Press Conference - Canberra, ACT
17 March 2021
Prime Minister: Good morning, everyone. I'm joined by Minister Payne and Minister Seselja, the Minister for the Pacific, and of course the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Kelly. I'll just, in advance, I don't have leave for the Parliament this morning so if the bells ring then you'll, of course, excuse me if I have to depart.
Throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have always been extremely concerned for our Pacific family, for our neighbours, and over the course of this last year, the Pacific community has done such an extraordinary job to substantively keep their islands free of COVID-19. But we've known that that challenge was always going to be too great for Papua New Guinea as time went on. And that, indeed, is proving to be the case now. Now, I've become in contact with Prime Minister Marape very consistently over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and particularly in recent days and the events we're seeing there are of great concern, great concern for them and the challenges that they now face. But I want to assure the people of Papua New Guinea and my dear friend James Marape that Australians as always will stand with them as they meet this challenge and support them in every way that we possibly can.
Now, it is also true that the escalation of issues with the virus in Papua New Guinea presents very real risks to Australia as well. This is a matter that we've been regularly addressing at National Cabinet and particularly between Premier Palaszczuk and I, as we've been very conscious of the risks that are present there. That has included, on medical advice, as well as advice from the Australian Border Force, increasing our activities in the Torres Strait. It has also included moving forward through the Queensland Department of Health to already commence vaccinations in the Torres Strait Islands to ensure that we're boosting protection for that very vulnerable part of Australia and the impact on northern Australia. We've already taken action to ensure there is pre-departure testing of people coming out of Papua New Guinea into Australia at 96 hours and in addition to that, we recently suspended flights, charter flights, Ok Tedi Mine where there has been a high incidence of those working in that mine testing positive.
But we now need to do more and we will do more. On the basis of medical advice and the on the basis of discussions I've had with Prime Minister Marape over the last few days and with the Premier of Queensland, we are taking the following actions to support the initiatives in Papua New Guinea and also to protect Australians from the spread of the virus from Papua New Guinea to Australia, and in particular, protect Queenslanders. Queenslanders, particularly in North Queensland, are most at risk from this. We've been very conscious of that and these measures are decided very much with them in mind. Starting at midnight tonight, we will further reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission from PNG to Australia by suspending passenger flights from Papua New Guinea into Cairns. We will do that for a fortnight and reassess the situation over the next fortnight. Freight, though, I stress, will continue, and be supported to ensure that necessary supplies are able to get from Cairns to Papua New Guinea. We’ll be suspending all charter flights from Papua New Guinea to Australia, with limited exemptions for medevac and other critical flights. We'll be reducing the passenger caps by one-quarter from flights from Port Moresby to Brisbane, effective at midnight tonight. We'll be suspending all outbound travel exemptions by Australians to Papua New Guinea, except for essential and critical workers, including humanitarian and medevac-related activity. This will include no general FIFO work. You FI or you FO. If you're there, you stay. If you're here, you stay. We cannot risk more people going into those areas and then coming back to Australia. We will work with PNG also over the course of the next fortnight to move as quickly as we can to move from a 96-hour pre-departure screening to a 24-hour pre-departure screening. We will also be beefing up the medical support we're providing by gifting essential PPE to PNG. That includes 1 million surgical masks, 200,000 P295 respirator masks, 100,000 gowns, 100,000 goggles, 100,000 pairs of gloves, 100,000 bottles of sanitiser, 20,000 face shields and 200 non-invasive ventilators.
Our Government will also be moving immediately to gift 8,000 doses of our COVID-19 vaccine stocks from our domestic stocks to support the vaccination of front front-line health workers in PNG from next week. With the support of the PNG government, we're making a formal request to AstraZeneca and the European authorities to access one million doses of our contracted supplies of AstraZeneca not for Australia, but for PNG, a developing country in desperate need of these vaccines. We've contracted them. We've paid for them and we want to see those vaccines come here so we can support our nearest neighbour, PNG, to deal with their urgent needs in our region and we'll be seeking the support of the European Union and AstraZeneca to achieve that as soon as possible.
