Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria)

My constituency question is for the Minister for Health. When clusters were linked to abattoirs in my electorate—namely, Golden Farms poultry in Breakwater and the Australian Lamb Company in Colac—residents of those communities had to wait until the daily update in the late afternoon to learn about such outbreaks. If it were not for leaked information to the media and journalistic scoops or local rumour, they would not have known of an outbreak.

The faster the community knows about cases, the faster they are able to change their behaviour and act accordingly, which is particularly important in rural and regional areas where residents may be under the assumption that their area is unaffected.

My question to the minister is: will she consider introducing real-time, publicly released data regarding cases by number and locality so that communities in my electorate are better equipped to respond to case clusters?