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

I'm glad that we have informed opposition members on the other side, as I want to refer to the CHO-Premier contrivance that has driven what have turned out to be eight different responses to COVID. I remind everyone—I'm sure there's agreement—that there is only one set of public health evidence, and we shouldn't have advice to premiers that leads to eight different approaches. That may well be the federated approach here in Australia, but the medical advice has not been done appropriately and hasn't been relied on centrally.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

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

I'll give an example to the physician over here. How do you refuse the mother of twins to enter a state to attend a hospital based on public health advice? How do you refuse a woman the right to be there to bury her father based on some spurious public health advice? How do you justify this on public health grounds? These CHOs were used as political appendages to meet the political needs of their poll-driven masters. What we needed was an advisory body with expertise far broader than any one CHO can have. When the Queensland CHO says, 'I am overwhelmed with the unsustainable number of applications,' then you clearly need a better approach.

Honourable members interjecting—

The interjections come from a state where the CHO has done a great job, but it is not so in Queensland, where we saw too much pressure put on the CHO. We have had abhorrent decisions made. The prevarication leading to the death of a twin was absolutely unacceptable. People died as a result of the advice. There should have been far stronger advice. We need to make CHO advice public the minute it is given to a Premier.