With the agreement of PNG government, we are deploying a critical-planning AUSMAT team to PNG next week to establish and prepare plans for COVID health care needs in PNG and set the grounds for further deployment of a clinical health care team in coming weeks. We'll also be seeking assistance, pursuant to the Quad meeting we had last week, from our Quad partners to provide assistance, technical and otherwise, with the rollout of this program. In the Torres Strait Islands, we will continue as a matter of urgency to support the efforts of the Queensland Health department in the vaccination of the Torres Strait and we'll be increasing the visibility of the presence of the Border Force in managing that border. But importantly, after I think very good discussions with the Queensland Premier last night and I thank her for her cooperation as we worked out the details of and also in cooperation with the PNG government to support a vaccine rollout in PNG's western province with a focus on supporting vaccinations in what is known as the treaty villages. They're the villages that are literally just on the other side of the Torres Strait. And those treaty villages act as a single community effectively with the communities of the Torres Strait Island. There is much movement back and forward in that part of the world and we want to extend the protection net of the vaccinations that are going across the Torres Strait Island into those treaty villages. In addition to that, I've said to Prime Minister Marape that we're keen to support in the provision of supplies and other necessities into those villages which would prevent and remove the need for them to travel to other parts of Papua New Guinea where the COVID virus is more present than it currently is in those treaty villages. So that work in the vaccinations would be undertaken by the Queensland Government in the same way that they're currently doing that in the Torres Strait Islanders' communities. The other vaccines and programs in Port Moresby and other parts of the country, Daru and so on, would be part of the vaccination plan that I have already referred to. In addition, this builds on the $80 million contribution that we have made to the COVAX facility for advance market commitment for developing countries. The COVAX facility has indicated it will deliver some 588,000 vaccines for PNG by June. And since the beginning of this pandemic, we've already provided well over $60 million in assistance to PNG to respond to this crisis.
They're our family. They're our friends. They're our neighbours. They're our partners. They have always stood with us and we will always stand with them. This is in Australia's interests and it is in our region's interests and it's incumbent on us as Australians both in securing the health of our own citizens but equally of our PNG family who are so dear to us. I'll ask Professor Kelly to explain more of the medical situation and the Foreign Minister to speak to the foreign affairs issue.
Professor Paul Kelly, Chief Medical Officer: Thanks, PM. So as the PM has outlined, our near neighbour in Papua New Guinea is extremely close to the northern part of Australia. So from Saibai Island you can actually see the southern coast of Papua New Guinea, where the treaty villages are. So it's very close. That first step of rolling out the vaccine in the Torres Strait to anyone in the Torres Strait, including our ADF workers and others who are up there, is a very important component of this. Just in terms of the medical rationale for this, of course it's the right thing to do, as the PM mentioned, but it's also in Australia's interest to work with Papua New Guinea in this time. Over the last couple of weeks, very rapidly the situation has changed in Papua New Guinea. We’ve seen of the cases that have been diagnosed in PNG, half of them have been diagnosed in the last couple of weeks from the beginning of the pandemic. Recognising that they did not have the resources for mass testing like we have in Australia, and so any number you see out of Papua New Guinea in terms of cases and even deaths will be a major underestimate. So there is a big outbreak of COVID-19 in Papua New Guinea. We know this from the places that are able to be dong testing. The PM has mentioned the Ok Tedi Mine, they’ve done mass testing there and almost half the samples are positive. They are finding the same when people are being admitted into hospital in Port Moresby, half of women who are coming in due to pregnancy are positive. We’re seeing a large number of healthcare workers on the front lines in Papua New Guinea now coming down with COVID-19. These are all signs that there is a major epidemic in the community.
So that’s what’s happening in PNG. We are concerned about that because an uncontrolled pandemic is how variants of concern come to light. That would be not only a major problem for PNG but also for us and the region, if there was a PNG strain to develop, for example. We don't have any indication of that at the moment. The genomics analysis we've done does not show a variant of concern but it is important for us to assist to get that outbreak under control. More proximately, we've seen an increase in the last couple of weeks of people coming from PNG into Queensland. In Queensland they have a policy of putting all positive cases into hospital. They've doubled the number of people in hospital from overseas arrivals in Queensland just in the last 10 days. So that is the pressure that's going onto the Queensland Health system and that's why these things make sense to do. There are now, so since 15 March, there have been 32 cases from PNG imported into Australia, into Queensland and 13 are currently being managed in hospitals in Queensland. So these are the reasons why this has been my advice to the Prime Minister to make these decisions, to support on the ground assist to turn off the top, if you like, in terms of cases coming from PNG and all of that assistance will give, it's not only the right thing to do but it will also protect Australia.
Prime Minister: Thank you. Minister Payne?
