Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann. South-East Asian nations like Taiwan quickly learned with regard to COVID that they just had to isolate the sick and the vulnerable and that allowed healthy and productive people in businesses to keep working and earning money. The result is that the economy in Taiwan and other South-East Asian nations remained healthy and they had far fewer deaths than Australia. Minister, was there any consideration given in April to changing Australia's COVID strategy when Taiwan and other South-East Asian nations had already proved that their strategy worked and was far superior to your government's strategy?

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the crisis hit there was no question that we considered a whole range of alternative options on how best to respond to it. In making decisions and in making judgements we were guided by the advice of relevant experts. In relation to how best to deal with the health threat, we were guided principally by the advice of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, the Chief Medical Officer and chief health officers from around Australia and the Commonwealth. I think it is fair to say, and for a range of reasons, the early decision to impose border restrictions—in terms of non-residents who had spent any time over the previous 14 days in mainland China not being able to come to Australia, and imposing quarantine requirements on Australian permanent residents having spent time over the previous 14 days in mainland China—has demonstrably helped delay the spread of the virus. This gave us time to prepare, not only in terms of the hospital capacity to deal with the potential inflow of patients but also the risk management processes that would best equip us to save lives by slowing down and suppressing the spread of the virus and helping to put the economic support measures in place.

Every single death is tragic and it's one more than you would like to see. But, again, comparatively speaking the number of deaths in Australia is very low internationally. The number of infections is very low. The number of community transmission is extremely low right now. We believe that by and large our strategy has worked.

This is not a perfect environment. We were presented with a rapidly evolving crisis situation. We made the best possible judgements in the circumstances, guided by the expert advice. On balance, I believe that we've made good decisions as a country— (Time expired)

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Roberts, a supplementary question?

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge Senator Cormann's statement, but he fails to acknowledge that the economy has been devastated as a result of the government's strategy when other economies have not been devastated. Minister, hasn't your government's COVID strategy put the Australian economy and many Australian small businesses and jobs at unnecessary risk and left us with a debt we had to have?

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is certainly true that we were forced to impose significant sacrifices on many Australians. The restrictions that we had to put in place as a country on the economy in order to save lives by slowing down and suppressing the spread of the virus has imposed, of course, significant burdens on many businesses and on many working Australians. That's why we put in place the economic support package that we have in order to keep as many businesses in business through the transition as possible, to keep as many working Australians connected to their employer during this transition as possible and to provide enhanced support to those Australians who, through no fault of their own, lost their jobs because of the coronavirus crisis.

Now, you can argue whether one decision or the other decision could have been made differently, but, if you look at the actual outcomes both on the health front and on the economic front, I think that Australia is in a very good position compared to other countries around the world.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Roberts, a final supplementary question?

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Everyday Australians want to know how the Prime Minister will ensure that, if businesses do close or go into liquidation, receivers and administrators will ensure that Australian jobs are preserved and that affected businesses can only be sold to Australians first and not be cheaply flogged off to foreigners.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In relation to foreign investment, you would be aware that the Treasurer has put in place some temporary measures to ensure that Australian businesses dealing with the consequences and the impact of the coronavirus crisis are protected as appropriate in the context of any attempted foreign takeover. But in a broader sense we are of course focused on doing everything we can to maximise the strength of the economic recovery on the other side. And let me also say that on the other side, in order to maximise the strength of the economic recovery, we will need to rely on foreign investment into the future to maximise our economic growth opportunities into the future.