 American soldiers will be descending on Darwin in northern Australia for maneuvers. Darwin has been, Northern Territory has been relatively, mercifully free of COVID-19. It hasn't got into our indigenous population up there. This is like a ruby princess arriving, unfortunately. This is mostly men. They won't have been properly quarantined before they get here. They'll be getting out there into the Darwin pubs and bars and restaurants, having fun, doing what soldiers do. I think there's going to be a massive and completely unnecessary spike in infections in the Northern Territory. And if Australian national government were responsible, which they're not, they would be saying to the Americans, call off these maneuvers. We're in the middle of a pandemic. Wait till next year. But it won't happen. Well, Tony, I hope that's a prediction that doesn't come true. We've had an update. I checked the relevant public documents, and there are three of these. Firstly, there's the ABC news release of 30th of March, 2020, announcing U.S. Marine's deployment to Darwin postponed due to coronavirus pandemic. And that 30th of March news release made clear that because of COVID-19, federal government on advice of the health department had decided to postpone the exercises. It appeared to be until next year, until 2021. And the news release says that Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner spoke to the Defense Minister about the matter over the weekend. This is the right decision, he said. When we're on the other side of this crisis, I know Territorians will welcome back Marines with open arms. Ms. Reynolds said that she would continue her discussions with the Chief Minister. She said, I'll remain fully engaged with the Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner on this matter. So that was on 30th of March. The second press release, I want to report to you, came out on the 6th of May, some five weeks later. It was headed, Alliance Cooperation continues amidst pandemic and marine rotation to proceed. Once again, it's the release by Minister Linda Reynolds. This morning, I spoke with my colleague and friend, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, and there continues to be a bit of blah, blah, blah about the Alliance. And when we get to the important language, I was pleased when formed Secretary Esper, that after careful consideration, the government has decided that a modified 2020 Marine Rotational Force can proceed later this year, later this year, according to strict measures in place to protect against COVID-19. The decision was based on Australia's record to date in managing the impacts from COVID-19, as well as strict adherence by deployed U.S. Marines to the mandatory 14 day quarantine and other requirements. Secretary Esper and I confirmed our respective commitment to ensuring the health and safety of Australians with special provision for local indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. So that was the media release on the 6th of May. The third release, which came out on the 21st of May, headed Defense Prepares for Arrival of U.S. Marines, once again by Minister Linda Reynolds, said arrangements in the Northern Territory are in place to ensure the safe and effective conduct of the Marine Rotational Force Darwin this year. I'm pleased that the modified deployment, reduced deployment of 1,200 Marines, not 2,000, will proceed this year following careful planning and preparations undertaken by both Australia and the United States to minimize COVID-19 risk to the Northern Territory. Each Marine will be screened four days prior to departure. They will then be screened and tested for COVID-19 upon arrival in Australia, before being quarantined for 14 days at specially prepared defense facilities in the Darwin area. Each Marine will be retested at the conclusion of the quarantine period. This rotation has been able to proceed with all the necessary protection related to COVID-19 because of the excellent cooperation between the U.S. Marine Corps, the Australian Government, and the Northern Territory Government. Now, let me give a bit of analysis of these three press releases. The first one, the one in March, 30th of March, cancelling the deployment, said quite clearly the decision was taken in cooperation with the Northern Territory Government and on advice from the Department of Health. And Mr. Gunner, the Chief Minister, said clearly that he looked forward to proceeding with these regular annual exercises when we're on the other side of this, when we're on the other side of this. The second press release, the release of the 6th of May with Mark Esper, makes no mention of any consultation with the Northern Territory Government, no mention at all. And it also speaks of proceeding later this year. That was the 6th of May, later this year. Now, the third release came just 15 days later. Later this year, my hat, two weeks later. And suddenly, it's on for young and old. We've got 1,200 Marines coming, starting at the beginning of June, instead of arriving in April as originally planned, arriving two months later in June. Hello, is the pandemic over? Did something happen between April and June that I'm not aware of? Has Australia suddenly become a safe place? Do we suddenly not have to worry about social distancing or worrying how we behave ourselves? I mean, if we can bring 1,200 red-blooded US Marines into Darwin for three months of maneuvers and thinking that we're safe, well, I mean, what else is important about protecting ourselves from COVID-19? I'm serious. There's been a massive breakdown in responsible decision-making. In this third press release, there's no mention of consultation with the Northern Territory Government. There's no mention of advice from the Department of Health. There's no mention of this major decision having gone through the national augmented COVID Cabinet. There's no mention of any advice from the Chief Medical Officer of the Commonwealth, Brendan Murphy. And that's not the only thing that worries me about all this. I mean, just reading the three press releases worries me in itself, looking at this history of how things have happened over the space of a few weeks from 30th of March, 6th of