Senator the Hon. Marise Payne, Minister for Foreign Affair and Women: Thanks very much, Prime Minister. Thank you very much, Dr Kelly. I want to reinforce the Prime Minister's observations about the focus we have had since the onset of the pandemic on our close partnerships, our work with our Pacific family on their priorities in terms of COVID-19 response. Firstly, the pivoting of our development assistance programme in partnerships for recovery. Importantly, our bilateral COVID-19 response plans and most recently our vaccine commitments in relation to Pacific and of course South-East Asia. With the Papua New Guinea government in addressing these issues, we've been engaging regularly and in depth with senior leaders. The Prime Minister, with his counterpart, Prime Minister Marape. I've been speaking with the Health Minister Jetta Wong, both personally and regularly by message in terms of updates on their response actions and that engagement has taken place across the Australian Government as well. Our High Commission in Port Moresby is participating in Papua New Guinea's COVID-19 technical working group and attending meetings at the most senior levels with the High Commissioner and his senior Counsel staff. Our Indo-Pacific centre for health security is coordinating our health security response in the region, including with Papua New Guinea.
I really want to emphasise that the work we are doing and the work we're announcing today is in partnership with Papua New Guinea, based on their priorities and their needs and we have identified those four very immediate measures that the Prime Minister has spoken about in terms of the vaccine response and a number of other supplies - tents, PPE and the AUSMAT team. The AUSMAT team which will be in country on Monday next week, we expect will also do the ground work for the clinical response team, which will follow then. The 8,000 doses of vaccines that we have referred to this morning will fill a critical gap in advance of Papua New Guinea's receipt of its vaccines from the COVAX facility. They are expected in Papua New Guinea in April and then further doses in May. So this gap for front-line workers will be absolutely essential for those people to be able to continue to do the job that they are doing. We are also providing Papua New Guinea through the vaccine program we have announced $144 million to support their PNG vaccine program and its rollout.
The Prime Minister has referred to the Torres Strait. We're obviously dealing with close family and cultural connections between those traditional inhabitants of the villages within the Torres Strait protected zone and therefore paying particular attention to the needs of those treaty villages. I want to acknowledge our colleague Warren Entsch, the Member for Leichhardt, who has been fundamental in engaging with communities in the region, engaging with leadership in the region, and being very clear about their concerns and their needs. I also want to again acknowledge the Queensland Health system for their undertaking and their engagement with us on addressing these issues in the Torres Strait. This will need to be a shared vaccination effort.
These measures that we’re announcing today fit well with a carefully coordinated approach that we are take being other partners, first and foremost in this case our partners in the Papua New Guinea government. But also other international partners, including recently the Quad leaders meeting undertaking on vaccines from last Saturday with Australia, India, Japan and the United States. Under the agreement that was made at the Quad leaders meeting, our four democracies have set out a very ambitious but very practical and positive agenda on COVID-19 vaccines. That includes an increased $100 million contribution from Australia on top of the over $500 million contribution we announced last year and as the Prime Minister referred to, our support for the COVAX facility. In Papua New Guinea, that will mean working with Japan, with India and with the United States in relation to what support we can provide together. Whether that is technical support, whether that is work through UNICEF, who is one of our key partners in the delivery of vaccines in the region, those conversations have started and we will continue those through the centre for regional health security and other officials with our Quad partners. Thanks, Prime Minister.
Prime Minister: Thank you. Can I also echo my thanks to Warren Entsch. He's been a champion for people of the Torres Strait, not just on the Australian side of the border but right across the western province.
Journalist: Prime Minister, does PNG have enough doctors and nurses to deal with this crisis? Have they requested Australia’s help in supplying some frontline health workers or is the risk just considered too great?
Prime Minister: Well, the capacity to manage COVID-19 in a developing country is starkly different to what it is in an advanced country like Australia. I think that's an understood starting point. One of the key reasons we are setting up the advance planning team next week is to assess and triage what the potential needs are to support Papua New Guinea in any further questions it might make. It's an important point, Mark, that I think you stress - this is Papua New Guinea's initiative. This is their response and we are seeking to support them with the priorities that they're setting out and so by having that team up there next week, I think that will greatly assist in framing what those additional needs are.
