Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. To all of his constituents, I will again repeat what I said earlier today. These next seven days will be very difficult for his constituents, but I have no doubt that, in the same way that Victorians have faced previous challenges like this one, and as people in New South Wales, Queensland and even, quite recently, Western Australia have, the same processes that worked to protect people on those occasions will also work here. I am confident. The contract tracers are working admirably in Victoria right now to track this down, and this circuit-breaking lockdown, up to the next seven days, will provide them with further opportunity to identify those who need to be isolated so Victoria can soon reopen again.

It is true that the Commonwealth has put half a billion dollars into the national resilience facility in the Northern Territory, and that is a direct result of the recommendation put forward by the Halton review to the national cabinet. It is true that the national cabinet arrangements were put in place to support hotel quarantine, which I note is a measure that is used in other jurisdictions, including New Zealand, and I can report that, here in Australia, hotel quarantine has been even more effective than in the New Zealand situation. It has been very effective, when you consider that over 300,000 people have come through the hotel quarantine system in Australia and there are around 20 cases where we've seen breaches.

But we have been able to do as well as we have across the states and territories because of the additional measures that have been taken—through the contract tracers, through the isolation and through the testing—to enable these brief lockdowns to be in place and then be lifted and to ensure that Australia can go on living with this virus in a way that few countries in the world can.

It is my job to continue to focus on working with the states and territories to focus on those who are most affected, your constituents and the many constituents of Victorian members here in this parliament. It is not my job to be distracted by those who might seek to engage in some other process.

See this speech in context