Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. Ebola is a very serious issue, particularly for West Africa, at the moment. We are seeing some horrific outcomes. The responsibility of many nations is to provide support, and Australia, as has always been the case, is providing humanitarian support to people on the ground. We provide $40 million a year to the WHO and we have provided $18 million to the WHO and NGOs on the ground who are engaging health workers to provide support to people who have contracted this very serious virus. Also important to the government is the months of preparation that we have put into the domestic response to deal with issues in our own region. It is the case, of course, that if there were an outbreak in Papua New Guinea or the Solomon Islands or elsewhere within our region there would be no expectation for health workers to come from Belgium or from France or Germany—the responsibility would rightly fall to Australia. And if we were asked by one of our partners—one of our near neighbours—we would respond accordingly. We have the capacity and the capability to do that—to rapidly deploy forces out of Darwin into a near neighbour to provide that support. The government has, through the NSC, met on five separate occasions. We have taken advice from the chief of Defence, from the chief medical officer and from the head of Border Protection and Immigration, and we have a well-developed plan.

It is interesting to note that the Labor Party sought the same briefings, and the member for Sydney and the member for Ballarat and others were provided with these briefings and they were provided with information similar to that which the government was provided with, and yet, I can tell you, Madam Speaker, the most disappointing thing in this debate over the course of the last week has been the politicisation of this issue by the member for Sydney. Many people have recognised the difference in language, which is interesting to note, between the member for Sydney, who covets this position like crazy, and the language used by the Leader of the Opposition, which is in complete contrast to that which has been used by the member for Sydney. The member for Sydney—who has been a little more circumspect, I might say, in the last 48 hours—needs to be very careful in relation to this matter, because she might be liking the love that she is getting from the lefties behind her, but Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, is smart enough to realise that this is an issue that should be treated on a bipartisan basis. I can tell you, Madam Speaker, that the member for Sydney talking about sending Defence personnel and conscripting health workers to send them across to West Africa, when we do not have guarantees about medical support for those people in country, is nothing short of reckless, and the Labor Party sees a lot in the member for Sydney that they saw in Mark Latham—everything except the loyalty. (Time expired)

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