Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Van for what is an incredibly important question. Since March, Australians have taken extraordinary steps to protect the health of their fellow citizens and our economy from COVID-19. With Victoria coming out of restrictions, as Senator Van knows, we are now at a very important moment, with encouraging signs that we are containing the virus within Australia.

Today I am pleased to update the Senate that for the first time since February we have had no new cases of community transmission for three consecutive days. Globally there have now been over 50 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 1.2 million deaths in total. Sadly, this includes 907 Australians. While any death from COVID-19 is sobering, the hard work of Australians means that, when compared with other developed nations with advanced health systems, Australia has performed remarkably well. Over 9.1 million COVID-19 tests have been conducted since January, with 27,674 Australians diagnosed with COVID-19. Of these, only 85 cases remain active, with Australia now averaging fewer than 10 new daily cases over the last week. Globally, new cases have increased by over 565,000 a day over the past seven days. The results have only been possible, though, because of the early actions the Morrison government took on the basis of medical advice, as we know. We closed Australia's borders, we secured our testing capacity and, importantly, we invested in contact tracing. Together, Australians and our health authorities have achieved these outcomes.