John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Bennelong is the innovation capital of Australia. The latest innovation is a brand-new concept: a mobile drive-through COVID-19 testing station. A coalition of organisations have come together to deliver this brand-new design and way of thinking on how COVID-19 can be tested for both in Australia and overseas. I was delighted to be joined at Macquarie Park's Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology car park with the communications minister, Paul Fletcher, last Friday to inspect the site and congratulate the team that had put it together.

The beauty of this station is the incredibly short time it takes to set up and pack away—only 30 minutes. It makes it an ideal solution for hotspot responses and overseas. It is testament to what can be done in a short time when everyone is working in harmony and towards a common cause. The station is built from a converted shipping container and provides frontline workers with warmth, shelter, running water and other sanitation facilities while complying with social-distancing requirements. The testing station was designed in partnership between disaster and emergency response organisation Disaster Relief Australia, formerly Team Rubicon Australia, and architecture Professor Robert Barnstone. It was built via crowdfunding by PMG Initiatives, a company that employs and provides training for refugees and vulnerable Australians. Congratulations to everyone who has been involved in this worthwhile project. I look forward to seeing it deployed across the world to help bring an end to this awful pandemic. (Time expired)