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

I want to discuss today the alarming rise in the outbreak of COVID-19 in Papua New Guinea, our nearest northern neighbour. We have seen a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases and positive tests there, and in a way that suggests the disease there is growing exponentially. In the first week of March, 17 per cent of tests there were positive. We have had 114 staff at Port Moresby General Hospital—frontline workers—test positive, and James Marape, the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, said just a few days ago that he expects as many as one in three or four people in Papua New Guinea, a country with a population of 10 million people, could be positive. As our Chief Health Officer Paul Kelly said this morning, these are all signs there is a major epidemic underway in our community. As the Prime Minister also said at this press conference, this is a great concern for us in Australia and also a very real risk.

It's a great concern because, of course, Papua New Guinea is our family, our wantoks and our friends and there are close ties that bind us. We have traditional movement of people across the Torres Strait, Indigenous peoples, and there are close family and other links between the two countries. Of course, we have a strong historic bond with Papua New Guinea from our time as the colonial administrator, our time serving together in the Second World War in the battles of Kokoda, Milne Bay and other areas. Papua New Guineans have always stood by us in difficult times and it is important we do the same for them at this time.

I was pleased to learn that our Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke to Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister, James Marape, who has just been at the funeral of Sir Michael Somare up in Wewak. It's important that whatever we provide to Papua New Guinea is done with their consent and, indeed, at their request. They are a sovereign nation. Any support we provide to them should always be with their blessing and in a way that meets their own needs and their own expectations about what we can provide. There are a number of steps that we will be taking, as the Prime Minister announced this morning. We will be suspending all passenger flights to and from Port Moresby for at least a fortnight. We are dispatching an Australian medical assessment team to do a critical needs analysis. We are sending things like tents and personal protective equipment, and also, importantly, we have offered to provide 8,000 AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines from within our own stockpile here in Australia to be administered to front-line healthcare workers in places like Port Moresby General Hospital and some of the other regional centres. That will help meet the gap before the COVAX facility takes off. We have already committed some $200 million to help deliver the COVID-19 vaccine throughout the Pacific and particularly to the countries that are most vulnerable. We have contributed $80 million to the Gavi COVAX facility as well. These 8,000 AstraZeneca vaccines will help bridge the gap. This is a very important emergency unfolding in our nearest northern neighbour. It is important that Australia does our bit to help address it.