Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this morning to urge the reform of the World Health Organization. The Germany magazine Der Spiegel has reported that the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, personally asked the WHO to delay the release of critical information regarding the outbreak of COVID-19. The report was based on information from the BND, the Germany federal intelligence service. It reports that on 21 January President Xi met with World Health Organization Director-General Tedros to request that he withhold information about human-to-human transmission and delay the declaration of a global pandemic. The BND's verdict is harsh. At least four, if not six, weeks have been lost in Beijing's information policy in the fight against the virus, Der Spiegel reported. If this is true, this is a conspiracy against the whole world.

Researchers at the University of Southampton found that if China had acted responsibly and been open about the virus just three weeks earlier it could have reduced the spread of the disease by as much as 95 per cent! These reports are consistent with other evidence that the Chinese communist regime has constantly falsified data and public information about the COVID-19 virus. It has also treated the WHO as a vassal for its own purposes, something consistent, I have to say, with the Chinese Communist Party regime generally.

This is why the approach to exclude Taiwan, in particular, from the WHO was reprehensible. With a population of just 23 million people and situated 180 kilometres off the coast of mainland China, Taiwan was anticipated to report the highest number or the second highest number of COVID-19 cases globally. In fact, at the end of April, it had only 429 confirmed cases and six deaths. That's a country with a population akin to Australia's. We have done a wonderful job in this country in preventing the spread of COVID-19, yet Taiwan had 429 cases and six deaths, and this has been achieved without severe restrictions. As early as 31 December, Taiwan started screening passengers on flights from Wuhan. It no doubt noted the reports of a disease and the fact that the communist regime banned internal travel from Wuhan but not international travel to other countries. Accordingly, Australia's call for an independent investigation into the cause of the outbreak is reasonable and justified and should be supported by all members of this place.