Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. The health minister said the Morrison-Joyce government's COVIDSafe app has not been used to identify a single contact during the Sydney outbreak. Would half of Australia be in lockdown if the government had an app that worked and hadn't wasted millions of dollars on an app that doesn't?

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

No, I don't accept the proposition of that question at all. Very significantly, what we know in relation to the app is that it played a very important part in identifying in New South Wales, at this stage, across Australia as at 18 August 2021, 792 COVIDSafe users who have tested positive for COVID-19. It has resulted in more than 1.65 million digital handshakes being uploaded to the data store, and 2,829 potential close contacts have been identified. In addition, New South Wales has successfully accessed the app to identify around 81 close contacts, including 17 contacts that were not identified by manual contact tracing.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members on my left! The member for Franklin has asked her question.

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

As we know, any single case can lead to many others. So it's has played an important role.