Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that I have received the following letter from Senator Siewert:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move that, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

"The need for the Abbott Government to respond to the Ebola epidemic and to take responsibility for Australia's role in the international effort to combat Ebola."

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

The proposal is supported. I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That in the opinion of the Senate the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Abbott Government to respond to the Ebola epidemic and to take responsibility for Australia's role in the international effort to combat Ebola.

Before entering this place, I worked in public health. I was a public health specialist. I spent some time on HIV prevention in India. I also worked in Victoria's health department, for a time, as part of an outbreak investigation team. In that role we responded to all sorts of outbreaks—food-borne outbreaks from restaurants, influenza outbreaks from aged care facilities and measles outbreaks from childcare centres. The one thing that is common to each outbreak is that time is of the essence. With each day that we wait more people are exposed and the outbreak spreads further. And it becomes much more difficult to contain. That is why I am so concerned about this government's response to the Ebola outbreak in west Africa.

Ebola has always been of concern because of the deadly nature of the virus. There is about a 50 per cent chance that if you contract the virus you will die from it. But this outbreak in west Africa is unprecedented. It is unprecedented in terms of the scale of the outbreak and in terms of its spread into urban settings. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States have said that if it is left unchecked Ebola could infect anywhere from half a million to 1.4 million people, with a good chance that over half of them will die. We already know that thousands have died and that many more thousands will face a horrific death. We have seen comments from Medecins Sans Frontieres' Executive Director, Paul McPhun, who said that responding to Ebola is a lot like responding to a bushfire, and he is right. Unless you combat the fire at its source, then spot fires will continue to burn right around the globe. In places that are unprepared—usually places with low capacity in terms of their health systems—those spot fires will take hold and soon we will be fighting this epidemic on many different fronts.

Thankfully Australia has a first-class health system. We are able to carry out the basic tasks that are the mainstays of outbreak containment. We can identify cases early through diagnosis and laboratory testing, we can trace contacts and we can ensure that there is appropriate isolation and quarantine measures, and it can all be done very quickly. But countries in our region are not so lucky. Like an ember landing on a tinder-dry forest floor, Ebola has the potential to quickly spiral out of control in a country like PNG. Its rudimentary health system just does not have the capacity to identify cases and put in the appropriate public health measures to contain it.

The global response so far has been insufficient. The United Nations estimates that, in order to beat Ebola, at least four and a half thousand beds are needed. We need about 20,000 doctors and nurses, but we have only a fraction of that on the ground. Thankfully we have seen some movement. President Obama is to be commended for the leadership he is showing on this issue. The US has now sent a major general to take over the US military mission to fight Ebola. One of its divisions has been in Liberia for six weeks. It has built two new laboratories and, along with the UK, is now building field hospitals that should be operational in the coming weeks. They have pledged 4,000 troops and they have trained health workers. Cuba has deployed 250 health workers to West Africa, Israel is sending medical crews and Japan has dispatched medical experts. China has expanded its medical deployment and Britain is working on five new treatment centres and 700 additional beds. Special mention goes to MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, who have around 3,000 staff in West Africa, are operating six Ebola case management centres and are providing 600 isolation beds. They are one of the biggest players in this crisis—bigger than any nation state.

Contrast that with the response from the Australian government, which has been, frankly, appalling. It is no wonder that the US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, who is visiting the three West African nations worst hit by Ebola, has been very critical of the international community, and she has reason to be angry. Here in Australia, the Prime Minister stated that it would be irresponsible to send our people and put them in harm's way without getting an assurance that they would be evacuated. But we heard, through Senate estimates just last week, that Australia has been given assurances that people would be looked after on a case-by-case basis, and there has not yet been one case where a medical evacuation has been refused. We have also learnt that, with the UK and the US now building field hospitals, there will not be a need for medical evacuation. We have also heard the Prime Minister say that we should keep our trained health professionals in Australia so they can be first responders to an outbreak in a place like PNG, but that is a decision that displays incredible ignorance and runs the risk of putting their lives at risk. Unless our first responders have the field experience necessary to respond to this unique outbreak, their lives will be at risk and they will not be able to combat the epidemic in a place like PNG. It is akin to sending in firefighters to tackle a raging fire without ever having seen one.

There is a world of difference between responding to an outbreak in an Australian hospital and responding to an outbreak in the field in a developing country. That is why NGOs send their workers to intensive training in Europe and field experience under the supervision of mentors. This is not something you can do from a lecture theatre. If we are genuine about keeping our region safe, we would be sending our health workers to get that training and experience in the field. Why is it that we can agree to military intervention in Iraq in the name of saving lives and yet we cannot commit a fraction of those resources to an emergency that the UN has said is bigger than the threat of terrorism? I suspect that part of the reason lies in fear and ignorance. Those are the enemies in a crisis like this.

