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

I want to thank the member for Wentworth, who knows and understands, through his international experience, the breadth and savagery of the coronavirus pandemic around the world. Over 35 million cases officially diagnosed, and inevitably numerous beyond that. Over a million lives lost, as we predicted when we left this place the last time. Sadly those numbers continue to grow and the real number will be far higher.

Against that background, we know that around the world the tragedies we've seen are extraordinary. In France, a death toll 1,400 per cent higher than Australia, in the United States a death toll 1,700 per cent higher than in Australia, in the UK a death toll 1,800 per cent higher than in Australia and in Spain a death toll 1,900 per cent higher than in Australia. We've had our sadness, our tragedy and our suffering here, and every life lost has to be mourned. But those international comparisons are powerful, because they are sophisticated countries with highly developed health systems.

The reason, as a country, we've been able to achieve what we have—and we thank our health workers, our doctors, our nurses, our researchers, our medical professionals, all of those involved in the public service that have contributed and all of the Australians, wherever they are, who have taken measures, as difficult as they have been, to protect themselves and to protect others—is that we have had a clear, consistent plan since 21 January, when the Chief Medical Officer declared this to be a disease of pandemic potential.

That plan, which was formally released in February, the Health Sector Emergency Response Plan for Novel Coronavirus, has been based on four pillars with regard to containment. The work with regard to our borders, which has seen international quarantine detect approximately 2½ thousand cases that would otherwise have come into Australia; the work in relation to testing, where over 7.7 million tests have helped Australia have one of the broadest, and—according to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine—most accurate testing regimes in the world, and that's meant we could chase the cases; the tracing system, which in seven out of eight states and territories has been outstanding, and which has now improved significantly in Victoria; and of course the distancing, have meant that, according to the Medical Journal of Australia only yesterday, the Australian plan helped save 16,000 lives. The result has been 16,000 lives on the basis of a refereed journal article. That indicates that as a country we've worked together, we've striven together, we've saved lives together, and for that we say thank you.

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