotiated with private hospitals to get all their equipment, staff and everything ready for a wave that would have happened if we hadn't acted early. Some people said we have overreacted, but we haven't. Just look at what has happened in America, Europe and England—the NHS is overwhelmed. We would have been in the same situation. I worked in the NHS. It's a massive employer. There are hospitals everywhere and they've got thousands of people, and they were overwhelmed. Look at what has happened in Europe—the same thing.

We have got control of it now, but we have the other crisis—that is, the economic crisis. We've done amazing things with JobKeeper and jobseeker. We've put money into the bond markets to keep interest rates, bonds and credit flowing. We've mobilised superfund money. We've got jobseeker and JobKeeper. We've had plans for mental health. We've had plans for industry—keeping minimum transport networks around the Asia-Pacific and looking after our Asia-Pacific neighbours. We've expanded viral testing. We've expanded our treatment. We've got ventilators. We've got all the bases covered.

Now we have to lift the restrictions in a COVID-safe way. That's why the COVIDSafe app is so important—it speeds up and industrialises the tracing that is otherwise done manually. Having gone to a few restaurants and a few clubs and pubs over the last week, I know that what we are doing in New South Wales, at least, is manually having to register and give your details. But, if you've got the app, they have said: 'Don't worry. You've got the app turned on; just come in.' It is really part of our response. We have to lift the restrictions in a sensible way. I'd like Queensland to open their borders and for the other states to open their borders, because we need Australian business happening again. We can't keep paying and supporting businesses forever. We will be in a huge debt situation that we'll never quite recover from. We will be continually managing it, rather than extinguishing it, and I don't want that remaining for my children and their children. If we don't get the economy back working, we will have a massive problem for generations.

The other thing that I would like to talk about is the idea that has been floated of a travel bubble to similar nations like New Zealand and maybe Taiwan, who have had an exceptional response. It's a great idea. In our Pacific neighbourhood, there are a lot of smaller nations that depend on us. As I said, we've kept the transport links open for them when other people have vanished. We should be really proud of what we have done for our Pacific neighbours. But some of them are reluctant to engage, because they're scared. But, if they're happy to have it, we should include them in our tourism bubble to get things going again.

On the testing, other people have said, 'If we've got a low-risk country, why don't we open it to them, if we've got rapid testing, before they get on a plane?' If we set up a system whereby, if people do want to come to Australia and they get tested the day before, they can go into a pre-flying quarantine—they can go into a 24-hour or a shortened quarantine here and get retested after the trip—and if they are free, well, away we go; we've got a person doing business and/or having a holiday in Australia safely. We could use it to our advantage.

The thing is: we will have second waves. But, as I said, if we have our contact tracing and our isolation and quarantine in place, hopefully it will bubble around at lower numbers. But we can't remain a hermit nation forever. I'm not sure what the big-picture plan is for when we will lift our travel restrictions. Whilst there's exponential growth in these other surrounding countries, I can't see it happening in the immediate future. But, for the safer countries, I think it's a matter of some great national import to get our tourism businesses going again. The poor people in Queensland are crying out for tourism. In New South Wales, the only cases are usually imports from overseas that are isolated in quarantine. But there's this Queensland phenomenon where, I think, they think they're going to eradicate this disease. We can suppress it, but it's not going to be eradicated around the world any time soon. As long as we don't have aspirations to stay an isolated country, like North Korea, and stop everyone from coming here, we are going to have to manage it. We've got to learn to live with it and get our economy going again, because, as I said, it's not sustainable.

What we have done is great. Be proud of what we've done. We've saved thousands and thousands of lives. We would have had what other countries are going through now if we hadn't done what we've done. But now that we've got it under control—and that's the important thing—I, like most Australians, will be hanging on national cabinet decisions. I would like to encourage premiers like Annastacia Palaszczuk to use the data and apply common sense, rather than support irrational fears, and get the economy going again.

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