We had the federal government on Tuesday announcing that it would stop processing visa applications to people travelling from Ebola affected countries. On what advice was that decision made? I know that my colleague Senator Sarah Hanson-Young will have more to say on this. It is not based on science. Infectious disease experts and biosecurity experts know that these sorts of bans do nothing to keep Australia safe, but what they do is create a climate of fear and panic. As the United Nations say, it is that climate of fear and panic that discourages the vital relief work that is necessary to get on top of this epidemic. We have seen Liberia's president urging Australia to reconsider its travel bans. We have seen Sierra Leone calling the move draconian—a move that does not target Ebola; it is a move that targets the 24 million citizens of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

Thankfully we have President Obama showing some leadership on this. He said that health workers who volunteer to treat Ebola patients should be applauded, and he has been very cautious about quarantine measures. Instead, what do we get from the health minister here in Australia? Just this morning he was talking about people cancelling their holidays to places like Queensland in response to the isolated cases that state has seen. Ignorance and fear are the enemies here. The minister needs to realise that words are bullets. What we need to hear are statements based on fact and evidence—statements that do more to encourage people to contribute to the field effort in West Africa.

There are many reasons that Australia should act. If this outbreak proceeds unchecked and the worst case scenarios predicated by the CDC are realised, it has the potential to disrupt trade right across the world and to cause a huge jolt to the global economy. We know that there are Australian health workers who are desperate to contribute. They want to be there. They are just waiting for the go-ahead from the government. But, most of all, there are hundreds of thousands of people—people just like us, people who share the same dreams and aspirations that we share—who will die if we do not act. That is reason alone.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to rise to contribute to this debate. I acknowledge Senator Di Natale for his professional experience and his work in the public health area. Let me make this first point: the primary obligation of any country is to ensure that it does not put its citizens unnecessarily at risk and without a circumstance in which it is able to assist them, should they be placed at risk—indeed, heaven forbid, should they pick up a virus such as this one. The second point that I make is that there is nothing stopping Australian volunteers at this time from making themselves available through NGOs or any other process in Africa to contribute to the work associated with getting on top of and hopefully eliminating this virus.

Senator Di Natale quite rightly says that, on a case-by-case basis, progress is being made in this area. Senator Di Natale used the bushfire analogy. As Senator Siewert knows, I have some expertise in the bushfire area. Using that analogy, Senator Di Natale, I can assure you that the last thing a fire service would ever do is say that it is ready for the fire season on a fire-by-fire basis. You are either ready, prepared and able to respond and eventually assist the recovery process or you are not. That is the circumstance in which Australia finds itself at the moment.

There is nothing stopping volunteers who feel that there are safeguards adequately in place from making a contribution. There are already people in the health and allied areas involving themselves. Australia's contribution to date has been some $18 million announced by the Prime Minister and the foreign minister: $10 million to the UN Ebola Response Multi-Partner Trust Fund, $3.5 million to the World Health Organisation, $2.5 million to support provision of front-line services under the Humanitarian Partnership Agreement and $2 million to support the UK's delivery of frontline medical services in Sierra Leone. Australia's contribution was praised by the United Nations as 'exactly the kind of quick and effective response the UN is asking of member states.' The issue of Australia's possible further contribution is alive, but it will be on the basis of doing what all governments should do—that is, ensure the safety of their citizens. There would be no circumstance at this time—as I, with some understanding of epidemiology and virus diseases, would understand it—where we could be strongly endorsing or conscripting people to participate.

The virus is an interesting one. It is a zoonosis, a disease transmissible between animals and humans. It has its name from a river, the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the disease was first described in humans in 1976. It is a member of the filoviridae family. As we have been told, its contagion is more akin to that of HIV-AIDS, which is not of itself highly contagious. Its transmission is through bodily fluids and is not of itself an aerosol based transfer as we would find with, for example, pneumonia viruses. Let me make this point strongly—this was confirmed the other day for me by the Chief Medical Officer—sputum, phlegm or nasal discharge is highly infectious. Indeed, if a person who has nasal discharge or mucus from the mouth were to cough or sneeze over other people, it certainly would be spread through the air. Whilst not an aerosol droplet as with an influenza virus, it certainly has the capacity to be so spread.

