Construction of the A$400m Bullsbrook Centre for National Resilience ended in October 2022 as part of Australia’s Covid response, but it has never been fully used. Photo / Multiplex
Construction of the A$400m Bullsbrook Centre for National Resilience ended in October 2022 as part of Australia’s Covid response, but it has never been fully used. Photo / Multiplex
Six passengers from Australia and New Zealand will be quarantined at a facility in Perth after they were stranded on a cruise ship exposed to the deadly hantavirus.
The passengers are being repatriated to Australia and expected to land at the Royal Australian Air Force base at Pearce, located nextdoor to the facility.
The travellers will be taken straight to the Bullsbrook Centre for National Resilience in Western Australia once they disembark the plane and will be ordered to stay there for at least three weeks.
The charter flight from Tenerife, where the MV Hondius is docked, was expected to depart this morning.
The passengers will transit through the Netherlands and continue their journey to Australia within 48 hours under strict conditions.
Construction of the 500-bed facility was finished in October 2022 as part of the nation’s Covid-19 response but has never been fully used.
It was purpose-built for long-term residence and included onsite medical facilities, ventilation systems to prevent cross-contamination and separate staff areas in response to the Covid pandemic.
The Bullsbrook Centre for National Resilience was built as part of Australia’s Covid response but has never been fully used since construction ended in October 2022. Photo / Multiplex
The Western Australian Government operated the A$400 million ($485m) centre until 2023, and it has previously been flagged as a potential site for crisis accommodation or a prison facility to house inmates.
Federal Minister for Health Mark Butler said an order would be made over the next 24 hours for the Australians and New Zealander to be quarantined at the commonwealth-owned centre, which will be operated by WA Health during the quarantine period.
“As we move into that three-week period, we’ll be seeking further advice from the chief health officers through the Australian Health Protection Committee about what arrangement should take place beyond that,” he said.
“I want to stress that our primary responsibility as a Government, obviously, is to keep our community safe and healthy.
“We also have a responsibility to those passengers, to bring them home and to protect them from any risk, no matter how small, of potentially transmitting the virus without knowing it.
“That is why we’ve decided to take this precautionary approach to activate the Centre for National Resilience, which was set up precisely for this purpose, to keep our community safe and we’ll be monitoring those arrangements over the coming couple of days.”
WA Health will operate the centre and assist the Australians and New Zealander while they are quarantined at the Perth facility. Photo / Multiplex
A WA Health spokesman said they would provide support in response to the repatriation of the Hondius passengers.
“The Australian Government has confirmed that none of the passengers being repatriated to Australia are displaying symptoms of the virus,” a spokesman said.
“In order to support the safe return of these travellers, they will be escorted by appropriate personnel wearing personal protective equipment.”
WA’s chief health officer Clare Huppatz reassured the community that the rare illness presented no risk to them, given the quarantine provisions.
“This is a very rare disease, with human-to-human transmission rarer still.”
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