May, 21 May. What worries me finally is the massive news blackout on all this. I checked carefully on Google search. There is no coverage by the Australian mainstream media, or the ABC, of the two releases by Minister Reynolds on the 6th and the 21st of May. Absolute blackout. Now, how is this possible? The Minister of Defence puts out a press release on a deployment of 1,200 Marines going to Darwin when the Australian pandemic is still not over and it doesn't get reported in the Australian media. What's going on here? Has there been some sort of informal advice to the media? Oh, look, we're putting out a press release, but we'd rather you're not report it. What is going on? The Marines could be getting off the planes as I speak. And when I turn up Google and look up what the mainstream media is saying, there is still absolutely nothing on these major decisions taken during May. It's also significant that the American military itself has been a particular hot spot for COVID-19. We're all familiar with the story of the aircraft carrier Franklin Roosevelt, which was rife with COVID-19 and had to be evacuated. When you get a lot of single men or men on their own going on maneuvers in a foreign country, you would want to have the most stringent quarantines on them. And a four-day check beforehand and 14 days in the territory is, to me, quite irresponsibly inadequate. There may be inadvertent carriers. There may be men carrying COVID-19 who don't know they've got it. We don't know enough yet about the period in which a person can have COVID-19 without it becoming very evident. And given the scale of risk involved, the risk of the indigenous people of the Northern Territory who are enormously vulnerable, once the disease gets out to them, there'll be no stopping it. Given the difficult conditions of sanitation and so forth in indigenous settlements, it'll become endemic. So given the scale of the risk, why on earth did Linda Reynolds think it was safe to go ahead in confrontation with her American counterpart, Mark Esper, with accelerating this decision when it seemed very clear from the March 30th press release that Northern Territory Government was very happy for the exorcises to simply not take place this year? That seemed to be the agreement. So there's been something very odd happening over the last few weeks, and I would really hope that we can find out more. What pressures did Australian Government come under from the Americans between 30th of March and 6th of May to make Linda Reynolds turn turtle flip-flop? How did she shut up the Northern Territory Government after they made very clear that they wanted nothing to happen until 2021? What sort of pressures was she put under by Mark Esper, the American Secretary of Defense? And how did she communicate those pressures to other people around the Australian system? There are so many questions here, so many. I think the first person to talk to would be Brendan Murphy, to ask him whether he had been involved in the original decision to recommend that they be postponed until 2021. That was his advice to his Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer to the National Augmented Cabinet. He probably couldn't answer whether it came up for a discussion in the Augmented Cabinet because their discussion is confidential. But he could be asked, did he know about the decision on 30th of March and had he contributed to it? And what does he think about the subsequent decision to allow 1,200 people to come with four days pre-arrival screening and 14 days quarantining? Does he think that is adequate for 1,200 Marines arriving in a small town of Darwin? So I think Brendan Murphy might be the first point of contact. Clearly, anybody in the Department of Defense would tell you nothing. And the second point of contact might be the Northern Territory Chief Minister's Office. I think you could say, well, how was Mr. Gunner involved in this very major revision of his original advice on the 30th of March when he professed himself to be very relieved that nobody was coming here until 2021? I'm really concerned about the politics of this because Ruby Princess, I read somewhere that we've had 102 deaths in Australia and something like 30% or 40% of those deaths, that 30 or 40 people, can be directly attributed to Ruby Princess. Now, 1,200 Marines descending on Darwin, inadequate screening, inadequate quarantining. We're not looking at a good situation, I don't think. If that's what they're going to do, then we have to warn the people of Darwin, the people wait for them. Yeah. It sounds to me that they're being railroaded. It sounds to me that they are too. But unfortunately, they're rolling over letting it happen. I mean, it sort of confirms to my mind that outside a couple of brave state premiers, particularly Daniel Andrews, but also the guy in WA and also Queensland and New South Wales, to some extent, the federal cabinet just wants to roll over to the Americans. Well, that's right. I think that it's all about displaying strength to China. It's all about being loyal allies. Absolutely. We're a show of force. That's much more important at the moment. And it's all theater because are we really going to go into war with China? But it's about the importance of displaying solidarity. America at the moment have their exercises, a bit of a slave strength and that that sort of theater is superseding the need to protect the people of the Northern Territory. Well, I think you're right. When you say it's theater, I think probably people within the Australian system were basically second guessing what they feared might be an American adverse response and thinking to themselves, is Trump going to think of this or is Pompeo going to think of this as Australian disloyalty or weakness? We'd better just tough this one out and change our decision. In other words, I think people may have anticipated American displeasure without the American displeasure even being expressed. They may have just anticipated it. Second guessing. We don't want to disappoint the Americans. And why did they drop 800 people? What criteria did they use to whittle that down from 2000 to 1200? Good question. Maybe we're only going to get half a dose of COVID-19.