DFAT’s border ban ‘risks PNG virus influx in Torres Strait’

Warren Entsch says foreign affairs bureaucrats are risking the entry of Covid into the country by refusing to continue relief shipments to PNG.

Warren Entsch.

The member for Australia’s northernmost federal seat says foreign affairs bureaucrats are risking the entry of Covid into the country by refusing to continue relief shipments to Papua New Guinea villagers who typically buy food and supplies from the Torres Strait Islands.

Warren Entsch, whose north Queensland electorate of Leichhardt is closer to PNG than Brisbane, said a ban on cross-border trade since Covid was forcing the villagers to get essential goods in the Western Province capital of Daru – a hotspot for the disease.

He blasted Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials as “clowns”, saying their decision to allow only two shipments last year was exposing villagers to the disease, which could be transmitted to contacts in Australia if they evaded the cross-border ban.

Papua New Guinean villagers who could travel across the border before Covid previously accounted for about 60 per cent of trade at Saibai Island’s local store, and 40 per cent in Boigu Island’s.

“They have been relying on those stores and have done for decades for the things they can’t grow or catch or find in the bush; things like sugar, flour, cooking oil, antiseptic creams, tea and coffee and soap, and petrol to run their outboards,” he said. “Since the border has been closed, that trade doesn’t exist. So we are forcing them to go into Daru where there is a lot of Covid, to buy basic food and ­essentials.”

PNG’s latest Covid figures, believed to understate infections because of low testing rates, show Western Province had more than 2380 positive Covid cases. Torres Strait Treaty vill­ages, normally allowed to trade across the border, have no positive Covid cases.

Mr Entsch said: “I’ve been trying for eight months just to get these basic supplies in again. I’ve told (DFAT) if Covid comes in there I will be blaming them for it.”

A DFAT spokeswoman said the government took seriously the risk of Covid entering Australia through the Torres Strait, ending cross-border travel in March 2000 in co-operation with PNG.

“The Australian High Commission has mechanisms in place to closely monitor food and water security in the PNG Torres Strait Treaty Villages and to provide relief if needed,” the spokeswoman said.

“Australia is working closely with the Western Provincial Health Authority to expedite the roll out of COVID-19 vaccines in the South Fly district of Western Province.”