Senator the Hon. Marise Payne, Minister for Foreign Affair and Women: Prime Minister, if I can also say, mark, there's also about more than half a dozen other actions, specific actions which will be laid out in our media statement that we're working on on the ground in Port Moresby with the Papua New Guinea authorities there. We supplied 200,000 face masks for the period of the Somare state services and funeral burial period. We're working with the WHO on expanding warehouse capacity so we have storage facilities for that PPE and we can streamline its distribution. We are supplying hospital tent facilities outside Port Moresby General Hospital for safe triaging and referral and transfer of patients so there's a better throughput there. Supporting St John's Papua New Guinea and the National Capital District Provincial Health Authority to establish one of their aquatic centres as an isolation facility for mild to moderate caseless that has an up to 120 bed capacity. We're also funding support for the reopening of the Rita Flynn testing and isolation facility which will relieve pressure on Port Moresby General Hospital and also the St John's Ambulance COVID-19 operations in Port Moresby. This includes patient transport, COVID-19 testing and PPE distribution. Supporting their COVID-19 national control centre which Prime Minister Marape visited himself this week and the High Commissioner is closely engaged with. With their information management, their risk communications, their quarantine management and health financing and making sure that we're supporting surveillance, testing and clinical care capacity in Port Moresby and the provinces with known outbreaks, so not just Port Moresby and, of course, testing of samples in Australia. That sample testing is something we've been doing right through the pandemic.
Journalist: Are there going to be qualified people?
Senator the Hon. Marise Payne, Minister for Foreign Affair and Women: So the PNG health system is supported in its own capacity, obviously. The AUSMAT team will be part of that analysis and they will do a critical needs analysis when they arrive next week. There are also a significant number of NGOs, including ISOS, including the WHO, who have presence on the ground and have medical professionals on the ground as well.
Prime Minister: There will be a clinical team that will be following as well and that's what the advance team will be preparing for.
Journalist: There's something like 10 million people in Papua New Guinea. We've heard Professor Kelly talking about the possibility of mutations and PNG strains coming out of there. I think there's a million COVAX jabs coming. How is this going to be enough?
Prime Minister: This is a significant challenge, there is no doubt about that and we're seeing these challenges experienced in many developing countries within our region. So our response is twofold. One is to provide as much support in partnership, whether it's the Quad or other partners in the region. The second is to ensure that we're protecting Australia's borders, and we’re protecting access into Australia to prevent any transmission from these areas into Australia and in particular into Queensland. So I think the forward deployment of vaccinations, particularly into the treaty villages, which is a key point of interaction, I think, will be a very achievable and very practical way of addressing that immediate need to effectively provide, and extend the ring of containment beyond the Torres Strait Islands on our side of the border into those more sensitive parts of the Western Province. But there is no doubt that as time goes on, we will be increasing further support into Papua New Guinea and we will be doing that in partnership with them. But our expectations are realistic in working with any developing country. We're seeing this in many developing countries around the world. I've said consistently going back to the G20 last year when we first discussed these matters, that we need to be mindful of the severe limitations of developing countries in addressing this virus. We’re seeing it in Africa and we’re seeing it in other parts of the world and we need to ensure that we get vaccines to these places. That’s why I'll be appealing to the European Union to let the vaccines go that we have contracted for, so we can get that help to Papua New Guinea and every other vaccine we can get out of Europe, that's where I'll send it. I'll send it straight there and to our other partners in the Pacific to ensure we're doing everything we possibly can. But we need their help to do it. We need them to lift the block.
Journalist: Prime Minister, PNG is coming out of a period of mourning for their late Prime Minister Michael Somare. How much have the ceremonial arrangements affected the timing of this response? And secondly, PNG shares a land border with Papua, which obviously has strong transport links to the islands of Indonesia, and very a populous country to our near north. How do you assess the implications for Indonesia of this outbreak and for the ongoing security implications for Australia should there be a new outbreak in Indonesia?
Prime Minister: Well, the burial of Sir Michael, which was taking place yesterday, I actually spoke to James as he was accompanying Sir Michael's body to the site, and so you can understand that this comes at a time of deep mourning and grief for the people of Papua New Guinea. But this action is not in any way connected to that action. That is a terribly sad event all of its own. But it is incidental to the support because we have been working on this now for some days and we've been seeing the escalation in the case numbers. Now, in terms of the cooperation between Indonesian and Papua New Guinean authorities, this has been a topic over the past year. That has been a subject of conversations I've had with President Widodo. Indonesia has its own challenges when it comes to addressing COVID in their own country and I have no doubt that they'll be observing this very closely and working closely with the Papua New Guinean government. I mean, the terrain along that border is not like you can compare to, say, the Western Australia border with South Australia. The geography is a little different. But that's why we, in looking at particularly the issues in the Western Province, say, from Australia's risk, we understand how the Western Province and the Torres Strait act as an effective community and this is why I'm very grateful to Warren Entsch, because he brings that local understanding after 25 years he's been a member of this place and in many cases, he's been the member for the Western Province in our own Parliament. And I think he's done a fantastic job alerting us and the medical authorities to these issues and working closely with us on how we can make this practically work on the ground.
