Page 755 - Week 03 - Thursday, 2 April 2020
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MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (10.57): As well as speaking to the Public Health (Emergencies) Amendment Bill that is before us today, I would like to take this opportunity to speak briefly on behalf of the ACT Greens about the global coronavirus pandemic and its impacts on our community.
Novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, was generally unheard of way back in 2019, just three months ago. In January we started hearing about the virus spreading throughout China, but to most people it seemed like something happening somewhere else, and something that would not affect us here in Canberra. In fact, at the time we were much more focused on the smoke pervading our usually clean air and the bushfires throughout our region surrounding and then entering the ACT. Over the past two months, along with the rest of the world, we have watched in horror as this deadly virus has spread across the globe—more contagious and more fatal than most viruses we normally see.
On 11 March the World Health Organisation declared a global pandemic. Over the past two months, as we have watched the number of cases in Australia rise, at first slowly but now in ever-increasing numbers—today we passed the 5,000 threshold—all of our health systems and governments have sprung into serious action.
In actions designed to reduce the serious health effects and likely deaths associated with letting the virus spread throughout our community—like a flu normally would, but without a vaccine—governments have had to make many very serious decisions. We all know what these decisions are. We are all seeing them impact on our daily lives. Along with the forced closure of so many industries—far too many to list here today—we have watched as people’s lives have been transformed. Many have suddenly found themselves unemployed, as their jobs have literally disappeared over the past week or two. For those who still have jobs, those jobs look different. I do not have time today to talk about the massive changes like pupil-free schools, people working from home, and people unable to leave their houses or unable to travel, sometimes even to get to their own parents’ funerals.
While it is a word that can seem a little overused at times, there is no doubt that we are in unprecedented times. None of us here, or in the communities that we serve, have ever lived or worked through a time like this. This is a time of rapid change, as governments at all levels scramble to keep our society safe and to support our community to adapt to new physical distancing rules, as they put new measures in place to ensure that we can support our families and community, work safely, and interact with other people as much as possible to avoid social isolation. COVID-19 presents a significant challenge to not only our healthcare system but also how we go about living our lives. We expect that this situation may go on for many months; it is unclear. That uncertainty is part of the growing unease in our community.
In relation to the bill, the Greens understand that when the Public Health Act was written in 1997 no-one envisaged a pandemic in the proportions we are seeing around the world today. The act was simply not designed for a health minister to declare a public health emergency for such an extended period. Even if they had, no amount of watching science-fiction movies would have had them think that for public health
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