Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

From the earliest days, the Prime Minister, I and other members of the government have said that each life matters. As we saw the agony and the tragedy not just in Wuhan and across China but in Italy, in France, in Spain, subsequently in the United Kingdom and in New York City, and as we have since seen this tragedy spread across the world to over 23½ million people, with more than 811,000 lives lost, our vow was to fight for each life, and that's what we have done. Every life lost is a source of immense grief and immense tragedy, and every life saved, as thousands upon thousands have been in Australia, is a source of national relief and something for which this nation should be immensely proud of itself. This nation should be immensely proud of the work of our healthcare workers, the work of our public health officials and the work of all of those who have assisted on the front line or in whatever way.

Against those backgrounds, each life does matter. Each life is fundamental. That's why, when we look to aged care, we do look at these international comparisons. As I set out in question time, in Canada—one of the most sophisticated countries in the world—the tragic loss of life is 600 per cent on an aged-care resident per capita basis than of that in Australia. In France, it's 1,300 per cent. In Spain, it's 1,300 per cent. In Ireland, it's 1,600 per cent. In Italy, it's 1,600 per cent. In the UK, it's over 3,000 per cent. These are lives lost. These are tragedies on an immense, incomparable scale. These are the things that have been avoided. We've warned from the outset that the pandemic particularly targets the aged. Although no-one is immune, those most at risk are the aged and the immunocompromised. Therefore, from the start we set out a national aged-care response plan.

We began with the first of the stages. In January, it was the initial response plan. In February, there was the release of the national pandemic response, which set out very specifically the health shared responsibilities and the roles. The work through the national aged-care plan, prepared by the Communicable Diseases Network Australia, was passed through the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee. This is the central national plan for aged care. That's been updated on two further occasions, representing the fifth and the sixth elements. The fourth was the additional workforce support. All of those allowed us to combine together to bring four fundamental protections into play months ago.

First was the public hospitals agreement. That was established in March with every state and every territory to provide workforce and transfers in the case of a significant outbreak in any one state or territory. Second was the private hospitals agreement. What we have seen is that agreement prepared and planned for long ago announced in this building on 31 March, with Dr Nick Coatsworth, myself and the AMA, amongst others, present. That has allowed us to transfer and support in facility and to provide the workforce required, as a consequence of those agreements with every state and every territory. At the same time it brings 54,000 nurses and 100,000 staff to the task of caring for our elderly and others affected by COVID. Furthermore, there was the surge workforce—actually it was announced on 11 March—with $101 million. That allowed us to bring in clinical first responders in different places around the country. Then there was the fourth major element, which was the testing. The testing contractors allowed for all staff and all residents to be tested in every facility once there was a first case identified. Those have all come together to protect and to assist. They have saved thousands of lives between them. Thousands of lives have been saved, but we also know that, where there is community transmission around the world, there cannot be an absolute guarantee of protection.

What I do want to explore is something the opposition is putting forward, which is a deeply dangerous theory. The theory, in essence, is that we can have widespread community transmission and still have an absolute guarantee of safety in any facility. That's a discredited and dangerous theory. Effectively, to let it rip in the community and wall-off our elderly, with asymptomatic transfer there is no science to back them. It is a global pandemic with the most savage and frightening evidence, as we have seen, that, where there is community transmission, nobody is immune, most particularly our elderly. And for them we grieve and for them there is deep sorrow, and for every family member there is sorrow. But that's why we've established this plan in six stages and that's why all of those four agreements were struck months and months ago.

More significantly, though, I want to address something which has been raised this week—the idea that there is no shared responsibility. Two seminal national documents were put out. The Australian Health Sector Emergency Response Plan for Novel Coronavirus was released on 18 February and activated on 27 February in this courtyard by the Prime Minister—and I remember at the time there was scepticism from some in this building about the calling of a pandemic long before the WHO. Under the implementation of public health measures, it sets out the Commonwealth's responsibilities with regard to aged care. But it also sets out that 'state and territory governments are responsible for the operational aspects of public health responses' and implementing infection control guidelines and healthcare safety. 'They will establish systems to promote the safety and security of people in aged care' signed off by every state and territory. And that has been done by every state and territory with the exception of Victoria, where we had to step in and create the Aged Care Response Centre. But we have worked constructively with them. We worked to get the Australian Defence Force in.

Equally, the CDNA national guidelines, the aged care response plan for the nation, which was released on 13 March, sets out the state and territory Department of Health responsibilities. In aged care, that includes:

… detect, characterise and manage COVID-19 outbreaks.

…   …   …

amongst other things.

Having said that, what the nation has done is battle a global pandemic, and we have numbers that we know are higher than any of us would ever have hoped but far below anything we had previously imagined at the outset. We've done that through a strategy of containment and capacity. That containment approach, as I say, is built around those four fundamental elements of borders, testing, tracing and distancing.

In terms of the borders, I set that out in question time today. Seven out of eight states and territories have helped detect over 2,260 cases—positive cases that have been prevented from getting into the community through hotel quarantine. We know the consequences in Victoria of the catastrophic breach. Those are being laid out as we speak. We know that the testing in eight out of eight states and territories has been, I think, exemplary. The tracing has been very strong in seven out of eight, and exemplary in New South Wales.

In Victoria, we have added over 400 members of the ADF. We worked hard to get those members of the ADF accepted in Victoria into the tracing program. That tracing program is what is protecting people in Melbourne and Victoria. But, as I set out earlier in question time, the consequences of the breaches in tracing and the breaches in hotel quarantine have contributed to an outbreak in Victoria which represents 95 per cent of the cases since 1 June, 99 per cent of the lives lost and 100 per cent of residential aged-care facility cases today. Our task, though, is to seek to save every life, to fight every day, and we will continue to do that.

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