Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

In the 12 months to December last year, there were 10 million movements out of Australia. Two million Australians visited the Pacific island countries and Oceania and another 3.1 million Australians visited South-East Asian countries. Whilst the Indo-Pacific region has some of the most stunning and beautiful tourist destinations in the world, they also have, unfortunately, high rates of communicable diseases—for example, malaria, dengue fever, tuberculosis—which have debilitating impacts on individuals and their communities. Whilst Australians travelling abroad are hoping to have an enjoyable holiday, some of them do, regrettably, pick up some of these diseases, which are preventable. What's worse, they then bring them home, where they are a significant burden on our health system. There is also the potential for interaction with other people in Australia. Therefore, it's important that we do spend taxpayers' money through our overseas development assistance to help them.

At the last federal election we committed $100 million over five years to establish a regional health security partnership fund. Last year, we not only met this figure but exceeded it by an additional $200 million. This represents the largest health and medical research commitment that we have ever made under Australia's Official Development Assistance. By trebling our commitment, we recognise that substantial funding, expertise and vision are required to manage some of the major health threats to our region. This initiative is being led by the new Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security, which will support efforts to avoid and contain infectious disease threats in our region.