ALLISON LANGDON: Well a top federal government official has admitted it failed to check the health of passengers on board the Ruby Princess before disembarked.
KARL STEFANOVIC: Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram fronted the Senate COVID-19 committee yesterday, which has been examining the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis. He joins us now from Canberra.
Good morning to you. Look, the New South Wales Premier has accepted a great deal of responsibility for all of this. Do you accept any responsibility for any breaches?
MICHAEL OUTRAM: Karl, Ally, good morning and to your views. The Australian Border Forces role is really clear and in fact, the Walker commission of inquiry looks specifically into the role of the Australian Border Force as that relates to the disembarkation of passengers off Ruby Princess. And he’s clear- his findings are really crystal clear that our officers played no role in relation to disembarkation of passengers. We provide customs, immigration clearance and we’ve been clear all the way along that that’s our role. We, of course, work very closely with [indistinct] and the Department of Agriculture. We provide something called practique, which is in relation to the disembarkation of passengers. But Walker was really clear about this and he was also really clear about some of- and frankly, the misreporting that’s been going around the Australian Border Forces role.
ALLISON LANGDON: It- I think it just gets very confusing. It seems like there was a lot of people involved in this whole process. We’ve got a border officer being accused of playing a direct role in the mess after misreading passenger’s test results. You rejected that notion and defended your staff, saying they were just being helpful. Sitting from the outside, it’s all very confusing as to whose job was what.
MICHAEL OUTRAM: Yeah, that’s right Ally. It can be confusing. That’s why the reporting on this is so important. So it’s important to understand who plays what role and the New South Wales Department of Health, they’re responsible for public health and of course, they make the decisions based on health grounds. And then the Department of Agriculture provide practique, which is disembarkation of passengers and the permission for that to occur under the Biosecurity Act. The Australian Border Force has no role in that space. We do immigration and customs clearance. So there are three green lights really, that have to sort of go on before passengers disembarked, and those rules need to be really, really clearly understood. Of course, we do work closely together with each other and my officers did ask for some information, but the information that we got was already known to New South Wales Health, their medical experts, was already known to Department of Agriculture. So, it was, to be honest with you, in terms of disembarkation of passengers and the outcome, it was actually academic.
KARL STEFANOVIC: Okay. You have your vocal critics though. I know that Senator Kristina Keneally has come out strongly against ABF’s handling of the situation. I mean what do you say to Kristina Keneally?
MICHAEL OUTRAM: Well, as I said yesterday, it’s really important that we articulate to the community what our roles were respectively at the border, so that people can understand precisely what happened. And I just refer people to the report of the Walker commission of inquiry. That’s an unbiased report. The Commonwealth, we provided significant voluntary statements and material in relation to supporting that inquiry and in fact, the information about the Australian Border Force officer and what his role was, was voluntarily disclosed to the Walker commission of inquiry. So it’s an unbiased report, a detailed report. They spent a lot of time going through all of the information details. So I’d recommend that people focus on that report.
ALLISON LANGDON: She went for your throat. Do you deserve an apology?
MICHAEL OUTRAM: Oh look, we’ve got broad shoulders. We- I think that politicians and the public and the media are entitled to scrutinise what we do. So we take it on the chin. I just ask that people report as fairly and as frankly as possible, and based on facts. And there has been some erroneous reporting that I wish wasn’t happening. But look, at the end of the day, I understand that’s what happens and why it happens in that regard.
KARL STEFANOVIC: Well like everyone else, she probably needs to look at the facts. Moving on, travel restrictions around the world mean many Australians are still separated from their loved ones. You’ve said you have plans to review the guidelines for exemptions on compassionate grounds. How would that work exactly?
MICHAEL OUTRAM: Well at the moment, we are of course providing a lot of exemptions on compassionate grounds. There’s a lot of people want to come to Australia and pro- for example, if somebody’s got a close family member who’s in critically ill, they need to attend a funeral, come for business, come to assist in our fight against COVID-19 – there’s a whole a whole range of grounds on which we’re approving people to travel to and to leave Australia in relation to exemptions. There are some cases that were raised yesterday that relate to families and where we can, of course we’re reuniting families. We don’t want families to be split up. And so what we’re going to do is have a look at those cases where we’ve declined some of those applications. So, for example, there may be some in Australia on a temporary visa – just one person Australian, the family actually living in the country where that family comes from. And we’d have to look carefully at those cases and see whether, you know, the family coming to Australia to be with the single family member is warranted, given this is all about minimising movement of people for health reasons, to prevent COVID-19 getting into our country. And we have to remember, ultimately, this is based on health advice from all the chief medical officers from around Australia collectively, providing advice to our governments.
ALLISON LANGDON: Well, I mean we know Melbourne is because of hotel quarantine breaches down there. So it is a very difficult job, but a lot of families who are hoping to be back together in time for Christmas. So hopefully we can make that happen for some of them.
Thank you so much for your time this morning. We really appreciate it.
KARL STEFANOVIC: And also, can I just add this…
MICHAEL OUTRAM: Thank you very much.
KARL STEFANOVIC: you’re doing a terrific job. Whenever I’ve come back from overseas, I’ve always been welcomed into the country with open arms by your staff.
ALLISON LANGDON: I’m not sure I’d say that was you doing a good job.
[Laughter]
ALLISON LANGDON: I’d say tighten the borders.
MICHAEL OUTRAM: Oh, thank you very much, Karl. I appreciate those- that feedback anyway.
KARL STEFANOVIC: No, they do a great job. I mean it’s not an easy job and you can imagine the last few months, what it’s been like.
ALLISON LANGDON: A lot of angst.
KARL STEFANOVIC: A lot of anxiety amongst the staff and they’ve always been incredibly pleasant and professional. Terrific.
