CORONAVIRUS — PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT
— FIT TESTING
937. Mr Z.R.F. KIRKUP to
the Minister for Health:
I have a supplementary question. I appreciate the minister's
commitment to the safety of our frontline healthcare workers, and the Liberal
Party stands with him in that. Given that most jurisdictions have rolled out
fit testing for those masks in frontline hospitals throughout Australia, why is
Western Australia still behind, and can the minister provide a date to this
house of when frontline and high-risk healthcare workers here will get the fit
testing of those masks that they deserve?
Mr R.H. COOK replied:
We heard from the Premier earlier about the exemplary
behaviour of oppositions elsewhere, and particularly the South Australian
opposition, which this week wrote to the Premier in that state to suggest that
they should suspend estimates because they wanted to make sure that the
government was committed to the single task of examining COVID-19. The tactics
of the Western Australian opposition stand in stark contrast to that. The
member comes to this place and makes statements such as, ''Every other
state has done this; why haven't you?'', to somehow suggest that Western Australia is behind. That is simply
not the case. Some states have been doing this as a matter of course;
other states, for instance Western Australia and Queensland, are in the process
of implementing this program. We are doing it in conjunction with the
healthcare unions. We are doing it with their support. To come to this place
and to once again try to undermine the government's efforts to protect
our frontline workers really does no credit to the opposition.
The SPEAKER: That is the end of question time.