>> DAVID SPEERS, PRESENTER : Minister welcome to the program.
>> GREG HUNT, HEALTH MINISTER: Good morning David
>> SPEERS: Let's just start on this point.
We know of one case, a man who went to last weekend's protest in Melbourne.
He is now confirmed to have coronavirus.
It will be as the Chief Medical Officer says another week before we can be definitive about
this.
Have there been any more linked to any protests?
>> HUNT: At this stage I am only aware of the one case.
As the Chief Medical Officer said, we have a potentially infectious case in the middle
of a mass gathering.
That's our biggest concern for the country at the moment.
Australians have done an amazing job.
What we have achieved is held up internationally as one of the great global successes and it
is Australians that have done that.
So the importance of maintaining the distancing rules, of maintaining the practices is about
saving lives and protecting lives and that's why we're concerned about any breach of the
approaches which have protected Australians and kept them safe.
At the same time, it is fundamental that people are able to express
themselves about an absolutely noble cause of racial equality, but there are appropriate
ways at this moment to do it and that's the distinction.
>> SPEERS: I want to come back to tackling the pandemic, but just on the matter of Indigenous
health.
A lot of focus on Indigenous incarceration rates.
But can I ask you about, as Health Minister, another Close the Gap target and an area of
Indigenous disadvantage and that is infant mortality rates.
The target set in 2008 was to halve the gap on infant mortality deaths within
10 years.
That wasn't met and in fact in the last few years the gap widened.
Indigenous infants now die at twice the rate of non-Indigenous infants.
Why wasn't that target met and what should be the process going forward in that area?
>> HUNT: So you're right.
We haven't closed the gap yet.
What we have done is we have been able to reduce infant mortality rate, but until there
is parity we will not be whole as a nation...
>> SPEERS: Just to be to be clear on that, they haven't fallen as much as the non-Indigenous
infant mortality rate so the gap is the issue, it's not been halved
>> HUNT.
We are in agreement here.
What we are seeing is two things occurring.
We have had a significant improvement in the infant survival rates, reduction in infant
mortality rates in Indigenous Australia and that should be celebrated, but the job is
not done.
The nation is not whole until we have achieved genuine parity.
Now, today, I'm really pleased to be able to say
that we will be investing almost $35 million in 42 major national Indigenous health projects.
These include focus on avoidable Indigenous blindness and avoidable Indigenous deafness,
kidney disease.
We are working across the nation, in particular on helping to
eradicate rheumatic heart fever which can lead to ending rheumatic heart disease.
These are all things which go to Indigenous health, which go to educational attainment,
community development and therefore they take away over time, not as quickly as we would
want, but over time some of the fundamental inequalities which
lead to, sadly, to violence and therefore to incarceration.
>> SPEERS: So the funding that you've just announced or that you are announcing today
for these research projects I'm sure will be worthwhile...
>> HUNT: Just announced via you.
>> SPEERS: There you go.
And dealing with some important issues there of deafness and kidney disease and so on.
When it comes to infant mortality though, do we need a new target?
I'm just trying to get to, we failed to hit the target that was set in 2008, do you now
set a new target when it comes to this or is that approach not
working?
>> HUNT: No, I think we are making progress, but we are not making it fast enough.
I know that Ken Wyatt and myself we are working together on this.
I met not long ago with leaders such as Pat Turner and others from the National Aboriginal
and Community Controlled Health Organisations.
What we are focusing on now is really applying the practical actions
in the community.
>> SPEERS: Do you need a new target is what I'm getting to?
The target was set for 2018, wasn't met, and things actually got worse in the last few
years.
Do you need a new target?
>> HUNT: We actually need to hit our target.
The goal...
>> SPEERS: Sorry, the target was for 2018 and it wasn't met.
That one has expired.
Do you need a new one?
>> HUNT: David I have one goal and that one goal is nothing less than parity for Indigenous
outcomes on health with non-Indigenous Australians.
That's the only real goal that matters.
It is a moral goal.
It is a practical goal.
So these announcements today, over 40 projects, to address Indigenous health including mental
health, particularly including youth in incarceration,
but all of the physical elements as well are about producing outcomes that will protect
lives and save lives and give hope and aspiration and opportunity for young Indigenous Australians
to achieve their full lives.
That's what matters.
>> SPEERS: Coming back to the coronavirus.
Australia had great success compared to the rest of the world in tackling the virus.
New Zealand too.
We had slightly different approaches.
We went for suppression and they went for elimination or eradication which involved
stricter lock downs and so on.
Reflecting on how the two countries have gone, what have been the keys
to success?
>> HUNT: Both countries have done very well.
For us we have focused on four key elements of containment, closing the borders, our testing
regime which is the at the absolute global forefront, our tracing regime including the
COVIDSafe app but in extraordinary work by our public health units in tracing down every
case and in particular the social lockdowns which have
meant the physical distancing which have had such an impact on people's livelihoods as
well as the isolation.
All of those things have come together.
Yes there have been slightly different approaches, both countries have done well.
New Zealand has a slightly higher fatality rate on a per
capita basis and slightly higher case rate across the country.
Economically, there is quite different outcomes.
We've had the difficult 5% decrease in GDP, I think it's likely to be the third best of
37 OECD countries.
New Zealand has had about an 8.
9% expected GDP loss or about a 78% greater impact on GDP, on jobs and
livelihoods than Australia.
So we respect their choices.
We have made a path for Australia which we think protects lives and livelihoods.
>> SPEERS: You mention the COVIDSafe app there.
We don't generally hear as much, or certainly from the Prime Minister on Friday, he announced
a lot of further easing of restrictions.
