Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Obviously the response to Ebola is a worldwide concern. But is it only me noticing the rank hypocrisy of turning this into a party political issue? There is virtually general agreement about the management of international infectious disease. There is good advice coming from the highest levels of the Chief Medical Officer and associated organisations that advise health, immigration and foreign affairs. To second-guess them politically is, I think, brash enough but to come with a fairly pathetic excuse that we are treating this like climate change is patently ridiculous.

Obviously there are a couple of ways that developed economies can assist and the first one is financial. There is an Ebola multi-partner trust fund where all of that resource is completely directed towards the response in the three countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. That there is not an enormous amount of either physical or cultural connection between Australia and these three nations is best exemplified by the fact that there are only probably about 20 people Australian citizens in those three countries delivering services at the moment, so it is quite a manageable number.

Of greater concern to me and to Australians would be the level of awareness, surveillance and early intervention that is currently in place. I note that at the moment travel to those three countries is under a 'reconsider your need to travel' status from DFAT but, increasingly, I think we would have to agree, we are moving to the point very soon of recommending a 'do not travel' status to these three countries.

It is also self-evident that Australia will play an important resource role in supporting larger and more proximate economies to West Africa. For anybody here who has worked in a developing economy, the last thing you want is every country running around with their own little operation. The last thing we want is someone there spray painting a gold kangaroo on bags of rice and medical equipment and saying, 'That is the Australian tent over there.' No, no, no, in this era of donor coordination, what we need is a multi-partner trust fund and a series of WHO sanctioned activities that are completely coordinated. It is not helped by having the national emblem spray painted all over medical gear and making sure that everyone knows what Australia is doing. I know it is parochial. It is very tempting, but in the end we do no better than to give our most gifted, talented, capable and trained medical and public health professionals to the WHO and to associated entities and organisations, either bilaterally through national agreements or directly to NGOs, and have them work within an existing structure.

I do not need to teach anyone geography. We are a long way away from western Africa. That is not an excuse not to help. But what we do have to do is work in partnership with large, capable organisations that have the evacuation routes in place and understand how things work on the ground. If an Australian team were sent over to these three countries, they would be flat out working out their way from the airport to the CBD. They are not countries Australia is closely connected to. We can send highly skilled individuals. We can embed them in teams and they would work under the conditions of these organisations. No-one would disagree with that. We have donated, at the moment, around $18 million. That has gone to support UK efforts; that is appropriate. Other European countries that have direct, cultural, historical links to those countries need all the help—and they will get all the help—that they request. We have front-line services being delivered through NGOs. That is appropriate as well.

I want to make the observation that we still have an arrangement that, when you land in this country having flown in from overseas, you are ticking boxes saying whether you have been to South America and whether you have been to rural areas, but we are still not identifying pre-emptively people who have been to these at-risk areas. Ebola is not highly infectious, despite what everyone is saying. It has a fairly high mortality rate. It is usually only spread through fairly intimate and direct contract. Knowing that, we do have a chance to intercept early potential cases where symptoms may not appear for between two days and three weeks. In that intervening period the last thing I expect is to be, in a commercial aviation service, sitting in the seat next to someone who is potentially at risk of Ebola. That is not good enough. They should not be getting on aeroplanes unless we know where they have been. They should not be landing in this country unless we know where they have been. It needs to be mandatorily identified before they take international travel. That is not to cause hysteria; that is to make sure that we treat people appropriately on the ground when they arrive.

I concede you can travel to these countries, not contract symptoms and not need to activate the public health system, but being forewarned is forearmed. I predict that the next move will be closer surveillance of people moving into this area, recommending that they do not go unless they are with organised groups—through WHO and other bilaterals or other NGOs—and lastly that they cannot get onto an commercial aviation service leaving another country for our shores without us first knowing their exposure and their travel.

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