We know that in the very same geographic areas in Africa, in parts of South America and in the Indian subcontinent the horrific disease malaria is endemic. I have had this discussion with Senator Di Natale. Malaria is a blood parasite transmitted by mosquitoes, as nearly everybody knows. In 2012 alone, there were 207 million cases, of which 627,000 died—over 90 per cent in Africa. That is more than 1,700 deaths a day, affecting mainly young children, pregnant women, older people and those with low immunity. Why do I make that point? I do not in any way wish to belittle or demean the incidences we have had of Ebola; we have had 10,000 cases of which about 50 per cent have died. It is a very high mortality rate. But it is interesting that from the time that this particular outbreak was first diagnosed in December of 2013 there have been 510,000 deaths from malaria in Africa. That is over half a million. Even since August, when the Ebola epidemic ramped up towards the horrific numbers we are seeing now, 150,000-plus people have died from malaria. Let us ensure that when we are engaged in the activities of looking to prevent disease and to protect the health of people in underdeveloped communities we do not forget that we are losing over half a million people to a disease which is preventable.

In the last couple of moments available to me I want to turn attention to the circumstance here in Australia. We are very, very well equipped. Each capital city now has a hospital that is ready. We saw evidence of that in Brisbane only the other day, when a person presented with clinical signs that could have been those of the Ebola virus. The actions that took place were correct; they were timely. The lessons learnt in Dallas, Texas—obviously one of the world's leading medical and hospital systems—as a result of failures of biosecurity were well and truly addressed in Australia. I am very confident of our contribution.

Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to contribute to this urgency motion regarding the tragedy occurring in West Africa with the outbreak of Ebola. It is indeed with a sense of urgency that we contribute to this debate, because attention in West Africa is urgently needed. Personnel is needed in West Africa. Yet what we have had, unfortunately, from the Abbott government is some kind of stagnation when it comes to actually doing something and joining with our international partners—the UK, the US and other Western democracies—to offer that assistance.

Despite that, for weeks now Labor has been pressing the Abbott government to do more to fight the Ebola crisis and in doing so our shadow foreign affairs minister, Tanya Plibersek, and our shadow health minister, Catherine King, wrote to the Abbott government requesting that immediate arrangements be made, specifically highlighting the need to deploy Australian medical assistance teams—AUSMAT or similar—to West Africa and support other specialist Australian personnel who are willing and able to prevent the spread of Ebola. But on top of Labor's insistence in urging the government to act, there have been myriad specialists and organisations in the medical field that have been doing likewise, including the nation's Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Baggoley, who threw his support behind the need to send Australian medical teams to West Africa. Again, that has fallen on deaf ears, with no action at all.

I noticed that Senator Back raised the fact that there has been an $18 million contribution provided by the Australian government. Of course the opposition supports providing that money for relief efforts, but money alone is not enough to resolve this terrible crisis occurring in West Africa. Organisations on the front line, like Medecins Sans Frontieres, have made that very clear and have said that they now are in desperate need of personnel rather than donations. Yet that is falling on deaf ears here with the Abbott government. In the meantime, we know that another day passes when there are more people becoming infected; another day passes when more people are dying. This is a terrible disease. We know it is not the only disease; we know there are people dying of malaria and other diseases in parts of the world. And we have appropriate mechanisms that we have contributed to try to help that as well. But this is a crisis that has been brought about and that can be resolved in some way if we as a nation join with the US and the UK and ensure that we do something to support preventing its spreading any further.

What we know so far is that the British are reportedly sending 750 people to help in Sierra Leone. The US has dispatched 3,000 people to Sierra Leone, and there have also been personnel sent from South Africa, China and Cuba. Yet the Abbott government is still ignoring the advice to assist in putting people on the ground. That is despite calls by the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon; the UN Security Council—their own resolution on the matter—Medecins Sans Frontieres, as I said; the International Crisis Group; the President of Sierra Leone; Oxfam; the Australian Medical Association; and the Public Health Association of Australia. And the list goes on—the amount of calling on this government to act.

We know that going to help fight Ebola in West Africa would not be without risk, which is why it is important that safety protocols are put in place to support Australian personnel who volunteer to serve. Of course the safety of those personnel must be paramount. But it should not be beyond the wit of this Australian government to negotiate with our international partner countries to ensure that those appropriate stand-by evacuation and treatment arrangements and the like are provided for any Australian personnel. It is a deep concern that this is not happening so far with the Abbott government. In fact, it is simply unacceptable that the Abbott government has failed to make such arrangements and to act. In the meantime, we know that many Australian workers are ready, willing and able to assist. There is simply no time to lose.

