Sam McMahon (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers in response to questions by Senators Watt, Pratt and O'Neill to Senator Colbeck. I find it absolutely incredulous that those on the other side of this chamber would take something that has been a massive success and can only nit-pick and criticise—'Oh, you haven't built this;' 'You haven't vaccinated fast enough;' 'You haven't done this'. We have been one of the most successful countries in the world at combatting COVID and in bringing our people home from overseas—bringing Australians home from overseas—without spreading COVID to the rest of Australia. We have been one of the most successful countries, yet those across the floor can only nit-pick and criticise. They take absolutely no notice of the science behind it, of the health advice and of the actual success of this government in managing this disease outbreak.

Senator Polley mentioned the fact that we've been using hotel quarantine—and we have. That's a state decision. Quarantine of Australians returning is a state and territory responsibility and decision. The wonderful place that is 'Danistan' decided to use hotels that were possibly not suited and personnel who were possibly not properly trained and equipped to do this, and we have seen outbreak after outbreak. Senator Polley also mentioned one facility in the Northern Territory that has been enormously successful and from which we've had no outbreaks. That is the Howard Springs quarantine facility. That was not a purpose-built quarantine facility; that was a workers' camp. So, yes, it has proved ideal for the purpose of quarantine, but that's not because it was a Commonwealth built, purpose-built facility; it is a Northern Territory facility. It is still owned and operated by the Northern Territory government.

The success of that facility is not purely down to its location, its structure, its build or the facility itself. The success of that facility is down to the people who are running it—Professor Len Notaras and AUSMAT, the Australian Medical Assistance Teams. These people are specialists in biosecurity and specialists in disease control and prevention. That is what has made the facility so successful. We can have hundreds, even thousands, of people through that facility safely and without the virus escaping, due to the professionalism, the training and the expertise of those personnel.

I will disagree with Senator Polley on one point she made point, and that was that we have one facility. Well, we don't; in the Northern Territory alone we have two facilities. There's a second one, which is very similar and possibly even better in its design and construction than Howard Springs. That is Bladin Village. Why are we not using Bladin Village? I don't know; you'd have to ask the Labor Northern Territory government, because they are the ones that are refusing to utilise this facility.

Then we go to the issue of vaccination and the criticism of the vaccine rollout. Again, that is a function of the states and territories. The Commonwealth is supplying the vaccine, and the states and territories are rolling it out, and we don't necessarily have the ability to dictate to them how they will do that. However, in all Commonwealth residential aged-care facilities everyone has received their first dose and 94.1 per cent have received their second dose. I think that's not a bad achievement. Nearly all are fully vaccinated. If you look at the issue of the workers in those facilities, yes, that vaccine rollout did experience a hiccup when it was discovered overseas—and it was in fact pointed out in this chamber by the senator that sits in front of me, Senator Canavan—that issues around this vaccine had stared to occur and we have since seen them occur in Australia, with a very tiny percentage of people coming down with blood clots. Would those across the room want us to barrel on ahead in those circumstances? (Time expired)