Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Can the minister outline to the House how the Morrison government is building the resilience of our nation's borders in response to the outbreak of the coronavirus?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question and, given that he has a large Defence base in his electorate, he must be very proud, as I know all Australians are, of the work that the Australian Defence members are doing up on Christmas Island at the moment, in the Northern Territory as well, to make sure that we are well prepared for this threat from the coronavirus. I also want to pay particular tribute to the Australian Border Force officers and others across government, who clearly have come together very carefully and looked at the ways in which we can deal with people returning from overseas so that we can isolate people and make sure, firstly, that they're protected and, importantly also, that other Australians are protected from the spread of that virus.

I can inform the House that, as we know, foreign nationals who have been in mainland China since 1 February will not be allowed to enter our country. Australian citizens, permanent residents and other exempt persons arriving from China are subject to a 14-day home based quarantine. And temporary visa holders who are ineligible for entry, who attempt to travel to Australia under the travel restrictions, will have their visa considered for cancellation. At seven o'clock this morning, there have been 36 visa cancellations of which 16 have been reissued resulting in a total of 20 visa cancellations since 1 February. Three passengers are currently in alternative places of detention, 17 passengers have departed our country following a visa cancellation and 52 have voluntarily returned to their country of origin. There have also been 27 referrals to hospital.

All repatriated Australians and their families are being well looked after. Work has taken place not only at our airports but at our sea ports and also up on Christmas Island to receive people, including as recently as today from China via Auckland—thanks to the help of the New Zealand government. All of those people are receiving the support that you would expect.

We have put in place further contingencies. As the Prime Minister has pointed out again today, the government will look at other alternative places because, whilst in a facility like Christmas Island, for example, we might have the capacity to house several hundred people—the way in which the AUSMAT, the doctors work—we want to make sure that people are quarantined and isolated in much lower numbers so that they are segregated in such a way that, if there was a single presentation, it wouldn't spread between all of those who were there within the facility. We'll continue to work with the Northern Territory and others.

We're also worried about the weather. We are taking into account the fact that we are looking at the prospect of tough weather off the Northern Territory and Western Australia and we will take all of that into consideration.