As I understand, there are some who have gone. But we need this Abbott government to be sending, along with the $18 million committed so far, personnel, just like the UK and just like the US have done, and to be ensuring that we are doing our part to keep this terrible disease under control. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predict that if the international community does not do more then the number of Ebola cases could reach 1.4 million by early 2015. That in itself I think shows the reason our government should be doing more. We cannot afford to wait until Ebola reaches our region or our own country—Australia itself—before it becomes part of the global effort to control this virus.

This week, as I said, we have heard wildly different accounts about the Abbott government's preparedness to respond to the Ebola crisis in West Africa. We have heard about it from the Chief Medical Officer himself, the head of the health department, the Defence Force, the foreign affairs department and the immigration minister. At an estimates hearing, the foreign affairs department revealed that it was actually back in September—we are almost into November—that the UK and US governments made specific requests to Australia to send personnel to help fight the Ebola crisis in West Africa. I think it was Senator Di Natale that raised the point that, when our efforts in security issues are required and military issues in other parts the world, we are fairly quick to respond. When it is necessary, we do so. Why can't we respond to this terrible Ebola crisis that is going on in West Africa?

As I said in the adjournment debate last night, in my home state of Tasmania and across the country, the Sierra Leone community have set up the Salone Ebola Action Group, who themselves have been fundraising. In my home state, they fundraised $7,000 and got a lot of donations to provide medical equipment—a whole container left Sydney a couple weeks ago—to send to Sierra Leone, at the request of the Sierra Leone government and because some of those Sierra Leone community members in my home state have lost members of their own family and wanted to do something. So we have individual members of the Australian community acting. We have civil society acting. We have the medical fraternity making it very clear that there needs to be more action. Yet, when all of that is put forward to the Abbott government we have, unfortunately, this kind of stagnation where no decision has been made. Now is the time—that is what this urgency motion is about.

Now is the time for the Abbott government to actually get on board. They have had the request from the UK and US governments. They have had the request from the international community. They have had the request from the AMA and from the other civil society bodies here in Australia and elsewhere. There is absolutely no reason why the Abbott government should not be acting today on this issue. As I said, it should not be beyond the wit of the government to negotiate with our international partner countries on the issue of safety of our Australian personnel.

We know that, so far, Ebola has killed more than 4,000 people. It has infected around 10,000 people in West Africa. If we do not do more, some predictions suggest the number of Ebola cases could reach 1.4 million. This is no longer just a humanitarian issue in West Africa; it poses a direct threat on the rest of the world and we need to act. (Time expired)

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to contribute to this important debate on the issue of Australia's contribution to the efforts to defeat Ebola in West Africa and of course to deal with it as a global issue, not simply left to those nations currently struggling with the epidemic. As the Greens spokesperson for immigration I am extremely concerned at the approach and attitude of the government's Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, Scott Morrison, in relation to this issue.

On Monday, the Abbott government made an extraordinary announcement. On the ABC's AM program, the immigration minister announced that he was effectively shutting Australia's borders to people from Western Africa, that anyone who did not already have a visa would be locked out and that the humanitarian program has been suspended—just like that, slam! The Australian government has locked the front door and shuttered up the windows while the house is burning. The message is clear from the Australia immigration minister and his government: 'No refugees and no people who are seeking to leave West Africa are welcome here; sorry, but we're just not interested in your suffering.' How mean, cruel and incredibly selfish this government is.

Not only are we refusing to carry our weight in responding to the Ebola crisis, as previously outlined by my colleague Senator Di Natale, but also to send such an irrational, fearmongering message not just to our own domestic community but to the rest of the world is devastating for those who are actively trying to do their best to control the Ebola epidemic.

The United Nations has said that measures such as suspending these types of visa programs and closing the door on those fleeing from West Africa could discourage the vital relief work, making it harder to stop the spread of the deadly virus. So well done, Scott Morrison! Well done, immigration minister! There is no doubt that slamming the door in the face of people from West Africa is dispiriting to those who are struggling to fight the outbreak on the ground. Liberia's president has urged Australia to reconsider its travel ban, saying:

Anytime there's stigmatisation, there's quarantine, there's exclusion of people … we get very sad.

Sierra Leone's information minister, Alpha Kanu, said Australia's move is discriminatory in that it is not going after Ebola but, rather, is against the 24 million citizens of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. He added:

Certainly, it is not the right way to go.