Journalist: Prime Minister, you mentioned there will be an increased awareness campaign about vaccination in the Torres Strait Islands, I think. You talked about awareness as well and perhaps Professor Kelly as well. How concerned are you about increased vaccine hesitancy, perhaps in those communities and in the wider Australian communities, as we're seeing European governments decide to pause rollouts and so on?
Prime Minister: I'll get Professor Kelly to also speak on this. But we've already begun vaccinations in the Torres Strait and Saibai Island yesterday, I think it was. That's going very well. We are aware that in Papua New Guinea that there's hesitancy in that community for a range of reasons and we'll seek to support the Papua New Guinean government in addressing those issues. In terms of the AstraZeneca vaccines, Professor Kelly and Professor Skerritt have been very clear about the Australian medical experts' view about that and we're pleased that today, there will be 1,000 GPs signing up. 1,000 GPs signing up to be in the next phase of this rollout of AstraZeneca across Australia. So critical, so critical for Australia's success this year in protecting the health of Australians across the country. Paul?
Professor Paul Kelly, Chief Medical Officer: So of course we're always concerned about vaccine hesitancy but as I said very strongly yesterday and I'm not alone in saying this, I have no concern about the AstraZeneca and specifically the blood clot issue that's emerged in Europe. Overnight, the European Medical Agency head said the same thing as the WHO and the UK regulator, the TGA here in Australia, myself and many other experts in these matters, that we should look at the background rate of issues as we roll out mass vaccination programs like this. Things will happen because they happen. It doesn't mean that they're related to the vaccine. In terms of the Torres Strait specifically, my understanding is the update is strong. They understand the threat so they are getting vaccinated.
Prime Minister: Chris?
Journalist: Prime Minister, I’m just going to ask on another matter, what's your response to Nicolle Flint's speech last night?
Prime Minister: Look, I'd like to stay on PNG matters to be honest but given I've got to go in a couple of minutes because I have an international call that I have to attend, I think she's an incredibly brave woman. I think she's incredibly brave. I know how brave she was because I was there with her as she endured one of the ugliest campaigns I've ever seen waged against not just a woman but anyone in this country. And her determination to stand up to that in the face of the most vitriolic of abuse, stalking and threats to her own public security was just absolutely appalling. And I just am amazed at the Labor Party and the unions and GetUp just stood by and let that happen. They were aware. They saw it. They were happy to be advantaged by it and I think she's called it out well and I think she's an incredibly strong woman. We're very sad she won't be running again at the next election. But I can understand after having gone through such a traumatic experience that she would form that view. She indicated that to me last year when we were reshuffling the Cabinet and the ministry, and she asked not to be considered at that time. I think she would have been an outstanding member of the Executive, to be honest. Sadly, we won’t have that opportunity. But I think she has blazed a trail for many other women in the Liberal Party to come forward. Phil?
Journalist: Just back on the vaccination thing, if the Europeans don't come to the party on your request to send us the vaccine for which we have paid for, will you be prepared to divert some domestic production to PNG? And how would you respond to the inevitable criticisms about giving vaccines to foreigners ahead of Australia that will come from that?
Prime Minister: Twofold. I expect and would hope to get the cooperation out of Europe for this. We've all said that we need to get vaccines where they're needed. This is not Australia seeking to do this for our own direct benefit, although we've contracted them and you would expect them to be supplied otherwise. But we're not factoring those into the additional supplies into the vaccination programme that Professor Murphy and I outlined to you on Sunday. So this would enable us to direct those supplies into Papua New Guinea and indeed into other parts of the Pacific if needed. Those vaccines and their deployment would therefore, I think, be following through on the very public statements that have been made in the European Union about their commitment to ensure that there is no vaccine protectionism and that vaccines do go to those most in need and that's why we're putting that forward. And on the question of diverting from Australian supplies, those supplies wouldn't be, but we have already, as I outlined on Sunday, indicated that we would be doing that. There was a supply of our own produced vaccines that were already factored into the distribution in the weeks ahead and that will continue. I don't think Australians have a problem with that. I think when we're talking about our own home, which PNG is part of, our own family, our Pacific neighbours, I think Australians understand that that is one of our responsibilities and as an advanced nation that has had such incredible success in managing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, I think they would be generous in spirit. I mean, we all know the Kokoda story. They were there for us. We will be there for them. Thank you all very much.
