Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

When the crisis hit there was no question that we considered a whole range of alternative options on how best to respond to it. In making decisions and in making judgements we were guided by the advice of relevant experts. In relation to how best to deal with the health threat, we were guided principally by the advice of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, the Chief Medical Officer and chief health officers from around Australia and the Commonwealth. I think it is fair to say, and for a range of reasons, the early decision to impose border restrictions—in terms of non-residents who had spent any time over the previous 14 days in mainland China not being able to come to Australia, and imposing quarantine requirements on Australian permanent residents having spent time over the previous 14 days in mainland China—has demonstrably helped delay the spread of the virus. This gave us time to prepare, not only in terms of the hospital capacity to deal with the potential inflow of patients but also the risk management processes that would best equip us to save lives by slowing down and suppressing the spread of the virus and helping to put the economic support measures in place.

Every single death is tragic and it's one more than you would like to see. But, again, comparatively speaking the number of deaths in Australia is very low internationally. The number of infections is very low. The number of community transmission is extremely low right now. We believe that by and large our strategy has worked.

This is not a perfect environment. We were presented with a rapidly evolving crisis situation. We made the best possible judgements in the circumstances, guided by the expert advice. On balance, I believe that we've made good decisions as a country— (Time expired)