House debates

Wednesday, 1 October 2014

Questions without Notice

Ebola Virus

2:06 pm

Photo of Ms Julie BishopMs Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for her question.

Australia has already taken action by providing $8 million in addition to the $40 million that we have provided this year to the World Health Organisation for its global work. As I have said publicly, the best contribution that Australia can make at this time is to provide financial resources to frontline services and organisations, which we have done.

What I need to point out to some opposite is that we have taken very specific advice. Military and health experts have advised us that evacuating a patient with Ebola is complex. If Australia had the appropriate aircraft to evacuate an Ebola patient, which we do not, the flying time of 30 hours from west Africa—

Comments

No comments