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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 726 asked in the Legislative Assembly on 23 September 2020 by Mrs L.M. Harvey

Parliament: 40 Session: 1

CORONAVIRUS — INTERSTATE AND INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS —SPENCER FAMILY

726. Mrs L.M. HARVEY to the Premier:

Before I ask my question, as someone who has a family of nurses, I would like to say a grateful thankyou to the nurses who have returned home from Melbourne. I particularly thank them for their selfless service to fellow Australians who have been impacted by the COVID crisis.

My question is to the Premier. Will the Premier agree to meet with Peter Spencer, the father of war veteran Stephen Spencer who is trapped overseas and is just trying to get home to Western Australia to be with his family?

Mr M. McGOWAN replied:

As I have said a number of times, we have a great deal of sympathy for people who are overseas and would like to come home. At this point in time, the advice is that around 25 000 Australians have applied to return to Australia. The best way we can support everyone in this situation is to increase, in a safe way, the number of people who are able to come back to Western Australia. That is exactly what we have done. A further 500 Western Australians will be able to return home each week. That arrangement will kick in over the course of the next few weeks. We are currently negotiating with the commonwealth about getting additional Australian Defence Force personnel to assist us in maintaining and managing our hotel quarantine.

I want to make this point: I know that there are a lot of these cases, but our main priority is to make sure that people can come home in a safe way and that we can also keep Western Australians safe. Returning Australians are managed in our hotels. For whatever reason, the commonwealth does not want to use the commonwealth facilities that it has available. Therefore, the state is now managing nine hotels. This is a 24-hour-a-day process, with security staff, health staff, police and the like assisting in managing those hotels 24 hours a day, seven days a week in a secure way while providing a whole range of testing and additional services—food, drinks, medical attention, psychological support and everything else. It is a massive logistical exercise. If a mistake is made, as it appears mistakes were made in Melbourne, and the virus gets out into the community, that will obviously have dire consequences for the state. We are doing our best to manage a difficult situation in the interests of everyone, including people who want to come home from overseas.