Mr Kanu, I could not agree with you more. US President, Barack Obama, said his country's response would be guided by science and not by fear. And, yet, here we have our Australian ministers whipping up fear, fearmongering and creating hysteria. The fact of the matter is that announcements like this one, banning refugees from the region and cancelling visa requests, create fear in both Australia and the communities that are actually struggling to deal with the crisis.

The World Health Organisation has said that any type of travel bans would deter aid workers, which is the last possible thing that we should be doing at this time. A senior Ugandan government spokesperson said, 'With moves like this, Western countries are creating a culture of fear.' Again, well done, Minister Morrison, for being such a wonderful diplomat on the international stage! The Ugandan government spokesperson said, and I quote:

If they create mass panic ... this fear will eventually spread beyond ordinary people to health workers or people who transport the sick and then what will happen? Entire populations will be wiped out.

These are the words of the very people who are asking Australia for help. Other Ugandan officials have said that they are worried that Africa will be cut off from the world. 'We don't want anybody to think that this is an African problem,' they said. 'It is a global problem that we must handle together.'

Why is Australia so insistent on isolating itself from the rest of the world? Ebola is certainly a global problem, and it is only by working together that we will overcome it. Australia's selfish response to this crisis, with MPs trying to score domestic political points while the government drags its heels, has been extremely disappointing, and it is starting to bite in terms of our international reputation. In the past, Australia has been at the forefront of responding to international catastrophes. There were inspiring scenes during a surge of national pride when we came together and worked with other nations in response to the tragic Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. Last year, when the massive earthquake struck the Philippines, Australian men and women came together and worked with the government to help those who were suffering. These were great achievements that helped build our national character. But when it comes to the global response to Ebola, Australia is severely lacking. In fact, apart from a deafening silence, the Abbott government's only response has been to ban West African refugees from coming to Australia. That is a shameful announcement—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is just a lie and you know it.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and a baseless decision, and it must be reversed as soon as possible.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order. Senator Macdonald has called Senator Hanson-Young's contribution a lie and has consistently said that over and over again. I ask him to withdraw it.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Macdonald, could you withdraw that remark?

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let's be clear about this: the immigration minister's ban on refugees is political politically motivated. It is disturbing to see that, with his thirst for power on his own frontbench, his campaign against anyone who is asking for Australia's help seems just to spread to the next front.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why don’t you tell the truth?

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Macdonald, you will get an opportunity to speak shortly. You will be free then to respond to anything you choose to. In the meantime, please let Senator Hanson-Young finish. She only has a few minutes to go.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Clearly, there are members of Mr Morrison's own party who are either unclear or uncomfortable with the ban of West African refugees, as announced by the minister this week. And why was this ban announced, Madam Acting Deputy President? Let me spell it out for you. This is a minister who was firstly anti-boats. Then he was anti-Middle East. Now he is anti-West African. This is a minister who is doing everything he can to keep people who need help from ever being able to reach Australia. The question is: what do these groups of people have in common? I will not venture a guess. But I think it is important to remember what Scott Morrison, the immigration minister, once urged his party room to do. He asked them: why don't we capitalise on what he referred to as the growing anti-Muslim feeling in Australia? That is what I believe is at the core of this baseless, heartless, cruel decision to ban West African refugees.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order. Was Senator Hanson-Young in the party room to hear Mr Morrison say this? She cannot be allowed to tell deliberate and outrageous untruths in this parliament.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I believe that is a point of debate.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I fear that, at this time, with a populist, knee jerk, irrational move to ban refugees from West Africa, the minister this time has gone too far. I urge him to reconsider. I urge his government to reconsider before any more damage is done not just to Australia's reputation of being a caring and cooperative nation but to those millions of people on whom Mr Morrison is simply suggesting that Australia turn its back. We know this government needs to be doing more on the ground. We know we need to be helping to send professionals. But what we also know is that we should not be slamming the door shut and shuttering up the windows while the house is burning.

The Senate today has called on the government to provide this place by 3 pm tomorrow with the advice by which this decision to suspend the humanitarian program was made by the minister. I look forward very much to reading that advice come 3 pm tomorrow. If it is not produced by 3 pm tomorrow, you have got to wonder if this was just part of Mr Morrison's cruel crusade, or does he really think that by putting a stethoscope around his neck and walking in to question time he is instantly a medical expert on the issue?

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a nasty, vicious and completely untruthful address that was by the previous speaker. It was a diatribe against the minister who has done more to save lives and to get our immigration system in order than any minister in recent history. Senator Hanson-Young cannot stand that. She cannot stand the fact that she has been proved wrong and that Mr Morrison saves lives and brings some order into the immigration system that brings in those who have been waiting in refugee camps for years.

