Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister please update the House on the steps the Morrison government is taking to protect Australians from the spread of coronavirus?

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

Thank you very much. I want to thank the member for Moncrieff and many members of the House on all sides who have been deeply engaged in ensuring that Australians are well informed and well cared for. Our No. 1 task and priority at this time is to protect Australians, to protect their health and to keep them safe.

The latest update, which I had shortly before coming in to question time, is that the global figures are: 24,531 people have been confirmed with coronavirus and, sadly, 492 have been confirmed as having lost their lives to the illness or complications thereof. Two of those are from outside of mainland China. Thirteen Australians have been confirmed to have the virus. Three, thankfully, have been cleared of the virus and now, after significant testing, have been discharged. I've also just been informed that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has confirmed that there are two Australians with coronavirus on a cruise ship in Japan. They will be provided medical assistance and I'm advised they will be given passage to an appropriate medical facility in Japan. We thank the Japanese government for that.

On 21 January the Chief Medical Officer—who is known to many if not all in this House—Professor Brendan Murphy, declared human coronavirus to have the potential of becoming a pandemic under the Biosecurity Act. That led to a series of actions. Firstly, we have stood up the National Incident Centre and that has been running around the clock, 24 hours a day, under the leadership of Celia Street, with the guidance of the secretary of the health department. Secondly, the national medical stockpile has been mobilised and masks have been made available to GPs—I think 550,000 with another 550,000 in reserve. In addition to that, 500,000 masks have been made available, with an initial tranche of 300,000 going to airports and ports for passengers and workers.

In addition to that, the national trauma centre has been mobilised under the leadership of Len Notaras. They provided AUSMAT, or medical assistance teams, to support the patients and evacuees to Christmas Island, as well as on the first humanitarian flight out of Wuhan. A series of additional activities, include daily hook-ups with the states through the chief minister have been occurring, a humanitarian flight which has successfully brought people to quarantine and the upgrading of our quarantining arrangements. The Prime Minister has authorised an additional flight, and actions are now being taken in conjunction with the Chinese government. We thank all of those who have led this at the medical level, we thank the Chinese government for their cooperation and we make this message to the Australian people: we will get through this.