James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison government's health response to COVID-19, in particular in relation to testing, is helping to underpin our economic comeback from the COVID-19 recession?

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

I want to thank the member for Sturt who, since coming to this parliament, has been a great advocate for medical research in South Australia and, in particular, for the South Australian medical precinct. More generally, we know that the challenge that the world is facing continues apace. Sadly, the world has now reached over 62½ million COVID-19 cases. We know that the world is heading inevitably this week to 1½ million lives lost. We see that, outside of Australia, the challenge of COVID-19 is great and significant and tragic. Within Australia we are in a very fortunate position. We have had real challenges and genuine loss, but Australia's outcome is one which is the envy of the world. Indeed, only in recent days Dr Anthony Fauci said within the Australian media that Australia has been the epitome of success. It is an outcome that is to be attributed to many, many people, but in particular we owe our work to the very clear plan that Australia set out right from the outset—containment to flatten the curve and the building of capacity to protect Australians. That proposal, with regard to vaccine, saw us reach over 40 million telehealth consultations last week.

Today, in relation to our response with regard to containment, we are likely to pass 10 million tests that Australians have carried out and conducted. In particular, the work that we have done with regard to setting up testing capacity, when there was no such thing as a COVID-19 test in January, has been an extraordinary national achievement. The Australian government has put in place a series of measures—147 GP respiratory clinics. We said that we would put in place a hundred. We said that we would do this during the course of May. We achieved this outcome at a much higher rate and at an earlier time than we pledged. More specifically, in March we put in place Medicare funding for COVID-19 tests. In addition, on 13 March we put in place an agreement with the states and territories where we would contribute to funding and to outcomes. All of these things have allowed Australia to have not only one of the highest testing rates in the world but also, as the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said, one of the most accurate testing regimes. Throughout this we sourced the materials, which were in short supply around the world. Australia kept that airbridge going to provide the tests which kept the nation safe, and for that I thank Australians. (Time expired)