I am a bit confused by this debate. I have heard Senator Singh and Senator Hanson-Young. I am not quite sure what they are complaining about. Senator Hanson-Young, untruthfully, said that the Australian government had done nothing. It is a matter of fact that already $18 million has been provided in direct assistance, and at the estimates committee hearing we were told that Australia punches well above its weight when it comes to humanitarian aid. If it is the money that Senator Hanson-Young and Senator Singh are talking about, and if they want Australia to provide more money, then they should say where it is to come from. I say to Senator Hanson-Young: how would it be if we were able to give $33 million a day to fight Ebola? She would probably say, 'Ooh, that'd be good!' If Senator Hanson-Young had not supported the previous government, which ran up a debt that will approach $600 billion and costs Australia $33 million a day in interest—if Senator Hanson-Young had not been part of that—we could be using that $33 million every day to go to aid around the world. It could go to the Ebola crisis. But do we hear that from Senator Hanson-Young? Of course not.

Senator Hanson-Young's diatribe was just—well, it was not full of untruths; there was not an accurate thing in what she said! I think it is quite interesting that when Senator Hanson-Young misrepresents something and the information she has provided to the Senate is completely wrong, all she does is sit there and giggle. It simply proves that Senator Hanson-Young does not give one iota of concern to the plight of people who are in these situations around the world. If she did, she would support Mr Morrison's attempt to bring people into this country who are waiting their turn in the squalid camps around the world. But there we are. Senator Hanson-Young, if you want to give $33 million a day to fight Ebola, you could have done that if you had not supported the previous government in running up a debt that now costs us $33 million a day in interest.

I ask Senator Hanson-Young or Senator Singh, as I asked Senator Di Natale in estimates: what is stopping any of them from volunteering their services today to go to these places in western Africa? As we were told at estimates, there is not one thing stopping Senator Di Natale using his expertise as a medical practitioner to slip over there and help—not one thing. I might say that Senator John Herron, formerly of this chamber, actually did just that when he went to South Africa, to Rwanda and Burundi, to use his medical skills to help there. There is nothing that the Australian government is doing that would stop any person in Australia from going and doing that. Senator Hanson-Young tells us that there are dozens or hundreds of people waiting to go. If they want to go, good luck to them; they go with my best wishes and my great admiration. We should be encouraging those people. But the Australian government has an obligation, a duty of care, to anyone it might send, and the duty of care is to make sure that those people, those Australians, are safe when they are there and that they come back into the country, as well, safely.

We have heard of some politician—up in Cairns, I understand—getting on their soap box and berating the Australian government for letting anybody back into the country who happens to have ever been over there. Nobody takes any notice of that particular politician anyhow, but he was reflecting a view of many people that we have to be very careful that the disease does not come into Australia.

All of the evidence we have heard at estimates committee hearings, all of the things we have read in the paper and all of the announcements by the Prime Minister, the health minister, the foreign affairs minister and the immigration minister point to the fact that we want to be very careful, for Australian citizens, that we do not have the Ebola crisis here. I also raised the point at estimates—and it is something I have raised often—that there are other countries who have a closer association with Africa than Australia does. Australia has now, fortunately, directed its humanitarian aid to the Pacific and to South-East Asia, which I think is appropriate. And we are keeping money in reserve to address any possible outbreak of Ebola in the areas close to Australia for which we have a special responsibility.

Senator Hanson-Young made a lot out of the UK and the US and Sierra Leone asking Australia to help. Well, as was pointed out in estimates, as Senator Hanson-Young would have heard had she bothered to go along and listen, those were form letters that went out to everyone; it was not a particular request to Australia as Senator Hanson-Young and the Greens would have you believe.

So Australia is punching well above its weight in this. If there are Australians who want to go, they are quite free to go, and when they come back they will go through the normal processes. But the Australian government will not direct people there until it can satisfy its duty of care to people who expect it to look after them.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise today to speak in the debate on this matter of urgency and about the Ebola crisis that is facing West Africa—indeed, it is a problem for the world. As Labor has consistently put on the public record, we acknowledge that the Abbott government has made a contribution of funds—we acknowledge that. Senator Singh has acknowledged that. Our shadow health minister has acknowledged that. We have given funds. But funds are clearly not enough. We cannot give money and then no personnel.

