Senate debates

Tuesday, 1 September 2020

Adjournment

COVID-19: State and Territory Border Closures

7:35 pm

Photo of Bridget McKenzieBridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Protecting the health of the Australian community is our No. 1 priority as a government. There can be no doubt that COVID-19 is with us for the foreseeable future. When outbreaks occur, as they will, Australians need to have confidence that all of us, state and federal governments, have a plan to deal with isolated cases quickly. We need swift, decisive action at a local level with a local response to ensure the safety of our communities. The one-size-fits-all border closures imposed on regional communities by other states is not a localised, targeted approach. In fact, it has served to highlight the disconnect that still exists between the city and the country here in Australia. Border communities are being impacted despite the fact that there are no community transmissions and in many cases no COVID-19 cases at all in those local communities. While state leaders are engaged in a political game of one-upmanship to garner support amongst capital city voter bases, COVID-19-free border communities that are hundreds of kilometres from COVID-19 hotspots are being torn apart.

There's no medical evidence to support or justify the damage being inflicted on these regional communities. This needs repeating. At the Senate select committee inquiring into the government's response on COVID-19, when Senator Davey, a National Party senator for New South Wales, asked what medical advice the border closures impacting regional areas are based on, the Chief Medical Officer did not have an answer. I've written to state premiers, every single one of them, asking that exact question: provide me, as Leader of the National Party in the Senate, and our regional communities across Australia with the evidence base from a medical perspective that you're using to split these communities asunder—with significant economic, social and health impacts. I believe there is none. Decisions made in Melbourne and Sydney, and let's not forget Adelaide, Brisbane and Hobart—I'm not sparing either the red or the blue team here—are having untold impacts on border communities, rural and regional health services and education outcomes and, even more concerning, untold impacts on emotional and mental wellbeing.

Last week the Senate voted in support of the National Party's motion calling on states and territories to urgently adopt risk based health approaches based on a clear definition of COVID-19 hotspots. The failure by Labor to support the motion showed they are not interested in standing up for rural and regional Australians. Instead, they are continuing to side with Victorian state Premier Daniel Andrews and his botched quarantine system and failed contact tracing system that have led us to this point. We need our national leaders to set and agree on a national standard approach to inbound quarantine with stringent checks and equivalent processing systems that will give us the confidence to learn to live with the coronavirus. I call on state and territory premiers to have a heart and to act in good faith and with common sense at this week's national cabinet on Friday. Use the evidence available to you. We have to agree on criteria for determining which areas are COVID-19 hotspots. The definition must ensure that unnecessary restrictions are not placed on rural and regional areas that are COVID-free and that people are allowed to continue to work. It is easier to go to work in Melbourne, where we knew there were 12 LGAs that were hotspots in June. It is easier to get to work in Melbourne than to get to work in COVID-free regional communities on our borders.

We need practical approaches from our premiers. The Nationals understand the urgency. We live in these regions. We feel the frustration, mental stress and fatigue our community is feeling right now. We're on the brink and we need to get this fixed. We've been talking about this for literally months. We need to avoid the human emergencies, emotional toll and hardship that we've been seeing. We need to protect all Australians, because we actually are all in this together.