Dave Sharma (Wentworth, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia and New Zealand have done remarkably well in weathering the coronavirus storm. Australia has had something in the order of 7,300 cases—including active and predominantly resolved cases—and slightly over 100 deaths. Our trans-Tasman neighbour New Zealand has had in the order of 1,100 cases and somewhere around 22 deaths. Every death of course is regrettable, but, compared to how the rest of the world has fared, we have done remarkably well in protecting our population from the ravages of this crisis.

One of the untold success stories is how well our immediate neighbourhood has fared. The countries of the south-west Pacific, despite being potentially quite vulnerable to the ravages of this disease, have actually done a tremendous job in managing the impact of this disease on their populations. According to the WHO, there are now 322 cases in total in the Pacific and some seven deaths in total. But the countries that we consider closest to us have quite a small number of cases. Papua New Guinea has had eight cases. Fiji has had 18 cases. For both countries, it has now been more than three incubation periods since they’ve had a new case. The Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga and Samoa have all been COVID-19 free. In fact, most of the cases have really been concentrated in what we would consider the eastern part of the Pacific, the territories of Guam, French Polynesia, Northern Mariana Islands and New Caledonia.

Why do I mention this? There has been a lot of talk in the Australian media and between our governments about a trans-Tasman bubble. That's a bubble that would allow air links, travel, commerce, trade and tourism to resume between Australia and New Zealand. It makes a lot of sense because both of our countries have done relatively well in managing this virus, and in a risk-based approach we can look at resuming these air links.

But in the next step we need to look at expanding this concept to include some of the countries of the south-west Pacific. The countries of the south-west Pacific are very vulnerable to the coronavirus, because they’ve got limited public health infrastructure and, if the virus was to take off there, their systems of public health could quickly be overwhelmed. But, as I said earlier, the governments have done a very good job in preventing new infection by preventing overseas arrivals, limiting internal travel, raising public awareness, good hygiene practices and the like.

Australia is already helping these countries get on their feet. We've helped these Pacific states defend themselves and we've helped them respond to the threat of COVID-19. I commend the work of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Payne, and the member for Mitchell and Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Alex Hawke, in helping to reprogram our aid program to the Pacific and make sure we support things like testing capability, public information campaigns, access to medical supplies and expertise and the like.

But for these countries now the risk is as much economic as it is health related. The World Bank has warned that the economic outline for Pacific island countries this year is subject to substantial risk due to their economies' reliance on grants and tourism. This is why a trans-Tasman bubble would be such an important initiative. It would allow Pacific islands to once more access some of their biggest tourism markets, which are Australia and New Zealand. It would also incidentally provide an opportunity for many Aussies and Kiwis to take a holiday in our own region rather than further afield and get to know our own neighbourhood a little better.

One example is that tourism accounts for around 30 to 25 per cent of Fiji's GDP. That's almost gone to zero overnight because of the cutting of air links. Somewhere in the order of 85 to 95 per cent of those tourists and travellers to Fiji are Australians and New Zealanders.

There is an interesting pilot that has been underway this week: 189 German tourists got on a plane in Dusseldorf on Monday and flew to the Spanish territory of Majorca in the Balearic Islands. It's part of a pilot scheme taking place before Spain opens up to international tourism to see whether, and how, these sorts of air links can be resumed. Interestingly enough, these tourists are staying in only two hotels. They need to have a temperature check before they go, fill out an address and have a questionnaire completed, and there's a facility to quarantine these people should they test positive at any time during their stay. These are the sorts of innovative things that we will need to pursue as we look further ahead beyond the health aspects of this crisis and look towards getting our neighbours back on their feet.

Australia is well known as part of the Pacific family. Indeed, we view the countries as our family and we look out for each other in tough times. The next step for this family is to ensure we come through this crisis together.