Didn't mention the app.
Is it still as important for people to download it?
Given, well you can update me on the figure, but what is it around 25% or
30% of the population have downloaded it only?
>> HUNT: So it is 6.31 million as of this morning.
That's just about 40% of the adult population with smartphones.
It is more important than ever because as we increase our freedoms, because of our health
success, as we bring people back to work, what this means is that it provides an additional
protection.
We have seen sports figures.
We have got entertainment figures.
There is a community driven movement, the Let Us Play Movement, I saw the great Nathan
Buckley the Collingwood coach advocating this yesterday.
So for young Australians, none of us are immune.
What the COVIDSafe app does, it helps provide protections because it means we can
be notified if we have been near somebody who has the disease.
We may not know their name, we may not have been in contact with them in any direct sense,
but we could have been standing near somebody on public transport or sitting near them,
that's why it's important.
>> SPEERS: Hoe well is it working?
I note the government's own Digital Transformation Agency points out that it only works about
25% - 50% of the time between an Android and IOS phone when one of them is locked.
Is that still the case?
>> HUNT: So, what we're doing is constantly strengthening it.
We see that around the world the Australian app is looked at as one of the great global
success stories.
In particular, it has already been used for tracing - New South Wales, Victoria, we are
in the fortunate situation where we have flattened the curve so far, where we
have reduced cases and therefore, the number of cases that might apply is literally a handful
in any one day
>> SPEERS: And that's good, I'm just asking how the tech works though.
>> HUNT: There were approximately 30 cases where it has been used.
It means there are 30 chances where we could have found unknown contacts and that's a pathway
to saving lives and protecting lives.
>> SPEERS: Indeed, but I'm just wondering how it work?
Is it still the case that if someone's phone is locked it may only work less than half
the time?
>> HUNT: I will leave that to the Digital Transformation Agency to provide the figures
on that.
What we do know is that we have taken the best available technology.
We learnt from the Singapore experience.
It's, as I understand it, the fastest downloaded app in Australian history.
We are ahead of where we expected to be.
It is already been used in contact tracing in approximately
30 cases, but most importantly, it is part of the broader four pillars, borders, testing,
tracing, distancing and so we have still got more work to do as a country, but we are giving
ourselves that platform to open up of saving lives and protecting lives and then giving
people their livelihoods back and that's what's our extraordinary
achievement.
I want to say thank you to Australians for what they have done in enabling us and allowing
us to be in a position that the rest of the world envies.
>> SPEERS: On international borders, I mentioned Annika's story today that there are talks
about a faster process to allow business travellers to come in a shorter quarantine time perhaps.
Is that something you are aware of?
>> HUNT: Well we will ultimately be guided by the medical advice and there are two pathways
on international: one is to use our quarantine system with international students and appropriately
with people who are delivering national benefit whether it is in business or other areas.
Secondly, is where we can have a safe relationship with another country and you
mentioned New Zealand before and New Zealand is at the top of the list, having a non-quarantine
approach which will open up borders.
There is bit more work to be done, but both of those pathways, using our quarantine system
to bring back people safely and then where there is
a safe country, a COVIDSafe country such as New Zealand, the capacity to open up those
borders once our domestic borders are opened up.
>> SPEERS: Minister, can I ask you about preparations for a second wave, or indeed another terrible
pandemic coming along.
Before this one came, Australia had a limited range of personal protective equipment in
the national stockpile.
Some masks, but apparently no gowns, gloves or goggles.
Has that been addressed?
>> HUNT: Well we don have significant stores of gloves, gowns and goggles.
The agreement previously is they would be supplied by the states, but we have actually
provided additional volumes of those over and above what had been the agreement.
One of our real success stories has been in the midst of an enormous global spike
in demand and collapse in supply particularly in terms of masks, we were able to keep that
air bridge going, we were able to develop domestic supply so we are always dealing with
new initiatives and the supply of masks, the supply of gloves and gowns, that's been one
of the things we have been able to do deliver.
It has been challenging and I want to thank our doctors
and nurses for the careful way they have managed the situation.
Our pathologists have been part of our heroic Australian medical workforce.
But we have got very strong supplies and then from every event, you look to say how do you
make the nation better and stronger still?
We went into it ranked and assessed by the World
Health Organization as being one of the best prepared nations in the world for a pandemic.
We have come out of it with that reputation enhanced.
One thing we can do, because we're COVIDSafe, because our health system is seen so well,
I think we have a golden opportunity to be a global leader in attracting new medical
research, technology and clinical trials to Australia and we want to work with the states
to simplify the clinical trial process to really give Australians better access to medicines
and better access to new medical jobs.
>> SPEERS: Well speaking of medicines, just finally European nations have signed a deal
with the British drug maker, AstraZeneca for about 400 million doses of a potential coronavirus
vaccine that's in trials at the moment.
Is that something that Australia is doing or should be doing?
>> HUNT: We already have in the relationship between CSL and the University of Queensland,
the potential for access to the molecular clamp vaccine if that's successful.
More broadly, with CSL and with other partners, we have discussed Australian manufacturing.
So I think what is likely to occur no matter where in the world a
vaccine is successful, if and I say if one is successful then that will be licensed because
it will be in the interest of the manufacturer as well and Australia with one of the world's
leading medical companies in CSL has the capacity to manufacture on a large scale and if it
is an Australian production, that would be a wonderful
outcome.
If it is a global production, we have the capacity under license to produce in Australia
for Australians and the Pacific region.
>> SPEERS: Alright, Health Minister Greg Hunt thanks for joining us
>> HUNT: Thanks David