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Butler: China traveller Covid tests are ‘a modest measure’

Butler was also asked about some of the criticisms made of the measure, including from the Business Council of Australia which said the government was “retreating” from a general policy of living with Covid.

This is a modest measure taken in line with pretty much every country to which we would usually compare ourselves. We are committed to making sure that we can continue to travel overseas, continue the personal and economic benefits that come from having open borders.

We just want to make sure we do that in a way that has the maximum information in a timely way that we need to protect Australians. The chief health officers have said across the board, a very broad consensus, we’re very well positioned here in Australia in the fight against Covid. We’ve got very high vaccination rates, particularly among the more vulnerable cohorts in the population.

… A key factor in my decision over the last couple of days was the view that the World Health Organization put, I think, on Saturday, that said that there was an absence of comprehensive information about the situation in China.

I think people are particularly concerned about the lack of genomic sequencing being shared with the rest of the world, and that is the way in which we identify at a very early stage the possibility of new variants of Covid emerging. This is something that’s pretty much shared in real time by other countries but isn’t being shared right now by China.