Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not just Australians in Australia struggling with the global pandemic; it is also Australians living overseas, separated from their families and missing the arrival of grandchildren or being at the bed of a passing of a loved one. They too have many personal stories and have had to struggle to navigate what COVID-19 is doing to our lives—doing to all of us, all around the world.

Labor's plan to build more quarantining facilities to address the urgent need of returned travellers is small minded, short sighted and flawed. Labor have called for purpose-built quarantine facilities, yet they don't call for decommissioning of the current hotel quarantining. They aren't calling for decommissioning of what is already there. That's because they understand that purpose-built facilities can't provide the volume of quarantine facilities we need in the country right now and going into the future with phase B coming at us at speed.

As one of our key defences, Australia's hotel quarantining system has protected Australians and prevented up to one to two million COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began. The system has managed to process a massive half a million returned travellers during that time. This dwarfs the number of cases that have seeded outbreaks. The issue is not just that cases have leaked from quarantine but rather that the consequences of those leaks into an unvaccinated population have resulted in devastating lockdowns; it's the consequences of those leaks.

It is hardly surprising leaks have happened given the thousands of personnel involved in human orientated service provision for hotel quarantine. In fact, overseas our hotel quarantining is regarded as gold standard, with countries like the UK asking us for our protocols to inform theirs. Like any hospital or care facility, however, it is devilishly difficult, if not near impossible, to achieve perfect infection prevention. Importantly, we know from studies that a small percentage of return travellers test positive to COVID-19 after they leave quarantine. They unknowingly seed infection before contact tracers can get to them, which is why I welcome the recent introduction of post-quarantine COVID-19 testing. It's something I've called for and advocated for.

This landscape will now change as we approach our vaccination targets of 70 to 80 per cent by the end of the year. As vaccination rates increase, leaks to the community won't have the same devastating impact they have had when the population was unvaccinated and totally vulnerable. No matter how well our hotel quarantining has coped, its capacity is insufficient for the future we want.

When we open our borders, we expect upwards of 500,000 per month to return. In January 2020, there were two million travellers coming into Australia for the month. The few thousand per month that the current capped quarantine system is managing will not be sufficient. We won't be able to build enough quarantine facilities for that process. We want travellers to be able to come and go. We want to get Australia back to a vibrant economy and a vibrant way of life and to reconnect loved ones. So we need a system that is much more scalable, reliably contains infections from seeding by returned travellers and protects the population from outbreaks. As a country we did fantastically well in our initial response to the pandemic but now we need to look to other forms of dealing with returned travellers.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention back home quarantining with frequent home based rapid antigen testing for the non-vaccinated returning traveller. A better option for Australia, where rates of COVID are relatively low internationally, is to see returned travellers triaged to either hotel quarantine if unvaccinated or home quarantine with daily home based rapid antigen tests if vaccinated. A daily rapid antigen test in a home quarantining protocol can be more effective and cheaper than a less regular gold-standard PCR test because it ensures a shorter interval between someone becoming positive with COVID and learning of that fact. This is especially important with the rapidly-infectious delta variant. Home quarantining for the vaccinated returned traveller will allow us to massively increase our ability to open our borders, all the while keeping Australians safe.

Australians want to be reunited with their families and to get back to business. Many ask, 'Where can we find hope?' The short-term answer is clear: put your arm forward and get vaccinated, Australia.