The view that we have heard from senators from the Abbott government this afternoon quite frankly makes me feel quite ashamed. This is not about people, of their own free will, volunteering; it is about Australia making a proper effort as a modern, democratic, well-resourced country to support those in West Africa. I have listened to the government, and a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday I heard our health minister say that we would commit medical personnel—if the disease reached New Guinea. Heaven help us if it gets that far, because then we would all be in trouble! I could not believe that the government of Australia, through its health minister, was seriously suggesting that that is when we would commit medical staff. I sat as I listened and could not believe I was hearing that someone in a very responsible position, such as the health minister of our country, could make that short-sighted comment. I just wondered what was motivating that kind of response.

As a rich, resourced, democratic country we have some responsibility, as do other countries in a similar situation to us, of ensuring that West African countries do have robust health systems that can prevent these outbreaks. That is part of our responsibility; it is part of our moral responsibility, it is part of who we are as human beings.

Then, this morning as I listened to the news I heard this ridiculous assertion that tourism numbers in Cairns and other places have been dropping off because people were fearful of somehow contracting the Ebola virus. Then I wondered what is being created here—fear. Earlier we heard Senator Di Natale, a medical practitioner, refer to that. It is not appropriate for us to be evoking fear in fellow Australians.

I also read in the newspaper last Saturday this horrific story of this young girl of 15 who had lost her mother and her father. She did not really know, but they had gone and had been placed outside of a hospital, because they could not get in. We all know the truth of this. Both her mother and father had died of Ebola and this young 15-year-old was left without any resources. Everyone in her village was shunning her because her family had contracted Ebola and died. She was left with very young siblings to care for, and one of them subsequently died. I put myself in the shoes of that family and was heartbroken, yet we have this cold callousness coming from the Abbott government, and indeed some of the senators here today, that if want to go off and volunteer, off you go. That is not what this is about. As part of the Australian community it is our responsibility to act as a country, to give funds—and, yes, we have done that—but to also enable our health workers to go under the umbrella of an Australian volunteer, not a personal volunteer. But, no, what we are seeing is this narrowing down and this attitude that we are only going to act in our region, this closing of our borders. We have stopped people from West Africa now being able to get visas, when really we should be looking forward and looking to how we can help.

There is no doubt that there are not enough medical personnel working in West Africa. That now is the crux of the problem. Yes, we initially did have a problem about evacuating health workers from the region. But that is not a reason to say no. That is a problem we solve. We solve that by building field hospitals and by calling on other countries to support us. When we act as countries assisting in these sorts of crises we do act together. It is not the Americans, the English and the Cubans. We are there together with our comrades and colleagues in West Africa, working together to defeat this virus. That is what we have to do, because I for one do not want to see many more deaths in West Africa. These are people just like us, who have families and jobs and want to live a full life, and they are dying in huge numbers.

I for one want to be part of a community that reaches out and says 'Yes, along with our funds you will also get our best medical personnel,' because we are equipped to do this. Nobody is questioning whether our hospitals in Australia can cope with a crisis. We would expect that, and as Australians we have a right to expect, in a well-developed country, that we are adequately protected. But the reality is that we now have 6,000 confirmed cases of Ebola in West Africa. Yet we sit on our hands and start to be small-minded. We attempt to close our borders and we say things like, 'We will only look after those in our region.' That is wrong. We are part of the world community and we have a responsibility to support West Africa, not only with funds but also with medical personnel.

Along with the tragic story of the young 15-year-old girl losing her family, we know that more than two and a half thousand people have already died. That is a crisis by anyone's imagination. By any stretch, by any measure, that is a crisis, and it is a crisis we need to act on.

Health experts are telling us that the disease is increasing incredibly fast. Experts are predicting that 21,000 will be infected now. We must act to stop Ebola spreading. We know, and the UN have told us, that there is a very small window to which we can contain this crisis, before it gets completely out of hand. Heaven help if it ever spreads to New Guinea. I certainly do not believe that New Guinea and many other countries in our region are equipped to deal with a crisis like that. It is a very short-sighted and uninformed view to suggest that that is when Australia will step in and help, because by then the whole world is in crisis.

