Page 1774 - Week 06 - Thursday, 30 July 2020
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and immigration have brought us. We must implement these measures to keep us all safe, but I look forward to the day when, hopefully in the not too distant future, we can relax conditions such as these and once again have open borders, welcoming borders, and see a range of people able to come to Canberra in a free and easy manner. In the meantime, we are supporting the bill today.
MS STEPHEN-SMITH (Kurrajong—Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Children, Youth and Families and Minister for Health) (4.19), in reply: I thank Mrs Dunne and Mr Rattenbury for their support. As we all know, anyone arriving in Australia from overseas is required to undertake mandatory quarantine for a period of 14 days in a hotel or other government-authorised premises. In the ACT this has been enforced under the Public Health (Returned Travellers) Emergency Direction and, as people have noted and I noted in my speech introducing the bill, the bill before the Assembly is consistent with the national approach.
To date, as others have recognised, the government has taken responsibility for the costs associated with mandatory quarantine, irrespective of the state or territory of residence of returning travellers. As I stated last week however, unfortunately, and as Mr Rattenbury has touched on, the pandemic is far from being over and the ongoing national and worldwide impacts of COVID-19 will likely see the ACT government asked to host further overseas flight arrivals in coming months.
The bill allows for the recovery of costs associated with hotel quarantine, and the proposed cost-recovery approach is consistent with the actions of a number of other jurisdictions. As Mrs Dunne has noted, the individual costs associated with individual people’s quarantine will vary, in the same way that other costs associated with services provided by government vary from person to person, and fees tend to be set at a particular cost recovery at the broad level rather than at the individual level, recognising those different individual circumstances.
As I said in introducing the bill to the Assembly, and Mrs Dunne has touched on as well, the fee structure will be established by disallowable instrument. The fee schedule will be $3,000 for the first returning adult, $1,000 for any additional adults within the same family and $500 for any child over three years of age. Those fees have been informed by the recent costs associated with the two returning flights already managed by the ACT government and the current interjurisdictional charging arrangements. I think Mrs Dunne also indicated, and I certainly did in my speech introducing the bill, that this would align with the New South Wales government’s charging arrangements. This is important to ensure that travellers do not have an incentive to choose one destination over another.
Mrs Dunne and her office have asked that I outline in my closing remarks what those fees will cover. I can advise the Assembly that the fees will cover accommodation costs, food and other personal costs, with government continuing to cover the cost of transport, health-related costs and security services.
As I previously outlined, and as Mr Rattenbury has also touched on, the bill warrants that the minister consider any request from a person to pay the fee in instalments or to have it deferred or waived, taking into account the person’s circumstances, including
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