Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm absolutely delighted to be discussing the topics of quarantine, the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and the fact that Australia has done better than almost any other country with regard to aggressive suppression of the COVID pandemic right here in Australia. It's something we know we can be proud of because the federal, state and territory governments have been working together. Let's be very clear about this: from the very start we've had to deal with this issue at speed and each and every time the federal government, working hand in glove with states and territories, has made a magnificent set of decisions. The first one was to close the borders to international arrivals. Other countries didn't make this swift decision and so other countries haven't benefited from this. It is also very clear that the quarantine facilities that have been stood up in this country have delivered incredible outcomes. We have seen more than 350,000 people come through quarantine. I have been on the board of a local hospital and I know that when you work in a human services environment there are always issues of perfection. Some members sitting in the chamber are nodding in agreement with me, and that is because we as doctors, nurses and social workers understand that when you're working with people there is always the possibility of human error.

Added to that, we know COVID is changing as we speak. There are variants of concern, and we know that COVID is becoming sneakier. Another thing about our COVID response is that the federal government, hand in glove with states and territories, is responding as COVID is changing. We know that quarantining has been stood up at great speed. It was stood up within 48 hours, and what has resulted is that we've had 4,000 positive cases of COVID coming through that system. Despite this, there have been just a handful of breaches through that quarantining process, and we know it's because it is very difficult to capture every case. We know that there's a period when COVID is asymptomatic, when people are positive for COVID but they don't have symptoms. That is just a medical fact of life. It is actually quite incredible that there haven't been more cases of COVID. For instance, we know the COVID incubation period can be longer than 14 days, so one in 100 cases will become positive after people leave quarantine. What we've found is the quarantining facilities have stepped up with daily testing of both the workers and those who are in quarantine, so people can know if they're becoming positive sooner rather than later and therefore not spread COVID into the community. There have also been changes to things like ventilation. We know that people are increasing the ventilation in hotel quarantine.

I do believe that there needs to be increased capacity for quarantining, and we are seeing a step up for some of those facilities, which I support because we want to be able to bring more Australians home safely. Let's be aware that, as we increase quarantining capacity, there will be more capacity for outbreaks, so we will always have to have good contact tracing, the second line of defence. It's like fortress Australia, with the walls around Australia ensuring the arrows of COVID are being shot across the parapets. We need to have the crack teams picking up the wildfires and little outbreaks that are occurring in Australia. When those outbreaks are not contained, unfortunately we go to hotspot lockdowns and, if they're then not contained, we go to statewide lockdowns. There have been issues, and different states have dealt with them differently. But I would say that, for the greater good, the federal government has worked to develop the national cabinet with the AHPPC to make sure that Australia has had a consistent standardised way of working with this COVID pandemic, which has not been easy. This has resulted in an outcome where Australians can hold their heads high and show that there have not been nearly as many deaths per capita as there have been almost anywhere else in the world. That's something that Labor consistently talks down.

They consistently talk down our response as all Australians. But all Australians can feel incredibly proud of the work that we on this side have done, while from what's said by those on that side you would think that we were in a terrible place. In fact, I think we can be very confident that being able to deal with the health consequences of this pandemic has resulted in a rebound in our economic outcomes, and we are seeing some of the lowest unemployment rates for many years. We can see women returning to work in massive numbers and we know that the economic consequence is that Australia is bounding back. We are very, very lucky that this is because of the good health decisions made on this side of the parliament. I'm very proud to be sitting on this side of the chamber to make sure that we're delivering a great and strong economy for the rest of Australia.

See this speech in context