The time for us to be helping is right now. As other senators have said, we have the Australian Medical Association urging the Abbott government to get on board and help. They are the experts in this. We have our own government medical people telling us that we need to be supporting and acting with personnel in this crisis. We have MSF out there, who are always one of the groups that are in the frontier risking lives. There would not be a crisis in the world that MSF is not actively participating in. Doctors and nurses, many of them from Australia, are saying that we must act. The government could arrange for these volunteers to be attached to existing operations. The government does not have to spend a lot of money setting up new resources. They could be attached to MSF, to the Red Cross, to the UK or the US. There is no reason why Australia should not be committing personnel. It is not good enough for the government to say, 'You can volunteer.' We need to show that, as a country, we are committed to stopping this virus in West Africa, to saving lives so that children can grow up with parents and to stopping this disease right now—because the window will start to close in the next couple of days—before we well and truly have a crisis which will spread. I would hate to see that happen. I would urge the Abbott government to get on board and look at how we recruit those desperately-needed medical staff and to do it very, very quickly and in the partnerships I have just outlined.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on this urgency motion on the Ebola epidemic. I have to say up-front that, listening to the speakers opposite, all I could think was: never let the facts or the public interest get in the way of a good political scare story. It completely appals me that those opposite have used this very grave international issue to try to score some very cheap political points. Without question, the primary responsibility of our government is the protection of Australians. No matter how much those on the other side assert that that is not the case and that this government has been sitting on its hands, it has not.

Last week many of those opposite, including Senator Di Natale, sat there and heard very clear evidence from the chief medical officer and also from the secretary of the Department of Health that Australia is very well prepared domestically. A lot of work and a lot of action have gone into ensuring that our primary responsibility is protecting Australians. Even those opposite acknowledged that that testimony was correct.

It is also very appropriate that, once we ensure that we have the proper controls and response mechanisms in place in a public policy sense, we then turn to our region which, interestingly, Senator Lines just acknowledged is in the areas of Papua New Guinea and elsewhere in our region. It almost defies logic that we would, first, be looking to send our health professionals not only whom we need here in case of an outbreak here but, as she acknowledged, who might be required in our region because they do not necessarily have sufficient primary health care to deal with those issues. Therefore, I think it is entirely appropriate that this government, after making sure that we are as prepared as we can be, help those in our region in the event of an outbreak.

It is also very important to take a look at the facts, absolutely none of which I heard from those opposite. The facts on Ebola are yes, it has great lethality. About 50 per cent of those who contract it do die. However, what we have not heard is the nature of the disease. This is not a highly contagious disease and it has very specific times when people can get sick. It is not a new disease, we know how to treat it and we know how to—

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How do we treat it?

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, am I being asked a question?

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Di Natale, Senator Reynolds has sought the assistance of the chair. Please allow her to finish her contribution in silence.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

From all of the evidence from the World Health Organization, from those who have been dealing with this and from the recent experiences in Nigeria and Senegal, both of whom have now effectively dealt with outbreaks and are now Ebola free, we know that it is passed on through person-to-person contact at a very highly infectious stage, which is generally towards the end stages, and that it is passed on through direct contact with bodily fluids. Two nations have already successfully dealt with this disease and, if we do get it, we know how we can prevent it and treat it. So it is entirely appropriate that we adopt a domestic focus and then a regional focus.

In relation to those opposite and their comments on our international support, I wholeheartedly endorse what this government is doing. The Minister for Health and our foreign affairs minister are dealing with this in a way that represents good government. They are not irresponsibly sending our personnel overseas when we cannot guarantee that, if they become infected, we can evacuate them. It is a 30-hour evacuation. The pods only have five hours of protection, so we need to have patients treated in a field hospital in-location, which does not yet exist. Even when it does, if the UK plan gets up, it will have bedding for 12. So, Senator Di Natale, if you would like to take your chances and head over to West Africa and provide some primary health care, just remember that we cannot evacuate you yet and look after you.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Reynolds, please direct your remarks through the chair.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Through the chair, I would like to remind those opposite that, even if they go over today, we cannot yet evacuate them in time. Possibly, as the foreign minister has said, we will continue negotiating with the UK and others for access to a field hospital that does not yet exist.

Senator O'Sullivan interjecting—

Senator Di Natale interjecting—

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind senators that Senator Reynolds has the right to be heard in silence. Thank you, Senator Reynolds, if you would like to continue your remarks.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It would be highly inappropriate to send our personnel overseas. We have at least 20 or 30 Australians who are now working with other organisations in West Africa and that is entirely appropriate. If Senator Di Natale, as a doctor, would like to go over there, there is nothing today stopping him from doing that. But he would have to remember that, if he goes over there, the Australian government does not yet have a guaranteed way to get him home in under 30 hours. It may take longer. And the UK does not yet have a field hospital that he could be treated in, so in that circumstance it would be irresponsible of the government to do so. This week there was a quote from infectious diseases expert Dr Nick Coatsworth from the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre, who used the analogy:

If they can’t get you to a first-world intensive care unit in a reasonable time frame, it would be like sending in the SAS into Afghanistan with no helicopters to get them out.

(Time expired)

Question agreed to.